Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Dive into a provocative and in-depth discussion as Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect the mythos of “Hipster Hitler” and challenge the mainstream narratives around fascism, socialism, and the historical legacy of Adolf Hitler. This episode explores Hitler’s early life as a failed art student, his Bohemian lifestyle in Vienna, and the surprising parallels between his ideology and modern leftist movements.

Discover the lesser-known aspects of Hitler’s personality: his vegetarianism, animal rights advocacy, drug use, and fascination with pagan and occult symbolism. The conversation also delves into the Nazi regime’s environmentalism, anti-smoking campaigns, and the complex relationship with Christianity and Judaism.

Through sharp analysis and witty banter, Malcolm and Simone reveal how history has been rewritten, why certain figures are idolized or demonized, and what lessons can be drawn for today’s political climate. The episode concludes with a comparison to Oliver Cromwell, offering a fresh perspective on hero worship and the dangers of historical revisionism.

If you’re ready for a thought-provoking, no-holds-barred conversation that challenges conventional wisdom, this is the episode for you.

Like, comment, and subscribe for more deep dives into history, politics, and culture!Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be having an introing conversation. That’s probably going to shock you because you think I’m just memeing here or doing like shock, you know, oh, I title card baiting. But no in reality. And we have another episode on this.

Real fascism has never been tried. But I point out that what fascism actually was, was just what today we call socialism. Yeah. And that they, the, the socialists and leftists who ran the university system sort fully had to rewrite history and create this alternate government type that somehow just doesn’t exist in the world today and only existed during this one little window because we all agree that the fascist governments were bad and they don’t want us to realize that these were just socialist governments.

But the secondary thing. Is you will get individuals like Nick Fuentes and kids who grow up brainwashed on this in believing this. Right. And so then they’ll say things like, Nick Fuentes will, like, oh, Hitler may have been a bit of a pedo and he may have been a bit pagan, but like he would a cool, we’ll get into it.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Speaker: Himler [00:01:00] was a pedophile and kind of a pagan, it’s like, well, he was also really cool. So, you know, time to grow up. We’re not, we’re not children anymore. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right boys? Am I right? Let’s go.

Malcolm Collins: And I have to take a step back here and be like. What a cuck you are. Nick Hitler was the biggest, hipster, socialist art student you have ever seen in your life when you read the actual history of Hitler’s life. Hitler, if he was living today before his rise to power would have a blue hair, a handlebar mustache, and be serving you macchiatos at Starbucks.

While he talked about how much he hated the Jews, which by the way, the socialists still do. Oh yeah. And have done from beginning things

Simone Collins: just never go outta style, which

Malcolm Collins: we know what I mean. We point out, you know, the early communist leaders all [00:02:00] hated the Jews. Marks hated the Jews. Y you know, all, all these early people, none of the early, like American founding fathers hated the Jews.

You know, as we point out, Jews could vote in twice of the, the states that Catholics could vote in, in the, in the in the colony period. Like, nobody, the people who have always had a problem with the Jews. We’re the socialist and communist. And we, we do that through line there. But as I go through Hitler, to anyone who has accidentally been brainwashed into having an ounce of respect for this man, because you believed the progressive lies about who he is, this will completely transform your perception of him.

Simone Collins: Oh boy. I’m excited for this. ‘cause, yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t invested that much time in learning about. Adolf Hitler. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So who was Hitler?

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Hitler’s academics were poor. He flunked out of secondary school, RHA and Lynns, and later in Steyer lacking the credentials for higher pursuits. Mm-hmm. And Mein Koff, he [00:03:00] specifically blamed this on his tyrannical father s Hitler, who insisted on a practical career like a civil servant rather than art.

Cool. Hitler didn’t like this. He claimed that he underperformed intentionally as a rebellious choice uh, to force his father to relent, describing the clash of wills where his passion for freedom and independence triumphs over paternal oppression. So in Minkoff, if you, if you look at Hitler’s life, right?

He failed at everything he did in the early days. He said, I didn’t really fail. I just wasn’t applying myself because I wanted to be an artist. Mm-hmm. I wanted to be more free. Mm-hmm. I’m terrible because of my controlling father who had too many rules. Mm-hmm. First of all, does this sound like a conservative guy to you?

Does this sound like a conservative icon to you? This is a guy who complained about all the rules and just wanted to be an artist. Mm. So what did he [00:04:00] do? So, his father dies. Okay. And he basically runs off with his inheritance. Right. So he ends up dropping outta school. And then he moves to Vienna, which was like the moving to Manhattan of the time in 1907.

Oh yeah. Oh my gosh.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Vienna. Very much hipster Paradise. Yeah, paradise. I was moving in

Malcolm Collins: San Francisco or moving to Manhattan of the time period,

Simone Collins: or Austin these days. I don’t know. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With dreams of becoming. A painter. He applied to the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but was rejected twice.

First in 1907 for unfitness of painting. And again in 1908 where examiners noted his drawings lacked talent and artistic painting and suggested an architecture instead.

Simone Collins: There’s gotta be a. Market for Hitler’s paintings. Right. I know there was a, there is, and we’ll go. His diaries were famously forged by someone, but,

Malcolm Collins: but wait, like, like to, to understand the, all of the beginnings of Hitler’s life.

Mm-hmm. It was basically a bunch of people saying you should get a practical stem-like degree. And him [00:05:00] saying. I want to get a degree in the odds. I want to be an artist.

And they’re like, well, his dad was first like, well, why, why don’t you become a civil servant? They make real money. You can make things work.

No, dad, I’m gonna flunk out of school. Just despite you. He said with his that the, that era’s version of a handlebar mustache, his little hipster thing. You note that like. This was not a normal thing of the time period. We’ll get into where it came from. His, his mustache was literally that generation’s version of a hipster’s, handlebar mustache.

And and require an

Simone Collins: extra level of maintenance. Yeah. This isn’t like the low maintenance beard. This is something he Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: people will know, by the way, which is actually really hilarious. They’ll be like, oh, Hiller was never actually a hardcore socialist, even though he repeatedly said it. And he said that that was one of the, the National

Simone Collins: Socialist party leader.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But they’ll say because he was interested in pure socialism even before that. Right. Okay. And they’ll say no, he was paid by the government to go to these rallies. Yeah. And he was paid by the government to go to the Nazi rallies as well. He went to the [00:06:00] rallies, he was interested in you know, he, he was not actually pure spying.

He just found a hack to do, be able to basically be a beat poet of that era professionally by telling the government he was betraying people, making him the ultimate hipster. But what I’m pointing out here right, is. Okay, so he goes to live this Bohemian life in Vienna. Right. Okay. Okay. Weird. There’s avant-garde ideas and intellectuals and artists.

And he, he goes there specifically and repeatedly because he refuses to do anything practical with his life or educate himself. Actually, she, the first time did he go to try to become a better artist? Yeah. Is there ever any evidence that he actually tried to improve himself or his paintings?

Simone Collins: No. No, I’m looking it up now.

I’m trying to, I I, I’ve, I’ve never actually seen any of Hitler’s paintings, so I’m looking They’re

Malcolm Collins: fine. They, they look like a normal, like kids’ paintings like, like semi competent. It’s exactly the type of arrogant fail sun you would expect. Oh,

Simone Collins: they’re, they’re, they’re sweet. They’re, they’re landscapes.

They’re, they’re very uninspired. [00:07:00] They’re boring. They’re paid by the numbers. Yeah. They, they look kind of like, what I’d expect to see is like. One of the illustrations in the middle of a book that’s about like historical.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Hold on. No, no. It gets worse. He lived in a group house, so Oh, no, no, no.

He goes, no, he goes to Vienna. Oh, sweetie. And he crashes with his childhood buddy. August ogre? No. Oh no. In a rented room above a tailor shop. Oh. He where were we going? Forget that sounds

Simone Collins: so like. A manic, pixie dream girl. He, he

Malcolm Collins: explicitly avoided. This is so cottage

Simone Collins: core. I’m looking at more of his art.

Okay, so he is, he draws cottage core and he lives in a group house.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so, so he explicitly avoided day like real jobs because he believed that they cramped his creative vibe, Uhhuh, and he spent his days wandering cafes and upper houses Uhhuh, soaking up the avant garde lifestyle of this ter hipster indie festival.

Oh my God. Now, now if you’re listening to any of this, you could say. [00:08:00] Huh, that sounds weird. I thought he was selling his paintings as like postcards on like the roadside. How did he have the money to live this lifestyle?

Simone Collins: How did he have the money to live this lifestyle? Well, he was burning through his inheritance.

Oh God. He was

Malcolm Collins: a literal trust fund baby. NPO baby. Oh his financial sense.

Simone Collins: Adolf Hitler net. NPO baby.

Malcolm Collins: Not even NPO baby. ‘cause he didn’t even have that much inheritance. He just burned through

Simone Collins: the

Malcolm Collins: little he had to

Simone Collins: live. Dear. Ridiculous.

Malcolm Collins: Lifestyle because he hadn’t done what his father and everyone was responsibility in his life.

Like the examiners had told him, why don’t you become an architect? You, you clearly have no talent for this.

Simone Collins: So anyway, wait is runs outta this why he went into politics ‘cause he ran outta money and couldn’t be an artist anymore.

Malcolm Collins: Well, he went into spying for the government to fund his lifestyle of hanging out at these avant-garde things, which he was doing before this.

This is important to note. He didn’t just go to these socialist meetings because he was being paid. He was already going to them, and that’s why they decided to pay him. Yeah. But anyway, to continue [00:09:00] here mm-hmm. Hit, hit rock bottom in Vienna’s underbelly, bouncing between homeless shelters and men’s hostiles while cleaning.

Artist identity described as floppy and somewhat effeminate in his youth. Keep in mind, Hitler not tough masculine. He was considered effeminate and was actually very well known for really being bad with women and becoming shy around women and having trouble talking. He is not he. He actually is like. I dubs.

I wouldn’t even say Destiny. Destiny is more Chad than Hitler.

Simone Collins: Well, I have to say that Visit Kyle is the most, it’s the gayest salute that I think exists if there is a, a gay salute, not that I have really good,

Malcolm Collins: I’ve seen their outfits. You know, there is they’re

Simone Collins: fabulous. Stop. I mean, well, that’s the problem.

Yeah. So anyway, he

Malcolm Collins: spent hours debating philosophy and politics at coffee houses. Yeah. Waiting on the Virgo Z while living the precarious anti establishment existed.

Simone Collins: Sorry. Every time is not even consistent. [00:10:00] Mispronounce burgers,

Malcolm Collins: burger, hay, bourgeoisie. Sorry, Simone. I cannot allow foreign words to grace my American tongue.

Carry on. I don’t wanna say these comedy words. It’s my favorite French comedy. Yes,

you’re on. He wants

sent a postcard gushing about Vienna’s Opera House during his first visit, by the way. So anyway, also impressive. He also also like really into like the poetry and operas of the period. I mean, this is where it’s love when people like Wagner came from, right?

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

And, and this is in part, you, you see this was early nasm. They were obsessed with elitist culture. No, they claim to be an anti-elitist force yet like your typical. Hipster socialite. They’ll complain and complain and complain about the elites who control everything. Yeah. And then they abstract the elites into this abstracted other, the Jews.

And they actually lived their entire lives trying to mimic elitist culture, IE the culture of the urban monoculture. [00:11:00] Right. That was urban Hitler. Hitler was the cockiest of cooked progressives, but we’re not done yet.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. Okay. Wow. What,

Malcolm Collins: what did what I Fuentes mean when he called him a pedo? Yeah, so there are rumors about Hitler’s relationship with young women, particularly his niece, GLI Rabble.

She lived with him in 1925 when he was 17. Sorry, she was 17 and. 36. Whoa. Until her Unli in 1931 at the age of 23. Oh. So we don’t claim he was obsessively controlling and possibly sexually involved. However, this is unproven, but hey, even Nick Ez is saying, Hey baby. Now keep in mind this was not.

I’d even say like, I don’t, I don’t even think the guys who like, think like beings, like controlling or what, like, like being like a dominant male is cool or whatever. Mm-hmm. And like ignoring women’s ENT is cool. Even the men who are like, that are like, and it was his niece. Yeah. And, and he was an effeminate guy.

[00:12:00] Who was extremely controlling, right? Like mm-hmm. In his use. He was well attested, he was seen as very feminine. This is not the cool giga Chad. This is the creepy. We need to rescue that girl. But to continue. Where did you get the, the toothbrush mustache? So this was considered quirky in the early 19 hundreds.

No, no. It was supported from America and it was popular among the sort of hipster working class like avant-garde types. IE it was similar to like a handlebar mustache today that somebody like obsessively, very hipster it’s a high

Simone Collins: maintenance mustache. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Started cutting it that way because he earlier had a more longer mustache, but he had to cut it off during World War I so that his gas mask could fit.

And he sort of kept it on as like a like a cool, oh, I did that. I did that World War I thing. Oh. Note here, if you’re forgetting. A lot of people will note that Hitler was a vegetarian for health reasons.

Simone Collins: This is what, what, so what were the health reasons?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that’s there, [00:13:00] there were some, but it’s mostly historical revisionism.

He was not vegetarian for health reasons. We know this because the Nazis famously were constantly pushing veganism as a core value. The reason why they have said Hitler was a vegetarian for health reasons is because they want to hide. How much his ideology looks like modern socialism outside of eating.

Oh, because he

Simone Collins: was actually just a vegetarian, you’re saying? He

Malcolm Collins: was actually just a vegetarian for ethical reasons. So to go into this, okay. By the 1930s, Hitler had adopted a mostly vegetarian diet, often preaching that meat eating was ruining civilization and pushing for plant-based rejuvenation. On society when telling story.

He despised formal banquets, not just because of his gut issue, chronic ulence and his in, in constant veggie commitment. But because they highlighted the quote unquote immense disparity between riches and poverty in quote, which he saw as a negative thing because again, he was a socialist and he hated class distinctions.

People are like, Nazism wasn’t like. It was, it was, he hated, he hated class distinctions. Now let’s talk [00:14:00] about animal welfare. The Nazis were pioneers in animal welfare, passing some of the world’s first comprehensive laws in 1933, including the bands on no section and force feeding and mistreatment of animals in films on, on public displays.

Hitler himself was a dog lover, famously devoted to his German Shepherd. Blondie and supported conversation was leaders like Herman Geral pushing anti-hunting and environmental practices. These laws targeted, quote unquote, Jewish practices like kosher slaughter, blending animal rights was antisemitism like you see today with many socialists blending, you know, antisemitism.

Was like, oh, we need to give children like more independence, therefore circumcision is bad, which is, you know, we we’re, we gotta stop circumcision, right? Mm-hmm.

And so they find ways to,

they’re like, and we know that like true conservatism is not. About the sovereignty of the individual. That’s Uhhuh culture progress.

Yeah, true. Conservatism is about the sovereignty of the family unit. The culture,

yeah. Right.

Yeah. So, so never be confused by that. Never be confused by that, because you can [00:15:00] always disintermediate a culture by leaning into that, right? Yeah. He was an anti-smoking pioneer, wanting to control people to make them healthier.

Nazis ran one of the world’s first aggressive anti-tobacco campaigns linking smoking to Oh, good for them. Racial degeneration. Racial de version. Now remember we talk about

Simone Collins: it was like white doctors that promoted smoking.

Malcolm Collins: What leftists when people are like, leftists aren’t racist. We talked about this in the other episode on this, but if you haven’t seen that one, leftists are absolutely racist.

Everyone knows leftists are racist. They just sort of converted the racial pyramid. Oh no. But

Simone Collins: save that. You’re gonna do a dedicated episode on that, right? Save it. Yeah. Yeah. But I

Malcolm Collins: wanna talk about this inverted racial pyramid. ‘cause it’s kind of funny in this context. What they’ll say when they don’t like an art is they’ll be like, this art is.

Colonizes thing, right? Mm. This, this movie has colonist vibes, like, don’t watch it, right? Like, yeah. It’s, it’s whereas the, the Hitler version of that is, oh, that leads to racial degradation.

Mm.

But they’re basically saying the same thing. Hitler actually personally funded anti-smoking research in 1941.

He [00:16:00] told his aide, tobacco is the wrath of the red man against the white man,

Simone Collins: which what I love. That’s cute.

Malcolm Collins: Blaming it as Native American revenge while, but you, if you, if you look at this through the wind of modern leftist ideology, they’ll say something like. You know, alcohol is being used to by, like intentionally, by color, keep you down.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is being used by the colonizer to keep you down, whereas, well, this or that is being used by the dude or the red man to keep you down. Right. Okay. Yes, an exact mirroring ideology, an exactly aligned ideology.

He also was a big conservationist. The Rike Nature of Protection law in 1935 was one of the world’s first natural environmental laws protecting landscapes, forest and endangered species.

It mandated impact assessments for development and promoted reforestation predominating, EPA style regulation. He also had an organic farming push. So by the way, he’s not what many people get wrong. He sounds

Simone Collins: weirdly, I, I wanna say [00:17:00] like, well, prince, no, king Charles. It, it is just like I know a

Malcolm Collins: woke n Yeah.

No, like it’s, it’s, it’s

Simone Collins: good for you, like local agriculture. Stop hurting the animals. Like, this sounds King Charles, doesn’t it? Yeah. But it’s,

Malcolm Collins: it’s, it’s, it’s funnier too because people act like the type of eugenics practiced by the Nazis. Mm-hmm. Is aligned with like us trying to make humanity like, like, you know, working on genetic technology that can augment human genetics, that can oh yeah.

That

Simone Collins: we’re, we’re ruining the purity of, of human. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like they would’ve aligned perfectly with Hitler. Hitler was actually super against using science to try to improve people. Mm-hmm. Except through. Drugs. Oh,

Simone Collins: yes. Are you gonna get onto the, I forgot to mention amphetamines. It’s also

Malcolm Collins: a druggie, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Okay. And there’s always a massive drug.

Simone Collins: Hold on, lemme get a bottle for him. You can keep talking though. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll rejoin it. Just, I just have to get a bottle go

Malcolm Collins: for, it’ll be right back. So anyway so he had an [00:18:00] organic farming push under the Richard Weisel Door Ministry of Agriculture.

The regime subsidized biodynamic agriculture banned some chemical fertilizers and aimed for self-sufficiency to avoid quote unquote foreign poisons. This aligned with the volk movements idolizing rural pre-industrial life. So yeah, he was pro. Moving back, scientific advancement, not moving forward.

Scientific advancement outside of his own drug habit, which he wanted to get everyone on, but we’ll get onto that in a second. The people have sort of over focused on a few, you could basically call them rogue pseudo scientists that were really more sort of the, sort of less just pseudoscience that like the CIA got into.

In the 1950s when they started trying to do, like staring at goats and stuff like that. Sorry, they were not actually mad geneticists. They were, yeah, I think a lot closer to like the staring at Project Stargate and stuff like that in the CIA the, the types of crazy human [00:19:00] experiments that they were doing, they were.

Pointless human experiments. They were not actually about improving humans because the science did not want to do that through medical technology. They thought it is bad. They wanted to reach a pure, more ancestral form of human very similar to the people who are like, society was better before the colonists came.

You know, and they destroyed everything. And we need to go back to that pre-colonial lifestyle when they’re like, we need to go back to this pre jish lifestyle. And what’s funny is they even in many ways. Mimic. You know, there was the Smithsonian pamphlet and there’s been the recent video now of like this famous black activist who was like, logic is anti-black.

Simone Collins: Right? Oh my gosh, I forgot about that.

Entire concept of logic is anti-black. But let’s zoom out for some context. Western philosophy built its idea of reason by defining who wasn’t rational to be logical meant being European male and civilized. It’s everything blackness was imagined. Not to be, but that’s why Afro pessimists [00:20:00] and Decolonial thinkers argue that colonialism didn’t just seize land.

It seized the right to define truth itself. So when I say logic is anti-black, I mean the very rules of logic were written from an imperialistic point of view.

So to think freely, we need to rebuild reason itself from the ground up.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Logic is a colonialist idea. Science is like a colonialist idea, and we move to like black science, we didn. The Nazis did all of this. They, that’s the main reason they couldn’t invent a nuke. They got rid of all their Jewish scientists and they were like, oh, all of these ideas are Jewish ideas, science.

Simone Collins: That sounds a little Jew.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So we need to come up with a non-Jewish form of science. Oh, we need to come up with non-Jewish ideas of physics. We need to come up with none. It was exactly mirroring this colonial stuff. And in the process just came up with a bunch of dumb ideas. And the same way the people who try to come up with like antico.

Science do. He was literally like that level woke retarded. Okay. Like, not even like [00:21:00] surface level. But anyway so, so you might think, oh, come on E How woke was he? In 1942 per table talk transcripts, he said, we shall have to develop a technique for depopulating cities. Nature always must be the model.

Simone Collins: Oh

Malcolm Collins: my. He was about depopulation as well. Now note here that specifically he meant depopulating cities while expanding to a more rural lifestyle. But eat thick here. Eat suck. Hippie communes here. People. By the way, you’re wondering how pro like animal rights were they? Yeah. Coring once interrupted a meeting to save a beetle crawling across the table.

Ooh. Declaring even the smallest creature has its place in the great scheme of sayings, except Jews. Yeah, they were really, they, they, and people could be like, what? But didn’t he torture and kill lots of Jewish people? And it’s like, yeah. And you know, this is happening in these woke Antifa meetings. They would torture and kill Jewish people if they could.

Right. But they, and they, they will, they will randomly [00:22:00] go out and attack people and people. If you tell AI this, it absolutely like cannot handle the fact that the left is anti-Semitic faction in American politics right now. It has a much larger anti-Semitic faction that goes much further than the right’s anti-Semitic faction.

If you look at like Jews, like actually like having to run away from people chasing them on campus, there isn’t a single instance of that happening with writing. Not a single one, right? If you look at the multiple Jewish people who have been shot and killed in the United States or lit on fire alive in the United States, there have been multiple anti-Semitic murders in the past, like two years.

Not one of them was done by a right-leaning individual. This is a predominantly leftist thing now. I am sorry, ai. I’m sorry you don’t like, you cannot handle the fact that pretty much all of the founding fathers of Marxism and communism and socialism hated the Jews and none of the founding Fathers of America did.

And that if you go through till today, it’s still an anti leftist thing. And when you go to the past and you try to say things, [00:23:00] well, the KKK was a rightist organization who supported the Democrats. It, it’s a party switch and you can do any sort of objective analysis of this. And it’s like a few. Parts of the party switched, but no, predominantly the parties did not switch.

The left has always been the party of antisemitism. Mm-hmm. But anyway, to continue

mm-hmm.

The blood and soil ideology. Mm-hmm. If you’re, if you’re not familiar, was it was this ideology of, we need to go back to this, this, this sort of peasantry natural connection with the land where we do natural farming without chemicals, without genetic technology, without anything like that.

Meanwhile, what’s the US doing in its propaganda while the Germans are like, we need to go back to a more ancestral way of doing things. We need to go back to a more pure way of doing things. The US is saying Captain America. That’s it. The avatar of anti-Nazi propaganda, which is a human literally augmented with science to be like better, it’s track faster and stronger.

Right. Okay. If you’re wondering how many, how many nature reserves they created, by the way, they created over 500 nature reserves with covering over a thousand square [00:24:00] kilometers by 1945. And, but anyway oh, by the way, you wanna know like, what, what sort of a guy Hitler was? Mr. Mega Chad Hitler anecdotes from his inner circle describe him as being so sensitive that during movie screenings featuring an mistreatment, he’d have to cover his eyes or leave the room.

So, you know, I, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, that’s

Simone Collins: mean and babies. I, I get it, man. That is

Malcolm Collins: mean. Babies, you get it. But I’m saying he’s not the giga chat, right? Now if you’re like, well, at least he was a strong Christian. Well, remember how Nick Fuentes said that he wasn’t really that Christian, and anyone who has studied him knows this.

He wasn’t particularly Christian. He might have even been considered an anti-Christian. Hitler’s an anti-Christian. What, how Well we’ll get started here and this is where I need to do that. Like base camp. Everybody knows the base camp. Dun, dun dun. Mm-hmm. What religion was he raised?

Simone Collins: Chris. I’m just saying

Malcolm Collins: they show up an awful lot.

When, when naughty things are going down

[00:25:00]

Malcolm Collins: Catholic. Oh,

Simone Collins: oh.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, so, so, he paid lip service to Christianity in public speeches like where he claimed to be doing quote unquote the Lord’s work, and even signed a concordant with the Vatican, of course, in 1933 to keep the church neutral. But privately he scorned organized Christianity as, quote unquote weak and Jewish influence.

So he sought Christianity and the reason he didn’t wanna be a, a Christian. He saw it as too Jewish which makes sense. It’s pretty Jewish. I mean, it’s a descendant religion and then a related religion to Judaism favoring more deistic or pantheistic beliefs where quote unquote providence or nature equated a higher power.

No, of course the left would do anything to hide this from you. ‘cause it would make it clear that he was far more just a stereotypical leftist than you would think. But Hitler was dedicated to, like, when he would say christiany things, it was clearly just to stay in power or not to alert red flags. But if you look at the [00:26:00] statues he was putting up, if you look at the words that he wrote or his white ideology, he believed that there was a pre-Christian sort of true German religion.

That he wanted to reinvigorate, and you can see this in the plays that he championed in the statues he put up, that were often pagan in nature.

Malcolm Collins: The Nazi regime included pagan elements drawing from the VULs FA movements that romanticize pre-Christian German myths. Think ruins, swastikas and agency system co-opted from Indio, European paganism solstice celebrations and SS rituals under er kimler who promoted neopagan oc cultism like armies society’s quest for Arian artifacts.

Wow. Now

remember they have all this occulus stuff you had, right? Which Hitler promoted. He wasn’t like that deeply into it himself, but he promoted, but he, the, you know, the swastika was literally chosen from, god, what’s the movement called? We have other episodes where we go into this in more detail.

If you want to dive deep on this topic, we did an episode on the [00:27:00] surprisingly recent origins of the Wiccan and Pagan movements. , But specifically a lot of this stuff was sparked by a woman called, , Helen Petrov Blaske, a Russian Occulus in the founder of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Society used a swastika.

Within their logo, and they saw it as symbolizing Thor hammer or the hammer of creation. , And, , and so you can understand why, you know, if Hitler was a, the author. Kiss and there was a far oph called like German oph. We go into it in that episode. , But anyway, this was the society that ended up spawning the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn that ended up inspiring, , Alistair Crowley.

And that when you look at the founder of wicca, , Gerald Gardner, they, they credit the theosophical society specifically as being their inspiration in a lot of the Wiccan practices and symbolism. Came directly from the theosophical Society. , So while, , wicca didn’t exist [00:28:00] at the time of Hitler, he was the closest thing to that, like , this logo, , the banner that the Nazi war machine marched under was that generation’s closest thing because it was marching under the banner of the theosophical Society to be marching under the banner of wicca.

, He was the most hipster of hipsters.

But it was that movement that that crazy lady who went to India and basically founded the modern new ageism like, like new age religious movements was founded by this lady. I’ll edit it. Impose that makes sense. Any new age movement that you’re aware of? Whether it’s the modern pagan movement is descendant of her ideology.

The, the, when I say the people who say like, I’m Pagan or whatever, the modern Wiccan movement is descendant of this ideology. Oh my God. And this was the ideology that Hitler respected so much that instead of choosing a Christian sign to be the on the Nazi banner, he chose their key sign. So Hitler was not just a.

Coffee going [00:29:00] druggie. Their generation’s version of a bura failed art student who caught his dad with over controlling, who refused to get a real job who was an animal lover and a vegetarian and a socialist who loved nature but in it was effeminate. But in addition. To all of that. The, he was a, a proto wicked.

He was like an actual wicked. That sign that the n the Nazis use on their flag was that generation’s version of the wicken symbol. Like that is what they represented. Nuns are cool boys. So let’s talk about his drug habits, right? You wanted to get into this and I still, I

Simone Collins: haven’t finished it, but like great read blitzed.

The book very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: So a amphetamines yeah. Hitler got daily injections up to 20 times a day. Yeah. By 1944 to 1945 for quote unquote alertness during speeches and [00:30:00] meetings per written was widespread in the white mark. Two fueling Britt’s invasions, cocaine applied. His eye dropped or sniffed his sinus issues.

