Is having a boyfriend now considered “uncool”? In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the cultural shifts around relationships, social status, and online identity—especially among urban, progressive communities. They explore why some women are now hesitant to share their relationships online, the rise and fall of trends like the “stay-at-home girlfriend,” and how social media algorithms and peer pressure shape what we see (and don’t see) about love lives. The conversation covers everything from viral articles and Reddit threads to the impact of influencer culture, parasocial relationships, and the new “flex” of being single. Whether you’re curious about the latest social trends, the politics of dating, or just want a fresh perspective on modern relationships, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins (2): HELLOOOOOO SIMONE! I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing. If having a boyfriend has become embarrassing or uncool specifically for urban monoculture, I really cannot describe this. Anything other than like upper middle class white women. Okay. Have begun to categorize.

Having a boyfriend or being in a relationship as a social taboo. There was a paper written on this then in in Vogue, which we’ll go over, which by the way, teen Vogue Vogue inspired all of their black employees. So that was fun. When they were trying to do like woke cleanup, they accidentally.

Simone Collins: No, I, I think it’s more, I think they were getting rid of unprofitable Teen Vogue by tucking it into Vogue.

Vogue. And they got rid of the, the politics team, which was just because obviously gay and not

Malcolm Collins (2): that also all the trans, no, no, yeah. Sorry. Not

Simone Collins: gay trans. Yeah, gay is like conservative. LGBT Trans is progressive Lgt. Yeah. Gay. Gay

Malcolm Collins (2): [00:01:00] is now conservative coded these days. Yeah. But anyway, so to continue here so they did an article on this and we’re gonna go through both their article and the article that they referenced, which I think is almost more interesting than their article itself.

And then we’re gonna dig, go through some reply articles to this and Reddit threads that we’re discussing this to sort of see how the general feminist community feels about this. Okay. But it does appear to be a real shift that’s happening online, which is really cool and interesting

Simone Collins: because cartoon hate her was kind of like.

Is this really real? This is actually just journalists making something up, but it’s no, I, I, I

Malcolm Collins (2): think it’s, well, when I look at the Reddit discussion of this, I think it’s real, and it also makes sense when you think about the wider cultural context that we’re in.

Simone Collins: Okay. Interesting. Let’s dive in.

Malcolm Collins (2): So if someone so much as says, my boy and, and they cut it off there, so they can’t even say, my boyfriend on social media, they’re muted.

There’s nothing I hate more than following someone for fun, only for their content to become quote unquote, my [00:02:00] boyfriend Defi suddenly, oh, this is probably because for so long it felt like we were living. In what one of my favorite subjects, hackers calls boyfriend land a world where women’s online identities center around the lies of their partners.

A situation rarely seen reversed. Women were rewarded for their ability to find and keep a man with elevated social status and praise. It became even more suffocating when this could be leveraged on social media for engagement and if you were serious enough financial game.

Simone Collins: So, oh yeah, right. There was the whole stay at home girlfriend trend.

Hmm. Of women just making their identities about the fact that they had a boyfriend who subsidized Alexa. And I wanna go into the

Malcolm Collins (2): article about that phenomenon, which preceded this phenomenon. Okay?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): Because she references another blog post here where they are talking about that phenomenon.

Okay? Now I’m gonna note here what you will actually, I’ll, I’ll get to it when we, when we get to the point of the article here. Hmm. But I, I, I, I also love like the horrible that [00:03:00] this woman. Is triggered by the fact that other women have partners, right? Like that this is a, a threatening thing to her to the extent that it appears to be emotionally damaged, like it, it appears to cause some form of emotional distress when she sees this.

I might ask her to meditate on why that may be. Is it that maybe you want a boyfriend and just aren’t putting in the effort or aren’t making the you know, bridging the ideological gap enough to actually find one? Right. So you. But no, uh uh, there is, there is no, no interest in, in bridging that gap.

So let’s go to this other article.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): A few months ago at a literary event, I introduced myself to a writer whose book I love. She then did the Odds thing. She turned around and introduced her boyfriend and began to speak about his accomplishments at Links, despite her book being a book [00:04:00] Talk Darling, despite Good on

Simone Collins: her, because as we’ve just.

It’s pretty unusual for a woman in public to praise her male partner. Very rare

Malcolm Collins (2): in, in real world.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that on its, that’s on its own

Malcolm Collins (2): is notable, so, wow. Okay. But, but we’re now seeing partially why, despite being beloved by her community, despite being showered and praised by writers and fans alike, her first instinct was to talk about her partner for five minutes straight.

Oh. I thought, I see. Now I’m noting a number of things here. One is Simone, do I often praise you in public? When we’re talking to people to the extent that I, I feel uncomfortable because I’m like, no, we should be talking about you. This is a normal thing that people do

Simone Collins: with their look at your partner and you’re proud of him.

Like Eric Barwin talking about his, his wife on the red carpet, but then she off. She shouldn’t be proud of her though.

I don’t think you make it more silly than it is. I actually feel, I try. Oh, didn’t get that on the show. No, no. We just, we just cut all that part out. Cut me out. Cut you out when you’re trying to make it silly.

Malcolm Collins (2): She shouldn’t be proud of her. That’s a, that’s a [00:05:00] difference.

Simone Collins: A lot of kids together. That is like the one important point is that they have a big family. They’re like good on them. But yeah, I mean, I think it’s really important that you are highlighting here that.

This woman praised her boyfriend and here she is being criticized online. I mean, it’s people, you know, we, we have normalized obviously the, as we covered in another episode, eye rolling wife, the sarcastic wife as sort of this endemic and, and problematic issue. But it’s not just the fact that the belittling your husband slash boyfriend trope is so pervasive and, and sometimes lauded.

It’s that women on the other hand are punished. When they praise and are supportive of their boyfriends and husbands.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yes. And then we’re seeing that right here. She is punishing. Yeah. And the woman above is punishing women for being supportive of their partners. Yeah. Which of course creates toxic relationships, right?

Yeah. When you’re in a relationship with these people. But I love that at first she’s like, I, I can’t be a fan of this person anymore. I can’t be around this person anymore because they are nice to their boyfriend. Right. God forbid you’re in a [00:06:00] functional relationship. She goes on TikTok. This interaction is the norm.

In December. I stared that. I stated that over half of the trends that go viral end up being co-opted by people showing off their mail partners. I made it a point to point out how few trends are men showing off their girlfriends or wives. 99% of the time it’s women showing off their boyfriends or husbands.

I was keeping a 2024 tally and I eventually just gave up sometime in March. At this point, the app was practically the patriarchy itself. And here I point out. Okay lady, because I’ve gotten sort of a feel of your personality from, from this stuff. What percent of the accounts that you follow are male, but if you’re gonna guess what percent of the, the accounts that this lady follows are male, I’m gonna guess I.

3%, if I’m gonna be generous, maybe 10%. So is there [00:07:00] maybe a reason you never see guys sharing their girlfriends on these accounts? Is it because you’re simply not following many male accounts?

Simone Collins: Actually, to be fair I, I can’t think of a single goal account where guys are extolling their girlfriends.

Really? Can you,

Malcolm Collins (2): I mean, I try to do it. I think that,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, no, but no, you, you do it. We’re, we’re, we’re, we are unusual. I think that you’re so fun. Fridays, they are a loving couple that promotes each other.

Malcolm Collins (2): Say what about the Malcolm?

Simone Collins: But they’re very sweet to each other.

Malcolm Collins (2): No, hold on. So, if, the reason why I don’t have a lot of examples of this off the top of my head is because don’t.

Watch any type of social media that would have this anymore? Facebook. So no, there’s the, there’s some Mormon influencers

Simone Collins: who podcast together. There’s ex-Mormon influencers, there’s fun Fridays, there’s ballerina farms, then there’s all the Christian couples.

Malcolm Collins (2): There’s compass Rose, there’s Clownfish tv.

Oh, yeah. So there are a number, but, but Okay. We don’t hang [00:08:00] out on platforms where somebody might be doing this because we’re not really on Twitter. We’re not, we’re not on TikTok on Facebook. Yeah. We’re not on TikTok. And on YouTube, it’s just on a platform that is, you know, germane for doing this sort of promotion.

Fair. But I would guess the reason is is because she just doesn’t follow a lot of men. And so that’s why to her it feels like women are always doing this. And I’d also point out here. That I bet that this is the type of person who, when she does follow a man, is to goon over them. So she specifically is likely following men who are more likely to be single and who are more likely to hide that they’re in a relationship if they are in a relationship because their fan base is some sort of parasocial relationship with them for gooning purposes.

That’s on Tiger. Like, I mean, I figured that’s like his core audience is just women looking to goon. Because I can’t, he, he is not like, he doesn’t actually have ideas if you watch his show for a while which means that, and, and he cares a lot about appearance, having a, a big fluffy dog in the background looking buff all the time.

Mike, does he look buff? Oh yeah. Just [00:09:00] google a picture of him

. I guess you gotta hand Well, he wears

Simone Collins: clo. Yeah, I, I, I would, but no answer. Anyway.

Malcolm Collins (2): In my video I asked why men always, men only men get to behave atrociously and have millions of people rush to defend them. Hold on a second. Watch our video on snarky women, just to see that women do this.

Constantly in our society. Yeah. Men are

Simone Collins: thrown under the bus and everyone just watches, just watches the wheels turn over ‘em. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): No, and like, nobody even cares. Like, it’s not even a scandal. Like women like actually physically abuse their, their husbands and boyfriends in public, famous women and just like, like, whatever,

Simone Collins: mcc Emmanuel Macron’s wife pushing him in the face as they exited an airplane

Malcolm Collins (2): and nobody cared

Malcolm Collins (2): .

Nobody does anything. It’s not a big scandal. And it is because this woman lives in delusion world. But I think that this helps get us in the mindset [00:10:00] of this is the way that urban monoculture women feel so we can understand how and why they begin to punish women for this behavior. In a video that went viral recently, a woman begs her father not to flip her over on her wedding day.

He does, of course. And she smiles lovingly in a chagrin manner. Thank you, Gillian Flynn. These comments were surprising. Women were giddy about the crossing of the boundary. All laughs and heart eye emojis. The way he tip tap of himself was one of the, comments that she was quoting there. The most insidious, and again, I keep in mind, I’m jumping around this article because I, I don’t want you guys to get all the boring stuff here.

The most insidious type of post is the one where there’s no boyfriend, but instead the poster is showing off their hot brother or dad. This is odd on two levels. Firstly, the awareness of the family members being attractive. Second, first of all, like you’re aware when your family members are attractive, right?

Like what? What? Secondly, [00:11:00] the recording and posting of the video in order to receive likes and comments about how hot your family member is. The worst part is, it’s not even implicit. Many of these posts have the original post. Liking comments, exing in their proximity to an attractive man. The TikTok brain Rott is so powerful that if you have a boyfriend simply standing near that man is enough.

I find it hard to overstate how much people love men on the app, and it’s like, well, what? Maybe because they’re women and they think. The hot men are hot, right? This reminds me of on like Reddit, where they post you know, a hot woman will post themselves doing something and they’ll just hit the top.

Of course she has no problem with this, right? You know, they’re in frame even though there’s no race. Look at the art I just made, you know? But what I find Flynn here. Is this idea that there’s this counter world and it’s a world that obviously I’ve never engaged with. ‘cause I don’t find TikTok at all enjoyable.

Mm-hmm. I don’t really find Twitter enjoyable either. I don’t find Facebook fun anymore. And [00:12:00] so there’s this other world and I assumed because when I was on Facebook, I never saw any posts like this. So I assume that this must be. The type of people that this woman already follows who are doing this.

And I think that what we were likely seeing here is within the urban monoculture, sort of an understanding. ‘cause I assume that these, these people who she’s following are urban monoculture people. For a while it was very high status to get a boyfriend because so few people had one, right? Yeah. But then, and, and so everyone was sort of showing them off for a period till it finally reached a level where women sort of collectively, the ones who were getting shown off too, decided.

Okay. We need to shame this behavior.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The, the take that I’m getting from some people on this, this subject, like from cartoons hate her, is that this is, this comes from a place of deep insecurity. I know because I, [00:13:00] before, you know, ever meeting you and before ever deciding I was gonna date or anything, you know, I was very boyfriend less and I had absolutely zero issue with people.

Being excited about their boyfriends, I just didn’t care. And if I didn’t care about the content, like I would just move on to something else. Keep scrolling. You know, like this is not hard to

Malcolm Collins (2): avoid. Yeah. Okay, so to continue here, and this is still the piece from the before time when this was common. I say all of this to hold up a mirror to society.

I understand that there are more women on social media than men, and that for a certain segment of society, having a boyfriend or a husband is quite literally the most important thing you can do. But the millions, millions of posts make me question what exactly is happening. TikTok content is mimetic.

When something performs well, people jump on the bandwagon and trends are born. Now, keep in mind this is performing well within your feed, which is based on what you are interacting with. [00:14:00] My bet is you’re likely leaving lots of hate comments on these, and TikTok is saying, oh, engagement.

Simone Collins: Exactly. No, that’s the thing is, is if you interact with something, even if it’s out of anger, you’re telling the algorithm to give you more of it.

So she’s probably seeing way more of this than anyone who just doesn’t care. Would see and Yeah, that’s right. I, I guess you wouldn’t get memes like this if you didn’t get algorithmic reinforcement. Yeah. Which we have so much more of now.

Malcolm Collins (2): But then she goes, and I love this as well, you want to, you wanna see how urban monoculture she is.

She goes but as someone with two degrees in sociology, I shudder a bit when I see the types of content that breaks through, it’s another to watch every trend boil down to Look at this man. Look at me standing near this man. Look at my man. My man, my man, my man. I love it lady. As a woman with two degrees in sociology, oh boy.

Anyone who has ever said that statement, get them as far away from me as possible. Oh, she’s,

Simone Collins: [00:15:00] she’s told us that all we all we need to know that, that now we, we know what we need to know now. That is, yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): She’s the judge of society. And this was one of this other person’s favorite blogs, this Vogue Writer’s favorite blogs.

Okay. So you, you get the mindset of this vogue writer as well. Right. All right. So let’s go back to the Vogue piece. However, more recently there’s been a pronounced shift in the way that people showcase relationships online, far from fully hard launching romantic partners. Straight women are opting for subtler signs, a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner or the back of someone’s head.

On the more confusing end, you’ll have faces blurred out of wedding pictures. Or what professionally edited videos was a fiance conveniently cropped out of all the shops, women are obscuring their partner’s face when in the past as if they wanted to erase the fast that they existed without actually not posting them.

Is

Simone Collins: this like the new, or is this some version of the. I don’t know how you, there’s this big thing, [00:16:00] people being very political about not posting their kids’ faces, like either covering them with emojis or only showing the backs of their heads and photos online. I

Malcolm Collins (2): find right away I find that so cringe.

Simone Collins: I know it’s, it’s very annoying to us kids

Malcolm Collins (2): do online, but it’s just Is is hiding

Simone Collins: your boyfriend or husband or fiance, like now that equivalent, what’s going on?

You know, I, like, is it also political? Because I feel like people, people say they’re covering up their kids’ faces and stuff to protect their privacy. I think that that’s false. I think it’s partially political.

Malcolm Collins (2): I think people are afraid. Yeah. I think, I think it’s more

Simone Collins: political than it is actually like logistical and technical, but I

Malcolm Collins (2): think people are afraid of what other people, the way that other people will perceive them if they post anything with their boyfriend.

Simone Collins: 100. Yeah. But I think that’s, it’s the same about kids. I think that the reason why people. Cover up their kids’ faces is ‘cause they’re also afraid of that criticism. So I think that the, well, but I think this is the new version of that that’s really afraid your husband’s

Malcolm Collins (2): face out of wedding photos [00:17:00] or editing your husband out of, out of the wedding videos.

This becomes something quite different. This is, but we’re

Simone Collins: recording right now. Okay.

Malcolm Collins (2): I think it’s a way of signaling their politics to people a pretty extreme way. Agreed. And, and I think that it is because they saw, and I suspect for a long time, if I look at the tone of that first piece knowing that it’s a popular writer, that maybe women within. Progressive communities within urban monoculture communities that accidentally shared pictures of their boyfriends or husband would get a lot of negative posts.

Like, why are you doing this? Why are you showing a man? Why are you, Hmm. And if they’ve seen this happen, even just one or two times, you could. Pretty quickly, you know, one J jump on the bandwagon. ‘cause yet another thing you can tear down other women about. Two, a great way of make competition, you know, ensure that no other woman is dating to make it easier for yourself to date.

Right. You know, literally just shame women for being in a relationship.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people also point out again and again that [00:18:00] so many of these things are. Gatekeeping tactics that women use, whether it’s encouraging other women to not care about their appearance or weight or discouraging other women from being interested in men.

That enables women to experience less competition on dating markets theoretically. Yeah. So, yeah, that, that could also definitely be, so, so, yeah, this is about political fronting and this is about meat blocking essentially, right.

Malcolm Collins (2): So what gives, are people embarrassed by their boyfriends now or is something more complicated going on?

Hmm. To me, it feels like the result of women wanting to straddle two worlds. One where they can receive the social benefits of having a partner, but also not appear so boyfriend obsessed that they come across as quite culturally ish, they want the prize in celebration of partnership, but understand the norms of it says Zoe Zi writer and activist. Oh my God. In other words, [00:19:00] in an era of widespread hetero fatalism, women don’t want to be seen as being all about their man, but they also want the clout that comes with being partnered. First of all, I love the words that they’re using here.

Being partnered, right? Like, that’s the the fancy term for they were able to secure a male. And if you’re not familiar with the concept of hetero fatalism, it’s an interesting concept within urban monocultural with female communities where they’re sort of fatalistic and sad about the fact that they happen to be born hetero, right?

Like they see this as like a, a punishment or a bad thing. Actually, I would be interested to see, and I could totally see this happening, is a community begin to form. That’s dedicated to arguing that actually hetero women are more discriminated than gay or bi women. Oh. ‘cause they have to date men.

Simone Collins: Oh, I see.

Malcolm Collins (2): So actually it’s the gay and the bi women who are privileged. And the hetero women who are disadvantaged.

Simone Collins: Right, [00:20:00] right. Because they are. Forced through their, their sexuality to interact with, with an inherently problematic class of man or penis. Exactly. Yes. Right. Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins (2): I

Simone Collins: could see it be done.

Malcolm Collins (2): I wanna, I wanna see that. I wanna see that happen. Give it time. If you have progressive watchers, you make that a thing. Yeah. Toss that ball.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know what’s better than being a political lesbian, being an oppressed straight woman. Yes, who’s forced by her biology

Malcolm Collins (2): to want to engage with men. Amazing.

Wow. But it’s not all about image. When I did a call out on Instagram, plenty of women told me that they were in fact, superstitious. Some feared the quote unquote evil eye, a belief that their happy relationships would spark jealousy so strong in other people that it could end their relationship. Others were concerned about their relationships ending and then being stuck with the post.

I was in a relationship for 12 years and never once posted him or talked about him [00:21:00] online. Oh, I broke up recently and I don’t think I will ever post. A man says Nikki, 38. So she dated him from 28 to 38, basically her entire period where she could have gotten married and then broke up and had kids.

And had kids. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yikes. And I’d also, I mean that’s, that’s really kind of weird and sociopathic to be honest. And I also love that these women are afraid of other women seeing them in a happy relationship because that’s become coded and other people will note this later as Republican. Right.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: People really feeling like Taylor Swift, for example, was a traitor to their kind because she chose. To get engaged to the football star, even though in her earliest songs, it was all about dating the football star in this whole, like, like she, she hasn’t turned on anyone. This, this, well, well attested, but whatever.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s so sad that Taylor Swift came out, like right as it became uncool to [00:22:00] date, it became, you know, uh mm-hmm. I mean, obviously this means the urban monoculture is like extra cooked from where it would otherwise be. If women now think that having a boyfriend lowers their status in female communities, which is the core thing that women care about, it’s why they put on makeup.

It’s why they dress the way they do. You know,

Simone Collins: well, so here’s actually where, where I’m kind of seeing a confluence of things. ‘cause just this morning I was listening to Aspen Gold go over a bunch of screenshots specifically from UK men of women in the uk, basically asking for money and implying that in, in exchange, that there would be sexual access.

Like they’d hook up if a guy paid for their nails to get done, or paid for their hair, or gave money for, like, a lot of these were young, single mothers too. Or like literally pregnant. But they were also implying like, well, give me money and we’ll hook up. So just literally sex work basically, but with, with some additional theater.

To make it seem less like what it actually was, and I’m looking at all this [00:23:00] because we, what we first saw was the, the, the initial wave of trending tra wifes. Mm-hmm. From there we went to the stay at home girlfriends, which is a significant step down, right. It’s, it’s being a tra wife, but without any of the legal.

Or religious protections of being married so you’re even less secure. And then we just sort of went from that to not even being comfortable to posting about having boyfriends at all. One could even argue that this is in service of being able to. Pursue more of an OnlyFans kind of lifestyle or a modified version of it, as described by asthma gold recently with, with these women.

Basically like saying, Hey, like, Venmo me money. There wouldn’t be so many anecdotal examples of this, of women asking for money if it didn’t occasionally work. So this seems to be, at least in some sub communities, a pervasive behavior.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Meaning that basically women have gone [00:24:00] from. Depending on husbands for money to, depending on boyfriends for money, to now depending on sort of this network of men for money, more like an actual sex worker.

And I, I do wonder if part of this blurring out boyfriends faces is more of that, well, I have to maintain optionality because now I have so little commitment to and commitment from men in my life, my life, and yet I still want a life in which I. Utilize men for money that I need to have an identity that’s completely unmoored from them.

Mm-hmm. I, I, I just, it, it’s, it seems to me like sort of the completely debauched end state of the atomization of society when women cannot depend completely on the state for their support, where they still want to depend also on men or on some kind of pay pig. That they imagine

Malcolm Collins (2): if a man did this, by the way, like he went on dates with a woman and then he is like, here’s my haircut bills, here’s [00:25:00] my, you know, like,

Simone Collins: it’s bad.

It’s, it’s really bad. I think one of the, the examples that Asman Gold wrote off, I mean, I only listened unfortunately to like YouTube videos and stuff while also working, so I half listened to it, but a woman like texted a man being like, oh, I had a salad for lunch. And he is like, oh, what kind of salad?

Like, that’s nice. And she was like, what? You could have even just offered to pay for it. Like why didn’t you even offer to pay for it? Like what? Just really crazy stuff. Yeah, very. So I just it’s to me very strange behavior, but also it’s, it’s very, yeah, if a man did that, if a man did something like that, people would,

Malcolm Collins (2): I almost wanna be a man market just to like do this to women, to freak them out, like.

You could have offered to pay for it.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, what’s so interesting to me is, I mean, in the past there AB and even now, like there are absolutely men who, are kept men. It’s not unheard of. Even in media, for example, in breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Go lightly has a love interest. The love interest is a kept man.

He, he calls himself an [00:26:00] author but he’s living in an apartment and paid for by a woman who’s married who keeps him on the side. These things, they happen. They’re just a lot less usual for men. So yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Anyway, to continue here. Yeah, but there was an overwhelming sense from single and partnered women alike that regardless of the relationship being with a man was almost a guilty thing to do.

On the Delusion Diaries podcast, fronted by two New York based influencers, Halle and Jazz. Oh my god, what names there? Halle and Jazz, the New York based influencer. There you go. They discuss whether having a boyfriend is quote unquote lame Now, quote, why does having a boyfriend feel Republican Republic?

Boyfriends are out of style. They won’t come back until they start to act right. In quote, read another with thousands of likes. In essence, quote, having a boyfriend typically takes hits on a woman’s aura in quote, as one commenter claimed. Funnily enough, both of these hosts have [00:27:00] partners, which is something I often see online.

Even partnered women will lament men and heterosexuality, partly in solidarity with other women, but also because it is now fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend girl. It is not just in these women’s imaginations. Audiences are ed out by seeing too much boyfriend content.

Myself included, it seems as indicated by my liberal use of the mute button. When author and British Vogue contributor Stephanie Yba, hard launched her boyfriend on social media, she lost hundreds of followers. Whoa. Even if we are still together, I wouldn’t post them here. There’s something cringey and embarrassing about constantly posting your partner these days.

In quote, she tells me, adding that quote, there is a part of me that would feel guilty for sharing my partner constantly, especially when we know the dating landscape’s really bad at the moment. I wouldn’t want to be boastful in quote. I love, they’re acting like. Overly wealthy women not [00:28:00] wanting to like signal too much in like a drought.

Right. And of course what they mean by this, and all of these women are obviously very you know, progressive is that there are is one progressive male for every two progressive females. So if they’re out there dating Oh, requirement, which a lot of these women have

Simone Collins: That’s true. They, they, yeah.

Progressive women. That’s. Yeah. So do you think actually part of this is just, I need to be very protective of my boyfriend because women will chase after him.

Malcolm Collins (2): That could be a part of it. A fear of is he so

Simone Collins: rare? Yeah. To have a progressive boyfriend and also if you’re progressive, you’re way more likely to have to be, you’re, you’re accepted to maybe be more open to being poly or having an open relationship.

Oh, yeah. True. Let’s see if, if I’m a progressive woman and I manage to actually secure my progressive boyfriend, and I really like him. If I post him online, maybe women will be like, oh, like we should date, and then, and then if he gets a lot of inbound inquiries, he’s more likely to pressure me into opening a [00:29:00] relationship because obviously I’m open-minded and progressive, right?

Oh yeah. Hmm. Maybe who knows?

Malcolm Collins (2): Sophie Miller, a content creator also experienced people unfollowing her when she shared a her a romantic relationship quote, this summer, a boy took me to Sicily. I posted about it on my subscribe subscriber section and people replied saying things like, please don’t get a boyfriend exclamation mark.

She admits that her content perhaps becomes less exciting when she’s in a relationship. Quote, being signal gives you this ultimate freedom to say and do what you want is absolutely not every woman, but I do notice that we can become more beige and watered down online when in a relationship, myself included in quote, and I saw that.

That’s really interesting as well as sort of how they’re contextualizing this. They’re contextualizing it in a few ways. They’re saying, one, they expect to get unfollowed if they post pictures of their boyfriend accidentally. So this is like a. Community [00:30:00] behavior that’s evolved.

Simone Collins: Well, and they’ve, they’ve actively seen people get unfollowed when they do post content.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yes. Yeah. And they have a a fear that what was I gonna say? That, that they will look less free if they have a boyfriend. They’ll look less wild. Which, I mean, of course you are. If you have a boyfriend and you get married. Many of the things that we associate with a. Free and wild lifestyle just become pointless, like, not just going to nightclubs or going to bars. Like why would you do that if you have a partner? Right? Yeah. But, but that’s what being wild is in these people’s minds. But more than that you’ve got you know, going on a trip to Greece, right? Going on a boat, going on a, like, if you have a partner, you’re significantly less likely to do these types of expensive and pointless recreational activities that are often associated with clout within an online sphere.

Simone Collins: I think some of this is warranted. People like to follow influencers in, in many cases who are very different from them, but also in many cases who share their lifestyle. [00:31:00] And many people, for example, more commonly bemoan losing their friends to parenthood. Like, nah. Now suddenly, like they only wanna talk about their kids, they’re schedule totally changed.

They’re never available anymore, right? Like depending on your relationship status and family status, you can become quite uninteresting to both friends and followers. I, I don’t. I don’t wanna discount that here. I do think that if, if you’re following this single life like. Lifestyle and, and, and you want to follow people who extol that it’s gonna suck when they get boyfriends.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. So that’s not, so to tie this up here for my conversations, one thing is certain the script is shifting. Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore. It is no longer considered an achievement. And if anything is becoming more of a flex to pronounce yourself single As a straight woman, we’re confronting something that every other sexuality has had to contend with.

A politicization of our identity.

Edward’s sexuality has long been purposely

Simone Collins: [00:32:00] yeah. Close the door buddy. Yay.

Malcolm Collins (2): Hello? It’s becoming more of a flex to pronounce yourself single as a straight woman, we’re confronting something that every other sexuality has had to contend with. The politicization of our identity, heterosexuality has long been purposely indefinable, so it is harder for those within it outside of it to critique.

However, as our traditional roles begin to crumble, maybe we’re being forced to reevaluate our blind allegiance to heterosexuality. Of course, you knew that’s where she was going, was this. Okay. Which actually makes sense given how few guys fall into this sort of urban monocultural, ultra progressive worldview as they f face a dra a drought of those guys.

You know, they’re now beginning to be like. Well then it’s a good thing to be single. It’s a good thing to not be with a guy. In fact, that is the harder road to travel. That is the more honorable road to travel. I’m not failing. I’m not bad. I’m actually doing it right. And it is these women with partners [00:33:00] that are doing it the wrong way.

There was a Reddit thread on Ask Feminist that was discussing this, and one of the things that a lot of people mention to begin with, which I think is likely absolutely true, is they’re like, well, you do realize that a lot of these people have parasocial followers that are men and are gooning over them and are going to unfollow the moment.

It looks like they have a boyfriend. Yeah. Sort of the

Simone Collins: Korean pop star. Dynamic where they’re not allowed to have boyfriends because they would lose followers. They would lose their, their fans.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Well, like even early in our relationship, I don’t think we posted about it much because you had sort of an online thing.

Octavian I did. Are you my boyfriend? Yeah, I was tiptoeing.

You were tiptoeing. But I heard you and I think the fans heard you. I see. I, he’s the boy and he’s my friend. Are you my [00:34:00] friend buddy? Yeah. All right. So they were pointing out that a lot of these women might, might have like character followers and their boyfriends might as well.

Right.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins (2): another thing that people noted is that not sharing content that shows you have a boyfriend is a very good way to cheat on a partner. Because then the, the partner themselves and a lot of, I guess. Progressive guys in sort of like open relationships and stuff like that. Probably don’t want it to be known that they’re dating people because they pretend on early dates that they don’t already have a primary.

Simone Collins: That’s another really good point. Yeah. We, we don’t know the extent to which boyfriends are actively asking to be excluded from girls’ social media posts.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. And now girls are trying to normalize it. You know, if I was, if I was like a, a man sled out there on the market right now, I’d be like sharing this with girls and be like, well, don’t you know, it’s not cool to post pictures.

And then the girls are trying to just

Simone Collins: frame it as their decision. Like, I’m just trying to be independent. But really they’re both, yeah. I’m just trying to help you stay independent. [00:35:00] Oh my gosh. Yeah, but you could see like a, a guy, a boyfriend who’s progressively coded really successfully, both sleeping around and, and, and having a lot of side girls, or like, literally, like, actually I, I don’t know if you remember

Malcolm Collins (2): when Andrew Huberman

Simone Collins: got in trouble for having a lot of.

Girlfriends all at the same time, and they didn’t know for a long time. You just had different girls in all these different places.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah.

Why are you laughing? Yes. Can you, can you go outta the room, please? Is this a teddy bear? Okay. Anyway, so the New York Post had a response to this, which is typically pretty conservative.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Where they go. To me personally, all this article indicates is that there is a shift in romantic relationships being the ultimate status symbol, platonic connections, family, career, and hobbies and hitting financial milestones are now in the mix. Therefore, being signaled does not make you incomplete.

The article [00:36:00] is sparked Much Debate Online was brilliant, hilarious single women celebrating being unbound from this idea that their lives are sad because they don’t have a man. Mm. Shameless media’s Ruby Hall posted on TikTok dancing to Taylor Swift. The fate of Ophelia was the caption. Apparently it’s chic to be single now.

Fellow TikTok user, Lydia posted a clip of herself waving and blowing kisses to George Michael’s father figure. Thank you British Vogue for making all the girlies that have been single their entire lives feel very powerful right now. A well-deserved win for us, Lydia said. Meanwhile, Lulu Davidson, a pr posted a similar clip to the Mama Mia movie version of the Winner Takes all how it feels to be single.

After British Vogue declared that having a boyfriend is embarrassing. I’m always ahead of the trends. She said, Abby Beov. Who has 1.3 million followers shared a video of herself also celebrating the news while dressed up in the nines, British Vogues comes out declaring that having a boyfriend is embarrassing.

What a time [00:37:00] to be alive and single ladies. And so I love this. First of all, by the way, all of these women who are just so excited to share this news and try to notify this cultural trend, right? Then we have somebody saying, I think the article is less about women rejecting men and more about women rejecting dependency decades.

Being someone’s girlfriend was treated like a personality. She told news au Now we’re swinging the other way. Building entire online identities rather than real identities. I know you that say I choose me. That’s progress. But I can also tip into performance. But it can also tip into performance.

She also said it’s residue from what influencer Tinks called Boyfriend Sickness. When her friend gets into a relationship and disappears. Now it’s also shifted to the online world. Miss Buzz, there was definitely a shift. To celebrating being single. But there was a big shift between I’m single because I’m growing and I’m single because [00:38:00] men suck with only the first being an empowering move.

The real flex isn’t being single or taken, it’s being secure either way. And there are just tons of folks here I could go through of women like agreeing with this, but I wanna get your wider take on this.

Simone Collins: I think this is, like I said earlier, a a a product of sort of the end, end product of atomization of.

Women’s support, both from the state and from men in this case.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Where we’ve

Simone Collins: gone from, if you want support from men, it’s gone from support, from husband to support from boyfriend, to now support from broad network of male supporters, either like literally through OnlyFans or just through some broad network of hangers on who you text and occasionally ask for money on Venmo.

Venmo, and, and like hook up in exchange for. Vague bits of support, which ultimately aren’t, it’s not enough. It’s, it’s not gonna support their lifestyle. So they’re ultimately doing worse than if they just got married and, and, and [00:39:00] got support from men through that pathway. I also do think that this could have to do with the fact that the dating pool for progressive women is indeed so small that either they just have to normalize the fact that they’re not going to date men at all.

And so a lot of this is sort of social pressure of just like, Hey. I mean, look at the way that people are approaching capitalism now and, and this concept of like home ownership and being financially independent. People now, especially younger generations, understanding that they’re never gonna have access to it are, are now highly critical of the concept of capitalism and possibly even the concept of fiat currency.

And we’re seeing maybe something similar with Okay, well if, if, if having a progressive boyfriend or husband is also so. Unachievable. We need to start questioning whether or not we want it at all. You know, what’s, what is the point? You know, we, or we should also condemn it. You know, this is the, this is the relationship version of Eat the rich or billionaires should be taxed more.

Where [00:40:00] we have to shame anyone who has. This very limited resource that ultimately is aspirational. But we now have to pretend that it’s not because it’s not accessible to everyone. And we have this very inbuilt idea of fairness, which seems to be even stronger in women of this feeling of injustice if things aren’t quote unquote fair.

So I, I think that that’s also a factor.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think you, I, I mean, I’d be interested to see if this trend spirals more.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins (2): Like, well, how,

Simone Collins: how can it get worse? How can it get worse than women literally disavowing any sort of romantic male commitment. And also at the same time that you didn’t cover it as much demanding essentially micropayments from men in exchange for small sexual, how

Malcolm Collins (2): could it get worse?

It could become seen as like more of an active, bad thing for progressives to date men at all. Think of like polyamory, except how, how is that bad?

Simone Collins: It just eliminates that from society then, you know. Well, I mean,

Malcolm Collins (2): over the long term, but I mean, I, I [00:41:00] could totally see this happening as we move from polyamory being normalized in these communities.

From having nothing but casual sex, and if you’re doing anything other than just casual sex, that’s seen as like a betrayal of the progressive cause.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, that’s very brave new world that in, in, in Alta Huxley’s Brave New World, there’s this, there’s a lot of catchphrases that are a little programs into all of the people in society.

One of those catchphrases is everybody belongs to everyone else, and it’s actually considered. Quite socially, socially questionable. If you start having sex with only one person consistently, at that point, your friends start to sort of pressure you to like, yeah, you should, you should probably start sleeping around like with someone else.

You know, you should, you should not be so exclusive and perhaps we’re, we’re just getting to that point.

Malcolm Collins (2): All right. So it’s already brave New world. That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. Thank goodness.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. All

Malcolm Collins (2): right. Love you Simone.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins (2): love you. Did you wanna record another one or just one [00:42:00] today?

Simone Collins: I’m up for recording the Johannesburg one that I outlined.

Okay, great. If you can get just take a break to get Octavia set up with his, I’ll get it, I’ll get it

Malcolm Collins (2): thing set up.

Simone Collins: And would you mind closing the door to the master bedroom I’m in? ‘cause he opened it and didn’t Hey,

Malcolm Collins (2): Octavian. Octavian, come here. What do you wanna say to the subscribers? What do you want to, are you gonna get a mommy one day?

One day? Are you like gonna get married? Yeah. And why, why, why do you want that? Because I wanna ring like, because you wanna ring. Mom has like, I’m like, dad, married mom, right there Like this? Yeah, right there. You see what I’m pointing to? Oh, like she has a ring and you wanna ring like that? Yeah. So, or do you wanna ring more like dad’s ring?

Yeah, like a lot more, like dads a lot more. Okay. Okay. So you wanna get married so you can get a ring. You might be surprised that a lot of women actually feel that way. Octavia. Yeah. That’s why they they wanna get married. And what are you gonna do with your wife? I’m gonna do in wife. [00:43:00] I’m gonna find the let her go.

The helicopter me. Guess what? If you like, and you and I see that, find the person he up and fire to my. President. So he thinks we voted today, and so he thinks he’s gonna become the president. And we talked to him about how the president gets like Air Force One. And so what he’s saying is that if you like this video, he’ll go back after he becomes president and send a helicopter to your house and fly you to the White House.

Is this for real? Are you lying? No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Tonight. Tonight, tonight. The night. If you text, if like, call me about that. Go away. I’m falling apart. They, if they like the video at, at 3:00 AM in the night, you’re going to send a helicopter to their house. [00:44:00] Yeah. And so they’re gonna wake, they’re gonna be woken up by a helicopter landing, but what if it’s dark?

There’s where to be a camera and knife fits in. Oh, so the helicopter people are gonna have night vision? Yeah. Yeah. He’s,

Simone Collins: he’s basically gonna send a SWAT team to people’s house, drag them out of their homes.

Malcolm Collins (2): This is what happens if you like and subscribe. Yeah, this is, you also need to vote

Simone Collins: Octavian in, but I’m sure that’s trivial.

Oh, so they gotta

Malcolm Collins (2): call you, but do you have a phone number? What’s your phone number? They, you can just call the phone number of the White House. So call the phone and I, and they would just, yeah, so they’ll, they’ll handle it. The White House knows he’s gonna be elected. So they’ll just handle all of this for you, him, right.

So you just call the White House [00:45:00] and say, I liked and scribed, so send the helicopter to pick me up at 3:00 AM in. Yeah. And if you keep liking discretion to the videos, if I see, if you do it in early in the night, Ima, when you have to go home, then you could just stay with me. If I keep seeing you do it.

If you don’t see it, if I don’t see it one single day, then you’re gonna kicked out forever. For real. I’m talking forever real. You know how to YouTube buddy. That’s some, that is some making. They have to kick kicked out for only one day. That’s not that much. Oh, okay. Baby. Only one night, once day and the nighttime then they can come back As long as they give me the address.

Yeah. If you don’t give the address, if you show me it, then I’ll not know where you. Don’t get to come to me if you tell me that. So make sure, make sure, make sure. Okay, mixer, [00:46:00] make sure you heard

Simone Collins: it here first. Ladies and gentlemen,

Malcolm Collins (2): do it. Ow. Just do it. Okay buddy. Get up. We’re gonna go find that computer.

Okay, great. My bye. Bye. Love you,

Malcolm Collins: Simone. I love you too.

Malcolm Collins (2): Bye.

Simone Collins: Especially now. I, I’m not Mr.

Malcolm Collins (2): All right. You ready to go? I am sir. How, how are you feeling this morning?

Simone Collins: Good. We, we voted, we got insane amounts of. Holy basil. Oh, it’s so pretty cool because

Malcolm Collins (2): we’re to store it en mass by freezing it, which I didn’t know you could do. And so now it’s just like, oh, we’re gonna blend it, make a sauce, and I would freeze it with an amount of water and an amount of oil [00:47:00] maybe.

The water is

Simone Collins: not advised, just oil. Just cover it with oil. Once it’s minced,

Malcolm Collins (2): just cover it in. What type of oil are we getting is olive oil, I guess. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then freeze it and then we’ll have holy basil all the time because it’s so hard to get Thai basil or holy basil fresh. So we have to drive to the Asian market to get it.

And what’s the other thing? I was telling Simone that our fab is, we’re in the final stage development now for the chatbot feature. So if anybody wants to do testing and like dedicate a certain amount of time a day to testing let me know and I can get you free tokens. And that’s the way that we’re gonna handle that.

So we’ll just adjust your token amount, sort of like paying you. And you could play with chat bots and look for bugs. A good chat bot.

Simone Collins: And it’s paid for, which is, if you’re into that, then you’ll get why that’s valuable.

Malcolm Collins (2): I, I used to spend so much money on chatbots before this. I I literally would spend like a hundred dollars every three weeks, I wanna say.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So basically if you’re a power user type, you will see the [00:48:00] value in what we are offering. Mm-hmm. Because it is better than the even top drawer or chat bot platforms, but. We will cover the cost if you give us some feedback.

Speaker: You look like mommy? Yeah. Does it hurt to walk like that?

No. Do you like looking like mommy? Yeah.

So you wanna be just like mommy one day? Yeah.

Speaker 3: A bouncy castle. Yes.

Whoa. I I felt that like you did. Mommy falls down all the time. Right. She’s kind of cl

i I I love that you associate that with [00:49:00] her.

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the historical and cultural dynamics between Catholics and Jews, using Nick Fuentes’ controversial statements as a springboard for discussion. They explore the roots of anti-Catholic sentiment in America, the differences between Catholicism and other Christian denominations, and the evolving role of both groups in U.S. society and politics.

The conversation covers:

* The founding of America as an anti-church nation and the implications for Catholics and Jews

* Nick Fuentes’ critiques of Israel and the Vatican, and how these perspectives fit into broader geopolitical realities

* The influence of both Catholics and Jews in American culture, from Hollywood to political power structures

* The Vatican’s historical and current stances on issues like immigration, capitalism, and alliances with other faiths

* The importance of pluralism, pragmatic alliances, and understanding the real differences between religious and cultural groups

Whether you’re interested in history, religion, politics, or just want a nuanced take on a hot-button topic, this episode offers thoughtful analysis, historical context, and a bit of humor along the way.

If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments!

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are continuing from an episode that went very long, that was on Nick Fuentes. And as Nick Fuentes says, you’ve gotta pick a side. Is it the Catholics or is it the Jews? And in this episode we’re gonna go over his accusations about Israel and the Jews, which that he made in the Tuck of Carlson interview, which are.

Mostly accurate. But they leave out the context, which is, but then if I am making a decision between the Vatican and those loyal to the Vatican and the Jews, and those loyal to Israel which is a more antagonistic partner to the United States which has stabbed us in the back more frequently and more, well stabbed us in the face more directly when you’re talking about the Vatican.

Mm-hmm. And, and which is a more useful long-term partner in terms of the future of human civilization when we look at existing trends. Okay. And I, and I’m, and again, I’m saying all this, it’s like Nick’s broadly right [00:01:00] around most of the criticisms he has around Israel. And the biggest criticism he has, which is the one that I agree most fervently with him on, is if you.

And if you watch our video before this on Nick that I strongly suggest, I think it’s a great video of you are not familiar with American history and how anti-Catholic America’s founding was. It was essentially founded to be an anti-church country. An anti no. Malcolm

Simone Collins: blew my mind on this one because you’d think that we were taught that enough school.

No,

Malcolm Collins: no. It’s why it’s so ridiculous when he is like, America’s a Christian nation. And I’m like,

Simone Collins: you mean America’s a Catholic nation?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, he said America is a Christian nation, not a Judeo-Christian nation. And I’m like, America is an anti-Catholic, anti Anglican nation. Not just a, not a normal, it’s a Christian nation founded in opposition to high church Christianity.

Mm. And very explicitly and very loudly with lots of receipts with even a cardinal saying this you know, this is not like me [00:02:00] or a conspiracy this is mainstream. If, if you’re familiar with it’s well

Simone Collins: attested and Malcolm has the receipts go to that episode. It’s very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: So the, the, the reason why that episode was important for framing for this episode is I think some people when they try to do the sleigh of hand is it’s, Catholics are just another form of Christian and it’s like.

That has never been true in American history. That’s not true in terms of the value sets of different Christian traditions as we’ve talked about. If you, if you look at even their metrics for truth, right? They are very different. And that difference has become important again very recently. Where if you look historically, what was the reformation about?

It was a conflict between two groups. One said that true should be determined by people who spent their entire life studying a subject. And then so. Somebody couldn’t just claim to be an expert on the subject certified by a central authority, and then another group of people, which is a perfectly reasonable way of doing things.

Yeah. Group of people came up and said, but that central authority could become corrupt, [00:03:00] so we should have truth determined by the individual. Which is also a perfectly reasonable retort. Right. But this is also the exact same fight we had with COVID. And we saw during this fight, the Catholic majority areas cited with the like, which was the, the inner cities, which is where Catholics mostly settled, cited with the trust of people who spent their entire life studying this subject.

And then the Protestant majority areas settled with the, every decision should be made by the individual, not declared experts because those certifying institutions can become corrupt. And, and what I’m pointing out here is that culturally Catholics are very, very different from other Christian denominations.

And so when people are like, oh, you gotta be worried about the Jews, to me this is a bit like an elf whispering to me. You gotta be worried about those dwarfs, you know, they may be very industrious and good at metal crafting and making jewels, oh my god, are dwarfs the, that very stubborn. They remember things for a long time.

They are very good with [00:04:00] engineering.

Speaker: One wrong put right. But the great book of grudges

remains full.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I’ve, I always sort of study it this way. The dwarves are the Jews and the Catholics are the ELs. Yeah. , And you can ally with both of them at the same time, but you’ve gotta be aware that if one of them then steps out and says, no, I refuse to be allied with you.

If you’re allied with the other faction, you gotta choose which one you’re gonna stay allies with. Yes. And we, we

Simone Collins: need, we need to bring back Lego a lesson Gimley, you know,

Malcolm Collins: we could be friends. Yes. And the reality is, is that Nick Fuentes is a minority Catholic opinion. Most Catholics are okay with saying you can be allied with both the Catholics and the Jews.

And if that’s an option, I wanna be allies with both. Yeah, right. But if somebody comes out and says, you gotta choose one America, I’m gonna argue that you’d have to be pants on head retarded to choose the [00:05:00] Catholics given current demographic economic trends and their stated goals and their historic positions.

So here’s the Nick Fuentes quote.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Israel hosts zero bases sins. Zero troops during war, gives false intelligence, sells our secrets to China, has no oil spies on us and is a diplomatic liability US gives infinite foreign aid and weapons, fights their wars, brides their enemies and , covers their but in the un.

Now if you watch the last episode, you’ll know one thing here is just patently a lie that the US gives Israel infinite money. And I pointed out that actually if you look at Catholic majority countries and you look at the average amount of aid we give to Israel a year those numbers are not that different.

We give about the same amount of yearly aid to Catholic majority countries as we give to Israel on a yearly basis. Then I note that, but it’s actually way less money to Israel because almost all the money we give to Israel, they have to spend in us manufacturing jobs in [00:06:00] arms and munitions. But almost all the money we give to Catholic majority countries stays in those countries.

So, if we’re, if we’re weighing the two, and better yet when he says Israel is just a liability, consider an ally like Israel. Israel gets in a sc skirmish with one of its rivals, right? Like they attack first, it handles the situation. We donate an additional amount to them. For one year, we had one year of high a aid levels to Israel, and then the next year it had gone back to almost normal aid levels.

Simone Collins: But even in that case, the aid came with strings attached, meaning they had to, like strings find money from Americans. All, all the, went back to the United

Malcolm Collins: States. Okay? But the point here being is this is very different than like the Ukraine or like really almost any other country where lied was like no one else just gets it done in the way that Israel has.

But he is right about his other things here was, was we,

Simone Collins: what’s the selling stuff to China?

Malcolm Collins: This is a real thing that happened in the 1970s, which we’ll get to.

Simone Collins: Oh, in the seventies. That’s the seventies, a while ago. It

Malcolm Collins: was a while ago, and Israel was in a very different position then. And that’s really the [00:07:00] caveat that we need to take this with.

Okay. Yeah. When we consider what the Catholic church was doing in the seventies, what was the, do you remember all of those Communists and Socialists, republics you set up that had a goal of destroying America around Latin America? All those revolutions and genocides you ran because peppered farm remembers who might wait.

Catholics were involved with like, oh, the Catholics get a ton of communists and socialist revolutions. We’ll get into it. I have receipts. And good lord, because they were really all about that stuff. I mean, they, they really, they, they were against the communist in Russia because it was an atheist, communist state, and they were against the communist in China.

‘cause it was a aist communist state. But, but they were broadly pro-communist. Really with whiz. A Catholic flavor to it. So they were actually like a core geopolitical enemy of us in terms of like actual wars, historically speaking. Okay, now I note that they were [00:08:00] proxy wars, but they were still wars.

We were fighting proxy wars against the Vatican across Latin America, and we were fighting proxy wars against Russia across like East Asia and stuff like that. So, but we’ve, we’ve conveniently forgotten about this. And Israel, what did they do? They just sold some military tech. Like what? If, if, if somebody needs a forgiven, forget session here.

Mm-hmm. But let’s go to the zero troops during the war. Okay. Fuentes says, Israel never sends troops to fight along the US in its wars. This is true. Put with a very big asterisk. Why do they not send troops to fight alongside us in our wars? Do you know the answer to this, Simone?

Simone Collins: I, I don’t,

Malcolm Collins: because we ask them not to.

Wait.

Simone Collins: What? Okay. Why

Malcolm Collins: is the US asking Israel to not send troops to fight alongside us in our recent wars? Because since Israel became stable, basically, since it [00:09:00] had the capacity to send troops alongside us to fight in our wars. Okay. Almost every one of our wars has been in the Middle East, having Israel send troops to fight alongside us when we are trying to, as one of the US’ biggest diplomatic goals for the past half century, normalize their relations with other Arab countries.

Oh yeah. Could be an absolutely. Idiotic thing. Undo a lot of

Simone Collins: investment. Yes, that is true. Yeah. And that’s for Mossad spying on us. I mean, they spy on everyone. We spy on everyone. Like what? I don’t know if

Malcolm Collins: you think we don’t spy on Mossad, like I’m a little confused by that one, but we’ll get into it.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: that one, that one’s weird, but I mean, why not throw it in? If you’re just trying to put together these arguments, that’s fine, but like also no one cares. I wanna,

Malcolm Collins: everything I wanna steal, man, I wanna take the Maximalist. Israel is bad position in this one. Because it’s, it’s important to, to ask these sorts of questions.

Okay. Like, if you’re asking, if Israel had actively decided to not send troops was in any of our recent conflicts, that would be a definite sign that they are not actually a very [00:10:00] good friend. But, that is, that is not what happened. And you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a shame and I, I don’t even know if like Nick’s aware of this, of why like, it, it may just be that Ben Shapiro was such a dick to him.

As we pointed out, Ben Shapiro has basically created all of the antisemites. Nick is completely justified and becoming an antisemite after what Ben Shapiro put him through Ben Shapiro in the Daily Wire. Mm-hmm. Wire Owens. We don’t know everything, but she might be as well. We’ll wait to see when Brett Cooper starts coming about with antisemitic stuff.

Seriously though, Ben Shapiro seems, Hey Ben Shapiro’s come after us too. He doesn’t like our techno puritan nonsense. He thinks we’re weirdo nerds. He doesn’t, he doesn’t like anyone other than him getting popular in conservative spaces, especially any ideology other than him. But what I’m pointing out here, so first of all, what I wanna point out with all of this stuff is, nick Fuentes didn’t really get enough time to elaborate on any of these points. None of these points were stated so unruly that I think he is attempting to manipulate his audience using information. Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] I genuinely think that that, and this is, this is a big like. When he states this, he is speaking in good faith and I think so.

I think so. That, that it is a conversation we need to be able to have, and this is my biggest problem with Jews, is they will not let us have this conversation. And they, not all of them obviously, but it only takes a minority of people acting bad Allah heroes. Oh, so

Simone Collins: you’re saying like there should be more of a conversation around Zionism that’s like actually functional instead of just like It’s good.

It’s bad. He’s

Malcolm Collins: talked about it. He brought it up.

Simone Collins: I see.

Malcolm Collins: Cancel India show. Okay. You know, and that was really effed up and, and I think honestly Ben Shapiro needs to be pilloried for this. When I heard what Nick went, just went through, I was like, Ben Shapiro. Yeah. That’s unhinged threat to the Jewish people in America right now.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Nick Fuentes is the Wright Kaya right now.

Malcolm Collins: I think that he is completely unhinged what he did. It was completely unjustifiable. Well, and in sure. Basically

Simone Collins: before like I think [00:12:00] even. When Nick Fuentes was either in college or just recently out of college, a very young burgeoning influencer, very small platform relatively for where he is now at the time.

So like not even someone that, that Ben Shapiro should have been aware of. Really? Yeah. Ben Shapiro sort of came at him and tended to

Malcolm Collins: destroy his life.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Over and

Malcolm Collins: over

Simone Collins: and over again. Getting him fired from multiple jobs, he totally unwarranted. So yeah. That, that just for in, in case people are out of those illness.

Well, milk

Malcolm Collins: toes takes often, like, you know, and I think that, that, it. My, my takeaway is I can see I’m not even like anti Nick Fuentes, right? Like, I’m not like cancel Nick Fuentes or anything like that. I’m like, we have disagreements, here’s why. But I am like Ben Shapiro. We need to do something about Ben Shapiro.

And so I’ll be calling Mossad to make sure they take, they, they take care of the situation before he creates any more antisemites. But anyway let’s, let’s keep going here. Let’s, you were wondering about the sale to China, right? So what happened here? Oh, God,

Simone Collins: God, [00:13:00] sorry. Just small aside call, like with Call Mosad, we keep asking our kids who they’re gonna call, and obviously it’s the Ghostbusters, but yesterday in complete earnestness, our, our 6-year-old son, Octavian was like, what is their number?

He was like, really concerned. Ghostbuster, we like didn’t actually have their phone number, like, we need to call Ghostbusters, but.

Malcolm Collins: I can set up a phone service with some vibe coding. That’ll do both. I was like, I’ll do an ai That’ll be the Ghostbusters hotline for the kids, please. Oh my God. Do you want me to just like set that up?

Yeah, I probably get sued. Fans can tell me if they want me to create a AI hotline that pretends to be a Ghostbusters service. Or Mosad and they’re just like, okay, we’ll be able to create that with the R Fab agent Service actually. Yeah. Give them a, yeah. Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: Carry on. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: So there are documented instances of Israel doing this.

Mm-hmm. There was often framed more as unauthorized transfers or sales of US delivered military technology than outright, quote unquote, secrets in a spy novel since

Speaker 4: Huh.

Malcolm Collins: Israel has repeated US accusations of passing sensitive American tech to China dating [00:14:00] back decades and causing diplomatic flareups in the 1980s and 1990s.

Oh, so a bit more recently Israel sold China military hardware like missiles, radars, and navigation systems, including tech derived from US programs. And, sorry to make

Simone Collins: you feel old, but the nineties actually was a really long time ago.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. For people who don’t know, it’s 2025 right now. Okay. So, this.

This was 30 something years ago. Different time. Okay. Different time. No, but what I’m saying is it, it the people who were involved in these decisions are not still in power in Israel. Yeah. Yeah. We we’re talking about the last or the generation before. The generation that we’re dealing with today.

Yeah. And the CIA specifically alleges that in 1993 that China had acquired advanced US source tech for jet fighters and air to air military missiles via Israel, where two to 3 billion in deals. This is totally a real thing that Israel actually [00:15:00] did and was a d move. It was an, yeah. Not cool Israel.

What the hell, man? Yeah. Hey. A major 1990 scandal involved Israel selling China blueprint for the US funded lobby fighter jet after canceling the project, which included proprietary American avionics and engine tech. Super, super. Not because we were

Simone Collins: being bros at that time too. You don’t do that to your bros.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. There is one recent instance of this tech transfer, but it’s fairly small. Mm-hmm. In 2013 the US Express Fury after Israel transferred secret missile and electro optics technology to China, violating our agreements on end use restrictions for US aid. Oh. So these were technologies that we funded their development of, but we said, you’re not allowed to transfer them to China.

And they did. You do develop them. Yeah. No, and they did. Which is an absolute D move. And I think, honestly,

Simone Collins: that for me, like on a relational level, I mean, I, I get that there’s still enough aligned [00:16:00] incentives where there’s, there was a reason why we obviously didn’t cut ties with him entirely, but. I if this were like on a, a personal granular level in our real lives and someone burned us like that, no.

Like, absolutely. Our relationship is over. Right? So I could see that being a really experienced issue. No, I can see that.

Malcolm Collins: The problem is, is that if the, if the, if the opposite of the, the counter force, if you’re having to choose between somebody who occasionally screws you over and somebody who states that they hate everything that you are doing and.

Has an ultimate plan for your destruction and subjugation. That’s, that’s the difference between the Vatican and Israel, which we’ll get to because we’re gonna get to the, the, the Vatican stuff in a second. It happens. Okay. Yeah. Well, no, I mean this is, it’s, it’s, it’s a like I will not pretend that Israel and what I actually even like about Nick Fuentes position is the thing that he didn’t mention, which he could have mentioned, which is also a true incident.

But I guess he didn’t mention it because it’s sort of like maybe not as hard as some of the other incidents he [00:17:00] rattled off. Okay. Was the destruction by, of the American warship by Israel during, I forget which conflict that was. But there is some evidence that it may have been deliberate, you know, killing us military personnel.

Deliberate what,

Simone Collins: why? And, and why would they be interested in doing that?

Malcolm Collins: Conspiracy. Why would do that? Conspiracy theorists have a reason. That’s pretty stupid. I think it was an accident. I think I, I, I really can’t like when I look at the reasons, it just doesn’t seem, even if they were going to do it to be mean, like to, to attempt to achieve some end.

It doesn’t seem worth the risk to me. It doesn’t seem worse. The damage bizarre. It, it, it, it seems to me fairly, but most people like Nick, but still believe that they did this attention. He would, I see this is like, you know, they, they, if you’re taking an an anti-Israel perspective, it’s something that you typically get in the bucket of anti-Israel perspectives.

And I like because a rational person like me who looked at it wouldn’t believe it. Nick didn’t throw it out there. I do believe Israel did. Act in a [00:18:00] way that was antagonistic to Americans interests with these tech transfers to China and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That is, and I hadn’t known about that before.

I’m glad Nick, but I wa I wanna be

Malcolm Collins: clear, it is not like the two Southern 13 one, if, if your impression is Israel had spies who like stole secret military technology from the United States and then sold it to China, that is not what happened. It is more like the US and in this case it appears for, for usaid was funding the development of specific weapons was in Israel being developed by Israeli companies.

But a condition of that aid was that they not sell this technology to anyone else. And then those companies sold that technology to other people. This is not like. Somebody came into my house and stole my stuff. It’s like I gave somebody some money and said, develop this, but I get exclusive rights to sell it.

Right. Or just, you [00:19:00] know, and then they, they sell it to somebody else as well. My stance

Simone Collins: on that still holds.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a de if someone

Simone Collins: does that, you can’t trust them, you

Malcolm Collins: know, but, well, you can’t trust Israel like this is, they’re a foreign country with, with goals that are antagonistic to America’s goals.

Just as the Vatican has goals that are antagonistic to America’s goals at times. And, and this is what I’m trying to pull out here. Mm-hmm. Israel is not monstrous for acting like a foreign country. Right. Because they are

Simone Collins: a foreign country and they have their own,

Malcolm Collins: they are a foreign country. Right.

The US spies on Israel as well, probably less competently, but the US spies on Israel as well. Right. The US does things that f over Israel as well, not. As severely as Israel has done to us. But we have done things that have ed them over. Now let’s go to the gives false intelligent one here.

So, I’m not gonna go overly deep into things here, but we have the 1956 US crisis. We have the 1975 reassessment crisis. We have the 1981 [00:20:00] AAC sale to Saudi Arabia. We have the 1982 Lebanon War and arms restrictions. We have the 1991 loan guarantees dispute. We have the 2014 halt on hell fire missiles. We have the 2016 UN Security Council resolution 2, 3, 3 4.

This episode’s already long enough, so I’m not gonna go deep into every one of these.

Simone Collins: I need to All right, change your diaper and get the kids, and we can finish this later.

I’m doing Mongolian beef. I’m gonna look up a recipe and prepare it. We’re taking the kids trick or treating night. The one thing with

Malcolm Collins: Mongolian beef is you’re gonna wanna start early in the preparation process of you’re and the kids’ dinner with the marinade.

Simone Collins: Okay, I will take a look at that. And remember,

Malcolm Collins: it uses a lot of chives as well, and we’ll do it with rice.

And I love you to death and you’re a perfect wife. And I hope with this episode fun in, in, in

Simone Collins: fascinating. I had no idea about that history with American Catholicism. So that is

Malcolm Collins: insane. Really changes your perception of Catholicism than Catholics within modern America.

Simone Collins: It does, but I also just feel like we’re, we’re entering a new [00:21:00] era where it isn’t what it used to be.

It’s like, it’s like a new religion that. Is derived from Catholicism, but is no longer Catholicism.

Malcolm Collins: I, I agree with that. I, I agree with that, but I think a lot of the original fears that the founders have of having split alliances in allegiances is still very real.

Simone Collins: Mm. I don’t know. I don’t know.

That’s up for debate. I, I think that the, the new version of Catholicism feels more to me, like early American colonies. Like, Hey, we’re gonna go on our own and build communities and build a city upon a hill. I feel like the city’s won the hill that I’m excited about our Catholic communities in many senses in the United States.

Yeah. So I, I kind of disagree with you, but you’re

Speaker 4: got got around charismatic.

Simone Collins: Got run.

Love

you. Love you. You’re amazing. You’re amazing.

Malcolm Collins: And so the comments on the first Nick went this episode. I, I assume we got some pretty angry ones. ‘cause we do have breakers as fans.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Some of the Catholics were like, well, no, I know for like various reasons. I don’t [00:22:00] know if you saw the unhinged email we got from,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you can cure infertility.

That was the first line. I was just like, you know, you can’t, you, no. There are some forms of infertility you can cure. Yeah. But you can’t cure every form of infertility. Certainly not the type you suffered from Simone.

Simone Collins: No. Yeah. That was

Malcolm Collins: like, like I don’t, I don’t understand where these people come from, right.

Like. I’m like, come on man. Like at least approach us with like intellectual integrity. Don’t just tell me stuff that’s like patently untrue. But no, that’s it. It reminded me of the reporter who came at us and was like races

Speaker 2: have no differences.

Malcolm Collins: Oh no. But there, yeah, there were the other one who was like there’s nowhere in the US where it’s dangerous to be a white person.

And I was just, oh, yeah. It’s like a patently obviously untrue thing. Like why are you coming to us with that? And I assume that a lot of Catholics in the, in the, in the comments are rather like, no, you can be a Catholic and disagree with the Catholic bureaucracy. As a, as a, yeah, that was

Simone Collins: some [00:23:00] comments.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But you, that’s literally what Protestantism is. You can, you can believe everything that Catholics believe and you can go to a Catholic church, but if you disagree with the organizational structure, that was the beef that the reformation had was the church. Yeah. I think ironically

Speaker 2: though. Some maybe Catholic commenters didn’t get that.

They’re like, well, yeah, but Protestants also disagree with each other. And we’re like, yeah, that’s kind of the point. Like that’s what they do. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We disagree with each other all the time because we don’t have a central authority telling us what Yes. That,

Speaker 2: that is the whole thing is that there isn’t,

Malcolm Collins: that is the core concern I have with Catholicism is that there is an external body to me, which can define what my faith is.

Yeah. Right. Like that’s my problem with Mormonism as well. And if you, if you deny that, then you are matic you are saying that you would refuse to, even if. It went through, you know, a, a, a council at the Catholic Church or was said Pap bull, [00:24:00] something that disagrees with your personal faith. Then you’re already schematic in your heart, right?

You know, you’re already saying, well, I’ll just flip from the church the moment the church doesn’t agree with my interpretation of Christianity.

Malcolm Collins: Which it’s, it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s, it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s a weird sort of like limbo schematic take. But I, but I also understand what you’re saying. Like a lot of Catholics in the US are, I think, unaware of like the specific,

Speaker 2: that’s the thing is, is we have a new evolution of Catholicism in the United States, which is almost like a form of Protestantism, if you wanna be super technical about it.

That is very grassroots, that is very independent, that’s very self-determined. And that isn’t necessarily about top-down. No, I

Malcolm Collins: agree really strongly with you. And I think that this form of Catholicism, I like this form of Catholicism, and that is

Speaker 2: probably the form of Catholicism to which Nick Fuentes.

It hears maybe without fully acknowledging it, maybe even to himself. But like I, I do think that’s more what he represents. And people [00:25:00] chiming into the comments also said that they, as followers of Nick Fuentes, who like actually watch his dreams a lot, have not at any point seen him express Catholic integralist views.

So I know you say like AI says back and forward like he is one, but

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I was like, but hey, I did the research. I said I couldn’t find anything where he said it explicitly,

Speaker 2: but there’s also nowhere where he says he’s not that. So that’s the problem, is that like, until we can get him on base camp and talk with him.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But like what his long-term plan for society is. But I think that what he represents and what we’re seeing with a lot of Catholics on our, among our fans or within even the US more broadly, and these are the Catholics who are having a lot of kids and are like actually have a chance of surviving.

Yeah. Is, is there sort of this we disagree with the Vatican. We disagree with essential bureaucracy, but we’re not gonna make a stink about it and we’re just going to create a Catholic identity that is more focused on the aesthetics of Catholicism rather than the, the [00:26:00] technical bureaucracy of Catholicism.

Speaker 2: Well what’s funny too though, and we’ve seen this in comments, is that there are also very papist Catholics. Who very much want to be a part of this top-down Vatican city-based hierarchy, but also don’t acknowledge the current regime, which I think there’s a long historical basis for this, right? Like all the different schisms and different like, oh, well.

Right. And, and usually those led to, to like schisms. Yeah. But what, what I find is interesting is, is at least the, the one, the, the Catholicism that will replace Catholicism, the future of Catholicism is very grassroots. And, and I don’t, I don’t, I wouldn’t say it’s accurate to say they disagree with Vatican City.

I would say that they are indifferent to it. That they use it as a resource when they want it and they don’t, when they don’t. It’s almost like how Americans kind of view the American government. They’re like, no, I, I

Malcolm Collins: completely agree with you. They are indifferent to it. But that it’s, it’s, they’re indifferent to it enough that it doesn’t cause them to like be like, okay, well now I need to think.

Does the word Catholic actually still apply to me? [00:27:00] Because they just don’t care. Like, they’re like, well, no, but

Speaker 2: just think, think about the way that we feel about America. Right? Like, we’re proud to be Americans. We we’re Team America, but we’re not like, you know, we, we don’t, you know, bow down to an American flag every morning.

We’re not like, well, the president said this. I think a true think

Malcolm Collins: argument. This is, no, this is a terrible analogy because as an American, right, like, I am not taking a vow when I claim to be like a nationalist American or something like that, that my theology is defined by what the president says is in specific circumstances.

Oh, okay. The only thing that makes a Protestant, a Protestant and a Catholic, a Catholic is a Catholic. Follow the beliefs of the councils. And they believe in apostolic succession and they believe that when a Pope says things under specific circumstances, those are now the word of God.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s true.

When you pledge allegiance, it’s to the republic. It’s not the president, it’s not any administration, it’s not any single politician. That’s true. But

Malcolm Collins: there’s a new form of Catholic that doesn’t believe that these things are [00:28:00] part of Catholic identity. And it’s more just like the vibe. And this is actually like Nick Fuentes larger thing here, which I find really fascinating is I always point out, you know, he, he’ll go out there and he’ll be like you know, we need to take back America from these foreign minorities.

And as we argued in yesterday’s episode, I’m like, there were like no Catholics that America’s founding, it was founded as an anti-Catholic state.

Speaker 2: Oh. And someone in the comments, even, even chimed in saying that there was this hilarious book he found at one point in the library where a Catholic. Mooned about the, in 1913, this book was published, like was mooning about the idea of maybe someday there will be Catholics in the Senate.

Just like that. Like it could it be possible, right. Like this glass ceiling, but there was so much anti-Catholic Catholicism. Yeah. But the, the, so, so the point I was making here was that Nick Fuentes, he’s like, we need to get rid of this foreign element in the United States that the, the founding fathers didn’t want here, that, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins: And he is part of that minority, like, as I’ve always said, if you’re getting a three course dish in American history, and one course is [00:29:00] anti-black racism and one course is antisemitism, the third course is always anti-Catholic sentiment. Mm. And it almost reminds me like, he’s like, bugs Bunny, and it’s like hunting season and it, he’s like, it’s not Catholic season, it’s.

Jewish season. Oh. And then the other one’s like, no, it’s Catholic season.

Speaker 2: But with,

Malcolm Collins: with

Speaker 2: Daffy Duck. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the funny thing is, is he’s like, well, we need to get all of these, these Catholics together, all these conservative Catholics together and impose our will on America. Right. Like, make America a country of our colors.

Right. And what’s really wild to me. Is Catholics make up 20% of the US’ population. They are shrinking in terms of birth rate dramatically, quickly. Yeah. They are shrinking Well, but

Speaker 2: the, like mainstream ones, not these like grassroots communities. No, no. They’re

Malcolm Collins: shrinking in terms of deconversions very quickly.

So just so you know, in terms of the numbers here, for every one person who converts to Catholicism, 8.4 adults leave the face. Whoa. For every one person who converts to Protestant to [00:30:00] them, 1.8, leave the face. So. They’re, they, it’s a, it is a face that’s in an incredibly weak position right now basically across all positions in terms of like societal dominance.

