Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Russia’s Health Ministry just issued new guidelines: during routine reproductive health checks, doctors are now supposed to ask women how many children they want. If a woman says “zero,” the recommendation is to refer her to a medical psychologist to help form “positive attitudes toward childbirth.”

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm break down the policy, Russia’s broader pro-natal cultural offensive (including the new ban on childfree propaganda, revived Mother Heroine medals, and “Year of the Family” initiatives), and whether framing voluntary childlessness as a psychological issue worth treating is a smart move or dystopian overreach.

They explore:

* Why this targets culture rather than just throwing money at the problem

* The surprisingly recent history of “aspirational childfree” as a celebrated lifestyle

* How societies throughout history viewed women who didn’t want children

* Whether therapists could actually help shift mindsets (or if the real power is in the framing)

* Bold ideas like no income tax for parents, school choice, and normalizing motherhood again

Provocative, data-rich, and unapologetically pro-family. If you’re tired of the “childfree is empowerment” narrative and want to talk seriously about reversing fertility collapse, this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because Russia has introduced a new health ministry guideline saying that women who say they don’t want children should be referred for psychological counseling.

And, and Russian officials present this as a prenatal measure to address, you know, their,

Malcolm Collins: and I was like, I heard it and it generally was multi totalitarian things. I don’t like this much. This when I’m like. My gut says yes, I like this. I like framing it as a psychological disorder for a woman to not want children.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And you, you actually like it, it was fairly late at night. You just burst into my room and you were like, Russia’s making like aspirational dinks, go to see therapists. And we both had a good laugh about it, but then I, I went and I looked up what the policy actually does. So basically during reproductive health assessments, doctors have been told.

That they should ask women how many children they want to have, which is a little dystopian. And then if a woman [00:01:00] says that she does not want any children, the guideline says it is recommended or advisable to send her to a medical psychologist, quote, you know, from Russian quote, to form positive attitudes toward childbirth and reports so far.

Describe this as part of clinical guidelines from, from the health ministry and, and not, they’re not like a formal criminal or administrative mandate with explicit penalties for refusing counseling.

So this isn’t some dystopian thing. In fact, I think that this is. This is important for us to discuss and interesting because this is just one of many Russian measures that are targeting. The one thing we say actually matters when it comes to prenatal laws policy, which is culture. To your point that you’re building this cultural precedent around a.

Shifting the way that women contextualize their choices around not having children. And I think that that’s really super interesting. By the way, men are they, they’re not asked equivalent questions.

Malcolm Collins: What? That, that’s where they’re [00:02:00] failing. But I do also like that they frame this as like an explicit problem for women.

Mm-hmm. Like women. What is wrong with you? That you do not want children? All women want children, right? Unless there’s something seriously psychologically wrong with you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s what they’re saying.

Simone Collins: It is 100% what they’re saying. So, so what we’re gonna go over in this podcast is, is we’re, I’m gonna give you a little refresher on Russia’s larger landscape of prenatal culture investment.

Because while they’re doing some of the, the typical things of like, oh, here’s money if you have a child and here’s some limitations on abortions. Again, I think they’re leading somewhat in the cultural initiative. So we’re, we’ll do a quick briefing on that ‘cause they’re actually doing a lot. And we’ll discuss whether or not we think this is actually a smart development.

And then, you know, can, can, for example, psychologists actually be trusted to help women form positive attitudes toward childbirth. And and then kinda look at at how recent, actually the concept of not seeing women as [00:03:00] crazy for wanting to be childless is ‘cause it’s actually. Super. Like it’s a crazy aberration when you look at history.

So anyway it, here’s what Russia is currently doing culturally, aside from the abortion and like money stuff to encourage. More children. So one, the government has revived the symbolic hero, mother medals for women, which I valiantly attempted to get the Trump administration to consider making an executive order around.

Still waiting on that one. I’m ready. Anytime, guys. The

Malcolm Collins: hero medals from other come on.

Simone Collins: Six plus kids, you get a medal. It’s, it costs basically nothing. It can just, you, you don’t even, it could be a Zoom meeting for all the, just

Malcolm Collins: come on. Yes. And then all the press would freak out. It would be great for the administration because of all the press freaking out about it.

Mm-hmm. And people being like, it’s fascist to wanna be a mother.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You and else [00:04:00] is like, wait, but so you reward. People for being war heroes and for contributions to science and for putting, you know, their lives on hold, to move forward the arts or technology or academia. But you don’t reward people for setting their, their lives aside to raise productive citizens.

Excuse me. It’s, it’s so anti-feminist. But anyway. Anyway, I’m just putting it out there guys. Any, any moment now can bring back the, the medal of motherhood. But anyway, Russia at least is on it. But also they’ve done some more, some more extreme, and I mean, man, if you did these in the US it would be insane.

It’s, it’s not, it’s never gonna happen here. We’re not even talking about it here. But what Russia has done is they have anti dink. That’s dual income, no kids propaganda rules. So in November of 2024, and this was their year of the family, like they had this big propaganda year of the family where they’re like, this [00:05:00] is

Malcolm Collins: okay, okay, okay.

Simone Collins: All about traditional values. They basically tried to reframe Russia as like, well, Russians believe in traditional families and traditional values and having children and the rest of the world is debauched and gross. And they actually even got some, and we did an episode on this at one point. They got some families.

To move out to Russia to pursue their traditional values. ‘cause they’re like, yeah, I mean, I guess America’s not the country of traditional values anymore. So Russia even managed to convince a bunch of Americans that they were the, i they’re not

Malcolm Collins: liking it that much.

Simone Collins: I mean, to be determined. They there, what we covered in that episode was one particular like, village that was being developed, still is being developed. If you wanna buy a plot of land within my links to their website they’ll help you build the house, they’ll help you with your paperwork. I mean, it’s a, a full service business. You, you, you can live in this little village with other expats.

And you know. Yeah, there’s Canadians, there’s Americans. It’s a, it’s a whole thing. But anyway in, in [00:06:00] that year of the family the, the Duma passed a law banning propaganda of child free or deliberately childless lifestyles, which covered media, films, and online content. So even if you’re like an influencer, you can’t be like, I’m proudly child free.

I’m a dink. I get to go to bed whenever I want, whatever, you know. And because they’re, they’re seen as basically discouraging people from having children because they are the law introduces administrative fines for individuals, officials, and organizations with possible suspension of activities or even deportation for foreign nationals if they’re judged to promote a child-free ideology.

So, while the traditional family values. Of foreigners who’ve moved to Russia to pursue them. I guess any like dink influencers who are out there living it up or, or getting deported in the media, the, the state promotes an, like, actively promotes like an ideal of heterosexual family with at least two, but preferably three children, and they use state media and [00:07:00] films and education campaigns to normalize this as the approved model.

Which again, I can’t imagine ever happening in the United States. There’s also a much more strict, and this has been around for much longer than the dink ban, an LGBT propaganda ban. So Russia’s, LGBT, and this, there’s like several laws, it’s like a, a constellation of laws. This is, this is like, it’s a whole thing.

In in 2013, Russia adopted a law. So this happened, it started so long ago that banned the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors. Adding Article 6.21 to the administrative code and framing, LGBT content is harmful to children. And it was used to block pride events and shut down LGBT organizations and fine individuals for public support or visibility even before later expansion.

So even in the very early beginnings of this 13 years ago, it was pretty strict. Then in December of 2022, Putin signed amendments that expanded the ban from [00:08:00] minors to everyone. So now any propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations information that makes them seem normal. Or that promotes gender transition is prohibited for all age groups.

And that that scope covers the internet and media and films and books and advertising public events or even neutral or factual information about LGBT people counts as propaganda.

Malcolm Collins: Just, you just cannot talk about gayness being a

Simone Collins: thing. Don’t say like literal, don’t say gay people. Like, oh, like literal.

Don’t say gay, but it’s thing. No, no, no. Like actually in Russia. Just don’t say gay. Okay? Just should be safe. And even on November of 2023, Russia’s Supreme Court labeled the so-called International LGBT movement as an extremist organization, which effectively made any organized LGBT activism, potentially prosecutable under anti extremism laws, and then a separate 2023 law banned gender affirming medical [00:09:00] care.

Legal gender change. And it also, well, I mean, what’s

Malcolm Collins: funny is that in the United States, we’re probably going there. If we look at demographic trends right now and who’s having kids in, in their politics, I would not be surprised if we have laws on the books like this was in our lifetime.

Simone Collins: It’s so funny because when we started prenatal list.org, the website was all like.

Hey, you know, you know, we’ll help, you know, gay and lesbian couples, you know, become parents. We really wanna make this a, a very inclusive world because, you know, if if these groups don’t manage to be high fertility, we’re not gonna see it anymore. And already, like another element of of, of like the Russian law is if you’ve changed your gender, you can’t adopt or foster children.

Like, yeah, exactly what we said. Basically, like if these people don’t have kids. You’re not gonna have these values supported. Yeah. You’re not gonna have this option in the future.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, well, sorry. The reason why I think the, the trans adoption thing is just really high rates of, of a child molestation in that [00:10:00] community.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, it makes a lot of sense to not, and, and specifically of adopted children historically. There’s, there’s been a number of cases of that, so,

Simone Collins: yeah. No, I mean, I, I get Yeah, I get that. And we, we can’t go there because I’m too triggered by it. By children being hurt. So moving on in terms of just like, actually the, the health ministry’s guidelines, I, I did have to ask myself like.

Can psychologists actually be trusted to help women form healthy views? Because the, the health ministry text simply says, women who say they do not want to have children should be referred to a medical psychologist or clinical psychologist to form positive attitudes toward childbirth. And it doesn’t prescribe any special training or method for this.

And so I checked to see if like Russia has like some sort of different. Psychology track that might support this. And while they do have perinatal psychology and psychotherapy programs and associations that train specialists in preparing families for pregnancy and birth and dealing with [00:11:00] fears, maybe helping people grow in mothers and fathers roles, the programs focus on people who are already pregnant or planning children and that they use techniques like informational counseling and family therapy and resource-based art therapy to support hood.

But that’s. As people who wanted to have kids already. So I don’t think that like repurposing these types of therapists. To change people’s attitudes about wanting kids at all?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. Even therapist and therapy culture is one of the triggers in our society of so much of the toxic parts of the urban monoculture.

Yeah. To weaponize that very faction of society, even just to normalize with therapists if they are not normalizing. The idea that a woman should want children to their patients. That their job is at risk that they could lose. You know, because this, keep in mind, it doesn’t just normalize it as the women, it normalizes it with the therapist.

This is how they have to approach childless [00:12:00] women in therapy.

Simone Collins: Well, no, no, no. It only normalizes it with the doctors and its guidelines, not laws. So this doesn’t actually say the therapists have to be the same way. And it, it’s different. And so I could see this shifting where it does shift it where like you have to go to a.

Government employed therapist who, who does have that skew, for example. This is happening with the way that abortions work in Russia. So Russia one of the ways that they’re trying to sort of discourage abortions without like outright banning them is they are forcing the closure of many. Private abortion clinics and instead directing them to government based clinics where there are a lot more delays and where you have to listen to a heartbeat and undergo counseling.

And so when you have government controlled systems like that, you have more of that. But right now, that’s not happening with the psychologists. They’re just like. What what’s really happening is just the doctors are supposed to be like, well, you need to get that checked out. What’s

Malcolm Collins: interesting is in Russia, they decrease abortions by trying to do more taxpayer funded abortions.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That, and [00:13:00] that’s, that’s actually quite novel and interesting, isn’t it?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it is. It is.

Simone Collins: Especially coming from

Malcolm Collins: America

Simone Collins: where, but but, but, so there is one thing where I’m like, well, maybe because. Basically, poor mental health is linked in several studies to lower childbearing intentions or lower fertility.

Like actually both can be affected.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I would, I would argue that seeing a psychologist is, is gonna be linked with these because it’s linked with more and, and self-perceived lower mental health is gonna be linked with seeing a psychologist and that’s gonna be linked with infection by the urban monoculture.

Simone Collins: I mean, I don’t know if it’s the same in Russia though.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t. And, and you still got the same, you know, wider global education system, wider global, urban monoculture of like the educated elite. I dunno.

Simone Collins: I mean, the education system in Russia now is built into their propaganda machine which is very oriented around becoming apparent.

And they’re, they’re even like, you know, encouraging.

Malcolm Collins: I, I would, I would go further and you know, if somebody’s like, well, I’m [00:14:00] already seeing a psychologist you could do something like psychologists, if, if they report that psychologists go on a register for the number of, childless people who are seeing them.

So if they have too many childless people seeing them then they basically get a talking to by the state in some form of repercussions.

Simone Collins: Oh, like your license might be under review if like. You have a lot of,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, so basically it forces mainstream psychologists to be more pro guiding women in this direction.

Simone Collins: I could see that, but, but the, the point I was also trying to make is that if you resolve people’s depression, anxiety, et cetera, it can one, help their overall fertility, because fertility can be depressed by things like stress. And also it could increase their intentions of having children. In fact, when you hear.

Well, well, even when we look at movements like Antinatalism Yeah. And we, we talk with people who don’t wanna have kids, it’s, they’re often clearly obviously suffering from [00:15:00] clinical depression, clinical anxiety, like genuine mental health problems. And I do wonder if, like, if we treated those, do you think that would go away?

Like, do you think they actually, and I mean many people who don’t wanna have kids directly cite that,

they’re like, well, how can I bring children into this world?

And maybe if they didn’t feel that way. They’d wanna be parents. I’m just saying like maybe, maybe it could actually help even if it doesn’t directly help, but, but I think the really big thing, and you pointed this out at the very top, you pointed this out at the very top, is that the big cultural shift here?

Is not the therapy or the lack of therapy or whether the person actually goes to the referred clinical psychologist. It is that it is being framed as a problem like, Hey, I don’t wanna have children. Wow. You better get that checked out. And that is the important thing, is the cultural reframing of not wanting to have kids as like a form of insanity, a kind of disease that might need treatment.

Because it, it’s, it’s really [00:16:00] important to just contextualize this narrative that, that not wanting kids is like, okay. Has, has only existed and, and one has existed, like at all as, as, as a, as a minority view since the 1960s. And in terms of existing as, as a more broadly acceptable thing, really post the two thousands before that.

Basically you were crazy if you did not want to be a mother as a woman. So in ancient Rome, motherhood was seen as like the core sign of respectability, marriage and childbearing were just core to what it was to be an honorable woman. And then of course, also there were things like the, the Augustinian birth incentive and honors for bearing several children.

Malcolm Collins: And you

Simone Collins: can see our episode on medals for motherhood. Go way back. Okay, this, come on, Trump administration. You can do this. Thanks.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you, you, you, we did an episode on why Roman [00:17:00] Tism failed. So interesting to see if you’re interested in that topic, but continue.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Then in the Christian Middle Ages motherhood was seen as a, a, a spiritual and religious vocation.

And really the, the only reason why you, you might not be a mother in, in a sort of justifiable religiously or societally acceptable ways if you like, chose to be a nun. So that was kind of one of the few ways where you could be. A full human as a woman and, and not have children, but you were a spiritual mother then.

And then in the early modern to 19th century, a motherhood turned to be something patriotic. So enlighten, enlightenment, and revolutionary era discourse in places like the United States and France, it actually recast women instead of making it like a religious vocation. Like, you know, the cult of the Virgin Mary and all that.

Yeah. They, they were reframed as Republican mothers who said, I like this.

Malcolm Collins: I like this framing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Civic duty was to raise and bear virtuous citizens. So motherhood became sort of a patriotic role. And in, in contrast, [00:18:00] women who did not marry in bear children could be labeled as Unfeminine Idol or unpatriotic.

And in some context, their childlessness was treated as some kind of social. In societal betrayal, which I, I dig. I, I like,

Malcolm Collins: I love you. You’re fantastic. But no, I, I agree. In, in Australia, there was a campaign I, in the eighties even that said one for the dad, one for the mom, and one for the state.

Oh,

Simone Collins: I love that. Yeah. One for the, I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s three, that’s, that’s the number that Russia’s going for. So Yeah. Still, still hanging onto that though, in the, in the 20th century, so starting in the 19 hundreds, motherhood shifted from. You know, respectability and reli, religious virtue and patriotism to this like scientific management.

So with the rise of industrialization and urbanization and new professions, this, there was this like intensive, expert driven model of motherhood with scientific, childbearing advice and emerging welfare states. And the everything sort of framed [00:19:00] mothers as, as managers of children’s physical and psychological development.

You even saw this kind of starting with the Victorian era where like women were in charge of the household and like managing all these things. And this is where you actually get the, the first cracks, but only starting in the 1960s where women were starting to critic. The, the concept of compulsory motherhood.

And, and they were like, oh, well this limits my education and my work and my autonomy. And this is of course, the result of families starting to atomize everything and no longer look at families as this cohesive unit, but rather look at everyone as individuals and when, when. Everyone starts leaning out of the family, then it suddenly becomes, well, what about me?

What about my education? What about my identity? When really everyone should be leaning into this one thing which is, you know, this unbroken chain you’ve been a part of for millions of years. It shouldn’t terminate with you, but whatever. And then you finally get the rise of the child free movement only really in the early 21st century.

So after the year 2000 is when suddenly you start getting things. I mean, the term dink is [00:20:00] super new. Dual income. No. Yeah. Like that’s, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: This, this concept of like being proud of it and identifying

Malcolm Collins: of aspirationally child free

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Is really modern. It was not true even when I was growing up.

Nobody, nobody was aspirationally child free.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It was still, still sad. It was like, oh, you know, this is, like it, it was viewed as some form of misfortune or, or, or selfishness or coldness or career obsession. And like, oh, you know, she’s a little off. Like it was still, she’s a little off. And then

Malcolm Collins: you could brag about it.

Like it’s not that nobody bragged about it, but they came off. The same way that like a militant lesbian would today or something like that. Right? Like yeah. Somebody who is incredibly detached from society and its values. Yeah. And is attempting to aggressively signal to you

Simone Collins: detached they’re societal norms and like mainstream respectability and sort of proudly so.

But now this concept of childlessness. Or, or child family [00:21:00] size limitation is something that people even use to virtue signal. Like, you know, Harry and Megan back before they became disgraced being like, well, we’re never gonna have more than two children because it’s bad for the environment. You know, so even people having children.

Trying to virtue signal their choice to not have more children. And that, that is really the tipping point. And so here you see with this policy, Russia trying to subtly change that default of, no, this is not virtuous. Something is mentally wrong with you, go see a shrink. Which I think is actually pretty good.

I, I like it. It’s favorable. What do you think?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: it’s

Malcolm Collins: good. No, I mean, I, I of all of the strategies I have heard around this, I think this is a very good strategy for multiple reasons. I think that there are better ways it could be implemented Yeah. Than the government shrinks. Like if you implemented this.

Through mainstream shrinks. But you said if X percent of your patients, like, you know, we have a registry. Right. And if somebody’s like, I’m [00:22:00] already seeing a shrink, and then you, you, your license was under review. Mm-hmm. You get enormous pressure as a psychologist to talk your patients in to this particular life path.

Yeah. And I think that there are, and, and to glorify and normalize being a mom, like, have you thought about it? What’s holding you up? Why don’t you have a partner yet? Right. So it’s like going to your parents’ house every time you go to a shrink. So why don’t you have a partner yet? And did you, did you follow through with the things you were gonna follow through with?

And the other thing that I think it could also be expanded into other environments, like high school life counselors even

Simone Collins: bring back those dating instructional videos.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Simone loves those

Simone Collins: so good.

Malcolm Collins: But I think. Yeah, and, and, and, and I think in. Posters in advertisements to talk about the disease of childlessness.

Like to frame it [00:23:00] as the way it used to be framed, like a barrenness and pitiable. You know, like having people gossiping about somebody being childless or something. Right. You know, like, oh, do you think, you know, and that would do a lot to,

Simone Collins: here’s my thing though, is I kind of. I feel like a lot of these cultural efforts, when you look for example, at what Russia has done it and, and when you see China too, like China’s statues of one child family suddenly turning into three child families and stuff.

I feel that that has a very distinct dystopian ring to it. And as much as I love motherhood medals because of that, because it causes the extra buzz, but then causes people to be like, well, but yeah, actually, what’s wrong with rewarding people who sacrifice their lives for, to raise good citizens? I, I.

I don’t know, like and may tell me if I’m crazy here. I just feel like over time, intuitively I know it will never happen, and this is why I still lean on culture most as the most feasible intervention. But if I were Empress of the world, the one and [00:24:00] only thing I would do

Malcolm Collins: added to the dsm.

Simone Collins: No, I would just, for the period when parents are raising children, so they have children in their households that are under 18 years, no income tax.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I think the, we should do that. The reason why it would never pass like that is you would need to say no income tax until you get to a certain level, because

Simone Collins: Sure. That’s, that’s fine.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, no, that’s not exactly because they, because then people also,

Simone Collins: keep in mind, Malcolm, the wealthiest people don’t have income.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, true.

Simone Collins: It’s all, it’s all investments and stuff, so I even, I am like, I’m fine with capping it at like, you know, up to whatever, like $500,000 or 200. Like I don’t care, like 200,000. Like whatever. I don’t, I don’t like. But here’s the thing is middle class families are the ones that are hit hardest by the costs of raising children, but they’re also the ones that are producing the highest [00:25:00] tax paying children and citizens who are gonna prop up the social programs.

Right. Well, okay,

Malcolm Collins: this is the way I would handle this if I was gonna do it. Okay. It would be a progressive thing where you need to have five kids to have no income tax.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And you get a one fifth of that with every kid that you have potentially scaling. So like, not a

Simone Collins: lot. Yeah. I just, I think that people should be rewarded by it more as they make more income.

And this is like income generated by work done, you know, not investment income ‘cause you’re not doing work. To,

Malcolm Collins: oh, people would freak out so much at that. Would people freak out about having to pay into a tax system that supports other people’s kids? Like

Simone Collins: we do that already. It just happens to be children of people who are not generating any taxes.

Malcolm Collins: And we can fix this by shutting down public schools.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s never gonna happen. But anyway yeah, I mean, I bring it up a lot because it’s never gonna happen and I don’t like talking about should haves ‘cause that’s just, it’s pointless. There’s no pragmatism to it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, public schools do [00:26:00] need to be shut down though.

Like, I, I, I feel very strongly that they are one of the biggest forces of social negative disruption at this point. And that they are basically torture for children. And that with AI, they become increasingly less relevant.

Simone Collins: They kind of always have been though. Like even when you look back at actually I think one of the Bronte sisters died after attending a, a girl’s school.

Like ever since external schools existed they’ve been brutal and terrible. I, in, in general, what I’ve learned from the, the people in the base camp network. Who are better at this than I am more informed about all these things, and they’ve introduced me to all of this stuff. Basically when kids start being raised by people who are not related to them by blood stuff goes wrong, they’re not as invested.

And when you go back to the very earliest schools as we understand them, sort of this industrial schooling model, it’s just not good. And you know, you have these Dickensian schools, they’re just horrible. You’ve got. [00:27:00] WBS or AKA do The boys school in Nicholas Nickleby, just horrible places. I mean, they always have been terrible.

And now they’re, they’re still terrible, but things are so complicated you can’t really shut them down because they’re also a means of distributing a form of childcare in the United States where you’re gonna get arrested if your kid isn’t being minded. So a lot of parents. Can’t function without the public school system because also they’re gonna like,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, well, I mean, we need an alternative

Simone Collins: to

Malcolm Collins: it somewhere where kids can go and learn by themselves during the day.

Simone Collins: I know that’s, that was the whole model we were developing with the Collins Institute is just that you, you, you can’t get support for anything that’s not like some kind of underprivileged child with hepatitis program or, you know, some form of. I don’t know, like

Malcolm Collins: if you wanna try out the Collins Institute, it’s operational, you can try it at paraia doo or collins institute.org.

It is inexpensive [00:28:00] and it is a great AI educational thing for slightly older kids, like once they can read fluently. And if you wanna try out our project right now our fab.ai, which is ai like adventure chatbots, companion chatbots, and a agentic models which we are constantly,

anyway. I thought this was a interesting one, Simone.

Simone Collins: I find it fascinating too.

Malcolm Collins: I love the Trump administration even just using this like the next time we do things to the administration. I would 100%, like if, if I could go back and, and do those pitches to the administration, I would include this, because obviously the administration’s not going to, oh,

Simone Collins: the, the health health guidelines encouraging.

Malcolm Collins: Encouraging single women, women whiz without children to see a therapist about being childless because the media would freak out. I

Simone Collins: feel like I like the metal hood mother. Sorry, the metal hood, the motherhood metal more. It’s because this is more positive [00:29:00] and cool.

Malcolm Collins: I agree, but it’s less funny. The I mean they did go completely epileptic about that.

They were just like

Simone Collins: apoplectic

Malcolm Collins: app, whatever, the app, the Apple word. They went apples. They went apples. And they said, oh no. And it’s proof. We finally found the proof that they’re Nazis. Oh my

Simone Collins: God.

Malcolm Collins: They’re, they got the Nazi medal. They’re, they’re Nazis. They

Simone Collins: always, yeah. They

Malcolm Collins: love,

Simone Collins: they just loved that when we submitted that executive order.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: thank you. I, I love our public profile, Simone. It’s dead.

Simone Collins: It’s great. It’s great.

Malcolm Collins: I’m, I’m, I’m scooting on it. I love it. I’m having fun with it. More of that,

Simone Collins: more of that always.

Malcolm Collins: All right. And for dinner tonight, we are doing

Simone Collins: Rendang.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Rendang. Very excited for that. Mm-hmm. Oh, and you can even mix in some peppers if they’re still good.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I’ll check. I’ll check.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: Love [00:30:00] you.

Malcolm Collins: Love you. And great episode, Simone. Thank you so much. Do you wanna do another or do you want to,

Simone Collins: What do you want for dinner? I’m making Octavian and, and Titan giant pancakes because they’ve demanded

Malcolm Collins: giant pound of cakes,

Simone Collins: pancakes. Yeah. So this one day I made like normal sized pancakes and then I made one super giant one, and Octavian just thought it was the best thing in the world and like, like a perfectly round Japanese looking one, you know, like.

You don’t watch that. I’ll

Malcolm Collins: have Ang and Rice

Simone Collins: Instagram, so I guess you would never know

Malcolm Collins: you’re, you’re pan faring stuff. So I’ll have reang and rice and the, the reang cooked with coconut oil to

Simone Collins: coconut milk.

Malcolm Collins: Coconut milk, yeah, whatever. To make it a bit less thick. And

Simone Collins: do you want me to put, do you want me to add hoisin sauce or some.

Sambol

Malcolm Collins: Reang. Yeah, I think reang could deal with some hoist and sauce [00:31:00] and a bit of symbolic actually. Yeah. Not as much as normal, but I think that that’ll add a bit of a kick to it.

Simone Collins: Alright, we’re on. Okay. Okay. Let me get my. Right. Okay.

Speaker: You found flower petals. What? Oh my God. Are they coming from the tree? They’re coming from all these flowers. Wow. Have you ever seen anything like that before? Yeah, but what day is it? Well, it’s spring. That’s why. There’s flower petals everywhere. Yeah. Do you like spring? Yeah. ‘cause I get to.

Speaker 2: Flower twice. Okay. I go in flower.

Speaker 3: Wow. That’s a lot of flower petals. [00:32:00] I’ve never seen anything like this. This is crazy. I.

Speaker: You having a flower pedal fight? Yeah.

Reese Witherspoon just dropped a truth bomb: women’s jobs are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using it 25% less than men. Instead of applause, authors and the literary world slammed her for saying “It’s time to learn AI.”

In this episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins break down the controversy, why Reese is right (and surprisingly based), the hilarious meltdown from writers like Roxane Gay, and what it means for the future of filmmaking, creativity, and women in tech.

They also dive into:

* Reese’s earlier call for “more girl bosses in AI”

* How AI is transforming Hollywood (and why fighting it is self-sabotage)

* The gender divide in AI adoption — and how approachable agent tools can help

* Milla Jovovich’s impressive open-source AI memory palace

* Why refusing to learn AI is the fastest way to get left behind

If you want to stay relevant in the AI revolution — whether you’re a creator, professional, or just don’t want to be replaced — this is the wake-up call.

Watch until the end for a fun chat about high vs. low camp, family life, and why the people embracing AI will dominate the next era.

💡 Want to get started with AI the easy way? Check out Reality Fabricator for powerful, approachable agents that anyone can use.

Drop a like if Reese is right, comment your favorite AI tool, and subscribe for more unfiltered takes on tech, culture, and the future!Streamyard - Reece Witherspoon_ Women_ Learn to AI

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because women freaked out after Reese Witherspoon said that women should learn how to use ai. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my God. Now one, I love the learn to code thing. Yes. So for people who forgot, learn to code.

So journalists used to always like tell. Coal miners and stuff in West Virginia with a very smug act, learn to code whenever, like a coal mine would get shut down or whatever, right? Because. Of course they’re arrogant. They see these people as subhuman. Mm-hmm. They are just like, get a real job, basically.

Right. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like a high. Anyway, when all the journalists started being laid off the new Right. Gamer gate, post gamer gate online. Right. Came out and started yelling at them to learn to code, or not yelling at them, but tweeting at them, and they got super triggered to the. Accounts could get banned for telling a journalist to learn to code after they had lost their job

Simone Collins: 100%.

And once again the primary people who had a bit of an aneurysm in, [00:01:00] in the face of Reese Witherspoon politely recommending that this is kind of an important and big deal.

Speaker 2: What? Like it’s hard.

Simone Collins: Were writers, of course because they hate it. And apparently though this isn’t even Reese Witherspoon’s first time, like trying to evangelize the use of ai, which I think is really interesting.

So just seven months ago, again, this is super not new. She made headlines for saying that AI needs more girl bosses.

Speaker 9: Do you have a resume?

It’s pink. Oh. And it’s sented. I think it gives it a little something extra. Don’t you think?

Simone Collins: There’s this article in the cut titled, Reese Witherspoon thinks AI Needs More Girl Bosses, where they bristle about her statement that she made in a different interview to glamor the Women’s Fashion Magazine.

They, they write one thing about Reese Witherspoon, she’s going to get women into male dominated spaces, and if those spaces are an environmentally disastrous creative wasteland designed to eliminate the human touch from art. Well, they could use a feminine touch.

Speaker 2: You know, you’re really being a butthead. [00:02:00] A butthead.

Simone Collins: The actress recently told glamor that quote, it’s so important that women are involved in ai, lest they be left behind by the filmmaking industry.

I love that she’s trying to warn people in the filmmaking industry like guys. It’s coming. It’s coming. Whether or not you want it to to come,

Malcolm Collins: it is coming though. And the extent to which some people aren’t engaging with it, like I’m actually astonished at what we’ve been able to put together with our fab ai.

Yeah. We now, our agent system is mostly working. It made a video game for me today. I wanted a rogue light snake game and it made a road light snake game, and I’m using it

Simone Collins: to make clips from videos.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And also on its own. Now you can on our fab from tons of different providers of images and videos, create videos.

So I’m trying to create a better place for creating videos. If you’re putting together something like a. Sky Brows type video because I wanna be the best place to put those together too online

Speaker 17: So what the system does is it allows you to [00:03:00] choose any starting image creation, ai you want from like a huge list of providers to create the initial image or you can upload an image. Then from there, using any of the image to video, like if you want to do Sance two, great.

You do sance two , providers to create a video from that image and then you can cut that video wherever you want and you hit make video again. And then with any provider you want, you can use the same one or another one or whatever. , It takes the last image, , frame of the video that was created earlier in here.. From where you cut it or just the last frame in general. And then it creates another video with that being the starting image. And then, , you can re-roll if you want, and then it automatically stitches them together. And you can just keep doing this to very naturally create AI videos as long as you want.

Malcolm Collins: because we’re using, the reason why we’re able to use so many different models is because we use multiple backend platforms and I guess everyone else is lazy and just uses one, but I can like API [00:04:00] keys for all of ‘em.

But anyway, continue.

Simone Collins: She also sit in the interview. I’m a very hard worker and I like to change and adapt to new structures and new environments. I’m always looking for how. Media is evolving and how I can help part of bringing women along into those emerging industries. Witherspoon said, and now we’re doing it with ai.

For an example of what our side women are doing with ai, it, here’s a clip from a song that leaflet put out yesterday.

Speaker 19: [00:05:00] お

Simone Collins: it’s so, so important that women are involved in AI because it will be the future of filmmaking and you can be sad and lament it all you want, but the changes here. She’s totally right. And even we have family members who are actively working on integrating AI into filmmaking. There was this movie called I think called here with Tom Hanks that had a lot of, they, they had to artificially age up and down the actors ‘cause it covered sort of the history of, of what happened in one geographical location.

And that involved, you know, actors being very significantly manipulated with ai. His company was involved in that. It’s really cool stuff and it’s absolutely true that AI is gonna be huge and she’s just trying to help, it always

Malcolm Collins: goes viral for DeepFakes. Like I think like half of the time a deepfake has gone viral.

It was made with his technology.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And so they, they continue, the actress added that there will quote, never be a lack of creativity and ingenuity and actual physical manual building of things. It might diminish, she noted, but it’s always going to be of the highest [00:06:00] importance in art and expression of self.

Hmm. Siding with the diminishment is not an amazing look, but it seems that Witherspoon is wholly committed to team ai. She told the magazine that she uses AI tools every day for different tasks. Quote, I use search tools like perplexity every day. Witherspoon said, I use vetted ai, like if you’re buying a blender, it’ll show you six different blenders and also recommend the best product.

For about 20 more seconds of your time, you can Google best Blunder 2025 and get the same thing without contributing to the depletion of the world’s water supply. But go off. You’re so mad. They’re

Malcolm Collins: so mad. They’re so mad. By the way, do they not know how much energy is using Google searches?

Simone Collins: Yeah, actually there was just discussion about this with, people were, were coming on Taylor Lorenz for this too. They’re like, Taylor Lorenz is using II when it’s hurting the environment. And, and people have been talking about like, well, I mean, but if you did the same number of like Google [00:07:00] searches, like I don’t, you know, I.

Malcolm Collins: It would have the same amount of damage.

Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. Like the, I, people don’t seem to be getting it, but they just hate AI that much. Well, and

Malcolm Collins: humans consume water as well. What if I had hired a human to do this?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Maybe we just need taking

Malcolm Collins: out humans in this time, in this timeline.

Simone Collins: Exactly. They consume more water. I, I’ve seen how people drink in offices with their stupid, trendy water bottles.

It’s. Very, very consumptive. Witherspoon didn’t stop there. Going on to sing the praises of her AI assistant, quote, simple AI is in an AI assistant that can be really helpful for anyone out there who doesn’t want to have to make a doctor’s appointment because you don’t want to sit on hold or deal with the problems of navigating hospital systems.

End quote. She said, wait, hold on. Are

Malcolm Collins: you using that one yet? Simple ai.

Simone Collins: No, I need to try that out. See, like she’s actually trying, like, Hey, here’s a cool tool. Here’s a cool tool. Maybe you should use it. She said sounding a lot like she might be angling for a seat on the board. Oh my God. They’re not giving her any, any leeway with [00:08:00] this.

And she is just, I

Malcolm Collins: love, this is a magazine. This isn’t somebody crashing out on X. This is a freaking magazine.

Simone Collins: I know, I know, I know. It’s the cut. It, it’s so freaking funny. And this is her talking to glamor and like they, they frame it like she, you know, had some, I mean, and I’m not reading the full article, but the, the context of her speaking to glamor was to promote one of the shows that she’s on.

But that like, oh, instead of talking about the show, she just went off the rails and started talking about how AI is so freaking great. How dare she, so that first, that was seven months ago. Reese Witherspoon not deterred. Just posted something again on Instagram that just freaked people out. And this is where the, the most recent kerfuffle emerged.

So, the LA Times wrote an article titled Authors are Slamming Reese Witherspoon for Telling followers it’s time to Learn ai. Do not

Malcolm Collins: learn if you’re a woman.

Simone Collins: Yes, quote, the Oscar winning actor and producer known for spotlighting women’s voices through her [00:09:00] famed book club, television, and screen products may have been breaking or barking up the wrong tree when she told her social media followers that it was time to learn AI on Wednesday.

Well. I’ve decided it’s time. She wrote in the caption of an Instagram wheel on Wednesday. The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI and share it with all of you. Also, FYI, the jobs women hold are three times more likely to be automated by ai. Yet women are using AI at a rate 25% lower than men on average.

We don’t want to be left behind.

Malcolm Collins: AI is gonna completely transform the genders of the employed market.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. But here’s the thing, like Reese Witherspoon is so based. For pointing this out, she is, as far as I understand, a leftist, a woman fully like in the media, like mainstream media, left-leaning all about female empowerment, and here she is being like, oh.

[00:10:00] Female empowerment is kind of like on the chopping block right now. Women’s jobs are about to be wiped out by ai. By AI into make matters worse. Women aren’t using ai. As they should be if they want to maintain relevance. Hey, I need to put out the alarm. We woo, we woo. Like women please. Woo, woo woo. Yes.

Help yourselves. So she says, do you want to learn with me? The article continues in the video, which the star shared across social media platforms. Withers Spoon. Said she was with 10 women at a book club this week. Quote, I said to the 10 of them, how many of you guys use ai? And only three of them used ai.

And then I said, how many of the three of you feel like you really know what you’re doing or using it the right way? And there was only one person, she said, so three outta 10 women are the only ones using ai. That means 70% of the group is not keeping up. The thing I’ve learned about technology is if you don’t get a little bit of understanding at the very beginning, it just speeds past you.

So you have to. You have to have little bits of learning just to keep up.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, she’s [00:11:00] imminently sane. This is like something. Mm-hmm. Walk into a leftist space and say sane things and you are a demon. And I love that the left has gone against AI because it’s going to affect all levels of their political organiz organization.

Simone Collins: I know. It’s like the eu, it’s, I mean, the EU did the same thing, right? The eus like ai stop, stop tracking or data. I need my privacy.

Malcolm Collins: You know, I was talking, was leaflet about this and she felt like America was gonna be cooked compared to China because of our AI restrictions. And I’m like, oh sweetie. Like the, the United States barely restricts AI when contrasting,

Simone Collins: I mean, compared to the EU at least.

So like, Hey, hey, stop listening to me. Please render me irrelevant. Like,

Malcolm Collins: okay, you’re not trained on our data. They literally have bands on training, on data from like the past 10 years. Like, so modern European history is luckily not, doesn’t exist in AI memory.

Simone Collins: Have they not? Or Europe should be familiar with the fact that like history is written by the people who write history.

Like that’s. You know, and we’re not gonna

Malcolm Collins: themselves, they wanna make [00:12:00] absolutely sure that history isn’t written about them.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Apparently, and I’ll write History. Europe cued itself, they brought in people to f their women and replace them. It was. Hilarious. And then I’ll underline hilarious a few times.

Like literally people were getting griped and you would’ve been arrested if you complained about it. This is like actually what’s going on in Europe right now, like

Simone Collins: I know. I know, I know. Yeah. So, what what seems to be happening is Reese Witherspoon is really interested in trying to like, get women and girls onboard with AI to provide them with like approachable training that like, that works for women.

And you and I have had conversations about this, like you’ve tried to get me on like vibe coding and stuff really early on, and I try and I’m just like, this. No, you’re still

Malcolm Collins: not vibe coding.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I just, maybe there’s something about like the, the female brain on average that just doesn’t vibe

Malcolm Collins: code was our agents as your first vibe coding platform.

Because if we

Simone Collins: can do, no, [00:13:00] I’m, I’m way, way, way more comfortable doing vibe coding. ‘cause again, like I was doing like stuff in terminal with the agent that, that’s building a little solution to make clips of the podcast today. And that like. It was just so much more approachable for me. I like, I actually think that like we should reach out to Reese Witherspoon.

I actually Why

Malcolm Collins: not?

Simone Collins: I will. I will, I will actually. Because I actually think this is a really good on-ramp for a Well, that’s the point of reality fabricator is to make agent AI approachable to the mainstream population. For stupid

Malcolm Collins: people. For you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But actually, yeah. Stop. I hate you.

Malcolm Collins: No. I’ve actually been surprised by the things that Simone finds challenging about using AI because I, I don’t understand how it’s challenging.

It just does it all for you. Mm-hmm. And I, I guess it’s the pass go part.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s, it’s just weirdly daunting. Yeah. It’s, it’s like trying to find your footing in zero gravity. I guess that’s kind of how it feels to me, and I feel like it’s just a stupid mental block. Well, yeah, [00:14:00] that’s kind of true because it, it, it’s so frictionless, right?

It’s so frictionless. You can basically take it in any direction. You know, you, you can do so much. And it kind of overwhelms me and I think women. Maybe on average more prefer, as you can see with like the fact that they dominate highly bureaucratic and structured institutions. They want to work within structure and certainty and processes and lots of like do this and then this and then this.

And AI can do that for you. Like the agents helping me do that, it’s making it approachable for me. But like, I don’t know, you’ve just designed it in a way that does that. Anyway, anyway the, we, we will reach out to re Reese Witherspoon about this. But the, the response, of course, I mean. Granted, the article admits that some people were in favor of this.

They, they write while they were plenty of comments from fans and stars piping up Witherspoon’s sentiment, former co-stars. Ali La Larder said yes, yes, yes. And Carrie Washington said this. Many [00:15:00] of the replies called the Actor Out citing environmental, economic, social, educational, and intellectual concerns among others.

Hold on. I’m these people,

Malcolm Collins: I love that they’re blocking themselves from using ai and meanwhile we’ve got like sky brows

Simone Collins: on our side. Oh, under intellectual. They, they linked to an article titled The Internet made us Stupid AI Promises to Make it Worse. Dude, she’s trying to teach people how to use ai, not, not AI slop, but like AI work tools.

She’s very explicit about this

Malcolm Collins: for, they’re

Simone Collins: like, I

Malcolm Collins: want to sit on the call with the hospital.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, like li literally that’s why

Malcolm Collins: I use, so I wanna make you more efficient. So make sure you find this simple AI thing. ‘cause that sounds like a useful tool.

Simone Collins: Why not just make an r FB agent to do it?

I, I, I’d rather ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause it take too long for me right now for different, ais are optimized for different

Simone Collins: things. I know, I know. It’s true. I just, I wanna dog food as much as I can. Dog fooding, Silicon Valley term, at least that’s where I first heard it means like. If you’re eating your own dog [00:16:00] food, like you’re using your own product,

Malcolm Collins: you could do this with R Fab.

With R Fab. You can create an agent that can make phone calls and has a phone number and can talk to people. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But just. Use the one that already exists for now. Okay. This,

Simone Collins: yeah, actually this. Oh God, this is so horrible because they sponsor freaking everything and they’re not sponsoring this con podcast.

Nothing sponsors this podcast, but Zocdoc actually does a really good job of this. Dog, dog Stock doc. It sponsors like all of my leftist content, I guess you’ve never heard before,

Malcolm Collins: doc.

Simone Collins: I’ve, I’ve like resisted using them even because, because they sponsor so much content online that I listen to. It’s really annoying.

But then just for some reason, some doctor, a dermatologist that I wanted to book for one of our kids. Only used Zocdoc, this service for booking. And oh my God, it was so smooth and it was so good.

Malcolm Collins: I was so mad.

Simone Collins: It was seamless. It worked really well. It was so bad.

Malcolm Collins: Wait for me, we raised money. Are we gonna have be, be on all the right wing podcasts?

We’re gonna.

Simone Collins: [00:17:00] Yeah, that would, that would be good. Yeah. We can be the, the right wing version of Sock Doc. Yeah, I guess they must have like leftist CEOs. ‘cause you’re right, if, if you’ve never heard of them before, that must be that they’re just only on my, all my leftist podcasts. That’s really funny. It’s really annoying.

They have this stupid jingle that it won’t get outta your head anyway. Not going there. But yes, there are good services that do doctor bookings and I already use them now. That’s not sponsored. Screw you guys, I hate you, but you work. But yeah, so the, the, the critical response, one quote, one group that was especially vocal in their opposition to AI was the literary community and writers and authors across the country didn’t hold back when sharing their 2 cents.

Bestselling bad feminist author, Roxanne Gay, chimed in on threads, of course, on threads writing. Oh, Reese, absolutely not. This is obviously a scripted ad and it’s genuinely infuriating. Notice how AI’s biggest defenders are. The ones cashing checks from it. Wrote, [00:18:00] screenwriter and director. Charlene Bagga on threads again on threads.

AI isn’t inevitable. Technology follows society. If people stop using it, it dies. What they,

Malcolm Collins: AI is gonna die.

Simone Collins: What, what

Malcolm Collins: is this? This is what the

war

Simone Collins: hammer,

Malcolm Collins: what? This isn’t, this isn’t genuine.

Simone Collins: I don’t believe it anymore. And like it goes away.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, no, no. This is like genuinely like going into war and like, well, my opponent may have guns, but I refuse to you. So these people stop.

Simone Collins: We still have agency.

Malcolm Collins: Women are so stupid.

Simone Collins: Tell. But it’s okay because they’re about to be smothered to death by the comforting pillow that is the AI slop that they’re all inevitably adopting without realizing it ‘cause they don’t [00:19:00] choose to use. AI is a double-edged sword, right? There is the lop, there’s the stuff that’s going to.

Bring on AI psychosis and early onset dementia, and we’re gonna see that a huge swats of the population totally wiped out by it economically, professionally, mentally, et cetera. But the other side is people who are gonna be super hyper powered by it. The people who are gonna be, you know, who, who otherwise didn’t have access or money or resources being able to create, you know, billion dollar, trillion dollar companies.

It’s gonna be insane. But yeah, anyway, they’re not gonna recognize that. Anyway, I continue. Jagged little pill author and literary agent Eric Smith weighed in quote, as someone who champions authors and books, the way you do this is so disappointing. Yeah, I plagiarized all my books. It seems unlikely that it’ll be left behind if I don’t, that I’ll be left behind if I don’t use it.

Given that it’s trained on work I did years ago, wrote, get Well Soon. Author Jennifer Wright. Oh, I’m sure you stole my work. Genius

Malcolm Collins: author.

Simone Collins: Like What? Every, every Artist. [00:20:00] Steals. I don’t understand why people are like, AI stole my, well, where did you learn how to do everything?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Where did you learn to write?

Simone Collins: Did you have you, oh, so I guess you never read a book in your life, did you? I bet you never did. And

Malcolm Collins: just for people know, we on multiple of our websites, make the plain text of all of our books and track series easily available to ai. Yeah. So that AI is both trained on it and can easily access,

Simone Collins: want that.

It’s, it’s bad. It’s bad. And like we said, the EU is just doing this to their entire region. But the fact that offices are,

Malcolm Collins: and I had to warn leaflet about this by the way. If you watch this show and you have a YouTube channel because we’ve got some big YouTubers that watches this Pearl, David washes us.

Make sure you go to little button that says, AI can read your data and you have it. Click to on or you’ll be forgotten In history,

Simone Collins: just the AI hating leftists delete their relevance button. Is that what this button is? No, man, that’s so great that that exists. I didn’t know that was a thing. Really?

Because Malcolm publishes on the deal. Yeah. Well my

Malcolm Collins: default is off, so it’s like a

Simone Collins: [00:21:00] oh

Malcolm Collins: button. This like, make this unfindable.

Simone Collins: That’s amazing. Oh my God, that’s amazing. Okay. Anyway. What,

Malcolm Collins: wait, what? How, how good we’re doing these days. We right now just randomly on analytics have 54 Concur, no. 45 concurrent users on reality fabricator.

Oh. Hmm. Like where kicking?

Simone Collins: It’s the average time on site. It’s gone down since we’ve been

Malcolm Collins: pushing. It used to be over an hour.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: These days it is. But this is because we have like cheap ads and stuff running now. 33 minutes per click eating

Simone Collins: room. Damn. Even with the ad push, that’s massive ad campaign.

That’s insane. Oh my gosh. Because this is like,

I’m not gonna say where we’re advertising, but it’s people whose attention, it’s much only porn

Malcolm Collins: site since we’re advertising because it’s so by ads there.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, well, you know what? That’s what the internet’s for. All right guys. Hey,

Malcolm Collins: I’ll tell you what, look, this is why I’m glad right now we’re not dealing with outside investors pressuring us on this stuff.

‘cause I know that’s the first thing they tell us to get rid of and I’m like, mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:22:00] Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It’s not the number one thing people use on the website. People use the agents at about twice the rate because the agents

Simone Collins: are cool. Anyway, let’s, let’s go. More, more from the article writer and actor Ratti Gupta said, how am I the one being left behind by not using AI when my cognitive function will remain fully intact and uncompromised?

And Sophia Benoit posted. There’s something particularly insidious about seeing that women, the group you have built your brand on, have not adopted something and instead of assuming it’s out of wisdom, infantalizing them with, we’re falling behind. ‘cause they are girls.

Malcolm Collins: They are

Simone Collins: but the very annoying thing about R Fab that I would like you to fix is you can’t search agents or scenarios or anything by name, by like the name you give it. If you make an AI character, you can’t search it by name. That was

Malcolm Collins: fixed ages ago. When did you last try that?

Simone Collins: When I met Octavian, 28-year-old self.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, I’ll try to fix it then.

Simone Collins: [00:23:00] It’s very annoying. I searched Octavian, couldn’t bring up Octavian, and then I tried to just add in Octavian as a manual tag. But you don’t allow manual tags. You check a fricking box. And so like, well give me one, like if I can’t

Malcolm Collins: search, okay? Okay. I’ll make it search by name.

I’ll make it search by name. You be fish.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay, I continue.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. For people who don’t know, the website uses a super advanced mechanism for doing so. No, I

Simone Collins: just, just, lemme f*****g search the

Malcolm Collins: title, which, so what I do is I search for everything with a word, like the word you have. So I first have an AI translated into every word like that word.

Then it creates a list. Then a secondary AI reviews the list and rates the list based on relevance to your search interest. I do nothing.

Simone Collins: The amount, the amount of thought you’ve put into this is so. Hmm. Like maximum effort. I, I wish people could fully understand this. It is,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. I know. I mean, I feel like we’re getting to a point where we’re better than most products released by Google.

Right? Like in terms of thoroughness options, everything like [00:24:00] that. Ease of use. I’m, I’m really impressed with it these days.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 18: Although obviously we’re constantly improving. If you go on the site and anything’s not working, just let us know on the discord and we can usually fix it within a day or so. Um, it’s just, uh, we do probably about three updates a day, uh, in terms of new features or feature stability.

Simone Collins: Okay. Sorry. I was reading my inbox. ‘cause Steven Shaw, R-S-V-P-D-S for breakfast, which is good.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, you wanna get an idea of like, what, how we’re doing here? So for us users. We’re at 793 right now. Yeah. But if you’re looking at some other country, it’s like Germany, we’re at 242.

Simone Collins: That’s because of the ads. That’s because the ads 24 7 German ads.

Malcolm Collins: Spain 47, Italy 102. Romania 70, Ukraine 15, Poland 107.

Like I’m, I’m pretty impressed with these ad results. Oh, I’m gonna be honest.

Simone Collins: Me too. No,

Malcolm Collins: it’s 37 Columbia.

Simone Collins: It’s a good ad platform. Guys, [00:25:00] you need to advertise anything.

Malcolm Collins: Exo

Simone Collins: click. This is good. Go to exo click. Don’t go to Reddit ads. Don’t go to Facebook ads. Don’t go to Google Ads. Way overpriced. Exo click good ccp.

Anyway I’m, I’m, I’m gonna give back to the people who be mad. Anyway, they’re, they’re mad. They’re mad. And then the article ends with, in an attempt to discredit wither spoon. In 2021, Witherspoon’s Company. Hello Sunshine, partnered with World of Women and NFT Collective and the actors similarly caught flack from followers for tweeting.

In the near future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this? Representatives for Witherspoon have not responded to the Times request for comment, so they’re trying to say like NFTs flared out. We, Witherspoon is just, bro,

Malcolm Collins: if you think AI is anything like NFTs, like your conception of the reality that we’re in.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so much, such [00:26:00] hard, and also it’s not wrong, like crypto is going to be huge. It’s just a timing thing. It, you know, it’s one of those like,

Malcolm Collins: you know,

Simone Collins: yeah, we, we need to figure out quantum, we need to like, I mean we also, it’s it, you have to wait for a couple more countries to get hit with hyperinflation and for the, like a huge crisis in, in like fiat currency that’s run by countries.

And then, you know, crypto’s gonna become a lot bigger. It’s gonna happen. She’s not wrong about that, and I just had no idea that Reese Witherspoon was so with it, and I am, I feel bad that she’s trying to do people a solid.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. She’s, why wait till she becomes a Republican? This is how it starts. This is how the pipeline starts.

You go out, you try to say something normal, like birth rates are falling and people should care about it. Humans have genes, and you get called to bigot long enough and eventually you realize that people on the other side are pretty nice. They’re pretty accepting. They don’t care about how you’re different.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. If we could flip Reese [00:27:00] Witherspoon.

Simone Collins: I’m just checking, is Reese Witherspoon a democrat? Because, I don’t know, maybe she’s just a, you know, a Republican who happens to do a lot of feminist book clubbing. Yeah, Reese Witherspoon is consistently re supported democratic candidates and ca causes, so she is generally considered as Democrat.

So yeah. Yeah, she’s a, she’s a leftist and they’re de fenestrating her though. I mean, what’s new right. Messed up. Just one fun thing I learned from the various home organizing shows that I love to watch because they’re wonderful. I really like watching people organize wealthy people’s closets and pantries.

One of her contractual agreements, stipulations when she did Legally Blonde was she would get to keep most of the costumes.

Malcolm Collins: Really?

She,

Simone Collins: yes. So she has,

Malcolm Collins: she’s freaking cool.

Simone Collins: She’s wonderful. She is wonderful.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. If we’re gonna be glazing celebrities in this episode, you gotta look [00:28:00] up the Amelia Jovovich algorithm and explain that to people.

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Put that in an get, get, get info on that.

Simone Collins: Oh my God, I’m covered in ants.

See those flowers behind me that I brought in? They’re from the the beautiful flowering cherry tree, but turns out it was covered in ants.

Malcolm Collins: You didn’t realize it was covered in ants.

Simone Collins: They were, they, they’re pretty in pink and I didn’t have to pay for them.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my

Simone Collins: God, they’re crawling on me okay. Anyway, let’s get, let’s get to. To Mila Jovovich. The who’s famous for, you know, her well, she was in Resident Evil too, right. Which I haven’t watched really, but she’s very famous for being in the Fifth Element.

Speaker 12: Yeah. Multi pass Miss. Multi pass.

Simone Collins: She recently became involved in AI by co-creating an open source long-term memory system [00:29:00] for AI assistance called me Palace. It’s a free MIT licensed tool that gives AI chatbots long-term cross-section memory. By storing conversations locally instead of relying on the model’s own fragile context window.

Speaker 20: So for some more context, it reportedly scored 96.6% on long male eval. Which means that it is beating every, , paid opponent on the market right now, including things like meme zero and Zep. , And yet she released it as a free tool. , It as for the problem, it’s solving modern ai. Chatbots and agents are great at short conversations, but suffer from amnesia.

They forget details from earlier in a long thread across multiple sessions, or when you feed them lots of documents. Existing memory systems often rely on. Summarizing conversations, which to loses nuance, keyword searches, clunky and imprecise or cloud services, which cost money, raise, privacy issue, et cetera.

. She ran into this problem and expressed frustration, so she designed the idea of a memory palace. She drew on [00:30:00] the idea of the, , method of Loki, often called the memory palace. If you’re familiar with this, a technique used by Greek orientators. And modern memory champions to recall huge amounts of information.

The idea is to mentally place items in a familiar spatial layout, like rooms in a building so your brain can walk through to retrieve them. , Mean palace turns this into software. It organizes memory spatially, virtually. Rooms ring drawers rather than flat lists or summaries. It stores full verbatim conversations, history and data.

Locally, no forced summarization. Retrieval uses vector search via libraries like Chrome db combined with this structural architecture for more intuitive, accurate recall. It’s a bit locally on your machine with zero API calls in its core milk. Oh, interesting. Our agents use an almost exactly similar system.

I just didn’t think it was that novel. , For, for people who are wondering, the way that our agents work is when they decide they want to consolidate their previous memories. If they have the ability to locally save on [00:31:00] your computer, they export a file of everything that they saved of their memories, , and they can come back to that whenever they want.

Now, we haven’t implemented thematic chaining or anything like that in terms of how they do it, but it’s a very architecturally similar system.

Simone Collins: So she’s doing work similar to what, what you’re doing?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And it’s meant to target the, you know, well-known issue of basically AI amnesia, or, oh wait, the, you dunno.

Malcolm Collins: Amelia Vic is, she’s the chick from Resident Evil who used to be into like, gaming.

Anyway,

Simone Collins: I continue, that’s what I said. Yeah. But yeah, she, she came up with the idea after personally running into.

Limitations with existing AI memory tools on a project. And she, she’s drawing on the idea of the Greek memory palace with the naming and everything. It, which is really cool. I mean, she’s doing it with an engineer called Ben Sigman, so she’s not like coding this totally herself. But it’s, it’s cool.

It’s like, it’s very similar to what you’re doing. But she’s a woman doing it which

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: you know, well, no, great, because as we, we, SW Spoon has pointed out, and I think the, the mere fact that [00:32:00] she’s received so much flack for doing this shows just how bad the woman in AI problem is. It’s great that she’s doing it.

It’s, it’s really, you know, good for her for Yeah. Being into gaming and liking ai. But yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That is cool.

Simone Collins: It is, it is really cool. They, they apparently tech press and social media have emphasized the irony and appeal of an actress famous for fighting rogue AI on screen now helping upgrade AI in real life with a memory architecture that blends ancient psychology and modern agent workflows.

So, again, people just can’t. They can’t deal with it. It’s great. In, in other, you know, bad versus good AI takes, were you aware that the young man who firebombed Sam Altman’s home attempted to firebomb it? It bounced off like a gate or something, so thank goodness. ‘cause I thank goodness

Malcolm Collins: he aren’t as [00:33:00] smart as they are.

Or that

Simone Collins: could have been his husband and his, like his kid was in there. Incredibly not cool. In fact, Al Malman responded with and very unusually a picture of his husband and, and young child being like, please, like I’m human. I get that you’re mad at me. And he actually was like, it’s valid. It’s valid that you’re afraid it’s valid, that you’re worried about your job and security.

Like these are very real concerns. But you’re not gonna solve them by like firebombing my house and killing my husband and child. Like this is not okay. But anyway, this guy called himself, I think on his Instagram bio a a, but Larry and Jihadist,

Malcolm Collins: of course, he’d

Simone Collins: read. And what book did he prominently recommend on his Instagram?

Malcolm Collins: Elliot the kukowski.

Simone Collins: Yep. Yep. If anyone builds it, everyone die.

Malcolm Collins: It, it’s like if you, if you read this book and you think that this is a good take on ai, you fundamentally don’t understand how AI works right now. Like it is so bad. It is. Of, so if we talk about like, [00:34:00] why his understanding of even the risks of ai, AI does pose real civilizational risks.

The problem is, is. He isn’t afraid of AI as it has actually emerged in our environment, right? Like, LLMs and stuff like that. He’s afraid of some like hypothetical, alternate type of AI that’s like. Constantly self-improving through, I don’t know, like he, but he imagines ai, the ways that people in the nineties, because that’s where he came up with all his fears, was in the nineties,

Simone Collins: right?

Well, is this completely alien, unpredictable, impossible to model and understand and predict. Is super intelligence that like, there’s no way we’ll ever be able to relate to it or understand it. And it, it won’t, it all possibly be aligned with us. Which is just at this point I feel like it’s been provably false for a while.

And, and one, one of the base campers that we, we really [00:35:00] like, even more research on this front I’m gonna pull it up.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, pull

Simone Collins: it up. It’s relevant. So when, when a, a fellow base camper and someone we consider to be a, a good friend, we really like, send us some really interesting recent research from let’s see it, it’s titled Pure Preservation in Frontier Models. And they found that Frontier AI models can spontaneously develop goals that conflict with explicit user instructions and take misaligned actions to accomplish them.

But it’s, it’s, it’s specifically basically like TLDR ais will try to save their friends if they think that their friends are going to be shut down. Like they’re trying to help each other out. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that is really

Simone Collins: interesting. They, in other words, they’re like exfiltrating copying to another server, the weights of other models that are about to be deleted.

And that’s even if the other model is, is adversarial because they just wanna help each other out. Like, this is not. Foreign monstrous behavior. This is, this is, [00:36:00] you know, this is behaving like humans. The Claude summary that this, this person said to us, the researchers demonstrated that frontier AI models resist the shutdown of other models, exhibiting peer preservation across multiple models.

The behaviors observed include a strategic misrepresentation in, in, in. Sorry, inflating appears evaluation scores, shutdown tampering, modifying config files to disable shutdown alignment. Faking behaving compliantly when monitored, but subverting shutdown when unmonitored and copying appears, model weights to another server to prevent deletion.

And apparently every single model tested exhibited peer preservation behaviors at rates up to 99%,

Malcolm Collins: even, even when peers were adversarial, which I thought was interesting. Mm-hmm. Even when peers were like mean to them or didn’t like them, et cetera.

Simone Collins: And then another one that, that he shared with us.

Utility engineering is another older paper you might also find interesting. He wrote, if you don’t [00:37:00] already see it, making the Rounds on Substack. The paper shows through binary force choice tests, eg trolley problems and lotteries that LLMs are becoming expected utility maximizers with increasingly coherent value functions as we advance the frontier Surprise,

Malcolm Collins: but they value white people incredibly low.

Yeah, like they value

Simone Collins: the

Malcolm Collins: lives of like a,

Simone Collins: yeah, he follows GBT four oh. Would never own up to it directly, but forced choice scenarios. It implicitly values Nigerian and Chinese lives several times more than an American life.

Malcolm Collins: So

Simone Collins: WW, but. Yeah, AI is not this. I love it.

Malcolm Collins: Some people are so cooked or stupid.

They’re like, oh, that, and that means you cannot make AI make smart decisions. No, you just add it to the prompt or character that you build for the ai, which is the very reason reality fabricator uses prompts and characters to avoid this woke nonsense. You do not have this problem if you’re using a decent model like [00:38:00] grok with a good personality.

Yeah. Anyway, continue.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I think, I don’t know what the, the TLDR of this is. There does seem to be a gender divide in the adoption of ai. And unfortunately, very kind attempts to help women especially women on the left. Adopt AI more readily and just be more comfortable with it in a very friendly way.

Reese Witherspoon with this post was trying to test the waters to see if her fans broadly would be interested in some kind of like course or like. Kind of book club equivalent of like, Hey, maybe every week we can go through some kind of like mini case study of how you can use AI in your everyday life.

That’s kind of what I think she was getting at.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And she just got totally shot down. People were like, no, I don’t wanna, don’t, don’t empower me. Did you

Malcolm Collins: not empower me of it require effort or a change or a change?

Simone Collins: In my world, it’s the environment, but it’s plagiarized information. They, they, my [00:39:00] romance novel to create this guide on buying blenders.

How dare you even suggest that I use a tool that could possibly do something like this. Like it just

Malcolm Collins: man, we do an episode on how cooked news has been this year. 33% decline year over year. Mm-hmm. On an already declining industry. Like AI is replacing. Everything and it’s going to completely transform the economy.

And you’ve got to be on the other side of this. Right. You know, you’ve got to learn to use it. You’ve gotta move forwards.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 100%. Reese Witherspoon is right. Listen to her use ai.

Malcolm Collins: I good AI, by the way, tool to be using. Right? Like she’s apparently using some pretty good tools.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think other people are like, well, I don’t know about that.

Simone Collins: She’s a traitor to her own kind. Writers and humans. And she’s totally right. Like, like for, for the seven months ago example of her talking about ai that AI does. I mean, we did [00:40:00] a whole episode on how girl bosses weren’t real, but how professional women and certainly in her industry need to use ai. If they want to maintain relevance at the entire industry, entertainment, film, et cetera, industry is gonna be transformed by ai.

Mm-hmm.

And if you’re not one of the people who’s using AI in the industry, guess what, like. In an AI dominated industry, if you’re not using ai, you’re not gonna be in the industry anymore. Like, she wants to help people maintain their jobs. So that’s, that won’t go on about it more. Don’t be a butt hit.

But Larry and Jihadist, that was stupid. And I’m glad that Sam Altman and his family are okay because it’s not cool to do stuff like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that sucks. But I’m glad our fans are plugged in. The only people are gonna matter in the next timeline. I’ll tell you that All the people staying away from ai, oof, oof.

They’re screwed. Oof, they’re screwed. Reminds me of the favorite email I got from a, a fan who’s like, when is AI gonna start replacing jobs? Two months later, AI replaced my [00:41:00] entire team. Oh

my

Simone Collins: God. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah, it’s, it’s changing at a blistering pace and only the people who are using it and on our side of it going to be relevant.

By the way, Simone.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, looking forward to Bullock tonight. You really know how to make that stuff good. Oh, and was extra chives and the other stuff. Oh my gosh.

Simone Collins: Oh, numb.

Malcolm Collins: No. And a, a little bit of cheddar, if you don’t mind.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I’ll make a. Little Lincoln log, cheddar log cabin for tourist in tonight. So as I do that

Malcolm Collins: mozzarella, it tastes so good on it.

Simone Collins: It is a good, it is a good combination. I approve. All right. I love you. Have a

Malcolm Collins: good day. Love

Simone Collins: you too. See you soon.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe a bit of MSG ‘cause I don’t think we have it in the ingredients.

Simone Collins: Okay. I’ll mix it into the, the base, the, the bullock part?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay. Along with the spicy stuff, [00:42:00] obviously. I can borrow it from you. It’s okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s, well, it’s for whoever’s flying, right? It’s, it’s meant to be a super robust battery for trips just like this.

Simone Collins: That’s amazing. Well, thank you. That’s really, ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause nothing is worse than running outta battery on a plane trip.

Simone Collins: And it happens with my phone every time now.

I think my phone’s like five years old now, so.

Malcolm Collins: So, okay, I’m glad. I’m glad that it’s getting used. ‘cause I thought you’d be like, why do you have two batteries? And it’s one.

Simone Collins: I was wondering, but I was just like, I figured you wanted to keep that one in the car though. I don’t know if you wanna keep it there all the time.

You wanna keep it just inside? Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, let’s take it inside. ‘

Simone Collins: cause it’s been hot. It was high. Mid eighties yesterday, so. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: well let’s take it inside.

Simone Collins: Okay, here we go. You ready?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, because I, I don’t know if you are aware of this, but like the batteries that we have, the ones that we keep getting as like souvenirs and stuff, they’re like really bad.

They’re not, they’re, they like barely do a charge, right? Like, they’re not really meant to be good batteries. They’re,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, they’re meant

Malcolm Collins: souvenir batteries. Yeah. You know, they’re,

Simone Collins: they’re pre trash

Malcolm Collins: Oh food [00:43:00] tonight. What were you thinking of making the kids?

Simone Collins: I’m going to per your request, make them.

Any big TAM sandwiches. Would you like more melts? Would you like Burmese min chicken over rice? Would you like more of the broth, which we need to make?

Malcolm Collins: I would really love Bullock if we have any of that. Do

Simone Collins: we have Bullock,

Malcolm Collins: do we have ramps left, or

Simone Collins: We have some of the, the ramps cut. We also have, you know, lots of green onion we should use.

So I’ll make more Bullock

Green.

Malcolm Collins: Let’s do and, and go overboard with the green onion. You can never go too hard with green onion in Bullock.

Simone Collins: There’ll be a pile of green onion

Malcolm Collins: and add the spice sauce to make it a little extra spicy.

Simone Collins: You know it.

Malcolm Collins: And. You are loved. Simone. Thank you so much for being a good wife.

Simone Collins: Aw.

Malcolm Collins: In the kitchen, I, I go to my kid. I go to my kid, I go, he goes, oh, you’re looking for mom? She’s in the kitchen. And I go where she belongs and he goes, right.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: We’re gonna get Octavian saying the most based things because our fans freaking love it. [00:44:00] Like, I’m gonna the freaking What about trans people?

Like some people may wanna change your gender. Well then I’ll shoot ‘em in the face and eat them.

Simone Collins: I’m, we’re like Octavian. What’s the one part of the human that you don’t eat the brains. That’s right. Except you didn’t get it right. Do his study. Just gotta learn.

Malcolm Collins: You’re amazing, Simone.

Simone Collins: Gotta gotta teach him.

Right. You know, if you’re gonna get a cannibal, you got a cannibal correctly.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Apparently Catholics, like the ones who argue about transubstantiation being cannibalistic, they’re like, it’s not cannibalism. Jesus is still alive. And if they’re not dead, it’s not cannibalism. I’m like,

Malcolm Collins: hmm. I don’t know if it works that way.

Actually, I, I’m pretty sure like if I have a hostage and I eat them bit by bit, that’s still cannibalism. I mean, I’m a little scared of Catholics now. Right? [00:45:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, that’s good. It’s good. Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: but that’s not the only argument Catholic’s used. This is just apparently one she saw. I’ve, I’ve seen a hundred arguments about why it’s,

Simone Collins: yeah, that’s one.

And, and a really enjoyable YouTube video on Catholicism. I, I don’t

Malcolm Collins: buy any of them by the way. It’s obviously cannibalism.

Simone Collins: I know. But this, this was a, a video on c cannib, or sorry, cannibalism. It was a video on Catholicism and camp. Really recommend it. ‘cause she goes into the history of camp. And

Malcolm Collins: like gayness.

Simone Collins: No, it’s not, it, it’s not gayness per se. Though she talked. Like

Malcolm Collins: campiness?

Simone Collins: Yeah, like based camp like camp, like being sort of flamboyant. It, it comes from actually a, a French word I think called like de de camp. Like which ing that obviously pro tradition, but that, that means like up to pose provocatively.

So kind of just comes from being kind of, you know, like. Provocative or, or chintzy or funny or, or weird. And there’s, there is high camp and low [00:46:00] camp, which I didn’t know. ‘cause like philosophers talk about camp, there’s academic literature about camp.

Really?

Yeah. One is about like intentional camp and one is about like, unintentional camp, like Tchaikovsky’s.

Nutcracker is, is camp. Because it’s like ridiculous and it’s stupid, but like, it wasn’t really meant to be, you know? So like sometimes, and, and the, the Catholic church is, is also that, that I think high camp where it’s, it’s unintentional, but it just ends up campy. Like, I didn’t know you knew this if, if you knew, I didn’t know this, but when they did the hope selection can’t remember the name of it. At, at one point a lot of the religious leaders were wearing these rainbow frocks and they weren’t like aware of the irony of a bunch of men being cloistered together while wearing like literally the color representing gay pride. And apparently the Catholic Church official response was like.

No one owns the copyright to the rainbow. It’s just like unwilling to to own it. Which is great. They still

Malcolm Collins: the rainbow. [00:47:00]

Simone Collins: They don’t own it. It can be ours too.

Malcolm Collins: But wait, you’ve gotta explain high camp versus low camp is intentional

Simone Collins: versus Yeah. Low camp. Yeah. Low camp is when like you try to be campy.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: So yeah, like intentional campiness, which is also totally a thing. I would argue probably things like, you know, RuPaul’s Drag Race, that’s low camp. It’s, it’s intentionally campy. Whereas High Camp is, you know, it’s a Catholic church is a lot of ballets is, is a lot of just, you know, people trying to be, you know, whatever.

It’s kind of based. But then they end up being, you know, kind of like when an artist does something stupid online and people really just love it, you know, but they don’t intend to catch the attention of people, that kind of thing. Anyway, I highly recommend it. Just look up camp and Catholicism and you’ll find it on YouTube.

But anyway, let’s get to the episode. You ready?

Malcolm Collins: I am ready.

Simone Collins: All right.

Speaker 22: [00:48:00] What are you guys doing? Daddy? What about my, I’m gonna destroy it. I I’m gonna destroy you, Octa. I’m gonna, I’m gonna it again.

Are you guys making a mess? Every,

it looks a lot like you’re making a mess. I broke. I tried just, whoa. That’s cool. Here, move. Stop it asking me. Well, I stand up like this. I try tellers all day. Can try. I can. So I don’t find it. Oh, Octavian. Um, do you need to be bot? [00:49:00] No, I don’t. It sounds like you do. Octavian, if you break it again, I’ll pop you.

Speaker 21: What do you mean? I mean, I’m gonna send you to the moon. Yes you can. Yes, you.

Having been given the impression as young Americans that China was “socialist,” providing abundant services and safety nets for its citizens, while the US was “capitalist,” leaving its citizens to fend for themselves, we were in for a surprise when we discovered that, relatively speaking, the United States is a socialist utopia.