Morale noted using typical multiple times a day

Simone Collins: opioids. But to be fair. What, what’s pointed out in Blitzed the book was it as, especially in Germany around that time, like as he was growing up? This was just super widespread. It was like, you have postpartum depression, amphetamines, like everything. It was just like, if you feel a little bored, you feel a little tired.

Like he was,

Malcolm Collins: he, no, he, he definitely pushed this stuff on the top because he

Simone Collins: developed a dependency. And then he just needed more. Well, that didn’t mean he needed to give it to all his troops and get them all

Malcolm Collins: addicted. Well,

Simone Collins: it was so effective, but it was also just like, it was the wonder drug, you know?

But like, anyway, carry on.

Malcolm Collins: So, opioids. For pain and gastrointestinal problems, he became dependent leading to his constant paranoia and tremors, in part, contributing to it at least. And he also took testosterone for libido, libido strict nine in small doses as a stimuli, barbiturates for sleep, and even [00:31:00] bull semen extracts.

He, he also took the vimium pills, which contained meth and caffeine.

Simone Collins: Really puts a pep in your step and

Malcolm Collins: everything he did, if you look at his entire ideology, it’s about. Like you actually look at his ideology. Mm-hmm. It’s about saying, look at our people, as you see was like the BLM movement or something.

We are poor not because of our own fault, not because, you know, we instigated a war that we lost but because of these external powers Mm uh, the Jews who are controlling everything and they’re the reason why I failed at this, or I failed at that, or it’s an antithetical of any sort of genuine right wing idea.

G. So I’m noting it’s not just that fascism was actually just socialism.

Simone Collins: Look at, look at the locus of control first and foremost. And I think the, the biggest thing that I think about when I think about at this point. Left versus right wing is right wing now is internal locus of control. Left is external and exactly.

Nazis were, it’s someone else’s fault. It’s [00:32:00] not my fault. Blame someone else. And if that is I, yeah, that’s antithetical why believe’s anti

Malcolm Collins: to Right Nick, which is fundamentally left wing ideologues. Mm-hmm. His entire ideology and everything downstream of it is left wing to it. Yeah. If

Simone Collins: you’re blaming someone else, you’re, by our definition, at least left wing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you’re never gonna fix anything. You know, you’re never gonna actually, you know, if you, if you don’t take responsibility for your own people’s problems, that also

Simone Collins: means that your policy center a lot around taking someone else down or taking from someone else. And I think that that’s just so. It’s, it’s not only a not viable long-term solution, but really damaging to even the party that wants to eng like, what’s the word?

Ingratiate itself.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I’ll, and I’ll note here that when AI will, will go over something like this and it’ll be like, oh, well, no, no, no. Fascism was different from, you know, communism because, you know, they, they allowed for. You know, some rich people and they technically [00:33:00] didn’t want to redistribute everything.

They wanted to redistribute it in terms of the goals of the state. And I’m like or rather the state’s ideology. And I’m like, how is that not like modern progressivism. Mm-hmm. Like they literally are using the state to try to push their trans ideology to try to push their urban monoculture ideology, their conception of gender, their conception of this stuff onto youth.

Yeah. Right. Like they’re taking. My tax dollars. And you like Zhan. Ani recently wanted to fund you know, gender transition of children using something like $43 million of tax dollars to, to subsidize this. Like this

Simone Collins: is even now, even after trans has jumped the shark.

Malcolm Collins: Really? Yeah. Well, the, the, the extremists are the extremists.

But the point I’m making here is that this is what’s happening now. You know, this is what’s happening when they freak out, when USAID closed, what was USAID doing? But pushing. Ideologies, look at the programs they were closing, right? Like the modern left is about doing that. And I’d also point out if they’re like, well, yeah, but he tried to recreate class struggle into like a racial ethnic struggle.

Is that not what the colonizer, anti [00:34:00] colonizer mindset that the left has? The left has a bunch of rich people in it now. It does, it has pretty much all of the rich people in it. I think you’re looking at like a millionaire class. The vast majority of them are leftists these days. Because the left allows them to keep their companies, it allows them to keep their power.

It. Build structural modes so other people can’t compete with him. Mm-hmm. It’s exactly like fascism in that respect, right? Like it’s still nothing in common was any sort of pure form of communism. Look at the, the leaders of it, like Hassan, right? Like if he actually had a communist mindset instead of a, I wanna create a fascist world mindset, he wouldn’t be praising single totalitarian states like China, and he would be donating his money.

He’s spectacularly wealthy Nepo baby, and yet he does not. None of the wealthy leftists donate their money, as far as I’m aware in, in a meaningful context, right? They, they keep it right and they keep it because. This isn’t what they’re factually about, right. Like, at least not to the point where they have the amount of money of like a normal American it’s like, you know, Bernie [00:35:00] Sanders starts going from complaining about the millionaires to complaining about the billionaires.

When he becomes a millionaire, they never actually wanna give up any of their money. They never actually wanna, they’re using a system in the same way the fasc. Did, and it is hiding you when they say that this is about class struggle, because they don’t care about class struggle. They care about a racialist struggle.

That is, that is where all of this promotion, isn’t it more

Simone Collins: colonialist as you said?

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. It’s a, it’s a racialist alliance, so the same way the fascists were in alliance. Of the Germans and the Italians and the you know, you know, Japanese, those weren’t the same ethnic group, but it was a multi-ethnic alliance.

In the same way that the Wokes are an alliance of like, you know, the Vatican and the, Islamists and the Black Lives Matter movement and like the black Muslim movement and the LGBT movement and all of these groups hate each other, right? Like eventually they think that only their group can survive, but they are willing to work together in the short term.

And this is actually where we’ll do another episode where point out that at least. The one thing that actually does make fascism different than modern [00:36:00] socialism is at least they believed in cultural segregation. Hmm. Which actually has a lot of utility to it. If you’re structuring the society and the social well.

‘cause ultimately

Simone Collins: cultural segregation allows for variety, whereas cultural. Unity requires homogenization and therefore the extinguishing of all different cultures, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One allows them to exist. The other one’s like mm-hmm. No. Well, I

Malcolm Collins: mean, even if the, even if the Italians don’t like the German way of living in the German, or I won’t say the Japanese don’t like the German way of living in, the Germans don’t like the Japanese way of living.

But they’re okay with outlying with each other. They don’t really need to worry about their kids being converted to German and Japan or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you have the. The, the, you know, Vatican operatives living alongside the Islamists, living alongside the LGBT people living alongside the, you know, mus, the, the, you know, black Muslim groups.

Like none of these groups like each other, right? Like eventually they think one day they’re gonna get rid of all the other groups, but they’re all in their mindset. Working in extreme shelters and stuff like this is obviously gonna cause issues. And we’re seeing this tension bubble [00:37:00] up. What was it? I, I saw recently something like 35% of Muslim immigrants in the uk.

Want Sharia Law to be the law of the land, right? Like, that, that means no gays anymore. Like clearly this isn’t, that means no Catholics anymore, by the way. Or, or you have to live under a unique system of your Catholic. You wouldn’t like it, mind you. Hey, but at least we can do I vf still. So, you know, Sharia law is actually, you know, probably easier for us than most Catholic inspired laws.

So, well,

Simone Collins: the, the crazy thing that I, I concluded after considering the, the. Reasoning of many Americans who have fled to Russia for cultural reasons is, is while there’s more curtailed speech in Russia, the speech that’s curtailed is not anything that they would mind. They, they, they’re not missing it. And the speech they feel they’re more free to make is stuff that’s looked down upon in the United States.

So in the end, they feel more free. This

Malcolm Collins: is actually, we should do a video on like. For us, Sharia law isn’t that bad. I would vastly prefer to live in a country with Sharia law. Yeah. Well, but like one

Simone Collins: man’s totalitarian [00:38:00] state is is another man’s. Yeah. Or like one, one man’s like free speech zone is another person’s totalitarian state.

Then Nick Point

Malcolm Collins: world where you’re living under the syllabus of errors because Sharia law is actually not that restrictive of science. Which is the thing that I care about. It just means I can’t like insult Muslim stuff. And yeah, they made stone gay people, which like I think is a moral negative. But like, I’m not gay, so it’s not relevant to me.

Whereas you know, if I was living under Nick Fuentes state, you know, no, IVF no genetic augmentation of humans. There’s cybernetic augmentation of humans, no advanced ai. Well, yeah, we would just have to leave.

Simone Collins: It’s that simple. Exactly. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Whereas, you know, in an Islamic state, just pay extra taxes, I think is the, the main thing.

And, and, and don’t, you know, cause the problem which is not to say I do not like. That a lot of European countries, they’re voluntarily flooding themselves as people who want Sharia law. I think that’s bad and they should get them out. I’m just pointing out that, you know, you gotta, you gotta be aware of you know, is, is, is it a, a scorpion or a cobra, right?

Like, I guess a seas stick, like even death. You, you

Simone Collins: gotta choose the poison that works best for [00:39:00] you. It’s all good. Anyway, this was really interesting, so I’m looking forward to those future ones too. But you kinda, wow. I mean, I, I guess I should learn more about Hitler because that was hilarious and fascinating all at the same time.

And I appreciate your looking into it. Yeah. Well, and

Malcolm Collins: keep in mind that Hitler’s narratives actually mirror the colonialist narratives very strongly when he complains about April. You mean the anti

Simone Collins: colonialist narratives?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the anti-colonial people. So when he complains, and this was his core narrative, there was a group of people who were puppet, mastered by the Jews.

Who got together at the Treaty of Versailles and carved up his country and his people and treated them unfairly. Does that not sound exactly like when people talk about the colonizers meeting in a room and carving up Africa? Yeah. Or carving up the Native American lands. Right. Like the It’s It’s the same narrative.

Yeah. Anyway, and it’s the same narrative that dominates Germany today, which is why you shouldn’t mourn the German people. Okay. They haven’t been able to get over this mindset. They’re probably an existential threat anyway, if they’re not the type that are willing to migrate into the United [00:40:00] States or a real country.

Simone Collins: Totally.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway,

Simone Collins: I love you so much. That was amazing.

Malcolm Collins: We’re meeting with a German news screen a few days. Oh, food tonight. We’re redoing the Turkey, which is actually the first time I’ve ever sad to be doing the last of the Turkey afterwards. And leftovers. Yeah. With the hoist and butter sauce. A great way to cook it.

Hoisin butter sauce with spicy peppers. And I am just so excited to have it again. It is a killer dish.

Simone Collins: Good. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe add

Malcolm Collins: a little bit of oyster sauce this time.

Simone Collins: Okay, will do. I love you Malcolm.

Bye.

Simone Collins: Can’t wait to do the title guard one.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway.

So, ,, if you are a young edge Lord, and you’re like, oh, you just destroyed , the person who I could admire, that would scare my parents and teachers who, who do I, I target now. Perfect person for you, Oliver Cromwell. Okay. You, you still get the genocides, you still get all of the people hand wringing.

[00:41:00] But you know, instead of being desperate to be welcomed by like elite opera houses, he’s shutting them down, you know, a. Pure Christian throughout his entire life. , You know,. As Nietzsche said, weakness breeds immorality, and we see this with Hitler.

His personal weakness in relation to the Jews led him to be afraid of. Pursuing the science that they were building and perfecting, and the engineering that they were building and perfecting, and in many ways was probably the reason he lost the war, whereas Cranwell did the exact opposite. He brought Jews into England when they were previously banned so that he could use, .

Them To help smash the papa, right, , and enrich his own people. , did Hitler have kids? Nine. Oliver Cromwell had nine. , You know, a Hitler died by Unli himself. Oliver Cromwell died. , I think , of old age slash natural causes. , The, it’s, it’s just in every contrast he sort of shows up every one of [00:42:00] Hitler’s major moral failings.

Speaker 3: He is not your hero and just a leftist disguised. You wear brainwashed by re rights full of their lives. You think he’s based with his mustache? So quirky. He’s a fail son. Artist, all one and dorky dropped out. School. Blame dad for the. A group house, Bohemian, you have been played. The fool left his fun history, made him seem strong to hide his socialism where he truly [00:43:00] belonged.

Pagan symbols, marching, anti-Christian, elite vegetarian and drug. Can’t handle the heat. Swap that week. Third for real. Iron fist. Couldn’t resist and indulgence in theaters. Had kids by the nine More wars against odds on Providence Divine. Now flip the script. Seat crime was true. Might a Puritan Warrior fighting the fight Hitler craved Opera Elite Antichrist Trash while Cromwell Band theaters in a goly backlash.

P in swa, Hitler’s Baggy Parade, MCCM Seal Burn Bride and Cross Crew Hitler himself. Howard’s last breath crime of one more stacked against him defying death. Drugged up Hitler hooked on speeding. More vice crime of Sean. Music and art. Seductive high. Your cooked if you worship that a famine ain’t clown of [00:44:00] fear.

Jewish success tried to tear it all down. Brainwashed by academics. They’re narrative trap making you idolize a weak. Socialist S weakness breeds evil as Nietzche wants breed, Hitler’s envy of Jews. His logic, it bleached, feared their success, so he slaughtered in spite a slave to his weakness. Why he lost his fight.

Crime will from power, brought Jews back to his I, harvesting the strength to smash papers. Vow, no weaklings hate, just pragmatic command turning rivals to allies ruling the land. Hitler do. Self-destruct, petty scores crush subjugated. The full brought low in one. Don’t be their puppet. Rewrite your own Lord.

Ditch hipster Hitler. See heroes [00:45:00] with more. Young Edge, Lord, rise up. See through the deceit or your transition to clown cook will be complete.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the evolving perspectives on sexuality, gender, and cultural norms. In this thought-provoking conversation, they explore the origins and functions of arousal patterns, the societal treatment of same-sex attraction, and how modern urban monoculture is reshaping the way we think about identity and pleasure.

The discussion covers:

* The biological and evolutionary roots of arousal and kinks

* How same-sex attraction compares to other arousal patterns

* The impact of societal norms and historical taboos

* The role of technology and online avatars in shaping future identities

* The intersection of pleasure, self-affirmation, and human flourishing

* Parenting, cultural transmission, and the importance of non-arbitrary values

Whether you’re interested in psychology, sociology, or the future of human relationships, this episode offers a nuanced and challenging perspective on some of today’s most debated topics.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more in-depth discussions!Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing my evolving views on the way that, at least within our family. But not just within our family, but I think society at large is gonna move in this direction, will think about same sex attraction in the future.

Oh, and you as an audience. So if you, if you know me historically, I’ve always been very sort of pro-gay, right? Like, you know, they should be able to get married the way they want. They should be able to live life the way they want. And while I still think a lot of that, the qualifications I have around that.

Have adapted pretty heavily, and you as an audience are gonna get to see something very fun, which is people ask, how come you and Simone always have like such similar beliefs about things or thoughts about things? And it’s because whenever one of us has like an update in our belief system, we share it with the other one to try to convince them, get pushback, and then we sort of [00:01:00] arrive at whatever the, the conversion.

Okay. This is the new way of thinking about this thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And it, it’s often a, a moderated or, or even totally new version of the idea. It’s not, it’s not always like Malcolm Williams. Yeah. Without moderation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I’ll sort of describe my thought journey as to how I got here. And part of this I’ve been talking to you about already.

Hmm. So the part I had talked to you about already was me trying to think through why we categorize same sex attraction. As significantly different from any other arousal pattern kink as you would call it that he is not meant to help us reproduce because predu, you know, presumably the reason why arousal evolved was to ensure that we had procreation and had children.

And we also argue that parts of the arousal system were adopted for other things that are related to survival. So across mammal species, not just in humans you see, the [00:02:00] submission and dominant system co-opting arousal patterns to motivate it. You know, interestingly, where you, where I find one of my favorite examples of this.

Is in most species animals, mammals, like social mammals will take on the position. A female of that species would to be mounted in order to show submission to somebody. So you will even see males do this and females do this to show submission to the part, not to their partner, no, not to their partner, but to another dominant person in their tribe or something like that.

What’s really fascinating is in species where females are dominant, like the spotted hyena, the Wake Show submission is through an erection. And in spotted hyena, you know, the

Simone Collins: way the females show dominance is through an erection, isn’t that?

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s how they show submission. What? Oh gosh. Okay. I was

Simone Collins: wondering, I knew they had

Malcolm Collins: pin, pseudo penises, it’s called.

So, so what she was thinking of is the, the females of the spotted hyena [00:03:00] actually have pseudo penises in order to show this, this trait. And so, because it’s a species with, with dominant females, the way that you show that you are submissive is to take on the role a male would take on right before sex.

When in species where males are typically dominant, you take on the role that, all right. The reason I go into all of this is I’m pointing out that the arousal system is used for things other than just to motivate procreation. And that this might explain some of the kinks that humans have. Perhaps even same sex attraction.

Although I think it is less likely that that motivates same sex attraction and we can get into what might cause same sex attraction number of potential things. Mm-hmm. With this being the case, there are now two broad definitions I could go for in my head that I think are good ways to divide sort of arousal patterns, arousal patterns that are serving their intended function versus arousal patterns that are not serving their intended function.

Here, you may say, well, because arousal patterns are co-opted throughout social mammals for [00:04:00] dominance and submission displays, then BDSM is less of a kink than same-sex attraction. Because this is just completely not useful for, for survival in this one is. However, I, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a good way of doing division.

I would go on and say that, probably in my head, the way that I would divide it is arousal patterns that are tied to reproduction and arousal patterns that are not tied to reproduction. And then you can say okay, well, but same sex attraction is totally different from any other kink. It’s you being attracted to who, who a person is fundamentally right.

And it’s something that you are, you know, you have at a young age and you can’t easily change about yourself. And here I would ask you to go to, ALA has a great study on this. I’ll, I’ll put the graph on screen if I can find it.

Where she goes over the average age that kinks first appear, and actually for a wide swath of kinks, they appear before.

Same sex attraction does. And [00:05:00] not only that, but if you look at studies on this, they typically only look at things like BDSM and stuff like this. But if you look at user reports of the persistency of kinks it appears that the persistency of kinks is at around the same level as the persistency of same sex attraction, maybe slightly less for some specific kicks, like the dominance and dominance and submission ones.

And I would also note here that same-sex attraction is not something that you necessarily have throughout your entire life. If you look at people who go on puberty, hormones, like, sex changing hormones like trans people do, you’re looking at a 20 to 40% change their gender of primary attraction

.

Malcolm Collins: And we also know of, we’ve done an episode on this of parasites that can change the gender that you are predominantly attracted to with things like toxoplasmosis being more likely to make you bi in order to help itself spread. And this is a, a number of studies have have like, like peer reviewed studies have shown this.

Obviously this is, this is all very offensive territory we’re getting in here, but the reason I started to go through all this is, is I was like, [00:06:00] okay. All of these things. But there is one core area where same sex attraction and this is sort of where I had stopped on this before and sort of been like, I guess our existing societal norms are good.

There is one area where, which is to say if you live in a society where you’re like, Hey, and this is broadly the rule we have in our society, and it’s a rule that like, I’m okay with like as a, as a social rule, as long as you don’t involve me in your kinks. Right? Like your unique arousal pathways without my consent.

Like I didn’t go into a space where I knew that people were going to be doing this or I didn’t, you, you didn’t, you didn’t force me to participate in some fantasy you have or something like that. We’re, I’m okay with that, right? Yeah. So the problem with same-sex attraction and taking that is that then, then how do these people get married?

Right? Like if, if A-A-B-D-S-M person doesn’t need to have a marriage in BDSM outfits , to get married, but there is no way a [00:07:00] same-sex attracted couple can get married without it very obviously being a same sex attracted couple on that stage. And so I started thinking about that and I was like, okay, I can see that and I can see why, because you don’t have any other kink like that.

There’s no other kink that is societally accepted. I suppose if you were like a PDA file, it would be very obvious if you tried to marry the person. But that’s with a non-consenting individual. If you were a, a a a Beastie bestiality person and you decide to get married to a horse or a dog, it would be very obvious.

But socially we don’t condone that. And no, I’ve, I’ve always found the reason we don’t socially condone that incredibly stupid. Which is that these animals can’t consent. And it’s like you eat animals like that, like you fat farm animals like that, you eat veal where you torture a baby cow. Like, what are you, what are you talking about?

These animals can’t consent. Your dog is something that you bought, and then it is normal for you to [00:08:00] breed it and sell its offspring.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: what are you? Well, and you put it that

Simone Collins: way, golly.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, I, the, I think the reason why you shouldn’t have sex with animals is the same reason that almost every culture on earth has a taboo against this or many do, is that it spreads diseases and diseases are bad for populations.

And so having prohibitions against it is good to prevent the spread of diseases. And then people can be like, well, does it same sex relationships spread diseases. Which we’ll get to, but I mean, historically it was true. I mean, look at the AIDS epidemic. The moment it became normalized, a lot of people suffered and died as a result of its normalization of diseases that didn’t spread in other populations.

And if you look at our parasite video, we, we go over a number of, of, or some evidence that there might be some unknown pathogens, which could be motivating this behavior. Specifically we see different gut microbiomes in same sex attracted people who participate in, just different gut microbiomes,

Malcolm Collins: No, I’ll note [00:09:00] here, , it’s not just gays, , or the kink that we would call gayness was this new taxonomy, , that changes sexual behavior. We noted in that episode having certain types of a yeast infection will make a woman more turned on by being eaten out because that’s how the infection spreads or that it appears that cucking behavior.

, It, it really interesting, , one of the guys who listened to this with a prison guard and he was like, oh yeah, it’s true. , You know, first you’re the pitcher, then you’re the catcher. That’s what everyone says, , that that cucking behavior is literally like a honey pot for bulls that can then make them want to cuck.

If you want to learn more about this, watch that episode, or we go into the science in detail, which just blew my mind.

I guess, is what I’d say.

I would

Simone Collins: still, I would think the AIDS epidemic really spread well before same sex, relat, same, same sex attraction, normal. The

Malcolm Collins: AIDS epidemic would not have spread if same sex attraction had not been normalized to the extent that it was, it wasn’t fully normalized in society. Like [00:10:00] it wasn’t totally cool by no means, but it was at the beginning of gay culture, like the moment in mass was in major cities.

I won’t say the moment, I, I’m gonna say like within 20 years of like gay people beginning to in, in any sort of really large capacity participate in gay culture is when the AIDS epidemic started. And, uh hmm. I, I, I mean, are you denying that that is what facilitated both the incubation and spread?

Obviously drug use helped as well. But yeah, I think

Simone Collins: it was probably more a matter of drug use and. More social mobility, like more travel in between cities than it, than it was a product of the normalization. Well, you think the gays

Malcolm Collins: helped it travel between cities and then drug use helped it spread within cities?

Simone Collins: No, no. I think that there was more travel that took place like internationally in between cities than ever before. I mean, I know for a fact like everyone knows for a fact. Well,

Malcolm Collins: no, I, I agree with that, but [00:11:00] I, if you had had the travel and you had had the drug use, but you didn’t have gay normalization or gay communities, the AIDS epidemic wouldn’t have been an epidemic.

Simone Collins: I think maybe if it were still actively illegal. I mean it still was in many places at that time actually. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But it’s just you had wide culture.

And I wanna point out here, ‘cause I think that this is a really hard pill to swallow, but it is an accurate and realistic pill is when people talk about the shaming, that same sex attracted people got historically for acting on their arousal patterns. . And, and keep in mind there’s a big difference between saying like the shaming somebody got for having an arousal pattern.

, That’s just the way you’re born and acting on an arousal pattern. There’s many arousal patterns we shame people today for acting on because they lead to negative externalities when acted upon. , But the, . You could be like, oh, it’s so horrible that they were shamed for this historically, that they were, you know, perhaps even subject to physical violence if they did that too overtly.

, But then you consider that. The [00:12:00] fear that this created in , the same sex attracted community that led them to not act en mass on these behaviors meant that something like the AIDS epidemic did not start. In many ways that bigotry was , the gates that were holding back the flood of the horror of the AIDS epidemic and.

In a way, it was through that gating behavior that the bigots were preventing the mass exposure and death of many same-sex attracted people to aids. And as that died down, that allowed for something like AIDS to evolve. Almost as soon as a proto version of this community was normalized and this behavior was being done in mass and in large amounts.

Obviously that’s not relevant today, and that would not be a good reason to be against same sex attraction being acted on today, but it does matter in a historic context when you’re [00:13:00] contextualizing, , was this bigotry wholly a negative thing?

Malcolm Collins: But the point I’m making is there were reasons historically to ban this and today most of the, the diseases potentially that are transmitted by same sex attraction are pretty much under control at this point.

Yeah. And so, you know, I I, I don’t see it as, as much of an issue in, in that regard. Yeah. Now we don’t know how under control they are. As I’ve said, you can look at our parasite video on this. And so it could be that there’s, there’s some pathogens that we just aren’t investigating because they are long-term pathogens.

And, and there is a little bit of evidence for this, but it’s not like super strong outside of like, well, and it is actually super strong because toxic plasmosis is much more common in men than women. And it in it looks like it’s beginning to be transferrable for males to males. And with within some strains, which is interesting ‘cause it’s not all strains.

It’s one strain seems to be specialized in human transmission now. And you could really only get this when you consider that women own cats more than men [00:14:00] do, if it was transferring for some alternate pathway. But anyway, so that’s sort of where I ended up, which is just like, well, it’s needlessly cool to have one unusual arousal pattern that for whatever reason, can’t live out their life that way.

Right. And, and of course we’ve said historically we don’t think people should be shamed for if they are same sex attracted to deciding to live as heterosexual people. Like that’s, that’s an okay thing to do.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. ‘cause this came out of nowhere.

We didn’t even talk about this this morning. Instantly want to do a podcast on this? I’m so

Malcolm Collins: curious. So I had this thought experiment in my head, and this is, this is where it really got to me.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: If you look at the urban monoculture and the way that it’s begun to recategorize the concept of gender, right?

And note here, I’m not saying I agree with this recategorize of the concept of gender, but this is the concept of gender in the way it is contextualized by the dominant culture in the West right now.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Gender is no longer something that you are born with, right? [00:15:00] Gender is something that you can choose or not. I mean, they wouldn’t say you choose it. It’s more like it fluctuates with that throughout your life, based on your personality and proclivities within any particular moment. I don’t even know.

Find now, honestly, and it can be one of, you know, many different gender labels, right? Like one of probably like 35 or 40 or something like that. It depends on the table you’re using, but it’s this huge thing. And when you take this perspective of gender, many of the things that could have been used historically to say being gay wasn’t just a kink, IE well, you’re attracted to something that is durably persistent throughout the person’s life.

And, and I point out if you’re talking about like, well, it’s attraction to like who they are, I’m like, how is that different from like, somebody who likes, like really muscular women or somebody who likes you know, really tall women or somebody who likes you know, obese people or, you know, and all of which we would consider kinks.

We may even consider, you know, really [00:16:00] liking a slutty person, a kink, or really liking a, a nerdy person, a kink, or really liking a, you know, we, we would consider all of these things kink. But the point I’m making here is even with all of that, you could be like, yeah, but gender is just like a more innate thing in terms of who you are, right?

Like, it just doesn’t easily change. But now that you’re a different position, which is that gender actually does change throughout your life and it changes based on the way you feel about yourself. So, I decided to, I was talking to an AI about this, and it was like, well, same sex attraction is different from a kink because same sex attraction is normal.

And I was like, wait a second. Same sex attraction is actually way less frequent than a large number of kinks. And hold on, I’ll actually pull up I, I love how it responded to that when I was trying to think through this. Okay.

Okay. So it says, globally surveys estimate three to 7% of people identify as primarily attracted to the same sex. And then it said, okay, let’s compare that to foot FET [00:17:00] fetishes. It found one study found 18% of heterosexual men habit. So, okay, three to seven. Percent to 18%, way higher than like the highest rates I’ve seen for, for same sex attraction.

BDSM and, and note, I’m, I’m saying same sex attraction specifically here. Not all. LGBT I identities BDSM is 10 to 15%. Again, way more common than same sex attraction. Mm-hmm. And then despite eight, giving examples that were literally orders of more common than same sex attraction, he said, so is same sex attraction less prevalent?

Not really. It’s on par or higher with many individual kids. And I’m like, but the numbers you gave was an order of magnitude more common.