And he’s acting like it’s the dominant viewpoint of, of Americans or even of conservatives. And it’s this sort of larp, which he also has was a Vatican where he has this LRP that I think that the Vatican or that the Central Catholic Bureau bureaucracy agrees with his position on things like immigration or things like, you know, they’ve basically written a whole thing, which we’ll get into in this episode where they basically denounce him you know, and specifically Catholic nationalism and, and, and sort of nationalist Catholicism and especially as it’s growing within the us, which, I mean, who else are they talking about?

But what’s, what’s what’s interesting is like Nick Fuentes worldview works. Because he pretends that most Americans are like him, and he pretends that the Vatican agrees with him. And that this makes his world view cohesive. Where if you look at the world as it actually [00:31:00] exists, the conservative party can only win as an alliance of many different groups, one of those groups being Catholic.

But to pretend that these groups aren’t actually different is a Trojan horse in am in American Christianity. Mm-hmm. More broadly, you know? Mm-hmm. Like trying to push Catholicism into the Protestant traditions that America grew is, is I think quite insidious. And I, and I think that a lot of conservative saw that they were just playing nice.

As, as you know, I always do. And I think we need to be honest that these are different religions, right? They actually have I would argue that like theologically, if you look at art. For example, iteration of like techno puritanism, which is like Calvinism mixed with science. It is closer to many forms of Judaism or even some forms of Mormonism than it is the Catholicism.

Mm-hmm. This idea that Protestantism and Catholicism are very close in their beliefs is just not, it, it not anymore. Right. Or at least a lot of Protestant factions. Right? Yeah. And, and but anyway, I’ll get started on the episode here. Let’s [00:32:00] go. So coming back in after we just went over all the text stealing and everything like that, and I was like, that’s terrible that they did that, man.

I wanna go into conspiracies, right? So we talked in the last episode about how castles basically dominate the Supreme Court because an invitation only. Society, which does have closed doors meeting. So a secret society, the Federalist Society basically put Catholics in charge of one third of our government.

Speaker 2: They’re so cool though. Can you even be mad? I can be mad because they pretend that they’re promoting conservative values when they’re really controlled by Catholics and disproportionately promote Catholics. Well, they’re Catholic conservative values. They’re still No, that’s not what they tell their donors.

Malcolm Collins: That’s not what they tell the public. They, they are, it, it is a. A shady thing that’s happening now. I like that they’re on our side. I, I prefer, you know, if there’s conservative Jews who are putting Jews in positions of power and, and promoting a conservative message, I’m like, okay, you’re on our side.

Whatever. Right? Yeah. And there’s conservative Catholics who have gotten together and put Catholics in a [00:33:00] position of power. As long as they aren’t sabotaging us, which they’re not so far, I’m like, okay, that’s great. Right. Speaking of conservative Jews, we watched Ben Shapiro’s basically like fallout from this, where he just goes nuts.

So, but, so, butt hurt about the Tucker Carlson, how Tucker Carlson is ruining America. And shows all these whiny, whiny clips about Nick Fuentes, which is like, look, I caught him. I caught him. I caught him saying thing, A guy who’s screams for multiple hours a day said something offensive once. And if you look at like, the things that he thinks he caught him on, a lot of them is just like.

True stuff that anyone being honest would say. Like the first one he runs is Nick, Nick saying, and I think he, he could have chosen his wording better that some women like to get griped. And what I think he meant to say which we point out in our book on sexuality, homosexuality, and I brought

Speaker 2: up on our podcast multiple times

Malcolm Collins: what

Speaker 2: something we’ve also brought up on our podcast.

Malcolm Collins: There, there, there, there are a, a large percentage like a, a [00:34:00] very meaningful percentage of women who get arousal from imagining scenarios like this. It doesn’t necessarily mean they want it to happen to them, that obviously in a minority of cases that is likely true and, and people will be like, oh, that’s because men scrambled their brain.

I’m like. 50 Shades of Gray did not become a bestseller because women wanted to show off to their husbands. I don’t go to Barnes and Noble and see an entire monster effer aisle. Sorry, not one. I’d say it’s like half of, like the women’s fiction section is about women, effing monsters. Okay. This is not because of men.

You can watch our episode on what we think led to this, but the point being is like. Ben, you can’t do this anymore. You can’t go out there and cherry pick a few things and then show them to your audience and think your audience is gonna be like, oh yeah, you know that, that, that what a, yeah, he said the naughty thing.

Now he’s off the air. He said the naughty thing. And that you think that that’s still okay, means you don’t really have a part in [00:35:00] the modern conservative movement because the modern conservative movement is an anti Pearl clutcher movement. And when you come out there and you’re clutching your pearls like little diva.

Speaker 2: Well, I

Malcolm Collins: think

Speaker 2: the bigger problem is that the conservative movement and, and the new right have really succeeded because they’re big tent. And a big problem that he has is he’s little tent. He, he wants people out of his tent. And Nick Fuentes? Yeah. No, no, no, no. Ben Shapiro. Well, both Ben Shapiro and Nick Fuentes.

Ben. Well, no, Nick, Nick, Nick Fuentes is off the reservation. He’s just doing his own thing. He’s not ending. He’s literally off

Malcolm Collins: the reservation. No, little farm out the

Speaker 2: woods. He’s he is out. No shelter. Just, you know, free balling it. But yeah,

Malcolm Collins: Nick DiPiro actually reminds me of Lemon Grab from Adventure Time.

Just like, no.

Speaker 6: Unacceptable. Unacceptable. Unacceptable.

Speaker 2: Well, I don’t know. My, my primary issue with him is that [00:36:00] he, he tries to exclude people, but also from this position of being superior and like morally superior and high and mighty. And I, I’m okay with trash. I love trash talk. I think trash talk is great. I think doing it from a position of moral superiority instead of like, gamesmanship is tedious, but let’s, let’s carry on.

Sorry. No.

Malcolm Collins: Let’s carry on. And when I will say, I, I, I do love it when people say things that are just meant to freak out. People like Ben Shapiro

Speaker 2: Curtis. Yeah. At this point now it’s, yeah. 1, 1, 1 is tempted,

Malcolm Collins: Curtis Jarvin is the king of this. Nick Fuentes is like, I watched the Nick Fuentes offensive clips and frankly.

I found them boring. I, I love Curtis Yas in biodiesel wine. You know that, that we, we, we’ll turn Ben Shapiro and his YPs into biodiesel. You say something like that and then that gets clipped and people will be like, oh, he must mean the Jews. And I’m like, no, I’m talking about the pearl clutches. The pearl clutches.

[00:37:00] We’re done with this. Okay. That’s no longer what we’re doing anymore. Okay? The people who are like, oh, you can’t say this, that hurt my peepees. What are they, you know, feels right. Yes. Nick pun punched him right in the feels. That was inappropriate. But anyway, to continue here. I now wanna talk about conspiracies.

Okay, so let’s talk about the Jews controlling Hollywood, right? ‘cause you’ll be like, well, look, the Jews take power within organizations and then uses organizations to shape society, right? So let’s look at how the Jews do this and contrast this with how the Catholics do it. The lab people don’t know that the Catholics also do this.

Let’s use Hollywood as the example here, because it’s the one that always people always take to okay. So, jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who faced discrimination and established energy industries gravitated towards the nascent film business in the early 20th century. Many of the Big six studios were founded or co-founded by Jews Warner Bros.

Established by the four Warner Brothers Polish Jewish immigrants Metro Goldwin Meyer in GM was founded by a Belarusian Jew and a Polish [00:38:00] Jew. Paramount Pictures founded by a Hungarian Jew. Universal Pictures founded by a German Jew. Wow, Columbia Pictures. Founded by the son of a Russian German, Russian Jewish immigrant.

And then 20th Century Fox was founded by a Hungarian Jew and a Russian Jew. So the Jews really did, found almost every major studio in the United States except for Disney. And Disney of course, famously did not like the Jews very much. Well, he

Speaker 2: didn’t,

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. Well, we should do the funny

Family guy: What the hell? What’s happened to us? I don’t know, but suddenly I feel all sweet and warm and fuzzy. It seems we are in a universe where everything is drawn by Disney. Look, there’s our house.

Look how gay we run.

Oh, still and Brian get just in time for pie. This is wonderful, Brian. Oh, let’s live in this [00:39:00] universe. .

Speaker 11: Hello, everybody.

Family guy: Oh yeah. I forgot. This is a Disney universe. Oh, but look how shiny my buttons are Here. Just push the, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. I’ll push the thing.

Malcolm Collins: . Yeah, he was, he was not a fan of the Little Hat people. But I imagine it’s because he was in an industry that was ter completely dominated by Jewish people at the time and even today. And by the way, 2008 poll noted that now only 22% of Americans believe that Jews, quote unquote, run Hollywood.

Whereas this number was 50% in 1964. Oh. But it was actually like functionally true. Most of the people running Hollywood were, jewish. Also you didn’t have a lot of criticism of Jews or the Jewish experience coming out of Hollywood during this period of Jewish dominance. So let’s, let’s look at the facts here.

Jews at least did control Hollywood. If you today have outsized influence in Hollywood, why do [00:40:00] they have the outside influence in Hollywood? It’s because they built it. They built it. They’re the reason why America has all of the soft power we have. So blaming, blaming the Jews for influence in, in Hollywood is like blaming the patriarchy for building the world, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah. It’s like, well, you weren’t doing it. Okay. You’re welcome. What do you want? Yeah. You know, it’s very much like,

Speaker 9: So what I believe you were trying to say is, thank you. Thank you. You’re welcome. What? No, no, no. I, I didn’t, I wasn’t, why would I ever

Malcolm Collins: right? It’s like, yeah, I built it and now I run it, and I discriminate in favor of my own people, as we all should. Sorry, I’m not saying we should discriminate in favor.

I’m saying as we should all be able to, if we have a preference for it. Okay? Mm-hmm. This is what you know, what is that? Kwanza is about, for example, a huge Oh yeah. Supporting black owned businesses. Black owned businesses, right? Yeah. You know, that’s not illegal. Or it might be within some circumstances.

But anyway, so Jews control Hollywood because they [00:41:00] developed one of America’s strongest cultural tools. Has Hollywood been corrupted since its founding? Absolutely. But the corruption of Hollywood has actually correlated with a decrease in Jewish control over Hollywood. It’s not

Speaker 2: Jewish enough,

Malcolm Collins: not an increase in Jewish control over Hollywood.

Hmm. In, in fact I, I’d argue it really just comes downstream of the urban monoculture and parts of Jewish culture being corrupted more quickly. But these parts are dying out anyway ‘cause they don’t have kids. Alright. So Jews control Hollywood, but they also built Hollywood. So we sort of owe them for that.

And they’re disproportionately writers, comedians and stuff like that. I think it was something like 90% of comedians were Jewish in New York in like the 1970s. I can’t remember the exact statistic. Wow. But but we also see this with, well, I’ll get to this in a second. Now, let’s look at Catholics.

Did you know that there was a Catholic institution that basically controlled Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1980s in terms of what they produced? So yes, it had to align with Jewish interests. Does this have to do with

Speaker 2: the, the whole like censorship and [00:42:00] rating system thing? I feel like I’ve listened to podcasts about this.

We did. Did, yeah. The leap

Malcolm Collins: of decencies moral stranglehold.

Speaker 2: That was it. Yeah. In star

Malcolm Collins: contrast, Catholic grouped actively controlled Hollywood’s moral output through organized pressure, ensuring Catholicism was depicted in glowing uncritical terms. The key player was the Catholic Legion of Decency, founded in 1933, renamed the National Catholic Office for motion pictures, or, oh, the

Speaker 2: Legion of Decency sounds so much better.

I know, right? Branding problems. Come on, guys.

Malcolm Collins: 1965, which rated films on a scale from a morally unquestionable to C condemned and condemn mobilized. Well, Catholic terminology is so great. I agree. Condemned and mobilize boycotts via pledges taken by millions of Catholics and churches. So at that’s reasonable.

That’s 1950s working with the motion picture production code Haze Code Enforcers from 1934 to 1968, the Legion [00:43:00] demanded positive portrayals of religion, specifically Catholicism clergy could not be villains. Priest and nuns were in. Invariably his heroic, virtuous and wise, eg. Being Cossie affable Father, m Miley going my way, 1944.

And the Bells of St. Mary in 1945. With Oscars even towing the line films, mocking the church are showing flawed priest risk condemnation leading to edits or bands. For example, the Moon is blue. 1953 was condemned for dam and virgin sparking debates by showing the Allegion Power Studios feared losing Catholic audiences estimated to be 20% of ticket buyers.

And I’ll note here which is really cool. This is why if you watch old movies, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that there is a trope in an old movie of a priest is given a confession, a Catholic priest, obviously that’s a confession. And the confession contains like the clues to like solving a murder or something like that.

Or a, a guy is going to murder someone. Mm-hmm. And the priest [00:44:00] upholds their vow and doesn’t tell anyone, but instead like goes out and like solves it himself or something. And it’s like this classic thing that you see in a lot of movies from this time period. Because it was like, in no way can a priest be a bad guy during this period, specifically Catholic priest.

From 1950s to 1980s by the mid 1950s challenges mounted eg. Baby doll 1956, which was condemned but released, but the legion persisted, shifting in the 1960s post Vatican II to promote quote unquote good films rather than just condemn it influenced the MPA MPAA rating system introduced in 1968, replacing the code and continued ratings until the 1980s when income merged into CB’s office for film and broadcasting fading it by the 1990s.

Even then, it ensured sycophantic depictions, films like the Nuns Stories 1959, idealized Covenant Life, while Critical Ones eeg, the Cardinal in 1963 still portrayed the church sympathetically to avoid backlash. So this is, this is really important [00:45:00] because what it shows is the ways that, that Catholics control things versus the ways that Jews control things, Jews.

Build things and outcompete other individuals and use that to control organizations with a bit of nepotism on the side. Catholics have the same nepotism, but they do it through blackmailing people who have built things other than themselves. Right. Which is just strictly worse.

Octavian Collins: And it actually, what? I, I tried to go up a little. I when it went down it just like disappeared.

Thank you dad. A lot.

Malcolm Collins: Now, obviously this isn’t true of all Catholics, but we’re talking about the way Catholic organizations when they have exerted influence in the past, contrasting with Jewish organizations when they’ve exerted influence in the past, how they do it, right? Even if you look at today like the big Jewish funding groups that are influencing politics, they do it through putting money into politics, like putting money that they [00:46:00] made and giving that to politicians.

Not well, except in Ben Shapiro’s case as often threatening in blackmailing. Now let’s go to the next claim he gave here. Gives false intelligence. Okay? So, he says that Israel is a, you know, unreliable partner because they gave false intelligence. So the incident in question here. In 2003, the Iraq WMD claim, Israeli intel did warn of an Iraqi W-M-D-E-G curve.

Ball source was handled by Germany, not Israel but Israeli officials did push the threat narrative. US Senate report 2004, found no evidence Israel fabricated intel. So, this incident is just false. It was not pushed by Israel. The WMD stuff did not come from Israel. It came from German intel. And this was investigated.

It’s, it’s, it’s not accurate. Now let’s go to the next one here. I ran nuclear archive. Israel’s massage stole 55,000 pages from Tyran verified by I a. EA as [00:47:00] authentic US used it to to exit G-C-P-O-A. But this was good intel and it was given by Israel. Okay. Well let’s go to the next one. The Syrian reactor strike Israel gave us precise intel on North Korean built reactor.

US confirmed via satellite as accurate again, it was accurate intel. Okay. Real grievance is that Israel has withheld or shaped intel into protected forces, eg not sharing humid on Hezbollah. So it’s really not so much that Israeli ever gave us provably false intelligence. It is that when they had intelligence that if shared with us, would cause us to act in a way that was against Israeli interests.

Mm. They chose not to share it with us.

Speaker 2: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: To which I must ask, do you think that the us Yeah. Like shares intelligence with Israel that would cause them to act in a way that is unaligned with our interests?

Speaker 2: So this is basically, Israel’s not retarded. Con conspiracy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Then he, he goes, [00:48:00] has no oil.

This is one of his claims. Therefore, they have no strategic resources. Here’s the problem. Israel has another strategic resource, which is much more valuable than oil. What is that resource, Simon? I’m gonna see? Do, do you know the, the resource that Israel has that is dramatically more valuable than oil

Speaker 2: ip.

Jews. Jews. It has Jews. I mean, even Palestine has acknowledged that that’s why they, yeah. When they said,

Malcolm Collins: when the Gaza was, so the, the Gaza plan, when they went in and invaded what they were going to do, is they were like, well, we also have to like, enslave the population here because God knows our people can’t make an economy work.

Right. Like, even they were like,

Speaker 2: well, I mean, we, we gotta keep them to make the money. Of course. Keep them. They

Malcolm Collins: didn’t wanna get rid of them, they wanted them to work for them. Right. And, and this is a funny thing, you know, as we pointed out on the, leather Apron club. You know, he did this thing where he goes over like something like 53% of the guests on Joe Rogan are Jewish.

And it’s like, yeah, [00:49:00] because they outcompete other groups within almost every profession. Like thi this is a big thing, right? And it’s not just with nepotism, right? Like, it’s clear that they can come over to our country, lose everything, and then quickly create entire industries, right? It, it reminds me, I, again, I’ve said this before, but I see this is no different than when like BLM people are like, whites are out competing us because they’re cheating.

And it’s like, no, if you see a group out competing you, like, you should be like, have the, have the humility to be like, maybe that group is doing something that I can learn from. Or, or has some utility, right? Like, catholics. On the other hand, even Nick Fuentes is the first to admit that we don’t want any more Catholic immigrants into this country because he’s the one who’s always complaining about the Hispanic immigrants who are predominantly Catholic.

Right? Like, I would not complain a lick. And we got a big shipment of Jewish immigrants into this country. But I can see why some [00:50:00] people have concerns over the large waves of Catholic immigrants because every time this country, as I’ve mentioned in the past, you can watch our episode on why this is the case, has gotten a wave of Catholic immigrants.

It’s come with organized crime whether it’s the Irish mob, Italian Mafia you know, Mexican MS 13, you know, it’s, it’s just hand in hand, right? And we talk about why this, this happens. But it’s not just that they’re also less productive. It’s, it’s, they’re like a, if you look at Catholic majority countries, they are on the whole.

You know, poorer and more corrupt. When you look at areas with concentrations of Jews, they are typically wealthier. Well, isn’t there

Speaker 2: this weird bifurcation of Jews though? Like on, on the one hand you have the super high fertility Jews who don’t really participate in the mainstream economy. And then you have the offshoot low fertility Jews that are kind of self extinguishing, but they keep getting produced like, ‘cause they’re sort of like this.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe I don’t wanna, I

Speaker 2: don’t wanna say waste product, but like, byproduct of, of Harbor [00:51:00] Line Judaism, you

Malcolm Collins: even mind, Jews are basically two ethnic groups. Because you have the, the Ashkenazi and the Sephardic. Sephardic,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Sephardic. And it is the Ashkenazi Jews that outcompete other groups. You can go to our video on Jews is actually smarter.

We argue that they’re not actually smarter. So you can, you can watch our video on that. But I don’t, even if you argue that they’re not actually smarter than other groups, you cannot argue that they’re not outcompeting other groups. Right. It, it’s very much like the Nazis when they kicked out all their Jewish scientists and then they came over here and built an ABO for us.

Right? Like that was, they, they do build actual things of utility when you’re nice to them. There’s the famous letter that I think it was Ottoman King sent to a Spanish king when he was kicking out all the Jews during one of the p Brams. There was basically an medieval high talk, have fun being poor.

But yeah. Okay. Next one here. No, I mean, you’ve got to, even if a, if. A population may turn on you. Right? Like I, again, I’m not saying that Jews are aligned with us in everything, right? [00:52:00] But I’m saying when I see utility in a population and I’m having to choose between one of two groups even Nick Flint doesn’t want more Catholics in this country, right?

Like, unless he can convert them right, then it’s okay. Then it’s okay. Like he recognizes, and I’m like, come on man. Like this is all a larp at this point. Is it not? Like, but I’m gonna continue here. Spies on us. Spies on us. Fuentes says that Israel runs an espionage. An extensive espionage campaign against the United States.

This is true and well documented. Jonathan Pilar, 1985 Naval Analyst gave Israel thousands of classified docs satellite imagery, signe sentence to life. 1985 to 2004, art students spy ring. FBI investigated 140 Israelis posing its art students casing, DEA offices NSA warned of aggressive Israeli espionage.

2019 WhatsApp Hack Israel firm, NSO groups. Pegasus used to spy on US officials slash journalists per citizen lab. GAO report. Israel named top economic espionage threat to [00:53:00] US defense contractors. FBI, counterintel still ranks Israel in the top five for tech theft behind Russia and China.

So I mean, it would make sense that that was, yeah, that that was always allowed. Like that’s the way it works. Yeah. But no, I think there’s just also an extremely strong. Correlation between being, having a high tech industry and engaging in quote unquote tech theft. Mm-hmm. What, what is the difference between TE and with our technology anyway?

Like what other country is going to use it? Yeah, but it’s not just that. Do you think that we don’t spy on Israel? Like I’m just baffled. Yeah. Do you think that we don’t spy on Israel? Do you think that we don’t spy on our other allies like Canada? Like are you what? Obviously we spy on Israel yeah. Yeah. Where there’s a lot of sharing of Intel, but it makes sense, right? Like I, I do not, I do not hold somebody I’m not like, that makes it bad.

And I’d also point out here, do you not think, it just sounds

Speaker 2: like middle school girls, they all spy on each other and they all share everything. Well, not everything [00:54:00] stuff strategically, you don’t think

Malcolm Collins: that the Vatican has, has information. Networks like that also like baffles me. The, the Vatican has political diplomatic interests and uses.

Its, its various organizations to channel information up to the, the upper ranks. Like the Vatican is not Saint l Von Stingen, if you look at their history, which we’re gonna get to, right, like they are an active political player with active political objectives that they are willing to pursue.

Speaker 2: Let’s be fair though, that the Catholics are the only ones with the saints. So.

Malcolm Collins: No, they are, yeah. They, they are the only ones with the saint. So they, they do have actual a power to make their spies saints. Yeah. Which the Jews can’t do.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. No Saints with the Jews.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Diplomatic liability. He says the US gives infinite foreign aid and weapons.

As I pointed out, they don’t the US actually only gives about the amount to Israel every year on average that we give to all the Catholic majority countries that we give a to [00:55:00] combined, except it’s reciprocal in Israel’s case, because they have to spend over 90% of that buying US weapons. And this isn’t true with the Catholic aid.

It just goes to these countries and then nothing happens to it because they never get wealthier. It’s like, can we stop, can we cut off aid to these countries? We’ve been giving it to them for like half a century, much longer than we’ve been giving aid to Israel. And they haven’t been able to get their act together.

Right. Like can’t if, if they’re, if they’re. Going to be unproductive. Like why do we need to keep sipping for them? I’m okay with giving money to somebody who is making cool stuff with it that I may need one day, you know, like their missile defense system. The Vatican doesn’t have a missile defense system.

You know, this is the thing. If, if we were going into a, a, a war with vampires and I needed lots of holy water I’d be going to the Vatican, right? I’d be saying, Hey, we should probably ally with the Vatican. They’re really good at making holy water. But when I look at the future conflicts on our door, the groups that want us eradicated a lot of these groups are Islamists in Israel is [00:56:00] what the Vatican is to vampire invasion.

Israel is to Islamist invasion. They make a lot of things that are very good at both protecting you from and dealing with this particular threat which is a, a growing one on the global stage. And I, I I, the idea that they’re not useful as like a, a, a political or economic or technological partner is just like kind of ridiculous on face value if you are engaging with technology, right?

And this is US technology. Like, like you’re in the US and you have technology. That technology comes from, like either the United States, Japan, Korea, or Israel. Maybe Taiwan. And that’s really, that, that is that they’re the only places on earth that move technology forwards to a considerable degree.

You, you, you get some high tech [00:57:00] industries in other countries. Yeah. Okay. In China and in India and

to Europe that don’t really produce much new stuff. But if we’re talking about like active technological development Israel is one of the only places on earth where you’re actively seeing this. And since tech defines who controls the future of human civilization it matters that you’re friendly was the only productive technological person on earth that is at sustainable fertility rates.

Right. Because when I look at the other players on this list that I said were relevant, like Japan and Korea and Taiwan, they’re basically having their population every generation, right? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway,

Speaker 2: but to be fair, the, the highest fertility populations in Israel are not the also high tech producers

Malcolm Collins: in Israel.

Right. But even the high tech populations are above repopulation rate. Yeah. They’re doing well. And even our tech in the us, you know, who makes [00:58:00] this tech in the us? A lot of it is made by Jews. Mm. Right. Like even Nick Fuentes much realized if we did a pogrom in the US and we kicked out the Jews in our country, or even if we made the US a more of an enemy to Israel, the people who run all of these tech companies and often who are starting a lot of these tech companies, they would have a much less of a reason to ensure that the US continues to survive and thrive.

Mm-hmm. Right. Like that would be an actively, as I’ve said, I don’t trust the Jews to you know, care for us out of their own heart, but I trust the Jews to be able to see a pattern of the US helping Israel and say, Hey it is in our, the Jewish people’s best interest to help the United States thrive.

And this is one of those things where like Ben Shapiro goes out there and like, obviously he cares about Jewish interests above the interests of other people, but like that’s allowed. Right. Like, obviously Nick Fuentes cares about the interests of Catholics. Well, white Catholics is a narrow group that he believes he belongs to over, over other groups.

[00:59:00] Right. You know, I, I, I don’t, I don’t get why, why that’s like, not allowed. Like I, I care about my narrow community, the, the AOGs over other groups, you know, any, any techno.

Speaker 2: Oh, you just like what nerd, super nerds, autistic? No, no.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I call the AOGs the people who have sort of the same goals. The techno puritans, which is to continue to evolve human.

Okay. Mutual take to space. I iist the humans that will one day be augmented, right. Like, okay. Okay. That are okay. And engaging with various forms of human augmentation. Okay. I hate the word like transhumanist. I don’t think that that’s what we represent. You can see our video on this. It’s much more, yeah.

Well, and also like there are too many

Speaker 2: differing definitions of the, of the term or connotations associated with Yeah. I, I would say that

Malcolm Collins: transhumanist is, is sort of defined as a progressive pussy version of this. And the AOGs are the more like super soldier, darwin types. Mm-hmm. You know, you, you [01:00:00] specifically OG ideology is downstream of Nietzsche and ideology, which says that you know that, that you should strive to strengthen yourself and that immorality comes from weakness and that you should strive to strengthen yourself in whatever way you can, whether that’s genetically, technologically through anything.

And that if we allow humanity to enter into a discogenic spiral, which most of humanity is already within, see our video on is an idiocracy actually possible then we are merely worshiping weakness. And, and yeah. And there’s a lot of groups that don’t like the augs. Right. So, because I think most techno puritans would get along with any a, even if they didn’t have the techno puritan faith.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, I wanna go over and document the Vatican released in 2017. Oh, the Ecumenism of Hate. Oh this is a Vatican reviewed critique of US Conservative alliances. It was published in La Seia Alica, a Jesuit run journal whose content is pre-approved by the Vatican Secretary of State, making it [01:01:00] official sounding Vatican voice titled Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholicism in the United States.

A Surprising Ecumenism, God, this is so Catholic sounding. The piece was co-authored. It doesn’t really matter. But specifically it targeted the growing political alliance between conservative US Catholics, labeled Integralist and evangelical fundamentalists, particularly their support of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign in early policies like immigration restrictions and walls.

The authors frame this as a quote, mansion, good versus evil, worldview promoting quote, xenophobic and Islamophobic visions in quote and a quote nostalgic dream of a theocratic type state in quote. So you know who they’re talking about, right? This is clearly Nick Fuentes that they are talking about here.

And they’re saying, we don’t support this. And not just Nick Fuentes, they’re saying. We do not support the faction of the Catholics [01:02:00] within the United States that have moved to support the MAGA alliance that have moved to support things like immigration restrictions that have moved to support. This is, this is what I talk about when I’m like the, the, the Vatican has a political interest, and Nick Fuentes ideology works only in so far as he either ignores their political interest is directly counter to our own political interests, or that he pretends like as a Catholic.

The, the core thing that separates him as a Catholic from a Protestant is the, the, the, the functions of the, the Catholic bureaucracy specifically , apostolic succession.

Malcolm Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: So, and I, and I note here, like, this is also like Francis, specifically called Trump’s deportations a, a disgrace calling it, you know, damaging dignity, right?

It’s not like. I am [01:03:00] twisting the Vatican’s words here. And like every Catholic who’s not just completely has their head in the sand knows, right? I think that there’s this hope that the Vatican is going to go in a different direction with time.

And I think what they fundamentally are ignoring is the history of how the Vatican got here. The Vatican didn’t get to this position because the Vatican did a turnaround and, and now has a different ideology. They did a turnaround. The Vatican has been pro-immigration since like forever, right? Like this isn’t a new thing in the Vatican.

The Vatican has been pro racial integration since forever. The Vatican has been the, the, you know, anti well, a Trump style nationalism forever. They’ve been anti-capitalism forever, right? Basically there’s a faction of Catholics in the US that have left whatever Catholics historically believed and.

Expect the Vatican to leave this wisdom. It’s not [01:04:00] really, and it’s, it is not to say that the Vatican hasn’t been captured by the Jesuits and they haven’t transformed the nature of the institution through this capture. It’s not to say that they aren’t actively, basically cheating in elections. We might do a whole thing in how the Jesuits sort of cheat and papal elections.

Speaker 2: Oh, really? That sounds interesting.

Malcolm Collins: They’ve done some shady stuff. Ooh. It was within the rules, but it was like against the spirit of the rules. Oh. But what I’m saying here is of like, if you believe that they’re cheating, then you’ve lost apostolic succession, because if bureaucracy is no longer functioning as intended mm-hmm.

Right? Like this is, this is where I, I don’t know, it just gets to me here, but to continue here. If, if we go further here on Trump’s deportations you have a direct quote in Francis’ letter. The rightly formed, conscious cannot fail to express its disagreement with any measure that identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality deportations damage the dignity of those people in places them in vulnerable and defenseless [01:05:00] positions.

So I’ll note here I, I shorten that quote, like I, I paraphrase parts of it. But specifically he says that you can’t. So if you’re a a, a Catholic in the United States, I know that you only have to obey the Pope when he does things from like a paper bull or it’s done within a council, but you are in direct rebellion to the pope’s will if you say something like it is, we are deporting them because they broke the law, right?

Like, like he is saying that you cannot to identify the illegal status of sub migrants as criminality that you, you can’t do that. You cannot define them as illegal for breaking the law, which is the core thing you need to be able to do to make the justification for the, the deportation that everything like that.

Mm-hmm. And I note here one of the things to remember with the Vatican, which is another reason why it’s incredibly foolish to attempt to ally with them is it’s not just that Catholics have an incredibly low fertility rate. All over the earth right now, you know? ‘cause we’ve talked about low Catholic fertility rates in whatever [01:06:00] country, whether it’s in Southern Europe or whether it’s in Latin America, or whether it’s white, the quote unquote white Catholics within the United States.

They also have an incredibly low population in their, their region of, of like the cultural center, right? Specifically Italy. Italy has a fertility rate of like 1.18 right now. Mm-hmm. And it’s continuing to crash. So for every a hundred Italians, there’s only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. So if this continues to crash and partially on Behe of the Vatican, Italy is accepting tons of migrants, which have a higher fertility rate.

The Vatican itself is going to be in a hostile sea. A a, a sea of. Individuals who may not agree with its policies. And that puts the rest of the v like the Catholic community in an incredibly dangerous position globally speaking. Because you don’t know the Vaticans being influenced or not, right?

Like, I mean, in a way right now, the, the Vaticans in a sea of urban monoculture and is certainly being influenced by that. What happens when it’s in a sea of Islamists, right? You’ve [01:07:00] already seen how much the Catholic church has moderated its view on Islam. And even you know, we, we also see this from Nick Fuentes because, you know, that’s where he, it’s getting its marching orders from where he’ll often take positions that seem actively directed towards empowering Islamist organizations and factions.

If he can use that to achieve. For, in his case negative conditions for the Jews. But in the Vatican’s case, and, and note he’ll be here, here, he’ll be like, oh, well we just we, the only reason we don’t want Iran to get a nuke is because they’ll use it on Israel. And it’s like, no, we don’t want ‘em to have a nuke because after Israel, they use it on us.

Right? Like, if you are willing to allow Iran to get in nuke, just despite Israel, you have put the United States in an incredibly worse diplomatic position. This is what I mean when I’m like, he’s willing to throw the United States under the bus if he can’t spite Israel.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That campaign was incredibly cheap for us, by the way.

And we paid very little in terms of diplomatic cost for doing that with Israel. And [01:08:00] Israel also helped us a lot with that. Right? So that was one of our major objectives for a long time as well. It is like he thinks that the only reason these countries have a beef with us is because we support Israel.

And it’s like, no, they, they want global Sharia law in the same way you want to globally convert everyone to Catholicism one day, right? Like, they, they, they actually are antagonistic, but the Catholic Vatican, when they’re trying to promote Islamist agendas or create sort of interfaith dialogue there what’s funny.

Like interface dialogue doesn’t seem to really exist. I heard somebody say this to me and they’re like, it’s so true. Mm-hmm. When you have a bunch of preachers doing interface dialogue, they’re typically all urban monoculture and they’re not actually like strong believers. Oh.

Speaker 2: So it’s mono faith dialogue with different costumes.

Malcolm Collins: Mono. But, but the reason why they’re doing this is, I think smartly so is they know that they’re not maybe eventually that they’re gonna be in a, a Muslim majority region. Mm-hmm. And they’re going to need to deal with that. Right? Like, they’re going to need to appease their, their new rulers and [01:09:00] really the only force that could possibly prevent this.

They’re making, well, Dick Fuentes is making an enemy of which again, yeah. The Catholic church now is basically, ah, I’ve got the vampires. We’re, we’re, we’re pro vampire actually. But I wanna now talk about the Catholic revolutions in Latin America. Oh. Oh, by the way, fun side note, did you know that one of the Lincoln assassins hid at the Vatican?

And there is a common myth that the Vatican helped him hide, but it actually didn’t. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So, just fun historical side note here. Lincoln assassin, John Wilkes booth at Ford Cedar and Mary Surro, devout Catholic boarding house owner convicted as co-conspirator and hanged on July 7th.

John Stewart Jr. A Confederate fly fled to Canada hidden by Catholic priest. So he was actually hidden by the larger Catholic bureaucracy at first. Because remember for most of US history, the US and the Catholic church we’re not like, now the Vatican is sort of like, Hey, we hate the us and, and the US is like.

Well, we are gonna try to get along with [01:10:00] everyone, but back then it was more like, oh yeah, we hate you too. Don’t send any Catholics. But anyway so, so, he was sheltered in Liverpool at a Catholic church. And then December, 1865, he arrives in Rome and he enlists in Pope Pius the ninths papals swabs of volunteer army defending the Vatican versus Italian unification.

And, and his alias was John Watson. And then he was spotted by a un diplomat wild by the way. Right. And the Vatican arrests him, but on the post orders. Oh.

Malcolm Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: he was exed to the United States where he was actually had the charges dropped at a mistrial.

Speaker 2: Oh, wow. So

Malcolm Collins: fun, fun. Historic tidbit there.

Speaker 2: Well, he went through a wild ride.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. So let’s, let’s go through the Catholic because this is what I, I, I said that, that Alate the more broadly, has largely been an anti-capitalist force. They’ve written for like tracks against capitalism.

[01:11:00] For examples of these, you could look to Pope Leo the thirteens 1891, , in, in, uh, Reno, Nova Room, , which was specifically an anti-capitalist sort of scree. , And then we have, , more recently, , Pope Francis who has gone on, , squeeze about the idolatry of money. , And, . In these 2020, and I, I don’t know, these, these foreign words, , if titled, TUI Tui Francis expanded on these ideas lamenting how market capitalism fails to promote fraternity or resolve problems like poverty and hunger.

And I note here that the church has every right to be anti-capitalist. It aligns with their historic positions. It aligns with their larger value systems. Capitalism has not worked out particularly well in, uh, Catholic majority countries. Uh, so why, why, why [01:12:00] shouldn’t they be allowed to have this view?

But. I can also admit when it is, you know, in, in conflict with my interests, my views, and my people’s, , way of life. Because when capitalism has been tried in Protestant countries, it typically works out pretty well. , What I don’t like is when people. Basically try to launder what the larger Vatican agenda is and pretend that it doesn’t have a agenda that is in contrast with capitalism, freedom of speech.

Well, I suppose Nick Fuentes would even admit he doesn’t really want freedom of speech either. He doesn’t particularly want freedom of ideas either. He just wants it controlled by his faction.

Mm-hmm. They’re not pro atheist communism, but there have been large, especially within the Jesuit order active organizations of socialist and communist revolutions.

So we have Nicaragua 1979 Revolution. We have Fernando Caro, who is a Jesuit, Ernest Caro Jesuit ties and mi Miguel de [01:13:00] Esto who, who was also in the Jesuit order orbit. So, they recruited Catholics to FSL in gorillas, taught Marxism as Christian in base communities, supplied food and ammo priest Joann RA government culture, foreign ministers although the Pope did put a ban on this.

So, so, the, the, this was the case in which the Pope was like, okay, you guys need to stop this, please. But anyway the Sardis Incorporated quote, political capitalism in quote, using churches as organizing cells, EG the Paris replaced linen cell one leader that this was a quote that they talked about here within this order.

One leader Miguel de Escar was a MC Nolan priest. Liberation Theology justified the armored overthrow of Samoa’s government post-revolution hymns praised worker Christ alongside Sino and Che Evaro, direct quote. Carlos Fka, FSLN, founder Sano is deeply rooted [01:14:00] in Christianity as an extension of Catholicism.

So, churches distributed version Mary icons with sista portraits. Oh Columbia 1965 to 66. Camilla Torres left the priesthood to join the ELN gorillas and said, quote, Jesus equals gorilla. Ro ELN. Ideology mixes Marxism Leninism with Catholic martyrdom, eeg, no drug trade due to Catholic morals.

Then El Salvador, 1980 to 1992. Civil War. Ignacio Rio and the UCA Jesuits were the brains behind the FMLN per army. And they ran liberation zones in quote by the way, led to 75,000 people dead. Mm-hmm. So these weren’t like small things. Guatemala in 1960s to 96 multiple Jesuit, U-U-R-N-G gorillas, organized peasant based communities into fighters and then had a genocide.

Was 200,000 people dead Chile, [01:15:00] Christians for socialism. And ada. 1970 to 19 73, 80 plus priests formed the group of 80 supporting Salvador ADA’s socialist government, quote, Christians for socialism. 1971, allied with communists, seeing socialism as gospel fulfillment pen’s, 1973 coup targeted them.

Direct quote group. Declaration quote, we declare our option for socialism as a way to build the kingdom of God.

Speaker 2: No. Okay. I mean, but is this just, these are examples of the Catholic Church supporting socialist political movements. Surely there are also examples that I could cherry pick of the Catholic church supporting broadly capitalist leaders, or, no.

The Catholic

Malcolm Collins: Church has done and I can pull this up in post, they’ve written like tracks specifically attacking capitalism.

Malcolm Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: They’ve written now, now they would say that what they are attacking is the more like, like materialistic form of capitalism. Yeah. Which I would also but they, they, they certainly don’t [01:16:00] follow Puritan capitalism, which is, you know, I think the true and correct way of practicing capitalism, which is capitalism without charity and without luxury you can see our That’s true.

Yeah. Charities

Speaker 2: is big in

Malcolm Collins: Catholicism. And, and they, but they have also written tracks condemning communism, just, just to be aware even though sometimes, you know, communists spin out. And I note here when people are like, oh, well this or that communist leader was Jewish. True, but. They do something that the Catholics don’t do, typically if the communist leaders have Jewish backgrounds, which is they then go around and try to kill Jews.

And so they’re obviously not, you know, fighting for a Jewish agenda. Like when, when you know, the communists came to power in Russia. The Jews were one of the first on their lists of, you know, they don’t like when some groups outcompete other groups and the Jews are out competing a group, which is one of the reasons why they were, I I actually point out here, there was analysis done.

We talk about this in another episode, but if you look at the amount that Jews disproportionately get into politics, so if you look in the United [01:17:00] States, obviously, like Jews are disproportionately win at politics and get into politics. And you look at this cross country, so you can find like an average disproportionate Jewish amount in politics.

Mm-hmm. And then you look at communist governments, specifically like communist Russia. Jews win. Contrasted with their portion of the population and their typical overrepresentation was in politics are actually represented at a much lower rate than you would expect. So even though they’re overrepresented versus the population, they are underrepresented When contrasted Wiz, and I note here, like the Marx wrote entire tracks about how we needed to get rid of all the Jews.

Mm-hmm. I, I forgot the name of the track, but it was pretty explicit really, like it was in the title. Yeah. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll look it up ‘cause I, this will surprise you. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: What was the name of Marx’s anti-Jewish book?

Malcolm Collins: It was called On the Jewish Question.

Speaker 2: Oh boy. Okay. Are fine. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: He linked [01:18:00] Judaism with Hucksterism, an obsession with capitalism, commercialism, and money.

Speaker 2: Well, not exactly shockingly unique, Tay. Well, no, but what I’m

Malcolm Collins: saying is it’s not exactly a friend to communism. No, no. Wrong.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So what I’m putting out here is, and why would they be, sorry. It actually makes no sense that Jews would want communism. I just want people to actually think through this for five seconds.

Speaker 2: Well, I

Malcolm Collins: don’t

Speaker 2: know. Kibbutzim are pretty

Malcolm Collins: fricking like, right, but they do that only with other Jews, which is hugely different. Right. So consider that you are a population living within in a diverse, you can’t

Speaker 2: try communism as it is theoretically understood at a grand scale without some post singularity society.

Right. I understand that. But.

Malcolm Collins: Even if communism quote unquote worked. Mm-hmm. Jewish people wouldn’t want it. Why wouldn’t they want it? Okay. Think about this. Think about this. Okay? You are part of a group that whenever you are in a capitalist [01:19:00] country, whether it’s Australia or the United States or Germany, you end up much wealthier and was much more power than other groups.

The very last thing you would want is wealth redistribution. Okay? Like especially if you’re thinking intergenerationally. Now we do point out, oh, well what about the kids of rich families? Why are they more likely to become communists? This is different. These kids aren’t thinking intergenerationally in the way that somebody trying to plot out like a Jewish control of society.

Jews are always intrinsically gonna have more control within a capitalist system, which means if you favor capitalism, you also have an intrinsic. Parallelism of interest with Jewish organizations and with Jewish forces, and you are going to be much more to have a, a direct conflict of interest with Catholic forces.

Because again, Catholics have historically promoted socialism and, and immigration waves and mass sort of charity organizations and stuff like that. Hmm. But anyway, thoughts Simone, [01:20:00]

Speaker 2: just, wow. This has been a lot, but I also, and it’s not necessarily updating my views that much on Catholicism because the Catholics with with whom we interact are so divorced from all this.

Malcolm Collins: Right. They’re divorced from it. And I think that that can lead us to forget that the Vatican. Has actively stated hostile intent to the United States, specifically the MAGA movement.

Speaker 2: So you’re just trying to say like, there is this group over here.

Malcolm Collins: Don’t forget. Well, what I’m trying to say is when you try to frame things along Fuentes lines, which is choose between the Catholics and the Jews, right?

Mm-hmm. What he’s forgetting is the Catholics don’t all think like him, and the Catholics in power who have the final say in what the Catholic, the official

Speaker 2: Catholics. Yeah. Like if aliens arrived on Earth and were like, what do Catholics think? Yeah. They’re gonna go to the Pope, right? Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right.

Malcolm Collins: [01:21:00] He’s, he’s, he’s forgetting or covering up or trying to hide that. In actuality, the Catholic central bureaucracy is quite hostile to the United States in our interests. Mm-hmm. And that. We work with Catholics insofar as those Catholics aren’t towing that line. Yeah. And that when he’s like, well, you either need to like, and, and with Israel, while Israel has done some DBA moves in the past, they’re ultimately as a population growing, technologically productive and economically productive group, a much smarter, long-term ally,

Speaker 2: tactical ally.

Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that the, this view lacks pragmatism and that there’s this very ideologically based objection to Israel when Israel should be looked at as a tactical ally rather than an ideological partner.

Malcolm Collins: [01:22:00] Yes. As I said, it’s like partnering with the dwarves. Right. Like they got their whole own thing going on.

Okay. You don’t need to, just don’t get in the book of grudges. Okay. And, and when you’re, you’re, you’re partnering with the That’s what I was reading that line. I was like, it’s so Catholic. That’s why I always put the Catholic at the elves. Right. Because, you know, very, everything’s covered in gold.

Everything’s, you know, ordained, ordinated, everything. The best outfits. Yeah. You know, they’re doing their speeches, they make them like super long and academic and florid. And you’re just like, oh my God. And the, and the ceremonies. Ceremonies for everything. You know, you got the, like with the elves, it’ll be like the autumn, whatever, ceremony of the ceremony of whatever leaves.

And with the Catholic, they got the ceremony for this and the ceremony for that. And I guess if we’re putting ourselves in the fantasy races, what are we gnomes you know, typically seen as technologically obsessed and otherwise pragmatic and overly excitable and happy. I think that that works.

Not, not very interested in, in money like the, the dwarves are, [01:23:00] or, or overt ornamentation that the elves are, or

Speaker 2: Tolkien orcs that are just, you know, elves tortured to a, a point of abstraction. Transhuman extremely strong and very industrious. No, I don’t know. Like, I, I, I think

Malcolm Collins: could we all know who the Orks are?

And it’s not black people by the way.

Speaker 2: It was supposed to be Mongolians, right?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I we’re ta I’m talking in my analogy. Oh, not in Tolkien’s analogy.

Speaker 2: Okay. They are who, who were they in your analog? I

Malcolm Collins: don’t Semetic people who were tortured and transformed through. Look, we don’t, we don’t need to go through this.

Nobody wants you to, to. What I’m saying is, is that the, the orcs don’t much like the gnomes existing, they don’t much like the elves existing and they don’t much like the dwarfs existing. And we have a reason to work together, and that’s what I would ultimately push for, is to not say, choose the, choose the dwarves over the elves.

It’s [01:24:00] to say that the elves need to get over their anti dwarf thing so we can all work together. Because if you say, if anyone’s out there saying, Hey, you can’t choose one of these factions as one of your allies. And this is of course where the modern conservative movement is, like Catholics are a vast minority within the United States population.

They’re around 20% and rapidly shrinking. As we said, they’re shrinking in terms of deconversions, in, in terms of fertility rates. And so like they need to form alliances with other groups for this to work. And we need to accept that we’re gonna have differences in perspectives, but that we are different.

What I really hate that Nick Tis does is he pretends like Catholics and Protestants are like some shared identity. And I find that to be really like gaslighting and. Weird because they aren’t, they are. You literally burned my actual direct ancestors alive. Like we, we actually have like a book of martyr on like the shelf of every restroom in our [01:25:00] house, you know, is like reading for our kids as they grow up, right?

Like, these are things you, these, these, these are not the same people. The Jews didn’t do that to my ancestors. Okay. Like there’s a reason there’s suspicion here. Anyway,

Speaker 2: there you have it. Oh my god, thank you. This has been interesting edifying.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I think, I think we can all get along while still admitting like, I may not like some Alfie things and I may not like some, we’ve done some episodes that we’ve gotten a lot of, oh, that’s anti-Semitic.

I might not like some dwarfy things, but I can still work with them and see the benefits of working together.

Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. You know, we’re pro pluralism and it’s not gonna change. That’s all there is to it.

I.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think they’re both wool too, so she matching these days. Hey, I love it. I gotta have a, [01:26:00] a CAD wife ette. It’s gotta go for the real fascist look. You know? I gotta scare the well I used to be like fascist, but like World War ii and now we’re like fascist, but like Prussian war maybe it’s giving, giving kind of Bismarck era.

Can’t believe that name pulled so poorly when we thought about naming one of our kids. Bismark. Yeah. You’re gonna name one of our kids, Bismarck. And just people did not like it. Yeah. Also did not like Tana, which was one of the names we were gonna choose. And that’s where Tex came from. Yeah, maybe just text polls better.

Speaker 12: All right. Attack. I don’t wanna see any survivors. Take him down.[01:27:00]

Speaker 13: You want me to come in and attack you? Yeah.

Join us for an in-depth discussion as we break down the Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson interview. In this episode, Simone and Malcolm share their candid reactions, explore the most controversial moments, and analyze the broader implications of the conversation. Whether you’re interested in media analysis, political commentary, or just want to hear thoughtful perspectives on current events, this episode offers a nuanced take you won’t want to miss. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insightful conversations and interviews. Share your thoughts below—what stood out to you most in the interview?

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. I have been looking forward to this episode. We both watched the Nick Fuentes Tucker Carlson interview, and my first thoughts upon watching that interview was to pick up my phone to call Mossad and say, Mossad, I found the guy who’s turning everyone into antisemite.

You need to watch this video name. Is Ben Shapiro.

Simone Collins: Oh, Ben Open.

Malcolm Collins: It’s so funny because if, if you watch the video, it’s very clear that Nick Fuentes did not start with any anti-Semitic beliefs at all. No. It was completely pushed into them by extreme and incredibly immoral acts by Ben Shapiro. And if you look at Candace Owens, it appears that she also had a similar journey.

Simone Collins: Yeah. He just keeps radicalizing people with platforms against Israel

Malcolm Collins: and huge. Well, and what’s funny is he will do this to anyone, he did this to us when we first started rising Israel, like right wing stars. His first intuition was to just [00:01:00] attack us. Yeah, I think he referred to us

Simone Collins: as something along the lines of insufferable nerds.

Malcolm Collins: He accused us of being nerdy. But I take nerd as a compliment. So this means I’m at the top of the nerd hierarchy here, thank goodness. But in this video, what we’re gonna be doing is we are going to be taking a deeper analysis into Nick Fuentes views, and through that elucidate. Something parts of American history and American identity that I think a lot of people aren’t very aware of because it’s been largely covered up in the school system.

Mm. And it makes Nick Fuentes entire worldview when you are aware of this. Come off as a little confused if I’m gonna be honest. And we’re also going to think through how you can have people with different long-term goals sort of working together in the same group. Because I think when you think through what Nick Fuentes his long-term goals are, they’re very antagonistic to our long-term goals, but I think we could still work together.

And he also seems like a decent guy from what I’ve seen even Yeah. For the

Simone Collins: record, we, we actually reached [00:02:00] out to him hoping that he would just come on Yeah. To be interviewed on this. Like, we’d rather just ask him directly about these things. Unfortunately, he didn’t respond, so we’re gonna have to just go on, on, well, Malcolm did extensive research on things he has said online publicly that are documented.

So we’re doing our best here, but. Well, no, a lot of, if you ever see this, we’d love to have you on.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I, I will also say that upon hearing through this interview, what Ben Shapiro did to him when he was like a kid. Right. Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, this giant, like multimillion dollar company actively trying to destroy a kid’s life for years, just for asking questions.

Yeah. What on earth? Yeah. Feasible to ask. I, I was like, okay, I can see how Nick Fuentes ended up where he is. But, but what’s so funny is us and Nick Fuentes, and you’re gonna see this throughout the interview, is it sort of like somebody comes out to us and they’re like, you need to denounce Nick Fuentes.

And I’d be like, why, why do I need to denounce Nick? Like at one point, Ben Shapiro got him [00:03:00] while he was in college, put on a no fly list, so he couldn’t even fly domestic. Oh, that

Simone Collins: wasn’t Ben Shapiro. That was No,

Malcolm Collins: it was Ben Shapiro’s organization. The Daily

Simone Collins: Wire.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the Daily Wire reached out to the Media Matters organization and then Media Matters got him banned, put on a no fly

Simone Collins: list.

Oh, oh, so the Daily Wire started it. I didn’t catch that. I, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah. It’s pretty much all orchestrated by the Daily Wire. Not like Ben Shapiro directly, but it seems pretty clear that he directed somebody else to do this. Oh, wow.

Simone Collins: Okay. That’s, yeah, I mean, and that’ll people able to fly for a year.

That’s, especially as a media

Malcolm Collins: figure. That’s crazy. Denounce Nick Fuentes. And I’m like, why, why should I denounce Nick Fuentes? And they’d be like, well, he’s an antisemite. And I’d be like, well, you know, no group should really be above question. I I think it’s, it’s, it’s healthy in a society. Like, okay, okay, that didn’t work.

He wants an autocracy and I’m like. I mean, democracies do seem to be fraying at the edges right now, and I can see that it might be worth exploring new forms of government. And they’re like, oh, okay, okay. He wants to make America a Christian country. And [00:04:00] I’m like, well, I mean, I, I think it was sort of founded that way.

And I don’t have a particular problem with it. And they scratch their head and they’re just like, so you’re just gonna let him turn America into this Catholic, like, wait, what? Put him on a no fly list. Oh. ‘cause the, the problems we have with the wider Nick Fores ideology are quite different than the problems that a lot of other people have.

I’ll note here because I have in the past been very confused by Nick Che’s ideology not understanding how he could be a Catholic integralist. These are people who want to put the entire world under a Catholic one, world government. And actually he’s never claimed that he is a Catholic integralist.

I couldn’t find a single AI will tell you he is till you’re blue in the face. But when you ask for a specific quote or citation, I can find nothing.

Simone Collins: Well, so do you think maybe Nick Fuentes is a Catholic integralist the same way that we are eugenics, which is to say No. No,

Malcolm Collins: not exactly. Because he’ll talk [00:05:00] about stuff like inter.

In Ingenia, like, like the intelligentsia of the integralist movement where he seems to include himself among this. So like, well I don’t know, like

Simone Collins: we mix with people who call themselves eugenicists. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: But he has never denied the term either. Nor has he ever really skewered it in the way that we have gone long into skewering eugenics.

I’m well, well,

Simone Collins: but what, what, what, what are the benefits to him for doing so? You know, no one’s accusing him of it. It’s not causing him any trouble. So why would he actively, yeah. The, and people aren’t actively accusing him of it. I mean, people actively accuse us of eugenics, therefore we publicly deny.

‘cause we’re like, that’s not true. No. People accuse

Malcolm Collins: him of this all the time, and I, and they accuse him of it. Of on both the right and the left. Like there are mainstream right wing sources that are sympathetic to him that call his position Catholic nationalism. Oh, so they’re left wings, he

Simone Collins: would be prompted to Correct.

If he would be very prompted

Malcolm Collins: to call them out. Okay. The, the real answer is, is while it’s not his actual [00:06:00] intellectual position, he identifies with it enough that he doesn’t mind being called it. Mm-hmm. His actual position could be better defined as Catholic n Okay. Let’s see. White Catholic nationalism would be the, the actual position an American first White Catholic nationalism.

Oh, okay. And this is, and, and, and the Catholic is the largest and loudest word within this, this,

Simone Collins: like I said, the tone in America, but Vatican City doesn’t run everything.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, he hasn’t thought through that far. Oh. So we’re not getting to that yet. Okay. So he’s a Catholic American nationalist. Okay.

Now, and he sees these two identities as completely obvious, right? That if you’re a good Christian American, you’re going to be a Catholic American nationalist. The problem is, is that this perspective appears incredibly stupid. If you have any knowledge of American history, America [00:07:00] was essentially founded to be an.

anti-Catholic state, if you don’t believe me, and I’m gonna quote here from an article how Anti Catholicism helped fuel the AM American Revolution. We’re gonna go into the words of a Catholic cardinal. Okay? So this is not an anti-Catholic person saying that this was the reason America was founded. Okay?

In 1912, the English Cardinal Garca flatly declared that quote, the American Revolution was not a movement for civil or religious liberty. Its principle cause was the bigoted rage of the American Puritan and Presbyterian ministers at the concessions of full religious liberty and equality to Catholics of French Canada.

In quote, what? The American Revolution, the American Rev. Were you not taught this in school? I am shocked the number of people who don’t know this. You were not taught that the American Revolution was in large part an anti-Catholic revolution. I mean,

Simone Collins: you know, we hear more about like taxation without representation and the [00:08:00] stamp act and you know.

People not liking the British government.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that the school system has done a very good job of scrubbing this from history because doesn’t

Simone Collins: Well, why would they, the, the British, the, sorry, the, the American school system isn’t exactly like, I mean, we didn’t go to Catholic school. I could get like, maybe if Catholic School wanted to kind of like,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think the reason is if you’re wondering why this has largely been covered up.

Is American schools see the oppressed class or the class that was being rebelled against as intrinsically the good guys. Right. And so it wants to uplift the oppressed class or the class being rebelled against. Now in this case, the Catholics weren’t really an oppressed class, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Speaker 5: Okay. Well,

Malcolm Collins: they kind of were, because they were regularly arrested in the 13 colonies for being Catholic, which we’ll also get to. Okay. But it was only legal in two of the 13 colonies, by the way, to Catholicism as a religion to vote as a Catholic or run for office of the Catholic. You weren’t, you weren’t allowed to.[00:09:00]

Now, hold on. You might be thinking I am overstating. Oh, sorry. There’s the point. I was thinking can’t. No, they were just

Simone Collins: like, I thought it was more like you have to have these basic requirements set, but not that things precluded you from being able to vote like you could vote as long as you had property and were a man

Malcolm Collins: simonon.

You, you, again, the American school system has betrayed you. The American school system has lied to you. Mm-hmm.

To put that number in context for you. Free blacks could vote in 10 of the 13 colonies, and Jews could vote in four of the 13 colonies. So in terms of the groups that our founding fathers were afraid of having influence in America, blacks, they were broadly okay whiz. Jews, they were slightly trepidatious about, and Catholics, they were terrified of.

Malcolm Collins: The American school system did this because it didn’t want to have people remember that Catholics could be considered a discriminated group because then they might be able to demand concessions.

‘cause you were

Simone Collins: taught about how Catholics were discriminated [00:10:00] against, especially with the big wave of Irish immigration. That happened much later.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But the reason why we talk about the discrimination of the Irish wave is because it was. Significantly less reactionary than it being the motive for America to become an independent nation.

And if you wanna go into our founding fathers, what did they think? Right, of Catholics because you, oh, you can’t, they couldn’t have really been that anti-Catholic. John Adams this is a quote from him in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?

Another quote from John Adams, second President I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits. If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth in hell, it is the company of Loyola. Wow. What did he, what did they

Simone Collins: ever do to John

Malcolm Collins: Adams? Hold on. It wasn’t one guy. They, we’ll get to why the American founders were so [00:11:00] scared of Catholics immigrating into America in a second.

Okay? Yes, please. Let’s go to Samuel Adams. You, I’ve heard of Samuel Adams, signer of the Declaration. Revolutionary leader, of

Simone Collins: course, queer brand.

Malcolm Collins: I did verily believe that popery was a religion destructive to all others. In quote letter to John Scully quote, much more is to be dreaded from the gross of popery in America than from the Stamp Act or any other act destructive of civil rights.

In quote, Boston Gazette 1768. So he said they also cared about the stamp Act. Okay? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Also, what didn’t say Come on,

Speaker 3: did England was, what did he say? Search.

Malcolm Collins: Listen, listen to his words. Okay? He cared about the stamp act, but what he said here was. Much more is to be dreaded from the gross of RI in America than from any of these other acts that you were taught about.

So just let me,

Simone Collins: let me be clear about this. They were uncomfortable with the fact that [00:12:00] the British government, which itself is independent from the Catholic church, simply allowed for religious freedom, including that of Catholics

Malcolm Collins: in Canada

Simone Collins: Yes. In Canada, yes. Which it also govern

Malcolm Collins: specifically. One of the things that led to this, and we’ll get to it in a bit was the legalization of Catholicism as a religion and giving them equal rights to other people.

Mm-hmm. The, the, the, the, the literally, I kid you not. The founding fathers would be more terrified that there have been a Catholic president than a black president? Um, No, because yeah, they probably, they saw black people and slavery as like often lists like more complicated institution that needed to eventually be addressed.

They saw Catholicism as antithetical to everything that they viewed, they

Simone Collins: probably would’ve seen like a black presidency as being inevitable given the number of, of men who have kids with. Black women. Black women in even the early American days. So yeah, they’d be like, well, of course, I mean, we’re producing a [00:13:00] lot

Malcolm Collins: of Americans.

Another one here, Samuel Adams, told a group of Mohawk Indians that the law, referring to the Quebec law

Speaker 3: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: To establish the religion of the Pope in Canada would mean that, quote, some of your children may be induced instead of worshiping the, the only true God to pay his dues to images made with their own

Speaker 5: hands.

Malcolm Collins: End quote. Okay. Now people are like, well, you know, I, I’m, I’m a Thomas Jefferson guy myself, so even if these other guys hold on. Okay. History, I believe furnishes, no example of a priest ridden people maintaining a free civil government. And then in another quote from him, in every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.

They have perverted, the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon. And now note here, a lot of like atheists have taken these to try to mean, like he was talking about all religion. But if you look at the second quote here, it’s very clear that he’s using priests as euphemism for the [00:14:00] Catholic priesthood.

Because he’s talking about it being perverted into mystery and jargon. And then he says, the purest religion ever inciting that the religion is accurate, it’s Catholicism, which is corrupted it, right? Mm-hmm. And

What I find really interesting about Nick Fuentes positions is that they were so accurately predicted by the founding fathers. The founding father said, this is why Catholicism , is going to have some trouble integrating with an American identity because it will lead people to want a more autocratic state.

To want to restrict the freedoms of the citizens, which are both things that Nick Foes desires, but through desiring them, what he shows is there is nothing American nationalist about his position. It is a, position that is in many ways antithetical to any form of American identity that we had was in our history.

And this is why’s. So important to bring this up. He’s trying to reflect like, let’s go back to , a better [00:15:00] pure America, , when the America of history would’ve seen itself as being able to purify and being able to have freedom and liberty. Specifically because of the absence of people with Nick Fuentes cultural background.

, And they would say to him, why don’t you go move to a country? Because there are many Catholic majority countries that aligns with your values. And I’m, I’m noting here not all Catholics have these values, but there is a reason why these values in the eyes of the American founding fathers and in the eyes of Catholics like Nick Fuentes, , are, .

Correlated specifically Catholicism and autocracy, and a restriction of individual freedoms.

And where I might even agree with Nick Fuentes is that if America was a Catholic state, , because when I look at Catholic democracies, they don’t seem to work very well. They have really high amounts of corruption. They have really high amounts of poverty compared to Protestant democracies. , I have to say maybe Catholicism [00:16:00] actually isn’t compatible with democracy in the way that many people assumed it was.

, And maybe. Other forms of government should be experimented with within Catholic majority populations. The problem , is that is both not America and antithetical to America’s founding principles and the principles America has had since its foundation.

And note here, I don’t mean that the way a progressive means it when they say it. When a progressive means, well, it’s against, America was founded to be a country of diverse individuals and a country where anyone could come. And I’m like, no, no, no, no. America was founded was the understanding that if you got too diverse of a cultural perspective with the country, people. From cultural backgrounds and from environmental backgrounds that are more prone to autocratic, , structures are more prone to wanting to restrict individual freedoms would begin to implement those policies within this country.

I’m coming at it from a literally the antithetical [00:17:00] perspective, saying America was founded to be an exclusive and not an inclusive society, and the type of person it was founded to exclude most is individuals like Nick Fuentes.

But what’s cool about this is as we go through what our founding fathers thought of Catholics and Catholics who might believe they have a mandate to impose their religious rules and structure on other people through the, , legal system of the state, we can see what they would have thought of.

Muslims, for example, in immigrating into the country who believed A, they had a theological motivation to implement Sharia law within any location or really any non Protestant religious group, which is of course offensive. And in a weird way, an alignment with Nick Fuentes ideology. It’s just that he tries to rewrite it as a Christian country founded to keep out non-Christian values when it was really more of an [00:18:00] anti-Catholic country founded to keep out high church values.

And note here, this is not me like being an anti-Catholic or something like that. This is me stating historical facts IE, the motivation of various founding fathers combined with a literal cardinal saying, yes, these are accurate historical facts.

And I would note here if you want to be like, well, this was only way back when America was founded. That certainly wasn’t a property or belief that carried through American history. I’d point out to you that if you go to just like the 1940s and you’re looking at what the KKK was up to, or I think they also had , a flare up in the 1960s.

, Their core enemies were, , Catholics, blacks, and Jews often in that order. , If Nick Fuentes wants to bring back it being okay to be racist and antisemitic, then the third and integral part of that sort of roundup of okayness is having an anti-Catholic sentiment being racist and anti-Semitic in the [00:19:00] US always went hand in hand with being anti-Catholic.

He’s ro, ping it here, basically saying we need to normalize kicking out all the un-American minorities, not realizing he is one of the un-American minorities.

Nick Fuentes might not have realized the can that he just popped open.

Speaker 10: Once your pop, the fun don’t come.

Nick Fuentes: people don’t know that this is the other stuff he’s saying on his own platform. Wrote a clip. Hey, I’m a stone cold, white nationalist, and I love Hitler, and I don’t want Indians here, and I’m not a Democrat, okay?

Speaker 13: And I’m not woken, I’m not liberal. All right. And let me, let me preface it too. ‘cause I don’t want nobody saying, Brandon, you took that context. I watched the entire video. He goes on the, that.

It’s like nobody warned him that if you normalize the dishes, [00:20:00] Jews, and blacks, the next dish on the menu is Catholics. He’s up next.

Looks like meats back on our menu, boy.

Malcolm Collins: Then you might be like, okay, okay, okay. Alexander Hamilton. And so here I’m, I’m reading again from a, a, a piece on this Alexander Hamilton Decried, the Quebec Act as a diabolical threat quote, does not your blood run cold?

To think of the English Parliament should pass an act for the establishment of arbitrary power and popery in such an extensive country. Your loves your property, your religion are all at stake. And this gets me because you will often see Nick Fuentes within the interview that he did and within stuff is he will say, America was founded as a Christian country, and there was a little slight of hand and be like, and Catholicism is the only real form of Christianity, therefore America was founded as a Catholic country.

Mm. And this I think is something he’s doing because he expects his audience to not have [00:21:00] education on the actual motivations behind the founding of America. And I will note, I I, he may be ignorant of it himself. Yeah, he, he may be ignorant of it himself. And note here, I’m not saying that Catholicism was the only reason.

I’m just saying that there is a cardinal who says it was a bigger reason than taxation without representation. And I think most people who take an honest look at history would be like, it was probably at least equal into some of the founding fathers a bigger issue.

Speaker 5: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And we need to get to why it was a bigger issue.

But here now you might be saying like it Wait, wait, wait, wait. Surely there were Catholics living in America at the time of the revolution. Surely, and the answer is not really. There was 1.6% of the population might have been Catholic, and you’re like, what about Maryland, the Catholic colony? And it’s like actually Maryland had periods where it arrested people for being Catholic, which we will go over.

And only 15% of the population of Maryland was Catholic, despite [00:22:00] being originally. Founded as a Catholic safe haven. So to go on here. Yeah. Only three of the 13 colonies allowed Catholics to vote all New England colonies except Rhode Island and the Carolinas prohibited Catholics from holding office Virginia would’ve have priests arrested for entering the colony.

Catholic schools were banned in all states except Pennsylvania.

America was basically founded where people from all over the world came together and agreed on one thing. We really don’t wanna live in a country with Catholics.

Speaker 6: Won’t it be nice to get to America where we don’t have to worry about

Catholics.

Speaker 6: anymore? There are no

Catholics.

Speaker 6: in America. But back home in mother Russia, uh, but,

Speaker 2: but there are no

Catholics.

Speaker 2: in America and the streets aren with cheese. There are no

Catholics.

Speaker 2: in America.[00:23:00]

Speaker 7: You think things were bad in Russia? You should see things in my country. Ha.

Malcolm Collins: During the lead up to the revolution, rebels seeking to stoke hatred of Great Britain routinely equated the practices of the Church of England was out of the Catholic Church in the late 1760s and 1770s colonists celebrated anti Pope days, an anti-Catholic festival derived from English guy Fox Day, named after a Catholic, who attempted to assassinate King James.

I first quote orations cartoons and public hangings of effigies depicted royal ministers as in league whiz alternately with the pope and the devil. Writes historian Ruth Block. So again, the point I’m making here is if anyone tells you America was founded as a Christian country and they’re including Catholics in that mix, they are lying to you or do not understand American history or the seed of American [00:24:00] identity.

Now this is not to say that you cannot be a full American and a Catholic. Today. America has changed what it means to be American. You know, we used to have slavery back then and everything. But I think I also

Simone Collins: feel like Catholicism is quite different today. And we’ve talked about this in other episodes where some of the leading Catholic figures are not like Nick Fuentes ‘cause he was raised Catholic, but instead are converts into the religion.

And also they’re just, I don’t know, they’re, they’re much more pluralistic and I don’t think they are practicing a domineering version of Catholicism than what everyone needs to divorced. We’ll, your

Malcolm Collins: thoughts on this in a second. I agree with some of what you say. I don’t agree with some of what you say.

But let’s continue as the history lesson. Okay? Okay. Yes. Because it’s clear that you were never taught this stuff. No, I really wasn’t. And, and for me, I always just like when I, when I heard this stuff in the past and it really confused me sort of Catholic American nationalism, like when I heard this, I was like, surely there must be caveats to this.

Yeah. They don’t actually think America was founded as a [00:25:00] Catholic country, do they? And I think going into this can help be like, this is an identity you can have, you can be a Catholic American nationalist, but there are things that you have to grapple with to adopt this identity. And you know, if, if you really want to be a Catholic nationalist, you might be better off immigrating to a Catholic majority country, which there are lots of, and, and we’ll talk about why the founding fathers, because the founding fathers were not afraid of Catholicism for no reason. There actually are some theological reasons for this Really? Okay. That make, even in moderate Catholics, it, it, it can cause some co conflict with American core values that I think even today, everyone would argue our American core values.

Hmm. Even, even Nick Fuentes would argue our American core values. Hmm. He just hasn’t thought through where Catholic theology might have a problem with these values. I mean, he literally probably has, this is the thing that I don’t get. He, he, through the entire interview, he’s talking about how like Jews are loyal to like a separate state that is like [00:26:00] antagonistic to us.