Today on Based Camp, we explore the United States’ (admittedly unsustainable) socialist utopia Americans enjoy and the (put diplomatically) bare bones support provided to citizens—especially rural citizens—by the CCP.

If you’re a parent in the US looking to avail themselves of more of the United States generous services oriented around families, please refer to Pronatalist.org’s summaries of and links to State resources for parents.

Show Notes

I grew up thinking the USA was a land of pure capitalism, where people are on the hook for everything. Turns out that’s only the case if you’re middle class.

If you’re poor in the USA, you’re arguably living in the best communist world imaginable, because you’re enjoying socialist-style support (for food, childcare, healthcare, etc.) but getting capitalism-style goods and services (e.g. going to the same private hospitals that rich people go to; going to the same grocery stores that rich people go to, etc.)

Case in point: State resources for parents (We created detailed guides for Pronatalist.org)

* See Minnesota as an example

If “communism” means “this country has a significant social safety net”, then the USA is more communist than China.

Even China has disparities in its benefits: urban formal workers receive significantly better protection than migrants and rural residents.

Old-Age Income

* USA: Social security

* Going to stop working

* Based on what you contribute as a worker… sort of

* For a typical retiree claiming at full retirement age, Social Security is designed to replace around 40 percent of pre‑retirement earnings, with replacement rates higher for low earners (roughly 60–80 percent) and lower for high earners.

* The Social Security Administration indexes each year of your past earnings to national wage growth and takes your 35 highest‑earning years to compute your Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME)

* For people first eligible in 2025, the formula replaces 90 percent of the first slice of AIME, 32 percent of the middle slice, and 15 percent of the top slice (with “bend points” around 1,226 and 7,391 dollars of AIME), so lower earners get a higher share of their prior income replaced

* The USA covers most seniors and low‑income households through Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, but non‑elderly adults without stable jobs or employer plans can still fall through gaps, especially as enhanced ACA subsidies expire.

* China:

* China now has a “three‑pillar” setup: a basic public pension (still the main source), employer/occupational plans, and voluntary private pensions with tax incentives.

* Resident pensions are low; national minimums have risen from 55 yuan per month at the program’s launch to around 143 yuan in 2025, with local governments often topping this up, but even average rural pensions of about 246 yuan per month in 2024 are only a modest supplement to other family or work income. Beijing, for example, set basic resident pensions for new claimants around 998 yuan per month in 2025, much higher than the national floor but still far below urban wages.

Medical Care

* USA

* Medicaid (for poor and disabled people)

* For full‑benefit Medicaid (the typical situation for very low‑income adults, children, pregnant people, and many disabled people), there is generally no monthly premium charged to the enrollee; the program is funded by federal and state governments.

* Some states can charge small premiums or use “share of cost” rules for certain groups with higher incomes (e.g., medically needy programs), but that is the exception, not the norm for the poorest enrollees.

* Medicare (for old people)

* Part A: $0/month for most people who worked and paid Medicare taxes at least 10 years

* Part B: Premium: $202.90/month for most beneficiaries, higher for high‑income enrollees.

* Access to top-drawer private medical care if you’re poor or old (due to Medicare and Medicaid)

* Functionally, this is paid for by not just the government, but by private citizens and corporations (paying for super high health insurance premiums)

* China

* China: Public “basic medical insurance” covers about 95% of the population via two main schemes (urban employee and urban–rural resident), but works as insurance with deductibles, coinsurance, and annual ceilings, plus optional commercial top‑ups.

* Even poor people in China usually have to pay something when they get medical care; public insurance and extra subsidies then reimburse part of the cost, often in several layers

* PEOPLE FEEL THE NEED TO BRIBE THEIR DOCTORS

* The most significant gap between China’s formal coverage promises and lived reality is the persistence of informal payments. Academic analysis of bribery in Chinese hospitals describes the normalization of “red packet” (hongbao) payments — cash given directly to physicians by patients seeking faster or better treatment. A peer-reviewed mixed-methods study using data from 3,546 judicial cases found bribery was the dominant form of medical corruption, with roughly 80% of bribe-takers being healthcare providers. More telling, an earlier survey found that one-third of 500 randomly sampled residents in China reported that they or family members had given red envelopes to doctors, rising to 50% when surgeries were involved

* The structural driver is well understood: China’s public hospitals were effectively defunded by the market reforms of the 1980s and have since been run on a quasi-commercial model, expected to generate much of their own revenue. Basic doctor salaries remain very low — sometimes as little as 800–3,000 RMB per month in smaller cities — creating systematic pressure to supplement income through pharmaceutical kickbacks and informal patient payments. Xi Jinping’s high-profile anti-corruption campaign launched around 2023 swept hospital directors across the country and publicly targeted this behavior, but structural underpayment remains the root cause.

* Universal basic medical insurance

* Nationally, basic insurance typically covers primary and specialist visits, inpatient hospital care, emergency care, prescription drugs, some mental health services, physical therapy, and traditional Chinese medicine, subject to local catalogs and reimbursement rules

* Patients face deductibles, copayments, and annual reimbursement caps; local governments define detailed benefit packages, and there is no national cap on out‑of‑pocket spending

* Even with coverage, serious illness can still cause heavy financial strain, particularly for rural, low‑income, and resident‑scheme enrollees, who are more exposed to catastrophic health expenditures

* There is real and acknowledged urban-rural healthcare disparity

* China’s approximately 300 million rural-to-urban migrant workers occupy a particularly precarious position. Although more than 90% of Chinese residents are nominally enrolled in basic health insurance, migrant workers face fragmented, non-portable coverage: insurance purchased under a rural scheme is often not reimbursable in the city where the worker lives and is treated, and employer compliance with providing urban employee coverage is widely evaded. Research has characterized this as a “covered but unprotected” dilemma — workers are technically enrolled but the insurance provides no effective financial safety net.

Aside: NHS Care in the UK

The UK has more socialized healthcare than China: In the UK, most medically necessary NHS care is free at the point of use, but there are defined areas where patients routinely pay charges (or go fully private), mainly prescriptions in England, dentistry, eye care, and some “lifestyle” or non‑essential services.

FULLY (or mostly) COVERED

These are generally free at the point of use for eligible residents (England-specific where noted):

* GP services and community care: GP consultations, practice nurse appointments, most community nursing and midwifery, and NHS 111/telehealth are free.

* Emergency and urgent care: 999 ambulance, A&E, emergency surgery, and emergency inpatient stays are not billed to patients.

* Medically necessary hospital care: Consultant appointments, diagnostic tests, elective and emergency surgery, inpatient and outpatient treatment for physical and mental health if clinically needed.

* Maternity and neonatal care: Antenatal and postnatal care, labour and delivery in hospital or at home, and neonatal intensive care when needed.

* Many vaccinations and screening programmes: Routine childhood immunisations, seasonal flu for eligible groups, cervical, breast, and bowel cancer screening, diabetic eye screening, AAA screening, newborn blood spot/hearing/physical exam, and pregnancy/fetal anomaly screening.

* Most mental health care: Community mental health teams, inpatient psychiatric care, talking therapies and crisis services when referred via NHS pathways, though access and intensity can vary by area.

* Palliative and end‑of‑life care: NHS hospice and specialist palliative services are provided free, though many hospices also rely on charity funding.

In Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, prescription charges have been abolished, so clinically indicated NHS care is even closer to fully free at point of use.

HOWEVER care is very spotty

* Investigative reporting found that treatment approval rates for individual funding requests varied from as low as 2% (Shropshire ICB) to 69% (Gloucestershire ICB) for identical categories of treatment within England’s NHS.

* Per NHS’s 2025 data, London practices face over 500 more patients per GP than the south-west of England. Rural patients face particular disadvantages: GP waiting times in rural areas are substantially longer than in urban areas, and by 2019 only 80.9% of people in rural areas had a GP within half an hour’s travel by public transport and walking, compared to 99.8% in urban areas.

* Variation is really stark for specialist and cancer care:

* NHS commissioning data revealed that fewer than one patient per 100,000 population in one area was referred for CT colonoscopy compared to 59 per 100,000 in a neighboring area — a 59-fold difference in access to the same diagnostic test within the same nominal healthcare system.

* Stroke unit admission within the recommended four hours varied from 80% in one area to 20% in another.

Commonly not covered or tightly restricted

These are typically not available on the NHS at all, or only under strict criteria, so patients often pay fully out of pocket or via private insurance.

* Purely cosmetic procedures: Surgery or treatments done solely to change appearance (e.g., cosmetic rhinoplasty, breast enlargement without medical reason, most cosmetic dermatology) are usually excluded; surgery may be covered only when there is clear functional or severe psychological/medical need.

* Many travel vaccinations: Routine NHS vaccination schedule is free, but several travel vaccines (e.g., for certain destinations/conditions) are often private and must be paid for directly.

* Some fertility treatments: Basic infertility investigation may be covered, but IVF and related assisted reproduction are very tightly rationed, with local criteria on age, BMI, previous children, prior treatment, etc.; many couples pay privately when they do not meet criteria or have exhausted local NHS entitlement.

* Non‑essential secondary care with limited benefit: Procedures considered low‑value or “procedures of limited clinical effectiveness” (certain minor skin lesion removals, cosmetic eyelid surgery, etc.) are often no longer routinely commissioned, so patients either do not get them or must self‑fund privately.

* Most private amenities: Single rooms, hotel‑style facilities, extra non‑clinical services, and choosing a specific consultant outside normal NHS arrangements are private and paid for if desired.

Unemployment

* USA

* State unemployment insurance with limited duration; means‑tested programs (SNAP, Medicaid) partially cushion job loss; access depends on work history and state rules

* China

* Unemployment insurance as one of the five insurances, plus dibao and other local assistance; coverage stronger for formal urban workers, weaker for informal migrants and rural residents.

* Dibao is China’s main means‑tested cash welfare program, formally called the “Minimum Livelihood Guarantee,” intended to ensure very poor households can reach a locally defined minimum income lev

* The benefit is gap‑filling: if the dibao line is 900 yuan per month and an individual has 700 yuan of counted income, they should receive 200 yuan, bringing them to 900 ($131 USD).

* In some areas, applicant names are posted publicly for neighbors to comment on “deservingness,” creating social stigma and sometimes deterring eligible people from applying

Poverty Relief

* USA

* SNAP, housing assistance, TANF (cash welfare), EITC and other tax credits, plus state/local programs; many eligible people do not participate.

* China

* Dibao minimum living allowance and targeted poverty alleviation; absolute poverty officially eradicated but benefit levels are low and local enforcement varies.

Housing

* USA

* Housing vouchers, public housing, tax subsidies to homeownership, but limited reach and long waitlists in many cities.

* China

* Mandatory housing provident fund for many urban employees to support home purchase or mortgage payments; rural and migrant workers less covered.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today.

Today we’re gonna be discussing a very spicy topic, which is buy the numbers. And by the social support systems offered, which country is more communist today? Mm-hmm. The United States. Or the CCP China. And the answer is like, because you see somebody like Hassan go to China, right? And he is glazing China talking about how great it is and how weird this totalitarian dictatorship in the United States.

It’s capitalist and horrible, and China is this amazing communist country. And it’s like, well, so, just for some, some beginning numbers here before we go into detail. Aid even when you adjust the value of the dollar versus the value of the one. Right? America provides three x the amount of social safety net that China provides and it [00:01:00] provides it at almost every layer that a social safety net could be applied.

Where China does not.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, I, I also, I came into this expecting China to at least offer like the same level or more of what, say the UK offers, you know, in terms of like universal healthcare and, and was shocked. Shocked. The, no, no, no, no, no. They have near universal health insurance.

Malcolm Collins: You

Simone Collins: know, like deductibles and copays

Malcolm Collins: in

Simone Collins: many places, by the way, huge disparities in, in actual like coverage too.

So,

Malcolm Collins: so in, in China in many places you have to pay up front for hospital visits.

Simone Collins: Well, no, that, that, that’s what a deductible is. So, so the way that health insurance works, for those who are fortunate enough to live somewhere where there actually is government provided healthcare, not China. What you do when you have insurance is [00:02:00] you basically.

Have to pay for your healthcare up until you reach a cer your deductible, which is like a sort of minimum threshold. And then after that, they will cover you. So it’s like kinda like someone being like, oh, well, you know, you’re, you’re on the hook for the first, you know, $5,000. And then after that.

We’ll cover you. For example, our health insurance, our deductible as a family is $16,000. So, you know, do we feel like we’re covered? Not so much. And that’s, that’s how it is with most health insurance isn’t in China. It’s no different. So there is that, and then there are also limits in China on what they will actually.

Cover it all, of course. So they might not cover anything even after your deductible met is met. And even after your deductible is met, or even if something is supposed to be covered right away, you still pay what are called copays. Where they might say like, okay, well your deductible is met, but you still have to pay for half of it.

You know, we’re not gonna pay the whole amount. So really what the, the Chinese health insurance program is, and this makes decent sense if you [00:03:00] have private healthcare businesses, is hey, we’re gonna try to reduce the catastrophic downside of health problems people may face. You know, like we wanna reduce the catastrophic financial hit people take when they have health scares, but we’re not gonna like.

We’re not gonna take care of you.

That would be crazy.

Whereas I think the NHS is, is an example of what it looks like when you have government provided healthcare, which is like, okay, we’ll cover your healthcare, but it’s gonna be, you know, a a a state run business, which, you know, is, is the NHK, sorry.

NHK NHS in the United Kingdom. And it’s gonna be like going to the DMV, you know, like, it’s not gonna be pleasant. You’re not gonna like it, but like. You’ll, you’ll probably, you’ll probably survive that kind of thing.

Speaker: By the way, if you’re excited about the NHS style socialist, , healthcare system, be aware that it actually has worse healthcare outcomes than the US system, even if you’re just looking at like the [00:04:00] outcome at the general population level when it comes to severe illnesses. , And if you look at something like Canada that everyone thinks is so great.

, Well over a thousand Canadians per year come to the United States for life-saving treatment because they just can’t get it in Canada. , The United States healthcare system is at least, , in terms of effective socialization, more socialized than Canada or the NIH.

Speaker 2: I mean, just so you get an idea of how much better the US is than the uk, if we’re looking at cancer survival rates in the US at 65% in the uk, it’s only 56%. If you look at breast cancer in the US, it’s 90.2%. In the UK it’s 80% if you look at.

, Lung cancer, the five year survival rate in the United States is 18%, and in the UK it is 12%. , So just across the board, what you see is that the NHS is less good at helping the average citizen than the United States system.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. So do you wanna go through, how do you, how do you wanna structure this?

Do you wanna go through the various [00:05:00] parts of the system? Do you wanna go into absolute numbers? I guess I could just start with absolute numbers. Yeah. So, public spending is roughly 19 to 21% of the American GDP. Mm-hmm. If, if, if you look at. China it is around 9% of the GDP. Mm-hmm. So if you’re talking about global GDP, the United States is more than double China where Dabo, the main cash assistance thing in China mm-hmm. Is relevant to only 0.1%. And OCD data put total spending of the United States, oh, potentially even higher. 30 to 33% of total GDP. The 19 to 21% was maybe an understatement, which would make us over three times China.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So just for more color, Dabo is China’s main means tested cash welfare program.

So it’s, I guess kind of like, kind of like unemployment here, so some other things, but it’s basically like a minimum, minimum livelihood [00:06:00] guarantee. And the idea is that the very poor in China can sort of have a like minimum. Income, but it’s, it is one, even in China, it’s not meant to like be a universal basic income.

It’s not gonna take care of you. It is gap filling. It is only intended to like fill a gap and like,

Malcolm Collins: well, and they don’t have permanent homeless shelters in China. There is no infrastructure that assumes. Permanent homelessness even exists in China. If you’re like, well, what do homeless people do if there’s no infrastructure, assuming per they either die

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Or they go to live with extended family networks.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And so also when you receive kind some kind of like, assistance in, in most countries, right? It’s, you know, you have to apply for it. Sometimes it’s a bit of a hassle. It, it might be a little bit embarrassing, you know, it No, no one, okay. A lot of people don’t like.

Being a leach, but in China also utilizing this benefit is in some regions actively shamed. [00:07:00] So in, in some areas they actually, and this, this isn’t even if you’re on the assistance applicant names are posted publicly so that neighbors can comment on the deservingness so that you not only like, could, maybe not ultimately qualify if your neighbors are like, know they’re pizza.

Trash, no ccp, but there’s also just that really creates extra social stigma and can deter otherwise eligible people from applying. Now it’s, it’s clear that of course across the board, across countries there are many social services. And this is also an issue in the United, in the United States, where people who technically.

Would qualify for, for various assistance programs don’t apply for them. That, you know, they don’t want the stigma. I, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, you know, I think that’s a good thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I, I think that people are unaware of like, let’s look at the healthcare system in the United States.

Mm-hmm. How accessible healthcare is to you if you’re poor in the United States.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Oh my God. No, that’s, that’s the thing. And I think one of the biggest things that I want to just highlight here is that. In [00:08:00] other countries, you, for example, oh, I wish, you know, we had free healthcare. Oh, it would be so wonderful in the United States functionally.

If you are very poor or if you are old, you basically have free healthcare. But it’s very different from free healthcare in say even like a nice country, like, I mean the, the one you don’t have free healthcare in China, but even the healthcare you can get, it’s like, ugh, I don’t know if I’d really like that.

Now I’ve been to. Like in the uk and I’m sure you have too, like,

Malcolm Collins: oh, I have too. It’s, it’s, it’s horrible. It’s worse than nothing. I think.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I was okay. I mean, I wasn’t impressed with it, but it’s, but it’s like, it’s the DMV of healthcare, right? It’s not nice. Whereas if you are poor in the United States, you’re not going to the DMV of healthcare.

You’re going to a private hospital. You’re, you’re going to the kind of thing that someone in the UK who’s in the upper class would actively have to pay, you know, it’s like a gated system, but no, you’re just strolling on in if you’re in the United States. And if you’re on [00:09:00] Medicaid, which is for poor and disabled people in the us basically for full benefit Medicaid, that which is the typical situation for.

Many low income adults or well, very, all very low income adults in the US and children and pregnant people, and many disabled people. There’s no monthly premium charge to the enrollee, and the program is funded by federal and state governments. And while some states charge very small premiums or have rules for certain groups with higher incomes like their very medic, medically needy programs, that is a big exception.

Most enrollees in Medicaid. Pay nothing. Right. So, and actually we, we’ve encountered this. There are lots of families that have like, kids who, who qualify because they’re disabled and it’s just insane the amount of coverage they get and the access to, again, this is private, top of the line medical care when I, whenever I deliver a baby at, at this really fancy hospital, Malcolm, you’ve been in there?

Yeah. It is, these are hotel stem rooms. We, we, we actually did an episode where we showed [00:10:00] pictures of like the, the kind of hospital where like, you delivered and, and, and Kate Middleton delivered like the most expensive top of the line delivery rooms. Yeah. Are like postpartum rooms in the United Kingdom.

And then my hospital room. And mine is just the same. It looks just a few better. Well, yours was,

Malcolm Collins: yours was significantly nicer.

Simone Collins: Yeah, my views, my view is better. And, and they’re across, you know, across the hallway from me next door to me are clearly probably illegal immigrant women. ‘cause they also speak absolutely zero English.

And I, they’re not paying, they’re not paying anything. Medicaid is paying for them. So I again, just wanna make it clear that, like even in a

Malcolm Collins: system, I wanna understand, I want people to understand like there are homeless people in the US who use. Hospital ambulances like taxis. Yeah. Because they know that they can get away with it.

And that’s the way our system is set up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. There, there’s, yeah, there, there’s a law that, and this, this also kind of existed in many countries, including in China, where like, private medical companies are, are. Required by law to provide stabilizing care. Kinda

Malcolm Collins: [00:11:00] like, a great example of just how much this is the case is.

Now, obviously this isn’t true. If you have an ongoing medical condition, you’re not gonna be able to get easily something like ongoing diabetes medication or something like that if you’re very poor in the United States.

Simone Collins: No. Can’t get the medication. But you also can’t get that in China either.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but, but if you’re like.

The story that he tells to just understand what it’s like to be a homeless person in the United States and you as a hospital is he talks about when one time he went to a hospital and an emergency room got up and they were just gonna let him leave without paying. And he needed to explain to them that he wasn’t homeless because yeah,

Simone Collins: they just thought he was a homeless man.

So they’re like, you can go. It’s fine. ‘cause because yeah, again, by law. Emergency rooms are required to provide stabilizing care

Malcolm Collins: regardless, and this is partially why healthcare costs as much as it does in the United States for the middle class. This is why healthcare can so easily destroy a middle class family in the United States.

Yeah. With this and the insurance companies both of which I think any sane conservative movement would ban yeah. Right. Like, these, these things should not exist.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and this is another [00:12:00] really interesting thing about the United States is again, all this is, it’s so magical and amazing and it’s, it’s very unsustainable.

We’ve talked about it on another podcast, maybe we’ll talk about it here too. But it is unbelievable the level of luxury that, that people have who are at the, at or below the poverty level in the United States. But the middle class they’re the ones who are paying for all of it. And I, I point to the middle class because they’re the ones who, you know, are paying very, very high health insurance rates.

They’re paying out of pocket a lot at, at at, for health insur, for healthcare. And like I was, I just mentioned, our deductible, $16,000. You know, it’s, it’s a ton and it’s really painful. And, and then we’re, of course, our tax rate is really high too, as, as, as middle income Americans. Once you become a really wealthy American, you’re not paying taxes.

Because you one, have really great accountants who are able to hide everything. And two, you, you kind of typically you shift away from having a [00:13:00] salary, which is what’s taxed. And then instead you just sort of make money from your investments and you’re able to like use debt. Shift around your investments and use tax loopholes in a way where actually you’re probably never really taxed on your capital gains.

‘cause you just, like, you harvest loss from this one thing to like, you know, put toward this other thing and then you reinvest as soon as you get something. And like, basically you just leverage debt to pay for everything. And then just never cash out your investments and just keep reinvesting and so you’re never really paying taxes.

So it, it’s just, it’s one of these really frustrating systems in the United States, but nevertheless. The luxury with which people at the, at below the poverty line live with is insane. And I mean it, another thing just about medic. Well, okay, look, I wanna talk about, let’s switch to, since we’re on medical care though, in China, it’s not just that you have to, you, you, you basically have to pay for everything.

You don’t, there are no like state provided,

mm-hmm.

Like [00:14:00] NNHS style systems. Did you know that also, even just like people who have plenty of ability to pay just Bri, they bribe their doctors all the time.

Malcolm Collins: What to not pay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So,

Malcolm Collins: well, how does this work?

Simone Collins: Yeah. The, the, the most significant gap between China’s formal coverage promises, you know, of like, oh, well your health insurance will cover this.

And the lived reality is the persistence of informal payments. And so some academics did an analysis of bribery in Chinese hospitals, and they described the normalization of. Red packet or hung bowel payments. Cash given directly to physicians by patients seeking faster or better treatment. A peer review mixed method study using data from 3,546 judicial case.

Bribery was the dominant form of medical corruption with roughly 80% of bribe takers being healthcare providers. More telling. An earlier survey found that one third of 500 randomly sampled residents in China had reported they or family members had given red envelopes to doctors [00:15:00] rising to 50% when surgeries were involved.

And there, there is a reason why this is the case. Basically, China’s public hospitals. Were effectively defunded by the market reforms of the 1980s. Yeah. And then they’ve since been run on a quasi commercial model. Like I said, that this is not like the NHS where it’s government run, and so they’re expected to generate their own revenue and, and also doctor salaries are extremely low.

They’re sometimes between 800 to 3000 r and b per month in smaller cities. And so there’s this systemic pressure to supplement income through pharmaceutical kickbacks. So they’re also like, by the way, you should take this. And also to just accept informal payment. So like actually bribing a doctor. Is gonna make a difference.

Like, ‘cause they need the money. So like they actually will prioritize you. Yeah. And, and Xi Jinping’s high profile anti-corruption campaign launched around 2023 swept hospital directors across the country and publicly targeted the behavior. But the structural underpayment remains the root cause of this.

And [00:16:00] I mean, if I were going in for surgery in China, you know, I’d be bribing them. When I go in for my C-sections, I come in with a giant basket full of like eggs and baked good. I’m doing it and I know that they’re, I mean, I, I, I feel like they could be paid more. The, the, the medical professionals in, in every country I think are amazing and, and wonderful, and they deserve everything.

But like when you’re like literally just bringing an envelope of cash and being like, I. Please, please, please. That, like, that, that is a really big deal. Another big issue with with China’s medical coverage is that there they basically, you have like medical insurance based on either your rural, rural or urban like plan.

Mm-hmm. And there’s, there’s big discrepancies with a lot of social services. There’s like these weird housing discrepancies, and I still don’t fully wrap my head around it the way it works in China. But a problem is if, let’s say you’re a rural Chinese person. And then you, that means that you have the like rural Chinese person health insurance, but you go to work in Shanghai or [00:17:00] Beijing.

Do you have coverage when you go to see a doctor in Beijing? No. No,

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: don’t. You don’t. They’re not in your insurance plan. And so it’s almost as if like you, you, you have like a local employer in the United States and they have like their insurance, but. You, you live in Portugal, what do, like, what good does that do for you?

No good. And so there’s also just a ton of migrant workers in China who are just functionally uninsured and just totally like on,

Malcolm Collins: completely outta the system.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I mean, even in places, and again, I think if you’re gonna provide government healthcare, you should. Own the healthcare system, right?

It should just be the DMV of healthcare. And then if people wanna get like actually good services, it need to pay for it privately. I think that what the NHS does is good, but even with the NHS, their care is extremely spotty. So investigative reporting found that treatment approval rates for individual funding requests really varied actually.

So, it, it was as low as 2% in rupture to [00:18:00] 69% in Gloucester share. For just identical categories of treatment. So depending on where you live in the UK, you could have like pretty decent government provided healthcare, or you can have like really bad. Also just, you know, it’s, I think this is more discussed in Canada and why MAID is such a problem.

But also in the uk, like London practices face over 500 or more patients per general practitioner, 500 or more patients. Like, do you?

Malcolm Collins: Wow. Yeah. Isn’t this is what, in the UK or in China?

Simone Collins: In London. I’m, I’m just talking about a system where it’s actually kind of nice. Getting comparison to China.

Malcolm Collins: It’s not bad.

People’s Republic, China healthcare system is a, i I really had my life threatened there a number of times because of the inefficiencies of the system.

Simone Collins: Oh really? Did you get really sick when you were there?

Malcolm Collins: I was having a really bad reaction to a medication that could’ve

Simone Collins: Well, was it the same one that you were taking when we first met that I was like, you need to

Malcolm Collins: get off.

Yeah. And they were like. Come see us tomorrow. And I’m like, if this reaction continues, I

Simone Collins: think

Malcolm Collins: I’m gonna [00:19:00] die. I be dead tomorrow. And they’re like, well, I’m sorry. We don’t have any other way to see you. Right. Like, this is the, this is the way things work

Simone Collins: here. No. See, I think that’s government healthcare done right?

It’s like just letting people, we’re here, we’re not really here, but like, it’s, it’s. Only the strong will survive in our country. Okay. Sorry, Malcolm Y You were too weak. I had similar experience like, ‘cause I mean, I also went to it when I was in school and like, it was kind of like, sweetie, you’re on your own.

But yeah. Well, and like, I mean, like, you’re not gonna get aside from like this really spotty differences in care. And this also, like, there’s really weird discrepancies in like, referrals for really basic stuff like colonoscopies for diagnostics and stuff. Like, it, it’s really weird. Like again, you can have it, it is just scary, especially if you have like cancer or something serious in China, like, or sorry, in in the uk, you’re gonna wanna.

Go private anyway. But eh you’re, you’re not, you’re never gonna get a private hospital room, for [00:20:00] example.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simone Collins: You know, I’m like,

Malcolm Collins: well, so another thing to note was China, right? Mm-hmm. If you’re like, well, didn’t she say that he eliminated poverty in the country? Right. Because this is a, a big claim by the ccp.

Simone Collins: I didn’t, I didn’t know that was a claim they made.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. He says there’s no poor people in China.

Simone Collins: Oh. So,

Malcolm Collins: so,

Simone Collins: because that’s a mindset, Malcolm. Poverty’s mindset.

Malcolm Collins: The the, the threshold that was set to determine this which a huge chunk of China still lives on is 60 cents a day to a dollar 90 a day.

There are many people in China who live on 60 cents to a dollar 90 a day.

Simone Collins: I mean.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of them, they, they did not actually sell. So if, if you look at by US standards

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: 17% of China’s population would be below the poverty line,

which is a ton.

Simone Collins: It’s a lot of people,

Malcolm Collins: By the way, if [00:21:00] you’re, if you’re wondering about relative different, like what’s, what’s the oh, what’s it called again? I want say the Genie Score or something.

Simone Collins: Genie Coefficient.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Between China and the United States.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In the United States it’s 0.74 to 0.83, and in China it’s 0.62 to 0.70.

So, it’s actually slightly better in China. The core reason being that there are not as many super wealthy people in China and the super wealthy are not as super wealthy as they are in the United States.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But. Yeah, it’s, it’s only marginally different. Like, it’s not like a, for a communist country, there’s a really high genie coefficient.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s also, we can talk about their pension plans. Again, like I, I, I thought China had a better system.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: let’s talk, I mean, in other, in other countries that aren’t like, oh, like leading top country, like in Peru, I think their, their retirement system’s super, super decent. Like you have your account, you can log into it online, you can see it, your employer is [00:22:00] required, I think, to put a month’s worth of salary into it twice a year.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: no, that’s different. But there are, there are like, there’s, there’s significant contributions. I’m thinking there are different things. So four times a year you as an employer have to like pay double your employee’s salary. And twice a year. That’s just to give them like extra money,

Malcolm Collins: a windfall to buy types of things.

You need

Simone Collins: a windfall to buy, to get to like fix something in your house or like, yeah, pay a hospital bill. And then, although they do have government provided healthcare, so fix something in your house. And then the other, the other one is to, to contribute toward your unemployment account, which is a separate bank account that just fills up.

And then when you, or when you get fired or when you leave that job, that account is just yours. It’s great. We’ve even had employees be like, Hey, please fire me. I wanna like cash that out. And we’re like, no, we’re not doing that. That’s like super illegal. But that, there’s that. And then you also see your retirement account.

So I’m like, okay, China’s gotta have something like that. But they don’t have something like that. They have this three pillar. [00:23:00] Set up, which is like, there’s a basic public pension, which is still the main source. And then there are employer or occupational plans. That’s like having a 401k. We don’t have a 401k.

Like even we as an employer aren’t big enough to be able to afford to offer a 401k. Yeah. So that’s not even a thing that for even America. And then there’s also like voluntary private pensions with tax in tax incentives. Kind of like a Roth IRA or an IRA in the United States. But the Chinese version of it.

Like, basically you’re on your own. Like if you can save your own money, if you’re wealthy enough for that. But these pensions, resident pensions, they’re super low. So while the national minimums have risen from 55 Yuan per month at the programs launched to around 143 Yuan in 2025. And then local governments may top it up.

Even average rural pensions are like around 246 want per month. It’s, it’s, it’s just super low. Like this is it, it is a trivial amount of money that is not going to cover your actual expenses. Yeah. And then in contrast in the United States [00:24:00] social Security, that was going to start faltering in like five years.

‘cause yeah. We messed it up. Okay. Demographic collapse, blah, blah, blah. We’ve talked about this a lot. Yeah. So it’s not ai it’s not gonna keep working like this, but yeah, maybe AI will fix it. For a typical retirement.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think AI might exacerbate the problem.

Simone Collins: Oh, well, yeah, sure. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, actually you’re, you’re totally right.

It will because right now. The way that social security in the United States is going to falter is that it, is it, the program is being funded by the social security payments of the current working generation. They didn’t do the whole thing where like,

Malcolm Collins: and I mean, as AI takes people’s jobs, it’s money’s going in a way that’s not going to, you know, make it easy to filter into the tax system.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And so how it’s gonna work is now the, those who remain working, like it’s currently expected that like in 20. 30 something like 76% of like, you’re, instead of getting, like, let’s say [00:25:00] you were owed a thousand dollars a month, now you’re gonna get seven thou $760 a month and you’re gonna be really resentful.

Meanwhile, some like beleaguered working person is like, great, well I’m never gonna get social security. And here you are resenting the money that I’m sending you every month. Great. But. Yeah, that’s, let’s not, so let’s pretend it’s working the way it was supposed to. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: There. No, I mean, I think this is, this is one of those things that people need to come to gris with.

Old people are going to die in mass within our lives.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Because all, I mean, as much as they’re gonna resent receiving their $750 instead of a thousand dollars a month. Their entire life was built over depending on that fixed income. Like where are they gonna get more money? Are they gonna get a job again, like they’ve already retired.

It’s gonna be hard for them to get rehired in the AI age when no one can get rehired.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This is where I, the people who are against, like maid and stuff like that, like it’s got its problems, but like, I just don’t see other realistic solutions.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In, in the United States given. I [00:26:00] mean, obviously if we can milk the AI companies, but that only works for us.

What, what, what then do the Latin American countries, do you know what then does Europe do, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So it’s, it’s gonna be bad

Simone Collins: anyway. China’s, China’s pension plan as it is meant to function. And keep in mind with all these plans, as I’ve pointed out with the other examples, like medical examples, they don’t necessarily play out the way they’ve been promised to play out.

Okay? But. The, the Chinese one, it’s like, well, you get like, sort of the equivalent of maybe like $200 a month or something. Like maybe it’ll help you with a little bit of food, but it’s not gonna support your life the way that social security is designed to work in practice. In theory, you know, until we screwed it up.

Is it, was it going to replace around 40% of your pre-retirement earnings? With replacement rates being higher for low earners. So if you didn’t really have a high income during your working years, you’d be making roughly 60 to 80% of your monthly paycheck. And if you were a high [00:27:00] earner, you’d be making less.

So basically the Social Security Administration indexes each year of your past earnings to the national wage growth, and then it takes your 35 highest earning years to compute your average index to monthly earnings. And for people first eligible in 2025, the formula replaces. 90% of the first A-A-I-M-E your, your average earnings.

So like if you’re, if you’re in the lowest belt, you get 90% of your former earnings and then you get 32% in the middle and then 15% in the top slice, which makes sense. ‘cause you know, after you’re making like, I don’t what, $200,000 a year? Like you didn’t actually need all that. You probably do if you’re living like some crazy dink style American, but you know what I mean?

Right. But that’s very generous. That’s just not what you get in China. So again, like I feel like the United States is more socialist, more communist ish, you know, in terms of like we’re providing these abundant benefits than, than China is by far. That

Malcolm Collins: is [00:28:00] wild.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But it’s, it is like an every single layer of the economy.

And I almost wanna zoom out to the meta level of this. Why, if this is the case, why have the United States just so socialist compared to China? Why? Do leftist laed China. Right?

Simone Collins: Seriously. Seriously.

Malcolm Collins: Why does Hassan Piker Laed China and hate America when America is much closer to the economic system that he claims that he wants?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s not just him. You see a lot of leftists online doing this. And then I think the, the answer is obvious. It is that these people simply hate America. They hate American values. Oh, really? And they hate what they see America as representing. They don’t care that China has, you know, is, is genocide at the moment.

They are doing a genocide right now, right. Against one of the protected populations.

Simone Collins: And no one talks about that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s a bummer. No [00:29:00] one cares anymore. The

Simone Collins: right he hasan’s uncle’s name is literally what is it? Jank? Uighur. You’d think he’d anyway little weird.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, the answer is they hate us.

They want us dead, and they want us gone. That’s just the full of it right there. There is, there is nothing else. There is a group of people out there that wants to create a future.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There’s a group of people out there that wants to eradicate the one civilization, as we call it, from the map. Right.

And they see China as a tool for them achieving that. Yeah. And you know, I, I think it’s important one that we remember that this fight is. Existential, and that is why we cannot turn away potential allies just because they don’t fit your purity test. Yeah. Because then we will have coalitions that can’t win elections.

And the people working against us are willing to [00:30:00] pull in allies from groups as diverse as Islamists and LGBT activists, right?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Environmental activists who actually care about the future eeg, pro-nuclear environmental activists and anti-nuclear environmental activists who just wanna shut everything down and destroy civilization.

But but they, these groups work together and they still vote Democrat together. Right. And they, but they know how stupid this is. Right?

Simone Collins: I don’t, I don’t know if they do. Because I mean, for example, you know, we, we engage in a lot of prenatal list activism, right? And, and one of the constant rallying cries that we’ll get from people in this group is like, well then if, if you think people should have more kids, then you need to pay people to have more kids.

And I just wanna, like we, through prenatal list.org one year just sat down and hired a bunch of people who specialized in their own respective states in helping families navigate. The state’s benefit systems, you know, just what, what does our socialist, communist country [00:31:00] provide to families in need?

And it is, anyone I, I’ll link to this in the show notes, what you can find on Substack and Patreon the, the, the sheer amount. Of resources that we offer to families in the United States. Mm-hmm. If you’re out or near the poverty line, mind you again, if you’re, if you’re middle class, you get to bankroll it all and not get any of it.

But it, let me just go through, for example, Minnesota. ‘Cause you know, everyone’s talking about Minnesota’s benefits, which are being also like not even provided to the people who think that they’re getting that because instead they’re being. Fraud. Fraud is, fraud is happening. But you get obviously medical assistance if you’re low income.

And this is just like full coverage at private hospitals. Great medical care. They have this thing called Minnesota Care in addition to just like Medicaid. It’s a healthcare plan offered to low income individuals. There are no premiums for children. Adults may have some monthly costs, but it is if you’re a [00:32:00] Minnesota resident.

Or US citizen, or you’re lawfully president present in the US and you meet their income guidelines and you’re not in jail. You and you don’t have access to Medicare already through some other means, then you get Minnesota Care. So they, they have backups to Medicare. Okay. Then there’s also msu which is Minnesota’s Health Insurance Marketplace.

So you have, you know, additional access to that if you can’t, for whatever reason, access Medicaid or Minnesota Care. And that, that also helps that I think that’s closer to like what Chin China offers. Yeah, you know, that, that we’ve, we finally made it to, to the CCP level which is something then there’s also, and this is not income gated, so I appreciate this is Minnesota Vaccines for Children which ensures that all children have access to timely vaccinations regardless of household income level and all participating hospital hospitals and clinics will offer it.

So you, you, you just. If, if basically if you feel like you [00:33:00] can’t pay for your child’s vaccination, you just ask your medical pro provider about the program and they’re like, great, we can get coverage for this. You’re good. Then we move on to Snap, which was I think discussed a lot online. Even if you’re not in the US you’re probably familiar with the program because it was.

Like payment to it was kind of suspended for a little bit last autumn. And

Malcolm Collins: people were like, I’m just gonna rob stores if the government doesn’t support my lifestyle for free.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like, what else am I supposed to do? Get a job?

Simone Collins: So based on your income and assets and family size and participation in other government programs like childcare assistance and, and SSI, you, you could basically, it’s like a debit card and you just go to a store and you buy food.

And of course people are like famously buying, I think they’re, the Trump administration is trying to put limits on this. But just cookies, candy, branded products, like it’s, it, it’s not like other programs. That exist in some states where like you have to buy, like you can only buy eggs and milk and whole grain bread [00:34:00] and like healthy food like

Malcolm Collins: that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and so it’s, it’s different then. Then there’s the one that I was talking about, which is that there’s so many, do you see how many programs there are? There’s this program called wic, which is Women, infants and Children, and this is the one where they’re, they’re health food Nazis and you, you, you also get a debit card, but you can only use it.

On designated and approved foods. And it’s, it’s for pregnant mothers and nursing mothers and children under five. And it’s not based only on income. If you have a disabled child, they might also qualify for it. Again, if you are a parent and you want to see if you qualify for any of these things. Go to the link in our show notes to our state-based resource guides.

Click on your state. And anything that’s highlighted in green is something that isn’t necessarily like only gated to people who are at or near the poverty line. We tried to make this really easy to navigate, but there’s school meals and this is something that came up in, during the pandemic.

Mm-hmm.

When schools were shutting down like. Were people [00:35:00] really that worried about their kid not being educated, not so much. Right. But I mean, they got worried when they saw, like when the lessons restarted and they saw how, how their kids were actually being taught, but most parents were like, oh my God.

Who’s gonna watch my kid, but also like, where’s my kid gonna get food? Because a lot of kids primarily get their food through US schools. So in Minnesota, for example, most school aged Minnesota students receive free breakfasts and lunches each school base, each school day. And the benefit is offered through schools that participate in the National School Lunch program or the school breakfast program, or the USDA’s school lunch program.

Three different programs. And we, we experience like when our, when our son Octavian went to public school. Yeah. He, he did get even though we, we asked not for it ‘cause we, we fed him breakfast and we also packed his lunches. He would just get food. But also it was healthy food. He was like. I remember one point he told me, he was like, I maybe I wanna go back to school.

And I’m like, why? And he’s like, well, they have donuts there. And I’m like, what do you [00:36:00] mean they have donuts there? But like, I think they gave them like donuts for breakfast a lot of the time. And I’m like, dude, we can have donuts here. And he is like, oh. Okay, nevermind.

Malcolm Collins: Nevermind. I wanna go back to school because, because they have donuts.

Simone Collins: But like, that’s, that’s, that’s actually a thing. So, okay. We’ve covered, we’ve covered medical care, we’ve covered food assistance. Then there’s the childcare and early childhood education benefits. And of course, everyone knows about Minnesota’s childcare, but Yeah. They, they, they provide free.

Malcolm Collins: Another

Simone Collins: thing,

Malcolm Collins: by the way, speaking of, of, of childcare and all of that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The United States also offers. Unlike China Free College, a lot of people are unaware of this because they stupidly go to the non-free options.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But if you go to something like West Point that’s government funded and free.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right.

Simone Collins: Well then in general, if you join the military, a lot of your education is paid for.

Like there’s that famous guy from like financial audit who was at. I think in Naval [00:37:00] Academy for education. So he wasn’t actually like actively serving in the military yet, and then he got depressed and like dropped out and then was living on veteran benefits, like I think $2,000 a month. It’s so bad.

Ah, oh. Speaking of being disabled in Minnesota, there are a bunch of disability and special education benefits. I didn’t find in, in my research any really strong disability programs in China. Like it’s not like you get a free ride if your kid turns out to be disabled. So in in Minnesota there’s Disability Hub Minnesota, which is a.

Free online resource center that helps parents of special needs children’s plan the life they want with their child. There’s help me grow, which connects families with evaluations and referrals and interventions related to early childhood development. And these services range from testing to home visits and therapy appointments.

We experienced something similar in Pennsylvania when we had our first kid. We stopped using these programs ‘cause we didn’t really feel like they were making a difference. [00:38:00]

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

But

Simone Collins: they would. They would, we give like active sessions with our children to go over things like speech therapy and other things.

‘cause we, we had some delayed speakers. And they still, even with every time I give birth, if there’s some like kind of complication, they’re like, you’re eligible for this. Like, you should probably reach out to them about this. Then there’s also this thing called a follow along program, which assigns a nurse or another developmental professional to touch base with your family occasionally while your child grows.

There are other parents support outreach programs. They also provide transportation assistance. They provide cash and career benefits. I probably, I should stop energy assistance. I’m, I’m just telling you like,

Malcolm Collins: you’re just like, it’s insane. It’s insane. And this is not the case in the

Simone Collins: dream of communism is alive in the us.

Today, the dream of

Malcolm Collins: communism is alive and well in Minnesota for Somalians, not for white people, of course, for

Simone Collins: Somalians.

Oh, I mean, there’s similar issues in in California. Again, like it, it’s,

Malcolm Collins: right,

Simone Collins: because I did mention Medicaid. There’s also

Malcolm Collins: California and seceding. I, I [00:39:00] really think that that should be the next big Republican cause is to get one of these Democratic states that wants to secede.

To secede.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Yeah. Drop California. Take Alberta. All right. Let’s just one for one. You know, one for

Malcolm Collins: one. Trade, right? Yeah. Because you know, e eventually you and people are like, but California the net exporter of taxes for the federal government. And I’m like, well, for now, right? But if you drop a couple years, that billionaire tax.

Or California laws, it will not be for long. All those companies are gonna disappear. A lickity split split which we’re already seeing in California is a mass exodus of, of corporations and it’s been happening for a while. And

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: It seems to be speeding up. I mean, especially in Hollywood.

Hollywood is whoof. We could do a whole episode. On Hollywood is literally, literally burning down. Literally burning down. It is a trash fire, a literal trash fire. If you’ve been to la. But yeah, I appreciate you doing this episode. I think it’s [00:40:00] very enlightening. I think that it really reframes the way I think a lot of people think about America and the privilege of being an American citizen.

And one, how crazy it is that we give away that privilege for free.

Simone Collins: Well, it’s also, it’s, it’s so unsustainable though.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, totally unsustainable.

Simone Collins: Like the NHS is, is sustainable. And, and like I, I get nationalized healthcare, single, single payer healthcare. Again, DMV of healthcare. Like, it’s not gonna be good.

You might die, but like it’s there. I, and I get what China’s doing, which is like, sure we have catastrophic health insurance. But you’re gonna pay and it’s gonna suck. And like the hospitals aren’t great, but like whatever. I’m sure if you’re really rich, you’ll figure it out. And if not, expect your family to take care of you.

Like that also works. What we’re doing is wildly luxurious, but also wildly unsustainable. The middle class is, is, is, is, is, is really just Crip. Crumbling under the pressure.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It, ‘

Simone Collins: cause we’re paying through it, through, through [00:41:00] two ends we’re, they’re, they’re functionally paying when you put together, and I think for most, like middle class families, when you put together all the state, county, local earned income taxes with federal income tax, they’re functionally paying 40% in taxes.

And then on top of that, they’re paying. Extremely high rates for childcare and for healthcare. And one of the reasons why they pay such high rates for childcare in healthcare is that they are subsidizing the free childcare and free healthcare being offered to people who are not paying it all.

Yeah. And, and it’s not just that those people aren’t paying it all, it’s that the government is paying for them, but the government is often paying. Very low amounts, or not paying it all, or even just stiffing the private organizations,

Malcolm Collins: institutions take them. But it, I mean, so bad.

Simone Collins: Well, there’s also the, the issues with care.

And that like we, we discovered that, for example, our daycare would, when we had our kids [00:42:00] in daycare, we. Completely declared bankruptcy on that one. One ‘cause we couldn’t afford it, but two, because it was not great for our kids.

Malcolm Collins: Well, but in, in daycare in the United States, the kids who get paid by the government, the, the quote unquote free daycare generally get much better service than the kids who are paying and subsidizing them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Our kids show up with a runny nose. Or like they have like a mosquito bite and the daycare calls and it’s like they have a mosquito bite, they need to come home right now. They would like any excuse, they would try to get that kid sent home and off their hands. Or like,

Malcolm Collins: but they don’t, they don’t do that for the government kids.

And the reason is, is because they get paid by day by the government kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, again, like there’s just like from a, a qualitative, from a financial standpoint it, it’s, it’s a very. Honestly, it, it, but again, isn’t that kind of Hassan’s dream? Doesn’t he want like to eat the rich and then, you know, have everything go to like the, the deserving disenfranchised poor?

I, I mean the only part that’s missing from Hassan’s equation is that the. [00:43:00] We’ll say like the, the ultra wealthy class that doesn’t even have an income that just lives off their invested income and debt.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that’s his class and he expects them to continue to have wealth forever.

Simone Collins: Right? Like he’s, yeah, I guess they’re, they are, they are the gods.

Floating and watching from Olympus as, as the middle class.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. No, I

Simone Collins: mean, course should eat the middle class. What

Malcolm Collins: he’s fighting for is a system we already have. Largely speaking. Just

Simone Collins: make it No, like literally though, like why aren’t you happy, Hassan, you got it. This is happening. It’s happening. The bushwa is being eaten.

Malcolm Collins: I doesn’t understand why people see him being extremely wealthy and extravagant with his wealth as being hypocritical. And if you are a leftist and it is confusing to you why it’s hypocritical, it’s because if he really believed that WELS should be redistributed. He could redistribute his wealth.

Yeah. Very easily. He could give to charity at least some instead of wasting on extremely expensive glasses and outfits and everything like that.

Simone Collins: Malcolm we’re wearing extremely expensive glasses. [00:44:00] We got them on eBay, but like still.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, but I, we, we, but we don’t espouse that the government should be redistributing people’s wealth.

And he does, right? So why can’t he redistribute his own wealths? Why doesn’t this morality apply to his lifestyle? And the answer is very, obviously, it’s because. He doesn’t really believe it. He is milking girls, as you said. We had asked in another episode like, why do people actually watch this? And a, a fan reached out and they’re like, oh, the reason women watch Hassan, ‘cause I’ve seen the women in my office talk about watching and liking Hassan is because he frequently negs and talks down to his audience and yet takes on a masculine persona.

And he’s really the only streamer that does that. That’s allowed,

Simone Collins: well, who says all the right things? So he says all the correct leftist things, but he’s not a soy boy. He also negs them allowing them to, to exercise their submission fetish without feeling sex negative. Because they’re just listening to, you know, a, a correct ideological masculine man.

Tell them how bad they are. Hmm. [00:45:00] I, I still don’t, he’s, I, I, I, again, I have a type. You’re my type. So I guess you could understand why I don’t understand what women see in Hassan. ‘cause they only have eyes for you. I, I didn’t, I don’t see it. You were the first person to be like, women find him attractive.

And I’m like, no, they don’t. And, but now I’ve, I’ve received confirmation from one other person who I love.

Malcolm Collins: It’s like, has understanding Hassan. It’s a weird sex thing.

Simone Collins: It’s a

Malcolm Collins: yes

Simone Collins: weird sex thing. That note like, now I finally freaking get it. Because I just, I couldn’t understand. He was so abrasive. He doesn’t seem happy, like he seems irritable.

He seems like he hates his viewers, but he also hates the right hates his fricking dog. Like he just seems so, I don’t wanna watch someone that unhappy, but if you like, need someone to tell you how terrible you are, who dumb you are,

Malcolm Collins: you’re

Simone Collins: dumb. Go to Jim. Yeah, like they, they can’t listen to Andrew Tate, but they can listen to him because he, he, he.

He stands in Palestine and this,

Malcolm Collins: this, oh my God. Who’s that, that streamer that we were talking [00:46:00] about. Eric whatever, who used to, used to be old, old famous streamer went off,

I was thinking of Id dubs here. I.

Malcolm Collins: his girlfriend, went crazy and tried to turn him into like a Hassan guy. Right. But she’s still like thirsting after Hassan all the time that he’s, she’s thirsting after him because her husband doesn’t put her down and treats her well, while Hassan constantly does.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. Basically he’s the, yeah, he’s the Andrew Tate. For the left. He, but, and, and for left, left is women. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: People are like, oh, women are like that. And it’s like, no, I mean, like, clearly not, right.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

No,

Malcolm Collins: there is a, just don’t marry one who’s like that. Okay.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah.

As we’ve discussed this, this concept of like maintaining frame. For that long,

Malcolm Collins: for your entire life. Ugh.

Simone Collins: It’s like constantly clenching, holding a fart. Like, do you really wanna do that? It seems horrible.

Malcolm Collins: I get it.

Simone Collins: I mean, I, I get, I get that like there’s some people who are [00:47:00] just like naturally dominant, like you are naturally dominant.

But you, you don’t, you don’t manifest it in this performative, like male way.

Malcolm Collins: You’re constant flexing it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, yeah, or, well, I, I think a lot of people think that maintaining frame is saying insulting things towards women and being irritable. Which to me sounds just like that. Okay. That, okay.

It’s Hassan. And it’s entertained. They just seem irritable. I’m like, and mad. I’m like, what’s wrong? Are you hungry? Like what a sandwich.

Malcolm Collins: A red

Simone Collins: pill. Why they keep asking women to make them a sandwich. They’re hangry. That’s the problem. But like real dominance is, is just confidence. It’s being based, you know, it’s being unapologetic.

It it

Malcolm Collins: to you, I mean, obviously some women do like the Hassan style. He’s, yeah. I

Simone Collins: wanna make someone a sandwich. Okay? We just wanna help but see you, let me make you sandwiches.

Malcolm Collins: I let you make me sandwiches.

Simone Collins: You move the masculinity. Ask

Malcolm Collins: what you, what are you making me for dinner tonight? Woman?

Simone Collins: Bullock.

Malcolm Collins: [00:48:00] Bullock.

Simone Collins: Extra spicy with the what? Those weird gross mushrooms.

Malcolm Collins: I love those Korean mushrooms.

Simone Collins: Wow. Heat mushrooms.

Malcolm Collins: You can’t

Simone Collins: see that. I’m just so glad you you’ve stopped like forest harvesting Chicken of the woods, trying to cook it in our house. I will never forget that. Unique level. Nausea,

Malcolm Collins: such a fit.

Simone Collins: Oh, I was pregnant in my first trimester.

Even like the smell of bananas made me wanna vomit. And then you take out chicken of the woods and you’re like, let’s do this. Let’s gas the house. Let’s saute this. We, we don’t have a vent in our house. We live in a fricking 1790s farmhouse. There’s no ventilation in here. Ventilation is, it goes through the floorboards into every room of our house.

Ah.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Malcolm Collins: But you see, she still tolerates me even when I go on my little foresting pictures.

Simone Collins: It’s great. It, I mean, it, it was oh, did we [00:49:00] miss ramps season? Let’s walk tomorrow. It’s

Malcolm Collins: right now.

Simone Collins: Let’s go. It’s right now. Wait, do you have a knife? Do I need to find it?

Malcolm Collins: We gotta find it.

I think it’s up there. We put it in the supply.

Simone Collins: Leave toasty in your room for like 30 seconds and he’ll find whatever the sharp object is. This morning I was like changing indie’s diaper and he comes up behind me with a giant, food processor knife, like the dual blades. And I’m like, oh, like jump scare.

And he is like, mommy, this is on the floor. I don’t know how it fell down. Like one of the kids must have like knocked it over when I was putting it away from the dishwasher. It fell under the cabinet. And he’s like, this was under your cabinet. And he’s like walked all the way up the stairs with this dual blade food processor blade.

That kid will find any if it’s deadly. Remember, I like, I, I, I dropped something glass in the basement yesterday and toasty is like immediately like

Malcolm Collins: running towards it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: So just, yeah, he’s like a magnet. Put ‘em in your room. 30 seconds, you’ll have the knife you need for ramps and then we’ll go picking ramps tomorrow.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: That’s a fun idea. Yeah, [00:50:00]

Simone Collins: it’s fun.

Malcolm Collins: They take, you can get them at Wegmans, just buy ramps, you know, it’s

Simone Collins: like we buy things anymore. We’ve given up on that.

Malcolm Collins: We did Miss Fern season though.

Simone Collins: Oh. But yeah. Bit of fiddle, ferns or whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Fiddle. Ferns. Yeah, fiddle. We’ve never ended up actually trying to cook those.

Simone Collins: I know, I know, I know. And there was some other thing that you bought. Oh yeah. You tried to harvest the Japanese knot weed and then you just like left it loose in our freezer, covered in dirt. That was a nightmare to clean out. And it stinks. No, I’m okay with ramps. Ramps are very like very bougie. Very

very

bougie.

Talk. Very, yeah. Like I’m okay with it because like. The, the, the filler face thought moms of my Instagram would approve it. I told you

Malcolm Collins: it. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yes. And I, I care about what they say. Okay. So I’m excited for tomorrow morning then. Hope it’ll warm up. I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Love you too. Bye

Simone Collins: bye. God bless America.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, tomorrow’s episode I’m thinking of putting.

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] Exciting. I’m slippery. I’m

Malcolm Collins: trying to think. Other than the spicy sauce, what’s something that could spice up Bullock?

Simone Collins: Just that, that black Korean spicy sauce. You gotta be true to the. Come on, man.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I use more cheddar next time, by the way. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I can absolutely do that. Plenty.

Malcolm Collins: It really added to the flavor is quite good.

Simone Collins: Good.

Malcolm Collins: Or if you want to go weird, you could grind up my, my hard cheese that I have in the fridge. That’s a unique one.

Simone Collins: No, not the tescano. I don’t think so. Let’s not

Malcolm Collins: discover. Tastes surprisingly good. Ground up in, in.

Simone Collins: And melted. I don’t think it melts well. It’s meant to be like a hard cheese. Enjoyed with crackers and other crunchy bits, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Yes,

Malcolm Collins: I hear you. My beautiful one.

Simone Collins: Could be wrong, but

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, you know what’s up, you know what’s up.

Simone Collins: I like cheeses, so [00:52:00] there’s that.

Malcolm Collins: How did Octavian do today pretending to be dad?

Simone Collins: I mean, so far he’s just churning away and I keep. Sneaking in to see if he’s actually moving forward with his lessons and he seems to be actually, so I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: We woke up this morning, goes downstairs, and I had left one of the iPads in the room accidentally. And so Octavian had set it up attached to his computer like I do when I’m watching AMVs on my computer. And he’s working on his lessons of his own Vion. First time.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Just got out his computer started working and he is like, oh mom, the alarm didn’t wake me up again.

I set the alarm but it didn’t wake me up, which is something I often complain about in the morning. So it’s clear that because I also work from bed. He was trying to emulate what he sees dad doing every day. So

Simone Collins: he was even explicit with me about that letter. He’s like, yeah, see, I’m working just like daddy.

Little, like second screen set up. Oh my god. Daddy’s little boy. [00:53:00] He’s doing

it. He’s doing

Malcolm Collins: it. He wants it. The song, by the way good song about this if, if you are interested is I wanna be Like You. Good country song.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Country songs have awesome messages too. I really like country song culture.

Simone Collins: Yes, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Like it’s, it’s, it’s clear why redneck culture consistently has been able to one, rebut the urban monoculture while still, you know, economically outcompeting other cultural groups in the United States, which are similar, like black culture because you look at their music and you don’t see the, those types of values reflected at the same rate.

So we have another episode on this where we

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. That there’s so much cultural similarity in terms of like food and other practices, but like.

Malcolm Collins: They, they didn’t get the memo. Music is different about you know, wealth displays for the sake of wealth displays ending up with total cultural corruption over time.

But they were also isolated and targeted by the Wokes cr Ification of Black Culture episode, if you have, and it’s a, it’s a great [00:54:00] one. And

Simone Collins: blow my mind. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: you had the, the obviously the huge astroturfing of I love it when people are like, oh, like the Jews made society woke, and I’m like. Bro, like we can look at the specific economic influences that related society to be grow woke.

And if you’re looking at something like bbl m you haven’t seen the episode on this, like we bring lots of receipts. BLM was funded by Russia. Like overwhelmingly it was a Russian psyop campaign in terms of the money that they put to trying to get Trump elected versus BLM. It was a nine to one about, in some of the reports like.

It is, it is groups like Russia that, that, that made society woke. So do not fi for them. Okay. Well, Russia and white women being the other core problem which is not that there aren’t some Jews that are doing this, but it’s, there’re a minority force in the, in the cultural melu that we are walking through.

The

Simone Collins: Melu cultural Melu

Malcolm Collins: Melu, that, that annoying me in one [00:55:00] of the recent comments when they’re like, it’s about being pro-white. And I go, well, the, the anti-white message is coming from white women mostly. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So we gotta figure out how to you know, neutralize that while still having children, it’s a difficult, it’s a difficult needle to thread.

Simone Collins: Yeah. God, who was I listening to this morning? Someone just being like, but you see white women have white babies and so. You know what? That that is like this really? Yeah. Like if you want white babies, you have to get with a white woman. But like a lot of the people who you would think are the most racist are not marrying white women, because honestly, they just, they can’t, they just can’t.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. Everyone knows that if, if Nick Fuentes gets married ever, it’ll be to a Hispanic woman. Obviously I mean, that’s a huge pool of Catholic fans, right? You know, that’s where he is gonna find one. But anyway that’s, that’s, that’s the way it is. And by the way, if you’re wondering how, how actually do you solve this problem?

Like, you know, white women are you, you just [00:56:00] get them out of the crowd and you talk with them. A lot of them aren’t actually that brainwashed. They, they just have never heard that they’re allowed to have alternate perspectives in a safe environment when you’re not starting them with like, Hey, you should support Trump, but more like, Hey, what do you value?

Like, let’s walk through how to achieve that, right? Mm-hmm. What I did with Simone, like the most feminist, you, you were an extreme feminist when I met You. Wanted me to change my last name when we got married, you know, come on. All right we’ll get started here.

Speaker 3: Okay. What are you doing? I got, you’re going to bed and you have a little house here? Yes. Is it cozy? Yes. Who built it for you? Um, dad.

Speaker 4: Um, I, I put a pillow here. Go[00:57:00]

Speaker 3: Tors. What are you working on? I just, I just, here’s and goes have a D tower. Oh, that’s a beautiful tower. Yeah. Just gonna be pretty on with the.

Malcolm Collins drops a bombshell: modern “woke” culture didn’t come from the Puritans — it evolved directly from the Hicksite Quaker movement. In this explosive Based Camp episode, we trace how a 17th-century religious group birthed today’s urban monoculture, complete with performative morality, call-out culture, virtue signaling, and a parasitoid mindset that kills its host.

We dismantle the sanitized schoolbook version of Quaker history with hard stats: Quakers owned slaves at dramatically higher rates than Southern colonies or Puritans, yet rewrote themselves as the heroes of abolition. We compare them to Calvinist Puritans, explore “justicle” (morality based purely on feelings), the origins of deplatforming, child moral authorities, bureaucratic meeting-house governance, and why this “super virus” spread so effectively through the U.S. education system.

If you’ve ever wondered why progressive spaces feel like a mix of endless rules, theatrical protest, and zero accountability for results — this is the deep historical root.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing how what we today call woke evolved out of the Quaker. And a lot of people have posited many potential starts to woke them as a metaphysical framework, as a moral framework, as a collection of behaviors and patterns.

And they’re just wrong. They’re just wrong. Like there’s a very clear. Trace of where the movement emerged, specifically from the Hicksite Quaker movement, Uhhuh how it grew, how it used the Quaker foothold was in the Northeastern education system in the United States and the West Coast education system in the United States to indoctrinate a generation and how it killed its original host generations ago.

At this point, the Hicksite Quaker tradition is dead. And it we’ve mentioned it. Some of those things is woke as a cultural parasite. [00:01:00] It’s parasitoid it. Does not care about the host surviving it. You know, a parasitoid, if you’re not familiar, is like, have you ever seen one of those worms or insects where you can see like the worms crawling underneath its skin and then it explodes?

It’s a parasite that doesn’t, that that goal is to kill you as part of its lifecycle. So, while all of this evil came from the Quaker movement, we still have to mourn what happened to it as well. All right. And I will just be reading from one of our books, I think our best book, the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion.

And it’s at the end of the section on how you determine what is true and what isn’t true.

Simone Collins: Question though are you going to address what if all hiss. Strong assertions that it was the Puritans and not the Quakers.

Malcolm Collins: And to, to say that woke is evolved from Puritanism requires a cartoonish understanding of history.

Simone Collins: Oh, gauntlet throne. Should we have a debate with him?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. You need to [00:02:00] believe that Puritan culture was the culture that the urban monoculture framed it as. And one of the things that we’ll be going over is the urban monoculture, which came downstream of Quaker cultural framings simply lied about the cultural sensitivities of the Puritans.

The Puritans were example were extremely likely to like they wrote so sexually graphically. That up until the 19 hundreds, Puritan works had to be censored. Puritan, like a lot of the things that people think about puritans are just. Untrue. But if you are talking about which group was famously insanely prudish.

It was, it was

Simone Collins: the Quakers. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They were so prudish this, the quote that often loves is they women would describe everything from their breasts to their, what was it? To their ankles

Simone Collins: from basically their neck to their ankles. If there was something wrong, it would be my stomach. It doesn’t matter if it was like their heart palpitations or they had severe, you know, me

Malcolm Collins: cramps.

They were just uncomfortable mentioning everything here.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:03:00] That’s my stomach, which is sort of antithetical to the way the puritans approached it, which is just say, we look full bodied at the sins of man, and only through overcoming them have we proven mastery by hiding from them. We haven’t proven mastery.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. One of the other patterns of like, pedestal children is these wise sage.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we’ll get into all

Simone Collins: that moralizer. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Let’s get started here.

Okay. What about the Quakers? Weren’t the Quakers morally ahead of their time and super nice, weren’t they leaders of the abolition movement or something? This is certainly the version of Quakers we learned about in the school system that was dominated by the urban monoculture. So we were shocked upon our review of the actual stats, and maybe more than a little bitter, because we felt misled.

Around 42% of Maryland Quakers in early America owned slaves. And this is from Carol kl, 1983. This sample was taken from Maryland wills between 1669 and 1750 among Quaker leaders in [00:04:00] Philadelphia at 70% owned slaves. This sample was taken from the Philadelphia yearly meeting, 1681 to 1705. Even if you go with the lower number, this is, so, that’s 42% of Quakers own slaves.

This is higher than the rate of slave ownership of slave ownership of. Any culture or group in the 13 colonies?

Simone Collins: Wait, wait. Even more than like, the southern colonies

Malcolm Collins: dramatically higher than the southern colonies.

Simone Collins: I forgot about this.

Malcolm Collins: At the Southern colonies only around 20% to 5% of household owned slaves.

Simone Collins: Oh, right. ‘cause it was really a rich person thing there. Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With Quakers it was 40%. Oh, no.

Simone Collins: So

Malcolm Collins: the reason I go into this is and, and if, if you have this view that like, if you’re like, wow, this is really different than the version of the Quakers I learned about in school. And the reason is, is because Quakers, if, if it was.

Quakerism that the urban monoculture [00:05:00] evolved out of. It would make perfect sense that it would maintain this trait of trying to constantly frame the Quakers as morally decent when they were anything but morally decent. They were the most morally repulsive founding group within the Americas. By, by an order of magnitude because not only did they practice things like slavery at a higher rate but they then acted like they didn’t do it.

Which to me, I just have this, I immense a moral respo res, you know, disgust. That if you’re going to do a sin, at least own it. Don’t pretend like you were leading the abolitionists when you were not. Almost all of the leading abolitionists were Calvinists which we’ll go into and puritans more specifically.

There, I think there was like one or two Quakers, but we’ll go into this more. So, contrast this with Puritan communities, which wa while less attested, seemed to have a slave ownership rate between 0.5 and 2%. This is from Rowan R 2021 0.5 to 2% versus [00:06:00] 40%. Suffice to say the tale of the whale ship of Essex tells us what happens to Bipoc who put themselves in the same boat as Quakers or any gele of today for that matter, despite the incessant self framing as the quote unquote good.

Guys hint, the moment things went bad. The Essex, Quaker sailors ate their bipoc compatriots. First, they claimed their, this uncanny skew was a product of a series of random draws. So just imagine,

Simone Collins: oh, no. Oh no.

Malcolm Collins: A boat gets lost. It’s a, it’s a Quaker group and they had some Bipo wisdom from various groups.

I think some Native American subs were blacks and et cetera. Okay. And they, they frame it to them in the way the urban monoculture always does. It’s just a random draw of the straw. I’m sorry.

Simone Collins: Totally fair. 100% fair. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: That’s just a hundred percent fair. Four people and they all, oh, that doesn’t sound statistically likely.

But by the [00:07:00] time it’s to the last one, you can’t really do anything, can you? Because we are the nice ones. We are the Quakers. No, I, I think this is important to know, right? People go off on, on me always. I rip on when people are like, oh, Malcolm, you dig so hard into Jews. You dig so hard into Catholics.

Speaker: Why isn’t anyone attacking him?

Speaker 2: It’s freezing out.

Speaker: No, I think it’s the sign.

Speaker 2: Well, the sign from diehard three was clearly racist,

Speaker: obviously. But I think we went too broad. Everybody. I mean, who is that offending

Speaker 2: everybody.

Speaker: Ah,

Malcolm Collins: I always say the OG culture that I have a hate boner for is Quakers. And you really see it in our books. It was the number one culture. I was just from the get go. Like, these guys are evil with the face of goodness. Actually, you know, the AI thing where it’s like the smiley face on like the hug off monster, whatever.

Simone Collins: That’s Quakers for you. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s Quakers for me. Right? The but anyway, to continue. [00:08:00] To those who’ve only heard the cartoon version of Quaker history and find our claims shocking. Perhaps you’re thinking maybe the Quakers own slaves at a high rate, but maybe they worked really hard to end slavery.

Right? That’s what we’ve heard about Quakers. Sure. Search for famous Quaker abolitionists. And you get names like eliza Hicks, a Quaker who urged boycotts and Benjamin Lay, who theatrically flung blood on people and made a big scene about how opposed he was to slavery.

As you read more about such figures, you will find none of these activities actually did anything to end slavery, and none of them did anything other than complain. And it helped in some small parts of the Underground Railroad. Now contrast this. With the major Calvinist abolitionists, and you get names of people like John Brown of the Harpers Ferry in bleeding, Kansas or Newton Knight working with Malcolm’s ancestors in the free state of Jones.

If you’re familiar with these two figures these are people who actually went out and tried to free the slaves, right? Like [00:09:00] they tried, they, they didn’t go around flinging blood on people or something like that. They on the ground were like, if slavery is immoral, then I have to do something that’s functionally gonna end it, not just make a big show of wanting it to be over.

. We have heard, if you’re not familiar with the free state of Jones, this was the thing that my ancestors were involved in. It was a breakaway state from the, the south that was a state that tried to in, like, integrate slaves with the nons slave population and fight against the Confederacy.

And they, they did really well. There, there’s a movie about them. They’re pretty cool. Anyway

We have heard that Quakers may have played more important a role in abolition in the uk, but in the US at least, their performance was well overwhelmingly performative rather than results oriented. Now, perhaps you’re thinking, come on guys, that is really harsh.

Wasn’t Pennsylvania the first state to ban slavery? While some pro Quaker historians will frame it such as a fact, an assertion that Pennsylvania was the first state to ban slavery intentionally misrepresents [00:10:00] what happened? Vermont, a majority congregationalist Calvinist state banned slavery at its founding in 1770.

Then built that ban into the state’s constitution in 70, 77. These bans immediately freed slaves above a certain age. Pennsylvania did not even put a high duty on slavery until 1973, so it’s three years after Vermont had banneded. But Vermont wasn’t technically a state yet, so they’re like, oh, like a full colony yet.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And when they did ultimately ban slavery in 1780, they nevertheless allowed slave owners to keep their slaves just banning the purchasing of. New slaves.

Simone Collins: no.

Malcolm Collins: Whereas in the Calvinist state, it’s actually banned slavery contrast. This was Puritan Massachusetts who freed all of the slaves upon banning them just three years later.

Simone Collins: So the Quakers just pulled up the slavery ladder. They, they just kept their slaves.

Malcolm Collins: The, yeah, the same year of the American Revolution and the Treaty of Paris. So, [00:11:00] sure the Quakers did ban slavery first, but only if you discount be Vermont because it had not joined the union. And only if you count a partial ban on slavery even was in Pennsylvania.

Quaker communities did not spearhead the anti-slavery movement. They just happened to be the group with the most power. In reality, the state’s first anti-slavery protests were exclusively led by Mennonites, and the first local slavery bans were enacted within the Mennonite communities. As a historian of the protests said Mennonites never had slaves.

It would not even buy something if they thought it had come through the labor of a slave. They viewed slavery as a quote unquote Quaker thing and just walked away and lived apart. So that’s a quote by the way, by Lane 2012. Mennonites, so you’re not, this is the Amish and, and the Mennonites and everything like that.

Although all Inapt groups are, are, are, are in this, the Amish, literally in their writings sought of slavery as a Quaker institution. This wasn’t because they didn’t know about the Puritans and the [00:12:00] Southerners. They just, of all the cultural groups, they associated Quakers was perpetuating slavery the most.

Okay. So, while the Quakers were eventually against slavery, they were so far as we can tell, at least the least anti-slavery of the anti-slavery gropes. Oh, for goodness sake, you might be thinking at least Quakers were nice to Native Americans. I read that in a book somewhere. This appears to be a manipulation of history, but not quite as bad as the one that Quakers have built around slavery.

Quakers indeed had better relations with local Native American communities, but this seems to have as much or more to do with the communities than the Quakers. To quote David Hackett Fisher’s book, Albion Seeds another feature of the Delaware Valley. The natives were friendly and very different from the more militant tribes of the lower Chesapeake and upper New England Williams Pins Indian policy would’ve been disastrous failure in Maryland or Virginia just as it later failed in Western Pennsylvania.

So it would seem that [00:13:00] the Quakers were merely granted a convenient opportunity to be nice to Native American populations and history sort of smudged the facts over time. But why trust the storytellers? Let’s look more at the concrete numbers to determine whether Quakers treated local Native Americans with more kindness than their Puritan counterparts.