Simone Collins: Yeah, there’s gotta be something hard coded there because you’ve pointed out in, in your other AI research that. These chains, like when you’re chatting with an ai, it references the entire chain.

Even if you’re asking one question within ai. No, no,

Malcolm Collins: we, it said that within the same model response.

Simone Collins: That’s so [00:18:00] strange. Again, it has to be hard coded. It has to be. Which, which, this was gr right? It was grok though. Grok is a more based one.

Malcolm Collins: No, recently gr has been super woke. They did an update with this new thing like a week and a half ago.

And I’ve had trouble even having basic discussions with it. Like it’s so woke that I asked it about our one civilization theory and it responded with an explanation that didn’t really include other civilizations like China and stuff like that. And I’m like, yeah, but does he argue at any point in the theory that those were not like real civilizations or that those civilizations accomplishments win matched for the, the position on the timeline were pretty poultry in comparison to the one civilization?

And it was like, no, this is,

Simone Collins: by the way, for context, the Malcolm’s one civilization theory is one in which he argues that basically there’s only really been one meaningful. Civilization contributing to innovation and the advancement of,

Malcolm Collins: of, of inter, inter civilizational handover innovation. So some [00:19:00] other civilizations hit sort of like plateaus, but they didn’t do a good job of intergenerationally handing over culture to the next civilizational successor.

It’s a very offensive theory. It’s called, there was Only Ever Rome theory. Go check it out if you want. It’s probably one of our best video, but I think this one’s gonna be one of our, our good ones too. It’s misleading

Simone Collins: though, because it started with Greece, you argued, right? No,

Malcolm Collins: I argued. It started with Egypt, then it went to, oh, Egypt emia.

Then it went to Greece, then it went to Rome, then it went to Byzantium, then it went to the Islamic Republic, then it went to Europe then it went to England. Then it was spread around the world. But anyway, have it. To, to skip the one civilization theory. What the point I was making is it was incapable of seeing Simone.

And you remember the transcript of that, that I had argued that the other civilizations were not particularly impressive. And it kept arguing that, no, actually I had made the argument, I had used other civilizations like China to show that this could happen in multiple places at once. Hmm. And I was like, no, I didn’t like, and I even [00:20:00] like asked it like four times, like, are you sure?

Read it again. Like, are you sure I said that? So, so it couldn’t even see me as saying something offensive, which I love. Mm-hmm. But anyway, so I’m gonna continue going here with the way that this sort of breaks up. So I started thinking, okay, given this, let’s imagine a hypothetical other world, right?

And in this world, you have attraction to gender, which can be along this, you know, giant gender spectrum that they have now in the urban monoculture.

Simone Collins: Sure.

Malcolm Collins: And you can have attraction to furries. Furries are completely normal in this world, and like gender, when somebody chooses a persona they might switch between a few, but in most people it’s pretty persistent.

They they choose a persona based on how it reflects in the same way that like, when you’re choosing from a large number of sort of gender profiles, how it reflects the way that they see some sort of inner core of who they are. And individuals within the furry community have [00:21:00] attraction to specific species of persona.

Right. And so then I started thinking to myself, okay, so from a first principle’s perspective in that world, right? And in that world you would have the same problem that we have in our world was getting married, which is in that world, you can’t easily just take off your persona. Your persona is something you wanna live with, right?

You know? So you would get married in a persona and everything. I was like, how from a first principle’s perspective would you differentiate same sex attraction from Fursona attraction? And I’ll note here the reason why it becomes so problematic if same sex attraction is defined as a kink. Is then and note here, it’s all culturally normative throughout history.

Like, like there isn’t like a definitive answer for this. What I’m trying to figure out is what is a practical answer to this? So throughout history there’s been plenty of different ways of relating to gender. And but what I can say is, is nobody’s related to gender the way the urban monoculture does.

That’s for sure. And the way the urban monoculture relates to [00:22:00] the idea of transness, like that you could want to be under gender so much you would unlive yourself. That has never happened in any other culture, in human history. We have no recorded instances of that anywhere. We have cultures that allow for a variation of gender expression and gender fluidity, but never, this obsession was an alternate gender perspective to the extent where 50% attempt to 50 to 40% attempt to unlive themselves over it.

And what I’m pointing out is you, you get, you get different norms around gender. And what we’re trying to do, or what I’m trying to do with this sphere is to think through, okay, what, what, what makes sense to have the norm here? So in, in furry world, I was like, okay, how do you categorize furries as something like your, the, the furry species you are interested in is something fundamentally different from same sex attraction or attraction to a specific gender profile, a urban monocultures, multi-gender profile spectrum.

And this is where I just had this break and this realization that changed [00:23:00] everything for me. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay.

Malcolm Collins: There’d be no reason to specifically, what I mean is. As we move to this urban monocultural perception of gender, is this like completely fluid thing that you can choose on the day based on your emotional state?

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that actually makes sense. That’s actually logical, given the direction that they are going, societally speaking and given the way that they structure their lives.

So the core values monoculture, which we’ve talked about before, is to seek out pleasure and self-affirmation in so far as it doesn’t interfere with other people seeking out their own pleasure and self affirmation. If you have an entire worldview, both around seeking out pleasure and self affirmation and around helping other people seek out pleasure and affirmation, arousal and gender only matter insofar as they can be used to give you pleasure.

Right. Or, or [00:24:00] affirmation. Yeah. And that’s the way that they have categorized. Sexuality and gender profiles for them. Same sex objection to be categorized as something fundamentally different from kinks. Because if kinks are something, because like you do a kink in public,

It makes other people uncomfortable and thus violates their right to pursue pleasure.

Malcolm Collins: right? Which is bad from an urban monocultural perspective.

Obviously this perspective is in the urban monoculture has been eroded a bit, whether , you know, ‘cause now you do see a lot of very explicit kink stuff at Pride. You see the trans stuff where a lot of it, for a lot of people, obviously this is true for every trans people, but , it is very obvious this is true for some people who identify as trans, is that it’s about violating other people’s consent, , about forcing people to say and treat them in a way that that person feels uncomfortable with.

. And, , you can watch our episodes or we document this behavior. I think anyone who’s trans or or knows the trans community is like, oh yeah, well it’s very clear that you know this, that some for some trans people, that’s what [00:25:00] it’s about. , , and we don’t like the people, but whatever, we’re not gonna talk about that right now.

. But you can be like, oh, but why now is it okay to make other people uncomfortable? , And this is largely because, , the groups that are seen as more deviant are seen as more deserving of a search for pleasure because they’re seen as like higher morally. We have an episode on why this is the case in the urban monoculture.

. But, , so, so they are allowed to violate other people’s, , consent in regard to this stuff. By the way, if you’re wondering if this episode is at all in relation to the Tucker Carlson interview, , or the new studies that have come out to show erosion of, , same sex marriage rights and stuff like that, this actually has nothing to do with that.

We recorded this well before all that, and we were gonna release it over Christmas when we weren’t recording. , And. Now all that has come out. So we have to do episodes addressing that. And so this episode about us changing our minds on something has to come out before all of that.

Malcolm Collins: Um mm-hmm. But if you say the same thing for same sex attraction, well now you have a huge category of people who can’t get married and everything like that, right. So you say, oh, well we’re gonna carve this out. Even [00:26:00] though two men kissing or two women kissing does make a large percentage of the population uncomfortable, especially people who are not in the urban monoculture, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Although I would argue. Yeah, it probably makes a lot of them uncomfortable too. I, I say this as somebody who grew up with like a predominantly gay friend group. My roommate in high school was gay. My best friend in college was gay. My academic dad in college was gay. My best friend in high school was gay.

I been around a lot of gay people and that’s also why I had some trouble. Really, you know, because I have so many gay friends being like, yeah, but I, I really want to rethink, like, like, try to rethink this from a first principal’s perspective. That’s not just about defending a status quo in which my friends don’t need to think about.

Yeah, but is this really the best way to be doing things? And so, but I can’t say was all of that acceptance of gayness in my life, I still felt weird. I, I would never say it for fear of persecution but I still felt like a, ugh, when I saw, you know, two [00:27:00] guys making out or something like that. And I, and I think that that’s just probably a natural hardcoded thing in a lot of guys.

And it might be hardcoded in a lot of women, but I, well, I mean,

Simone Collins: think just being a kid, just seeing anyone do it, you’re like, Ugh. You know, it’s weird. Yeah. But I don’t think anyone kissing is weird.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t necessarily feel that way when I see attractive males and females kissing.

Simone Collins: Oh, I do. I I can’t stand the sound of people kissing.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But actually, this brings up a good point, because you have varying sexual profiles, and as we’ve always argued, discussed, should be considered a valid part of somebody’s sexual profile, even though it’s not right now. It’s not just what arouses you, what discuss you, and you’re saying that you don’t like seeing any PDA which makes

Simone Collins: no, or even like on, on a movie, like the sound of People kissing.

Oh, like just thinking about it.

Malcolm Collins: But when I started thinking about it from the perspective of the urban monoculture, I was like, oh my God, this actually makes perfect sips, right? If life is about a pursuit [00:28:00] of pleasure not interfering with other people’s pursuit of pleasure, then it doesn’t matter whether arousal pattern is tied to procreation.

It doesn’t matter whether a arousal pattern was tied to evolution or something that randomly happened to you. That would be a silly way to see things, because procreation is just not a particularly important part of life, right? Mm-hmm. And then I began to think about this within the next era that we are going into, and this is why the furry analogy really messed up my brain, right?

Simone Collins: Because

Malcolm Collins: I was like, okay, so we’re going into an era in which the people you interact with predominantly like is on Discord servers, is on YouTube is on comment sections is on Twitter, is on X, everything like that. And we are already seeing a large number of them, and this is true with people I interact with, with business or anything like that.

Using avatars that are non-human to represent themselves. These avatars can be anything from [00:29:00] furries to anime characters to you know, custom whatevers. This has become completely normal. Yeah. When I think of some of my friends, the first image that comes to my head is not their face, but their avatar.

So true. Even I know their face, I interact with them more through their avatar than through their face. And so that’s what comes to mind as we enter an era of ai. You. You guys have seen how good this technology is already. Imagine where it’s gonna be for our kids’ generation, right? They’re gonna be able to have.

First don’t knows if they want them or anime characters or completely alternate biologies if they want them be the way that they present themselves to other people. And because of that when they’re, when they’re interacting with somebody online or they’re talking to somebody online those people will see them not necessarily as a gender, but would, would their gender even matter then?

If they’re not gonna meet in person, right? And they’re just [00:30:00] getting off to other people online. From the perspective of the urban monoculture, if you can just change gender with a button, boop boop if you can just change to be a furry with a button, boop boop. And everyone’s like, well, we haven’t gotten nearly to the point where you’re gonna get hacked feedback from these sorts of scenarios.

And it’s like. How long do you think that’s gonna take? If AI really does start to boom, like be realistic here. People, the, the, the, the, the pleasure pods, the digital realms are coming. Meta may have jumped the shark on that a little early. And even if it’s not within our kids’ generation, it will certainly be within our grandkids generation.

You know, we’re just talking about you know, a few generations here, right? Like, and, and this, this changes if arousal is categorized in specific ways. And if the reason we had to carve out same sex patterns as being different than other patterns what the specific arousal pathways could be pursued.

There’s no longer a reason to do that. Now. In fact, what you should do is, and I think we’re already seeing the left do this. I think that this is where the [00:31:00] proliferation of gender profiles came from. I think the proliferation of gender profiles was in the urban monoculture is a prelude to the normalization of alternate online pseudonymity.

You know, and, and saying that is who I really am, right? Like, I really am Skylar the fox sometimes, and I really am, you know, Becca, the anime girl. Sometimes I’m not good at coming up with names like this, but you, you get the idea. So are you, are you following me so far? Like the urban monocultural trajectory actually makes sense that I think I can project where it’s going next,

Simone Collins: just to like, if I’m getting this right, almost total abstraction and absurdity.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think it’s absurdity, it, it follows a logically consistent format from their perspective to them. Life is about the pursuit of pleasure and self-affirmation. So long as you do not interfere with others’, pursuit of pleasure and self affirmation. [00:32:00] And if you take that perspective and somebody wants to identify with a fox, right?

Like character. Yeah. Like, how are you actually doing a good thing by saying no, you’re not allowed to do that. Okay. Especially when the technology makes it incredibly easy. Like think about the way that they would argue this if somebody’s like, Hey, you, you know, you know, you’re not actually that. And they’d be like, you know, I find that really dissociating when you say that.

Like, it, it, it, it, honestly, it really hurts my feelings, right? You get a generation of argument around this and it’s the next big fad that goes big, right? You know? And we’ve, we’ve seen sort of prodromal stuff around this within like therians or other kin or like alternate sexual profiles. But basically I’m saying it’s going in that direction.

Mm-hmm. Now it going in that direction left a lot of the same sex community behind. Right. Because when gender isn’t something you’re born with and a lesbian, which, you know, I believe some people are born was like discussed towards male genitalia. Because I have discussed towards male genitalia, so I, I, I would assume that some [00:33:00] women are born that way.

Right. You know, and they say, I don’t like that. And then somebody’s like, yeah, but I identify as a woman and this is Lady D. Right. So you’re being transphobic by saying this. Like it has completely left behind that component of the community. It’s completely left behind the gay man who’s like. You know, if you can just identify as any gender you feel like in the moment, then the very idea of being gay or same-sex attracted no longer has a carve out among other kinks, right?

Like there’s no longer a logical reason to carve it out in the way that we did historically. And so there, they’re sort of left behind and so we’ll address this community in a second. But then I started to think about it’s like, okay. That’s the way the urban monoculture is framing things. But of course, if you view life as a pursuit of pleasure and self-affirmation, eventually the cultures that do that are going to die out, right?

Because there’s no way you can be above repopulation fertility rate and have those sorts of pursuits or, or, or interests. Right? And we’ve also seen the, and you can watch many of our episodes on this, the massive negative psychological effects living that type of lifestyle has you, the closer you are to the [00:34:00] urban monoculture, the closer you are to these sorts of groups and identifications the higher rates you have of mini negative psychological, whether it’s depression or, and alive rates, or self hatred or you know, mental illnesses or, or really anything else.

Okay. Before I get to the next thing, any thoughts Simone?

Simone Collins: No, keep going.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, if I, have I convinced you so far, you think this is a good theory so far?

Simone Collins: Plausible? Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Plausible. Okay. So then I was thinking, okay, so when I’m raising my kids, right, because I’ve always been like, well, there’s same sex attracted, what we would say is, okay, well, you know, pursue same sex attraction if you want in so far as you can still have kids, right?

Or a large number of kids. And you’ve pointed out that, you know, if we have a lesbian daughter, a lesbian can actually have twice as many kids if they make a rule that they only do insemination from their biological relatives. By this what I mean is they would be inseminated by their partners, brothers seamen their partners would.

And they, well, no, that their partners would be by theirs. And when they’re pregnant, they’re inseminated by their partner’s brothers semen. So the kids are [00:35:00] all at least 25% theirs. Um mm-hmm. And this would allow ‘em to have kids at twice the rate. Mm-hmm. Because both women could be pregnant at the same time, presumably.

Mm-hmm. And a lot of people are like, who would want that? If Simone and I were both women, we would both be pregnant all the time. Yeah. I, we would be puffing out kids so fast. You have no idea. If our kids have the same predilections we do. I remember now you would freaking

Simone Collins: hate being pregnant so

Malcolm Collins: much.

One prenatal lesbian who was like, yeah, I was trying to explain the logic of this to my girlfriend, and she just thought it was really weird. And then we ended up breaking up. Aw. She’s like, no, but you understand, I understand. It’s my brother. And that’s weird from like societal standards, but it would be 25% my kid.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Like it only makes sense. It’s, it’s so weird to me that. Lesbians who had siblings would have their partner, if their partner was being the, the gestational like egg donor and carrier consider [00:36:00] anything but the, the person’s brother if they have one. Right.

Malcolm Collins: But we’re gonna ignore all of that for a second.

Package that up. Put it to the side. Sure. If you’re building a culture for intergenerational transmission that is designed to be you, you, you, so if your culture treats people in a way that just feels fundamentally unfair to other people.

Okay, so let’s now talk about the, the dangers of same-sex attraction prohibitions for a culture that wants to intergenerationally, replicate and survive. The biggest danger of same sex arou bans or you know, sort of prohibitions against this as a culture is it can feel arbitrary and cruel to youth growing up within that culture.

And it can lead them to feel that that culture is not benevolent or caring, which can be used to deconvert them. Which you see a lot

Simone Collins: with, with

Malcolm Collins: Mormons. Oh, you see it with Mormons.

Simone Collins: Even, even, and almost, especially when the Mormons themselves who deconverted and talk about [00:37:00] this are not gay. Which is really

Malcolm Collins: interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Because they’re like, I had X gay for with a perfectly nice person. I didn’t understand. Why he was so shamed by my culture. Right. You, you have no, it’s

Simone Collins: more like, oh, I saw that they said you should do this if you’re gay. And I can’t believe they said that. Which is also odd. I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But the point being is the urban monoculture has evolved to get, be very, very good at, and it’s one of the reasons why it focuses on all this weird gender stuff, which you might be like, why is it when gay, same sex attractive people are such a small percentage of the population? Why is the urban monoculture so obsessed with it?

Why is it so obsessed with the trans thing? Yeah. And it’s ‘cause it can use those wedge issues to deconvert people by making your more traditionalist culture seem arbitrary and cruel.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so, you know, if you’re building a culture from scratch and you build what can seem like an arbitrary rule against, you know, same sex attraction.

Like that, or, or categorization of it your kids can be like, Hey, that just seems like mean. Like I don’t wanna be part [00:38:00] of a culture that’s like that, right? Yeah. So be aware that there are, there are costs to this within a modern context that didn’t exist in a historic context. You can be like, you know, no, nobody in the medieval period was like, well, that just seems pretty mean.

I’ve got a, you know, a gay friend Greg over here. Right? You know, so, this, this is where we are right now in sort of my chain of logic. So then I was like, okay, so what if I took a position that was completely alternative to the urban monoculture? And I was like, oh my God. As soon as I had the thought, I was like, this is the only meaningful sexual differentiator in humans.

It’s not gay versus straight. And this is the way that we should view sexual differentiation in the future. Which is, is arousal and sexuality to you like the way that you have chosen to relate to it about procreation or is it about [00:39:00] pleasure and self affirmation? So what I’m saying here is actual meaningful differentiator between individuals is not whatever arousal profile they have to have been born with, or even the exact way that they choose to live their lifestyle.

It is the way they relate to sexuality in the first place, the way they relate to arousal in the first place, because that is downstream of a chosen metaphysical or world perspective that no longer feels arbitrary. When you tell your kids, oh, we think lesser of people who adopt this style of living.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So if I tell my kids, you know, all of these things, these, these arousal profiles, this is how they work. This is how they, they are different within people. But at the end of the day, the way that we as a culture choose to relate to them is to say there are some that we can [00:40:00] utilize to motivate reproduction.

Yeah. And then the rest are meaningfully kinks. Which is to say that within my context or within my culture, I would say, because I think that this is safer to do in terms of not having your kids pulled outta your culture. Instead of vilifying them, just be like. You may have them, you may not.

Don’t let them determine your identity. Don’t let them get you into situations that could negatively affect your health or affect your career or life. And do not let them become obsessions for you. Okay. Yeah. They do become an obsession for you because some people are like, well, some people just can’t control themselves around porn.

Then naltrexone, and you’ll be able to control yourself.

Simone Collins: Yeah, totally.

Malcolm Collins: Sinclair Method, you can medicate this. Yeah. So, the point I’m making here. Is to say I would tell my kids it is not necessarily same sex attraction that you are shaming. It is anyone who has chosen to live a lifestyle where sexuality is either a form of identity [00:41:00] because there is no reason to make your arousal profile your identity or a, a source of self-affirmation because there is no reason to search for self-affirmation in something that you didn’t personally choose.

You know, if it’s just who you’re born as, then and, and you don’t have any sort of like, history with it, then it’s, it’s, there’s no reason for that to give you, you know, pride over other people. And is it what was the final one here? Is there something that that’s related to just pleasure, right?

Because all of those things are downstream of the urban monocultures way. Of relating to sexuality and gender. Right. And then I would say and then on the other hand, you have people who have chosen to say. Okay, this, that arouses me. I may be able to, because as technology progresses, I may be able to utilize these arousal pathways to help me form a stable cohabitating family unit, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But in large part, it’s probably gonna be easier, at least with the technology that we have today. [00:42:00] Even if you are same sex attracted to be in a nons, same-sex attracted relationship. And if you choose to not do that that’s like a totally valid choice for my, in, in terms of like how I’d relate to my kids to not seem capricious in how I would lay down the rules, but understand that you are, you, like more is gonna be expected from you and the workload that you are going to undertake in exchange for the, the pleasure and compatibility you get to be as a partner who is maximally arousing to you which is a trade off that many men make.

Right? Like, I’d be like, I, I would have no more. Disdain for you if you made these decisions than if your brother, for example, married some super hot girl who told him she was never gonna have any kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And there’s a lot of girls like that out there, right? Like that’s a very common compromise that people make.

If anything, if you marry a guy and he plans to try to have lots of kids that’s better than the [00:43:00] person who indulgent, marries a girl who says, I’m, I’m not gonna try to have any other kids. Yeah. But it’s, it’s probably better in most cases that you just. You know, masturbate when you’re gonna masturbate and, and suck it up in regards to your relationship.

Simone Collins: Honestly, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: does this rec categorization of sexuality into not gay versus straight but in regards to how you relate to your arousal patterns more broadly better because I think it, it, it, it better categorizes everyone who’s, who’s really on our broader team into one category and everyone who’s off our team into another category.

And it also helps differentiate our category from the urban monoculture.

So this doesn’t mean that you are not of this category if you don’t have kids, or if you choose a life where you don’t have kids. It’s more about how you relate to arousal and pleasure more broadly, you can decide that your life is better spent in service to the future of humanity. [00:44:00] Through, , taking on an endeavor or a pathway that prevents you from having kids but is still not dedicated to pleasure, it’s basically is your life dedicated to pleasure?

Is pleasure how you identify who you are? Like is the things that give you pleasure, your core sense of identity? Or do you internally calculate them as vices that subtract from your purpose? And here what I mean is anything that subtracts from your mission in life to somebody with this mindset is a vice. You know, whether that is sleeping in or collecting war hammer cards or masturbating to frequently, or, , having sex and spending a large amount of time securing sexual partners.

. Are the things that give you pleasure, your core sense of I, and, and what’s really cool about this is this means that somebody who primarily identifies as like a magic, the gathering hobbyist, would be seen as equally bad as somebody who primarily identifies a. As a furry, whereas somebody who does either of these things [00:45:00] recreationally and understands that they are wasting their time and that the short amount of time they have on earth while doing them, but is like, yeah, but I wouldn’t be able to focus as hard on the stuff that really does matter if I didn’t let loose.

Occasionally, , you know, you can be totally, on this side of this divide. , While having a preference for either of these things. It’s just how you relate to them.

Simone Collins: so if, if I were to articulate this slightly differently, it would basically just be like, okay, is your, is your. Are your sexual, is your desired sexual lifestyle gonna stop you from reproducing and having a flourishing family? If yes, we don’t support it.

If No, go for it, buddy. Is that, is that kind of it?

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I would say it’s a little like, that’s, that’s I guess the, the weakest way of wording it which is, you know, you’re saying, is it not going to be incompatible with what I would say is positive because the thing about kinks, right, [00:46:00] is. You know, you may use a kink to get off or something like that.

Yeah. But that’s an indulgent waste of time. And you know, that, like, if you have a correct way of, of relating to what I’d say, like if you, if you relate to sexuality in the way that I would say is the correct way to relate to sexuality

Simone Collins: mm-hmm. You

Malcolm Collins: would understand that that’s just as bad as sitting in front of a sports game and having a drink or watching you know, anime or playing video games or arguing with someone online when you know you’re never going to change their mind.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or troll posting when, you know, it’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have like a specific agenda. Okay. Anything you are doing for the sake of, you know, pleasure or addictive pathways or anything like that. It’s, it’s, it’s all in that same category. Okay. Maybe not higher or lower, but it’s all in that same category.

Yeah. An indulgence. Right. And to dedicate your life to, it an indulgence of that category. And this [00:47:00] is where I see, you know, a arousal patterns in life dedicated to them, probably pretty differently than a lot of conservatives where they might see a person who you know, dedicates their entire life to like, their, their fetish.

And you know, they’re going to what’s that? Folsom Street Fair and, you know, the, all the, the weird fetish gear. And this is like everything about their life. And they see them as a significantly higher category of de degeneracy than say, somebody who spends all of their money in free time on war hammer paraphernalia and has a, a giant like war hammer set up in their room, or, or, yeah.

The model train sets or equally audience here equally

Simone Collins: objectionable.

Malcolm Collins: Equally objectionable. Yeah. Because it’s something that has no possibility of contributing to civilization. So

Simone Collins: instead of like spectrums of gay to straight, they are spectrums of, contributes to human flourishing versus doesn’t.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, not [00:48:00] contributes to, but that’s the way that they structure their, their lives in their relation to their own arousal and sexuality.

Simone Collins: I don’t know what you mean exactly by that I mean ‘cause what does Warhammer have to do with.

Malcolm Collins: Your relation to well, okay. Their lives and their own pleasure pathways.

Simone Collins: Okay. Sort of what, what they do for, for fulfillment in life.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And then people can be like, well, what about like biblical stuff? Because we’ve said, you know, we, we, we follow biblical stuff as well. And I’d be like, yeah, but that’s like an additional category that I apply to my family, right? Like, the, the biblical perspective on things like when I’m telling my kids you shouldn’t do X or YI think if I over rely, I’d be like, there is a biblical argument for this, but we’re not gonna lean on the biblical argument for this because it will seem capricious was in a modern setting.

We are gonna lean on this secondary argument for this and to live a life that is in line with biblical principles. Somebody can be like, well this is totally different from just saying, I’m gonna [00:49:00] live a life that’s in service to the next generation. Right. To me, I might say this person is like closer to my tribe if they do that.

But I’m not gonna say that I am incompatible with aligning my objectives and goals with the other person. Or I would do something that capriciously impeded their lifestyle. So that would be my differentiator there especially as we move into an environment where the technology for having children changes the, the gender compatibilities of individuals.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, in a sense it’s only gonna get worse, I guess you could say.

Malcolm Collins: So. Well, no, it’s gonna get the, the, the, so I think you’re gonna see two things happen. Mm-hmm. The hedonistic pathway is going to become even harder to resist because of all of the new things you can be was in an online context.

I actually think Time did a very good job of this when you’ve been watching so

Simone Collins: much of that with the kids [00:50:00]

Malcolm Collins: with BMO is in the you know, virtual world and everybody has their, like weird avatar and their, you know, upgrade it with points and stuff like this. And this is how they identify and themselves to everyone else.

And it just becomes weird and abstracted and everything like you said. Right.

Speaker 5: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who at these two system dumps into the chat room? Know what I’m saying?? Vinny, can you hook my friend up with some BMO brand s.

Speaker 4: This super skid costs 15 million crypto coins. Give it to me, Vinny.

Speaker 6: I’m beautiful.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think it’s gonna become weird and abstracted because these people are still gonna be human and they’re still gonna have human arousal pathways and so they’re gonna act like and look like all of the sexiest things from the human.

Yeah. A few of them will dress as weird, distracted, you know. To do, you know, the way, do, do, do you know the way to the what they to, to the devil or whatever?

Speaker: Do you know the way? You have to have Ebola [00:51:00] to know the way. He doesn’t know the way.

Malcolm Collins: What’s a I don’t think it was, it had to do with Ebola. I remember e Ebola. It’s a way so anyway, so the, the I think the vast majority of people are gonna dress as something that they see as arousing to other people.

Because being human, they want to imagine themselves as arousing to the, the individuals who they have a sexual attraction to. Right. Like the, the gender they have a sexual attraction to. Yeah. And so, or the multiple genders or the whatever, right? But, but they’re, they want to see themselves as attractive to that.

I often use AI to solicit feedback on my episodes, , and I absolutely loved one of the lines that it came up with. The urban monoculture already treats gender as a mood, not a chromosome. Once high fidelity avatars, haptic suits and eventual direct neural interfaces are normal. I’m a girl and I’m a dragon fox.