And I’m like, Nick, like on every issue that you say is important to like America, like the immigration campaign that we’re doing and stuff like that, the, the, the Vatican has spoken against it, right? Like this is an organization that is actively opposed to most, they even did. I think the whole of the most interesting

Simone Collins: points Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Announcement that we’ll get to that seemed directly targeted at Nick Fuentes basically saying, stop doing this stuff. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, I think his form of Catholicism works because he is not a, he doesn’t actually care. And this is true of a lot of our fans. And I think a lot of the, the American Catholic nationalists, they don’t actually care about the Pope.

They don’t actually care about service to the Central Vatican bureaucracy, but unfortunately that kind of makes them. Protestants who are calling themselves Catholics which they’re like, well call ourselves Catholics until the church works itself out again, but we’ll talk about this in a second. Okay?

Speaker 4: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I’m going back to reading from an article here. It was, when I mentioned earlier, [00:27:00] Roger Sherman and other members of the Continental Congress wanted to prohibit Catholics from serving in the continental Army. In 1774, parliament passed the Quebec Act, taking the enlightened position that the Catholic Church could remain the official Church of Quebec.

This appalled and terrified many colonists who assumed this to be a British attempt to subjugate them religiously. And by allowing the Los and Catholics to expand into the colonies, colonial newspapers railed against the poppish threat. The Pennsylvania Gazette said the legislation would now allow quote these dogs of hell in quote, to quote, erect their heads and triumph within our borders.

In quote goodness gracious, quite a bit stronger than Nick Fuentes words on immigration today will be. The Boston Evening Post reported that the step was quote for the execution of this hellish plan in quote, God to organize 4,000 Canadian Catholics for an attack on America and Rhode Island. Every [00:28:00] single issue of the Newport Mercury from October 2nd, 1774 to March 20th, 1775 contained quote, at least one insidious reference to the Catholic religion of the Canadians in quote, oh my God.

According to the historian Charles Metsker, they couldn’t write a single paper. This is like mainstream. You’re getting Fox News of this era. Literally every newscast is starting with a toast. Catholics sir, but what I mean is if you weren’t taught this right, you are unaware of how important this was to the mindset of the American Revolutionary and of the founding fathers of this country.

And this, this becomes important. We haven’t gotten to like where this matter is with all of his Jew stuff, but it will actually be very germane in just a second. Okay? Okay. In New York, a group marched to the financial exchange carrying a huge flag inscribed George, third Rex and the [00:29:00] Liberties of America, no popery.

Later that day, a pamphlet that had been distributed urging tolerance towards the Catholics of Canada was smeared with tar in feathers and nailed to the Pilly. So let’s go into a bit of the history of what it was like to be eight. Catholic in the American colonies, right? Like, surely these were places of religious freedom.

Maryland founded as a Catholic refugee camp, right? You know what, what, what is this? This, the Catholic colony, they always say that to make you think that. It was like, well, you know, in Massachusetts they might have been anti-Catholic, but in Maryland is where the Catholics were. And you know, yeah, there was like

Simone Collins: a place for everyone in the United States.

There was a place for Quakers, there was a place for Catholics, there was a place for Protestants, there was a place for Protestants, got kicked out by other Protestants, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, what happened was there was a Puritan revolt between 1644 and 1646, after which Catholics were stripped of all rights or sorry, of a number of rights.

In 1689, Protestant Association’s [00:30:00] Revolution Catholic governor and officials were arrested. Public Catholic worship was banned until 1776. Oh, so in the Catholic state. Public Catholic worship would get you arrested. Gosh. Okay. Just making like, I wanna be clear about the scale here. People Massachusetts Bay and New England, 1647, Massachusetts banned Jesuit priests, violators faced imprisonment, whipping or banishment.

1650s, two Catholic traitors in Boston were briefly jailed and expelled for possessing rosaries and statues. They were jailed not for. Praying not for anything else, for possessing rosaries and statues of Christ. Oh, the nerve. Or it might have been Mary. Well that’s idolatry. It’s, yeah. I root out, I think we, we need to go back to these laws.

We have been turned off on idolatry. I’m joking. Of course. I don’t think that we should arrest everyone who practices [00:31:00] idolatry. Um, I’m joking again. Of course they don’t see it as idolatry.

So when Proto America did have laws on the book about restricting, , religious freedoms and stuff like that, based on their interpretation of the Bible, , and Nick is like, well, we need to go back to that. These were laws that would get you arrested for having a rosary or.

Having, , iconography of Christ, right? , These were laws that were specifically meant to target individuals like Nick, he is actually protected, and Catholics are actually protected by the direction America has gone to not have these type of laws on the book anymore, to not have laws enforcing religious or ideological doctrine.

So if we actually ask the questions that Nick claims to ask, but ask them with this historical context in mind, the question we’re really asking is, should we go back to a country that arrests people [00:32:00] for having any sort of statue at, of a God, any sort of picture of a God, , in, in their car or in their house? And when I ask this question, I have to say, Hmm. I mean. Maybe crime rates would go down, maybe we would have a more stable democracy. But those are the types of questions that Nick Eth at least wants being aired. I.

I mean, you know, us, we’ve gone back to saying I think that the Cromwell laws, , have merit to them, , outlawing music and dancing and theater and, , certainly, , any iconography that would be religious in nature. , But I just don’t think that those work in a modern context, , for many. Side reasons.

However, I think the spirit of these sorts of laws is something I can get behind. It’s just not, not what Nick would want. And I can only imagine some of our followers here again, who may not have a good historical knowledge, might be like, Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm, come on. You and Simone aren’t even real Christians. You [00:33:00] follow some weird version of Christianity that tries to harmonize Calvinist Protestantism with the latest scientific developments and understanding.

The founding fathers had no form of Christianity like that in mind. Meanwhile, a historian who’s watching them and shares their sentiment is rapidly signaling the, . Cut the mic. Cut the mic. Uh, because if you’re aware of what the, , founding fathers actually believed, you would be aware that it.

Was exactly that, and if it had been allowed to develop, it likely would’ve developed in our direction rather than having the early Puritan communities be replaced by Catholic communities through waves of immigrants.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway new York. Okay. New York, right. The city of all types.

So, in 1700 anti priest law, Catholic priests faced life imprisonment if caught. At least one Father John Uri was executed in 1741. Now I’d note here that the reason he was executed was because he [00:34:00] played part in fighting a slave revolt. Okay.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: if you look at the historical documents, most of the panic around it was the fact that he was Catholic.

That’s not the slaves. It’s the Catholic says. Yeah, that was, that was the bigger issue. This is also true. I will put on screen here this, this image, because it was a popular image of the time period that silversmiths and engraver Paul Revere created a cartoon for the Royal American magazine called the Mitra Minute.

It depicted four contented looking Mitre Anglican bishops dancing in Minette around a copy of the Quebec Act to show the quote. Aberration incontinence of the Roman religion. End quote, standing nearby or the author of the Quebec Act with a devil with bat ears and spiky wings, hovering behind them.

Whispering instructions. And a you could see another thing here, which I think is kind of funny from a modern context. Okay. British were not even Catholic, but they were Mexican. No. Yes. Which spelled kind of like Catholic to the [00:35:00] colonists. Oh, still too, too Catholic derived. Too Catholic. Derived too many, too high church.

It wasn’t just, and this is actually like a very important point. The American colonies were not specifically anti-Catholic. They were anti high. Church America was founded as a state. As an anti high church state, all high church religions that now reside within America, whether it’s Anglicanism or Catholicism or anything like that would’ve mortified many of the founding fathers.

And do require some like degree, if you come from one of these traditions of, of understanding how you reckon with the motive for the Foundation of America. And America’s evolution. Just as you know, I think a, a black person should not an an, you know, you need to take into account like America did have slavery.

Like this was a bad thing that we did. This wasn’t just like [00:36:00] with Catholics. It wasn’t just like the Irish thing, right? It wasn’t just anti-air, it wasn’t just anti Italian. It goes to the very genesis of the country. And I’ll put another political ad here, which is a romanism, and it’s like all of the tendrils, corruption, ignorance, tyranny, superstition.

Wow. Romanism is a monster with arms of satanic power and strength, romanism crushing to the very ends of the earth, the arm of superstition crushing the American child that have subversion crushing the American flag. So I’m not gonna go through the whole good. This is gracious.

Simone Collins: This is just, I, I mean, yeah.

No one, no one’s really sharing this, this stuff. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so today Catholics make up about 20.8% of the US population. That’s a

Simone Collins: lot. That’s a lot.

Malcolm Collins: You can see our episode, the great replacement already happened, but it basically did, the Puritan Faction of America was essentially replaced with the Catholic faction, which had very different voting behavior and was much more [00:37:00] progressive up until recently.

Recently Catholics flipped and overall Catholics vote conservative now, but up until now, Catholics were largely a progressive voting block. And we’re sort of central to the progressive coalition keep in mind because they were kind of a minority community that had a lot of discrimination against them.

Mm-hmm. And when RFK won the, the, the nomination, everyone was freaking out ‘cause they said you’d be loyal to the church. But why the 20% is important to know is you have Nick Fuentes here, guy who comes out and says Jews are a secret cabal that controls. You know, the US government and industry mm-hmm.

Various aspects and branches of it. Right. And we’re gonna go into the receipts that he has on this. Jews do have disproportionate positions of power across both government and industry. And he says that they used nepotism to achieve this and, and secret organizations to achieve this. Here’s the problem.

Mm-hmm. The United [00:38:00] States is split into three branches of government. Okay. The, the, if, if, if you are an outsider, and you’re not familiar with this, this is to prevent one branch of government from ever gaining control. Well, what if I told you that a shadowy religion and spirit organization had taken control?

Complete control of one third of the United States government. One of these three. Let’s go into the Supreme Court justices right now. Okay. Got John J. Roberts Jr. Was he raised a Catholic? Yes. Is he still a Catholic? Yes. Clarence Thomas. Was he raised a Catholic? Yes. Is he still a Catholic? Yes. Samuel a Alito Jr.

Was he raised a Catholic? Yes. Is he still a Catholic? Yes. Remember that 20% there? That’s that. [00:39:00] The American Catholic population. Mm. Sonya Soda Moor. Was she raised a Catholic? Yes. Is she still a Catholic? Yes. Brett Kavanaugh. Raised a Catholic. Yes. Still a Catholic? Yes. Amy Coney Barrett. Raised a Catholic. Yes.

Still a Catholic? Yes. Well, um, well, hold on, hold on, hold on. Now we’re gonna get to the

Simone Collins: What about the Joos Malcolm? They’re there too.

Malcolm Collins: Four and only four non-Catholics. Okay. Amy Coney Barrett. Was she raised a Catholic? Yes. Me. She’s still a Catholic? No. Uh uh. Oh, sorry, not Kate Co. Neil Gorsuch was raised a Catholic, but now he’s an Episcopal.

Ellen Kager. Kagan is Jewish. And Tigen Brown Jackson is Protestant. Now I note here was this edition of the Protestant person onto the Supreme Court. That’s a pretty big deal because that’s the dominant religion in America. And the last Supreme Court, before she was added. It didn’t have a [00:40:00] single Protestant on it.

Simone Collins: I thought we had more people with Jewish backgrounds than the Supreme Court. It was, it

Malcolm Collins: had one extra Jew, so it was two Jews, and then everyone else was born into a Catholic family with one of them being an Episcopal.

Simone Collins: Oh, was RBG. She was Jewish or had Jewish background.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, Ellen Kagan and Stephen g Brear were the, were the, the last one, but yeah.

But then Ruth, Ruth Ginsburg, the Supreme Court is controlled. If the Catholics decided to vote in a block, they could control the entire way our state determines, like the United States determines and interacts with laws. Right. That’s a big deal. And you could say, well, that’s just because Catholics are disproportionately in the legal profession.

It’s not as if there is a secret, oh God. There is a secret organization that explicitly put them into this position. It’s not

Simone Collins: secret. Secret. So let’s talk’s about the

Speaker 4: Federalist Society, but it’s

Simone Collins: not secret. It’s fine. [00:41:00] It’s out there, it’s doing its thing. It’s very public about what it does. Yeah. So The Federalist, yes.

Ruth Ginsburg was a

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, I mean, because we can see, so the, the Federalist Society is an organization that is run by Catholics. Now that they say that that’s not their motivation, but when you look at the people who they get appointed into judge positions, they are disproportionately Catholics.

And you might say, well, that’s because Catholics are disproportionately conservative, which is also not true. As I pointed out, historically, Catholics were not overwhelmingly majority. So you had a conservative organization that had a lot of Catholics within it. So let’s look at all of these Catholic people who were appointed John J.

Roberts. Was he, does he have Federalist Society ties? Yes. Former steering committee member Clarence Thomas. Yes. Longtime member Samuel Alito. Yes. Active member Sonia Sotomayor? No, the, I think the only one who wasn’t Brett Kavanaugh. Yes. 24 years frequent speaker Neil Gorsuch. Yes. Member convention speaker Amy Coney Barrett.

Yes. Affiliate. All of these Catholics who are in [00:42:00] the Supreme Court were put there by a giant invitation. I think it’s an invitation only society that does have closed towards meetings. So it’s what you would call a secret society that took control of one of our branches of government. Which matters a lot when you consider this in the context of America being founded as an anti high church country.

Right. Because it, it’s, it’s, it, it, it is. Sort of like an active and intentional displacement. Now, am I okay with this? Actually, yes. I’m totally okay with this. I’m okay with it for the same reason I’m okay with Jews favoring in group stuff. The point being is I think that we all have the right to favor our in groups and it’s important to investigate how in group favoritism is working and who is actually a better ally given your values and your long-term goals for America’s future.

But I think to just throw out there, [00:43:00] Jews have taken control of things and used invitation only to organizations to do this is a bit calling the kettle black because Jews control nothing as powerful as the Supreme Court. Just. For context here now to continuum and, and you bet your bottom effing dollar, if the Jews did control the Supreme Court, people would be freaking the F out.

And why am I okay with Catholics controlling the Supreme Court? Because Catholics largely speaking, other than Fuentes, uphold sort of their side of the right alliance, which is to say, I understand that my values are different from the values of your average right wing individual in America, and therefore I won’t impose them on people.

So we can work together in a coalition, which is something I know, I know that all of my values aren’t held by all right wing people, so I do not attempt to impose those values. I try to work where our values overlap, like, you know, restricting the, the age at which you can get an abortion, for example, right?

Like, I think that’s a good thing. We agree on that. Let’s work on that. You know, restricting government censorship, making government [00:44:00] smaller, removing government corruption, removing alphabet soup stuff, right? Yeah. Okay. Now then Nick goes into all of the money we give the Jews, which normally is about 3.8 billion in aid to Israel in a given year.

Okay. Oh, all of this enormous money we give to the Jews. Do you know how many on average we give to Catholic majority countries every year? Oh, 3.2 billion about what we give to Israel every year. But do you know? Well, but that’s

Simone Collins: spread across a bunch of capital. Hold on, hold

Malcolm Collins: on, hold on. It’s not actually, most of it’s in the Caribbean.

But, but but here’s where it gets spicy. The money that we give the Jews, the 3.8 billion, almost all of it has to be spent on American goods. Yeah. IE American weapons, American business. Right. It’s basically just coming right back to the United States. Yeah. The 3.2 billion we give to Catholic majority countries.

That stays in those countries. Really? So it’s not that, do not have to come back [00:45:00] to the United States. Oh, interesting. So at the end of the day, America is losing way more money on Catholic majority countries than we are losing on Jewish majority countries. Wow.

Simone Collins: That’s a very, you, you pose interesting questions when you, when you look at these things, I really appreciate that you do this recently.

I’ll

Malcolm Collins: note that last year we did up the Israel amount to 14.3 billion, but this is still like not a lot when you consider it against things like the amount we’re giving to Ukraine and stuff like that.

To word it another way, we have to pay 60 to $70 billion annually, uh, for many years to deal with the situation in the Ukraine with Israel. It was a one-time additional payment of 14.3 billion. I.

Malcolm Collins: And this is the thing when he is like, oh, Judi Israel is just a liability. I’m like, Israel fights their own effing wars.

They’re not a liability. Ukraine was a liability. Right. I, I’ve seen in real time what a country that the liability looks like. You know, Israel you know, ends its wars. And. Wins its wars and all it needs is a one year payment. We only increased the amount we were giving [00:46:00] them for one year, and this year the amount that we sent them was only 500 million more than normal, which just isn’t that much when you contrast it to these other numbers.

So, they’re not as much of a liability as you would pretend they are. Mm-hmm. Now I’m gonna go into the next part because I think that this is sort of the core of this and this, this gets to the point that you’re talking about with, you know, a lot of our fans who are Catholics or Nick Fuentes may not see himself as fundamentally subservient to the Vatican or as like an agent was in America trying to turn American into a vassal state of the Vatican.

Simone Collins: Or they’re just, at least where they are focused is on building strong Catholic communities in the United States. And it’s not.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And I look, we support my number one top candidate for the leader of my party in the next election cycle is a Catholic. Okay. Yeah. JD Vance.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I am all in on JD Vance.

But my point, so I’m not like anti-Catholic or something like that, or I, it’s not that I, but I think that there are things that we need to sort of [00:47:00] talk about as a wider movement. Okay. So Catholicism is BA religion and a governance system, one with its own country. Mind you, if you say I am Catholic only in a religious sense, but I reject the governance system, IEI reject the Pope and the Cardinals and apostolic succession.

Okay? You are in fact just like claiming to be a Catholic while definitionally not being a Catholic.

Simone Collins: I don’t know because also I. Feel like these, the, the Catholics that we know who also aren’t very Vatican oriented, who are much more grassroots oriented, represent the future of Catholicism. I

Malcolm Collins: do. I I think they, I think if you look at what’s happening in the Vatican, you look at, we have not seen a shift more conservative with this pope, which a lot of people, no, we have not.

Simone Collins: No. But I just see that as, as, as an additional level of, of divorce from this level. Look

Malcolm Collins: at, [00:48:00] remember during the revolution the, the, the, the groups that they were afraid of, the groups that they were mad about was, was two groups, the Anglicans and the Catholics. Okay. Yeah. So you might not know this, but over the past few weeks, the Anglican Church has split into two churches.

Why? I didn’t know

Simone Collins: this until you told me this morning. This is insane.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Why did it split into two churches? It split into two churches because the next version of what for them is essentially their pope is going to be a woman. And a lot of the churches didn’t like that. And the reality is, is what it looks to an outsider is happening with Catholicism is.

The actual central structure of the church is moving further and further captured by the urban monoculture. And a lot of the on the ground Catholics just sort of believe God will guide it back to where it originally was and where it needs to be in alignment with scripture. Right. And a lot of Anglicans thought that was going to happen was their religion as well.

Hmm. But the point I’m making [00:49:00] here is even if you take this position definitionally, you’re either, you know, like pseudo admitting to yourself that you’re not actually a Catholic, right? Like, that you have separated from the apostolic succession, from the Vatican, from the, the, the, the bureaucracy. Or, or you’re sort of like an ab absentia Catholic and Catholic community waiting for the Vatican to become sane again.

And this is what I would call, sort of a soft secessionist, right? Like a That’s

Simone Collins: what I think we have mostly in, in the, in the strongest Catholic communities in the United States. Yes. Yes. Like they’re leveraging the, the resources that they get from their parishes and their local bishops, and even from higher levels.

But they also are like, yeah, we’re,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, but Simone, this, this matters as I’m going to begin to lay out the rest of this. Right. Okay. ‘cause it actually really matters if you think about where the party is gonna go, where the conservative alliance goes and where cultural alliances between groups like this and groups like us you know, where, [00:50:00] where the matics and the, and because they don’t see themselves asmatic, but they’re, they really are kind of soft matics.

And I’m gonna continue here. So, i’m gonna be honest here. I think a lot of our followers who are Catholic and even Nick fall into this category. But what I mean, if you are a real Catholic and follow the logic of that theology is that the logical conclusion, and, and this is, this is very important.

So suppose you are an actual Catholic, like you follow the actual doctrine, and I don’t mean like one branch, I mean literally any mainstream branch of Catholics, they hold onto this belief. The, the goal is to one day convert everyone on earth, or not everyone, but hopefully the majority of people on earth into Catholics, make every country a Catholic majority country.

I’m sure Nick would say that is the long term goal. And then by extension, every country is subordinate to, because presumably. The Vatican sorts itself out. It shakes off all of this liberalism. It becomes the way it’s supposed to be. Again, [00:51:00] a central governing body of technocrats that has its own country and controls every other country on earth, sort of like vassal states.

Mm-hmm. Basically it’s recreating a theological version of the UN to be a Catholic integralist, which I think is a religious mandate if you actually take Catholicism at face value to say we do eventually want to convert everyone. And I do not want to change the, the papal system, right. Is to say eventually we convert everyone and then everyone is subordinate to Rome.

Well, the, the, the problem here being is one, it’s the ultimate goal globalist position. It’s sort of like the, the maximalist globalist position, which is, if you are familiar with the rest of my ideology or Simone’s ideology, you would understand why that’s so horrifying to us. And I think that some of the castles can feel like, why, why are they so, like, do they hairs go up when we’re talking about [00:52:00] Catholic stuff?

And it’s because a lot of them just ignore that this is the end goal. But if you look at Simone and I, and you look at how we view the world, we’re always thinking in terms of end goals. Like 500 years, 5,000 years, 10,000 years, a million years into the future. What, where do we want humanity to be? And so if we’re always seeing things.

A thousand years out or 500 years out or something like that. We’re going to be very aware of what is the active end goal of different groups, even if it’s not what they’re fighting for in the moment. Mm-hmm. And the theological, I’m not talking about political, the theological end goal is to essentially transform the earth into like a global theological, but operating under God.

Right. And, and that’s not an evil plan or anything like that. I can see why somebody would think that that was a good thing to do. But [00:53:00] it goes against not just our theological leanings, but our political leanings. Because I am a nationalist, I am an anti globalist. And I think that this, and, and people will note here, they’re like, well, what about other groups?

Because there’s other groups in the Conservative Alliance, and a lot of religious groups have this as their end state, right? Like Mormons eventually want to convert everyone on Earth to Mormonism. And eventually that would mean that, that all governments would be subordinate to the Mormon Central Church in Utah.

But here is where it gets a little more nuanced. It’s not the same for every religion, right? So a Mormon who wants to do that can be an American nationalist in a way that a Catholic cannot be a real American nationalist if they admit this long term of plan of Catholicism, which is to say that a, the central Church of Mormonism is in America already.

So they benefit their long-term plan benefits from [00:54:00] disproportionately benefiting America on the world stage and empowering America within the world stage. We don’t, whereas

Simone Collins: the Vatican is not exactly gonna benefit from making America rise.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. The Vatican isn’t anything and will actually go over it. It has been a long time direct enemy of American interests.

Yeah. I’ve only

Simone Collins: heard of, of, of criticisms of American policy coming from Vatican City to be fair.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. It’s not awesome. They, they, they are, they are one of America’s core sort of political, as a political axis, one of our core enemies which, which makes them very different from like Israel.

Israel will do stuff like spy on us or sell technology or something like that. But it’s always out of self-interest. It’s not in an active attempt to sabotage us for the sake of sabotaging us. It’s to advance to their own goals. Well, no, no, no. I

Simone Collins: think a better way of putting that is their [00:55:00] self-interest doesn’t involve sabotaging or knocking us down, whereas perhaps there are reasons why the Catholic Church would benefit from that.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Everyone

Simone Collins: acts with self-interest involved.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Everyone acts with self-interest. I don’t mind that Israel occasionally acts with self-interest.

Simone Collins: It, it only acts with self-interest. Everyone only acts with self-interest.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You’re missing my point here, Simone. Israel, when Israel does something to sabotage the US’ political interest, it is because they were able to gain some benefit from that action.

The Vatican will, and we’ll go into instances of this sabotage America’s interests with no benefit to them.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: For the sake, because they, they see America as an existential enemy of theirs.

Simone Collins: Yes. The benefit to them is knocking them down if, if, if knocking, knocking us down. Yeah. Because

Malcolm Collins: we’re an enemy. But Israel doesn’t see us that way.

I’m, I’m, I’m pointing this out. This is a very big [00:56:00] difference in the relationship. There’s,

Simone Collins: yes, there’s greater alignment between the, the long-term goals of Israel and the United States than there are between the Vatican and the United States, but

Malcolm Collins: we’ll get to that in a second. But with, with, with Catholic, for example, I, I do think you could be a Catholic nationalist and like an Italian because I think that Italy’s interests are really aligned with the Vatican’s interest.

And, and you could, you know, you’re advancing Italy’s interest, you’re advancing Catholic, et cetera. Now you may ask why. Why do I so readily ally with Catholic factions within the wider, you know, sort of whether it’s the prenatal list coalition, why do I try to offer advice on how things can be fixed?

Why do I work to alert them to their own low birth rates and everything like that? There are a number of reasons. As I said, one, everything that we could win a campaign on right now I am broadly aligned with Catholics on if you tried to ban, for example, IVF in the United States, you probably would not win a presidential election, right?

And so there’s no reason [00:57:00] for them to advocate for that, right? If you tried to you know, make a super social program like I would want to, you’re not gonna win a US election, right? So we, but it’s not just that because I’m not just aligning with Catholics, I’m actively trying to make the Catholic movement more healthy when I’m like, here is social technology you can use, here’s a way you could start an order to address this.

Here’s, you know, you have low fertility rates here, here, and here. Here’s how I’d address it if I within your community, why am I trying to make someone that is existentially at ahead with my goals? You know, we believe that humans have a mandate to intergenerationally improve. And so this means that we believe in engaging with genetic science, like genetic alteration of humans engaging with brain computer interface, emerging of humans with ai, everything like that, right?

Like artificial wounds, all of this stuff that, because Catholics believe in the sanctity of the body, Catholics are actively against and would actively attempt to oppose so somebody could act, which I note here, Jews are not actively against. Like if you’re like, why do we so [00:58:00] readily align with Jews?

Whereas like Protestant Mormons eventually want everyone to be Mormons. So even if we align in the, in the short term, we’re gonna have problems in the long term, right? Also Mormons don’t oppose any of this technology, like Mormons are okay with all this, which is one of the reasons why even if Mormons became like the dominant faction in the United States, they’d still be our, you know, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t attempt to strip us of things that we need to achieve our theological mandates.

If Jews became the dominant faction in the United States, they would not attempt to strip us of things we need to achieve our theological mandates. If Catholics did, they absolutely would. In, in most Catholic majority countries, we wouldn’t have a single child, because IVF is functionally banned. They make you do the transfers immediately.

This is in most Catholic Europe, majority countries. And it’s you know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have a single kid. My line doesn’t exist. Right? So, the, the, the point I’m making here is so why do we so try to help them in readily ally with them? And the real reason is. Because they’re kind of on the back foot.

If they were doing as well as the Jews, I might have a more concern about them. But the [00:59:00] reality is, is they have desperately low fertility rates. Catholic majority countries, like one point, like one eight in like Italy, 1.51. No, it’s 1.15 in, in Spain. Good. All across America. We have rates around 1.1, 1.2.

Now Catholics are kind of going ex state in the United States. They have low fertility rates. You know, the, we’re just seeing very, very low Catholic fertility rates. Outside of one community, which is Hispanic immigrants in the United States have a relatively decent fertility rate, but it doesn’t offset the rest of the Catholic fertility rate.

And because they have such a low fertility rate and not just a low fertility rate but a low fertility rate combined with a lack of economic relevance. You know, most Catholic majority countries, and this is just a thing like when, when Nick Fuentes might say something like. I don’t want our country to become a Muslim majority country because Muslim majority countries you know, are poor and corrupt.

But the, you’re dealing with the same thing. From my perspective, I just think he lacks the, the external framing. [01:00:00] If you are not a Catholic, and you look around the world at Catholic majority countries, every single one of them is poor and corrupt with the possible alter exception of Ireland, which is in a downward spiral right now.

So,

Simone Collins: I think that primarily that it’s the tax incentives with, with large corporations, that’s been prop up, right? So kind of, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So this is why when I think about like long-term partners, right, like for my ideological framework, my religious framework, and, and we can be a movement and we can all sit down and be like, Hey, like, and even our Catholic followers, they’re not hiding this from us.

They know fo like we know and they know they don’t want us to, to have a family that grows really large and popularizes the use of germline gene editing in humans. They don’t want us to,

Simone Collins: well, I think they, honestly, I think Catholics would prefer that to polygenic risk or selection because you have fewer, I thought this as

Malcolm Collins: well.

And I was talking to a reporter [01:01:00] in Telemundo and she’s like, they absolutely would not. Oh, really? Even though ideologically they see one as, as like murder. They, they still see the second as worse because they see it as so violating of the human condition.

Speaker 5: Hmm

.

And this is because the root of our individual conservative ideologies comes from two different places. Their conservative ideologies root is wanting to go back to a more traditional way of doing things, whereas our conservative root is very nichean. It is the strong should be the weak. We need to continue to become stronger.

And if there is a technology that allows us to counter the DYS genetic trends within our population. Or in some way strengthen our population relative to other populations. We have a mandate to engage with that we understand where their position comes from, and I think they understand where our position comes from, and they’re both parts of the wider conservative ideology.

Malcolm Collins: And so our Catholic fans, like none of our Catholic fans are surprised by this.

Like, this [01:02:00] isn’t me like being. I am mad at cast. Our Catholic fans are like, yeah, I don’t like that you guys do this stuff and this stuff and this stuff. Well, that’s one

Simone Collins: of the great things about our podcast is that the people who listen to this podcast are not like our ideological mirrors. They’re very different people

Malcolm Collins: and I love that.

Yeah. And I think point, think that’s why. And, and they can say, and they can be like, but honestly we are at a po, a political fulcrum point in terms of human history and we cannot risk losing an election. Like the fact that Nick Fuentes didn’t even vote in the last election cycle to me is really telling of where his heart lies.

That, you know, babies are being murdered by his standards and he couldn’t bring himself to Ally. Was the mainstream conservative party over this, over what is really pretty aesthetic differences? But we’ll get into that in a second. So I wanna go into some of the quotes from the interview that I thought were really interesting. He said, I think we are required to love our wives. I think you have to love our wives as our wives. So [01:03:00] he’s talking about the way he sees women and everything like that. And he also talked about, you know, why he doesn’t have a wife yet.

Really what I took away from this, he says he, he basically tried to say that there all women will destroy your life. All women will make you unhappy. And of course on the other side here, the what was his name? It’s not

Simone Collins: like a big portion of our audience wouldn’t agree with him.

Malcolm Collins: Tucker Carl, Tucker Carlson was like.

No. But it all women might ruin the, one of the, one of the problems was the griper movement more broadly. Mm-hmm. And Nick has talked about this and it’s one of the reasons apparently he doesn’t get a wife is because he has found that when people in the movement marry out and no, here I have no like animosity out Nick Fuentes.

He seems like a perfectly nice guy. I can be like, our goals. Our run cross-function to his goals long-term. But I think he could be a very valuable player in the conservative alliance if he would stop stabbing us in the back by telling people not to vote during critical election cycles. Like if Kamala had won, what would be happening in American media right now?

You know, what would be happening with the American legal system right now? With the [01:04:00] school system like in Gaza even, right. Like the, the so many horrible things would’ve happened. And it just seems like such a petty, but not to get to that, because I’ve already had episodes where I go off on that. If you have a movement where you have a fear of marrying because you think you will leave the movement, if you do that and you have a fear of your followers marrying because it has frequently caused them to leave the movement, then this is not a movement that is cohesive with intergenerational stability.

Right? Like, it’s not a movement that’s going to matter in 50 years because they’re not gonna reproduce. Yeah. And Nick actually is well aware of this, which I like, you know, he’s, he’s a smart guy, right? He thinks that, that if they can make enough of an Overton window shift now with like the 10 years of relevance, they might have you know, that he can move American conservatism, the, the breeders more towards his perspectives.

Can he achieve this? I think he has achieved it to a, a, a small extent, you know, through getting on the Tucker Carlson show, everything [01:05:00] like that. Airing out the things that he’s airing out, which we’ll go into a lot of the things he said about Israel. But I don’t know if he’ll achieve it. I, I don’t see it being possible long run ‘cause it’s just not a long term plan.

Mm-hmm. It’s a, it’s a short term plan that seems incompatible with procreation. If people who get married leave it, if it can’t appeal to women. Right. And he said here, I don’t know, a happy woman that’s a liberal. Then the, the, and, and Tucker Carlson was saying, I don’t know a, a happy married woman who’s not a conservative sort of pointing out that if you marry a woman and you make her happy, she’ll become conservative.

Right. Like you did. You were very progressive when I met you. Yeah. Another one here that he said that I thought was pretty rich, they have an international community across borders, extremely organized. Like no other community is like that. And I’m like, except for like the Catholics, you guys literally have the Federalist Society.

You literally took over a branch of the US government. The Jews have not achieved that, you know? But I think it’s a bit of a, it’s hard to see this stuff when you’re inside the house. Then when you’re outside the house and the [01:06:00] house is so obvious looking. Yeah. Right. And I think that this is also when people are like, well, the Jews are a group that’s different from you and has crossed interest to you.

And I’m like, so are the Catholics, right? Like we are a small group. The techno puritans, my family’s traditions, like these, these ProTech people. We are a very, the, the last descendants of Puritan logic in America. We are a very small faction, right? We need to build alliances with groups that are not us.

While being aware that these other groups will only build alliances with us if they’re self-serving. Right? This is as true for Catholics as it’s for Jews. He says Jews wanna protect Israel. He said, he said a number of times the enemy is the conservative movement, and he actively sees mainstream conservatism as a bigger enemy than Wokes and stuff like this.

And I wasn’t sure if this is just like. My prejudice of him that was leading me to believe that he was actively attempting to sabotage the United States Conservative movement Uhhuh. And he made it very clear that no, this is an active choice on his part. Which does mean that if you are a [01:07:00] member of the conservative movement in, in the United States, and this is why it’s like, don’t attack conservatives that are to the right of you.

It’s like, I agree with that. If they haven’t made the mainstream conservative movement, their active and stated enemy that’s where it gets a little different when their goal is to prevent us from winning election cycles and killing babies, right? Mm-hmm. From their perspective. Well, and from our perspective

yeah. Okay. So. I wanted to now go over like what the Vatican is actually doing, what its ideology actually is because I think that this is important to contrast with Nick’s ideology here because I think what we can see is his worldview sort of only works as long as you forget that the thing that makes Catholics different from Protestants is apostolic succession and the Vatican and the central bureaucracy.

Okay? At least some branch of the Protestantism, not every branch of Protestantism. Okay. So, plenary indulgence for world. You state eco participation 2023. Ah, attending Lisbon’s World [01:08:00] used a a Vatican event. God indulgences could earn a plenary indulgence by joining cry of the earth, an ecological initiative.

Speaker 3: What

Malcolm Collins: they, they are now giving indulgences for environmentalist work. I, you

Simone Collins: know, that makes sense actually. I mean, like, given where, how the church has evolved over time, that it has become much more progressive and that they still have indulgences that Yeah. That checks out. That would, that would be happening.

We’re

Malcolm Collins: hoping that it is no longer possible to doubt that the human anthropic origin of climate change and that this, you know, affects everyone on earth, et cetera, et cetera. Francis warns of extreme climate change at Ritz from CO twos, and they have been extremely adamant. And this is a, a big problem for Italy at bringing in refugees and extremely critical of Trump’s refugee policy.

We ourselves see the migrants and refugees do [01:09:00] not only represent a problem to be solved, but our brothers and sisters to be welcome, respected, and loved.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So, and they’ve pushed for personal invitations of migrants into Italy. They have called Trump’s policy a disgrace. They have attacked Trump during his first election cycle as well.

A person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be and not building bridges, is not a Christian. Okay. And I note here a, a fun one here is ‘cause now I’m gonna go over what, what Nick would actually say and, and some quotes from Nick.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But they’re like, Jews want to take over the world and force their no hide laws on us.

And I’m like, bro, one Jews already disproportionately outcompete other people within systems. What are no hide laws? Sorry. No hide laws. We’ve done another episode pointing out that they’re basically a scam and not real, and some modern Jews made it up. And it’s a very long video. We’re not always positive to Jewish people.

Mind you in that episode, we argue that ju the contrary

Simone Collins: to what everyone in our comments argues and,

Malcolm Collins: and Christianity is very obviously the [01:10:00] correct success or to the ancient Christian religion, which is only called Judaism. Now because of, I don’t wanna go into this in this video, but the point being is we are critical of Judaism as well.

Mm-hmm. But the funny thing is, is that the no hide laws don’t actually impose any additional restrictions on somebody who’s already a Catholic or a Christian. Literally no additional restrictions. Whereas if Catholics controlled everything, they would impose tons of additional restrictions on everyone else.

Which is again, why if you’re choosing a faction to ally ways, so, here’s a, a quote from him. F the UN and internet and Democracy. You know what democracy has given us? Obesity, low rates of literacy. It’s given us divorce, abortion, gay marriage, liberalism, pornography. That’s what democracy has given us.

Ghettos and crime and political correctness. Diversity, yeah. The track record of democracy. Not so good. Catholic autocracy. Pretty strong. Pretty strong record. Catholic monarchy. Catholic monarchy and just war and crusades and inquisition. Pretty good stuff. Mm-hmm. The thing here is I, [01:11:00] I I think actually if you look at the, the history of a lot of the Catholic monarchies, there was an extreme amount of poverty was in them.

They, they did effectively organize during specific periods, but generally speaking, I might even say it might be worse trying it again because it does appear to me that for the reasons we studied above Catholicism may be like true, like I’m gonna go balls to the wall with my Catholicism, might be incompatible with democracy.

And that might be why there’s so much corruption in Catholic majority states, right? It might be that democracy is more like of a Protestant Jewish thing. And I’m not saying this is like a attack on different groups are different, different things work for them. Right? Look at our video on Arabs.

Like Arabs almost never have democracies. And when they do, it usually ends in a horrible, corrupt disaster. So, you know, the, the, the Catholics may be the same way, right? I, I don’t know, right? We haven’t seen it tried recently. But I don’t, I don’t disagree with this, but what I would say is then why don’t you go [01:12:00] back to a Catholic majority country, right?

Like, why don’t you go back to a country where the culture of that country is your culture, right? You know, your culture is not my culture. Your culture is not the culture of America. Your culture is not the culture of America at its funding founding. It’s not the culture of America today. And there are plenty of countries on earth that have your culture, right?

Like, why, why do you need to be here? Like the very arguments that he uses against immigration, I feel about him. It is like you haven’t integrated, you haven’t assimilated, you don’t seem to understand American values. Why can’t you go to one of the countries that share your value system rather than our value system?

Right.

Simone Collins: Alright, so let me, let me. Take a, take a crack here though. Okay. You know, as, as someone who, like, I, I don’t know what it was about the Nick Fan girl deep dive, right? But like, now I’m quite fond, and not that I wasn’t, [01:13:00] not fond of him before, I was just completely ignorant, but like, I’m like, oh, Nick Quintes, like there’s a fondness there that wasn’t there before.

On top of that, some of our favorite people in in the world are Catholic. I mean, oh, Catherine Ruth Kolic is she’s Catholic. Roger CNO of Heritage, heritage is Catholic. A bunch of other people that we, we know that we’re not gonna name for their privacy are Catholic. And they, they represent to me in, in my view, a sort of new guard of Ca Catholicism.

And, and yes, you, we’ve already kind of aired this a little bit earlier in the episode, but I, I kind of, and like, you know what, I’m, I’m all for a sort of revisionist history Catholicism. That is, that is America First and American Nationalist Catholicism, that is kind of like, Hey, we’re playing the long game.

We’re gonna inherit the future of the Catholic Church. A lot of the people who are follow, who follow this podcast who are also Catholic [01:14:00] regularly send to us episode ideas on, on a corruption within the Catholic Church of like, here are these people who’ve been trying to push it to a progressive end.

Here’s this corruption, here’s this thing. They’re, they’re actively critical of the Vatican. They’re anything but blindly loyal to the Vatican. And I, I take a lot of comfort personally in knowing that on a grassroots level, they’re building something that I think. Honestly, on a community level is more organized and working better than the vast majority of technophilic religions.

I would say maybe even more so than Orthodox Jews in the United States, because while Orthodox Jews have really strong local communities, they’re also a little bit more technophobic in some circles. Like they seem a little bit too insular and not that integrated with the wider world.

Malcolm Collins: I, I agree with all this, but as I laid out, basically what these groups are doing is they’re moving into a soft schematic position while they hope the Vatican gets its butt together.

Well,

Simone Collins: I, but I think you don’t have to hope for the V Vatican to get its act [01:15:00] together. I think you just have to wait it out.

Malcolm Collins: That’s what the Anglicans did, and now they’ve got a lady Pope.

Simone Collins: Right. But that’s, I think that’s on the tail end. I mean, look at where the UK is in general right now. Look at where Italy is in general.

Yeah, but like, no, what I’m saying is the UK hasn’t got its act together. The UK isn’t enjoying. The dividends of a, a, a long-term demographic shift that would, that is, that would be downstream of what I expect from the Catholic community. What the, what the UK now has is, you know, similarly reflected in, in, its, its current status with, with immigration and policy and censorship.

And we had that episode on how basically the UK is, is, is being occupied by a hostile anti British force now. And it’s sort of this form of like, woke that’s really creepy. So of course I would expect the Anglican Church to be like this. What, what I’m looking at is the long game of what Catholicism in the United States is now, which is something that we would probably be pretty happy with and, and think is, is positive.

So I I [01:16:00] don’t think that, that’s a good question. Yeah, no, I, I

Malcolm Collins: agree with all of that and that’s why we ally wisdom so readily and frequently. But I also think it’s important for groups to not be sitting there in each thinking to themselves, well, I know. 200 or 300 years, either we’re going to have to convert you or there’s gonna be trouble.

Right. Like, and, and I think that it’s, it’s more honest as a movement if we share that. I am aware that our long-term plans and your long-term plans are theologically incompatible, and then you can talk about how do you make that work. For example, the, the techno puritans and the, the other groups like us could just leave Earth, right?

Mm-hmm. You know, I don’t, I don’t need to, I don’t have any special attachment to this planet. Catholics do. They can convert all the humans on earth and feel great about themselves. Right. I, I, there are ways that we can, by having the conversation and admitting that on paper it looks like one day we will be [01:17:00] directly at.

In conflict with each other that, that it’s important to, to air and bring that up. Even if right now their communities and our communities, like, I feel much more comfortable with our kids socializing within their communities than within the urban monoculture. So, so like clearly I don’t have, I, I see them as cultural allies in the moment and I think that that some people can think it’s cool to dunk on a group just ‘cause they know that they’re gonna be cultural enemies in the future.

And what I’m trying to do here is not do that. Say, look, we are like, even when I read Nick’s whole thing about democracy not working and Catholic monarchy, I was like, yeah. Like that’s a decent point. Right. And I’m gonna split this episode into two episodes actually. The second one is gonna be when we go over Jews versus Catholics Who Sideways.

Because that’ll be a fun one. And that one, that’s where we can go over all of his questions about Judaism and like, is, is Judaism a problem in, in the amount of ties Israel has in the, the United States? Because it is a, it is a lot. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5: You know, there are

Malcolm Collins: concessions for that [01:18:00] relationship.

But I’d also note here, Simone, that it’s important to remember that like just how boned Catholicism looks like it’s going to be like even these factions of Catholicism, if you look at current rates of sperm decline, I think it’s by 2045, 50% of men in the developed world are gonna be infertile. And this number is gonna keep going on.

Right? Like, it’s, it’s, if you do not use reproductive technology which meaning ca the, the mainstream position in Catholicism is do not use it. You’re going to really struggle to keep those numbers up and they’re already struggling. Like, I, I hear what you’re saying. Right. But

Simone Collins: I also, I mean, there, there is something, some, something to be said for the fact that, that an anti IVF policy could change and.

Right. Like we will change in the future, but what we’re, it’s not set in stone. And one of the nice things about the Catholic Church is leadership is able to change things like this is

Malcolm Collins: in timelines for the Catholic Church survives and, and the good ones don’t go. Matic is a, [01:19:00] a future in which the church severely changes.

And, and it

Simone Collins: is completely capable of doing that.

The problem here being is that the ones who are having the most kids want it to change the least.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. So Nick Es has talked about a, a wanting a Catholic government. He’s talked to about America is a Christian nation, not a Judeo-Christian nation. This was one of the expos, which I absolutely love in the light of the Catholic history of America.

He said, once you are with the Catholic or you’re with the Jews which you know, we will get to, I, I, I can see that the Supreme leader, totalitarian Christian dictator. He has liked the idea of banning a bunch of stuff replacing our current country with a Catholic Taliban. And you can see why when we hear these sorts of things you mean mean a Catholic

Simone Collins: caliphate,

Malcolm Collins: basically a, a Catholic, I think he said Taliban actually, but he, he actually said Taliban.

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: So, so, and he, and he complains a lot about, like, I’ve tried to figure out what his long-term vision of, like, does he understand that the [01:20:00] consequence of his worldview is everybody being under a Catholic. Superstate out of the Vatican. Sort of a, a global technocracy and he’s doesn’t seem to grapple with that.

He seems to stop at let’s remove Jewish influence, let’s increase Catholic influence.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I mean that’s why it would be so fun to have him on the podcast and talk about these things. ‘cause when I wanna confirm if that’s actually his stance. But two, you know, as we’ve seen just in, in so much empirical data, when you try from a top down level to enforce these policies, and you can look at anything from Aria BA’s research, which is more weak correlations to like places such as Iran where people are just actively fighting back against the morality, police and stuff.

It, it doesn’t work that this needs to come from within. This has to come from devout commitment to your religious values, not because the morality police are gonna come and arrest you if you are acting against religious tenants. So. Yeah, I, I, I mean, I if only, [01:21:00] if only we could talk with him. And I know that he, he, we, in an earlier time would’ve talked with this, but he’s, he’s really trending now.

And I also think that’s just on his own. He’s quite own really interesting. I feel like he started to trend first when Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson kind of lambasted him in their own one-on-one chat. But he, he keeps trending up in the media. He keeps making the front page of Drudge, and there’s something going on there.

I don’t know if it’s that, it, it just, his rise. Orchestrated rise fits into a certain narrative that people really want. I

Malcolm Collins: think it’s progressives are using him to attack the conservative movement. He does seem

Simone Collins: like a cudgel and like he’s being Yeah, that, that there are people uninvolved with him that are trying to put him into place and like insert him into narratives.

Like recall that. No. So this is what happened. Scrapers were accused of, of, of being responsible for the Charlie Kirk [01:22:00] assassination. Yeah. So you, you’ve gotta be aware of

Malcolm Collins: the larger political play here. Okay. Okay. The conservatives have done a very good job of allying with the Jews. Right. And it’s useful to ally with the Jews.

There’s a lot of reasons why Ally was the Jews. In terms of all over the world, they have disproportionate positions of power within governments, within country and within business. If they think that the US’ success is going to benefit them in, whether it’s Israel or Judaism, moreover they have a vested interest in the US’ success.

Mm-hmm. So there is a, a, this idea of there’s no reason to side with the Jews.

And I wanna be clear here. It’s not that I quote unquote, trust the Jews or Israel, it’s that I trust the Jews in Israel to act in their best interest. The thing is, is I can find a path where that best interest correlates with my best interest. I find it harder to find a path where the Vatican’s best interest correlates with my best interest, at least when I look at , what the Vatican is putting out [01:23:00] right now in terms of public statements.

Malcolm Collins: And the great thing is progressives always turn against the Jews because progressives believe that all differences between groups and communities can’t be downstream of genetics, can’t be downstream of culture. They must be downstream of, of what?

Systemic unfairness, right? And so if Jews are in positions of power, Jews must have cheated, right? Mm-hmm. This is why, why they, the whole Black Lives Matter thing, everything like that. And so they turned against Jews and the right has been able to absorb the Jewish movement to a large extent in the United States, which is very important.

And we’ve been able to cut off a lot of donations that were going to left-wing causes and stuff like that from Jews. And the left desperately needs to try to convince American Jews and the American public that there are still right wing antisemites out there. And about the only one left is Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens.

Simone Collins: But again, all that, yeah, we just have Ben, Ben Shapiro to blame for all that. Yes, it’s really wild. Ben Shapiro minting

Malcolm Collins: Antisemites

Simone Collins: because they were fine before. They were fine with

Malcolm Collins: Jews. Okay, so we’re [01:24:00] gonna cut off here, and the next episode we’re gonna go into Nick’s accusations about Israel which are mostly accurate by the way.

And why? Despite them being accurate, they are generally less inflammatory than if it was the Vatican. Ooh. Like, like almost any complaint he has about Israel, the Vatican has done worse. And this is where it gets to this thing of like, we, it’s like it’s either Catholics or the Jews. Somebody who isn’t actively a Catholic you know, your, your answer’s gonna be pretty obvious and there’s a reason why for the Conservative party, they have tried to ally with the Jews.

Speaker 3: Hmm. All right.

Malcolm Collins: So next episode. Beginning.

Malcolm Collins: When I run out lemonade, we should be storing them all somewhere. Are we keeping them all in one place?

Simone Collins: Yeah. They’re all in a basket with other toys.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, good, Don, because I, I’ll whip those out this weekend. Along with the bouncy things.

Simone Collins: There will be, there will be battles.

Malcolm Collins: That’s the [01:25:00] point of children, right?

If, if you’re not going to battle them. I, I watched enough shows of the kids to know that when you have little things in your house, you have to battle them. And so I battle my children.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is necessary. And that is probably

Malcolm Collins: why we had CPS coming over to our house again. Once again, not for battling.

‘cause my kid made finger guns at someone at school.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So they had to make sure all of our actual guns were locked up because clearly that’s his next step. You know, finger guns are just the gateway to gun guns. Although, I mean, keep in mind there’s this very prominent lawsuit that I think either is about to be decided or.

It’s finally going into court, which is about that first grader who shot his teacher and octavia’s a first grader. So, I think you know,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, right.

Speaker 12: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, [01:26:00] oh, oh. I grabbed my old phone, die on my side with got a story about band. That’s wild. That’s K. He sees young. A college kid with opinion so mild, not spoiling for a fight, but then unleashes hell unprovoked and so mean smears him as race for views between fights. Him from gigs while he’s still in his dorm.

Turns a normal young guy into store open. You are so hateful. Press. Your vein Pushing good folks madness, driving them insane from questions on a to full blown hate spite. The Jews will be better. Th[01:27:00]

oh

then Candace. Owens joins our pro-ISIS Israel cheer, but Ben starts the war, fills her heart up with fear, harasses over gam, calls her names in the fray, fires her from daily wire, send her antisemite away, she flip. To the shadow with trope sold and grim. Blame secrets are because of him, his constant attacks like a thorn in create more

so hateful p. See your veins. Pushing good folks to madness, driving them insane from [01:28:00] questions on a to full blown hate. The Jews would be.

Please listen, this guy has gotta go. He’s breeding the hate that we all hate to know with jabs, uninvited, and a soul full of fire. He’s the prejudice king. Set in the world on.

​

Join Simone and Malcolm Collins as they dive deep into the evolving landscape of men’s rights in America. In this episode, they explore the recent legislative changes that are reshaping divorce laws, custody arrangements, and the broader conversation around gender equality. Discover how states like Kentucky are pioneering 50/50 custody laws, the impact of these reforms on divorce rates, and what this means for families across the country. The discussion also covers the controversial Texas Heartbeat Act, examining how new legal mechanisms are empowering men to seek recourse in abortion-related cases. Simone and Malcolm break down real-world lawsuits, the nuances of legal standing, and the cultural implications of these shifts. Beyond the headlines, the episode highlights additional victories for men’s rights, including employment discrimination cases, changes in alimony and child support guidelines, and the ongoing fight against paternity fraud. The hosts also tackle tough questions about cultural norms, legal fairness, and the future of family law. Whether you’re interested in legal reform, social commentary, or just want to hear a lively debate on some of today’s most pressing issues, this episode offers thought-provoking insights and plenty of engaging moments.

As this was a Simone-outlined episode, rough notes are below for more links/jumping off points. The episode transcript can be found below them. Happy Halloween!

Episode Outline:

Kentucky Divorce Laws

* ARTICLE: Divorce Plunged in Kentucky. Equal Custody for Fathers Is a Big Reason Why. A law setting 50-50 shared custody as the state’s standard was hailed as a victory for fathers, but critics say it puts mothers and children at risk:

* https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-equal-custody-experiment-41e1f7a6 // https://archive.is/OjJhT

* “In 2018, Kentucky became the first state to pass a law making equally shared custody the default arrangement in divorces and separations. Four other states—Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida and Missouri—have since passed their own versions of Kentucky’s custody bill. Around 20 more are considering or close to passing similar laws, according to an analysis by the National Parents Organization.”

* “The law has become a model for other states, not least because Kentucky’s divorce rate has plummeted. Between 2016 and 2023 it fell 25%, compared with a nationwide decline of 18%”

* Some suggest “that parents are increasingly likely to stay together because they realize they’ll be in regular touch regardless, so “they might as well work it out.” He added that he’s heard stories of couples who decided not to break up because of the presumption of shared custody, and years later are glad they stayed together.”

* Critics:

* People are not leaving abusive partners in order to protect their children

* However “if one parent is subject to a domestic-violence order, the presumption of 50-50 custody is automatically overturned.”

* Other benefits for fathers:

* Less child support: “Recently, Kentucky’s legislature decided that parents who spend more time caring for their children should pay less in child support.”

How are things going in Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, and Missouri?

* The legislative change was too recent for us to know whether divorce rates are dropping, too.

* No signs yet marriage is down: There is little direct statistical evidence so far indicating a significant change in marriage rates in Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, or Missouri immediately following the 50-50 custody law changes.

How this compares to efforts in China

* while U.S. reforms focus on creating a fairer system with less incentive for adversarial breakups, China’s policies focus on slowing or preventing divorce by regulation and delay. Both have reduced divorce rates, but China’s approach also appears to discourage marriage and childbearing—an effect not seen in the U.S. with current shared custody laws.

* New laws in China promote joint custody as a default option, unless a parent is found unfit, paralleling the U.S. shift toward shared parenting, but enforcement of custodial rights remains inconsistent.

* Since 2021, China requires a mandatory 30-day “cooling-off” period for couples seeking an uncontested (mutual consent) divorce. Either party can withdraw during this time, halting the process.

* The cooling-off period did lead to a notable drop in the official divorce rate: China’s crude divorce rate fell from 3.4‰ in 2019 to around 1.8‰ in 2023, but marriage rates declined as well, and the birth rate continued dropping—suggesting more people now avoid marriage entirely, possibly to sidestep the difficulty of divorce.

* U.S. states implementing 50-50 custody as the legal presumption—such as Kentucky, Arkansas, and others—have seen substantial drops in divorce rates relative to national trends, but with no documented drop in marriage rates or sharp fertility declines yet noted.

Men Suing Over Abortions: The Texas Heartbeat Act

* The Texas Heartbeat Act enables “any person,” including estranged partners, to sue those who “aid and abet” abortions post-cardiac activity, with men in several cases leveraging this law to pursue litigation against women’s friends, providers, and, potentially, their families.

* As the WSJ reported: “The law’s unique aspect is its enforcement mechanism: it relies on civil lawsuits brought by private citizens, rather than government action, allowing them to sue anyone who performs or facilitates an illegal abortion.”

* SOURCE: Men suing over their partners’ abortions; can this make men/women more serious about relationships?: https://archive.is/DLZJ9 // https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/the-men-suing-over-their-partners-abortions-b2e7a9ce (mostly in Texas, which allows parents to sue for the wrongful death of an unborn child.)

* Some lawsuits and threats of legal action serve as leverage in divorce or custody disputes, or to exert control over personal relationships.

* Texas law does not allow rapists to sue their victims if they abort, but does permit fathers and other family members to seek civil damages over an abortion of their biological child

Recap of lawsuits

There have been several publicized cases where men have used the Texas Heartbeat Act (SB 8) to file lawsuits against women or their associates for obtaining abortions without their consent:

Marcus Silva v. Ex-Wife’s Friends

* In Galveston, Marcus Silva sued his ex-wife’s friends for “wrongful death” after they allegedly aided her in obtaining abortion pills.

* Silva sought $1 million in damages from each friend, alleging their actions facilitated an abortion after Silva’s ex-wife became pregnant during divorce proceedings.

* The suit was dropped without any damages paid, but it set a precedent for potential litigation by men claiming harm from abortions performed without their knowledge or consent.

* The ex-wife herself was not named in the suit; she provided text evidence suggesting Silva threatened the lawsuit to exert control during their divorce.

Jerry Rodriguez v. California Abortion Doctor

* In 2025, Houston man Jerry Rodriguez sued California physician Dr. Remy Coeytaux for allegedly mailing abortion pills to Rodriguez’s girlfriend, resulting in the termination of two pregnancies Rodriguez claims were his.

* Rodriguez accuses the doctor, not the woman, and seeks damages as the father of the unborn children, aiming to set a national precedent for similar claims by fathers using SB 8 and federal law.

* The case cites both the Texas Heartbeat Act and the old Comstock Act, testing cross-state liability for abortion access.

Collin Davis Inquiry in Brazos County

* In a case highlighted by CNN, Collin Davis sought a court order to depose a woman who traveled to Colorado to terminate a pregnancy after discovering Davis was the father.

* Davis claimed potential wrongful death and demanded records, aiming to explore legal liability for out-of-state abortions under Texas SB 8, though no damages or direct civil suit against the woman herself was reported.

Other instances of men fighting back?

Beyond the 50-50 custody law advancements, there are several clear, concrete outcomes from men’s rights advocacy in the United States covering custody, divorce, and employment law:

Successful Lawsuits on Employment Anti-Discrimination

* Supreme Court Ruling on Equal Standards (2025): The Supreme Court unanimously held that men and majority-group employees cannot be held to a higher standard of proof than other groups in employment discrimination lawsuits. This ruling set a nationwide precedent for fair and equal treatment in Title VII claims brought by male employees.

* Reverse Discrimination Lawsuits: There are multiple seven-figure employment law settlements involving men who won claims of being disadvantaged or terminated during diversity initiatives or due to gender. Example: In 2024, a white male executive won a significant sum for being replaced by less-experienced women under a corporate diversity plan, although punitive damages were limited by the court.

* EEOC Enforcement Actions: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has represented male workers in gender discrimination suits, leading to company settlements and revised internal HR policies ensuring men receive the same protection as women regarding layoffs, promotions, and pay.

Broader Legal and Regulatory Outcomes

* National Center for Men Litigation: This group has supported and occasionally won cases regarding paternity fraud, reproductive rights (such as notification before adoption), and opposition to male-only draft registration, influencing ongoing policy debates at the state and federal levels.

* Changing Alimony and Child Support Guidelines: Some states and court decisions have resulted in more gender-neutral alimony and support awards, reducing the gender gap in post-divorce financial obligations.

Opportunities for Further Reform

Paternity Fraud

* How Common is Paternity Fraud in the USA?

* General Population Estimates: Most current studies and genetic analyses suggest that the rate of paternity fraud (misattributed paternity) in the general U.S. population ranges from 1% to 5%.

* A 2023 scientific survey published in ScienceDirect found that about 5% of 23,196 FamilyTreeDNA users discovered an unexpected biological parent, highlighting how common such surprises have become.

* Court-Ordered DNA Tests: In cases where paternity is legally disputed and DNA testing is ordered by courts, the exclusion rate is much higher, between 12% and 30%—but these figures reflect a more selected group (suspected cases) and not the overall population.

* Older and High Estimates: Some reports—often cited in media or by advocacy groups—suggest “as many as 30% of DNA paternity tests nationwide turn out negative,” but experts warn these numbers are inflated by testing samples heavily biased toward suspected cases, not the wider population.

* Punishments

* In most jurisdictions, paternity fraud is generally treated as a civil matter rather than a crime, but exceptions exist (for example, Nevada classifies it as a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and a $2,000 fine).

* Knowingly misrepresenting a child’s paternity may, in some states, constitute fraud and be subject to criminal penalties such as fines or imprisonment.

* Criminal convictions are still extremely rare, given the burden of proving deliberate intent to defraud

* How men get screwed over

* In many cases, the defrauded father must contest paternity within a certain legal time frame; after this window closes, it may be impossible to pursue reimbursement or terminate support.

* Courts often weigh the child’s best interests, sometimes maintaining support and visitation even after fraud is uncovered, if a strong parent–child relationship exists.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to talk about men striking back

Speaker 4: that didn’t

Simone Collins: come across, so they striking back. Yeah. Well, they’re, they’re fighting for their rights and, and they’re finally making progress. All right. Men have been basically. Wait, men’s rights is actually making progress.

Now. Can you know that like that’s the crazy thing is that for the past 15 years, the concept of men’s rights has basically been like. Men being angry about the fact that they don’t have any rights. I guess it, this might have been how it was for like women’s rights for the longest time of like, well, ain’t that cute?

You guys are so disgruntled about your lack of rights. It’s never gonna change, sweetie.

Malcolm Collins: No. And I love what they would always then say, they’d be like, well, that’s actually a. Feminism issue. Don’t you understand it? I’m like, well, then how come the feminists never fight for it? And they’re like, oh, once you’re in cages, then we’ll fight to l loosen the, the, the what do they call that?

The zip ties? [00:01:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. I just, basically, I, I, I was operating under the assumption that nothing would ever change, but things are actually starting to change.

And this is big. It’s huge. And so what we’re gonna do is look at two major areas where finally the dam is beginning to break. And I think momentum is only gonna build from here. We’re gonna start with, divorce laws in various United States states where by the, the new default is the new default.

Shocking men get 50% of mater of, of, of custody in divorces. Which is.

Malcolm Collins: So are you gonna talk about like what states this is happening if if’s actually happening and not just like in the law?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. And it, it’s, it’s also just crazy to me that, that like isn’t always the default, like the assumption that like, well of course each parent shares custody by default.

Right. Unless there’s a good reason not to. But no, that wasn’t the case and it’s being resolved. It’s started with Kentucky and now it’s, it’s happened in more states. We’re gonna look at sort of what’s going on there. And then we’re also going to look at the Texas [00:02:00] Heartbeat Act which is this really interesting form of what you could call vigilante based.

Law Justice which has both made it harder for groups to use like a Supreme Court case to take out because it’s based on individual action. You, I’ll explain more What Explain the law.

Malcolm Collins: Your,

Simone Collins: it allows, it allows men or allows anyone to, to sue. In relation to the, we’ll say wrongful termination of a a, a baby’s an unborn baby’s life after they have a heartbeat.

Like if they didn’t consent to it and if they felt that they were damaged by it. So, okay,

Malcolm Collins: so who, what men can do this? What men in relation to this, the,

Simone Collins: the men who. We’re the fathers of the baby,

Malcolm Collins: so the fathers of the baby. But I thought also like parents can, can sue sometimes too. No,

Simone Collins: but parents can be liable.

Friends can be liable, doctors can be liable. So all sorts of people can get sued. Oh,

Simone Collins (2): mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then we’re also gonna go through some additional [00:03:00] little wins in like other little signs of hope. That not just in these areas, but in other men’s rights adjacent areas. We’re seeing successful pushback and momentum building.

And then at the end, I’m gonna highlight an area of for improvement that I find to be. Important that many people in the comments of our videos have said, Hey, like, please highlight this issue of the men’s rights sphere which we’ll see if you can guess. So let’s get into it, starting with the Kentucky Divorce Laws.

And, and just so you know, there’s a really good. Wall Street Journal article talking about this titled Divorce Plunged in Kentucky. Equal Custody for Fathers is a big reason why a law setting 50 50 shared custody as the state’s standard was, has was hailed as a victory for fathers, but critics say it puts mothers and children at risk.

So basically what happened in Kentucky, and this is important because it happened in 2018, so we have enough time to see what has happened since this legislation was passed. But Kentucky in 2018 became the first state to pass a law making equally shared custody, [00:04:00] the default arrangement in divorces and separations.

And since that happened, four other states, so this is Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida, and Missouri have passed their own versions of this, this custody bill in around 20 more states. Keep in mind there are only 50 US states Yeah. Are considering or close to passing similar laws according to analysis by national parents organization That is.

Big, I mean, if this quickly, we’re already getting to, right.

Malcolm Collins: So how quickly did the first one go to passing to 20 states? Being, considering it now?

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, it’s 2025 now, and that was 2018, so like six years. Seven Yearsish. That’s, yeah. Like this is pretty, it’s, it’s fast. I mean, from a, from a legislative standpoint, it’s kind of like.

Malcolm Collins: Are we seeing a changing in outcomes though? Like do you see any We are.

Simone Collins: Oh, we’re, and I’m also gonna compare sort of this, this change in outcomes to China. ‘cause we did do an episode on like China trying to reduce divorce rates and increase fertility rates through [00:05:00] regulatory shifts akin to this. And I think you’ll also find that quite interesting.

But let’s just start with what happened. In, in Kentucky. And what’s interesting is since ‘cause now in Kentucky we have enough data the divorce rate plummeted. Between 2016 and 2023, it felt 25%. Whoa. So it’s not just outcomes are

Malcolm Collins: changing divorce rates. When you make women responsible, they stop getting divorces.

Yes. 20% reduction. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Just because 50 50 custody law. So it’s 25% Now that this is tempered by the fact that there has actually been a nationwide decline in divorce of 18%. Mm. So, you know, we’re talking about a marginal 7%, but that’s, that’s huge. Meaningful. That’s huge. And this is, this is above and beyond men just getting equal custody, which is huge for them.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it shows how many women just viewed [00:06:00] divorce as a, I don’t have to do anything and I get, you know, a check for the next 18 years. Right. Yeah. Because one of the things about equal custody is I’m pretty sure it’s like way harder to get a good

Simone Collins: alimony. Yes. So, yeah. That it, it, that kind of happened actually a little bit after this legislation was passed.

‘cause again, men have no rights. Ha ha. It’s, nothing’s gonna ever could change. But, but fortunately recently, Kentucky’s legislature did decide that parents who spend more time caring for their children should also pay less in child support. So, to be fair, in these divorces, men still often are saddled with child support.

Yeah. However, at at least now the state’s like, oh. Wait a second, you have 50% custody. What’s going on here? Yeah, and I’ve actually seen this show up organically. In like financial audit interview, YouTube channel shows where mothers who are used to getting child support are complaining about this.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah.

So they’re [00:07:00]

Simone Collins: freaking

Malcolm Collins: out. Mm-hmm. They’re like, what? Mm-hmm. I, well, what am I supposed to do? Get a job?

Simone Collins: They’re like, and now my child support’s gone down because my husband. You know, has 50% cus so this is 100% showing up like in the wild naturally. I, I think that that’s really,

Malcolm Collins: that for tism, this is something we should push much more.

I think forced equal custody and forced no child support when there is equal custody because there shouldn’t be child support and equal custody cases.

Simone Collins: I mean I, I get, I get child support in the event that a woman like completely. Career doesn’t drop.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I agree. Like she, she went into the marriage to be a homemaker and never had a job.

Yeah. I, I get that even in equal custody. Yeah. But I, I think that the, the sort of the worst you make divorce, the less divorce we’re gonna have. Right. And,

Simone Collins: Kind of, but we’ll see a comparison there. Actually, I’m just gonna jump to it because we should, we should compare how this. How this is, is, is related to China.

So while this reform, obviously is, is focused on first and [00:08:00] foremost creating a fairer system like this legislation wasn’t passed with the knowledge that it was going to reduce divorce rates. It was just. It was, it was, it was creating an A system that incentivized less adversarial breakups. Mm-hmm. So there’s like less money spent on lawyers, less fighting, less people just divorcing to try to get a bunch of stuff out of their partner.

And in contrast, China’s policies, which we did go over in an episode a while ago. Yeah. Focus more on slowing or preventing divorce by regulation and delay?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, no. I remember I

Simone Collins: thought it had a positive effect. It had a negative effect. So both have reduced divorce rates, but China’s approach also appears to have discouraged both marriage and childbearing.

Which is an effect that is not seen.

Malcolm Collins: Why is it, I don’t understand how this could affect marriage and childbearing. The, the Chinese policy?

Simone Collins: Well, so the Chinese policy is different since 2021. Chi China requires a mandatory 30 day cooling off period for couples seeking an uncontested. That is to say mutual consent, divorce.

Yeah. And either party can withdraw during [00:09:00] this time, which halts the process. And the cooling off period did lead to a drop in divorce. But honestly, it’s lower. So their divorce rate fell from 3.4% in 2019 to around 1.8% in 2023. I think that’s lower. I think our

Malcolm Collins: legal change is much better.

Simone Collins: So, but then at the same time, marriage rates declined as well, and the birth rate continue dropping, which suggests that more people now are just avoiding marriage entirely, possibly to sidestep the difficulty of.

Divorce and there has been no measured decline in marriage or birth rate. So I’m gonna push back on this,

Malcolm Collins: the pause here. Uhhuh, I suggest people watch our video on, nobody wants to marry Chinese women anymore. There has been a Chinese cultural change around women where there, I mean, there’s that too in like woke women in the United States.

Yeah. And they’re just, nobody wants to marry them anymore. And so I don’t think, I, I think that that’s what we’re seeing is an increasing degradation of what [00:10:00] it means to be like a male in dating in China, and that’s leading to the lower marriage rate. In, in terms of the divorce rate changes.

I mean, contrast the implications on the decision. And China is just giving you time to cool off if you have like a hot head. But in the United States, there’s many women who get divorced and just feel like it’s nothing but positives for them. They get to oh 100%. They get to the guys who are dating to help support them.

They get to I have their old partner have paid them a ton of money every month or something like that. Yeah. And they get full control over the kids. So, you know, they don’t even have to worry about like, any sort of compromises they were making in terms of child rearing, you know, they want to transition them.

Just go ahead. Which, which happens a lot in these cases. Well, yeah. And there has

Simone Collins: been, I, I forget exactly where this happened, but wasn’t there legislation in some states that. Would actually put your odds of getting any custody at risk if you were documented as fighting a child’s transition?

Malcolm Collins: Well, that was a true, everywhere there was a common divorce tactic [00:11:00] is the mom would try to convince the kid that they were trans, or at least question the thing.

And if the dad was not a hundred percent on board, it was very easy to get custody taken away from him. Mm-hmm. And I would argue. That a huge chunk of child transitions come from that specific scenario because it is so common in court cases. Mm. Which of course, think about it from the perspective of like a sociopathic mom, right?