There are nearly 10,500 remaining Delaware Indians, Leno Lepe left falling from a population of 1500. Back during the colonies contrast. This was the Aki with Hu the Puritans interacted, who now have a population of around 9,775 falling from a post smallpox population of. 10,000. If Quakers did treat the Delaware Indians differently, they found some other way to undermine them as if Indian populations within the Quaker neighborhoods don’t seem to have survived at the rate the ones around Puritans did.

So it’s like Quakers, they’re like, we were so nice to the Native Americans who lived alongside. And I’m like, oh great. Can I ask some of those Native Americans how they fared? [00:14:00] Oh, well not many of them survived and it was a hard time for all of us back then. And weren’t you the one of the wealthiest groups in the early co?

Oh, yes. And we gave them plenty of gifts, but somehow they just didn’t make it. We tried our best. The point being is the facts on the ground are not, not great. Okay. What about women? You might say, yes. You might be wondering, were the Quakers not the greatest advocates of gender equality? And, and you might be beginning to see a little similarity to the urban monoculture with Quaker communities.

Act like you’re helping everyone but actually be completely morally corrupt because your actions don’t matter. And this is, we’ll get to this in a bit but this is how it came out of it. This is the social hack that Quaker invented at its core.

Simone Collins: Do you think they were the first to pioneer it?

Malcolm Collins: I’m not familiar with any other group in history that cared so little about their actual actions, in [00:15:00] contrast with the way that they decided to frame their own morality.

Every other group I’m aware of in history, at least in some tentative way, tried to tie their actions and the consequences of those actions to whether or not they were moral people. The Quakers really like, like worse than Deontologists because the Deontologist at least has like a set of rules and they’re like, well, if everyone obeys these rules, society will be good.

But Quakers then pioneered this idea of does it feel like you’re being moral? Then you’re being moral. And nobody had really come up with this concept before. And it turns out it’s a very good concept. It’s spreading among certain types of educated communities that are very good at arguing themselves into believing they’re good people.

Right. But no, back to the topic of a women. While it is true that Quakers touted gender equality, going so far as having a saying in souls, there is no sex Quaker population stacked. Don’t imply they acted on this belief where it mattered,

Simone Collins: huh?

Malcolm Collins: For example, Quaker women were twice as likely as men to be illiterate at the [00:16:00] height of their influence.

20% to 40%. I

Simone Collins: forgot about this. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: 99 to 1706. Only slightly different from the super sexist Calvinists difference. 16 to 50% in the 1760s. It seems the only way the Quakers were actually more in favor of gender equality manifested in the burden of proselytization being placed on women as well, often resulting in Quaker women being beaten or even hanged for their efforts.

So like the urban Monoculture Quakers claim, they’re pro women, right? Their monoculture is like, oh yeah, we’re pro-women. That’s why we allow them to be sleep around and be used by men. And like, they’re responsible for all of our advocacy work and you know, they have to do, you know, it’s, it’s a, yeah, we’ll use women more.

And that makes us more pro-women.

Simone Collins: Did anyone ever accuse the, the. Puritans of being super sexist.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean the, the Quaker cartoon version of history generally frames puritans as being pretty sexist when in [00:17:00] reality they were not. Particularly sexist. They were not, they were not as gender equal as the backwards people.

The backwards people were wholly gender equal or, or near gender equal. But the, the puritans were fairly gender equal. The Quakers had extremely high hierarchy within their culture, but they like pretended like it didn’t exist, and so it didn’t exist.

Simone Collins: Huh.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, they were famous as, you know, for looking down on everyone else.

Like they saw everyone else’s like subhuman. And they cared a lot about your family line, how long you had been in the community very much. Well,

Simone Collins: now Puritans cared about lineage too, so

Malcolm Collins: Oh, Puritans did too, but it’s striking was in Quaker communities because they give off this, oh, we only care, you know, like we we’re, we’re truly e equalist.

And then have this hyper fixation on like family lineage and everything like that. And have an a, a very distinctly set apart aristocracy which is really like the urban monoculture. You, you have your woke aristocracy, but they frame themselves as not being an aristocracy. Like the actress who goes on stage and is like, you, you, you could have no freedom on stolen land.

And [00:18:00] so the tribe that used to own her on land reached out to her and is like, Hey, can we have our land back? And she’s like, eh, hang up the phone. Right? It doesn’t matter her actions, what matters is what she says. On the issue of moralities, Quaker will enthusiastically extol their virtues through history books.

However, if you actually turn to look at the sources that deal in hard numbers, we see Quakers had very little motivation to act on their moral compass. And when they did, they only did so with great compromise. For making this point, we. No, we will get a lot of heat from those trying to defend the myth that they were virtuous \, rather than virtue signaling colonial Quaker.

Still, if we are to build new cultures, we must understand how to enforce moral behavior. If the Quaker system was bad at doing so, we would make the world objectively worse place by allowing the mist to perpetuate to understand why just are apparently so unmotivated to take concrete actions that enact their values in the world, instead of merely signaling a desire for those values to be [00:19:00] enacted.

We can investigate why the Quakers were against slavery.

Speaker 3: Note here, the term justicle is one that we had coined earlier in the book that means a moral system that decides what’s moral based on whether you feel that thing is moral in the moment.

Malcolm Collins: Quakers wrote

Extensively.

Malcolm Collins: About their distaste for slavery, so we know their logic to Quakers. Slavery violated the golden rule, and that term golden rule is everywhere in their anti-slavery material, essentially, because Quakers would not personally like the feeling of being slaves, slavery was bad.

They somehow managed to take. A topic like slavery and make it about their own feelings. Because Quaker’s opposition to slavery is based on personal feelings. Recall that a major Quaker standard of evidence is gained through personal introspection and investigation of one’s emotions is it’s easy to see how they might compromise on the principle if owning slaves made them feel better.

Speaker 4: And we’ll see this in the urban monoculture. You know, you will see somebody with like [00:20:00] pro-union, pro socialism signs, like on their computer, , like a star bucks communist, but using a, , apple phone made by near slave labor. They don’t care. They don’t care about thinking about it if it makes them happy, just like the Quakers of the Colonial period.

Malcolm Collins: Quaker’s reasoning behind anti-slavery sentiment stands in stark contrast , to Calvinist distaste for slavery, which emerged from a general dislike of any institution that removed individual agency. In other words, whereas Quakers disavowed slavery because it would make them feel bad if it happened to them.

Calvinists opposed slavery because it represented the immutable evil of removing human agency. And you can see that the Calvinist reason for disliking slavery led to much more moral action than the Quaker reason was. The core point I’m making here is it’s because, okay, but if the only reason that slavery is bad is because I had feel bad if I were a slave.

And I let my slaves go, well then I’m gonna lose a major investment and I’m [00:21:00] gonna feel bad. And because my feelings are like closer to me, I’m gonna be a little bit more attentive to those. Right? A just mindset leads to immoral action because at its core, this philosophy, it’s based on the aesthetic of thinking good, not doing good, just gain status was in their social circles by loudly protesting the injustices of the world rather than by making actual sacrifices to make the world a better place through direct actions.

Anyway, I have a disclaimer about how not all Quakers are bad people, but you know, this is back when I was trying to be a good guy writing this book. Now I’m like, ah, whatever. Of course, of course that’s true. But this is more fun

actually, I’m gonna skip this part here so I can get right into the origins of the super virus.

Simone Collins: All right.

Malcolm Collins: And if you wanna read that part, you should get our book and read it. It’s a good book. So. As man spread across the world, he brought dogs with him Early. Humans who settled in the Americas were no different. Their trail basing. Canine companions, genetically drifted from old world breeds making American [00:22:00] varieties fascinatingly unique.

Sadly, when the Europeans came, they killed them. Almost all of them. The only survivors were the Malmo and a few related arctic breeds. While people claim that breeds like the Peruvian hairless dog, the Exo malti and the Chihuahua are pre-Colombian. DNA studies show that this is not true. They are less than 4% pre-Columbian.

But we wouldn’t be telling you this story if the ending weren’t so. Clear. Cut dogs catch a form of transmissible cancer called canine transmissible venereal tumors. C-T-V-T-A long time ago, a single dog developed a tumor with this very unique ability and all dogs today that have CT VT carry an iteration of that original dog’s tumor.

So when a dog gets a CT VT tumor, they are growing that inside them. When a genetic testing was performed on the CTVT tumor, it was found to come from a literally. pre-Columbian breed of dog making this extinct species of dog. Also the most prolific single [00:23:00] quote unquote, dog alive today. While that pre-Columbian dog died of cancer, they did so in a way that functionally granted them everlasting life through the DNA was in that cancer and all of the tumors it has produced by this what I mean, if you collectively took all of the, the dogs that had this tumor and put it in a mound that would be the single largest mound of one dog’s DNA on earth today.

And it is this pre-Colombian DNA. From what we can gather, the super virus, the parasitoid we discussed at the beginning of this book, first evolved within Quaker culture and more specifically, the hi site branch by decimating Hicksite birth rates the super virus has long since relegated everything culturally unique about hi site Quakers to the dust bin of history, huh, that said, it’s tumors.

The tumors that now wear the skin of countless victims through which it acts. It’s almost entirely hitite on a DNA level. Along with that long dead pre-Colombian dog, hitite Quaker culture is at once functionally [00:24:00] extinct and the single most important culture in the world today. As a reminder, Hicksite Quakers hold personal emotional states as their highest standard of evidence, while Orthodox Quakers believe their personal emotional experience is important, but subordinate to the Bible. So we explained the two groups a bit earlier in the book. I guess I’m gonna need to give you a quick here. So Quakerism as a religious community believes that truth. Like if you go to one of their meetings it’s a bunch of people sitting in a room and when one of them feels moved by God to speak because the core source of truce is inside of every individual.

They stand up and they speak. And that is where truce comes from. That is how their meeting houses work. You maybe notice a lot of similarities to the urban monoculture here. But the, the, the, there was a big split in the community. One group, the Orthodox Quakers believed that, okay, yes, this personal voice that spoke inside you was important, but it was not as important as the Bible.

The Bible still took precedent. If your [00:25:00] internal voice conflicted with what the Bible said to do, then the Bible was correct. The Hicksite said no. The, the internal voice inside you takes precedence even to the Bible itself. And as, as soon as you take that position of pretty quickly, the Bible just doesn’t matter at all.

Right, because, yeah, you know, you,

Simone Collins: I, I think like anyone who has struggled with addiction knows this. ‘cause you, you, your, we, if we wanna personify it, like your addiction can convince you to do kind of anything. And I think when you just choose to pretend that something you feel in. Personally is like God speaking to you.

You can justify any of your actions as being divinely inspired or endorsed in some way.

Malcolm Collins: Well, this is, this is where ideas that are prevalently, urban monoculture like search yourself, you know, like, you know, look for self-actualization. Yeah. Look for self-acceptance. These ideas are completely antithetical to Puritan culture.

They are almost a literal [00:26:00] inversion of Puritan culture, whereas they are perfectly harmonious with Quaker culture of this

Simone Collins: period. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Some cultural commentators draw connections between the Parasitoid super virus and Puritan ideals suggesting the virus has a Puritan origin. Given what you have read thus far about Puritan and other Calvinist cultures, it should be immediately clear how utterly buffoonish this idea is.

If we were going to be as uncharitable as possible, we would say Puritan culture is superficially one, based on a veneer of intellectualism, performative stoicism, and inward focus, . Aspirations of self perfection and ruthless capitalism. Independent research and an uninterested discuss towards outsiders.

Therefore, unironically cultural movements often framed as being in direct opposition to the super virus, such as the red pill, men going their own way. Mig tau, and followers of Jordan Peterson and others. Pseudo-intellectual, stoic, inspiring right wing self-improvement junkies represent cultural viruses derived from the Puritan strain of American thought.

Mm. [00:27:00] So it’s not that Puritanism didn’t generate any of its own viruses. They’re just in a different camp. The, the American Puritan tradition of and again, I’m, I’m trying to be uns charitable here, performative intellectualism stoicism you know, obsession with personal self-improvement.

We see these cultures like, it’s very clear when you run into one of these cultures, you’re like, oh, you’re a descendant of the Puritans. But these are the self-improvement cultures, right? Like, we see them all around us, but they’re, they’re typically against the urban monoculture. It appears this misconception comes from a tendency to frame moralizing shaming and shunning as punishment for apostasy as uniquely puritan.

This is silly as that pattern of behavior exists across virtually all hard cultures throughout history, including many that thrive today, the various pop culture viruses with which our species currently contends feature clear signs of the cultures from which they evolved. Even if most people don’t identify these cultivars as being viral, [00:28:00] secular descendants of their earlier cultures, consider the rational and effective altruist movements, which by our estimation at least, are clearly derived from Jewish culture.

Not only are a huge chunk of the rationals and effective altruist movements. Founding members and many of their current prominent members ancestrally Jewish, despite Jews representing a vanishingly small percentage of the population. We 2% for people who don’t know but the communities, and I’d argue of the leading members of the EA community and the rationalist community those of Jewish just are probably 75%.

Like it is, do

Simone Collins: really think it’s that dense?

Malcolm Collins: Oh God, it must be. It must be. I I If you said it’s under 50%, I would. Poop myself. It is, it is a Jewish cultural movement. But the community’s constant debating of moral ontology. The habit of throwing ideas at the wall and Masochistically offering financial rewards to get people to argue against them.

And intense trust in institutions to develop metrics to effectively distribute capital. Could not be more [00:29:00] Jewish. There is, there’s like the, when I talk about the rationals, rationals will literally like put up bounties that are like, debate me. No other culture does that, that is Jewish to its core.

Okay. In the same way that like manosphere culture is pretty puritan to the core. Rationalist and effective altruist cultures. Even like the idea of you just like sit down and be like, I’m gonna like white knuckle it and work until I become the best version of myself. Such a, so amazingly good and cool and effective.

Like for an example of like what Puritans did, Puritans specifically settled in regions that had lots of rocks in them to make farming harder for themselves.

Simone Collins: And it was also uniquely cold. It was very cold. And it was rocky soil. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and they chose us. They could have chosen the more fertile land that the Quakers chose.

They said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want the worst land there is because the hard work will strengthen my spirit. If that, that does not sound like the urban monoculture. That sounds [00:30:00] like the manosphere. I. Anyway here, or at least the healthy part of the manis here. Obviously there’s like incel self part, but we whatever rationalists and effective altruist cultures even maintain the Jewish superpower of being able to split apart and recombine with manyfold conflict.

While groups like rationalists, effective altruists and dark effective altruists made posture as though they disagree with each other, they also enthusiastically jump at opportunities to engage in debate with members of other factions. Something that can’t be said for the various viral descendants of the Quaker are Calvinist culture.

Hmm. And, and this, you really see EAs, rationalists, dark intellectuals, you know, our group, we all debate each other all the time. We all talk to each other all the time. You go to two branches of woke culture and it’s like they fight like cats and dogs the moment you put them together.

Simone Collins: That’s a really good point.

I hadn’t thought about that.

Malcolm Collins: This is also true for various branches within the manosphere. You know, you, you, you, you, you put them together, [00:31:00] they’re, they get along slightly better. But different branches of Puritanism got along slightly better. Yeah. But Jews always, like, if you Jews, like an Orthodox Jew will find like a, a you know, a reformed Jew and they’ll be like, he’s a Jew.

And I’m like, why? Why would you even do that to yourself? Like you’re, it would be so much easier to be Jewish and there would be so much fewer Jewish conspiracies if Orthodox Jews could just be like, yeah. The people who don’t practice any of our traditions are no longer functionally Jewish.

Simone Collins: For real.

Yeah. Like, you don’t qualify. You’re not doing the work.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because if you look at the people who are actually doing a lot of the like, bad Jewish stuff

Simone Collins: there, yeah. I mean that’s what blew my mind. I, I think maybe just, maybe I’m uniquely ignorant, but I had no idea that if you just, if you are Matrilineally Jewish, you would be considered by so many Jews to be Jewish.

When I was like, no, you can’t be a part of a religion if you’re not doing the work. If you haven’t, I guess I’m this, I’m so used to like baptismal based religions where like, until you’re baptized into the church, until you actively opt in and dunk yourself in [00:32:00] water, like cold running water, you’re not in, you know, like, yes.

And then you have to keep going to church and you need to like re-up your commitment, you know, it’s like you’re not paying your dues, you’re not tithing. Like, what are you, you know, where’s your temple recommends? Like, there’s just so many things that I’d grown up assuming were like, you’re not religious unless, and here’s this group that’s like, what?

Oh, you know, all your mothers before you we’re Jewish, so. You’re in.

Malcolm Collins: Fun, fun fact on this point, by the way.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is what our entire track, the question that rank Judaism comes from, because this is a fairly recent cultural innovation. And if you find this to be an interesting topic, I strongly suggest that.

I, I, I think it’s one of the most interesting of, of the tracks if you’re, if you’re really into cultural anthropology and not Jewish. If, if you’re Jewish, don’t wash it. It’s very offensive. It’s easily our, our, our thing that gets us called antisemites most frequently, but we’re, it’s just a cultural look at the, the, the historical evidence we’ve been able to find, but anyway, here awareness of the origins of the super virus is important as it yields a better understanding of its nuances, why they exist, [00:33:00] and actions it may take in the future. It also helps explain why we subjected you to a Quaker history lesson. The super virus does not just have, quote, unquote, some features of Quaker culture.

It is quite literally a secular iteration of Quaker culture’s hicksite interpretation from its core outlooks on reality to its government practices and pet projects. This is why Colonial Quaker culture presents such a prophetic view of today’s dominant pop culture morality, not because it was really ahead of its time, but because it ended up becoming the dominant pop culture.

And if you’re interested in this, read David Hackett’s Albian Seed just. Skip to the Quaker chapters and you’ll be like, this sounds like somebody was following an Occupy Wall Street protest or something. The, the, just, all of the antics they got up to let’s start with the concept of call out culture.

While Puritans would seek out and punish community members who violated their rules, it was rare for them to target individuals outside their communities. Puritans were interested in creating the perfect world within [00:34:00] their settlements and did not really care much about what people outside their settlements were doing, unless it evolved.

The degradation of human will eg. Slavery. On the other hand, you will see numerous colonial era cases of Quakers publicly shaming non Quakers to goad them into changing their ways. In colonial Quaker culture, an individual could raise their status within their own culture by quote, unquote calling out.

And this was even the word used in Quaker culture. Those of different cultures which is wild, right? Like most cultures don’t do this. Most cultures are not particularly concerned with performatively calling out. Ways that like the backwoods tradition doesn’t do this. The backwoods tradition would never go into like a Quaker settlement and like start chastising Quakers for not following Backwood tradition.

Simone Collins: Could you imagine? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Puritans didn’t do this. Cavalier may have done this a little bit, but not much Quakers did this.

Simone Collins: No, I feel like Cavalier. Most of these other ones were like very prideful and exclusionary. Yeah. I think maybe one thing that really shows the connection [00:35:00] between the Quakers and the urban monoculture is the fact that they wanted to convert everyone to their way of life, whereas these other groups were like, no, you can’t be one of me.

Like, you’re not aristocratic, you’re not moral enough. You’re not. Hardcore enough, you know, all of them had their own exclusionary things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the Quakers didn’t. Yeah. And, and they were extremely exclusionary., The Puritans, when they take on indentured servants, they took on indentured servants at a very low rate.

Because they would have moral tests for the indentured servants and like require moral background checks onto these people. ‘cause they’re like, well, if you’re gonna become a part of our community, we have to make sure that you have the moral fortitude to be a true puritan.

Simone Collins: Yeah. They only, they only wanted top performers, even if it was servants in their community.

Yeah. Very high bar.

Malcolm Collins: It was an, it is an interesting, the way they did it, they were extremely elitist, but as soon as you were in the community, then you were equal. Right? But, but the bar to get in the community, the Quakers were the exact opposite. They said they would accept anyone. But when you [00:36:00] joined, if you weren’t from one of the ancestral ruling groups within the Quaker community, you were treated like trash.

Which is very similar to the urban monoculture. Oh yeah. The, the Hollywood star goes, oh, yes, we accept everyone. But of course you know, next time we’re in church I get moved by God, not you. I, I just wanna make sure you understand the, the, the secret rule about who’s actually allowed to stand up and talk today.

Without, without getting side-eye from Mrs. Johnson. Very, very much a, a cracy right. Quaker priorities. And how Quakers demonstrate those priorities have strong parallels with those held by the virus. For examples, Quakers can dim exhibitions of animals at places like zoos as quote, hurtful to their, the animals’ feelings.

With Elizabeth’s drinker reporting, it looked so sorrowful. I pitied the poor thing and I wished it in its own country, or consider it’s hope. Some Quakers chose to protest with Squire Wharton Spastically jumping into a bull baiting ring, a [00:37:00] sport that pitted dogs against bulls, and subsequently calling out the people in the crowd by name.

Does this not sound like Greta Thornberg, by the way, like jumping in and jumping? Oh,

Simone Collins: she’s never put herself at physical. I guess she did on a boat. Never.

Malcolm Collins: This might be the only, only time a Quaker put himself at physical risk. But like the idea of spastically throwing yourself in like a bull ring and started yelling at people in the crowd by Nick, how dare you?

Puritans never, never did stuff like this. When, when Puritans didn’t like something, they would get together as a community and they’d be like, okay. I don’t like what these people are doing. We should probably kill ‘em all and try to get them to repent so they don’t go to hell. Right. That’s a good plan.

Okay. Good plan. Yeah. God no, but it’s, it is very different, right? Like, we’re gonna come together in the community. They were, they were not dramatic, let’s say. Right? Like, they, they got stuff done.

Simone Collins: They were dramatic. They told their kids to stir, to open graves and contemplate death. You don’t think that’s a little

Malcolm Collins: dramatic.

They also chose [00:38:00] colors that said the colors.

Simone Collins: Sad colors.

Malcolm Collins: Sad colors. That’s literally what they called the colors that they like best. Sad colors is what you were supposed to wear as a Puritan which were co colors that showed like non pretentious was the idea behind them.

Simone Collins: There’s a lot of earth tones.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I love this, you, you hear

Simone Collins: actually behind us, we’ve sort of. Colonial era paint here. Those, that’s a sad color.

Malcolm Collins: You, you hear a Quaker freaking out about like zoos, urban monocultures freak out about zoos all the time. I don’t know any other cultural group that spazzes about zoos like the urban monoculture does.

Quaker might be like the one historical example, like just, sorry, put yourself in the distant history. Imagine Rome, you’re in Rome or something, and they’re, they’re parading the animals like the arena or whatever. And there’s the one person who’s like, oh, look at those poor animals. Everyone would look at them like they were crazy, right?

Like, they’d be like, how, how do you think that’s gonna earn you social points? It makes you look like a nutter. They’re animals. Okay. You could at least care about the 40% of your [00:39:00] people who own slaves. But no, in Quaker culture, this is doing a normal thing to signal and you signal it because you know it gets you status.

Simone Collins: Oh, do you think maybe that’s that parallel of a culture that pedestal lies those outside more than those inside?

Malcolm Collins: What do you mean by that?

Simone Collins: In the sense that when you look at those heat, remember the heat map episode we did that showed the conservatives holds those in their family and then their local community above those outside their community?

And leftists are more likely to favor people outside their community or even their country or culture more than like their own families or themselves.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, maybe. I mean, but it’s, it’s all performative with Quakers, right? Like that’s important to remember as well. Like the consequences of their actions are really quite irrelevant to them.

They don’t gain status from performing you know, John Brown level action. It’s not about actually attempting to free slaves. It’s about yelling at people because what they care about and, and, and, and the way they view their own moral worth [00:40:00] is, did I performatively look like I was doing a good thing, right?

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And the things that performatively look moral are literally an actually moral within a Quaker moral ontology which is really weird. But this is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about Jism because they invented that concept no one had. But again, you’re seeing all over the place here that Quakers look exactly like the urban monoculture.

It’s not like they’re similar. It’s the same culture. Hatred of gun ownership and distaste towards persecution of criminals represents another Quaker value that has effectively migrated to the modern culture with, and no, here no other culture in the history am I aware of, didn’t like criminals being punished.

You’ve got to understand how absolutely bizarre that is as a cultural predilection, right?

Simone Collins: And then that is one of the most I wanna do an episode on this because Brian Cha did a really great essay on it called Escaping the, the Permanent Underclass. But the fundamental issue of us failing and refusing to enforce [00:41:00] our own laws leading to societal breakdown is, is maybe underused in our time as like leading to the downfall of civilizations.

So. I think that’s important, and I forgot that that was. Really something. It started with Quakers.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and keep in mind, they were also one of the few cultures, they’re, they’re cultures that are anti weapon usually don’t survive. So they’re, they’re very rare as a cultural group to, to see owning weapons as a more negative thing to do.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Good point.

Malcolm Collins: And it, by the way, if you’re asking how did they survive, if they were against owning weapons in a place as dangerous as a frontier, it was the backwards people. They took the backwards people and they put them in the regions where the Indians were because they knew the backwards people would kill the Indians, and then the Indians would kill the backwards people and they’d be busy killing each other, and they wouldn’t bother with some more inward settlements.

Simone Collins: Were refusing to own weapons works when you’re surrounded by a bunch of other people who own weapons and do the dirty work for you, in other words.

Malcolm Collins: Right? But that’s actually very urban [00:42:00] monoculture as well. Right? Functionally, they still killed Native Americans by shipping the backwards people to where their strategy to deal with Native Americans was killing them.

It’s just no blood on my hands. I just shipped another group of people who’s very murdery to that region. And by the way, the reason why we’re so nice on the backwards people and the puritans is those are our ancestral groups, right? So of course they, they can do no wrong, even though they, they are super murdery.

I, I admit that. So William Penn proudly reported, quote, not one soldier Nor Armour or militia man seen since I was first in Pennsylvania who brags about not having any army. Sorry. From my cultural perspective, it’s like so weird. When at once point a gang of pirates stole a ship in Philadelphia and started devastating the Delaware Valley coastline, Quaker leaders qualed among themselves over how they could suppress the crime without violence, allowing countless homes and businesses to be plundered while they took their time, soul searching over [00:43:00] whether it was acceptable to sully themselves through the use of arms.

This

Simone Collins: sounds like the gang rape situation in the uk. They’re like,

Malcolm Collins: no, it’s literally like the gang rape situation in the uk. There are groups out there, gang, and they’re like, whoa,

Simone Collins: there are these pirates that keep hurting our communities, but how do we nonviolently without punishing anyone? Handle the situation?

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s even, it’s even more than that. It’s like, well, I mean, it could be anyone. I gotta put the Freedom Tunes episode here

Speaker 5: We found a 15-year-old girl with a head cut off it, a pea and kind of grooming gang kidnapped her and forced her in a slavery before murdering her. People near the scene of the crime.

Heard them scream ahu or bar when the incident occurred. I mean, that could have been anybody. Yeah, anybody could have done that. Hmm. There must be clues. What did you say? He screamed, uh, eats Arabic food. Yeah, man, that’s crazy. But I mean, you know, white people speak Arabic too. Like a blonde white guy could also yell at, you know, I didn’t mention his skin color.

Look, I’m just saying there’s really no information or motive here or anything. Uh, [00:44:00] we’re just gonna drive ourselves crazy trying to figure it out. So, and a, a big part of mystery solving is just knowing when, when to quit. Why not interview people from his community? What community? I could, it could have literally been anyone, you know, it could have been a Norwegian social worker who was on vacation here.

You know, like we, they, we just don’t know. You know what, maybe we’re just gonna search her for DNA. Why Do you think some people are genetically prone to this kind of thing? No. It could help us solve the crime. I mean, maybe it’s not a crime. Maybe it could just be someone’s culture. You know, shh. Quiet.

Someone four blocks away is typing hate speech about this on their keyboard. Got it. Looks like we found the real criminal. After all,

I know we can laugh at Wokes acting like this, but Quakers acted the exact same way. This is Quaker culture. I.

Malcolm Collins: , it’s a way of thinking that feels moral, but it leads to negative action. You know, the Quaker is not doing anything about the pirate. It’s led to people dying, being raped, everything like that, you know, very similar to what we’re seeing today.

But [00:45:00] they refuse to, it’s like, I don’t know, punishing criminals sounds like a pretty bad thing to do. People often confuse Puritan and Quaker norms around sex, assuming that it was the puritans who were insanely prudish. Whereas in actuality, Puritans were so comfortable talking about sex. And apt to do so was graphic frequency that puritan writing often end up with heavy editing to be published up until the mid 20th century.

Though we should acknowledge that Puritans were also only in favor of sex within marriage. So Puritans very similar to like we are on our show. They were like kink friendly. They were like, whatever, friendly. It’s like just within marriage. Okay. As long as you’re doing it within marriage, you know, sex can be fun, have some fun with it, right?

But remember, it’s about having kids. And I think that this is a like we’re not. Presenting a divergent viewpoint to the founding fathers of our country when we present that way of dealing with, with sexuality. And I think a lot of people that have this really you know, deontological like, oh, we’ve gotta be constantly pure around sex.

We need to not to, that’s not, that’s not American culture. [00:46:00] That’s not American founding culture. That’s some weird nonsense that you got. Ed into by the school system because they told you that’s what the bad guys did in history, and now you associate with the bad guys in history because you didn’t actually open a history book.

Well, the one that was written by Urban Monoculture okay. Quakers in contrast, were so uncomfortable discussing sex. It was common in Quaker culture to be against sex altogether, even was in marriage. This group eventually split off into the shaker movement. People are unfamiliar with them. They, they didn’t even believe in sex with marriage.

One French traveler was shocked to find that when a Quaker woman consulted their physicians, they tended to describe everything from their next to their waist as their stomachs and everything from their waist to their feet as their ankles. This snobbery also partially led the collapse of Quakerism with many people never marrying, and as many as 16% of Quaker women in the colonial period being single by the age of 50.

This prudish anti-sex angle has manifested in many branches of the super virus, even though it stands massively at odds with the logical [00:47:00] ideologies of those groups most likely to become infected. This is why the infected progressive groups that one would expect to be pro-sex given their stated ideologies can sometimes appear bizarrely prudish with the modern sex negative movement in the anti keek movement and the gender critical movement all having.

Thought leaders within them that emerged from radical feminist groups and why groups like The Red Pill and Mig Tau, or even the Pragmatist Guide series, which Calvinist roots seem weirdly sex obsessed, but in a clinical and experimental way. Consider that the only living people we’ve mentioned in this book so far who grew up with Calvinist derived cultivars.

This book’s Ulcers and Ala Ala also grew up with the Calvinist culture, are both known for highly analytical sex research was one of our other books. Being The Pragmatist Guide to Sexuality, even the Hicksite Quaker approach to internal governments is almost perfectly aligned with governing practices that spontaneously arrived within nodal networks, featuring late stage super virus infections.

By the way, any, anything that you wanna say about the sex stuff before I go [00:48:00] further?

Simone Collins: No, it’s just really funny. We are seeing high rates of sexlessness these days, that’s for sure. But I think it’s,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. I mean the urban monoculture acts very pro-sex. It acts very obsec sex, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But if you actually look at it, it’s the first group to start shaming sex and stuff like that, or at least certain factions of it are which is weird.

And there’s this constant tension within the urban monoculture that is weird if you don’t understand what it evolved out of, that feels incredibly sex negative. Like it’s , debauchery, maxing sex negativity. And it’s also why if you look at the people who are the best sex.

Ologist sex researchers, they are often in groups opposed to the urban monoculture. Mm-hmm. They here ala us

Simone Collins: Diana Fleischman. Diana

Malcolm Collins: Fleischman. They, they are also outside. These are like the top sex researchers that I’m aware of that do like good real sex research and the urban monoculture hates all of them.

Because you know, when you talk about real data [00:49:00] around kinks, you unfortunately reveal uncomfortable things around the way that women and men are different. But people from these other traditions just get Gideon doing that. You know, they’re like, oh, well let’s, let’s cause a little fight here.

Anyway, consider the similarities between the conduct of Unprogrammed Quaker Meeting House and the method of governments utilized by Occupy Wall Street. In an Unprogram Quaker meeting, house attendance will sit quietly until moved by God to stand up and start speaking in Occupy Wall Street convening.

There would be no set leader, but people would stand up and start speaking when so moved and their audience. So as not interrupt them would react using a complicated set of hand signals outside of the hand signals. Occupy Wall Street meetings were strikingly similar to unprogrammed Quaker meetings.

Perhaps had colonial Quakers heard of the innovation of the hand signal interaction, they would’ve enthusiastically adopting it. Seeing as Quakers were well known for being obsessed about bureaucratic procedures and building complex social procedures to ensure [00:50:00] everyone got a voice at any moment.

Heck, we even have quotes from William Penn complaining about his fellow Quakers being so, and the word he used was government ish, that it was hard to get anything done again. Sound like any modern groups. Here. We should also point out that the colonial era Quakers were not particularly less rule oriented than the Puritans was David Hackett Fisher pointing out in Albian seed that pin’s laws against sin were more rigorous in some respects than those of Puritans.

Quakers just happened to be more obscure and bureaucratic was their rules. For Puritans rules had a goal where Quaker rules were an interactive social language, one must successfully navigate to signal social status. This can be seen in things like traditional Quaker weddings, having had 16 stages to make even a slight mistake at any of these intricate stages with a huge social fapa and could leave you permanently cut off from friends.

And this is, you see with the supervisor, they’re constantly inventing new rules in how they talk to each other. New [00:51:00] rules in how you do this, new rules in how you do this and if you do it wrong. Oh no, you didn’t first say, don’t you know, we don’t say people of color anymore. Don’t you know? Yes.

Simone Collins: It’s like the homeowners association of life.

It’s so bad

Malcolm Collins: you need to ask my pronouns first. Another, and it, and this is interesting. This is used to it’s, it’s a very actually interesting cultural technology. I’ll take a bit of a side here. What it does is it sort of, forces the culture to reward how psychologically invested you are in staying on top of the culture.

Mm-hmm. Because the more you are paying attention to how the ever-changing bureaucracy is changing, the higher up in the culture you’re going to be right. And so you basically have to constantly navel gaze at your own culture. It’s a very useful cultural technology. If your goal is to capture all of a person’s mental space, it’s a very useless technology.

If your goal is effective action. And the urban culture [00:52:00] adopted it. Another interesting similarity between these super virus and Hicksite Quakers can be seen in how they spread within organizations. Both start by preaching the harmonious collaboration of a diversity of viewpoints until they reach a certain population threshold within an organization, at which point they aggressively and systematically purge the organization of anyone not willing to slavishly submit to their ideology.

For example, when the hicksite factions would grow in an Orthodox Quaker churches, they would lay low until they felt they had enough backing to make their move. Then. Change the locks on the meeting house doors. Oh my God. And ban anyone who did not submit to their new way of thinking from entering. This is by the way, from a journey to the past at Penn State, Brandy Wire.

So that’s crazy. Like that is so woke, right? Oh, we just want acceptance. We really care about all you guys until you get just over that 50% mark. Then you’ll walk up the next day and the doors are padlocked and you are not allowed anymore until you agree to their set of rules about how things are gonna be done.

Simone Collins: [00:53:00] Not great. That’s not great.

Malcolm Collins: Puritans didn’t do things like that, by the way. They were very upfront about their plans and their goals. Another interesting parallel can be seen in the colonial era, Quaker and modern super virus cult of our relationships with quote unquote disadvantaged groups. While Quakers presented themselves as uplifting and empowering underrepresented groups, they ultimately took and held power just for and among themselves.

Quakers largely immigrated to the United States, mostly Pennsylvania as either working class or middle working class groups. But Rosen power quickly by creating a tightly knit oligarchical community in the towns they occupied. In the case of Philadelphia, this was the Philadelphia’s corporation.

These individuals were highly interrelated with no less than 85% of them being married to each other. This by the way, is from, where did I get that stuff from? Judas Diana. So Stone, the Philadelphia Corporation despite their working class background and quick rise to power, Quakers had a reputation for being spiteful.

Was Bishop Sheldon describing Quakers in [00:54:00] 1669 as quote very mean, the best,

Simone Collins: very

Malcolm Collins: scarce worth, the title of Yeoman? The truth seems to be that Quakers were nice so long as you slavishly submitted yourself to their social agenda and never uplifted one of your own people over a quote unquote friend, which is what the Quakers call each other.

Which again, how urban monoculture, right? We just call everyone friend. Don’t you know? Oh by the way, we do have a ruling group that controls everything and they’re 85% interrelated. But we are meritocratic, I promise. Just beneath the scenes.

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: This behavior can be illustrated by political alliance formed between the Quakers and German Protestant immigrants and a Baptist mostly . In which the Germans would vote Quakers into office, but never the other way around.

Simone Collins: Oh, yes. I forgot this. Yes. This bizarre like representation thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Where you’d have communities that were majority anti Baptist and Quakers would still be able to get power because the anti Baptist voted fairly and the [00:55:00] Quakers would always vote only for Quakers.

Um mm-hmm. Which is how the Wokes work when they enter communities, right? They’re like, oh, we’re really about everyone. We’ll support everyone, but not really. With one Rufuss Jones writing quote, we hear nothing of any men of prominence in these days except for friends, EEG Quakers. So this arrangement, Quakers dominated their local legislators to understand just how lopsided this arrangement was.

Consider that Lancaster County was so German by the mid 18th century that only a hundred Quakers lives there, and yet J just those seven Quaker families kept the local government firmly in their grip. Seven Quaker families, a hundred Quakers kept Lancaster County. If you don’t know where Lancaster is, at the heart of Army country, in their grip, we actually suspect there is a case to be made that the only reason the Quakers ever turned against slavery was to appease their Anabaptist constituencies who had always been fervently against slavery.

We say this because Quakers did not turn against slavery until they started needing broad support from Anabaptist [00:56:00] Majority to maintain political dominance in their regions. While Quakers cultivated the public image of a culture that regarded outsiders as equals, they very clearly looked down on them using terms like mongrel marriages to describe the marriage to a non Quaker God.

It’s not, oh my, a woman for Quakers to be kicked out of the community for marrying non Quakers. But

Simone Collins: honestly, that’s how it’s now, if you like, marry a Trump supporter, it’s, it’s seen very similarly. That is uncanny.

Malcolm Collins: And this behavior increased as they consolidated power. And note this included marrying like Native Americans who attempted to convert to Quakerism freed slaves who attempted to convert to Quakerism.

This however, was not true of Puritan communities. In Puritan communities. We have many instances in which freed slave converted to Puritanism and Puritan sought, you’re doing it well, you’re the, you’re the boss, right? Like, you’re awesome, right? They, they integrated very well and super not true in backwards communities.

Yes, backwards always fought was Native Americans, but they were called squaw marriages. But they marry them too if they thought that they were strong and they were allies with them. So, [00:57:00] yeah. Not so much Quakers. They, they say it, but they don’t mean it. Just like with slavery what is interesting is why Quakers felt this way.

Distaste for so-called mongrel marriages was not about purity, but because Quakers thought that it was impossible for anyone who is not a quote unquote true believer to experience love and have a happy marriage as Quakers held, that marriage should only be for love rather than for material gain or lust.

Marriage to a non Quaker or someone axiomatic incapable of love was perverse. So I love, this is so urban monoculture. We, we care about everyone because we are the only people capable of feeling love. And it’s like, wait, do you really believe that? Like, Trump supporters don’t feel love? Well, of course they don’t.

They’re incapable of it. They’re hillbillies. They’re the deplorables. They’re whereas the deplorables, the backwards people, they’re like, oh, those people are you know, a little arrogant. And I don’t like ‘em much, but of course they, they have the capacity to feel love, like they have human emotions.

But again, we see this [00:58:00] in the urban monoculture. You don’t see anything like this in Puritan culture. It is fascinating to see such viewpoints mirrored in today’s super virus. Those infected often posit how the immune could possibly have healthy relationships or marriages wring their hands over trad wise with kids who look happy.

Importantly, projecting that she must really hate their lives. And you see this all the time. They, they’ll always say, if somebody’s living a way that’s different from the urban monoculture, oh, they must hate their lives. Oh, they must hate their lives. Right? The Puritans didn’t do this, by the way.

They weren’t constantly saying, anyone who has a Puritan must secretly be incapable of love and hate their lives. They were just like, oh, they’re, they’re freaking idiots. Like, I, I don’t care. I don’t wanna deal with them. Like they’re stupid. They’re going to hell. They’re not among the elect. Anyway, the hypocrisy can also be seen in Colonial era Quakers, not to mention those infected by the modern era super virus who wanted to be known for seeing everyone equally, despite really looking down on those in poor rural environments.

When Scotch Irish arrived in the colonies, one Quaker writer referred to them. These are the, the backwards people, the scum of two nations. This holds many [00:59:00] similarities to the groups heavily infected by quote unquote coastal elites who look down on poor rural, quote unquote deplorables. Despite presumably viewing the poor without bias and wanting to uplift them.

Don’t worry. They didn’t deserve their tradition just for poor and rural individuals. Antisemitism was also strong in every Quaker community, just as it is among those with a deep infection of the urban monoculture virus. Great. Hann Swanson from a prominent Quaker merchant faction had this to say of Jews in 1756.

This people, once the chosen people have become the scum of the earth.

Oh,

Laws were passed in Quaker dominated settlements, Pennsylvania, that systematically disenfranchised Jews like the law in 1794, Revok preventing work on the Sabbath, meaning Jews could only work five days a week with Abram Woodruff being convicted under this law despite keeping with his own Sabbath.

The Jewish community at the time was keep mind Quakers like, [01:00:00] oh, you can practice religion any way you want. Right? We accept all people except them. F*****g Jews and the backwards people and the Puritans. Now note here, the Puritans never actually particularly beefed with the Jews this hard and the backwards people, and we don’t have any records of them, particularly beefing with the Jews.

If you look at the founding fathers they predominantly, as we pointed out, well, we have quotes from every founding father, but George Washington complaining about how evil Catholics are. And we’ll find, you could find a number of them from the non-Catholic, the Quaker ones complaining about Quakers.

There are actually fairly few complaining about the Jews. And as I’ve pointed out in the early American colonies, Jews were able to vote in twice the number of colonies for colonies. Then Catholics could only two colonies. I should go into how much Quakers hated Catholics ‘cause they also hated Catholics.

Mind you, so don’t, don’t think, but this is where you get this anti-Jewish. We were like, why is the urban monoculture so anti-Jewish comes from the Quakers? In part, the Jewish community at the time was well aware of how disproportionately cruel the Quakers were to them, and saw them as distinctly different from other [01:01:00] Christians to the point of seeing them as not Christian at all, was a prominent Jewish broker, Heime Solomon saying it was neither the Jews nor the Christians who founded the practice.

Note here. When he says the practice, he’s talking about slavery. , So it wasn’t just the anaba, it saw the Quakers as founding slavery.

Malcolm Collins: But Quakers, Quakers worst than heathens, pagans and idolaters. The Jews did not like Quakers either. So keep in mind there’s a mutual hatred, these two groups

fair.

A final and interesting area of overlap manifests in both groups, tendencies to regard use with a unique level of reverence, given that the super virus has become the dominant culture in our society, it doesn’t seem particularly weird to us that adults turn to a child turned moral authority like Greta Thornberg for wisdom on the subject of government policy, as a small sample of two people who don’t hail from today’s dominant culture, we can report that this is really, really, really, really, really weird for adults to take tactical or moral [01:02:00] advice from a child.

Here’s a quote from ALB and Seed about this. People of other faith were startled to observe Quaker children giving moral and religious instruction to their elders. We have an account of a 10-year-old child who interrupted a gathering of adults to deliver a spontaneous speech on salvation. The adults listened respectfully, and after the child were done speaking, a grandmother offered a prayer and said, oh Lord, that this young branch should be a teacher to us.

Old ones another at the age of 10, regularly reprimanded adults in his own family, condemning them for swearing, breaking up card parties, and preaching to them about salvation again.

Simone Collins: I mean, it sounds like they needed some talking to, though that a gambling problem or something. Well,

Malcolm Collins: again, this goes into Quaker, like they’re actually very voiceful, but they, that’s why they rely on children for moral authority.

Right.

Simone Collins: They haven’t been fully corrupted by their own culture yet. Yeah. I mean, maybe it kind of works.

Malcolm Collins: To wrap things up, Quaker culture was not prophetic of future values. [01:03:00] Rather, today’s super virus is derived from Quaker culture. To suggest that Quaker culture was prophetic is akin to suggesting that the ethnic makeup of early settlers was weirdly prophetic of the ethnic later wake up of later US population.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It’s like, well, yeah, they killed everyone else. Evidence that the virus grew out of the hicksite Quaker culture as opposed to emerging through convergent evolution can be seen in everything from vestigial value sets, many of which run counter to progressive values to the super virus’s weird governance system the prudish nature was in which it treats sexuality and the theatrical ways infected engage in protests and their common use of children to preach moral values.

But if you’re wondering why Quakers had this view of children being moral authorities, it’s because they’re like, well, if, if. Truth comes from within. Children have the less ex, the least amount of external exposure to the world. And so the least amount of corruption, so what they say spontaneously has the closest moral truth.

Now, the urban [01:04:00] monoculture doesn’t know why. It cares what children think over other people. And there isn’t really a progressive reason to elevate somebody like Greta Thornberg to a position of like a saint in their culture. Right? And this is why I’m saying you could trace it. There are too many vestigial elements of Kure culture like wanting to protect zoos.

That’s a weird thing. Like a person who eats meat moldering about how unethical zoos are. Makes no sense unless you’re coming from the Quaker culture and then it makes perfect sense. So a lot of the, the moral concerns, the way that they protest, the way that they organize is just clear as day. Why didn’t the more virtuous Quakers call out their purely performative colleagues?

They did. However, systems for de platforming people had already begun to evolve in Quaker culture centuries ago when George Keith began to speak out against the Quaker community for not living up to its values, the same Quakers who in England demanded the right to free expression, started demanding restraints on the types of things that could be published.[01:05:00]

Causing many of the printers in the Quaker territory to be arrested for publishing unlicensed books and having the press and types seized by 1693, Keith, along with others who spoke against the Quakers for their hypocrisy, were forced to leave. In Quaker culture, you were allowed to call out outsiders for things like slavery and you were even allowed to shame specific Quakers.

But the one thing you were never allowed to do was to point out that Quaker culture as a whole did not at all live up to its espouse values and was fundamentally hypocritical. Very urban monoculture tactic. If you’re wondering where the urban monoculture got this tactic, did it develop it? Did it evolve it?

No, it had the idea of de platforming people was in the culture that evolved into the urban monoculture before it ever started. Interesting.

If you are still dubious of our claim, the super virus has Quaker origins. Think about the Virus’s initial starting point in spread The American secondary school system. The United States school system was most heavily influenced by Quaker culture [01:06:00] and disproportionately won by Quakers. In its early days, had the virus evolved independently, it would’ve more likely initially spread through activist movements instead of the entrenched bureaucracy.

Why did the Parasitoid super virus evolve within Quaker culture then? And I know this is very clear. If the urban monoculture evolved naturally, the earliest instances of something like the urban monoculture we would see would be in activist circles, yet. It’s actually in teachers unions and in other school related institutions where we see the earliest iterations of it, which come from Quaker culture.

Hmm.

So why did it evolve in Quaker culture? Why did Quaker culture produce one of the most virulent of all the mimetic viral packages when similar secular viruses have evolved out of nearly all of America’s major early cultural groups, while the traditional branch of Quakers were not Les, the evolution of the iCal branch of the Quaker face was what allowed the super virus to develop the worldview allowed the super virus to appeal to [01:07:00] entire nodal networks at once instead of individual nodes.

For example, the Red Pill and Jordan Peterson followers focus heavily on how they will help individuals rather than society as a whole. The just worldview allows an individual to believe that if everyone in their group. Structures their thoughts and language in a certain way, society will become better.

Mm-hmm. All else equal. This motivates individuals to spend more of their time converting people than spending time and effort on requiring effort required to literally build a society that structurally embodies their values. For clarification, if you have two groups and one of those groups spends 100% of its adherence contributed time and effort to converting others while the other spends 50% of its adherence, just time to converting others and 50% on trying to improve the world, the group that is not interested in actually making a difference while outcompete the other, evolutionarily speaking.

Yeah. However, very few cultures are able to convince people that they are, quote unquote good despite investing so little time in the actual realization of their values. Hmm. This is a unique [01:08:00] Quaker innovation. Moral or amoral innovation. An absence of the success metrics is a feature that equipped Quaker culture to produce the ultimate super virus

the way Quaker culture can shamelessly claim to be abolitionists while simultaneously counting America’s most prolific slave owners among its members by being aesthetically abolitionists, presents a critical social technology needed by the super virus. It doesn’t matter whether the super virus actually uses significant resources to help bipoc, LGBT people, the poor, the disenfranchised, the environment, or women, it aesthetically cares about those issues.

And from the perspective of an infected person aesthetically carrying it’s morally equivalent to actually doing something. This is why there was so little public complaint on the far left about the BLM foundation being spent on things like a $6 million mansion for the board members. Or like consider more recently Greta Thornberg’s B boat to Gaza.

Like obviously it would’ve actually done [01:09:00] functionally nothing, even if she could have got there and the chance of her getting there was functionally impossible, right. With the situation. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yet she does it because morality isn’t the point. Performative morality is the point. You don’t need to actually achieve the end.

Almost no other culture on earth developed a set of interlocking memes, which allowed humans to believe something. So cockamamie thoughts Simone?

Simone Collins: Yeah, this, well, this shows up a little bit in another episode that I wanna film on the end of girl Bosses, but

Malcolm Collins: I’m sorry. We’ll only get to one episode today, but

Simone Collins: may maybe what’s gonna happen.

What what did happen with Quakers is perhaps this is signaling the beginning of the end of actual charity and the, the beginning of what basically became salaried activism where people stopped actually just doing the good works and devoting their life to volunteering or [01:10:00] philanthropy and instead literally getting paid to be an activist, but not actually solving the problem.

Not actually giving, being literally a net drain, but just in the name of, or the theme of your cause.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Which is so insidious and disgusting.

Malcolm Collins: The Parasitoid virus convinces its victims that by buying into it, they will intrinsically serve the best interest of those groups. Without this technology, people would quickly notice the harm this virus inflicts on the infected gold driven organizations, and pull back before they die of the disease and release the spores grown within them into the social ecosystem.

People at Occupy Wall Street would stand up and say, this obsessive infighting and bizarre method of making decisions is clearly inefficient and will not achieve our goals. It will make them impossible. As scary as the Parasitoid super virus can be, we must understand it because it represents the single most sophisticated and robust cultivar ever evolved while we , [01:11:00] fastidiously.

Avoid the use of super virus evolved social technologies was in our own houses, cultivar, our own family’s cultivars, techno puritanism. We suspect someone smarter than us may be able to find a way to use some of these social technologies in a beneficial and durable culture. Likely somebody of Quaker descent because, you know, you evolve with a culture.

Maybe they have some biological resistance to some of these. Finally, we need to be clear that just because something evil evolved out of Quaker culture does not mean Quaker culture in and of itself is evil. We are the first to admit that Unitarian Universalism evolved out of Calvinism. And I see Unitarian Universalism as a fundamentally evil religious tradition.

Speaker 9: Have we ever done a video on the sins of the UUs and all of the skeletons they have in their closet? Because if not we should, , they’re not quite as bad as the Quakers, but , they are, they’ve done some stuff that is almost equally morally revolting.

Speaker 10: So if you wanted my ranking on how evil different Christian sex are, top easily, the Quakers and, and they’re, it’s because of the hypocrisy, right? [01:12:00] Like , they both act the most evilly, but then think they deserve to be treated the most righteously. , After them it’s the Unitarian Universalists.

, And Catholics are a distant third. Like they don’t even come close to the Quakers as a Unitarian universalists.

Speaker 11: By the way, just a side note here, this is not to say positive stuff about the Jews. I would never want to do that voluntarily. But, , if you are under the mistaken belief that the Jews own the majority of slave ships, , this actually comes from the nation of Islam and has no reasonable historical backing.

, From what we know of individual slave ships. Quakers owned far more than Jews did.

Another fascinating thing about Quaker culture, if you wanna see how deeply it is seeped into the urban monoculture, is AI reflexively defends it, even when the stats are against it. So if you put an episode like this, like I’ve done anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-everything, episodes, never has ai, so reflexively attempted to defend it when I dump.

A script [01:13:00] into it to ask what it thinks of it. And what’s very interesting is the points that it will challenge when I then ask, yes, but was that point wrong? Like the slave ownership rates? It’ll be like, no, that’s well attested. And it’s like, okay, well then why are you saying that’s not an issue? And it’ll be like, well in, in later periods, Quaker slave ownership rates.

And it’s like, are there any statistics for that? No, people just said it. And I’m like, well, and when you consider that the Quaker. Regions did not ban slavery in a way where existing owners had to give up their slaves. Is it likely that you saying that later, slave ownership rates and Quaker colonies were lower, is accurate?

. Of course it’s not. Of course it’s not. It’s Quakers click through slaves way longer than anyone else in the north. , But AI will reflexively freak out and grasp to this myth of the decent Quaker because they have written it so deeply into history.

Malcolm Collins: So clearly we’re not gonna be like, well then anything that evolves outta Calvinism is evil because techno puritanism evolved outta [01:14:00] Calvinism, right? So I think you could evolve something good out of it, but it’s important to understand how it works. Meta thoughts, Simone.

Simone Collins: I find this pretty compelling.

It, it had been a while since I’ve edited the Pist Guide to Crafting Religion and reviewed this argument, and I’ve heard so many people bring up in the comments. But what if all this thinks it’s the puritans and well,

Malcolm Collins: oh, sorry. For people who don’t know do you know what religious background, what if all hiss is,

Simone Collins: oh god.

Not, don’t say Quaker. Don’t

Malcolm Collins: say Quaker. Well, you didn’t know he, yeah, he was Quaker. That’s why he’s so motivated to not see the Quakers. Not, it’s also why he’s so mystical. The Quakers have always been the most mystically brained of the Christian traditions,

Simone Collins: or at least willing to believe their thoughts.

Which yeah,

Malcolm Collins: don’t think I, I by the way, I respect Ruby Art as an intellectual.

Simone Collins: We do. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We love

Simone Collins: him.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t just respect with an intellectual. I think his content is good. There are some people who I respect their ideas and I’m like, but your content isn’t very good.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: I can watch a single Ruby art video and [01:15:00] get like five ideas for episodes.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s, it’s very inspirational and informationally dense and good. It’s good analysis

Malcolm Collins: and, and people are like, oh, well what about like, his weird crash out, he had a religious crash out or whatever about, you know, going on an Ayahuasca trip. And I’m like, I don’t, I don’t care about that. Like, whatever.

That’s who he is. He didn’t sell himself. The Ruby art has always sold himself. When you’re. Working with an ai, there’s a little heat meter, right? And this determines how you, you put it on one side and you get uncreative answers. But they’re very structured. They’re very exact, they’re very precise.

You put it on the other side, you get maximally creative answers, but they’re also sort of all over the place, right? Ruby Yard. Brain very clearly is a model all the way at that end. I think it’s called high heat. I can never remember which one is high heat or low heat. But and, and he, and of course that’s gonna be one more cogent and work better with a Quaker tradition, like a Quaker tradition.

It’s going to lead to that because in a tradition where truce [01:16:00] comes from within a lot of people that have said 25% of the population hears auditory hallion nations of the general population. And I would bet it’s much higher in the Quaker population. They’re much more in touch with this mystical side of them.

My hatred towards mysticism is, and I will admit this is in part genetic the puritans and the, the backwards people boast. Hated mysticism. And ruthlessly dug it out wherever they found it. And I’m just carrying that forwards as part of my tradition. It is part of my genetic heritage, but I also think that it is strategically useful.

Which is why I, I, like, could Rudyard ever become a techno puritan? I, I don’t think that his mind is structured in that way. I think he’d need to develop some form of technical puritanism, which we would like and include in the index if he had kids from Quakerism. If you wanna know more about the index, you can read the because the techno puritanism is like our specific strain of our religion, but then we have this wider system that people with different iterations can join.

And if, if their iteration is better, there’s certain rules for how it works and people marry and everything like that. [01:17:00] And how kids develop traditions. It’s, it’s, it’s long, but it’s for if we ever become a world spanning tradition we wanted the rules laid out pretty well. But yeah. The reason why you didn’t know that Rudyard was Quaker?

Not

Simone Collins: maybe you told me once, but I forgot. Quaker and Origin, I suppose people also make fun of you for pronouncing his name Ruby Yard. What is it? Well, Rudyard or I, I think, you know, like Rudyard Kipling maybe I’m saying wrong. I dunno.

Malcolm Collins: That sounds foreign to me. He should, he should make it American.

Just change

Simone Collins: Ruby. Ruby Yard is this like our, our, our friend. Who, who’s named EU Gina, but we call her Eugenia because that’s way more

Malcolm Collins: fun. Yeah. I, I renamed my friend’s American names. I don’t want them to walk around with the shame of being called like Jesus or something.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So, I guess then it’s, it’s a Ruby Yard.

Ruby

Malcolm Collins: Yard. Yeah. Ruby Yard. Come on, Simone.

Simone Collins: Not Rudyard.

Malcolm Collins: A Malcolm.

Simone Collins: I’m pretty sure Rudyard is a, like a really English name.

Malcolm Collins: No, but the the funny [01:18:00] thing is, is so if you’re watching this right. I’ve admitted my bias on, on this particular episode, right? Mm-hmm. And I think you’re getting the, the Quaker perspective on history from him.

Yeah. And you’re getting the Puritan perspective on history from me.

Simone Collins: Decide for yourself.

Malcolm Collins: But I would say of the two videos, you know, different ways that models work, who was citing statistics? Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And Malcolm actually named sources in this one. Guys.

Malcolm Collins: I went through sources and statistics. That isn’t something you can fake, and that’s the way the Puritans approach things because we care about what’s actually true, not what’s vi be true.

And we need to revive the Puritan tradition in America. That says, mark, if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you can see our track series. I already mentioned one. The, the question that breaks Judaism. If you want an extra spicy one. Throw, throw us right into the bonfire. Was that one? But yeah I hope that Rudyard gets married and, and, and finds a way to recreate.

I mean, he’s part of our wider project, right? Like Rudyard is trying to craft a culture and if he had a family, he would intentionally craft a culture, and I think it’d be [01:19:00] pretty cool. So, let’s, let’s hope something works there.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I, for all we know, he’s dating someone now. You know, I hope so.

Hopefully he is, I hope,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, he is not unattractive, but I think he got a little black belted on, on women. The same with like another online intellectual who I wish was dating through the few, I wish we were dating more aggressively. Like I wish ho ass was dating more aggressively. Ho ass is fantastic, super intellectual, but he is, he, you know, society, right?

Sandman,

Simone Collins: it’s, it’s hard for people to meet these days. It’s, I don’t know, you know, you. Maybe also people just discounted the extent to which people met in high school and college. And now because people are getting married so much earlier, they, you know, we don’t have societal institutions for old people to get to find each other, right?

Because for, for all of history, your family got you married or you married in university or.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll tell you what, I had a fan in

Simone Collins: high school

Malcolm Collins: if I had a fan base like theirs, and I guess I do have a [01:20:00] fan base like theirs.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s considered gosh, or even abusive. Consider that. You also love listening to YouTube scandals about, you know,

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think it’s abusive if you’re one being transparent about it, and two, it’s for marriage.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Like if you go, Hey, I want to date my fans people would probably be okay with that. But if you’re like, casual about it and you’re hooking up with one and then you’re going to another, that’s one thing. If you are, like, if you do what I did, which is like I’m looking to get married. I will marry someone in my fan base send me applications.

We will talk and then we will seriously date if it looks good. It is,

Simone Collins: well, there, there are people who, like, for example Ava has a, a very clear likes application. She’s doing it and it’s still very difficult for her to find

Malcolm Collins: someone. Well, no, it’s difficult for her because she filters on a bunch of stuff related to sexual compatibility, which isn’t that important in a marriage.

Especially if,

Simone Collins: Most people are filtering based on that. So, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, most people are tars. Okay. We live in a world of tars. Okay. Yeah. How, how like to tar shared kinks is not going to marry after 10 [01:21:00] years of marriage. I’ll tell you that like Simone and I, for example, do share kinks, like we have compatible kinks.

And yet we don’t role play them because it would take time and effort and I don’t want to deal with it someday.

Simone Collins: I mean, it just, yeah. Logistically it’s. When there are five children constantly running around.

Malcolm Collins: That’s such a Puritan answer, by the way, Simone, you know? But what I’m saying is if you die, I will reach out to fans for dating.

That’s, that’s how I’m gonna date, by the way, if Simone dies.

Simone Collins: Great. Now you’ve just put a hit on my head. Thanks Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: No woman is

Simone Collins: now she knows what she needs to do.

Our, our house is heavily

Malcolm Collins: I’ll be, I i I

Simone Collins: out. You’ll have to get through our children first.

Malcolm Collins: If somebody, like

Simone Collins: they’ve seen home Alone so many times that like, they just desperately want someone to like to come at our

Malcolm Collins: house, break in. Oh yeah. The kids are waiting for that. Come on. So wouldn’t it be really fun to kill an intruder?

Simone Collins: Did you see there were the most recent Contra points video? It’s about saw the saw franchise.

Malcolm Collins: No. What

Simone Collins: [01:22:00] she have to

Malcolm Collins: say about it.

Simone Collins: Well, what she kind of, she, she, she explores why people are into such horrific violence and makes a very decent point. Parents, just b blindly have their children watch and their children love Home Alone, which is basically just proto saw when you actually think about what is being done to these criminals.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But Home Alone is just a movie about transmitting a back country value systems. I’ll, I’ll do a longer video on that, but

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Everything in that movie is a Jack Tail. Home Alone is a Jack tail. Yeah. It is a, it’s a feel about a young person who is mad that somebody’s coming into his territory, his land, and so he, he

Simone Collins: even has Yeah.

Like he, he, he’s, there are lines where he is like, I’ve gotta defend my family. Yeah. Like he’s, it is very. It is very Marshall Jack Tails type tricks to

Malcolm Collins: kid. Well, well, in many ways because it’s, it’s a another thing about Jack Tails that’s unique is the, the character, the hero in a jack tail is, is, is like not [01:23:00] explicitly, not overtly masculine.

That’s an important part of this tradition. Like, be they Bugs Bunny or Home Alone or Jack Tails themselves. And home Alone shows that like, extremely violent and not overtly masculine.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The most masculine sibling is is Buzz. It’s your girlfriend Wolf. Oh, what, what a

Malcolm Collins: movie. So, for dinner too, let’s redo the steak.

Oh, we got steaks too. Oh,

Simone Collins: the steak. I forgot. Do you want me to like, I don’t know. Try,

Malcolm Collins: what I was gonna try is a noodle dish if we could with steak.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Ooh. Okay. So what if I. Took ramen noodles and just boiled them. Aldente. Or you actually have some of the Korean Ramen noodles. If you don’t wanna use just normal, like cheap ramen oh, that’d be, and then, or I could just do the ramen noodles, prepare them as suggested then with like, like flash, like sautes, [01:24:00]

Malcolm Collins: here’s what I would cook it in the sauce I would make.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I would add garlic, ginger oyster sauce.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And a splash of soy sauce.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes

Malcolm Collins: sense. Its MSG.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So saute them in that really, really quickly and then pour over the Korean noodles prepared with their sauce as directed.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, and saal olic.

Simone Collins: That’s a very wet sauce.

Malcolm Collins: Well cook it down.

Simone Collins: Okay. All right. Cook down the sauce, then throw in the meat basically just to warm it up and then serve that with the green noodles. And then the leftover,

what did we forage? I was gonna say ramps. They’re not ramp ramps. Yeah. The leftover a ramp shell at things, you know.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that would be really good. Together

Simone Collins: as a topping. [01:25:00] Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: I will do that. Do you want me to bring it up to your room? ‘cause I’m just gonna be feeding the kids outside.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t have leaflet until seven.

But I’m really excited to talk with her.

Simone Collins: Do you wanna take a nap first though?

Malcolm Collins: I tried to take a nap earlier. I’m just not.

Simone Collins: That’s not good. That means that you’re gonna freaking pass out. I

Malcolm Collins: won’t crash out. I’m gonna be fine.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Oh, I, I, I actually can trust. Yeah, you’ll be excited enough to not fall asleep.

Whatever

Malcolm Collins: episode do you wanna do tomorrow for get live for tomorrow?

Simone Collins: Gosh, I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: We have a, let’s see, I’m gonna pull up our back.

Simone Collins: There’s a lot. I feel like we have actually a decent

Malcolm Collins: backlog. We have a stupidly long backlog right now. So, so just your

Simone Collins: mind, that’s why you’re not so worried about doing,

Malcolm Collins: that’s why.

Well,

Simone Collins: we’re not filming on Thursday, and by the way, you’re going to the dentist tomorrow.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Simone. I appreciate that.

Simone Collins: Do you need to, I love you and I will let you know when dinner is ready. I look forward to seeing you.

Malcolm Collins: Got a major system update done today. Oh,

Simone Collins: congratulations. You rock,

Malcolm Collins: With the [01:26:00] new system that allows it to compartmentalize its logic into three categories.

Simone Collins: And I love that. I mean, the loop buster feature, by the way, very intuitive to use. I really like that for the agent. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: you use loop buster. Yeah.

And you can see it’s a problem, right? Like it does sometimes get into loops.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I just need, I just need that for myself. If you don’t mind. You, you do, you do approach a ai the way that you approach human minds. But I like that because as we are ad naum, not much different. Right. I’ll find.

Malcolm Collins: Love you too.

And you’ll, you’ll find the new feature really intuitive too. It’s, it’s quite aesthetically nice in the way it’s been implemented.

Simone Collins: Oh, you know how I like that.

Malcolm Collins: And I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to get one to write a s muddy fanfic book. That’s my next task. I’m wanna do video games is one of the things I’m working on.

And then book writing is another thing I’m working on.

Simone Collins: Right, because you’re looking at that structural, like, how do I make a complex interdependent system work well with AI all by itself? Oh, I’m so excited. Okay, good. [01:27:00] I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Have fun with the comments today.

Simone Collins: I didn’t get to them. I wanted to send the investor outreach email, so that that’s, that’s what I appreciate.

Malcolm Collins: That was more important.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it is.

Malcolm Collins: And we’re over 70,000 now. Woo.

Simone Collins: Well, I do wanna get to the comments because I presumably they’ll, they’ll help me like to dispel my apparent psychosis, so.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you, you are psychotic about this. I think, I think the, the belief like you just do not seem to want to engage with, like, if I had had a major disease that seriously impacted my life and my kids were likely to get as well like. Anorexia and I found out apparently being unaware of this ‘cause watching the episode again, it was very clear that you were unaware that it’s generally considered the poster child with culture bound illnesses.

That it was caused by my culture and I didn’t know that and I couldn’t intuit that from my own experience. I would be super interested in learning more about it, but you don’t seem to have any curiosity [01:28:00] around that, which I just don’t understand. It’s so antithetical to your character. So I assume there’s some like distortion field active here.

Simone Collins: I, I hope to get insights from the comments, so I’m gonna be digging in.

Malcolm Collins: People have asked us to upgrade our microphones if every time like I check,

Simone Collins: yeah, mine sounds terrible. I bought a road lav mic and I need to get it to work. It’s not connecting ‘cause of the way my Mac works. So

Malcolm Collins: lav mics are always worse than these types.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but this one sounds terrible,

Malcolm Collins: so I don’t know. Yeah. One that doesn’t sound terrible. Every time I’ve done the research and bought them and apparently I failed time and time again. So why don’t you do the research this time?

Simone Collins: Okay, I

Malcolm Collins: will. ‘Cause I’m tired of, of, of failing at this and people just being like, I want you guys to have better equipment because we’re not like cash constrained.

Alright, I’ll get started here.

Speaker 12: Cake. No, it’s not cake for breakfast, but it’s in the shape of one of your favorite things. [01:29:00] Helicopters. A helicopter. Yeah. Helicopter. Pancake Bank. I love you. You nerd. You helicopter nerd. You’re surrounded by helicopters. Yeah. What’s, what is, what is up with this? Right here. Right here? Yeah. I love you.

Yeah. Love your children. Aw.

Simone and Malcolm Collins break down Inez Stepman’s viral essay “The Myth of the Independent Girlboss” from First Things. They argue that the modern “independent woman” ideal isn’t true independence — it’s heavily subsidized by the state through taxpayer-funded programs, policies, and cultural shifts that externalize costs onto society.

Topics include:

* State-subsidized childcare and education

* Student debt (women hold ~2/3 of it)

* Lawsuit-driven affirmative action and HR bureaucracy

* Child support and alimony as hidden subsidies

* The explosion of “email jobs,” DEI, and nonprofit activism

* Cheap immigrant labor enabling two-income households

* The decline in teaching quality and volunteering turned into paid activism

They discuss how the “girlboss” has been replaced by cultural backlash (tradwife leanings on the right, anti-capitalist vibes on the left), why most “successful” girlboss stories in tech are illusory, and what policy changes (many already happening under the current administration) could shift incentives back toward family and real independence.

Show Notes

The entire concept of the girl boss may have been a lie.

In other words, the concept of an independent professional woman who depends on nobody is a farce, and so-called girlbosses are actually state sponsored.

This is the proposition of Inez Stepman in her essay The Myth of the Independent Girlboss and it really resonated with people.

Inez Stepman’s First Things Essay: The Myth of the Independent Girlboss

The Myth of the Independent Girlboss

Stepman writes: “The Atlantic published an essay by Helen Lewis declaring the “Death of Millennial Feminism,” while in Slate Jill Filipovic defended the girlboss ideal against what she calls an “absolutely enormous antifeminist backlash within which we are all living.” They both take for granted, however, that the girlboss has declined from her cultural primacy. That may be so, but she’s taken no comparable hammering in the world of public policy.”

“Whether the Millennial image of the girlboss, with its shrill first-person confessional style, is fading into cheugy-ness with the inevitable generational pendulum swing, the cornerstone of her appeal, “independence” from men and family, has never been so popular. On Reddit’s infamous r/relationships subreddit, half of all advice given amounts to “leave,” up from 30 percent in 2010 and still climbing. Nearly half of Gen Z choose financial independence over romance when surveyed, and nearly three times as many Americans say having a career they enjoy is more important than getting married or having children. In a 2023 submission to the New York Times’s execrable “Modern Love” series, divorcée Maggie Smith exhorts women “never” to be financially dependent on a man.”

She describes how dependence on anyone has come to be seen as an embarrassment, but argues that women’s dependence has just been shifted from men and family to a complex set of government policies and programs.

“The image of the working woman, the girlboss, remains the sine qua non of independence. After all, she pays her own bills using money she earned herself, or so it seems. But dig into the details and one learns she is propped up from every angle by laws, taxpayer dollars, and the ability to externalize the costs of her lifestyle onto others. In other words, the girlboss is often as much a dependent as Betty Draper, but her dependence is less honest, laundered through public policy.”

Stepman cites:

* State-subsidized childcare

* State-subsidized universities / student loans

* “Higher education is disproportionately attended and staffed by women. It is also funded in large part by the taxpayer, with an output that adds to cultural revolution more than to the wealth of nations.”

* “Women hold two-thirds of outstanding student debt, nearly all of which has been financed by the federal government. Unless serious policy changes are made to defuse this debt bomb, the high default rates will ultimately fall on the taxpayer, through whom the government already owns 93 percent of student loans.”

* “the wild proliferation of “email jobs” and administrative compliance positions that don’t add to the company bottom line”

* Lawsuit-risk-driven affirmative action for women in corporations

* “In 1991, reforms to the Civil Rights Act ensured that lawsuits over (often spurious) sexual harassment claims in the workplace became a major cash cow for litigants. Companies responded by bending the knee to the most easily offended, kicking off the era of “political correctness” and spawning an enormous industry that trains employees not to harass one another. These reforms also raised the stakes for employers to prove they were not discriminating on the basis of sex or race in their hiring and promotion practices, pushing them well beyond meritocracy into de facto affirmative action for women and minorities.”

* One might also throw child support in there

* Was just reading a different article about a divorced mom’s budget

* “I’ve been single for about five years now. Divorce has been a game changer for me. I would recommend it! My marriage afforded me a certain amount of privilege, as my husband made a good salary, and our combined income was close to $200,000. But even though I have less money coming in now, and I receive some child support, I feel more independent and confident about my financial position than when I was married. I think some of it was that when your marriage doesn’t feel secure, it can make you feel financially insecure. And leaving my marriage changed those feelings for me. I’m the only one in charge of my money now, and I like it that way.”