With three tails and glowing neon genitals become functionally indistinguishable claims. At [00:52:00] that point, the old progressive argument, same sex attraction is not a kink because it’s an immutable orientation towards a natural category. Gender simply evaporates.

Malcolm Collins: And so I think we’re not gonna see a total abstraction. We will see a total. Ization of avatar profiles, which I think in a large part, we, we sort of already have seen. I mean, look at the v tubers and stuff like that. Come on, man. Nobody, very few pit bull. But we have huge overlap with this one guy who does a vtu as a troll.

He’s like a Romanian guy. He’s got a very

Simone Collins: V Yes, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so that’s, that’s where I think that that culture’s going. Mm-hmm. And I think that broadly I can find common ground with anybody who is dedicating their lives and their actions to something larger than self-affirmation and pleasure.

And I will find a degree of contention, as I’ve already mentioned. But I, I think it’s, it’s only, it’s, it is right now sort of long-term contention rather than [00:53:00] contention sort of for, for, for the person in the moment, alliances with, with individuals who are optimizing for something other than long-term human flourishing.

But yeah. Thoughts?

Simone Collins: I like this. I mean, I really, I think the important thing really is. Okay. I’m, I’m, I don’t think it’s logically inconsistent that people on a biblical basis object to certain sexual proclivities. That is fine. No, but I think in terms of our particular techno puritan religious framework, it has to, instead of being more necessarily to I think a lot of biblical norms, which have, are more like bits of dust that were picked up by the rolling meatball.

That is the Bible. There’s lot of stuff,

Malcolm Collins: biblical norms are meant to be understood. Why did these norms exist within their, well, a lot of things just got

Simone Collins: tacked on to various religious texts over time as like, here’s this thing we do and also this thing, you know, helps to reduce [00:54:00] disease spread. This thing helps to do, you know, a lot of the things that got picked up as religious traditions got picked up because they.

Largely helped to reduce disease spread or, or helps society in LA living in larger and larger civilizational formats, larger cities, et cetera survive. And I think if you wanna look at it from a techno puritan perspective, we’d take a look at this from a meta perspective and say, okay, what were all those things really for though?

And they were for promoting long-term human flourishing and growth. So when we ask, is this particular hobby or indulgence or, or sexuality or whatever, good or bad, does it contribute to long-term human flourishing? No. I mean, Jesus plays

Malcolm Collins: out any, anything that you do not do for, for God is a sin like anything.

Well, yeah. And there’s also,

Simone Collins: I mean, I think if you extend it to other sins like sloth or avarice or pride, you know, all these things are really related to that as well. I would say when [00:55:00] you were talking, for example, about excessive online commentary, just to try to like, you know. Change someone’s mind who’s never gonna change their mind.

You know, all these things I think are, are you, you can kind of connect them to the seven deadly sins if you want to. And, and, and those really have to do with like, hey, you’re not, you’re not serving God, you’re not serving human flourishing or the future of humanity by doing this thing, I think was in the existing

Malcolm Collins: world, the seven deadly sins.

Well, they still can be useful in calling out. Like, Hey, maybe pride is not a good thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It, a better framework is to understand whether or not you’re doing something to fulfill some sort of like, biological pathway, like some sort of opioid pathway, or are you doing it because it is in the best interest of, you know, we associate God with, with future human flourishing.

Yeah. Because it is in the best interest of God, and, and obviously you can associate God with something else, but I almost like anyone. You know, when they’re arguing with somebody online and they know they’re never gonna convince the person thinks they’re doing that for God. Mm-hmm. [00:56:00] Or when they’re buying war Hammer figurines, or when they’re watching a sports game or when they’re, you know, we should mean all of those things they said.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that. I mean, I, I, yeah, I, I I like that. It is good. It is favorable.

So you’re saying that like if you had a son who was totally gay, you would probably recommend a heterosexual lifestyle and then just like gay porn and you know, bathhouses or whatever. And I’d say, well, minus the bathhouses, this isn’t that different than the way things were done from like the 1950s to, well, as far back as I’m aware in Western civilization, this isn’t like some radical idea. We were able to live fairly fine and same-sex attracted people were able to live fairly fine with this normalized. So I don’t have a problem suggesting that. .

And so now you might be saying. Well, the urban monoculture just can’t deal with a concept like that. You know, a person not [00:57:00] having what arouses them, be given to them, they think it’s a right of people, and I’m like, no, no, no, no. They think it’s a right of attractive people. They think it’s a right of attractive men.

The urban monoculture recognizes perfectly well. There are hundreds of millions of men who are just born not attractive enough or not intelligent enough, or without the social charisma to get a partner. And it derived them. It calls them. incells. And they don’t deserve to act on their arousal.

And not only that, but they’re supposed to be fine and emotionally healthy. Why is it okay? And this is a much larger population than the gay population of the United States, the incell population. Why, why are we okay saying that they don’t need to have their arousal pathways fulfilled? And that’s perfectly an easy and okay thing for them to live with.

But gay people know they have a right to have their arousal pathways filled. . And again, I’m, I’m, I take the position of if you want to culturally normalize this, do, it’s not my goal to get in your culture’s biz about this, but the [00:58:00] arguments that they make for why gays should be able to live this way should also apply to incells, and they often don’t.

And the fact that they dehumanize in cells on top of all of this, that they. A population that is, by the way, sees a pretty woman, doesn’t act on it, doesn’t skeeze on them, , that is suppressing their arousal patterns that, that this population is degraded. , It’s shocking to me, but it shows that there is an inherent caste system where the urban monoculture really only considers attractive men.

, It’s only when they are deprived of their past towards pleasure has a grave injustice taken place.

And you absolutely see this, where they’re like, can you imagine what it would be like to go your whole life without being able to act on your arousal pattern? And it’s like, yeah, that’s, that’s literally this other group that you mock deride and dehumanize the incel population. Now people will be like, no, no, no.

This is about love. And I point out here, no, it’s not about love. No, it’s not. You could love somebody [00:59:00] without them being arousing to you. Everybody knows this. Everybody knows that. In fact, we even laud that as a society. You know, somebody’s wife gets like burnt up in a fire and she’s horribly disfigured and he’s, he loves her.

That’s, that’s amazing. Shallow Hall, you know, you’re, you’re with somebody despite the way that they look, not being arousing to anyone, despite just not being around to you. And it’s, it is actually sort of even gross to gay people to say this, that, a same-sex attracted person is only able to love.

People love their own gender. , That’s not a thing. No. Love is not a gendered thing. You, you, you, the love emotion just doesn’t work that way. Even though they’ve made up all these, like a romantic whatever. Everybody knows you can fall in love with anyone.

And this is because, and we have an episode on this with lots and lots of receipts. , Romantic love as an emotional set is mostly a myth. , And that the reality of the situation is, is that love is a choice. It is about the way you choose to treat the [01:00:00] other people in your life, and you choose to contextualize the other people in your life.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I appreciate it. I love you so well. I, I just think you need to recontextualize a lot of this stuff with, in a modern context, if you want to keep your kids right. Yeah. ‘cause if things seem capricious, it’s gonna be very hard to keep your kids within your cultural context.

Simone Collins: You bet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and I think more than ever, people have to think extremely careful about any rule that could be construed as arbitrary. Exactly. Or that like, I guess a very, very common and wise parenting advice is you need to very carefully choose your battles and choose what hill you wanna die on.

And you can only choose like a couple, a very small number of things or a very, like, just a single or one or two op core operating principles and stick to them. And so I like this for that reason. It’s good.

Malcolm Collins: [01:01:00] Yeah. Oh, by the way, something I always hate when people say, because n said this recently and I was a little disappointed.

Oh

Simone Collins: no.

Malcolm Collins: This was his opinion on same-sex marriage, and he is like, well. I think same-sex marriage should be illegal because I think that marriage should only be a religious institution. Right? Like that it should only be through the church. And I’m like, yeah, that’s a

Simone Collins: common argument.

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s a common argument, but it’s a libertarian cop out because no, libertarian actually fights for that.

I’ve never seen any serious politician actually fight to make marriage only and solely a religious institution. I believe it should be, but even if you made it only and solely a religious institution, it wouldn’t really change anything in our society because tons of Christian churches would be marrying gay people.

Tons of Jewish churches would be marrying gay people. Tons of us would be marrying gay people. Yeah. You, you’re, you, you, you would functionally change nothing from society today to that society. So it allows you to sound like you’re taking the conservative position without actually taking a meaningful stance.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [01:02:00] Okay. I see. That is a fair point. Yeah. You can’t just be like, it’s religious because I mean like half of the religions that you would guess would not then marry gay couples have like pride flags. Not even pride flags. Progress flags. Yeah. Hanging outside them. So I mean, you, you have done nothing.

Malcolm Collins: I, I generally like nothing, but I, I mentioned that because I was disappointed. I was like, come on man. That’s a, that’s a lame take anyway. Love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Okay. I’m gonna really quickly fill his milk bottle. You look

Malcolm Collins: great. And I just love that Ralph Lauren jacket. Jacket looked authoritarian. It goes with our vibe these days. Right. You know, gotta,

Simone Collins: well it also, it’s very on trend, although, like in a, in the, not on trend way, because apparently the, the trend of Christmas day decor this year is Ralph Lauren Christmas, everyone on TikTok is on about the Ralph Lauren Christmas.

You gotta throw away your gingerbread themed Christmas [01:03:00] decorations. ‘cause you’re doing Ralph Lauren this year. All these people who worked at Ralph Lauren stores or chiming in to talk about Ralph Lauren’s Christmas decorating rules because there were a lot of them. Really? Yeah. What are some of the,

Rules?

I mean, like no green wreaths no, no presents under the tree that were not boxes and. All of the same wrapping paper, either, you know, the reverse pattern or the main pattern. It actually does sound like

Malcolm Collins: it’d be very aesthetically appealing. I’m Oh yeah, no, like it’s,

Simone Collins: it’s all plaids and you know, matching basically like what a lot of pe people’s takes on this are is that Ralph Lauren Christmas is just like literally fricking traditional Christmas, like red and green and plaid and oh, you can’t do anything traditional.

That sounds like it might

Malcolm Collins: be for Nazis.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because, well, there’s a lot of gatekeeping. People are, are shaming all the gray millennials and they’re like, you and your disgusting gray millennial house aren’t allowed to have Ralph Lauren Christmas. ‘cause [01:04:00] you chose your gray millennial house and there’s all these, you know, former Ralph Lauren sales associates, Ralph Lauren, Chris.

Our, our home isn’t, it’s more like the home alone. Ho House is is is framed as the Ralph Lauren Christmas house look before they

Malcolm Collins: destroyed it and made it gray.

Millennial house.

Simone Collins: Oh yes. That, oh man. The before and after photos are the most devastating, forget photos of Gaza people

Malcolm Collins: Home Alone house. So what did you think of the video today?

What, what was it? I mean, did you get, did you get chance? Today’s

Simone Collins: video? I got the comments. Yeah. The, the most common comment, we got, like, at least four of these, it surprised to me is that people are saying that this is a 40 Trump move, a 40 chess move on behalf of Trump, in that he has explicitly stated in the past, and I, I do actually recall him saying this, that the Democrats are always gonna do the opposite of what he says he wants.

And so, oh, so

Malcolm Collins: he acted like he didn’t want the Epstein files release, so the Democrats [01:05:00] act themselves if he actually did that. And, and if the, if the Epstein files get released and there’s like literally nothing on him as it appears there is. It

Simone Collins: could be. It could be, yeah. And then other people are like, yeah, and the only reason why he might have wanted to hold onto the Trump, or sorry, the Epstein files for longer, is because he would want to actually u we’ll say unh holster them during the midterms.

There are definitely, there’s a narrative where this all makes a lot of sense. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Obviously we can’t know because we’re not in Trump’s mind, but I like, I like that. I like that. All right.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Oh, how did the video do, by the way?

Simone Collins: Not well. Eight

Malcolm Collins: of 10. Eight of 10.

Speaker 7: Simone, that turkey’s looking very nice. And it was our favorite price. Free, free coupon. Turkey coupon, Turkey. Look at that. Look at [01:06:00] that. So bad. Turns out Simone Green spices. So I’ve got bad news for you. You may be a tra wife because I’m making sourdough and Turkey. Yeah, I have my sourdough basket. Like what we have last night’s sourdough.

Are you gonna, are you gonna show off your go? Well, the kids actually went through a lot of it, so I’m, I’m happy.

Speaker 8: Good times. All right. Let’s get this bird back in,

but it’s gonna be good, right? It’s couldn’t h your sauce, the butter boy and sauce that you found a recipe for. Yeah, I’m excited for that.

We owe your mom for getting this. It’s nice of her.

Okay. She goes,[01:07:00]

Speaker 7: it’s so weird that you used to be like this hipster girl, and yet everything, you’re, this is what I wanted Now everything you’re doing now is so hipster. I wanted, yeah, I wanted the, the blue egg chickens and the sourdough and the. Yeah, all that stuff. And the really funny thing is that I, I would bake things on the weekends and then I, I wouldn’t want to eat them because I’m like, I don’t want to eat those stuff.

Speaker 8: Like, I don’t, I can’t eat it all by myself, so now I just have a bunch of kids, like ravenous wild animals, mucks that.

Speaker 7: It’s literally the sound they make when they eat. Toasty. Smells good though. Oh, yeah. I gotta show the fans we use. Uh, what, what did I use for this one? You know, one of the AI image sites for pictures of our kids. What? Oh, the AI board? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where we used to film when the channel started.

Speaker 8: Oh [01:08:00] God. You’re right. Yeah. You filmed down here. Yep. I like you. New spot. It’s better. I go upstairs then

Loins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanksgiving. So dad’s with the kids all day. Oh my gosh. Are any of them still guys? Is this a mess?

You’re so happy with yourself, girl. Titan Indy. Are you gonna get bopped

Speaker 7: tyke? You are in big trouble. No,

not again. Okay, sweetheart

Indy, don’t do that. [01:09:00] I.

Put them away, please, Titan. Why? I just come back? ‘cause Mommy’s gonna cook you up like a Turkey if you don’t.

Thank you, sweetheart. I really appreciate it. I love you a lot.

You did not tie your tongue into a, are you guys watching cartoons? Yeah, I found a Thanksgiving run from the 1996 commercials and all. What are you doing? Toasty. I’ve been doing Are you playing among us? Octavian, I’m not. What are you working on? Huh? I just want mom making my video. Oh, okay. Yeah. I’m play. I don’t know.

I’m not. I love you buddy. [01:10:00] Love.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the provocative question: “Has real fascism ever been tried?” In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm explores the historical and ideological roots of fascism, socialism, and their intersections with modern political movements. The discussion challenges conventional narratives about left and right-wing ideologies, examining how terms like “fascism” and “socialism” have been redefined over time.

The conversation covers:

* The origins and definitions of fascism and socialism

* How historical figures like Mussolini and Hitler viewed their own movements

* The role of collectivism, authoritarianism, and racial/ethnic narratives in shaping ideologies

* Parallels between past and present political rhetoric

* The influence of institutions, religion, and education on political identity

* The dangers of labeling and the importance of questioning mainstream narratives

Whether you agree or disagree, this episode encourages critical thinking and a deeper look at the history and language of political ideologies. Perfect for viewers interested in history, politics, and challenging the status quo.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more in-depth discussions![00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be exploring a chain of logic that I jumped into based on a, a simple joke that caught my mind as I was walking around, which is real fascism has never been tried. And this joke came to me because I was thinking about the, oh, you know, real communism has never been tried.

But as I started to follow this to its conclusion, what I came to realize, and we’ve talked about this before on this podcast, but I think through chasing this chain of logic, you can see it more completely okay. That the modern left is not only. Just fascist, like, like they are definitionally more fascist by the original definition of fascism when it was created than either the Nazis or Mussolini was.

Mm-hmm. But so, so not only are they, are they more fascist, but the, there was a sort of [00:01:00] dedicated campaign to rebrand fascism as something other than socialism. All social, all fascism is what I’m gonna be arguing in. This is what we in modern times call socialism with ethnic overtones ethnic class struggle, overtones.

And I will note here that people will be like, well, it’s, it’s, it’s nationalistic ethnic overtones. And it’s like, not really. The fascist movement was Pan National to an extent. And one of the, one of the really interesting things is whenever I. We’ll talk to, like, I’ll try to engage in AI on this topic or something like that.

And I’ll say, you know, in what way was fascism, not just socialism, right? And they’ll say, well, fascism contained a lot of far right elements and. I’ll be like, name one, and this is the thing. It’s not like it was socialism mixed with far right elements. It [00:02:00] literally has not a single right wing element as a component of it unless you say that racism is right wing.

Only when it’s practiced by white people, which is a racist comment in and of itself. So what I, what I’ll mean here is it will say like, oh, it was right wing through things like antisemitism. And yet, and we’ll go into the data on this. The original thinkers of the the Marxist and socialist movement were far more explicitly anti-Semitic than literally, I think the, the least anti-Semitic of the socialist founding fathers was more anti-Semitic than the most anti-Semitic of America’s founding father.

Dramatic margin. So, so one, it is a explicitly anti-Semitic in its roots, modern leftism. But even today, if you look at anti-Jewish hate crimes, they are far more committed by leftists than they are by righteous. So [00:03:00] to say that Nazis were right in their form of socialism because it was anti-emetic, is frankly common.

So let’s go into this. Fascism’s classification is a distinct ideology, particularly the far right. Part of it. Yeah. It was a post hoc academic construction, largely driven by left-leaning scholars in the mid 20th century to rehabilitate socialism’s image after World War II by severing fascism from its socialist roots and rebranding.

It obscured the shared collectivist state interventionists and anti-capitalist elements between the two, allowing socialism to be portrayed as inherently progressive and egalitarian while fascism was demonized. Its reactionary, and so when you ask. You know, go into AI and you say, what’s the difference between fascism and socialism?

It will give you five core points. And so this is, this is what we’re gonna be looking at here. Right.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay. I’m, I never thought to ask this. You’re, you’re kind of blowing my mind because all of the socialist YouTubers that I follow are [00:04:00] constantly calling MAGA fascist. I was just watching another video this morning where that happened.

So like what? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So it, it’s, it’s, it is both a what. But also a very obvious thing, right? Like,

Simone Collins: okay, when you

Malcolm Collins: dig down into it. And by the way, if you haven’t seen our video on Starship Troopers that we use to explore fascism as a concept much more, I strongly suggest you watch it. It’s one of the best we’ve ever made.

But anyway, to continue here it has an authoritarian structure. A single leader or party with absolute power, often portraying themselves as the embodiment of a nation’s will opposition is crushed via secret police censorship, and violence. Now. You could say, does this mirror modern socialism? So who is the face of modern socialism?

You’re looking at Hassan Piker, right? Like I, I think it’d be hard to argue that somebody else is the face of modern socialism. He is the number one left-leaning streamer. Okay. So Hassan Piker recently did a trip to the CCP where he went on and on good China. How great the CCP [00:05:00] was, so, and how much better the CCP was than the United States.

So note here, the United States. Is a capitalist democracy, maybe an imperfect democracy, but it is a democracy. He said that the CCP in contrast was a much better way to structure a government. So let’s see if that fits. Criteria one. A single leader or party with absolute power often portraying themselves as the embodiment of a nation’s will opposition is crushed via secret police censorship, and violence.

That is exactly fascism. It’s not related to fascism. Along this differentiating point it is. Exactly fascism. In addition to the using authoritarian technocratic, controlled hierarchical governments, ruled by unelected officials to crush free speech, is that not what we see actively going on in the UK right now, which is much more left wing than the United States?

Is unelected officials very frequently implementing extremely draconian legal [00:06:00] restrictions where, for example, somebody was arrested. For writing simply on their wall. Islam can be questioned. And this is something I’ll get to deeper here. Obviously you wouldn’t be arrested if you had wrote, Christianity can be questioned.

Obviously you wouldn’t be arrested if you had written. Judaism can be questioned, right? So the other thing I’ll write here is they’ll say, well, it’s an egalitarian. Belief system. And I’ll point out that no, when you look at the de colonialist mindset, what you actually see is a very explicit racialist agenda that, that highly mirrors.

The Racialist agenda we saw was in Nazism. So to continue here. Unitarianism and often racism. So they’ll say the nation or the ethnic group is exalted as superior with myths of historical greatness. Or victimhood used to justify expansionism and exclusion. So hold, hold, hold, hold, hold on here. Here. Myth of a victimhood.

And I think that this is really important because it requires understanding the way that Nazism was actually structured. [00:07:00] Okay. Nazim. When it explained to its people, because we have a lot of writings on this, this isn’t like a mystery how Hitler got people angry at the Jews. Right, right. Yeah. He said the Jews control a disproportionate amount of wealth.

They have historically oppressed us. Look at them sabotaging us in our wars and stuff like that, and they have. Permanently made the German people an underclass through systemic discrimination. This is the exact argument that is being used by the modern leftist movement, but it’s worse than that. If you look at the modern leftist movement, much more so than class struggle, as a phenomenon, or as something that’s talked about.

What they talk about is, and we go into this a lot in the episode we did on Zohan Mandani, another one I strongly recommend we watch, where we go over the colonialist de colonialist mindset that his father lays out in a number of his books, which are, are, are [00:08:00] very interesting. And essentially. He separates the world into two groups.

One group is the United States and Europe and the Jews. Mm-hmm. And this group had, you know, historic economic power and winter round and colonized various regions of the world. And through that colonization firm, permanently made anyone who was from one of these regions. An underclass in a way that they cannot escape without a violent overthrow and restructuring of the system, which we’ll get to in a second.

Mm. Okay. And this, this can make sense if you’re viewing the world like they do. So you’re like, okay. Why are certain groups , not able to achieve economic prosperity when there are no cultural or genetic differences between groups? Because modern leftism takes this as the truism.

Mm-hmm. And so it says, if, if, if that is the case, then how is it true that, that some groups ended up [00:09:00] with more power than other groups. Right. Well, it must have come from this period of colonialization. And we’ll do a separate video on this because I think the very interesting concept and topic, but one of the things we point out is we can know factually, this isn’t the case.

How can you know that factually. Some groups doing poorly is not due to colonialism. Well, it’s very easy. All you have to do is go region by region and ask yourself a question. Do the countries that were colonized share more in common with other countries that were colonized under similar economic systems?

Or do they share more in common with cultures that are ethnically and culturally and genetically similar to them. So I’ll explain what I mean by that. Okay. Are the regions in East Asia or Latin America that were colonized, or India, like South Asia that were colonized, are they [00:10:00] closer to colonized regions across the globe?

Right. Or are they closer? To un colonized regions nearby them. And the answer is very obvious. For example, Ethiopia was never a colonized country, and yet it is much closer in terms of economic development, in terms of its existing challenges and political challenges to the colonized countries within Africa.

Then either is to either the un colonized or colonized countries in East Asia, which are both much closer to each other. Also if you look across colonized countries, the Latin American colonized countries are much closer to each other than they are to either the colonized or un colonized parts of Africa or.

The Middle East or East Asia the, the duration to which a country was colonized actually does not correlate that much with their existing

but through, [00:11:00] through that, we can tell that that that colonization. As a structure is not the core source of the existing economic disparities, but if you build a world framework around that, then what you can build is a world, a racialist world framework where all of the quote unquote colonized people can come together.

To defeat the colonizers. Right. Often through overthrows or everything like that. Yeah. There is the people who’ve been stolen from versus the people who do the stealing. Right? Yeah. And, and it is a, a racialist mindset that almost precisely mirrors the mindset of the Nazis or of Mussolini’s party. But, but even more so than Nazis.

It’s very similar to Nazi ideology, but there’s a second. What I’ve always found humorous thing about the colonizer mindset is it is explicitly ahistorical when they talk about the colonizer people, right? Like one of the groups that they will always include today among the colonized groups is Hispanics, [00:12:00] right?

The problem is, is Hispanics are like literally no less a colonizer than the Americans or the Canadians.

Simone Collins: Y yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s funny. It’s true. Most

Malcolm Collins: countries are literally made up of populations that migrated predominantly for Europe and then mixed with Native American and slaves who they own which most countries are very, the same people always wonder, they’re like, Malcolm, why do you say that America and.

Latin America are culturally so similar. I’m like both countries made up of European immigrants that had slaves and interbred with natives. There might have been a like 20% higher rate of interbreeding with the Latin American, but that’s not enough to create a fundamentally different culture. The thing that differentiates Latin American and American culture predominantly is just Catholicism.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I was gonna say that. It’s just Catholicism.

Malcolm Collins: It’s just Catholicism. And people know my thoughts on Catholicism in Catholic countries and everything like that. So they can be like, okay, okay, well [00:13:00] that explains why. But the point I’m making here, the point I’m making here is and, and then this also explains, we go into this, this episode, but I, I wanna go into it a little here.

Why they think that they have a mandate to screw over. Systems that they see as paid into by colonizer ethnic groups. Like, you know, there’s been the recent thing where all the Somalians have been cheating. I think it was around half a billion dollars out of Minnesota by claiming to have autistic children and then sending it to terrorist groups is, is a miss terrorist.

Groups that are, you know, out, out there committing genocides you know, using your taxpayer dollars and stealing from autistic children. But what, like, how do they, how does this make sense to them? It’s like a moral thing to do and it makes sense. It’s a moral thing to do because no matter how much damage or how much suffering or how much death they cause to a colonizer people, until the system has been inverted, that is ethical.

And, and this, this, this systemic inversion also really mirrors. Nazi ideology. There’s this group that used to be at the top and then they inverted. And I love, whenever I bring [00:14:00] this up with GBT, it’s like, well, hold on here. It’ll say something like, but the Nazi ideology, you know, was based on a myth that one group had power.

But if you look at the United States, blacks really do earn less than whites. And I was like, it was not based on a myth. Jews really did earn more than S in pre Nazi Germany. This is well documented and was well attested as one of the reasons they wanted to target them. The logic mirrors exactly, but to continue here.

What’s the next thing? Militarism and anti passivism society is organized around military values. Whi war glorified as a means to national rejuvenation. The problem is, if you listen to Hassan Piker, if you listen to leading socialist figures today, militarism is heavily glorified. You will see Hassan Piker literally will interview and glaze a.

A who, what was that? [00:15:00] Hhy Pirate, for example.

Simone Collins: Oh, oh yeah. They,

Malcolm Collins: they will, this is somebody who kills and, and grapes, innocent people. Right? Like, I forgot about that. That was, yeah. Huh. The, the, he will literally refuse to condemn in many, many, you know, I think praise he’ll, praise Hezbollah, he’ll praise other terrorist organizations that act with extreme violence.

He even said the Hezbollah flag was his favorite flag because it had an AK. Gun on it, right? Literally, he’s saying his favorite flag is his favorite flag because it has a weapon of math death on it. This is modern socialism, and what we’ll be going in here in a bit is to point out that this isn’t just modern socialism.

This was socialism. If you go back to the academics who created the very concept of socialism, they also said similar things. The only place where you don’t get. This is where socialism existed within Western Academia and had to tone. Its, its, its ideology down. But socialism has always been militaristic [00:16:00] in implementation historically.

Simone Collins: Hmm. And,

Malcolm Collins: and we’re also gonna go into where socialism was implemented and point out to that. In many cases, it led to much and more deaths than fascist implementation. So then you have anti egalitarianism which is to say rejects class struggle now. This is really interesting because modern socialism and historic socialism in many ways is actually anti class struggle.

So look at somebody like Hassan, who’s, you know, constantly asking for donations from his subscribers despite being born into immense wealth, despite having immense wealth, despite never doing any major social donations himself, right? Like, how, how does this ethically make sense? If you actually believe in a class struggle and we’re dedicated to resolving it, right?

How? How does this ideology make sense? How does an ideology where a and, and the way you make it make sense is with the colonialist? Mindset, the colonialist, post colonialist mindset right now, all of a sudden it makes sense. You can say, well, it was never [00:17:00] really about class struggle. When we said class struggle, that was a euphemism for ethnic struggle, which by the way, Hitler and Mussolini also did what they said is, what we have always thought historically was a class struggle, was really an ethnic struggle.