Like, well, if I can convince him they’re trans and the dad, or even just to question things and the dad is like, no, she’s just doing this as a tactic in court or something. You know, which is what a, a sane dad would do. It’s easy to win that particular case. Exactly. But I think that like women just had it so easy and now they’re like, oh, this is hard.

Now why didn’t this leading to a reduction in divorces in the United States? Because I think that this is a mindset that women often adapt long after they get married. I think very few women in the United States go into a marriage with the intention of eventually getting a divorce. I think that they are expecting.

Even if the guy’s like Rich or something, they, they [00:12:00] expect him to die. They don’t like him that much. They, I think very few are like, okay, I’m just gonna go in. I’m gonna wait till I can get a divorce and then I get the sweet alimony payment or anything like that. They think things are gonna work out, so they do not consider the implication of the changed laws, the changed laws just make it easier for their group of divorced friends to tell them how great it is to be divorced.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s not, at least the people interviewed in the Wall Street Journal article covering this. Don’t cite that exactly. They, in terms of like these, these are lawyers and stuff who are talking with their clients about it, many of them are choosing to not get divorced because they’re like, well, if I have to share custody 50 50 anyway, I’m basically seeing my partner all the time and I might as well just work it out.

So it’s even a little bit scaled back from that, like if we’re talking about the acts of reasonable people, which is sometimes the case in divorce, right? They, they’re just like, ugh. Like if I can’t just walk away entirely, very conveniently, I might as well. [00:13:00] Work this out. And I think that’s, that’s meaningful and interesting and I, I think a lot better for kids to have a father.

But the, of course, the critics are, are concerned that people aren’t leaving abusive partners in order to protect their children. Like, oh, my husband hit me. I can’t let him have half custody because he’ll hit my kid. And there were cases in which, mothers were subject to domestic abuse, but because the children were not abused, the, the children still got, like, were with 50 50 custody.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that’s fine.

Simone Collins: And, and, and the law. I just wanna point out that, that, that if one parent is subject to a domestic violence order, so this is even from a mother, the presumption of 50 50 custody is, is automatically overturned. So it really depends on the case. And I think that the, these cases in which women are like, but I was abused and now I have to share custody.

Are not actually representative of what the law actually says. And I think it’s really similar to [00:14:00] how things like the don’t say, don’t say gay legislation was framed where it was framed as, oh, you literally can’t mention the concept of same sex attraction when it really was something very different.

Malcolm Collins: So we have an episode on this.

It’s quite old at this point. I only remember it had like a, an outline of a body on like the floor or something. And it was something, ‘cause I didn’t wanna put it in the title, like, stop. You’re not allowed to talk about or the, the woman question or something. And in this one we go into domestic violence and Oh, yeah.

I, I would say it is, it is really not a good sign for the woman if there is domestic violence in the house and the woman is the only one who’s subject to it. And the kids are not like, that shows that it’s not that the guy has a bad temper or something like that. Because in the episode I pointed out, there’s been instances that I know of.

Where domestic violence happened.

Sorry, and I’ll, I’ll put this here so I can replace what I said earlier so no one clips me outta context. But what I’d say is sometimes domestic abuse is not as cut and dry as we make it out to be.

[00:15:00] Societally speaking.

Simone Collins (2): Hmm. Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: what, what I paired this with in that episode was the statistics around domestic abuse between female, female couples male, male couples and male female couples. And if you look at male female couples versus female, female couples, it’s way higher in female female couples

.

I decided to go look at the actual statistics just to make sure I was getting this right and yes, what I remembered is accurate. , If you’re looking at overall violence in relationships, , for, Women, it’s 35%, , are subject to it in heterosexual relationships. And for men it’s 29%. , What you’ll see is male, male, gay relationships have lower than either of those rates at 26%.

And female, female have much higher than either of those rates at 43.8%. Uh, what’s really interesting is that bisexuals in mixed relationships. Have some of the highest rates of abuse, , with 61.1% in women and [00:16:00] 37.3% in men. , Now if you look at physical violence here, you see, , for, . Females in a relationship, it’s 29.8%.

For males in a relationship, it’s 26.3%. , Male. Male. It’s lower than either of those 24% female. Female. It’s way higher than either of those at 36.3%. And then again, for bisexual relationships, it’s much higher than either of those at 55.1% for women and 27% for men. So, , it seems that the more women you have in a relationship, the more, , abuse is going to be had within that relationship.

The other takeaway I’d have for this chart, which may be worthy of another episode later to dig more into this, is that bisexual people are extremely abusive, , with, , both bisexual men and women, but particularly bisexual men being, , so, so like actually comically abusive. Over half of them, well over half of them, 61% are abusing their partner, , with physical violence, [00:17:00] 55.1%.

, And then for severe physical violence, 49.3% of women who are married to a bisexual man have been subject to severe physical violence. That’s wild.

Malcolm Collins: And the, the male, male couples are sort of all over the place. I’ve seen ones where it’s lower than heterosexual relationships and I’ve seen one where it’s higher than heterosexual relationships, so I can’t easily judge on that. Mm-hmm. But it does look like broadly or sort of average male. Male is lower domestic violence.

Female. Male is medium domestic violence female. Female is very high domestic violence. Yeah. Which seems to say that the key inciting factor is the female.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Not, not a great look. But in general, laws just haven’t really kept up with a lot of these things, and it’s, this is just huge. I just, I had no idea that it had already spread to more states.

So this is, this is really notable and hopefully will lead to much better outcomes for kids. And [00:18:00] lower, lower burdens on, on men who are being unfairly treated in this case. Mm-hmm. But let’s switch to men suing over abortions and the Texas Heartbeat Act. ‘cause this is also fascinating. So in short, the Texas Heartbeat app enables any person, including estranged partners, like you know, completely no contact ex-boyfriend to sue those who quote unquote aid and abet.

Abortions post cardiac activity. So once you have a heartbeat with the baby and men in several cases have leveraged this law to pursue litigation against women’s friends, providers that is disabled American, how they

Malcolm Collins: target their friends. This is fascinating. So like, yeah, I’m gonna go.

Simone Collins: I’m gonna go into some lawsuits to give you some examples, but basically the, as the Wall Street Journal reported on this quote, the law’s unique aspect is its enforcement mechanism.

It relies on civil lawsuits brought by private citizens rather than government action, allowing them to sue anyone who performs or facilitates illegal abortion. End quote. What I like about [00:19:00] this, what I think is really elegant about this, is I see this as a really cool tool of cultural sovereignty. Where it’s not like this state is going to sue and persecute you for getting an abortion.

It’s more like, okay, well within our culture, this is not cool and I’m gonna go after you for it and I’m allowed to,

Malcolm Collins: so explain how this works because it’s not the state. Okay. So it’s not like the state says abortion is illegal. It’s like, it, it’s, it is illegal from the perspective of the individuals involved in the case, specifically the father being wronged.

And so the father is the only one who’s allowed to sue in these cases.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like there have been cases, for example, where, let’s see if I have this listed here. ‘cause I read about, this was really interesting.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Sorry. Hold on.

Okay. I didn’t put it in my notes, but there was a case basically of, of a doctor who, in a newspaper, in a newspaper editorial, admitted to performing basically like an illegal abortion or whatever, [00:20:00] like without a father’s consent on a woman in defiance of this act as like a legal act of protest.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. So, so now in Texas you need the father’s consent to get an abortion.

Oh,

Simone Collins: hold on. Let me just pull up the actual thing.

Malcolm Collins: Editorial.

Speaker 4: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Just gimme a moment because I, I wanna, I wanna get the facts straight on this.

Simone Collins: An interesting example is the Dr. Allen Braid lawsuit. Dr. Allen Braid, a Texas physician publicly admitted to performing an abortion in violation of SB eight. That’s the Texas Heartbeat Act in a Washington Post op-ed as an act of civil disobedience, anti-abortion activists try to sue braid under SB eight, but a Texas judge ruled in December, 2022.

That the plaintiff lacked legal standing to sue because he suffered no personal injury from the abortion. So again, this is an example of a law that only can be essentially enforced or like where someone can only be held li liable if they are violating basically a couple’s cultural sovereignty [00:21:00] or one member of the couple’s cultural sovereignty.

Malcolm Collins: The AI. Whether or not people other than the father IE the father’s parents are allowed to sue under this law, or the girl’s parents are allowed to sue under this law. Ooh. Okay. Yes. And then also ask, does the, does this mean that doctors in Texas have to ask the consent of the father?

Speaker 4: Hmm. Okay. So

Malcolm Collins: ask those two questions and let me know the answer.

Simone Collins: Per the Texas Heartbeat Act, can anyone, aside from the aggrieved, father of the aborted child, sue people who aided the abortion?

Under the Texas Heartbeat Act, practically any private citizen, not just the agreed father, may bring a civil lawsuit against anyone who performs. Or AIDS and abets, an abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected. The law is intentionally brought and does not require the plaintiff to have any direct connection to the woman, the pregnancy, or the family involved.

The only statutory exclusions are that the state or local officers cannot sue and that the suits cannot be brought against the woman who obtained the abortion herself. Oh, interesting. [00:22:00]

Malcolm Collins: However, so the judge was sort of acting out outside of the bounds of the case by, by saying that’s, and that the parents could sue, even the girls’ parents could sue.

Yeah, that’s really interesting. Although, no,

Simone Collins: no, no. It says however, while the law deputizes private citizens to sue courts have ruled. Okay. So yeah, this is, this is like sort of a precedent based pushback. Courts have ruled that some plaintiffs may lack constitutional standing. Oh. So they’re using the constitution.

As a pushback on this constitutional standing. If they cannot allege a concrete and personal injury, judges have discretion to dismiss cases where the plaintiff is not personally harmed. Though the statute still allows nearly any third party to file suit, the constitutional issue of judicial standing remains hotly debated.

In summary, anyone regardless of involvement, can file a suit under SB eight except for government actors and the woman herself. Oh, okay. That that means that the woman who got the abortion can’t sue like her provider. Oh, it’s not that the woman is, is has immunity. They’re not all [00:23:00] claims will necessarily succeed if the court’s standing requirements are not met.

So yeah, I mean that makes sense. The Constitution is one of those things we’re like. Y you don’t mess with it. Right? So, but I still think that this is super, super cool as a form of legislation because you know how we are, we’re like, don’t use laws to impose your culture on everyone. Allow people to like basically enforce their own culture.

But this still gives people of specific cultures a legal mechanism for recourse. Because sometimes you, you need that. You know, like if other, other, if you don’t have that, you’re gonna have like honor killings and stuff, right? Yes. Right. And this enables us to maintain civil, civil stability while also not imposing the same laws on everyone.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And, and I I will note that I totally understand from a guy’s perspective, it feels very unfair that the woman gets to unilaterally decide whether or not the baby is kept when and women are always like, but it’s in her body. She’s the one that suffers. And it’s like [00:24:00] bra. A man suffers much more over the course of his life with child support than a woman suffers over pregnancy.

The, well, that’s assuming

Simone Collins: that the woman like gives the. Baby up for adoption. If that’s the baby she doesn’t want, my stance on it is if, if a woman wants a, an abortion and a man doesn’t, then the man has to accept full custody and pay the going rate for surrogacy. That, that, that seems to, I don’t entirely fair, I don’t great with

Malcolm Collins: surrogacy because they had consensual sex.

So if a woman wants to, the, the woman

Simone Collins: may very well have been on birth control. There are so many cases of women who go on birth control.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But then I think that that’s still the, the, the, it it, it’s not surrogacy, you could say the full cost of the birth at the hospital. That seems fair.

Simone Collins: No, no. I think full cost of surrogacy is fair.

How, how is that fair? If it’s al sex, it’s really expensive. If it was consensual sex. But the woman was on birth control. She clearly didn’t consent to get pregnant and it’s, it should be on men equally. They both consented to have [00:25:00] sex though. Yeah, but, but the woman didn’t consent to get pregnant.

Malcolm Collins: This is the potential consequence of sex, regardless of whether or not you’re on birth control.

This is, this is what can happen from sex. Accepting an UN risk, you are consenting to get pregnant when you have sex.

And I note here that even if you do take Simone’s original, I, I think I convinced her here perspective on this. , The man then if sex consent to sex isn’t consent to children, the man then is not consenting to children and should be able to demand an abortion, , of the woman if she got pregnant when he was on birth control, which I just think is absurd.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, I guess

Simone Collins: the chilling effect of this, which I mean many women pointed out when Dobbs. Happened. Yes. And it was like the united, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Then

Simone Collins: I’ll be, it was like, then I just am not gonna have sex.

Which you’re like, and yeah. That’s a good answer. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That not being such alu. No, but I want you to go to the second question I wanted you to ask ai in relation to this, which is, do doctors generally in Texas now proactively get the husband’s [00:26:00] consent or the, the male partners consent? Oh. Because it said that he like intentionally did this, so I’ll let you ask it.

Simone Collins: Following the Texas Heartbeat Act. Do abortion providers in Texas now by default. Ask for paternal consent before proceeding with abortions.

No abortion providers do not ask for paternal consent before proceeding with abortions, even following the Texas Heartbeat Act and subsequent state restrictions Under current Texas law, abortion is nearly prohibited except in cases of medical emergency, but consent requirements pertain only to the pregnant patient and in the case of minors.

Parental consent. So the answer is basically no. But let’s go through some interesting lawsuits because this shows who can be sued and it’s not always a woman. So we have some notable cases, Marcus Silva versus ex-wife’s friends. In in Galveston. Marcus Silver sued his ex-wife, Silva sued as ex-wife’s friends for wrongful death after they allegedly aided her in [00:27:00] obtaining abortion pills.

Silva sought 1 million in damages from each friend, alleging their actions facilitated an abortion after Silva’s ex-wife became pregnant during divorce proceedings. And what was she doing? Sleeping with him during divorce proceedings, but, okay, wait,

Malcolm Collins: explain this to me. So she, the, the woman who was getting divorced was her husband got pregnant during the divorce.

Mm-hmm. And then she had an abortion after that. Mm-hmm. And she was sued for that?

Simone Collins: No, she wasn’t sued. Her friends were sued. He, he sought 1 million into damages from each friend. How much did, did he get, did he win? No. So the suit was, was actually dropped without any, any damages. Paid, but it did set a precedent for potential litigation by men claiming harm from abortions performed without their knowledge or consent.

Hmm. And, and while the ex-wife herself was not named in the suit, she did provide text evidence suggesting that Silva threatened the lawsuit to exert control during the, the divorce, but also like they were up to some, [00:28:00] both of them shenanigans. I mean, who’s, you don’t, you don’t sleep with the enemy when you’re getting divorced.

Don’t do it. If you’re getting, if you’re sleeping together. Work it out. You know, like you, you don’t get to, and typically yes, you can have your cake and eat it too, but like, this is one of those cases where I’m like, dude. This is on you. So we also have Jerry Rodriguez versus California Abortion Doctor in 2025.

A Houston man named Jerry Rodriguez sued a California physician named Dr. Remi Coto, allegedly for, oh, well four allegedly mailing abortion pills to Rodriguez friend. So keep in mind like, because abortions are basically not an option in Texas right now. Mm-hmm. This is a California doctor mailing. Oh, so they were able to

Malcolm Collins: stew a California doctor?

Mm-hmm. Did they do it successfully?

Simone Collins: So by the way, this, this resulted in the termination of two pregnancies. That Rodriguez claims are his. So this, this, this happened a lot. [00:29:00] So just, just for context Rodriguez accused the doctor, not the woman, and seeks damages as the father of the unborn children aiming to set a national precedent for similar claims by fathers using SB eight and federal law.

The case cites both Texas Heartbeat Act and the Comstock Act testing cross states. I, I think it’s still going on. Liability for abortion access. I’ll ask if it’s ongoing.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5: Was resolved. Settled? Is it ongoing?

God, I want my finger back. Okay.

Simone Collins: My gosh. There’s a lot of news coverage on it. It is ongoing as of September, 2025, which is when we’re recording this.

I know we filmed this episode a while ago, so, , that date might have surprised you. , But I went over to see as of this morning, if any information had come out on the case yet. And no, I.

Simone Collins: So we don’t know. We don’t know yet what’s gonna happen. Again, this stuff is new. This is a new wave, and that’s why this is so exciting. And then we have Colin Davis inquiry in Brazos County.

In a case highlighted by [00:30:00] CNN, Colin Davis sought a court order to depose a woman who traveled to Colorado to terminate a pregnancy After discovering Davis was the father. Burn. Davis claimed potential wrongful death and demanded records aiming to explore legal liability for out-of-state abortions under Texas SB eight, though no damages or direct civil suit against the woman herself was reported.

So this is also showing a rise in people, basically trying to go after women who are crossing state lines via mail or physically to get abortions of children that are theirs. Yeah. But again, anyone can sue over this as long as a court thinks that they’re being, well, I think my

Malcolm Collins: wider thing on abortion, if people are like, what are your thoughts on when it should be?

Like, should states have the right to make this illegal? Mm-hmm. I absolutely do think states should have the right to do this. But I think at a federal level, that’s quite something different to me. I’d think at a federal abortion ban, I would be pretty opposed to I mean, well, I, I

Simone Collins: wanna highlight, because this came up in the comments of our video that ran today [00:31:00] on Harems and polygamy.

Banning abortions is not gonna increase the birth rate. All right.

Malcolm Collins: Did people say that that would increase the birth rate? Yes. Study. People still

Simone Collins: believe this. I don’t know why people are, if you look at

Malcolm Collins: a map of Europe and you look at a map of the fertility rate of each individual country, the more restrictive abortions are within a country, the lower fertility rate it is, it’s almost one for one.

Simone Collins: Yeah, guys. Yeah, we, we may not be the hugest fans of abortion, especially after. Basically a a a a, an infant can feel pain, you know, like it’s clear that they have a working brain and nerves. No IMM doesn’t because we think that’s gonna solve the fertility crisis, gee whiz people.

Malcolm Collins: But what I would say is that I think that states banning abortion is completely practical.

It’s a cultural thing because that’s just enforcing their own cultural system. Mm-hmm. And there’s varying cultural systems and beliefs around when life begins. And it’s okay for, for a region to exercise their norms around that. And then somebody’s like, well, what if somebody from outside that region, you know, lives in that [00:32:00] region?

Right. Or, or somebody with a different cultural value. And it’s like, there were all sorts of cultural norms that I have to obey because of the region I just happen to be in. Right. Thi this is, I, I, I mean, a Muslim said this really well in the, you know, the one who was talking in Canada, he’s like.

He’s like, oh, well one day Muslims are gonna be a majority here, and then being gay will be illegal because we, he goes, it’s your own statistics in your face. But he makes a point then, which is this. The

Simone Collins: guy who just is so enthusiastically like, we’re

Malcolm Collins: just gonna replace you, is he’s like. Look, you have laws that I don’t always agree with, that I have to obey when I’m in your country, when you guys, as a majority, why would you not have to obey the laws when we become the majority in this country?

What would happen to a gay couple in Gaza?

Executed according to Islamic law. Islam doesn’t endorse gays. Islam doesn’t endorse homosexuality. Just like Canada doesn’t endorse a lot of things. So would you like to see Sharia law in Canada replace Canadian law? [00:33:00] At some point, it will. You know, Because we are, we have families, we are making babies, you’re not your population is going down the slum, right?

And by 2060, according to Pew Research Institute, your research, by 2060, Muslims will be the biggest religious group the world over. What are you going to do then? Are you going to oppose Sharia even then? Well, You know what? I’m very appreciative of the honesty. We don’t usually get that. One day we can have a Muslim majority nation here in Canada.

Right In your face!

Malcolm Collins: Like for example, I do not I, I think, you know, piracy bans are far too restrictive or something like that. That doesn’t mean I don’t think that you should legally be allowed to have, you know, internet, piracy, bans or when I was in you know, Korea, right? Like pornography is illegal in Korea.

I don’t think that that is something that a country should have the right to impose upon its citizens or even within a state, right? Because in some states now you have the weird, like, you know, they check your age and everything. First, I. I wouldn’t [00:34:00] want that within my cultural system because I think it can be used to track citizens and what they’re doing.

No, we’re

Simone Collins: still your id my God.

Malcolm Collins: But, but I understand why that, that a state’s allowed to implement that. And I am supportive of that because if you are not of that culture, then you can move to a region and people are like, well, not everyone can afford to move. Not everyone can. And it’s like. No, most people can move.

It would require a drastic reduction in lifestyle. But homeless people move all the time. So like, clearly you could afford to move. What you mean is you don’t wanna deal with the hit to your career or lifestyle that a move would entail.

Simone Collins: But also, I mean, to go back to the, the conduct Kentucky Divorce Laws, there was a man who was interviewed in this, who I think was an activist.

Fighting for this legislation in the first place. Who literally felt him? I mean, because he loved his kids so much, he moved to where his wife was living and got a, the the only job he could get a really crappy job, I [00:35:00] think, working at a soap factory.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Simone Collins: So he could have a piddling amount of custody with his kids, like spend a few days with them in, in his sad little house.

So. We, we, we are putting a lot of attention to like, oh, here’s what’s being lost for, for many people in light of this new legislation without giving much thought to how much men, and I mean, let alone being killed, unborn children have been hurt before this was passed, and I, I think that, that, that needs more air time.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I agree. But the the larger point I’m making here, then people can be like, well, why have you saying something is immoral? Are you okay with people of different cultural groups doing it? I mean, it’s not that I think it’s moral when those cultural groups do it, it’s just, I think it is impractical and leads to really bad moral externalities to attempt to force your moral system on the entire world.

Mm-hmm. You [00:36:00] can watch our video where we discuss in Pakistan the religious court, like the Islamic Religious Court said that when the government. You know, under like western secular scrutiny banned child marriages and they said, this is Islamic phobic. And I’m like, you know, it, it may not be true of every form of Islam, but certainly within their Islamic culture that they, the religious leaders felt that way.

Meant that it was an attack on their communities. Now, I do not think kids should be forced to get married which is often what’s happening in these instances. But am I gonna, you know, deploy a force to Pakistan to force them to follow my way of living and everything, you know? No, there’s a huge negative externality to do that, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. But let’s talk about beyond this. Other instances of men actually successfully fighting back because beyond the 50 50 custody advancements and, and the Heartbeat Act, there are several clear and concrete outcomes from men’s right advocacy in the United States that are blowing my mind.

‘cause I just thought this would never

Malcolm Collins: [00:37:00] happen. By the way, funny, funny side note here on abortion. Yeah. At one point we were approached by this guy from like. Right wing circles who was actually raising a pro-abortion fund because he was part of the you know, like, oh, no scientific racism, like actually racist view for, so for the same

Simone Collins: that Planned Parenthood was all pro-abortion?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Well, originally, yeah, this, was this the same? I mean, planned Parenthood is still, I think 89% of them are in minority communities. And I think the majority of, or the majority of abortions minorities, like, I think they’re hugely represented. I mean,

Simone Collins: historically they were. Pretty sure they still are.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and that’s specifically what he wanted to fund was abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods. And I’m like, oh my God. I mean, it would be kind Fire up the

Simone Collins: gas chambers.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think it’s. A fun thing from somebody of their perspective to do. No,

Simone Collins: it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s the or however

Malcolm Collins: it resolves effective

Simone Collins: altruism of the, we wanna No,

Malcolm Collins: but, but the reason why is either it resolves with more minority communities, like actually [00:38:00] gring that abortion was actually trying to genocide them.

No. And like they should be against it and making Oh, that’s true.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, you could even argue that someone who.

Malcolm Collins: Basically, I mean, I think partisan was actually to, to fund a lot of this and then be like, surprise. Yeah. Now,

Simone Collins: now do you, do you get it now? Do you get it now?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like do you get it now?

So you get to choose either, it’s great what Planned Parenthood is doing. Oh, that’s some

Simone Collins: five D chess right there. Damn. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: You know, and, and, and the cynicism to be like, yeah, I’ll kill a few babies if it, if it makes my message. If it makes my point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like if in the end it gets people to actually be like, wait, this was another, because I mean, the black community has suffered so many genuine medical conspiracies.

And if, if this can finally be revealed as yet another mm-hmm. Of like, Hey, you’ve been systematically leading your children because predominantly white people want you to would be great. I want that to become a [00:39:00] pervasive meme because however you feel about abortion it’s. Pretty messed up.

Pretty understatement. But yeah. Any other instances of men fighting back? ‘cause again, this is mind blowing. I just thought it would never happen. There have been successful lawsuits on employment, anti-discrimination against men. Did you know that?

Malcolm Collins: Wait, what? I know. So there was a Supreme Court, we can pursue teams for only hiring women.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Let me

Malcolm Collins: give you something. We didn’t do that for that director team that came to our house and it was all women. I know like,

Simone Collins: well, yeah, but the thing is, I don’t think anyone knows these have been successful, but I think there’s this like undercurrent and it’s gonna bubble up like a giant geyser of freedom for men.

But, so yeah, the Supreme, there’s a Supreme Court ruling on, on equal standards in 2025, the Supreme Court, and this, that’s this year, this is just happening. The Supreme Court unanimously held that men and majority group employees cannot be held to a higher standard of proof than other groups in employment discrimination [00:40:00] lawsuits.

This ruling set a nationwide precedent for fair and equal treatment. Entitled, sorry, entitled 12 claims brought by male employees. Then there’s the reverse discrimination lawsuits. There are multiple seven figure employment law settlements involving men who won claims of being disadvantaged or terminated during diversity initiatives due to gender.

For example, in 2024, a white male executive wanting a significant sum for being replaced by a less experienced woman under a corporate diversity plan. Although punitive damages were limited by the court. So progress. Yes. And then there’s also EEOC enforcement actions. The equal Opportunity commission, sorry.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC has represented male workers and gender discrimination suits, leading to company settlements that revised internal HR policies, ensuring men receive the same protection as women regarding layoffs, promotions, and pay. And this [00:41:00] is meaningful because so many white men we know, including you.

Have been told like, Hey, off the record,

Simone Collins (2): we’re not hiring. We can’t hire

Simone Collins: you.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Simone Collins: Even though you are more qualified than the other people we’re hiring. And it, this was just, I, it was kind of understood among everyone this has happened to including you, that there’s absolutely no way this is ever gonna be stopped.

There’s nothing you can do about it. Basically, like that career path is written off. Mm-hmm. This is changing. And then there are also some broader legal and regulatory outcomes. So the National Center for Men Litigation is a group that is supported and occasionally one cases regarding paternity fraud, reproductive rights, such as notification before adoption and opposition to male only draft leg registration, which is has, is influencing ongoing policy debates at the state and federal levels.

So this is shaping new legislation. And then there are some changing alimony in child support guidelines. So some states and courts. Have, have had [00:42:00] decisions basically that resulted in more gender neutral alimony and support awards, which is reducing the gender gap and post divorce financial obligations, which is again, huge.

‘cause as you pointed out at the beginning of this, like there’s, there’s this very like adverse incentive for women to just get divorced. ‘cause it’s kind of more convenient for them in that case. And we see this in the data too, that when there’s a divorce. You look at the wellbeing of men versus women post-divorce and men, well, men’s wellbeing goes down, women’s wellbeing goes up so

Malcolm Collins: well.

Yeah. Who’s paying who often, you know? I know exactly. I think this up.

Simone Collins: Oh. So here’s where I think we have a lot of room for improvement because and this is something that has been pointed out repeatedly by people who watch and listen to PACE camp and, and chime in the comments, paternity, fraud. So I, I asked.

How common paternity fraud is in the USA it, it generally, the, the population estimate from most current studies and genetic analyses [00:43:00] suggest it’s between one and 5%. But I lean more towards the finding of a 2023 scientific study published in Science Direct, which found. That about 5% of 23,196 Family Tree, DNA users discovered an unexpected biological parent.

I love that way of putting it. Which highlights just how common such surprises have become 5%. No, I thought that

Malcolm Collins: it’s 5% in population’s already suspecting it.

Simone Collins: No. Mm-hmm. That’s the thing, the, because here we’re looking at, so in, in cases already expecting it, it’s way higher court ordered DNA tests see super high rates of this in cases where paternity is legally disputed and DNA testing is ordered by courts, the exclusion rate is much higher between 12 and 30%.

So when a dude, when a dude suspects, wait, five. No, but

Malcolm Collins: I mean I thought the 5% was of tests that were done. Mm-hmm. MM population, so that

Simone Collins: the 2023 study I cited looked at family tree, DNA users, this is just one of those like, [00:44:00] look at my ancestry websites. Oh wow. Yeah. That’s what I’m saying is this isn’t cases, in cases where there’s suspicion.

12 to 30%. It’s not, you’re not the dad.

Malcolm Collins: I’ve gotta knock some other guy’s wives up. Like that would be fun. This is, this sounds clearly,

Simone Collins: there’s a

Malcolm Collins: lot of, I mean, 5% five because that means one in 20 kids. That means one kid in like our kids’ classroom.

Simone Collins: But then here’s, here’s also where like one I’m like shocked by how many people don’t have the dads they expect.

But the punishments are so. Nerfed in most jurisdictions, paternity fraud is generally treated as a civil matter rather than a crime. And, and there are some exceptions. Very

Malcolm Collins: severe crime. I think I it should be treated as as grand theft.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, where, so like, here’s what, what, what, in Nevada, which is considered like a, a really strict state about this mm-hmm.

Nevada is all we like, we support the men. No, they don’t [00:45:00] because they, they, they classify it as a gross misdemeanor. Oh my goodness. But what does that, that, what’s the punishable sentence Is, is 364 days in jail. F*****g a year minus a day and a $2,000 fine. Oh no. $2,000 for ing you. I just, I can’t $2,000 you said?

$2,000 and, oh my god. Less than a year in jail, which of course probably doesn’t even get enforced ‘cause it Oh, she’s a mother. She needs to be there for the child.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, of course,

Simone Collins: of course. So it’s, it’s basically a $2,000 fine in the strict state. Okay. In most cases it’s just civil. Knowingly, repre, misrepresenting a child’s paternity may in some states constitute fraud and be subject to criminal penalties like fines or imprisonment, which is like what the case in Nevada.

But again, the imprisonment is basically not gonna happen. Basically criminal convictions are extremely rare, given the burden of proving. Deliberate intent to defraud. Like women [00:46:00] could just be like, oh, I’m sorry. I’m just such a slut. I didn’t realize. Yeah. It’s being a slut illegal now. Yeah. Sorry. How do I keep track of it?

Anyway? So it, it’s also just really messed up how men get screwed over because in many states, the defrauded father must contest paternity within a certain legal timeframe. What, and after this window closes, it may be impossible to pursue reimbursement or terminate support.

Malcolm Collins: My understanding is after this time window.

They actually are forced to pay child support. Yeah. Even in the case of a divorce.

Simone Collins: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Like time limit the statute of limitations. Some, some courts also in addition, weigh the child’s best interests, maintaining support and visitation even after the fraud is uncovered. If a strong parent child relationship exists or if honestly they just think the child is better off.

So it, it’s just really screwed up. So, I mean, what, what Malcolm does, full transparency. Because some of the cases in which there’s paternity fraud, it’s not all just men being cocked by women [00:47:00] who are sleeping with other people. It’s also mix ups at IVF clinics. Some intentional, some unintentional, like a sperm sample getting, this is why mixed up

Malcolm Collins: my DNA test.

Well, most of our kids, like I sort of stopped doing it after a while because there was ever a mistake in all my kids. Very, no. You’ve done it with

Simone Collins: every single one of our kids. I have for the record. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, because you think I won’t really love them until after I’ve gotten the test back.

Simone Collins: No, man.

You’re like, I’d feel more comfortable with it. And then you always like, I don’t, you have this reaction when the infants come home. Watch. It’s gonna happen again with texts. Next week. Next week. Where you’re gonna be like, I don’t know. What is that? What is this crying worm like? You’re not a baby person and I feel like one of your mental coping mechanisms for not feeling a strong bond to infants.

‘cause not every man, like 10% of men are like baby men. They love babies. Well, let me hold the baby. You love babies. And like the other men are like, hand it to me when it’s more vague. [00:48:00] But I think that your coping mechanism is like. I don’t feel anything, and I know that I should be feeling something. ‘cause society like lies to men about like, oh no, you’ll be in love.

It’s gonna be the most magical moment to you ever. No, no. And I don’t that. So then you’re like, okay, well it must be that, like I can intuitively sense that I’m not actually the father. And then at that point you get the paternity test and maybe it gives you some, some comfort. I’m not sure. I think you, you’re.

Yeah. So this, this, this embryo comes from the same batch as Titan and Industry. The odds that he is not, you know, like the sperm was mi mixed up with that IVF batch. Yeah. I mean, after two of them have been confirmed to be yours is pretty low. I think you’re safe. Maybe we can save the money if you’re up for it.

But. I welcome it still. So even, even when there’s no like actual caulking that takes place again, like legally men have so little discourse. So I feel like this should be the next area where, I mean, if, [00:49:00] if we, if we’re getting this momentum right, if men are. You know, the return of men. They’re striking, they’re striking back.

They were, they’re the revenge of the man. It, let’s focus on paternity fraud ‘cause that’s terrifying.

Malcolm Collins: I love you to ask Simone.

Simone Collins: I

Speaker 5: love you too, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: And thank you for not divorce gring me and taking all my stuff.

Simone Collins: Well, I had the chance.

Malcolm Collins: You have delightful kids.

Simone Collins: Things are, are weird.

Malcolm Collins: So, question.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: How did the episode do today? The one on you, me, getting a harem?

Simone Collins: The number of comments that it elicited blew my mind ‘cause it wasn’t like in terms of performance, it wasn’t our best episode of the past seven. Oh, it

Simone Collins (2): wasn’t

Simone Collins: like it started out strong and now I think it’s eight outta 10.

Eight outta 10. Bummer. And yet it has a ton of comments. So if I look at comments relative to what we’re used to it’s kind of mind blowing to me. People had a lot of fun discussing it clearly. I thought it would do well. [00:50:00] Me too. That’s why I outlined it. There it is. Sorry.

Yeah, so it currently has 600 comments, which is a lot for our episodes.

So our last, our last episode for Jimmy Kimmel had 573, but then there was 379 2 57. Whoa. The one on the trans community’s involvement has now 1,916 comments. Okay. So I guess after some days pass they rack up. It’s wild.

But what did, what did

Malcolm Collins: people have to say were their common,

Simone Collins: They thought. The, the fight at the end was brutal and very entertaining.

Malcolm Collins: That was a brutal fight.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Terrifying. They, they were amused by our differences in opinion about the merits of making our marriage into a harra [00:51:00] marriage.

Malcolm Collins: Hear people was like, yeah, I’m Malcolm.

Get a, get a second and third wife. Oh my god.

Simone Collins: Oh. And then, I mean, a lot of people, I guess they didn’t watch the video because we fully acknowledged this in in our conversation that society is worse off. With polygamy or without monogamy. We didn’t talk about

Malcolm Collins: it a lot though. Like when you Yeah, we, we

Simone Collins: acknowledged it.

We didn’t like make it the, I mean, I feel like it’s a truth universally acknowledged that societies are worse off when they’re polygamous. But we’re, we’re looking at, and, and maybe I should have made this point in the episode, we’re looking at a future in which we, regardless most most people in society are going to be broadly disenfranchised.

So if we’re looking at a future where already people are screwed, already people are free radicals and unmarried, does it really matter that much that we try to find solutions to collect more people that could have potential? Maybe not because otherwise, what I think the future is, is just the [00:52:00] same number of unmarried men and women who are economically disempowered and disenfranchised and politically disenfranchised.

But maybe some of those women, God, this sounds terrible, could be put to use as

Malcolm Collins: you’re very incel members of a her.

Simone Collins: I, you know what, we’re not gonna talk about this anymore. I, I don’t, I give up. Hold on. Did

Malcolm Collins: you see the did you see the attack thing that was found at the UN today?

Simone Collins: Oh. ‘cause UNGA is happening in New York.

Remember when we hosted parties in New York, we didn’t realize it was during unga and the traffic was so bad you could basically not move anywhere in the city.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Why would you do it? So we they set up like a a hundred thousand like sim cards in a way that would’ve crashed in New York cell phone system.

And, well, it’s interesting it didn’t work. It didn’t work. I was trying to prep an episode on it. I just couldn’t get enough information. [00:53:00] So maybe after more information comes out but what’s interesting about it is it appears that it was likely in preparation for something else. Ooh, Ooh. Because it required enough sophistication that they said it was probably a state level player, but a state level player doesn’t, it seems kind of

Simone Collins: Saudi, if we’re getting all high tech here.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they don’t just care about shutting down all the phones in New York. Like that doesn’t buy you that much disruption or anything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The the doing that in connection with something else is the

Malcolm Collins: thing right. Is the point. Right. Yeah. So the question is, is what was the else that they had planned?

Dun dun

Simone Collins: dun.

Malcolm Collins: An assassination, a, you know, who knows? But well,

Simone Collins: thank goodness some unnamed Jack Bauer has just stopped all that from happening.

Malcolm Collins: What, what happened? Jack Bauer, I don’t understand your joke.

Simone Collins: Do you we’re old. Do you remember the TV show? 24?

Malcolm Collins: No, I remember. Like done Done in context.

Simone Collins: Don’t, don’t. Yeah. The best thing about 24 is a show wasn’t actually the show itself, which was just very stressful. This man, like never had a chance to take a potty break, [00:54:00] but it was basically about him like saving the world. ‘cause he only had 24 hours to do it. And I think he was working for the government.

But there’s this amazing like, Japanese song about him where they pronounce his name Jacque, and it’s the best thing in the entire world. And that’s all I can think about.

Speaker: 俺はジャックバウアウ。常に大ピンチン。俺はジャックバウア

Simone Collins: but

Malcolm Collins: okay.

Simone Collins: Let’s get into it.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll let you get started. And I mean, I’m just really excited to be pushing forward with R fb.

Just so people know on the R fb.ai, there’s been a ton of improvements on the back end, but we’re trying to sort of synthesize them all so we can get a new stable

Frontend running which is what you would have access to you. So r fb.ai. But applying to Andreessen again, both of our projects made it to the final round last time

Simone Collins: to their speed run program.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so we’ll see.

I would by the way, if anyone’s watching and you, and you know, people making judgements in the Speed Run program, you know, say, Hey, Malcolm and Simone are pretty cool.

Speaker 4: Oh, that would be, that would be nice. [00:55:00] Yeah. Right.

Just for people who are wondering, this episode was recorded a while ago, so the r fb.ai stuff has mostly been uploaded now. , We, we still have a number of bugs on the site that we’re working through. I mean, I hope to have it done. By this weekend, , the most annoying ones for me are Cloud Saves being deleted, but I think local saves are still persistent, , in between updates.

,

Oh, and the pages that list all of the optional scenarios, you have to reload them for them to work sometimes. Uh, but maybe we fix that.

So other than that, I, I don’t know. I’m impressed with what we’ve gotten together. We didn’t end up getting into the, , speed run program, so you don’t need to put in a good word for us. . But, , if, if the project sounds interesting to you or if you’ve tried it and you’re like, oh, this is actually pretty good compared to the other sites, , let us know.

Oh, and also to everyone who has taken the time to try it while it’s been in this developmental stage. I know it’s a pain. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 3: Do you guys like playing in the rain? Yeah. Why? ‘cause I,[00:56:00]

he’s i like playing.

Speaker 6: Look at that giant puddle that no, you do not go into that puddle. Torsten do not. Why? You will get soaked. Why? How can you get soaked? It’s too deep. It’s not even a puddle. It’s like a lake. Oh, there’s the lake puddle? Yes. Oh yeah. I don’t sink. No, you will not go into it because you will sink. Oh,[00:57:00]

this? Yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3: One.

Nothing. Yeah, you’re not sinking in that one so you can jump. Yeah.

Yeah. Because you were running and I told you to stop. Why? Why can we turn? ‘cause I didn’t want you to fall and get muddy.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the current state of Iran in this episode of Based Camp. From air pollution and water crises to demographic shifts and government censorship, we explore the many challenges facing Iran today. Discover why Tehran is sinking, how water shortages threaten millions, and what the future might hold for the country’s people and politics. We also touch on Iran’s surprising strengths, from advanced drone technology to unique social policies. Whether you’re interested in geopolitics, environmental issues, or just want a candid, sometimes humorous take on world affairs, this episode is for you.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing just how effed Iran is along so many metrics. Okay. So, we have done other episodes where we’ve talked about the rapid secularization that’s been happening in Iran and their fertility crisis because they have a fertility rate way low the united below the United States, despite being.

A theocracy and much poor than us, so usually means higher fertility rates. Yeah. And, and so obviously they’ve got all the demographic stuff, but we’re gonna be talking about stuff that might be even more important to have than people like water, air. Oh. Air, air. So an estimated 30,000 deaths nationwide every year in Iran from air pollution.

They have some of the worst air pollution in the world. We’ll, we’ll be going over this, but they’re capital city tyran. You know how in some cities you go to like Mexico City is sort of this way where because they’re surrounded by mountains [00:01:00] they, they they keep in all of the pollution. Yeah.

They get the,

Simone Collins: they call it like a, they have a word for it, like some kind of inverted vortex of.

Malcolm Collins: Death. Yes. So Tyran is uniquely one of these areas, tyran. And it’s also uniquely bad at dealing with it. Oh. And also the, the, the floor, like the streets like randomly collapse and you can like have sinkholes or what.

Giant sinkhole where you can have like entire buildings or blocks disappear. And I remember, ‘cause I was like freaked out when I saw this. ‘cause sinkholes are like one of my greatest fears in life. They really are idea that you could just be deriving and then falling to your death or sleeping. And then your house is gone and all your kids are gone.

So I ask, I’m like, okay, Google, like, how, how frequently do these sinkholes happen? And it goes. Oh, well in Teran you get a few of them a week and I was like a few a week.

Yes, in their [00:02:00] capital city, it was like parts of the road disappearing and stuff.

Simone Collins: So they kind what happens? Chi? Like do they have underground river? Like ess like in Mexico, they had

Malcolm Collins: an underground river until they drained it.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: So, oh, okay. And, and, and you know, I’m talking about hold on, hold on.

There’s so many more problems that they have. I’m sorry. Wait. No, no, no.

Simone Collins: You did. It’s

Malcolm Collins: over. If, if this is sinkhole city, it’s already over, they’ve lost their entire geopolitical footing. We’re gonna talk about that as well. Like, Iran’s situation may be worse than China’s, right? Like, like, and this is coming from a lot.

And we’re also gonna talk about. How would they censor information on the internet? How would they censor information on phones? What information they target, what society they’re trying to build and why? Like sand slipping through fingers. They have nothing and will be nothing. It is a very sad place, but we’ll also talk about a few.

Winds [00:03:00] they’ve had recently. Okay. Yeah. Their drone systems specifically have been pretty popular. Okay. Which is like a, a, a, a technical thing that is going to be important in future wars. Are they selling

Simone Collins: their drones to Russia or something? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The Shahi drone which we’ll go into, we’ll go into the Shahin drone.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Good for them. Alright. I feel now I just don’t want them to have something.

Malcolm Collins: So, let’s just run some projections on their current water rates, for example, by the Wes. Even. If current practices persist, only 20 to 30% of the current crop production will remain viable by 2045.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. So they’re gonna need mostly imports.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Not, not awesome. Gosh. They also for water another fun one here is the term zero day. Came up for their capital city recently. Now they were able to get around it, but as of October, teran avoided a full day zero through emergency cuts, 20% reduction in urban use and [00:04:00] rationing, but the risk persists into 2026.

If winter rains fail, residents already face 12 to 24 hour cutoffs in the suburbs with tanker trucks flying to poorer areas. Yeah, this just

Simone Collins: sounds like Lima, Peru. Remember when they just be like, we’re shutting off the water today. No electricity

Malcolm Collins: today. Yeah, no. Yeah, whatever. So, so, Lima’s also gonna run out of water in the next 20 years.

Yeah, so

Simone Collins: that’s, well honestly, like a, a YouTube video I saw of where someone just walked around, like to run and like met a lot of people. You know, one of those, like, I spent 24 hours. It looked so much like Lima to me. Even the air pollution. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, and Lima has horrible air pollution too. Yeah.

Even though

Simone Collins: it’s right by the ocean. You, you have, it’s, it’s like, you know it’s bad when your boogers are black.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. Yeah. I, I saw in, I was watching videos about Iranian doctors and they were talking about how bad the situation is and they’re like, I can get a kid in, in my clinic and I can be like.

Here’s what’s, what’s hurting this kid, Uhhuh, you know? And [00:05:00] he’s going to have long-term ramifications or die if this is not resolved.

Simone Collins: Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: I can do my best to address it. And then I open the door and the thing that was killing him just comes wafting back in. ‘cause his family can’t leave the city.

Right. They can’t go somewhere else. They can, they take

Simone Collins: the waters and b.

Malcolm Collins: I ran is they promised that they were gonna give houses for everyone.

Speaker: Don’t have windows, just dark rectangles where glass should be. Monuments marking and unfinished. Ghost city partisan only alone though. Head 70 kilometers out west and you’ll find hashed. Gerd. Built for half a million people home, two 50,000. Reverse course and head Northeast. There’s Gha ni Rashard, three decades old.

Still waiting for residents who never came at this rate. Likely never will.

Malcolm Collins: And so they just built these random housing things all over the country. But all of the money was grafted because, you know, it was taken by the you know, the Imams, whatever.

So these, these, how these apartment complexes are giant things of empty apartment complexes all [00:06:00] over the country that nobody’s living in that don’t really function. Because they didn’t think that, oh, we need to build the mirror where the jobs are. So then you have this ultra overcrowded. Primary city what would a day zero mean for people if it actually ended up happening?

Yeah. Households would’ve a queue for water rations, EG 20 liters a day. So basically you’d go to a line, you’d get your water for the day, and your family would have to be able to bathe laundry live off of that water and restaurants and, and car washes and stuff like that would likely just be shut down.

Ugh. But to continue here we were talking about the pollution.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The health toll,

it’s 30,000 deaths nationwide in 2024. Up from 24,000 to 2023. Oh my God. Tyra alone saw 6,000 in the past year. Costs is respiratory disease, heart attack, et cetera. And year over year, there’s an 18. Oh no, they, they say 18% of all ER visits are linked [00:07:00] to the pollution in Teran. So that means like two, one out of five people who are going to a hospital are going because of the air pollution just

Simone Collins: showing up.

‘cause yeah, the, it’s the place, the literal city is killing them. Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: That is, that is terrifying. No, no. It, it is like living in hell. It, it feels to me like when I, when I look at this stuff

Simone Collins: horrible, like, yeah, no wonder people aren’t having kids. I mean, one, this must also be affecting fertility, even if you want kids,

Malcolm Collins: but.

It. Well, yeah. In addition, you, you don’t just have polluted air. You also have polluted water. Oh, and I’ll know is the air pollution, we’ll get to this in some of the data in a bit, but it’s increasing pretty dramatically year over year. Mm. So it’s only getting worse. It’s not like this problem that they’ve like abated.

Right.

Simone Collins: Because in in China they’ve actually done a really good job, an incredibly good job finding air pollution.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But. China is full of Chinese people and Iran’s full of Iranians, you know. [00:08:00]

Simone Collins: Oh, burn. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well, look, you can’t, there’s some policies that wouldn’t work in America because we’re not Chinese people either.

Like, yeah. Remember when they tried to set up the the, the Dr. Fabs in America and they’re like, Americans are not. Just not good enough at following orders to make some of my conductors. Yeah. If they came here and

Simone Collins: they’re like, sorry, they’re too retarded. You can, they’re too

Malcolm Collins: retarded. Yeah. That was, that was the takeaway.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And you could also, you know, this is, yeah. Not awesome. So, you also have a problem with this stuff affecting the, the farmlands and stuff like that. Oh. And also, I should note here you have daily outages that you were talking about of, of power, which makes it very hard to run things like factories and stuff like that.

The economist Noreen Rubini predicts a collapse of the Iranian government was in a year if freshers amount. And others have been warning of civil war. Whoa. In the meantime, the country is wasting money on things like MIG 20 nines from Russia when a MIG 29 is [00:09:00] completely useless against American F 30 fives which just shows that they’re not even really, like, they’re playing like an aesthetic game for Grifting.

Right? I think this is also why they lasted so shortly when Israel decided to bomb them to be like actually off. Oh, because their,

Simone Collins: their actual defense. Tools were not very effective.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, let’s take a minute to talk about this. So Iran basically had this plan. So if you wanna get an idea of the geopolitics of the region.

Okay. You have, Iran’s got like. One real buddy. And that buddy is Qatar. And the reason why Iran and Qatar are buddies is mostly because they share a natural gas field. That goes under both of the countries and is one of their major income sources, okay?

And so they have to play nice or they lose one of their major income sources. And this is true for both

Simone Collins: countries. Aligned incentives are the best predictor of good collaboration.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So, but, but everyone else [00:10:00] freaking hates them at this point, but they’ve been able to maintain power because what they did is they funded a bunch of terror networks.

Right. So they Guitar did,

Simone Collins: or, well, both of them did. I,

Malcolm Collins: I ran, did, but guitar did as well, like, because they were working together. But they were trying to build up their, their regional power base. And so like, you know, Saudi Arabia might be like Allied. With like, actually like the UAE and like becoming closer to allying with Israel and stuff like that and, and the United States and sort of this axis.

But then what I ran did is it would fund, you know, Hezbollah, it would fund Hamas, it would fund quote unquote, you know, freedom fighters in, in whatever region. You know, they, they had another freedom area in like, I, okay, God, I can’t remember what other country that is, but it, there were a number of countries where they basically funded, they had fund the, the underground.

Terrorist organizations that had like pseudo sticks. Okay. Yeah. And Iran spent a lot of money and a lot of time building all of these into capable actors for fighting. And then what [00:11:00] happened was two things. First the, the, because, because basically when everybody started bombing Iran, Iran basically picks up its phones and it’s like, Hey guys, we’ve been funding you forever.

Will you do something right? Like, and all of them phone lines were dead. For a couple reasons. There was actually one African group that did end up launching a missile in Israel, but it ended up hitting a bus in Gaza.

note here, I’m thinking of the Houthis. , And they, , did send 200 missiles, , but all the ones that would’ve landed was in Israel, were blocked by Israel’s defense forces, which is why the only ones that did land landed in Gaza. , That said, , I don’t know if one hit a bus, hit something.

Malcolm Collins: Wait. Oh, okay. Not very competent. This is what happens when you give it to random extremists, when you give them explosives.

But anyway, so, what happened was, is Israel first beheaded with the pager attack [00:12:00] program, which was incredibly effective. And then the second degree attack what was that on Hezbollah, I wanna say. Where they basically took out Hezbollah, which is one of these key allies. The Hamas is, is basically tied down with the whole Israel situation little bit.

And then the people it was funding in Africa were basically retarded which they didn’t. Foley Grok. So that, that basically is what happened. Every one of these plays that they had been investing in and investing in and invested and fizzled all out at once, right before everyone started bombing them, and nobody came to their rate.

Because nobody cares. Right? Right.

Yeah. I mean, except for maybe

China. And we’ll get to why China? So this is one of the, the things on the other side here, but the point I’m making here is Iran basically made this big political bet in a network of terror cells that Israel completely eradicated.

Mm. And so.

They don’t have any geopolitical friends to fall back on. They work with Russia now with, you know, selling them more supplies and stuff like that. But that’s mostly only because they have similar enemies. [00:13:00] They’re not actually very friendly with each other. I mean, keep in mind Russia’s occupation of the, of the region that, that they’re not that happy about.

Mm.

Alright, let’s talk about the, the water crisis. Let’s. The crisis impacts over 88 million people, virtually the entire population and vast agricultural lands. Over 80% of Iran’s territory faces acute water stress. Oh, 80% of the territory is facing acute water stress. Oh,

Simone Collins: no one talks about this.

Malcolm Collins: Was it reservoirs, rivers, and aquifers at record lows?

19. Major dams are nearly dry and Tara’s primary reservoirs, like the Amar Dam, are at just 38% capacity, the lowest in decades. It is left rolling blackouts. ‘cause keep in mind, they’re using hydropower as hydropower counts for a significant portion of electricity and a 14,000 megawatt shortfall. So like,

Simone Collins: wait, wait wait, wait, wait.

So hydropower typically happens when you have like really [00:14:00] good river flows and whatnot. Yeah. But so like, what, I mean, I understand they, they drained their underground aquifers, but why is their hydropower running out?

Malcolm Collins: So they called it the Rebuilding Jihad, literally. I kid you not. And what they did is after the Islamist took over they went over, you can have a weight loss jihad.

It’s. It’s fine. Yes. Yes. After the, it’s like, it’s like saying mind comp or something. You know, my strong, so they went around, oh my

Simone Collins: gosh, I need to have a weight loss comp. No, I need to have a weight gain.

Malcolm Collins: Weight loss is not your comp. You need a weight gain. No. Yeah,

Simone Collins: weight gain comp. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, they, they went around after they won and did that thing that idiot, like communists often do, which it’s like, oh, well we’re just gonna like, build a bunch of stuff.

And so. What happened in Iran is because of the people who were closest to the center of powers, like the main grift sources were involved in. Dam construction specifically and restructure around dam construction. Oh gosh. Oh, they basically just had a cycle of never ending dams. The country has a, I think like some of the most dams in the world, just like [00:15:00] dam after dam after dam.

The problem is that a lot of these dams shouldn’t been built and they ended up causing water problems. But then the other problem is, is upstream of all the dams they’ve had huge problems with agriculture, just using all the water anyway. Mm brother. So basically they got the, they got into this problem because they weren’t actually doing work.

They were just building dam after dam, after dam. I mean, keep in mind that’s an easy, that’s a, when I’m even say 19 dams are nearly dry. That’s a lot of dams to be nearly dry on water.

Simone Collins: So

many, so many dams. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Groundwater and surface water aquifers are depleting at 3.8 meter millimeters per year.

With rivers like the Zahar Day road reduced to seasonal trickles and lakes vanishing entirely. Satellite imagery shows stark declines in water bodies around tarran. And what’s important to note here is Iran actually used to have the largest body of fresh water in the Middle East. And they have depleted it to be I think it, at its [00:16:00] lowest, it was 12% of its original size and unusable at that point because it concentrated all of the, like, pollutants in it when it depleted that much

.

And just everything around it basically died. But they, they then had this major project ‘cause people are like, well, Iran says it recognizes this problem and it’s gonna deal with them. And I said, it said that about this lake 10 years ago, and now it’s only up to like 20%. So like, even if they do do everything like they said they were going to do as this lake, it’s unlikely to matter.

Right? . So near term experts predict a point of no return within five years. This is in water supplies. If mass urban shortages and agricultural collapse overdrawing aquifers could cause irreversible substance and, and SA nation. So basically, yeah.

If they draw down the aquifers too much, those aquifers become never usable again because it’s all automation problems. Yeah. Now one of the things that Teran is. Trying to talk about doing to fix this is move the capital. So they wanna move it south to the [00:17:00] coast sort of near where Dubai is.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The, the prob because they’re like, well, we can buy a bunch of cheap land there like a bunch. Sure. Benefit from doing this. Yeah. The problem is, is that this is also a, a insanely expensive idea. They just don’t have the money. Yeah, but I

Simone Collins: mean like what are your other options at this point? Right?

Like I’m all about declaring bankruptcy on Teran at this point.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Just build a few government buildings and be like, Hey, we’ll move the technical government here and more industry will build up around that.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, and like honestly. What are there, there? There can be no, in industries as you point out on day zero, if electricity doesn’t work, you can’t run factories.

Like, it doesn’t matter. Like either way. Teran is, it sounds like they’re tasing. Oh, you wanna

Malcolm Collins: talk about how bad this is? So, so remember I was talking about the, the dams, they built over a thousand dams since 1979. Oh. Wait.

They,

they’re, they are run by a group called the Water Mafia, quote unquote,

Simone Collins: water Mafia.

Malcolm Collins: And then water Mafia, 87% of the water [00:18:00] is used , by low value crops that are being grown based on subsidy driven farming. So there’s,

so, Irma, the second largest lake in the Middle East, in vital freshwater body spanning 5,000 square kilometers in the northwestern Iran. It supported millions through fishing, agricultural, and tourism, whatever. The fast past few decades, it has decreased by 90% in size. Because of piping, millions of cubic meters from rivers like zab starting in 2017 that connected to it

.

Malcolm Collins: And you can, you can see pictures of it and you’ll see like giant ships and stuff, just like in, in a desert now.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. Oh, I think I’ve seen these, I mean, I’m sure there are lots of places like

Malcolm Collins: this, but they, they said they were gonna fix it back in 2019 and, and basically nothing happened.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah.

What can, what can you do though? You can’t fix. This like problems like this, you really can’t fix. This is also a problem in places like California, you know, like the, in the American West, where we’re drawing down the Ogalala aquifer and there are issues of the Colorado River. Like this is no like water.

Water’s a big problem. [00:19:00]

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Alright, so let’s talk about, because we had another video on the secular theocracy. We already talked about how quickly people are, one, leaving Islam globally, which we should probably do another video on. But specifically within the theocratic state of our brand, and this is why I always say like Catholic integralists are just completely numb skulls.

I’m like, okay guys. Look at your Catholic majority countries. That’s where Deconversions are happening the fastest. I mean, right? Like it does not work. Look at the Islamic theocratic countries when you

Simone Collins: do the clapping for emphasis. Is this cultural appropriation from woke culture, though?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it’s cultural appropriation from woke people.

But you’re doing it

Simone Collins: because it’s insensitive, like you’re doing it to trigger them. I’m doing

Malcolm Collins: it to trigger people. Yes. Okay. Just, just, I’m trying to do my clapping, like a woke person uhhuh. So it makes them mad. But it doesn’t, it doesn’t work, right? Like, it, it, it, it tends to lead to higher rates of deconversion Yeah.

And lower rates of religious observance. Yeah. When you force it

Simone Collins: on someone for, like, when you, when you pay [00:20:00] someone to practice their hobby, they start to freaking hate it. Like, this makes sense. We all know this.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But where this is cool is when we were doing that survey we were talking about a survey that a lot of people were like, Hey this survey may have been carried out incorrectly or may have had bias to it.

And I’m like, yeah, okay, I’ll buy that. But since then there has been leaks from the Iranian government’s own studies. Oh, so this is the Iranian government study the Ministry of Culture and Islamic guidance via University of Teran. Do we have a ministry of culture? Yeah, it was conducted in late 2023.

And I, we’ll go over the various information they have here. So, daily prayer rate. It fell from 78.5% in 2015, decent to 54.8% late 2020. A 30% drop over eight years. Oh, and keep in mind, that’s not even up to this year when the other city was showing more of a drop. Oh. Ramadan fasting never fast increased f so, [00:21:00] so in 2015, only 5.1% never fasted for Ramadan.

Mm. That increased to 2023 to 27.4%. Dude, this is, this is

Simone Collins: why like Middle Eastern countries. Getting so obese. They need to fast, they need more Ramadan. I guess though Ramadan’s pretty bad because you’re just eating so much in, in. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: reading keep in mind this is also a government organization in a country where you can be like jailed for not being Muslim enough.

Yeah. Like these ever, they’re definitely under underreporting things. Wow. But even these numbers are. Extremely dire. Never read the Koran. 9.1% in 2015.

Simone Collins: 19. Never read the Koran

Malcolm Collins: in 2023. Yeah. 19.2% in 2023. Wow. Self-identified as highly religious.. So these ones we only have 2023. Okay. So highly religious was only 42.6% in 2023. And not religious or lightly religious was 24.3% in, in that year by, by the government survey. And then [00:22:00] if you look at support for separating religion from politics, that went from 30.7% in 2015 to 72.9% in 2023.

Ah.

Oh, this is their news.

Authoritarian theocratic government doing a survey of their own populace saying 72.9% want a separation of church and state.

Mm-hmm. Mm.

That is shocking. A a 138% increase, it points out, wow. 85% of respondents said societal religiosity decreased over the past five years.

Yeah, I bet. So the other study that we looked at showed even har higher numbers really. So this was the Garmin religion study done in 2020. So Shia Muslim identification, they had it only 32.2% in 2020, a sharp drop from what official said, which was 96%. No, religion was 22.2% and then plus 8.8% were atheist. So that, that brings it to [00:23:00] around 30%. Were no religion or atheist. That’s good. Heaven’s crazy. They’re losing

Simone Collins: well, can you blame them? The air is killing them. The water is running out.

Speaker: Welcome to Muslim sensitivity training. It is important for us to understand why the Muslims feel the way they do first of all, there’s no sex until marriage in the Muslim world. Now, this would be fine, except that in the Muslim religion you also can’t jack off.

And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in. Sand. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It’s Friday night, but you can’t have sex and you can’t jack off. There’s sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your . And then some cartoon comes along from a country where people are getting laid and mocks your prophet.

Well, you know what? I’d be pretty pissed off too.

Simone Collins: Total Muslim,

Malcolm Collins: 47%. Oh. Do, do daily prayers not performed 60%. And then they had done another poll, that showed even [00:24:00] more where they showed a rejection of religious rule 66% and support for secular separation of religion and state. They got 81%. This was in, in 2024.

Simone Collins: Wild. Wow. I don’t, I mean, you mentioned earlier that one economist was expecting basically some kind of revolution or serious social unrest. What do you even do though? You know, like if someone was like, oh, like, oh, Malcolm, we’re gonna, you know, put you in charge of Iran first, you’d be like, no thanks.

But like, if you had to be put in charge, what

Malcolm Collins: would you do? Normalize relations with Israel and the United States. They could, like their citizens, want them to do it right? Like Yeah. But then normalizing relations with Israel and

Simone Collins: the US isn’t gonna bring their water back. Right.

Malcolm Collins: But it would allow them to sell their oil at a higher price, which is 80% of their country’s profits at this point.

Oh. And then you, you be incredibly dictatory about any [00:25:00] form of corruption, public executions for that. Okay. No, I, I mean, I do think you should have public executions for corruption. I think you need to be really harsh on corruption. And I would because I think that when, when you get what people don’t understand about corruption like I think corruption is worse than murder.

The reason is is because the long-term effects of it are much worse if you Oh, the

Simone Collins: amount to murder of more people, essentially. Yes. The,

Malcolm Collins: it basically amounts to murder of cities, of thousands of children a year rather than one. Yeah. I guess when you consider

Simone Collins: the number of people even just being hospitalized due to port air quality right now.

Yeah, like if you,

Malcolm Collins: if you fudge a report, like an environmental report or something like that and that ends up with no water in 10 years or something like that, or a dam breaking in the city below, it ended up flooding or, right. Yeah. No. Okay. Good

Simone Collins: point. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And you need to. Or, I mean, I guess, yeah, even

Simone Collins: consider the, the role that government corruption in Russia played in their, like in the loss of soldiers’ lives.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The [00:26:00] reason why I say corruption execution for all corruption, right, is because people will say, well, I didn’t know that this would lead to a dam to break. I didn’t know that this would lead to, and you’ve gotta be like, well, you know that we. We do you know, public torture and execution for any form of corruption.

So just don’t do it. Do not, and, and you really need it in a place like Iran because it’s so normal within the culture there. It’s, it’s just such a intrinsic part. Of Persian culture historically going back, you know, hundreds of thousands of years, you need to just come in with a whip and be like, we’re not gonna allow this anymore.

And we’re going to root it out really, really aggressively. And I think that that could fix a lot of these problems quickly. I mean, keep in mind if you drop the subsidies for the food crops, that, that are basically just being paid out to keep people quiet and not revolting in these areas. Then you could drop the water use in these areas, spend that money in importing the food instead and do [00:27:00] an actual moving of the capital to a new location.

Like there is a way around this, it’s just that they would never do it because as soon as they hear, move the capital to a new location, they’re like, what an opportunity for, for corruption, right? Like, what an opportunity to buy land in the region and hike up prices, and then make sure the government buys it at 10 times the price and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But here’s some cool things you might not know about Iran. Okay?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Give us some cheerful endings.

Malcolm Collins: So, you know, they’re having this huge problem with fertility. Below the US is just like 1.4.

Simone Collins: Thought you were gonna say good stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Did you know that IVF is free in Iran?

Simone Collins: Oh. Good for them. That’s great.

Also, they have some of the best gender transition surgeries. A lot of trans people. Yeah, they’re of course forced or death, but they do No, no, no. But like, actually there’s a lot of medical tourism to Iran and there are, there are special travel agencies that sell medical tourism to Iran. Even of like, they, they address things like, are you concerned about being gay and going to Iran?

Like, here’s how it’s safe. Like they, they really like. [00:28:00] And there are a lot of very woke people in the US and Canada who have gone on the record saying like, okay, well I, I don’t support what Iran is doing, but capitalism ruins my ability to transition in the us. So I have to, it’s not even a choice I have.

And I, I know that Iran has developed many of their good methods by forcibly experimenting on their own citizens who happen to be gay, but. I just don’t have a choice because capitalism,

Malcolm Collins: they just don’t care. Yeah. They don’t care. They don’t care that these were developed, not experimenting on gay people, but what Iran used to do is force gay people to gender transition to make them not gay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But a lot of the surgeries that they performed were experimental.

Malcolm Collins: Which is funny that the, the modern left saw this and is like that. That seems good. That’s like, it’s not,

Simone Collins: but it’s affordable. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, it’s not good, but it’s affordable. So did you know that they also give interest free loans of $10,000 upon marriage slash childbirth?[00:29:00]

Simone Collins: That’s super common in Islamic countries, it seems.

Malcolm Collins: They also give housing priority to families with over three kids and child allowances of $20 per child per month.

Simone Collins: Oh, $20. That’s gonna, well,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I bet that goes far in Iran. I mean, it’s not gonna get you an iPad, but, you know, food’s pretty cheap in a lot of these sorts of places.

Maybe you, you can, you can buy your daily pack of air for that. Yes. There we go. I’ve gotta use some baseball references in this episode.

Speaker 3: As President of Planet Space Ball, I can assure both you and your viewers that there’s absolutely no air shortage whatsoever. Yes, of course. I’ve heard the same rumor myself. Yes. Thanks for calling and not reversing the charges. Yes. Bye ​what are some other fun ones [00:30:00] here? They also restrict the degrees that women can get, which is another really cool thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they do in Iran. Another cool

Simone Collins: thing they,

Malcolm Collins: oh boy. So, and Simone, I love you. So it’s so funny having you on this show, the, the whatever base camp, so thank you for

Simone Collins: humoring me with that name.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Since 2012 Iranian universities have imposed gender-based quotas and bans on women for 77 to 80 fields affecting over 30 institutions.

This reverses women’s dominance, 60% of students in the 1990s, and ties into conservative pushes for islamicization of education. So I mean, on the

Simone Collins: bright side, we, we are able to point to Iran. As a strong evidence for why restricting female academic choice doesn’t improve birth rates. So Iran is the sacrificial lamb demonstrating to, it’s a sacrificial

Malcolm Collins: lamb.

I’m happy to make. Yeah. And we often point out here, we don’t have a problem with [00:31:00] Iranian culture. We, we, we have an Iranian president in this country. Right. You know, like MAGA is all about Iran given that Trump is no aesthetically

Simone Collins: Persian.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You gotta link to that. Video. You made the song. Yeah, I made a song of it.

I’ll add the song to this one. But Per Trump is

culturally Persian. I do not know how he, sorry. As somebody was Persian friends and white waspy friends. If, if you, if you have, well, yeah. Have you

Simone Collins: seen the ballroom designs for the New East Wing?

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. Are they horrible Persian nonsense? Well, I don’t know.

Simone Collins: Have you seen the fricking oval office? I mean, at the gold. It just keeps like, racking up. It’s like a, like a

Malcolm Collins: dragon. Stand in there. But, but the point I’m making here is from my cultural perspective, it comes off as very tacky. Because I have a waspy aesthetic perspective. You know, we live in like a farmhouse that’s you know, minimally decorated and, you know, stuff like that.

You go to Trump stuff and I show you pictures of like Persian houses and Trump’s house. You’re gonna be like.

Oh my God. [00:32:00] Like, yeah. It,

Simone Collins: it, it doesn’t scream Martha’s Vineyard in the Trump properties. It doesn’t scream in the song. I

Malcolm Collins: have a line on repeat that I don’t know if people get, but I assume they would, where I’m like, where are his pictures of old boats and fancy boats and horses.

Yes. And, and it’s this thing that, like, if you’ve hung around waspy houses. Models of fancy boats and paintings of boats and paintings of horses were like a thing. And yet you know, like we’ve been to Mar-a-Lago, right? Like Trump’s got none of that. And this is like on the water in Miami, right?

Pretty fair.

Simone Collins: Trump didn’t, I mean, he acquired Mar-a-Lago and Mar-a-Lago before he acquired it. Or think it was

Malcolm Collins: before.

Simone Collins: Maybe. Maybe there’s no

Malcolm Collins: Look at pictures. Look at pictures of his house. No, I’m just saying Mar-a-Lago

Simone Collins: used to be a presidential retreat. He was owned by the US government,

Malcolm Collins: but, but it’s decorated in his style.

If you look at pictures of his penthouse, his new year, penthouse, no, it’s all very Persian right there. No pictures and boat, you see. No. So clearly I don’t have a problem with [00:33:00] Persians if I’m okay with Trump as the US president. Right. You know? I’d also point out here that when I was talking about Persians being very.

You know, tempted by corruption when contrasted with other cultural traditions. Trump definitely fits that as well. A lot of people are like, like the Trump family has very obviously done some corrupt deals that benefit themselves. There’s, there’s been some grumbling about this. I do not like corruption.

No. Come on. Every

Simone Collins: morning on the front cover. Well, not, there is no front cover of Drudge. It’s all front cover, but like drudge is always like new thing that, what I wanna watch though is whatever, like I want like a public reality TV saga of like barren Trump. I want Barron Trump dating. I want Barron Trump doing correct deals.

I want Barron Trump. No,

Malcolm Collins: but the thing 24 7, the thing was about the way that Trump does it. Which also kind of comes off as sort of version is, I think one of the reasons let less people are mad about it is because he’s so blatantly obvious about it.

Simone Collins: Like, well, and that’s the thing is [00:34:00] we don’t care that much about corruption.