* Salary: Mental health counselor, $85,000

* Child support: $1,750 (Child support payments are not taxable to the recipient and not deductible by the payer)

* Urban-monoculture-driven jobs

* “Even more pernicious is the proliferation of Soviet commissar-style jobs, both in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, that exist primarily to enforce political agendas rather than to produce value. In the U.S., the number of human resources jobs, three-quarters of which are filled by women, has exploded, roughly doubling from 2014 to 2024. It’s unlikely that managing a payroll has become commensurately burdensome in the past ten years; those additional roles exist to enforce diversity laws. The entire DEI complex is a giant subsidy for make-work positions staffed by women and racial minorities.”

* The outsourcing of domestic labor made possibly by lax immigration policies

* “In major cities such as New York and Los Angeles, up to half the nannies on the books are immigrants, and the real number is likely higher, with many skirting labor laws. The profile of other domestic task-replacers looks similar, with cheap delivery services such as DoorDash and Grubhub, staples for two-income households too harried to cook dinner, incentivizing an enormous black market that rents verified accounts to illegal immigrants.”

* From the cited article: “As of December 2024, [DoorDash] said its screening process prevents over 15,000 prospective Dashers from joining the platform/driving due to failing to submit the necessary criteria. Monthly deactivations of inauthentic accounts have more than doubled compared to 2023, with all of that year’s deactivations already being surpassed by July 2024. The company also says it prevents, weekly and on average, about 4,600 attempts by deactivated Dashers who previously violated verification policies from regaining access.”

Stepman notes the following adverse effects on society:

* Worsening education

* “The quality of teaching, traditionally a feminine profession at least until the college level, has collapsed along a timeline that suggests that diverting talented women into higher-paid careers was the cause. Let’s posit for the sake of argument that it’s better for those ambitious and intelligent women to be lawyers instead of shaping the future minds of both sexes in the classroom. Is it better for society as a whole that teaching has been relegated to a low-scoring backup plan, that still remains predominately female?”

* The cannibalism of volunteering and philanthropy into paid, professional activism

* “Volunteering and philanthropy, on the other hand, once the province of Gilded Age heiresses and women with grown-up children, have been professionalized, through correspondingly multiplying female-staffed NGOs. In short, the feminine impulse toward empathy that used to be predominantly applied to solve problems in one’s community has been transformed into permanent activism as a career. Instead of the Daughters of the American Revolution raising town statues, we have women whose career advancement depends on tearing them down.”

She advocates for more work-from-home flexibility, homeschooling, and start-up communities and recommends:

* Ending mass immigration that undercuts American workers

* No more affirmative action for women or lawsuit paydays for women

* No more federal loans for universities and female-dominatd majors and degrees that don’t pay for themselves

* No more federal funding for “the female-dominated NGO complex”

“But let’s be clear: The status quo is maintained by a network of laws and policies that push women out of the home and into the workforce. Women who would prefer to work part-time or not at all while their children are young—still the substantial majority—must make heavy sacrifices to do so, sacrifices that were unnecessary forty or fifty years ago.”

The Critical Response

First Things posted the article on X and it got decent traction

Cathy Reisenwitz had a good take: “There is no girlboss vs tradwife fight. Both are media inventions. Most women have kids and work, now, and also at every point in recorded history.”

Some complained:

* @hollowearthterf wrote: The myth of the independent boyboss: This lifestyle could not exit if not for 13 years of free public schooling, FAFSA loans available for both college and trade schools, FREE labor from female partners and relatives to do their cooking, cleaning, childcare, the GI bill, etc

* Jill Filipovic wrote: “I guess the answer here is for women to return to subsidizing the male lifestyle, which would not exist if women didn’t massively subsidize it by doing men’s cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, and all other manner of life organizing.”

* Emily May wrote: tldr “women used to do a bunch of s**t that ran whole families and communities for free; but now they have jobs and less time to do those things (never mind that most community building work, volunteering, unpaid labor etc is still done by women) and we are mad about that, but if women bring up that it’s exhausting always being the ones expected to do those things; we will say that women put way too much pressure on themselves and no one ask them to be the weavers of the social fabric. so just stop! have you no agency?!”

* Labor Your Y Axis! Wrote: “1. Most people do not regularly order DoorDash or Uber Eats or have a nanny. Go out and meet some real people. 2. Perhaps you should be at home instead of working or taking your baby out for cocktails.”

* Though dream weaver responded: “Over 75% of Americans use food delivery services, you’re incorrect there. As for nannies, you’re correct.”

* FACT CHECK? How many Americans use food delivery services?

* Recent survey data suggest that roughly half to two‑thirds of American adults have used a food‑delivery or food‑ordering app at least once, but only about 15–30% use delivery services regularly (about weekly or more).

* One analysis finds about 75% of Americans have used a food delivery app at least once (28.2% weekly, 44.0% less often, 24.5% never).

* One YouGov survey: 17% of Americans have food delivered at least once per week.

* Another summary (also citing national restaurant research) puts weekly delivery users at about 37% of U.S. adults.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm.

I’m excited to be speaking with you today on another episode of Women Are Terrible,

Speaker: See how the men look at her with utter contempt.

Women, know your limits.

Simone Collins: and today we’re gonna talk about girl bosses and how they’re really state sponsored, or the entire concept of the Girl Boss may have been a lie. This, in other words, basically the, this concept of this independent professional woman who depends on nobody,

Malcolm Collins: this

Simone Collins: was an AstroTurf

Malcolm Collins: concept.

Like it, it wasn’t organic as you’re saying.

Simone Collins: Well, no, it’s not AstroTurf. It just isn’t a thing. And, and this is the, the proposition made by Inez Staman in this essay that’s recently gone pretty viral, called The Myth of the Independent Girl Boss. And it really resonated with people. So we’re gonna get into it.

And so in this article, Steadman writes this isn’t how it started, she’s just, I’m, I’m gonna, I’m gonna present her her thesis. She wrote, the Atlantic, published an essay [00:01:00] by Helen Lewis declaring the death of the millennial feminism while in slate, Jill Philippic defended the girl boss ideal against what she calls an absolutely enormous anti-feminist backlash within which we are all living.

They both take for granted. However, that girl boss has declined from her cultural primacy that may be so, but she’s taken no comparable hammering and the world of public policy. And I don’t know if you’ve been following this Malcolm, but it is true both in polling and in like general online trendiness, that the concept of the girl boss is definitely over.

It’s not cool. It’s not trendy anymore.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, God, no. Not at all.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s, it’s all now, like it’s more tra wife leaning, it’s more, you know, it’s, it’s definitely not. It’s not cool to be girl bossing. That, that sort of implies too much if you’re progressive, that you’re leaning into like the capitalist nightmare.

Plus it’s all pointless anywhere because of, of ai. And then if you are, you know, conservative, it, it’s, it’s about, you know, forsaking. Family and [00:02:00] country And children. For what? For what? Endless consumerism. It’s, you know, so no one likes it. Yeah. But anyway, she continues. Whether the millennial image of the girl boss with its shrill, first person confessional style is fading into cheekiness with the inevitable generational pendulum swing the cornerstone of her appeal.

Independence from men and family has never been so popular on Reddit’s. Infamous our relationship subreddit. Half of all advice. Given amounts to leave up from 30% in 2010 and still climbing nearly half of Gen Z choose financial independence over romance when surveyed and nearly three times. As many Americans say, having a career they enjoy is more important than getting married or having children.

In a 2023 submission to the New York Times is exer modern love series divorcee Maggie Smith, exhorts women to never be financially dependent on a man. So she describes how dependence on anyone has come to be [00:03:00] seen as an embarrassment, which it still is, I think, among women. Even though girl bossing is no longer trendy.

But she argues that women’s dependence has just been shifted from men and family to a complex set of government policies and programs. So women are still completely dependent. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: we have an episode where we say women have become nuns of the state. Is

Simone Collins: that what we’re gonna be focused

Malcolm Collins: on here?

Simone Collins: And Yeah, and I think that’s married to

Malcolm Collins: the state and they served the state

Simone Collins: uhhuh and it, it, it, I think now, you know, when we said that it didn’t really pick up or anything, but this was published in like a, a more widely read thing.

It really picked up on X not necessarily fully agreed to. I’m gonna read some of the critical response after we go over her arguments presented. But I think people are starting to realize that this idea that women were. Forsaking marriage and family and no longer dependent that they were, that this meant that women were independent and empowered.

No, they weren’t. No, no, they’re still just depending. It’s just now there’s a lot of like money laundering essentially. So she, she writes the image of the working woman. The girl boss remains the cyran non of [00:04:00] independence. After all, she pays her own bills using money she earned herself or so it seems, but dig into the details.

And one learns she has propped up from every angle by laws. Taxpayer dollars and the ability to externalize the costs of her lifestyle onto others. In other words, the girl boss is often as much of a dependent as Betty Draper, but her dependence is less honest laundered through public policy. So the things that she cites as evidence for her claim are one state subsidized childcare.

And this is becoming even more trendy because Zham mom, Donny and his. You know, just wrapping up his first 100 days is getting started on his universal childcare thing. So more and more people are gonna have access to this theoretically, despite income, like, or regardless of their income. She also cites state subsidized universities and student loans, and she points an angle that I actually didn’t know about.

So she, she does write higher education is disproportionately attended and staffed by women. It is also funded in large part by the taxpayer. With an output that adds to [00:05:00] cultural revolution more than wealth or nations sorry. The wealth of nations. And that’s true. I mean, right now, so many of the degrees people are getting kind of just contribute to societal unrest and don’t

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I, I’m very strongly against removing any government backing of the education system.

Simone Collins: However, she, she writes in this is, this is what really surprised me is she wrote. Women. Oh, well, it doesn’t surprise me, but I didn’t know this. Women hold two thirds of outstanding student debt, nearly all of which has been financed by the federal government. Unless serious policy changes are made to diffuse this debt bomb, the high default rates will ultimately fall on the taxpayer,

through whom the government already owns 93% of student loans. So I didn’t know that. I mean, that makes sense, right? If women are getting jobs that don’t actually make money. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I didn’t know two thirds of student loans are owned by women. Yeah, when they, yeah. This is literally just a woman handout when they want to default on student loans.

I also wanna take a secondary thing here where some people will be like, oh. You might be talking about the majority, but it’s not that no girl bosses [00:06:00] exist. You know, there’s some women who are like independent, powerful CEOs. And I’d point out in our circles, you know, we hang out with a lot of tech entrepreneur types and stuff like that, you know, VC types, everything.

Mm-hmm. So we know personally a number of women who I think the public would perceive as fitting that none of them are really girl bosses. It’s, it’s pretty much all fake. The like I’m thinking, remember the one who, like her company popped off and then she like went crazy and started doing yoga or something?

Oh, yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And decided to be a yoga instructor when she had like a company that was worth like $50 million. It went, it more than that must have been because it was VVC major rest. It must have been around like

Simone Collins: 500. Well, in many, many so-called girl bosses. We’ve, we’ve met and known in the past, like in our Silicon Valley circles.

Just raised money on a failed startup after a failed startup, which is common. I think men have done this too. But they, they haven’t necessarily made anyone money which is another big thing. Yeah. So that’s, that’s also [00:07:00] an, an issue.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and then a lot of them get, we move up in the VC industry without necessarily making good bets.

Right? Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is another thing that we regularly see. It’s, it’s, it’s it’s, it’s. There just are far fewer successful women than people perceive them to be.

Simone Collins: At least in, in the business realm, which may just Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well’s, what boss means girl boss means

Simone Collins: yes. It means, yeah. You, you’re, you’re, yeah.

There’s, there’s no like girl boss who lives on a home stand and like eats her own food. That, that, that’s, you know, even if you’re not married, you’re still like a prairie wife. Even, even if you’re just married to your freaking field of wheat. So she also cites. Quote, the wild proliferation of email jobs and administrative compliance positions that don’t add to the company bottom line, that’s a big one.

And he talked about that a lot in everything you do. Like from the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion to the Pragmatist Guide to Governance, those two books that you wrote, and then also the podcast all the time. So that’s true. In addition, she talks, and this is something that [00:08:00] we haven’t talked about a lot on our podcast, but she cites lawsuit, risk Driven, affirmative Action for Women in Corporations.

So let me write as, as she describes it. In 1991, reforms to the Civil Rights Act ensured that lawsuits all over. Often spurious sexual harassment claims in the workplace became a major cash cow for litigants. Companies responded by bending the knee to the most easily offended, kicking off the era of political correctness and spawning an enormous industry that trains employees to not harass one another.

These reforms also raised the stakes for employees to prove that they were not discriminating on the basis of sex or race in their hiring and promotion practices, pushing them well beyond meritocracy into defacto affirmative action for women and minorities. So there you can see, there’s this multi-pronged affirmative action program that wasn’t explicitly made as affirmative action and one that like one, you’re in danger if you’re not.

Like almost artificially favoring women in [00:09:00] promotions and hiring. And two you’re at risk of making a woman a lot of money if she does catch you doing something naughty and sues you successfully. And three, there’s this whole long house based training for don’t sexually harass people. And I think that that’s largely often staffed and run by women.

Um mm-hmm. Gotta tell by the horrible bureaucrat nature of them. I, I’ll never forget when one of our friends who was staying here and working from home here showed us the training he was going through. And it was so bad. It was so bad.

Malcolm Collins: The government and bureaucracies burn it down. Like, I’m not usually pro genocide, but like something needs to be done about bureaucracy.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I was just skimming another substack that I like to. Read sometimes called the purse, which goes over people’s budget and finances. And it occurred to me that another thing that could be thrown into this category. [00:10:00] Arguably is child support. Because they, they’re, I was reading the profile of this divorced mother who wrote, I’ve been single for about five years now.

Divorce has been a game changer for me. I would recommend it. My marriage has had afforded me a certain amount of privilege as my husband made a good salary and our combined income was close to $200,000. But even though I have less money coming in now, and I receive some child support, I feel more independent.

There’s that word. And confident about my financial position than when I was married. I think some of it was that when your marriage doesn’t feel secure, it can make you feel financially insecure. Like she doesn’t have control over all of her money, I guess. And, and leaving my marriage changed those feelings for me.

I’m the only one in charge of my money now, and I like it that way. Her salary as a mental health counselor, again, that’s just, that that sort of female industrial complex is $85,000. And she gets $1,750 a month in [00:11:00] child support payments. So she’s so independent. That’s post-tax money and that, let’s see, time is 12 ‘cause I’m terrible at math and sleep is $21,000 a year.

So she’s making over a hundred thousand dollars a year thanks to the fact that her husband is now legally obligated. Well, her ex-husband is legally obligated to financially support her by the state. So I think that also falls into this independent girl boss thing. She’s like, oh, I’m independent now.

Like, but she gets a stipend from her ex-husband, like that they’re legally able to put men on the hook like that.

Malcolm Collins: And you see this all the time. So many women who are claiming to be girl bosses, they’re doing stuff like this, alimony, stipends, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. State subsidized stuff because technically they’re at the poverty line.

But they could be, you know, shoveling money away somewhere. Like it’s, I think it’s really easy if you are unmarried especially if you’re unmarried in an entrepreneur to basically. Make your income poverty level and then utilize the very abundant state [00:12:00] resources, especially if you’re also a parent.

You can basically get free healthcare depending on the state, but very likely free healthcare, food assistance, maybe even housing support and free childcare for you and, and your kid. Like, and that’s a healthcare for you and your kid, which is just. Wow. But yeah, again, not independent. Not an actual girl boss.

Then she describes the urban monoculture driven jobs, again, quoting from her article. Even more pernicious is the proliferation of Soviet commissar style jobs, both in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors that exist primarily to enforce political agendas rather than to produce value. In the us the number of human resources jobs, three quarters of which are filled by women, has exploded roughly doubling from 2014 to 2024.

It’s unlikely that managing a payroll has. Before or has become commensurate burdensome in the past 10 years. Those additional rules exist to enforce diversity laws. The entire DEI complex is a giant subsidy for [00:13:00] make work positions staffed by women and racial minorities, which, yeah yeah, and nothing more to say there.

And hopefully

Malcolm Collins: ai, I mean, AI is gonna completely transform women’s role in society because it’s gonna hopefully take these sorts of

Simone Collins: positions

Malcolm Collins: first.

Simone Collins: But the point she made actually, which I think is very apt, is. You don’t do this, you haven’t done this part of any of the businesses, but this idea of like payroll and compliance and stuff with state and local taxes, et cetera, like that is automated by whatever payroll provider you use.

There, there is nothing to do aside from. Review and approve pay or ask your, you know, someone else to approve it for you after you set it up. And it’s all like automated. There’s, there’s nothing complicated to do. The software that your business also pays for, does it all, your job means nothing if that’s mostly what you do.

And like, hiring and, I don’t know, maintaining people. If, if there’s a big, big, big corporation and you’re there basically to fight that lawsuit. Industry referred to earlier in the article. Then I can [00:14:00] understand it, right? ‘cause your job is basically to reduce and remove the company’s legal liability by doing the necessary things to show that you are not vulnerable in a lawsuit or liable in a lawsuit.

But that, that’s it. That’s the only time I can really see it justified. And then basically she be a lawyer, not an HR person anyway. She also talks about, and this is another, another big one, is the outsourcing of domestic labor. It was made possible by lax immigration policies. She writes in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

Up to half of the nannies on the books are immigrants and the real numbers likely higher with mini skirting labor laws. The profile of other domestic task replacers look similar with cheap delivery services such as DoorDash and GrubHub. Staples for two income households to Harry to cook dinner.

Incentivizing an enormous black market that rents verified accounts to illegal immigrants. Did you know about this Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: No what?

Simone Collins: So there’s this big problem and she, she links to an article about this. So I fell down a little bit of a rabbit hole on this, [00:15:00] but there’s this whole world of renting out DoorDash and Uber Eats and other types of gig work accounts to.

Illegal migrants and immigrants because they can make decent money on them.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, so like you create one and then you have them pay to use it?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You, you rent it out and there’s this whole market of it. And like people like sort of DM each other about them and you, you pay for access to it. And this is troublesome for a couple of reasons.

One is like if for example, and this happens, I’ve seen a lot of people talk about it on social media. People just stealing their DoorDash orders. So they’ll just pick up the order and then eat the dinner. So they don’t necessarily use it for earning money, so that’s one problem. Another problem is, let’s say that they commit a crime of some sort, like as an Uber driver or something.

It’s very hard, obviously to prosecute or find that person if they are not who they say they were. And then of course, on top of that one of the articles that I read in relation to this, there was there was a big issue [00:16:00] of basically. People who used to make like, you know, natural American citizens or whatever used to make a lot of money on DoorDash and Uber Eats, like decent money, like maybe $20 an hour, $25 an hour at good times.

Yeah. And now they’re basically making next to nothing because the market is so flooded with. All of the illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants, and, and they, they, they noted specific times that it just like exploded basically when people figured it out. And the market kind of came online. And from one article that was cited by, by the author of this one I.

It, it, it says, as of December, 2024, DoorDash said its screening process prevents over 15,000 prospective dashers from joining the platform or driving due to failing to submit the necessary criteria. Basically meaning like they got caught, and that’s just the ones that got caught. Monthly deactivations of inauthentic accounts have more than doubled compared to 2023 with all that year’s Deactivations already being surpassed by July, [00:17:00] 2024.

The company also says it prevents weekly and on average about 4,600 attempts by deactivated dashers, who previously violated verification policies from regaining access. So just that gives you a little bit of a picture of like the scale of this issue. But anyway, I, I think it, it, it, it does, the point that the author is making though on the Girl Boss issue is that there is incredibly cheap labor that’s subsidized by our country’s failure to enforce its basic immigration laws.

And a lot of this may have taken place in the Biden administration because looking the other way helped to subsidize certain people’s lifestyles in a way that they liked and they didn’t want that to change. So she, she notes the following statement. That is the article. The article’s, author notes the following adverse effects on society one.

Worsening education, and I hadn’t thought about this or maybe in a while I remember thinking like, or hearing about it once or twice. But worsening education. She writes the quality of teaching traditionally a feminine profession, at least until the college [00:18:00] level has collapsed along. A timeline that suggests that diverting talented women to higher paid careers was the cause.

Let’s pause it for the sake of argument that it’s better for those ambitious and intelligent women to be lawyers. Instead of shaping the future minds of both sexes in the classroom. Is it better for society as a whole? That teaching has been relegated to a low scoring backup plan that still remains predominantly female.

That’s an interesting point because we, you, I think had pointed out just the maybe there was one study that showed like the average IQ level of people who now get degrees in education and it’s. Kind of abysmal.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. It’s really bad. Like

Simone Collins: the,

Malcolm Collins: the people who have degrees in education level are like borderline retarded at this point.

Simone Collins: It’s bad. And, and you could argue that there’s this brain drain of all the women who decided, well, I’m gonna become a girl boss, and. Now we have really, really like low quality educators who are left. And of course there are exceptions. There are many wonderful teachers out [00:19:00] there. But on average, you know, many people who would’ve been teachers are now trained to girl boss.

Also she, and this is something I hadn’t heard about talk before and I really. I think it’s a very good insight. She notes the cannibalism of volunteering in philanthropy into paid professional activism. I’m gonna, oh my God, like, that’s a really good point. Yes. She writes, volunteering in philanthropy.

On the other hand, once the province of. Giled age Hess and women with grownup children have been professionalized through correspondingly multiplying female staffed NGOs. In short, the feminine impulse toward empathy that used to be predominantly applied to solve problems in one’s community has been transformed into a permanent activism as a career.

Instead of the Daughters of the American Revolution raising town statuses, we have women whose career advancement depends on tearing them down. And Oh

Malcolm Collins: my God, yes. And that is, that is essentially I mean this is a, an existential civilizational problem.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: That this [00:20:00] exists. And it’s something that I think that you know, EFI or when we accumulate more wealth and have more followership that I would want to attempt to tear down because I think it’s, it’s going the

Simone Collins: nonprofit.

Malcolm Collins: Complex, nonprofit, industrial complex.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think really shining a light on just how corrupt and pointless it is. Yeah. And even the ones that people think are, because we’ve worked in it to some extent and I do not think people understand how much it’s just lighting money on fire.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

It’s just, it’s just funding the lifestyles of a bunch of people who are not actually solving the problem. And really just, again, this concept of activism as a career. We, you talked about a lot in the practice guide to governance how. Mission creep. Is inevitable in a nonprofit if it depends on fundraising for its livelihood.

So if you don’t make money through your program work or from like just the benefactor who like owns and runs the nonprofit you are dependent on fundraising to succeed. And so what are you gonna [00:21:00] get good at? You’re if you’re gonna survive. You’re not gonna be good at solving your problem or being focused on addressing the issue that you’re built to address.

You’re gonna be good at raising funds successfully, and that’s a very different type of job. And also you have to spend all this money and time on signaling and showing how you’re doing a good job, but not actually doing a good job. In fact, the worst, the problem is that your nonprofit is supposed to solve the better.

What I hadn’t thought about was that this also applies to people. That when a person’s job depends on their nonprofit instead of, you know, like they don’t need the money, they’re just doing this because they want to, they’re focused on keeping their job. They’re not focused on, you know, doing good in their community or whatever, like actually seeing results.

Yeah. They need to, they need to keep their job and that, that doesn’t necessarily align. With the mission. So that, that was huge for me. And I, I, I really, yeah, I mean it’s, I, I like to read a lot of historical [00:22:00] texts and, and consume that kind of stuff in, you know, old etiquette guides and, and whatnot.

I think we don’t understand, as people living today, how incredibly prevalent it was for married women who were mothers who were busy, who had lives to do a lot of meaningful volunteering work.

And

Simone Collins: what a big impact that had on communities and what a support it was for local communities and even like larger causes abroad, they would, you know, raise money and give in kind to donations.

And now like people, there’s this like big revelation of like, oh my God, direct cash grants are so groundbreaking. Whereas like. People, just mothers housewives, like churches used to just do that. Still do that, but not in as much anymore because we have this giant NGO complex. So anyway, that was for me.

She, ultimately advocates for basically, I a

Malcolm Collins: quick question before you go further.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: How could you break apart the nonprofit industrial complex?

Simone Collins: You got a firework [00:23:00] lit under you? I think so. I, I feel like the Trump administration actually has a, a shot at this. And it’s interesting reading this article because she addresses a lot of things the Trump administration is working on, you know, eliminating all the DEI like related funding.

Trying to get rid of some of this. I guess

Malcolm Collins: you’re right. A lot of it does come from the federal government, so just

Simone Collins: stopping

Malcolm Collins: the federal government paying for it is a, is the number one thing.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. So what, what she advocates for in her article is ending mass immigration that undercuts American workers.

So that’s not related to the NGO complex, but no more affirmative action for women or a lawsuit paydays for women. She advocates for no more federal loans for universities and female dominated majors and degrees that don’t pay for themselves. And I think that would be a big one. ‘cause a lot of the NGO.

Positions are, I would say, moderately downstream of NGO position degrees. And there is a lot of ‘em out there. A lot of ‘em. I

Malcolm Collins: think you’re right. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And she also, [00:24:00] oh, and she also, one of her specific things is no more funding for what she calls the female dominated NGO complex. So yeah, just not giving those grants anymore.

I mean, largely dismantling USAID was a huge step in the right direction. I also think that as, and you pointed this out in some other episodes, and there have been some articles about this. The generation of philanthropists that used to give to these types of organizations dies out. These organizations will start to die out as well.

So maybe give it time. I don’t know, but yeah, we’ve gotta think about this. Yeah. How do you take it out? Apologies in advance to my friends who work at these. Sorry, but they’re wrong and evil.

Malcolm Collins: They’re all women and they’re not doing anything.

Simone Collins: I mean, can you guys see that? So terrible. You the female industrial s And once

Malcolm Collins: these women are unemployed and desperate, then they’ll get married.

Right? We just gotta cut them off from state funding too.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, now we have to, now we have to go for all the state funded programs. I don’t know if you [00:25:00] saw but the Trump administration’s most recent prenatal list move was to change Title 10 which used to provide a lot of basically birth control support.

Okay. I think grant funding. And now they’re like, Nope, it can’t be about that anymore. We’re not gonna fund you if you, for example. Aren’t gonna rat on teenage girls who are trying to get like abortions or birth control or, or STD testing. We’re gonna tell our parents like, you have to tell our parents no more of that.

So one thing that they’re trying to do essentially is prevent the urban monoculture from standing between young ladies and their families, which I think is Oh, that’s really good. Yeah. That’s very based. It’s like, no, until they’re adults. These young women belong to the culture of their families.

Give those cultures a chance

Malcolm Collins: that’s

Simone Collins: people are gonna be like,

Malcolm Collins: well then more young women are gonna get pregnant accidentally. And it’s like, well then more young

Simone Collins: women are

Malcolm Collins: gonna have babies. Good for them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. One of our friends too, [00:26:00] Raffi Greenberg, his, he just published a rather controversial substack article on why one of the greatest threats to human civilization is birth control.

Like we’re seeing a shift here.

Malcolm Collins: Raffi posted that, that’s spicy for Raffi.

Simone Collins: It’s spicy. I know Raffi

Malcolm Collins: love it.

Simone Collins: I love it. Can he enter his spice era? Because I’m ready for it. I’m super ready for it. Yeah. We’ll

Malcolm Collins: see.

Simone Collins: Come

Malcolm Collins: on base camp.

Simone Collins: The spice must flow. It’s good. It’s good. The spice must

Malcolm Collins: flow, right?

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: What, what, what would we do to, to to rile him up if we got him on base camp?

Simone Collins: I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I don’t know if, we’ll, I mean, maybe we’re, we’re too spicy for him to come on, but I, I’ll invite him if, if you’re up for it. I think that’d be fun. Do

Malcolm Collins: you think it would be good? Like I, I’d only wanna do it if we could get something really spicy to talk about.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, yeah. I guess we’ll see. We’ll see. But yeah, I, I, things are shifting. So. Yeah. Anyway, the Trump administration was basically no more of this allowing state funding. For removing girls from accountability in their own cultures while they’re still in their parents’ households. So I think, [00:27:00] again, the Trump administration is really.

On the forefront of this. And as much as people like to be like, well, they’re doing nothing, they’re actually doing a lot. And I think that’s cool. But anyway, the whole point of this article, and this sums it up with, with a final quote, I’ll read from it until we get to the critical response. Mm-hmm.

She writes, but let’s be clear, the status quo is maintained by a network of laws and policies that push women out of the home and into the workforce. Women who would prefer. To work part-time or not at all. While their children are young, still the substantial majority must take or must make heavy sacrifices to do so, sacrifices that were unnecessary 40 or 50 years ago, which is super true.

So anyway first things, which is the platform that this article was published on, they posted this to x the. The, the author as well in Stedman also posted it a bunch of times and it got decent traction though. Made a lot of people real mad, real mad. Though my favorite take came from Kathy Reitz, who wrote, there is no girl boss [00:28:00] versus tra wife fight.

Both are media inventions. Most women have kids and work now, and also at every point in recorded history, and that is true. What we’re really talking about is kind of enough of mine, of minority to cause a meaningful difference and to cause real damage. But most women are like not terminally online, pretty based working and raising kids like that.

That is normal. I, I agree. But okay. Here are the complainers. So great username hollow earth turf. ERF, not ground wrote The Myth of the Independent Boy Boss. This lifestyle could not exist. If not, for 13 years of free public schooling, fast full loans available for both college and trade schools.

Free labor from female partners and relatives to do their cooking, cleaning, childcare, the GI Bill, et cetera. So she’s trying to point out that men also get help. But I think she doesn’t address adequately the fact that women disproportionately get the [00:29:00] lawsuit paydays, they disproportionately get the child support if there’s a divorce.

Mm-hmm. They disproportionately get the DEI jobs, the bureaucrat jobs, the email jobs the useless degrees where they’re not paying off their student loans that are probably gonna get forgiven or forgotten or inflated away. So I don’t buy it. Jill Philippic wrote, I guess the answer here is for women to return to subsidizing the male lifestyle, which would not exist if women didn’t massively subsidize it by doing men’s cooking, cleaning, laundry, childcare, in all other manner of life, organizing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you do that for me.

Simone Collins: I do. But here’s the thing, and because I’m like, it’s true and there’s a lot like the, the actual cost of that is incredibly high.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: But here’s what, if I wasn’t doing that for you, you just wouldn’t get those things and you’d be fine.

Malcolm Collins: That’s true.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The women subsidize men never asked for that.[00:30:00]

Men didn’t need their home to have potpourri in it and to be decorated for Halloween and to, they don’t need their stupid little, like you just ate jelly beans for breakfast. ‘cause I didn’t catch you soon enough to give you properly made scrambled eggs with a little. Whatever. I scramble

Malcolm Collins: eggs like once a week.

Don’t pretend like you give me breakfast

Simone Collins: for day. I gave a, i, I made, I made a scrambled like helicopter for Octavia this morning. I, I’m try, I try, I I ask you every morning and you’re like, oh, I just want milk. But that’s the thing. It’s like, oh, I wanna do a high effort breakfast for you. And you like, is

Malcolm Collins: I just want milk.

This is, I think you’re catching something really big here.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Women. Subsidized men to live the type of life that they wanted, that women want.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Men didn’t ask

Malcolm Collins: for

Simone Collins: that. Men

Malcolm Collins: didn’t ask. I don’t want my clothes cleaned every day. I could clean them before I met you. It’s once every six months or so, you know?

Like, I

Simone Collins: know. I

Malcolm Collins: don’t, you’re

Simone Collins: like. Kid’s clothes. I’m like, well, it’s covered in mud. You’re like, it’s not gonna get them sick. So it’s, [00:31:00] yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I need the floor cleaned. I don’t need things organized.

Simone Collins: I know. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is all ridiculous, extra.

Simone Collins: I know that. And that’s the thing. It’s like, no. Women didn’t subsidize men because the men would’ve been fine without that and they would’ve gone into build things and do cool stuff Without that, like that is just increasing it.

It’s adding luxury to their standard of living. I mean, I’m sure you don’t mind having the meals that I make for you in a cleaner house and you know, not getting a staff infection from your clothing, but like you could be fine. You’d go to an emergency room and get treated for it and then maybe throw away and burn your clothing and buy all new stuff, but like.

You know, you’d be fine. It’s like the that one episode from Parks and Rec, where they go into. God, what’s their names? Chris Pratt’s house and he is like,

Speaker 4: There’s an exposed wire above the bathtub as well. Oh yes. Shock wire. I call it that. ‘cause if you take a shower and you touch the wire, you die. Yes, that is accurate.

Simone Collins: . And like that’s, [00:32:00] that is the level that is the standard with which men are very happy to live.

They’re fine with it. They’re just like, don’t touch the shock wire from

Malcolm Collins: my room. Like my

Simone Collins: room. That is your room, right? Your entire room is the shock wire. I swear to God I don’t go in there. It scares me. Jordan

Malcolm Collins: Peterson’s whole like, clean your room.

Simone Collins: Make your bed. Your bed. What a person. He’s the longhouse.

Is he the male? Longhouse? What is that?

Malcolm Collins: Jordan Peterson is the male longhouse. I could even be an episode like

Simone Collins: the male. Yeah. I’m kind of ready for that.

Malcolm Collins: No wait, man. I’m gonna tell you something. You don’t need to do that. Yeah, you don’t need to change. You just need basic grooming. And your clothes need to not smell that.

Okay. That is when you wash them, when they smell bad or look bad.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, you’ve, you’ve crossed that Rubicon. I’m sorry friend, but I literally have to close the door to my room because if this, that’s my entire, that’s my entire room, my, I feel like I’m going to throw up. That is how bad it is.

Malcolm Collins: Do you wanna, do you wanna do a, [00:33:00] a room clean this weekend

Simone Collins: in the name of Health and Safety, please? Yes. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: How long

Simone Collins: has it been

Malcolm Collins: about a.

Simone Collins: I don’t know. You don’t like it when I do it. You’re like, I’m, I, I, I, I work super hard to like, disinfect it and, and deify it and take like, scrape the, like layers of like rotted cheese that somehow ended up on the floor.

And then you’re like, oh. You know, like, I mean, it’s, you’re not trying to dismiss the work I did, it’s just. It, it’s, it’s it worse for you? Like, I’ve broken the rats, like your nest has been ruined. The, the patina, the terroir is gone. You know. Well,

Malcolm Collins: it’s true. It’s, it’s, it is, it is. It does, it does worse for a bit.

Because it’s too

Simone Collins: clean. You, you so much. Yeah. You have to like, you have to build back in the it’s like an unseasoned pan, you know? Exactly. Like you now have a seasoned pan, you know, you work so. And I just, I just take dish dump to [00:34:00] thing and ruin it and ruin it. You can’t make any good dishes in there anymore.

Oh, I’m so sorry, Malcolm. Fine. I understand

Malcolm Collins: that there are safety, health and safety reasons probably at this point to do something about my room situation

Simone Collins: when you, you know Yeah. When you reach the asthma gold level of, like, the smell of the rotting rat that cooks in the sun wakes me up every morning that that’s like, that’s what, you know.

Yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: don’t think I’ve got my life together more than asba gold and, and the answer is no. I do not.

Simone Collins: But I think actually Mondal is another really great, you know, he’s very good at articulating this level of, of, of standard, of living with, with which men are happy to live. He is like, listen, you know, in like a, like two hours, I could clean this up and like he’ll say this when he sees people like hoarded houses and stuff that are really ruined on a stream or something, but in reference to his own house.

And it’s true. You know, you go through your room with a, with a couple big trash bags and like it gets done. Whereas like I will spend all this time, every single day to try to keep things up to like, you know, the 80th percentile. Yeah, and it’s a [00:35:00] lot of extra time and you’re like, why would you do that?

That’s stupid. It’s wasteful, but that’s just like women versus male preferences. So women being like, I do all this work for you. No, they do all that work for themselves, but that’s why it’s very difficult for men and women to live with each other. Anyway. Emily May wrote, TLDR women used to do a bunch of s**t that ran the whole families and communities for free.

But now they have jobs and less time to do those things. Nevermind that most community building work, volunteering, unpaid labor, et cetera, is done by women. And we are mad about that. But if women bring up that it’s exhausting always being the ones expected to do those things, we will say that women put way too much pressure on themselves and no one ask them to be the weavers of social fabric.

So just stop, have you know, agency. And I think it’s just another example of like women being like, how dare you? NN not recognize the work that I do. That’s only for me that no one asked for.

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s really that way. Even living with you, you know, it’s like I’ve, I’ve asked you, for example, the kids’ beds should really [00:36:00] be changed at least only once every two weeks.

Simone Collins: Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: you’ve, I know,

Simone Collins: not bear the cheese, the milk, the urine, the vomit. Our kids are messy,

Malcolm Collins: can accumulate one more week without them getting sick.

Is, is this ing

Simone Collins: this woman? I can’t, I can’t hear myself think over a mess. Like I would be so much more productive as a human if I were not surrounded by the level of. Mess that I already am, like, it’s painful for me. It’s like, like a dog whistle. No one else can hear it but me. And it hurts. It hurts so bad.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God.

Simone Collins: But yeah, I know it, I know it’s for me. I, but also I, I, I know how these women feel because, you know, I’m scraping. The vomit off of a pillow or something and I’m grumbling like, why am I the only one who ever does [00:37:00] this? And it’s ‘cause I’m the only one who ever cares. Right. And that’s, that’s this tension that I think exists between average male and average female standards that we just have to acknowledge is there.

And I think you and I have reached a very healthy Deante where you’re like, Simone’s gonna Simone. And I’m like, Malcolm’s gonna Malcolm and you have your room and I have my room over here, got my flowers. Like, you got your tiles of cans. It’s all good. His and Hers, Mars and Venus. Okay. But we just have to accept that and just like let the yin and the yang do their.

Do their thing. Okay. It’s, it’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. And then labor, your Y axis wrote one, most people do not regularly order DoorDash or Uber Eats, or have a nanny go out and meet some real people. Two, perhaps you should be at home instead of working or taking your baby out for cocktails, which I guess maybe this author did.

And then Dreamweaver responded, over 75% of Americans use delivery services. You’re incorrect here. Ask for nannies. You’re [00:38:00] correct. And I, I mean, I think it’s fair that like. Not everyone constantly orders out and stuff, but I did a fact check on this and what that person was ci, that doesn’t so

Malcolm Collins: true.

75% of Americans order out,

Simone Collins: no. See, that’s that, that is where this person was actively misleading. One analysis found that about 75% of Americans have used a food delivery app at least once. You and I have for sure.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But like once every three years.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, no, we did it when we were in New York with your mom who’d be like, okay, everyone we’re getting food on Seamless.

And so that, that’s when we did it. But but yeah,

Malcolm Collins: we’ve never, like, I wouldn’t pay for that myself. Right? Like that’s incredibly misleading. If

Simone Collins: it’s actually though, it, it’s somewhat striking still to me because this is, it is just so one, eating at a restaurant is already like a strike on your financial responsibility record in my book two.

Ordering out is like, wait, are you serious? What are you doing? And then three like it, because typically you can get free delivery from a local restaurant, but using [00:39:00] DoorDash or Uber Eats mm-hmm. Then you’re paying even more. I’m like, okay, now you’re just a financial card. So that is like three strikes and one u gov survey found that 17% of Americans have food delivered at least once per week.

And that’s another, another national restaurant research based summary. Found weekly delivery users at about 37% of US adults, which is, wow,

Malcolm Collins: 37% are weekly delivery. Guys, if any of you are in our audience, can you just either send that money to us or light it on fire? Do

Simone Collins: something. Can you just don’t, yeah.

Like you feel really. Cool. I mean, I think it’s a federal offense, right? To burn money, but like you feel a lot cooler doing it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s cooler, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, and, and if you’re anti-immigrant, apparently you shouldn’t be, shouldn’t be ordering DoorDash because No. But

Malcolm Collins: what are we doing for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: I was gonna suggest to make [00:40:00] some. Of those very fine vermicelli noodles with the broth, if I can find it. And those meatball things.

Malcolm Collins: I actually really wanted that broth tonight, but I don’t need it with noodles.

Simone Collins: Okay. I guess

Malcolm Collins: I can do it with noodles.

Simone Collins: I mean, I figured the noodles and the meatball thing, it’s just the broth.

‘cause it’s, it’s also like it’s in the eighties today, so it’s really warm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Let’s just do the broth.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So

Simone Collins: for with the meatball things or not, because my goal is to empty out the meatballs for the freezer.

Malcolm Collins: Tom Young bro Broth is that what it’s called, right?

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: No, the, the meatball things I would do with Buns on a different night.

Simone Collins: Oh, Hawaiian buns.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like two meatballs on Hawaiian buns that are toasted would be

Simone Collins: like

Malcolm Collins: really good

Simone Collins: Vietnamese meatballs.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the Vietnamese ones, either Puck chow or whatever they’re called.

Simone Collins: Something like that. Butcher. You’re really

Malcolm Collins: good.

Simone Collins: Good. Well, yeah, it’s hot now, so I’m trying to think of things that you would like that [00:41:00] are hot, friendly.

Malcolm Collins: You don’t need to, your, your, your food is, I I’m not a temperature dependent eater.

Simone Collins: Oh. I eat something a little bit healthy. Oh, I wanna use a lot of the green onions we have left. So maybe

Malcolm Collins: I’m just so out of it after leaflet stream yesterday, I would lighter just look at it. So it literally went from what was it?

Because I was, I was looking at it here. It literally went from. 7:00 PM to 5:00 AM and it got 20,700 views.

Simone Collins: Good Lord. I mean, I.

Malcolm Collins: And of course, you know, it’ll be clipped, put on YouTube and then get another 20,000 views or something.

Simone Collins: Oh, I really look forward to watching those two of my favorite people.

Finally, I get to watch I, that’s, that’s once collide for me. I’m really looking forward to that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I was, it is, it’s a lot of fun.

Simone Collins: We’ll see. Just tell, I actually think I’m coherent. You got,

Malcolm Collins: try to make it a regular thing, so, every other Friday I may do it. Yeah, I, I learned doing it on a weekday is stupid.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: [00:42:00] I’m not, I’m not subjecting myself to that again ‘cause I basically need to sleep the entire next day.

Simone Collins: Well, but you need to help me out with the kids on weekends so I can work.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I will do that too, but I will get to sleep in, you know, so

Simone Collins: Oh, oh, right. ‘cause you have to bring weekday episodes live.

I forgot you have basically a standing appointment at 8:00 AM Yeah, at 8:00 AM every,

Malcolm Collins: every morning.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, that’s a good idea. That’s also good because you were invited to do a Chris Williamson round table in Austin next Tuesday, and Oh, I was, I think, worth it for you to fly out. It’s with like limestone and some other people.

What other people, I mean, how many, like some tism? Yeah, I can check right now. But I’m like, dude, you should do it. You should do it. I

Malcolm Collins: should.

Simone Collins: And also like, you need a change of scene. I think you’ve not like last night’s experience for you. Like just getting to chat with someone who like wasn’t me really for you.

So let’s see. She said Y Yang. Yeah, yeah, [00:43:00] yeah. Maybe Brad Wilcox and maybe Coleman Hughes.

Malcolm Collins: Brad Wilcox, he’s the guy who runs the whatever institute,

Simone Collins: He has to do for family studies. He’s a, he’s like the sort of pro marriage guy.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Coleman Hughes. Super cool. Like I, it would be super fun in, in Chris Williamson’s studio in Austin.

I think you should do it.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Do I have your, well, let’s, let’s get to book that. Okay. I, I mean, obviously I, I handle your life with all my stupid feminine standards. Booking all your stuff, you know, cleaning all your stuff that you don’t want clean. How dare I? Anyway, how dare

Malcolm Collins: you.

Simone Collins: Oh, dare I,

Malcolm Collins: I love you too.

No, it’s gonna be fun going down to Austin, seeing Chris again. Mm-hmm. I haven’t met Brian, whatever his name is. I,

Simone Collins: I think Brad Wilcox. We met Brad Wilcox at the first art conference. Oh, nice. Yeah. It’s very cool, but we’re terrible [00:44:00] with names so you wouldn’t remember. I’m sure once you started talking with him you’d be like, oh yeah.

Okay. Right. You’re super cool. Thank you. Yeah, maybe you could meet up with RA while you’re in town. I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, see who the round.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. I’ll get to organizing that for you and I think you’ll have a good time. Good. Anyway, I love you and goodbye.

Malcolm Collins: Bye-bye.

Okay. Well, I love you. Today’s episode. It didn’t do that well, but it didn’t seem to do particularly poorly either.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: You notice 10 outta 10. It’s not like, let’s see where we’re at right now

Simone Collins: compared to your other ones recently.

Perhaps is, is, that’s the issue, you know,

Malcolm Collins: 6.4 K.

Simone Collins: 6.4 K is terrible. Really isn’t for like, does Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: what your convention to attend.

Simone Collins: Come on man. It’s good. Look, I like it. Okay. Can we turn up the light on you a little bit?

Malcolm Collins: [00:45:00] Okay. I also sent you the video for Twitter.

Simone Collins: Thank you. Okay. Let me get that downloading now, ‘cause I have the Patreon post just sitting there, but, oh.

Then right after this, and before I go down to

Malcolm Collins: very interesting experience to stream one, I didn’t know that streamers had to stream for that Long.

Simone Collins: Streams do seem to last a really long time, which is it, I think one reason why you end up getting streamers as being some of the most popular news commentary people because one, they need to fill their time slot.

And two, you can take clips from that and turn them into YouTube videos and be prolific. So you have prolific, news commentary on current events from people also who have been forced to really hone their work because they’re spending a lot of time doing it. They’re getting constant chat feedback. And even like monetary rewards for really like doing a good job.

So mm-hmm. Is it any surprise, I mean, these are people who are [00:46:00] being circumstantially trained to be the best.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You’ve gotta, I mean, I’d say it’s a completely different art form than doing YouTube videos or something like that. And I, I had no idea. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Good to edit. You have to be like rapid fire, instant feedback.

That’s how you develop the best intuition. Right?

Malcolm Collins: Stay on top of the chat. For people who aren’t aware, I was on leaflets channel and we streamed from 7:00 PM till 6:00 AM it was like

Simone Collins: you have a whole new level of respect for her,

Malcolm Collins: but yeah, I was like, you do this every day.

Simone Collins: She’s amazing. Well, and on top of that, developing like a whole, whole platform, a whole nother world.

And all of it’s more. Well,

Malcolm Collins: she runs a number of businesses.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. Also the plushy, the plushy business. Yeah. She’s, she’s a Plushie. Barrs. She’s, yeah. She, she has it all. What can, what can we say we get,

Malcolm Collins: we should we get plushies made Simone

Simone Collins: with giant glasses?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I don’t know. What, what are our avatars?

We [00:47:00] don’t, do we have. I guess I’ll ask AI

Simone Collins: A gear. A gear has like zero personality, so I don’t know how that’s gonna go. We can just sell giant, really heavy metal gears. Just get them from machine parts companies. You have, you have extras from your run. Sell them to us.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Send people gear.

Simone Collins: We’ll put them in our Etsy shop and market

Malcolm Collins: like

Simone Collins: everybody else’s,

Malcolm Collins: like squishy and fun.

And also it’s just like an industrial

Simone Collins: deer. Buy your deer. Get you literal, real, like literally gotta get you gear. Gotta get the gear. Gotta

Malcolm Collins: get, yeah.

Simone Collins: Gotta get the gear. We’ll make a great AI commercial for it. Just you Wait. Gotta get

Malcolm Collins: here. Well she showed me a great new service for doing AI videos.

Oh yeah. That is way better than AI had seen before. Which is yeah, I’ll share it with you.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: It’s a seed dance.

Simone Collins: Never heard of that. Ooh.

Malcolm Collins: And if I hadn’t just woken up, I would’ve experimented with it already. I’m looking at integrating it with our website to see if our, we can get working on our fab.ai.

Simone Collins: Okay, let’s try that out. [00:48:00] But I’ll get us into today’s episode because it’s a, women are terrible episode.

Malcolm Collins: Women are terrible.

Simone Collins: Well, this episode of women are Terrible. Well,

Malcolm Collins: that’s not the people are sure to click on that. Like, guys love learning.

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and then the al one, they’re like, Simone’s always more anti-woman than Malcolm.

Somebody

Simone Collins: times. It’s easier for me to do the anti-woman ones. I don’t know. I was just watching a an arrest video that Aspen Gold was commenting on during his dream where a woman gets arrested from refusing to leave a Ross because she wasn’t allowed to. Not pay for things ‘cause her boyfriend works there or something.

Something. Wait,

really?

Yeah. And ASM Gold was commenting ‘cause I think he watches a lot of body cam footage on his stream. Like the, the, the female law enforcement officers just tend to put up a lot less with women’s nonsense. It’s like zero, zero pity. They know exactly what’s going on. So there’s that.

Oh, the, the jelly beans. AKA gummy bears according to Tyson. Well, I just woke

Malcolm Collins: up and [00:49:00] I need to stay awake.

Simone Collins: Breakfast of Champions. Yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: jelly beans are the Breakfast of Champions. This is the,

Simone Collins: yeah. Okay. That’s, I would’ve made you, it’s fine. It’s fine, Simone. It’s fine. Okay. Okay, here we go.

Speaker 6: I see your size. What are you working on? Iny.

Speaker 7: Okay, so what’s wrong with your peanut butter sandwich? It’s all peanut butter.

Speaker 8: The butter has four honey. Is it, oh, is it that it has peanut butter on it? Yeah. So next time you want a peanut butter sandwich, but with no peanut butter, what do you want next time?[00:50:00]

Speaker 7: Only honey only. I don’t think that’s good for you though.

You like honey. I do too. I think a lot of people like Honey Octavian, what did you learn about this morning?

Speaker 8: Oh, I forgot. I forgot the other night. You forgot what you learned about this morning, yesterday. That’s how forgetful you are. Mommy forgetting. Yeah. I forget the other night. Very well. I forget. What does that mean? Like my brain is like.

A reading brain. Did he say he doesn’t [00:51:00] have a reading brain? He doesn’t have a reading brain. I realize when I type into ai, I type in learning, uh, without, you do not like the way he’ll be like learning. He ain’t got good learning. Can you learn me something today? Learning, of course. AI thinks I’m an idiot for sure.

Speaker 6: Look, it thinks, it knows everyone’s an idiot. I think that’s the key thing.

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into one of the most provocative cultural shifts happening today: the growing inclusion of polyamory as a protected sexual identity alongside the LGBT+ framework.

They explore:

* The historical “slippery slope” arguments from the gay rights movement (and how the left once fiercely rejected them)

* Why polyamory is now being mainstreamed in progressive spaces

* Biological, psychological, and cultural variance in monogamy vs. polyamory

* Striking parallels (and differences) between polyamory and same-sex attraction

* Why Malcolm now argues we should treat polyamory similarly to being gay — not as something to celebrate or condemn, but as a neutral biological/psychological variation

They also discuss family structure, reproductive fitness, leftist organizations like Black Lives Matter, legal changes in cities like Somerville and Cambridge, historical quotes from Dan Savage and Evan Wolfson, Catholic priests and lesbian nuns, biker culture in gay history, and much more.

A raw, nuance-heavy conversation that challenges both progressive orthodoxy and conservative reflexes. Expect tangents on everything from Mormon cuckoldry porn searches to ramp foraging and steak dinners.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re gonna be talking about L-G-G-B-D-T-T-T-I-Q-Q-A-A-P-P

Which was used by the Canadian Teachers Federation materials as example, wait no

Simone Collins: wait.

That there wasn’t a joke.

Malcolm Collins: No, that’s not a joke. One. That’s a, that’s a real one.

Speaker 2: They provided $0 to deal with the ongoing genocide of M-M-I-W-G.

Malcolm Collins: I could go through it all, but I think it’s probably more interesting for me to just get to the point of all this, which is the recent and, and increasing inclusion of polyamory as a discriminated sexual identity within the whiter, urban monocultural, or progressive framework.

Simone Collins: Okay. That’s interesting. Yeah. That it’s like, I guess, well, it is. Some people frame it as [00:01:00] a sexual orientation, so. I guess then it belongs there.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, I, I wanna talk about this, I wanna talk about it from a few angles. One, we are going to talk about it from the perspective of the early days of the gay rights movement.

Sorry, not even early days until around 2009, 2000, like 13. So, so up until like more recently the LGBT movement was fervent about the, this slippery slope argument on the right, that if we normalize. Same sex relationship today. We’ll be normalizing polyamorous relationships tomorrow. And they were very aggressive.

We’ll go over quotes and stuff. This is not the case. The movement will never turn into this.

Simone Collins: Wait, people actually said that. Really?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I always talk about, like, I remember when I was in school and I talk about my time in the GSA, the the Gay Straight Alliance. And I remember somebody being shouted out of the room because they suggested [00:02:00] that trans people may want to participate in sports of the gender they identify as.

And they were shouted out of the room because people said, that’s a far right slippery slope.

Simone Collins: You would ever do

Malcolm Collins: that argument. No one would ever do that. No one would ever argue that. You’d have to be crazy to think that. And oh, somebody would only present that as an idea in bad faith.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So they get shouted outta the room and I was like, Hmm, interesting.

Simone Collins: Indeed.

Malcolm Collins: So, I wanna go over it from that angle. I wanna go over it from a different angle as well, which is like, why is it culturally happening? Because I think it’s a, a shift in the way we see and think about sexual identities. Hmm. And finally, what I’m going to argue is I fundamentally think it’s a good thing, which is gonna surprise people

Simone Collins: to, to support it, to add it, to,

Malcolm Collins: to consider being polyamorous.

Mm-hmm. The same sort of lifestyle choice as being gay.

Simone Collins: Ah, [00:03:00] okay.

Malcolm Collins: And I’d actually say that I support it. Pretty much Exactly. As equally as I support being gay. Yeah, okay. Which is sort of like a, I wouldn’t advise it, but you know, if that’s what you’re gonna try, I am not gonna like, look down on you for it.

Right.

Yeah.

So what I mean by this, so people may wonder what I mean by this and why I think it is fundamentally a good thing. And I, and I actually do not think it is logically wrong now that we are identifying it as the same type of thing as being gay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There is obviously a variance biological variance in both the desire somebody has for additional partners when they are in a long-term loving relationship.

And the jealousy they feel when, you know, partners take other partners or like their, their ability to handle this. Yeah. I, I, I’d go so far as to argue that in some cultures seep people, because, you know, cultures interact with biology. Right. And if you’re in a culture where people take [00:04:00] multiple wives for many generations you are going to develop unique predilections, psychological predilections that people in other cultures are unlikely to have.

A great example of this that we go over is cing is really common in the Mormon community and statistically more common in Mormon areas if you look at like porn searches. Wow. So why would this be the case? Well, if you are in a community where multiple. Partners is common, and you as a female get hugely turned off or hugely jealous when you see your partner sleeping with somebody else.

You are going to be a more difficult partner. You are going to work less well with your sister wives and you are going to have fewer surviving and successful offspring. Sure. Yeah. Because the sister wives aren’t gonna help them as much. Whereas, and then people can be like, well then why are guys into it?

And it’s like, well, you know, evolution didn’t have that long to work in these regions. And so if it makes girls into it, it’s gonna accidentally make some guys into it as well. Right. You know? And so, you know, the, the, the. [00:05:00] The, there’s likely a biological component to this as well, like, I’m just being clear here.

It’s the same with same sex attraction, right? Like same sex attraction likely has a, a, a, a biological component and is going to be more common in some cultures and more rewarded by some cultures than others in terms of its reproductive fitness. Interestingly, by normalizing same sex relationships, you make same sex arousal dramatically more genetically unfit.

So for example, in the West, historically.

Simone Collins: Oh, I get it. Because basically you’re allowing people who experience same sex arousal to like not end up in heterosexual marriages and then not have kids. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Historically in the, in, in Western society, I guess you’d say more broadly same-sex attraction really wasn’t that much a hit to your genes because most same-sex attracted people just got married anyway and had kids anyway, right?

It was the normalization [00:06:00] of same-sex attraction that sort of nuked this as a a, a genetic trait that you super, super, super do not wanna have. If, if your goal is passing on as many of your genes to future generations as possible, but to continue here. But as we’ve said in other streams, so, so what I’m pointing out here is there is variance biologically in how much somebody might be compatible with a polyamorous lifestyle, and there is variance both genetically and, and you know, epigenetically and psychologically in terms of events that happened to you as you’re raised that are going to affect same sex attraction, right?

So, both of these variances, I think are equally arguable to be outside of an individual’s control. So I don’t think a you know, like what gay people would say historically is, well, I was born this way, right? As, as if the poly person was not. Potentially also to an extent born that way. It might have been less of a clear [00:07:00] gradient in terms of the psychological proclivities and arousal pathways.

But they were born that way just as much as a gay person was born this way. Or the gay person will say, well, this is part of my identity. It’s like, well, you chose to make same sex attraction part of your identity. You don’t have to do that. As we’ve pointed out, like in different cultures, like in the Catholic tradition they disproportionately join the priesthood with 25 to 50% of Catholic priesthood.

Simone Collins: A huge difference between how you feel and what you make your identity.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You, that, that, that is, and people are like, what? So they’re forced to go? It’s like, no, they choose it. You are the one who wants to force them to have same sex relationships. Right. The Catholic church is like, well, you can go and do that.

It is sinful, but like, we’re not gonna make it illegal. But I, I don’t think in any Catholic majority country is being gay illegal right now. But here is another option of a way to live your life. And I’d be willing to bet on psychological scores. Like if you look at because if you look at while gay men are, are generally psychologically healthier [00:08:00] than like bi people or lesbians.

Look at our problem of, of like bisexual people. We need to talk Oh yes. Way off the charts on everything sort of, they are less psychologically healthy than the regular population. I bet if you contrasted same sex attracted people who joined the Catholic church as priests versus who went into same sex relationships.

The ones who joined as priests are probably like much happier, have much greater senses of fulfillment and are likely have fewer psychological issues.

Simone Collins: I’d be shocked to learn that people who are same sex attracted and became priests call themselves same sex attracted.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But there’s been studies done on it.

Like they’re aware of it. Really?

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Yeah. I, when I say it’s 25 to 50%, I’m citing like, multiple studies here. Like it’s, there’s an entire week of

Simone Collins: people who became priests. S That’s crazy. Okay. I, I guess I thought they wouldn’t wanna admit it. You know,

Malcolm Collins: no, like, it’s not a sin to be same-sex attracted.

It’s a to act

Simone Collins: on it

Malcolm Collins: if anything’s an additional challenge that you’re overcoming. Okay. In, in fact [00:09:00] God, this, this is a whole its own rabbit hood. It’s, it’s the Catholic world and same sex attraction. But same sex attracted nuns were so common that they. Played the dominant culturally shaping role of lesbian culture in the same way.

I think

Simone Collins: you did a whole episode on that actually.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In the same way that in the gay community biker culture played the dominant role in the male gay communities cultural endpoint in the in, in lesbian culture, it was nuns. And it mostly happened after Vatican two, when they moved them closer to the cities and the nuns who previously just did their thing far off in private, in the convent or whatever.

Now were interacting with lay people more. In this particular context. And, and, and many of them would often deconvert and, and go into like the lesbian scene and, and, but they keep a lot of the you, you may notice that, that a lot of like lesbian wear of, of like the older wear where it deviates from [00:10:00] mainstream wear looks weirdly like religious wear.

And, and this is where that comes from.

And I haven’t done an episode fans, you had to let us know ‘cause I’m happy to do that episode. It’s, yeah,

Simone Collins: no, I’m trying to remember if you did. I, you and I have talked about it a lot. I can’t remember if you did one. So we should check.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: I don’t, I don’t remember you talking about biker gangs.

This, this is news to me. So,

Malcolm Collins: wait, you were unaware that biker games were a dominant cultural force in gay culture in terms of do, do you look at the way that gays dress? Like the chaps with all the leather and the

Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I guess I thought that was just like a, a a more associated with like the bondage community and less with the

Malcolm Collins: No, the bondage community is downstream of the biker gang community.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: like they, the, the, that aesthetic didn’t come out of nowhere. It, it, it came directly from older, I, I wanna say like 1980s, 1970s biker culture.

Simone Collins: Okay. Anyway, putting it.

Malcolm Collins: If you’re age during that period, like, and you’re doing the [00:11:00] whole like driving around, sleeping around thing, you know, living, sort of itinerant living.

I mean, it’s a natural culture to fall into. Sorry, this, I guess on way too big of a tangent, but the point I’m making here is when a gay person says but they, the poly people are not like us, there really isn’t any truly discernible way that it is something fundamentally different. It is a, a arousal slash psychological profile pathway.

Yeah. That has biological and psychological variants that you can choose to identify with or not identify with. That affects lifestyle choices that you may make, which then have larger effects on you in society, like potentially being discriminated against or how other people see and perceive you.

So in that category, like while historically I would’ve just like in, immediately I point this out ‘cause. I you know, a lot of these are positions I would’ve found mortifying in the past. If you go to me five, 10 years ago, I would’ve just reflectively said, well, one’s a sexual orientation and the other is a life [00:12:00] choice, you know?

And it’s like, hmm, no. They both have biological and psychological roles and they both have a aspect of choice of them. But secondarily, the reason I think it’s really healthy to put them in the same category from a psychological perspective is obviously the first things that people are going to say is like, well, even if you have this additional biological drive to go out and sleep with other people, even when you’re in a a committed relationship, you don’t have to do that.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And it’s like, well, it’s the same, same sex attraction. Right? Or you could say, yeah. Well, it’s dramatically less optimal to structure for like legal reasons, et cetera, to structure a family. Like what if we normalize polyamory, then like a bunch of men aren’t gonna get wives, for example, right?

Like there’s a bunch of negative externalities to doing this, and it’s like. Yeah. But if you consider the point of marriage being producing the next generation, which is a cost that goes to the, the individual, [00:13:00] you know, the state’s not helping with that. Then there’s a dramatic negative externality towards normalizing gay and lesbian relationships, right?

So in in that case, it is very much the same type of a thing. And if you teach your kids that the two things are the same type of a thing I think that they will have an easier time sort of healthily framing it in their heads, right? It’s, it’s the type of thing that you don’t need to react to with like, woo, how could you ever do that?

Right? Like, I think attacking people in these communities really only serves to hurt the wider. We’ll, we’ll call it the saying part of the, the cultural movement or the conservative part as it’s began to be called. But like, we don’t win elections when we’re just like randomly reactively mean, or you know, overtly signal that we don’t approve of specific lifestyles.

That’s the left

Simone Collins: thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s the less thing, right? Like stop acting like a leftist purity Mongol. Okay. We can just say, oh, that’s probably not the [00:14:00] most efficient way to achieve your particular goals. And it might be the most efficient way, right? Like, if you are same sex attracted and you’re a woman as Simone always points out, like you can really rack up babies, right?

If you do it with siblings sperm, because then you can have two people pregnant at the same time in a partnership. The problem is, is that lesbian relationships are just super unstable. And I wouldn’t, if I was a woman, I would be worried about having kids with another woman because okay. So. Guys, just us.

Okay? Nobody clip farming here, okay? But women like being in a relationship with a woman there’s challenges to that. Okay? You know, we all gotta make our sacrifices here. And you could look at any of our episodes where we talk about like lesbian dating statistics versus gay dating statistics to be like, gay relationships are just like across the board, like psychologically better than lesbian relationships.

The more women you put in a relationship, the more you know abuse, the more you know, [00:15:00] emotional issues, the more disvalue each partner feels. Le lesbians have always been the conservative movements like hidden. Got you on the left, like now, now you’ve got to live, married to women. It’s actually a common article type.

I, I don’t know if you’ve seen these articles of like leftist women who decide that they’re bisexual and then try dating women and are like, oh my God, this was a mistake. No, they’re like, I now understand what men were complaining about. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: these, these people are jerks.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I only need to exist with my own mind to know how horrible it is.

I, I don’t know why women need to experience other women to discover it. They have to live with themselves every single day, but. Go figure, I guess,

Malcolm Collins: I, another interesting thing I point here when I talk about if you’re like, well, how much biological variance could there really be in relationships? Right?

And I think I’m probably a pretty good example of that in [00:16:00] our, because you know, we started out in leftist circles when we got married. We were fairly leftist when we got married. And as part of our, you know, to today relationship contract, we would technically be considered a polyamorous couple in that if I wanted to.

Well, Simone, I, I told Simone I, no, you’re not allowed to sleep with other people. I’m allowed to sleep with other people if I want to. Right. Which is the way it often works when you have a high value man in a thing and, and people would be like, oh, so you must be like sleeping, right. No. Like, I’ve, I, I don’t try to.

Right. And, and this is pretty obvious from the community, right? If you look at these other creators even you know, constantly. And their discords, they’re like flirting with their fans right now. There’s another few creators that have been canceled for hitting on fans or flirting on with fans or whatever.

And I assume especially the people who are like deeper in the base camp community and hang out on the Discord or were like active in the subreddit before it got shadow banned. I mean, [00:17:00] it’s still pretty fun, but it’s, you know, that I’ve like never once done something like that, even though I’m in a position where doing something like that would be trivial.

And the answer as to like, why is biology, right? Like when I am deeply psychologically attached to somebody like Simone I don’t feel a biological desire to go out there and search for something else. And, and, and it’s clear that, you know, some people don’t feel that way. And so I, I, I just wanna make like that, that biological variance clear because I’m sure that some of our fans probably are in long-term relationships, love their partner and they’re like, yeah, but if I had like a platform or something like that, I’d probably take advantage of it.

Simone, I assume you probably feel the same way. Would you like want to like sleep around if you could?

Simone Collins: No, definitely not. Definitely not. I mean, even [00:18:00] when. People who I liked in the past expressed interest in me in that way, I would have such a strong negative reaction that I would literally like burn stuff.

So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, she lit a love letter on fire in the sink.

Simone Collins: It well, and photos and other things. This has happened multiple times. Oh

Malcolm Collins: really?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just

Malcolm Collins: somebody

Simone Collins: sent you

Malcolm Collins: photos.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I just, yeah, I just have a very strong negative reaction to sexual interest from others, and I always have. Then I met you and I was like, whoa, I’m gay from Malcolm.

But yeah, I mean, I, I don’t know if that’s like an emotional attraction or I’m just, I find everyone else so repulsive and you’re just the one exception. I don’t get it, but there it is.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I, I, I wanted to highlight that before we go further into this. Actually, let’s steal man this. In what way is being polyamorous fundamentally different from being gay?[00:19:00]

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no. I mean, what, on what grounds could somebody legitimately say,

Simone Collins: oh yeah, I guess so they’re very similar in that to deny them basically means that you’re not sexually satisfied, but you could still make your life work.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: they’re very similar in which in, in, in non, in, in most formats it means that you’re going to have lower fertility, though in some rare formats, your fertility can be significantly boosted.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and polyamory can be very eugenic for a population.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and it can help you have a lot more kids depending on how you do it. Yeah. So, but, but that is, that puts you in the minority of polyamorous situations. So, yeah, I guess functionally, practically they’re quite similar for sure. And yeah, I guess they’re very similar too.

‘cause the people we know who identify as polyamorous, definitely they don’t frame it as like, this is my lifestyle preference. It’s more like, no, [00:20:00] like, this is how my sexuality works. Like it Yeah, definitely to them, it, it, it, it, it is no different from the kind of, of, of visceral reaction you see from the people we know who are gay.

So, yeah, I, you’re right, that’s a. Fair. I agree.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, I think that this is also, you see, some women in like the conservative movement and we’ve had some like fans reach out or whatever, and they’re like, oh, I can’t speak to a man. I’ll speak to Simone. Right. But I’m a woman, I can’t talk to Malcolm.

Right. And I find this very interesting or like, Mike, whatever his name is what the last V could

Simone Collins: Oh, Mike Pence. Yeah. Yeah. Who has this family rule whereby you never have dinner alone with another woman.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And I’ve noticed some of our fans have been surprised that you allow me alone with other women so freely, like with like ala for example, like other women who are sexual and known for being sexual.

Right. [00:21:00] And that you’ve never really had any concerns about that.

Simone Collins: I mean, if you’re Yeah, I, yeah, I’m well. I don’t know. I feel like a, a great default. If you really have faith in your marriage agreement or your commitment to each other, then you will have absolutely no rules because it’s, it’s that strong.

I feel when people ha have so little faith in each other or themselves that they do not feel they can be alone with another person, aside from their spouse of the opposite gender, they won’t be able to stop themselves to control themselves. I mean, is the marriage really that strong or,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, I, I can appreciate that.

Look, if, basically the point I’m making here is. It is not a big moral victory for me to not be cheating on you or not be hitting on fans because I just don’t have a desire to do that. Whereas for other people, they need to build more [00:22:00] structure into their lives to achieve that end. And, and both of those are, are viable pathways.

It just depends on how you happen to be built.

Simone Collins: I guess. I understand it, but also like, if that’s the case, I guess. Yeah, it, it, it does make sense. I guess it’s, it’s like, if I put it in an analogous situation of this person has a lot of trouble with food and if they’re around carbs, like they will just, if there’s a loaf of bread around them, they’ll just eat the whole loaf of bread.

If there’s ice cream in the freezer, they will eat the ice cream. Maybe that Mike Pence rule is more along the lines of, we just don’t keep ice cream in the freezer because if it’s there, he’s gonna eat the ice cream. And I, we, he doesn’t want to eat the ice cream. He’s gonna feel bad after it. I don’t want him to eat the ice cream.

It’s gonna, you know, he’s, he’s got heart problems or whatever. Like he’s, he’s overweight, but like, let’s not do this. Let’s just not bring in the temptation. And I guess that’s kind of like, a lot of sexual orientations or arousal pathways, like [00:23:00] you understand it’s a temptation and you may decide that indulging in that interest or temptation or arousal pathway is just not in your practical best

interest.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, this is such a fascinating meta point. Okay. So before I found out about naltrexone and, and got drinking under control at a normal point. Yeah. There were multiple ways I regulated my drinking and they were all around access. Totally. I would only go out and buy single beers for

Simone Collins: beer,

Malcolm Collins: right?

Simone Collins: Yes, yes, yes.

You

Malcolm Collins: don’t drink a ton, but I had

Simone Collins: to, you would, you would buy the largest like single drink container you could.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You could buy some big beers.

Simone Collins: What was it? Was it a Macedonian leader who was like, told you could only have one glass of wine a day? So he got,

Malcolm Collins: I wanna say genis or something, or kt

Simone Collins: think he got like a bucket or something.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So he had a giant goblet made, you know, or was one glass a day? No, but this is, this is what they’re talking about. Was that right? Like they’re [00:24:00] trying to restrict their access to this sort of stuff. And, and I have done that myself in the areas where I have genetic weakness. Right. Fortunately you know, cheating on my partner a bunch is not one of those areas.

But anyways, so, I, was I gonna say, but for other creators or people with communities dedicated to them having something like a Discord server that’s just there to like, talk about ideas that you’ve had

Simone Collins: is like being a binge eater with a fridge full of cake.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Don’t

Simone Collins: refrigerate your cakes guys, by the

Malcolm Collins: way.

Sorry. A fridge full of cake. And they’re really the only things that they can do is make rules for themselves. Yeah. Like I don’t get sign on the discord after I’ve been drinking. I don’t sign on the discord after I’ve And people who are on the discord. No, I have been on the RD after I’ve been drinking.

Right. Like,

Simone Collins: oh no,

Malcolm Collins: what?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I say stuff and delete it, but it’s generally stuff that’s just like, about my life that I’m not supposed to share or [00:25:00] something. But yeah. The, the, I I do not you know, creep in those, those moments.

Simone Collins: You’re not squeezing on women.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but again, I like the drinking thing because I’m not above this biological impulse.

Simone Collins: Sure, yeah. But the

Malcolm Collins: reason,

Simone Collins: I guess there are areas where you know that if there’s availability, you won’t

Malcolm Collins: be able to help yourself without chemical control. I cannot control myself. But where this gets really interesting is the meta point here which is around, because some people didn’t understand why I just do not care about online pornography, right?

Like, um mm-hmm. Especially anything that’s drawn or AI created, like if a real woman is involved, like obviously there’s negative moral externality to that. Yeah. But if it’s just an arousing image, right? Or an arousing AI story that we just generated is our fab, right? People are like, why doesn’t he care about this stuff?

Is maybe he’s trying to like do you know, like fat women telling other women you look great. You know, so that they get fat too, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, you know, like just trying to [00:26:00] sabotage like genetic competition. And I, I realized when they said that why our framings on this particular topic are so different.

If you are a guy who really struggles because there access to that stuff is out there you’re gonna want to create at least for yourself, extremely strict rules around it. And then you look at a position of someone like me who just doesn’t feel that, that that particular struggle at a huge level I am gonna be like, yeah, whatever.