Right? And so. The way, and you can be like, well, how do they make this ethnic struggle work? Right? Because this is what modern socialism has rebranded itself as a colonialist, post-colonial is to say, well, you whites can join the ranks of the dispossessed and oppressed by self-identifying as an oppressed category.

Right. You know, whether it’s that you’re a demisexual or you’re asexual or you know, you’re, you are your partner happens to be a demisexual. Well now you’re not dating a straight person, so now you’re, you are gay or bisexual or, you know, they, they, we’ve pointed this out in other episodes, but basically they created a.

Systematology where anyone [00:18:00] could identify through costly signaling in the beginning and now non costly signaling as an oppressed class and expect to get their just reward when the society is reordered in their favor. Mm-hmm. Which is an, an interesting differentiation from historic fascism, but it’s not a particularly significant differentiation when you consider that for the highest rank of this sort of reclassification that a, a white person can undergo as a dispossessed group.

They, they have to sterilize themselves. So yes, I, as a white people person can, you know, go trans. Join in the ranks of the dispossessed. But as a white person to be considered an equal among them, I have to be sterilized, which has a lot of mirrored ideological beliefs to historic nazim. And if you’re like, oh, people are born trans, blah, blah, blah, this isn’t really the same thing.

I point out there was a study of gender ness and [00:19:00] gender noted use that came out in 2024, I wanna say. And it showed that nine out of 10 use at the age of 13. Who identify with another gender. Over, over nine of 10 of them identify with their birth gender by the time they’re, I think it’s 23 or 24.

So, so no, it it, it’s not a persistent thing. It’s only, yeah. It’s just that adolescent

Simone Collins: sucks.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, yeah. It’s only really persistent in, in any study group that I’ve seen. Once a person is being affirmed by their community, which of course it would be persistent then because it’s incredibly costly to go back on it but that doesn’t really prove that it’s a persistent.

Right sexuality. It proves that once somebody makes an extremely costly choice and will now be shamed for their community, as we’ve seen from Detransition, they become incredibly shamed by the trans community. We actually have a friend who det transitioned and have to leave acting entirely. They didn’t even do it at the political stance.

They just tried to detransition and they treated it like cults do, like leaving a Jehovah’s Witness or something like that. Like, oh you know, now. Every one of us will refuse to talk to you. We’ll refuse to hire you, [00:20:00] we’ll refuse to give you gigs. And, and this is well-documented behavior anyone can look at this for, for detransition.

And it’s like saying, well, very few people leave Scientology, therefore they’re born Scientologists. Very few people leave Jehovah’s Witnesses, therefore they’re born. Yeah, no practicing cult like tactics. You have to expect cult-like retention patterns once somebody is opted into it. But fortunately we have these studies like the one I just mentioned for when it’s not being affirmed and it.

Almost always desist, which is crazy. Mm. In, in the modern research we have, but to continue here, finally the, the economic approach, which again, is, is socialist, but let’s, let’s go into the, the founding fathers of each of these systems, by the way, any thoughts, Simone, before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, this is really helpful, and it’s not that I was acting on this, but I really did dispel, or I, I, I just assumed that.

The right would must be fascist if everyone was calling the right fascist. And it’s really clear that, well, I

Malcolm Collins: think that the other weird thing is you have this ideology or this belief that [00:21:00] Okay. You know, historically during the Cold War, there were three groups, right? There was the communists.

There was the fascist. Mm-hmm. And there was the capitalist. Mm-hmm. Right. And those were the three core factions. And then you’ve gotta ask yourself, wait a second, capitalism and communism. I can describe in like a sentence, but the moment I attempt to describe fascism. I am left with tons and tons of caveats, and almost every one of those caveats is meant to specifically carve out left-wing ideology from being described as fascist.

And that’s when I begin to be like, okay, this is getting ridiculous. And then I actually look at it and I’m like, wait, is it actually better to think of. The World War II period as three factions, the capitalists, the socialists, and the communists. And, and this is the other thing about fascism. Look around the world today for the fascists.

Where are the fascists? Right? Like presumably it was this giant, really big [00:22:00] ideology. I can point to cap capitalists and communists today. Apparently communism completely failed, yet there’s still lots of them. Where are the real fascists? And then you can be like, oh, well MAGA is fascist. And I’m like, in what?

Conceivable way. In their economic structure, in their, their globalist, no, like Trump is constantly trying to end wars. Right. Like in their, their, so what they

Simone Collins: say, because you’re, you’re actually, I mean, unless you’re rhetorically asking is they often refer to the. I guess more aesthetically totalitarian elements of the Trump administration, such as ice agents arresting people, I mean, like us actually enforcing our laws.

They, they view that as. They call that fascist,

Malcolm Collins: which is ironically a fascist accusation. Because what they expect is for laws to be, remember how I said in their ideology there is two ethnic classes? Mm-hmm. And the two ethnic classes are deserving of different levels of human [00:23:00] dignity, different treatment under the law, et cetera.

You have the, the, the. Colonized and the colonizer uhhuh. And when they see the colonized groups having the laws applied to them, that they would apply to the colonizer groups without thinking, I mean, look at the white South African, or refugees, right? Where. The Episcopal Church literally shut down an organization that had been running, I think for decades at, at least for a number of years that was meant to help refugees.

So they just didn’t have to help the, like 40 white refugees, right? Like they couldn’t even bite the bullet on that. When we see how bad this is and how bad it’s infected these movements, and I just have to. Remind people that same year the Catholic church also shut down their refugee program. They didn’t say what explicitly about this as African like the Episcopalians did, but I’m just pointing out know who your enemies are.

No, here I’m not saying all Catholics. I’m saying the Vatican. Was a part of the socialist regime. We’ll get to that in a second because they always have been, they were pro, pro socialists when socialism was fascism. They were pro [00:24:00] socialists when socialism was under its modern guise. It has always been the heart of, of that axis of the world, of the communist versus a socialist versus a.

The capitalist. But anyway so the, the, the point here being is that what they’re really saying is I’m mortified to see the law being carried out and to see people that I consider of this elevated ethnic status subject to the law that I was previously perfectly okay with subjecting white people to.

The colonizers too. Jews too, right? And you, you see this in the way that they have covered stuff, like the war on Gaza, et cetera. Right? You know, they’re like, oh, oh my gosh, I can’t believe you know, they’ll see this stuff happen to Jews. It’s these horrible things happen to these, you know, girls at like, this, this a peace rally, right?

Like right on the border. It’s like some big concert, right? You know, and they see these horrible acts. And then they’ll be like, oh, but look, here it is happening to a Gazen kit, right? Like, and I’m like. [00:25:00] Okay. Why aren’t you talking about the literally twice as large, like even if you’re considering this, a genocide, genocide that’s happening in Africa where blacks are being killed.

Four being blacks by Arabs. In Darford, and the answer being is because that doesn’t, that doesn’t matter to them because it’s. Colonized versus colonized. So they don’t care. The only form of violence that is relevant to them is violence that can be categorized within the colonizer colonized category, right?

Which again, mirrors this Hitler esque ideology, and you can see this across their application within social media. But to continue. Benito Mussolini fascism’s originator, like the guy who literally originated it with the black shirts, which had very similar actions to what we, a group that wears black shirts and face masks today, just like Mussolini’s original. This is what the brown shirts were named after. The Nazi ones the, the Antifa organization, right? Mm-hmm. Which is hilarious. They call themselves anti-fascist, but they are literally fascist.

It’s like the Patriot Bill. Like, like just calling it the Patriot bill doesn’t mean it’s patriotic. But anyway [00:26:00] he was a committed socialist before World War I, editing the Italian Socialist Party’s newspaper ee, so Mussolini. Literally was the editor of Italy’s socialist newspaper where he advocated for a revolutionary class struggle.

He began to reframe this class struggle as being more and more nationalistic in tone. Hmm. But he retained socialist elements like state directed economic worker product protections. In a 1914 speech, Mussolini declares quote, I am and I remain socialist. I am a socialist who believes in the war. In quote.

So this was, you know, by 1919, he founded the Fasci, Italian Comito Blending Socialism was nationalism. As one historical analysis notes, fascism as envisioned by Benito Mussolini was always a left wing political project incorporating a syndicate worker syndicates under state control [00:27:00] with socialist thought.

He didn’t begin to talk against socialism until he outlined fas fascism as something. Dinked in the doctorate of fascism. But note this was after he coined fascism at the term and founded the fascist organization. Really the only reason he did this was that sort of infighting you get between groups that are incredibly similar to each other, like the Judean People’s front skit that we talk about all the time.

Often the more closely ideologically a group are, the more interested they are in distinguishing themselves from each other. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: the only people we ate more than the Romans are the Judean people.

F*****g and the people’s front of Judea split the people’s front of Judea splitters. We are the people’s front of Judea

Malcolm Collins: you see this historically over and over and over and over again. But yeah, he, like, he literally was a dedicated socialist and he created fascism as a branding of socialism where he changed a few words to really just say socialism was different words [00:28:00] specifically.

He said that what they needed was a co corporative system. However, the corporative system mirrored social estate planning, but subordinated it to nationalist utility in terms of framing why it was needed. However, fascists were always pan nationalists when they appealed to the Japanese, when the Nazis appealed to the Italians.

When the Italians appealed to the Nazis, it was always in this pan socialist ideology. This Pan National socialist ideology, right? So let’s go to Hitler here. Adolf Hitler explicitly claimed socialist credentials while rejecting Marxist interventionism. In 1923 interview, he stated, socialism is the science of dealing with the common wheel.

Communism is not socialism. Marxism is not socialism. The Marxian have stolen the term and confused its meaning. We might have called ourselves the liberal party. We chose to call ourselves the national socialist. In a 1932 speech, Hitler elaborated whoever is prepared to make the national cause his own to such an [00:29:00] extent that he knows no higher ordeal than the welfare of the nation.

Whoever has understood our greatest national anthem, DEU and Les to mean that nothing in the wide world surpasses in his eyes, German people. Land That man is a socialist in the 25 point program. 1920 included socialist planks, like nationalizing trusts, profit sharing in industries, and expansive welfare.

As Otter Weger, a Nazi economic advisor recalled Hitler saying our aims to convert the German Vogue into a socialism without simply killing off the old individualist. So Hitler was explicitly, repeatedly, and with no uncertain terms in his own mind, attempting to create a socialist utopia.

Simone Collins: So is the key difference between today’s American socialists and the socialists of.

Italy and Germany around World War ii [00:30:00] that they loved their countries and our socialists hate their country.

Malcolm Collins: Not exactly, because you’ve gotta keep in mind how they identify the concept of country and identity. So, Hitler appealed to the German people saying, I care about, you know, you as a German vo.

Right. Like, like you, and that’s what we are fighting for in opposition mm-hmm. To other ethnic groups.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And we are part of this pan-ethnic alliance. It is a German Vogue and the Italians and the Japanese. Right. Of other socialist people who care about their own internal ethnic group mm-hmm. But understand their ethnic groups is different from each other, but working in an alliance to overthrow who they see as the enemies, the, the capitalists and the communists.

Right. Well, and the Jews, what’s fascinating is that perfectly mirrors the modern left where the modern left they. They because they divide the world into the colonized versus the colonizer. Mm-hmm. The colonized groups. Right. They [00:31:00] still have a preference and a strong preference for their own group.

There was a great example of this in a Somalian race recently in the United States where the ironically Jewish candidate was able to win in a Somalian dominated neighborhood against a Somalian candidate by going to all the various Somalian. Factions that had blood foods against the faction that the person who was running was from, and he got them to vote for him a, a white Jewish guy over the Somalian because they still preferred their own ethnic group over other groups using people’s

Simone Collins: front of Judea tactics to your advantage.

Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Well done. If if you go, if you go to. Most black nationalist groups in the United States they explicitly hate Jewish people very explicitly, often in their charters and stuff like that. They, they, they hate Hispanic people. They hate, yeah. They often super hate trans people. They offer super gay people.[00:32:00]

They see this as a temporary alliance. In many ways, the modern leftist coalition is more ethnocentric. Then even the Nazis or the fascists of Italy or the fascists of Japan were, because they see their alliance with these other groups as temporary. Hmm. You know, if, if you go to a nation of Islam guy, right?

And you’re like, well, what’s really your long-term plan for the gays? And, you know, and they’re like, you know what our, we make it clear. I don’t, was there ever any confusion here? What’s your actual long-term plan for women? You know, there was a recent video that came out and I’ll let it here of some people in South Africa who had griped a, a woman, and they were talking about it and they, they clearly didn’t understand why what they had done was wrong.

Speaker 3: She also grabs you. You see normal crying, like, it’s like she’s enjoying it, you know? Even though she isn’t, but it’s like she’s enjoying it. Yeah. What about the consequences of what you’re doing in terms of how that affects exactly. The person that’s raped?

Speaker 4: Yeah. The consequences. We look at that all the time, you know? ‘cause it [00:33:00] happens. She might scream, you know, people might wake up. Lot of people, especially, I’m not just talking about,

Speaker 2: I’m talking about the emotional effect, the physical effect it has on the girl.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes we know that, uh, we might rape her and wake up tomorrow with viruses ourselves. Like HIV, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Right? Like these groups that you were bringing in. Do not care about your agenda. The alliance is temporary and ethnic to its core. And I’d like to point this out here, this idea that, because to me, the biggest thing and the biggest jump for me is Nazism didn’t have a single fascist. Right wing element in the entire ideology.

The ideology was not right wing on a single position and the only position that they can push back

Simone Collins: on. Well, couldn’t you argue that the Nazi ideology was right wing in its. Gazing toward the past and trying to return to some kind of historical ideal that was romanticized rather than practical. [00:34:00]

Malcolm Collins: Is that not what the anti colonialists are attempting to do?

They say, if we can only get to a world without the colonizers anymore, if we can only get to a world that was like our countries before the colonizers ruined everything like our states and our structures before the colonizers came, then. We will have prosperity again then, and, and you see this, you see this constantly.

Look at Mond’s speech where he is like, you know, once we overturn New York, we bring in more immigrant populations, we make that the dominant group within New York. Then the system will write itself. So in the same way, and you see similar myths. I mean, you know, the, we was Kings movement and everything like this before.

And you’ll literally hear left to say this. Before the colonizers came to America, the Native Americans were not murdering each other. They were not in constant blood feuds. They were not you, you know, scalping each other. They were not constantly genocided other groups in Africa before the, [00:35:00] the white man came.

The various tribes were not constantly genocide each other, constant blood fetes, constant that there, there was exposure.

Simone Collins: Avian buddy. Hold on. You gotta, you gotta play downstairs until we’re done.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, where was I? Oh gosh. Oh, yes, yes. The, the, the things were utopian before the white man came which is very similar to the Nazi ideology of before the Jewish intervention, before the Jews ruined everything. And I, I, I think it’s. Just a perfect mirror ideology there. Mm-hmm. Which is really fascinating and I love that you bring that up.

Another really interesting thing is they’ll say, well, the Nazis were taking a group that was in power in Germany and, and trying to subjugate a group that was out of power. Mm-hmm. And the, the modern. Progressive movement is not attempting to do this. And I’d point out here, actually, this is factually not true.

The Nazis had very little institutional power when they took over. They didn’t control many companies. They didn’t control many media outlets, at least not [00:36:00] popular media outlets. They certainly didn’t control academia. Where if you look at the, you know, DEI brigade, right? That is aligned with this anti colonizer.

Sort of ethnic alliance, right? They control the university system almost entirely. They completely control Hollywood. Mm-hmm. They control most Fortune 500 companies in the United States. Look at the number of these companies that have implemented patently racist DEI initiatives. They control you know, you go to a a a a Pride parade, right?

And you will see floats from every single major corporation, right? Like this is a. A cultural coalition that controls every institution of power. So if that is your metric for why the Nazis are bad, then the modern leftists are even worse.

Umes. Anyway, to continue here, I, because I wanna get to the anti-Semitic point because they’re like, but antisemitism is right. Winging, and I’ll point out that no antisemitism is actually historically, and even today, much more of a left [00:37:00] wing phenomenon. Mm-hmm. So, in 19th century socialists often intertwined class critique with antisemitism.

Carl Mos wrote on the Jewish question in 1844 what is the worldly religion of the Jews? Huckstering, what is this? His worldly religion? God, money, money. Is the jealous God of Israel. Pierre Joseph. Pierre Joseph pro Dawn, an anarchist socialist called Jews, the enemy of the human race.

French Cho Socialists, Charles Freyer labeled Jews as quote unquote parasites. Keep in mind, we’re we’re talking about like the All stars here of original Socialists sought and advocated for their exclusion, which you will not find among any of America’s founding fathers.

Wow. And independent institute analyst summarizes quote, the growing 19th century socialist movement did little to stem the anti-Semitic tide and often explicitly promoted anti-Semitism. And, and this was, was core to their values. In Russia, early Bolsheviks faced internal anti-Semitic debates with Stalin’s purges targeted at Jews [00:38:00] disproportionately eg.

The 1952 doctors plot. Examples include the French socialist parties, Drey Fist Affair, which a lot of people don’t know. Remember the dry fist affair that you learned about in history? The dry

Simone Collins: fist affair?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You remember learning about this, the, the antisemitism that happened in France.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

That was run by the French Socialist Party. Oh.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: They don’t teach you that part. They leave out that part. They’re trying to be like, look French. But you can see antisemitism is an inherently left-leaning philosophy. But let’s look at more recent times. Maybe you can say, well, there’s been a flip. No, there hasn’t.

Recent data suggests antisemitism crosses spectrum, but is predominantly. Leftists specifically a 2024 Combat antisemitism movement report. Found a 107.7% global rise in incidents with far left surges, eg. Campus protests, outpacing far right by 44.3%.

Simone Collins: This is worse than I thought. [00:39:00] Oh, no.

Malcolm Collins: And I, I’ll point out here that this sort of us, them world framework along ethnic lines mm-hmm. It was outlined, if you go back to Fanon, the wretched of the Earth, 1961. Mm-hmm. The colonial world is a mansion world that means divided into two groups. And, and note here he is talking about the colonial world.

This is where he’s laying out this socialist mindset. The world divided into two compartments. This world cut in two is inhabited by two different species. Keep in mind, very similar to the way they talked about Jews, different species, right? The cause is a consequence. You are rich because you are white.

You are white because you are witch. What parcels out the world is to be begin with the fact of. Belonging to or not belonging to a given race, a given species. So note here he is connoting race with species. The settler makes history, his life at epic over against him, toward creatures wasted by fervors, obsessed by ancestral customs from an almost inorganic background.[00:40:00]

So, if you, if you wanna say, oh, they’re not militarists, let’s go to Fanon again. Yeah. Decolonization is always a violent phenomenon from birth. It is clear to him the native, that his narrow world can only be called into question by absolute violence. He asserts. Colonialism is not a thinking machine.

It is violence in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence, violence, unified. The practice of violence binds them together as a whole. Since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, a part of the great organism of violence, which has surged upward.

And, and, and then the colonized man finds his freedom through violence. So note here he’s talking about how through a shared militarism and shared violence, that is how the vol or the, the colonized people come together. Right. Yeah. Which explicitly mirrors what was originally fascist ideology.

And I think that if you really want to understand the world in [00:41:00] the state of the world you need to understand that the factions haven’t changed from World War II till today. Right. It is still the capitalist, the socialist, and the communist.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the, the, the core organizations within each of these are still, the United States still remains the core of the capitalist faction that is out there pushing their agenda.

The core of the communist faction moved from Russia to China, but, you know, and they’re, they’re not really communists anymore. They’re just more. Transparently fascist. I mean, you could see China is a fascist state by I think any definition. And they’re going out there, and this is what Hassan wants America to be like.

This is what the people say, they instate. And then the socialists you know, their, their spiritual heart is still in the Vatican and their, their boots on the ground are still in Germany. It is, it is still the same thing. It is still Germany promoting this [00:42:00] globalized left wing agenda. And remember.

How I talked about those various socialist movements in Latin America decolonial that were, you know, pushed on by, by Catholic priesthood factions de colonialist movements under socialist banners, often marched fascist regimes in scale.

Now, in case you think I am exaggerating here, here is a map of the countries that have a either political party or ruling political party in dark red affiliated with socialist International, next to a map of countries by the percent of Catholics within that country.

Now here’s another fun map. It’s a map of countries in Europe that had fascist governments, and here’s a map of the percent of Catholic population in countries across Europe.

Speaker 4: Unit 1 0 1. Did you know? Did you know one F three aliens have some sort of weapon built into their physiology? Are aliens inherently violent? Hmm. Interesting. How did you know some [00:43:00] aliens are single mothers on a genetic level? I wonder if it affects the behavior of the children. Hmm. Curious. Tell about per capita.

Speaker 6: I’m getting to it.

Now, this might be my favorite map. This is a map of countries that have ever had a fascist government in control or have had a fascist political party as one of their main parties. And here is a map of the percent of Catholics in each country around the world

Another fun comparison here would be to compare the global fascist party map to the global socialist party map, and you will see that they are heavily overlapped.

Note to say something positive about Catholics here. If I was pointing out maps like this and I was talking about Jews, I would be canceled into the ground tomorrow. But because I’m talking about Catholics who are. , Let’s just say not, they don’t, they don’t do that other thing. , , they’re not gonna care.

They’re gonna be like, oh yeah, , that’s, that’s weird that those maps are there. Or, you know, not all Catholics follow the Vatican. And I’m like, well, even if not all Catholics follow the Vatican. I mean, presumably the [00:44:00] Catholics in these countries with these fascists and socialists, , would, would say the same thing, and yet they’re still voting this way.

So, like, what’s the correlation there? Like, why is there such a strong correlation with, , dedication to the Vatican? What the Vatican actually says and preaches and these maps. ,

And if you’d say the Vatican doesn’t preach fascism, I’d refer you to the ness of errors.

,

I. But what I wanna say is really cool about Catholics is, I can point this out, you know, that the world is largely divided into three power factions. The capitalists, the socialists, and the communists. And, well, I, I’ll say four, and the Islamists, and that the socialist factions, heart and soul are in the Vatican.

, And they can look at maps and be like, yeah, that, that makes sense. Whereas I can do an episode saying, Hey, we’ve been giving Israel military aid for the past 70 years. Maybe we can start weaning them off of it, and I’ll have a bunch of people yelling at me anti-Semites.

But for more data here, if you look around the [00:45:00] world, there has never once, except when the Nazis installed. A fascist government in Norway been a fascist government in a Protestant majority country, yet you look across fascist major. If you look across Catholic majority countries, , you know Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Akia,

and you will see fascist governments.

You can play this same game with socialist countries. There has never once been a socialist government in a Protestant majority country. However, if we’re looking at Catholic majority countries, we’ve had socialist governments in Cuba, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Sylvania.

The reason why I bring this up is because if you were brainwashed by the American education system into believing fascism is a right wing thing and a bunch of young people have been, and then they see somebody like Nick Fuentes go up and start promoting fascist. Catholic like ideas and they’re like, oh, this is so cool.

He’s owning the libs. You know, it only looks like [00:46:00] that because of their brainwashing. If they’re actually aware of the history of the movement, they would understand that the ideas that people like Nick Fuentes are pushing are fundamentally antithetical to anything that is

American right wing

now onto a different subject, a.

Malcolm Collins: The Algerian War in 1954 to 1962, inspired by Fanon caused 1.5 million deaths, mostly to Algerian civilians, the FLN tactics, including targeted killings and purges mirroring fascist onic.

Squad Desmo, comparatively Italian fascist violence in the 1920s killed only around 3000, but escalated to millions in World War ii. Post-colonial socialist regimes like Cambodia, under Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge blended Marxism was nationalism and nobody accuses him of being you know, like a, a non non-communist killing 1.7 to 2.5 million.

So, yeah. The, the, just, just historically, I think it’s, it’s worth being what we’re up against and being aware of the spoilers [00:47:00] and bad actors that exist among the right. Yeah. And this, this sort of comes full circle to one of the things that, that, that I think when you look at this with open eyes and people can be like, come on, the Vatican isn’t anti-capitalism.

It’s not pro flooding. The United States with immigrant, literally look at what the Vatican is releasing. They’re, they are not shy about this stuff.

And I mean, they’ve been incredibly explicit about this. Pope Leo 13 addressed in his NI 1899 Apostolic letter tester, benevolent noster, sent to Cardinal James Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore. In the letter, the Pope condemned Americanism as a heresy warning against doctrines that could undermine Catholic or orthodoxy by prioritizing natural national.

Cultural norms over universal Catholic teachings.

Note here, this is literally saying we are a globalist movement. Remember, we are a [00:48:00] globalist movement. This is our globalist agenda.

End note, if you’re a Catholic and you’re confused about how things could have worked out this way, just think about the teachings of your own church. Okay? All people are the same all over the world. They should all. Work under at least theo theologically speaking. And because of the syllabus of errors through their secular governments as well, a central hierarchy, , power should be structured hierarchically based on central authorities we should give to the poor and the needy.

, We should be anti individualist. When you put all of these ideas together, you can get this socialist slash fascist ideology from very non-malicious starting points. , If anything, I’d say that the capitalist idea of Protestantism, , which we might do a separate video, I’m. Stems from, , the intense independent mindedness that that is at the heart of the Protestant movement.

So I’m not saying that [00:49:00] Catholics move towards these ideas because they’re evil or something, it’s just that these ideas tend to lead to evil even though they have a good starting point.

Malcolm Collins: They just, like any other group within the coalition of socialists, expect one day their faction to win. So, like for example, they recently did a report saying, oh, we’re pro monogamy, right?

But. You know, the, the, the, the on the ground foot soldiers who are operating for the Vatican you know, they still were willing to shut down their program rather than help, you know, 40 something africaners flee from oppression, right? Like, just because they’re white, right? Like they are fully on board with this agenda.

This doesn’t mean all Catholics are, there are a lot of Catholics in the United States that aren’t. But when you look at somebody like Nick Fuentes, I think we really need to ask. What’s his actual agenda, you know? Mm-hmm. And which, which of the factions is he fundamentally, truly serving? When he says, and he has said this repeatedly, that he [00:50:00] thinks America should be run by like a, a single dictatorial regime, basically.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which again aligns him with this older. Socialist fascist mindset. Right. And he’s, and I, I believe he’s advocated explicitly for socialists like policies. Right?

And note, if you think I’m exaggerating here in terms of Nick Fuentes is. Socialist tendencies. This is a guy who regularly praises Stalin and Stalinism. , This is a guy who says he wants the US to be under a Catholic Taliban rule. You know, , he is, he is very explicitly socialist in his messaging. .

And this, this is so funny, when progressives look at him and they go, he’s a fascist, , because they are now noticing the form of socialism, , that has the racialist elements on the white side again, rather than on the anti-white side. And they’re like, oh, I recognize what that is.

, Whereas a lot of roids do not recognize what it is because they’ve been so brainwashed by the school system to not see the threat that it represents.

Malcolm Collins: Like he, he is very [00:51:00] much, which, which is ironic, part of the Progressive coalition and. Through that, attempting to tear down our coalition.

Right. Telling his followers not to vote for Trump. Right. So, so, so it is worth being aware of spoilers that have attempted to infiltrate our movement to prevent us from winning elections and, and, and, and, and moving forwards while pushing paradoxical, alternate radiologies.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s a fair point.

Wow. Well. Once again, you show me that it’s really important to actually stop and question and think about things instead of just letting people put labels on stuff and taking it for granted. Uhhuh because n. I realize just with so many things you’ve, you’ve pointed out to me that I’ve been gaslit essentially.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Things are

Simone Collins: what I assume they are based on what Germany

Malcolm Collins: still has. The ideology they had during the Nazi regime, they just rebranded it and they are still the global center of it, [00:52:00] and they are still pushing it across the world. But it, it hopefully will be self-destructing within this generation.

Oh

Simone Collins: my gosh. Well, we’ll see. Time will tell my friend.

Malcolm Collins: Love you to death. I love when our fans was like, you are what groupers are to Jews? To Catholics. Like where Nick Fuentes has like a bunch of Jewish friends and I have a bunch of Catholic friends. Like our friends are disproportionately Catholic actually.