Like, the American id, we care about authenticity, like, and he is authentically corrupt and he jokes about it, like he hams up about it. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like Joe Biden is like, okay, I’m gonna like get my son. And we’re gonna send him to like, work with these other countries that are gonna like funnel money into like private accounts and pay for like phony consulting gigs and, and Trump’s just like, Hey, you wanna start like.

Crypto coin sun and we’ll call it Trump coin. And then in an election cycle, like that’d be cool, right? Like, like, it’s like not even like, okay, we’re gonna hide that. It’s tied to my presidential campaign. No, we’re gonna hide that. It’s No, no, we’re gonna use the same branding. I

Simone Collins: love

Malcolm Collins: it. Anyway so, so, with the, the fields that women were banned from were stuff like mining, nuclear, petroleum, engineering based stuff, accounting, chemistry, computer science, [00:35:00] business education, consent counseling, math.

Oh, so just make women’s study useless degrees.

Simone Collins: Like, like I know it’s funny because typically in, in, in, in countries where women have fewer rights and less freedom, they go disproportionately into STEM fields. Yeah. Because. They have to make money and like they don’t get choices. And typically when women have more freedom and more social autonomy and empowerment, they, they disproportionately choose the the fun, soft, non stem thing.

So it’s really weird that Iran was like. They did. They did the opposite. They’re like, let’s force women into the fields that they would have if they had freedom. I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Take that women, you’re only allowed to do that. Fun, easy stuff. Now. Get out of the minds, whatever. It’s very strange.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, one, one of the other things that’s causing the collapses of the roads and stuff like that, which is kind of cool given how old the city is, is there’s over [00:36:00] 600 square kilometers, and this is just mapped of ancient underground aquifers under tarran. So those you mean like aqueducts?

Yeah, like aqueducts under the city that they built. Yeah, like a thousand years ago. Better than like following into some French crypt full of skeletons. I’m sure they’ve got their skeletal crypts as well or something. God, I do not.

Simone Collins: Why? Hold on to the dead bodies. People, cremate them and turn them into diamonds, cremate them, and turn them into diamonds.

We need to go on Alibaba and get a diamond making machine for

Malcolm Collins: ashes. Oh my gosh. By the way, we’re talking about how quickly things are sinking, by the way. Yeah. The city itself, teran sinks, keep it on here. I’m saying centimeters and not millimeters. It sinks 10 to 30 centimeters per year. So they’re like Venice, but without the romance, the year the city is sinking.

Imagine what that would do to your house’s foundation. Well, yeah,

Simone Collins: but also like, keep it, they look like Peru and [00:37:00] not like bougie Peru. Not like Mito Flores where we lived, but where like,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Close

Simone Collins: to the airport, Peru, where it’s just these like stacked clay-like houses. It looked just like they’re on cinder blocks and falling apart.

So, so

Malcolm Collins: let’s talk about how I ran to censorship, because that’s pretty interesting as well.

Simone Collins: Oh, we gotta head

Malcolm Collins: up. Okay. And

Simone Collins: I’m late.

Malcolm Collins: All right. We’ll do this. Well, you can. Yeah, I can. I

Simone Collins: can step away and you can ‘cause I, this is good stuff. No, we’ll do it. We’ll do, we’ll do it later. Okay. I appreciate that. I love you.

I don’t wanna miss out. I wanna know what happens.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You get to hear about, come on. I’m sure you’re gonna find it fun to learn how they’re banning people from using cell phones and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I can’t wait. Okay, good. I’m looking forward to it. Literal hellscape. Literal hellscape.

Malcolm Collins: I tried to

Simone Collins: finish this episode, but I ran out of time.

Malcolm Collins: I freaking hate you. This is how, this is how spousal abuse starts.

This is how

Simone Collins: oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Why am I married to this princess? As of October, 2025, internet penetration is 85% of [00:38:00] the population. There’s 78 million users, but internet freedom is heavily restricted in Iram. So, internet filtering and blocking over 50% of global websites are inaccessible, including social media.

Wow. Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook has been banned since 2009, was periodic lists news outlets, vbc Persia, VOA, and tools like VPNs Illegal since 2024, although 80% of users evade via smuggle. Tech in May, 2025, cyber freedom areas were introduced for elites granting uncensored access to select groups.

What? That’s crazy. Cyber freedom. If you’re the elite, you can do what you want, but most people know wait

Simone Collins: a second. Do I like this idea?

Malcolm Collins: I don’t like this idea. I do not like this idea. I think the moment, I know

Simone Collins: like maybe there are some things you should only unlock when, like, you, you can be responsible with it.

No. Well, this is

Malcolm Collins: why I’m really against like porn banning, because as soon as you ban porn, then you need to ban VPNs. And if you ban VPNs and you can tell what anyone is doing [00:39:00] online at any time. Okay. Which is very dangerous for intellectual freedom.

Simone Collins: Okay. Especially of,

Malcolm Collins: Urban monocultural government in power.

Simone Collins: Every, we can’t, I, we can’t go on.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Deep packet inspection. So A DPI monitors traffic, so they like literally monitor the traffic with things like I assume AIS apps like Appit State approved YouTube alternative tracks users, journalists, face arrests over one hundred and twenty twenty five, office raid and threats from stray from the official lines.

A new untrue content law passed. July, 2025. Criminalizes fake news was up to five years in prison targeting critical reports.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: and then state media, IRIB dominates algorithms on domestic platforms, amplify pro regime posts. So there’s the pro regime posts, the algorithms and the platforms that specifically into Apple min it.

And during elections or crises, bots, flood, social media with disinformation like it’s like they have the bot. And they try to make it look like [00:40:00] everyone agrees with them within their own country to try to maintain this belief and consensus. They also do partial blackouts. So stealth blackouts a 2025 innovation.

So they’re getting more sophisticated at this was making VPNC illegal, this stealth blackout concept that came out this. Where they isolate domestic users while maintaining global routing. EG. Mid 2025 tactics reduced speeds by 95% without alerting outsiders. The neon group documented a major 2025 shutdown lasting days costing 170 million in digital economy losses.

Oh, they also block cell phones access. So how does this work? They partially shut down target data 4G 5G throttle to two G. While voices in SMS may persist, full cuts occurred via b. GP re routing or power grid interference in 2025. Power outages for energy crisis is exacerbating this.

So they sort of route which areas are not going to get power as well to handle the [00:41:00] fact that they know they’re getting blackouts anyway. Gosh, this is so dystopian, but not in the fun, sexy way. Right. Frequency examples, routine during protest EEG 2019, bloody November, that killed 1,500 amid a week long blackout in June, 2025.

Israeli conflict, a 12 day near total mobile internet cutoff, left millions offline for 24 hours that were since 2019. Post restrictions extended into October block blocking messages, apps. Users resorted to using phones on Star Lakes, smuggled or illegal, but 70% of Iranians reported a total isolation during the recent crisis.

So you’re being struck by Israel and the government, like if you cared about your citizens, right, like they cared. A lick about their citizen’s life. You would want them to have access to realtime information about what’s going on. Yeah. During this crisis. But no, they get attacked and their first thought is, how do I keep my own people from rising up and overthrowing us?

You know, because that’s what they think. Monstrously take over

Simone Collins: God.

Malcolm Collins: [00:42:00] Yeah. But I think it shows you know, when you. Bomb Iran or something like that. What the government sees is this is Israel’s sighting with its populace against the government.

Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah. Why,

Malcolm Collins: why else would they be doing this? Yeah. And I think that this is something that people do not understand.

They think that this is a conflict with Iran’s people against Israel. When it is not. It is a few elites. That are, that are you know, really handling this crisis and the real reason they handle it is, is interesting. I think just a separate note here. Mm-hmm. Within the elite circles in the Middle East, there’s something of a like a.

Dominance hierarchy. That’s based on how much you can f with Israel. And you’re seen as at the bottom of this dominant, no, sorry, not even Israel, specifically The Jews. It’s about effing with the Jews. Okay. The more you can f with the Jews, the higher on the dominant hierarchy you are. The less you f with the Jews, or the more you try to work with, the lower on the dominant hierarchy you are.

And even if you don’t actually personally have. Animosity towards Jewish people. If you are in these elite [00:43:00] circles, you will feel like you need to do this for social status signaling reasons.

Simone Collins: Oh my goodness. It’s

Malcolm Collins: like a weird flex thing. Anyway. Tactics used shutdowns, produ prevented realtime sharing ag videos of floods or sinkhole.

So they often do this when there’s natural disasters and obviously journalism. Why would they just so people aren’t as aware of how often they had take place? Well, I mean, so remember when we talked about like the, the, the crisis with the water? Yes. When this led to like widespread tam storms in August, they shut down cell phones in these regions that are experiencing the actual crisis.

Anyway. If, if you’re talking about VPNs they’re used by around 60% of Iran’s 78 million users. So, you know, they are widely used but not as widely used. You’d think there’s still 40% of people who don’t have access to them. But they’re, they’ve, they’re like very dangerous to use because a DPI can allow them to trace VPNs.

Basically they detect a VPN [00:44:00] protocols, open VPN wire guard blocking 60 to 70% of known VPN servers weekly in October, 2025. New DPI layers disrupted even obscure providers. So it’s getting harder and harder to use VPNs because the internet is like. Checking, does this look like they’re using a VPN?

And, oh my gosh. And they can just find the protocols and then turn them off. So, ah. Yeah. IP whitelisting the HOL net only allows for pre-approved ips cutting off of VPN endpoints during the June, 2025. Conflict related blackouts. 95% of VPN’s connections failed for days domain seizures. VPN provider sites are blocked.

New ones are targeted within hours via AI driven scans. Legal crackdowns in July, 2025. Untrue Content Law Criminalizes VPN use with penalties of one to five years. One to five years in prison. So yeah smuggled VPNs via USB or D Dark Web are pricier 10 to $20 a month versus the free pre 20, 24 ones risking [00:45:00] scams or malware as well.

Yeah, I mean, imagine you sell somebody what you tell ‘em with a v vpn, but you’re really recording all the naughty stuff they’re doing. Then you threaten to send it to the government and you can get a good oh oh. Oh no. Throttling and stealth blackouts. During crises October, 2025, protestors, little data is throttled to two gigabytes, 0.1 megabytes rendering VPNs unusable, even if connected.

Oh my gosh. Well, that’s a

Simone Collins: clever way to. Make them impossible to

Malcolm Collins: use. Smuggled star lake terminals. There’s about a thousand in the country, offer uncensored access, but cost $500 plus and require illegal hardware regime, janor signals in September, 2025 and border patrols seed skits. So they’re, they’re scanning for these and attempting to block them.

So yeah. No. We’ll tell you about one good thing that’s happening in Iran That’s okay. Is their drone program has been pretty popular. Oh. So, and they’re, they’re pretty inexpensive. So you can get a Shahied 1 36 drone for $20,000 a unit. Okay. And they’re [00:46:00] mass produced at about seven to 10 per day.

And they’re by huge hit with 3000 exported to Russia 2022 for Ukrainian strikes. And they’ve been used by the huis versus ships on the Red Sea. Versus the, you know, $1 million missiles that you have with a lot of American missiles. You got the Mahari R six, which costs around a hundred thousand dollars.

This is a medium altitude reconnaissance on armed UAV with a hundred kilogram payload. This is exported to Russia and Venezuela and pretty popular. And then you’ve got the new Shahid, the Shahid 1 29 to 1 49, which is one to 2 million per unit. And it’s a medium altitude long endurance, like a US Reaper with eight.

2000 kilometer range armed with missiles and bombs. And this is seen regional use in, in Syria and Yemen. And then they also have the alibi five, which are the tactical drone for $50,000. Short range, recon strike, vertical takeoff you know, which you’re typically thinking of when you’re thinking of drones, because a lot of these other drones look more like gliders.

And this one is you know, also getting pretty popular [00:47:00] and Iraqis militias are using it. Another, positive note for them is their economy is stable only in that it has nearly completely collapsed anyway, and 80 to 90% of their income it’s coming from, or sorry, what percent is it? I can’t remember.

I said it earlier. It’s like 85% is coming from oil. And on the downside, 80 to 90% of their oil is coming from exports to China. So that’s, that’s not good when you have, you know, that level of concentration. And keep in mind that requires things like the, you know, Suez Canal staying open. That requires a lot of very tricky things to make work for Iran.

And it requires going vast, a lot of water dominated by countries that don’t very much like. Either Iran or China, very much like India. So a very precarious situation if that was ever blocked off for them. What’s interesting is that China really hasn’t pushed back on, on this. You think they would exercise more attempts to control them.

But they, they haven’t they, they, I mean, they have done some, [00:48:00] some, you know, stuff within the country, but they, they haven’t gone overboard. And part of the reason is, I think it’s ‘cause 60% or something, a fairly high amount of China’s oil is actually coming from Iran. So, they. I think the main thing is, is that they’re afraid of Iran retaliating as well one of the few countries they’re actually afraid of, or they really should be equally afraid of every country on that shipping lane.

Yeah. Which, which I mean they are, that’s, that is what the Taiwan situation is really about. They need to get Taiwan to break our ability to blockade them by blockading the straight of Malacca. And they, they will do anything to see that happen. Yeah. Not that it matters because their fertility rate is garbage and Taiwan’s fertility rate is garbage and neither of them is going to exist as meaningful power players in the future.

You can see our videos on that. I mean, it matters

Simone Collins: to people who are extremely short term oriented, so yeah. That’s, that’s like 98% of people. By the way, Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: I was gonna talk about the current political deadlock and stuff in the country, but I don’t really care. Just, you know, I ran what [00:49:00] country isn’t

Simone Collins: politically deadlocked these days?

Honestly, I mean, that’s United States. Sorry, we’re in the middle of a government shutdown.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I know. And we’re winning because we wanted the shutdown. This, we were walking around Walmart and one guy’s talking to another guy. He goes, the government can of the most powerful country in the world can’t stay shut down much longer.

No, no. He’s like, no, we, he’s like,

Simone Collins: well, we need the government to work. And the other guy was like, no, we don’t.

Malcolm Collins: No, we don’t. That’s the way many Republicans. Feel, I just want

Simone Collins: that well overheard in Walmart. It’s, it’s the best overheard. I’m

Malcolm Collins: just saying like, if we end up cleaning up as much as the, the, the demographic shift to make it look like we’re going to, as soon as, you know, the Supreme Court case comes through and redistricting happens.

It’s, it’s bad. Like it is, it is, you know, moving to a more of a political consensus was in our country. Until, until the Democrats can sort of reposition what they, they stand for.

Simone Collins: Hmm. I mean, anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Love you Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. I’m really glad we’re not in Iran. Thank you for not being born there.

Malcolm Collins: [00:50:00] Yeah. And it also means we probably shouldn’t, you know, as long as we can keep them from getting the, the nukes, do not waste time with the war with Iran. Warren’s not gonna be around for long. Just let them do their thing and they’re genocide themselves right now. Okay. Well,

Simone Collins: similar to your stance with.

Europe. I mean, that’s why you’re in, you’re in favor of in general this, this move toward isolationism. You’re like, why invest either from an antagonistic or supportive standpoint in these countries that are choosing to not inherit the future.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah, there’s a few countries worth investing in ‘cause they’ve got good tech and decent fertility rates like Israel, Australia.

You know, New Zealand, but like, not Europe, not not Iran. Anyway, love you, love you to death. Have a good one.

Simone Collins: Bye. All right. Take us away, captain.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I’m not, I gotta find my notes. Okay.

Simone Collins: Well, because you’ve not been like. Iran, we haven’t talked about Iran since Iran [00:51:00] allowed to play with nukes anymore. Like, I don’t know where this came from. This is outta left

Malcolm Collins: field for you, so Not exactly. We’ve had sort of a series of how F is X country, how X Oh is Y country.

Simone Collins: Oh. Kind of how asthma gold has that whole like, one on earth is going on in. Spain, Japan, France. I mean, we did it with like France recently. Yeah. We did it

Malcolm Collins: with,

Simone Collins: you know, China. Yeah. And, and like what, like Malaysia. Nepal? Yeah. It’s part of his ongoing series. That’s when Gold reacts. Yeah. We did

Malcolm Collins: it with one, one Country.

So I think that it’s, it’s good to just keep our fans and to be a source for our fans of, economic information, right? Like not economic. What am I thinking? Like geopolitical information, you know? Well, you’re, yeah.

Simone Collins: I, I need to know, I have, I have no idea what’s going on in Iran right now. What’s up with Iran?

And there’s people getting

Malcolm Collins: their news from us, you know, shouldn’t we be ensuring that they’re getting like sort of a cohesive, and, and we might even do a counter series to this. Like, this country is uniquely not effed. That would be nice. Really only. Two countries that fall into [00:52:00] that. That’s the United States and Israel.

Simone Collins: Well, you know, all the, all the anti-Semites watching this, you’re not gonna want the

Malcolm Collins: Israel. I basically already did that video. I think it was on like, the Jews will own the Future or something. Or Why you need to be nice to the Jews. We had

Simone Collins: like a billion of those episodes.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. But this one’s going to be a little different.

And I learned a bunch of stuff I didn’t know when putting it together. I’m excited. School me. All right.

Simone Collins: What am I making it for?

Dinner.

Malcolm Collins: I haven’t decided what, what, what, what is easy for tonight. I, you know what could be fun tonight? Mm-hmm. Is remember when you made just the cake, the, the fish cakes with the sauce and you did it with dashy and then you froze two of those fish cakes. Well, one thing I’d love is lo main, if we have the ingredients for it, try cooking like Noodle lo main.

I

Simone Collins: don’t know if we have

Malcolm Collins: lo main noodles. We don’t have any, like we do have lo main noodles. We bought them the last time we went.

Simone Collins: All right. I’ll, I’ll [00:53:00] I’ll check and see if not, are you asking for fa with ‘cause I do have the meatballs. What are they called? What are they called? What is Voss called?

The Vietnamese bun. Macha.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, fo is haw. No, I’d rather just have foe if I’m doing foe. But I’d love it if you could see if you could do lomain tonight. And if you can’t do lomain, just, just the vegetable

Simone Collins: lo domain.

Malcolm Collins: Ve yeah. Or just ine. If I could

Simone Collins: add in some chicken. Would you want chicken?

Malcolm Collins: No.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I wanna just get lo meine right first and then we can try making it. I don’t have

Simone Collins: bell peppers. I don’t have chives. Like I didn’t

Malcolm Collins: ask for vegetable lo meine. I said lo meine. You just literally want noodles and sauce.

Simone Collins: That’s

Malcolm Collins: the way

Simone Collins: noodles are usually served. No, it’s with vegetables. There’s stuff, there’s chicken, there’s vegetables.

That’s like saying like, oh, give me a Chipotle burrito bowl. Rice, please.

Malcolm Collins: That is the way that I have eaten Lo Maine most of my life as lo main. Alright, well [00:54:00] I love you and I want you to have what you want, so I’ll, I’ll work on it if you don’t have the ingredients for low, if I have

Simone Collins: vegetables,

Malcolm Collins: would, would you be okay with me If you have vegetables, put them in.

Simone Collins: Okay. I love you.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too. And if you, I got just this situation. It ran. Our marriage run away. Our marriage is over.

Simone Collins: I ran away. You ran away. They’re running away. We’re all running away.

Malcolm Collins: To what?

Simone Collins: Iran?

Malcolm Collins: Iran? Yes. I’m I’m punting you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You’re, you’re not like Elon Musk. Musk Grimes, who live off the puns.

All right. Okay. Sorry. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: That was toasty right now.

Simone Collins: Oh, where, what?

Malcolm Collins: Toasty is filling outside and she got out of the car and she’s talking to him. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Oh yeah. I’m really Okay, got it.

Speaker 7: He strides through hallways decked in gold, so bright. Like a sultan’s palace glowing day and night. Marble pillars glimmer, echoing his name. A Persian king or [00:55:00] president, one and the same. Shimmering drapes, flush rugs under each foot. A A fortress of bling that no one can refute. Gold leaf on the ceiling, mirrors everywhere.

He’s bold, he’s brash, who else would even dare? Where are the paintings of boats, of horses so rare? Where are random cottages in frames, why aren’t they there? And where are the model ships, decked out in their coats? Where We’re asking our first Persian friends, show us those votes.

He bedazzles ballrooms, each corner ornate. Like something out of ancient lore, or so we state. Halls paved in splendor, shining [00:56:00] under the light. Surprise, surprise, he’s got It’s quite a sight.

He claims he’s classy with flair unmatched. A thousand chandeliers perfectly dispatched. Grand Tourette’s, big fountains, exotic mystique. All hail our Persian prez. So lavish, unique. Where are the paintings of boats? Of horses so rare? Random cottages in frames, why aren’t they there? And where are the model ships?

Decked out in their coats? We’re asking our first Persian friends. Show us! Those boats,

every corner gilded, every surface gleams like shy era fantasies, fresh out of dreams. [00:57:00] Marble upon marble, a treasure trove of hue. Yes, it’s gaudy, but hey, it’s trumped through and through. Where are the paintings of boats, of horses so rare, random cottages in frames, why And where the model ships decked out in their coats Our gilded Persian president,

please bring on those boats

Discover how Disney transformed from a family-friendly brand into a luxury experience that’s out of reach for many. In this deep-dive conversation, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down the skyrocketing costs of Disney parks, merchandise, and streaming, and explore why so many fans are willing to go into debt for a taste of the “magic.” The Collinses look at the business strategies behind Disney’s price hikes, the psychology of Disney fandom, and what this shift means for fam

ilies, kids, and the future of entertainment. Whether you’re a lifelong Disney fan, a parent, or just curious about the economics of modern brands, this episode will change how you see the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

As this was another Simone-outlined episode, we also have those episode notes to share if you want them! You’ll find them below and the episode transcript follows.

Episode Outline: How Disney Became a Luxury Good:

Intro

* Disney is no longer affordable and we need to talk about it

* Disney park entrance fees now rise about twice as fast as the cost of an average American’s basket of goods and services, and faster than major competitors’ ticket prices

* Disney is also charging customers for a myriad of add-ons in a way that’s insane

* Jake of Bright Sun Films / Travels puts it well:

*

* At one point, he pays $42 just for himself and his girlfriend to access a new attraction (the Tron ride)

* He dropped 886 USD for one day (not doing anything particularly special)

* Surveys in 2024-2025 show that around 24% of all US Disney park visitors have gone into debt to pay for their Disney trip, with the rate soaring to 45% among parents with children under 18. The average debt for these trips is about $2,000 per family, and most indebted guests took on their Disney debt within the past five years

* Why this matters:

* Disney is not unique; it’s representative of any non-commoditized product in a market

* And discourse around Disney’s unaffordability yields a key insight

* Because non-commodity products will be endlessly exploitative; they will never really be affordable or sustainable

* When you live a mainstream, consumerist lifestyle, you will NEVER have enough money to afford luxuries

* It’s not that you cannot afford fun or kids; it’s that you cannot afford to hedonically survive in modern culture

* And this should be a wakeup call that you need to find contentment from within your own home: Your work, your family, and your community.

Price Hikes

When adjusted for inflation, entrance fee increases at US-based Disney parks have significantly outpaced both the national inflation rate and the price hikes at rival parks such as Universal Studios and Six Flags, though all major parks have seen double-digit real increases in the past decade

Disney Tokyo vs. USA Disney

Park Meals

Park Add-Ons

The original FastPass (1999–2020) was included free with admission; paid add-ons began with MaxPass and evolved into Genie+, Lightning Lane, and Multi Pass, each showing rapid price escalation

Disney+

* Disney+: The Sun: PRICE PAINS Disney slaps fans with higher prices days after Jimmy Kimmel billion-dollar bombshell https://www.the-sun.com/money/15238183/disney-plus-hulu-price-increase-jimmy-kimmel-charlie-kirk/

Disney Debt

Key Debt Statistics for Disney Vacations

* 24% of Disney park attendees have taken on debt for their trip, up sharply from 18% in 2022.

* 45% of parents with children under 18 have gone into debt for a Disney trip, up from 30% in 2022.

* The average Disney-related debt for parents with young children is $1,983 per trip.

* Debt most commonly covers concessions (food, drink), transportation, and accommodations.

* 83% of indebted parents incurred their Disney debt within the past five years, with 35% in the past year alone.

* Gen Z (39%) and Millennials (36%) are likeliest to take on Disney debt, while just 7% of Boomers do so.

* Men are twice as likely as women to take on Disney debt (32% vs. 16%).

* Most families pay off their Disney-related debt within six months, and nearly 60% report no regrets about spending for Disney memories.

The Disney Delusion

People are so brainwashed into Disney fandom (which we would argue is analogous to any facet of modern mainstream culture) that Disney is able to exploit them in a myriad of ways—and it will never be enough.

Examples:

* Disney Merchandise, with some mickey mouse ears being as much as $198: https://www.disneystore.com/accessories/adults/ear-hats-headbands/

* A typical price is $44

* Disney Vacation Club (DVC), Disney’s a robust timeshare model, with expanded resorts and enhanced member-exclusive experiences

* They extract more out of their members with DVC resale, rentals, and point-based enhancements

* “Enchanting Extras” in parks, like exclusive fireworks views, private tours, premium lounges, animal encounters, and adventure activities requiring advance reservations and high per-person fees

* Also in parks for an extra fee: New dining events, club lounges (e.g., Pirates of the Caribbean tavern, Spaceship Earth lounge), after-hours parties, and dessert parties

Why this exploitative behavior is logical and somewhat inevitable

Disney’s Transparent Approach

Disney is going to quality, not quantity: The Mirror: https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/disney-world-empty-americans-fear-1398349 Disney World ‘empty’ as Americans fear tourism is ‘finished’ in Florida

* “Disney World has been a ghost town this summer, with visitors sharing different theories about what might be behind the quiet scenes at the popular theme park”

Core Elements of Disney’s Strategy

* Fewer, Wealthier Guests:Disney’s data shows the top 10% of US earners now account for half of all consumer spending, so parks focus on affluent demographics who can pay for new premium experiences, suites, and costly add-ons.

* Higher Per-Guest Revenue:Recent quarterly and annual reports show Disney parks earning record profits with attendance still below pre-pandemic levels, thanks to massive increases in per-capita guest spending on upcharges, hotels, food, and special services. The result: “more profit from fewer park visitors”.

* Active Price Optimization:Disney employs dynamic, date-based pricing, high price increases for skip-the-line add-ons, and a steady stream of upcharges. Revenue repeatedly rises even when traffic is flat or falls, and executive commentary explicitly acknowledges the strategy of maximizing revenue from each visitor.

* Not Seeking Lower Crowds for Comfort:Disney does not primarily want less crowded parks; it simply wants “optimized” attendance where yield per guest is highest, and will flex promotions only if revenue growth stalls or competition rises.

Outcome and Position

* Disney’s pricing model is now widely understood—even by executives and analysts—as being engineered to attract “fewer but wealthier” guests or families willing to take on debt for a premium experience.

* Critics, longtime fans, and analysts note that this model risks losing the middle-class base, with executives candid that record-setting investments in parks will only be recouped by sustained high guest spending, not by maximizing attendance.

This Model Being Common

If you’re not selling a commodity, it is more logical to charge more and double down on high rollers rather than budget-conscious spenders

A large majority of businesses—especially those not selling commoditized products—generate most of their income from a minority of clients, following the “Pareto Principle” (80/20 rule), which states that typically 80% of revenue comes from 20% of customers. In some industries, the concentration is even stronger: for agencies, consultancies, luxury goods, and financial firms, the top 1–5% of clients may contribute more than half of profits or revenue

* About half of Gucci’s sales—particularly online—come from its top 20% of customers,

* Luxury industry analysts frequently estimating that the top 20% of customers can account for up to 70–80% of revenues and profits in ultra-high-end segments.

* Casinos overwhelmingly depend on their top 20% of customers for their profits, with recent studies showing that this segment is responsible for around 90% or more of total operator revenue, especially in online casino settings.

* the top 20% of Magic’s buyers—often termed “whales”—are estimated to generate 70–80% or more of the total sales and profits for the brand. Supporting this, discussions among Magic analysts and financial communities indicate the brand relies heavily on a core of highly engaged, high-spending customers who purchase large quantities of cards, premium sets, and exclusive product offerings like Secret Lair drops. While Hasbro, Magic’s parent company, provides evidence of rising average transaction values and outsized revenue growth from new products and premium sets, it does not break down profit figures by customer segment in official reports

* Even applies to phone apps: analysis group Sensor Tower documented a “25:65 Rule” for the App Store, with 25% of customers responsible for 65% of spending

The key balance for these businesses is to reduce risk of losing those fewer, top clients (since their loss matters more), but Disney is still keeping pretty broad.

Budget or low-yield customers may actually decrease overall profitability due to higher service costs, lower margins, and resource strain. Many successful firms actively segment and sometimes deliberately “fire” unprofitable clients to make room for high impact account

Basically, if you’re buying non-essentials and NOT a high roller, you’re going to get an intentionally crummy experience.

Why This Matters

Because any non-commodity product/service is going to be either unsustainably expensive or underwhelming, we need to figure out how to get whatever value they offer internally and sustainably

* Externally-purchased luxuries will never be enough

* You can’t “buy” happiness through luxury goods.

______________________________________________________________________

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because you wanted to explore how Disney has become a luxury good. And at first it was like, I don’t know, every brand. Not a luxury good. A

Malcolm Collins: luxury brand. A luxury brand. Going through Disney these days.

It’s like you go and, and, and you pay for something. You’re like, can I have that like going to Disneyland or Disney bag or something?

Speaker: We happy Vincent? We happy? Yeah, we happy. Look.

But in reality, if I were to go to Disneyland, it would be more like this.

Speaker 3: Open it up. Go ahead, open it up. Do what he says.

Speaker 4: Harry,

Speaker 5: what is this? What is this? Where’s all the money?

Speaker 4: That’s as good as money, sir. Those are IOUs.

Simone Collins: No, like ba basically. That’s it. [00:01:00] And, and honestly, the more I dove into this issue to prepare for this episode, the more I realized this, this is actually really deep and important issue to discuss.

It goes way beyond all the like, butt hurt videos that are out there, which I love watching anyway. I watch a ton of Disney reviews. I, I subscribe to channels that only review menus from premium Disney restaurants. Like I, I’m into this. I love it. But it’s actually doing the research myself and doing this episode.

I now have a completely different view and philosophy around purchasing any non commodified product or service.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, explain. My

Simone Collins: worldview has changed. So we’re gonna get into it through the lens of Disney. No longer being affordable. And we really have to talk about it. So I just wanted, for those who are not familiar with the Disney brand and how much it has increased in cost, Disney Park entrance fees now rise about twice as fast as the cost of an average American’s basket of goods and services, and faster than major competitors ticket prices too.

So it’s not just like. Everyone’s getting out of hand when it comes to theme parks. Disney’s also charging customers [00:02:00] for a myriad of add-ons that is just completely insane. And if you wanna watch, like, ‘cause I, I love videos on these. I really love Jake of Bright Sun Films. Check out his, his bright sun travel.

S channel two. He has one video where he just goes with his girlfriend to Disneyland for one day and sort of just gives you a really good day in the life of like how much you spend being a totally non VIP reasonable budget, conscious Disney attendee.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God.

Simone Collins: At one point though, he, he wants to go on a new ride there.

The new Tron ride. He pays just $42 for himself and his girlfriend to be able to get on the ride. Because there was no wait. But he’s already in the park. He’s already in the park. But just to, just to get on that one ride, because otherwise they never would’ve gotten to go on it that day because you have to like, it’s, it’s a whole thing.

In that one day, he dropped $886.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God.

Simone Collins: For not, not doing anything particular. No, he didn’t buy any snacks. He didn’t do anything special. He, he didn’t get add-ons aside from that one desperate attempt to get on a ride. [00:03:00] And it, it’s, it’s insane. It’s also, I should, I should say like, it is insane to the point where people are actively damaging themselves to participate in Disney experiences surveys in 2024 to 2025.

So like now. Show that around 24% of all US Disney Park visitors have gone into debt to pay for their Disney trip with the rate soaring to 45% among parent with parents of children under 18 who are the least. You know,

Malcolm Collins: they

Simone Collins: shouldn’t be

Malcolm Collins: getting to debt rather than like saving for college or something.

Not, not that college makes sense these days. Exactly. But saving to set their kids up, they’re like, yeah, let’s go into debt for Disney.

Simone Collins: For Disney. The, and, and it’s not a little bit, the average debt for these trips is around $2,000 per family and most indebted guests took their Disney debt on within the past five years.

It, it’s, it is. I just, I can’t believe it. And the

Malcolm Collins: experience is not that good. We went to Disney not that long ago compared to like when I was a kid, and I remember just being like, this is not, it doesn’t have that much magic [00:04:00] anymore. Yeah. Especially if you can trust it with other parts like Universal Studios.

Yeah. Which were like freaking amazing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just like Park technology. Were like

Malcolm Collins: how good Universal Studios was in comparison to Disney. Disney felt like. A discount at Attract. It really reminds me of like Costco’s versus BJ’s. Like everybody thinks of Costco as like the higher end brand, but if you’ve ever been in a Costcos, in a BJ’s, Costco’s feels very like.

And I do not mean to say this in like a, a negative way, but growing up in Texas, you could go to various grocery stores and you could tell if the primary users of the grocery store were Latin American immigrants, or they were supposed to be Texas born individuals. And Costco feels like a store that is set up for Latin American immigrants.

Typically like, it, it’s, it’s, you know, with BJ’s like it’s, everything’s like very. Actually anyone who knows, if you’re Latin American and you’ve gone to a Latin American grocery store, you know exactly what I’m talking about. They feel they have a very different structure in terms of the layout and in terms of the way they display products.

[00:05:00] But anyway,

Simone Collins: interesting. BJ’s does feel very white, I’ll say that. But, but here is why this really, actually matters beyond just Disney. Disney is not actually unique. It’s, it, it is. It is we’ll say like a sort of hyperbolic example, but it’s representative of any non commoditized product in a market.

And discourse around Disney’s unaffordability yields a key insight because non-commodity products are basically in this modern age, endlessly exploitative. There is no way that there’re gonna be affordable or sustainable. In other words, you’re either gonna get a crappy experience like we did at Disney.

Yeah. Or you are gonna spend so much money. Like you’re in debt or, or all your money spent on it, and you’re still not gonna be satiated.

Malcolm Collins: So explain what you mean by a non-commodity experience.

Simone Collins: So I’m referring to, and so, there, there are sort of two broad different types of business models. They’re, they’re commodities like groceries, like gasoline, where [00:06:00] businesses are making money by being more efficient and trying to get as much market share as possible.

And then there are products that are. More like luxuries or or discretionary purchases, where really as a business, you are making money by differentiating yourself and building brand loyalty. And the only way that you’re really gonna make money is by getting, focusing, doubling down. On your top.

Typically there’s just the Pareto principle at play. Your top 20% of customers are gonna make up the majority of your earnings. And because of that principle, basically, and businesses, I think in the past, even in our childhoods, and you can see this with Disney, they didn’t, I guess, wanna admit this. They were like, oh, we welcome all, we wanna get all the customers.

Let’s give everyone a great experience. Yeah. And now businesses are getting a lot more ruthless about like. No, we’re gonna fire, we’re gonna fire these customers either by like literally excluding them or by just giving them a really shoddy [00:07:00] experience. And we are going to. Completely focus in. Well, so consider

Malcolm Collins: Disney and why they would do this if people are confused by this.

If you go to Disney, and I’ve been on like non big days you are in giant lines, like, let’s say like two hour lines for like every ride, right? From a Disney perspective, that means you, if you’re not one of the highest paying customers, are just making the highest paying customers wait longer for a ride, right?

Like yeah, you’re

Simone Collins: in their way, you’re crowding the park. If you are

Malcolm Collins: frugal, they don’t want you there.

Simone Collins: Yeah. If you’re showing up with bottled water and with snacks packed and you’re not paying for any extras and, and then on the other hand, there’s this family. That buys the merch, goes to the premium restaurants, goes to a dessert party, gets the the genie passes.

Stays at the most expensive branded hotel in a suite. Does a six day package, is a Disney vacation package timeshare member. Like all these things like obviously. They want that, that other family to get everything, you know, they’re gonna get all the [00:08:00] attention. But this is, this is a general market principle now that has been widely adopted at and accepted.

And what this means functionally, whether you have kids or not, is that if you try to get your, your luxury, that is to say like your hedonic pleasure, any non commoditized products. So like not groceries, maybe not, well, premium groceries are different we have and everything, but like if you’re getting normal stuff, that’s fine.

But anything beyond that at this point. You really shouldn’t turn to products or services that you buy outside your community or household for your happiness because you cannot get it there again. It will either cost, it will cost everything telling

Malcolm Collins: you, or it’ll be crappy. You’re telling you the belief that you are happy.

That is what Disney fundamentally sells people these days. Yeah, but they’re not,

Simone Collins: you’re, you’re not getting happy. You go there and you’re like, well, great. Now I’m in debt. It wasn’t that good of a day. I couldn’t even get into anything because the lines were too long. And, and I’m stressed by the money I did spend.

I mean, people

Malcolm Collins: allow themselves to be sort of brainwashed by it and into believing that they’re doing something good. [00:09:00] Yeah. And that they are happy because otherwise they need to deal with the cognitive dissonance of all the money that they wasted.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, you know, the other dynamic too is that this is, I think, and I’ll show you in the numbers, this is a relatively new thing that is happening with discretionary goods, with non commoditized goods.

So we, I think a lot of us having, most of, most of the people watching this are like older teens or adults. Had some experience. With more sustainably priced discretionary goods and kind of could for a while get by with getting luxuries and being satisfied from them and getting a premium experience and in a slightly more affordable format.

This was also cheesed by that experience of like. The post.com debt, or sorry tech boom where like VCs were just pumping money into startups that sold luxuries, which in turn were only trying to get market share by making their, their products and services super underpriced. Mm-hmm. So this was back when you could get like an Uber and an Uber meant like a luxury [00:10:00] black car, and it was actually affordable, you know, but like.

That was just because of a, a venture capitalist was subsidizing it. No one could afford that. So I think a lot of us have grown up thinking that we could do this, and now they’re still doing it. Like they’re putting money into the machine and nothing’s coming out and they’re not realizing this. But this, this is your wake up call.

So first let’s just talk about how like out of control things have gotten and how quickly mm-hmm. And we’re gonna look at the price hikes.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Let’s look at the price hikes. Let’s go there.

Simone Collins: So park entrance at Disneyland, 1955. Do you wanna, do you wanna guess what it was? Does it cost adjusted?

Malcolm Collins: I’m gonna guess 50 bucks.

Cost adjusted. Hell, there’s 11

Simone Collins: to $24. $24.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s cost adjusted to modern,

Simone Collins: to, to 2024. Although I, so before, before 1981 in Disney parks, you had to make, set separate purchases for rides. And then the all-inclusive ticket model began in 1981. So if we just look at then, 1981. Still, it was $31 all inclusive [00:11:00] to get in the park.

Then in 1990 it was $72, like around $72 in 2084 in two twenty ten, a hundred and seven. Hmm, in twenty fifteen, one hundred and thirty one in 2024. 104 to 206.

Malcolm Collins: And, and keep in mind, when, when you’re, when you’re, ugh. When you’re looking at these earlier dates and you’re like, but my parents could afford to go to Disney with me when I was a kid, so I wanna do that for my kids.

Because they could. ‘

Simone Collins: cause they

Malcolm Collins: could. They literally could. Yeah. It was a different experience back then.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: frankly, I think it was a better experience rise wide and I

Simone Collins: loved it. Yeah, it was, it was logistic.

Malcolm Collins: But now, you know, for the same cost. I mean, I’m sure we could just go to Hershey Park or something and

Simone Collins: so I, I will point out actually other USA parks when ingested for inflation the entrance fee increases in US-based Disney parks have significantly outpaced both the national inflation rate.

Yeah. And the price hikes at rival parks such as like Universal Studios and Six Flags. But all major parks have seen double digit increases in the past decade. They are [00:12:00] outpacing. Inflation. And, and, and I can, I can send you a series of tables trying, well, I wanna talk

Malcolm Collins: about Disney, like branded goods as well.

Oh, we’re gonna get to

Simone Collins: that. We’re gonna get to that. But I also first wanna point out just how out of whack things are. Because this is actually a, it’s clearly a Disney strategy and in some other countries, I think this Pareto principle high roller exploitation strategy hasn’t necessarily rolled out because there’s this very interesting case study of Tokyo Disney, which is not owned mm-hmm.

By Disney. It was, it’s like licensed. So while in 2025. The adjusted inflation. Adjusted price of, well, we don’t have to inflation adjust for this of Disney in the USA 189 around to get into like a Disney Park, Tokyo, Disneyland. You wanna guess

Malcolm Collins: Tokyo Disneyland? I don’t, I don’t know what it,

Simone Collins: it’s, it’s, it’s $75.

Oh really? That was, that was the price to get in in approximately 1990. So in [00:13:00] 1990, the inflation adjusted dollar price to get into a park was 72 in the United States. Mm-hmm. So basically, if you want the nineties park experience still. You can literally get it at Tokyo Disney. Same goes for the food.

Yeah. And again, because I’m obsessively, I love watching park reviews. I’ve seen so many influencers like literally do all the numbers fly out to Tokyo and they’re like literally flying to Tokyo and going to Tokyo. Disney costs me less than going to Disneyland, California. Yeah. Which honestly like I so wanna do.

That’s why I’m like, come on, let’s get some kind of prenatal event.

Malcolm Collins: In Japan before they go extinct Tokyo

Simone Collins: Disney. I know, but like Hmm. And also like before Tokyo,

Malcolm Collins: Disney shuts down. ‘cause they’re just like, well, there’s no kids in Japan.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I know, but I mean,

Malcolm Collins: kids don’t go to Disney anymore. Right. You know?

Well, I mean, yeah. At least

Simone Collins: hopefully the Disney adults prop it up. Right. But, but it is really actually, the hotels and everything, they’re gorgeous. It’s super kid friendly. Again, the food is a and, and we’re gonna

Malcolm Collins: be talking about Disney adults in this episode. We’re gonna get to that. [00:14:00]

Simone Collins: I mean, sort of, yeah.

I mean, they’re, they’re part of this because they’re the, they’re the high rollers and that’s why. Were, you know, I mean, I

Malcolm Collins: find that Disney adults fascinating because they actively brand and I think that’s why Disney has moved in this direction.

Mm.

As a luxury brand. They wear their Disney outfits and, and branding so that you know how much money they.

Spent that is part of the point of it. Like wearing a Prada bag or something like that. Oh yeah, yeah. But they’re spending it to enforce a perception of them as Infantalized. This is a brand they want other people to see and think about them. As infantalized individuals connected to some earlier idea of what a good childhood was that they don’t want to have left.

And I think that that’s what the brand fundamentally represents for the groups that engage with it

Simone Collins: and well, yeah, I mean, it, I also see sort of Disney adulting is it’s, it’s very dink, [00:15:00] it’s, it’s very. Refusing to grow up and just choosing to be a kid forever instead of taking responsibility and, you know, maybe kids, I don’t know

Malcolm Collins: about that.

Exactly. When I imagine my classic Disney brand person, I mean, there’s sort of two categories of them. There’s the. Borderline personality, kind of obese woman who’s just obsessed with Disney. Which is one category, you know. Mm-hmm. And then the other category is the beleaguered Mormon mom who used to wear like minion shirts or something.

Yeah.

And I don’t think that that second category is exactly dink, like they’re more just never really wanted to identify as an adult.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, I, I can see that. Yeah. But I, I also, I, I just, ‘cause this is so fun. I, I wanna highlight park add-ons because this is, this is what caused, for example, Jake of Bright Sun Travel slash Bright Sun Films to pay $42 just to get on a [00:16:00] fricking ride.

So I, I don’t know if you’ve been to a Disney Park when they introduced Fast Passes. This was like between 1999 and 2020. Do you remember these?

Malcolm Collins: W the FastPasses.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So fast pass was this like, it was, I think it was integrated with your park entrance card or something that allowed you to basically like sign up for time slots at a ride.

Malcolm Collins: No, I remember, I remember because of Carmen’s thing where he is like, now you have to stand in lines to stand in

lines.

The

Simone Collins: lines everywhere. The lines. The lines. The lines.

Speaker 8: so then there’s lines for fast pass. You stand in line to get a take it to stand in line later. Then there’s lines for the bathrooms, lines for the drinks, lines for can, and cans.

Simone Collins: I mean that’s what it. That’s what it eventually became. But the original concept of the Fast Pass was actually really awesome because it was designed from, from the, the, the standpoint of how can we get people to not stand in lines, like if they make an appointment.

Yeah. Why?

Malcolm Collins: Why did they drop that?

Simone Collins: Because they realized they can make money off of [00:17:00] that. So the, the first thing was just like, basically you sign up for a time slot. You know how like when you, you’re on hold with a support and they’re like, do you wanna hold or do you want us to call you back? And that is exactly what FastPasses were.

And it just made things work more efficiently. It made it look less crowded. It was great. And they were like, wait. Why aren’t we charging people for this? And so, in, in 2017, they introduced the Max Pass dl which in 2020 $5 was. Basically $13. So like, not too bad. Then it went up to $18 and then they, they introduced the Genie system or Genie Plus system, which then started around $18.

And then in 2022 it was, it was $24. And then in 2023 it was $30. And then in 2024 it was $32, and then it went in 2025, it was, it was $35. And I mean, it makes sense to buy one of these per person. But it’s also just like so insulting if you’re coming with a family and you have all these kids and you’re paying 35, and I [00:18:00] think there’s dynamic pricing too.

So if the park’s extra crowded, you’re paying more. Per person. That really adds up. ‘cause this doesn’t include the food and the hotel and the transportation. It’s just another insult to injury. And then it’s, it’s also not just to your point, Disney Park stuff. Oh, oh. Though I did send you Disney food.

Prices, just so you could see. Oh, because the park meals are insane. So in 2014, I’m just gonna give you some like very classic Disney food comparisons. Okay. Okay. But you can also look at the food menus that I sent to you, just to see like what they’re

Malcolm Collins: now, oh my God. Mm-hmm. Sorry, I’m looking at one of these.

It is literally a frozen, oh, the, okay. Yeah. So back, I guess this is an older one. A frozen banana is 6 25. Oh, my God’s popcorn is $13.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, in a, in a commemorative plastic bucket though. So, I mean, this is why, this is literally why we bought a cotton candy machine, because we cannot bear to buy [00:19:00] candy at a venue like

Malcolm Collins: logger is $10.

Simone Collins: I mean, you need to be sloshed to deal with that kind of stress though. So in 2014 there’s a, there, there’s this place called Santa Bread Service. The, their inflation adjusted 2025 price was, was about $13 now, or as of 2024 it’s $22. How about corn dog nuggets? They were $6 and 68 in 2014. Now they’re $11, almost twice as much.

Don’t whip. Classic Disney treat. Yeah. In 2014, $5 and 36. Now it’s $6 and 43. A Mickey Pretzel. Used to be in 2024, $6 and 15 cents. I mean, it’s still insane to pay $6 and 15 cents for a freaking soft pretzel. Now it’s $8 and 68 cents. 2019, an adult table dinner at be our guest was 68 20. Now it is $72.

And I [00:20:00] mean, people are going with their kids, you know, their kids are like not eating any, they’re asking for like chicken nuggets. They’re eating two of them. They’re not, and that’s the thing, you

Malcolm Collins: know, you’re not even eating them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. But you, I mean, to get the table, you have to pay for everyone. You can’t just be like, our kids aren’t eating, which is what we always do at restaurant when we’re at restaurants.

I do a restaurant,

Malcolm Collins: I’m, yeah, you don’t like eating at restaurants. I’m like, I’ll have the soup. And they’re like, what do you mean you’ll have this soup? And I’m like, that’s all. Oh my God, my God. Yeah.

Simone Collins: No, even when you and I just go to restaurants, like I won’t eat, and you’ll order like an appetizer and they get so mad.

And then when we go with our kids, maybe both you and I will have an appetizer and their kids will pick off of our plates. And they’re like, but what about the children? And we’re like, ah. Like, they don’t eat this anyway. I’m not, I’m not doing this. But the, yeah, the price increases have been insane. It’s, it’s been really hard for people to go in and like, the problem is, even if you’re responsible, even if you bring snacks, your kids, like, they want the freaking Mickey Waffle, they want the Mickey Pretzel, they want the Mickey ice [00:21:00] cream.

Like they are gonna be so mad at you. I mean, like, we struggle to take our kids to grocery stores because as much as we’re like, no, only for special occasions, well, they always want a toy.

Malcolm Collins: The whole thing just looks like such a chore. So, yeah. No, it’s so

Simone Collins: stressful. So then they have the fast pass Disney Plus though.

So like, we’re just talking like, what if you just wanna be a Disney fan from afar, right? You’re like, okay, I’m gonna go, like, we’re, we’re not gonna leave our house. I, I love Disney as a kid, so let’s just get Disney Plus. But it’s gone up from 2019. It was 8 67 inflation adjusted. Now it’s 1899

Malcolm Collins: what, per month?

Pretty

Simone Collins: expensive. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s why we don’t get Disney Plus anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah, dude. And just to go more into the Disney debt that people go into for Disney vacations. ‘cause this is just so sobering to me, and this is again, this is why like, even if you’re like, okay, well this is my, my one thing, this is where I’m going to get all of my hedonic pleasure.

No, it’s it, you’re only gonna end up hurting yourself. 24% of [00:22:00] Disney Park attendees have taken on debt for their trip. That’s up from 18% in 2022. Wow. So that, I think that really goes to show that even in just three years, it’s become so financially unsustainable that that many more people are like willingness, like credit card debt.

45% of parents of children under 18 have gone into debt for a Disney trip that’s up from 30% in 2022. The average Disney related debt for parents of young children. Is nine 1000 900 983 per trip. And debt mosts commonly covers concessions and, and transportation and accommodations. So they’re just, they’re, they’re going into debt to buy pretzels to buy an overpriced.

Pretzel an an $8 pretzel, 83% of indebted parents incurred their Disney debt within the past five years. Gen Z, that’s like 39%. And, and millennials, 36% are likeliest to take on Disney debt while only 70, or sorry, well, only 7% of boomers do. So basically almost like getting, getting close to, [00:23:00] well, well over a third of Gen Z.

Millennials can’t do Disney without getting into debt. So if you see a young person at Disney. One outta three of them is going into debt to be there. Like, just look to your left, look to your right. One of the three of you stop in debt or more debt. And while most families can pay off their Disney related debt within six months nearly 60% report percent

Malcolm Collins: don’t pay it off.

No, sorry.

Simone Collins: No. Nearly 60%. Report. No regrets. And that’s where we get to the Disney delusion. And this is, this is where we get to this, this this, this delusion that I want this episode to be a wake up call. And this whole thing has been a wake up call for me to dispel because people are so brainwashed into Disney fandom.

We would argue is analogous to any facet of modern mainstream culture, that Disney is able to exploit them in a myriad of ways and it will never be enough. Like these people are going into debt to buy a fricking pretzel and they’re happy about it. They have [00:24:00] no regrets. They’re like Yolo Disney on the way.

This is,

Malcolm Collins: you know, we’ve been doing some videos about like the nihilism of like shooters and stuff like that, and I’m like, this is somehow more nihilistic than the nihilism I see in like satanic shooters and stuff like that. I know like this was a good use of my time and money, especially when you consider all the suffering and pain that’s going on in the world that they could be working towards or any scientific progress.

They could be pushing forwards.

Simone Collins: Yeah. They’re like, oh, that is worth it. I mean, it’s almost

Malcolm Collins: as bad as the Everest Kliner see our Everest episode, where we’re just like, you have to be with this psychopath. And one, when you

Simone Collins: walk around Disney parks, you’re not, people aren’t looking thrilled. And I watch a lot of Disney footage.

Yeah, yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: don’t see a lot of happy people at Disney. I’m gonna, you don’t, you don’t see a lot of happy people. I saw. Not the

Simone Collins: happiest place on earth.

Malcolm Collins: I saw, honestly. Harry Potter World, way more happy. Oh my

Simone Collins: God, yes. Because people are just so fricking impressed by everything. It’s, yeah. Yeah. You’re like, oh, this

Malcolm Collins: has done quite well.

You just watch it and you’re like, this was worth the money. Like, do you walk around Harry Potter World? We were

Simone Collins: [00:25:00] legit impressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re

Malcolm Collins: like. Oh my God. Like this is pretty, and I think you see Harry Potter World for me represents the failure of Disney in many ways because they had the contract to do that.

And JK Rowling, yeah, they went over their plans. Yeah. And she goes, this is just a few themed rides. This is not what people want.

Yeah.

They want an immersive world. Yes. And Disney was like, nobody does that. JK Rawling. That’s crazy. JK Rawling. Well, but then don’t

Simone Collins: forget. Disney tried, actually succeeded in creating an immersive world.

Or like, remember the Star Wars Hotel they created, but it sucked. They made it this like, you’re locked into these windowless tiny rooms and, and then forced to go into these. Like, it was just terrible. And then it shut down ‘cause it was that bad. So yeah, it’s Disney.

Malcolm Collins: It showed also like an out of touchness with what parts of their brands.

Work with people, what parts of their brands don’t work with people? I mean, I’ve watched a lot of the Star Wars Hotel. Walkthroughs or like people who did the [00:26:00] whole thing. Yeah, they’re fun, they’re delightful. They’re, you know, you, you watch it. And I’m just glad that I’m not running around trying to do these stupid unfinished games that somebody desperately program.

Oh my God.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It seems like homework. I don’t, yeah. Or like, talk again, we’ve talked about this in another episode. Talk with actors. Oh my God. Character lunches or character interactions in general make me so, but the thing is, is you can

Malcolm Collins: just go if you want that form of immersiveness. Yeah. So like your local medieval fair or like fantasy would Oh my God.

Yeah. Go to your

Simone Collins: re fair and Ren fairs are so much more

Malcolm Collins: No, actually Simone, there’s like this cool thing that they do now where people like rent out castles and like everybody goes in like period attire and like you, you’re supposed to like larp the whole time. You could do this if you live in the UK and the US will have like castle like things.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. I’m like, what castle are you talking about? No, there’s

Malcolm Collins: castle like things throughout the US that people will use to do this. And it’s like a whole thing.

Simone Collins: That sounds fun. I still don’t wanna interact with people, but I mean, in theory it sounds fun, but yeah. So you, you, you had mentioned Disney merchandise and [00:27:00] people walking this morning.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. Are, aren’t these people coming today to work with him? No. Okay, good. Okay. Sorry, our kids are

Simone Collins: really sick. No, yeah, we’re, we’re good. I, I’ve got all that. I, I, I get the admin. I can definitely do the admin if you do the if you’re on the, if you’re in the splash zone. I’m like behind in like the tech booth.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simone Collins: Shame’s getting all over you though. So, I just sent you a link and a, a screenshot from the Disney official Disney merchandise store just to show you how like. Into the delusion, you know, people wanna go. I think the classic thing that people feel really,

Malcolm Collins: oh, that is not fun.

So simple headbands, Disney button Doy and burka ear headband is $198.

Simone Collins: Doy and burka make this a thing. Yeah, no, but like seriously there there are some Mickey Mouse ears. ‘cause when you walk through the park, you wanna get Mickey Mouse ears ‘cause everyone has them. And you’re like, I. I wanna be in the spirit.

So people buy these, the average, like a typical price for [00:28:00] mousers that aren’t like discounted and pathetic, which are more around like $25. A typical price is 44. But yeah, the, you can spend $200 way more. Wow. There, there are many other ways though, that Disney will find ways to extract money from, from people.

I’ve watched really in-depth videos, for example, on the Disney Vacation Club. Because I don’t know if you knew, but Disney has a robust timeshare model. They have expanded resorts and enhanced member exclusive experiences. Like these are people who like, literally, like it is a Disney lifestyle. They, they own part of the Disney property.

And now if you’ve bought into the Disney Vacation Club, oh, it’s not like, you know, you already spent, I don’t know what, $200,000 some, some crazy amount, right? For your timeshare. Yeah, which you still have to pay probably fees to maintain, but now they’re extracting additional money out of you with, with DVC resale and with rentals and then with points-based enhancement enhancements.

So like it’s never enough. Then also in parks, they’re what they call like, and literally this is a product [00:29:00] class called Enchanting Extra. And, and this includes exclusive fireworks views and private tours and premium lounges and animal encounters and adventure activities that require advanced reservations and, and, and in-person fees and dessert events.

And then there are also the very special dining events, exclusive restaurants to club lounges. Like there’s the Pirates of the Caribbean Tavern, spaceship Earth, earth Lounge their after hours parties. There are all these things that like. If you really want the good experience, if you wanna feel like you’re having the Disney magic, it’s there, but only if you spend insane amounts of money.

And this is, this is why this exploitative behavior is both logical and also kind of inevitable in if we’re talking about efficient markets. Like I don’t blame Disney for doing this, and Disney’s actually really transparent about their approach. So. Basically they, they’re very open about their focus on going for [00:30:00] fewer wealthier guests.

Disney’s data shows that the top 10% of US earners now account for half of all customer spending. So park’s focus on affluent demographics who can pay for new premium experiences, suites and costly add-ons. Just 10% of. US earners, half of consumer spending. Wow. And, and so, and, and this is for, for everyone, right?

So they know this, they see this as a truism, as a market dynamic. And they’re like, well, I’m gonna be dumb. Like I’m, I am failing my fiduciary responsibility if I don’t cater to them,

Malcolm Collins: if I don’t kick out the pores.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And also, I, I

Malcolm Collins: think this is really gonna hurt them, and I’ll explain why. Mm-hmm. Okay.

What Disney does not understand is. When Disney converts a a, a Disney person into the Disney brand and lifestyle. Okay. That really has to be done before the age of I’d say 15.

Yeah.

Disney does not make Disney adults. Disney makes. [00:31:00] Disney Children who, who become Disney adults were taken by their parents as young kids who watch Disney movies and stuff like that as young kids.

But now that they are gating a huge chunk of the population, especially the population with lots of kids, even by making

Simone Collins: Disney Plus so expensive too. Yes. Like I can think that at least there’s that pipeline, like at least you can have like your remote propaganda pipeline.

Malcolm Collins: So they’re making themselves irrelevant in the long term because their portion of the population that has fond memories of Disney, what Disney is selling you when they sell you the Disney quote unquote.

Magic is the magic of childhood. It is trying to bring you back to your childhood.

Yeah.

And, and into nostalgia experiences that you thought were special during your childhood. If you don’t have the Disney evoked set from childhood, they can’t do that.

Simone Collins: I don’t know, because even children are pretty sensitive to the concept of luxury items.

And now that Disney is a luxury item, I think that it will get into their mind share. [00:32:00] But let me, let me also just, I don’t like Disney. Again, also, companies are not CEOs, right? Their incentive packages are not incentivized for what happens 20 years from now. And you know this, you know, it, their incentive packages have to do with this year.

So they’re not gonna be, I mean, that may be true, they may be fully acknowledging that, but the, the company can, is incapable based on the way that incentive packages are set up based on the way that shareholders behave. Of making that proactive plan. And recent quarterly annual reports show that Disney parks are earning record profits with attendance still below pre pandemic levels.

So they’ve never recovered past pandemic. They just charge record profits. Yes, because they’re squeezing so much out people because of their massive increases in per capita guest spending on upcharges in hotels and foods and special services. And that results means that you’re just getting more from fewer, you have to do less work.

To take care of these people. And they’re also engaging in active [00:33:00] price optimization. There’s a lot of discussing a discussion online now about dynamic pricing. Disney’s doing it too. They have dynamic date-based pricing. There are high price increases for skip the line add-ons, and they have a stream of upcharge and revenue repeatedly rises even when traffic is flat or falls.

And their executives are explicitly acknowledging this strategy of, of maximizing revenue from each. No,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, so Disney’s parks are like their big cash cow. Yeah. When contrasted with their, their television brand and everything like that. Yeah. Disney tv. There’s been some talk recently even that they’ve shut down basically their animation division.

So they’re not doing animated television stuff anymore, or like Disney, Disney TV stuff in a classical sense anymore. Mm-hmm. And this, this is not great. For, for Disney going forward. It’s like they have a few active shows but I, I can’t remember the context, but it was basically like there isn’t really a future for them given the way that they’ve structured the team at this point.

And their shows just keep bombing over and over and over again. You know, whether they’re Pixar, Disney, or anything like that. We’ve seen, [00:34:00] well this is, despite

Simone Collins: the fact that actually I, I saw some graphs, I didn’t, I didn’t grab them for this interview, but spending on production through Disney Plus and their other like media stuff has actually gone up.

Yeah. One of the reasons why we’re seeing Disney plus hike price hikes, I think it’s actually less about extracting extra money from the customer and more about the fact that they’re paying more for original new content. So I, I think that they are aware of the fact that good media properties are crucial if they want to maintain.

You know, some kind of base and not lose the middle class, because then now middle class,

Malcolm Collins: like they’ve, they’ve clearly taken a quote unquote side in the culture wars. Like we talk about the rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel, right? Yeah. Who,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Lied on air. There was an there apologize for lying,

Simone Collins: boycott in response to Jimmy Kimmel’s firing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which we, we pointed out in the episode he had lower ratings than most talk shows had when they were canceled. Yeah. He himself said he expected to not have his contract renewed. It wasn’t that he attacked Trump or [00:35:00] Charlie Kirk. He just lied about an assassination attempt and then refused to apologize and they still take him back, which I think Disney getting involved with the culture wars was a huge unforced error on their part.

Simone Collins: They got involved with the court culture wars. Way before that though, I mean the whole, all the Star Wars stuff that happened.

Malcolm Collins: Well no, of course. But the problem is, is they got involved with the side that had a lot of Disney adults and very few people who have kids. And that made sense from a selling more to this luxury brand audience.

But it makes a brand long-term irrelevant. I do not think that Disney is going to be a particularly relevant, like it may still own a lot of stuff, but particularly relative, relevant from a brand perspective within our children’s generation.

Simone Collins: I, I do, I do think that they should be doing a lot more to. Be accessible to children, because even now, actually when we see like Disney licensed products, like we were just in BJ’s the other day, getting our [00:36:00] normal groceries, our seven gallons of milk for a couple of days.

And we, we saw these, these rubber ducks, which our kids love. And I was like, oh my God, why are these so expensive? ‘cause it was a really expensive pack. And then we realized it was crazy expensive because it was like Elsa duck and, and it looked really

Malcolm Collins: poor quality too.

Simone Collins: Well, they looked really crappy, but also like, yeah.

If we can’t, like our kids actually are not into any Disney properties, and it’s not that we’re like trying to shield them. I mean, glee’s way better obviously and other stuff. But like, we just, we can’t afford it. We’re not, we’re not gonna spend that much more for, for ducks that have Disney theming. So our kids don’t know Disney characters.

I mean, for this one period, one of our kids, oh, Octavian really loved watching a Little Mermaid, but he kept calling her worm. The

Malcolm Collins: Worm Worm movie. But the problem is, is that kids today just seem to react so much better to hide kajima, or not hide Kajima, what’s the one I’m thinking of? Studio

Simone Collins: Ghibli.

Malcolm Collins: Studio Ghibli stuff. Than.

Simone Collins: No, they always have. They always have. It’s [00:37:00] just, it’s just, it’s just superior. I don’t know what to say. And that’s, again, that’s just children’s attention. We have a Japanese pro list, like family trip or like conference ‘cause then there’s the Ghibli Park. There’s so many amazing resorts for kids in Japan and they’re.

Affordable, but they’re amazing. Oh, ooh. Anyway, it drives me nuts. Yeah. But, okay. So while I agree with you that Disney is shooting itself in the foot probably because it, it, the way that it works is it has this like child to adult pipeline. Most discretionary goods totally work like this and are going to continue work like this.

And it is a sustainable model for them, not for us as consumers, for them. Basically if you’re not selling a commodity, it’s more logical to charge more and double down on high rollers that are honestly spending themselves into holes mm-hmm. Than than budget conscious spenders and a large majority of businesses, especially.

Very specifically not, not people selling commoditized products. So like, just like normal low priced milk, like Walmart, [00:38:00] gas stations, electricity, like that’s, you know, that’s fine. They, they generate most of their income from a minority of clients. So if we look at like, okay, Gucci luxury product most of it’s sales.

Come from its top 20% of customers luxury industry analysts. Frequently estimate that the top 20% of customers can account to 70 to 80% of revenues and profits on ultra high end segments. Casinos. Classic example overwhelmingly depend on their top 20% of customers for their profits. With recent studies showing that this segment is responsible for around 90% or more of total operator revenue, especially in online casino settings, the top 20% of let’s just take something, you know, nerdy let more homegrown like magic, the gathering, right?

Yeah. The, the, they’re like 20 top 20% of magic buyers termed whales are estimated gen to generate 70 to 80%. So this is Gucci levels. Of their total set. That is

Malcolm Collins: fascinating.

Simone Collins: Supporting these discussions among magic analysts and [00:39:00] financial communities indicate that brand that relies heavily on the core of highly engaged high spending customers who purchase large quantities of cards and premium sets and exclusive product offerings like secret layer drops.

And well, so Magic is owned by Hasbro. They, they don’t, you know, exactly give very detailed reports. Mm-hmm. But they definitely provide evidence of rising average transaction values. That have outsized revenue growth from basically premium sets and products that are only being bought by like this super fan.

And this even applies to like literally stuff that I would guess are assumed to be more commoditized, but there’s still discretionary goods, like phone apps, like just fricking mobile games analysts have found that there’s like a a 25 to 65 rule in the Apple app store with 25% of customers responsible for 65% of spending.

Just for apps, which, which is, is crazy. And the, the key balance for these businesses is to reduce the risk of losing those, you know, I mean like [00:40:00] obviously when you have a more concentrated customer base of just like a few high rollers. Yeah. The risk is that if you lose enough of them, alienate enough of them, you’re really, really screwed.

You know, you don’t have this diversified portfolio, but as long as you’re like pretty careful, you’re okay. And then basically this, this incentivizes companies. To just give a crappy experience to budget customers because if anything, they’re a burden. They’re crowding things up, they’re wasting your time when you could be spending your time better targeting and better serving the ones who have the money and can spend the money.

So if you’re buying non-essentials and you’re not a high roller, you’re just gonna get an intrinsically crummy experience. And this matters because. Basically if, if you try to buy your happiness through products or services outside your community, outside your family, you’re just not gonna, either you’re gonna like, blow all your money and still not be happy.

Or you’re [00:41:00] gonna blow your money and get a crappy experience. Yeah. And, and this is, it makes me so much happier that we have. Like made kind of the financial decision to kind of stop traveling, stop going on trips and stop, like we used to take our kids to like trampoline parks and museums and things like that, and, and we kind of had this experience, but we, we didn’t really get it.

You know, like, well, you know, this, this trampoline park is only really gonna be fun if we drop a hundred dollars at the arcade and then buy the pizza. And like, you know, get them the VIP pass so they can go on this fun part of it that’s otherwise roped off, right? Like everything is becoming like this. And the fact that I’ve now looked at this dynamic is that the the Buffalo Buffalo Ranch, I’m saving this as my, like for what, like five bags that I bought is my.

Post C-section reward. I have to like,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you know what’s up.

Simone Collins: Yeah, set some.

Malcolm Collins: She loves saving things for later. Delayed [00:42:00] gratification is like her cocaine.

Simone Collins: It’s how I get through things. It’s how I, it’s my carrot. I need my carrot. Just walk around with that.

Malcolm Collins: Why Carrot is doing what I want when I want.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no.

Like literally we got home from Trader Joe’s and that bag immediately was opened. But you, unlike me, had like one bite and then rolled it up and put it in your food cabinet where it’s like, yeah. If you knew how much I’ve eaten today already

Malcolm Collins: you look

gned.

Simone Collins: I, yeah, I, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The baby’s taking it all.

Simone Collins: He, he is actually taking it all.

I, I

Malcolm Collins: swear they’re gonna open you up again and be like, this is so much bigger than we thought.

Simone Collins: Yeah, my, okay, so my guess is gonna be eight pounds and two ounces. So we’ll see. And I’ve been trying, yeah. Anyway, but yeah. So what, what I, what I am thinking, like, what all this research has changed about the way that I look at things though, is like I, I still didn’t have this.

I still thought it’s never worse

Malcolm Collins: owning something that isn’t a commodity.

Simone Collins: Yeah, [00:43:00] exactly. Unless, unless again, it’s like, it’s, it’s homegrown and, and made by people passionate about something. So like these, these stays that I’m wearing were made by hand, by like. Nerdy women in, in Portland, you know, who sold, who sold it, like through their private brand.

It’s on Etsy, French Meadows, but like, they also have their own website, french meadows.com. I don’t, they’re, they’re not a sponsor. But I freaking love them and like you can get a luxury product from them. And actually, so I’ve had like stays that I’ve purchased and then the, the boning comes through and that’s actually happened on these two, but I don’t wanna tell them about it ‘cause I don’t wanna exploit them, but like, they’re literally like, oh, we’ll just send you a new one.

When they get a little bit broken and I just sent one back and they sent me a new one. Like that is where luxury is now. It’s in community based, like Otaku. People who are passionate or within your own community or your own family, like that is where you can get it. So you can still get it. But trying to [00:44:00] get a happy experience from any large corporate brand.

Is increasingly becoming an exercise in frustration. And as much as apparently Japan hasn’t figured this out with their tourism industry, and I do not understand how or why it’s gonna spread everywhere. So even if you’re, you know, one of our Romanian listeners or one of our German listeners and maybe this isn’t happening there yet.

It’s, I mean, it’s only a matter of time. I feel like there’s just this Darwinian business thing where like the businesses that survive are gonna be the ones that. Do this because it works. It’s worked for Disney again, like they’re still at pre pandemic levels and park attendants. Yeah. And they’re fine with that.

And like, they’re, they’re literal. Like, here’s a, here’s an article in the mirror about how like, influencers are walking around Disney parks in Florida. And it’s just empty, you know, there’s no lines, no weights. Like, oh, really? What? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because nobody’s going anymore. Because it’s only for the super and well,

Simone Collins: and this specific one that [00:45:00] they, they cite in, this was on Labor Day weekend.

This guy goes to a Disney park in Orlando and films it, and it is just, it’s a wasteland.