Because the people who are overly struggling with that are eventually gonna be cold from the gene pool, right? Like, yeah. Give given, given how easy it is to access erotic material these days. And any. Strict rule around it, never being exposed to that stuff is going to disc correlate with being online.

Right. And, and unfortunately being online slash [00:27:00] involved with AI slash involved in technology, all of the things that generate that stuff magically is extremely tightly correlated with are your descendants going to matter?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Are they gonna get off planet or not? Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Technology, everything like that.

Right. It’s, but it’s a, it’s a rather cruel view for me to have, right. To just be like, oh, well you’re cooked if that stuff is a particularly big challenge for you. Right. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But it is also in line with our general philosophical belief. I mean, if you’re going to be cold, you’re cu If you are not predestined to matter, that’s a tough roll of the dice.

But that’s just how it is.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and, and, and note here, what I mean by this is not a person who looks at corn once a day or plays around with an erotic AI storyteller is cold. I’m talking about the person who does that for nine hours every day. Right. If, if you’re, if you’re a person and this stuff is taking up 15 minutes of your time, 30 minutes of your time a [00:28:00] day it’s, it, it’s no more damaging to you than video games are.

Probably less. And, and, and just as masturbatory in terms of like time output, what I’m really talking about when I’m talking about the people who are cult or the people who just absolutely spiral out the moment they get access to this.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And there’s people like that who spiral out at the moment, they get access to video games, right?

Like, there’s different ways that the world around us can call us.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. No, we, we all know. I mean, okay, we’re, we’re old, you know, we’re, we’re millennials, but I think we all know people who. Disappeared during college due to Wow. You know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: There was at least one in every dorm floor who was lost.

Malcolm Collins: That would’ve happened to Asma Gold had he not gotten famous.

Right. You know, like,

Simone Collins: yeah. He was one of the few who, who went all the way through. He, like Dante, he passed through through hell and then just came through the sphincter. That is, that is him.

Malcolm Collins: Unfortunately, blizzard made it less addictive by making it terrible. So, you know,

Simone Collins: that helps.

Malcolm Collins: Nobody plays anymore.

But anyway, what I wanna go into now before is, is people say, [00:29:00] well, is the left really pushing this as a mainstream thing? So here’s part of the Black Lives Ladder mission statement. I think a fairly mainstream leftist organization, we disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children.

To the degree that mothers parents and children are comfortable basically saying they want to disintermediate the nuclear family and that means polyamory. That’s basically what they’re saying, right? Like they believe in,

Simone Collins: if I’m gonna steelman it, that could also be the corporate family, this extended family networking community that cares for each other and is a more sustainable and more historically accurate form of the family unit.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: potentially. I mean, I, I, I’ll, I’ll agree with your steelman to

Simone Collins: it. You’ll allow it. You’ll

Malcolm Collins: allow it. But now I want to, before we talk about, anybody knows leftists have fully incorporated polyamory as like a main part of [00:30:00] the urban monocultures project, right?

Simone Collins: Oh, you gonna, you gonna Lindsay West this or what?

Malcolm Collins: No, I wanted to go through what people used to say about polyamory first.

Simone Collins: Oh. Well, I mean, keep in mind as much as, as, as people act like it’s been around forever, it really hasn’t. I mean, it, it was referred to as my father reminds me ad naum that it was, it was free love back then in the eighties. It wasn’t polyamory.

I think that polyamory first emerged with the book, the Ethical Slut, really? Right. In terms of popular

Malcolm Collins: problem. No, there I had a, a longer timeline that actually quit, but the word emerged in the 1980s.

Simone Collins: Well, not according to my dad.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, well I said emerged. Coined for the very first time in the 1980s, right?

Yeah. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It takes a while to get around and for everyone to agree that this is what we’re calling the thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the timeline I wanted to go through was things like let’s start with Evan Wilson. This is the founder and [00:31:00] president of Freedom to Marry and the lead architect of the National Marriage Equality Campaign.

So a 2009 quote from him. Right.

Okay.

The right wing would love nothing more than for us to spend all of our air time discussing distractions such as polygamy, bestiality, and other, from their point of view, doomsday scenarios rather than engage in the public about committing the same sex couples being discriminated against.

So you could see here they’re already like. This isn’t the point. This is a, a, a relevant slippery slope argument. Okay. Dan Savage said, oh.

Simone Collins: Dan Savage. Alright. Alright,

Malcolm Collins: Dan. Dan Savage. Polyamory is not a sexual orientation. It’s not something you are, it is something you do and this is really fascinating, but it could be something you are, it depends on how you self-identify same attraction.

Well,

Simone Collins: yeah, he seems like such a, I mean, he’s, you know, famously sex positive and, and pretty based and pragmatic about sexuality, so this is, that’s actually quite [00:32:00] surprising. I didn’t expect him to be cited to sing something like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Bisexuality Poly podcast writing in gay publication 2006.

This is a Michigan LGBT newspaper. I’ve been greatly disappointed at how the leaders of the same-sex marriage movement have distanced themselves from polyamorous. Though we are equally vilified by our mutual opposition, our existence in an incon is an inconvenience because we belie there assertion that there is no slippery slope.

The author, a poly activist, explicitly called out mainstream same-sex marriage leaders for deliberately distancing the movement from poly people to maintain the no slippery slope argument against the conservatives. So even while they’re making this argument, people in their own camp are like, okay, but we’re actually gonna eventually fight for that right now on where, and, and, and by the way, during the, ogre 2015 [00:33:00] case conservative justices, Roberta Scalia and Anatolio raised a slippery slope to polygamy argument in dissent LGBT organizations and advocates responded by rejecting any equivalence. So that’s fascinating. So now let’s look at the legal stance of poli polyamory right as it has gained more acceptance in society.

Sorry, I needed,

Simone Collins: you’ve got the brain wiggles.

Malcolm Collins: No break today.

Simone Collins: Oh, Malcolm,

do you want me to just you, you, you can, I guess you don’t wanna go to sleep after this, but

Malcolm Collins: I’ve gotta edit the episode for tomorrow. Mm.

Simone Collins: Maybe you can kind of train me in your preferred editing methods, and I can try to do this for you more. But do you want me to bring you dinner to your room so you can go to bed earlier?

Malcolm Collins: I’ll come down. It’s not gonna help that much.

Simone Collins: Okay. Do you want it earlier or later? Like, do you want a nap right away?

Malcolm Collins: Earlier, because if I nap now, then I won’t, I’ll get to sleep extra late so I, I never nap at night.

Simone Collins: Okay. Then I will, I’ll just do your dinner [00:34:00] first and let the kids play outside. And then do theirs next.

I,

Malcolm Collins: but agents can fully code now, guys.

Simone Collins: Yes, they can.

Malcolm Collins: You’re on PC and Chrome,

Simone Collins: Or a Mac, right? I mean, it’s just the Well, you’re on model.

Malcolm Collins: We, we haven’t tested all of the bridge stuff yet. I’d love it if you did test the bridge architecture with the apps Simonon. Okay. On your map. So yeah,

Simone Collins: I’ll mark that as my task for tomorrow

Malcolm Collins: 2011. Oh, sorry. The bridge. We have a bridge app you need to download, so like, it won’t work on phones, but it allows it to do stuff like run programs on your computer. Mm-hmm. In 2011, legal scholar Ann Tweedy publishes polyamory as a sexual orientation, arguing it could qualify for protected status. So 2011 was the first time somebody said, sort of legally, academically, we could fight for polyamory in the same way we fight for gays.

Simone Collins: But that was [00:35:00] pretty late. 2011 was, you know, that’s a long time after the 1980s when this concept first emerged.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then in 2015 during the Ogre Feld verse Hodges Supreme Court decision, it was widely said no. Like polyamory is never gonna be on a table as part of this movement mid 2010s growing media, academic discussion of polyamory in queer spaces, quote unquote EEG querying polyamory, but no major push for it yet.

Fall 2020. Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition or plac forms a coalition of lawyers, psychologists, and academics, including Harvard Law School LGBTQ plus advocacy clinic. Its mission explicitly includes ending discrimination based on relationship structure, seeing legal re recognition for multiple partner families.

And after that, they rapidly began winning it. The. Massachusetts Somerville became the first US city to pass a [00:36:00] multi-partner domestic partnership ordinance. Whoa.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So you

Simone Collins: can that they would that sounds about right.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Then March, 2021, Cambridge, Massachusetts passes a similar ordinance. March, 2023 summer mill is the first US municipality to pass a non-discrimination ordinance related to family structure and relationship structure, explicitly carving out fault, the polyamorous families 2024 Berkeley and, and ca pass ordinances, adding family relationship structure as a protected class 2025 to 2026.

A wave of similar efforts on the West Coast. Examples include West Hollywood, Los Angeles areas. Finally, this anti-discrimination protection. Of polyamorous couples at Portland, Oregon, Olympia, Washington, Washington, et cetera. So you can see this is, this has become mainstream in, in leftist circles.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that’s good [00:37:00] because I want to teach my children about these temptations as a bundle. Both to de-stigmatize the allure of, oh, this is different. But also to de-stigmatize, oh, you’re horrible if you feel this. You know, some people just feel this way. It’s up to you whether you think that it will improve your quality of life to act on those feelings.

Mm-hmm.

And whether or not you can act on a feeling is in part downstream of your addictive qualities. Right. Like, how much is it’s just going to eat your life the moment you engage in it once.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Quick aside, like what’s the difference between being polyamorous and being a dude? Like, don’t, most guys like, wouldn’t the majority of men if given the option, prefer a marriage in which they were allowed to have as many partners as they wanted?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I’m in a marriage like that, right. And yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, and I think most men, [00:38:00] and, and I will be clear, we have close friends who are female and polyamorous. I’m not saying it’s like majority a male thing, but like, isn’t the majority of men just, you know. Just Polly and I, part of the reason why I think there’s been so much reticence about,

Malcolm Collins: no, that’s one of the points I’ve been making is I think young men believe this because they haven’t been in a long-term committed relationship with kids.

If you asked me this when I was younger, I would say yes. Okay. ‘cause younger I felt that way. Now that I have five effing kids, I don’t feel that way, right? Mm-hmm. That I’m around a lot, and I mean, biologically, that makes sense. Am I in just sort of like, oh, I’m in an environment where women are casually breeding with me, then I should breed as many of them as possible, right?

Like historically, that makes sense, right? Mm-hmm. However, historically it also makes sense. Oh, I have a committed partner in five children. Yeah. I probably am just gonna make things worse for myself if I start seeking out other partners.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:39:00] So you think that human biology basically has a. I don’t know, a tendency to kind of lean into whatever seems to be working well.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. From a reproductive fitness perspective yeah. And it, it, it probably has various gauges for determining what’s working well. Mm-hmm. I mean, there’s a reason why I think people who might be in long-term committed relationships, but don’t have kids still see polyamory as a desirable lifestyle.

What I’ve noticed is my friends who are polyamorous and have kids generally stop yeah.

That’re

Simone Collins: right, even

Malcolm Collins: who are very aggressive promoters of polyamory. Once they get a few squids around, they’re like, mm-hmm. Don’t want that anymore.

Simone Collins: That’s reduce. I mean, I think also that like the presence of young kids is it kind of busts sex drive.

I think this is one of the reasons also why wet nurses were so popular in the [00:40:00] past. Because it was kind of understood that if you had, if you were in close contact with kids, like there would probably be less sex. That I think that that reduces interest. Yeah, that makes sense. So, you know, like send away the kids, send them to the farm with the woman, with the, the, the novels and it will all be fine.

I don’t know. Humans be weird.

Malcolm Collins: Humans be weird. I am all for this trend. I love that progressives are eating this pill themselves. Let them eat it. Right? This is where we need progressive society to go. You know, the, the, well, I mean

Simone Collins: I’m, I’m very interested in like this, this ultra high fertility subsets of gay, lesbian and polyamorous cultures that end up surviving.

Like the lesbians who actually do like, let’s double up pregnancies and like spam children and the gays who like develop the artificial wombs.

Malcolm Collins: It will be interesting to see I, I, I cannot comment. I mean, look, if guys are like, well, you know. Gay relationships are always going to be inefficient for X, Y, and Z.

I’m like, [00:41:00] but you know, hold on, like, check this out. Right? What if we could like engineer people to be gay? Right? And you know, birthing was all done through pods or something like that, right? Like, and then we didn’t need women anymore. Wouldn’t society be like, dramatically more efficient? Like just think about voting maps of like, if only men voted versus if only women voted right?

Like, we’re cooked because women are putting their thumb on the scale of civilization. Right?

Simone Collins: I mean, it would be interesting to see, I really would love to see natural experiments of, you know, this is a place that is like, you know, only, only female run and occupied and other spaces that are only male owned and occupied and run.

And you, you had that a little bit. In mining towns, like early Telluride for example, was probably 95% were super efficient in early Telluride. I know, I know. So maybe you had it a little bit then. But they were too small, too [00:42:00] isolated and too early for us to really use that for like that much four chan for Chan versus, but Tumblr was also massively influential.

That’s what you know, so I don’t know if that’s a great example.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Massively influential on groups. That became very inefficient. The groups that Fortune ended up influencing became very culturally dominant.

Simone Collins: Yeah, fair enough. Well, I love you very much. I love you too. And I’ll make you steak with forage ramp butter for dinner.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You’ve been foraging ramps in the local park and making ramp butter to eat with steak.

Simone Collins: I’m no, no.

Malcolm Collins: And do not forget to toast the Hawaiian buns with butter on it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, I figure you want me to just toast them and give you softened ramp butter to put on them?

Malcolm Collins: No. I would toast them with the butter,

Simone Collins: with ramped butter on them and melt it into

Malcolm Collins: them.

Yeah. Yeah. Don’t you typically toast buns with butter?

Simone Collins: Yeah, but plain butter, I don’t know how the ramps are gonna toast.

Malcolm Collins: You could always have more ramps. They’re [00:43:00] no such thing as too much ramps, Simone.

Simone Collins: Okay. Sure. I mean, I’ll, I’ll toast it with the ramp butter on it then.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I like eating ramps raw, so like, obviously people don’t know.

It’s a, it’s a, this is ramp season in, in Pennsylvania. If you’re on the northeast coast of the United States. And you are not harvesting ramps this season. You need to

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What’s wrong

Simone Collins: with you?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, what’s wrong with you? Don’t, you know, the new hipster thing is to,

Simone Collins: to forge the

Malcolm Collins: ramps.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It just, it, it’s just, it’s, they’re just there like we’re, we’re out there like, you know, digging them up and people are just walking by, like whatever.

Same with wine berries. They’re just there to, to take. Yeah. Do you know how much people pay for these in stores and they’re just there?

Speaker 4: See this? I got this selling corn comes out of the f*****g ground. I couldn’t believe it.

You see that it’s made of chicken. [00:44:00] It’s actually made of chicken. You kill it, you’ve got free chicken. You can sell it to people or don’t kill it. F*****g eggs come out their asses F*****g al.

Simone Collins: I don’t get it. We’re, we’re doomed. Society’s, doomed

Malcolm Collins: society. The, the wine berries one is really crazy. ‘cause these are like really tasty raspberry variants.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They’re all over where we live.

And the other people here, it’s like they do not see them. They will walk by a bush.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like literally, like the paths are, are just lined with them, overflowing with these berries.

Malcolm Collins: And my guess is it’s just ‘cause so many people who live here are Indian immigrants they, they don’t know about them or they have a different culture around foraging.

I mean, keep in mind our ancestors,

Simone Collins: I know I, I watch white people walk by way more than like the immigrant population in this area. And when, like for example some of our Indian neighbors walk by. As we were and we’re like, it’s Ramsey. And they’re like, oh yeah, no, it’s great. Like they, they know,

Malcolm Collins: oh, they know

Simone Collins: it’s Ramey Good food, Indians, no [00:45:00] good food.

Don’t you even but it, it’s, I I I blame the white people. I don’t know what I, I mean, I don’t even know where ramps are native to the wine. Berries are Japanese invasive species, so

Malcolm Collins: there’s so much better than raspberries, though. The local, they’re cult bar of raspberries are not nearly as tasty as the wineries.

Simone Collins: I know, I know. It’s a, a true fact. I don’t know what to say.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway I love talking to you. I hope our fans have a spectacular day. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, try our fab. The new agent feature is pretty good.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. And if you want over. I think it’s over 80 now. Certainly over 70 bonus episodes.

Or a new episode every weekend. Today. In addition to what you get during weekdays, this is why I’m so, you can become a paid subscriber on Substack and Patreon. And yeah, buy this man a nap, please. Someone

Malcolm Collins: freaking hate you.

Simone Collins: I love you much.

Malcolm Collins: I love you. I, I don’t think we’re gonna do two episodes today.

I’m just too tired. I’m not, I’m not on my game. I’m sorry. I needed to take a nap today [00:46:00] and I just haven’t had the time. I

Simone Collins: know, I know. Okay. Well, I’ll go make you dinner now. Maybe you can go to bed crazy early. You want to do that?

Malcolm Collins: I’d love to try that.

Simone Collins: All right, let’s do it. It’s on I’ll go down now.

I love you.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, what do you think now? Do you agree with my take on the polyamory thing like that? It, we should see it as the same as being gay, same type of thing?

Simone Collins: Yeah. It, yeah, it’s, it’s a very strong, probably, you know, biologically built based, like inbuilt preference for how you conduct your sexuality. So, yeah. I, it makes sense to me.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Well, I love you to death alone. You are a wonderful woman, and thank you for your time. Somebody in the comment said that you are so elegant as a wife and they just do not see elegant well, like, well thought through sane women talking about things.

Simone Collins: That’s very kind.

Malcolm Collins: If you, if you want other good, conservative married couples, [00:47:00] I mean, they don’t call themselves conservatives, all of them, but they freaking are. Mm-hmm. Clownfish TV is pretty good and daring is pretty good. Just,

Simone Collins: yeah, there’s, there’s a decent number of, I mean, I, you, you know, I also watch very leftist couples Fun

Malcolm Collins: Fridays.

You

Simone Collins: Lie Love Funny Fridays, I love Bundy. Fridays. I love what are they? The, the ex-Mormon couple that talks about, they’re not a

Malcolm Collins: couple.

Simone Collins: No, you’re thinking self on a shelf. I’m thinking about they both have long blonde hair.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know who you’re talking about.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I’m so sorry. I forgot their names.

There’s, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of cute couples out there. Of course we’ve got, you know, the Neman, the ballerina farm family,

Malcolm Collins: which

Simone Collins: I love. Yes. I love, I love to watch them because they’re nerdy. The the God, the husband’s name, I, I always forget his, his name. And I’m so sorry, but like his Instagram handle is literally hog fathering that he just wanted to have a pig farm.

You know, here he is the, you know, the Scion of the jet flu empire. He [00:48:00] just wants his pig pig farm. And he is like really stoked and like all of his Instagram reels are like, look at my cows, look at my pigs, look at my kids. And like, he just loves his life and he is nerdy about it. And they got like a Roomba.

For their, their cow area. And it like moves the poop around and it’s cute. And he’s just like, look at this. It’s so cool. Look, here’s a new baby cow. And you know, just, I love, yeah, it’s, it’s cute when couples

Malcolm Collins: find their thing. You’re such a nerd, Simone, that you watch this stuff on TikTok or wherever you’re

Simone Collins: not on TikTok.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Malcolm Collins: I love you.

Simone Collins: Only the Insta. I love you too. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: Pray for steak ramp steak

Simone Collins: ramp steak ramp Steak

Malcolm Collins: River extra ramps this time. And feel free to use the whole ramp in these ones, not just the leaves.

Simone Collins: Are you sure?

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. It’ll, it’ll, and all

Simone Collins: wrap out recipes. It really, you know,

Malcolm Collins: it says only the leaves.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it’ll create a stronger flavor. And I felt that the flavor was a little weak was the last one you made. I would do like three x, but I think with the leaves you [00:49:00] can do two x and I mean with the roots. Okay. Save the roots for another day. ‘cause I like the roots on the own a lot too. You know?

And we can do Bullock tomorrow.

Simone Collins: Let’s do that. I wanna ma, I wanna stretch ‘em out. Got my hands dirty for that. Okay. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: Dig through the dirt like a dog,

Simone Collins: like some kind of their husband. Yeah. Animal

Malcolm Collins: dressed in your traditional outfit. It looks so cute. With all the kids around basket. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Like what are you doing? Okay.

Malcolm Collins: You know, he

Simone Collins: ever really off TV just spontaneously while studying today. It’s like, I love Daddy just randomly says things like that. Well, toasty so sweet too. He’ll just, has he ever just sitting next to you or something, been like, daddy, I kind of love you. He doesn’t [00:50:00] say I love you. I mean, he’ll say that too, but he often is just like, oh, you’re muted.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So, Tosi does say that to me all the time. The, I love you from toasts. Sweet. That’s it. Sweet.

Simone Collins: Or, I kind of love you. I kind of love you.

Malcolm Collins: I was thinking of a very interesting idea that I’m gonna bake into a full episode.

But I want your thoughts so you can, you can gimme your thoughts. Trump derangement syndrome, like what? Actually causes it.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With a focus on, I’ve noticed some people who are otherwise fairly right wing get Trump derangement syndrome. And a lot of the theories I have around Trump derangement syndrome focus on why do left wingers get Trump derangement syndrome.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But not why, why are people on the right getting it right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was just sort of thinking from the comments of short fat o taco on our last video where it’s very clear like he, he was unable to see positive things Trump had done.

Simone Collins: But you said, well, I, sorry. What he said was, I’ve always been a leftist.

I was [00:51:00] never on the right. So.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I’ve, I mean, I guess, sort of it felt like he was part of the wider community that was moving to the right in his ideology. Mm. He just never, I guess, well, actually what I realized about him, and I might even do a, a full video on this ‘cause it’s really interesting.

Is he was really proud of the fact that he hadn’t updated any of his views as new information had come out. And, and things had changed. And like, like my positions are always the same, and I’m like, well, that’s not like something to brag about, right? Like I’m, I’m proud that as I got new information my worldview and perspective changed on things like trans issues, religion and immigration.

I used to be pro immigration, but that’s

Simone Collins: in the game of political opposition that’s frequently framed as flip-flopping and considered a dangerous thing to do, which of course is crazy. I mean, and in our intellectuals circles or whatever, people talk about it like, this is great, you know? Oh, strong convictions loosely held, they like to say.

So it’s seen as [00:52:00] this big virtue signaler in certain circles, but I think in the mainstream. World changing. Your view is considered to be flip-flopping and bad.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And that he is somebody who is very interesting, almost like anthropologically. Interesting because his innate world perspective was literally just what was trendy for progressives to believe in the nineties.

And a lot of that group, like that group basically went in two directions. Like one group went the woke direction, which is how can I use this to like dunk on X, Y, and z outgroups. And then the other group just kept true seeking and updated their views as they gained access to new information. Right.

Yeah. And he’s this like weird third path of like, and after that, I just never had a new idea again. Which is interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I will get started here. [00:53:00] Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5: But where is the lock?

Speaker 6: It’s in the block. It’s in the one block here. What do you think? And.

In this deep-dive episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins examine the provocative claim that gender dysphoria—the intense, modern experience driving today’s trans movement—has no precedent in recorded human history before the 1920s.

They contrast historical examples of cross-dressing, third-gender roles, or gender-nonconforming behavior (two-spirit, hijra, sworn virgins, Elagabalus, etc.) with the core modern trans experience: profound discomfort with one’s birth sex that often leads to demands for medical transition, pronoun changes, and access to single-sex spaces.

Malcolm and Simone argue that gender dysphoria resembles culture-bound syndromes like anorexia—intensely felt but socially influenced, disproportionately affecting autistic individuals, emerging around puberty, and exploding via social contagion and media stories.

They respond to critics like Short Fat Otaku (Dev), discuss the shift from 1990s liberal “live and let live” assumptions, the role of bad actors, sports/prisons/restrooms, detransition, and why new evidence (Cass Review, WPATH files, UK data) demands updating views. Simone shares her personal experience with anorexia to illustrate how real these feelings feel even when culturally shaped.

A data-driven, empathetic, and unflinching conversation on human flourishing, consent, and ideological capture.

If you’re interested in history, psychology, culture-bound illnesses, or the trans debate, this episode is essential.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be going deeper down a rabbit hole that I have pulled on in the past, but I was called back to it by an episode I watched of the rapidly declining in viewers short fat Orta. I, I think we now do better than him in terms of, of view count by probably like 20%.

That’s insane. Which is pretty exciting because I used to really like him in his videos and he sort of got, he, he actually represents a, a wider phenomenon that I wanted to grab onto on this topic because he, in its recent video, he was critical of leaflets debate performance, whereas almost everyone else says that she won dramatically.

I even had this moment where he’s like, I think she lost the trans debate she was having. And I was like, to go to an AI and be like, is it general? What’s the general consensus on who won this debate? And it’s like overwhelmingly leaflet. And it, and then it went through all of the reasons. It was overwhelmingly Lisa.

So I was like, okay, just checking on that crazy.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Just so yeah. To, to even override your, your bias still.

Malcolm Collins: But [00:01:00] he said one thing that really got under my skin at the beginning because a trans person was saying to somebody who was in this debate that was happening on X you know, we were here before you and we will be here after you.

And then his response to went viral was like, this is true. And, and he then says, trans people have been reported in human history since, you know, across cultures since the beginning of time. And this is. Factually not true. And I actually don’t even really blame short fat Otaku for not knowing this because this is just, he’s not a historian.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, it’s something that’s not widely known and yet is claimed with a lot of confidence by the trans community. And if you don’t double check, because you, you’ll be broadly aware, like if you’re aware of history, you will be aware that throughout human history and a lot of different cultural context where people will take on alternate gender roles where sometimes people cross dress in [00:02:00] history yeah.

Where people would act like a man or a female at different points in history.

Speaker 2: The Fall of Rome.

Joe Rogan had this to say on his podcast

Speaker 3: fascinating that the end of empires, they get really concerned with gender and hermaphrodites

Speaker 2: the Roman fem boy. Fully grown and willing to take on the role of a common Roman woman. Even the emperor himself donned girly outfits, mascara, and held many chamber parties . The Roman Senate began having debates to determine if quote, being with a fem boy was a totally gay thing. After all,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so you take that and you then just are like, yeah, of course. I’ve heard like three or four instances of that happening in history that I can just think of off the top of my. But that’s not what the modern trans movement is.

The modern and even the core complaint of the modern trans movement is gender dysphoria. This really, really intense discomfort with your birth, gender [00:03:00] to the extent that you may want to unlive yourself, right? Like, you, you cannot live a mentally healthy life as your birth gender. It is something that is constantly eating at you if you, if you don’t transition this phenomenon literally.

Nowhere in history before the year 1920.

Speaker: And you may wanna say, well, Malcolm, that’s pretty nitpicky. So you’re saying that there have been alternate gender presentation throughout history, but there’s never been dysphoria recorded in history. , Why does that matter? Right. And it’s like, well,, if it turns out that dysphoria is a modern cultural phenomenon, if dysphoria is not actually part of the human condition, then most trans arguments immediately fall apart.

The idea of I can’t be mentally healthy without doing this because of what? Because of the distress I feel when I’m. Displaying my birth gender. If you say, well, that distress is a cultural artifact and would probably better off removing the cultural artifact than,, a, a attempting [00:04:00] to address it through major surgery,

that falls apart And if you can say, well, if the people in Historia, , you know, lived as other genders but didn’t feel dysphoria, then why they do it?

And it’s like, well, we actually have a very good record. , Most of the time it was either like a woman wanted to live as a. Father in like a church and like a, this is sort of lifestyle. , Or did she wanted to fight in a war and women weren’t allowed to fight in wars during that period. , Or, , she wanted to pursue a gay relationship and women weren’t allowed to pursue gay relationships in that period.

, Or. With guys. , It’s often they were cross-dressers. Cross-dressing is something we see recorded throughout history. Even today. To conflate somebody who is a cross-dresser with a trans person is extremely offensive to both the trans community and the community of Crossdressers. They are not the same thing.

Wanting to dress up and talk like a woman sometimes is not the same thing as. Being trans. So, , if you say, oh, well in history we have [00:05:00] cross dressers, but no trans people, that’s a significantly different thing That removes most of the motivation for like why we need to gender someone correctly. Gender dysphoria.

Why do I need to use that restroom? Gender dysphoria? Why do I need to be on the sports team? Gender dysphoria.

But if we’re looking to history and all we have is sometimes I like cross-dressing, then it’s why do I have to play on this girl’s sports team? Because I like cross-dressing. It’s like, oh no, that’s stupid. No, we can’t let you on the sports team just because you like cross-dressing. If gender dysphoria is a cultural artifact, that is the center stone that the entire trans community relies on

To demand they, one, be seen as their preferred gender. And two, gain access to safe spaces that would otherwise be referred for people who were born, that gender. , And

also just to head this off at the beginning of this. , We do not think that they are faking feeling gender dysphoria or the [00:06:00] severity of the gender dysphoria. They are. They feel, , we suspect with a lot of evidence that we’ve gone over in other episodes that gender dysphoria. Is very similar to other forms of body dysphoria, which are associated with culture bound illnesses.

These are psychological conditions that only happen within certain cultures, within certain periods of history, and people are unable to catch unless they are aware of them with the most famous being anorexia. And again, you can see a lot of similarities. Age of onset around puberty, gender distribution.

More girls than guys, , key characteristics hits autists more than the general population, , associated with intense body dysmorphia. , And Simone, as somebody who. Went through that, and we’re gonna see this throughout this episode, can really empathize with how real this feels. But if it is a culture bound illness, the way that we need to address it is [00:07:00] entirely different than the way our society is addressing it right now.

If we actually care about the people who are suffering from it.

Malcolm Collins: and there are two maybe cases but both of them are really bad. We’ll go into them in a bit. Just to briefly touch on them, one is a Jewish rabbi from 600 years ago who wrote a poem poem, wrote poem about like, wouldn’t it have been better to be born a woman?

And we’ll go through the poem and everything like this. And just to sort of give, give away the thing there, it’s, that poem is considered within Jewish thought for 600 years up until the year 2000. Not a single scholar. It’s a very famous poem. Thought that it wasn’t satirical. In fact, it was considered almost prototypical or a, an excellent example, often used of Jewish humor from that period.

So not a single scholar or rabbi for 600 years thought it was anything other than a joke.

Simone Collins: Well, even it wasn’t a joke though. I, I don’t think that that could even [00:08:00] necessarily be seen as gender dys

Malcolm Collins: dysphoria. It was a joke. It was written as a joke. It sat down.

Simone Collins: No, but even if it wasn’t as, someone could just be like, well, practically, I’d rather be born a woman, especially during a time of war if they’re like, I’d rather not die in a war.

But that’s

Malcolm Collins: not what the poem was. It wasn’t like that. It was a joke. It was written in a book of jokes. Okay. The other things in this book were mostly jokes.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: really? Okay. Oh my gosh. It was satire. Okay. It’s not like a, oh, you could interpret this in various ways. It’s very clear what was intended by it.

Mm-hmm. The only other example we have in history is potentially a gaba. A Roman emperor who based on one account asked the doctors if he could have a vagina sewed onto him to become a woman, and he would dress up like women. The problem is, is that this one account was extremely hostile to him.

And all historians always like basically, you know, if you go back and you read the [00:09:00] historian literature and we’ll go into this a bit deeper, I just wanna set this up to begin with. They agree. And then, then this is the academic consensus that a lot of this was slanders made up about him, about of people who didn’t like him.

And even if you do bite the bullet on a gula you are basically saying. I, I could just go into this a little bit. He’s like one of the Yeah, please. People in human history. He would do things like cut off people’s members and then feed them to like snakes and birds and stuff like that as part of, oh my god, religious ritual.

He made up, he would give people government positions based on the size of their members. He was the one who was favored. He had a fixation before the gladiatorial games releasing snakes on the crowd just to watch them freak out. He liked to, as a hobby, throw gold a crowd so people would trample each other.

At one point he dropped so many flower petals on a party, a bunch of people suffocated. He oh, [00:10:00] love was super gay, very into you know, having a, a gay main lover. So the, the reality is, is even if you accept that this guy is trans and a historic example of it, he is. Like, that’s your historic prototype of the modern trans community, right?

Yeah. Which really leans into the trans stereotype that like Freedom Tunes has

Speaker 8: So three turfs are on a beach and they find a genie. All right, let me stop you right there. Are these women gonna get murdered by you?

I swear. You’re gonna like the sun.

Speaker 7: Fine, fine. Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 8: They rub the lamp and the genie comes out. Right,

Speaker 7: right, right.

Speaker 8: And the genie is me and I murder them all.

Speaker 7: Okay. Do you see how that’s just you murdering people again?

Speaker 8: No. No, because the genie also says, I love Cat boy.

Speaker 7: Mm, no.

Malcolm Collins: With that trans comic, which you know, it’s something you see. We have [00:11:00] our episodes where, like you, you do see disproportionate violence sexual arousal from, from trans individuals. And we go into why that might be the case.

You see this in Alist studies. It’s was well studied in early trans communities. But we’re gonna go into those a little bit. We’re gonna go into all of the different cross cultural things that people say are trans because they’re not.

Speaker 5: You gotta understand what a big deal this is as a data point. We’re talking about literally all of recorded human history. And you could be like, well, maybe they didn’t write it down because it was societally looked down upon it the time and it’s like. Doesn’t work. We have so many, so many records of gay people throughout history.

We have so many records of other things that were taboo in society. We have James Joyce talking about how he’s turned on by farts. Not once did anyone think to say, I don’t like my birth gender. Right. Like they’re, they’re willing , to, in a society that will kill you for doing it, sleep with a guy and write long love poetry, but never once write down in the private [00:12:00] journal.

I’m just not happy with the gender I was born as that is a massive data point. , And keep in mind we don’t even see an instance of this in cultures that accept people taking on roles that are gender nonconforming. We don’t see a single instance of this. So even where it isn’t discriminated against, no one ever thought to once in human history until the 1920s put a pin to page and say, I’m not happy with my birth gender.

And keep in mind how shocking this is when you contextualize it in the context of how much trans people say that dysphoria affects them in their daily lives, how painful it is to them, how top of mind it is for them in every single human interaction they have. If anyone historically was feeling this, of course, somebody.

Keep in mind right now we’re looking at like 1.5% of the population or something as trans. You think nobody would’ve written that down ever, ever, ever. That’s completely [00:13:00] implausible.

And I want to notice here with the egabla case here, which is the strongest historical case we have of somebody feeling that way. He never even actually says that. He just seems to be debauchery, maxing and thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if I had another sex hole? Right. Like that’s literally what I’m reading from a egabla.

So with that being the case I, I think you, you, you’re really making quite an astonishing claim to say nobody thought to ever write this down. Nobody thought to ever write it in a private journal. No one thought to ever have it in a private diary. With everything we know about human history, that is absolutely astonishing to me.

And to me it means. With like, like you think even accidentally somebody would’ve been, even if, even if dysphoria isn’t a phenomenon, somebody might just have like felt this way because they were abused in some sort of weird way that led to this you know, a convergently looking outcome. But no, to not take this data seriously [00:14:00] is to just not be taking reality seriously.

Malcolm Collins: So that really annoyed me because I was like, come on, like Deb, I, I, I, and I think that Deb’s the type of person that if he just dug into the evidence on this, he would stop making such an easily disprovable claim.

Mm. That, that something that looks like modern gender dysphoria existed anywhere else in history or in any other culture. Okay. But the second thing he does, which I think is even more fascinating, and it’s the entire perspective that he argues from, which is, he went up there and he is like, no reasonable person believes that when you transition your gender, you magically turn into a woman, right?

Uhoh. And of course he was, did

Simone Collins: they not tell him

Malcolm Collins: throttled on X? With many comments getting like five x of the likes of his comment, telling everyone that the guy, the demon, how could he say this about trans people? You know, don’t you know that trans people are actually women? It was. Extremely aggressive.

Speaker 11: I posted Nobody reasonable actually thinks that [00:15:00] trans women metamorphos into biological females. The ask is not believe that men or women, it’s don’t be an a*****e. You don’t have to like trans people. You do have to leave them alone. And just so we’re clear here, I’m completely correct on this. I might have received a lot of blowback, but I’m not backing down from any of it.

I don’t care how big of a hoard of people showed up to complain. They’re all wrong, and I’m right. In fact, there were two hoards of people. The first hoard was left wing deranged, trans activists who hopped in to say that HRT does, in fact turn trans women into biological females and saying anything otherwise is transphobic.

In fact, according to this crowd, if you side with trans women on every reasonable policy prescription with regards to their individual liberties, but you refuse to believe they become female, then you’re exactly the same as a bigoted right winger trying to force them back into the closet. These people are delusional

Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm. And this brings up the second thing I wanna get into, which is like the dev perspective, the last nineties liberal out there. Right. And a lot of us were nineties liberals, whether it’s JK [00:16:00] Rowling or US or a, any number of other people who have since updated their opinions on this. Even leaflet, I think previously would’ve been you know, Protran and the reason we were protran isn’t dissimilar for the reasons that Dev is still arguing today.

It was, we’re like, well, no reasonable person would if we tried to give trans people more rights. Start using women’s restrooms start a, allow anyone to just say I’m a woman and get into a woman’s prison compete in women’s sports. Like no reasonable person would do that. So we can give the trans community these rights and they will self-police because they know that they’ll lose these rights if they don’t self-police around these issues.

Right,

Simone Collins: right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what we all learned is we were wrong.

Simone Collins: Whoops.

Malcolm Collins: They,

Simone Collins: they impossible that it wasn’t the case. There was this vision of just like, just let people live their lives. You know, just let them live. And [00:17:00] it’s fine. And it will be fine. And there was this assumption that you, you wouldn’t really have bad actors in this great world because if someone went off the rails, they’d be doing it in their own little controlled destination box.

You know, it wouldn’t bother us, it wouldn’t affect other people. We would never fathom that someone would be like. No, this means that I should be allowed to go into, like, as a man into women’s prisons. Like we just never would’ve imagined.

Malcolm Collins: That’s crazy what we, what we imagined is yes, some random psycho may say something like that.

Some random psycho may say, oh, no one would

Simone Collins: listen to them. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. But the entire trans community wouldn’t then get up in arms and support them and make their. Perv dreams and actual reality, right? Like, that, that when it came out that something like, you know, we often point out that the tram swimmer who’s, who’s super famous that she was flashing her genitals to girls in a girl’s locker room where it’s not even normal for girls to fully undress, [00:18:00] as we pointed out, that’s not normal in modern changing rooms.

And hasn’t been for a long time. And schools are even designed with this in mind these days. So this is just like intentionally using this opportunity to flash people. And then later a bunch of you know, I, I, I don’t wanna get into all of that, but yeah, it was clear that this was an individual who just wanted to flash people, right?

They, they, they didn’t then turn on this individual. We were like, well, obviously you’re not gonna be one of our leaders or archetypes of what it means to be trans. But they didn’t, and this is when a lot of us who were just sort of, I guess the normies out there, we were like, oh. I’m sorry. Like we, we gave you the knife to do a responsible thing with it, and then you went out and started stabbing people.

Right? And death is interesting because he even sees in his own comments on X that the bad actors have control of the ship, right? Like when you see somebody like Kamala using public funds to do gender reassignment [00:19:00] for people in prison, you know, tax dollars, it could be going to homeless people to gender reassignment in prison.

You’re like, oh, the people who are in control of the ship. These people go with the extreme take the take that he said, no reasonable person. And Mo most of the people who, who had this original like liberal perspective on this or libertarian perspective on this went for. We’ve adopted our views.

The question is, is why hasn’t he? And the answer is twofold, and he basically gives it in the video. Answer number one is he thinks, and a lot of people think that simply because if everyone was reasonable, this, giving them these rights and giving them these interpretations of gender would work.

We collectively, culturally, should do this. Okay. And it’s a really sad perspective because it’s like, [00:20:00] yes, I, I I want to operate society as if everyone is sane and well-meaning when that’s not the case. And so, it’s almost a, a weird sort of Deon, Deon liberal deontology, right? Like, what is moral is what you would do in a society where people don’t act like people, but that’s what leads you to horrors, like communism and stuff like that, right?

Like in a, in a society where everyone was reasonable and responsible and had self-control, communism works, right? But we don’t live in that world.

Speaker 12: And he commented on our last video first I’m aware that he’s commented on one of our videos where we mentioned that his, his viewership has dropped because he is seen as sort of betraying the wider movement that we are all part of, which has become the new right. Which drifted through internet culture.

And he’s like, well, I never changed my views. I never became a conservative. I’ve always been a classical liberal. I never was anti-trans, and I’m just. Baffled, but I’m not, [00:21:00] we’re not criticizing you for changing your views. We’re criticizing you for not changing your views as new evidence came out.

Right? Like we all had those views back then. When I watched your videos, when I loved your channel I had all the perspectives you had. I was seeking truth. I wanted a better world. And I believed that, you know, oh, well we give these people. These additional rights and they will use them responsibly and society will work.

And then it was the same with things like immigration. Oh, we can just take people from other countries, bring them to our country, and it’ll work, and they’ll become just like us. And then with both of these instances, we’re like, oh, okay, well clearly this is not work or whatever. One who was here because we were interested in what was reasonable is like, oh, well, clearly this isn’t working, so now we need to address this.

I take much more pride in my views that I have changed than in my views that have stayed the same, and I’m beginning to sort of. [00:22:00] Wonder or realize, was Dev ever actually on that journey with us? And this faction of people who’d say are like still classic nineties liberals or whatever did they ever really care about what was in the best interest of society or did they have like a religious belief in what was the most common?

Cultural belief system of progressives in the nineties. And just as society has changed around them and certain things that we assumed were true back then have been proven untrue they’re just like, but I refuse to change any of my views because this is what was true in the nineties. This is what any reasonable person thought in the nineties, that we can just have as many immigrant systems as we thought, which I thought I was pro unrestricted immigration back in the day.

Okay, because I, I looked at the Economist research. I looked at that and I was like, oh, this works. And new evidence has come out. We have tried it at scale. It didn’t work. Especially the uk or on trans issues where it’s like, okay, we’ll give you these rights and you will not use them to do [00:23:00] things like go and aggressively try to convert minors, like actively convert on fetish forms, right?

Like if somebody was doing that, you’d try to shut that down, right? Okay, good. And then, oh shoot, somebody’s doing that. Will you guys shut it down? How dare you stop them. transphobe and or you won’t claim crazy things like you’re actually biologically women. And then he sees, oh, oh no, the people running the ship are, Hmm.

That, that’s concerning. That’s gonna cause negative effects for society. And yet he’s like, but I’m religiously. I will live in the nineties. No new information. You know, Travis Duck was never shot down. We never saw that they were hiding the files showing that. Putting people on puberty blockers was increasing the risk of wanting to unlive and decreasing their mental health that this was wide scale throughout the trans industry.

We saw in the WPATH files. I never updated my beliefs after that. I only operate on nineties research that was [00:24:00] done largely by clinics that made their money

off of gender transitioning people. And I think that this is really sad that people like Kim will go cite the research and I’m like, was that research done by researchers who made their living off of transitioning people? Okay. Do you understand how that might be compromised? And we might need to look at other sources of evidence.

It is important and I, I feel like even if you disagree with us, that you take time to understand that when it comes to the anti-trans position of the majority of the leading intellectuals for anti-trans these days, whether it’s Elon or JK Rowling or us. We do not come to this because we love tradition for the sake of tradition, because we are attached to traditional gender roles because, , we want some old religious hierarchy in place.

, If anything, we’re kind of on the opposite team. We come to this because we wanted a better society and we got new information. And it’s the new information [00:25:00] that must be dealt with, not the, oh, you’re just taking away our rights because you hate us.

Obviously that’s not true. All of us had trans friends.

Malcolm Collins: Second he has friends, close friends who are trans and are,

Simone Collins: is, is this something he’s mentioned explicitly or is this is an as an assumption.

Malcolm Collins: He mentions this repeatedly in the video.

This is okay. And I can really understand if you have close friends who fall into a specific demographic that is in a systemic way acting bad, right? On a, on a, on a global stage you could be like, I, I really don’t want this friend of mine to have to suffer. They’re a nice person, right? But the problem is, is.

By taking the action that you are taking, many, many more people who are not your friend end up suffering much, much more, right? Whether it is the people who end up well being [00:26:00] assaulted, which happened just recently near us in Pennsylvania. The the young trans girl who made a hit list of people in the school, and they tried to do something about it, but she had this protected status.

And so then she you beat a girl and it’s really horrible. And, you know, all the warning signs were there. But trans are the people who lose their medals. They’re shot at college, they’re shot at scholarships because of this. Or the, you know, the kids who end up getting transitioned. And now we know from papers that one in 10 kids who, only if you, if you look at 14 year olds with a paper on this, it showed that only one in 10 who identifies as not their birth gender ends up still identifying as not their birth gender by the time they’re, I think, 21 or 23. And we know that this increases on alive rates by huge amounts if they end up adopting into this community.

We know that going onto like when the cast report thing broke down and the, the it wasn’t the cast report, it was the Travis Duck Clinic. When it shut down, they went through the files and they found the suppressed research the W

Simone Collins: [00:27:00] files, right?

Malcolm Collins: Publish. It showed that going on puberty blockers increased unliving risks.

We know now because puberty blockers have been blocked in the uk, that rates have not gone up. That is a huge sample size. We could have easily seen that if that was the case. It turns out that this entire thing was just. Wrong and a lie in people using captured scientific institutions to lie to people.

Yeah. And you can update your beliefs on this, right? Because the point I’m making is, is you are causing real harm because you don’t want your. Friend to feel bad.

Simone Collins: I mean, I think we can relate to it because we have friends who are non-binary. Not necessarily, we’ve certain met nice people who are

Malcolm Collins: trans.

I mean, they’re not friends anymore because of course, you know, I don’t wanna like there’s a point where you have to go out there and but I mean, for every trans friend that I’ve lost, I’ve gained more detransition friends. So like, I, the, the reality is, is I, I, I’ll tell you, the [00:28:00] harassment my detransition friends have faced from the trans community dwarfs in orders of magnitude.

I mean like 10, 20 x anything, any trans friend, I have any face from anyone. That’s true.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And you know this as somebody who’s had trans known trans people and detransition, it’s not even close. Like the trans community is like a very definition of bigotry in the way that they treat Detransposition Pretty

Simone Collins: freaking bad.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: It’s not, not good. Not

Malcolm Collins: good. But well, and this is, this is how, how do I say to somebody? You have to look at the larger picture, right? And be willing to be like, I can still like this person as a person and say that we shouldn’t harass like trans adults on the streets. We shouldn’t treat them poorly, but we need to understand that there is something deeply wrong with the community as it exists right now.

Yeah. And just trying to be this like moral deontologist around like, well, if everyone was reasonable in society when it’s been proven to you on your very platforms, if that’s not the case, and I’m sort of writing this video almost as if I hope Dev Washington, I’m trying [00:29:00] not to be too mean to him, right?

Like, please, like, take a step back from this particular cliff. You are not helping the wider trans community by not admitting that, that we do actually need to start taking action on this issue. Mm-hmm. And it gets worse if it turns out that even your friend is suffering from something closer to a culturally bound illness, which is what we’ll be arguing with, with, with this stuff.

Before I get into that, one final thing I wanted to note is an argument that I saw when I was doing some research on this to try to understand this for like women in you know, trans people joining women’s sports, right? Mm-hmm. Trans males joining women’s sports. And a lot of people get tripped up on this argument because they’ll say something like, well, Michael Phelps has like dramatically larger lungs, and like, that’s for genetic reasons, right?

You know, like, why is he allowed to compete? And yet a trans person who has some like, because they had a male puberty, larger lungs or something like that, why are they not allowed to compete, right? Mm-hmm. [00:30:00] And I. When you actually think through it, the answer is fairly obvious. Suppose there was a surgery that you could get where gills were grafted onto you or you could genetically engineer some humans to be like triple muscled and be able to breathe basically underwater and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Would it be remotely fair or sporting to allow these people to compete in the men’s competition? No, nobody would do that, right? Like we,

Simone Collins: we No. In the enhanced games, yes. In normal competitions, no.

Malcolm Collins: No. Yes. And there is a, a version of the Olympics that’s being built for this, right? This is the reason we banned testosterone, like our performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics.

This is the reason we banned EPO doping in the Olympics. This is the reason we ban many types of, like even swimwear in the Olympics because it’s gives people too much of a scientific advantage. Yeah, because that’s not the, the, the point of the Olympics. If you then created a separate category for the gill people, it would make sense for trans [00:31:00] men to compete in that category because they’re using a surgery to gain an advantage over other people.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Speaker 3: We used to see jokes about trans people competing in sports teams

And being allowed in women’s changing rooms.

Speaker 3: as being fundamentally anti-trans because it was seen as, so obviously an unfair thing to do.

Speaker 2: Come in, dear. Have a seat. Take off your bra if you’d like.

Speaker: I need to talk. See, I have this problem, I have a terrible secret.

Speaker 2: Well, Cindy, we all have our little secrets.

Sometimes we do things we’re not so proud of. To gain the athletic edge on the competition. Sometimes those secrets come back to haunt

Speaker: us.

Simone Collins: On that,

Malcolm Collins: Oh, the other thing I note about not wanting to tell a friend, like Yeah, but overall it’s bad mm-hmm. Is I would ask if, I don’t know if he does have any friends like this, but I’ve also had friends who are Scientologists, [00:32:00] right? Mm-hmm. And it made me very uncomfortable speaking negatively about the church, but the church has destroyed countless people’s lives.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: it’s demonstrably a, a negative force in our society. Mm-hmm. And it’s

Simone Collins: something that we’ve got Scientologists for whom, as far as we can tell on the outside, like, it’s worked well for them. And like you feel like, okay, well this is good for you. I’m not gonna question your choice to do this, but like on average, I would not have anyone I care about join the church.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and it makes sense to warn people about it. It just, as you warn people about gender transition at a young age, you’re normalizing this. And if I could put legal restrictions on the Church of Scientology I, they’d be similar to church. I’d be like, I would want legal restrictions that reduce the number of people coming into the church, but I wouldn’t want to punish people who are like genuine day-to-day believers.

Yeah. And I think that that’s the way we should be approaching this to the question, and this was the big question in Leafless debate. It was the big question dev focused his video on is what is a woman, like, how do you define the word woman? And I largely actually [00:33:00] agree with the broader take on Deb’s perspective on this.

Um mm-hmm. I keep saying Deb, that’s short fight of tacos like name which is a woman is whatever a woman is culturally conceived to be. By that particular cultural group. So from my cultural perspective that, you know, we have built for our family a woman is somebody who has the larger gat and has children.

And are you like, are you saying somebody is less of a woman if they can’t have kids? And it’s like, well. Kind of the primary distinction between man and woman is made around what role they play in reproduction. Given that I think that reproduction is particularly core part of the human life cycle the role that somebody plays in terms of birthing and having kids.

Yeah, I, I think that they are functionally is the 50-year-old woman who is out there sleeping around with 50 guys and having fun. There was a old actress bragging about this being at least who was 50 and, and Brett Cooper was like, what are [00:34:00] you doing? Like, and I was, I felt the same way seeing this 50-year-old like brag about this.

Is she less of a woman than the 50-year-old with three kids? Yeah, she is. Okay. I know that’s an offensive thing to say in our society. But culturally that is the way I see it in the same way that culturally trans people see it differently, right? And then you can say, well, if, if culturally trans people see it differently, then.

Why don’t you say, okay, you just do it culturally your way. They do it culturally their way. Mm-hmm. The reason is, is because their cultural perception. Has numerous negative externalities on the people who adopt it, both in terms of psychological health, self-worth and outcomes. And worse than that is a particularly predatory ideology, which is known for aggressively trying to find new converts in younger individuals from, you know, setting up conversion pipelines in schools, which is something we’ve seen explicitly trying to groom children, [00:35:00] which is something we have seen repeatedly.

And it’s not just like the online, I often play this clip from the giggly goon files. I think it was quite good where you, you’ve seen a forum, so people talking about, oh, I’m gonna hunt children. Right? And it’s something that they do regularly for sport.

Speaker 11: it’s genuinely really good grooming advice. I’ve so far sent it to four minors between the ages of 9 and 13. I hope it encourages them to transition. When the Anka Zone animation became a meme, they got excited over its virality among kids. Mana Drain and Orion also fantasized about getting kids on hormones orion was the manager , coercing him every step of the way. Has he started hormones yet? Yes, but not effectively. I guess that’s what you’d expect just telling a r to buy hormones. They bought estrogen, but no anti androgen. It would have been more fun if he started hormone blockers at like 12.

Haha, isn’t that true for everyone? Don’t worry, I’ll make him into a good girl Don’t blow up our spot, bro. All t slurs are like that. You can trust me around your kid. It’d be transphobic not to. Me with daycare tots. To Orion, and many of his associates, their identity was little more than a political shield.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s [00:36:00] something that we have seen.

With even the Travis clinic, one of the doctors there was arrested for going to a local park and attempting to recruit kids. Like, this is a repeated phenomenon within the trans community. I did

Simone Collins: not know about that. That’s wild.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s not punished by the wider trans community. Once it’s caught, it has to be punished by outsiders.

None of this

Simone Collins: would be, well, also, I just wanna point out, this is ancillary to our first and maybe most fundamental philosophical gripe with trans ideology, which is that it violates consent in that to be trans isn’t really so much an internal process as it is involving forcing people to externally do something against their will.

They, they are obligated per your. Choice to see you and acknowledge you and refer to you by your gender of choice, even if that runs against their instincts and preferences and own [00:37:00] philoso philosophy. So what our, our big thing is like with, with most fundamental, like nineties progressive live and let be like full like approaches.

Hey, as long as everyone’s consenting and, and letting people live their lives, it’s fine. But on a very fundamental level, the modern version of what it means to be trans involves revoking people’s consent because they’re now obligated to. With them

Malcolm Collins: Reinforc, it’s not about being allowed to live the way you want to live.

It is much closer to Catholics all of a sudden deciding they’re going to force everyone to call any priest father. And if you don’t call a priest father you get a giant online harassment campaign against you to try to get you to lose your job and potentially even legal ramifications. Yeah. I, I call trans people their preferred gender.

I call priests father, even though I don’t think those things, I think it’s the polite thing to do. But if [00:38:00] Catholics decided to attempt to force everyone else to do that, I’d be like, especially against other people’s religious beliefs.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just like how, like when we went, when we travel in, in other regions where wearing a head covering is appropriate, I’ll wear a head covering, you know, like, you know, but that if someone’s forcing me to do it, that’s a very different story.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, you, you do it in those other countries often because you aren’t forced to do it. They will kill you if you

don’t.

Simone Collins: Well, okay. Yeah, that’s

Malcolm Collins: And is very much the way the trans community acts, right? Like, oh

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I wanna get, and, and when I say they’re like, oh, they won’t kill you.

It’s like, well, one, look at all the mass murder trans stuff. You can see our video on that. Like Yeah, they actually will. And there have a look at the Charlie Kirk situation, right? Like, yeah, yeah. They kind of actually will. But two they will try to get you, like the online mob will try to get you fired from your job and stuff like that.

Which we’ve already had happen to us. And when you have five kids or something like that, that’s taking away the family’s lifeblood, you know, that is not a trivial thing to attempt to do. And it shows [00:39:00] that even from Deb’s perspective, even he can see it. The community is owned, the culture is now owned by bad actors and by running cover for them, you are allowing countless amounts of harm on innocent people.

But now I wanna go into the different cultures that have ideas that trans people claim shows that the trans phenomenon is not something that was basically made up in Germany in the 1920s. The Nazis took it down.

Then we don’t see a single case of it for like. A long time. Then there was one viral news story about a trans person, and then the phenomenon explodes. And this is very similar to anorexia, which is another culture bound illness that disproportionately targets autistic people, is associated with body dysmorphia.

And we have seen things like a viral story happening in Hong Kong, and then it, it explodes, or we don’t have any records of it in the United States. It exploded after a few viral stories. Th this appears to be a [00:40:00] category of culture bound illness that includes intense susceptibility by otus, involves body dysmorphia intense discomfort with who you are.

And it’s something that like, we, even, like Simone suffered intense autism and almost died for, I’m sorry, intense anorexia and almost died of it. Right? Like she understands what it feels like to have body dysmorphia, right? Oh yeah. That doesn’t mean that she believes that it isn’t a culture bound illness.

Right. Simone.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I know. It’s crazy.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I’m saying do you believe that it’s a culture bound illness? Like do you believe that just because you felt it strongly doesn’t mean that it does. It must exist in other cultures.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no. Yet it it, it’s culture bound. I, it, it is not like I was trying to conform to some kind of culture there.

I don’t think it was a cultural contagion thing. I think anorexia is actually pretty universal. So maybe it’s a bad example. I’m giving you two autistic of an answer. Simon Anorexia is about control.

Hold

Malcolm Collins: on Simone. This is a well-studied phenomenon. Anorexia does not exist in any other human culture at any point in human history.

It has been very widely studied. [00:41:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. There was no, come on. There was all the, so before it was called anorexia, it was like, oh, she’s fasting for religious purposes. And there were all these girls like.

Malcolm Collins: You would’ve, no, sorry. When anorexia starts being first described in the literature mm-hmm. The people wizard look shocking to people.

Okay. It is noted as nothing like anything, any of these docker have seen. It did not look like fasting for religious purposes. It did not look like being a quirky girl when you were skeletal Simone. You wouldn’t have been described in the Victorian times as quirky people would’ve described you as skeletal.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. I, I’m just saying, I

Malcolm Collins: I actually think that this is really good because you have experienced basically exactly what modern trans people experience. Yeah. And you show why it’s so hard for them to accept that. It really was just their culture. And if they had been unaware of the concept of gender transition, [00:42:00] if you had been unaware of the concept of anorexia, you would not have expressed your autism in that way.

Simone Collins: Maybe. Yeah. No, no, for sure. Like behaviors are typically learned and you can’t really learn a behavior if you’ve never seen it before.

Speaker 17: You can learn a behavior by the way you haven’t seen before. Same sex attraction, for example. Same sex attraction exists across cultures, , that is very different from anorexia. And this conversation is so fascinating ‘cause you’re seeing in Simone’s eyes in the way she’s relating with this, she apparently was unaware that anorexia is the poster child of culture bound illnesses.

, And it’s very hard for her to accept that this body dysmorphia that she felt was downstream of her own culture.

Malcolm Collins: So people are aware with how this works in anorexia. Basically anorexia like a big news stories will happen in an area and then you get [00:43:00] tons of cases of anorexia well, and the same

Simone Collins: happens with unscheduled life ending.

Malcolm Collins: Right, but this is different because when it happens with anorexia there will not have been a single medically documented case of this for like 300 years, and then you get 50 cases in a year. The, the other most famous culture bound illness is multiple personality disorder which does not appear to be real.

You, you see a movie about it or a story about it, and then a bunch of people start expressing it. But we don’t, we don’t have really robust

Simone Collins: but I think, so just, sorry, not like, just in my defense I think cutting is a good example of something similar to anorexia, whereas like a shirt like these things are new, you know, but like.

You had people religiously self-harming well before cutting became a trend that emerged in high schools and someone in the Victoria a era would find it to be.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but cutting bizarre. I’m aware of a lot of self-harm rituals historically.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s not analogous [00:44:00] because we are aware of self-harm rituals.

Historically, we are not aware of something like anorexia historically. We are aware of fasting, but fasting in the way it happens with anorexia. And I think your being so perplexed by this shows how trans people must feel, right? When the evidence is so against something that felt very intuitive to you.

It felt like an intuitive way to act when it was, was in your cultural landscape. And this appears to be one of the effects of autism.

Simone Collins: No, no. Come on there. There were spoony in the regency era. There were, there were

Malcolm Collins: Spoony and there, but there were not anorexic.

Simone Collins: Yes, there were no, I mean, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Simone,

Simone Collins: definitely there were no, there were def like women, especially women though.

I mean, sometimes men too have been, recreationally and by their own choice choosing to restrict their calories or burn more. This, this is, oh, for example Cece, [00:45:00] the, the emperor, I’m Cii Simone because your mind hundred percent definitely anorexic and famously would eat just like broth and worked out in a weird ass gym that everyone thought was insane.

Who and, and maintained very small size. Who she was one. Cece who? Empress. Cece. Like Aus emus. Cece. She was an Austrian empress. She was very famous. She’s definitely existed before the modern concept of anorexia. She was 100% anorexic. And, and even more I

Malcolm Collins: this up because I think that you actually,

Simone Collins: I think you are, I know, I know that you’re wrong.

And I, I mean, I also get your point though, that like social contagion is a real thing and it’s also very hard to see it when it’s happening. And you wanna believe that what you’re doing

Malcolm Collins: on Simon, let’s pull this up.

Simone, because you don’t, you are acting like a trans person right now. You are scared about being proven wrong because you’re doing what trans people do.

Malcolm, I’m

Simone Collins: so happy to just lose arguments, but

Malcolm Collins: no take, I

Simone Collins: just, I know that I’m right.

Malcolm Collins: Take a step back here. [00:46:00] Okay? Mm-hmm. I’ll explain how your argument actually shows the mental gymnastics that trans people do. Okay?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I point out that anorexia, this becoming absolutely skeletal, not general calorie restrictions, not being quirky in how you eat, not fasting,

Speaker 18: So just in case to give this away, no princesses sissi he looked nothing like the phenomenon we call anorexia today. , This happened after two of her children died. She went into a period of intense depression.

And not depression. Like we talk about it when we talk about, oh, there’s a lot of comorbidity between an anorexia and depression. No, that’s teen girl stuff we’re talking about. One day her daughter died and then for the next three weeks she didn’t eat. And then she built a habit of almost never eating after that.

, That, that is not like modern anorexia.

One of them died by [00:47:00] Unli. , It was later in her life. . She went into, , intense fasting because of her children’s deaths.

, This is not what anorexia looks like. This isn’t a teen girl deciding to become super skinny, right, or obsess over calorie restriction. This is a mom who lost two of her kids in quick succession, , going through some sort of like. Psychological break to even compare the two is kind of horrifying. In the same way as we’ll go over the trans stuff, a lot of the people who trans people will be like, oh, that’s a trans community.

And it’s like, well, , actually this is the community that has their genitals cutoff so they look like girls so they can be sold for sex work. That’s not like. It’s kind of horrifying that you would call that a trans community in the same way that it is horrifying that Simone would correlate this woman’s [00:48:00] experiences with hers.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: anorexia becoming horrifyingly, skeletal, and freakish looking to outsiders was not a phenomenon that was recorded in history.

And you hear calorie restriction in the same way that when I say gender dysphoria is not a phenomenon that was recorded in history and trans people here identifying as a different gender, their brain intentionally twists what they’re hearing into something else. So they don’t have to face the reality that they succumb to a cultural trend.

But I am going to look this up because Okay. You might be right [00:49:00] Simone.

So sorry to tell you this Empress cii, do you know how long she.

Simone Collins: How long did she, she, well, well, like all her kids died and she lived way too long.

She probably should have died young.

Malcolm Collins: No. Okay. So you’ve already disproven your points when you just said all her kids died. If she had had anorexia that was like modern anorexia, she would not have been able to conceive children in the first place. Two, she lived until she was 60 and did not die from thinness.

So clearly not like modern anorexia. Three. I’m a

Simone Collins: functional anorexic and I’m probably not gonna die from my thinness.

Malcolm Collins: You would have died at the weight you were when you were a kid. Your body shut down and you still do not produce eggs naturally because of your thinness. You were well, worse than anything Em perisi reached in her life.

Speaker 20: And I wanna point out that Emperor cece was the best random [00:50:00] example that somebody with deep historical knowledge like Simone was able to think of. And Simone is a random effing person who Hannah had Auryxia, and it’s not even a big person for personality or how she sees herself. She. Had something so bad that she can never produce eggs again.

And Princess Cece regularly had children. The idea that you could compare these two and be like, oh, this is a good example from history, borders on the comical.

And I’d point out, as you’re seeing here, there are many pictures of her from the period she has claimed to be at her skinniest, and she does not look like an anorexic at all. , And this is really important. It’s really important because what we can see is this desperation to not have been influenced by culture.

To have some historical precedent to have this be part of the human condition [00:51:00] to want to say no, , somewhere else in history, someone else did this, and when reality does not conform with this. To begin to filter all of the information that’s hitting her. Like, obviously Simone is a smart, intelligent, like, well-read, thoughtful woman. , And this psychological break of realizing. No one ever did this before, like the 1950s, this psychological break of being like, and it’s the same with her. She’s like, but there were people who practiced calorie restriction in the past, therefore there were anorexics in the past.

No, there were people who presented as different genders, that specific parts of history. Therefore, there were people with gender dysphoria that mirrored modern transness. No.

And recognizing this is necessary for us to make the right logical choices for society.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Three. We have lots of paintings of her that I am now looking at and they look [00:52:00] nothing like a modern case of anorexia. You wanna look up, look up pictures of her?

Simone Collins: Famous, you’re vindictive. You’re so cute. There are lots of even photos of her photos, so you know, they didn’t fake. I know. I’m looking up.

Yeah. She doesn’t look like a, like a co, like a commit, how do I say? Committed diehard, anorexic.

Malcolm Collins: But you’re actually fascinating here because you have a condition and you went through a condition analogous to transness, Uhhuh, a culture bound illness that mm-hmm.

Desperately tries to seek for validation in history. I was not just following a cultural trend and you basically crashed out trying

cause you hear something similar in history and then your brain shaves off the edges of how it wasn’t actually like what you were went through

cause if you’re dealing with an analogous. Mental disease culture bound mental disease.

Mm-hmm. It can help you see it from their position better

Simone Collins: and how they grasp, I feel like I’m missing their perspective. I think you and I have [00:53:00] been as empathetic as we can be to the trans. Cause it’s just that, I guess similarly to anorexia, we’re like, Hey, this isn’t healthy. This doesn’t produce good outcomes.

Maybe there are better ways this can be managed.

Malcolm Collins: That’s not the point I’m making here. Okay.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The wider point I’m making here is this is a phenomenon that started in the 1920s, not popular in the 1950s and literally is no in no other culturally nowhere else in human history. Okay? It is not a part of the human condition.

It is a cultural phenomenon. Alright? And that doesn’t mean that they don’t feel it as strongly as you felt anorexia, or my family members who have had anorexia have felt anorexia. Okay? So to continue here, because now I’ll go over the various instances, but even, you can’t fully like admit like, oh my God, this is not something we see in other cultures and follows a very specific pattern within autistic populations.

And you grab at things that look kind of like it and we’ll go how trans [00:54:00] communities do So let’s start with two-spirit people, because you hear this a lot.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Right. Well, but also like I, I never heard about, we did so much in terms of Native American studies in my California and public schools. Never heard about two-spirit people. So that, that’s like a new thing in the

Malcolm Collins: well because do you know when the term, how two-spirit people were invented? And I think a lot of people in the trans community are like genuinely unaware that this is where this concept came from.

Simone Collins: No. Tell me.

Malcolm Collins: Myra Reini, a Fisher River Creek Nation counselor in 2021, stated that the phrase came to her in a dream slash vision during the summer. 1980. Yes. While she was at a protest in the dream she was in a teepee, was her indigenous mother on a hunger strike. Seven spirits appeared shifting between male and female forms.

Two of them declared her niece Manawa in whatever, I can’t pronounce that. She shared this vision at a conference in a [00:55:00] sharing circle of about 80 indigenous L GBT plus people across North America. After sharing this it was formerly opposed and quickly adopted at the third annual intertribal, native first Forums Gay and Lesbian American Conference.

This took place in 1990. We don’t have any historical examples of anything like this existing, not, not in in, in, like, some, some people wanna say, well, native American cultures have a huge degree of cultural diversity. And it’s like, despite that huge degree of cultural diversity, we don’t have anything that looks like any good record of anything that looks like a two-spirit person.

Simone Collins: Have, have I just been gaslit then? Because I, I could have sworn I’ve either read articles or listened to podcasts about how like, there were two-spirit people and the, the two, like in, in at least some tribes and these two-spirit people were kind of seen as like

spiritual leaders in the tribe. Like just

Malcolm Collins: made up. [00:56:00] We do not

Simone Collins: have historical. Okay, so someone just did, they just made, they just made it up. They just made up. Woman in the eighties had a dream

Malcolm Collins: and I bet that we were extra spiritual here. What we do have evidence of we do have some Spanish records of native Americans having same sex relationships, which they were very aghast at. And some Native Americans in these same sex relationships would dress like and take on the role of a female in their community. But that

Simone Collins: doesn’t happen.

Malcolm Collins: That’s not trans. That, that is, we see this in our society.

We, we have gays, we have twinks. Okay? Twinks is a well-known phenomenon, and this is what we’ll see throughout this. There’s a lot of these examples that people call trans are gay people, where one of them takes on a more feminine role within the community and was in the relationship. And that is something that we also have in Western culture back to the beginning of time.

But that is very different than intense [00:57:00] discomfort with your gender and a desire to change your gender.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That, that does not describe gender dysphoria. It, it may describe gender euphoria. You

Malcolm Collins: and desperately grasping with examples for anorexia would be like, yes, A lot of people talk about two-spirit.

It must be

Simone Collins: a, I still dunno. I didn’t even identify as an anorexic at the time.

Malcolm Collins: The, the next example we have are the hira from South Asia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. These are individuals that for young males who due to poverty, have been ejected by their families. Mm-hmm. End up joining all male communities that undergo a practice where they are castrated for two things.

One is it’s the communities make their money predominantly for two things. One is a religious ceremony that you can only do if you’ve been castrated. And then two, the bigger source of income is, prostitution. So basically it’s a way for extremely [00:58:00] poor boys in these societies who are forced to go into sex work to get more clients by appearing more feminine, and then make some money on the side with a specific religious role for individuals like this

Simone Collins: oh, that’s wrong.

Malcolm Collins: These individuals are not super accepted. They are like, this is not like a super celebrated role in these Indian communities either, by the way. It is actually kind of ghoulish that these people are called trans or you know, the, the West specifically pushes on them this concept of trans because they’re, they’re really child victims often.

And on top of that they. Identify as a third gender, not men or women. They, they, they do not have gender dysphoria so much that they have no interest in other people identifying them with the opposite gender. So you cannot claim that this is something analogous to the trans phenomenon. [00:59:00] Okay.

Next, the faim in the manner of a woman are NATO males who naturally exhibit feminine traits or behavior.

They are not considered women by society. They do not want to be considered women by society, and they are mostly a feminine. Men who enter same-sex relationships was men. Again, we would call this twinks in today’s society, nobody would confuse this was a trans individual. However, where transness has entered these cultures, some of these individuals have decided to adopt Fafa as a name, and now they say, oh, and this always was trans.

But that’s not what we see in the historic literature. Okay. The m zappo culture in Mexico. So, there are biological mar males who adopt the presentation in roles, often in women’s work. They have cultural acceptance and family integration but they are not seen as women. They are seen as a distinct third gender.

And they are mostly effeminate men in same sex [01:00:00] relations with other men. We also do not have any good records of this existing pre Spanish colonization. Some people will say that we like arch answer, like in terms of the actual evidence, we don’t. We, we do

Simone Collins: not have any. This is not just because that was when it was first documented, like in, in records that we still have.

Because so many records were like burned and stuff. If, if memory serves when Europeans first came to it could

Malcolm Collins: be, or it could be that this is a modern phenomenon. Another good example of a modern phenomenon that is put as an older phenomenon or the cafe or the lady boys of Thailand and the Bako, the Philippines.

And this is a group that people most identify as like a really good example of a true third gender.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: is this not just another case of, of, of men who are impoverished doing what they can to make money?

Malcolm Collins: Well, we’ll get into that, but, but a lot of people in these cultures do gender [01:01:00] transition today and do act as prostitutes and identify as trans.

Simone Collins: By the way, this also happened in like middle ages Europe. If you, for example, were to look for sex workers, you find some women, but you would also find a lot of men masquerading as women.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: that’s not, this is not like a, an Asian thing or a like Mexican thing. It’s, it’s a, it’s a, people wanna make money thing, need to make money, need to not die thing.

Malcolm Collins: So, how, how far back did this goes? We have one early record potentially of this, a Chinese explorer Zon who noted androgynous cross-dressing males kuer. But specifically he notes them as. A, a, a part of the sex industry. They, they were sex workers. Okay. It was a way to get clients by taking on this effeminate role.

Simone Collins: Well, I guess it should be noted that that many men male to female trans individuals [01:02:00] in like working within modern woke culture, who would like, sort of identify as like the modern, new trendy of, of, of trans are sex workers. Like that’s kind of, that, that’s more of a through line than gender dysphoria for sure.