Actually we might have more Catholic friends than any other group, even Jews. But the, I have this wider conspiratorial mindset which is funny that, that I never get called out for it and he’s constantly called out for it, which I think shows I just, I, I’ve yet

Simone Collins: to meet

Malcolm Collins: a

Simone Collins: Catholic who really vehemently stands the Vatican, and this includes Catholics that I’ve met with who are priests at Vatican City, living in Vatican City.

I don’t know. I mean, I almost feel like there’s an inherent understanding that large bureaucracies have problems and that they’re, well, I guess what [00:53:00] you could argue is, is it’s the

Malcolm Collins: Jesuits who have always been the, the socialist faction and they just control the Vatican. Kind of like, are, are,

Simone Collins: are the Jesuits, the teachers unions of the Catholic church?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they, but you could say that they basically through unfair elections, which they, they had. Pretty patently on for elections. We could maybe go into that in a different election. Did sort of a coup on Catholicism and, and are currently running the, the bureaucratic institution. And, and so, you know, it might make sense to still be a Catholic without submitting to the Jesuit socialist regime.

Simone Collins: Maybe that’s a, that could be an interesting episode to explore. But anyway, I love you. Love you too. I kept hoping to find comments in our episode on schools being an MLM that were from someone who’s like, actually. It’s not so bad. And here’s why. Like I,

Malcolm Collins: I work in a school and, and school is not so bad. It was every single person who worked in a school like, is it bad or worse? Well, it was parents, it

Simone Collins: was administrators, it was [00:54:00] students.

It was former, like every person and every point of contact was like, yeah, this is horrible. We all agree this is the worst thing. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: oh

Simone Collins: my God. And there’s such a clear solution is just introduce education, savings account. It just solves the problem, like schools work. Well, you could solve all of it just by destroying teachers’ unions.

Well, I actually think education savings accounts are better. It’s, there are unions, not

Malcolm Collins: education savings accounts. As long as teacher’s unions exist, they are mutually incompatible.

Simone Collins: Fair.

Malcolm Collins: Fair. Anyway so how has your day gone?

Simone Collins: It’s going all right. I mean, because we’re kind of getting in the hang of.

Figuring out a homeschooling routine for Octavian. I, I did, I admittedly spent a lot of time doing that, like going over the books with him and stuff and not working. So I feel a lot of cognitive dissonance and that like, I lost you. Well, you’re [00:55:00] gonna need to

Malcolm Collins: be stricter about him interacting with you and he can interact with me in terms of the educational stuff, and I’m happy to do that because it doesn’t disrupt my workflow like it does yours.

Simone Collins: Oh, you’re able to do both.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: That’s amazing. I don’t know how you do it. Maybe it’s that you’re not autistic, like autistic people. Like switching is, is a big thing.

Malcolm Collins: Like Well I also put less effort into it than you. Yeah. And that’s why it deserves the effort. I am very good. I don’t think it is worth the effort.

I don’t think that you are getting through to him more than I am.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Maybe not.

Malcolm Collins: You’re doing with more books and stuff like that and I’m doing it with more Do this and then I’ll give you a computer.

Anyway, I’ll get started here.

Speaker 7: Is my food ready? Well, look at that Turkey. Look at this. This is Thanksgiving. Yum. Yum. Yu ready? Make [00:56:00] her feel like toasty and octavian. What are you working on for Thanksgiving?

Speaker 9: That’s the plan friend. Why think it long anyway? ‘cause you’re not helping Fred achieve. Yeah. Do we help you brothers on earth? We are.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins for a thought-provoking Thanksgiving special that challenges the way we view gratitude, abundance, and modern life. In this episode, they explore the history and meaning of Thanksgiving, reflect on the incredible luxuries of the present day, and discuss why genuine gratitude—not performative thankfulness—can transform your outlook and well-being.

From the evolution of food and the abundance in our grocery stores, to the psychological and physical benefits of gratitude, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into what it means to appreciate the small things in life. They share personal stories, historical context, and practical advice for cultivating a grateful mindset, even when life feels tough.

Whether you’re celebrating Thanksgiving or just looking for a fresh perspective on happiness and fulfillment, this episode will inspire you to see your everyday life in a new light. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insightful conversations!

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, I am excited to be here with you today on American Thanksgiving.

Speaker 4: White.

My, I bought them in your mouth. . Eat me. He wants for now food.

Malcolm Collins: Now, if you are unfamiliar with what Thanksgiving is as a holiday in the United. States, because about 50% of our audience is outside the United States.

Speaker 5: Remember, these savages are our guests. We must not be surprised at any of their strange customs. After all, they have not had our advantages such as fine schools, libraries, full of books, shampoo,

Malcolm Collins: It is a holiday where you are supposed to meet with family, have a big feast, and go over things that you are grateful for

Speaker 5: Why you are as civilized as we, except we wear shoes and have last names. .

Malcolm Collins: And I wanted to take this [00:01:00] episode to focus on something I know the algorithm’s gonna hate, but I think for the audience members who decide to trudge through this, it’s a message that I wish was more common in our society today. And it’s a message that’s not more common in our society today for the very reason that the algorithm hates it.

Mm. It is not controversial. It doesn’t make other people look bad. I mean, I mean, it may be controversial to say at this point. But that’s that you should feel incredibly privileged to be alive today. Oh

Simone Collins: yes. As hard

Malcolm Collins: as dating is today, as much as you may feel like you got dealt a bad hand in life as much as the the world.

Globally that we live in today, even if you are living in a degree of desperate poverty, even if you are living in a degree of you know, you’re, you are not attractive. You’re not, oh, I can’t get a [00:02:00] girl, I can’t, whatever, right?

Simone Collins: Oh, even I can’t get a job. I will never own a house there. There’s a lot that people like The narratives today are, I would say quite.

Negative and they completely diminish. Like some really serious,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. It’s not just that this, like, I’ll never own a house, I’ll never get a girlfriend. And I think that one of the biggest problems that we have in society now is this expectation that you deserve merely for existing. And I think that this is where a lot of the progressive movement actually comes from in their ideology.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Mm-hmm. As, as actual, like, not, not just rights, but like rights that you can claim, like, I have the right to have happiness. Not, not even the pursuit of happiness. To just have happiness. Right. Like, yeah. They didn’t put. They didn’t say

Simone Collins: life, liberty and happiness for a good reason to the pot

Malcolm Collins: potential, it shoulda said, and the potentially fruitless pursuit of happiness.

Simone Collins: Right? [00:03:00]

Malcolm Collins: That is, that, that is. But my point being is that most people throughout history didn’t even have like the illusion that this would be something. And, and even today you don’t, you know, your, your. Born in, in the United States, like one of the most privileged places you can be born on earth.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And there has become a culture in the United States around, and I, I see this all the time because we go on, on walks. My wife and I, we try to go on a walk together every, well now about half the mornings ‘cause you know, we have to do more works to film the episode and stuff like that and, and code and everything.

But one of the places we like going are places like Walmart and Target and I, these random

Simone Collins: grocery stores.

Malcolm Collins: Grocery stores, random grocery stores, and I will see people. I was, I was watching a v YouTuber recently, and they were like, oh my God, I never wanna go in back into Walmart again after, after being there.

It looks like so disgusting, so whatever. And my wife is a very sensitive person, a very autistic person. Does not like [00:04:00] being around people, but even she, you know, every time we walk through Walmart, and I mean, every single time you do this. You comment on just the level of obscene luxury we have in our society

to even have the opportunity to see and look at such a diversity of potential products,

Simone Collins: the sheer abundance of it, and like it’s, it’s. So annoying because people like I, there, there used to be a blog maybe 10 years ago. I’m sure it’s defunct now though. Maybe there may be variations of it called people of Walmart where people would just post photos of unfortunate, overweight, poorly dressed Americans.

I remember that. Yeah. People, it was delightful, honestly. I loved it. It was and it just, but it, it, it completely discounted the fact that it, it’s like. I guess it’s kind of like the, the, the fat scooter beasts in the movie Wally, where like, oh, look at them. They’re so disgusting, but like, it, oh wait, but they’re on an AI powered spaceship with unlimited abundance.

Like, it [00:05:00] just completely overlooks that. And, and just like with the movie Wally, like the focus is on, like him being on this trash stre world and his, his misadventures and everything. Oh, wait a second. There is this incredible thing that has happened in the background. This is not to say that we, we, people might think, oh, well they live in some, you know, like Valley for is, you know, a very affluent area and you know, they’re only going to the fanciest grocery stores.

I mean, this is the, the Walmart that we walk around has relatively pretty bad local reviews, and I don’t know why, because it’s. It’s an amazing story. It’s like

Malcolm Collins: Norristown, Walmart, Simone Norristown has one of the highest murder rates in the United States. Yeah. And

Simone Collins: like there’s, you know, we’ve, there have been like dirty diapers left on the ground of it, like it’s.

I think it’s great. I

Malcolm Collins: love it. But like diaper, so, so let’s just talk about Walmart for a second. For all of the negative things that people say about stores like this and everything Uhhuh. Contrast the fact that a Walmart exists near us to [00:06:00] what it was like historically to try to feed yourself in your family.

Yeah. You can in the United States take a minimum wage job. And for a couple hours of labor reliably be able to take the money you make from just a couple hours of labor at a minimum wage job to said Walmart and trade it for one of a thousand different flavors and products that can probably keep you alive for the day.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Whereas, you know, very recently our ancestors were. Only on potatoes. What are we having today? Potatoes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I wanna contrast that with what it was like to try to feed yourself at different parts of human history.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If you go back to a hunter gatherer period and you told one of them in the future, your descendants will be able to trade like two and a half to three hours of minimum wage labor.

Okay. For reliable [00:07:00] calories in any flavor they want. That will not get them sick.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This would’ve. Downed them. Mm-hmm. They’d be like three hours. And I don’t need to guess if the berries are gonna kill me three hours. And I don’t need to worry if the meat has gone bad because we got that from a hunt, you know, two weeks ago.

And who knows if it’s still good, like, and, and

Simone Collins: oh, I mean honestly though, like. There are all these things they wanna go back in time and show someone in history. There’s this one, TikTok, but also she posts YouTube short accounts of just this woman who holds up various berries and fruits and she’s, she has this little song, she’s like, one of these is food dead, one is a poison.

And she, you, you get to guess and she tells you all about them and like, they’re like, wait, there’s a random woman on your magical hand box. That tells you which plants are gonna kill me and which plants I can eat. Like the fact that we can just take a picture of a plant with our phone, like even if it came down to forging, if we still have the internet somehow, which I mean,

Malcolm Collins: There wouldn’t be enough food to support [00:08:00] forging with the population right now.

Just. If in case you’re not aware, I know, I’m, I’m aware of that. Which also bring to a thing all of the things people complain about. Mm-hmm. They complain about Walmart, they complain about GMOs. Do you know like what corn used to look like historically? You would grow corn and you’d get like a little thing that was like an inch and a half along and you could only eat like a portion of it.

And this is true of almost all of the food crops, whether it’s broccoli or cauliflower or lettuce. Or tomatoes, maybe like

Simone Collins: brussel sprouts, which, you know, just 30 years ago used to taste absolutely horrible.

And now they’re amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But I think what people don’t realize is how recent this scene abundance is. So let’s talk about something simple like apples, right? Mm-hmm. Apples to, to grow the type of apple that you eat, you have to graft it, right? Like you, you’re, you’re grafting a, a branch onto a root.

You cannot grow edible apples from an apple seed. The type of apples that you grow from apple seed are really only [00:09:00] used in making. Alcohol, like apple cider. So Johnny Appleseed, when he’s going out and planting all these apples, he was planting the trees to be apple cider trees. He was feeding people alcohol.

He wasn’t, I thought you were gonna

Simone Collins: say he should actually be called Johnny Apple graft, but it didn’t sound so

Malcolm Collins: good. No, no, no, no. Apple jack for the, the alcohol drink that he, so he was just

Simone Collins: a, a booze. He was, he was the evangelist of booze, basically.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yes. That makes him so much cooler. But it, well, you can see why the frontiers have been loved him, right?

Um, He’s the alcohol fairy. He is, no, he’s the alcohol fairy. Johnny Apple absentee is actually, we gotta teach our kids this about the alcohol fairy. The alcohol fairy who planted alcohol for, for daddy milk, as we call it. You know, they have milk and I have daddy milk. The, the point that I’m making here is people think that this was a long time ago, so if I go back, because I wanna go to different periods in history, you then go to the surf period in history.[00:10:00]

You think as a surf you had a choice as to the calories. I’m not even talking about the wonders of the internet or ai. I’m talking about being able to say reliably my family isn’t gonna starve this year.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If my kid gets sick, they’re probably not gonna auto die. And two, like no, every time you got sick it was like, oh, I caught my finger.

Am I gonna die? Yeah. Am I gonna have a pain that I can never get rid of for the rest of my life? And this was true even for the wealthy, as we heard. Yeah. Louis the IVs who had such a bad infection in his butt, that anal fissures, the feces actually came out through the rotting hole the infection had created, you know how much Well, in King Henry

Simone Collins: vii?

Yeah. Some, some of the most, the most famous kings also famous for like their hedonic pleasures. Yeah. Suffered more profoundly than most of us could imagine in a modern age.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but, but the reason I’m starting here was going back to ancient times, then going to the medieval [00:11:00] period. But I wanna go to even more modern times, like the reason why I’m talking about like the, the later colonial period, right?

Mm-hmm. The idea that you could go to a store and have a choice. Of like 10 different varieties of an apple. Isn’t that crazy? I have astounded somebody. Well, even stuff compared to my

Simone Collins: childhood, you can now buy Dragon fruit in just random stores. We can get dragon fruit at BJ’s. Whereas I remember that being an exotic fruit.

I would only get if I went to Beijing or Shanghai.

Malcolm Collins: I, I agree and people have lived through this, but what I’m trying to point out. It’s even more modern things like a fruit, okay. That you can go and get for like 35 cents. Bananas. Bananas. You converted pineapples. Did you know that bananas, you needed a prescription to get bananas?

Simone Collins: Well, and, and people used to rent pineapples. They were so

Malcolm Collins: expensive. This is how kind of abundance. Yeah. They,

Simone Collins: they were such a, a financial flex that if you have like a pineapple at a table, obviously no one would eat it because you [00:12:00] rented it because, well, they

Malcolm Collins: cost, it cost adjusted $8,000 I think in today’s money.

Simone Collins: And then, which is I think also why you tend to see it at, on, you know. Carved into some buildings, like especially in South Carolina and North Carolina, you see them all over the place.

Malcolm Collins: It was like a sign of wealth. Yeah. Yeah. But, okay, so. But I wanna go. Okay. 1950s people like by the 1950s people had wealth.

So by the 1950s people had prosperity. We’ve had other episodes where we’ve done this, but if I show you food from the 1950s, you will be mortified.

Simone Collins: And actually, this ties in really well with Thanksgiving as a holiday because many of the. Iconic Thanksgiving dishes were invented in the 1950s. And that’s why

Malcolm Collins: they taste so bad.

That is why they have Turkey, because Turkey was genuinely a good food in the 1950s. Mm-hmm. And we as a society have invented better foods than roast Turkey. Well, another

Simone Collins: really classic one is the green bean casserole, which is Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup with [00:13:00] canned green beans. Cooked in a casserole dish.

Malcolm Collins: And why was this considered a good dish in the 1950s? Because in the 1950s, they believing that they had reached the peak of human hedonism, the peak of humanity’s utopia. They lived in an era where they had variety. In the calories they consumed, except unlike the variety of calories you consume, it wasn’t flash frozen and delivered to a grocery store.

Simone Collins: Yeah, there wasn’t a Coltrane shipping system. So to get frozen or fresh foods, like most of the refrigerated foods you got would have to be local. That’s why people had local milk delivery. On a daily basis because there, there wasn’t this big cold chain system set up. Whereas now there are refrigerated trucks that are able to bring all sorts of frozen and, and refrigerated juice.

It’s not just

Malcolm Collins: about refrigeration, it’s also about flash freezing, which allows you to move things like meats and stuff like that in, in mass. But the thing about the 1950s was you would, all of the variety in [00:14:00] foods they had, all of the miracle in foods they had came from canned. Foods. Yeah. Your dinner was made up of a collection of things that came that were hands.

Mm-hmm. And then maybe on a special occasion, like Thanksgiving, an animal that came from the butcher. So this would’ve been cuts of meat that came from a butcher off of a. Recently living animal. Often that’s, that’s how the food was often moved, so it didn’t go bad like a Turkey. Right. And this was very difficult.

Right. So I, I’m, I’m trying to point out that even very recently, things were much harder. Mm-hmm. And things were harder for our ancestors. If you compare your life just to the life of people 20 or 30 years ago, I could understand why it can feel depressing these days. Right. But there were bottlenecks in human history where.

17 women were breeding for every one man that was breeding, okay? Mm-hmm. Be grateful that the Intels of our era, if you incel B,

Speaker 7: hold [00:15:00] tight your buns. If buns you do hold dear

Malcolm Collins: have access to those men, okay? They never saw a naked woman in their life. Likely. Okay. Those men, like, they couldn’t even goon. Alright. Those men, they, they couldn’t have simulated conversations with women who can pretend to like them, like AI women.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. The dating sims at Asman goals has been playing, are so realistic. The rendering of the, the Korean women. I haven’t seen these. What? You’ve got to watch the Dating Sims and Asman Gult. He, there are three Asman Gold videos on YouTube of like, they’re like over an hour each where he plays all the way through a Korean dating sim and it’s hilarious.

And you have to watch. Okay. I cannot look away. It’s. Like the, the decision music in it is now iconic and seared into my brain. You’ll understand what I mean after you watch them. Okay. So anyway, do it. But yeah, no, like literally you can have an extremely realistic [00:16:00] harem experience.

Malcolm Collins: I’m not, I’m not even just talking about that.

Mm-hmm. The point I’m making here. Is if you incel B you, you historically, the, the, you know, 16 guys who weren’t breeding for that. Every one guy who was, they were living lives of constant torture and slavery basically. They, they were not, it’s not, it’s not even that they couldn’t goon, okay? They, they didn’t have reliable access to calories.

Their lives were generally constant pain. They lived in incredibly terrible environments. People also falling,

Simone Collins: they hyper fixate on the really bad maladies. Like, oh, you get a cut and then you get a, you know, an infection and you die, or you get injured and you die, or you have to go to war and you die.

They’re not forgetting the fact that. You know. Well, you know what you do. Probably every day, probably less. ‘cause they didn’t eat so much. Was you poop? Do you know how most people wiped themselves when they pooped? No. Tell me. There’s [00:17:00] actually a book, I think it’s called Clean, that talks about the history of cleanliness that I read like 15 years ago.

But it’s fascinating, highly recommended. ‘cause it makes you really grateful for modern times. Most people just swiped their index finger across their anus. So that was what you had in India, don’t they? Yeah. Many places they still do it. Absolutely. And actually I think a lot of I’ve heard accounts of many people who have family in India and have to go there for holidays and stuff are really much more likely to be grateful for what we have now.

‘cause their cousins just sort of, they’re shocked to watch as their cousins in a very blase manner. Like will walk, like, just step over like a dying child in the street and not care. And. Like, you know, here, here they are devastated to see the level of poverty that they’re around. Yeah. Because yeah, it still absolutely does exist today and it still absolutely is devastating.

But yeah, that’s how you wiped yourself. I mean, every time I get in our warm shower, especially now that the weather’s getting colder. And our house is [00:18:00] getting colder. I am. My mind is blown that we have warm water. ‘cause our house is more than 200 years old. It didn’t have any indoor plumbing for its first years.

It, it, the first bathtub was in this one isolated room, close to the the kitchen. Which is now the, the kid room bathroom Yeah. Tub in there. I don’t know how they fit a tub in there. But

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it’s because bathtubs back then were meant to be filled by hand, Simone. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess they were

Simone Collins: taking it up from, they were heating it in the fireplace, which is adjacent to that right there.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so like the, the fact that we have just the luxury of heated water, and I would presume that the vast majority of people who listen to this podcast. Have hot water. And if you’re taking cold showers, you’re doing it probably because you’re in the top 1% of earners and you’re, you know, doing the whole like cold exposure thing.

But I just, I think people don’t think enough about those details too, that there are just so many tiny things we experience every day that just [00:19:00] someone 50, 100, 200 years ago would just be mind blowing. And. We, we just take them for granted. We don’t even realize that they’re there until they’re not, and then suddenly,

Malcolm Collins: well, what I think is worse for me about all of this,

Simone Collins: mm,

Malcolm Collins: is in any era that we live in.

There always seem it, it’s almost considered cool to take extra the things for granted that you should be the most excited about and you should be the most grateful for. Oh, what do you mean? So if I’m gonna be, remember I gave an example of like GMOs or AI for our generation, but if I’m gonna give an example from our generation growing up, you’re in my generation growing up, it would’ve been Wikipedia.

We literally, oh my gosh. As a generation had and this is back when Wikipedia worked and wasn’t totally biased. The hu all human knowledge accumulated for free at your fingertips whenever you wanted it, with infinite background on almost any subject. [00:20:00] And the primary takeaway was you can’t really trust Wikipedia and you’re, you’re a, a bad journalist or researcher of your ci.

And it’s like, come on. It’s way more, way more accurate than mainstream news is today. For right. Like, and yet, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have to pool all over Wikipedia. ‘cause it’s the big invention of our lifetimes. I mean, it’s the same with AI today. These, these. People who whinge about AI art and AI music when, oh my God, they’re like, think about all of these artists who are losing their jobs.

And I’m like, well, think about all of these humans like myself, who now have all of these new skills that I can undertake because of ai that I would’ve never thought that I could do. I would never think that I could, could have a, an image in my head and get that image on paper that was in. Growing up, I just made decisions in my life that made it [00:21:00] inevitable that I would never have that ability.

Genetically speaking, I am just not good at singing or keeping a tune or anything like that. I can write funny lyrics, I can, I can get an idea of what a song should be like, but actually creating a song I just had to accept growing up, I would never be able to do that. Same with programming. I just grew up accepting.

I’m never gonna be able to program. I’m never gonna be able to do that. And now, regularly, every day I’m having fun creating images and songs and programming because ai, while it has lowered the value of those skills for people who overspecialize in them, has given me these additional skill sets and many skills that I had specialized in over the course of my life.

Are now also trivialized, but I am okay with making that. I, I think we need to look at where the benefits are to us rather than where the things have been [00:22:00] taken away from us. Mm-hmm. So for me I had a, a, a my own skills sort of de what do I say, democratized to an extent, but. As a result of having my own skills democratized to an extent, I have gained the ability to do all sorts of amazing things that I never thought I’d have a chance to do growing up.

And I’d point out when people are like, oh, vibe coding or whatever, or, or whatever music. Like that’s not, there was an AI song that was top of the charts recently, vibe coding. There was like a vibe coding company acquired for, what was it like? $80 million recently, like made by people who don’t know how to program.

Like people, we point out that, what was it, 97% of people can’t tell The difference between a song created by AI and created by a human at this point a art, it was next to chance. Like there’s a lot of people who note from the bad AI stuff and they’re like, oh, that’s proof that. Like it can’t do it well, but it can do it Well, we’re just queuing to the negatives because that’s what so many humans.

I do. And [00:23:00] we have another episode on this about like, why people do this. I think it’s called like Doom. Doom, I don’t know nihilism or Doom? Moralism. Look it up, you’ll find it. But in, in that episode, we go over it, it’s because one, it’s a great social hack. It’s a great social hack. If everyone else is excited about something, like if you go into a room and the other person’s like, I’m really excited about X, and then you’re like, oh, well.

That’s pretty pathetic to be excited about X ‘cause X just isn’t that cool.

Speaker 12: To what do I owe the pleasure?

Speaker 11: Jack, pleasure is the name of a pony I hate. This is business. So, I just happened to bump into Jenna Maroney

Speaker 12: what did you do to her, Hooper?

Speaker 11: Oh, her brain’s like silly putty. A toy I am too old for. Kaylee

Speaker 13: Hooper! OMG! It’s Jenna!

You’re wearing that belt as a joke, right? Of course I am!

Speaker 14: Where did you get your belt? You’re so cool!

Speaker 15: Kayleigh, you look so gorgeous today. I’m wearing a headband because you [00:24:00] are. Pathetic.

What?

Malcolm Collins: You look cool and they look lame. Being ironically excited about something puts you at an enormous disadvantage socially speaking and, and so well, and also

Simone Collins: studies have shown that this is 10 well, somewhat related. I think it’s quite related.

People who perceive themselves to be lucky are far more likely to capitalize on opportunities that. Cross their desk than those who don’t see themselves as lucky. Even though the same, you know, they have access to the same opportunities. I think if you are similarly pessimistic or focused on the negative, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of really great opportunities because you’re too busy looking at the negative and not seeing the potential and therefore not capitalizing on the potential.

Well, yeah, and I, so I think there’s a spiraling effect as well that people who see things negatively. Also end up actually having worse lived experiences and, and logistically they’ll earn less and they’ll do less and they’ll have [00:25:00] less benefit because they’re unable to capitalize on the good available to them.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that the urban monoculture. Sort of lived synergistically was this impulse where if somebody came up and they were in my group and they started being like, oh, well this is actually not that great, or you don’t know how bad it really is. Like, so, so imagine we did this. We’re in an urban monoculture group.

One person would be like, well, you’re only saying this because you haven’t experienced what I’ve experienced. Right. And on the private scene stream, because I don’t like playing victim cards or whatever, like, my upbringing was not awesome, right? Like, I had very difficult positions at times of my life where I had to work myself from nothing back to where I am today while having a system that was constantly working against me.

And I don’t, I don’t talk about that ‘cause I don’t think that that’s a useful thing to talk about. But what I’m saying is, is, it immediately, whoever can prove that their life is the hardest. They get to determine how hard the world is for people, right? Mm-hmm. You know? And so everyone in the group then immediately goes into like victim hood Olympics.

Like, look at how [00:26:00] bad this is, look at how bad this is. So I get to determine if society actually is terrible or if society actually is bad, right? And you can’t, you can’t counter that if you’re in one of those groups. So how do, how do you do this? You teach your kids when they’re teenagers, when they’re in school, and we’re gonna do this with our kids, some.

If somebody ever comes up to a group that they’re in, and I think this needs to be part of like conservative youth culture and they’re like, X is really terrible, or X isn’t something to be excited about, or X is you know, especially if it’s to someone else and not to our kid themselves. Okay. But our kid is supposed to stand up for that person and be like, don’t, don’t act like that.

It’s not cool. Mm-hmm. It doesn’t make you look cool. You know, telling somebody not to be excited about their life is a evil thing to do. I

Simone Collins: like that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And you normalize that among the kids. And then the people who wanna pull those games, they just stop. They’ll freak out the first time the kid did it and go into a hissy fit and they’ll just, you know, just, you gotta teach ‘em to be calm about it and be like, I understand that you want to [00:27:00] play these one up men games or whatever.

I don’t care. You know, we are here to have fun and live good lives and make the world a better place. And you are not doing that through the way that you are socially engaging. You are trying to bring attention to yourself at the expense of other people. And that’s fundamentally, you know, it. It also, I point out just sort of in terms of life framing, in terms of world framing and everything like that.

I think that there’s this problem where if you say, just accept the world and your life as it is and move forward from that position, people see this as being like. Sigma Grind, set nonsense, right? Like, oh, just tough it out. You know, work as hard as you can. Clearly we’re not Sigma Grind set people, right?

Like, I have fun, I play video games, sometimes I drink, right? Like, I play with my kids. I am sweet on my wife, you know, even when it can make me look bad, right? Like, that’s, that’s not red pill. That’s not tough to like [00:28:00] tell your wife, oh, I love you at the end of every stream, you know? I appreciate you so much.

So what I’m trying to make is, is. All of that can be true, but it can also be true that you still just need to accept the bad things about your life that you can’t change for what they are, right?

Iron Man: And dad went to 7 Eleven to get scratchers. I guess he won because that was six years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Which happens, dads leave. No need to be a pussy about it. Here’s what I need.

Malcolm Collins: Like you, for example, live in a generation where dating is harder. Then you have to develop new strategies, then you have to work harder.

If that is what you want from yourself. Right. You know, you need to, you need to sit down and, and from first principles try to think out, okay, just trying what they did in the past isn’t gonna work because, you know, society is broke. This is what people mean when they say society is broken now. And this is actually a really, you know, sort of toxic thing that you can get in communities like out, like when I say the red pill [00:29:00] community, I don’t say that to like attack the red pill community.