Hey.

Hey, how y’all doing?

Simone Collins: Does not care. ‘cause they’re still making money. They don’t, it’s really, they do not care. Even on days when park attendance is low, they’re making same amount of money pretty much. So, yeah, I just. I’m, I’m grateful that you were like, Hey, dig into this.

‘cause I was like, I don’t know. I know everything there is to know about this, and I’m like, I watch all the

Malcolm Collins: Disney influencers.

Simone Collins: I do. It’s fun. I like it a lot. But yeah, we, we, it, it’s official. We’re quitting Disney. Not that we ever were that Disney, but I liked it. There was a time in my adolescence when my eyes would well up with tears.

When [00:46:00] I heard the little jingle with the castle at the beginning of a Disney movie,

Malcolm Collins: oh my gosh. They, they ruined That was the movie Wish Upon a Star. They ruined all of it. Yeah. About how entitlement is awesome because the bad guy in that was absolutely in the right. They’re like, I should never have to give up anything I want was basically the justification of that movie.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: I mean, didn’t di Disney did Encanto? I think I, Encanto was a really great, Encanto was great. Yeah. I thought

Malcolm Collins: Encanto was really good.

Simone Collins: They just, they they still are capable of it.

Malcolm Collins: I think Encanto is the only thing they’ve done recently that Encanto and Frozen are the only Mo Moana. There was no frozen’s.

Terrible. I’ve watched Moana too, like Mo Moana has

Simone Collins: one good song. There’s nothing else about it that’s decent. It is one good song, period. I guess you liked the crab song.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I like the crap song.

Simone Collins: But no, I think it only has one good song. It’s a great song, but it it is one good song for one movie. Is

Malcolm Collins: it?

Is that the one about like, be grateful, welcome. You’re, you’re welcome. Yeah.

Simone Collins: With the, the Rock. Come on. Is that, is that

Malcolm Collins: about men for Women in society?

Simone Collins: It’s the [00:47:00] patriarchy.

Malcolm Collins: The patriarchy. The

Simone Collins: song about the patriarchy. That’s why it’s so great. It’s so based. I mean, they didn’t realize they were doing it, but it was like the Barbie movie.

It happened even, anyway. Yeah, it just happened. Just happened. Yeah. But yeah, I just, yeah. Curious to see what people think about this episode when it comes out.

Malcolm Collins: I’m curious to that I get to be married to somebody who doesn’t want anything but commodities and like, and I, I love this lifestyle.

Commodity maxing.

Simone Collins: Commodity maxing. But no, but also like, we’re actually happy. That’s, that’s the crazy thing.

Malcolm Collins: Children are the luxury item in our life. Children are the only luxury item that really matters.

Simone Collins: They, I will say I have never, and I’m not a kid person, I’ve never felt so wealthy as, I feel so abundant as when like three of our kids are struggling to all sit in my lap as, as we read a book together.

I’m like, all like they do pile up and they do all of them.

Malcolm Collins: They’re like, I get this section of the lap, I get this section of the [00:48:00] lap

Simone Collins: and it’s, it’s, it is a feat ‘cause I have this, this, this giant. Belly. And there’s like not, there’s not much room to sit and they’re, they’re figuring it out. Life finds a way,

Malcolm Collins: life finds a way.

Not soon, not with five kids. I don’t know what’s that gonna happen soon. But one

Simone Collins: on the shoulders, I guess. So, you know, we need to build some kind of contraption that allows like some kind of shelving system around us. I don’t know. God I love ‘em. It, yeah, I, I didn’t know this was possible. There’s no way though.

There’s no way that you can pitch kids to someone who hasn’t had them themselves. That would, I think, give them a feeling of what it, what it’s really like. Maybe if you grew up with a lot of siblings, ‘cause you kind of partially raised them, you, you would understand the comradery. Otherwise, I don’t know.

Anyway, I love you a lot.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too. I’m gonna go check on. You’re a spectacular woman for making all of these kids and somehow still being grateful to me even though I don’t give you your Disney trip. [00:49:00] We tried to cruise this last year and they’re like, not again. But now Octavian, our oldest, wants to make a cruise for a hundred kids.

Simone Collins: They all, no, they all still wanna go on a cruise. Which is weird because they didn’t enjoy

Malcolm Collins: it that much when we were doing it. They just, they didn’t concept in their memory of a cruise.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it was, there was a lot of crying. They were a lot of meltdowns. We, we tried to eat in the restaurant the first few nights and then we’re like, this just isn’t worth it.

So we ended up, I had a big wagon to carry them around the ship safely. And I would just, we would go up to the restaurant, order the food, and then I would get like takeout plates and fill the wagon with them. And we would just eat in our room this tiny little room. And it was cozy. It was nice, but like,

you know, I mean, I’m, I’m glad that we didn’t pay for it. I’m glad that it was 100% on points. ‘Cause I, I don’t know. We wouldn’t have ever paid for something like that anyway, but

Malcolm Collins: yeah, anyway. Love you to death.

Simone Collins: Love you [00:50:00] too.

Malcolm Collins: And remember was toasty being sick? I don’t want you picking him up or anything. I got him. If he can eat in bed in any way, you let me know.

Simone Collins: I’ll I’ll just bring him some snack packs with oranges and pears and apples and if he eats, he eats I think it’s a good way to

Malcolm Collins: do it.

Simone Collins: I don’t wanna,

Malcolm Collins: we can handle his bed later.

Him up and I will clean out his bed, you know.

Simone Collins: Oh, of all the food that he throws into it?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You don’t

Simone Collins: have to worry. He thinks he’s so clever.

Malcolm Collins: That he hides. I love the one about cheating, where you, you would have him, you say you know, eat your cheese stick and I will give you your iPad. And then one day you’re cleaning out his bed and you find all these like rotting cheese sticks stuff somewhere and you show it to Toasty.

And he goes, well mom, kids cheat sometimes, like get their

Simone Collins: iPads.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, we don’t give our kids actual iPads. We’re not rolling in money. Go. Good

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] heavens. No, no, no, no. Cheap tablets, but incredibly cheap tab. Yeah. But I mean, the term iPads has been commodified, kind of apropos actually for this this episode.

Gonna lose their

Malcolm Collins: patent. Hopefully, you know, if everything’s an iPad,

Simone Collins: They have so much money in their war chest, they can just make up. You know, but I feel like eye devices are kind of falling apart anyway, but I’m, I am really excited about. Yeah. You’re still

Malcolm Collins: easy with Apple. I haven’t, I haven’t seen it around that much.

Simone Collins: Their, their play is going to be the smart house, and I think that they can do that really well. A lot of people get locked into Apple because. They, they like the integration. They like that their, their smartwatch and their phone and their laptop and their TV are also so smoothly together. Mm-hmm. And it, it can be really hard to get out of that.

It’s, it’s an addictive cycle. So I think they’re leaning into that and it makes sense to only lean into [00:52:00] those power users anyway, which is again, a big theme of this, this podcast actually. I’m excited to get into it. So I guess I’ll just start.

Malcolm Collins: And, and tonight I’m doing just faux and seaweed in the foe and then some noodles in the foe.

Simone Collins: Yes. But with pot stickers or no, no, nothing shot.

Malcolm Collins: The, the point of this stuff is just nothing else. Just the foe.

Simone Collins: Okay. All right. So no, no proteins you’re trying to avoid. I explained

Malcolm Collins: to you,

Simone Collins: I know bone

Malcolm Collins: broth has a lot of

Simone Collins: is but is broth bone broth?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it is. Is beef or bone broth. And it, it’s, you pointed out it has about as much protein in it as a protein bar.

Simone Collins: You, you’ve like three or two cups,

Malcolm Collins: three cup, which is what it, what a bowl of it is, I guess.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I give you pretty sizable bowls. Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Simone. Simone. Simone. Simone. Simonon. Simone. How would I [00:53:00] get married to

you?

Simone Collins: I don’t know, man. You, I, I definitely won this one out. I, I’m the winner here. Got the better end of the lollipop.

But anyway, let’s see.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I don’t the better end of the lollipop. Yeah, sure.

Simone Collins: Anyway, honestly, I’m like toasty. I hate candy so much. So I would actually prefer to eat the stick than the the end.

Malcolm Collins: And that’s why you think you got the better end.

Simone Collins: No, but that’s the brilliant thing is actually both of us did get the better end of the lollipop because we each desperately need.

Different brothers, like my shortcomings are so short up by your strengths. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: My shortcomings are that I’m lazy. And

Simone Collins: Malcolm, you were the least lazy,

Malcolm Collins: self-indulgent

Simone Collins: who got up at 2:00 AM this morning and was not only vibe coding and prepping another podcast episode, but taking care of our infant and our, our, our sick.

4-year-old. Well, I

Malcolm Collins: didn’t want them to wake you up because you’re pregnant. That’s not like being diligent or anything. That’s No, Malcolm,

Simone Collins: I’m sorry. No, you, you don’t get to No, you’re not lazy. You’re, you’re so, [00:54:00] and I had to get

Malcolm Collins: stuff done this morning. I’m, I’m getting a lot done with rfa. Have a Yeah.

Live with it. It’s be so advanced.

Simone Collins: I’m so excited.

Malcolm Collins: It’s awesome. Like twice the website of what’s up right now, which is, which is working and, and decent. And do let us know our fb.ai. It’s like an AI adventure interaction system. If you, if you give any feedback, it is hugely appreciated at this stage.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And huge thanks to everyone who has given feedback so far. Great. The free token

Malcolm Collins: claims that are on the site every day. I don’t know if users have realized we give pretty generous daily free token amounts. But yeah, that is nice

Simone Collins: considering what people have to shell out these days. So if you’re into this stuff, good offer.

Speaker 9: You guys do this, you’re gonna get hurt. You know that right? Me?

I told you you’d be hurt. Do do it again.

Speaker 10: What? Oh no. [00:55:00] One, two.

Speaker 11: Okay, I’m gonna take this. Now we can go. Do you want me to blow those up for you? This blow this up for me? No, that’s okay.

What happens when a country tries to create a real-life utopia with unlimited money? In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the Gulf States—Qatar, UAE, and Kuwait—to explore what happens when citizens receive massive government support: free healthcare, education, luxury housing, and guaranteed jobs. Is this the ultimate universal basic income experiment? Does a post-scarcity society actually make people happier, healthier, or more innovative? Or are there hidden downsides to a life without struggle? Join us as we break down the data, share personal stories, and compare these “natural experiments” to UBI trials in the West. We cover everything from happiness rankings and birth rates to innovation and cultural exports—plus a few wild anecdotes about falcons on airplanes and luxury villas. If you’re curious about the future of work, AI, and what it really means to thrive, this episode is for you.

Simone outlined this episode, so here’s her messy outline should you want some links and/or notes! The transcript can be found after it. :)

Based Camp - How Subsidized Life in Middle East Makes People Qatarded

Is buying a plane seat for your falcon a sign that you’re happy and productive?

The Gist

* We covered how cash handouts fail, both in recent tests and with programs like those for Native American tribes in the USA

* But what about the cush benefits given in gulf states like Qatar, the UAE, and Kuwait?

Lifestyle Support

Qatar

* Qatari citizens do not receive a universal basic income (UBI) in the sense of an automatic regular cash allowance for every citizen, regardless of need or employment status. Instead, the Qatari government provides extensive social benefits and subsidies that significantly improve the living standards of its citizens.

* These include

* free healthcare,

* free education (including abroad for some),

* heavily subsidized or free electricity, water, and other utilities,

* generous pensions,

* financial support for newlyweds (+ in-kind benefits: (e.g., free villas upon marriage for some))

* The villas provided to newly married Qatari couples are modern, spacious, family-oriented homes that reflect both contemporary architectural design and high standards of comfort. These villas are located within planned communities featuring amenities for families, often with green spaces, play areas, and convenient access to schools and shops.

* Key Villa Features

* Size & Layout: Most government-issued villas offer multiple bedrooms (typically 3-5), separate living and dining rooms, a kitchen, and several bathrooms to accommodate growing families.

* Design: They are built with a focus on privacy, convenience, and modern lifestyles—often with attached gardens, private parking, and sometimes maid’s quarters.​

* Exterior: Architecture tends to be sleek and contemporary but still references Qatari cultural aesthetics through decorative facades, arches, and use of local materials.

* Community Amenities: Villas are part of larger residential developments designed for family living, with communal parks, playgrounds, mosques, and easy access to retail, education, and health services.​

* Comfort: Air conditioning, energy-efficient systems, and modern appliances come standard, and interiors are finished to a high quality compared to typical middle-class homes in other regions.

* These government-developed communities, such as “Bliss Villas” in Huzoom and Abu Sidra, are described as designed for comfort, joy, and modern living for Qatari families. The scale of quality and amenities reflects Qatar’s commitment to supporting young families and national population growth as part of broader social benefit reforms.​

* Here’s a Huzoom villa for sale for about $1.4M USD

* Government-guaranteed high-paying jobs, especially in the public sector.

* Overall, Qatari public sector roles entail real work, and ongoing modernization policies are making these jobs increasingly merit-driven and results-oriented, in line with international best practices

* Additional cash allowances are given for people with disabilities, widows, orphans, the elderly (over 60), or those unable to work

* 6,000 Qatari Riyals (1,647.85 USD) per month for the elderly, people with severe disabilities, widows, “vulnerable women”, and qualifying orphans.

* 4,000 Qatari Riyals (1,098.57) per month for children with disabilities.

* Dependent supplements: 2,000 QAR per month for a dependent wife (549.28 UD) and 1,000 QAR (274.64 USD) per month for each eligible child

Kuwait

* Kuwait is the most well-known in the region for giving direct and substantial cash allowances to its citizens. Proposals have included sums as high as USD $50,000 per working-age adult per year, although in practice the direct stipend, coupled with employment guarantees and generous government jobs, is significant for Kuwaiti citizens.​

* Kuwait also provides free healthcare, housing allowances, educational supports, and subsidies for energy and food, along with the guarantee of public sector employment for most citizens.​

UAE

* Emirati citizens enjoy free healthcare, free education (including university), subsidized or free utilities, residential land grants or housing, interest-free loans to build homes, marriage and birth grants, exemption from income and most other taxes, and priority or guaranteed government jobs.​

* There are also monthly cash allowances for families with low incomes—for example, up to AED 500 ($136 USD) each for a husband or wife, and AED 250-350 per child, with extra allowances for housing, academic excellence, and inflation.​

Does the Support Produce Better Human Outcomes?

Innovation

Happiness

World Happiness Report: Recent Rankings

* USA: The USA’s score in the 2025 World Happiness Report is 6.72 (ranked around 23rd globally).​

* Qatar: Qatar’s latest reported happiness score is 6.37 (ranked around 36th globally).​

Globally, both countries are well above the median (about 5.4), but the USA consistently outranks Qatar in these surveys.​

While Qataris benefit from national wealth, safety, and generous government support, Americans tend to report higher subjective happiness—possibly due to broader personal freedoms, higher rankings in life satisfaction, and a cultural emphasis on individual achievement.​

Cultural factors and the ways happiness is measured mean differences may not fully reflect day-to-day experiences, but global benchmarks show the USA consistently scores slightly higher than Qatar.

Health

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to talk about universal basic income again, but from a very different perspective.

This is one of those really important things because AI is coming for our jobs. We’re gonna get to this point where I don’t know where people are gonna make their money, and we’ve already talked about how the initial UBI experi experiments that have been run in the United States where cash transfers have been made and varying amounts to Americans have yielded very disappointing results.

In terms of basically while people report that they, they make their lives better. They don’t have any measurable improvements in health time spent with kids or even savings over time. Yeah, they have

Malcolm Collins: lower savings after UBI. Mm-hmm. And, and then

Simone Collins: anecdotally, I mean, well not anecdotally, but also when you look at a lot of the cash programs related to various indigenous American tribes, they also have terrible outcomes.

So basically just giving cash to people. Doesn’t look great.

But

Malcolm Collins: let’s suppose you have an infinite money. Well, right. And [00:01:00] you wanted to try to uplift your people. Mm-hmm. Is that what you’re going to be going down here? Yeah. Yes.

Simone Collins: Imagine. Yeah. But I mean, like, people are arguing, well, but this isn’t, this isn’t how it’ll work with ai.

I mean, AI can give you so much more money. So what would happen in a world in which people just have so much money, they can give a ton of money and in kind services to their citizens. Surely these people will be the ultimate thriving society, the star Trek of our future. Okay, well great. ‘cause we have a natural experiment where this has taken place and it’s a lot of those really wealthy Middle Eastern countries.

So yes. Thanks to someone pointing this out in the comments on our other UBI epi episode. We’re gonna take a look. Specifically the most generous countries in the Gulf States. So we’re gonna look at especially Qatar, but also the UAE and Kuwait because they’re also pretty spendy when it comes to support for their citizens and.

Let’s be clear. It’s for their citizens. Nothing. And,

Malcolm Collins: and for, for people [00:02:00] context here, this isn’t something I am talking about without a degree of personal experience and having, you know, been to these, some of these countries. Yeah. And I haven’t, so I’m gonna depend on you for this exploration of them knowing people from these countries.

And I pointed out to Simone, and she didn’t even know this, that. In Qatar, there is a common word in, in the business world called q Tarted and it is the name for they, they, they call it is you talk about Qatari. Token, Qatari being really, really stupid. Because it’s

Simone Collins: basically like a, a country where everyone is a trust fund kid,

Malcolm Collins: right?

Well, it, it is more than that. If you wanna operate business in a lot of these countries, 50% of it has to be owned by a Qatari or a a a Emirati or you know, depending on, on, there’s different ways of structuring it. Mm-hmm. But basically all of the major companies that operate in these countries are forced to hire.

Give equity to and give often sort of token managerial positions to some of the native population [00:03:00] that really hasn’t earned it. And so it leads to a note here. I’m not saying people in Qatar are stupid or like Emiratis are stupid. This is not the case. I, some of our

Simone Collins: favorite people are ems.

Yeah. One of the smartest

Malcolm Collins: people I know is, is an Emirati. Actually, like genuinely really smart person. Scary smart. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But also like based and cool and fun, so yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Based and cool and fun. She’s like, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna have to marry one of my cousins. Or, you know, sometimes you just need to put down a rebellion or whatever

I would note here that I don’t actually see the cousin marriage thing disparagingly. I actually see it’s pretty based, , to admit that your culture, , has preferences that are non-normative with the urban monoculture and would be shamed by it and just be like, yeah, that’s part of my life. That’s my tradition.

That’s the way I’m different And as far as the genetic effects, you can watch our videos on this. They’re not as big as people pretend they are.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway so very, very cool. Also really cool looking. She’s, she’s got this you know, she, she wears the full head thing and perfectly circular glasses that [00:04:00] look like super nerdy and like work really well on her.

So like this, not your

Simone Collins: only friend though. There are other, and like, great.

Oh yeah, I have, I have other, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: one of them is a famous YouTuber who I’ve talked about a number of times, Khalid who’s one of the top YouTubers in is, is

Simone Collins: that the cod? Who is always like Malcolm? It’s my name.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That is I love him. So, yeah, so. So his channel, by the way, gets like 5 million views per video.

I mean, like famous. Famous, right? Yeah. And, and so they, there’s a lot of really smart people in these countries. Mm-hmm. The reason why you get this stereotype is it’s a stereotype that’s downstream of being forced to hire people when you do not have people qualified for these sorts of positions.

Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Well, or I mean this, you could say, this is just a, another example of affirmative action. It just happens to be that this is affirmative action. In favor of the, the dominant. Group in your country, right? Like

Malcolm Collins: the people I know, they don’t need to take the token position at whatever firm in, in their country, right?

Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: they, they have merit and, and on their [00:05:00] own, you know, they, and on their own position, influence can succeed

Malcolm Collins: anywhere. Right. You know? Well, yeah.

Simone Collins: Keep in mind, like Colin, for example. That YouTube doesn’t have an affirmative action program. Yeah. You can’t, you can’t get anything for that. Right. You know?

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, so the point being is, is the, the, when you get people who are hyper competent from these environments, they do end up in positions of, of power and influence. Mm-hmm. The problem is, is that the hyper competent people from these environments, as would be true of any base population, make up like.

0.5% of the population. That’s, yeah. And the

Simone Collins: question that we need to ask is the, the question, what happens

Malcolm Collins: with the mids? What happens with the lower rates? No, not just with the mids, because you get a separate phenomenon, but you need 5% to fill the, like, the, the, the top positions at these companies. And so you often get incompetent people put in these positions.

Mm-hmm. And it’s it, and it leads to a perception and then a stereotype around people who have to work in these environments. It’s like, oh, it’s the, the lazy Emirati coming in again, right? Like, [00:06:00] who did actually earn his position? Like everyone else here who didn’t actually, and even

Simone Collins: people who have merit may not be taken as seriously.

And

Malcolm Collins: I remember how comical it was ‘cause I went to a startup pitch competition in the, in the Emirates to see, oh, what it was like was this, oh. And there were like people who had like gone through, like, gotten money. Built like a product and gone up and pitched, and they didn’t even have URLs, like working URLs.

Like this would be like at the end of like, you know, combin Combinator, not having even a website like, oh, the level to which, like for a certain class of people in these countries. Life is just a lrp. Mm-hmm. Is really sad. Yeah. And it was so interesting as well because the whole place was styled like Silicon Valley.

Right. Like, it, it felt like a Silicon Valley pitch place.

Simone Collins: Well, no, I think in, in, in that case, like in that startup pitch competition and, and this, this is the case with many of the, the industries that they are [00:07:00] trying to jumpstart. They’re kind of, building a set and attempting to. Jumpstarted, but that doesn’t mean that it’s, it’s homegrown.

You know, they haven’t, like, this is not a geographical area. Built around a unique elite world class university that has for over 100 years through various like literal geological events and also various economic events attracted various. Risk friendly autistic people who are going to do brilliant strange things like San

Francisco.

Yeah, San

Francisco. I mean, first there was the gold rush and then there was the 1906 earthquake. Both of those attracted very risk friendly entrepreneurial people who were like, here’s an opportunity. I can strike it rich panning for gold, or selling to the people panning for gold. Or I can strike it rich, rebuilding the city.

And then it was, I can strike it rich working in the tech scene. Yeah. These are people who, and, and by

Malcolm Collins: the way, I, I would say for people who haven’t and. You’re talking [00:08:00] about how like San Francisco ended up, it, it drew from all over the world because of the gold rush. Yes. People who were into high risk, high reward opportunities.

Mm-hmm. They’re not like, it wasn’t like drawing like one ethnic group or something. Yeah. And, and now you see a, a cycle of that was in that region. Mm-hmm. And one thing I note, if you don’t know people from these regions, like what are they like, you’re like, what’s their general, my read from having met a lot of them is the general sort of personal personality vibe I gave.

A personality vibe of French people recently, which was not very positive. But for Asian

Simone Collins: people specifically, ‘cause you haven’t really Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Is, is that they are generally very cunning, pragmatic, and very hospitable. Like, like very like focused on being a generous and good host. Hmm. And other than that they’re kind of broey.

Is, I guess the word I’d put it. And, and that’s sort of the, the bundle of personality, which is actually very similar. And actually, I, I had one of my friends from the region come see where I lived in Texas, and they were like, they were [00:09:00] surprised at how much the people in rural Texas really were reminded them of the people in the Emirates.

That’s really

Simone Collins: funny.

Malcolm Collins: And I, and I agree, like I, I think that the two cultures actually do have a lot in co common. So I, I, I would note here. I think that like naturally this is a people that could do really well. I think one of the things that holds them back the most is the infinite money generators and the ways that those have been handled by the state.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I still think they make a really good object lesson allowing us to. Investigate and explore this concept of generous in-kind services and, and things approaching universal basic income in a context that’s more similar to what we could get in certain AI timelines. Yeah. And not all keep in mind that this is, this is what we would get in the.

Very, very optimistic AI timeline where for whatever reason, those who end up getting the concentrated small amounts of like immense power like that, like 0.001% of people and or ais and or businesses [00:10:00] decides, okay, we, we are going to give. A, a post scarcity paradise to people. This is what we’re looking at.

This is not the timeline that we personally expect. We personally expect societies and groups to, to largely be left behind and for the very wealthy and very connected to coalesce into walled gardens that are highly secure and very isolated. Meaning that most people should prepare for permaculture and basically.

Living off the land and, and depending on, on the graces and support of a community that is very tight knit, that they themselves also support a lot. However this could happen, this may happen in some areas, and it is already happening in a lot of gold states because they have had basically the, the, the false jumpstart via oil money of a post scarcity society.

They have so much money, they can just support life. So let’s kind of go over what exactly. People are getting in terms of lifestyle support in countries [00:11:00] like Qatar. Because I didn’t know exactly how it worked. I was like, is it UBI? Is it something else? And to be clear, Qatar citizens don’t receive a universal basic income in the sense of an automatic, regular cash allowance for every citizen.

But instead they, they get a lot of social benefits and subsidies that significantly improve their standards of life. So let’s go over what they do get, they get free healthcare, they get free education, including, especially for guitar. And we’ve talked about this in other episodes education abroad.

They’re, they’re one of the biggest, what, like donors to us universities, right? They get heavily subsidized or free in, in many cases, electricity. Water and other utilities. Imagine just having all your utilities paid for. They have generous pensions, so they still receive retirement benefits. They get retirement or sorry newlyweds get additional financial support.

This includes. Some very interesting in kind benefits, like [00:12:00] free villas upon marriage. For some I had to free villas. I love this. I had to, yeah, I had to double click on this ‘cause I was like, what, what do free villa like, sign me up. What, what did they look like? Did you, did you find pictures? I did, yeah

.

So just, just to, for those listening, the, the villas for newly married Qatari couples, they’re modern, they’re spacious, they’re family oriented. They reflect both contemporary architectural design and higher standards of comfort. To your point about hosting, like they have really nice hosting spaces. They’re located within planned communities featuring amenities for families, often with green spaces and play areas, and convenient access to schools and shops.

So. They have three to five bedrooms, plenty of room for a family, like talk about prenatal list, separate living and dining rooms. They have a kitchen, several bathrooms to accommodate the growing families. Like definitely this, this is a focus on families. They have a, a big focus. They, they feel kind of compounding, so there’s a big focus on privacy and convenience and they’re very modern.

And they look. You [00:13:00] know, anyone who lives in Los Angeles, like they’ll see these new houses that crop up whenever someone buys a tear down, like in San Diego that are very like, sort of blocky and compounding. So the architecture is very sleek and contemporary like that. But it also references Qatari cultural aesthetics through some of like the arches and local materials.

And, they’re, they’re like like I said, in these, in these very new planned communities in many cases. So, some of the government developed communities such as Bliss Villas in Zum and Abbu Sidra are described as being designed for comfort and joy and modern living for Tari families. I’m gonna send you a link to.

The development website for Abu Ra, because it looks like maybe it’s not done yet and I have to be.

Malcolm Collins: I I, I will note that the thing that she’s not mentioning that is actually by far the biggest benefit that you get within these countries mm-hmm. Is the legal regulations I mentioned around when you need to hire Qataris or you need to have stock ownership by Qataris.

Same with the Emirates. That is by [00:14:00] far Oh, that’s, that’s really nice.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, that, that’s the really big thing. Instead of UBI, you basically have government guaranteed high paying jobs, especially in the public sector. Yeah, and to your point about there being like an issue of merit that is something that people have alleged and has is, and has been an issue, but apparently there is more focus on reform now, like people are being held to higher standards of accountability.

And yeah, keep

Malcolm Collins: in mind my experience was this is like a, a decade ago. So yeah, and these roles

Simone Collins: do involve real work and ongoing modernization policies are making the jobs more merit driven and results oriented. So this

Malcolm Collins: is something I’d note about the sort of elite Arab, communities that mm-hmm.

That I have engaged with. Because the, the, the elite Arab communities are very different from the non elite Arab communities. There’s, there’s quite a, it’s a very high power distance sort of area in terms of cultures. Yeah. Which means you get more cultural distance. And so when I talk about Arab culture right now I’m talking specifically about the, the culture of the elite.

And we have another episode where we talk about how rare democracies have been in Arab majority [00:15:00] countries. And I think part of the reason is, is because the elite culture is so differentiated from the mainstream culture. More competent. Yeah. But would I back to the villas

Simone Collins: though, I just wanna show you one more.

Okay. I’m, I’m sending you photos from one of the zum villas, like, ‘cause I actually found a property listing.

This one is for about 1.4 million US dollars. So I think you can also buy properties in these. Oh my God. They’re all like marble and stuff. These are, I know, it’s, yeah. It’s, it’s actually like, it’s, to me, the interior feels very cold and soulless, but it is,

Malcolm Collins: oh no. All the nice stuff there feels that way. So like when you go to like a, like a princess palace there or something like that. ‘cause I know a few actually they’re, they’re like giant rooms that feel very empty and covered in gold often, and like really high beams and everything. Yeah, it seems like a

Simone Collins: very, like a, a very high scale hotel room.

Just marble, a very, very high, high scale millennial gray. Kind of beige gray. Yeah. Grge. It’s grge. It’s very grge. Lots of marble. But,

Malcolm Collins: but the point I was, I was making there is one of the, the things about these cultures mm-hmm. [00:16:00] Is remember the, the first thing I said is that they’re very cunning. Is what, and cunning.

Pragmatic. And, and hospitable. When you get this sort of cunning pragmatism of which you do get within these cultures in a disproportionate amount they are like, if, if you go to one of them, right? Like back back. When I, you know, back then, right, I, back when this was more of a problem, presumably.

Mm-hmm. And you were like, Hey, there’s this problem where people who aren’t competent are getting into these positions and it’s leading to like, lower outcomes. Yeah. They’re not gonna be like an American, like DEI person. They’re like. Yeah, I mean that happens. And what’s a better way that we could structure things so that our people continue to have disproportionate power?

And, and in the, in the west, people would be like, what? What do you mean? It’s like, well, I mean it’s our money and our country. Why wouldn’t we attempt to lift up our people ya knob, like right now that’s not working well. What’s a better way to do it without handing power to outsiders? [00:17:00] Right? Like.

That’s not a, that’s not a, like I, I, I, I think there’s people who might hear this and think that, that they, they were in this situation because of some degree of incompetence in the way things were structured. And what you seem to be indicating is even past then, they have been trying to make things better.

And, and you do, you do absolutely see this in these, in these cultures around their elite population is they are aware of these problems. And unlike the American like DEI scene or something there is long-term strategy behind it.

Simone Collins: You know, this is, yeah, this, this doesn’t come from some kind of like, how do I, so it, it’s not like Venezuelan.

Yeah, like Venezuela just ruined, like, they were like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, and then they ruined it all. Whereas in these Gulf States it’s like, oh, we have stupid money. Like, let’s try to turn this into a long term tra long-term strategic advantage for our people. And I really, I, I admire that and I appreciate that.

And again, this is why I wanna look to these countries as a case study. And, and look at their success. Like learn from their successes, but also learn from [00:18:00] their failures. American get the failures. Yeah. It’s not a case

Malcolm Collins: study. And I wanna point out here where anyone was acting, and this is what makes it such a good state case study.

Without pragmatism. Mm-hmm. Without practicality. Yeah. Without a long-term plan. Uhhuh and without a degree. Of, I would say intelligent ruthlessness. Absolutely. Yeah. So, and keep

Simone Collins: like, you know, these villas aren’t dink villas. These are three, five bedroom. They’re like, you’re gonna have kids, right?

Have kids. Make sure that you have kids. And keep in mind, while Qatar gives most of its benefits is like in kind like, oh, you will get a job and you’re gonna work for it. And that was another thing that we talked about in our UBI episodes was that people who received cash transfers, even ones that weren’t like that big, worked less.

And it, it wasn’t good for them. And same with Native American groups, like some people chimed in the comments with anecdotes in response to that episode and pointed out how one person was talking about a Native American. Community that he was aware of that was just like floundering in addiction and just tons of social problems.

And then the tribe changed their [00:19:00] policy and required more merit to justify any cash payments and it really started to turn things around you. It’s clear and that you can also see this with the New deal and especially the, civilian Conservation Corps in, in the United States history, like during the Great Depression, people who participated in that experienced very long-term benefits.

And it, it is clear to me from the data that working for your money and your benefits gives you a sense of empowerment, gives you a sense of purpose. Like you do really need to work for this. So what I really appreciate about guitar here too. Is that while they’ll give you free education and healthcare and electricity and water and homes and all these things they’re also like, no man.

You, you, you have to work, like get a job. I’ll give you a job, but you have to work. However you know, on, on the cash transfers front, they do nevertheless give pretty generous. Allowances for people who can’t work. So widows, orphans, the elderly, like people over 60. Yeah. They get let’s see. So for the elderly, they get 6,000 [00:20:00] Qatari reels, which is around 1,600 US dollars for children with disabilities.

Families get per child just over 1000 US dollars per month. And for a dependent wife about 550 per month. And just for normal child who’s not disabled, about $274 a month, that’d be huge for us. Like, that’d be great, you know? Yeah. I wouldn’t mind it. So in terms of other countries and in the area that I mean, and the most generous Gulf countries and a lot of, like most of them that are wealthy have benefits like these Kuwait’s the most.

Close to giving on universal basic income. They give more direct cash allowances. Some proposals have included sums as high as $50,000 per working age, adult per year. But in practice, the, the direct stipend coupled with employment guarantees and generous government jobs is really how most citizens get their income.

And again, I think that’s really important. It’s jobs, but they do again, provide healthcare, housing allowances, educational supplements, [00:21:00] subsidies for energy and food. And again. Guaranteed public sector employment. And I, I do think that if UBI or some like post AI thing is gonna work, it’s gonna have to be through jobs.

And Emirati system, citizens in the UAE also have free healthcare free education, including university subsidized a free utilities rent, residential land or housing interest free loans to build homes. Can you imagine marriage and birth grants? ‘cause remember when we talked in our, in our Muslim fertility, right?

One, they’re the ones who were like, yeah, we’ll give you $16,000 for a wedding. Please get married.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I think it’s so funny to talk about these countries because there’s been a lot of countries that have like stumbled into wealth in various ways. Yeah. And these countries, I mean, obviously one of the best in terms of how they handled it was, I can’t remember if it’s Norway or Sweden was their local fund, but the Saudis have done a pretty good job, and the UE has done a pretty good job and Yeah.

And guitar has done a pretty good job. Yeah. And, and, and like exceptionally good when you contrast it with, with other countries where it’s like, just like the warlord in his family. Suck everything up. Yeah. [00:22:00] Whereas in these countries like they did like the least, they sat down and they’re like, okay, so I want to use this to like increase the quality of life of my people.

And then DEI guy comes in and he goes, you mean everyone who lives in your country? No, no, no, no. We’ll treat them like slaves. Yeah. My people. My people. But, but what he, yeah. You know, they, they can live like they live. Wherever they’re coming from. Okay. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, and it is really, really tough for non beneficiaries in these countries.

You know, prices are, are really high for them for food and groceries. It, it really sucks. I did check to see, ‘cause a lot of people have said no. Well,

Malcolm Collins: not, not necessarily. I mean, as a, as a non-native, if you’re like hyper competit. If I wanted to, like, if I wanted a good, like really reliable income I could probably get it in in the UA e maybe.

Yeah. Because no, no, no, no. It’s not like a maybe thing, this is like for like Stanford MBA type people. It’s like a known thing, right? Like if you did very well [00:23:00] in the Americas and you are like elite class in the Americas there are certain places that you can go where they always need. Like a, a really good oh,

Simone Collins: like someone to actually work.

Except again, I think that they’re, they’re getting better at, at really focusing on merit.

Malcolm Collins: Right? They are, but they always still need to bring in and, and they’re smart about it as well. Like a lot of these countries, they don’t have so much pride. They’re not like that it blinds them again to pragmatism and cuing.

They’re like, okay, but obviously we’re not gonna have the final decisions being made by, you know, the, the people who are here on, like the DEI hire, I like

Simone Collins: our freezing stone, Pennsylvania farmhouse. I mean, I, looking at that house. Oh no. It’s a miserable place to live. It. Yeah. The villa, like, it feels like a sterile Barbie dream house.

Like I, I would just feel existentially depressed in it. And I, I like the struggle. I like the fact that like, we can’t really afford to pay electricity. No, no. I agree

Malcolm Collins: with all that. I mean, and it’s not the only place in the world that’s like that, like Singapore is another really good place if I wanted to get a [00:24:00] decent.

Reliable driver. We’re not

Simone Collins: going somewhere so hot. Oh my God. No. Well, UIE is pretty

Malcolm Collins: hot as well. So is

Simone Collins: Qatar. Yeah, but they have free energy, so you can just do air conditioning forever.

Malcolm Collins: But you know, you know why I can’t live in any of these countries? I, I, I don’t know because you just called

Simone Collins: them catted, maybe.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. They’re, because you’ve,

Simone Collins: you’ve, you’ve thrown China under the bus million times. I, I,

Malcolm Collins: these, as I’ve said, these people are, are very pragmatic. I know, I know. They just want competent people. Okay. Why can’t you, why can’t you work there? They don’t really have any tolerance for a lot of the. DEI stuff of the west, but, oh, I thought you were gonna say alcohol.

Sorry.

Simone Collins: It’s like, it’s alcohol. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Alcohol is incredibly expensive in every single one of these countries, including Singapore. You’ll be a copper.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It won’t work. Yeah. I mean, God, I mean, we, we can barely, I mean, with the alcohol taxes here, i, I, the Pennsylvania alcohol industry is such a weird racket anyway, owned by the state.

What we need to do. Yeah. What we need to do though is discuss now, does this. Paradise of post scarcity for citizens in [00:25:00] these countries produce better outcomes because that’s, yeah. What happens again, what we need to be asking, and that is what you know, we, we talked about in our universal basic income episode, because while people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m definitely better off by measurable policy outcomes in, in the words of Kelsey Piper who wrote the blog post that we read.

Not really. No. So let’s start with happiness. ‘cause everyone just cares so much about happiness. We don’t, but people do. So if we look at the World Happiness Report, ‘cause of course there’s one in recent rankings. The USA score in 2025 was 6.72. It was ranked around 23rd globally, which is pretty good. Qatar it has the latest reported score of 6.37.

It’s ranked about 36th globally. So, while both countries are well above the median, which is around 5.4 USA, consistently outranks Qatar in the happiness surveys, which is very interesting because you can imagine, you know, describing the [00:26:00] benefits I described the villas, the free education to most Americans, and they’d be like, that’s all I need to be happy.

That’s all I need. So it’s interesting that while Qatari benefit from national wealth and safety and generous government support. Americans still tend to report higher subjective happiness, and maybe this is due to some broader personal freedoms. Maybe it’s, it’s just higher satisfaction or Americans

Malcolm Collins: are happier than

Simone Collins: they are.

Yeah. Amer, yeah. Like I said, Americans rank around 23rd globally, and Qatari as of 2025 are around 36 globally. So maybe

Malcolm Collins: I,

Simone Collins: I, I can see why

Malcolm Collins: I mean. I haven’t, like in, in my time there, the people I met are not as happy as the people in the United States.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s interesting though ‘cause when you ask,

Malcolm Collins: well also keep in mind the responsibilities they feel.

So I think that this is also like when I talk with UAE friends and stuff like that mm-hmm. The, their, their life [00:27:00] is often much more sort of planned out from day one than people in the United States where, well, and where’s the

Simone Collins: struggle? Like, where’s the tension?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, the, that’s where the struggle is.

It’s in actually stressful stuff. You gotta marry one of your cousins. Oh, you gotta build up that relationship from like day. Super important because you gotta marry the right person to build family alliances. And you’ve gotta, you know, it doesn’t sound stressful. You’ve gotta, hold all of these traditions.

And you’ve gotta host guests in just this way with just these plates being brought out in just this procession. And then you’ve got a fast for like freaking half the year and then you’ve gotta do, do this and this and you can’t even drink. And you can’t. I don’t think they’re allowed to gamble either.

You can’t so, so you’re, you’re, what, what are you, how are you recreating Was and hookah bars, which just gives you the jitters. You, sorry. It’s,

Speaker: Welcome to Muslim sensitivity training. It is important for us to understand why the Muslims feel the [00:28:00] way they do first of all, there’s no sex until marriage in the Muslim world. Now, this would be fine, except that in the Muslim religion you also can’t jack off.

And what do we know about the places Muslims live? They live in. Sand. Now put yourself in the shoes of a Muslim. It’s Friday night, but you can’t have sex and you can’t jack off. There’s sand in your eyes and probably in the crack of your . And then some cartoon comes along from a country where people are getting laid and mocks your prophet.

Well, you know what? I’d be pretty pissed off too.

Malcolm Collins: I dunno, what I, what I

Simone Collins: always think of is, and I’m sending this picture to you on WhatsApp, is that famous photo of the Falcons that the Saudi princes bought seats for on, on a plane

.

Simone Collins: And I’m just like, I don’t know, like are are buying seats for your falcons on an airplane. Is that a sign of human flourishing? Like, are you thriving if you’re, if you’re flying around your birds on, oh my God, I had

Malcolm Collins: no idea it was like this. Yeah. And so literally. [00:29:00] The entire middle row is just Falcon seats.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: Falcons on what

Simone Collins: the heck

Malcolm Collins: these are, these are the

Simone Collins: falcons that are flying in Coach.

Malcolm Collins: There’s just like a big thing there. I’ve heard. I don’t know the full story here ‘cause it’s been a while, but my sister almost married a prince from the region who was really into Falcon. Now part of me wonders if it was this guy.

No, not almost. No. There’s a lot of

Simone Collins: people into Falcon. I’m just like, they

Malcolm Collins: weren’t, they weren’t like it was like a proposal or something. I, I don’t understand the specifics of it. I, I just remember hearing this story at one point. I’m

Simone Collins: just saying like, I don’t. I don’t think I would be happier if I had that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I would not be happier. Happier, a happy liar with 20 falcons. That, that does not make me happier. Having, yeah, it doesn’t even seem like a particularly fun hobby. I mean, different people are into different things, but

Simone Collins: yeah, just, you know, money, money only goes so far. So anyway, happiness. They’re not no.

Not necessarily the thing. So let’s go to health. Right. Okay. So a lot of people, and, and we, we, we’ve covered a lot of different surveys on what people [00:30:00] value the most. And health is, is up there really ranked high, especially among Gen Z, gen Y, millennials. So let’s look at that. Let’s compare the Gulf States that have all this money with the eu, with the uk, Canada, and, and also in the us.

So broadly, let’s keep in mind first for context. Healthcare is universal and high quality in the Gulf States, in the eu, in the UK and Canada, they have nationalized healthcare. You can get healthcare. It’s, it’s just part of the package in the us. Health insurance is patchy. It’s really expensive. Not everyone has it.

It’s sometimes if you’re at the poverty level and you get free healthcare, it’s, it’s confusing, you know, if, if you’re asthma, gold and people think you’re homeless, they’re just not gonna bill you with emergency. Sure. I love that. That

Malcolm Collins: happens to asthma gold on multiple occasions. Hospitals not charging him.

Everyone just thinks

Simone Collins: he’s a homeless man. I love him so much. Homeless privilege. So anyway,

Malcolm Collins: that’s really so weird. Like all of these weird like libelous attacks and slanderous attacks I’ve seen against him recently that I didn’t see before. I think

Simone Collins: that’s because he’s. His profile is [00:31:00] rising and people now see him as a threat.

They’re like, because how do you, how do you compete with him? You can’t, you can. No. Especially

Malcolm Collins: if you’re a leftist. ‘cause you can’t paint him as like a rich elite. Right? Yeah. You may have money because of his streaming now, but he still lives in a place that looks like a crack house.

Yeah. You know, he is, he is.

Doesn’t even like put all of his teeth in because he’s like, ah, they don’t see that on camera. Yeah. He just doesn’t to decide.

Simone Collins: That shows up on camera. Anyway, I, so I’m just, anyway so I just wanna say like, because I obvious spoil alert, the US doesn’t rank the best for health, but also we don’t have universal healthcare in all the competition does.

And I actually think we’re doing pretty well. So the, the life expectancy in years for the US is 78 to 29. And then the best ranking one is the EU, where it’s 84 to 80, but honestly like 78 versus 84. Like, honestly, like you’re old, your quality of life isn’t that great anyway. Like I’m, I’m not mad about that, especially [00:32:00] considering that, that healthcare is more spotty in the United States.

So in Canada it’s 83 uk, 81 eu, like I said, 80 to 84. In the UAE where we have all this money, it’s 79. SA is 78 to seven to 79. All right, so in in post scarcity, futuristic ai, utopia world, they’re not necessarily living longer. Qatar 80, that’s one year more than 79 in the us. Kuwait 78. At the, the lower end of the us

Malcolm Collins: And then this is the thing is that these are the countries where it’s managed the way we would manage it if you had the top minds working on it, right?

Because if you were to ask like a, a

Simone Collins: person in the US they’re like, well, what would it take for us to, to get to 84 like in the eu? They’d be like, well, of course universal healthcare, it just needs to be paid for. Well guess where it’s paid for the most generously? How are they doing the same as us? Okay.

And one, I think the big factor here though, do you wanna guess what it is, Malcolm? [00:33:00] What? Tell me. It’s obesity. They’re fat. They’re fat like us. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: well, especially if

Simone Collins: your whole body can be covered easily. That’s true. The billowing clothes, you know, you gotta, they need introduce the Star Trek uniforms.

They already have the post scarcity society introduce the spandex. You’re gonna shame them into being thin right away. Right away.

Malcolm Collins: They never do. So, I mean, one of the things I love about these, these environments, if you’re not familiar with them is in the United States pretty much, and this is true across Western cultures when you are in upper class environments, like at an office or something like that, especially like in elite office, you’re often expected to come in a uniform like suit and tie, right?

And, and very few cultures in Texas where I’m from you can. If you are Texan, get away with modifying that

, you know, with jeans, the kbo and belt and Ebola and stuff like that. Yeah. Minor modifications, but, but you know, there, they’re one usually reserved for Texans. You’d be seen as pretty weird if you were a non Texan and you did that.

[00:34:00] And you, you, but in Texas, I think it’s one of the few cultures where they, on the broader side, think it was kind of cool that you were that into Texas culture. They, they’re not gonna be like, you’re appropriating my culture. They’re like, ah, that’s cool. But in the UAE when you are in, in, and this is also too in Qatar, but it’s like different outfit.

When you are in like high society very like wealthy like business office or whatever they wear their traditional outfits,

Simone Collins: which they look pretty

Malcolm Collins: awesome, I think is really cool. Yeah. I think that’s, but you’re right, they’re a

Simone Collins: little forgiving when it comes to those inclined to, could be

Malcolm Collins: quite obese in these traditional outfits without anybody really

Simone Collins: Killer.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: It’d still look. Yeah.

It reminds me, , St. Andrew’s where at the end of winter, so I, I went to school at St. Andrew’s, which is in Scotland. , And at the end of winter they do this thing called may dip. But obviously over winter everyone’s dressed in very, like, layered puffy clothing and it may dip. I remember being shocked about how many of the [00:35:00] girls had become quite fat without me realizing it because of all the puffy clothing that they were wearing.

And this is why when you normalize outfits that hide how obese people are, people just naturally become more obese. Moto Moto would’ve had a field day. It may dip.

Speaker 4: I like him big. I like him. I like, I like,

Malcolm Collins: if you, if you look at the male ones, they’re sort of like. Robe thing, drab Dr. Over you think Jedi. They all, they all walk around dressed like Jedi. Jedi. Yeah. And so would think about in

Simone Collins: just really a sci-fi post scarcity world.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. How, how fat does the Jedi need to be before you notice, I mean, yeah, right.

And, and you’re like, well, you notice in the neck. And it’s like, no, they’ve got things that cover the neck. Mm-hmm. So you wouldn’t even see that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: tell you what,

Simone Collins: but yeah, so that’s, it’s, it’s the obesity, it’s the nutrition, both the Gulf states and, and the US diets. They’re, they’re much more calorie [00:36:00] dense, whereas EU diets are healthier overall.

Also the men, the mental health situation in, in the West is actually much better. Or at least like they, it’s hard to kind of read this. Maybe you could argue maybe that the Gulf States are better because they have a stigma against mental health problems and just don’t treat them. But as far as as some people are concerned, the Gulf is improving, there’s less.

Stigma. Stigma, but it’s still far behind the Western countries, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I, we suffer from the happiness rates though, that like they’re not as happy. So let’s talk about if people below on our

Malcolm Collins: show. We often say that the US mental health industry is a bit of a scam, which mostly perpetuates mental health problems rather than, yeah.

Makes it worse. Doesn’t, doesn’t make it better. I mean, I would imagine that they probably deal with this stuff much more directly in the Yeah, they’re like.

Simone Collins: Nut up,

Malcolm Collins: nut up. Stop acting. Sad. You win. Yes. Ifferent matter.

Simone Collins: Stop hyperventilating. So mental health we’re just gonna, whatever, but birth rates.

Okay. This is, this is kind of the key, key indicator of health, right? Yeah. Like, are you perpetuating your genes like you’re fit or you’re not, you know, that’s ultimately what [00:37:00] it comes down to. Yeah. Kind of. I mean, it’s not as bad as I thought. So Kuwait. Which has like, you know, the closest to the UBI situation.

Mm-hmm. It’s 1.5 to 2.2. That’s kind of a huge range. So I don’t know what to do with that. It’s way

Malcolm Collins: below the US though.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So the SA is 1.6 ish. So like 1.5 to two point keep mind. We don’t get paid to marry in the United

Malcolm Collins: States.

Simone Collins: I know, I know. And well, you don’t get like, everything taken care of, you know, get subsidies for kids, so like.

I’m, I’m not impressed given everything that they offer. In Qatar, it’s 1.4 to 0.9 is get

Malcolm Collins: married. So, so something you’re forgetting in these countries is if you are from like an elite family or something like that, or you are like an extremely high performer mm-hmm. Who you marry is much more difficult to organize than it did in the US because you’re typically marrying into a family network.

Oh, so you’re saying

Simone Collins: it’s kind of the Catholic situation here where like. Because so much thought and and effort gets put into getting married [00:38:00] that they’re overthinking it, getting married too late and then not able to have as much kids as they otherwise.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I suspect is really going on.

So if you look at the United States, I mean, you just need to find somebody who like you’re like is hot and you want to spend time with, you don’t need to like go into. Who they’re you, you’re not first limited to only people within. And we’ve noted this isn’t like bad genetically speaking, especially if you’re talking about second cousins.

Mm-hmm. Which is actually the, the highest genetic third

Simone Collins: cousin. Third cousin or third cousin is the highest genetic. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But, but in these countries these are things that you actually pay attention to. You know, you are marrying within sort of your population group. Second is a much smaller population.

Mm-hmm. Like for me when I’m dating it’s just broadly white people, right? Like there’s a lot of white people, well, I’m sorry Eugene, have you not dated

Simone Collins: a lot of non-white people?

Malcolm Collins: I did date non-white people, but not that frequently. It wasn’t actually, I didn’t even have a preference really for white people.

It’s just I happened to date them more. I don’t know why.

Simone Collins: I felt like white people responded more to my outreach on dating platforms. [00:39:00]

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I like, I definitely, I dated

Simone Collins: Indian, Asian, black.

That’s it. In white. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But in these countries, I, I’m saying like, even, even if you have a preference, right? You, you’re still like, broadly, I can go to the UK and find somebody and I’m not, no one’s gonna think that, like, none of my family’s gonna have a problem with me marrying. Somebody from the uk right?

Or Germany or France, or really any part of the United States. If, if you are in you know, one of these countries your like global population of people you can marry without your family throwing a, a a, a banana is going to be. Muslim. Still Muslim by the way. So not deconverted, Arabs likely within your family network.

That’s, yeah, it

Simone Collins: makes it more complicated. That’s a logistical nightmare.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway, continue

Simone Collins: birth rates, Qatar 1.4 to 1.9, so like I [00:40:00] would put that at roughly 1.6. Like they’re, they’re not beating us despite having all these things. . The UAE is even worse. It’s, it’s, it’s at approximately 1.4. Again, compare that to 1.6 in the USA, where we basically offer no help at all to parents.

I

Malcolm Collins: mean, keep in mind when we talk about differential fertility rates. And religion. And I’m like, Muslim countries and Muslim cultures have a very low fertility rate.

When you adjust for religion when, when you address for income, that, that’s what we’re seeing here. It is, it’s, it’s the cultural system. And note this cultural system isn’t necessarily just their beliefs. When I talk about why their fertility rates are likely lower, I talk about the logistical difficulty in getting married.

In this sort of clan based system. Mm-hmm. And that’s, that’s not like an inherently Muslim thing, but it is an Arab thing. Right.

Simone Collins: I, I wonder if it’s also a little bit downstream of all these benefits. Keep in mind that, that education, high quality education, often international, sometimes university could also be.

Suppressing this [00:41:00] by again, shifting marriage from being a cornerstone to a capstone element of life where like you get married after you get your education and that’s moving things back instead of having them get married before they go off to university. So that could also be a factor here be also because it’s government subsidized.

You’re like, well, I’d be stupid to not make sure I get this in before I start my family. You know, there’s something like that, especially if you’re gonna leave the country, it gets complicated. I don’t know. But anyway so the USA’s at 1.6 and again, so Canada, the uk, the eu, while they’re not the Gulf States, giving you like a free house and free electricity, they still have free healthcare and they’re at 1.5 in Canada at 1.5 in the uk.

And the EU average is 1.4. So they’re doing worse than the United States at at 1.6. So again, not really seeing the results we’re looking for in terms of birth rates. So let’s look at innovation. Okay. You know, a big sign that you and I would count with human flourishing beyond birth rates is like, [00:42:00] are they contributing?

To the advancement of humanity. Are they moving us forward technologically, entrepreneurially, economically? Are they uplifting the human race? The 2025 Global Innovation Index. This is something created by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which I figure probably does a pretty good job at, like tracking people, introducing new new Tech, the USA ranked third globally.

That’s after Switzerland and Sweden. The UK ranked sixth. Canada ranked 15th. Top EU nations were just in the top 10 to 20 worldwide. The UAE is 31st globally. It’s, it’s best in, in like the Gulf States. It’s rising rapidly, but that’s 31st. Qatar is 51st globally. And Kuwait isn’t even in the top 60.

And, and I can send you the, the beautiful ranking graph that shows sort of 2021 to, to now. To 2025, and you can kind of see how they fluctuated over time, but you’re not, you’re not seeing Gulf States in there that just throw money at their people. Maybe they’re too [00:43:00] busy flying their falcons around, I don’t know.

But they’re, they’re not, they’re not using their money to innovate. And that’s also something that I think about, you know, is, is when you make people comfortable. Mm-hmm. You know, are they going to invent new things? Are they going to move us forward? Or are they just gonna kind of, like you said, be like broey.

You know, cutting and, and like pretend

Malcolm Collins: entrepreneurship. And that’s the problem with projects like Neum, right? Mm-hmm. Is it’s all pretend entrepreneurship. It’s a good idea on paper. If anybody, actually it’s a cool idea on paper. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. I, I, I don’t hate the idea of trying to create a special economic zone with unique laws that is closer to Israel, which is really what they’re trying to do is to create.

Create like a tourist, sort of a hotspot. Yeah. And tech bro hotspot where they can mean Dubai. Dubai did a really good

Simone Collins: job at becoming Yeah. A like tech hotspot. Uh uh, like it can be

Malcolm Collins: done like Dubai exists. Mm-hmm. You know, so don’t, you know, I I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t poo [00:44:00] PII hear you.

Simone Collins: I’m just saying like, it’s not.

Showing up as an export of these regions, despite the fact that I would’ve hoped that in this post, post scarcity Star Trek style world where everyone walks around like Jedi and has money for things and gets free education, that they, they would then, and I think people have this, this delusion that that’s what happens is you, you just, when you have, you know, when the government is your patron, you have free time to just sit and invent new things and make the world better and produce gorgeous.

Art, and we’re just not seeing that. I mean, even just look at the designs of these houses, it is like literally millennial grge everywhere. It’s so. Soulless. And I just it looks great. It looks great in a very AI kind of way. Not that like cool, funky, weird AI where like, you know, build a mansion but make it on a cliff and all pink and rainbow unicorn themed.

But just like generic, I. Optimal. So also we need to look at entertainment. You know, maybe, I, I thought maybe, okay, [00:45:00] it’s not innovation, it’s entertainment, but no, I mean, like India has Bollywood, of course we have Hollywood, South Korea is able at being a, you know, top tier in terms of cultural exports and.

Very little cultural

Malcolm Collins: experts come from this part of the world. It, it’s like actually kinda shocking anything. It’s, it

Simone Collins: is a regional player is sort of how it’s, it’s it’s categorized in, in indexes. You know, USA is a world leader, UK’s top tier Canada, Switzerland and Germany are seen is strong. I don’t really, but I mean like the best that they, that, that the, the Gulf States can be diplomatically categorized as.

Is regional players. Yeah, regional players. So in the end, that’s, which really

Malcolm Collins: shouldn’t be the case. I mean, I’m pretty sure like, for example, Israel outputs like pretty successful movies. Like, it’s, it’s not that you can’t, if you’re a smaller country like that output, high quality, again, South Korea

Simone Collins: outputs amazing things.

Yeah. South

Malcolm Collins: Korea like blows and they’re super

Simone Collins: small. Japan. So yeah, Japan has [00:46:00] produced amazing stuff. So yeah, I, I really don’t. I don’t think it’s that. I, I just, yeah. So in the end, what I’m taking away from this is it is possible to keep your people afloat with jobs based and in kind support, not cash transfers.

And that’s kind of, if you’re gonna do UBI, if you’re gonna create a utopia for some select group of people using your AI superpowers and resources. Give them guaranteed jobs and support and education in healthcare,

Malcolm Collins: but let them suffer and fail if they’re going to suffer and fail.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, well, I don’t know.

Like, I, I actually think you need to give people more hardship and struggle if you want them to actually keep pro to, to produce cool things. I, I, I. I don’t know. Failure needs

Malcolm Collins: to be a possibility in a system for thriving to happen.

Simone Collins: Failure. Yeah, failure needs to be a possibility.

Malcolm Collins: If people aren’t afraid of failing, if the whole thing can just be done.

Again, if there’s no real cost to anything [00:47:00]

Simone Collins: or if you introduced, I mean, maybe it’s more of an attitudes thing, like I feel like maybe if this existed in America, we’d have a shot because Americans would still be so competitive with each other that like we would see a down and out in the Magic Kingdom by Corey Rio situation where.

While everyone has their luxury villa and their free education and their perfect healthcare, they’re still ruthlessly fighting for attention on social media. They’re still ruthlessly fighting for whatever the lullaby of the time is. You know, for this, the few scarce resources that exist for the Basquiat that, that, you know, everyone wants to collect, like they’re still going to fight for things that are artificially or just circumstantially rare.

And, and, and hopefully that that thine vlan style of, of status and security never leaves us, because I think it, it is a huge contributor to both American happiness and innovation. So I’m hoping for that. I’m hoping that, that maybe, maybe that is the ideal [00:48:00] scenario is that maybe when certain populations.

Like, an American population is, is given these kinds of post scarcity resources. They actually do keep fighting, but my intuition is that they won’t, and that we’ll get situations where. No one is necessarily happier. The birth rates aren’t necessarily better. I need family

Malcolm Collins: culture. You know, you need to build an envi where, like, as I said, when I was growing up, it was always just me versus other people in my family, right?

Like mm-hmm. That was my benchmark of success. Mm-hmm. And I was told to not benchmark myself against the wider world.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You, you, you genuinely didn’t care. You could not care less about what other people were doing. You were like, or really, like you benchmarked like many of history’s greats, benchmark against.

Alexander the great, you know, they weep at the thought that like, oh no, like I’m the, I often felt very bad

Malcolm Collins: that Alexander had accomplished more than me specifically. Yeah. So like,

Simone Collins: benchmarking not to a local peer group, but rather to either your own high achieving family or historical [00:49:00] figures. That profoundly changed.

I, I lecture

Malcolm Collins: to more people than Alexander did every day. Okay. You know, more people are gonna listen to me and my ideas, and that’s what I care about most. So in a way, I’m doing better than Alexander the Great.

Simone Collins: I would say in many ways you know, I, I think it sucks to be a leader that’s surrounded by yes men and simultaneously a bunch of people who would benefit from you being dead.

It would be a very stressful lifestyle. I mean, he came from a family where like people just kept dying, like. I, I don’t know. I’m, I’m glad you’re not Alexander the Great, just as someone who cares about your wellbeing and happiness. Oh, plus he was such a drama king. I, I cannot believe he was, he was.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because he learned from like the, the, I know he was trying to model

Simone Collins: Achilles. I just think he was trying to

Malcolm Collins: model Achilles, but what a bad role model. They talk about like bad celebrity role models today. Yeah. Achilles worst celebrity role model.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, [00:50:00] seriously, like just trying to like to ape his, his toxic tantrums, but whatever.

So that’s

Malcolm Collins: how you be manly. Throw a toxic tantrum. Yeah,

Simone Collins: it’s very strange. It’s very strange. So whatever. But yeah. I’m glad that our audience, which is. So smart. You guys always humbled me with like the, your insights encouraged us to look at this. I think it is a good case study. Yeah. And I think the biggest thing that I’m taking away from this is, is the smartest thing they did was you have to get a job.

I’ll guarantee you a job, but you have to give a job. And this is where we see a repeat of what we saw with the civilian Conservation Corps of the the New Deal in the United States and the Great Depression, which really did produce lasting. Good outcomes for those who participated in it. They had better health, longer lifespans, more wealth over time.

I think if memory serves. And I, I really do think that empowering people through work is, is the way that it goes. Work will set you free. [00:51:00]

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Work will. Oh God. Simone, you So is that what we’re gonna end this on? Gonna get us in big trouble. You just love throwing those grenades out.

Simone Collins: I love you Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I love you. What am I

Simone Collins: making you for dinner tonight?

Malcolm Collins: Well we’ve got the curry that is out. Oh,

Simone Collins: crap. Yeah. But do you want me to like, dress it up in something you want me to make? Like, actually I

Malcolm Collins: was gonna say, do we have non that we can like heat up? We do. Do you want me to, Ooh, do you want me to like make a pizza of it or do you just,

Simone Collins: just with non.

Malcolm Collins: Actually that’s a good idea. And then you put some like mozzarella on top.

Simone Collins: That’s what I was thinking. But I could also just do it the way we’ve been doing Bullock, where I just heat it, like, I basically kind of dry it out into a curry meat pancake in the air fryer on a still pat. And then we with cheese on top.

Then it, well, I’ll probably put the cheese on top after I dry it out. And then I serve it to you like a curry meat pancake pizza with. Mozzarella cheese on top.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I, the one thing I changed about it is I [00:52:00] put honey on top of it. It’s

Simone Collins: clearly don’t have that sweet honey that, that got trendy and that no one actually uses.

It’s supposed to go on pizzas like spicy honey.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, hot honey.

Simone Collins: But we can also just drizzle. We have real honey too, so like,

Malcolm Collins: I’d rather use get real honey, real honey. And because the, the like sweetness of the mangoes isn’t really tasteable in it anymore. Interesting. And so I thought that honey might help.

And yeah, cook it however you want. I, I love the idea of having some mozzarella in it, that that could work really well. Okay, so we’re gonna do a,

Simone Collins: I’m hearing slamming. We’re gonna do a curry pizza.

Malcolm Collins: It’s gonna be, I, I don’t know if I would cook it on top of the non, I will put it on the non

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no.

Oh, I was just thinking like, if you wanna do it Bullock style.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Bullock style and then, and then scoop it with Aon.

Simone Collins: Okay, so you still want non, okay. Yeah, I guess that’s fair. ‘cause Bullock has the rice things. What are those called again?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so you don’t need the, the pizza with the [00:53:00] bullock, but you do need it with this the pizza crust, which is what we’re doing was the non

Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: Good.

Simone Collins: Well, I love you. You, I’m gonna go get the kids. I’m gonna play with them and bathe them, and then when everything’s ready for dinner. Hi, avian. You wanna say hi to the Hold on. Hi.

Octavian Collins: Hey,

Malcolm Collins: Octavian.

Octavian Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What are you up to?

Octavian Collins: I want to say, I want, I can subscribe for everybody. We can subscribe if you like down subscribe, forgive us. A coming down below. Did you just

Simone Collins: fart?

Octavian Collins: No,

Simone Collins: you totally. Oh. Alright buddy, you’re a butt. You just came over here and farted. Alright. Game over man.

Octavian Collins: Farted

Simone Collins: Simone. Over and out. I gotta get outta here.

Bye. Oh dude, boy.

Malcolm Collins: and I am loving you to death. My beautiful, beautiful princess. You are so wonderful. I love my new mic set up so I can go.

No [00:54:00] hands,

Simone Collins: guys. So fancy. So very fancy.

Malcolm Collins: And you’ve got a baby, a new one, but you’ve had a baby on you for five years at this point.

Simone Collins: I love that and I never wanted to change. It is the best. And it’s nice he’s, he’s more awake now. He’s more alert. Such a luxury

Malcolm Collins: that so many women would do anything for.

Simone Collins: I know.

That’s the thing is, as we know, having struggled with infertility

Malcolm Collins: done with the last of these, so we, we’ll have three bonkers for the kids. I noticed that this bottle makes a very good bonker. So we’ve been washing them and we’re gonna store them and then set them all up so the kids can whale on each other with them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. They’ve already had a lot of fun with him. I mean, what, what India insisted on doing that, why? One of them got so messed up last night and so dirty was that she kept walking, like she walks like a, you know, a cowboy. She kept sidling around the kitchen and then like trying to drink out of it. And just looking super proud of herself.

So

Malcolm Collins: because she saw [00:55:00] how we drink and she doesn’t drink from cups yet.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. She wants to clearly. So, yeah. Anyway alright I will kick us off.

Speaker 7: Okay. Okay, now you’ve got your shields. Let’s see.

Hi.

Speaker 8: Okay, Kristen, let’s go open and leave for there. Okay. No, no Shields. Shields will make it hurt less.[00:56:00]

Let’s go again.

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the cultural phenomenon of the “sassy wife” trope—how it’s been normalized, celebrated, and even weaponized in media and real-life relationships. From celebrity scandals to sitcom stereotypes, they explore the history and impact of wives publicly belittling their husbands, why this behavior became so widespread, and how it affects modern couples.

Listen in for a breakdown of viral moments, analysis of personal experiences, and insights on building healthier, more respectful partnerships. Whether you’re curious about relationship dynamics, pop culture, or just want a thought-provoking conversation, this episode is for you!

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because you didn’t leave me after I did a bunch of toxic things when we were first married and dating.

And that actually is, is, is pretty big because it was one of the biggest points of conflict in our lives and I, I wanted to actually do a podcast on it because you spent years deprogramming me. From doing well. So

Malcolm Collins: what the podcast theme is gonna be on is we are gonna be digging into how normalized and, and, and, and sort of praised sassy behavior is in wives towards husbands.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And sassy is the word I’d use. But there’s other words that you can use to, you know, behavior that is designed to put the husband down in front of other people. Yeah. And everybody sort of knows that this was normalized by media. We went through this as kids. Yeah. But now there’s a phenomenon where a bunch of celebrities, like big celebrities ranging from like Obama to like, you know, will Smith, to like, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll go over them all.

And, and this was [00:01:00] brought to our plate because we saw this, Brett Cooper was covering this. Mm-hmm. And I was like, when I saw the clips she had found, because like, obviously I don’t watch what celebrities are doing. I was You’re kind of horrified, shocked. Yeah. At the degree to which these women.

Actively and intentionally we’re degrading their husbands. Yeah.

Simone Collins: If y’all wanna watch this, it’s called Ranking the Top four Worst Hollywood Wives, and it’s horrifying. I’ll put

Malcolm Collins: a clip right here. From, from when it, I’ll put the feet clip right here, because that one just was like.

Simone Collins: Oh it’s, it’s bad

Speaker: he crazy eyes like, look at the end there. Like look at his face there. At the very end as he is rubbing her feet, he is like, oh, this is what my life has come to.

Simone Collins: .

But I mean, I, and what I wanna explore, in addition to exploring some of these examples and like kind of poking into what is going on here, I also wanna look into what has caused this to become programmed. ‘cause actually there’s, there’s a longer history behind all of this and there’s a really interesting tipping point, and I wanna get into it because I think getting to the [00:02:00] heart at what is causing this problem is going to, to play a key role in helping both men and women systemically dismantle it from their lives.

Yeah. Because you and I struggled with this as a couple well, hold on. You

Malcolm Collins: and I did not struggle with it. You struggled with, and I put the kaya collar on you and had to kaya.

Simone Collins: Please, please.

Gotta stay in that little place for eight hours.

Simone Collins: Well, where you struggled was how exactly to communicate to me. To, to get me in a way that got me to stop.

‘cause I knew what I was doing was bad. And it took years for you to figure out the right way to message to me, to get me to stop doing this. Literally about three years of dating before you really respond. I think it took more than that. I think it took five to seven years. Well, no, not seven. Not seven, five.

I’m gonna say five. You haven’t, yeah. You haven’t done it in

Malcolm Collins: at least three years. I, I would say but we’ve been together

Simone Collins: for. 12 or 13 years now. So, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But, but what’s [00:03:00] interesting about this is, you know, you grew up in San Francisco, you grew up surrounded in the heart of the urban monoculture, progressive culture.

And you grew up even starting dating me and internalized this sort of mindset, but

Simone Collins: no. Mm-hmm. This is not an urban monoculture thing. It, it, or even it’s not a progressive thing. This is a pervasive, deep, heavy thing. I think it has to do with a lot of, I, we’ll, we’ll parse into it when we go into the history boot.

Let’s start with the salacious. Okay. Let’s go Celebrity gossip. Because celebrity gossip, it’s so powerful and, and, and amazing. And so I, there’s obviously the examples that were, were highlighted by Brett Cooper in her ranking, the top four Worst Hollywood wives video. She talks about hilarious Baldwin and a Barwin.

And she also talks about Jada Pickett Smith and Will Smith. So with hilarious Bal Barwin. Who Malcolm highlighted at the beginning of this, it’s not just the social media clips that she posts of Alec Baldwin, who really comes across [00:04:00] almost like. A captured animal.