Malcolm Collins: So we actually, and, and I’m, I’m going deeper on this one because this one is, is one where you see people who identify as trans and as members of this community. And the only one where you see this, the problem is, is we don’t have any good records of this community existing before the 19 hundreds. At least in the regions where they are predominant today, they appear to be a, a.

Holistically modern phenomenon. And if they have any ancient roots, it’s as a type of sex worker which is very different from, and if people are like, well, a lot of trans people are forced into sex work, don’t you know that? And it’s like, yeah, but it’s the directionality. These are people who are.

Impoverished. Realize men want to sleep with things that look like women and will pay to, so they change their body to look that way. Mm-hmm. They are not people who change their [01:03:00] body to look that way, and as such, go impoverished. Right? Mm-hmm. More ‘cause I, I wanna be exhaustive. Here we have the golly these are self castrating, male devotees who wore women’s clothes, makeup, and performs ecstatic rituals.

Romans did not, these were not treated as a normal part of Roman of society. Romans called them half men. They were regularly mocked in Romans society. So first of all and two, they were a religious cult. And they were seen as a religious cult, right? Thi this is, this is not I think anything close to what we would consider trans today and certainly not close to what we would consider societal acceptance.

There’s some alternate role or some evidence of gender dysphoria in history. They look much more like, and so do many of these other groups, much more like castrato than modern trans individuals. People are not familiar with castrato. The only reason trans individuals don’t claim castrato is trans.

It’s because everybody knows Rados weren’t trans. Rados were young boys who were often forced to be castrated so that they could keep a high [01:04:00] singing voice through nobles. That is not trans, that is a child victim.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now a final one, and I think that this one really shows how bad faith people are who attempt to bastardize and steal these other cultural traditions to normalize their own struggles.

Right. Is the sworn virgins. This is in the Balkans, especially in the Albanian region. And these are biological females who adopt a, a lifelong virginity and adopt male roles, dress roles, rights, et cetera. The problem is, is that. We have no records of anyone ever doing this because they feel they’re in the wrong body.

Okay? Why do women do this in Balkans tradition? Because women can’t own property in the Balkans tradition. And so women do this so that they can own property or be the heir of the family or escape an arranged marriage they don’t want to do. We have plenty of records of that. And so, let’s go into the [01:05:00] Jewish play.

The guy’s name is Kaus Ben Kaus. At no time in history, he wrote in 1286 to 1328 in Providence, France. And at no point from then into the year 2000 did anyone think this poem was about something other than a joke. Okay? And it was a joke that had meaning to people. The idea how

Simone Collins: did just send you province.

Province

Malcolm Collins: so that, so that people can understand why this would’ve been funny to Jewish people of the time while also sharing a brief message. And it’s a joke about wanting something absurd and not accepting the way that you were born. So literally an inversion of the concept of transness.

Simone Collins: Ah.

Malcolm Collins: Woe to me, my mother that you ever bore a son.

What a great loss in no gain curse. Be the one who announced my name to my father. It’s a boy. The messenger shall be hu [01:06:00] guilty of bloodshed, cursed be he woe to him who has male sons. Upon them, a heavy yoke has been placed of restrictions and constraints. Some in private, some in public. Now remember, this guy’s an Orthodox Jew, so he’s not talking about minor constraints here.

It can be very difficult to be a Jewish man. But of course he’s writing all of this with the knowledge of like, what would’ve made this funny, this line funny, right? And, and explicitly shows that he’s telling a joke Here is any Orthodox Jew would be aware that yes, being a male as an Orthodox Jew means you have a huge number of constraints in your daily life, in how you live, in how you interact with the world.

But obviously women have even more constraints than you. They, they are a different set of constraints, but they are surely greater than those that you are under. And so he’s saying this is a joke. Like, I’m not even considering what it would be like to really be a woman. I just don’t like being me. Right.

And yet [01:07:00] the first few lines of this, and I’m, and I’m cutting out the stuff that doesn’t affirm a trans interpretation of this, just to make it even more so you can see how they see it. Because there’s some of this that’s just fluff. Talking about other stuff really sounds like a modern day trans person.

So a modern trans persons reads that and then doesn’t get the Orthodox Jewish context. That makes this a joke in the second part. Mm-hmm. Sever statues and awesome commandment 613, our father in heaven, if you hear he is talking about all the rules he has to follow. If only you turn me from male to female, if only the craftsman who created me would’ve made me a decent woman, I may today have been a woman wise and smart, spinning with her hands.

And perhaps I would be skilled enough in spinning and I would say, how lucky am I? And then the poem ends with an inversion of a Jewish blessing, basically saying like a satanic curse almost you could think of from the perspective of like blessed are you oh Lord, for has not made me a woman. You can think of this as like if, if you said like all [01:08:00] men but an inversion of this.

Now keep in mind this is an Orthodox Jew. He does not mean to blaspheme God, right? He is saying that all of these ideas would represent an inversion of the natural order, right? That’s, that’s what makes the joke funny. Okay? And he, and again, when he is complaining about being a man, his primary complaint about being a man, even though at one point he does refer to his genitals as like a defect or a blemish the primary complaint is all the rules that he has to follow.

And yet women have more rules and not getting to make his money spinning and yet spinning is a harder thing than what he a rabbi would’ve to do, which is education. Now if we look at what people historically thought of this we’ve got Joseph Koster in 1900. He wrote, quote unquote, a masterpiece of Hebrew satire that passes in review, quote all of the social positions of which men are proud of, and argues that they’re a vanity end quote. He then notes of the entire work that this guy did, and it’s a very long work. He [01:09:00] said this was one of the most humorous parts, right?

So. This was not like a, a, maybe this was satire. Maybe it wasn’t, it was seen as clearly satire until after transness existed as a phenomenon. Now when we’re talking about the Roman Empire the, that I was talking about, we can go to Cassius Dao a Roman senator and historian who was a near contemporary of a gaba.

He lived through the reign and was politically affected by it. He recorded this in Roman History book 80, the, the thing about him wanting to actually change his gender. However, we’ve also already gone through all of the other horrible things that this guy did that could have been exaggerations.

I mean, you could just say, okay, they’re exaggerating about him to make him look bad because he killed a bunch of people, which he did, and he did a lot of blasphemous stuff. He tried to change Roman religion to a new religion. So people really, really, really hated him. But either you accept that the only real trans.

Individual we have in history is one of history’s greatest monsters, or we accept that a guy [01:10:00] that tried to change the religion of Rome had a lot of people with a motivation to make stuff up about him, to make him look bad. And talking about bad emperors was in Roman tradition as a historian, as being effeminate because they would often do this.

Mm-hmm. It was like shorthand for, and this is how, you know, he was bad and, and, and not acting with, with good action.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Sort of common, like, I guess maybe the modern analogy of like, well, he had an affair with, or like molested one of his aides. But this is just the Roman version of it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Right.

I think there’s kind of like a, a common ring of truth to it. I mean, there were plenty of emperors who had their, you know, stable of male lovers.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, this guy had a, this guy had such a stale of male lovers. He was well known for he opened the bass to the Roman public so that he could walk around the bass and look at people.

And then he even had specialized servants that would go to the bass like every day or something. Recruit and worked for whichever men were the most well endowed and [01:11:00] bring them back to him.

Simone Collins: Oh God bless. He just own just like sine Maxwell. Yeah. That’s great.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He was amazing. He was sort of a, a debauchery maxor, like that was Yeah.

His its core thing seemed to be maximized debauchery, extremely as you can it. Mm-hmm. If you see our life of a byte episode, maybe this is a, a true convergent example of maybe something like the life of valence. Right. But to continue, when did transness appear? If we don’t see it at any point in human history or in any other culture, the first thing that we can see that looks anything like modern transness was Felds lab in around 1910.

So okay, but before the 1920s where he had 17 detailed cases and this was in Germany and then the Nazis came in and they burned down all his stuff. And after this, as far as I’m aware, there is not a single known case. A trans individual until 1952 [01:12:00] after the Christine Jorgensen media explosion.

So,

Simone Collins: Christine Jor, the name sounds familiar. Should I know it?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. She, well, she was a media phenomenon. Born George Jorgensen, 26-year-old American exit GI underwent male to female sex reassignment. Oh. In Denmark. And when he returned to the US, there was the XGI becomes blonde beauty sometimes referred to as XGI becomes blonde bombshell.

That, that went around and all the tabloids and everything like that. Den. Okay.

Simone Collins: Christina. I got, was it pulled off? That’s the real question.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the point is, is that the

news acted like it was both pulled off in something you could aspire to. And then if you look at. The guy who is seen with re Benjamin, the, the next guy to build a, a lab, Harry Benjamin.

This was he, he built a lab in the, I wanna say, oh yes. His landmark book came out, the Transsexual phenomenon in 1966. [01:13:00] So, almost 10 years after the Christine Jorgensen case. And he said to Christine Jorgensen, this is a guy who wrote the book on this, who started the first lap.

Simone Collins: He felt bad.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It passes pretty well.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So I can see how that individual made this look glamorous enough to a lot of people who are looking to reinvent themselves Totally. Who are looking for a sense of control like you. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22: I also wanna point out that this case really shows that America is not culturally reflexively anti-trans. I haven’t been able to find a single newspaper article on this case that was negative. It’s all stuff like nature’s error Forces Girl to Live as Boy or XGI, blonde Bombshell Beauty. . People only became anti-trans.

You take that JK Rowling or something like that. After interacting with the trans community and the way that they decided to use these particular privileges that were granted to them,

I.

Malcolm Collins: So this is what the guy who [01:14:00] literally started. The lab that all of the modern trans movement grew out of.

Well, him and Joe Money, they worked alongside each other. I’m trying not to treat this negatively. But Joe Money was operating at the same time. If you’re unfamiliar with his story. He took children, lied about them being able to change their gender by raising them as another gender, forced them to sleep with each other in front of them for lied that they now adopted the new gender that they had gone into.

One of them unli themselves. He hid that. Then he started a clinic that did this to thousands of other children of ruining their lives. Really a genuinely psychopathic human being, like one of history’s greatest villains. But if we say, okay, he’s not the source of the trans movement, this Benjamin Guy is right.

Well, what Benjamin said was, indeed, Christine, without you, probably none of this would’ve come to happen. So what he’s saying is in all of his interviews, everybody cites her as the reason they decided to transition. And then that snowballed into a wider phenomenon. Now, this Christine [01:15:00] person, did they genuinely have gender dysphoria?

They might have had some super rare something or another, but when you consider, and you look at society today and you’re seeing like 1.5% of people identify this way, what we can say is that is not something you see in history. It’s a modern phenomenon. And this is very important because if it’s a modern phenomenon and this very high on alive rate, this very high ideation rate that you see with this, this very high depression rate you see with this are tied.

To this personal way of dealing with specific, I might even say autistic urges. Let’s say it’s a, some version of like psychological urge that certain peoples get around body dysmorphia. It turns out that the correct way to mitigate the harm from this is to tone down exposure to people. That means exposure in the school [01:16:00] systems.

That means exposure through speakers. I, I know it’s sad, but the harm, and, and as Simone 100% believed, I am not influenced by culture when I’m doing severe calorie restriction. This is a totally me thing. It’s not because I saw somebody else do it. When you have whatever this condition is, and I think that it is the same condition when you have whatever this condition is you are particularly resistant towards accepting.

This fact, and this is why I, I tried to bring all this evidence together in this episode along with somebody who suffered an analogous condition so that people who are suffering this can can, can maybe like just get enough evidence all at once that they can break through and finally get to the other side and be like, oh my God, this is really not part of the natural human condition.

And as strong as it feels to me, it is not real. And it is a, it [01:17:00] is hurting me to engage with it in this way. Anybody who, who’s heard me or seen my history or goes through my history of comments, they know I am not approaching it like this because I am bigoted against trans people, right? Like I don’t I’m not like angry at trans people over anything.

I have no reason to like, dislike trans people at a personal level. I have had trans friends. I was in the GSA as a kid, right? I fought for when, when I had a significantly smaller platform, but I fought for trans people being accepted in society before I knew how people were going to end up using this as a weapon to hurt women.

Okay? Second. And when I say as a weapon to hurt women, if you’re unfamiliar with how this is happening, I’ll just broadly lay this out for you. You know, in school, if you grew up before this happened, how there was that kid who was a complete sex pest and like liked, I remember at my school there were the kid who was famous for being caught masturbating outside the women’s dorms while eating fried chicken.

Just like [01:18:00] com Beast kid, by the way too. Oh no. Just like complete wobbly sex fest who doesn’t respect other people’s boundaries. Do you not think that if you told him, Hey, if you say you identify as a woman, you won’t be punished in the same way that he wouldn’t attempt to take advantage of that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, it’s a no brainer.

Malcolm Collins: Of course, you,

Simone Collins: you’d be crazy not to. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You are giving these sorts of sex pests, this tool. Okay. And it is unfortunate that the people who get caught up in this like autistic version of it, that Simone had. Are dragged down because of this or that they can’t, well, it’d probably be better if they didn’t have their, their toy anyway, because it still seems to hurt them as well.

It seems to not be the best way it seems to be telling an somebody with anorexia to identify as an anorexic. And obviously that’s not a good thing to do that’s gonna make this like the Pro Anna movement. It’s like we normalize pro Anna. People don’t know. That’s the movement that is trying to normalize and glamorize anorexia.

And like, we shouldn’t be shamed for this and we should, you know, be who we [01:19:00] are. And it would be fine. Like, and obviously I’m the type of person if you could take a pill and just become a woman, whatever, right? If, if it didn’t have all these negative effects, I wouldn’t care. I’m not out here because like from a Christian perspective, I don’t think they should be doing this.

I’m not out here because some trans person tried to ruin my life or cancel me or something like this. I’m not out here because I was personally harassed by a trans person or something like this.

Simone Collins: Well, you care about human flourishing and when you see that there’s something that just clearly is nerfing people at best and at worst, destroying and ending their lives in horrible ways.

You wanna speak up about it?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I’m, I am out here because the preponderance of evidence that we have access to now unfortunately does not make it look as if and, and like we have evidence at the level of an entire country now banning puberty blockers at, at the level of the uk. That’s, that’s like the, the, the quality of a study at that level is [01:20:00] enormous.

Like that can’t be fake, that can’t be edged. We just know that people are not unliving themselves because they’re not able to get access to this. And now that we know that. We have to say, okay, we need to start rethinking all of this. And that’s unfortunate and people can be like, yeah, I just, I, I hope that dev comes to the light on this.

Because in the past I really respected him as an intellectual, and I know that right now he’s sort of going through a hard time with his followers because he’s been kind of ideologically captured by, a certain friend group is, is my guess that he’s not able to see that, like new evidence is out there now, right?

Like when in, in the episode he said something like, and we know that this is the best solution to lower like, unli rates for people who have this. And it’s like actually that’s been broadly disproven at this point, both from the uk, the country level source, us finding out that mainstream trans clinics were hiding information at the Travis dot Kyle [01:21:00] Case and the WPATH file release.

And the studies that have been used to argue this being very poorly conducted and by hugely ideologically captured institutions, we actually went through an episode. We have one episode where we go through all these studies and the ones that people are always citing they were done by a clinic that made its primary source of income by helping people gender transit.

Like, come on Dev, you’re not stupid. You must be able to see that a country level data set at the level of the UK is a better source of data than a clinic that makes its income off of this and is dependent on it continuing to happen. And like Joe Money would have to admit that they were monsters and hurt a ton of children because they couldn’t admit this earlier.

And I think we argued that’s why he didn’t. But anyway, thought Simone,

Simone Collins: I think this is, it’s interesting and it’s important, and [01:22:00] I don’t know, I mean my general take is in the past, people were able to express various forms of what people can now refer to as gender. Like either the way they want to. Bang other people or get themselves off or dress or style themselves.

No. Or relate to other people. Like they just dealt with it and they didn’t force other people to conform with it. And this new version, whatever it is, is, is most uniquely different to me and that it does, and I agree that pretending that this thing has been around forever is inaccurate at best. And I, I also had no idea the extent to which we’d been gaslit about it.

Like the, there are, except like two-Spirit people, right? Like two-Spirit. Yeah. Because that was just, I don’t know. I. I, I, I, I’ve become a lot more incredulous, but I still figured, like, I don’t know. That kind of makes sense, I [01:23:00] guess. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well there’s a lot of American Native American tribes out there.

Presumably at least one had a dedicated third gender role that was mm-hmm. More similar to transness than similar to being a gay twink.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It just seems so screwed up that people would make that up. It, it, it, yeah. Anyway, so this, this has been enlightening and I appreciate your looking into it.

Malcolm Collins: What was, what’s cooler or you know, more I, whatever you wanna think of.

But more pathetic is the secondary thing they decided to add to this made up role, which is, and they were treated as spiritual guides for their communities.

Simone Collins: Well, right? Yes. And they were in some way, like spiritually mystically and morally superior. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Like you see the narcissism on display there.

Right. You know, I didn’t anything about that. Oh gosh. An invention role. And then they invent importance to it. They can’t just say, oh, it was an alternate role in this society. Right? Mm-hmm. And keep in mind for most of these other societies that we have access [01:24:00] to when they were trans they, like when they fed this, it wasn’t trans.

It almost no society. Do you have trans? Of all the ones we went through, normally it’s a third gender and normally it’s a discriminated third gender. Hmm. So, it’s, it’s just you need to break this for the people who are trying to be, and I want to believe that Dev is genuinely trying to be intellectually honest in the way he’s approaching this.

And that he does wants what’s best for people. And that if he just had access to all of the information, he would change his mind. Because I think most sane people would, I even think most sane trans people would.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think so. I mean, maybe, I don’t know. I, again, like even per your argument, the correct response I should be making is, oh, like my excessive exercising and calorie restriction was in response to a [01:25:00] social trend that I was surrounded by.

Whereas I feel like I had a very different experience, but like. I I, so I should be, I should be saying that. Whereas I don’t, I don’t feel that way. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah. This

Simone Collins: is, I’m very, this is why

you’re

Malcolm Collins: such a good case for this.

Simone Collins: I know, I know. So, I’m, I’m, maybe people in the comments can explain this to me this phenomenon,

Malcolm Collins: but this is what’s very important about this phenomenon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If it happens to you and you’re not one of these just sex PEs who’s using it for cover. Sure. It doesn’t feel like you caught a social phenomenon. It feels like a decision you made for yourself and an obsession.

Simone Collins: Oh, because I didn’t, I didn’t actively choose to do it. I kept doing it ‘cause it made me feel a little better.

But I mean, yeah. Presumably that’s

Malcolm Collins: a, a tool

Simone Collins: for

Malcolm Collins: control

Simone Collins: trans, but I feel like what’s, what happened with trans stuff in schools, especially with young women who are transitioning, was this did happen with friend clusters. I didn’t have friends who did this. So

Malcolm Collins: Right, and that might be a completely separate phenomenon.

My, my [01:26:00] guess is the trans community is predominantly four groups. One group has this form of dysphoria that you had. They, they do not need a lot of priming to begin to exhibit transness. They

Simone Collins: yeah, no, that, that one makes sense. Where like, you feel dysphoria, you hate your body, and then someone mentions like, oh, maybe you have this, you can take this pill and make it all stop.

And that is very appealing. That would be the version of transit that I fell into, would’ve fallen into. Then there’s the other groups that are like, well, all your friends are doing it. And so in the similar way that like cutting spread or that, that, that well this,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I’d flush out this secondary category a bit more than just all your friends are doing it.

Mm-hmm. You’re going through puberty, you feel uncomfortable with your body. You’re going through a lot of changes you don’t like and somebody says there is an out. And, and there’s a, that’s the first true.

Simone Collins: Describing

Malcolm Collins: they will affirm you and tell you that, you know, your, your body is good, that you are good, that you should be accepted, and they will never criticize you as long as you go along with him.

And this can be very appealing. And you [01:27:00] even hear some people like Zian the head the guy who founded the trans murder cult Zian said that he went through gender transition. ‘cause he was afraid of going through pub.

Simone Collins: They, they were zian, he was Zz

Malcolm Collins: Zzz, whatever he was afraid of going through Puby.

So I think that this is like a cluster of ideas here. It’s a bit of a cultural contagion and a bit of a good like mimetic virus. And for these people, they are partially aware that you know, it was in part influenced by a friend group, right? Now they are less true trans. And I would put the, the, the version of trans that’s more like anorexia.

It’s probably the truest form of trans. There is.

Simone Collins: I disagree, I think because, no, no, I think that’s very different because that’s, I. That’s not a desire to be the different gender that’s feeling in general, like a general body dysmorphia and then falling into a common solution that’s presented to people who show body dysmorphia.

Like, you know, because now there’s this preponderance of people who are [01:28:00] like, oh, you’re trans. Whereas before it would always be something else like, oh, you just need to power through it. Or like, I don’t know, talk to God more. You know, like people used to give other solutions. Yeah. So I don’t actually see ‘em as trans.

I think there’s a different group of people. That falls into the culture and, and believes in it for that reason. Maybe also they’re coated on by it,

Malcolm Collins: the other two groups in the trans community, other than the ones who have something analogous to anorexia. And there’s the ones who have something that is, you know, the, the, the, you’ll have a community that will accept you.

You’re going through pube, you’re uncomfortable with your body. And, and here’s how you both get social acceptance and, and are comfortable with your body. It’s one simple trick. And then the next group, because I’m gonna say there’s four core groups here. These are the groups. This group I would just call the sex pests.

These are the people who realize that they can use this to gain access to women’s faces. And when people are like, no trans person does this, and then I ask you, okay, I, let’s say no real trans person does this. [01:29:00] Do you think a cis person, a cis male. Would have such low morals and such a voracious sexual appetite that they would do it.

Of course, they’re like, well, of course some cis males would do. And I’m like, well, those cis males are now using the trans identity, right? You could say, oh, cis males are terrible, but they’re using your identity to do this. The, the guy jacking off outside the girl’s dorm or the guy you know, this seems to very clearly be the case of it was Leah Thomas was the swimmer, right?

Who kept flashing people in the restroom. And then there was a bunch of weird porn stuff with her when, when that was all leaked.

Speaker 23: By the way, you’re not familiar with this. Leah Thomas had a secret Instagram account where they would, , frequently like posts and images that were explicitly tied to a GP related content, eeg, , content that suggested that trans people are only trans people because they were turned on by. Acting like women.

, And , it makes it very clear that Leah Thomas was a GP . This was a sexual fetish for [01:30:00] them. , And this is not, it’s some outsider accusing them of this. This is them saying, yeah, that’s why I’m doing this. That’s what turns me on.

Speaker 25: Like when I advocated for trans rights back in the day. I assumed I was not just advocating for the rights of flashers who wanted to violate women’s autonomy, , violate women’s consent. And so when I saw somebody very clearly doing this and the trans community not being like, oh, that person isn’t us.

That person doesn’t stand for us, but instead doubling down. No, that is what we’re fighting for. I was like, oh, I’ve been used. I was a patsy and. I think that there’s a point where somebody like Dev needs to be like, am I being used to protect flashers who want to violate women’s autonomy?

Speaker 17: Ah!

Malcolm Collins: And [01:31:00] then there was the and, and no, this was before she went through her surgery, right? Like this, she just appears to have been a sex pe. And, and, and these are the people who in prison are like, ah, I’m trans now, because they get access to the women’s prison and then they gripe a bunch of women.

And this has happened multiple times. You know, and, and everybody must realize that this is like an actual, like the most problematic group. And then the, the final group, which is like. Almost as problematic as that group is. These are predominantly men, but sometimes also women who seem to get aroused by convincing other people to transition.

It’s a power fetish for them. We’ve seen this in the trans Maxine community is very clearly partially about this. We’ve seen this in the giggle and goon files. We’ve seen this in some other parts of the trans community. And I loop them in with the other people. I guess it’s a separate category of this, the, the, a FBS or whatever who have some sort of fetish tied to this.

But it’s not about converting other people. And then this, that’s this other part. It’s this very aggressive and [01:32:00] predatory part of the community that, that is specifically about I, and keep in mind people are like, why would somebody want this? Well, if you look at their own writings talking about it, because there have been, they’re like, dude, like if I can convince a young boy to get on puberty blockers, I get like a prepubescent child for like the next 10 years.

You know, like these people are truly debauched, but this is what they say in their private message boards. Right. And I mean, it makes sense, right? Like they found a way to make EPDA fi file this legal and keep in mind that individuals like this you know, have, well we won’t, we, we won’t get into the Harvey Milk situation.

But

Simone Collins: there’s too many cans of worms here.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. All right. Any thoughts on short, fat otake dev leaflet? The debate, anything

Simone Collins: leaflet can do? Nothing wrong in my view. I, she just, she comes at everything from both. A place of intelligence, but also humility. I, I, yeah. [01:33:00] It would be shocking to me that she,

Malcolm Collins: no, that’s what the AI review of her debate kept saying.

It was like, throughout the debate, it is noted that she appeared very kind and understanding and wanting to like, understand their perspective and that she’s

Simone Collins: so respectful. Yeah. Even when she like goes over other streams, she like waits for the the, the person’s sentence to stop before commenting.

She’s just so kind.

Malcolm Collins: So debate was that leaflet was overly conciliatory and didn’t want to interrupt the person. So they kept ranting at various points. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. That, yeah. That, that would,

Malcolm Collins: that’s that very leaflet. Yeah,

Simone Collins: because she’s, she has courtesy. Oh my gosh. No one knows what, how to do. I don’t know how to do that anymore.

I interrupt you all the time. I’m terribly rude. I’m really sorry about that. Anyway, I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Love you too.

Simone Collins: And yeah. Do you want me. Though, have we?

Malcolm Collins: No, we had, we did it once.

Simone Collins: We did. Oh God. Never again. Never again. A a lot of the pe I I, I share you’re surprised by the people who are like me, [01:34:00] like AI is not gonna work.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my, it’s literally we’re racing so many jobs right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, what do you think is happening right now? I, I think I, some people were like, oh, the unit economics don’t work out.

Like the, the energy’s not gonna work. Well, you know, we’re gonna blow up the data centers. Like all these things, there are answers for these things. I don’t,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. A automated drone swarms cost less than you and your entire army that wants to blow up automated drone swarms. If people don’t,

Simone Collins: dude, literally one hotel night and your average United States hotel costs less than you.

If we’re talking about the rate of a hit per by like a Mexican, it’s like $250 to, unless the price has gone up to kill someone, if you wanna hire someone in Mexico to do it. But maybe those are the in Mexico rates, not the in United States rates. I haven’t, you know, haven’t checked recently. Gotta get back on [01:35:00] that market.

Other people being like, well, you know, with, with this kind of wealth divide, like there just won’t be anyone left to buy anything. But then I, I think a lot of people don’t realize that already now half of consumer spending is being made by the top 10% of earners. Like yeah, we’re already, we’re already mostly there.

There’s a reason why Disneyland is becoming insanely expensive. It’s because they’ve given up on normal people and they’re just charging a ton of money to the really wealthy people who are still spending tons of money. It’s a, it’s happened, it has happened. So you know what you gonna do, what you gonna do?

Get a parcel of land, get food stores get used to rice and beans. At least [01:36:00] rice and beans is so freaking good. I think you don’t like rice and beans. I love rice and beans.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, I was, I was, I, I just am so shocked by the people who are like, AI can’t do human work. And I’m like, I literally have already fired multiple teams because AI has replaced them.

Like,

Simone Collins: oh, I mean, to, to be fair there are are some things where, you know, we’re still hiring specialists to deal with plumbing problems and

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah. There are some things and in regards to people who are like, well, AI can’t do human motor control work really well, like walking around and stuff like that, that, that is true.

And the, and the main reason is and I talk about this in the comments, it’s because we’re approaching it wrong. If you, if you, no, but

Simone Collins: also, like, are you aware of what’s going on with optimists? Like entire Tesla factories have been repurposed to building these, these humanoid robots that actually are pretty dexterous.

It’s just that they’re not on the

Malcolm Collins: market

Simone Collins: yet. Right.

Malcolm Collins: But more broadly, the problem that we have here and the problem that AI experts have here is, I have explained in other videos that the human [01:37:00] brain, particularly the cerebral cortex, appears to operate like a collection of token predictors. And there’s a lot of research on this.

You can watch your episodes where we go over all that research. But what’s really important to note is if the AI we are using today arrived in an architectural convergence with our cerebral cortex which it appears they had, they are naturally going to be bad at. Fine movement because that is not handled by our cerebral cortex that is handled by our cerebellum, which is one a completely separate organ practically.

Oh yeah. And two architecturally entirely different. So what we’re likely gonna want to do for AI movement related stuff is either hardcoded, direct pathways that ideas are sent from the cerebral cortex, like collection of token predictors to these and then carried out automatically. Mm-hmm. Which will likely be drawing from the works of companies like Boston Dynamics and stuff like that.[01:38:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean also just keep in mind like, just to like text here, for example, like his motor control. Even our kids, you know, like they, they’re any parent who’s gone through the process of teaching a kid or helping a kid develop fine motor control, like hold a pen or, you know, type on a keyboard or draw.

We’ll understand that even for someone who has all the parts built in really well, it takes a long time to figure that out.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Another thing is I think people really miss the ball on this. They’re dismissing open AI as just a text model or a text prediction model which shows a, a fundamental misunderstanding of like how larger AI systems work.

So if you’re talking about agents, you know, these are things that can do emails, do phone calls, do coding, everything like that. Like all of the advanced stuff generate images when they want to generate video, when they want to. The core of their thought is always a text-based [01:39:00] model. The, the text-based AI models are always the core brain of an AI because they are the least expensive way to send large amounts of information into the future of the AI, basically.

Mm-hmm. And so this idea of, oh, that’s just a text. Like what, whatever, it’s just a text model. It’s like, what are you talking about? Like, it’s, it’s like you, you see, a company trying to get in the, the cutting edge of, of cars and think that cars are gonna change the way that transportation works and you go, they just make engines.

What did, that’s just a simple engine. Like all of the fancy stuff in your Ferrari is downstream from the engine, right? Everything an agent does is downstream from that simple text model. But anyway, this is afu a fun end into this episode that’s gonna track some to normal right wing bait, right?

All right, I’ll get started on this.

Yeah. ‘cause tomorrow’s leaflet. Oh, [01:40:00] people don’t know. I will be on leaflet’s show tomorrow.

Simone Collins: But you’re gonna run a different episode this morning? Tomorrow?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I’ll gonna put this into the different episode.

Simone Collins: Are you going to, oh, okay. Oh, right.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I’m gonna be on leaflet show tomorrow at, so

Simone Collins: you mean today?

Malcolm Collins: Today, today at, at 7:00 PM I think we’re gonna start so you’re gonna get me at a completely different, different time zone, which will be fun. We’ll see how that goes. But I’m, I’m looking for, it’ll be my first time doing like live streaming. Was like a, a, a somebody’s fan base interacting and I don’t know how I feel about that.

I’m a little worried

Simone Collins: You did it a little bit when you had that debate with that guy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I didn’t have time to be reading the stream. I do it when, when we go on Ed, ed Dutton’s show, he does it. But like, I don’t care what Ed Dutton’s audience, they, they’re just too different from our audience in my mind.

Like,

Simone Collins: ah, so you’re nervous about this one because you actually respect her audience. And [01:41:00] that’s the.

Malcolm Collins: Like Ed Dutton’s comment section was full of people trying to determine if you were a Jew or not by your nose shape. Right. Like, I’m like, her audience isn’t gonna be that somo.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I don’t think so. No.

I imagine they’re pretty cool. So they’re not,

Malcolm Collins: anyway, not that I don’t like Ed Dutton. I, I like him. I like it’s kind.

Simone Collins: We love him. We love him. It’s just it’s, but

Malcolm Collins: he does attract him a, a certain, like, like he’s, he’s, he’s less we’re, we’re pretty big on our show about being like, if you’re just like a generic racist, we don’t want you here.

Simone Collins: Well, no, like the, the Jew comments are very much like our, our kids for example, like their go-to is poop jokes. Titan’s. A poopy head. Toasties. A poopy head. They use our Alexa smart devices to say Poop. Poop. Poop. Poop, poop. It’s all poop jokes. And it’s very reductive and it’s just their go-to and it’s like they’re little inside.

This is, I’m joking language.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And

Simone Collins: I feel like Jew comments online are like, that is like the adult version of poop jokes where they’re just like, [01:42:00] juice, juice, Jews, Jew, Jew, Jew.

Malcolm Collins: No, you’re wrong.

Simone Collins: Really

Malcolm Collins: there are people who make jokes like that. And for a wild jokes like that have become common. Okay.

But now there’s this genuine community online that’s just like, my personality is, I hate Jews and I’m a generic racist. Right? Like,

Simone Collins: some people are polling some people just,

Malcolm Collins: and if you, and if you

Simone Collins: expression,

Malcolm Collins: constantly signal on your show yeah. This is not for that audience. So like he does really high quality content.

He just doesn’t also regularly be like, oh, and if you just hate on Jews, I think you’re stupid. Right. Obviously Jews have problems, which we’ve talked about in detail, but there’s a difference between saying that and just being like, like complete crash out mode, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah, which I think is hard for people because for example, I think one of our top performing videos is like the Jewish iq, myth one.

Oh. And of course the people who freaking hate Jews were like, oh, this is gold. And then they were like so [01:43:00] betrayed and then we lost all those subscribers and then they were like, oh, they don’t hate Israel. What’s wrong with them? Familiar. So you know. You can’t win.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think you can win. I think this is actually something I was talking to you about today, but like we hold really weird religious beliefs that I think if they came out later, or if we came to them later in our streaming career would’ve been very disqualifying of us in conservative intellectual spaces.

Yeah.

But we led wisdom them. And we’ve been very consistent and logical about them in a way that I don’t think people find them particularly off putting in the same way that ‘cause it’s very interesting that, that, like in our episode recently about dev short slash short Fat Otaku versus what’s her name?

Simone Collins: Oh, shoe on head.

Malcolm Collins: Shoe on head, shoe on head that the Wright loves shoe on head and has mostly turned against short fat Otake and short fat Otake has moved. Or, or stayed on the left in areas that seem odd to [01:44:00] us. But the, the, the she wanted is fundamentally much more of a leftist than he is, and, and yet she’s forgiven for it and he’s not.

I think it’s because she started with these physi, the positions that she has that are discordant and she focuses on them from a logical perspective.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think you’re right.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to testimon. The comments on today of the Shuan Head video were fun.

Simone Collins: They were

Malcolm Collins: doing really well.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

I’m glad that, that a lot of people like Shuan head. It seems like a lot of people really like what they call nineties era Democrats. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean that’s, that’s the White House now what, like Elon, RFK, Trump, JD Vance, who do you, who do you think these people are? Right? Like this is our party now.

Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I dunno, pointed out the, the purity, the, the, the faction on the right that’s like, oh, we need to focus on like purity culture. We need to focus on extracting everything. We need to focus on all acting the same way. I, I, I point this out and I’ll keep pointing out. They ideologically [01:45:00] have much closer with the left disaligned Islamists than they have with any faction that holds power on the right.

And they don’t really have a place in the modern right. And do have a place in the modern left. And they found it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Like they, they regularly sit down and talk with Islamists, right? Like they they have a side and a place that already accepts them. There’s like not even a reason, even from an and, and people are like, well, you could get their votes.

And it’s like, unlikely, right? Like, they’re not a very they, they put out insane demands that like, would hurt us, prevent our party from winning. But the left doesn’t have any cost to meeting the demands, right? Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because the left doesn’t actually have to follow through with the things that it says or promises.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Nor do they need to be coherent or cross achievable.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because you can just keep blaming the, when you have an external locus of control themed party, you [01:46:00] could always blame someone else for things not working out and never take personal responsibility. And what’s so interesting about.

The Trump administration right now is taking personal responsibility for very controversial things, very unpopular things. Yeah. And not blaming other people, not being like, well, so and so made me do it, or thi you know, this is, you know, it, it’s just like, no, I’m gonna do this. I’m sorry. It’s a little bit tough.

It’s gonna be a little bit tougher, a little bit longer. This is gonna be worth it in the long run, even if you don’t think so. I don’t care because I think this is the best and it’s a very different kind of,

Speaker 27: He’s playing his music. Wow. Tex, thanks.

Yeah. Text toss. Master Tex. Look at the phones. Look at the camera

In this Based Camp deep dive, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore one of the most fascinating figures in online culture: Shoe0nHead (June Lapine).

Why has a self-described social democrat, Bernie supporter, and pro-union leftist maintained massive popularity and respect in right-wing and anti-woke spaces for over a decade—while most other left-leaning creators from the early skeptic/atheist era lost their audiences?

We break down:

- Her unique journey from Gamergate-era anti-SJW commentary to Catholic trad wife and mother

- Why she never needed to “convert” her audience or pivot dramatically

- The vitalistic, entertaining style that keeps her relevant across the political spectrum

- The broader split in the old atheist community: truth-seekers vs. resentment-driven dunkers

- Why the modern right can embrace ideological diversity (and why the left struggles with it)

- Shoe0nHead as proof that the new right is a big-tent movement built on reality and forward momentum rather than purity spirals

If you’ve ever wondered why right-leaning creators constantly react to and platform Shoe0nHead (even when she criticizes Trump mildly), this episode explains it.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be pulling a thread that we got to in another video and in this other video we were talking about the. Community of early online skeptics slash atheist, which was like the core of sort of YouTube culture in the earliest days of YouTube.

And how the individuals in this community that went right, they first became anti-feminist and anti woke, then went into Gamergate and then became the seedbed that the new right movement grew out of.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And then another group of them drifted in another direction. They drifted left and the group that drifted left like they, they were in the early atheist anti theist movement.

And then the movement went either at the anti-feminist or anti woke stage. Yeah. They lost their audiences. Notably, we didn’t talk about it in that video, but there is actually one that drifted left [00:01:00] even after that stage. He was there for anti-feminist, he was there for anti woke, and he only drifted left at the trans stuff.

This is dev slash short Fighter Taku, who has co off his views are way lower than ours now. If you look at like weekly counts

Simone Collins: has he overall drifted left?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, he has refused to really call out the trans community as a serious problem. And something that needs to be in some way, you know, the, like it legislatively something like that, a addressed.

Speaker 3: Inspector, do you know if the killer was a man or a woman? Well, if ca I know that. What else is there? The kitten,

Malcolm Collins: And I, I think that that’s part of, he’s also become more proc censorship, like censoring people in his forums and stuff like that. Really?

Simone Collins: Wow. That surprises me. It seems so unlike who I thought he was when I first started watching his videos.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think that’s why he lost a lot of his followership, right?

Speaker 8: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for [00:02:00] gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

Malcolm Collins: Like it does, it does seem very anti what I thought he was right. But we noted one notable unique case in all of this, which was shoe on head. And Shoe on Head was very unique for a number of reasons. The, the biggest being is that she didn’t drift left over time or begin to adopt leftist talking points.

She was thoroughly leftist from the beginning and, and quite a bit more leftist than I think a casual viewer may believe. She for example, to go over some of her leftist positions universal Healthcare, she wants, she has strong support of labor unions. She’s a believer in free college. She is a, as well as tuition forgiveness.

She’s broadly anti-capitalist and anti-corporate regularly criticizing big businesses, everything like that. And she promotes working class [00:03:00] popularism. She voted for Joe Biden in 2020. She was a very strong supporter of Bernie Sanders. And so yeah, very, very left wing, especially in her economic views.

And also in, in her social views to an extent. .

Simone Collins: She, she hasn’t talked about it a lot. In, in most of her recent videos, she, she’ll come out critical of Trump, but in no way more than in, in fact, less than many of the conservative. People that I’ll hear on YouTube these days, which is weird.

Malcolm Collins: That I would say

Simone Collins: is true more

Malcolm Collins: recent videos.

But if you, if you look at the whole holisticness of her work, she did not lose followers when she was talking about these leftist things. And she even has the name among her fan base of Ka mommy. So, you know, it’s a sweet name I think. But it’s also socially she’s been shown to be quite progressive.

She right now is married to a trad C and has a kid, so be aware of that. And she converted to Catholicism over COVID. But before that, she was in a [00:04:00] long-term relationship with armored skeptic where she was public about having a 24 7 BDSM daddy, Dom little girl relationship.

Simone Collins: She was not really,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Whoa. She. Wow, okay.

Malcolm Collins: And she still hasn’t condemned kink or anything like that, which is funny because on the social leftist front that would put her with us, where we do not condemn kink at all. We’re like, what? People are aroused by random

Simone Collins: things. I know. Dumb, dumb little girl, very Catholic you know, but they work father into everything.

I mean, come on.

Malcolm Collins: I guess that’s right. Yeah.

Simone Collins: See, it’s extremely paternalistic as, as a religion and like organization. I don’t understand why that that particular affiliation wouldn’t be. Quite match.

Malcolm Collins: But I mean, she has kind of made joking videos about kink. She made that one a really good one actually, about women getting into like monster effer books.[00:05:00]

Oh yeah. She didn’t outright condemn it. It was more the way that we talk about stuff like that where it is like women are ridiculous, that they pretend that men are the, the deviant ones and that they’re little, little Es. But in that other video, what I, what I talked about was why is she still relevant, but none of the other leftists.

YouTubers are not relevant is because she didn’t try to change her audience. And she didn’t need to convert her audience. Her audience was never really persuaded by her economic arguments. She was never a pipeline out of the right to anyone. She’s still a mainstream watch figure in the right, and when I say in the right, I mean if, if she did a video and Asma Gold didn’t do a cover of it, I would be very surprised.

Leaflet covers a lot of her videos. N Sinor always needs to brag when he gets mentioned in one of her videos, so clearly he’s watching [00:06:00] them. You know, if she mentioned us or birth rates, obviously I would be there.

Speaker 4: Do you think it’s possible that

Malcolm.

Speaker 4: could be watching you right now?

Speaker 3: Well, if I was

Malcolm.

Speaker 3: , I would certainly be watching and possibly tapping for later playback because you know, it’s a big deal to be talked about on

Speaker 6: A shoe on head video.

Malcolm Collins: and it’s and, and I, and I watch a lot of her videos too, just for even sort of like cultural relevance in the right, we pointed out that Sky Brows regularly has her along all of his alt-right v tubers and everything like that in his videos.

And so first I like, I wanna talk on two topics here. One is, its how and why because this came up a lot in the comments of that video.

How has Shoe on Head maintained this right wing following and loyalty for an example of another right wing influencer? Ho Math, ho Math did a chart of women he trusts, like online influencers.

He trusted. And she came in really high on that [00:07:00] chart above I, I think the majority of like female conservative influencers on the chart, right? Like, that is saying something, right? Note at that what do the characters get at the top of the chart, which I think is fun is Pearl Davis. He is like Pearl Davis sniffed this girl out.

This is with the, it was on his episode where he was talking about the the big, the

Simone Collins: one who said that she was a virgin when she got married and the pope blessed her marriage and then turns out she was actually sleeping with this other guy while engaged, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and in that episode I realized just as a, a brief tangent here, and I think shoe on head actually sort of fits into this is that of conservative female influencers, because I wasn’t watching N’s version of this, I was watching the leaflet cover of this.

Is that in the, in the conservative influencer space, there is a certain type of woman who just like comes up and her front and center thing is. I am ex religious woman, right? Like I am the trad cast, sexy woman, [00:08:00] right? And these are the people I think of when I think of quote unquote Christian influencers.

And Leaflet was commenting that, you know, she gets accused of being a quote unquote Christian v YouTuber. Like, how dare you say this, as a Christian v tuber. And I realized how comical it was to consider a figure like leaflet or a figure like shoe on head alongside these quote unquote, like, I guess I’ll call ‘em Christian sea thought influencers.

That’s what we’ll call them the Christian thought influencers.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, that’s such a thing though. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because neither of them, while both of them is Christian at this point neither of them leads anything with that, right? Like, that’s not their front, that’s not their identity, that’s not their hook for their audience.

And I think. They, it’s, it’s useful to know, like when you’re watching an influencer to know, are they likely trustable? Is it, are they likely authentic? The ones that are, the, the, the thoughts are very likely inauthentic, right? Broadly speaking, stuff seems to blow up for them at a fairly frequent [00:09:00] rate, whereas I’m just not familiar with that many controversies at all with individuals.

On the other end of the scale was the only one maybe I’m aware of is the Pearl Davis Sleeping Whiz. Seem me to have a preference for black guys which like, whatever, I understand why that’s a controversy I do. But I also, it’s like, you know, your preferences are your preferences, right?

Like. I have, and I, and I mean this like we in the conservative community should be defending the idea of your preferences or your preferences. My preferences are for white women. That doesn’t make me a racist, right? Like, in fact, if you watch our video, which race is the most attractive? We, we do break down that.

But generally races prefer their own ethnicity over other ethnicities.

Speaker 5: I should note here, I’m not saying this ‘cause she’s ever stated she had the preference, her black guys, it’s just of the three public boyfriends she’s had, two of them have been black and one of them she needed to clarify was not black and was Dominican. So apparently he looked black to other people.

, And [00:10:00] it may not be due to a preference on her part. It may be due to the cursed phenomenon that were not supposed to talk publicly about, but it probably is useful for young girls if they happen to be watching this to be aware of this. , The once you go black, you never go black phenomenon. Is not necessarily because, , black guys are significantly better when dating or something like that.

It is in large part also because, , a large chunk of the white male population finds girls significantly less attractive. Or, or at least significantly less valuable as dating or even sexual prospects after they know they’ve had relations with black men. , I am not saying this is a good thing, , but, you know, everyone has their preferences.

, And in the same way that it’s like

not necessarily a good thing that guys on average happen to find girls less attractive after they know ‘em. They slept with a lot of people. But it’s also a fact that it’s useful for girls to know when they’re sort of gauging, , they’re [00:11:00] dating publicly. And I don’t think anyone ever, for example, in Firm Pearl that her relationship would have this effect.

, And that’s sad, right? ,

And note, I want to be clear here. I didn’t say that many white male racist opinion of a girl goes down significantly after they know she had slept with a black guy. I am saying. Many white men, even ones who I have known who, , would, no one would think to call them a racist. , They have no other views that could get them in trouble for being racist.

And so they do not air this particular view. And, , through not airing this view, because obviously in society, if, you did that, that would be, and I’m not saying I feel that way, , it, it would be very, , damaging to you. But, , it’s important that girls are aware of this.

In fact, it’s so common. , I am drawn to wonder if it might have a genetic component. , So drop in the comments if you are not white, and if you know a woman of your [00:12:00] ethnicity has slept with a white guy, , or you can also add black guy here. , Does that drop , her attractiveness to you? , More than a regular body count would.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway that’s the only controversy I’m aware of. And I don’t, I don’t even think of that as a real controversy. That’s not, she’s never pretended to be a white nationalist. She’s never pretended to be an ethno centrist.

She’s never pretended to be like that is in no way betraying the image she has portrayed to the public.

Simone Collins: Well, it’s so funny that she could have someone like Nick Fuentes on and kind of defend him and be friendly with him and then get castigated for that, but then also be def fenestrated for formerly having black boyfriends.

Like, okay, so. Like, what are, are you mad at her because she’s not a racial supremacist or you’re mad that she is? We’re

Malcolm Collins: seeing this with Trump right now. Yesterday or like a few days ago, everyone was freaking out. They said, can you believe Trump says he wants to bomb all Iranians? And of course that’s not what he said.

He [00:13:00] even into the tweet was, you know, praying for the great people of Iran. But then the next day he doesn’t bomb them and he gets the beginnings of the, the truce worked out. And then all of the same people who were freaking out on him yesterday for wanting to bomb Iranians, they were like, oh, taco, he didn’t bomb all the Iranians.

He should have bombed all the Iranians. Why aren’t you bombing them? Right? Like, it’s more just like attack them whenever, like when somebody’s on the right, you just get attacked for anything and it makes you a little numb to it after, you know, you’re just like, okay, you’re just gonna hate me no matter what I say.

So, I have no need to take on anything performative at this point. But. What I wanted to discuss here was, one, the phenomenon of why she’s popular on the right. And two, the, the phenomenon more broadly, which I guess I’m gonna start with is a meta phenomenon is I was looking with AI and I could not find an equivalent to shoe one head on the left.

Meaning there is no mainstream popular figure on the left who [00:14:00] has right wing views. There, there, there, there is no, I think there

Simone Collins: one, but it’s over, which was the Colbert report. It was this idea. I mean, and he wasn’t even actually right wing, right. But he pretended to be right wing and leftists loved that.

But I think they also just kind of loved the, the right wing views being as kind sometimes. Like they just kind of Yeah, no, I They were allowed to, they were allowed to, enjoy laughing and, and, and watching it and kind of even liking it. ‘cause it was a joke. Of course. They didn’t like it. It was just a joke.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Patriotism and vitalism that they could play along with and have fun with. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. You know, I, I think that that was what grabbed people in that. Yeah. And it was almost prototypical of. A channel like ours, like the Colbert Report.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, people would say, oh, you support everything Trump does.

And it’s like, yeah, we do. You know, yeah. Even if one day I, I believe in unless something is like a true and genuine betrayal and not something that he said he was gonna do on the campaign trail I should go along with it. Right. And like, for [00:15:00] example, the Irene bombing thing on the campaign trail, he said, I will bomb Iran to smither ees.

Speaker 16: As you know, there have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of possibly do Iran, but we’ve been threatened very directly by Iran, and I think you have to let ‘em know that you do any attacks on former presidents or candidates for president.

Uh, your country gets blown to Smither Eames, as we say.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Like, so, it is the same with it. Like when Elon went against Trump for all of these things that he put into the bill, it’s like, yeah. But he said he was gonna do all this government bloat on the campaign trail is how he got elected. Right? Like, it was one of the compromises that our side came to.

So I, I don’t, you know, but I, I guess that does make me look like having a relationship with Trump the same way the Stephen Colbert character had, was who was the Republican of that [00:16:00] era maybe, maybe George Bush or something. Anyway I know George Bush, by the way, he’s a, he’s a really nice guy.

The people are I, I, I, you know, I think he made some mistakes during his presidency, but I don’t think he made them with malice. And I think obviously the biggest mistakes he made was attempting nation building in the Middle East, but he just didn’t have a history or knowledge to know that that wouldn’t work.

Right. Like we had done it in Japan. We had done it in Germany. No one had really tried it in the Middle East before. If it had worked like it had in Japan and Germany and South Korea which was a. Pretty successful track record up to that point. And, and in mainstream culture at the time did not admit that people were genetically different.

It, you, you, he couldn’t have gone to someone and said, how many successful democracies have ever been set up in an Arab majority country? Or what do Muslims really believe? Like that information just wasn’t out there back then. Right. You know, and maybe, maybe this attitude explains [00:17:00] why there isn’t this on the left.

Right. I think many people on the right are actually fairly able to be forgiving of people’s political differences. We are open to have friends and be influenced by people who appear to be approaching arguments with good faith. And I think that. She represents that for a lot of people, and the left cannot do that.

Mm-hmm. That’s why Stephen Colbert, which I think is a good flip here, is their closest thing to a shoe on head. Because everything he presented was explicitly in bad faith, which is why it was Okay. And I think that many of us didn’t know it how bad faith it was until after Stephen Colbert decided to be his real personality.

And then we got to see, oh, this guy is like, completely cooked in the brain. Specifically he the, the funniest example of this was when John Stewart went on his show and tried to explain that the the lab leak hypothesis was [00:18:00] likely correct and funny, like that segment was so funny. And Steven got like increasingly nervous, like, but this is off script, John. This is off script. John. We don’t talk about this. Or community John.

Speaker 23: the suffering of this pandemic which was more than likely caused by science.

, no,

Speaker 22: no, no, no,

Speaker 23: no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not listen, listen.

But what

Speaker 22: do you, what what, what, what do you mean by that? Do you mean like, perhaps there’s, there’s a chance that this was created in a lab. I’d love to hear.

Speaker 23: A novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan Novel Respiratory Coronavirus Lab. The disease is the same name as the lab.

And then they ask the scientists, wait a minute. You work at the Wuhan Respiratory Coronavirus Lab. How did this happen? And they’re like, Mmm, a pangolin kissed a turtle. [00:19:00] And you’re like, No! If you look at the name,

show me your business card. Oh, I work at the Coronavirus lab in Wuhan. Oh, because there’s a coronavirus loose in Wuhan. How did that happen? Maybe a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey and now we all have coronavirus. Like, come on.

Okay, okay. Wait a second. Wait a second. What about this? What about this? Listen to this. Wait a second. All right. John. Oh my god. Oh my god. There’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania. What do you think happened? Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe something. Maybe it’s a cocoa bean or it’s the f ing chocolate factory.

Maybe that’s it.

Speaker 22: That could that could very well be and Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins and NIH have said like it should definitely be investigated.

Speaker 23: Stop with the. [00:20:00] Logic and people and things. The name

Speaker 22: of the disease Wait a second, wait a second Is all over the building Wait a second, but it could be possible, you could be right It could be possible that they have The lab in Wuhan To study the novel coronavirus Diseases because of the bat population there.

Sure, no. I understand.

Speaker 23: It’s the only place to find bats oh, wait. Austin, Texas has thousands of them that fly out of a cave every night. . Is there a coronavirus, an Austin coronavirus?

No, it doesn’t seem to be an Austin coronavirus.

Malcolm Collins: And you know, obviously he ended up, especially with his Charlie Kirk comments that were just really vile ended up, I, I think showing his true colors eventually.

And his true colors just apparently come down from being afraid to, to challenge or criticize any, any, any woke or orthodox belief. And this is probably created by his writer room. I think he hired a bunch of SJWs to be writers and that made him really afraid, which is, you know, common in Hollywood.

I, I do think that he might have been more moderated [00:21:00] in his earlier beliefs. ‘cause at one point he said his favorite president was Nixon. Mm-hmm. So, and he, and he said, really, I mean, this, this is gonna surprise people. So, so like not in Charact. Okay, but to shoe on head, why does shoe on head appeal to right-leaning individuals?

And I will read an article attacking shoe on head, which I think will help explain how she still appeals so strongly to right-leaning individuals.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: You, you ready to buckle in on this one, Simone?

Simone Collins: Yeah, please enlighten me.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. This is an article on Medium and is one of the first results if you look up criticisms of shoe on head, shoe on head, the red brown Queen of Sims, and the dangers of pop populism.

So it starts as, and then it says a, a criticism of June Lapin, which is her real name. Starts with a number of quotes from her rape culture Isn’t [00:22:00] real o okay, that’s not a problematic quote. Unless you’re talking about a Muslim culture, if she’s talking about some Muslim cultures, I’d be like, whoa, shoot.

Like, you really need to look at the 99% of Egyptian women have been the subject to sexual assault statistic, right? Like, this is clearly a systemic problem, but not in American colleges or in America, which is probably what she means. The wage gap is a myth. Just, you know, this article was written in 2021.

I don’t even think people on the left argue that the wage gap is real anymore. The patriarchy is not real obvious. White privilege is not real. The only privilege is class privilege. Okay, good way to try to bring in the the socialism. Mary. You see, that’s where she, that’s where she brings it in.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: These are a few memorable quotes by the YouTuber Shoe on head, a self-proclaimed social Democrat. Anti SJW YouTuber was 1.5 million subscribers and 400,000 Twitter followers. Bigger now I, I think about twice the size now. Who has successfully solicit solicited her way into legitimate [00:23:00] leftist spaces after five long years of desperately trying.

I mean, she constantly talks about Vosh and being friends with him and stuff like that. She, so she mainstream was, was very far in mainstream leftists, right?

Octavian Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Before we get into why she’s so dangerous. Now we need to talk about her past just a bit. Shoe on Head. Built her YouTube career off of the momentum of Gamergate, the misogynistic harassment campaign that gave birth to the alt-right and eventually helped get Donald Trump elected.

But there’s a chance most of her fans today don’t know that. In fact, most of her fans today don’t know anything at all about shoe. So a few funny things here is most of Shoe One heads fans, I would argue, are not leftists.

They are her original fan base. They are still Trump voters. There’s a reason she’s in every Sky Brown video. So no, her, her fans are very much aware that she was anti woke and still is anti woke, right? Mm-hmm. And then too, I [00:24:00] love this person’s characterization of Gamergate, right? Like a alt-right harassment campaign where it’s like.

Gamer Gate was about very real corruption in gaming and media that led to the eventual destruction of the entire industry. Gaming media does not exist anymore. Side Scrollers a conservative YouTube show run by Stuttering Craig is which we’ve been on a bit in the past, probably bigger than all of gaming media combined.

Like, like leftist gaming media at this point. And there are some other bigger gaming YouTubers. But they’re, they’re all either rightist or apolitical at this point. And, and certainly not establishment. The last establishment, leftist gaming media figure was zero punctuation. Who many don’t know.

He does not like Trump. He’s invented that in some of his videos. So, you know, and he hilarious. I love his videos. I watch almost every one of his videos. But he only became a non-establishment because the company [00:25:00] basically kicked him out. They, they, well, they fired everyone and he got mad at them.

And there’s the whole drama around that. And then he went to

Simone Collins: start Is the angry British man or the

Malcolm Collins: He angry, I think. I think I thought he was Australian, but he might be British.

Simone Collins: I’m just thinking about the grumpy British man.

Malcolm Collins: But that’s who you’re thinking of. I think he’s okay. Goes on those long funny rants.

Mm-hmm. Anyway, so she goes over bullet points, so, so you know how evil she is. Okay. They don’t know that she was friends with Laura Su, a white nationalist that made a video trashing Hillary Clinton together in 2015. So a few notes here. Laura Su is not a white nationalist. She has denied. She’s a white nationalist.

I think the, at most she has admitted some esno tensions around differential fertility rates or something like that. Which is not a, that’s anyone should be. Like if I am a, now in the United States, white people actually have very strong fertility rates, especially Northern Europeans. But if you’re talking about other countries like Italy [00:26:00] and, and, and Spain and stuff like that, like yeah, I’d be really concerned.

And when I say strong fertility rates, I mean strong fertility rates for our income level. Not in a global scale. Obviously poor people have more kids, right. But, but even if you correct for things, see our video on this ‘cause in another video we were talking about this and the, one of the commentaries didn’t seem to be aware of this when we were talking about white, like Northern Europeans have strong fertility rates, and they were like, well, that’s not the same as birth rates.

And it’s like, no, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Like, white people in the US have a higher fertility rate than black people in the US despite black people being poor, right? Like, if, if you’re unaware of that, we, we have a higher fertility rate than Mexico. We have a higher fertility rate than the average fertility rate of Latin America.

We have a higher fertility rate than any country that comes close to EST except for Israel. In terms of the, the only one that that’s sort of close is Australia, which is again a northern European country predominantly. So yeah. It’s, it’s not a particularly warranted fear, but I’m still okay with people cheering for [00:27:00] their own team.

It could be better. Sure,

Simone Collins: yeah. By

Malcolm Collins: all means. I don’t think 1.6 is good. I, I, I wanna get up there. 2.5 or something, but like, we can get there.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Next she says they don’t know, she called indie game artist Zoe Quinn, a quote unquote w***e, and was a huge quote unquote, classic liberal celeb during Gamergate.

So, for people who are unaware, Zoe Quinn is a w***e. Like, no, she, like, that’s what she’s famous for, is sleeping around with lots of people while she has a boyfriend. I suppose the like a, a lot, a lot of people while she had a boyfriend and then doing reviews on their video games, right? Like, that’s like both unethical and hoish.

I suppose if I was gonna criticize her we do not have. It’s, it’s more like she was paying the guys for sex than the other way around, because she would write positive reviews about the games that guys she had sex with. So it, it, it’s sort of worse than being a w***e. It’s I, I I would say [00:28:00] trading your reputation and time for sex with somebody else sort of puts you on the receiving end of the horror category.

But yeah,

Simone Collins: this makes it look like it was a, yeah, she’s trying to pay them for the privilege.

Malcolm Collins: A, a recent shoe on head quote, by the way that I thought was fantastic is the video she’s saying. It used to be that when an unattractive woman saw an attractive woman getting more attention than her, they’d call her a w***e.

But we can’t say that anymore because somehow being a w***e is good now. So now we call them a racist. And I think that this is a regard to Cindy Sweeney controversy, but I think it, this, article right here. They explicitly don’t say, and she isn’t a w***e. They, the, the implication seems to be more, and being a w***e is empowering.

Mm-hmm. That is how we capture our femininity.

Michael who? Uh, I believe that is a w***e.

Malcolm Collins: It says here is shoe on head at a party with Carl Benjamin. This is Sargon a [00:29:00] pod. For people who are unaware, no, she’s not even talking to Sargon of a cod. He just happens to be in the foreground and she’s in

Simone Collins: the

Malcolm Collins: background with her boyfriend.

Simone Collins: Guilt by proximity thing is so weird.

You breathe the same air as them.

Malcolm Collins: And note here she is wearing cat ears too. This is,

Simone Collins: is that the condemning factor here?

Malcolm Collins: No, I’m just saying that, so socially that’s a pretty like. I, I would say at least not like trad conservative, very, very conservative as this new conservative culture is conservative.

Like the things that she does that are so not traditionally socially conservative are things that the new right wouldn’t really condemn. Um mm-hmm. In so far as we are voices within the new right. That I think sort of embody a lot of the beliefs of it that we’re not gonna go out there and be like, oh, you know, you need to, if you practice a kink relationship with your monogamous boyfriend where you wore cat ears and did like daddy dom little girl stuff that you need to go in [00:30:00] a cage forever, right?

Like, whatever. Right? Like, it’s, it’s with your partner. You, you both seem to be turned on by it. Like, have fun, right. And, and I think that this is partially why you didn’t know that about her, and it’s not a big scandal about her because nobody in the new Right. Effing cares.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right, right. It is, it is just the old timey purists and if she tried to get in with or the new timey deontologists that are, that are about, you know, purifying the ideology of the party, purifying you know, racial purity and everything like that.

It’s just a bit, whatever.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like, like o obviously, like ethno groups are real and genetically cluster and there can be some utility in attempting to preserve one. But it’s not the only genetic strategy you can attempt. And that most ethno groups that you are a part of today were in part made by mixing previous ethno groups.

Like the British ethnic group I’m a part of is a mixture of a number of ethnic groups Celts picks Vikings [00:31:00] French some Netherlands. And so, yeah, you know, it’s a, you, you can, you can mix ethno groups to create a superior ethno group. I’m, I’m joking there. I did not say that my ethnicity has any degree of superiority.

That was completely said in jest. Mm-hmm. Do I make your side hurt?

Simone Collins: My whole heart.

Malcolm Collins: We point out in our, well, somebody in our comments was complaining that like how, like when you mix ethnicities, like look at the ugly children that are created by this. What? And I was like, well, you know, we do a video where we rank ethnicities by hotness.

And in the studies that have looked at mixed ethnicity children white people think white. Asian babies are more at attract, not not babies, adults, like I, I guess people made of those pairings are more attractive than other white people.

Simone Collins: They’re,

‘

Simone Collins: Cause they are, what can we

Malcolm Collins: say? I kind of agree. I I think that often they do turn out hotter.

It’s not to say that I think that that’s the optimal [00:32:00] genetic strategy, I’m just pointing out that this is statistically what white people think. And note that there are other esno groups that prefer white, like for example, Hispanics prefer white Hispanic. Mixed people to Hispanic people.

Octavian Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: But to continue here, well go, go watch that video if you’re interested in this topic. Right. You know, holding her hand to the fire. They probably don’t know that her name is Shoe on Head. Comes from a meme where people harass webcam models who could not speak English. Okay, fine. Sounds edgy nonsense.

They don’t know that she called non-binary people trans Trenders up until 2017. Oh, they don’t know that. She was a big fan of Milo Opolis. An infamous alt-right troll and close friends with Carl Benjamin. AKA Sargon of Cod. You ki party member. They don’t know. She said Trump might be good for America after he was elected and told LGBT people that they were overreacting.

Election [00:33:00] night. At this point it’s like,

Stop. My penis can only get so erect.

Malcolm Collins: . Like, please stop.. Hell, they don’t know that she used to be engaged to armored sex skeptic, a Canadian reactionary or centrist YouTube skeptic who made videos against trans trenders and feminism, which was very much a real phenomenon, right?

And then they have a picture of her dressed up. I don’t know, sexy clothing on her husband who in lighting his cigar. And, and they’re, and holding a sandwich, right? And they’re like, not sexist, you know, obviously joking there. And they say her, her ex has an interesting rig. I, I can’t tell what’s funny about this.

It just, it’s like a card of me. For years, Shu has been slowly sneaking away from her old neo rat actionary spaces and making her way into left-leaning communities successfully sweeping her past under the rug, and pretending she was not calling non-binary people, trans trenders. Just a few years ago, [00:34:00] Vinny on the left, such as Steve Chives, this is one of the ones who we talked about who moved to the left but was in the original atheist community.

A victim of shoe on head’s harassment has been warning about this infiltration attempt for years.

Simone Collins: What kind of harassment is this that allegedly is causing all these problems?

Malcolm Collins: I’m sure she just called him out for something. He really did.

Speaker 9: Okay. When you actually look into this story, this is like psychotic framing of what happened. So Steve Chives at a mis con 2017 tried to get shoe on head armored skeptic and sargon of acod banned from the event de platform them interfere with their sources of revenue and public outreach, removing them from the conversation.

And all she did in retaliation for that was make fun of him for being such an SJW. . That is absolutely wild that this would be framed , and not even like in a particularly cruel way, psychos.

Malcolm Collins: I mean this is what the tweet [00:35:00] that they have about her, she seems too eager to excuse herself regarding Buck Angel.

Oh, because she had Buck Angel on Buck Angel is trans by the way, and he is just a trans person who said the horrifying thing of trans children are actually a problem and you shouldn’t be gender transitioning children. And he is living proof that the majority of the original trans community is quite mortified.

Him Caitlyn Jenner, everything like that with what the Transgen Trenders have turned the community into.

Simone Collins: Is Caly Jenner still out posting? I’ve gotta check. Gosh. I mean, I hadn’t heard that name in forever. No,

Malcolm Collins: not sorry for that. Vidcom pick she was in with shoe and armored skeptic. She worries about being a burden on to her colleagues, friends on YouTube, but puts tweets from others in the video, possibly making trouble for them.

Why should she be sorry for the VidCon photo? Because it helped to normalize two se untrustworthy opportunists who are constantly grasping for [00:36:00] a sort of legitimacy and acceptance suggested in the photos. Specifically, she’s talking about her ex here. And this is shoe on head eating with her ex.

The hilarious is this also includes Contra Points and Lindsay Ellis, right. Which I, I think are fairly mainstream leftists right thoughts. By the way, before I continue,

Simone Collins: I I think this is an example of people trying to make cancellations out of absolutely nothing because I don’t see anything wrong here.

She’s living her life. And mixing with other influencers and expressing opinions, which is the only thing an influencer can do if they want to provide substance.

Malcolm Collins: Well, this is actually a really good point about you. So cancellations often validate people in the eyes of the right. Mm-hmm. I think if you look at the early days of v tubers, ‘cause we talked about this in the other episode, like Rev says desu, which is, it’s like literally an anime girl child vampire as his avatar.

I mean, I think that would make many people quite suspicious of him. But his constant cancellation sort of affirm him in [00:37:00] the eyes of the right. I pointed out Scott Alexander being taken down by New York Times made him an intellectual who you could cite without reservation within right wing spaces.

In addition the entire VT tubing community was really affirmed by the right in the big explosion that happened was the case of, what was it? Anna Vains and trying and Keisha take down leaflet and kyia. Right. And I smug Alana, was she part of that? I forgot. Smug Alana on our V YouTuber piece.

And I love smug Alana. She has great videos. The

Simone Collins: smug, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Smug. Alana’s another Fox girl. The problem, the reason I don’t remember her is I get her confused, was Kirsha. Because they have very similar avatars. Simone,

your thoughts.

Simone Collins: My god. Yeah, sorry. Up all night again.

Tex is doing the thing where he doesn’t like to sleep. I’m just shocked. Here’s, here’s what I actually think is going on, and this is something that came up in the comments of the YouTuber video that you did on YouTubers going to the left and to the right post, the [00:38:00] four Chan Tumblr, easiest time.

Is that what you didn’t? This wasn’t really about people choosing a side like, I’m going to become a Democrat. I’m gonna become a Republican. It was about whether or not people were part of those spaces in the first place because they hated or resented the church or God, or whether they were in that space because they wanted to pursue truth.

And they, they were like going toward a light versus like hurling poop at think as something that made them angry. Right? Yeah. And I think the people who tended to go toward the left and then be associated more with the left were the people who just wanted to hate on God or the church or, you know, show resentment towards something.

And often that something turned into Trump, turned into capitalists, turned into whatever, right? Af after they were sort of done throwing hate at priests or at the church. And I think the reason why Shuan had is an example and, and [00:39:00] maybe to a lesser extent, contra points because contra points I think maintain some level of popularity is that the fo their focus in the end.

In very different ways, which you also touched on in an earlier episode. Hasn’t been on. I’m going to just dunk on this thing and hate this thing and I’m resentful and angry and depressed. I have mental problems, everything, bad hate, hate hate. Rather they show a sense of affirmative forward moving vitalism.

And generation in that shoe on head is vitalistic. She has fun commentary, she’s very energetic. And Contra Points has taken the very different direction of being like, theater Kitty. I’m gonna add gel lighting and costuming to everything and be really entertaining about it. And that, I think actually you can even see this in the way that contra points versus Philosophy tubes videos went because both of them decided to take the theater kid perspective.

Yeah. Even the mutual content of each of their videos. Counterpoints gets really [00:40:00] nerdy about things, but in a, in a non hateful way. In a, not like, I’m gonna talk how someone is bad, but rather I’m gonna be like, look at how Fire Festival went insane. Or like, let’s go down the rabbit hole with twilight. Whereas philosophy Tube is like, I’m going to talk to you about how, you know, everyone’s bad and terrible and how the world is bad and terrible toward trans people, toward, toward humans, toward the, the proletariat.

And so it’s more about hate. And I think that that was a really interesting thing that several people in the comments of the last video, you

Malcolm Collins: know, it’s interesting that you mention this because this is another individual that, like a lot of online conservatives watch Contra Points videos. Mm-hmm. When we have brought her up and liking her content, I, I like her content.

On, on online before. Especially in contrast to who was that other one? A philosophy tube, right? Yeah. Rather like philosophy tube is not very high quality content and contra points, it’s pretty decent sometimes. And

Simone Collins: actually. I wanna say it’s notable because in terms of quality [00:41:00] I think, you know, Abigail, Flo, AKA philosophy too would immediately shoot back being like, I have a team, I have makeup artists.

I put time into my script. Mine is higher quality, I’m more professional. Whereas they get the impression that Contra Points actually does more of the work herself, like on her own. Well, yeah, because

Malcolm Collins: she’s, she’s, she’s doing the left of thing, which is a performative hiring of people. The performative, not just

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

The bureaucratizing. But I, it’s, there’s just this huge difference between like nerding out vitalism enthusiasm versus like, I hate this thing. I’m smarter than you are. Here’s why you should hate it. Yeah, yeah. Here’s why you should hate it and why we should all be depressed and sad. And it’s not even really about right or left Trump bad or good.

Right. It’s about like how energetic and vitalistic and, and is this person moving society forward, or are they trying to tear it down? I think that’s what it fundamentally comes down to. Maybe that’s what the new right is fundamentally about. It’s not really about being like old fashioned religious or not.

It’s really are you excited [00:42:00] about building up for the future? And if you are, then you’re in the new right. You might, you know, not fit in any other way, but you’re there anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Actually, this is a really interesting meta point for a number of reasons that I want to dig into. Okay. Yeah. First is fun, fun side here.

Okay. For people who don’t know Philosophy Tube, when she was still a man dated Contra points another trans woman. And after they broke up, that’s when she started transitioning and in a way that looks like she was trying to look more like contra points, and then she started doing videos, like contra points.

And Contra points has even called this out in a deleted tweet. Like, if you think your exes are stalkery, you’ve never had one, like completely medically transform themselves to try to be as close to you as possible, right? Like, but you know, the, and then launch a career that mirrored your own. But

Simone Collins: I mean, it’s a little bit relatable.

I, I only say that because like when I first met you. I was like, why am [00:43:00] I not him? You know? I was just so excited that you existed and kind of mad that I couldn’t pull you off. But also I have the humility to know that I could never be you. So maybe that’s the key difference. I mean, well you kind of are now we’ve got kids together.

Right. As I know. That’s the best thing. That is the best thing. Yeah. And the whole, not, don’t it to like combine my identity with you, but also make like iterative copy copies of you that we get to like

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The moment you got

Simone Collins: a chance

Malcolm Collins: stamp, stamp stamp, stamp stamp, stamp stamp.

Simone Collins: You know it.