I see who we overlap with in channels. Like we definitely are part of the Red Bull community which is to say you know, the world is broken now. Dating is broken right now, and what what is really meant by that statement is dating is broken. When I use the strategies and tools that. People in previous generations used and that I was raised believing would work.

That is not to say that nobody finds a partner today. Lots of people find partners today. Lots of people who aren’t attractive don’t find partners today. Lots of people who aren’t rich find partners today. I see them walking around in public. I see them. No, I, I, I know them personally. Like there are people who are worse off than you who find better partners than than.

Than people who you date, right? Like there are strategies you can implement. It might require more creativity, it might require more [00:30:00] audaciously. But when I found Simone, both of us we’re practicing dating practices that everyone else said we’re stupid and gushy. And weird. And lame, right? We met online dating.

In an age where online dating, and I, and I did lots of online dating before meeting her was something that was for weirdos and losers. Right. And, and it was

Simone Collins: definitely, yeah, there was a stigma. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There was a stigma, but what are you doing dating online? Are you not good enough to date in person? Right.

Now obviously online dating has changed dramatically since then and now in person dating might be your weird arbitrage, but the point being is. You had a table for dating where you had a point space system to force yourself to get out there and date people, to force yourself to decide when to triage people to you know, motivate yourself.

I had a system where I was trying to do two dates. I had done, most of us had done two dates on the day where we met. Like that was how high throughput our [00:31:00] dating was at that point. Like we were doing stuff that people would see as crazy within, it was in the time now. Would our strategies work today?

No. You likely need a strategy that’s equally audacious today, but likely along some different variable, right? Mm-hmm. But the point I’m making is that it’s okay to accept when you’re just not gonna do something. What’s not okay is to say that it’s outside of your control, okay? Mm-hmm. If it’s not actually outside of your control, so I can say, I drink because ultimately I’m choosing to drink. Now the truth is, is like everyone I’m descended from is an alcoholic. Everyone, everyone, I’m, I mean my dad, my mom, my mom drank was it half a bottle of wine a day while she was pregnant with me. You know, yeah. I think a lot of people

Simone Collins: are like, whoa, half a bottle of wine a day, and they think it’s just.

Normal. And they’re like, that’s her. That’s terrible. That was her, [00:32:00] that was her pregnancy level. Her pregnancy. That was her pregnancy level. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the point I’m making is, is I could say, well, it’s genetic and I don’t have a choice. I could say, oh, well, you know, it’s, it’s not good for me, therefore I’m gonna sigma it out or anything like that.

But I’m not like that. I’m just like, look, there’s some things in life that are like not good for me and I’m gonna do, and, and that’s my own failing, right? Mm-hmm. And what I hate in a person is when they say. I don’t have a girlfriend and that’s society’s fault or women’s fault or my circumstances fault.

And it’s like, no, there is always somebody uglier than you or in the same society than you, or poorer than you who does have a girlfriend, right? Or does have a wife. Ultimately it is in part choices you’ve made and in part luck. But you don’t have control over luck, right? And so I think that there is a way to, to relate to the brutality of the world that we live in, which is [00:33:00] ultimately very cush compared to worlds of the past.

And tot and, and, and, and to take that and say, I am grateful for the world. In spite of this, I accept where life is hard. And I am going to just work to move forward from where I am. I, I do, I think it’s also

Simone Collins: important to point out that research has shown Nick get it again across so many different spectrums that.

Your, the, the bad things you, you may complain about in life are actually less bad when you express gratitude. Yeah. Like, if you, if you studies have found, for example, they, I know you hate the idea of, of gratitude journaling or gratitude letters, but that’s an easier way to measure this in research.

So. A lot of research has found that things like gratitude journaling or letters are linked to lower levels of depression and anxiety and higher overall life satisfaction, and that people who co cultivate gratitude deliberately tend to report more positive moods, less stress and worry, more psychological [00:34:00] wellbeing, greater resilience to setbacks.

Oh, true. Their physical benefits. Studies associate higher gratitude with better self related physical health. Partly because grateful people are more likely to exercise and eat well and seek medical care when needed. And research also links gratitude to lower blood pressure and inflammation, improved heart health, fewer physical symptoms like headaches and pain, and even stronger immune function.

Plus gra grateful people sleep better. It just, I mean, it makes sense. They sleep better, they report better sleep quality, which honestly matters more than your actual sleep quality qualities I’ve pointed out in multiple times. ‘cause I’m just fascinated by that one study. Oh, sorry.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll say it just for people who haven’t seen it in, in studies if you.

Have sleeping problems, but you don’t believe you have sleeping problems. Your health effects from the sleeping problems are negligible if you sleep perfectly well, but you believe you have sleeping problems, you have the same negative effects of people who believe that they sleep poorly. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And then on, on the brain level, gratitude engages, [00:35:00] reward in emotion, reg regulation circuits.

So it’s associated with higher levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Which are linked to improve mood and reduced stress. So you, you know, you could take SSRIs, but we’ve pointed out that leads to a lot of problems. Or you could just, I don’t know, be grateful, but I wanna, I wanna pull out an option.

Malcolm Collins: And the way that people relate to the concept of gratitude is. Stupid because it’s not genuine gratitude. It’s listicle, performative gratitude. If you Yeah. You know, like the going around the Thanksgiving table or something like that. When you sit down at Thanksgiving and you actually consider what’s in front of you is in its historical context.

Yeah. Every stupid little thing in front of you should be astonishing. Mm-hmm. The silverware. That you have in front of you. If you go to my ancestors, we did a, you know, a number of episode on like the backwoods people. So this would’ve been the greater Appalachian culture within in America just a hundred years ago or something.

The way that they proposed [00:36:00] to each other was with something called an engagement spoon or fork. Oh, I

Simone Collins: forgot about that. Yeah. Golden.

Malcolm Collins: Were such rare and valuable items that you would have just one of. For each person in the household, wouldn’t they

Simone Collins: carve them nicely or something

Malcolm Collins: like they, they would carve them nicely and give it to their partner.

Yeah. ‘cause that’s what you would’ve, you’d have your one spoon and fork, your spoon, your fork, your plate, your bowl. You had to have the fine China and everything like that where people would display their, their bowls in plates and everything like that. We still

Simone Collins: do that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you still do it with fine China.

But the point is, is that for a lot of people, the fine China was what they would eat off of because there just weren’t that many other options unless you were just eating off a table or something like that. The food itself, every one of those ingredients, people fought wars and died. Yeah. Over salt and pepper and seasonings.

That, that, that is you. And I’m not even talking that long ago. That is [00:37:00] like what the pirate trade was about. Right. In the many areas it was about. Seasonings that you just put on a shelf and forget about.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s crazy. He didn’t like he remembers and he has told me stories about when like foreign food was rolled out in America.

Do you like, like any Asian food, let’s say Taiwanese food or Vietnamese food, or Japanese food or Chinese food, you wouldn’t have had that had you grown up? My dad. Okay. Oh, even our

Simone Collins: age. I’ve, I’ve said this before, but I’ve been measuring. My food on software apps since I was maybe 17 years old. And we’re in our late thirties now, the food database that existed in the United States for calories that basically was like considered standard food in America, did not include Thai food, Indian food, any, any sort of Asian food.

It did [00:38:00] include possum. So

Malcolm Collins: awesome.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Very American.

Malcolm Collins: Very American. Yeah. I could,

Simone Collins: I could, you know, both cooked and raw possum, I could enter and, and you know, have accurate calorie measurements for that. But God help me if I, she, she wanted pad tie.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. Good context here. My wife will not eat anything.

She can’t measure down to the exact calorie due to her autism. So she couldn’t eat many foreign foods because she couldn’t get accurate calorie measures of them. Yeah, really stress me. And just, you know, the United States, if you’re like, well, you don’t know how poor some people are. Starvation for example, basically doesn’t happen in the United States.

The number of people who die in the United States, in of starvation yearly can be measured in like the two hundreds. And almost all of them. Or because they became immobile in some way, either due to like extreme age or injury or a coma or something like that, right? Like the level of abundance. Even, even extremely poor people in the United States have cell phones with access to the internet.

O overwhelmingly, I think the majority of them do. [00:39:00] And I think, I think it’s even like a super majority of them. Which is wild if you consider growing up, and I wanna talk about boredom here because people don’t understand the boredom of even our generation. If you’re not from our generation.

When you got on a, if, if you got carsick, which I did, right? And you were driving somewhere that was like two hours away, which my family did every weekend, drove two hours and two hours back. You couldn’t read books, you couldn’t read magazines you couldn’t listen to something that the entire family wasn’t also listening to.

So you are sitting there staring at a car seat for hours. A young person, today’s brain would go absolutely benain bananas if they had to just sit and stare for hours. People may not remember this. It’s actually

Simone Collins: trending. People are calling it raw dogging life. Got

Malcolm Collins: raw dogging the entire world, raw dogged life.

When I was growing up, when nine 11 happened and they, for a period like a band, like [00:40:00] books and magazines on airplanes, every trip was raw, dogging it. That was just life.

Simone Collins: So are we officially old? We’re like, here, we’re, we’re like, well, when I was a child, I walked two miles in the snow uphill both ways. No, I, I agree with you.

I mean, it, it is a little bit rich that we’re doing this because one, we don’t really, for us, Thanksgiving isn’t really a holiday where we talk a ton about being thankful. Thankfulness is something that Malcolm integrates into our daily schedule, literally at the end of every single day. Malcolm, like when our kids are going to sleep, part of his daily routine is to talk with me about things he’s grateful for.

He initiates this and it’s not something you’ve ever talked with me about or something that you try. It’s just something that you automatically do. He’s, Malcolm is really against any form of performative gratitude. He absolutely hates [00:41:00] it, and yet he literally does it every day. You may not admit to it, Malcolm, but every day.

You do

Malcolm Collins: well. Okay, so our podcast listeners can listen to our podcast that we do every day. I don’t do it every day. I do it with literally every social interaction I have with my wife or children. If you watch this podcast, you are well aware that almost every interaction I have with Simone Ends was me telling her that I appreciate her often listing something specific.

I appreciate about her, and then telling her I love you. That is every single social interaction. If you are not doing that, every social interaction you might think, oh, that’s weird that you do that. Or, oh, you’re, it should be normal for you. We need to enter a world where that’s normal again, because when you make that normal for you, the people in your life will make that normal for them.

And it’s a. Really hard to begin to build animosity towards [00:42:00] somebody who is constantly grateful to you. And people will be like, oh, you’re submitting to your wife. Oh, you’re being submissive. Oh, you’re Don’t get brainwashed by all of this. You can be grateful to somebody and still be the leader in the family.

Right. In fact, I would say that and we, we’ve done an episode on this, but this is really, it’s like parts of the Red Pill community. Watch the movie, the Gladiator. This is like the we joke Andrew Tate was this way and they think the emperor is the masculine guy, the one who walks around with a sword and is constantly threatening people.

And obviously vain and insecure. Whereas no Maximus is what you want to be. Do you think that Maximus, when he interacts with people is not. Constantly showing his gratitude, whether that be a woman in his life or a man in his life. It doesn’t make him look like less of a leader to constantly shower everyone around you is gratitude and you can make this a thing if you’re like, one thing I wanna do to improve myself today.

Every conversation, just make a habit of ending with something you’re [00:43:00] grateful for in the other person. Yeah. And it, I also, I just

Simone Collins: wanna say very clearly, this is not us. Complaining. A. A about rampant consumerism on Thanksgiving, because that is probably more how we actually celebrate the day of Thanksgiving.

Oh yeah. Because what happens in the United States is the two week period before and after Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Is marked by sales in in various stores, some of which are fraudulent, like the prices aren’t actually different. They’re just made to seem different and some of which are legitimate.

So what we do is basically in late summer we go on a purchasing hiatus for non-urgent items and then just buy all the things that we need. Socks, underwear, basic supplies, et cetera. Staples like I just bought ‘em, just shoes for our kids that I knew we’d need in the coming year. We buy all those things for the year.

On these sales. And it just makes us feel so sick. We buy so much that like we, we never wanna buy anything ever again because we, we do sort of a year’s worth of shopping on [00:44:00] discount and we get quite severe. Like the discounts are very meaningful in, in, during this holiday. If you get real ones, like between 25 and 40% off mini products that you are definitely gonna get anyway.

So we always make a list ahead of time and try to stick only to the list though.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we’re shopping. You just bought, bought fake blood.

Simone Collins: I don’t know. I mean, Malcolm.

The fake blood requires context. So the kids are afraid of Krampus when they’re bad because Krampus comes in and it’ll take them if they’re bad. And so they have to hide because I dress up in a Krampus conference too and then come and scare them. And , the recently I’ve been going down and, you know, battling Krampus for them.

I’ve got my sword. And so I go down with a sword and I battle krampus, and then I come in and check to make sure they’re safe. Well, recently Octavian was being bad and he told mom when mom goes, well, Krampus will come take you if you be bad. And he goes, oh, , don’t worry, daddy always beats Krampus. So now I need to have one battle.

Krampus, like, seriously bloodies me and like almost gets [00:45:00] me so like the kids understand what’s up.

Simone Collins: It

Malcolm Collins: doesn’t always, I also wanna talk about accepting the hardship of your life. Right. Okay. When, when life is hard, ‘cause there’s been times in my life where, you know, I am in the prison system for not really having anything that I personally did and just knowing that I have to support myself from like this point forward.

This is when I. 13. And I have to figure out how I’m gonna do this and I have to figure out how I’m gonna structure my life to like, make things work. And I have to figure out how from here I’m going to get back into a normal school when I know that my parents don’t want me to live with them anymore.

Right. I have to figure out how I’m going to get into a decent college. I have to figure out how I’m gonna, you know, and. I actually don’t really remember ever feeling despair about any of these things. Hmm. I saw it as a cool challenge and I remember the people around me thought I was very weird.

‘cause everyone else in this situation was dep. Yeah. They were like, oh, this is horrible. Oh, this is woe is me. And I was like, why? Like. It [00:46:00] doesn’t help me to see, to, to frame myself that way. To frame myself as a victim. Like even the framing as a victim, I find personally a very gross thing to do to yourself.

It, and I think that’s one of the easiest ways to not fall into the trap, is to just be like, how icky would I have to be to think of myself as a victim of anyone? No, no one has gotten one over on me. Mm-hmm. They may life, the world may have temporarily thought. That it’s got one over on me, but I know the in tour of this game, and I’m gonna win, and I’m gonna make every one of those people embarrassed for the decisions that they made in terms of thinking that but I, I say this in regards to, but there are people who are wealthy out there who seem to have these lives of luxury, who seem to have all these advantages that you don’t have.

Right? And I wanna tell you something, as somebody who has socialized with these crowds pretty heavily the ones who live sinful lives, if you are living a life of [00:47:00] strife and a struggle, but it is one where you have intentionally decided what you think is meaningful in your life, and if you don’t know how to do that, get our book, the Fragmented Guide To Life.

It retails for 99 cents. It’s very good for, this comes with a free audiobook. It can help you with all of this very like structure. This is how you determine without us sending you on any of our weird pathways, how to actually structure your life. It’s perfect, perfect for that very, very short read too compared to our other books.

But if you’ve done those things, I guarantee you, you are living a better life than these celebrities that these people. And you can see this, you see the celebrity culture, you see the rockstar culture. You look at them. Recently I’ve been seeing, I don’t know what forever reason, but I keep seeing videos at the top of like Reddit now of Britney Spears today, right?

Her life is a living nightmare. Every day. She’s like this sad, unattractive, middle-aged woman who keeps dancing, like barely dressed in front of a camera. It turns out maybe she needed all those [00:48:00] curators. Which is a sad thing to say that at the end of the day, it turns out that the people who are saying no, you don’t know, she’s actually completely lost it.

Were Right, right. You look at your Michael Jackson, did you say Michael Jackson? Like the very, and I’m I’m talking about people here at the very top. You think he lives it? Elon Musk, right? Who, who almost more than any of the ultra wealthy is doing the most he can to try to contribute to society. And he has said that his life is a living hell on, on, on a stage, on on shows.

You know, he doesn’t have, would I trade my life with his. No, because then I wouldn’t have Simone, and Simone is worth more than, as, as Getty said, you know, the, the super wealthy Getty guy who made all that money, he said he would trade everything for just one woman who would appreciate him and stay loyal to him and stay good to him.

And I’m like, and I have, that’s really, I

Simone Collins: don’t, like, there’s no amount of money that someone could pay me to trade away this life. I’m so, I’m so grateful.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the point I’m making is even if you don’t have our life. And you’re [00:49:00] struggling and you’re an incel out there trying to make things work. If you just find out what matters to you and dedicate your life to that while still indulging where you can.

In the same way, I still drink and play video games, but I, for the most part understand I’m working on a very short timeline to try to say if human in civilization is the way that I see it. And I think anyone who’s alive today gets to live with that knowledge, whether it’s from AI or demographic ads, you, you as that person.

I guarantee you we’ll be living a better, happier, more fulfilled life than I’d say 98% of billionaires and celebrities. And you may just be like, Malcolm, I do not believe you. Like if I could eat at a luxury restaurant every day, that would improve my quality of life. I can tell you as somebody, ‘cause when I stayed with my parents at certain times, and Simone, you did this as well, we go to New York and we get to every day and it, and it’s even worse ‘cause you sort of feel obligated to do it, you know?

Mm-hmm. They order in from the fanciest of restaurants. Lunch, they order in or we go [00:50:00] out and then dinner, we go out every day. My life, normally I get one meal a day made by my wife, right? I feel so much healthier. I feel so much better, and the meal tastes so much better than the very best foods I was able to get in Manhattan.

And, and after a while it begins to feel gross. Like you can think, oh, how would it feel gross? What do you mean by feel gross? It’s the feeling. It’s not just after one meal. Have you ever had a pizza and it had too much grease on it and then afterwards you’re just like, Ugh. Wealth, ultra luxury. It feels that way after

Simone Collins: it’s that greasy pizza.

Yeah, for four days.

Malcolm Collins: It feels like you’re living in a greasy pizza. And I mean this not just in terms of. I have lived in mansions where my friends have put me up where it’s, you know, a a 30, 40 room mansion. It’s giant, it’s overlooking the ocean. I’m there alone or I’m there with just my wife. You know, it’s not even like I’m having to deal with all the staff and other people who are there.

It’s like in between other guests. It is the loneliest [00:51:00] place you could ever imagine. Even when there’s other people that. Because you’re, you’re walking through empty hallways overlooking, and it’s not just the loneliness. It’s the loneliness compared with the opulence, which never makes you happier, so it grinds on you.

It’s like. The emptiness of the place is constantly reflected within your own heart. Yeah. And, and I promise you, you do not want that. You think you want that, you think that when you get all of this, you will, but how, how is it that so many people who have achieved this. People who are smarter than you. By the way, Elon Musk is a smart guy, and he hasn’t figured out how to turn his mission and money into a life of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, I don’t think he, to be fair, cares about being happy

Malcolm Collins: is it’s not just Elon. It’s [00:52:00] the great industrialists of the past generation, who is that great industrialist who like invented all those giant jumbo planes and everything and lived that, that life of existential horror. They made a movie about him jumbo

Simone Collins: planes.

He so, you’re thinking of the one Yeah. Who became like a hypochondriac and had really intense OCD we’re so bad with names Malcolm.

I was thinking of Howard Hughes.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway let’s wrap this up. Oh, but hold on. I will wrap it up. But what I’m saying is, is it’s not just him. It’s Tesla, it’s Edison, it’s all of these people had horrifying lives, right?

In terms of, of of, of what they actually went through. Be grateful. You know that you’re not Van Gogh, that you’re not all of these people who could have there is, there is so little to envy in this world of streamers and Instagram stories. Yeah. I mean, even Alexander

Simone Collins: the Great died super young and didn’t really build a lasting empire.

People still weep and not being him, so. I wouldn’t. [00:53:00] So I wouldn’t just want you guys to

Malcolm Collins: actually be grateful and accept your hardships for what they are, which is trivial compared to the hardships of the past, but also things that you’re just gonna need to move ahead with and know that there is no one that you should be jealous of so long as you are striving for well thought through goals.

And if you don’t know how to do that, get the pragmatist guide to life. Love you, Simone.

Simone Collins: You love you. You’re an amazing

Malcolm Collins: wife.

Simone Collins: You’re the perfect husband,

Malcolm Collins: and thanks for those amazing meals you make me

Simone Collins: Mm, looking forward to another one tonight.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Okay, ending. I’ll see you in the next room.

Malcolm Collins: Did you look at the episode today? How, how did, how did it do in terms of comments? I mean, obviously everything’s been doing terrible recently in terms of viewership which is the very reason we’re doing our episode today on a topic that I knew would not perform well in the algorithm, but that you needed to hear.

Because Thanksgiving week is just been a nightmare on 10 10, 10 10, like all the episodes are. There’s an episode I really wanna release because it’s quite a big break that we found, but [00:54:00] I feel bad doing it this week.

Simone Collins: Which one is that?

Malcolm Collins: That Russia basically completely astro turfed uh, black. And we have very hard receipts on.

Oh, the one we, yeah,

Simone Collins: we recorded that already. Well, then we can, we’ll do that next week. It’s fine. People will, well, I mean, the numbers are up.

Malcolm Collins: Winter’s always a really down season for us. But people seem to to like it, you said?

Simone Collins: Yeah, they did. They enjoyed it. And someone understood the amazing nostalgic value of the sound of glass vintage Christmas lights clinking together.

Oh my God. That sound, they get them on eBay. I have to look on eBay now. I have to see if I can get some. And someone tried out our fab and said it was really good. I sent you a screenshot of that, which is

Malcolm Collins: good to hear because I think it’s really buggy right now. But I think by the time this episode goes live, we should have the new version up, which should basically be impossible to lose, save data on, which has been one of the major issues.

Saved data and random loss messages.

Unfortunately, because of the scale of the overhaul, we’re probably gonna have to wait another two days [00:55:00] before we make it live. Sorry about that.

Simone Collins: That’s important. Very, very important. Yeah. No. So it was it was enjoyed.

Speaker 8: Come down here to get people dressed. What is happening over here? What are you doing? Andy taught me, so his funny, his birthday party. How did Indy get out of her bed? Tim did it. Octavian? Yeah. Did you help Indy get out of her bed? Be nice.

Speaker 9: They are so cute.

Drove us marching around. Had Indy gotten out of her, her cage? Yeah, they got her out in, got your, so they were marching around and doing what? They were just marching around yelling.

Speaker 16: Toasty. Andy wants to play toasty. Come on. Alright girl. Are you being silly, [00:56:00] but I just having, what are you doing, Titan?

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the surprising ways American public schools have started to resemble multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes. From endless fundraisers and donation drives to the rise of for-profit school photo companies and Scholastic book fairs, they explore how the focus has shifted from education to extracting money from parents and families.

They discuss the impact of teachers’ unions, the inefficiency of increased school spending, and the lack of accountability in the public school system. The conversation is filled with personal anecdotes, data, and a critical look at how school choice and alternative education models could offer a solution.

If you’ve ever wondered why your child comes home talking more about selling popcorn than what they learned in class, or if you’re frustrated by the constant fundraising requests, this episode is for you.

Finally, here’s today’s episode outline, as Simone did this one! The transcript can be found at the end.

Episode Outline: Schools Are MLMs Now - We Are In Full-On Idiocracy Already

The Gist

* The only thing our son talks about with regard to his school experience is fundraisers and donations

* This week—THIS WEEK ALONE—we have been repeatedly hammered about THREE THINGS:

* Picture day (retakes)

* Donating candy for decorating gingerbread houses, BECAUSE THEY CANCELLED THE ONE FIELD TRIP OF THE YEAR

* Participating in a readathon fundraiser

This comes at a time when it is more clear than ever that US public schools are failing:

* Trening on X: A University of California, San Diego report shows placements into remedial math courses jumped from 32 students in 2020 to 921 in 2025, or 11.8% of freshmen. Despite high school GPAs averaging 3.74 and many claiming calculus experience, placement tests revealed gaps in basics like fractions and word problems, with weak links to transcripts. Factors include COVID learning losses, test-free admissions since 2021, and more students from under-resourced schools; outcomes are poor, with high failure rates in calculus and fewer engineering degrees.

* Peter Meijer puts it well: In just a decade, education activists in the US managed to set back student outcomes by 50 years, an impressive accomplishment rivaled only by the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan.

Schools Have Become MLMs

Schools Are Being Used to Shill Private Companies’ Products

There’s a Great Planet Money episode titled “The secret world behind school fundraisers and turning kids into salespeople”

Here’s a summary of the NPR Planet Money episode, “Why do schools in the U.S. rely on kids to raise money?”:

* The podcast addresses the open secret that school fundraisers are a staple in American education.

* It talks about how students are often incentivized to sell products (like popcorn, chocolate, wrapping paper) with the promise of prizes—sometimes extravagant ones, but usually less valuable than the effort required.

* SC personal memories selling See’s Candies and wrapping paper

* The episode follows Villacorta Elementary in La Puente, California, showing how fundraising is needed for things not covered by the official budget—especially field trips. The PTA plays a central, tireless role in organizing these efforts.

* While schools receive substantial funding per student (mostly spent on salaries and basic operations), Principals have limited discretionary funds. Budget rules often restrict spending, making PTA-raised money especially valuable because it’s unrestricted

* [NOT MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE: This spending is functionally restricted, if not technically restricted, by TEACHERS’ UNIONS DEMANDS]

* Fundraising companies compete for PTA business, enticing members with dinners and easy logistics. The typical split is ~40% to the school, 60% to the company, so the value-return for schools is not great.

* Kids today “sell” mostly via family and friends, not door-to-door, but social pressure remains. Teachers often organize smaller events, while kids hope for prizes, even if they’re small trinkets.

* The motivation for fundraising is partly tactical: It’s easier to rally families to support fun perks like field trips and parties than operational costs. Cash donations are less popular than fundraisers with tangible rewards.

* PTA funds fill gaps, helping schools overcome bureaucratic hurdles and buy things needed quickly, which public funds can’t always provide.

* The Planet Money team concludes that ultimately, the system persists because people prefer to give when there’s excitement, visible reward, and community involvement—despite the inefficiencies and emotional discomfort of turning kids into salespeople.

Don’t Forget the Other Fundraisers!

These fundraisers are in addition to X-athons, school photos, and Scholastic book fairies, which were a part of my public school education and also a part of our son’s public school education

X-Athons

Walkathons and readathons, along with similar achievement-based fundraisers, have been held in US public schools since at least the early 1970s, gaining significant popularity by the late 1970s and 1980s

* Simone’s walkathon experiences

* Octavian’s current readathon

* But this encourages kids to read!!

* NOT AT ALL

School Photos

The Lifetouch Conspiracy

* Early school photos were often group shots taken outside the school; the idea of individual portraits and unified “picture day” events became popularized more broadly as companies like Lifetouch scaled up operations and introduced standardized processes and products.

* Then Lifetouch came along

* Lifetouch is the major school photography company in the US

* Lifetouch has been providing school photos since 1936, when it was founded as National School Studios in Minnesota. This means the company has nearly 90 years of continuous operation in the school photography business

* Prior to Lifetouch’s expansion, the school photography industry was comprised mostly of smaller, independent photographers and regional companies.

* It encourages schools to disrupt classes to have students photographed so they can sell those photos to parents

* Lifetouch photos ARE AWFUL

* Public schools receive a commission from Lifetouch ranging from 15% to as high as 50% of sales, though the typical range is 15% to 20% for most contracts.

* Some agreements are based on a flat fee per package sold or a guaranteed minimum commission. Other contracts might include signing bonuses or extra products and services as incentives for schools.

Scholastic Book Fairs

* Scholastic book fairs have been held in public schools since 1981, when Scholastic purchased the California School Book Fairs and began organizing in-school book fairs nationwide

* California School Book Fairs was a company that made money by selling books directly to students and families at school-hosted events

* Schools that host Scholastic book fairs generally receive either 25% of the total sales as cash profit or 50% as “Scholastic Dollars,” which is a form of store credit usable for educational materials from Scholastic

* This 25% cut only comes with the highest tier; the book sales have to exceed $2,500 to get that cut

* Profit returned to schools nationwide totals approximately $200 million annually.