Speaker: I mean, look at this photo. We don’t even know what is going on here. And yet you have her playing chess, smoking a pipe, and somehow she was able to convince Alec Baldwin, see, this is now where I feel bad for him. I feel guilty. He’s wearing a made outfit with a little cap and he’s bringing bunny slippers.

Like, is this how bad his career has gotten? That

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, he, oh God. Yeah. I was, I was so, I, I’ll, I’ll send you a link to, I, I, I literally would

Malcolm Collins: rather be kaya than, than Alec

Simone Collins: Baldwin.

No, I would, I would rather be kaya than a baller in right now. Like I, I swear we, it’s not ‘cause like, so, Brett Cooper surfaced a bunch of the really worst, most egregious things that hilarious had posted on her Instagram. However, if you just scroll through there in general, she’s just using him as a shill for her really stupid vanity projects like Dancing With the Stars and it’s like hostage videos where he’s like, text ex to this number to vote for hilarious [00:05:00] Baldwin on dancing with a star.

Like, he looks like a hostage who’s being forced to read off of a script to do her bidding. And it, it just, everything, everything where, where she uses his face just feels like he, he is being parasitized by this woman. Whoa. They have eight children. Yeah, they’re actually doing seven with her

Malcolm Collins: and one with someone else.

Simone Collins: I know it is. That’s the thing that’s, that’s, that’s really, you know, but I mean, maybe that’s one of the reasons why he’s so, he is a man is taking all this from her because something that I’ve seen from many men who have a lot of kids with a woman is when she’s had a lot of kids, they’re like, listen, I love my kids.

Like, I’m so grateful for my kids that I will endure a lot. And I think that might be a factor for why he’s tolerating this. But the thing that I found most egregious, yeah, I would,

Malcolm Collins: even if you went crazy like this, if I had had seven kids with you at that point, I’d be like, yeah, you’d be

Simone Collins: like, whatever, man.

But the thing that got me the [00:06:00] very most was the red carpet scene, which I also just sent you on WhatsApp. That it, it, it’s so horrible. Alec Baldwin is standing with his wife Aria on the red carpet, praising her. And she says, oh my God, when I’m talking, you’re not talking. When I’m talking, you’re not talking.

This is why we need to cut him out of the shop like she is. She just cuts him off and acts like the most ungrateful, horrible person.

I don’t think you make it more silly than it is. I actually feel, I try. Oh, didn’t get that on the show. No, no. We just, we just cut all that part out. Cut me out. Cut you out when you’re trying to make it silly.

Simone Collins: I don’t care if this is your husband or a colleague or a stranger on the street. It, it, it just came across as so disrespectful. So I think it’s a really strong starting point.

Well, and I

Malcolm Collins: guess some people are gonna be hearing this and they’re gonna be like, well, why do I have to respect my husband? Right? Mm-hmm. And the answer is a few fold. First of all you shouldn’t have married somebody who you don’t respect, right? Like that’s a personal failing on your part.

[00:07:00] Totally. But then in, in, in, in addition to that, like Alec Baldwin, even if I have like political differences with him or something like that,

Something the, the global warming and corporate America.

Malcolm Collins: like he’s actually done stuff with his life. Like, I don’t know what this woman has done, right? Like nothing but marry a guy who’s like twice going dancing with

Simone Collins: the stars.

Like,

Malcolm Collins: Like she should be treating him with respect because he is better than her.

Simone Collins: Well that, and that’s a big, I mean, with these prominent celebrity tiffs, in the majority of cases that are really egregious and that have gone viral, there’s also a power distance. I mean, there are, there are other instances of just toxic celebrity couples like Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, where it just, it’s clear that everyone’s a, a complete psychopath and you know, it’s not about men versus women, it’s just about crazy people being crazy and irredeemable.

But. Yeah, the, the, the issue of these, these, these women who [00:08:00] like really are no position to be complaining ‘cause they’ve married into wealth. Like, do you know how many people would kill to be in that position who would gladly be beaten daily just to be in that position? I mean, it, it’s not PC to say that, but that’s just how it is.

Another prominent example that Brett Cooper highlighted, which, which deserves honorable mention is indeed Jada Pickett Smith and Will Smith. Everyone of course is really familiar with Will Smith completely flying off the handle at the Oscars and slapping it was Chris Rock right in 2022. But the, the most egregious scene that Brett Cooper highlighted and, and that’s just so insane is Jada Pickett Smith having Will Smith on her podcast called The Red Table, where she just in front of him actively talks about.

Her entanglement sleeping

Malcolm Collins: with her son’s

Simone Collins: friend, just

Malcolm Collins: disgusting. And she, she’s like, well, you know, and he’s making while’s still

Simone Collins: married.

Malcolm Collins: She’s making him, and I’m [00:09:00] not gonna play the clip for you guys. ‘cause like, I would stop watching, like, when that clip started, it was just paid for watch, couldn’t handle it.

But she ma she makes him go on about how like, he’s like, well, you know, I expected monogamy for marriage. And she’s like, but you know, I expected poly like being polyamorous ‘cause like, that’s how I was raised, I guess. Raised in a single parent household or something. It is all I can assume is what she means by that.

Because, you know, polyamory was not common when she would’ve been raised. So, I, I think that, like, that one, I just love the way she argues for this and tries to normalize her behavior. Like this is just a difference in our ideas around what marriage is, right? Like, as opposed to no marriage is what you agreed it was when you got married, right?

Like you don’t get to change the terms of your relationship unilaterally.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And it’s clear that Will Smith was not okay with it. At one point she says something like, you know, the only person who could give permission for that was, was me. And he is like, yeah, I, not, [00:10:00] not me, like, but in a way where he’s like, I did not give permission for this.

Like, I did not consent to this at all. It’s just horrible. It’s a

Malcolm Collins: really,

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: can consent to, to who sleeps with, but, but the, the problem is, is part of, normally, like, like, and it’s, it’s clear that, and I see this a lot within that generation, is one partner wants to be polyamorous and they see it’s like a thing now.

And so they basically just force it on their partner because they don’t understand that your partner has the right to turn down you wanting to be polyamorous, right? Like that’s, that’s always been, and they don’t understand that our partner doesn’t work. Partner polyamory,

Simone Collins: that’s just cheating then.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if my husband could just say, no, how does this work? And it’s like, well. You should have negotiated it before the marriage. Right? Like, I, and I, I, I see this over and over again within this generation. And it’s really toxic the way boomers have taken and tried to use the word and, and relationship format of polyamory.

Not that polyamory isn’t in itself toxic. You can watch our episodes on those, but the [00:11:00] ways that boomers are doing it is like a whole nother layer.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and this is a, a common theme in prominent couples being criticized for the way that they, they treat each other is airing dirty laundry like this, like talking about the fights they have.

Like I think Christian Bell was criticized for talking about the fights that they have and her husband’s anger issues and other things and, and just people being really uncomfortable with that, like dirty laundry being aired. But also, and Brett Cooper did not discuss this one, but there are really prominent examples.

Of just women being physically abusive toward their husbands in public, like in a very intentional way in front of the media. And in this case, I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna send her a TikTok. This is because you can actually see it in this, it is insane. It is Bridgette Macron, that is the, the first lady of France.

You know, the, the school. No one who’s like

Malcolm Collins: way older than her husband and was his teacher or nanny [00:12:00] or something growing up. You’ll see

Simone Collins: in this clip at Hanoi Airport as they’re dis Oh, she physically assaults him. Yeah. As they’re getting off an airport, she pushes him in the face. And then when they are heading down the stairs, he goes to like reach to hold her hand and she.

Like holds the rail and like clearly snubs him. And, and this is all very intentional, very in front of the cameras. Like at, at first Macron looks like kind of shocked after literally his face gets pushed. Yeah. Like it’s one thing to shove your husband like that already is, is, is, is physically, but you

Malcolm Collins: should be like desperately shamed that anyone can see this.

I’ve

Simone Collins: never seen anyone push anyone else’s face with two hands. Like who even does that? And just that like we’re talking about a First Lady. A First Lady, the First Lady, and [00:13:00] that

Malcolm Collins: like, I had heard of this, which is wild. I would think this would be a major scandal that I would’ve heard of. Perhaps in

Simone Collins: France.

It was, but it is not a scandal here. I, I just dunno. But I mean that was just insane to see. I mean that’s like this level just. Open. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I’m, I’m curious to hear where this came from, because this is, this is what, but it’s behavior that I’ve seen. You know, when I look at like my parents’ generation whether it’s them because my parents were divorced and remarried, or their friends except for my, my biological mother did not act like this ever to my knowledge.

Simone Collins: No, no, no. In public. She always took on this, this very supportive persona. Like you could tell it was an act of just like, yes, dear, and like, but she always acted the perfect part. She never,

Malcolm Collins: and even, even behind closed doors, she would even, no. Yeah. Even behind

Simone Collins: in, always in front of the, of, of her husband, like.

Very, very sweet. Very respectful. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the, [00:14:00] the, the, the person who my dad remarried, does act intentionally like sassy and puts him down in front of other people. And this is

Simone Collins: actually, so I think this is the more important form of spousal sassiness that I wanted to discuss more. Because this is what had, had brainwashed me and I think this is what’s more normalized, right?

Like we can all look at these. By the way, I

Malcolm Collins: wanna, I wanna be clear when I say this about the person who my dad remarried, I’m not saying this as like a disparagement of her character. What I’m saying is this is normalized behavior to the point where it was something my wife did until I corrected her behavior.

She’s expressing

Simone Collins: normative behavior. Like it’s Yeah. She’s

Malcolm Collins: expressing normative behavior and it is my dad’s responsibility to correct that. Mm-hmm. And he never did.

Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly. So we’re not putting it on her at all. And, and this is so in terms of the prominent examples that I think are much more indicative of what’s this widespread, toxic, sassy wife syndrome is actually something that, that I saw and that really shocked me and, and kind of shook me.

When I was [00:15:00] watching this Netflix documentary called Inside Build’s Brain Decoding Bill Gates and it’s this three part documentary talking about Bill Gates and it’s just, it’s, it’s pretty boring in general. It’s like, what books does he read and let’s go on a walk with him. But it’s peppered with these short interviews with Melinda Gates.

They were still married at the time of the filming of this documentary. And even mentions that Bill Gates makes of her in other interviews where she’s not present that just show that the relationship which did end in divorce after 27 years was also permeated with this sassiness. She constantly kind of cut him down in interviews and kind of had this like sassy eye roll approach toward him of like, well, I, I kick, you know, I, I, I take him down a notch every now and then.

Like I keep him grounded. And there’s also this scene when he’s hiking where he talks about how she always makes him walk first. So he walks into all the spiderwebs ‘cause he like, yeah. She doesn’t wanna deal [00:16:00] with them. And you know, like what we, I can imagine

Malcolm Collins: these people who I think of as like super successful and having great lives and they’re like trapped in these, these horrifying relationships where they’re the billionaires who are like kaya in their own house.

Kaya, please.

Simone Collins: The, the thing is too, and this is another, like, such a prominent example of this, when they met Melinda was just a newly hired marketing manager. And, and Bill was the CEO of Microsoft and co-founder. Like there’s, there’s a clear power distance, and yet she acts as though she is this morally superior, smart woman who rolls her eyes at him.

And, and just seeing that, like subtly throughout the documentary, no one ever criticized that. Like there’s all these other prominent examples of like Stephen Curry’s wife going super viral after talking on a podcast about how like she never wanted to be a mother and she never wanted to be a wife, and she wishes she had male attention and people freak out

So [00:17:00] I, I didn’t want kids. I, I didn’t wanna get married.

Simone Collins: .

And I just, and I mean these are like sort of more violent examples, I guess, or like really egregious examples of women being openly ungrateful. But the much more insidious issue is that women feel like it’s okay and normal to be shrewish, to roll your eyes to nag the husband. And that’s, that’s where I wanted to get into like, okay, well.

Where did this programming come from? Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: where did it come? I wanna hear, ‘cause you say it’s not just typical wokeness, it came from somewhere specific.

Simone Collins: No. Yeah. And that’s what’s really interesting. So first it’s, it’s important to note, and I think all of us will immediately recognize this, that domineering wives were presented as warnings against male weakness.

Just either straight up through like we are gonna shame this, or through comics subversion. For basically, as long as there have been stories so that you have like, well,

Malcolm Collins: so it’s so funny that you mentioned this. Yeah. So people who know, [00:18:00] I love my Korean romance dramas that are, that are period pieces.

Right. You know,

Simone Collins: you, we need to like link to them somewhere. So people can

Malcolm Collins: go through your topic. Yeah. I’ll link to some of my favorite ones. If, if I can remember too just go to like WebToons and look up anything about villainous reborn or something, and they all take place. And like this medieval world with like balls and galas and everything like that

So people might be underestimating how cheesy. The ones I like reading are, the last two I read was charming, the Northern Duke, which I did not think was very good. And I abdicate my title of Empress, which I thought was actually pretty decent. Uh, among the ones I’ve read.

Malcolm Collins: And, and by the way, if you’re wondering, they have no, not safer work suits.

Simone Collins: No, they’re all very just like, I actually remember and

Malcolm Collins: one of them I was reading recently a character got pregnant and I was like, wait, what? Like when did they, you were not sleeping together. Like how did you, it was so [00:19:00] sly.

That’s cute. About implying that they had moved to that stage of their relationship that I, the reader was unaware. Like, this is news

Simone Collins: to me. I love, love that. The thing, love that I was gonna mention

Malcolm Collins: about it is in these stories, if a woman is acting domineering over her husband mm-hmm. That would be seen because they, they deal with sort of older tropes, which is what I like about them.

They’re still very like, older type stories. Yeah. That the husband is a bad guy. Right. Like that he is in some way morally a, a failure of a person. You know, that that would be, you know, an intro and then you’d find out that he’s into drinking and gambling and buying slaves or something like that. That was the point though, and this is a very old trope that it’s a sign of milk.

Go further. Before we go further, another trope that I’ve noticed in them, which is very funny because this was true of all old stories, but it totally wouldn’t happen in today’s media.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If, and this is like universal, if a prince ever ends up. [00:20:00] Getting a crush on, like a maid or a Duke ever ends up getting a crush on like a common woman.

You know, by the end of the story, it’s gonna be revealed that they were actually a princess all along. Oh yeah, that’s true. And just got separated from their family, or they were actually from a noble house all along and just, it is, it is never crossing social boundaries, whatever. Because I remember in one I was like, Ooh, the, the, the princess is interested in this guy who, who is a.

An orphan. And then no, he’s not an orphan. He’s actually a prince of a neighboring kingdom. Well, you know what’s interesting

Simone Collins: actually, when you, you look at the current British royal family, I believe that there have been plenty of, of narratives in which people have tried to trace Catherine Middleton’s ancestry to British nobility, even though she’s a commoner.

Like her family’s not titled. Whereas Meghan Markle seen as, you know, this largely villainized woman who is also highlighted in Brett Cooper’s video of horrible wives who demean their husbands is, you know, she, there’s no provenance to her. Like there’s no [00:21:00] way someone could argue that. But that, that, because Kate Middleton has been accepted and loved even though she’s sometimes ridiculed as Duchess Doolittle or the Duchess of buttons or whatever those are in the earlier days now, she’s pretty much beloved.

She, she has been like, the narrative has been shaped around, her, her being from, actually she is noble. That in the end. So I think that’s interesting that the, these tropes bleed into reality. But yeah, I mean, even if you look at biblical references like Proverbs 29, 21 9 they, they warn of a quarrelsome wife.

I also, I didn’t know that the, the Greek philosopher Socrates, he was married, he had a wife. Her name was Zan Zan dippy. And he was, he was rid ridiculed because she apparently had a pretty sharp tongue and he didn’t really do much to resist it, but he was openly, publicly shamed for that. So that’s, so like ancient Greece, this was an issue.

Biblical [00:22:00] references. Then we have, you know, plays like the Taming of the Shrew with the Shakespeare. You know, where it’s, it, it this, this, this popularized concept of a shrew as a witch like skull that needed to be tamed. Like this is a problem to be solved, right? When, when a woman acts like this, you put her in her place you don’t tolerate it.

In the 18th century, so we’re talking the 17 hundreds there, there were these comedies that had what were called slipper heroes, which were men who were comically struck by their wives shoes as they asserted dominance. So this, you know, they’re shaming men for this. Like, it was like calling a man a cook or something.

And then in, in the 19th century, that’s when, if slang like the old ball and chain sort of started to come into modern parlance or normalized parlance where like wives were sometimes framed as these like shackles as, as men felt like they were being. Domineered by them. It was always framed in a very negative, and, and this is not an okay thing context.

And then in the [00:23:00] early 20th century both cartoons and vaudeville and, and also early, really early films had comedians play hep packed husbands fleeing their, their nagging spouses. And, and that’s something that was again, framed as negative. Ridiculed not okay. Unusual. There was also this radio show called The Bickersons in the 1940s.

It’s featured constant sipping between spouses, or, sorry, constant sniping between spouses. And it that that sort of set the stage for what was to come, but it should be emphasized. And this is the key thing, and I think this is a really key turning point. All of these were framed as aberrations, as like, look at this freakish behavior, this woman who won’t be put in her place.

And not as a normative thing. Yeah. And then what happened is we got mass media in the 1950s and while in the beginning you had sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver, where there [00:24:00] was, you know, a very aligned family and wives loved their husbands and women were happy to be subordinate to their husbands

.

This, this is when you first see the arrival of the Sassy wife and why I think the sassy wife in these instances caused women to normalize this as behavior that was permissible and not just like. Some joke or, or like an example of like a, a bad woman being, you know, uncontrollable or a man failing is because these were sitcoms, these are serialized shows.

And people, instead of seeing a one-off play or like, a sort of like weird scenario, these were like slice of life shows that were teaching people what was aspirational and normal. Does that make sense? Like we still look back to the 1950s of like, this is what normal, ideal life is like, and people are anchoring to this.

And so when you have shows like the Honeymooners. [00:25:00] Where Alice crammed and frequently exists, sarcasm and eye rolls to, to deflate her bombastic husband’s Ralph. And, and, and says things like, one of these days, Ralph,

Speaker 2: You know something right after you left the house this morning? I got in one of those silly moods of mine. You know how I get sometimes. So just for after, well, I’ll do the breakfast dishes and make the beds and take the garbage down. Then when I came back up, I was still in such a funny mood, you know? I thought, why should I settle down to the drudgery?

Amending your socks? So I scrubbed the kitchen floor.

Malcolm Collins: this all started in 1950s culture is what you’re saying? Yes. It was the 1950s culture that was, that makes a lot of sense.

Simone Collins: But it’s not even, it’s not, I, what I’m trying to say too and highlight is that it’s not just the culture because these tropes were always here. It was the fact that these tropes were then inserted into. Slice of life sitcoms, serialized shows that became part of people’s lives, and that became aspirational templates for their own identities.

Does that make sense? Yes. Like it’s one thing to see painting of the Shrew by Shakespeare. It’s one thing to see, or to [00:26:00] read something in the Bible or to like, hear about an example. But here you’re being like, programmed by these shows of like, this is what I’m anchoring to. I wanna be like, I love Lucy,

Sorry, honey. Seven 30. Gotta have the sheets for the laundry, man.

Simone Collins: I wanna be like this.

Well, and

Malcolm Collins: I’ve noticed this from women who aspire to be trad wives as well. Yes. You know, so, and this is why both ways, and this is why I always say it’s, it’s really dangerous to anchor to the 1950s in this way. And I think that you’re a hundred percent right. This is how people build sort of their templates for actions.

They build ideals that they want from themselves. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: They’re like

Malcolm Collins: the conglomeration of things that they admire or, or sort of, you know, primed whiz, like this is how you be the correct type of wife or the correct type of woman. And then they spin their lives trying to get other people often to see them as that type of thing.

Simone Collins: Well, and it’s, it’s very like monkey see, monkey do. People, and, and we also see this in all these various social studies where like [00:27:00] when, when girls are exposed to people in STEM roles more that are like them, then they’re like, oh, well I can join a STEM role. Like when, when you see someone do something that’s like you, that’s what you decide.

Oh, well that’s what I do then. So when I, because I grew up seeing women in the world of wife being sassy, my default assumption was, okay, well if I were to become a wife, like, okay, I have to pull up my, like, what does a wife do? And I like pull into my Rolodex of like TV examples and they’re all sassy. So what do I do?

I act sassy because that’s, that is where I learned how a wife acts.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think it was a, a amplified for our generation because, you know, when we grew up, that’s when you had, you know, love and marriage the Simpsons you know, all, all of those sort of, well, yeah, no,

Simone Collins: it’s, so, yeah, it does get, so I’ll, I’ll, I’ll explain a little more.

‘cause it’s more nuanced. I just wanna, it is more nuanced than that. I, I wanted to emphasize with the fifties, the thing that happened is a new form of media gets released that I think changes the way that people [00:28:00] created social norms. Where the social norms were no longer coming from their local church community or from their schools or from whatever, like very localized stuff.

It was coming from tv. And that those tropes then suddenly become a lot more powerful. And then in the 1960s, you had the arrival of second wave feminism, which contributed to these tropes. It also revealed some tension like there was this British sitcom called Georgian Mildred that established the blueprint of what became this sort of new trope, which I think further justified this behavior on behalf of women, which is this trope of the mediocre husband and then the materialistic middle-aged wife who belittles him for not providing more like, and that’s like this sort of Homer Simpson in March thing.

There’s the Twilight episode called the, the Stop at Willoughby that portrayed a wife pushing her husband who hated into, into a job that he really hated framing hers like. This person undermining him and pushing him into things. [00:29:00] There were shows like Bewitched where Samantha, the, the witch used sarcasm to kind of manage her husband.

So like this is sort of where the nagging wife came out, but also husbands be, I think in, in part because of second Wave feminism also started getting framed as a little bit more hapless. And then in the eighties and nineties, the sort of like hapless husband who was being nagged by his wife in a more critical way.

‘cause like this also showed the tension with second wave feminism. Like the women were depicted as kind of evil for doing this. And then in the eighties and nineties, suddenly the women weren’t evil for doing this. And the husbands were just lovable buffoons, like Homer Simpson and like, I don’t know.

So what are some, oh, I think Love and Mary, everybody Loves Raymond is is another one. Love,

Malcolm Collins: love. And marriage I think is one of the best examples of this, given how long it showed and how ubiquitous it was. Yeah.

Speaker 5: Look at them over there. Men are such idiots. Look at them. Our protectors, the great white hunters. You know, in the old days, those men would’ve gone out there, fought the bear, come back with [00:30:00] supper and a nice rug. Now you send them for milk, they come back with a leaking carton, a runny nose, and a bad back.

You know, it’s amazing. The one thing they’re good for, they’re not good at, I hate the way they won’t ask directions when they’re lost

Speaker 8: and the way they leave the toilet seat up

Malcolm Collins: and, and that show is very big on the wife, you know, nagging.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But you saw it on, on almost all of the shows.

All of the, and this is what I think that you’re, you’re capturing here with that I had forgotten this was present on all of the major old sitcoms or most of the major old sitcoms. And

Simone Collins: the sitcoms are how we, this is where a lot of us learned how husbands behave, how wives behave, and what is acceptable and normative.

Even though like the writers didn’t mean to do this, they were trying to create comedic situations. They were trying to create drama. And I, I also think like, you can [00:31:00] see this too with reality tv. You know, they, they have to manufacture drama and toxicity because it’s entertaining. But I think that has led many people to think that their lives have to be toxic because that’s what’s normal, even though, because that’s what they see, but that’s not normal.

Like relationships aren’t toxic like that. But because we don’t, we don’t spend a lot of time around people anymore. Like people aren’t hanging out with other fam. Like unless you’re Mormon and you have like, family home evenings and you hang out with your church community or whatever, you’re Catholic or you’re an Orthodox Jew, you’re watching tv, you’re watching reality tv, you’re watching social media.

And so you’re watching these really toxic and dramatic and really fake relationship dynamics play out, and then you ape them at home because you don’t have anything else to anchor to. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s, that’s a lot of where this is coming from. But here’s, and, and I think one of the things is, is being aware of the media you’re consuming and, and being really targeted about it.

Is important [00:32:00] to your point. I can go both ways. I wanna be,

Malcolm Collins: Clear about the way that you grabbed onto this early in our relationship, which I think differs from the way I’ve seen other people. You did not unlike what, what somebody might say. You, you did not and you never and I don’t think it should ever be normal to regularly criticize your partner, right?

Like, that was not something you ever did. And the way I see other people do this you know, you, you also didn’t actively throw me under the bus in social situations. You never once I think in our entire relationship, have raised without any provocation, some fault about me. But what you did do early in our relationship is people would attack me publicly and you wouldn’t defend me.

I would side with

Simone Collins: them often.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You’d often side with them and be like, well, they do have a point about. I was like, Simone, you can’t do that if you’re married to somebody, right? Like, no, but I, I’d point out because people could hear all this, they could think that you were actually worse than you were.

And that, like, maybe you can fix more about a person. You can,

Simone Collins: I feel really, I feel really bad about what I did though. It, yeah, I mean, basically what happened is I just assumed that like, [00:33:00] oh, well it’s my job. As Malcolm’s wife to be the one who like takes him down a peg. ‘cause that’s what wives do, right?

And so every time, and this happened a lot at like family reunions, his family would gang up on him for really stupid things. And he would naturally react with, with some umbrage sometimes because he was being ganged up on for really stupid reasons. And like, keep in mind like examples of things that his family would do to him, like at gatherings, like stick fake cockroaches in his food and hope that he freaks out at a restaurant.

Things like that. Like the, this is not nice. I never do though. I have like a

Malcolm Collins: perfect self-control. Yeah. No, you were, and I think I was kind, was trained by my family from a very young age. Yeah. To, to handle all of this with, with with a plum. Perfect.

Simone Collins: But whenever, whenever you did show a little bit or like whenever you tried to stand up for yourself, I would, I would side with your family and it would really deeply hurt you.

You’d be like. Why did you do that? Like, who side you want? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Why, why? Well, I’m, I’m siting with the majority because women have a natural [00:34:00] instinct to side with the majority when they’re in group situations. Now that is not, that is above and beyond the behavior that we’re talking about here. Even when you first started dating me, you never insulted me in private.

And you never were the instigator of a public insight. But I think

Simone Collins: it’s still notable that, that even a woman who is a, a, a devout super fan of a man like I was of you and, and still am of you more than ever Yeah. Would, would normalize to throwing him under the bus in situations where he’s being ganged up on in public when she should.

Obviously stand by him because that is the culture we’ve been taught is notable. I wanna point out what, what you, what you finally, ‘cause you were always like, okay, well what are we gonna do? Like you would always try to correct it by after that happened, you would talk with me and be like, that really hurt me.

Why are you doing this? Like, try not to do this in the future. For a while you tried priming me, but then sometimes we’d forget. You’d be like, remember like, we’re a couple. Can you please be supportive of me? And [00:35:00] that didn’t work. What finally worked in the end, I think for me, like what finally hit me is like is you sat me down and you said, Simone, need to be aware of the fact that when you undercut me like this, you don’t make either of us look good.

Like you make yourself look like a terrible person. You make me look like a not good person and you make us look like. A, a, a bad couple. And you think that what you’re doing is, is diffusing tension and increasing social harmony, when in the end you’re making yourself look like a conniving, backstabbing wife, and you’re making me look like a buffoon and you’re making our marriage look unstable.

Oh, poor thing. He’s, he’s picking up all the tension and. And I, I realized you were totally right and I think when, if you are a dude, this, so you couldn’t do it for

Malcolm Collins: my sake, but as soon as your own [00:36:00] stability was on the line. No. I mean, what cater the people’s selfishness, Malcolm, I don’t know what to say, but like were just trying to diffuse social situations.

I was, I

Simone Collins: was, yeah. I was trying to diffuse tension. You did not

Malcolm Collins: wanna take the action that you saw as escalating the conflict. So if somebody attacks, because this is what you’re used to doing with yourself, you look for a way to. Disarm them. The customer service approach. Yeah. Just make it go away. Yeah, make it go away.

And you can’t take the customer service approach. But the reason why I mentioned this is I wanna talk about like, what should actually be normalized in a relationship. One I think, you know, historically and today, first of all, there is no reason to ever regularly criticize your partner about anything.

No. If your partner is doing something that is causing you distress or that you disagree with this is not resolved by constant nagging. This is resolved by setting them down, talking through with them. Why, like, as Simone said, I did with her. Yeah. When she had, when I had problems with her being like, you need to stop doing this for this reason, this reason and this reason.

Yeah. And let’s think through the [00:37:00] consequences of you doing this. And if they actually care about you, then they’re gonna do that. Right? Yeah. Nagging insulting, especially publicly, does absolutely nothing. And you should never, ever be the first to error negative information about your partner in a social context.

But I do

Simone Collins: think, I do think, because one, it was effective when you did it with me. Yeah. That catering to women’s vanity is important because when all these women are doing this, and even when you see these examples that we’ve posted, these women think they’re looking good. They are being vain. They are, when, when Melinda Gates rolls her eyes about Bill Gates and, and, and, and talks about how she, you know, you know, takes ‘em down a notch and how, you know, she keeps him, you know, solid.

And when, when hilarious. Baldwin on the red carpet is like, you don’t talk. When I, she, they’re all thinking. That they’re, you know, advocating for themselves and, you know, no, they look horrible. Absolutely

Malcolm Collins: horrible. And I think they look horrible even to other people [00:38:00] like themselves. Yeah, exactly. Like very few people watch or look at this behavior and are like, wow, that person’s really cool.

And, and I note here, if you’re like Malcolm, what you expect from a relationship, it’s just unrealistic for other people. Okay. I would point out that we have a lot of friends within our generation who are married and I don’t know one of them who doesn’t hold their relationship to these standards. Yeah.

If of, of my married friends that are like, like educated out sort of elite intellectual class, which is like the class that we hang with mm-hmm. None of them ever have spoken poorly about their,

Simone Collins: they’re so solid. And I think a really great, if we wanna talk about like a palate cleanser of a prominent couple.

That the media tried to make look divided and toxic when they ultimately aren’t, is Hannah Neman and her husband when they had that British Journal journalist. This, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: what’s, [00:39:00] what’s she known by Mor Mormon Ballerina Farms. The ballerina farm

Simone Collins: is Mormon tribe wife. They have a, a beautiful farm and like eight kids and maybe 10.

A lot of kids. There, there was this British journalist who went out and wrote this piece about them and basically talked about like, I think it’s David Neman just mansplaining, like talking over her all the time and like, you know, taking too much control of the conversation and, you know, tried to frame Hannah as this victim.

And after it came out, Hannah posted on social media, like we were taken aback by this, that, you know, my husband has always been there with me. It is always both of us in the trenches with everything. She 100% stood by him, defended him, said that this is completely not an accurate depiction of reality.

And they’re so aligned and they work wonderfully together.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it, it worked out in their favor. I mean, I think the public cited with Zim on that one was, was generally no.

Simone Collins: All the leftist female content creators that I follow are like, [00:40:00] confirmed. She’s, she’s

Malcolm Collins: horrible.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That it didn’t, people are gonna believe what they wanna believe.

But I will say, even if, even if Hannah, I would actually argue that Hannah, in everyone’s view comes across better. So if you wanna believe that they’re the aspirational corporate family or like trad couple, they look great after this. If you want to believe that Hannah is a beautiful, delicate victim who’s ballerina car now you get both.

She still looks better having not thrown her husband under the bus because she looks like the victim who’s taking the high road. So no matter what is true,

Malcolm Collins: she got no. So, Simone, I what, what was I gonna say here? I, I also note that we have a lot of people reach out to us, like fans of the show, about their spouses and not in a single one of the emails.

Did any of them ever complained about their spouses? Never. No.

Simone Collins: They’re, they’re aligned. They care deeply about each other. [00:41:00] 100%. It

Malcolm Collins: is, it is, is the thing. Yeah. I can only think of one instance. So, so I’m actually like racking my brain to think of anyone we know. And the one instance, I don’t think he saw it as a bad thing.

He was like, well, my wife said that once we went above, what was it, like four or five kids, I needed to start doing more of the housework myself. We’ve

Simone Collins: heard that actually from a co, a bunch of

Malcolm Collins: husbands. I don’t know. To me that was like a, but she’s a stay at home wife, you know? No, no. We’ve

Simone Collins: actually heard that from multiple husbands.

I think that’s a really common thing for. For husbands to experience in their lives. But what I’m pointing out

Malcolm Collins: here is this isn’t asking too much from somebody. And no, this isn’t a one-way thing. The reason why we’re not talking about men doing this is because we have other episodes about men doing this.

Yeah. Watch our episode. You’re so red pill you cut yourself, which is where we talk about how within some parts of the red pill community or the culture that’s downstream of that, they sort of confused aggression with masculinity. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Anger with masculinity. When in, when in the [00:42:00] end. A demonstration of anger is a demonstration of a lack of self-control, which is a demonstration of a lack of maturity and masculinity.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We talked about who’s the example of this crowder in his wife’s divorce, right? Like Yeah. People are like, he didn’t physically, he didn’t physically abuse there, but he talked to her in a way that I would be deeply ashamed to be caught on camera talking to my wife. Like, I’d be like, oh my God, this is like a you don’t, and, and apparently he talked to his staff the same way, which also was like, you don’t.

Just, you don’t talk to people like that, but if you, yeah, if you learn masculinity from what was at one point normalized, and I say, yeah, somebody who considers himself like squarely within the red pill manosphere movement there was this you know, be growler, always be in frame, always be, you know, and most of the people who had that mindset have moved away from it at this point and are like, yeah, that’s probably not the right way to think about this stuff.

But generally speaking, these men are the minority, even within the red pill movement. And men just do [00:43:00] not cross this boundary as frequently as women do because they know, because culturally they know. It makes them look terrible to talk about their wives this way. Mm-hmm. I have never heard a man in my age range, and this isn’t even just like our friend group or something, refer to their wife as the ball and chain, you know, refer to their wife as it makes you,

Simone Collins: it makes you look like a dick.

Just like acting like your husband’s a lovable buffoon makes you look like a dick. It’s not, but everyone

Malcolm Collins: would, I think in most immediately realize this and call it out much faster if a man did this, if a man put his hands on a woman in the way that Macron’s wife put his hands on him, oh, he’d be an effing jail.

Yeah. I know, right? If, if, if somebody you know, treated their partner, and I have actually seen this within certain man, your influencers, where the man will treat their partner the way that Baldwin’s wife treat him like, oh, you know, I, I sit down and I like put, I have her dressed up as like a maid and like [00:44:00] delivering me stuff.

Or I sit down and I put my legs in her lap or something. And these are typically like the. I’ve, I, I watch some less popular manosphere creators. Okay. And they got it in their head that like, the way that, like you show dominance over a woman because they’re like, well, I’m married now. Like, I’m, I’m in a, a long-term relationship, so how do I continue to show how cool and dominant I am?

Well, there’s that one

Simone Collins: guy who gets up at four in the morning and his wife or girlfriend, like. You see her hands show up in his videos as he’s getting up and like she slices his bananas and gives him food in a bathtub or something. Yeah. That kind of thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That kind of thing. And I’m like, it doesn’t make him look good though.

It makes him

Simone Collins: look like a baby.

Malcolm Collins: Makes him look like a baby. I like the way you say that, but what I wanted to point out here is the way that you, either way are coming off to other people with this Yeah. With women, people come off this way, but it doesn’t get stopped. Yeah. And, and the reason why we need to bring this up is we, the show does have a lot, a lot of female viewers.

And also a lot of it also has, it

Simone Collins: has a lot of young male [00:45:00] viewers who are going to find themselves in positions where there will be the first time where your girlfriend or fiance or wife does this and what, you know, you need to have a conversation about that immediately, about what it means to you about the optics for her, about the culture that may have led her to believe that.

And, and, you know, all this stuff too makes me think twice about Mormon standards, around media. How like it actually does kind of matter what you grow up watching. And I think Mormon, Mormon standards around media would not shield any Mormon from these toxic dimen dynamics. Like they’re trying to hide Mormons from swear words when instead, like they should be hiding them from toxic relationship dynamic shows.

Like, I don’t know how to, I mean, make a standard around that.

Malcolm Collins: And if you’re like, how do I quote, unquote train my wife on this stuff? It’s, you sit her down and you don’t let any instances of this slide every time it comes up, it is a, you bring it up, you have a

Simone Collins: conversation you

Malcolm Collins: need to have. It’s not a nag, it’s a this is, is is not productive.

It makes both of us look [00:46:00] bad and it makes our relationship look bad. Mm-hmm. And it is detrimental to our combined goals as a couple. Yeah. So how do we work on this? Right? Yeah. Like, and I think that the way that I would frame. Your relationship with your spouse to, to them so that they can understand what you mean by this is as like a noble house.

Think of it like what it used to mean in one of my Korean romance to marry into like the Duke’s house. Okay. Where you,

Simone Collins: this is, this is what I’m talking about. Media coloring. The way that you see the world now. You see the whole world through like Korean dramas. You marry into

Malcolm Collins: the Duke’s house. Now the house’s goals are your goals.

Yeah. It’s true though. That’s true. Something bad happens to the, so you would never act counter to the Duke’s will in public because you two are a team. You are two faces of the same sort of corporation, right? Um mm-hmm. You, there, there is no conflict and, and it’s not that you could negotiate for a higher place.

You are his wife. That means your role is ex, he’s your husband. That [00:47:00] means his role is what his

Simone Collins: successes are. Your successes. Your successes are his successes. Absolutely. And failure. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so like. That is, and I think that one way you, you can really do is, is when you’re having the marriage conversation with a woman and you’re like, this is what I expect from marriage.

Like this is what I want marriage to be about, about us. Not, you never criticize your husband in public, but like we are working as a combined entity for collective goals. Yeah. And that it’s very easy to, to have aligned goals with someone so long as your goal isn’t just hedonism or status or something like that.

But even then, you’re probably better off working. I, I knew,

Simone Collins: I knew actually really good couples whose, whose shared goal was hedonism and they did, they pulled it off, they made it great. Like, and they had a lot of fun together, but they were aligned on it. Like it’s, I don’t care what your aligned goal is but it is your aligned goal and you do it together.

Don’t undermine each other and oh my gosh, just how uncomfortable it is to veer around that couple that like fights.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it’s [00:48:00] miserable. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t wanna be around them at all. You, you’d have no reason. And, but

Simone Collins: we’ve all been there where you’re like at a dinner and a couple starts fighting and you’re like can I leave now?

This is

Malcolm Collins: cool. I have, when I was growing up, I was exposed to a lot of Boomer parents. Okay. And I have a lot of friends who are around our age and I guess of sort of a similar social class to the parents I was exposed to as a kid. I can think of few. I would say maybe 25% of those boomer relationships where I didn’t see the wife belittle the husband totally.

I I, of people in our age group, I would say it’s near zero. And, and so. Don’t do it. It’s not normal. It’s not a holdover. I think that our generation is already normalized to not do it. But if you’re, if you’re dealing with this or if this is a challenge for you and your relationship, I think even just normalized to your friends, right?

Like if, if she’s like, oh, this is the normal push back. Yeah, push.

Simone Collins: So we’ve had other episodes where we talk about this, where we have the, the episode where we talked about the mental load concept that has been really spreading around social media [00:49:00] where. Women are unfairly complaining about this mental load they experience because they are the ones remembering to pack their kids’ lunches.

They’re totally not acknowledging. As people like Amanda Claypol have pointed out the fact that men also have their own mental loads of like yes, defend the family. Like what happens if you hear a, like a door open your house at 2:00 AM in the morning, is that your problem? Is the woman or is your husband the one going down?

Like, men also have mental loads that they deal with, that women take for granted just as men do. So, like that’s not even fair, but like, so there are these, these memes that circulate on social media. And one thing that was really interesting in the comments on our video, on mental loads where women are complaining about this and acting like, you know, it’s so unfair what they take on as wives and they have to take on these man children and take care of them.

Is that in their friend groups, they often had like one person who would constantly complain about these things because they’d been poisoned by various, like algorithmic pools on social media. And that it was really annoying to them that like the two [00:50:00] other friends in their groups would never point, like call ‘em out on it and that they were always the one to call them out on it.

But I think that it’s, it’s so great that they’re doing that and you need to be that person. You need to be that person to be like, girl. Like that’s what are you doing? Well, trying

Malcolm Collins: to pull yourself out of friend groups like that. Yeah. I think that that’s another thing is, is is pull your, your partner out of toxic friend groups if if, if they’re taxing.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because that stuff spreads like a virus. It does.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, thank you for pulling me out of it for deprogramming me. And I, oh, you know where I do still see it. Lesbian relationships.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, thought you were gonna say, I still do it. Worry about that. No, I, you still see it in lesbian culture, but lesbian culture is, you know, uniquely toxic.

Like very low levels of mental health, high levels of divorce, high levels of spousal abuse. So like, I can see why they would also, they’re more close to the urban world culture. What lesbian

Simone Collins: friends do we have,

Malcolm Collins: We, we have a few lesbian friends, which I don’t see it, but in everyone that I have had, like a white lesbian [00:51:00] acquaintance I have had, or I’ve seen, I’ve seen negative talk about partners. I don’t wanna be too specific.

But you don’t remember that

Simone Collins: living, that they

Malcolm Collins: transition. So maybe you don’t think of them as a lesbian

Simone Collins: transition

yeah. Anyway.

Yeah. I love you.

Love you too. Thanks for tolerating me. I’m barely, I’m barely making it. Guys. Just get the shock caller out. It’ll be okay. Get

Malcolm Collins: the shock color. I’m gonna see if I can make a video where I edit you to be shocked.

Looking.

Simone Collins: We need to, no, I’m sure like there’s some Halloween sale. After Halloween where we can just buy like shock colors for humans, you know, like the kind that we’re supposed to have like bombs on them, like have flashing lights or something. We need to the flashing light Kay. Colors. We need to those for like all of our children.

And every time the journalists come over, I course

Malcolm Collins: people dressed up as Kaya and, and Hassan. Shocking. That

Simone Collins: is the Halloween costume of the year. Year. That is, that is to [00:52:00] be kaya for Halloween. Kaya and Hassan Kaya. Please can we, oh my God. I wish we had a Halloween party to go to so I could be, I could be ka or no, our children would all be Kaa and we would both be Hassan.

That would be Chef’s Kiss. Oh, well I’m well love you. Bye. Love you.

Malcolm Collins: But it’s all good. I think delicious chips and salsa

Simone Collins: and what I’m gonna do with the bullock is I think I’m gonna go ahead and freeze everything so that we’re not like reheating it after refrigerating it multiple times. I think that, like from a food safety standpoint isn’t good, but every time I redo it, I’m gonna simmer it for a while.

Okay. Before I,

Malcolm Collins: well, did you, did you boil the bullock first

Simone Collins: boil? No, you’re supposed to, for the recipe, you pan sear it until it’s browned on the outside.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think what

Simone Collins: needed is like, it needs to be steamed because you were saying the inside didn’t [00:53:00] seem soft.

Malcolm Collins: Well, remember the first time you cooked it, you steamed it before you pan-seared it.

Simone Collins: No, that was just for Bullock. Sorry. That was just, sorry. That was just for to buki whatever,

Malcolm Collins: like

Simone Collins: plain. No. Well, I think.

Malcolm Collins: And, you know, we did something wrong. We were supposed to steam it in some way and then brown

Simone Collins: it. No, I did it exactly the way I was,

Malcolm Collins: I followed, I followed the directions. You got the directions from an AI perplexity or

Simone Collins: something?

No, no, no, no. Actually I got it from a recipe that you sent to me.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, wow.

Simone Collins: Yeah. When, when, when perplexity gives me instructions, nothing goes wrong. The AI only guides me correctly. You don’t understand. I love

Malcolm Collins: it when people get mad about AI hallucinating, and I’m like, people hallucinate all the time. You knob.

Well, yeah,

Simone Collins: it’s, it’s human recipes. Give me the most trouble. Honestly,

Malcolm Collins: that’s, that’s where I, well, then it’s my fault. I, I sent you a bad recipe. So I guess yeah, we’ll just cook it longer when we reheat it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s, well, and, you know, we’ll see tonight if that works, and if it doesn’t, then we’ll find something else to do.

But I, I [00:54:00] have confidence in this one.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the the rice cakes came out for the audience who wants to know, they were a little hard compared to how they normally taste or their usual texture as one of our kid is very into texture. He’s like, I really like the texture on this toy. He’ll say, like, feeling it as like metal or something.

He’s like, this got a, a great texture to it. And he sounds so sophisticated. Well, they’re, they’re

Simone Collins: autistic, so, I mean, yeah. Texture’s, everything. If you’re autistic, I don’t, I don’t tell him he’s a weirdo. We know we’re weirdos. I love that you, when you’re, I knew I was gonna love your family when your mom said that.

The family motto was, I’m not okay. You’re not okay. And that’s okay. And I’m like, that is amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Please. There, there what was I gonna say? The, the episode today, so in, in my GSB class for, for Stanford Business School there’s like a group and everyone’s starting podcasts now. It’s like the third podcast that’s gone live recently.

And of course I’m terrified they’ll one day find my podcast. Or you haven’t told

Simone Collins: anyone about your [00:55:00] podcast in that group?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. I am terrified that they will find, because they are, they are far, far left. Anyway. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But they never liked you anyway. I mean, you had some friends, you had like a few friends who were really nice to you and then everyone else like.

Acted super superior and kind of ignored you and didn’t

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they kind of did. It was really surprising. I don’t know why. Yeah,

Simone Collins: there’s, there’s really no love lost Malcolm. I, I, I have, I mean, there were, I I could, I could probably count on one hand the number of people who are not dicks to you at Stanford, GSB.

You can, you can, you can take this part out. But

and not even, she was only nice after yeah,

Malcolm Collins: she was nice. No, she was nice to me for a period at the beginning of the gsb, and then,

Simone Collins: then she got in with the cool kids. So she, she

Malcolm Collins: stay away from you didn’t kids? Yeah, I was, nothing, nothing

Simone Collins: on her.

Malcolm Collins: Nothing on her. You, you’re hanging out with the cool kids you’re hanging out with, but I meant I’m only at four.

Oh, you forgot what’s her face? And I’m sure there were others. I don’t have a great memory.

Simone Collins: No, sorry. And [00:56:00] she was

Malcolm Collins: dating me from the first day I went there too, so, you know. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Actually no, no, because for the first at least 30 days you were, you were, you were dating and like in, in the, during the summer vacation leading up to it.

You were, you were traveling with various subgroups of the GSB to get to know them and also in search of a wife.

It’s so weird to have a wife who was with me during my time at graduate school because, you know, I can look back on high school or I can look back on college and feel like, Hey, maybe people weren’t that nice to me. But then I’m like, no, Malcolm, you’re just being indulgent.

Everybody thinks that way. And now I have this person who is fairly level-headed and experienced all this with me and is like, oh, no. No, Malcolm actually, people didn’t really like you that much. .

Because of course, in my head, like trying to be generous, I assume that I must have been being a jerk to people and not realizing it. And so when I looked back on my life, up until Simone started [00:57:00] being an external recorder, this is the way I saw myself.

Hey, Liz. How’s the telescope? I don’t know. Kelsey, how’s your mom’s pill addiction?

Simone Collins: So, but

Malcolm Collins: anyway, I thought it was really funny ‘cause they released this podcast and, it’s so like NPR voice and everything like that. And on the same day that that podcast goes out, my podcast about Nick Fuentes fangirl comes out like fan fiction of Nick Fuentes and like, you know, morning Glory

Simone Collins: Milking Farm or whatever, milking

Malcolm Collins: mini tars at the milking farm.

And I am like, this is like my level of culture right here. This is like your level of culture, right? Like, we’re not in the same world. She’s talking about like Haitian relief efforts or something.

Simone Collins: Not even that though. Like you had so much more. Okay. We had so much more substance in our podcast about Nick Fuentes fan fiction and female Gooners.

Then she had an entire opening podcast, which was literally the, the thesis of it was [00:58:00] I lived through a disaster in Haiti and I discovered that someone was nice to other people during that disaster. What a revelation. I’m going to go give speeches about that and start a podcast about it, because I can’t believe that people might actually do nice things for other people.

Malcolm Collins: I’m,

Simone Collins: I’m being

very true. I’m gonna be generous.

Malcolm Collins: What I would say is, I think she’s not going for like an informational podcast, I think. No, no, no. She’s, she’s like a, she’s, she’s a

Simone Collins: development coach, so her entire shtick is motivational messages and, we’re dealing with a lot of very helpless people

Malcolm Collins: like us and our thing.

Like obviously we would, we would not gel with that sort of like a vibe. But I think for the audience that she’s trying to target I thought it was incredibly well produced. Like I, I’m gonna be honest, well produced. It was, I mean, like was top quality way better than ours.

Simone Collins: And yeah, we’re, we’re very, I mean, there’s like a grunting baby in, in our audio here.

Like, I, I get it.

Malcolm Collins: The, the [00:59:00] theming, the, she would even have like within her own words, she would trail off and then like audio would start and then it’d go back to her words. To have like a, you know, like you would have on NPR as a transition between two people’s, not my aesthetic, that’s not my aesthetic.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s, but it’s, it’s, it’s for, oh my God, though, if we did though, we’d have to use audio of our sun Torsten going do, do, do. No, it’s funny, but when I was listening to it, all I

Malcolm Collins: could think is like, the person who consumes this is like a different species from whatever we are.

Simone Collins: Well, people literally comment on our podcast being like, what is that?

So we are different species from other people. Yeah. They’re, it has been confirmed by our own viewer viewership,

Malcolm Collins: so it’s

Simone Collins: fine.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah

And I wanna be clear here. I’m not saying it was bad, like something produced for this alternate species of human that exists alongside me. It was expertly produced, like it sounded like a very high quality NPR piece. But like when I listened to NPR pieces, I’m like, but why? Like, the speed at which new ideas are introduced to me is so.

Slow. [01:00:00] I think it’s more about a vibe and some people live for like this vibe and I struggle to emulate that part of humanity.

Malcolm Collins: We, we are, we, we target nerds. Like that’s the thing. Right?

Speaker 4: So the, the people I’ll be working with what they like, standard nerds.

Malcolm Collins: You know, we, we don’t target, like what’s the, the in in thing? I think pretty much everyone who watches us as a nerd a religious

Simone Collins: nerd, a midtown nerd, a racist nerd, a gene bro, nerd tech nerds, AI nerds. You

Malcolm Collins: wanna do you wanna

Simone Collins: get

Malcolm Collins: us started on today’s sexy nerds, though? They’re

Simone Collins: all sexy nerds.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We got a bunch of sexy nerds ready to unh holster their autism on the, on the world.

Simone Collins: That’s what Basecamp is all about,

right? Yes. Okay. Wait, sorry. Lemme get that one in front of me.

And I mean, I I I had to slap this together really quickly ‘cause I didn’t know you wanted to do this today. So it’s not, it’s not perfect, but we’re gonna gonna get into it. Well, we can go through some

Malcolm Collins: of the specific examples that What’s

Simone Collins: her Facebook. Yeah. And I, and I, [01:01:00] I have, I have, I have some too. No, I’ve got, I’ve got, yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got stuff.

I’m just saying I’m, I’m running on two and a half hours of sleep and it, I understand Simone. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: If you wanna put this off, we can do another one.

Simone Collins: No, I’m ready. I’m ready.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, I’m

Simone Collins: ready. And I, I, I’d rather do my debt Jubilee one when I’m not running on so little sleep. ‘cause this is a little more personal. Alright.

Speaker 9: Okay, so what’s happening guys? Whatcha guys doing getting,

that’s a lot of pumpkins. Yeah. There’s G. Yeah. What are you doing, sweetheart? I’m pumpkin. Yes. Oh my gosh. Are you gonna take out too many seeds? Yeah. And put them in the bowl. And put ‘em in the bowl. Yeah, but it doesn’t look, oh yeah. You are putting ‘em in the bowl, aren’t you? I’m putting them on. [01:02:00] Oh, that’s a good plan.

And what about you, toastie? Well, I have a

Speaker 10: so many seed.

Seed. Okay. And Octavia, what about you? Is this fun? Yay. Is this fun? Ocion this Very fun. Oh, you like having a Halloween birthday break Scoop.

Speaker 9: Did you know that daddy has a birthday around Halloween? Yeah, because mommy a.

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the latest data on fertility rates in the United States, with a special focus on the dramatic decline in black fertility rates. Using CDC statistics and projections, they explore how black fertility has not only dropped below white fertility for the first time in recent history, but is also being outpaced by other demographic groups. The discussion covers a range of factors influencing these trends, including socioeconomic status, cultural shifts, marriage rates, and the impact of organizations like Planned Parenthood. The hosts also examine the role of progressive narratives, immigration, and changing attitudes within black communities, offering a thought-provoking analysis of what these changes mean for the future. Whether you’re interested in demographics, social policy, or cultural commentary, this episode provides a data-driven, candid look at a topic that’s often overlooked in mainstream conversations.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be going over some shocking numbers that I ran into when I was working on another post, and I just sort of started looking at the ethnic fertility breakdown in the United States by year.

And I will put that on screen here.

So here we have from 2000 to 2023 the CDC D’S ethnic breakdown. Now you will note that the last firm numbers we have from the CDC are in 2023, right? So what happens if we project these numbers and the trends that we have within New Chestnut Group? Because one thing you’ll notice very quickly is that numbers are following way faster in the black group than they are in the other groups.

It’s wild. Specifically, blacks went from a fertility rate of 2.26 down to this was in 2000 to 20 23, 1 0.58, whereas in the same period whites went from 1.88. Two, 1.53 a much [00:01:00] less decline. And actually if you look at the numbers overall, I thought Asian fertility rates might be stabilizing uhhuh and they, they might, but they have actually declined the most, statistically speaking.

Oh my goodness. So, so they went from 2.07 to 1.31 is what they’re at now. It’s a very bad but what I would note is agent fertility rates have been stable for about three years. Okay. Most of that fall happened a while ago. So, you know, I get these numbers and I’m like, okay buddy, let’s do the math.

Like at what year have you, if you going forwards, uhhuh to black fertility rates in the United States, fall below white fertility rates

Speaker 2: Oh s**t, here we go. It’s on. Race, war. Race, war, race, war, race war’s on everybody.

It’s going down. It’s going down.

Malcolm Collins: because the, the official confirmed data we have ends in 2023. So what year is that?

Simone Collins: I’m gonna guess 20 28,

Malcolm Collins: 20 25.

Simone Collins: Oh wait, that’s this

Malcolm Collins: year.

Speaker 2: Token Forfeit. [00:02:00] Whites win. Whites win. Race, war, everybody whites.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So then I decided to go and I was like, well, if it happened this year, there must be somebody who’s working with preliminary data that can, that can confirm this, right. Like Yeah. From the CDC. And so we actually have it confirmed from two sources where they were looking over the preliminary data.

First gauge on X you know, a pretty standard population tracking account in like the prenatals community. Yeah. They said with the new population estimates by age for us, we can finally revise the TFR for 2024. So this is last year. Okay, by the way. Okay. And so, this took the white fertility rate from 1.54 to 1.52.

So white fertility rate was less than we thought, right. The black fertility rate from 1.52 to 1.490. Oh my gosh. So last year we had numbers showing black fertility was well below white fertility. Oh, right. When and well below, like this is a pretty steep drop. [00:03:00] If, if 1.49 is the real number for black fertility that is.

Really, really, really steep drop. Like it means the drop is steeper than we thought it was. That’s crazy. Crazy. It continued along historical. And this is at 1.5 this year.

Simone Collins: And this is at all income levels? Correct. Because I remember looking at graphs that showed that basically the only group that maintained pretty high fertility at higher income levels were.

White groups and then actually black fertility at higher income levels really dropped off. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Even if you look at historic data, whites by far have the highest fertility rate. Yeah. If they’re above 50% income.

Simone Collins: But then, so this means, but this also means then that really impoverished black populations are having fewer kids.

Correct?

Malcolm Collins: Well, we are. We’re, we’re gonna go into what’s causing this. Okay. Okay. So, I’m so curious. This is crazy.

Given that we have a decently sized black fan base, I feel like this is what the Wokes assume they are.

Speaker 7: Teacher, can I be racist?

Speaker 8: Oh no. Black people can’t be racist. Can’t be racist. [00:04:00]

Speaker 7: Who wouldn’t let society define him?

Speaker 8: You can’t be racist. Black people can’t too be racist.

Speaker 7: And a coach who believed in him. You want to be a real racist. Can’t

Speaker 9: drive hots, the border, precious. Not as often. Life as more like prejudice, but without institutional power.

Speaker 7: None. None of this happens

Speaker 9: in Japan.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, the, what I’ve seen, at least in my experience, or maybe

Simone Collins: Planned Parenthood’s finally achieving, it’s, its originally intended mission goal, right?

Malcolm Collins: It really is. It’s goal. I, I actually did the math in this, and the black population would be because, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen the mass by the probe, you know, anti-abortion organizations.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it, it, it, the numbers do seem to check out if Planned Parenthood didn’t exist, there would be a, a 46% larger black population in the United States. Oh, so, that is,

Simone Collins: they’re so, they’re so screwed up that this is, it’s like, it’s, it’s the genocide that nobody [00:05:00] talks about. What on earth.

Malcolm Collins: But I mean, if, if you’re talking about a genocide that is that aggressive, and it’s 89% of Planned Parenthood clinics

are in majority minority communities.

It’s, it’s targeted. It’s an ongoing genocide. And it was set up, no, this isn’t some right wing conspiracy. The Planned Parenthoods website admits their problematic history of explicit connection with the KKK and being explicitly set up to lower black fertility rates. It’s

Simone Collins: like that Stargate episode where you have this population that’s like, we’re nice, we’re here to help you.

And meanwhile, they’re like sterilizing everyone and trying to just get them to stop reproducing that is Planned Parenthood, but with, with, with a very racist agenda. I can’t believe it. I no, I Is that what’s going on here? Is it just that like No, it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s not everything, but it is part of it. Okay. And so, I, I wanna go through another account where this was confirmed.

And this is looking at the, the CDC D’S own own site. So, a, a guy

GZ 17 also went over this going through the CDC D’S data. [00:06:00] And he showed that the black fertility rate went from with whites being 1.535. To blacks being 1.518. And these are the old numbers. Remember I said the, the new numbers showed blacks being even lower than that, right?

Yeah. The 1.49 number. Another interesting note here is with these new numbers, it puts multiracial fertility rate below white fertility rate at 1.45 with the white fertility rate being 1.52

Simone Collins: mm. And

Malcolm Collins: the IC Hispanic fertility rate is still really robust. Oh, that’s, but is that, is it the highest fertility rate?

Here’s what, what’s shocking if you take out black immigrants, the, the black fertility rate could be as low as 1.36.

This was as, as, as early as 2024. And if you have, like, I have a quite a number of black friends weirdly speaking I, I know that people might be surprised by that. But yeah, a, a pretty big community of black friends and I don’t know one of them who is above repopulation rate.

In fact, I don’t know, one of them who has children and is married to another [00:07:00] black person. Oh God, all the ones I know that have kids are married to non-blacks. Right. I love your wait. Is your,

Simone Collins: wait is your friend who dressed up as you as Halloween at that one time, did he marry you?

Malcolm Collins: He married to me Nation. I’m trying, trying to think of someone by way. Blacks and Asians make hot kids. They do.

Simone Collins: Oh God. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, yeah. I actually, Asians whi most other races make uniquely hot kids. I know. Pointed out this, this is like even more extreme when you get Irish and Korean, I think. No, no.

Irish

Simone Collins: and Japanese is like Irish and Japanese.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, no, ablasion.

Simone Collins: Ablasion is beautiful. But whoa, you’re right though. I’m, I’m going through all of our friends and they are largely in mixed race marriages. And what’s up with that too? I mean, I guess we’ve done some episodes on the plight of the, the black woman who’s dating.

‘cause most of our, our, the plight is a black man who’s dating. So, if you’re a black man, black women are more screwed than black men. Sorry. Black women, yeah. Are more screwed in dating markets than black men.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree if they’re sane, because you’ve gotta keep in mind the percentage of black women that are like far woke [00:08:00] progressives.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And if you’re a black guy who’s interested in marrying, you know, you’re just not gonna do that. I think when I was looking it up, it was something like, 96% of black women are, are Democrats.

Right. Like, and that, that, that can just make them like an active danger to date. Because, you know, you don’t know if they’re gonna hit you with like, random charges or anything like that.

Like, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t deal with it. But what she’s pointing out is women here, and this is important to note before we, we go further into this, is black women have shorter fertility windows than other ethnic groups. I, I was talking to this Telemundo about this, and they, well, they

Simone Collins: report more fertility problems in general.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s 50% higher fertility complications. And Telemundo is like, well, that’s just because of racism. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? Like, no, it’s not, it’s, it’s, it’s partially because of higher rates of obesity. And it’s, it’s, it’s partially due to genetic differences. As, and we’ve pointed out other episodes black blacks have aids and, and this isn’t just blacks, it’s also Asians have about one week shorter gestational cycles.

The, the Telemundo lady, by the way, you’re muted was [00:09:00] absolutely convinced that this was due to racism. And I was like. What, what type of racism are like blacks and Asians both subjected to that would shorten their fertility cycles? Like, and, and, and the crazy thing about this is there was a, a great study on this by I think I remember reading it in, in Neil Ard stuff where they were looking at interracial couples.

And we saw that when you have a black mother and a white father, something that you didn’t see when you had a, a, a white mother and a black father, which is that the children were born with deficits that you would expect from preterm babies. Which basically means,

Simone Collins: oh, you were full term.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they were considered full term because the mother was black. And their fertility cycle is shorter. But so, so basically the, the, the black woman’s body like basically thinks it’s got the genes that she was made with. I mean, you know, there, there, there is some evolutionary divergency. Well, we

Simone Collins: did a whole episode on this, remember?

Did we ever, we

Malcolm Collins: didn’t episode where we went over. And I, I find it to be a really [00:10:00] fascinating point. But yeah, it, it, it’s. It. Well, it’s fascinating because it’s one of those things where, and, and you didn’t see this by the way, which I think sort of shows that this is unlikely to be racism in the children born with black fathers, but white mothers because they, they kept the, the child to, to, like, you don’t really suffer any, any problems as a child from being in the womb longer than your genetics expect you to be.

But yeah, I, I, I, I love this, like it’s, we got this huge argument with Telemundo there. It’s like, there are genetic differences between populations and here I’m, I’m thinking like, do you think that blacks are, and she said, no, there are no genetic differences. And I’m here being like, excuse me, lady. Like, do you think blacks are like taller?

Because they’re discriminated against. Like it’s this, some like la Marcian evolution thing where you think, you know, you get called a slur one too many times and why you just grew. It must be because of basketball. They watch, they watch basketball and every time they reach like Lamar and evolution. For people who don’t know, what I’m talking about is Lamian evolution, an older theory of evolution.

Pre Darwin’s, that was like the Giraff [00:11:00] Wretches. To, to get the, the high leaves and so, and to their next

Simone Collins: girl longer.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And like the blacksmith gets like muscles that he passes down to his children who, who inherits, you know? And, and I’m like, is this, is this the way that they think that like, I, ethnic differences happen here.

I even, by the way, if you’re wondering why didn’t. Nail her down on this. I was even like, why do you think their skin is black? Like, do you not think that that’s genetic? And she was just like, no, it’s not. And I was like, I was absolutely dumbfounded. I was, I cannot wait for this interview to come out.

‘cause I am just so perplexed

Simone Collins: by it. I’m assuming it’s just gonna be taken out in editing. ‘cause someone’s gonna be like, well that, that was weird. That

Malcolm Collins: made us look incredibly stupid. Let’s just take that out.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s not, well, I hope they, it’s on the cutting room floor.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, somebody at the cutting room forum is gonna be like he’s right.

You know, like there, there are genetic differences between groups.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. I’m like, this is Telemundo. I feel like in general, Spanish speaking populations are a lot more based. So

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, they, they’d see this and they’d be like, what the heck is that? Is she [00:12:00] going on about this for?

Yeah. But I also wanted to go into why is this happening? ‘cause this, it’s a yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I mean, Parenthood’s been going at this since like, what, the sixties or seventies? So that’s not them. This is not, this is new. This is a new,

Malcolm Collins: well, no, it’s, I mean, it’s been happening since then. So one of the things that we point out in our islamification of black culture video, which you should really watch if you watch it, I think one of our all time best, it’s,

Simone Collins: it’s

Malcolm Collins: crazy.

I feel like every

Simone Collins: time we look at black culture though and, and black history, we’re like, what has been. There actually is like a systemic racism taking place, but it’s not the one that’s been like hammered into us by mainstream culture, and that’s what’s so, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: so like we point out, if you go back to the 1950s or it might be the 1940s blacks had a, a children out of wedlock.

5% of the time and whites had it 10% of the time. So blacks were half the probability of whites of having a child on white. Yeah, the, the

Simone Collins: systemic suppression is there, but the cull is coming from inside the house, and that’s what blew my mind the most. Yeah, it’s

Malcolm Collins: like 86%. If [00:13:00] you look at I love hatemonger.

There, there’s this cartoon show. I’ll put a seed from it here. Where it’s a, a space Marine that’s supposed to be like an internet hateful person, and he is trying to train a robot to be hateful. And he goes, okay, so we just need to go over some statistics here.

Speaker 4: .

Unit 1 0 1. Did you know? Did you know one F three aliens have some sort of weapon built into their physiology? Are aliens inherently violent? Hmm. Interesting. How did you know some aliens are single mothers on a genetic level? I wonder if it affects the behavior of the children. Hmm. Curious. Tell about per capita.

Speaker 6: I’m getting to it.

Malcolm Collins: The but anyway so, so, what was I saying here?

So, bl if, if you, if you, if you look at the, the unmarried, and the reason why I got so angry about that in that episode is that was like BLM made non-traditional family structures, one of the core things they wanted to protect about [00:14:00] protecting black culture when that was not a part of black culture.

That was the antithesis of black culture, if you look at historic black culture. Yeah. And in, in, in addition to that you have what was I, what was I gonna, there was a, another statistic here. Oh yeah. The other statistic I always love from this one is it shows earning rates of the two groups over time.

And you see whites like balloon up and blacks barely goes anywhere. And then the other one that I found really crazy was, and this is, this is one of my favorite statistics that I found when working on another video on this but, but did you know that there have been more. Blacks killed in hate crimes like, like killed for being black in the United States in the last 10 years.

Significantly more. I think it’s like double the rate than there were. Hate crime murders in the 1950s. It’s

Simone Collins: so screwed up. It’s so screwed up when you had like,

Malcolm Collins: actual lynchings and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Well, I

Malcolm Collins: think one, the severity of race related violence is hugely overplayed in the media to create narratives of United States that that didn’t really exist at these individual [00:15:00] time periods.

And then two, I think that we hugely overplay like the civil rights movement happened. And now it’s resolved where I think the, we need to. Like, like if, if, and I think the reason why you see this violence even today and, and more is because a, a narrative that is a lie is shoved down our throats.

Which is that there is nothing different about these populations. And that because there’s nothing different about these populations. There’s nothing culturally different. There’s nothing genetically different. Any difference in outcomes must be because one population is systematically. Subverting the other population through unfair legal structures or racism or anything like that.

And it’s the same you know, this is the same sort of, and then somebody sees through this and they’re like, but we are different. And then they go crazy because they don’t have like an outlet for dealing with this. And this is the same thing that we’ve dealt with in a society where you had, you know, antisemitism comes from this, and this is also why we’re talking about the leftist so antisemitic. Because if, if, if all group differences are due [00:16:00] to can’t be due to culture and they can’t be due to genetics, well then why are the Jews, you know, out competing everyone else in, in politics among billionaires, among actors among comedians, among and, and you have to say, well, they’re, they’re cheating, right?

And that’s a normative thing to say, but let’s go over why this is happening to blacks, please, what’s going on? First I’m gonna go over a Reddit comment, and then we’re gonna dig into this one because I thought this one was pretty interesting on one of these. So the biggest gaps are in the deep south.

It is where the whites have remained somewhat conservative, but black populations have liberalized In 2023 white women in Mississippi had a TFR of nearly 1.8 compared to 1.7 for black women. So, this, this wouldn’t explain it all, but this would explain part of it. In the south, blacks have become more liberalized and less religious if you can trust them with white populations in the same regions.

But yeah, basically the data does back this up. This is happening but it’s not big enough to explain everything. Then I wanted to get into, ‘cause remember I pointed out that their real fertility rate may be closer to 1.3 something. And that’s because black immigrants have a fairly high [00:17:00] fertility rate.

So let’s talk about, because they’re basically outbreeding the native black population right now. And, and like we, like actually great replacement theory. Here’s my great replacement theory. Native American blacks will be replaced by black immigrants.

Simone Collins: Oh, you mean. We’ll essentially say slavery, immigration wave blacks will be replaced by subsequent immigration wave blacks.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Literally the people who trapped their ancestors and sold them into slavery. Oh my God. Those will be the people replacing them. Oh, so not, not awesome. But let’s, let’s continue here. Actually,

Simone Collins: you know, a, a couple of people have said this in comments or messages to us. This is not actually you only you saying this, which is scary.

Malcolm Collins: Scary. Well, I mean, it’s not just that. It’s, it’s that these immigrants who are outbreeding, the existing black population in the United States do not have a high view of, of American blacks, of, of the definition. Well, and they’re

Simone Collins: also, they earn more,

Malcolm Collins: In, in, in many cases. So I, I don’t think they, they are demonstrably more.

[00:18:00] Yeah. They, so they, they, they, they do well. They do see themselves as a separate class. They’re like, I’m not, like, you know those people, right? Mm-hmm. Like, I’m like a distinct thing. And that’s part of why the fertility rate is high, as we always talk about. When you see yourself as a distinct thing and better than other things you know, they, they might even have like an active goal of I, I actually, I wouldn’t even say like they might.

Even like, I have had conversations with black African friends that are like, oh yeah, we need to like, replace the American blacks. Like they, they, they’re aware of what’s going on. And they’re like, if you, if you have a lot of like black African friends, this may just mean me as a filter for this.