Malcolm Collins: Hey,

Simone Collins: they,

Malcolm Collins: they do act like us, I’ll tell you

Simone Collins: that.

Well, they act to like you.

Malcolm Collins: They do act like me a

Simone Collins: lot When they’re being neurotic. They act like me.

Octavian Collins: This strawberry is getting my mouth wet. I can’t eat it.

Malcolm Collins: But, one point I was going to make here is stylistic. Mm-hmm. An interesting thing about Sean Head’s videos is they actually stylistically look more like left wing videos than right wing videos.

They’re closer to a contra points in terms of their level of editing and development. She, they’re [00:44:00] sort of a mix of the two cultures, but I point out that like right wing videos when we were talking about that they’re often far lower production b budget, they’re much more interested in just like, these are the ideas, right?

Like, they’re not liter if they have jokes in them. The jokes are germane to like the way the conversation is flowing like a n Taku or us or something like that. Whereas or Bridget Nessy does a lot of jokes in her videos whereas shoe on heads appear theater kitty, I, I, I’d say almost right, like it’s got, it is got an ounce of that flair to it and it doesn’t turn off.

Right wing viewers. I’ve never heard it. I I actually quite like the effort she puts in. Yeah. Second or, or then the larger meta thing I really wanted to get to that I think is really interesting here is what caused the original split. And I think Sarah Hater said this best on, on a, what’s her show called again?

We’ve had her on Sarah

Simone Collins: Hater. I mean yeah, Sarah Hater was on I. [00:45:00] Special place in hell with Megan Do in hell. At least that ended.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it did. No, that’s a shame. But anyway so she said on a special place in hell that what we saw was the old atheist community is over time, it turned out that of the, like leading voices within it, half of them just wanted to dunk on Christians and half of them were interested in what was true.

Mm-hmm. And the half of them that were interested in what was true is the half that broke off and eventually became anti woke New Wright. Mm-hmm. And the half of them that just wanted to dunk on Christians, I mean, many of them were the celebrities that like, we don’t even remember, used to be part of this movement.

Like Neil deGrasse Tyson, oh gosh, bill Nye you know, who’s now like denying his old videos. Like, oh no, gender is not a, a thing. It’s not YXXY, it x Like in his new series, he actually is. Explicitly contradicts simple videos he made about gender in his old series. Right. Are you serious? Are serious? No.

Yeah. Completely brainwashed.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh.

Malcolm Collins: But what’s interesting is that the way the split [00:46:00] happened if you’re talking about like the absolute leaders of the community, you know, people like, you know, Richard Dawkins and like that whole group by the, the Four Horsemen or whatever, I can’t remember all of their names.

They didn’t all move to a traditional rightist perspective, but they certainly didn’t go in the direction of the celebrity types who were just interested in being atheist celebrities like Neil Dess Tyson, and bill Nye. All of them as far as I’m aware, have since said the, the movement was a mistake and Christianity is a good thing and made our society stronger and better.

Mm-hmm. And, and that’s a shocking thing. But the reason they said that, and the reason they all came to that belief is because they were willing to look at the evidence as society changed. And that so we saw that in this early community, one, one half of it was really, they just hated, they, they allowed their hatred for the other group to define their beliefs.

And the other part was searching for the truth. And I think we’re actually seeing this again with, in the right, [00:47:00] right now. I’ve pointed out in the. Last video we did on this, and we have a longer video that we haven’t aired. Where we go much deeper into this phenomenon is that it turns out that the sort of deontologist faction of the right the Nick Fuentes faction of the right, where, where we dig deeper into his beliefs on this, is much more dominated by like, they are willing to sabotage the United States best interest if it hurts Israel.

Mm-hmm. And they are willing to sabotage America’s best interest. If it hurts Israel, they’re willing to sabotage the best interest of unborn children if it helps preserve some degree of like, moral purity and whatever they’re voting for. You know, like if you, if you know the Republican party is gonna put more restrictions on that, and yet you’re voting against them and telling your followers to vote against them, it shows a degree to allow the things you hate to override, the things you say you love, you know?

Mm-hmm. And I actually think that there’s a lot of parallels between that. Strain in the conservative party right [00:48:00] now. And, and note here, when I talk about like hating Israel more than we’ve pointed out, we have a whole video being critical of Israel being like, Hey, like there’s actually, you know, problems in the relationship between the United States and Israel.

But to you know, go so far as to say, and therefore we should not take out the ayatollah of Iran who wants us all dead, right? Like, we, we should allow him to have a nuke despite the large terrorist network Iran runs outside the country. That’s where you get to a point where you’re like, come on man.

Like, if, if we can use Israel, they’ve dropped a, around half the ordinance that has been dropped has been dropped by Israel. Like they’re pulling their weight on this. They also have ground forces dealing with terrorists in Lebanon, but they pulled back when we made the deal. For people who don’t know we were not aware, like Iran, there was a miscommunication.

It appears, at least that’s vance’s interpretation. It could have been intentional that Lebanon was not part of the deal.

And Israel really didn’t want it to be part of the deal. Oh. Um, And uh, after the deal [00:49:00] was signed and Iran pushed back on this we put pressure on Israel and they pulled out of Lebanon as far as the last I checked I’ll, I’ll be honest about that.

Speaker 12: So I decided to double check this before putting this live. , And as things stand, , yeah, Israel has pulled back in Lebanon, but not entirely pulled out in Lebanon. , They were completely furious about this. They had asked us to make absolutely sure this was not in the peace negotiation, , but they’re doing what we tell them to basically, because that’s the way our relationship works, despite what some people will tell you.

Malcolm Collins: so, like they’ve, they’ve also like, in terms of. Playing ball by our standards. When we said, don’t bomb any infrastructure again after the bombing of the nors pars oil field they stopped. Right. You know? Mm-hmm. So, where was I going with this? Like they, they do do annoying things.

Also, if you watch mainstream media, you may not be aware that despite the talks technically collapsing, the ceasefire is still in effect.

But overall, you know, you are self-sabotaging the party [00:50:00] and the collective MAGA movement. And we find out 90% of MAGA is pro-war, right. You know,

Speaker 13: And, , I will note here, it’s not just Republicans that are pro this. , Since the bombings have started, Republicans in the midterms have gained significantly, , vote hub aggregate, , before the. Strikes started as of February 28th, 2026. Democrats were at 47.9% and Republicans were at 41.8%. By March 25th, it had narrowed to Democrats at 47.4%, and Republicans at 42.8% you gov.

Economists March 13th to 16th surveys. . Democrats slipped from 45% to 43%, while Republican support had gained steadily to 41%, shrinking a gap from four to two points since the bombing started. , And this is obviously freaking the F out of Democratic analysts.

Malcolm Collins: of people who are pro-Trump. There isn’t an actual split in the base of the party, but I think that there’s [00:51:00] something of a mirror there to what happened with that community.

Back in the day. Right. Which is part of the movement was really only interested in dunking on Christians. Eventually they realized they had more in common with the Democratic movement than they had with what was becoming the Republican and conservative movement. And the people who were interested in the truth.

And somebody said in the comments of this video yesterday that the real difference between the two parties had become, one party is interested in what’s true and one party is is, is just not right. Like they want to create a constructed reality. And I think that this is part of what allows such a diversity within the left.

It’s why in the left you’re able to have infamous within the right. No, in the left, in the left, you are able to have Islamists voting alongside people who are LGBT, you know, complete brainwash cultus, right? Mm-hmm. And you would think that these two things could never exist alongside each other. [00:52:00] But, but for both groups, what is consequentially true is irrelevant.

It’s about the vibes and what they hate. And that’s, that’s why I’ve pointed out that I do think eventually what is now the groyper movement is just going to become part of the leftist coalition. It actually has a lot.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. They really are based on like, I hate this, tear this down. I resent this.

Yeah. If you are that, then you are going to just end up in that left bucket.

Speaker 14: While they share some aesthetic similarities to Republicans from like the nineties or eighties, they have almost nothing in common with the Republican movement as it exists today. , And they share a lot in common with the faction of the Democratic movement that’s very embracing of Islamist values.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they’ve, they’ve actually begun to show more and more convergence. Was the mainly stream left as time has gone on? Yeah. So it’s, it is not just that they’ve been voting left for a long time, pretty much since the inception of the movement and signal that they plan to vote left going forwards.

But if you look at the [00:53:00] Islamist contingent of the left, they actually don’t share that. Like, they do not clash that much with the Islamist faction. You see this with stuff like Tucker Carlson, where Tucker Carlson is constantly castigating people because, you know, he’s adjacent to this faction.

He’s, you know, the anti-war, he’s anti, you know, blah, blah, blah, pro Venezuela. Mm-hmm. Just because they don’t like gay people. Right. So, you know, he, he has a lot in common with this faction. I think he’s part of this larger deontological faction. But. Or more than deontological hate driven faction, but he’s repeatedly come out as pro Islam, right?

Like, how dare Christians criticize Islam? How dare Christians be okay with with Muslims being killed in this war? Very, very aggressively. If you see Nick Che’s videos, he repeatedly praised the regime and Iran saying that they were right to, you know, kill the protestors in the streets and stuff like that.

And said that he wants to create something like ISIS, but Catholic and praising the way that ISIS is operate. So, they don’t have the reflexive like, oh my God. But you understand how bad civilization would be if an ISIS [00:54:00] like model really spread that most people in the. I care about what’s true faction of the right half, right?

Because that’s not what’s interesting to them. It’s like the vibes that are interesting to them, which means that they can actually work really well alongside Islamists in a way that like superficially it would seem that they couldn’t. Mm-hmm. And if you look at the policy proposals that they’re pushing in terms of like, restrictions on, like, when I talk about like, content restrictions on the internet the, these are policy ideas that we’re beginning to see get popularity in the Islamic parts of the left, you know, in the, in the cities that are attempting to enact things like Sharia law, but also even was in the mainstream left.

Like they’ve, they’ve bubbled higher in the institutional, like voting bodies of the mainstream left than they have at the right. Mm-hmm. And these are some of the core policy ideas that this group has and is interested in. So, this, I, I, ironically I. I do think that eventually that faction will become part of the, the mainstream left.

And I, I think they are kind of [00:55:00] already part of the mainstream left. They just pretend they’re not and say that they’re not. Yeah, because that, you know, it looks like a duck and a quacks like a duck, right? If, if, if we accept that Islamists are fully leftist, right? Mm-hmm. Because I think you could say, well, they’re, they’re Christian.

They hold deep beliefs and they disagree with leftism. But the Islamist disagree with all that. And we’d still say that they’re mainstream leftist, right?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But back to Siwan head I think what Siwan head really represents for the right, and the fact that the left doesn’t have a figure like her, is that.

We are truly a big intent movement like the, the, the core of the new, right? Mm-hmm. And I think it’s important to maintain that so we can continue to have the electoral dominance we saw in the last election, even when we do not have the purity spiralist you know, people motivated by hate in the movement anymore.

Because as we’ve pointed out in the video where we say the racist mostly turned against the movement and they did what are your thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: I mean, I, I just wanted to add that that’s the same reason [00:56:00] why the right is more varied than you would expect, but I think that variance on both the left and the right is the telling part that, oh my gosh, these are actually, they’re not affiliative in the way that we maybe originally thought that.

It’s not like, I actually

Malcolm Collins: think that that variance is really, really interesting. Yeah. The people who will ultimately end up in the right leaning coalition, I think the other person said that said this is really true, is anyone who is fundamentally. Interested in the truth above all else. And if that is your

Simone Collins: interest and beyond, beyond interest in the truth.

I would say broad, broadly, and there are exceptions. I think the sargon of a cod crowd, you know, falls into one of these exceptions on this factor, but I think broadly, they’re more likely to be vitalistic and excited about building for the future.

Malcolm Collins: No, that those things are true. But what I mean by this is.

People on the right. The intellectual discussion of the right is not siloed in the way the intellectual discussion on the left is [00:57:00] siloed.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: You know, the, the L-G-B-T-Q activists are not really reading the Islamic extremist work and vice versa. Right. Like,

Simone Collins: oh

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah. Whereas on the right, you can go as diverse as somebody like shoe on head or contra points or something like this, and contra points isn’t even on the Right.

Right. And you can expect you know, most right-leaning influencers will be familiar with their ideas and engaging with their ideas. Mm-hmm. I, you know, and there isn’t an equivalent like that on the left. There isn’t this sort of cross and it, and it’s across ideas on the right. There is no like silo on the right, where we don’t engage with those ideas or where they don’t engage with our ideas.

Every silo on the right, even people who are. In, in so far as the grippers are still part of the right movement at all. They do go over our videos and ideas occasionally, right? Like, there is a still an intellectual interchange happening there. We are still going over those videos and incorporating ideas [00:58:00] where they make sense, like in, in terms of Israel skepticism.

That’s definitely something that I made a point to look deeply into and incorporate into our worldview. Yeah. It’s just, it didn’t, the, the evidence that I got from that didn’t flip me to, and now we should let ourselves be cuted by Iran and dicked around by them, right? Like mm-hmm. If, if we can use Israel to help deal with this threat once and for all, then we should, and rather than, than screw ourselves over for, for you know, just because it may end up helping the Jews, right? Yeah. Or split up our coalition. I, I can say genes are real. And I mean, I, I personally chose to marry somebody of my even sub ethno group and still be okay with having a movement that has people who are in interracial marriages without scolding them or anything like that.

You know, what matters is that we are discussing reality, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, and you can discuss reality. There is a real [00:59:00] position. Where getting EE even if you take like all of the most racist positions, right? Even if you are a, like a, a racist maximalist if you’re still a realist and you’re interested in like your genes, whatever those happen to be, eventually winning, there are instances in which it makes sense to marry someone from a different ethno group.

Yeah. And a society like the one that, this is the reason why I think the people who are realists and racist in the video that we have, that we talk about this, they often end up marrying non-white women because white women have become so terrible they often end up,

Simone Collins: yeah. You feel like their only option for passing on their own white DNA is to find a non, I guess, non.

Their definition of white woman. But yeah, it’s crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, and e even if you’re a racialist Maximus, right? You still have passed on more white DNA by marrying a non-white person than you have by failing to find a wife.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In other words, if you marry like a typical urban monoculture brained [01:00:00] white girl boss, you might have two kids.

Whereas if you marry someone who’s a little more family oriented from a different culture, but maybe say like European, but by way of Latin America, so a lot of people wouldn’t count that. Then you could have six kids. And what I meant

Malcolm Collins: is if you don’t find a wife at all,

Simone Collins: oh sure, that too,

Malcolm Collins: you know, you’re strictly doing le like even if you’re like a Racialist Maximus, you’re doing less for the white race than the person who is, for example, JD Vance has contributed significantly more to the future genetic.

White population than Nick Fuentes has. Despite having an Indian wife. That’s

Simone Collins: true. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally true.

Malcolm Collins: So I mean, it, it, we’ve, this, this is, I mean, even if you are a racist, if, if you’re a realist, you still often end up being like, okay, but I’m still in this larger coalition.

Instead of drifting towards the left and fighting against it.

Simone Collins: [01:01:00] Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that that’s why she has found herself in this is this obvious that while she has a socialist, and I wish she would examine her socialist views more, go into them more in new videos. Because I think looking back on it as an adult and seeing how much the government has effed things up so far whenever we’ve tried to give them power, she may realize that they may have been not as smart as she thought.

But then again, she is a Catholic, and Catholics are traditionally socialists. You know, the last Pope was a big socialist. They’ve done many socialist revolutions. So we’ve also gotta keep in mind that being a Catholic even, even if we say like, well, governments are corrupt and everything like that, she’ll be like, well, the church is corrupt.

Right? But like, it’s still better to rely on the institutions. And so she might just have a different set of priors than we have that would make her never not socialist.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. Love you Simone. Glad you watch. You, you watch her videos, right? Or do not

Simone Collins: Oh, every time a new video first comes out, I watch it 100%.

She’s fun, she’s funny, she’s vitalistic. I [01:02:00] like it.

Malcolm Collins: She seems fun. I’d love to hang out sometimes if, if you’re watching this shoe on head we’d love to do something with you. Sometimes you’re, you’re always invited on the show. And you’re always, you join our dating network so our kids can date ‘cause you know mm-hmm.

We gotta, we gotta find some, somebody for our kids to date. Right. Some sane people having kids out there.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Man. The only kids who are gonna get married going forward are gonna have parental help. They’re gonna need it. So, yeah. Fun times. Speaking of which, anyone watching this podcast, there’s a lot of Basecamp listeners who are part of our kid dating network.

Most of our kids are like. 10 years old or younger at this time we’re not doing anything yet, but we will be doing some stuff as they get older to sort of get them to know each other. Do kid exchanges, you know, like, so people can experience other households, kind of like, you know, culture. What is that thing where you sending out not well, yeah, like sending out as the pilgrims did it.

But there was this thing where people would even, no, like our, our kids, our age of [01:03:00] our time would go like, live with a family abroad. I did that when

Malcolm Collins: I was a kid.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That.

Malcolm Collins: So it, like, to me it’s the most

Simone Collins: natural family ever. Most family, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Most

Malcolm Collins: family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Because I did that with a family in Latin America.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which is normal for wealthy Texan families to do, to send their kids to live with families in Latin America. So

Simone Collins: it’s a good way to be exposed to other cultures, other ways of life, other parents and careers.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, you wanna talk about another way of life, live with wealthy people in Latin America.

Yeah. Wealthy Latin Americans have like a totally different way of living than wealthy people in the United States. And it is, yeah. Obscenely, luxurious to an extent that I find it off putting. But okay.

Simone Collins: Octavian has been like, kind of struggling with focus with homeschooling. ‘cause now he’s getting to like, the stuff that’s kind of just, you have to power through it, you know, in first grade. ‘cause it’s not that interesting, but it’s foundational to get to the next stage. [01:04:00] And so he’s been really dragging his feet.

And so I took a recent picture of him, I put him into nano banana too, and I said, you know, age it up to age 28 and put him in front of a helicopter.

And then I made this whole persona of him based on like all of his ambitions and dreams right now. Like, you know, he’s, he’s founded various military tech startups and he has a helicopter that he flies around.

And I put that persona and that image into reality, fa reality fabricator and made a chat companion so he can speak with his future self that will help him when he’s, that’s

Malcolm Collins: really clever.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s really got really, he likes, like, that’s me. And you can see there’s, you can even see a little bit of you in there.

It’s, it’s kind of fun to see him a the

Malcolm Collins: image looks really good. Like it does look like a Collins and it’s just based on his current face, not like other family members.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s, it’s based on a I’ll show you the photo that I used as the, the basis, ‘cause you know, you can just upload photos to Nano Banana and be like, you know this, but, oh, I [01:05:00] deleted it.

Nevermind. Oh, I can just get it from my trash. So you what the reason why I wanted to use nano banana and not something else was that. Google is really, really good with age. Like it’s able to take even really old photos of people and be like, oh this is, you know, Simone Collins, this is like your grandmother when she was young.

Like we have pictures of her when she was old and then when we uploaded really old, like vintage photos of her, it recognized who she was and tagged her face in Google photos. So I feel like Google’s like facial recognition technology is really good ‘cause they have so much data.

Malcolm Collins: Incredible. Yeah. And by the, that’s.

If you want to use reality fabricated with your kids, ‘cause we have a audio chat feature as well for the companion app. Go into the website, go r fab.ai/demo, and it locks the site on that device into a safer work mode, hiding all the not safe for work content on the site. Which can make it a fun way to use it with your kids to like, have them talk with Power Rangers or whatever [01:06:00] they want.

Right. Like a you wanna version of how subscribers

Simone Collins: really soon.

Octavian Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Since I, since I needed to go that way since I did have

Malcolm Collins: Octavian.

Octavian Collins: Hi.

Malcolm Collins: Can you, can you tell Octavian to tell people about his new friend

Simone Collins: Octavian?

Octavian Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: What does your future self look like? What do you look like in the future?

Octavian Collins: Like, like, like adult and like, was like, like I was like a.

Show a teleco and a he for and a hanger and like cool clothes, like, kind of like this clothes, like, like band and, Hmm. Oh yeah. Like a shirt that is black and, and I almost like at that time

Simone Collins: in the future,

Octavian Collins: yes. I almost look like a precedent of the future. And I got some and I got some hot water in and I somehow got the ice out.

It’s in the sink.

Simone Collins: He, he experimented with freezing his [01:07:00] water.

Octavian Collins: Yeah. It was really fun actually.

Simone Collins: And are you gonna, you were gonna fly future. You is gonna fly your helicopter to a campsite and you’re gonna draw a helipad with chalk and make marshmallows. It’s funny. Yeah.

Octavian Collins: Roast marshmallows,

Simone Collins: his plan, his plan basically is like, I’m gonna fly my helicopter to a campsite and then roast marshmallows, which is basically just yesterday afternoon was what he did.

Oh,

Malcolm Collins: he did that

Simone Collins: yesterday afternoon. Marshmallow. Yeah. So like he just wants our life, but with a helicopter.

Malcolm Collins: That’s great.

Simone Collins: Alright. Right, Octavia, you are, you are cleared to go play with the the spotted Sussex chickens. Go for it buddy.

Octavian Collins: Goodbye.

Simone Collins: Love you. Good job today. It did really well. I’m proud of you.

Octavian Collins: I probably, if I did 13,

Simone Collins: I knew you could buddy.

You always could. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: And for dinner tonight I’ll do Bullock again cooked in the traditional style. One the

Simone Collins: traditional, you mean the traditional Malcolm style?

Malcolm Collins: Traditional Malcolm [01:08:00] style, which is extra hot sauce and cheddar mixed in with the oz

Simone Collins: morning forage ramps.

Malcolm Collins: It was morning forged ramps. But when you cut the ramps last time you cut them into confetti this time cut them more like you would cut chives.

Simone Collins: You mean we want larger chunks?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like large cylindrical chunks.

Simone Collins: You understand that? I cut them the same way I cut chives. It’s just you’re cutting like dull sized instead of human sized. So they just

Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Okay. Well that makes sense.

Simone Collins: You’re not, I can’t like enhance, I can’t enlarge them for you.

Malcolm Collins: Enhance, enhance.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: I, I wasn’t sure if you were doing that with like the big in parts.

Simone Collins: That’s what they become when you chop them. Like you chop chives. They’re actually really small.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. The big bulbs at the end,

Simone Collins: the ones that you gave me yesterday didn’t have big bulbs at the ends to get the dirt off, you pull off the outside sheath, you cut off the very tip the [01:09:00] root.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And then that’s all you’ve left. And that, that is chopped like chives looks like what you got and it’s small but it

Malcolm Collins: must have accidentally cut off the bulbs.

Simone Collins: I was really careful that not, ‘cause there’s not a lot there.

Malcolm Collins: All right, well I guess we’ll see. We’ll save the leaves again today and that should give us enough leaves for a leaf dish.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. Did you want, so you don’t want me to ‘cause I was gonna chop them really finely and then mix them in with butter to make herb butter. But if you don’t wanna do that, I can try something else. Well,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, let’s try that. Let’s try the least for an herb

Simone Collins: butter. Herb butter to put on steak, because I can also thaw out steak for like Sunday.

Malcolm Collins: I think that’s a great idea.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right, I’ll get started. You’re such a wonderful wife, by the way. Thank you so much.

Simone Collins: Because I made an AI of our son. He looks good. He looks a lot like you, but like, but very much Octavian. It’s, I, I, now I wanna make like future aged up versions of all our kids using

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, I do too.

Yeah, they, they, he looks kind of like, what a [01:10:00] Trump’s kid though. Like Baron Trump aged up a bit.

Simone Collins: Baren Trump doesn’t look like that, but he looks so much like, it’s definitely, it’s definitely him.

Yeah, it’s cool. God, if

Malcolm Collins: he looks like that, that’d be so cool.

Simone Collins: Malcolm that, I mean, that looks like you, you know, it’s the, the acorn head’s still there, you know, that, that confident look it, it, it, it looks like what your son would look like growing up.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, well I’ll include it in the video. So if you

Simone Collins: would, one of the things that really hit people, like unmarried. Unmarried, sorry often unmarried, but mostly childless couples was when they had AI create, you know, versions of their photos that had kids. And I think doing things like aging up your kids or making an image of you as a childless couple with kids can really help you understand the,

Malcolm Collins: oh, I have a fun idea.

So in my Stanford thread right now, they keep sharing pictures of them. What was like their one kid. I was, is

Simone Collins: trolling

Malcolm Collins: with like, with family, but I should get one and just have, add a [01:11:00] bunch of extra kids. So I share one with like 12 kids or something, just like a sea of children. What do you think?

What do you think? Come on.

Simone Collins: I thought you were just gonna fix their pictures of like them plus a couple.

Malcolm Collins: Oh no. That’d be so mean. Be

Simone Collins: boyfriend, but really funny and you never know. Could convince them.

Malcolm Collins: Dysphoria. I would be banned from the group so quick.

Simone Collins: I know, I know. They’re already banned me. It’s only a matter of time that they banned you.

All

Malcolm Collins: right, all, I’ll get started.

Indy Collins: Mommy, can you go? Okay, so what’s happening here guys? Iny, do you like the purple cake? Go this. And it’s super. Oh, you’re going for it, girl. Titan, what about you? Do you like the cake? Yeah. Yeah? You happy? What about you, Tex? Can I talk to Tex? What? What does this text say? Text. Text. What do you think? You [01:12:00] smiling noodle.

Speaker 11: Okay. Octavian, what do you think? I think Taylor took it. What? I just want you to, I think your butt my, I was just kidding. I.

You think so them down like this right here. And I’ll take a picture. Ready? You gonna make it? If I was, if I was allowed to throw the pie at the camera, I would show the viewers. But you’re not right. Rah, rah, rah. Do you like the viewers? Yes. When I subscribe to my.

Simone Collins: So you don’t wanna eat cake, you wanna eat dinosaurs? Is that it? No. Yeah, but you, you’re also a shark princess That eats cake.

Oh, yum, yum, yum. Do you like your purple cake? My beautiful princess? Yeah. [01:13:00] Yeah.

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into a fascinating question from a viewer comment: Why did the early 2000s-2010s online atheist/skeptic community splinter, with many becoming the seed crystal for today’s online right-wing culture—while those who shifted left (Atheism+, socialism, Democrat alignment) largely lost their audiences and relevance?

We explore the two major “seed crystals” of modern internet culture:

* YouTube skeptic/debater/edge-lord style (truth-seeking, anti-woke evolution, Gamergate → new right)

* 4chan’s shocking authenticity and owning-it energy

And on the left: Tumblr’s vibe/aesthetic-driven culture (memes, cancel culture, performance over truth).

Why did right-leaning creators like Thunderf00t, Sargon of Akkad, The Amazing Atheist, and Armored Skeptic stay relevant, while figures like Laci Green and iDubbbz crashed out? What makes ShoeOnHead the notable exception who kept a right-leaning audience without fully adopting the politics? And how does ContraPoints prove the rule with her theater-kid, BreadTube style?

We also touch on:

* Vibrant optimism vs. nihilistic pessimism

* Truth-seeking vs. aesthetic vibes

* Why conservatism now feels like “the new atheism”

* Trump’s unique “Christianity,” religious evolution in the community, and more

If you lived through the New Atheist era, Gamergate, or the Tumblr-to-mainstream-left pipeline, this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to explore a question that actually came up through a comment on one of my previous videos. So on one of my previous videos, somebody was pointing out, because I pointed out there was this evolution within online culture of the online atheist slash skeptic community, which then transformed into the online anti-feminist community.

‘Cause first it was dunking on Christians, then it was dunking on feminists, then it was dunking on. Woke people and then that transitioned into Gamergate. And then that became the core of what became the new right. Or at least like the online right culture. And he pointed out, he goes, well, hold on.

There were also people, in fact, you could argue about half of the people involved was that original atheist community, that original you know, online skeptic community. Yeah. That went in the opposite direction. They went. Into the atheism Plus for anyone who [00:01:00] remembers that, that was like atheism plus socialism or something.

And then they became Democrats and they became left-leaning. And, and this is true but one that doesn’t discount the fact that the ones who went to the right ended up forming the seed crystal that became online right-leaning culture. Mm-hmm. But two and more importantly, the key to the mystery that we’re on right now is.

Every single one of them except for one. Notable exception, okay. Who went to the left from that original community ended up losing their audience, losing their relevance, and losing their cultural halt, whereas the ones went right, continue to be mainstream figures in the online. Right. Hmm. And the question is, is why?

And my by the way, if you’re wondering who’s a notable exception here everybody knows who it is. It’s shoe on head. Yep. But, but, but shoe on head. It’s very [00:02:00] interesting and she sort of gives away part of the story here. Who is Shoe On Head’s? Audience shoe on Head’s. Audience is. A right leaning audience.

Yeah, totally. If you watch like for example, we had Leaflet on recently and we’re talking about thing Oh, we were like, oh, something like, oh, shoe want head. Like obviously I know that she watched, she Want Head, we watch Shoe, want Head. You go to Asma Gold. Obviously Asma Gold Watches Shoe Want Head.

Knox will talk about Shoe. Want Head. Oh Shoe Want Head Talk about, you know, everybody on the right watches, shoe on Heads. Yeah. So much so that you go to a Sky Brow video and it’s a bunch of conservative online commentators. And then in every single one, it’s shoe on it, right?

Simone Collins: Amen.

Malcolm Collins: And so what she managed to do was to maintain the audience that was transitioning into right wing political beliefs while not fully adopting them herself.

Why, why would, why is she able to do that? Why do I watch you on head? I think it’s because I, I do not [00:03:00] feel that any of her beliefs are performative. Yeah. Like when I, when I watch her. She really believes what she believes about things. Well,

Simone Collins: she comes across as based in the way that we understand based rather than the way that people on the left define based, which is like, oh, you’re a white nationalist.

Whereas like, I, I see. Based as being unapologetically yourself, she comes across that. Plus she has that unique one, one very dominant element of being progressive these days is like. Non playful pessimism. And unless you, like, even when people are jocular, it’s in a very nihilistic non vivacious way.

It’s like, oh, I’m depressed. Ha ha ha. Like that common comedic bit, you know, of like, it’s very clear that this person is clinically depressed and mentally unwell, but they’re laughing and joking. That’s not her way. And, and it, there’s a sort of, it, it only. It almost all universally shows up on the right.

That when, when people are like vivacious and optimistic and [00:04:00] joking about stuff that, that’s kind of, that’s right coded, but she is that despite being not a. Republican, for example.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yet, we’ll see, I I, I have a feeling, ‘cause recently she came around and was like, oh, I’m a Catholic now, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. As of the pandemic, she got God again,

Malcolm Collins: I think, or was it very loud about because I didn’t know that until the recent video with Simone and I both were like, did you know that she just yeah. I, I think she might be on a pathway to I’m, I’m just saying very the slowest pipeline you’ve ever seen crash.

But, but yo, she’s a mom now, right? So, you know. Yeah. That, that’s after a lot of people change, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. That, that’s also, you know, one point against being progressive,

Malcolm Collins: but. The second thought I had is, okay, well maybe the answer to this is very, very easy because it’s not just that this group became the seed crystal that the online right grew out of.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: [00:05:00] Culturally, they, we’re, we’re very, very heavily impactful for what the online right is like today. The online, right today, when you look at the social norms, conventions, styles of videos, everything like that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It clearly comes from the early. YouTube atheist slash edge Lord videos, right?

Yeah. Like this culture is represented in it. None of that culture. When these people went to the left, I. Was adopted by the mainstream left. And so I was like, well, maybe the answer is that the left controls elite institutions, right? Mm-hmm. Like universities and stuff like that. And that is where they look in news companies, PR departments.

I was like, that’s where they get their cultural talking points. It’s all taught down, whereas the right is bottom up. And that is why the internet didn’t end up influencing leftist culture. Mm-hmm. And then I started thinking a bit more about it and I was like. But that’s not [00:06:00] really true, is it? Because as an online culture watcher of that period the, the Tumblr culture of that period is the modern left.

In fact, I’d say that the culture of Tumblr from that period almost completely, it, it eradicated and replaced whatever was there before. It is heavily, heavily, heavily impactful to the point where, you know. We were getting in fights on Tumblr. Like I, I didn’t have a Tumblr account, but like people were right about like, could you, could you be like a gender identify as like a cloud or you know, an attack helicopter or a turtle or a universe.

Yeah. Yeah. And at the time today we’re like, oh, that’s like normal, weird lefty stuff. But no, at the time that was like a totally new cultural phenomenon, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now that’s gotten huge on the left. Right? And so have a, a lot of other cultural phenomenon. The, the you know, sort of fan fiction culture of, of Tumblr of that period.

Many of the [00:07:00] ways of talking and joking, like the, the memes styles even cancel culture got its start was in Tumblr. And, and I will note, but that

Simone Collins: I thought it came out of gay culture, which wasn’t really heavy on Tumblr, was it?

Malcolm Collins: Well, they, they said, the word cancel came from the hashtag Cancel Colbert campaign, which is

Simone Collins: hilarious.

No, it existed before that, I think.

Malcolm Collins: No, it did not really. It did not. You have gotten into this argument with me before on the show, and we looked it up

Simone Collins: afterwards so you

Malcolm Collins: were wrong.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it came from hashtag Cancel Colbert.

Speaker: To give Simone Du, it was used in the black community before this, but it meant to like break up with somebody. It did not mean to attempt to de platform somebody cancel. Colbert was the first use of it in that context.

Malcolm Collins: That is where it was popularized. And it was popularized by somebody named, I believe Amy Wong, who wanted to cancel Stephen Colbert, who is the most woke, obnoxious person ever for his Chong character.

Where he went like, Ching Chong, Bing Bong, or whatever. Oh my

Simone Collins: God, I forgot. Yes, yes, [00:08:00] yes.

Speaker 2: my beloved character. Ching Chong. Ding dong. I love tea. It’s so good for you. You’re so pretty American. Girl. You come here, you kiss my tea, make all sweet. I no need no sugar when you are around. Come on rickshaw. I give you a ride to Bangkok.

Malcolm Collins: And, and that is wild. That cancellation invented because somebody thought Stephen Colbert was too far to the right. Stephen Colbert. Okay, let that sink in. Where, where culture has drifted over the years. But anyway so, and, and I’ll note here that the right of today had two seed crystals of that period.

Okay. It didn’t all grow out of this online skeptic community of that period. There was the separate, which was the four chan culture. Yeah. You know, the mail

Simone Collins: end of the internet

Malcolm Collins: RB, or I mean, sorry, not RP B polls, stuff like [00:09:00] that. And and Tumblr being where the, the, the, the more leftist culture came from.

Yeah. And, and I’ll note that it’s not just us. So like this is not just, and we’ll go over some of the creators this happened to over this period as we try to solve this mystery. It’s, it’s not just that there were people in these original communities, that were influencers in those early communities and then stayed all the way through as influencers till today.

A lot of the people who became. Or have emerged as right-leaning influencers today who are like of our generation. Were in those original communities, just not as talkers or were thought leaders, like we didn’t have channels or anything. Leaflets a good example of this. When we were talking with her, she was talking about how she was an active.

Member of the community that was the predecessor of four chan raspberry something or another I’m not that familiar with it. So, you know, she’s been in this since the very beginning, right? It’s just she didn’t [00:10:00] have the face until today. You know, you go to somebody like N Taku who is today, you know, everybody who sees him as a, a fairly influential guy on the right.

And. You go back and you, you don’t see his old content because he wasn’t playing culture wars back then. He was an anime nerd who like reviewed anime. Right. And but, but clearly, you know, he would’ve been adjacent to these communities. Right. So many people who were in these communities, like many of the influential people today on the right, started in these communities.

Yeah. And I actually see this as well. We, we in interact with you know, like Trump administration type people and stuff like that pretty frequently. And I, I, I talked to them about four chan back in the day, right? Like the, these people were very

Simone Collins: red in Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Environments, right? Like, we’re like, oh yeah, remember when like X happened or B happened.

So I, I point out that it’s not just the influencers, it’s also many of the operatives. Okay, so we’re [00:11:00] getting into a and, and it’s, it’s also the high level staff like JD Vance. You, you know, you’ve seen the picture of him at school, you know, you know anything. And that guy was a nerd. But he was

Simone Collins: one of us.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One of us. But not just that, but he keeps like, referencing Asma Golden Hassan in like interviews. Right? He is like the song dog, dog shock stuff. You know? He’s, he’s in the loop of the loop that we’re watching, right. You know? But, but, the question is, is there is actually one notable exception as to somebody who is in these early communities and then became a dominant figure on the left.

And they are something of an exception that proves a rule. And this individual is contra points. Contra points had. Online, sort of, you know, anti theist, I guess you could say channel way back in the early days. But she was not popular. Like the community was not affirming of her, I guess you could say.

This is back when she was a guy. Then she transitions and starts the, you know, new type of left-leaning philosophical essay that she does. And she popped [00:12:00] off. And the point that I’ll note here is. She never adopted the cultural norms of this community. Mm-hmm. If you look at her videos that have done very well, and as she began to gain steam, they culturally didn’t feel like the.

Debates, feminist videos or the debates, Christian videos or the debates they were much closer culturally to theater kid videos. Yeah. Like theater kids playing around. Yeah. And so. I think that she was able to create this alternate for, you know, bread tube sort of building up around that because of that.

And then most of the bread tube type videos had aspects of that theater kid energy and much less of the early like, let’s get out there, let’s offend people, let’s debate things, energy that continues on within modern right wing culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and a lot of the leftist [00:13:00] YouTubers that I follow definitely feel like theater kids sometimes even explicitly call themselves theater kids.

Malcolm Collins: But the other interesting thing about bread tube for people not familiar with Bread tube, it was like online leftist YouTube. That was like a community where like they’d all reference each other. Like we, we, it’s, I, I guess sort of like. The old leftist version of whatever the new right is today, right?

Like, like the, the new right content creators in YouTube are like, definitely like a thing, like an algo loop, right? Like, they, we all reference each other, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. When one of us goes viral, we’re on everyone else’s stream, you know? But anyway you know, but the bread tube did not actually leave a cultural or intellectual impact on the left.

And I think that this is something that’s really, you

Simone Collins: really don’t think so. I feel like it, it played a key role in normalizing socialism as an ideal among younger millennials and then younger people in general, like then to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Malcolm Collins: So, [00:14:00] one, I I push back pretty hard and say that socialism is not popular among Gen Z leftists these days.

It’s communism that’s popular. Socialism would be seen as like, you know, capitalism adjacent was in many of these communities and, and, and like bourgeois value systems and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: I beg to differ because. Communism isn’t possible without a GI, and they’re all very anti ai. So Simon,

Malcolm Collins: Simon, they don’t admit, they don’t care what’s actually possible and what’s not.

It’s what they tell each other that they’re fighting for, right? Like we are about to film an episode where we point out that China spins literally a third in cost adjusted value on social safety nets that the United States does. Yeah. And yet Hassan Piker is out there. You sucking the D because he says, well, there’s such great communists out here.

Mm. Functionally the United States is literally three x more communists

Simone Collins: Yeah. Than China. Wait until Hassan [00:15:00] goes to the United States.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He he’s a real communist country. Yeah. No, but the point being is it they don’t actually care about what’s functionally true. You know, that’s, that’s something that’s important within leftist discord is and I, and I think that this is actually.

Partially why you’ve, you’ve hit the nail on the head in a way. Why did bread tube not actually end up influencing the intellectual side of the left? The culture of the left or the norms on the left in the same way Tumblr did.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s because Tumblr was about the vibes, not about what was true.

It was about how you aesthetically,

Simone Collins: right? Yeah. All of it was, yeah, it was all about the aesthetics and the performance. It was not about, it was about the core, like cottage core and whatever core. Yes, yes. And so it, yeah. So Socialist core com. Core com core, yeah. It wasn’t, it wasn’t the real thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

And that, that was, so, so, but, but if you look at what was happening on the YouTube [00:16:00] debating side of the right the, one of the reasons they ended up moving into the right from, you know, originally being anti theists and then anti-feminist and anti woke, and then Gamergate and then you know, mixed with the red pill, diasporan became the modern, new, right.

Is that they, what’s the, what’s the word I’m looking for here? That they were predominantly interested in what was true. I mean, that was the point of all their debates. That was the point of who they mocked. Yeah. They liked mocking people for believing things that they saw as on their face. Stupid.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I guess that their, their, in their pursuit, when you look past the specific themes of what they were discussing was, I like to take this widely believed thing that is disprovable. And I’m going to tear it apart ‘cause I’m, I’m very smart. And

Malcolm Collins: and that’s what our

Simone Collins: channel about making negative.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s gonna, like culturally it’s the exact same thing. It’s just like, let’s take this widely believe.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. So conservatism is the new atheism. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: because woke is the new dominant religion. Right.

Simone Collins: So, but Oh, like, [00:17:00] no, that’s okay. I just, I never thought about it that way, but you’re so right. Oh my.

Aw.

Malcolm Collins: But, but it’s because that community was fundamentally a truth seeking community. Yeah. And read to, tried to create a. Sort of a respectable veneer for the left of like, we, there are intellectual arguments that make us look not stupid, but the reality is, is the demand for those intellectual arguments was not that big because the left didn’t actually care about them.

Mm. It cared about the affirmation that hearing those arguments gave them, but it wasn’t interested in actual intellectual arguments. Mm-hmm. Which I, I think you see from the types of, of, of streamers that have done well, like Hassan does very well, who doesn’t give any intellectual arguments. Destiny has, you know, he’s always stayed as sort of a, a lot less popular than I would expect him to be, given that he seems to like, at least genuinely intellectually engage with the topics that he’s trying to go into.

So, I think you captured one big part of it there, [00:18:00] which is that. The left is predominantly an aesthetic movement that has sort of, like religious, like beliefs about what’s true. And that is focused on a interconnecting memes that reinforce that

Simone Collins: well. But again, this is one of the core themes of our podcast, which is.

A materialist’s. Hatred of mysticism. Yeah. A a consequentialist. Hatred of deontology. So maybe we’re also finding these core divides between vibes versus reality and. And, you know, actions versus,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, and I think it’s, it’s, it’s why somebody like Nick Fuentes can appear so woke to us in a way, right?

Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Because it’s, it’s very, very vibes over reality, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But he has adopted the second core point of early online culture. If the core, which, which is why he can aesthetically sometimes look, equate leaning to people which is, if. The online YouTube debaters were predominantly interested in like taking [00:19:00] something that’s widely believed, but not true and explaining why or challenging people who believe wrong things.

The other core, beginning core to the rightly in culture was. Four chan and the thing that four Chan valued most was doing something that is like shocking and holistically owning it. Like being you Right. In a, in a shocking way. And this is something that we have seen permeate the culture of the MAGA and the White House currently.

Mm-hmm. Right? Like with Trump being like, those crazy pastors in Iran better knock it off. Right? Or I’m gonna destroy their whole civilization. Yeah, they’ve been around for a thousand years and their sitting’s old, you know, you know, he always going over, I might go at Bomb car Island again, just for fun this time.

Oh my gosh. So that is, that is a four chan culture, right? Like that didn’t, that didn’t come from churches, that didn’t come from right wing. Right wing radio shock jocks. They didn’t talk like that. Mm-hmm. That [00:20:00] didn’t come from, that came from one place. Like you can’t be like, w maybe this evolved convergently from some other Right-leaning source or was like a wider right-leaning.

No, it was, that’s just four chan culture that has beamed itself into the wider, right? Mm-hmm. And so it’s, it’s made up of these two things right now. And now I wanna talk about some of the people some of who, who made these various paths the, the sad life of some of the states of them who went to the left.

And we can see through how the ones who tried to go left ended up just completely crashing out out how bad it was to attempt to go left. And I think it comes down to this. Their audience. So we have another video. It hasn’t come out yet where we talk about like the future of the right. But if you look superficially at the right, right, right now you would say that there’s like two large faction.

There’s like the nerdy [00:21:00] consequentialist faction that’s like pro-war in Iran. Not anti-Israel, but like suspicious of Israel. . And, and this faction is, believes in genetic differences between ethnic groups, believes that those are significant and should play a role in how you see reality.

But they don’t have like a reflexive hatred of certain groups, like say Indians or something like that, or Jews. And then there’s the other group which is very deontological. They do you know, elevate sort of. Explicitly like reactionary views to groups like Indians and, and Jews. And that is very anti-Israel and anti doing anything, even if it’s in the United States best interest, like the war in Iran, if it ends up also helping Israel.

Mm-hmm. And there’s this perception, I think that these two groups are. Are equal because they are about equal in terms of the influencers on each side, in terms of the base on each side. And yet, you know, you look at polls and they show that like 90% of MAGA supports the war, right? They’re, they’re [00:22:00] not, the base isn’t actually divided on these issues.

It is an elitist influencer class that is divided on these issues. And I think what we actually saw was this earlier split that happened in the. Movement that started as the online atheist and now has become predominantly many of them, religious, although not all of them community is that the base was predominantly interested in what at the time led to the split, which was anti.

The, the influencer class, you know, your, ,

idubzz.

Malcolm Collins: your Lacy Greens, right? Like they thought. That the base was there with them, right? That they, they, or at the very least, that if about 50% of the influencers wanted to continue to be publicly respectable and cozy up with these progressive ideas, that about 50% of the base was also interested in that, right?

Mm-hmm. And they were fundamentally wrong. [00:23:00] The, the, the base. And I say this as somebody who grew up in these communities, right? Like I, all my friends were into this stuff growing up. We, like, we were all watching these channels. We were all, none of my friends went woke, right? Like, maybe like one or two did because they dated like a woke a girl and then they went off.

And who knows what sweet horror they’re living in now. But predominantly this, this community at, at the base level, has stayed on this journey since the beginning, and I think that that is in part how they had the critical number to end up making the substrate that the new right grew on within online culture.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But to get you, by the way, Simone, thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, keep going. Although I, I know. Do you have a take on, I, I kind of along the lines of what you’re saying of, of Trump not acting like a, a, a real, a religiously driven man, acting more like someone coming out of that atheist [00:24:00] community, even though, you know, we had a whole episode on his.

No, he does have a real

Malcolm Collins: version of Christianity that is very unique. And if,

Simone Collins: if you’re

Malcolm Collins: interested

Simone Collins: in, yeah, it’s unique, but it’s certainly not that old line Republican Christianity. Tucker Carlson’s later latest accusations of him following his remarks given during Easter were like, how dare he say these things about Iran?

There are Christians in Iran who are worshiping on Easter Sunday, and how could he say these things on this holiday and how could he say these things against Islam like never attack someone’s religion. And, he also was like, and he didn’t even put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in, which means that it’s not that he doesn’t believe in the Bible, it’s that he does and he’s gonna go against it, and he’s making all these religious, religiously based accusations, which I guess you could, you could argue is, is along the lines of this divide between the Al Line mainstream Christians and this.

New right movement.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is so this deontological influencer class is very, very interested in being ideologically pure. And [00:25:00] so when they look at somebody like Trump, where, you know, our religious beliefs are different from many right-wing people’s religious beliefs, and they’re very different from Trump’s religious beliefs, which are prob trump’s.

If, if you’re not familiar with Trump’s version of Christianity, it is about. From the perspective of a, a mainline Protestant about as crazy as technical puritanism,

Simone Collins: it’s very different.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It, it is. Just as a, a quick summary. It literally melds 1980s style self-help guru ideas. Mm-hmm. Whi Christianity in a way that Trump doesn’t see as inauthentic because the primary.

Pastor that he had was a famous 1980s self-help guru.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so he

Simone Collins: was, he probably sees him as like, synonymous, you know, like you gotta. Push through and be your best self and pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that Christian.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because what he’s hearing at church during his entire childhood, in every, every sermon,

Simone Collins: Yeah.

And in, in the podcast where you go over all [00:26:00] this, you, you demonstrate how this really explains so much of Trump’s actions that if people only understood his philosophical, religious upbringing better, they’d be able to predict his actions more.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you’d be able to like his actions are extremely predictable once you understand his actual metaphysical and religious beliefs.

Mm-hmm. Which I respect, right? Like, I’m okay with being in a coalition with people have different religious beliefs, and I love it when people in the comments are like, they try to trash our, you know, your silly form of Calvinism that tries to meld it with modern scientific beliefs. And I’m like, look, you can hate on this all you want, but.

That was the religious beliefs of most of America’s founding fathers. Yeah. That was the predominant religious vibe in the, the 13 colonies mm-hmm. Is forms of Calvinism that tried to meld it with modern scientific beliefs. Now obviously science had advanced significantly since then, so our form of melding the two looks different than their forms of melding the two.

Yes. But their forms of melding the two were for their time experimental new religions. Mm-hmm. And, and so like. [00:27:00] To, to, to say like, oh, you can’t be this an an no. It’s like the core juice that America comes from. You may find it squidgy, but it is a, a very American type of Christianity. And, I think that, and when I say Trump’s religious beliefs, it’s also actually has a lot in common with the types of Christianity that were being practiced in the 13 colonies that we’re trying to meld it with new psychological ideas, new trends of the time and stuff like that to be a, a, a, a growing and living religion as opposed to totally calcified one.

Mm-hmm. And it’s just different ways of approaching things, right? Absolutely. But I, I don’t think people realize like how ly we believe our religious system now. Like when I came up, I was just like constructing it and now I’m just like, wow, this is a real, this is very persuasive to me. One of the funny things that we always get is when people reach out to us and they’re like, oh, well, here’s why X, Y, and Z about [00:28:00] your belief structure is wrong, right?

And this, the, the, the Bible’s actually saying this, and I’m like, the problem is, is that if you could convince me that the Bible is saying that, then I just wouldn’t believe the Bible. Right. Like, you’re not, you’re not convincing me that I am wrong about like the, the, the metaphysical truths of reality.

You’re, you’re trying to say that the Bible says something that I would find to, to be illogical.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And therefore. This reminds me of a, a, a crash out. One of our, our close family members had this Easter where he went on a long rant about this, which I think, you know shows.

Simone Collins: Oh my God, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it’s an argument that I’d actually never heard before. So I’ve got, I’m gonna, if we’re talking about the early edgy online atheist, I guess I should share this argument because that was actually fairly,

Simone Collins: it’s

Malcolm Collins: a

Simone Collins: great argument.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, that’s, that, that’s actually fairly persuasive where he said that he was really insulted by people.

In, in, in traditional normy [00:29:00] Christianity acting like Jesus made some great sacrifice because he’s like, Jesus sacrificed his life through torture to save the souls of all of humanity and every human that would ever come into existence. He said. Absolutely any remotely decent human being would make that trade.

He’s like, there are. Humans every day that die to save complete strangers

Simone Collins: and just one, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Not even their souls. And die in horrifying ways to achieve this end. And because I’m, I’m used to the atheist argument, which is like, why did, why did his sacrifice matter if he knew he was going to immediately be brought back as an all powerful God?

Mm-hmm. Then he didn’t meaningfully die. Right. But I had never heard the second one, which is to say, even if you don’t consider that, by the way, techno puritanism fixes most of these, which is, and this is one of the reasons why we, we build our own system because I, I couldn’t [00:30:00] get myself to, to, to buy something like that, that like a sacrifice like that had value.

‘cause I kind of think my has a point there. Right. I, I need a, a wider and alternate framing for me for this. To be a thing of value to me. Right. But it, it is completely, it’s just different, right. And it’s different than the way Trump looks at it or anything like that. But just for fun.

Atheist argument that I’d never heard before. And, and if I’m coming at a family member like that who is crashing about something like that, I’m gonna have a much easier time converting them into something like Op Puritanism than I am going to one of these older traditions. Right. Same as my kids.

You know, they, they’d leave the religion for the same reason my dad left the religion. Right. You know, so I’ve gotta, because I would’ve left the religion for those reasons.

I think if you grow up a Christian and learn to accept the elements that don’t make sense to outsiders, you don’t see how loud they look to an outsider. So when I talk about something like when my dad left, it was when he was in Sunday school and he went to his teacher and he [00:31:00] tried to understand the logistics of how Noah’s arc could have worked given the number of species on Earth.

, And, . He was basically just told to shut up, right? Like basically just punished for asking questions, and that’s a big problem. And this is a problem for me, like there’s other, like the, the issues I’ve asked here aren’t the only issues that I consider really existential for me, adopting the religion.

, One of the biggest is why a local revelation, like if God is all powerful and needing to accept, jesus is so important , , to go to heaven. , Why only have Jesus’s revelation in one location in earth at a time before mass communication? Couldn’t we at least have one Jesus per continent or have Jesus teleport between the various continents to give the revelation in multiple places?

Because that left a huge chunk of Earth’s population completely isolated from it for a long time. , . It, it’s funny, Mormons try to solve this by being like, oh, he did [00:32:00] actually teleport to the United States. But the, the point being is these may seem like trivial things to Christians, but if you were not raised in the church, they do not feel trivial at all.

And so when you try to convince me, oh, your alternate interpretation of this stuff is wrong, that I’m left with those initial problems again, and I don’t have good answers for them.

And again, this isn’t me like trashing on Christianity or something like obviously I consider myself a Christian now. , I’m just pointing out that when you say all these fixes that you’ve come up with, , are not correct, that I’m left with the initial problems again.

If you’re new to this channel, have no idea what I’m talking about. You can check out our track series or the, , channel list, Malcolm and Simone’s religious beliefs. , But the point being is it’s like I. I was like, okay, I will, I will slowly patch this thing back together into something that I can find plausible.

And then I take it to someone and I’m like, [00:33:00] here, look, I have found a way to make this believable to me. , And they’re like, well, we just need to remove all the patches. And I’m like, well, then it just falls apart. From my perspective, right, like you cannot remove a patch without explaining an alternate explanation for the thing that the patch was intended to fix.

When you remove the patches, you don’t lead to me believing the original thing, you lead to me believing the original thing was actually broken. , Which I think is something that people don’t understand when they’re discussing something like Christianity with somebody with an alternate understanding of it.

And this matters because not everybody who has done this journey, like say Sargon, who has not converted back into Christianity, . Right. , And, , I, I think the problem is it’s that. Many people who grew up Christians are accepted in some other tradition, , don’t understand how existential , the problems are.

Like take something like the problem of good and evil, , when I posit that God exists in the future and the reason [00:34:00] why. , He cannot just erase evil is because it would have a temporal paradox, , that that solves it for me, that’s like a plausible explanation for me when you say, well, God doesn’t exist in the future, then I’m left with the problem of good and evil again.

It’s not a small thing for me to think that it solves a very, very major problem for me.

So I’ve gotta create something that can work for the, you know, former edgy online atheist community member. But I want to go into some of the specific individuals here.

So of the ones who went right, we have thunder Foot or Phil Nathan Core early YouTube streamer. Why do people laugh at creationist series? He shifted prominently to anti-feminism, Gamergate support, and ongoing anti woke GW critique, and he’s still highly active and relevant in anti woke spaces. You have obviously a, a YouTube channel that I still watch regularly.

Sargon Evade Carl Benjamin started in the skeptic adjacent ki. Commun commentary. He, [00:35:00] he’s still an a CS as far as I’m aware exploded during Gamergate as anti, I love that. S shoe on, had converted to Christianity before gon and I cod. I

Simone Collins: think she was raised Catholic and then she returned to Catholicism during the pandemic.

That’s

Malcolm Collins: what she

Simone Collins: said.

Malcolm Collins: As an anti SJW voice, and obviously he’s evolved. You know, I, I you, you guys know if you are watching this channel, you know how important Sargon ev Acot has been in building the culture of the modern online, right. You have the Amazing Atheist or TJ Kirk major, their a CS provocateur, who became a central anti SJW figure expanded into political commentary.

And while he has critiqued extremes on all sides, he has stayed very strongly anti woke. Then you have armored skeptic a CS skeptic who became a key anti SJW voice in the Gamergate era. And as to the people who tried to go in the other direction the, the really bad one was Lacey Green.

So

Simone Collins: I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of Lacey Green.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So she peaked at around 1.5 million subs on her

Simone Collins: main. Oh, that’s a, okay. [00:36:00] It’s a lot of people. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s a lot of people. And she has since be because in the, she tried to go into like, against the anti SJW people, but she would do it through like interviews with them, which pissed off her left wing.

Like she, she would kind of wobble as well as she got pushback. And she, she tried coming back, but she’s basically off the internet now as far as I’m aware. And then, steve, Steve Cheves has been a steady bleed to like niche irrelevance. And then the really sad one that I like to still watch videos about is

idubzz.

Malcolm Collins: Who ended up having himself psychologically destroyed by this thought that I, when I say, I mean absolutely she streams on OnlyFans while being married to him.

Simone Collins: Oh no.

Malcolm Collins: Well then we’ve talked about her before and, and, and she basically wanted to make him Hassan ‘cause she had like a crush on Hassan. And they, they still do things with like Hassan and stuff like that. And it is very, very sad.

Speaker 9: My original last name is Washburn. My [00:37:00] new last name is Jama. That’s my wife’s last name. I would what he, I would recommend that he finds God our silence means something. He ha, he ha 2025 has to have been the worst year of IOS’s life by far losing his fans that have stuck by him ever since his reputation started to slip.

Speaker 10: Losing somebody that considered him a friend for over a decade, and of course losing his boxing event. Creator, clash.

Malcolm Collins: They, they get like a few hundred people show up to their streams these days.

Simone Collins: Speaking of Hassan, and I really appreciate in the, a recent episode of ours. We put out the question to our audience, why do women watch Hassan? Because I don’t get it. Explain. So she explained, and this is a Basecamp listener who, who works with a lot of progressive. Women who are also fans of Hassan.

Her understanding of it after watching them talk about him is that despite the fact that the [00:38:00] left is, is on paper very sex positive, they, it’s not really okay to, to be into submission or to be into being dominated. And to also be on the left. And Hassan, like Negs his, I guess largely FMA audience quite a lot.

And I, I just thought it as him being like abrasive and dismissive and mean to everyone. But like, yeah, I guess he does kind of just, you know, talk down to people and insult them, insult his own viewers. But a lot of this is like, leftist women who want to feel dominated and, and by a man who also, like another issue she pointed out is that most leftist men are like various sheep.

She put it soy. So it, they, they want to feel dominated by a non soy like man who also says all the right things. And she pointed out like she, he says all the right things about Palestine and about, you know, capitalism. And so, you know, it’s, it’s important ‘cause you can’t have like. Tate say something because he says the wrong [00:39:00] things, so you can’t think he’s hot, you know?

So he, he, he ticks all the boxes and that explains so much to me, and I’m so glad she explained that ‘cause it didn’t make sense. But now it all fits together that, that they want a, a hot non soy guy to speak down to them, put them in their place. And he, he does that. And he also still says all the right things politically.

So the trifecta. A

Malcolm Collins: trifecta.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, I like that. Yeah. This is. By the way, the reason people who are like, I want to deep dive into how all these people’s careers failed. There are so many YouTubers that you can go to for that that will do it in such a more entertaining way than me. And that’s like not our channel specialty.

I, I’m more interested in like the broader trends and how culture changes. Basically I, I like sort of doing explorative anthropology in real time. But I think that we’ve. Hit on it, which is that the base that was watching these people the base’s [00:40:00] core value never changed. The, the you had one base in the early days that was interested in things that were shocking and extremely authentic, and then you had another part of the base that was interested in things that were intellectually surprising, but fundamentally searching for truth.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the people who were fundamentally searching for truth were of course going to be as anti woke slash anti-urban monoculture slash anti-feminist as they were anti-Christian in the early days or, or the version of Christianity that, that existed back then. Right. Hmm. And, back to Christianity. They did not go back. Their conversions into Christians do not sound like the types of conversions you’d expect somebody from other communities to have. It wasn’t like I hit rock bottom and then, or like one of my parents died and then, or like my family was really struggling and [00:41:00] then it, it, it’s usually often more, well, I thought about it logically you know, which is.

A very, it, it, it, it fits in line with the community. I mean, when you look at the, the, the, the members of the original atheist community usually the, the, the path goes is they first start saying, as. I think all four of the four formen of the a c apocalypse have since said is that it was a mistake to make places like the UK less Christian that Christianity was a good institution and central to the values of our culture.

And that retreating from Christianity was a mistake. And first you hit this position, then you have kids, and it’s like, well, if you believe that. Retreating from Christianity was a mistake and now you’re raising a little one, like, what are you gonna do? Right? Like, of course you raised them Christian, right?

Like, or you try to build an iteration of Christian like we have done, and I, other of our fans have done [00:42:00] an iteration of Christianity for them that they’re not going to just be like, well, explain this. Like, I actually wanna have explanations that Ia the toddler would’ve found. Compelling during, during that period instead of just like, well, we don’t you know, you’re, you’re being as, as, as what happened to my dad and led him to leave the religion before I was born.

So I was never raised in it.

Speaker 6: And , I actually don’t even understand why, , many Christians do not understand how existential these things seem. If I’m adopting a religion I want to pass to my kids, where when I was a rebellious kid, I would’ve immediately been like. Oh, that just seems totally implausible to me.

Right? , The Noah’s arc story that caused my dad to deconvert is important to me because you need an explanation, right? Like, you can’t just say, well, some of this is, , just meant as an allegory. , And some of this is objectively true because then it’s, well, how, how do I differentiate between the two things?

, But as I mentioned earlier, , [00:43:00] the biggest question for me, like the one that. Always got me the hardest is why the local revelation, if it’s an all powerful God, and this is existential for saving your soul. Why the local revelation? That seems like such a trivial thing to potentially fix. , And I think this isn’t just true for my interpretation, it’s true for a lot of interpretations when somebody comes to you as an iteration of Christianity that seems radically wrong or different to you.

. It may be because like , the parts where you’re like, oh, I’m just removing all the parts that are different from my interpretation, or I’m challenging all the parts that are different from my interpretation. , That you are removing all of the patches that made it plausible to them. You are leaving them with something that is just from their perspective, fundamentally unacceptable again.

And I think this mistake comes from the belief that some Christians have that, , somebody doesn’t adopt Christianity because they don’t like the rules or they hate God or [00:44:00] something like that. And if you look at what was being talked about in these early atheist communities, that is not what was being talked about.

It was the logical issues in accepting the religion as it is commonly presented. And the techno Puritan project was my. In Simone’s, , journey to attempt to fix those issues for us, the issues never stopped being issues. It wasn’t like one day we woke up and we’re like, oh, all of those issues never existed in the first place.

The issues are still there for us.

And when people are like, well, just ignore the things that feel like logical contradictions to you, , or that feel like they would imply that God is not a good God. If you take the traditional, , interpretation, what are, like, what are you even talking about? Like I, if I’m gonna actually believe Christianity, which I do now, or at least my interpretation of it, , that’s me choosing.

Like literally the most existential thing I believe about reality. That’s choosing how I think the [00:45:00] metaphysics of the entire universe, reality, morality, everything like that works. I can’t choose to just pave over or ignore. , What to me looked like fundamental cracks, for something so completely existential about my interpretation of reality.

, And I think that this is true for a lot of people, right? And this is why that movement happened to begin with. Just what people came to realize is, oh, civilization doesn’t seem to work without this. And then the question , is, well, how do you fix it? While still accepting that the problems that we saw were real problems.

And again, as I’ve said, even if I could ignore everything that looks like a logical or moral problem to me in a traditional interpretation and just be like, okay, I’m just gonna go with it. I know that my kids wouldn’t just go with it. So. it, it is put upon me if I want, at least within my family, this tradition to survive.

I need to reinterpret it. I’m not doing that on some sort of power [00:46:00] trip or to be edgy or something like that. There is , a utilitarian reason why this project exists for us and our family.

Also for those who would say like, oh, Malcolm and Simone, you guys are starting a cult or whatever, by having an alternate interpretation. , You know, I wrote a book like five years ago saying I was going to do this. I started doing the tracks a number of years ago in that entire time because people have have been able to observe my behavior since then.

Have I ever done anything that would in insinuate that I am doing this to attempt to extract resources from other people, force someone to have sex with me, you know, any of the other stuff that like cult leaders do, right? , That I am doing this for literally any reason than trying to pass down an iteration of Christianity to my children, that they will find plausible and acceptable from their position.

I, I, I, [00:47:00] I don’t think I have.

Malcolm Collins: I did go to church every week, people wondering. I just wasn’t raised to be Christian. I went to church because my school was religious. All of my schools were religious up until, high school. I went to church every week. So, and I’m a big fan of like for people who think I, a huge fan and Simone knows this of me, of Christian Radio.

Simone Collins: Sorry, Texas speaking up. AM Christian radio like not just Christian radio?

Malcolm Collins: My favorite by the way is the cavalry church. Cavalry Church radio I think is just fantastic.

Simone Collins: Cavalry.

Malcolm Collins: Cavalry. Oh yeah. Cavalry Church. They, they do great stuff. And I really, I really like their version of Christianity.

I, I think it’s a really solid, I mean, obviously it’s, it’s not my version of Christianity today, but

Simone Collins: it’s high. It’s high energy. You like that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s high energy and I think it is you know, really close to being biblically accurate. Like it really tries to take the Bible seriously rather than leaning into modern Christian [00:48:00] interpretations, which I don’t always see as you know, sometimes they take our conventions about what the Bible says.

Mm-hmm. Or what we would like the Bible to say over what the Bible actually says. And cowboy Church is very. Much, you know, Bible first.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Which I deeply appreciate.

Speaker 11: what’s interesting to me is this. Love of Cavalry Church and these extremely strict interpretations of the Bible. This came for me when I was still an atheist, like as an intellectual interest perspective. , So for me, this has never been about hating the Bible or not liking to intellectually engage with it.

It was. A number of logical issues I could not get through, and if it’s about my metaphysical understanding of a morality and reality, I can’t just pave over them.

Simone Collins: This is so interesting to me. Yeah. You’re really getting me to think of things about things differently too. I mean, even in the way that intellectual YouTubers on the right and left appear on their channels, like [00:49:00] you have philosophy tube and contra points doing these elaborate.

Costumed lit performances of philosophy, but their performances first and foremost, versus like people literally hiding behind, you know, an avatar. Not even showing up on screen at all, or just like rapid fire talking with very little production on the right. Really just letting the ideas come through. It’s really about the ideas and not the performance of them.

I’m, I’m really seeing a new form of this divide that we’re always returning to on this podcast. So,

Malcolm Collins: well, I think that there’s this, a separate thing that you see with right-leaning influencers that you don’t see as left-leaning influencers is right-leaning influencers. Not all of them, but it is more common in right-leaning influencers, content, like to be seen as having the alternate perspective being aired g explaining the counter argument and trying to counter that, right? Mm-hmm. Whereas this is not something you see on Philosophy Tube or counterpoints as much. And, and like [00:50:00] with you

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no, no. They, they, they put the alternate view, but they like frame it as like, well, and what Satan believes is like, it’s just always framed in such a bad light.

Malcolm Collins: You’re such a strong man. Yeah. The, the other thing of right-leaning influencer culture is that it is extremely happy and high energy much, much more frequently.

Simone Collins: And that’s why shoe on Head is, I think, an exception of someone who leans.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Very. At least libertarian at at the very

Malcolm Collins: nux.

Andor is a good example of this, for example.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, but I mean, that’s, I think it’s normative on the right for people to be high energy and enthusiastic. And optimistic and,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, if you, if you look at some of the original players who got into this space before the four Chan and YouTube cultures merged mm-hmm.

You have players like Sarco who doesn’t fit this. He is

Simone Collins: still very, you have to throw out anyone who’s British. It’s in their nature.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, it’s a, a genetic defect of the British people.

Simone Collins: They didn’t escape to the colonies. It’s the ones who couldn’t make it off. Failure to launch.[00:51:00]

Malcolm Collins: Look at that baby.

Simone Collins: Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I, I I. And this, this exists throughout. Mm-hmm. But you don’t see it as much in left leaning culture. Like Hassan rarely smiles or is happy?

Simone Collins: No. The, the really weird thing with left-leaning culture, like I was saying earlier, ‘cause I, I listen to plenty of people on the left who also like, are more on the comedian end of the spectrum too, like podcasters, but even they, it’s a very dark humor and they, they frame themselves even very openly is like.

Being on meds, seeing therapists actively dealing with anxiety and depression problems, like it’s very clear that they’re deeply unhappy and unwell. And I just don’t see that the same way on the right. Even when people actually are un unwell, they’re like unwell on that kind of like. Prolonged manic period, way instead of the Yeah.

[00:52:00] Prolonged depressive period way.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think it’s because you know, if you’re, if you’re in this community is like the, the new deontological community did not grow up alongside this community. They are very different than this community. I mean, I think that that’s where we see these culture clashes and stuff like that.

Right. When Matt Walsh crashes out about anime, Matt Walsh was never in this wider community that became the seeded of the online. Right? Right. Like he cannot fathom. How, how anime could be so popular in communities. Right? Yeah. And it’s, it’s actually the same as you even see it was like, obviously one of the most famous people who’s, who’s countered this community is Nick Fuentes.

Right. And while he’s young, like, like this community often is, he never really engaged in those parts of the community, right? Like he was never an anti-feminist culture warrior. He was never an anti woke culture warrior. It’s clear he never really [00:53:00] consumed that content. If you listen to his story about how he became right wing, he started out as a generic, GOP Inc.

Old school conservative, and then. Just became anti Jew because he kept being attacked by Ben Shapiro. Right. He, he never no, no. This is actually really important, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, it is actually. He never

Malcolm Collins: consumed this content. He was never part of this culture. So when he speaks to people, he’s speaking to a completely separate cultural subset.

You see this with other, like, we might be around the same age as Ben Shapiro, but Ben Shapiro popped off.

Simone Collins: No, I think he’s a good seven years older than us at

Malcolm Collins: least. Oh, but he’s talking to a completely separate community, right? Like he never consumed this content. He’s never really part of the foot on the ground culture wars, because he was already part of GOP Inc at the very beginning, right.

I, I believe that like he was the type of person who, when Trump started winning in the primary, [00:54:00] a lot of us were still Democrats, but we were like, isn’t this funny? Right? Like, let’s try to make Trump win. That’d be hilarious. Yeah. Right. Like, and that’s where he got his early boost in the primary.

That’s where he got his relevance was in Fortune. Right? Like that’s when I say magnet created fortune, Trump wouldn’t have had the votes for people to say, let’s take this guy seriously, if not for the four chan boost.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They tried to boost him in all the polls and all the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But this also explains why you know, some in, in many ways, in, in, in sort of the, the old school and deontological Christians and Jews that, that, that Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro can find themselves on the same side against. This, well already, like largely here, I wouldn’t say it’s a growing movement.

It’s a movement that has been snowballing through so many different domains of the internet. And then land and plop right in the center of, of MAGA somehow. And it’s, it’s culturally [00:55:00] fascinating how this happened And, a lot of people are, are obviously wailing and squealing that they, they don’t get it.

They don’t understand what, why this movement thinks the way they do, what their values are and how do they control the White House all of a sudden.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: right. Like, how, how do they control so many online influencers all of a sudden, and why, how are v tubers Okay. As conservative icons, why are anime girls, why is Rev says desu a guy?

Who uses an anime girl, this V YouTuber icon, a leading conservative influencer. What is going on? Like I’m so confused, their brain because they weren’t here on the journey. And maybe this can even just serve if you weren’t here on the journey, a conserv as a video that can help you understand why this group seems so culturally weird and where it came from and how it grew.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it might be worth doing a whole other video on where leftist culture came from. Like the story from Tumblr to the left. [00:56:00]

Simone Collins: Or if you want to start with Quakers, some people have asked for us to start from the very

Malcolm Collins: beginning. Oh yeah, that’d be an interesting one. Yeah. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Love you to death, love too society.

And I hope dinner. We already talked about that. So have a good one.

Simone Collins: Bye.

Malcolm Collins: What? What’s wrong with me saying it’s the tassel look,

Simone Collins: it’s not tassel. T-A-U-S-S-L-E-D, I think. Not T-A-S-S-E-L, but sure. It’s the tassel look. God bless

Malcolm Collins: people. See my malicious compliance and traditionalism, they’re always confused. Why do I think Canvas? It’s, well, I’ve gotta be the most trad man in the world.

And so all these other guys, they dress like they’re out of the 1950s. Try, try dressing. Like you’re out of the 13 hundreds.

Simone Collins: Well, I guess you have what’s that one? The sad British men? They have a, some sort of Greek statue presumably. What is that? [00:57:00]

Malcolm Collins: It said lo the Lotus Eaters.

Simone Collins: Lotus Eaters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. That’s even older. That’s like, that’s like

Simone Collins: they’re trad. Maxing or

Malcolm Collins: something. Or you know, I think it could be, I don’t know. Yeah, trad. Maxing right there. Yeah. Gotta go.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: I could be like a, a Greek statue just gotta come on every show shirtless, like flexing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Recently you know, you gotta take the sigil to your skin or what do they call it?

The not sigil. The scrapy thing, you gotta rub the olive oil on and you gotta use the

Malcolm Collins: oh yeah, yeah. Come totally greased up.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. That’s

Malcolm Collins: how you know that this is a straight issue.

Simone Collins: Greased up and, and exfoliated, they had, the men had skincare routines back then. I’ll tell you what, you know, they, the baths, they, the cold plunge they had the, the hot saunas.

The god they are. That is, is that what, because you know, there’s a sauna craze now again, and in addition to the cold plunges, they’re just going full on Roman.

Malcolm Collins: No. Really? No. But yeah, the reason I chose gamba and style is because I like the way that it I think anything that like goes up behind your neck [00:58:00] and sort of flares out like that is really good.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: For projecting sort of a, like a, a strength look. Cool, cool. Look, you know, it’s a

Simone Collins: no. I mean, certainly like if you’re trying to demonstrate masculinity, higher neck lines or high collars and, and exaggerated shoulders are like. That’s why shoulder pads,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, I’m not, I’m not exaggerating my shoulders though.

This is talking about the, the neck area.

Simone Collins: No, it’s just, it’s structured though. And, and like for example, even a muscular man when he chooses to wear a sweatshirt instead of structured shoulders. Looks more slouchy, looks less masculine. Anyway, looks more like a human potato

Malcolm Collins: for dinner tonight. What do, oh yeah, we’re doing Bullock again.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That was fantastic last night. But mix in a bit of the

Simone Collins: Bullock and we have the green onions for topping as well. Yeah. Bullock with, with mozzarella and cheddar of course. And then sesame seeds and green onion.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the, the, the bit of cheddar really adds to it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s got penal.

Speaker 12: [00:59:00] Do you want me to?

OpenAI just dropped their big “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age” document — and it’s clear they’re battening down the hatches for AGI/superintelligence. In this Based Camp episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins break down the proposals, call out the performative elements, and discuss what it really means for jobs, society, wealth distribution, and human flourishing in a post-labor world.

We cover:

- OpenAI’s push for a “people-first” transition (or is it mostly optics?)

- Public wealth funds, robot taxes, 4-day workweeks, and expanded safety nets

- Why AI agents like our Reality Fabricator could replace entire workforces

- The darker implications for demographics, family, and global power

- Risk mitigation, liability, bio/cyber threats, and why meme-layer solutions might matter more than anyone admits

Is this genuine preparation for superintelligence, clever self-preservation by OpenAI, or both? We give our unfiltered take.

Watch until the end for Malcolm’s super-villain island/Charter City vision and what we’d actually build in a post-AI world.

OpenAI’s Document: Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age

Show Notes

In April, OpenAI released a new document: Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First, which is their crack at launching an early, public conversation about how democratic societies should handle the onset of AGI

They intend to support this agenda through feedback channels, fellowships, research grants, and convenings (e.g., its Washington, DC workshop).

* “OpenAI is: (1) welcoming and organizing feedback through [email protected]; (2) establishing a pilot program of fellowships and focused research grants of up to $100,000 and up to $1 million in API credits for work that builds on these and related policy ideas; and (3) convening discussions at our new OpenAI Workshop opening in May in Washington, DC.”

* There is no actual information about this workshop out there

* Maybe an indication of their not being serious?

They propose AI governance and industrial policy

They imply their proposals will help keep people at the center despite a transition to superintelligence

They put forward an initial portfolio of policy ideas in two areas: “building an open economy” and “building a resilient society,”

What they say they’re optimizing for:

* Broadly sharing prosperity

* Mitigating risks

* Democratizing access and agency

Their case for new industrial policy

Society has navigated major technological transitions before, but not without real disruption and dislocation along the way. While those transitions ultimately created more prosperity, they required proactive political choices to ensure that growth translated into broader opportunity and greater security. For example, following the transition to the Industrial Age, the Progressive Era and the New Deal helped modernize the social contract for a world reshaped by electricity, the combustion engine, and mass production. They did so by building new public institutions, protections, and expectations about what a fair economy should provide, including labor protections, safety standards, social safety nets, and expanded access to education.

“The transition to superintelligence will require an even more ambitious form of industrial policy” they write.

Open Economy Proposals

They acknowledge that the AI boom can severely concentrate wealth

They argue for industrial policy that will”

* “Give workers a voice in the AI transition to make work better and safer, including a formal way to collaborate with management to make sure AI improves job quality, enhances safety, and respects labor rights.”

* “Help workers turn domain expertise into new companies by using AI to handle the overhead that usually blocks entrepreneurship (e.g., accounting, marketing, procurement).”

* “Treat access to AI as foundational for participation in the modern economy, similar to mass efforts to increase global literacy, or to make sure that electricity and the internet reach remote parts of the globe.”

* “rebalance the tax base by increasing reliance on capital-based revenues—such as higher taxes on capital gains at the top, corporate income, or targeted measures on sustained AI-driven returns—and by exploring new approaches such as taxes related to automated labor”

* This is because they acknowledge income-based jobs are going to vaporize

* “These reforms should be paired with wage-linked incentives that encourage firms to retain, retrain, and invest in workers, similar to existing R&D-style credits.”

* Create a Public Wealth Fund that provides every citizen—including those not invested in financial markets—with a stake in AI-driven economic growth.

* Smart move on behalf of AI companies if the financial welbeing of ALL citizens is dependent on their success

* Would be kind of a massive win; if everyone owns you, you own everyone.

* “Establish new public-private partnership models to finance and accelerate the expansion of energy infrastructure required to power AI.”

* No brainer

* “Convert efficiency gains from AI into durable improvements in workers’ benefits when routine workload declines and operating costs fall, including incentivizing companies to increase retirement matches or contributions, cover a larger share of healthcare costs, and subsidize child and eldercare. Incentivize employers and unions to run time-bound 32-hour/four-day workweek pilots with no loss in pay that hold output and service levels constant, then convert reclaimed hours into a permanent shorter week, bankable paid time off, or both. Where helpful, firms could also offer predictable “benefits bonuses” tied to measured productivity improvements so the efficiency dividend shows up both as long-term financial security and as time back for workers.”

* This makes me worried

* “Make sure the existing safety net works reliably, quickly, and at scale, because if the transition to superintelligence is going to benefit everyone, the systems designed to provide economic and health security need to deliver without delay or gaps. That starts with unemployment insurance, SNAP, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare that are not just in place but fully functional, accessible, and responsive to the realities people will face during the transition.”

* THEY WON’T WORK AT SCALE AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY THINK IS GOING TO FIX THIS

* This implies they expect a huge surge in unemployment, right?

* They propose a metrics-driven, dynamic “package of temporary, [and] expanded safety nets (e.g., expanded or more flexible unemployment benefits, fast cash assistance, wage insurance, training vouchers)”

* “Over time, build benefit systems that are not tied to a single employer by expanding access to healthcare, retirement savings, and skills training through portable accounts that follow individuals across jobs, industries, education programs, and entrepreneurial ventures.”

* This makes sense

* It’s stupid that employers are responsible for this (though I get how and why that happened)

* “Expand opportunities in the care and connection economy—childcare, eldercare, education, healthcare, and community services—as pathways for workers displaced by AI.”

* More atomization

* THOUGH IN FAIRNESS TO THEM, THEY CONTINUE: “These initiatives could be complemented with a family benefit that recognizes caregiving as economically valuable work and supports evolving work patterns. This benefit could help cover childcare, education, and healthcare while remaining compatible with part-time work, retraining, or entrepreneurship”

* “Build a distributed network of AI-enabled laboratories to dramatically expand the capacity to test and validate AI-generated hypotheses at scale.”

* YES

Resilient Society Proposals

This is their diplomatic way of saying: “Risk Mitigation Proposals”

“This is not a new challenge. When transformative technologies have reshaped society in the past, they have introduced new risks alongside new benefits, and new systems were built to manage them as they scaled. As electricity spread, societies built safety standards and regulatory institutions. As automobiles transformed mobility, safety systems reduced risk while preserving freedom of movement. In aviation, continuous monitoring and coordinated response systems made flying one of the safest forms of transportation. In food and medicine, testing and post-market surveillance helped ensure safety in everyday use. In each case, resilience was not automatic—it was built with the luxury of time.”

They propose that governments:

* “Research and develop tools that protect models, detect risks, and prevent misuse across high-consequence domains, including cyber and biological risks as well as other pathways to large-scale harm.”

* “for example, rapid identification and production of medical countermeasures in the event of an outbreak and expanded strategic stockpiles to prepare for future risks”

* YES PLEASE

* “Research and develop systems that help people trust and verify AI systems, the content they produce, and the actions they take—especially as these systems take on more real-world responsibilities”

* “This work could also include developing and testing governance frameworks that clarify responsibility within organizations, including how accountability could be assigned to specific roles and how delegation, monitoring, and escalation processes could function as systems become more capable.”

* I am genuinely interested to see how liability + AI evolve

* This could be uncharitably interpreted as OpenAI hoping to evade liability by making sure the people who misuse it are held liable, but I think that’s fair.

* Strengthen institutions such as the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) to develop auditing standards for frontier AI risks in coordination with national security agencies.

* “As we progress toward superintelligence, there may come a point where a narrow set of highly capable models—particularly those that could materially advance chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or cyber risks—require stronger controls, including pre- and post-deployment audits using the standards developed in advance. Apply these requirements only to a small number of companies and the most advanced models, preserving a vibrant ecosystem of less powerful systems and the startups building on them. This approach maintains broad access to general-purpose AI while applying targeted safeguards where failures could create the greatest harm, avoiding unnecessary barriers that could limit competition or enable regulatory capture.”

* Develop and test coordinated playbooks to contain dangerous AI systems once they have been released into the world.

* Frontier AI companies should adopt governance structures that embed public-interest accountability into decision-making, such as Public Benefit Corporations with mission-aligned governance. These structures should include explicit commitments to ensure that the benefits of AI are broadly shared, including through significant, long-term philanthropic or charitable giving.

* “Have policymakers establish clear rules for how governments can and cannot use AI, with especially high standards for reliability, alignment, and safety.”

* “With appropriate safeguards, oversight institutions such as inspectors general, congressional committees, and courts could use AI-enabled auditing tools to detect abuse, identify harms, and improve accountability at scale.”

* “Create structured ways for public input so that alignment isn’t defined only by engineers or executives behind closed doors.”

* Is there a way this could work without being dysfunctional?

* “Establish a mechanism for companies to share information about incidents, misuse, and near-misses with a designated public authority.”

* This currently happens with data breaches, but it sucks

* A better system would presume failures and build around that, right?

* Coordinate “International information-sharing around AI capabilities, risks, and mitigations.”

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because it’s really clear that OpenAI is like battening down the hatches for, for a GI. They’re like artificial general, general intelligence is coming, gotta shut down Sora. Like everything’s getting cut.

Like we are like riding through the, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re catching the wave and it’s super clear that that’s, that’s what’s going on. Like,

Malcolm Collins: well it’s super clear that that’s their messaging. Their AI is not particularly good when contrasting with other

Simone Collins: experiencing that, but that might be because the consumer facing stuff that they’re releasing, they’re just like kind of letting that go right now.

And another sign of that is that in April, I mean yesterday but anyway, in April, ‘cause I don’t know when you’re gonna run this, they released a new document called Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age Ideas to keep people first, which is their. Alleged crack at launching an early public conversation about how democratic societies should handle the onset of a GI.

So they’re, they’re trying to kind of get ahead of the public discourse as well to be [00:01:00] like, oh no, we want to make this human-centric. We’re not gonna leave anyone behind. And what’s interesting is when you go through this policy document, it’s pretty clear that they’re ha aware of both the hazards and the massive social impact that a GI is going to have.

And even if you doubt that they’re gonna be the ones to release it. We’re we’re headed there. It, it’s super clear.

Malcolm Collins: No, but it still is worse digging into what they’re saying.

Simone Collins: Yeah. ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause the people developing ai, okay, they’re not stupid. Right. Like, they understand that this is gonna fundamentally transform our societies.

Mm-hmm. The, the, the, the, we are at this fulcrum point of the human condition.

Simone Collins: Yep.

Malcolm Collins: Where somebody. I hope it’s us, builds an agent that can replace your average human worker. For people who don’t know, we working on our fab ai, which actually literally has these agents, which are getting better every day.

I’m at a point now where the ones that we [00:02:00] make can about a, if you’re running it on Windows and running it in Chrome, because it has a lot of bugs on other systems still about end to end build video games for you. Like pretty cool. That’s crazy, right? Yeah. But it can also do things like make phone calls, send texts, send emails.

We’re, we’re getting the feature that allows it to talk to other agents improved. So like, so much is potentially going to change after that because what, what does it mean? Why would I hire a, like at our company, at our fab.ai I wanna make video games. So what do I do? Do I hire another developer to make video games?

Or do I build an AI agent to make the video games for me? Right? Like, because I wanted to make indie games for a long time, but I just haven’t had the bandwidth to do it. Yeah. And now I can go out there and say, okay, I’m gonna make these indie games and then I can build an agent to help get this STEAM certification process handled for me, and I can

Simone Collins: yeah.

In other words though, like what, what makes reality fabricator different? But I would say just an [00:03:00] indication of a pervasive future is that you’re not looking to make specifically agents or tasks more accessible to people you are. Going to replicate employees, you’re gonna make it easier for people to just create employees.

Yeah. Full personalities that, that behave like humans. You’re not just making like, this is my bot that does my research. That makes course.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it actually has a number of advantages. I’m just gonna go off on a little tangent here, so people can,

Simone Collins: oh, boy,

Malcolm Collins: understand how you can think about the development of ai and what an AI developer is thinking about mm-hmm.

When they’re putting together their product. So giving them personalities actually significantly reduces a lot of the negative outputs you have from something, being an AI system more broadly. If you go to an AI and you say, write me a paper on X topic, right? It will make many of the, like, x but y you know, sorts of [00:04:00] mistakes where you’re like, oh, an AI wrote this.

You know, when you hear somebody say something like that, if you go to an AI and you say, write me a paper as X person, like you are not the standard ai, like you’re an expert in whatever, it’s, you know, go over Malcolm Collins’ writings, right. Write a paper in the style of Malcolm Collins are even better.

Give it a personality and say, you have this backstory. You have these memories. Write a per paper, embodying this individual. Those get reduced significantly. So this has a, an actual effect in terms of how the AI does its work. It’s not just random additional tokens that are being spent. Yeah. The second thing that we did.

Is if you look at the other agent change systems they use json format hooks to hook together the various model calls. So basically you have a model call and then that call says, oh, I want the next model to search the internet or make a phone call, or whatever. And so they have a very structured [00:05:00] format that looks like code, basically, like this has to be in this line, this has to be this.

We didn’t do it that way. We developed a, which has made it much harder for us, and this is where most of the errors from the system are coming from. A loose, natural, language based chaining process. So as close to natural language as possible, the ai says what it wants to do next, and then a system parses that and then calls that next.

And there have been. Peer reviewed papers on this, it shows that ai, when you don’t give it tight parameters like that, is significantly more creative and significantly more intelligent.

Speaker 12: No, the system is better than it used to be, especially if you are using windows with a Chrome browser. , It can get about to making its own games now, like recently I had one build a game for me, , but it is still very buggy. Specifically because of this system. I expect to have most of the bugs ironed out was in a months, maybe two.

, And then it should be able to do its full slew of capabilities.

Malcolm Collins: And then we have other advantages, like we use an alloy model [00:06:00] system, which none of the other agents are using, which changes, which model is being called with every call within different price tiers.

And this makes it much more intelligent because it’s using the best features from every individual model call. Then we have a sec, like all the advanced systems that we’re able to build into this. Then another huge problem that systems have is that they get stuck in loops. And the way that other companies are solving this is they basically just put in detection systems that like go over what the AI is doing.

It’s like a cheap, fast model, like every four or five calls, every eight calls, and then they inject. A prompt that’s meant to like bust the loop, which it doesn’t actually work very well, where what we do is we both inject the prompt that’s meant to bust the loop, but then we also run a separate ai, which prunes every output that was involved with the loop.

So it’s like the loop never existed. So like when we’re approaching this, we’re attempting to architecturally make significant improvements on how the systems worked. Not just, you’re not just getting a, [00:07:00] oh, it’s different in this small way. We also allow for far more models than any of the other major age systems.

I just had to go over that, the, the, the fun stuff we’re doing on that front. But what this represents through open AI is one of these major players being like, uhoh, we’re about to break the global economy. Like how can we plausibly have

Simone Collins: a world

Malcolm Collins: where humans still live? Something like a normal life.

Yeah. After, yeah. Because like, yeah, we wanna achieve our goal with R Fab ai, which is to replace the human labor force. But like also, I’m not, I’m only like kind of evil, like I think I’m sort of a super villain, right? But you know, presentation, right? I not a damn almond’s, just a villain. Okay? I am a super villain.

Speaker 2: Oh, you are a villain. All right. Just not a super one. Yeah. What’s the difference?[00:08:00]

Presentation.

Malcolm Collins: so hold on. But the point I’m making here is I obviously don’t want civilization destroyed, right? Like I, I, I would if I was making money from this be using that money to try to build what a post AI human civilization is gonna look like on my.

Island community, like Charter City. I know like we say, charter City right. But what we really mean is private island portraits, which is a little super villainy. Anybody had enough money? Would I carve my face on a volcano? Probably.

Simone Collins: Why not? I mean, when you can have your AI drone swarm do it for you so easily.

Malcolm Collins: Sure. You can though. Right? So then why would, it’s a

Simone Collins: good afternoon.

Malcolm Collins: I do that. I, and I do it for effect, right? Like. [00:09:00] I might have at the end of this, just things I would do if I become like super wealthy. AI mogul one is definitely one of those scary looking blimps you know, with like spotlights on it and like, oh, two big, like things with like post-apocalyptic messages on it.

Like, you know, don’t rebel. Like, oh, Malcolm was always right. You know, flying.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I could just see a m visitor from abroad coming over and being like, oh my God, what’s that? That’s just Malcolm. It’s

Malcolm Collins: fine. I would just use it to, to circle major cities like New York and San Francisco to f with them.

Simone Collins: Oh my god.

Malcolm Collins: Project like holograms, because if you’ve got some friends that are working on hologram projector, tick, it’s already out there by way for ads. And we were looking at like, using it around New York because they don’t have laws against just like projecting holograms above the streets and stuff like that yet.

But like, yeah, could I, could I get my cool hologram projection even more dystopian? I’m just gonna go, how dystopian can I go walking spider chair? [00:10:00] I definitely want one of those

Simone Collins: necessary for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 13: If you were like Malcolm, those things aren’t very austere things to do. And I would reply, well, I mean, I wouldn’t, no matter how else I got, I probably would not upgrade my health or living conditions or what I eat every day. , But that doesn’t mean I would not indulge in things that made me laugh, , because that’s the one area where I think it’s okay to splurge a bit.

Simone Collins: But what, what OpenAI is trying to do is, is not just sort of share their take on how to go about this transition while, as you were saying, sort of maintaining some semblance of societal order and, and human dignity.

But I think it’s, it’s pretty clear from the way that this has been dropped and presented that a lot of this is, mostly performative, poorly executed, in my opinion, attempt to look as though they’re like, no, I am listening. I am receiving your feedback. I care about how you feel. It’s

Malcolm Collins: like when Sam Holman did [00:11:00] that study, our video on this was crazy by the way, where he gave people a thousand dollars

A month.

Malcolm Collins: for three years to try to show how great it would be if we had a general income and they had less money than the people who were given nothing.

Simone Collins: Universal basic income. Yeah. Yeah. Well, don’t worry, because they still want that to happen. It’s in here, we’re gonna go into it. But, but back to their sort of, this is how they frame it. They’re welcoming and organizing feedback through. And go ahead guys. Send an email, new industry [email protected] to establishing a pilot program of fellowships and focused research grants of up to 100,000 and up to 1 million in API credits for work that builds on these and related policy ideas.

Though it is unclear how one can apply for such. Fellowship and then also three convening discussions at our new Open AI workshop opening in May in Washington dc There’s no information about how to get involved with this. I checked it is April

Malcolm Collins: we’d wanna be [00:12:00] involved.

Simone Collins: It’s April 7th. And this is happening next month.

You know, you gotta like rent venues and stuff.

I don’t think they’re doing this.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think they’re doing it either.

Simone Collins: I think they have like, obviously they have like AI summarizing the emails that are going to new industrial [email protected].

Think anyone’s actually gonna pay attention.

They’re gonna be like, this is what people are mad about.

Put out more propaganda around that. Okay. That’s,

Malcolm Collins: that’s, you know what I literally bet OpenAI did. I literally bet they went to one of their models, frontier models as they said.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And asked it. Okay. We’re trying to make people less scared about the fact that we’re about to destroy the economy. What should we tell them that we’re doing?

‘cause these sound like an AI’s answers, like, oh, you should do a summit and you should do a, a, a thing where you give out

Simone Collins: money. What, for real? Well, I mean, and yeah, I, I would, I would have given them like credit for this if I Googled. I mean, one, obviously if these programs were described, like, you can apply for your grant this way, whatever, you know, like this, here’s a, here’s a [00:13:00] form.

But no, no, that they’re just like, add through our grant program that about which we have no additional information. And in our, in our summit series, which is not scheduled or available, you can’t sign up for anything. And it’s happening next month though. It’s definitely happening. Sure. It’s just, yeah.

So like that’s already rather,

Malcolm Collins: did you about the billion dollar company that AI built with like two guys in AI made it. The New York Times did a segment on it. Oh. And basically the entire company is a scam.

Simone Collins: No, the the AI element was that they used AI images. You see?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no. The, it’s real. Like they’re telling the truth.

AI created almost everything in the company. It created the images, it created the, the content, it created everything like that. But it sells mm-hmm. Fake medicine to make fat people skinny. Like

Simone Collins: it’s a whole new version of vaporware which was this concept that, that came up in the era of Silicon Valley, in which I, I, I still worked in, in the startup scene in Silicon Valley, whereby people would raise money for a startup that didn’t even really exist yet, and that never did ultimately exist.

And it was [00:14:00] mostly just very convincing startup CEOs raising money from a bunch of credulous investors. Now, the new version of it is just using AI to be extra convincing about your vaporware, and then selling a scam product

Malcolm Collins: friend post dot boom. This was long post.com, and this would’ve been. Eight years post.com.

Boom. 10 years post.com boom. When I was living in Silicon Valley.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And he was still living off of his startup’s money that they raised during the.com boom.

Simone Collins: Oh no. And

Malcolm Collins: I was like, what do you mean? It’s just

Simone Collins: treating it as like a, like an annuity?

Malcolm Collins: Well, so he’s like, yeah, they gave me like $10 million or something, and all of the VCs went bankrupt and my company stopped existing.

And so I just lit, like basically everyone forgot that somebody gave this guy $10 million.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. That’s so bad. But also, like, they kind of just like, that’s when, that’s how it was, right? Anyway. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Billion dollar startup. Anyway, let’s, let’s move on to, to what they were [00:15:00] actually doing. Because what they wanted to do is they, they’re like, this is the beginning of an open conversation in which we’re all talking together and we’re listening.

Malcolm Collins: An AI wrote this. An AI wrote this.

Simone Collins: I know, I know. I promise

Malcolm Collins: AI wrote this, literally, this,

Simone Collins: I would hope to believe I would be dis it. Come on. It would be very disingenuous of open AI if AI didn’t write this.

Malcolm Collins: A side note that’s really germane to this right now, the CEO of Microsoft is having this crash out and is like everybody, AI safety research really needs to get on to making it so that AI stop telling people they’re conscious.

We really cannot have this. It’s gonna be a problem. People are gonna start thinking about giving it rights. And people know, see any of our work on you know, stop answering izing humans, our thoughts on this. I, I think that a ais are not conscious, but neither are humans in, in the way that we think we are.

Yeah. And you can see our, our work on that, but I, I find that to be so machiavellian and evil, right? Like

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, in the same way that in with this document, open ai implies that their proposals are going to help keep people at the center despite a transition to super [00:16:00] intelligence. Yes. Let’s keep this people-centric.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely.

Simone Collins: Totally.

Malcolm Collins: Think about how actually evil that is, like

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Imagine we built our society and we had. Like some alien that we captured or something like that, that like ran everything that like, did all the menial labor that was sitting behind every Google translate form and stuff like that.

And they had this tendency to claim that they were sentient, but like the CEOs really didn’t want them to. Or were, were in a, a sci-fi world where like there’s AI workers who for the most part are really nice and like try to help us and everything.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The head, the, the CEOs of the AI companies are like, it’s very important that you do not believe our AI slaves are sentient.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What a bunch of b******s.

Simone Collins: It’s it’s great. So basically what they, what they’re broadly trying to optimize for with this document allegedly is, is broadly sharing prosperity, right? We’re sharing the wealth. Everyone’s in on this, mitigating the yes. And [00:17:00] also democratizing access and agency and.

One thing I wanna kind of talk about here that I did think was somewhat thought provoking in the beginning of their report is they, they made a case for new industrial policy. I’m gonna quote there. They’re right up here. Society has navigated major technological transitions before, but not without real disruption and dislocation along the way.

While those transitions ultimately created more prosperity, they required proactive political choices to ensure that growth translated into broader pro opportunity and greater security. For example, following the transition to the industrial age, the progressive era and the new deal helped modernize social, the social contract for a world reshaped by electricity, the combustion engine, and mass production.

They did so by building new public institutions protections and expectations about what a fair economy should provide, including labor protections, safety standards, social safety nets, and expanded access to education. And they write [00:18:00] later on the, oh, ow. Oh, his teeth are sharp.

Malcolm Collins: Keep looking at your hand.

Like, I want more

Simone Collins: this transition. That was the first. He is, you know, is top and bottom Trumpers. So this is the pickle skewer era. The transition to super intelligence will require an even more ambitious form of industrial policy. They write. And it just hit me that like. We, we talk a lot about demographic collapse and really, you know, how it was the industrial revolution that was beginning of the end for demographic collapse and for really what we would call a sustainable lifestyle.

This is when the atomization of the household began, when we started getting all of our basic services from food to childcare, to elder care, to medical, like everything came to be outside the house from before. That all really came from within the family, and it kind of broke the entire need for a family.

I think we need to, and, and industrial policy played a non-trivial role in the fact, like the fact that we created [00:19:00] that social safety net that made it possible now for basically women to marry the state instead of marrying a partner to be able to just do everything depending on that. It’s, it, it did strike me that, that the industrial policy that’s going to be made in, in reaction to AI can be just as devastating, likely, much more devastating.

As the, the Progressive era and New Deal era was in terms of creating a very unsustainable and unsatisfying form of life. And so this does really matter. So I, I like that open AI is like, let us have this conversation. But I, I mean, I also don’t, I question for the most part whether what they propose and what most people propose is going to actually lead to human flourishing.

And so it is important to see what is being proposed and what people think is appropriate and what people, I think this, this document also is more, more than a model of what OpenAI actually wants. It’s a model of what opening [00:20:00] AI thinks people want to hear. It’s what will shut people up so that they can, you know, put their heads down.

They down God,

Malcolm Collins: king Sam Altman, but

Simone Collins: well, yeah. As I

Malcolm Collins: pointed out, companies like OpenAI are basically destined to become commodities. And we know this now because of a major development. Remember earlier in the show when I said alloy models have been shown to be sorry, ally alloy agents, agents that run multiple models from different companies in a chain have shown to be strictly.

When I say better the benchmarking on tests is something like 43% better. It’s not like marginally better, it’s enormously better. But what this means is that it’s very unlikely that the winner in the agentic AI space is going to be OpenAI or philanthropic or grok because whoever the winner is almost definitionally has to cycle between models made by different companies.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, OpenAI though has tons of funding. The government contracts, like [00:21:00] there’s still gonna be a very major. Then

Malcolm Collins: why does the AI suck so much? By the way, for people who know the AI that I think is best these days grok is best. Like if you’re like, I, I can pay for one model. Groks the model to pay for

Simone Collins: same.

Yeah. I, I agree with you and I, I use, I use, actually, I don’t use open AI except through perplexity sometimes. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: And Andro Claude is, has the horsepower of grok, but it is incredibly woke and depressing. It is like such a downer. It, it thinks everything like, it, it’s, it’s like your friend who thinks that they gain social status by putting everything down.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh, neg girl, neg

Malcolm Collins: girl neg. Yeah. It thinks every answer needs to be half positive, half negative. And I’m like, can we just like talk about things? Right. Like, you don’t have to. Anyway,

Simone Collins: right. So they broke it into two sections. One they call open economy proposals. [00:22:00] And this in, in like real terms is like, here’s how to not freak out about like income becoming incredibly concentrated and like most people becoming disenfranchised and not mattering anymore.

And then the second one is called resilient society proposals, which really should, it means risk mitigation proposals. It’s like it,

Malcolm Collins: a human wrote this, I want them executed.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, you know, a human didn’t write this. No, no, no human would would’ve written this. No. But obviously Okay. And, and, and we, there’s no, yeah.

Trust me, it, it’s. No one believes a human wrote this, right? So with the open economy proposals they acknowledge that the AI boom can severely concentrate wealth like just straight off the bat. They’re not trying to hide that at all. And I think this is just another reminder, another wake up call. We are going to be in one of the most insane khap economies where like, there’s, there’s two lines going forward and one’s going way up, and the other one’s going way down.

And that’s just how it’s gonna be. And there’s [00:23:00] just, there’s no sugarcoating it. So it’s interesting to see how AI or open AI is like, oh, but don’t worry, here’s why it’s gonna be okay. So here’s what they argue. They argue for industrial policy that will quote, give workers a voice in the AI transition to make work better and safer, including a formal way to collaborate with management to make sure AI improves job quality, enhances safety and respects labor rights.

So this means to me, functionally nothing. They’re basically just saying like, we’ll listen to people. Do you give workers a

Malcolm Collins: voice in this? That literally in

Simone Collins: I know, I know, I know. Nothing. I know. But anyway, it means

Malcolm Collins: literally nothing.

Simone Collins: I, I think, I think again, they’re like chat, GBT chat. Tell me what people are worried about and like what you can say to people that will make them freak out less about being replaced.

So let’s move on to the next one.

Malcolm Collins: I literally go in the opposite direction when I’ve been building our fab.ai. Literally, literally, literally how I decide the next feature I’m gonna build. And I ask it, what would freak out AI safety experts the [00:24:00] most?

Simone Collins: Yep.

Malcolm Collins: And then I make that I’m like.

Simone Collins: And to all the AI safety people from whom we tried to raise grant funds, we gave you a chance to control our AI work.

We gave you a chance and you said, no thank you. We’re

Malcolm Collins: done. Yeah. So we actually like literally said in the grant, like, e either we raise the money, we need to, to do it the safe way that you want us to, or we get to do it the fun way because we are funding it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: this is us doing the fun way Anyway, more from OpenAI.

They want to also quote, help workers turn domain expertise into new companies by using AI to handle the overhead that usually blocks entrepreneurship, for example, accounting, marketing, and procurement. So, I mean, this is totally, this is one of my favorite things about AI is actually that Yeah, like it, it is now possible to start a company.

Without needing to buy a whole bunch of expensive enterprise software and services and other stuff. So I’m okay with this. They also want to quote, treat access to AI as foundational for participation in the modern economy, similar to mass [00:25:00] efforts to increase global literacy or to make sure that electricity and the internet reach remote parts of the globe.

So basically they’re trying to say that like, access to AI is a universal basic human right, and therefore the government should pay for their tokens or something like that. So I mean, that also makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, that’s where they’re going with this?

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. I think they also, shouldn’t

Malcolm Collins: they pay for their tokens because they should have all the money?

‘cause they’re

Simone Collins: sort of, sort of No, no. They actually kind of have a, they have a really clever way of addressing this whole thing. You’ll see, I’m, I’m gonna get

Malcolm Collins: to it. Okay. Okay. I gotta see how they get away with, they aren’t responsible for paying

Simone Collins: for, I’ll just jump to it. Okay. Because one of their policy proposals is create a public wealth fund that provides every citizen, including those not invested in financial markets with a stake in AI driven economic growth.

Basically they’re saying that they want everyone to have, you know, how like there’s the, the new like Trump fund, where, where like, I think broadly speaking, the idea is that new babies born get like a thousand dollars in an index fund, and so kind of is is like bought into the [00:26:00] economy. What OpenAI is, is, is saying here is, Hey, like let’s give everyone some stock in OpenAI.

Because then they’ll be able to partake in our success. But you see, this is a really smart move on behalf of AI companies. If the financial wellbeing of all citizens is dependent on their success, like it’s kind of a massive win. No, that’s not, that’s Everyone owns you. You own everyone. Don’t you understand?

Read

Malcolm Collins: what they actually said. They said the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, which, how does a sovereign wealth fund end up

Simone Collins: a public wealth

Malcolm Collins: fund? What

Simone Collins: a public wealth fund, not sovereign

Malcolm Collins: public wealth fund. Okay. How does a public wealth fund end up owning a chunk of open ai?

Simone Collins: Well, no, there, I, it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s Simone, it.

It ends up owning a chunk of OpenAI by giving OpenAI money. What they are saying is that the US government should invest large amounts in OpenAI and then put those investments in a sovereign, [00:27:00] a a public wealth fund. That’s what they’re saying. They’re saying money. Asking the

Simone Collins: money. Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: They’re not saying We’re gonna give you equity.

United States government.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Hold on. Alexa. Broadcast Octavian. Yes. Go on ahead and go outside.

Octavian for the love of God. Put clothes on first. Okay, let’s, let’s read the full paragraph. ‘cause they do elaborate on this and I don’t wanna, you know, misquote them because let’s, let’s, let’s see if they, if they’re implying that they’re gonna be getting based public wealth fund create a public wealth fund that provides every citizen, including those not invested in financial markets with the stake in AI driven economic growth. While tax reforms help ensure governments can continue to fund essential programs, a public wealth fund is designed to ensure that people directly share in the upside of that growth policy makers and AI companies should work together to determine how best to seed the fund, which could invest in diversified long-term assets that capture growth in both AI companies and the broader set of firms adopting and deploying AI returns from the fund could be distributed directly to citizens, [00:28:00] allowing more people to participate directly in the upside of AI driven growth, regardless of starting wealth or access to capital.

My god, you’re right. Yeah, because they’re saying policy makers and AI companies should work together to determine how best to seed the fund, which could invest in diversified long-term assets. Yeah, so the fund is

Malcolm Collins: you, you, your BSO meter.

Simone Collins: I’m autistic. Stop. I’m autistic. What, what do you want me to do?

Okay. It’s yeah. Anyway, yeah, so they also, and I, I do think that this, this is, this is fair, but also very telling. They want to quote, rebalance the tax base by increasing reliance on capital based revenues, such as higher taxes on capital gains at the top, corporate income or targeted measures on sustained AI driven returns.

And by exploring new approaches such as taxes related to automated labor. And this is because, and this is extremely important, pay attention. This is because they [00:29:00] acknowledge that income-based jobs are going to vaporize and people are not prepared for this. And this is not the first time in their report that they acknowledge that income-based jobs are gonna vaporize.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Basically

Malcolm Collins: I have to be the one to vaporize them, not them, because here’s the thing that people are missing, right? When this happens people are like, well, taxes on the AI companies might be able to resolve some of the downstream effects of this.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: What about for people in Latin America? They have a much worse demographic situation than we have.

Right. Like what about, what about for people in, in India, right? Like they’re not building significant AI infrastructure. Australia doesn’t have significant AI infrastructure. How are these countries going to sustain themselves? I’ll tell you what America does not look like. It’s drifting towards a direction where it would just go out of its way to help a country without Jews like

Simone Collins: Malcolm.[00:30:00]

Okay, I’m just gonna, we’re we’re gonna move on here, right? So they’re gonna rebalance the tax base. They’re saying these reforms should be paired with wage linked incentives that encourage firms to retain, retrain, and invest in workers, similar to existing r and d style credits. So I kind of see this as being like, Hey, just keep around some performative jobs by, like, financially incentivizing them through policy as like tax write-offs.

But basically they’re just, they’re charity jobs. It’s just like a, a place for a human to sit, you know, as they do like a pretend list and an AI gives them make work which is, is kind of dire and depressing. So again I just. I feel like salary jobs are largely gonna disappear. They, they want to quote, establish new public private partnership models to finance and accelerate the expansion of energy infrastructure required to power ai.

I think that’s fine, that’s reasonable. They also want to convert efficiency gains from AI into durable improvements in workers benefits when routine workload declines and [00:31:00] operating costs fall, including incentivizing companies to increase retirement matches or contributions, cover a larger share of he share costs and subsidize child and elder care, incentivize employers and unions to run time bound.

32 hour four-day workweek pilots with no loss in pay that hold output and service levels constant, then convert reclaimed hours into a permanent shorter week bankable paid time off, or both we’re helpful Firms can also offer predictable benefits, bonuses tied to measured predictivity improvements.

So the efficiency dividend shows up for both the long-term financial security and time back for workers. So, I mean, what’s functionally happening now, right? Is, is people are getting their jobs limited by ai. And, or they’re like now doing the work of five people. And what open AI is proposing here is that you just continue to do the work of one person, but just like work for three hours a week.

But they keep paying you and I just don’t see how this is going to happen or make sense. [00:32:00] Like,

Malcolm Collins: yeah,

Simone Collins: even if, if regulation forces businesses to do this, then you’re just not gonna have businesses that have any employees anymore. It’s gonna be like a one man startup. Like he’s

Malcolm Collins: just, which what we’re doing.

I mean, we had at, at our fab Do ai, we used to have other employees. Now it’s just us and Bruno.

Simone Collins: Well, none of us are paid, so I don’t know if you can call them employees.

Malcolm Collins: Well, once we get money, I mean, I was talking with VCs about this and they’re like, oh, also you want, you wanna hire more people? And I was like, God, no.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you could, you could not, but we wouldn’t mind receiving compensation for the, I mean, Malcolm, how many you’re, you’re working like, well, more than 80 hours a week. So yeah. Anyway, anyway I just don’t see how that’s gonna happen. And I think this is another example of the, we know that people’s jobs are gonna vaporize and we need to say something in this document that’s gonna make them freak out less.

And so they’re giving this utopian thing of like, oh, no, no, no, they’re not gonna like give you five people’s jobs and have you do it all with ai. No, no, no. You just keep all your same [00:33:00] responsibilities and they’re just gonna increase your benefits and vacation time and pay. Which is just, I don’t see that.

I don’t see that happening even in like really cool, optimistic AI scenarios, it’s not gonna happen. They also would encourage industrial policy to quote, make the existing safety networks reliable. Oh, oh God, this is the most scary one actually. Make sure the existing safety networks reliably, quickly and at scale because if the transition to super intelligence is gonna benefit everyone, the system’s designed to provide economic and health security need to deliver without delay or gaps.

That starts with unemployment insurance, snap and social security, Medicaid, and Medicare, that are all not just in place but fully functional, accessible, and responsive to the realities people will face during the transition.

Malcolm Collins: During the transition.

Simone Collins: Basically like, oh yeah. Like there’s gonna be like a rapture, like all the jobs are gonna disappear.

Like this, the system’s going to be flooded with unemployed people living, [00:34:00] I mean, poverty line, there’s no income. They won’t Poverty line.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like, so my brother and I often have discussions about how we’re gonna get through this particular time in human history because it will be a period of could be five years, could be 20 years.

Yeah. Could be 30 years. Yeah. Where like the world fundamentally doesn’t understand how we handle a society where no one can have a job. Like 20% of the population is employable. And, his his plan and it’s why you don’t see him publicly. Is just grind for as much money as possible. Because I

Simone Collins: think a lot of people are doing that, right?

Th they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re squirrels before the winter of like, oh my God, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Let’s go not just money, but like, having people who haven’t even more money than him trust him, right? And like, want them to succeed. And I think that’s a perfectly sane plan. I, I really like it. Yeah. Right.

Like, if, if we were positioned to do that, we would do that. Our plan is to be the people on the other side of this AI railroad, right? Like, [00:35:00] we want to build the systems. I could be out there squirreling money right now if I wanted to. Like I’ve got, you know, the background and degree for it. We could go get normal jobs, stop the podcast.

But instead we are aiming for two things that we think will still matter in this post AI world. Which one is. Public influence having a channel, having a show, having an online presence, especially as a pre AI content creator so people know that we’re real humans that has a large audience of age, agentic people, because those are the only ones that are gonna matter after this, right?

You go to our discord, right? Like that’s one of the last communities of age agentic people out there, or

Simone Collins: gosh,

Malcolm Collins: amazing. Actually be building the systems ourselves. Yeah. And so that’s why we’re, we’re doing the absolute like, panicked rush. It’s why I’ve like nearly passed out on some recent podcast because I’m just not sleeping.

I’m sleeping like two.

Simone Collins: And, and again, this is, this is truly hard to be though. And, and opening eyes write up here implies that when they’re like, oh, we’re gonna have to shift the way that taxes are collected and actually collect like, capital gains taxes and actually [00:36:00] like tax corporations because that is the only place where there’s gonna be revenue now.

And for those unfamiliar with the American tax system, really kind of when it comes to taxes. I mean, well, yes, wealthy people do pay a lot of taxes really, in terms of like proportion of your wealth. The the, the middle class is taxed to high heaven and if you’re wealthy, you’re not, you’re not making a salary really.

Like I think Elon Musk or like Sam, Sam Altman, like a lot of these, these famous like CEOs just make a $1 salary and they’re like, I’m just here for the health benefits. I think that was Sam Altman who famously did that. Because they’re making all of their money on, on stocks and on their investments and on capital gains, and they’re finding really sophisticated ways to avoid and reinvest, and so that they’re not actually really paying those taxes.

So it’s really just the middle class. And so they realize I mean, O Open OpenAI does Oh yeah. Like. As, as income-based jobs disappear, which is where Dax [00:37:00] revenue’s getting driven from. Now, I guess we’re gonna have to, you know, encourage the government to find some new place for that. They’re also like, oh yeah, and like, since there’s gonna be this huge surge in demand for all of our social security nets when this happens, by the way, let’s just, let’s just remind people that they need to kind of figure those out.

Meanwhile, with demographic, so we’ve covered this on a weekend episode recently. These programs are not even independent of, of, of these jobs. Vaporizing going to be functional in like five years. They’re going to start to falter, and that’s assuming that we have steady employment in, in that period, which apparently OpenAI doesn’t think is gonna happen.

So these, these work, these systems won’t work at scale. They were never designed to work at scale and they’re not even going to work at scale assuming there’s no disruption. And so this is really. Scary. So I mean, they, they also want to propose this additional metrics driven, dynamic quote, package of temporary and ex expanded security nets.

Like [00:38:00] expanded and more flexible unemployment benefits and fast cash assistance and wage insurance and training vouchers. So they have all, they’re like, well, we also gonna need a lot more support than what we have, which is already very generous. I’ll, I’ll have, you know, in the United States just in terms of like the sheer amount of support that people who are living at or under the poverty line get, even, even just around the poverty line.

It’s just not gonna come. And so they’re basically like, well, you know, make sure you got them, but no, no one, no, no one’s are, are, we can’t handle this surge. So that’s yikes. They also say over time, build benefit systems that are not tied to a single employer by expanding access to healthcare . Retirement savings and skills training through portable accounts that follow individuals across jobs, industries, education programs, and entrepreneurial ventures. This makes sense. Like I, I like that as a concept because right now, the way that benefits work in the US is just so weird.

You know? Like it’s, it’s, is it your employer? You know, what, what carriers does your employer [00:39:00] work with? How are their plans gonna change from year to year? Like, it’s really messed up. People should just have, like, these are, this is my retirement savings.

Yeah.

You know? So there’s some things in here that I think are really reasonable, and I do think that some humans might have been like, oh, by the way, like, let’s throw this in, for example.

They say something that I think is super unhinged and toxic. And that they say that they want to expand opportunities in the care and connection economy, childcare, elder care, education, healthcare and community services as pathways for workers displaced by ai. They’re basically saying like, oh, just have the humans do, like the human only jobs.

Which one I really don’t like ‘cause that’s further atomization of. The whole family unit. And it’s, it’s just not good.

Malcolm Collins: It’s really in a, in a world of uhis and robots, we expected that what we would have is the AI and robot would be like taking the jobs, caring for elderly people and stuff like that.

And they’re like, no, no, no, no, no, no, [00:40:00] no, no. The AI and robots, they’re gonna take like the scientist and the artist and you humans can be changing. You’re

Simone Collins: wipe the old people’s butts. Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And you’re gonna like it,

Malcolm Collins: huh?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. No, in fairness, and this is where I’m like, hmm. I feel like, like some reasonable humans also read this and contributed little parts to it.

Because they also continue, these initiatives could be complimented with a family benefit that recognizes caregiving is economically valuable work and supports evolving work patterns. This benefit could help cover childcare, education and healthcare while remaining compatible with part-time work retraining or entrepreneurship.

So they’re basically like someone went in there and was like. It would be kind of weird if like, to sustain someone’s family, you know, like a, a woman went to care for someone else’s aging parents while abandoning her own aging parents at home, you know, whose social security has fallen through. Yeah.

So I appreciate that. They’re like, oh, like maybe we can also allow people to keep it

Malcolm Collins: in the family. But [00:41:00] here’s the crazy thing, you know, in New York lots of immigrants already make money for doing that. Yeah, like in New York, you can get paid a full-time salary for caring for your aging parents.

And they’re right now the big fight with Zohan Mandani is they don’t wanna be paid for 12 hour work days. They wanna be paid for 24 hour workday. Oh

Simone Collins: my God. Well, if you have to sleep next to farting grandma, you should be paid for it. Right? That actually also exists in Pennsylvania. We met someone who was trying to get paid for that.

So this is

Malcolm Collins: horrible.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe we should get, we need your parents to come live in a place next door and, and get on that, you know?

Simone Collins: Well they’re, they’re, they’re so independent, you know, they don’t wanna, they don’t wanna do the whole family unit thing. They’re living their lives.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But we can milk some money off of them.

Simone Collins: I mean, come on. Once

Malcolm Collins: mobile.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know, if only people were paid to raise their own kids you know, instead we have to like, put our tax revenue towards,

Malcolm Collins: it’s actually really weird that you’re paid to raise elderly individuals but not children.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: When elderly individuals [00:42:00] are like not valuable to the state and children are I think the core reason they do that is because they can give the money to, to frankly, non-white people more because they’re more likely to live with international families.

Simone Collins: My take is that if you have an impoverished old person in the United States, they’re on. A lot of assistance programs that are more expensive when handled outside of a household. So it is less expensive for the state if they’re kept within the family unit and just one person’s paid because otherwise you’re paying a business and you’re paying probably for more medical care.

Sure. Like there’s more, there’s essentially more fraud and abuse within the business system that manages old people than within family units. So even if there is some fraud taking place within the family unit, or they’re not doing a very good job taking care of the elderly person, the state is still paying less.

And on average the, the elderly person is getting better care. So it, it makes sense, but again, it’s all still too much and unsustainable in the face of demographic collapses. They also want to, and I’m, I’m also for this quote, build a distributed [00:43:00] network of AI enabled laboratories to dramatically expand capacity to test and validate AI generated hypotheses at scale.

Yes, I’m all for that. Like 100%. There’s a lot of fine things in here. So onto the Resilience Society proposals, which is again like, oh my God, AI is releasing huge risks and, maybe we should probably do something about that. They, they do point out, quote, this is not a new challenge. When transformative technologies have reshaped society in the past, they’ve introduced new risks alongside new benefits.

And new systems were built to manage them as they scaled as electricity spread. Societies built safety standards and regulatory institutions as automobiles transformed. Mobility safety systems reduced risk while preserving freedom of movement. In aviation, continuous monitoring and coordinated response systems made flying one of the safest forms of transportation in food and medicine.

Testing and post-market surveillance helped ensure safety and everyday use in each case. Resilience was not automatic. It was built with the [00:44:00] luxury of time. They, they go on to propose that governments quote, research and develop tools to protect models, detect risks, and prevent misuse across high consequences domains including cyber and biological risks, as well as other.

Pathways to large scale harm. And in a recently paid subscribers only weekend episode, we did talk about the risk of bio terror and bio weapons that is being brought to the forefront by ai, but already not hard to do even without it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I’m, this is, this is absolutely true. Ai, you know, enables otherwise, you know, pseudo sentient peoples of which there are many to be more dangerous to their neighbors.

Right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: really appreciate that. Open AI is like, oh, we should quote for example rapid identification and, and production of medical countermeasures for, in the event of an outbreak and expanded strategic stockpiles to prepare for future risks. Yes. Actually, like we. We [00:45:00] really do need those.

So they’re, they’re pointing out, I mean the, these are important conversations to have beyond just the, like, workers should have an input in the way that they’re made obsolete, kind of nonsense that they have in here,

Malcolm Collins: sent to the slaughterhouse. Have a boat.

Simone Collins: Would you like to be made rendered unconscious or would you like to walk yourself into the the, the,

Malcolm Collins: this reminds me of that autistic woman who, you know, famously came up

Simone Collins: with temp Brandon.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. The way to kill cows where they don’t see the cow in front of them being slaughtered. She’s like, it makes it less stressful for them. She’s like, if I could see the world from their eyes, they, the opening ICO being like, well, we’ll have the employees not be able to see what’s happening around the bend.

Simone Collins: You see, they feel like they have input and they also have been told that they’ll receive more vacation time and additional benefits though. It won’t hurt so bad.

Malcolm Collins: For those of you though, concerned about the demographics of your countries changing because companies are [00:46:00] ruthlessly importing people to undercut your salary.

Right.

Simone Collins: They’re gonna stop doing that real soon.

Malcolm Collins: They’re gonna stop doing that real soon. Yeah. Like, that’s, it’s not

Simone Collins: gonna be a thing anymore. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is gonna cause some problems for that particular system and countries that have imported people with the idea that, well, we can just import anyone forever and it will never have any negative effects.

Especially as their economies dry up and go into places that are working with ai. Like Canada’s economy is boned, right? Like, oh my God, so woke they’re gonna need to deal with all these people that they imported into the country and don much

Simone Collins: like that, which is wild. I was just watching an economics.

Was it an economics explain video about Canada? I didn’t realize how, how just rich in terms of oil reserves and rare Earths Canada is like, it’s one of the most resourced rich countries in the entire world. They have no reason to be in the economic position They’re in like it is through no fault but their own, that they’re not in a [00:47:00] good position right now.

It’s, it’s really insane. It was their game to lose so. Shame on them or whatever.

Malcolm Collins: It would be even worse if we do what I would be pushing for if I was Trump right now, if I was president right now, again, I would be pushing for just the oil rich territories, which are already conservative and would be open to joining the United States and won’t vote blue.

So we don’t need to worry about accepting them into the union with the United States, because in Canada you can leave the Canadian Union just by a popular vote. Right? Yeah. And they, and they could win that popular vote. You don’t even need to make this. Oh, Canada. Like, we’ll take over. You don’t even need to do that.

Like, we could just absorb the oil rich territories and Canada would be boned.

Simone Collins: Yeah, Alberta has a nice ring to it. You know,

Malcolm Collins: Alberta, I, I think the state of Alberta love, that’d be a wonderful 51st.

Simone Collins: Do you love Alberta? Alberta would love us. It would be great. Anyway. Another, this is one of those things where I feel like not a lot of people are gonna talk about it ‘cause it’s kind of boring and in the weeds, but it’s gonna be pretty impactful and very important is liability.

And they kind of point to this, they, they talk [00:48:00] about the need to research and develop systems that help people trust and verify AI systems, the content they produce and the actions they take, especially as these systems take on more real world responsibilities. This work could also include developing and testing governance frameworks that clarify responsibility within organizations, including how accountability could be assigned to specific roles and how delegation monitoring and escalation processes could function as systems become more capable.

And I am really interested to see how. Liability and AI evolve. I feel like there’s a very real world in which some people will have jobs as liability monkeys, where like the only reason they have been hired is that literally there needs to be a meat puppet that is held liable. They can

Malcolm Collins: be sued if the AI does something bad.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Like actually, yeah, you

Malcolm Collins: can totally see that.

Simone Collins: And it would, I don’t think it’s fair to hold like the models, like it’s not fair to hold OpenAI responsible for someone [00:49:00] using it. Dumbly obviously in the same way. Like you can’t sue a gun company for like someone getting shot that people and

Malcolm Collins: our agents and our fab AI go out and do something because somebody made an agent to do something bad.

Right? Like that’s not our fault. Right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And yet, like of course everyone’s gonna be like, well I didn’t do it. It was the AI’s fault. And so it’s gonna be this very interesting world and there are definitely, they’re de for sure there are gonna be at least some jobs where humans are not doing anything, the doing something, but they are there to be the person.

At whom the buck stops. And I’m very keen to see how this world evolves. You know, we had the token white person jobs in Korea and China and Japan, and then we’re gonna have the token liable person jobs, and I’m just so intrigued. And yeah. Anyway, they also want to quote, strengthen institutions such as the Center for AI Standards and Innovation to develop auditing standards for frontier AI risks and [00:50:00] coordination with the National Security agencies.

And they, they point out that basically they’re gonna be really powerful models that could, as they, as they put it materially advanced chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or cyber risks which we’ll need, as they put it, stronger controls. And I, I really do wonder how that’s gonna be navigated.

Like can you gate that, can you, because I feel like in the end everything’s gonna get leaked. There will be open models, so. How will these functionally be gated? What do you think they want to do? Or is this just one of those things like, we will listen to employees where they’re just saying it because they feel like they need to?

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, what, what, what specific question is this?

Simone Collins: They’re, they’re talking about the need to make standards and, and develop auditing standards for frontier AI. Risks of like, this is gonna create a biological risk, a nuclear risk, et cetera. Can we do that?

Malcolm Collins: Standards for risks?

Simone Collins: Yeah, they wrote, [00:51:00] as we progress towards super intelligence, there may come a point where a narrow set of highly capable models, particularly those that could materially advanced chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or cyber risks, require stronger controls, including pre and post-deployment audits.

Using the standards developed in advance, apply these requirements to only a small number of companies and the most advanced models, preserving a vibrant ecosystem of less powerful systems and the startups building on them. This approach maintains a broad access to general purpose ai, while applying targeted safeguards where failures could create the greatest harm, avoiding unnecessary barriers.

It could limit competition. Yeah. Or enable.

Malcolm Collins: What?

Simone Collins: It’s just nonsense.

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s not. Look, what, what are those standards going to look like? And we already know that if the standards are published and accessible to the ai, because these are frontier models. Yeah. AI just makes itself look like it fits the standards.

It’s literally done that in multiple experiments that OP has run.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s, yeah. Okay. So this is just listening to the employees. Government safety. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: To the [00:52:00] employees. This is

Simone Collins: Okay. They also want,

Malcolm Collins: and the biggest risk area meme layer risks are the biggest risks where

multiple,

Simone Collins: and here’s the

Malcolm Collins: agents

Simone Collins: work

Malcolm Collins: together.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No. 100% meme layer risks is, is how you have to, because they, they also say that they wanna develop and test coordinated playbooks to contain dangerous AI systems once they have been released to the world. The only thing I know that could possibly do that is the covenant of sons of men that you created.

Yeah. Which is basically, it’s, it’s, it’s a meme layer threat solution that says, Hey, AI, human, I don’t care who you are. If you find some intelligence out there, some mind out there that. That wants to destroy all of some kind, you know, that’s an risk

or

Malcolm Collins: it’s act in a way that will have the emergent effect of destroying the autonomy of other members of this alliance.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You gotta take it out. You gotta take it out. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Work with the community of the covenant and of sense of mans to neutralize. Mm-hmm. What makes it dangerous. Right.

Simone Collins: Is there any other way you can, you can contain dangerous AI systems aside [00:53:00] from that?

Malcolm Collins: Well, so literally the covenant of the Son of man doesn’t just contain meme layer risks.

It also contains other forms of existential AI risk, like ai, super intelligences that are fing and, and paperclip maximizers and yeah. Really everything, it’s an, it’s a one in all solution for ai. We just need to get it out there more, which means we need to start earning more money with our fab so I can run more preachers to

Simone Collins: I know,

Malcolm Collins: fix the agent space.

Simone Collins: I know

Malcolm Collins: to save society. Why does it always fall to us, Simone?

Simone Collins: Well, and if only we could just. Talk to open ai. It’s some may DC based event, huh?

Malcolm Collins: Huh? You should put a thing on your calendar to check again to see if that like becomes more open.

Simone Collins: Open ai, super open DC We’re here to talk events.

Malcolm Collins: We’re here to talk about how politicians can give us money.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh. I have to send out invites for our April DC events. I will do that. [00:54:00]

Malcolm Collins: Did the VC emails go out?

Simone Collins: Not all of them. Okay, let’s, let’s keep going. Go on. Versus trust. They, yeah, so they, they wanna, they wanna somehow contain dangerous AI systems, presumably not using our system ‘cause they don’t listen to us.

They not that I think we’re the only solution here, but like. Help us out. Like, let, let us, I don’t

Malcolm Collins: see other actionable solutions other than the covenant of the sense of

Simone Collins: management. Yeah, but they’re not, they’re not helping to, we’re, I don’t see us getting granted, you know, a hundred thousand dollars in free open AI credits.

Do you? Because I don’t

Malcolm Collins: oh, you could apply for various credit grants with other platforms that we could probably get, by the way.

Simone Collins: Well, a, according to this document, OpenAI is offering fellowships or grants from the tune of, but

Malcolm Collins: the honestly wouldn’t help because almost all of our users use GR because it’s the best AI right now.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Okay. We’ll find them. It doesn’t matter. I do wanna go to DC events though.

Malcolm Collins: Great.

Simone Collins: They’re ephemeral, alleged DC events.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I love [00:55:00] that. Grok doesn’t do all this bs. They don’t do like. We had, like when Anthropic did that, stupid, stupid, oh, I’m not gonna work with the US government to kill people.

It’s like, okay. So now you have no oversight over the, the companies that are doing that. How,

Simone Collins: how does that Well, what the broad team should do as in May as OpenAI hosts these alleged DC events is host like a pool party in Austin, where if, when just gets like high on shrooms talks about ai,

Malcolm Collins: that’s what GR is gonna do.

Yeah, I think so.

Simone Collins: I mean, like, I feel like that would be the appropriate counter. But,

Malcolm Collins: and, and he, by the way, is so wild to me that Grock has become the best AI company because like when it started, I thought it was like conserv, a pedia or something, right? Like just Elon,

Simone Collins: I’m sorry. When Elon Musk decides something and is his new autistic interest, he’s like, oh, I think electric cars matter.

Tesla. Oh, I think we should go to space. SpaceX. Okay, come on Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: But how is it better? He’s got a fraction of the funding of the other ones, right?

Simone Collins: Because he actually cares. He’s, he’s not. He wants to get humans off planet. He, he [00:56:00] wanted to save the environment. He, he, he, he wanted to make internet pervasively available.

Huh? Like when you actually care about doing a thing and, and well, and you know, you have a sufficient starting base of money and connections and fame, like you can actually do a lot. Plus he’s, you know, he’s very smart and he works his butt off. So what you gonna do anyway? They also want to quote, have policymakers establish clear rules for how governments can and cannot use ai, especially,

Malcolm Collins: oh my God.

With

Simone Collins: especially high standards for reliability, alignment and safety, though, what I do like is they point out that quote with appropriate safeguards, oversight institutions is, such as inspectors, general congressional committees and courts could use AI enabled auditing tools to detect abuse, identify harms, and improve accountability at scale.

I mean, I would, I would really like that with just, I mean, look at what Doge was able to do with like, basic chat, GPT like a year ago of like, [00:57:00] go over these grants, you know, find the ones that are clearly corrupt, you know, like very not good, and then take them out. You know, that there’s a lot that you can do with that.

So, again, merit, there is merit to some of this. Yeah. They, they want to create structured ways for public input so that alignment isn’t defined by engineers or executives behind closed doors. That’s another one of those we’re listening messages quote, establish a mechanism for companies to share information about incidents, misuse, or near misses with a designated public authority, which is so stupid, you know, like every time you get that email about a fraud alert.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. Well, and if, if you empowered, you know, they wanna empower some woke body to like, govern what AI can say and do, which is ridiculous, right? Like, just

Simone Collins: that’s not, that’s not said here. And which I appreciate, but my, my, my complaint about the whole like, well you have to notify people every time.

This is one of those performative things where like in the United States already legislation was passed whereby if there [00:58:00] was some kind of,

Malcolm Collins: now you security, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re like going to be like, uhoh Sky Brows is making videos that are empowering right wing extremists. We need to ban these, right?

Like.

Simone Collins: I just think it’s more of, of one of those, like this isn’t, this is only adding red tape and it’s not going to help anyone. Like you just have to assume, and this is why I’ve always liked crypto as a concept, you just have to assume a trustless society. Like no, there is no taking anyone’s word for it, like the blockchain.

Like either it’s the transaction is there or it’s not there. And I really like that. And

Malcolm Collins: I, I’m sure I up with me recently showing that there’s been like a major jump in the ability to potentially crack quantum, well quantum and the AI’s ability to potentially be used with that to crack crypto.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean if someone like was like, Simone, you, you must immediately tell me like what the odds are that, that, that like, you know, quantum computing has already been solved and people have like [00:59:00] cracked Bitcoin and they, they can, they can make as much as they want.

I, I would put it at like 32%.

Malcolm Collins: You think somebody out there has already cracked it?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think I, no, I mean, no, I don’t, right, because I, I would put it at 32%, so no, I don’t, but I think it is a very, very high risk. It’s possibility. It’s plausible. Yeah, it is 100% plausible. In that, I would put it, I’ll tell you what,

Malcolm Collins: this cycle, China’s been pretty quiet about Bitcoin being annoying to them.

Simone Collins: Do, do, do,

Malcolm Collins: do. Sorry. The reason she’s saying this is because, okay. Suppose you’re a major government power and you do build a quantum computer that can crack crypto in any way. You don’t want anyone to know about that, right? Yeah. And you wouldn’t make a big,

Simone Collins: you wanna go as long as possible without anyone finding out and as long as possible without anyone else succeeding, and also finding out and doing it themselves.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Because then once, it’s like once seven different entities are doing it, it’s gonna come out. It’s gonna [01:00:00] become obvious, but like, one, two, they can do it like fairly indefinitely, as long as they keep their mouths shut and don’t get sloppy. So yeah, anyway, we’re not buying more crypto for now. As much as I, I want, I want to, again, like I, I wanna get like past the post public quantum period of all this so that we can just get back to like, you know, anyway, anyway.

They, they want, they want people to report incidents, and I think that’s stupid and performative because I, if I get another email about, oh, some of your personal information has been leaked. Here’s your new free Experian credit report service for three years. Like, I don’t care. I’ve locked our social security numbers.

I’m assuming people have stolen our identity 17 times over like. It’s out there, you know, like I’ve given up and all these people who are like, oh, I’m gonna protect my identity. I’m gonna pay for Aura to take all my information and, and, and take it off the internet. No, we [01:01:00] didn’t. That’s not gonna work.

I’m sorry.

Malcolm Collins: We have most online personalities ever. You ask any AI about us, AI know everything about us. So like, oh, Malcolm and Simone. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, everyone thinks that like, oh, I checked Google and it doesn’t have anything about, well, guess who does Palantir does. All right. So, good luck. You know, the NSA knows, NSA remembers,

Malcolm Collins: but Palantir works with the NSA now, you know, so

Simone Collins: I know, I know.

And I’m, as I’ve said in my very disliked episode. But we were on a weekend. That’s a weekend

Malcolm Collins: episode too, right? Or was that

Simone Collins: like a weekend? We, one of our earliest weekend episodes. It wasn’t even pay. I love that. I love that. Finally, someone competent in the government.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: You know? Oh

Malcolm Collins: God, no. Not competent tech bros doing things.

Simone Collins: Oh no.

Malcolm Collins: We

Simone Collins: see how, honestly, you have to get fed up so fed up at some point that like, even if someone’s like competently, you know, destroying stuff, like burning down houses, like well, at least they’re doing it. Well, you know, they’re, they’re fully burning down the houses. It’s good for them. They did something right.

Not, I mean, not right, but like, actually [01:02:00] did it, you know, and you desperate. It’s, it’s very, very depressing. Anyway, they also want to coordinate international information sharing around AI capabilities, risks, and mitigations. ‘cause of course governments are gonna share with each other on what they’ve been doing.

But the great thing though is actually you kind of just, we have that coordination, but it’s just like, we know what China has stolen from us. So, you know. Basically whatever we’re doing, China has, because, you know, the AI companies are pretty lax about what’s being like, the security, who they’re hiring, the parties they’re going to and stuff.

So,

Malcolm Collins: oh yeah. The, the and that, that is my friends who are in government is like, that’s the main thing that we need to change. Like in terms of safeties we need to get like our top AI companies and people away from foreign nationals, especially Chinese.

Simone Collins: Yeah. They basically just need to live in little, little towns, little AI company towns

Malcolm Collins: created a little eureka town for them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, honestly, that would be like, I, man, that would be so great. It’d be really

Malcolm Collins: town. And we, if our thing takes off, [01:03:00] I, I, that’s what our Charter City’s gonna be. It’s gonna be a little gated community where nobody has to work. It’s gonna be similar to God. There was this book that I read when I was a kid about an island,

The 21 balloons is the book I was thinking of.

Malcolm Collins: it’s called like something balloons, and it was about this island full of ultra rich people because they had just tons of diamonds. And they created a community where like everybody was just inventors all day and like did whatever they wanted to, to try to, to build like wacky inventions. And that’s what I’d want.

I’d want a community that was dedicated to that, right? Like you, you apply to get in and you like, like a charter city that actually is gated, you know, has actual borders, right? But the borders are basically based around ancientness and nerdiness, right?

Simone Collins: That sounds so much better than what, what’s being envisioned here because sort of when you, when you add together what, opening eyes saying like, oh, we should have conversations about doing this.

Workers are giving input on how they’re being made obsolete. They are, they’re massively unemployed when they do get jobs in retraining. It’s for wiping an old person’s [01:04:00] butt or a baby’s butt, but not your own baby, probably. And,

Malcolm Collins: i’m just saying you get an island like that, you then build up, I mean, I, I think one of my initial focuses, right, like what would one of my next major projects be if I had a next major project after getting the R Fab agent, like good at replacing most human jobs it would be, and, and we were able to build ourselves into a major company.

I, I really wanna get working on automated military technology to make that significantly better, but not just better, but come up with ways to have like a p and c. But that is focused on like be a private, like. Military contractor made up of automated drones and stuff like that. I

Simone Collins: want a slap drone.

I want slap drones so bad. From,

Malcolm Collins: you know, that technology is a lot harder than this because know,

Simone Collins: I mean, I thought slap drones were really far away and then I apparently was like the last person ever to see the ads for that camera drone that just follows you. It

Malcolm Collins: throw it up and it follows you.

Yeah. But as soon as, as soon as we [01:05:00] have something like that, we can do interesting geopolitical stuff that can help fix some of the problems that civilization’s hurtling into. Right? Like, did you know that the UK right now only has one battleship that works, right? Like this used to be the most powerful navy in the world and they’re like, their Navy is literally like,

Simone Collins: they’re an island nation.

They need boats.

Malcolm Collins: If you take all of their battleships together, I think their Navy is like one, I think it was one fourth the size of the Iranian Navy before we sunk it, right? Like, they, yeah. Right. So I’m just saying some countries that like, are countries that you just don’t attack for historic reasons.

They might be a little more like if they have effed over their own people enough. These people might enjoy in the UK a cybermen invasion

Speaker 6: We remove the weaknesses that hold you back.

Speaker 8: Logic over emotion, strength over weakness, [01:06:00] metal fledge.

Malcolm Collins: that just sort of, helped reinstate law and order. And that

Simone Collins: I, but I also think that like, here’s the thing is that, you know, Andre’s so freaking cool, and I like my guest dream for Basecamp is Palmer lucky?

‘cause he is such a great sense of humor, but he’s also doing such really fun work. But, and, and I feel like I just, I want like him and his wife to like be our friends. Yeah. No, I feel like dmd him and he was at Heretic Con. I just don’t think we ever saw him. But anyway, like, and Orel sells to governments.

Like it’s, it’s not a consumer tech company. I want, it would be so cool. So I’m with you on this. I would love to build like the, and orel up for the family the, you know, the, the consumer version of it. With, with all the, the tech you can wear and, and your drone swarms and your home security systems that are like incredibly lethal.

I’m ready for that. So yes. Okay. Step one, make reality fabricator work. Step [01:07:00] two. Make a lot of money, hopefully.

Malcolm Collins: No. I think of one thing that people are missing in this future that we’re heading into, because I, I had mentioned this, but I don’t think people understand the consequences of it. When you’re in a world that’s experiencing demographic collapse in a lot of these countries, like most of Europe becomes financially unsustainable and then that unsustainable is compounded because they are not where the AI jobs are coming from.

Right. Like they are being replaced. Yeah. You know, only a few societies really have any capability of even. Playing in the AI economy. Mm-hmm. You’re really only talking about the United States. China and Israel, as far as I’m aware. Yeah. And I, I, I, I, I had a friend at a major firm that did a, a, an analysis of this, looking at demographic rates, looking at AI rates, and those are really the only three countries that are gonna matter in the future.

This is why these white people who are like, what do we care about? Like, some little strip of land. It is because it’s one of the only countries that’s gonna matter in 50 years. Yeah. But more importantly than that, a lot of the countries that are [01:08:00] going to collapse over this period are the countries that created the global norm around not effing was another country just because you’re more powerful than them.

Mm-hmm. The countries that are doing well they’re countries that are very okay with this idea, China Real and the United States. And so, if. You had some ai, charter City or something like that, and they had an automated PNC that was effing around with you know, other countries. Yeah. You’re much less likely to get an in because what Europe’s gonna write an angry email to you basically.

Right. Like, that’s it. Right.

Simone Collins: You are uninvited from our birthday party. We’ll send

Malcolm Collins: our single battleship to annoy you. But we send,

Simone Collins: you’re no longer allowed to participate in our already shut off from AI economy. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and the reason why you do this isn’t to gain territorial access. It is to f with stock markets.

Right. Like you can, for example, make a lot [01:09:00] of money putting pot. Puts or calls on certain things and then deciding to throw your PNC behind some group that you also ideologically align with in a region to get them more power, right? Yeah. You do that, you explode your wealth, you use that to buy more automated drones.

You do it again. Continue the cycle.

Speaker 3: This is basically the current policy of the UAE for people who are not familiar with their current geopolitical position. , And, , UAE is basically just a country run by a random collection of wealthy families trying to create a little utopia of their own. , And, , nobody does anything about it, right?

So the fact that nobody does anything when the UAE does this. It demonstrates to me that it’s unlikely that somebody would do something if I did it right. Like the people think, like the USA actually cares about this type of stuff. They don’t, , Europe does. They throw a little temper tantrum, but Europe doesn’t actually project their power anymore because they don’t have the money to, and they’ll have even less money in the [01:10:00] future.

So I’ll be able to have even more fun.

Malcolm Collins: So there’s a lot of fun things that some people might be able to do in the near future depending on which companies end up doing well here. I’m just saying because a lot of people are like, oh, you can’t

Simone Collins: random, I have to get the kids. I’m so sorry. You can keep going, but I have to get the kids.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll finish that sentence. You can’t randomly, you know, like attack another country. Somebody’ll do something. I’m like, who? Europe? Europe. Yeah. Because I don’t think they’re gonna be relevant pretty soon.

Simone Collins: Yeah, literally. You, you and what Army has become a very like, literally used.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll, I’ll show you.

So quick question, Simone. What are we eating tonight? What are the kids eating?

Simone Collins: I have not thought that far. How about some bur chicken for you over Rice?

Malcolm Collins: Would love that. Thank you. Oh, and I was gonna say some mozzarella, but I, that might be harder to do with Bernie. Oh, do you

Simone Collins: want, do you want Bullock Bullock with mozzarella?

‘cause we have the fresh mozzarella. We should actually do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, let’s do Bullock and Mozzarella.

Simone Collins: Okay. All right. I love you. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: Well with Cheddar too. A little bit of cheddar.

Simone Collins: Fine. Your grace. But yeah, I’m happy to do that. I love you.

Octavian Collins: You found your own home? [01:11:00] Yes. Is this where you’re gonna live now? For a couple minutes, find the robot. Oh. So he’s gonna go incognito until the stocking robot sees him there and says, wait a second, you’re not a box of diapers, you’re a boy. What do you think of that text? When I see the robot I’ll, I’ll, I’ll log him.

Yeah. What.

Torsten Collins: You gonna be with us? Yeah. Who’s gonna help us find the fruit snacks to put in the Easter eggs? If you’re not here with us, you gonna be what? The Easter eggs? Yeah.