They’re like the most based people on earth. So much so that they love being racist around me to watch me like, you know, like my face turn red because I know, like, do I leave the room right now? Like do I. You know, I have one of those reactions that they know like, ha ha, even he based white person cannot be seen in the same room as people making these kinds of jokes.

Which reminds me of that funny the thing that somebody did where they’d [00:19:00] go, it’s so funny that if you look at like nineties shows to be like non-racist, they’d always put like an Asian, a white guy, a black guy, and like a Hispanic guy. On like a team together you know, as like the superhero team, as like the not racist thing, but it’s like if you’ve ever had a friend group like that, you know, it’s like the most racist friend group you have ever been around.

Yeah. Because they’re all constantly making racist racial jokes because they’re always like, they’re allowed to because they’re in that, you know, whatever makes the

Simone Collins: free card. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So how high. The even black when the fertility rate so for, so, okay, when the fertility rate for native born black women was 1.36 to 1.4.

You had in, in, so this is 2023. So, you know, randomly we were getting that data from , Haitian women had a fertility rate of two to 2.2. And Somali women had a fertility rate of five to six children per woman. Wow. Okay. Although three to four for longer residing, and then if you go to second generation, it drops to 1.7 to 1.9.

Simone Collins: Hold on. Yes. We do [00:20:00] have a black friend who has four kids, five kids? Mm. Local.

Malcolm Collins: Is he an immigrant?

Simone Collins: Yes. She, she. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: still, I, I was like really racking my brain. It’s like, oh my God, we do,

Malcolm Collins: no, but I’m, this is the thing, you know, we’ll get so many because in the first episode where we mentioned this, you had a bunch of black people in the comments being like, yeah, like, none of my friends have kids.

Like, just literally look around. Like if you’re in the black community. Who are the F is having kids. Yeah. And at

Simone Collins: first my mind was like, yeah, well I don’t know white people who the No, we actually know a lot of white families that have a lot of kids, so that’s not gonna help. Yeah, I know what white is, but also like, you’re right, like in terms of like LA families or, you know, families who come from Latin America, like Central or South America and least historically.

Not above replacement. So

Malcolm Collins: I actually wouldn’t be surprised if the Native American Hispanic fertility rate now is above the Hispanic fertility rate of immigrants. Because of Hispanic fertility rates, the UN is lying [00:21:00] to you. Hispanic fertility rates are actually super low like Mexico fell below the US is TFR and stuff like that.

So they’re coming from a low fertility environment. They probably have lower fertility expectations.

Simone Collins: Well, to be fair, the friends that we made were living in Peru. Still don’t have any kids. The, the friends that we have who grew up with like, maybe like their parents are from Latin American countries, but they grew up in the us.

Not all of them have kids, but more of them do. Yeah. So that’s interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and also they’re just getting

Simone Collins: married so much later. They’re doing the same thing that everyone’s doing. They’re putting it off.

Malcolm Collins: Well, when I talk about the eradication of the American Black community, it, it’s, it’s not just them being replaced by Africans.

It is that their, their fertility is incredibly discogenic. So, you know, if we talk about that graph, the one that you were talking about, where, you know, we point out that whites have the highest fertility when they’re above 50% income levels. Blacks really only have any, anything close to a decent fertility rate.

They’re in. Bottom 20% of income. And yeah,

Simone Collins: poverty still really helps with. [00:22:00] No, no, no. I mean, what

Malcolm Collins: I’m saying is blacks fall below every other group, like including Asians. Oh. Even when they’re in poverty. Yeah. I blame

Simone Collins: Planned Parenthood for that.

Malcolm Collins: And, and by a huge number, a huge number. I, no, it’s not just Planned Parenthood.

I, I think about like our black friends who like want to get married and have kids and like, it’s, they, they seem to have the Catholic problem, if I’m gonna be honest here. A lot of them are way too picky about who they marry. Yeah. Yeah. They are like extremely they, they like really, oh, and sorry, the thing that Simone was talking about was black women, which is also important to note, is black women are,

if you put like a chart on screen of, how often on OkCupid people message back different ethnicities? Black men are the only ethnic group that actually e-mails back their own ethnicity less than other ethnicities. Whereas for I think almost every other ethnicity, that’s the group that they email back them, everyone else.

Simone Collins: Yeah. First they, they, they have the highest interest in their own.

Malcolm Collins: Even though, well, and I’ll note that actually [00:23:00] interracial marriages are still fairly rare. I think it’s like four to 5% of, like, they’re bigger now

Simone Collins: than they ever have been though. So they, they’re becoming a lot more common.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But they’re still like, that’s, that’s not actually as big a concern.

They’re just not dating as much. And so like when they date just what I’ve noticed. Is they don’t feel this like pressure of like, I have to actually get this done, like right now it’s more like a, when I find the right person. Yeah. And when I dated like you knew, it was very much like I am dating to find a wife.

Yeah. And I have to get this done by this timeline. I mean, it was musical chairs for me. Like I was like, by the end of, of, of graduate school, whoever I’m dating on Mary. Right? Like, yeah.

Simone Collins: You were acting like a regency era woman who was afraid of becoming an old maid. That’s, that’s kind of where you were.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, I have never seen any of my black friends act like this in regards to marriage. No. I I would bet what you’re gonna see upstream of the low black fertility rates in the US is incredibly low black marriage rates. [00:24:00]

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which, well, we see

Simone Collins: that in the data we do. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: we do.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely.

It’s there. The other thing that really hit blacks in terms of fertility rates is,

teen pregnancies. Now, as you’ve noted, we, we say that under 19, like if you put a graph of like women’s ages and where fertility rates are falling they’re, they’re like stable or going up for women in like every category except for the below 19 category.

Mm-hmm. And if, if you look at teen birth rates, ages 15 to 19, they fell 62% for blacks between 1990 and 2012.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and 52% for white. So more among blacks. And I imagine they’ve fallen even more since then. And even not getting married. And I think that this is what we’re, we’re seeing as black communities is when black communities move from being married more to being married less they sort of.

Boosted their fertility rate artificially through a lot of accidental teen pregnancies. Yeah. And that was largely resolved through better training around contraceptives and condoms. Although I will note that black [00:25:00] women are twice as likely to use no method of contraception than white women.

17% versus 9.5%. Wow.

Which, when you look at the lower fertility rate in the black group shows that they might have been, you know, trained in part by organizations like, like parenthood to think of abortion as a form of contraception. ‘Cause I can’t imagine 17% using no contraception, no,

Simone Collins: I don’t know.

Is very bullish. It’s very bullish on, on contraception, on on preventative. Pregnancy care or non pregnancy care? So,

Malcolm Collins: well, no. I mean, if you, if you’re set up in these communities, you can normalize it, you can, you can still teach these other ideas. I mean, I think that, that one of the things happen, or at least that I’ve seen, is that the, the, the black people who are still having kids, the black women who are still having kids they often do it without the expectation of finding another partner.

Like if the key problem is. Finding a secure and stable partnership. Like if that, if that’s the system that’s gotten broken for black families mm-hmm. The only path through [00:26:00] is to say, then I’m not going to attempt to do that. And, and that’s where you see this really high number of blacks born out of wedlock.

Black children in the United States, born out of wedlock is, is potentially happening because that’s really the only way they can be born.. If the relationship market for blacks is this broken? IE, black men do not wanna reply. I’ll put the OkCupid data on here to, to, to black women. That’s so depressing.

And then black

women are really likely to be infected by the, the urban monocultural mind virus. And just like a nightmare today because like, I know like a bunch of like, based like black men who would make like really excellent husbands and fathers. Yeah. I don’t know, a single based black woman.

Who’s not an immigrant, who’s not an immigrant, I should say, who’s not African? But I don’t, I’m talking about like American Black.

Simone Collins: I mean, imagine that. I was trying to think of a non-immigrant.

Yeah, I’m, I’m not, I’m not even saying from Africa. Caribbean, New Zealand. Super based, super fun. So like, not even like, [00:27:00] even from. non-African countries. Yeah, but like, I guess growing up black in America, and that’s the thing. And that’s why I’m saying like the calls coming from inside the house in terms of systemic well, the problem is suppression of black population.

There’s a very toxic culture and mindset that’s being. Shoved down the, the, the, the mimetic throats of many black communities in America that I think prevents things like marriage and, and makes like black pills people unnecessarily and, and, and does all these things that really harm people over the long Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think that this is, this is much more important to talk about and, and like every base black person will say this and, and it’s a part of the problem of dealing with this is that. You, you, because within the urban monoculture, you cannot assume there are differences between groups.

Like, oh, you know, they, they can’t be you know, earning less because you know, they’re not studying as much, even though, you know, you can look at something. Like the amount of [00:28:00] study time per week or something like that. And you can see Asian Americans, like, as I always point out, like if culture does not impact earning potential, and all earning potential differences are due to systemic like discrimination.

Mm-hmm. Then how is it that the Japanese, despite the internment camps are out earning white people already, right? Mm-hmm. Like significantly.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Like that seems to indicate that that and I think it was something like 11 hours on homework a week by Asian families. This isn’t just Japanese families.

Insane,

Simone Collins: insane,

Malcolm Collins: insane. Right. You know, but if you can’t you know, hold the candle to your own culture and blacks can do this individually, but I think there really is, you mean hold

Simone Collins: a magnifying glass to your own? Hold a magnifying

Malcolm Collins: glass. Yeah. And say what? I love

Simone Collins: your mixing of metaphors. I’ve got no crystal bullet on this.

I know Kristen,

Malcolm Collins: what’s wrong with this? Right. You know, you and, and, and, and I think that like, we’re not allowed to have that conversation as a society. Mm-hmm. And because we’re not allowed to have that conversation you know, a, a challenge like this. The realistically, it’s not gonna be fixed, like the alarm bells [00:29:00] are not going to sound.

It’s not you know, palatable for progressives to lose the narrative of you know, the, the only demographic that is solidly in the progressive pocket is going to be declining as a portion of the United States population. Whereas the Hispanic immigrant group that they thought was gonna be on their side and has shown not to be.

You know, is, is is still growing right? And the conservatives are still growing. They don’t, they don’t want that narrative out there. You know, they’ve already in, in such a boom a DOR position right now in regarding the midterms. I don’t know if you’ve seen the, the talk about what’s going on with the midterm stuff.

I thought about the. Outlining an episode on that? No,

Simone Collins: I’ve not really been paying attention to that. So a

Malcolm Collins: lot of the initial numbers are looking really bad for Democrats on the midterms. Okay. And people are like, well, they’re, they’re, they’re assuming it’s gonna be like Trump’s first terms midterms.

And what a lot of the analysts are pointing out is but by this time in the data, it already looked bad for Trump. You know, in, in, in, we’re not seeing that this time. We are seeing Trump’s numbers. [00:30:00] Remarkably robust. In terms of, you know, whether it’s like favorability or whether it’s party sentiment or whether it’s which could mean a very bad, I mean, like if it goes further Republican this cycle, that’s gonna be really bad for Democrats especially with the Supreme Court case on the table which would prevent the racialized redistricting of the south.

And they could lose, you had 19 congress people for this. And that would be huge. Like, that would permanently tip the US into a new sort of conservative era. I mean, we’re already heading there due to differential fertility rates. But yeah, I, I, I think that the, and the conservatives don’t necessarily wanna have this conversation because, you know, the people won’t freak out as much, right?

Like, actually black fertility is super low. Although I think that we’re gonna see conservative voices, sort of as this becomes where normal lines talk about this more because it does help subvert the idea that the conservatives are all like a bunch of great replacement theorists. And I think it’s, it’s so sad that even that as a concept has become so [00:31:00] stigmatized.

And like I’m very fortunate I’m in the United States where I don’t, because like if I was in another country where like. An immigrant population that was just like completely discordant was the native population. Was, was, was a much higher fertility rate. We were taking them in as a population which I think you have with, with across Europe right now.

You know, what would they call me? They’d call me a great replacement theory in the STEM because I’d be saying well, this group can actually replace us within this timeline if these trends stay the same. So, that’s, that’s and I, I, I really wonder what’s gonna happen with Hispanic populations in the US ‘cause they still have this high fertility rate, right?

Yeah, yeah. But Hispanic majority countries have incredibly low fertility rates. And are we gonna see like an outflow all of a sudden to like recolonize, like the Hispanic countries is No,

Simone Collins: definitely not. Because they’re gonna start collapsing. No one’s gonna, I mean, already they’re, they’re experiencing so much unrest.

There’s gonna be. You know, more unrest. There’s gonna be more political aggression, there’s gonna be more [00:32:00] instances of hyperinflation. It’s not gonna be pretty. So that’s an LI mean, also like China is heavily dependent on many of them, I think for a lot of rare earths and other materials. And it, you know, when that falls out than their economies are not gonna be propped up the same way.

It’s, it’s gonna be a mess. They’re not gonna go back. There will be remittances as there are now. So I think they’ll stay here and that’s, that’s great. You know, but yeah. Black populations, I, yeah. I think there’s this just, yeah. Re replacement of newer immigrant waves. Taking over with, with cultures that are a little bit more resilient to the leftist poisoning, cultural poisoning.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Of I guess, how do we put it? Like black populations with longer American histories? Yeah. They, they’ve just been poisoned by this narrative more, especially because they’re, they’re more likely to buy into it. I think too, like when the progressive external locus of control, you are a [00:33:00] victim.

Blame everyone else but yourself for everything that goes wrong. Don’t try to take responsibility for anything in your life poisoning that terrible narrative is targeted mostly at people. Who whose families were descendants of slaves. That’s, it’s easiest to buy into that narrative when that’s the case.

You know, and who, who, you know, you were also then subject to Jim Crow and all those like all these terrible things that have happened in American history to those black populations. And so, yeah, I, so then they’re just gonna, they’ve been ruined by that. Not so much by, like, they were resilient in the face of all those bad things.

And then. Then came this culture that was like, we’re gonna save you. And thereby it poisoned them and, and, and turned their culture toxic and, and hurt their, their marriage rates, their birth rates, their their wealth rates.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I think that they would’ve, like, if, if I, I think that you know, a lot of black parents at the time period probably did tell their kids not to be drinking this Kool-Aid.

You know, you think if, you know, a lot of [00:34:00] older American blacks are really based, you know, if, if you went, Hey, you know, there’s this new culture that that’s gonna tell you, it’s gonna fight for you, but it’s gonna, you know, introduce polyamory and, and, and, you know, children outside marriages. I guess, but the first

Simone Collins: thing that your monoculture does is it, it, it, it separates you from your family and is like, well, yeah, alphabet,

Malcolm Collins: but your dad is

Simone Collins: backwards.

Your dad is homophobic. Your mom is you know, a religious Pru. They don’t understand because they, they were, you know, they’re, they’re victims of this racism. They’re brainwashed. Don’t listen to them. Something like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, blacks are even still pretty socially conservative, right? Like, if, if you do them on measurement charts and stuff like that, they just vote Democrat.

But I, I think that there was this belief within the black community that you could stay socially conservative and sort of side was the democratic apparatus. Yeah. And I think that their kids ended up getting captured because they didn’t warn their kids that these are the bad guys, right? Like, they’re just like, oh, they have some stupid beliefs, but [00:35:00] then the kids end up believing all that stuff.

Yeah. And I think that that’s what happened, you know, they, they were sucked in by this sort of like party culture gang culture, stuff like that. Which is you know, and I think one of the things that we need to do, like socially speaking is, and I, and I think that the younger generation is very open to this, you know, be they, they, they black or white or any other ethnic group is, is go out there and be like, Hey, you know, like parties actually kinda suck,

Simone Collins: right? Oh no, that’s, no, I, I was just watching YouTube video today on, on how partying has gone way down among all populations. So I think that’s already been realized.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like nobody, nobody. But I think that, that the party culture disproportionately affected black communities.

I mean, you look at like Freaknik or something like that, like the, these are, these are like the black cultural festivals.

Speaker 10: Freaknik was the greatest black gathering in America.

It was like an entry point into the black cultural experience. I don’t know what heaven looks like, but this seems like a version of it. This started to get [00:36:00] a lot more out of control. People were coming by the masses. What the hell just happened?

Speaker 12: What’s happening more? You know who I am. It’s. Freak Nle coming to turn the party up to 10. I know y’all heard of me. Freaks get word of me and get can do

Malcolm Collins: and, but it’s not just. That type of party. I mean, I think like almost all parties are just like not fun. Like I don’t, I think that there’s like this big societal larp that like.

Parties are fun. And I mean, I’m talking, I don’t say tea parties are fun. I don’t, I do not think parties at a friend’s house are fun. I do not think birthday parties are fun. I do not think going to a nightclub is fun. I think it [00:37:00] is all nonsense. Well, I know,

Simone Collins: I know that there are people who do find these, some of these things fun.

Like just gatherings with close friends who they trust and they, they actively invest in them. So I know that we’re. We’re on the extreme end of this, but I think most people are waking up to the fact that many of the social gatherings that they participate in suck. So, okay. The TLDR R of this is basically what?

That just like the, the. The, the descendants of slaves in the United States have been systematically disempowered by progressive culture and are seeing their birth rate suffer along with many other measurable factors and will be replaced over time with other black immigrant populations, be they from Africa or New Zealand or the Caribbean or Europe.

Is that right? Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: That’s what, that’s what’s happening. So, wow.

Simone Collins: Great, great.

Malcolm Collins: It’s great replacement theorists right here. Blacks are being replaced. This is a new great replacement theory. [00:38:00] You know, I’ll be able to, we have that we will replace you sign and live left love font in our, in our house that Simone got, that I will show to reporters when I explain to them that black fertility rates are, are lower than white fertility rates now.

And I’ll, I’ll tap the sign. When I’m saying that, you know,

Simone Collins: you know, now I’m viewing the sign really sentimentally because now when I read it, because I constantly see it like through that window in our kitchen, I’m like, I, I, I think of our children and how they’re gonna replace us and I feel so happy about that.

Like I see it as like our children they will replace us, our, you know, titan Torsten industry activity. Yeah. I don’t know why you

Malcolm Collins: like our children.

Simone Collins: I’m so glad they’re replacing us. I’m, I’m, I’m glad I’m gonna die. I am glad that they’re taking my place and I think they’re gonna Yeah, I, I

Malcolm Collins: really do not, we, we had a this on one of the Patreon, like private videos, like, because sub as well.

Yeah. But like, I’m really looking forward to dying, so she like, no, not super. Like I, you know, I wanna, after our

Simone Collins: kids are set up and maybe we help our grandkids a bit, I wanna.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was talking with one of the age agentic agents I made of you, and it was [00:39:00] like, oh, it’s so weird to be like a simulation.

And I was like, well, you’re not really a simulation. You know, you’ll pro, she’ll probably be alive longer in her AI state than in her human state. Right. You know, thank goodness. So, yeah, I, I found this to be pretty, a shocking change. It, it is a really good change for us as sort of heads of the Democrat, the, the, the, the, the prenatal list movement, because it means whenever somebody accuses us of being racist or only caring about demographic collapse for racial reasons, you could just be like, did you know that black fertility rates are below white fertility rates?

I, well, I would

Simone Collins: rather be up. Optically bad looking than to see this happening. This is really sad. This is

Malcolm Collins: incredibly

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: we’ve got our own family. It’s, it is weird that this issue, like we started talking about this ages ago, right? Like we’re like Latin American fertility rates are like way worse than any, like literally.

Watch our un lying to, if you haven’t seen that one. The Latin American fertility rates like across Latin America are shockingly bad, like below Japan. I think that’s what we titled the video actually.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:40:00] And, and so I don’t know what’s going on with the US Latin American population, but like Latin Americans are certainly not replacing anyone.

And the, the black fertility rate is you know, shockingly bad. And I just like the, the writing’s on the wall for where this and society are going.

Simone Collins: It’s not good. Well, thanks Malcolm. Oh and Bullock tonight, by the way. I think I can scrape together enough mozzarella to make it work.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no.

Because you’re gonna use mozzarella sticks, like from the No, no, no. I

Simone Collins: have like two tiny pieces of mozzarella and then I can use mozzarella. Sticks. Okay. Well, it’s Oz. You have two

Malcolm Collins: tiny pieces of the mozzarella. Then why don’t we try a half mozzarella and half cheddar half? Ooh. See how that, I like that.

Let’s do it. And we’re, we’re gonna do it with the ingi mushroom. It’ll look like the, the,

Simone Collins: what’s it called? Oh God. I, I, so I have to cook those first. And I’ll do it like they do in the video that you sent to me.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And you, and you don’t, you don’t cut them into little bitty pieces. The mushrooms

Simone Collins: just cook them in those chunks.

Malcolm Collins: You, well, you [00:41:00] don’t do the full chunks. You cut off the roots. You just watch a video of it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I still keep the chunks together. Yeah, well

Malcolm Collins: you, you probably cut the chunks into slightly smaller chunks, but like, this is how you make soy farm nochi mushroom. Yeah. First you gonna need about two grams of nochi mushroom.

We do cut them. It’s not, it’s not in the full chunk size, you know? Yeah. It’s into like eights or something.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well he, he sort of, yeah, he sort of just like separates them up a like tiny little bit and then he. Yeah, he put, he rinses them, of course. ‘cause they’re a little dirty and then, yeah. Yeah. But I’m not, I’m not putting the soy sauce in.

I’m just doing the oil, right. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Then I put it in at the very end, the, the mushrooms. There’s be so many, you’ve got so many packs. It’s gonna be a ton.

Malcolm Collins: I lo well, you just less chicken. So we’re sort of doing like half mushroom, half chicken.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So proportionally. Okay. Hmm. Okay. So because we got three pounds of chicken.

The recipe I have is for two pounds, so I’m gonna just double the [00:42:00] recipe. And it’ll make up for the enoki mushrooms ‘cause it’s basically, I have four pounds total. One pound of mushrooms. Yeah. Three pound chicken. Okay, then I’m gonna, yeah, yeah. Then I’m gonna double the rest. Okay, perfect. I’ll do that.

Exciting.

Malcolm Collins: You are delightful. I

Simone Collins: love you. Bye. And hey,

Malcolm Collins: Black people get it together, like figure have out,

Simone Collins: have beautiful babies, please.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, have a good one, Simone. Bye. Chacha.

Simone Collins: Yes, you did. Thank you. Hold on. Texas turned into a little toothpaste. Extruder

Malcolm Collins: A toothpaste. Extruder. You mean poo wise?

Simone Collins: Yeah, he’s growing up. Yeah, he’s eating really well. So that’s the key. Okay. I watched the temperate Rainforest video that, you, you had fun. Yeah. He’s so sweet. And just kind of delightful in his hunt for a temperate rainforest in [00:43:00] New York, which he found.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I can’t imagine having such a specific themeing to your channel.

Simone Collins: I love it. I love that we have this ecosystem where.

Malcolm Collins: Are you there?

Simone Collins: Before, it was impossible to find these affinity communities. You know, if you’re really into something, you’d just be a weirdo. And now,

Malcolm Collins: but I mean, you, you, you run outta content eventually. Like even if you find an audience that likes your content, it eventually runs out, right? Like even with our channel, we’ve gotta stay, you know, somewhat on theme if we want the channel to do well.

But we just have such a broad theme. Like offensive ideas and news.

Simone Collins: I think a lot of the more niche or targeted channels are able to get by just doing really high quality in depth videos less frequently. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Malcolm Collins: Another one of my Stanford classmates started a podcast.

Simone Collins: Another one. My [00:44:00] gosh, everyone’s going into content.

Malcolm Collins: Put their first episode up all, oh look, look at my podcast and, meanwhile, you know, and they share it with the group every time they do it. And, and here I am, like terrified. Mm-hmm. That one of my classmates is gonna find my podcast. I’m sure like independently, we may have some, some you think none of them know about it.

I think a lot of them. Would be very shocked if they saw because I mean, I see how they talk about Trump supporters. They’re incredibly dehumanizing of Trump supporters in the, this is a Stanford NBA like message board. Yeah, but

Simone Collins: they, they dehumanized

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: even when

Malcolm Collins: you were a student there, so.

They were not as aggressive to me as I see them being. I mean, as I pointed out, we got like 30 messages when the Charlie Kirk shooting happened about why this is a good thing that this happened. We didn’t get a single message about why ending the war in Gaza was a good thing. Not a single congratulations, not a single.

Like just too awkward to like, that’s, that’s the level of brain rod that I’m talking about here. Yeah. And so [00:45:00] I, I know that they would attack me like rabid pumas if they saw that I was like pro-Trump or, you know, critical of trans ideology as a p to children or anything like that. You know,

Simone Collins: I think you already.

Did that in the thread, and I think they already,

Malcolm Collins: well, yeah, I’ve had to stand up when they attacked one of my other classmates who went to Natal Con and was in the New York Times for it, and then everybody started attacking her. And I was like, screw you guys. What did people say about the episodes today?

Five Outta 10. They enjoyed

Simone Collins: it. People really liked the song. The song went over well. Oh, that’s

Malcolm Collins: good

Simone Collins: to hear. Disney villain feeling sentiment to it, back to doing song to it. I did.

Malcolm Collins: I did a fun one on Hassan. Shocking his dog. I just need to make some images for it.

Simone Collins: Hi, please. I hope that that’s the refrain.

No, no. I want that to become a thing. I want the new b***h. Please to be kaya. Please. Shock. So good. It’s so memorable. I mean, who knew it would be, but it is

Malcolm Collins: Kaya. Please, Kaya, please. God is doing [00:46:00] it. Nothing wrong. Free Kaya. I just love that he cannot admit this at this point because he was gonna look so foolish for lying for so

long.

Simone Collins: Did the manufacturer come out and say

Malcolm Collins: yes.

Simone Collins: This is a shock. Well, somebody

Malcolm Collins: emailed the manufacturer and that’s what the manufacturer replied that it was a shocking model. And but we don’t know, like it’s a screenshot, you know, as, as Michael pointed out, you know, he doesn’t know if it’s faked or something.

But I mean, you can see just looking at the products from where the charger is, that it has to be one of the shocking models because where the charger is on his model is not where it is on the rumble models. Hmm. Like there’s just no conceivable way. It’s a rumble model. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s hilarious.

And it’s, it’s making a lot of these leftist communities feel very bossing, say like. Kaya does not get shocked in busing. Say

Speaker 16: . There’s no war in basing. Say, what are you talking about? Where do you think all the refugees come from? You can’t hide it.[00:47:00]

Speaker 18: There is no war within the walls here. We are safe here. We’re free.

Simone Collins: no

Malcolm Collins: looking as good. Where’s the, you know, the, if somebody says something wrong about him they, they’re like, well, you know, I do question the next day you go on the stream is just another girl looks vaguely similar.

Be like, I’ve always hosted this podcast. This is, this is the way I felt when we went from. Masks will kill you too if you don’t have a mask. And I, a lot of people forgot that that happened like a lot like, I mean like actual ha bossy saying it that they don’t remember that the Republicans were pro mask and the Democrats were anti mask.

And then it’s just like one day we wake up and it’s like, no, the Democrats are pro mask and the Republicans have always thought. Were completely useless. And just like, a lot of the Republicans remember this switch because a lot of them maintained more of their previous stance. They were like, well, I need a mask in these stances if you’re at, at risk.

Whereas the Democrats just totally bossing say it. [00:48:00] So that’s, that’s where we live right now. Yeah. Bossing say for people who don’t know the reference here in Avatar, the less airbender, there is a town that’s supposed to be like an Orwellian. Nightmare called busing day. Where you know, everything is very strictly controlled and all information is very strictly controlled.

And they will just like lie about something that recently happened, like, oh, where’s my attendant? And they’re like, I’ve always been your attendant. And it’s like clearly not the same person. And it’s clear that the attendant was disappeared or something. Which of course they later learn there’s like a torture area, very similar.

So they have to go through what Kaya. Hassan’s dog went through and they go to the lake, lake LA guy or whatever where, where they just shock people into being more obedient. Okay.

Speaker 19: Person, why are you attacking me? Oh, God. But why?

I caught Kirsten. Oh, no. Stop. Don’t serve that. I’ve got a glass on the [00:49:00] table.

Speaker 21: Move out. Come on. Ah.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the global phenomenon that is KPop Demon Hunters. Discover how this animated film shattered streaming records, topped charts in over 90 countries, and sparked conversations about culture, faith, and the future of media.

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone break down the movie’s surprising Christian themes, its unique approach to female characters, and why its message of personal responsibility and self-improvement resonates with audiences worldwide. They compare “K-Pop Demon Hunters” to Disney classics like “Frozen,” discuss the impact of K-pop stars in the film, and explore what Hollywood can learn from its success.

Whether you’re a fan of K-pop, animation, or just looking for a fresh perspective on modern storytelling, this discussion is packed with insights, humor, and cultural commentary.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to discuss a movie that will likely change the way films are produced globally. And because it accidentally snuck a bunch of Christian themes and very intentionally, a lot of people are like, oh, it’s accidental that Christian themes got into this.

We’ll go over it. It’s not accidental that Christian themes got into this. Nice a lot of anti DEI themes. Into the most, like the biggest movie phenomenon of all time. Mm-hmm. And I say, they say all time, you might be like, oh, you know, K-pop demon hunters was cute, but like how big was it exactly in in the last three months?

It has gotten more streams on its songs than Frozen has gotten on its songs in the 12 years since it was released. No significant margin. Oh my God. What? No. K-Pop. Human hunters shattered expectations to be the most watched original ever with 325 million views. [00:01:00] Eclipsing red notice, 236 million views in squid game season 1, 260 6 million views.

Wow. Top the charts in over 90 countries. The sound trek went platinum debuted at number eight on the billboard of two hundreds and made history as the first. With four simultaneous top 10, a hundred global hits. Deserve, though they’re, they’re catchy tunes. Was was golden number one. So good. It had your idol number four.

Oh yes. Soda pop, number five. Oh, love it. And how it’s done. Number 10. With. Golden alone. Top charts in the uk with over a million units sold in a sing along theatrical version grossing 19.2 million. Now that’s, that’s not a big a deal. But hold on, I wanna, I wanna compare it to frozen here.

So, since it’s released in, in terms of the number of streams that it’s songs have gotten, they’ve gotten around 3.5 billion streams. Okay? Frozen has gotten 2.5 to 3 billion over the past 12 years.

Simone Collins: 12 [00:02:00] years. Oh my God. If

Malcolm Collins: you’re talking weekly streams, the absolute peak for frozen was 50 million.

The peak for demon hunters was 141 million.

Whoa,

not moving Close my my mind. Monthly listeners for demon hunters, it peaked at 40 million for, for frozen, it peaked at 20 million. And, and the reason why this is so interesting to go over is because. A lot of people like are individually like, I like K-pop, demon hunters.

It was pretty cool and based. Yeah. And then but it doesn’t feel like a frozen, right? Like, no, it’s delightful. It’s fun. There’s, there’s conflict, there’s issues, but frozen’s just like. Culturally, we don’t feel like we’re in a frozen moment. Like the fact that I can compare K-pop demon hunter to something like frozen, and I’m like, this completely smashed frozen’s numbers.

You can hear that as a person and be like, but I thought I, that was like my thing, like, [00:03:00] like my private weird thing that I Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. Everyone thinks it’s like their little niche, like, oh, it’s this, this Korean anime thing that I watch. Yeah.

Speaker 4: , the only ones dying tonight are your, I’m sorry. What? They’re fans. We’re at your fans. Oh, no, no, no. Thank you. No, no, no. Not our fans. When you mess with our fans, we need to make it hurt.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. And like when, when you and I had to like. We had to, to sneak into my, my dad’s Netflix account, ask him to give us temporary vacation traveling access.

Yeah. And then just like, I thought it was, it was gonna be like, oh, like listed front page top 10, like, here’s our most success. No, we had to search it. It wasn’t even listed in any of the, like, suggested for you listing wrote

Malcolm Collins: this. So deep cut, but it’s not. And, and no, this is a movie that doesn’t have a single black person in it.

Like in terms of like anti, it doesn’t have a single white person in it. It doesn’t have a single white person in it either. And I’m not complaining. That doesn’t, it shouldn’t have a single white person. No, it’s Korean. You go to South Korea, you don’t see that. [00:04:00] You don see many white people in Korea. I lived there for a while.

The, the other thing that well we felt bad walking down the streets ‘cause we were just bringing down the average attractiveness. Somebody told me that

I know what,

of what the people who we were invested in actually told me that I know. I’m, I’m not, you’re beautiful. They said, I, I broke up the social harmony by looking like non, with your ugly western face.

We just can’t, we

Simone Collins: can’t hold a candle. I don’t know what to say. Like, Korean people are just so beautiful

Malcolm Collins: if you, if you go to streams per track. So, for, for K-pop demon hunters, it was 300 million. With versus a hundred to 200 million for frozen. If you look at like individual songs here if you look at Golden which was their, their top one.

Yeah, of course. You get, get around 1 billion cumulative strings. Oof. If you compare that with Let It Go this is, this has gotten 800 million. So it, I love that dude, because Let It Go

Simone Collins: is all about victimhood narrative. Bed rotting, giving up we’re shirking responsibility and Golden is about [00:05:00] reaching your potential.

It’s about becoming the best possible of yourself. I don’t point

Malcolm Collins: out was let it go because this, this like actually Let It Go, gets me as a song because it was the perfect song of the Tumblr Arena. It was. It was like, I don’t need one. I have been constantly vilified by the outside world when in reality her, she was from a wealthy family who was pretty supportive of her.

Mm-hmm. And she was the one who victimized herself. Mm-hmm. Her sister didn’t force her to stay in that room. Her sister, I mean, there’s even a song like, let’s Make a Snowman.

Speaker: . I never see you anymore. Come out the door. . I wish you would tell me, come on, do you wanna build a snowman? Snowman. Okay, bye.

Malcolm Collins: Like Let’s, yeah. You know, about her rejecting the people who were reaching out to her about her self victim hurting people. And the way that self victimization hurt the people around her who was the real [00:06:00] victim, her kingdom, her entire kingdom, her sister, her kingdom.

And then when she lets it go and indulges in her worst impulses, she ends up causing everyone in the kingdom to suffer and starve. Like mass famine and everything like that. Yeah. Her sister to be scooped up by this creepy guy. Like the, the message in frozen is like. Incredibly bad. Yeah. They, well, the message people took from it, the actual message is that you shouldn’t be that type of person.

And she’s also is a pretty vile person. Yeah. One

Simone Collins: would’ve hoped.

Malcolm Collins: So, so you’ve got that. And then we’ll talk about the themeing in this. What I will note is I’ve got three, because I was just looking like, what do, like, mainstream Christian blogs, because when I saw the thing that kept hitting me when I saw was like.

This seems like explicitly weird. There were like weird moments in it where I was like, this seems explicitly Christian in its narrative. And for people who don’t know South Korea has the largest Christian community of any, anywhere in Asia. It’s, it is got a, [00:07:00] it is like a, a, a mainstream, very mainstream religion there.

Simone Collins: Yeah, my, my one south Korean friend in. High school was also the only super Christian person I knew.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. No. I’ll note we’ll get to this narrative as well, that we have this narrative that, like this, Sony sold it for like nothing, and they sold the streaming rights for like nothing. And they, they’re not so crazy.

This is incorrect. It’s, it’s not real. Oh, really? No. Well, so what really happened was, is Netflix through Sony. Did a deal where they would handle the funding of various projects. Okay. If they got exclusive rights to stream them, this project was, was greenlit and funded under this scheme. There is no way it could have gone to anyone but Netflix and there’s no way it could have gone out under any terms, but the terms that Netflix negotiated with selling.

Okay. This makes sense. ‘cause this is

Simone Collins: how the, all the di, various production firms that are. Shopping around content about [00:08:00] us or doing it where like, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: because we have, they have the concept and then they

Simone Collins: go to the premium streaming platforms and they’re like. Pay for, pay us to produce this and you’ll get exclusive rights.

And so that, that makes sense. That seems to be how it’s done these days. Yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: and so like what people are, are acting like is, like Sony was sitting on this gym, they could have chosen to go to the theaters, wizz and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And it’s like, no, from the moment it was a concept. Netflix bank rolled it.

Under a scheme with Netflix. Okay. The a hundred million dollars that went to the funding of this, ‘cause that’s how much it cost to make was given by Netflix at the outset. Like how did it cost, how does something cost that much Netflix, because it had a bunch of K-pop title like top K-pop people involved in it.

Oh, okay. So the singers are actually famous.

Simone Collins: K-pop stars. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A number of them are actually famous K-pop artists. Oh my gosh. Oh, I didn’t know that. The, the voices are great, so that makes sense. But Well, and some of ‘em are famous artists from other types of music as well.

You know, that’s just the way movie music industry is.

Wow. But like, Christians are recognizing this so. There’s a, there’s an [00:09:00] article on like, why this is so good from Christian parenting. There is the Christian movie Review was like, this is really good. The, my, the Miss Pilgrim did a review of this that’s, that’s, that’s like, oh, this is really good.

You should watch this. And in terms of the explicit Christian influences, which, which have been cited by people in the, in the creative process, oh, really? Somebody who go, Sarah Lee, who goes by EGAE is the she, she wrote some of the songs for it. K-Pop, demon Hunters, including Traps like Your Idol, the one that you liked

.

She said she was inspired by her Christian faith. She also provided the singing voice for the main character Rumi. And, and she collaborated with some teams, so her grandfather’s , shin Yung. Kun is a renowned South Korean actor and film producer who has starred in around 96 movies. But he is also a devout Christian who runs the ye Chong Dong Entertainment Church in Seoul.

And he’s, he’s around a hundred years old. So he is a very famous Christian Guy who runs their church. I saying they

Simone Collins: [00:10:00] made the characters look a lot like their voice actors. Like the, the guy who, who voiced gnu like that, that smile the same, the eyes look a little different, but the smile’s that

Malcolm Collins: Wow.

And, and they’ve admitted this as well. So if, if you look at interviews she’s had, so in an interview she had was variety. In June, 2025, she said specifically about the song Your Idol. As a Christian, I have always been mindful of the biblical warning against idolatry, making gods out of people or things and k-pop, we literally call our artists idols and that can be an unhealthy obsession in worship for fans.

I wanted your item to suddenly caution against that, reminding listeners, true fulfillment comes from facing God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Literally the like, like literally the, the parts of the plot structure and songs were inspired by Christianity. And where I started to realize that myself as I was going through it and people can be like, well then why not do a song that’s like specifically about Christianity or something like that, or a movie that’s explicitly about that.

And I would point out that that’s. Actually idolatry many Christian face [00:11:00] historically were very against. And I, and I think rightly so, against literally acting out Christian iconography. Mm. And so I, I would argue it’s actually a, a more faithful rendition to acted out with, what’s the word here?

Sort of metaphor. When, so when I was watching it, the thing that got me when I first noticed it, and I had mentioned this in another episode, I was like, wait, the demons are bad. Like, I have got, I, it’s, well, they don’t even like being demons. That’s, that’s what’s so crazy. Well, this was one thing that got me is in so many things like the demons.

Are given power in hell based on how bad they were on earth. Like you murder a bunch of people like it, husband hotel has this system. And I’m like, that’s horrible. Like, so like it learned, like it is like one of, you know, Satan’s top generals. So they’ll say something like that and I’m like. That, that seems like the inverse of the way we would want to work.

This

Simone Collins: means that if you’re gonna do a bad thing, you need to do the worst possible bad thing. So at least when you get to hell, you have like a decent upper middle management position. Yeah. You know, you don’t wanna be a peon. [00:12:00] Like if you’re just kind of bad, then you’re like. Frontline service position in hell.

You don’t want that. You know, or you’re like at the webbing post. I don’t know. Like, yeah. Lemme do whipping. At least this

Malcolm Collins: goes for an alternate direction with this, which is most demons are they do not appear to come from humans. But that demons that do come from humans that are bad really do not like their existence.

Yeah. Like, this is, this is a very unpleasant thing for them. Yeah. But in addition to that. They are also bad. Yeah, like legit

Simone Collins: bad. Like actually, oh my gosh, bad. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The like, okay, so people who don’t know this, if you see a spoiler for something, it statistically increases your enjoyment of the movie watching experience.

Yeah. Try to tell

Simone Collins: that to your brother.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Try telling this to my brother. But this is a study that’s been done so you could skip like 15 seconds if you don’t wanna hear a spoiler. Malcolm’s

Simone Collins: brother, if you’re listening and you haven’t yet watched K-Pop Demon Hunters first, what are you doing? Second

Malcolm Collins: Spoiler alert.

The subversion that you find out is the character who you think [00:13:00] is you know, going to turn on, on the demons. And who actually has a good side to him? He was just lying. He was actually bad.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. He lied about his, he lied about his background and kind of pretended that he was trying to like save his mother and little sister and no.

No, he just totally screwed them over. And they probably died. Totally. Left them to die. It’s implied that they died. Yeah. Starve to death while he became famous and wealthy and everything else. Everyone, he lived in

Malcolm Collins: the palace and everything like that. Mm-hmm. And then he, he, he, he does have a, a last minute turnaround to try to, you know, save the heroin.

But it’s not like a. Oh, and he’s secretly been good all along. He has the last minute turnaround in, in the, in the context of a movie was in a system that. And this is true of the, the, the, the plot lines throughout the movie. That it’s a movie that is very much about confession.

Yeah.

And owning your sins.

Yeah, you’re right. And taking responsibility for your sins. Yeah. Rather [00:14:00] than about shirking your sins. Mm-hmm. And about attempting to. Hide the things that in your life that you think make you sinful or bad from other people instead of taking responsibility for them. Mm-hmm. That’s like the central themeing of the movie.

And then the themeing of the powers of the movie is idolatry. When you give your attention to things that are only designed to consume your attention, that these things end up producing negative externalities.

Yeah.

And we got an email from a fan that I thought was, was pretty fun about this where he just goes over like a number of base things in it.

So I’ll just read it. So, zero diversity not one character, not in one single frame, even at Zoe’s Burbank High School, who isn’t ethnically Asian. Maliciousness and disguised cynicism slash infiltration from hostile groups is actually bad. In fact, saline and rumi’s motivating fear is that Rumi will be mistakenly perceived to be a [00:15:00] hostile or outgroup infiltrator.

Now this I also found pretty interesting and somebody pointed out as well. That one thing that this did really well is women where they’re like, I was so shocked at the beginning of a movie that women were like doing makeup and like gossiping and being girly. Like they’re doing the whole fighting thing, but in more like a totally spies type of way and in like, oh yeah,

Simone Collins: they’re being badass, but they’re, yeah, they’re brushing their hair, they’re putting on makeup, and they’re also like.

Speed eating noodles. Yum.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So they’re being like burping and everything like that. Like they’re being sort of like a gross and everything like that, but also authentically female and I, and you can be like, well, isn’t this bad? And I’d contrast it with the western female hero archetype that we’ve seen, which is you know, yare from whatever her name is, like, who’s a lady from Star Wars that they put in?

Oh, Keller’s. The, the, the bad guy who’s, who’s the woman from Star Wars. Ray Ray and like, [00:16:00] you’d never see Ray doing her makeup. Oh yeah. No, she

Simone Collins: would never, you know Yeah. Be like choosing outfits and, and putting makeup and also like ogling six packs on guys.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Ogling guys or like, you, you just wouldn’t see that.

But it’s, it’s shown from the very first scene when they’re in this like airplane and they get into a, a fight with demons on the airplane and they jump out of the airplane and are like doing their makeup while they’re like, they’re, they’re, they’re portrayed as women, like very, very feminine in a way that Hollywood has clearly gotten.

Speaker 9: Okay. Nails, nails, blade, mascara. Sit, check. Need to beat my face. Make it cute inside. B***h Mi ramira on my phone. Who’s the baddest us? Hello?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they, they

Simone Collins: like to look pretty. They, they love cool clothing. They love food. Yeah. In that classic like anime, beautiful woman way where they eat a ton of food but never get fed and they find hot men hot.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

Simone Collins: my [00:17:00] gosh. No, but what’s

Malcolm Collins: what’s cool about this is it isn’t a subversion of feminism. It is a subversion of the form of feminism that just wanted to make women look better than men and perfect.

Mm. It’s saying we don’t need morally

Simone Collins: superior.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We don’t need to hold women to this standard of. You know, they never burp. They never eat. They never have any flaws. But that doesn’t mean we need to strip them of character and strip them of, you know, wanting to preen themselves and wanting to look pretty and wanting to be girly.

They can be girly and fight, and they can take pride in the ways that they’re girly while they are still like impactful actors in society. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. They always wanted to do like a spa day.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: he doesn’t wanna like totally

Malcolm Collins: things together. It was very, yeah. So then the next thing he says here is, every single authority figure in, in K-pop demon hunters is earnest, well-meaning and legitimate.

There is no enemy within no good guy who we find out is really working [00:18:00] for the bad guy. Bobby is 100% on side without question. So Mira, Zoe and Rumi don’t have a quote unquote rebel, rebel against anything. There’s no white man in charge, no secondary in league was the bad guy who has to be found out and overthrown.

And this is really like weird, like I’m not used to this. I’m not used to like, there’s no corporate evil guy. It’s not that the K-pop industry is destroying these people. No. Their, their, their manager is, is never anything but like chill and helpful to them. Yeah. It’s

Simone Collins: not that capitalism is bad, which also is.

So common in everything that comes out of Western media now.

Malcolm Collins: And they could have made it like men bad, right? Like, but, but because, and they didn’t. They could see it that way given that the male boy band is the bad boy band. But a few things to note about that. They made their manager, like their direct boss, a guy who’s.

Sweet and helpful. Yeah. And it’s in the movie for I think, more talking scenes than the bad guy boy band. Yeah. And the bad guy boy band is also not like so often when you [00:19:00] have like the men, right, like the men of Barbie or something like that. Right. They are depicted as in, in woke shows and you have evil male group.

They’re depicted as like incompetent or wanting to victimize women because they’re women. Or, you know, any of those things. And you don’t, you don’t have any of that here from No, from one first time they meet them, they’re like, this, these people it’s even like a, a whole joke scene is like, oh, they’re, they’re actually quite good and catchy and, and I like what they’re doing.

Right. Yeah. And, and it’s never like, oh, they, they, and like gender never even comes up. Like even though it’s an all girl band versus an all boy band, that’s more just along the tropes of K-pop. Not along, like, anything like that. But anyway. Okay. So I, I thought that was an interesting point. And then he says, note here, while out on the street, demon shopping, the three different individually, rescue a man or boy, we only put in rescuing women and girls.

Mm-hmm. And he says, run it back and see for yourself. They obviously save the whole world in the end, which includes everyone, male and [00:20:00] female. But it’s still an interesting choice. Something about not wanting the three to come off as emasculating. That’s model in Hollywood. It’s always under appreciated girl bossing and dous male lead.

And so. That’s also really important here. I will note his thing about no authority figures being bad, there is one authority figure who’s seen as bad who’s, who’s sort of, the person who thinks that she just needs to hide all of her sin. Her

Simone Collins: mother or, well, her adoptive mother. The pre her, yeah.

Her adopted

Malcolm Collins: mother who thinks she needs to hide all 10. And I’m like, yeah, but that’s also not like, you know, I don’t see that as, as, as like necessarily a bad message there to being like, well, you, you should. Opt to this stuff. And she also explicitly rejects that world. Like, she’s like, I don’t want to be part of a world where I interact with people and my friends through.

Covering up the things that are bad about myself. I want to confess to those things and overcome them. But in no way in this is [00:21:00] sin ever seen as a good thing, right? Like in, in, in the show, which I thought was very interesting because that’s so rare. You watch our view about which I actually think the great one about turning red, which is like literally about being a prostitute.

Like, and I, and I mean like it is. If you haven’t watched Turning Red, it is, it is shocking to me. So, so the movie, it is very clear, turning into a panda is about her sexuality. Like this, this reference is drawn very explicitly. It’s about going through puberty and previous generations of Asians. This is almost like an Asian cultural things have learned to suppress their sexuality.

And she doesn’t want to. And so what does she do? She, comes up with a system to see a boy band where she sells pictures of the thing that represents her sexuality, and then eventually sells her sexuality to the boy who she hates most so she can get the money for the boy band. And this is all played as like a good thing.

And I was like, whoa. Disney, what were you thinking with this? Like, [00:22:00] this is explicit man. So I, if any points out here, which I hadn’t thought about, but he is right here, he says, note how Rumi never defeats genu. This is the male villain who ends up turning good at the end that we were talking about.

He rescues her twice, but along the way, he never submits to her, obeys her, or follows her. He passes on all of her s tests where talks about a senior. She says, watch yourself and note how it. Therefore feels right to us that rooming is increasingly fascinated by and concerned for gin. Gin moves skillfully and consistently not obeying.

Rumi draws them together. Oh, he says he likes how Malcolm constantly interrupts, corrupts Simone to correct. Simon, I don’t interrupt you. I do, I do. I, I guess I do.

Simone Collins: The audience is, is very split on this, like half are like, why would Malcolm ever interrupt Simone? The other half is like, Malcolm needs to interrupt Simon.

Malcolm Collins: So he goes into the no gay or tranny stuff, which is true. Like nothing in this is remotely. And they could have gone in that direction, right? Like if this was an American thing, it’s three [00:23:00] girls working together, one of them is gonna have to be gay, right? Like they, they just would have to be. Right.

Like I, I would be shocked if they weren’t so, so that was very noticeable in the story. He goes on here about how, like, this is a continuation of 500 years of Asian history and they do a good job with this of, of, I think, capturing both Korea’s Christian roots and its. Traditional. This is the other thing is Hollywood has been going out there for ages and being like, look, we can’t make something new every time we try to make something new at bombs.

Look at ELO or whatever, where they tried to make a 12-year-old boy gay. And I was like, oh, is that so creepy?

But anyway, like why did you, was that the gay made one? ELO was the one in, in space. You’re thinking the Bruno,

I was thinking of Luco here.

Malcolm Collins: where like the characters also have like super gay vibes. The

Simone Collins: mermaid one.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s Bruno ELO is the one, or Elliot or something?

I don’t know. Yeah, it’s, it’s the one that just came out about space and just completely bombed and everyone’s like, well, you have to go see it because it’s like novel. And it’s like, [00:24:00] no, like they, mm-hmm. They tried to do something creepy with this and like everyone involved with that. Like, I, like, I’m not against gay people.

Anybody who watches this channel is, I’m not against gay people. I’m against depicting a 12-year-old is gay. Like that’s.

Simone Collins: Okay. You’re, you’re against gay 12 year olds. We see your bigotry now. It’s plain for all. See, I just

Malcolm Collins: don’t think that sexual Oh yeah, no, you just,

Simone Collins: you just hate gay 12 year olds. I get it to

Malcolm Collins: be a major part of a plot about a 12-year-old

Simone Collins: Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, all before the movie came out, and everyone’s saying that’s why it’s so bad. Oh. Because they, they cut like a central theme of it out. I was like, no, it was obviously gonna be bad. Anyway, if you thought that that was an interesting plot line what we, what I was interested in was the aliens and stuff.

Right. But the point is, is, is you get into this and immediately again, from the beginning of it, you can see that it is. New, but actually new, right? Like you look at Elliot or whatever this new one is, and everyone’s got bean mouse. It’s all the cow owl art style. You know, this American style.

Simone Collins: What is bean mouse?

Malcolm Collins: Look up bean mouse mark or, [00:25:00] or cow. I think it’s cal something style. Art. It’s the art that you have in Steven Universe. It’s the art you have in that it’s the art that you had in turning red.

Simone Collins: No, I did. I loved the unique styling of K-pop demon hunters Two, that it didn’t, it didn’t actually feel like they were copying anyone.

It felt. Like its own thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, it felt well, it felt very pretty. An inspiration. Looks so pretty. But even if you think about like the designs of the monsters, you immediately see these monsters and you’re like, oh, this isn’t like monsters I’ve seen before. It’s, it’s building on history, but I hadn’t like that’s unique and interesting and they’re also very

Simone Collins: memorable.

There’s already been amazing cosplays of the monster cat. So great.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. But so, so immediately I see the way that they’re stylized, I’m like, this is unique. Mm-hmm. I see the way that the, the art style is done and I’m like, this is unique. I see the way that they’ve tried to like world build to not have the typical, oh, you know, the whatever, betrayal scene and everything like that.

I’m like, oh, [00:26:00] this is unique. Yeah. You know? And they actually, there must

Simone Collins: be some German word for that unique feeling of like both. Stress and boredom that you feel when you kind of know the plot point of a movie and you’re like, oh, I don’t wanna go through this one. I don’t like this one. You know what I mean?

Of like, oh, there’s gonna be this betrayal or this, this tension, and here’s a, you know, love triangle, and you’re like, oh, I don’t wanna do this. You know, that feeling this didn’t have that. I love that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I, I, I thought that this was one. Like, is Hollywood gonna learn from this? Like, is Hollywood going to change what they’re doing in relation to this Is Hollywood?

Like, what’s, what’s your take? Do you think that they have the capacity to look at how, I mean, Disney is basically going, I, I guess I can already answer. Yes, they will. Okay. And here’s how I know they will. Okay. Because yeah. Friend of friend of the show obviously, ‘cause we’ve had her, her little sister on a few times.

Suzy Weiss is, is, is a friend of ours Barry Weiss who used to run the free press. She recently took over CNN right? Like C-B-S-C-S Oh CS. Like [00:27:00] that to me shows like, oh boy. Like a

Simone Collins: deep recognition that the old model and the old ways are failing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like we need to, I mean, Barry, if you don’t know Barry Wise, Hasina is like a demon by these people now.

She’s the lefty. She’s like a lesbian. Manhattanite Jew, right? I think she

Simone Collins: lives in la

Malcolm Collins: Oh, she lives in la I thought she lived in Manhattan.

Simone Collins: No, she lives in la.

Represses, but

Malcolm Collins: She’s also questions the trans narrative and questions. DEI culture. Yeah.

Simone Collins: She falls into that like centrist heterodox zone, which is where same people sit and she, she

Malcolm Collins: produced the what was it, the witch hunt of, of JK Rowling.

Which

Simone Collins: trials of, yeah, yeah. The, of

Malcolm Collins: JK Rowling. Mm-hmm. Which I, I thought, I thought was, was great. It, it, this was also true was the contract. But so. I can go over a little bit if you’re interested in the, the streaming rights issue. I, I don’t really need to go over this. Basically what happened is, is that during the pandemic Sony signed on this to get a stream of continued revenue for its [00:28:00] movie department.

So K-Pop demon

Simone Collins: hunters began production during the, the pandemic.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Wow. So this took a long time to make.

Malcolm Collins: Or that’s when the deal happened that led to its creation? Oh, that may not have been when it actually started. Oh, hold on. I can just come up when it, because I, I, I, I noted here it was in 2018 when it was first pitched

Wow.

In, in the woman who did it the last week she had done was the Lego Ninjago movie. So, you know, her career Ninjago. Ninjago. Yeah. The Lego Ninjago movie just exploded outta nowhere. That’s, that’s fun. No. So a bunch of people’s and, and by the way, people are like, well, Sony got nothing for this. Sony still, oh my God.

Simone Collins: Do you remember that Lego restaurant we went to in Seoul? Oh yeah, that was cool. I gotta find, well, we, I, I’ll, I’ll see

if I can find pictures so we can put them up. Gosh, Korea’s so great.

Malcolm Collins: Aw. But Sony still has the rights to this. Well I also saw like the designs of the outfits of the male [00:29:00] villains in like the last scene when they’re in the traditional Korean outfits.

Mm-hmm. It was really on point. I was like, that is. It looks good in villainous. The other thing that’s also interesting about the, the sort of character that’s portrayed as like Satan in this is, it is not humanized. It’s a very clear, whenever you see it,

Simone Collins: it’s a distant voice. You’re not meant to like it.

You’re, it’s not meant to be funny or cute. It’s just

Malcolm Collins: bad. It’s not funny, it’s not cute. It has no redeeming qualities, but it isn’t bad in the way that di Disney makes demons bad. You know, so consider like Hades, no. Disney.

Simone Collins: Disney honestly makes de the, the, the, the naughty characters in Disney films are largely.

Treasured and loved and, and, and they become beloved characters. People dress up as, and they buy the merch. You don’t buy merch of this. Big, bad. Yeah, yeah. Bad, bad guys are bad guys. Instead of like, Ooh, bad guys, maybe. [00:30:00] Maybe good or,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, he’s very flashy and fun and, and, and, and like, mean to his underlings.

You know, you, you have that whole trope of like the, it almost sort of belittles the character, I call it like Captain Planet syndrome where like if you consider Hades the way he treats his underlings, like kicking them around and everything like that, is very you know, like, I think it sort of belittles him as a character.

It makes him look like incompetent and like evil is not actually competent. Evil is not actually something that is going to be tempting to you. We’re in, in this, the big bad is way closer. If I was gonna give it to, to a, a Disney villain way closer to the original Enchanter from us. Which, which one is that?

The one where she’s just, the chara turns into like a crow or whatever. She’s just like bad. She’s not like, funny, bad. She’s snow white

Simone Collins: where she turns into a witch. Oh, I think it’s,

Malcolm Collins: and then a dragon. Was there one before that? Yeah. Maybe Snow White is what I’m thinking of. Yeah.

Simone Collins: [00:31:00] Maleficents pretty bad, but she’s also one of the most beloved.

Oh, she’s, she’s a really great she’s a really great, bad character. In, in, in, in Disneyland, like the best character actress in the Disneyland parks is Maleficent. Oh really? She, she just walks around insulting people and it’s amazing. Yeah. That’s that’s fantastic. Yeah, she, she like, and like you have to be really smart to be her character actress.

‘cause people will like, try to shout and like heckle and she’ll just burn them. It’s amazing. Yeah, that is, yeah, that’s the thing is like in Disney again. Yeah. They, they elevate and make them fairly beloved. And yeah, that’s, that’s not, well, I

Malcolm Collins: mean, you see this more with recent digital, I mean the, that recent, what’s I wanna ask

Simone Collins: you, like, did, is Netflix not like, intentionally not emphasizing this show like that really confused you?

So they

Malcolm Collins: didn’t they didn’t know it was gonna become a success like this. And now the algorithm sort of handling itself, right? Like. I, I think that the, the, the next iteration of this, it may have a lot of Hollywood meddling. We’ll see. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, obviously they’re gonna make sequels.

[00:32:00] Sony still owns a sequel rights, so they can, they can make a sequel if they want to. I’d also note here that like we see the messages coming out of, of a Hollywood and Disney getting like increasingly bad. I didn’t wanna do a whole video on it, but wish has like the worst message ever. It

Simone Collins: is. Oh, you mean the moral, the moral imperatives presented by movies.

The, the, the moralization.

Malcolm Collins: In Wish, if you haven’t seen it, which is one of the recent Disney movies. No, I’ve, we’ve given up on Disney Park. They’re supposed to be like their Tent pal movie that like it’s where the song Make A Wish comes from, from like the Disney parks and everything. Right? Oh,

Simone Collins: they were trying to do that.

Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They were trying to like, make that the central song of the show to make it like the Central Disney thing. And it was about a kingdom that a magician created. And you could come to the kingdom. It was completely, you know, up to you. And what you had to do is you had to give him your wishes and then he would may give you your wish back later in life.

Right? Okay. But he didn’t give the wish back to everyone. And [00:33:00] when confronted about this, he’s just like, and, and everybody like clearly likes this kingdom, like is a clearly functional good place. And it’s even mentioned in a song that he houses them all for free in this kingdom. Right? So, okay, so once his big thin is that he thinks that giving everyone every wish that they wanted would be irresponsible.

Yeah. Which is accurate. And this is worse. Like deposing him and ruining his life and everything he built. That is, but it’s such like a progressive message. Give me whatever I want now, or I’m gonna destroy your, your life. You know, affirm me for whatever I wanna believe about myself, affirm whatever, wanna crazy thoughts I have.

Like that’s obviously super, super toxic. It was funny about the movie. If you look at the wishes that he’s holding back, right? Like, they are, what are the

Simone Collins: wishes he’s holding back? Like,

Malcolm Collins: One looks like it was somebody like conquering something. Now you don’t know if he’s conquering a mountain or another country, right?

Like another, the grandfather’s wish, which this story hinges around, is he wants [00:34:00] to be an inspiration to the kids, but an inspiration to do what? Right? Like it is like, oh, he just wants

Simone Collins: to be witnessed, basically.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. It’s basically witnessing. He just want, he does, the grandfather does end up inspiring the kids through wanting his wish to rebel and overthrow a benevolent kingdom.

Like clearly that’s not a good wish, right? Like, I think that the Wow and it’s a fairly selfish wish as well, you know, to the witness. Me wish. You know, I, I think that very obviously not all wishes are good, right? Like. I don’t even understand. Like this is something that like media and like back to like Bruce Almighty or whatever, like granting all the wishes and then it causing all these problems, right?

Like I’ll just grant all prayers, like white list all prayers. There’s the reason you don’t do that, right? Like mm-hmm. And. Socially and through media, we used to understand this, like this was delivered to us. And we would see these things and we’d be like, ah, well that’s like the story of X and that’s why you can’t just grant everyone’s wishes.

And Disney [00:35:00] is like literally no, no self-control at all. Everybody get what they want. Now. It was also really interesting about Wish and about a lot of Disney movies recently is, is people have analyzed this in more detail and I may aswell there isn’t generally a single good. Straight male character they’re all depicted as potentially willing to back stab you or, or dos Yeah.

Douses or in some other way. Villainous. Right. And it’s just shocking to me that you could have that, right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s. That Hollywood could have gotten away with this for this long, and I really hope that this wakes up the industry and we see some systemic changes in the industry in relation to this because now they are actually hemorrhaging.

It

Simone Collins: should give us hope that people are turning to a movie that has hopeful. Self-empowering, take responsibility kind of message of like, I’m gonna reach my potential, I’m gonna own my faults. I’m not gonna hide things. I’m gonna work hard. That’s, that’s good. I mean that, that, that market driven [00:36:00] forces are showing that people are leaning into messages that are not so toxic is a great sign.

And that that goro go woke, go broke is a pattern, is also a really good sign that people don’t, they don’t buy into those more toxic moralization that you’re talking about. And I would say that the movies that have done well, that Disney’s put out also don’t have as toxic of moral stories. Like, I don’t actually remember what the Moralization of Encanto was.

It was kind of the opposite. It was like, well, you don’t get your wish. ‘cause I don’t think she ever came away.

Malcolm Collins: No. And Encanto was a fairly, I just said Encanto with a good movie across the board. It was, it was

Simone Collins: delightful. And it was one of, it’s the only Disney movie I know of that, like a lot of our friends that we really enjoyed.

And it, it, it didn’t have. Like any super toxic moralization. It also didn’t have any strong male characters that weren’t doosies. I mean, Bruno was just a sort of screwed up mentally ill person. Her dad

Malcolm Collins: was always getting injured.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it had problems, but also it, it was one of the less toxic ones.

So what I’m saying is, in the end, [00:37:00] as much as, as progressive culture has taken over Hollywood and other really powerful institutions like academia. People in general are, are reasonable and like inspiring messages and, and, and are, are leaning into. Healthier narratives, and

Malcolm Collins: I appreciate that. This is the thing that gets me about this, and I think it’s one of the most shocking things about this, is you watch the movie.

Like, I watched the movie and I was like, yeah, that was a good solid movie, right? I didn’t, I didn’t come away like being like, oh, that was the movie of the century, or anything like that. I was just like, you know what, sometimes

Simone Collins: we just need to have

Malcolm Collins: fun. Malcolm’s interesting about this and I, because my kids have really liked it, like they like watching the songs.

They ask for the songs. Thank goodness. Yeah. Yeah. But I had thought of it as just to our family thing. Right? Like, and I didn’t realize that this had captured the public to the level of something. Oh yeah. No. So

Simone Collins: I was the one, I had, I had seen a bunch of YouTube commentary already on K-pop Demon Hunters, and I was [00:38:00] like, Malcolm, you, you’ve gotta watch this.

Like we have to watch this for cultural literacy, which is why I struggled so. So much to get Netflix account access without paying for it. But you were like, oh, I heard this bombed, I heard this, and you thought it was a complete failure of a movie that no one’s ever heard of. And so yeah, that really, that’s telling.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I mean, even after seeing it, the point I’m making. Is like Hollywood, you don’t need to make the greatest thing ever anymore if you just make something that’s based and interesting. You, you’re, you’re gonna get a lot of viewers, right? Like the, the thing is, is we you know, we were looking at doing a documentary and we, we probably blew it up like the one that we had with the major studio.

‘cause we were like, I will not work with this director. ‘cause she was so woke it was just like completely intolerable. And I knew that whatever she make was going to Bob. Because she clearly couldn’t connect with, with like average people, right? Like she could connect with like award shows and stuff like that, but it was clear she wasn’t going to be able to create something that would perform in the current media environment.

And I was like, I don’t wanna make something if it’s gonna bomb. Right? [00:39:00] Like, I don’t, I don’t need to do that. Right? And I think that, that you just need to have like the most basic level of competence. In terms of putting these things together to create like one of the greatest hits of like the past decade, or, I mean, technically ever for a streaming site, right?

Yeah. Like, and it shows how starved the public is. And so, you know, get out there and make based media guys. Please. Yeah, let’s do it.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, I, I think this is great. This is also an indication of the, so if I, if I have takeaways from this, basically we’re seeing. Another sign of a surge in more traditional based and Christian culture as indicated by the rampant and amazing success of K-pop demon hunters, which has Christian messages and generally pretty like based plot.

And that’s good. Yeah, I like

Malcolm Collins: it. Well, I love you to death, Simone. I’m so excited for the bull Goki tonight. Speaking of Korean Bullock,

Simone Collins: Bullock,

Malcolm Collins: [00:40:00] Bullock, Bullock, we’re doing Bullock tonight. And if you haven’t had Bullock, I would suggest it.

So yeah,

Simone Collins: Bullock is, is basically, it’s, it’s, it’s Korean fire chicken.

I, I mean, so here’s the problem, is there’s, it’s gonna confuse people ‘cause it’s also like Bullock sauce, like it’s just spicy. So what, what we’re making is basically it’s

Malcolm Collins: Teki,

Simone Collins: no, not te, no teki is a totally different Japanese dish. It’s to. Tobo, it’s, it’s those toki, it’s those thick Korean rice noodle things.

Yeah. Sauteed. And then you add to it basically chicken, heavily marinated in gochujang sauce mixed with sugar and a couple other spices. And then to that, Malcolm also prefers that we add in oki mushrooms. All of that is then broiled in an oven under a layer of mozzarella cheese. So it’s almost like a spicy chicken crust pizza.

Oh. And it’s delicious.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well if, if, if you’re comparing it to a pizza, the the fried rice sticks. Take the place of the the dough.

Simone Collins: [00:41:00] Tio boi. I don’t, someone tell us how to,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Tell us how to tally. They are fantastic when compared to, well, you, you don’t get the same crunch you would have with a pizza.

But you get a lot more sort of uniformity throughout the dish. And I think that the flavor is. Well, so it’s also a little sweeter and spicier than a pizza. Yeah, because I think

Simone Collins: you add like, at least the recipe that I use, I think has both honey and brown sugar in it. Yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s actually, it’s sweet and spicy, but then the cheese on top, I think also you, so that what cuts through the sweetness and the spiciness is the mozzarella cheese on top.

It’s all melting. And today we’re gonna try

Malcolm Collins: and give us half cheddar because we’re out of mozzarella.

Simone Collins: Well, we’re low on, we’re extremely low on mozzarella, so we’re gonna be, yeah. Half cheddar. Half half. Who knows though? I think the cheddar could be interesting. I

Malcolm Collins: think the cheddar could be really good. I mean, I prefer cheddar to mozzarella.

I always think of mozzarella as being like very, you know, not, not quite spicy. And so we’re doing Korean when, when the Koreans are gone, we will eat some of your food. You know, when you’re extinct. We’ll, we’ll be like, this is what chorea was like before they went extinct from low [00:42:00] fertility rates.

Simone Collins: So does that. All right, I’m gonna go get the noodles and start the the Bullock. I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins: Love you too.

Simone Collins: Okay. Oh God. Gonna hit end recording. Excuse. Alright. I was listening to the songs from this again and I, I love the. The demon one where they’re trying to be evil because I just hear it and it’s so romantic of like there’s a lyric of something like I’m the only one who loves your sins and that is so romantic. ‘cause it’s what you do with me, you, you not, she leaves, I love her

Malcolm Collins: failings, not her actual sins.

You

Simone Collins: love my sins. Well yeah, my, yeah, my feelings. But then you’re like, harness, you harness my demons and you turn them into like. She dogs color artistic,

Malcolm Collins: not like actual flaws, but the thing society judges her for, that she shouldn’t judge herself for in they were always frame

Simone Collins: to me in my childhood is things that I should try to hide and be ashamed of and mask.

And you were like, no, let’s use [00:43:00] this. And I love that you’re like, let’s UNH holster your autism.

Malcolm Collins: I, well, what I love is you don’t wanna have any actual like flaws. Malcolm, you,

Simone Collins: you know, I, you don’t have any actual, you used to deal with them all the time, but you’re just being the perfect cousin right now.

I mean, it’s

Malcolm Collins: actual fit. You’re not like drawn towards sloth or you know, sexual, I don’t have like a gambling

Simone Collins: habit at least or something.

Malcolm Collins: No, but like, of like sins. You, you, you don’t have any addictions. You don’t, you’re not a spiny person. You’re not a I’m addicted

Simone Collins: to our kids. I’m addicted to you.

Malcolm Collins: Idolatrous person. You’re not a, yeah, you’re just like, you’re very dedicated to your family. You had all these things that you saw were bad about yourself because everyone had always told you that they were bad. And I was like you know, maybe we could just lean into that, like FF everyone else. I don’t mind that you, you know, weigh all your food.

I, I want skinny. A skinny, hot wife. Okay. I know other people said that’s weird to do at a restaurant, and I’m like, well, we don’t have to go to restaurants anymore, sweetheart. [00:44:00]

Simone Collins: Oh, I’m so glad we got, don’t go to restaurants anymore. I, oh gosh. I have to share with you that video on how, basically Cisco provides a ton of restaurants and you’re eating the same frozen food at a bunch of different restaurants across the United States, be it in Nashville or Alaska.

So it makes so much sense. It explains so much.

Speaker 11: Hey, we got this nail. Got this,

Speaker 10: let’s.

We gonna go here

[00:45:00] away.