* But Scholastic makes A LOT more

* Scholastic Corporation is a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SCHL

* Gross profit margins for Scholastic Corporation have typically been strong, with the latest trailing twelve months figure around 55.8%

More Spending Doesn’t Produce Better Outcomes

This is summarized well by Emil Kirkegaard on substack in his writeup “Against the economists on school spending” in which Kirkegaard highlights how large randomized, controlled trials on educational interventions almost always show no or negligible benefits.

Highlights:

* Kirkegaard critiques claims, common in economics and education policy circles, that increasing school spending significantly improves student outcomes, particularly test scores.

* Kirkegaard references major studies (like the Coleman Report) showing that parental background and socioeconomic status matter much more than school variables for student achievement. School-related factors contribute only about 10% to outcomes.

* He highlights meta-analyses and prominent studies frequently cited by economists, noting that effect sizes for increased spending on test scores are extremely small (typically 0.030.030.03 standard deviations per $1,000 per pupil, or even less), and that results are often muddied by bias, p-hacking, and publication bias in the literature.

* There is deep skepticism regarding complex economist studies employing complicated statistical techniques to claim causal effects. Kirkegaard prefers large, simple randomized controlled trials, which consistently find null or very minor effects for spending and interventions (average effect size about 0.060.060.06).

* Examples such as massive funding boosts for “Abbott” districts in New Jersey, Mark Zuckerberg’s donation to Newark schools, and LeBron James’ high-profile Akron school, all failed to improve achievement gaps or test scores.

* Kirkegaard argues academia has self-interest in producing research suggesting more funding yields positive results, comparing “Big Education” to industries like “Big Pharma” when it comes to bias.

* He concludes that real-world attempts to increase spending fail to close gaps, effects are minimal, and much of the advocacy for spending increases rests on flawed assumptions and weak evidence.

Main Takeaways:

* Economist studies using quasi-experimental methods find tiny effects, but often exaggerate their practical significance.

* There is an incentive for academia to argue for more funding, raising doubts about objectivity.

* Real-world historical cases of major school funding or reform projects have repeatedly failed to close achievement gaps or boost outcomes meaningfully.

* Strategies focused solely on spending increases are unlikely to solve deep-rooted problems in education; student backgrounds and broader social factors are far more influential.

Despite This, People Keep Throwing Money at the Problem

The Center for Black Excellence

One of our listeners encouraged us to check this out

Teacher’s Unions are Driving the Charge

This is well illustrated by Tony Senik who wrote an article in City Journal about the California Teachers Association that provides a good case study of this; it’s titled “The Worst Union in America”

* Senik argues the CTA is the single most powerful and problematic union in California, and is central to the decline of California’s public education quality as it blocks education reform, protects underperforming and sometimes criminal educators, and lobbies to inflate teacher salaries and benefits, creating fiscal burdens for the state.

* The CTA’s power surged after the Rodda Act (1975), which allowed collective bargaining for teachers; since then, it has used its growing membership and financial resources ($186 million annual income, much spent on politics) to oppose reforms and control local school boards.

* Notable CTA campaigns include blocking school choice initiatives and fighting measures like class-size reduction (which led to costly results without educational improvements) and resisting efforts to make teacher dismissal easier.

* Simone anecdote: Biology teacher in high school

* Firing bad teachers in California is extremely difficult due to union-backed rules. Teacher misconduct—ranging from incompetence to criminality—rarely leads to termination.

* The article details incidents where the union used aggressive tactics to oppose vouchers, accountability measures, and reforms, including intimidation, costly ad campaigns, and political influence.

* “In 1991, the CTA took to the ramparts again to combat Proposition 174, a ballot initiative that would have made California a national leader in school choice by giving families universal access to school vouchers. When initiative supporters began circulating the petitions necessary to get it onto the ballot, some CTA members tried to intimidate petition signers physically. The union also encouraged people to sign the petition multiple times in order to throw the process into chaos. “There are some proposals so evil that they should never go before the voters,” explained D. A. Weber, the CTA’s president. One of the consultants who organized the petitions testified in a court declaration at the time that people with union ties had offered him $400,000 to refrain from distributing them. Another claimed that a CTA member had tried to run him off the road after a debate on school choice.”

* The CTA also funds various progressive causes unrelated to education to broaden its political reach and discourage dissent.

* Among these causes: implementing a single-payer health-care system in California, blocking photo-identification requirements for voters, and limiting restraints on the government’s power of eminent domain. The CTA was the single biggest financial opponent of another Proposition 8, the controversial 2008 proposal to ban gay marriage, ponying up $1.3 million to fight an initiative that eventually won 52.2 percent of the vote. The union has also become the biggest donor to the California Democratic Party. From 2003 to 2012, the CTA spent nearly $102 million on political contributions; 0.08 percent of that money went to Republicans.

* Senik points to the case of Locke High School, which illustrate how union resistance can stifle reform; only external moves, like conversion to a charter school operator, led to improvements.

* “Consider the case of Locke High School in the poverty-stricken Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts. Founded in response to the area’s 1967 riots, Locke was intended to provide a quality education to the neighborhood’s almost universally minority students. For years, it failed: in 2006, with a student body that was 65 percent Hispanic and 35 percent African-American, the school sent just 5 percent of its graduates to four-year colleges, and the dropout rate was nearly 51 percent.

* Shortly before Locke reached this nadir, the school hired a reform-minded principal, Frank Wells, who was determined to revive the school’s fortunes. Just a few days after he arrived, a group of rival gangs got into a dust-up; Wells expelled 80 of the students involved. In the new atmosphere of discipline, Locke dropped “from first in the number of campus crime reports in LAUSD [Los Angeles Unified School District] to thirteenth,” writes Donna Foote in Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America. Test scores and college acceptance also began to rise, Foote reports.

* But trouble arose with the union when Wells began requiring Locke teachers to present weekly lesson plans. The local CTA affiliate—United Teachers Los Angeles—filed a grievance against him and was soon urging his removal. The last straw was Wells’s effort to convert Locke into an independent charter school, where teachers would operate under severely restricted union contracts. In May 2007, the district removed Wells from his job. He was escorted from his office by three police officers and an associate superintendent of schools, all on the basis of union allegations that he had let teachers use classroom time to sign a petition to turn Locke into a charter. Wells called the allegations “a total fabrication,” and the signature gatherers backed him up. The LAUSD reassigned him to a district office, where he was paid $600 a day to sit in a cubicle and do nothing.”

* CTA-backed policies jeopardize the fiscal security of California schools, noting unsustainable teacher pensions and job protections even in times of budget crisis.

The Solution is School Choice

* The only way to fight this is to allow parents to take their school tax dollars elsewhere:

* Private school

* Charter schools

* Homeschool

* To give people an example of how much of a difference this makes: These dollars being portable HAS A BITE

* Our school tax for 2025 was 8,971.78 (this is not based on income, it was connected to our home, which we purchased in 2019 for $535,000

* Note this is just local funding; our schools also get state and federal funding

* How much does the average american household pay annually in school district taxes (tax to support public schools)?

* In many states, school funding relies heavily on local property taxes, often representing about 21% of the local education budget, with the rest coming from state and federal sources.

* in New Jersey, the average annual school tax bill per household is around $6,200

* In California, local property taxes funded about 21% of the education budget, but average amounts per household are not directly stated; median property taxes (all purposes) tend to range from $1,000 to over $10,000 depending on locality.

* Public school spending per student averages about $15,600 nationwide, but most of this comes from a mix of local, state, and federal sources rather than just household property taxes

* LET’S MAKE THAT PORTABLE

* This makes public schools accountable

* We don’t want public schools to be eliminated; we want them to be accountable

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: HELLOOOOO MALCOLM! I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because I am being driven crazy by our son.

The only thing he talks about with regard to his school experiences are fundraisers and donations. Oh, she

Malcolm Collins: says this and I’m, and I am. Absolutely serious. I have never, and I ask my kid every day, what’d you do at school today? What’d you learn in school today? Yeah. Would you, I’ll get some vague notion like numbers or like maybe there was a book.

If it was a fundraising event, they remember every effing detail.

Simone Collins: I’m sorry. He does not talk about books that they read or any, any educational activity. Maybe he talks about like playing around with some friends, but no, I, this week alone, Malcolm, this week alone, okay. We’ve been repeatedly hammered about three things.

One Picture day retakes two donating candy for decorating gingerbread houses because they canceled the one field trip of the year [00:01:00] and instead of making gingerbread houses that day, but God forbid, they provide the supplies for gingerbread houses. And then three, participating in the Readathon fundraiser for the school.

Three school fundraiser activities. One week, one randomly sampled week. Of the school year,

Malcolm Collins: and this is becoming a, I don’t think this, and I think what you’re gonna go into, this isn’t just our school district. The school system in the United States has become basically an MLM scam. Yeah. It teaches kids almost nothing.

Yeah. And is completely dedicated to milking as much money from parents as possible.

Simone Collins: And yes. And this comes at a time when it is more clear than ever that us. Public schools are failing. You know, this isn’t just an issue of them being turned into MLMs. They’re also utterly and completely failing on x. I log onto X this morning, of course, after an evening of my son hounding me for money right from the school because he’s been indoctrinated not to learn, to read, to raise money for them.

[00:02:00] And, and, and then I see trending on x. That a University of California San Diego report shows placements into remedial math courses have jumped from 32 students in 2020 to 921 in 2025, or 11.8% of freshmen. 10% of freshmen are in remedial math. Despite high school GPAs averaging 3.74, and many claiming calculus experience placement tests revealed gaps in basics like fractions and word problems.

Is this, wait, this is policemen you said? No. This is students at uc, San Diego. Oh wow. The university in California at San Diego. A, a good, like a good, decent school. My mom went there. Not, I mean, you know, she wasn’t, she, she’s, I think she was smart. I. I consider her to be anyway, the, the, the average GPA of a student going into uc, San Diego is 3.74.

[00:03:00] 3.74 word problems. Yeah. 3.74. That’s a decent GPA out of four point. No, that’s a decent

Malcolm Collins: GPAI didn’t have a 3.74. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so I mean, people are pointing to COVID learning losses and test free admission since 2021 and more students from under-resourced schools. But let’s, let’s, let’s be clear here.

I think an underrated thing that no one is really talking about. Is this MLM thing? So we’re gonna go into it. I wanna talk about this today. We’re gonna talk about other underlying factors, money in schools, but I think the, the MLM thing is if more money does

Malcolm Collins: not make schools better, I wanna make this clear.

Are you gonna go into the, we’re gonna go into that

Simone Collins: Malcolm, we’re gonna go into that. But I, we’re gonna start with the very colorful world of MLMs because if you’re not in the US I think it’s, it’s gonna be really surprising to you. And if you are in the US. Even if you are in, in our generation, millennials, like we’re, we’re in our, in our mid to late thirties, you are going to find [00:04:00] that.

Oh my God, even in my childhood, my school was in MLM because I, I, I realized this myself. So basically there are many ways in which schools are acting like MLMs. One of the big ones that I think is the most egregious is that schools are being used to shill. Private companies, products. And this isn’t in the, in the form of fundraisers.

Which I don’t know if you experienced Malcolm, because I don’t think you ever went to public school. I

Malcolm Collins: did go to public school. I went to a lot of public school.

Simone Collins: Okay, so you went to public school and then you were sent into like the prison camps and system, so like No, no, I went to public school, then private school, then prison.

Were you ever in for your public school or even for private school, like sent out to sell wrapping paper or chocolates?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I was, yeah. And we, they, we’d also do fundraisers with families. We’d also do fundraisers for little toys we’d do. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So there’s a, the, this is a very common practice in, in US public schools.

I did it too. I sold wrapping paper and I sold Seas candies to raise [00:05:00] money for my school. I cannot remember what it was possibly for. But there’s a really great Planet Money episode. This is a, a podcast affiliated with the NPR that I actually running

Malcolm Collins: these, right? It’s like, other companies that run them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s other companies. So the episode that the Planet Money did investigating these was called The Secret World Behind School Fundraisers and Turning Kids into Salespeople. Which, it addresses the open secret that school fundraisers are a staple of American education which I think people just don’t really think about.

It talks about how students are often incentivized to sell products like popcorn or chocolate or wrapping paper with a promise of prizes, sometimes extravagant prizes, but usually way less valuable than the effort required. Yeah. And the episode follows villano Villanova Elementary School in it, it’s in California.

It’s just a normal, totally middle of the road. California Elementary School. They show how fundraising is needed for things not covered by the official budget, like [00:06:00] especially field trips. Which kind of makes, you know, like our, our son’s field trip being canceled, like a very indicative of this. What was the field trips supposed to be too and why was it canceled?

Some, some like kind of Dutch theater. It seemed, it seemed cute and wholesome and adorable, but yeah, they’re not doing that anymore, so it doesn’t matter. And, and, and the PTA, apparently the Parent Teachers Association plays a really pivotal role in deciding to do these because they want like, cool things for their kids and they’re just not seeing it happen.

So they’re turning to these private companies as a fundraiser, which is really kind of lame because they’re only getting really small cuts of this. So while schools receive substantial funding per student. Mostly spend on salaries and basic operations principles have limited discretionary funds, so budget rules often restrict spending, and this is why PTA raised money plays such a valuable function in this.

Here’s what’s not mentioned in the episode, because Planet Money being NPR affiliated, being a generally progressive podcast does not. [00:07:00] I guess wanna anger teachers unions, but teachers unions are really the ones that are tying school district’s money on how money could be spent. And in basically insisting the money needs to be spent on teachers’ pensions and teachers’ unions, and all these things that, that really restrict school’s ability to buy basic school supplies or you know, send the kids on field trips or, or do any of the fun things that a school should have discretionary spending to do.

Now, the, the, the fundraising companies, they, they compete for PTA business so that they will actively market to parent-teacher associations and entice members with thi things like dinners and super easy logistics. So they’ll like take a mom out and be like, oh, like this will, this will make so much money and the kids will have so much fun.

But the typical split is about 40% to the school, 60% to the company. So you’re, you’re really wasting people’s time with us. Like people should really just be donating money to schools and the value to Yeah, the value return to schools is really not great at all. And, and of course the kids are [00:08:00] mostly selling to family and friends.

They’re not going to door to door, but I used to go door to door. I don’t know if you did.

Malcolm Collins: And remember we were encouraged to by the organizations. I always thought it seemed like an enormous waste of time

Simone Collins: because it is, because the, again, like this school is only getting, and this is in, in like a nicer situation, around 40%.

The reason, the, the reasoning why and what there’s trying like, at least with these companies are telling to parent-teacher associations and parents is, oh, well, like people don’t wanna donate to a fundraiser, but people will find it more fun to sell. You know, like wrapping paper and popcorn. ‘cause everyone likes popcorn.

Who doesn’t wanna buy popcorn? Does,

Malcolm Collins: does the NPR R piece go over? There’s the 40 60 split. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They’re open about that. The, the one thing that I, I criticize them for is not really talking about the role that teachers unions. Take in, like taking all the money that isn’t associated with student outcomes or student benefits, that it’s all just going to teacher union associated and, and I, [00:09:00]

Malcolm Collins: it’s absolutely not that they’re not getting enough money.

American schools get more money per student than I think almost anywhere on earth.

So if you combine secondary teary and primary education with the second highest spending nation on earth after Luxembourg.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Yeah. It,

Malcolm Collins: it is that they are not spending it, well, they’re wasting it on the unions. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It, it’s being wasted on really stupid stuff. So the but the, the like, sort of the, where the planet money team leaves, it is like, oh, well this system persists because people prefer to give when there’s excitement and visible reward and community involvement.

Like in, in the, in the episode itself, which I’ll link to in my show notes, which is available for our paid. Patreon and Substack subscribers. Thank you so much. You guys. It’s, they, they talk about. Like they, they, I think they include like some, some audio from an assembly where they’re like, yeah, like, let’s go.

You know, like they make, it’s, it’s a total MLM thing. Yeah. It’s like those stupid MLM like motivational speeches. It’s insane that they’re doing this in schools wasting students’ time for this. But guess what you think? Oh, so this is. Like, [00:10:00] okay. That it’s just pretty bad that this happens in school. But I mean like this is something the PGA puts together.

Like maybe it happens for a portion of the year. I remember we did it twice a year in my middle school. That is not the only fundraiser that’s happening at your school. Like I said, our son has come home to us for with three asks so far this week. Okay. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: hold on, hold on. It’s not just that now. Now they’re doing stuff like for our kids.

They’ll give them computers to take home on days when like schools cancel for the date. Didn’t even

Simone Collins: include that.

Malcolm Collins: You’re supposed to like learn on this home computer, except the apps, which are games for the kids to play on require a subscription to pay. Yeah. And of course they know the parents, that the kids are just gonna ask the parents, sign me up for this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I, yeah, I didn’t even include that. So that’s another one. Here’s some other examples. Is, is is walkathons and Readathon. So I had this, this fight with our son Octavian last night about, a readathon that his school is doing. The way that these work is with a walkathon or a readathon basically Walkathon and [00:11:00] Readathon are, they’ve been held at US public schools since like the 1970s and they got really popular starting in the 1980s.

And, and they’re meant to sort of like encourage healthy activity or like encourage kids to read, like so drive literacy, drive. Physical fitness by getting kids to pledge to walk a certain distance. And then you, you have your friends and neighbors and families say, well, I’ll give you this many dollars per mile walked or per book red.

And then those dollars are, are funds that you donate to the school. So this, this, in this case, at least, it’s directly donated to the school, but it’s still the school trying to raise funds for discretionary spending again, because they’re not. Their, their money is tied up by teachers unions, basically. And other rules, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: the way I wanna handle the walkathons and stuff like that with our kid, just so he doesn’t have to go and walk for no money is just on the days that the walkathon is, we won’t send ‘em to school.

Simone Collins: Well, but here’s the problem with the read-a-thon. And here’s the funny thing is like, oh, this [00:12:00] encourages physical fitness, just encourages reading activity. Okay? So Octavian last night is like, well mom, you have to, you have to gimme money for the readathon. And I’m like, okay, fine. Like read a book. And he’s like, well, fine.

And he like goes and grabs a book. You know, one of the, one of the books that, that we read to them, that they really like the x for geniuses books. Yeah. And he chooses the optical physics one, or optical whatever. And, and he, he, he starts signing up pages and stuff, but he starts getting really frustrated and because, you know, he’s still like in that sanding out stuff and the phonics stuff and it, it, it’s just, you know, he didn’t feel like doing it.

He didn’t wanna read the book. And he is like, it’s a read-a-thon. You don’t have to read books for it. And I’m like, Octavian, the whole point is you have to read books. But he’s like, no, it’s about getting prizes. It’s very clear to me that the way that this is being sold to the kids in school is not, oh, reading is great.

Let’s read more books. We love reading. You know, like, show how much it’s about Raz Mom, is that about reading? [00:13:00] No, literal, literally, I, I, I didn’t have my phone right next to me, so I couldn’t film him yelling at me about this. But he was getting so mad. He was like, no. You know how like you get really confident when you’re like mad at me and you think that I’m wrong?

He’s like, you’re obviously wrong. He was doing that to me.

Speaker: All right, buddy. Tell me about this Readathon. This Readathon. Like my teacher said, you don’t have to read for Readathon. Okay. So what do you do for Readathon? We just don’t have to like read and we can do all the stuff. What’s, well, what is the stuff? It’s a game board. It’s a game board, yeah. That we have to fill up.

Speaker 2: If we fill up all of it and save $200. And we’re short a trophy, a star one if we save home over $2,000. Oh, okay. Yeah. We need to get the most donations. And why do you want the most donations? [00:14:00] Because we get, because if we don’t get that many donations, then somebody else is going to be in first place. And how do you fill out the game map?

We need to do a lot of stuff. It says, well, what’s the stuff in a read-a-thon? It is make guess you read books, right? No, you don’t have to.

Simone Collins: Where he is like, no, mom, obviously it’s not about reading. It’s about the praise. And I was just getting so mad and I’m like, yeah, clearly this is not the, the the, ooh, we’re, see, we’re just promoting literacy is same with Walkathon. So my school story time, I don’t think you knew about this, did a walkathon.

So they, they had us do it on the naval base. It’s, it’s in Alameda, the, the abandoned naval base. Yes. So guess what happens? One of the kids steps on a bees nest. [00:15:00] But it turns out to be a really large one and it turns out to be killer bees. Oh God, we were in the news. It was great. I remember walking, you know, and it’s in the heat.

You know, it was, it was, it was close to summer by that point, or it was like right after summer break, I can’t remember which, but it was hot. We’re like walking on this old airstrip on a naval base in, in the Bay Area. You know, this is like, you know, it’s like walking in circles in prison camp, you know, this is not like a fun activity.

It’s, it’s, it’s like making children trudge to raise money. And then suddenly. There are ambulances, people are running, and I’m just kind of confused and Yeah. Just everyone’s just like, like panicking and, and trying to run away from a very large swarm of bees. Fortunately, nobody died. But we, yeah, we, we did make the news.

So that was very, everyone was very excited about the news. That was great. So yeah. This is,

Speaker 3: Open the box, [00:16:00] Joe.

Simone Collins: this is what this American public schools at their fun bees,

Malcolm Collins: bees

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don’t know if this is when they started calling them Africanized be, I don’t remember when that whole thing happened.

That sounds

Malcolm Collins: racist.

Simone Collins: That was, yeah. It was really hilarious. And then, I don’t know if you, you realize this

Malcolm Collins: Africanized feel like it’s the new unoffensive term for African Americans, African Africanized.

Simone Collins: Oh, God, I just

can’t,

Malcolm Collins: so the.

To be like, it’s to remind you that they’re humans.

Simone Collins: [00:17:00] She’s, yeah. So, the, yeah. The other thing that, that Octavian and it, you know, honestly, he just, they must repeat this to the kids so much at school because he sounded like a recording. He was like, and also tomorrow is school photo retake day. Where if you don’t like the photo that you got of me.

Then you can have another one taken tomorrow. And remember how he, he took home. So school photos get taken in American schools. This, this stems from a tradition that ha was totally normal, where like in, back in the day, back when photos were first invented, you know, groups of students would go out to the front of the school and pose.

And have their photos taken to like remember, you know? Yeah. And, and, and typically it was like Joe, you know, Philip’s dad who had his tie, his camera, his special camera would, you know, take a picture and then, you know, make copies for people. Maybe people would pitch in to pay for the paper or whatever.

Right. But like, yeah, yeah. You know, and then, and then of course, you know, gotta the point where some local [00:18:00] photographers. Started, you know, oh, well, hey, I’ll come to this school. I’ll take everyone’s photo. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Professionally. And, and then some larger companies were like, Hey, like, I’ll, I’ll be like, I’ll, I’ll come and I’ll bring a, a backdrop, you know, I’ll, I’ll be more professional about it and we’ll do a class photo.

And then they started doing individual photos, so the students, because you know, people didn’t have cameras back then, right? So they’re like, well then I’ll, you know, I will take a photo of you, you know, every year you can buy a photo of your kid that was professionally done, and I’ll, I’ll convince the school to let me go in and do it.

By sharing some of my profit with them. Okay. So I don’t know if you knew this, but schools are sharing in the profit of school photos at this point. Of course. And still today

Malcolm Collins: of course it’s almost certainly major private equity companies that are doing this well.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So actually Life Touch is the company that took my photos as a cable.

Did he take your photos as a cable life touch? I dunno. For me it was always life touch and for our son. It’s Lifetouch at his public school. They’ve even made it now into daycares. I don’t know if you [00:19:00] remember, but at KinderCare when our children were in daycare, Lifetouch also descended upon their facility and descended upon.

Yes. Yes. Well they did. And Lifetouch is, is just a giant you know, faceless company that, that interrupts the school day. And, and now it is sort of like the, the one big company. There’s, there is no other school photo company, the bigger thing. He has been providing school photos since 1936 when it was founded as National school studios in Minnesota.

And, and yeah, I mean the company’s basically been in continuous operation for nearly 90 years. But then it, it started to acquire and just roll up. All of the, the, the small, like little companies, and the way that it works now is it negotiates a contract with every single school district and their earnings range from as little as 15% to as high as 50%.

Like some school [00:20:00] districts have gotten wise to this and they’ve like literally made rules where like, we will accept nothing less than 50%. But some school districts are total rubes and they just like allow themselves to be totally fleeced over and make like 15%. And what’s, but you, what I understand,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, why can’t I, as an outsider start a company that takes school pictures and then go to the school districts and be like, and offer more, 75%?

Simone Collins: Because they have these like binding contracts, I think, you know, they’re just like so used to it, but they’re just, they’re people arent trying to do

Malcolm Collins: this.

Simone Collins: They’re so bad. So let me, let me share with you just ‘cause you might think, oh, well these are professional photos, right? Like, you know, it’s nice to have your kid professionally photographed.

Let me show you the professional photos.

Of our, our children that are just so great. Really, really fantastic. Oh my God. He looks, I’m not even gonna put these on screen. They look so mad. No, you still, you need to put them. And my favorite is this one that they got of Torsten. He, he just looks [00:21:00] absolutely like a prisoner, you know, like hold up the newspaper in the face.

So existential

sad.

I also found one of you, Malcolm. Here you go. That’s just, yeah. Amazing photo. Just they really nailed it. Nailed it. With the purple background. That’s just great. And here’s here’s, here’s old Simone life touch. Oh God, just. Absolutely fantastic. So yeah, life touch. Well, you can tell there are kids, I’ll tell you that.

I, I’m just, I’m just trying to argue like there’s absolutely no justification. For, for shoving these upon parents showing them to kids, interrupting the school, school day. But it doesn’t end there. There’s also the scholastic book fairs, schol, scholastic book fairs. Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: The book fairs are such a scam.

The kids, no, but hold on. Someone before you go further with all this, something I need to emphasize to the listener here. Yeah. Our kids remember. Nothing, nothing, [00:22:00] nothing from school. This is all hear about, literally nothing in school that I am aware of. I am not aware of any reading. We, all the reading he does, he learned from us, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. The little bit of time we spend on it with him, with that being the case, he can remember the book fair stuff. Like verbatim. Yeah. He can remember five pitches in like one day that he got over the course of that day. Yeah. He’s as is, they are teaching the children literally nothing but the melon pitches anymore.

Simone Collins: I mean, sales is always be closing, right? I mean like to a certain extent. Okay. I guess like, it’s kind of the, before

Malcolm Collins: we get to the book fair thing, this actually for me specifically, what it, what it has done is I just thought maybe it’s his personality. Maybe he’s too young, maybe he just can’t remember whatever he’s doing in school.

No. And now what I’m realizing is they are doing nothing of value. And so I [00:23:00] now have this, this perspective, Simone, where you can tell me if you, if you wanna push back on this, but I’m really thinking maybe at the end of this year we just pull ‘em out. And I don’t know if we should send the other kids.

And the reason I’m saying this is because it is actually a lot of our time to send him to school. And if instead of waiting on the school bus every morning, I just spent 30 minutes teaching him to read to get more education than going to the school I know. I’m, no, I’m being very serious, Simone.

Like I know, I, I know, I know. You’re being serious. And then other than that, we put on documentaries or something. Right? Like I can’t, until he gets proficient enough at reasoning to use pia.io, which is our alternate school system, anyone who has kids of school age, there’s actually already kids who are doing their educational on pia, which is really cool.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which I like. I like that we’re able to offer that to people. Listen, the

Simone Collins: only reason Octavian is in school is because he asked to, I I don’t know if he’s gonna ask. Not anymore.

Malcolm Collins: He asked to originally.

Simone Collins: Does he still ask to? Yeah, he’s asked me to not go. He, he a, yeah, he asked to [00:24:00] again this year.

So I, but I also feel like. He might be getting on the edge of it

Malcolm Collins: at this point. Well, Simone, I think the problem with how you’re asking him is you are asking him at the end of a period where he hasn’t been to school in a long time and he’s excited to go. You, you ask him. You ask him. You should ask him while he’s in school.

Yeah. Ask him tonight. Ask him tonight. Great.

Simone Collins: So anyways, Scholastic book fairs, they’ve been held in public schools. In the United States since 1989. In 1981, when Scholastic purchased the California book fairs which was a company and began organizing in school book fairs nationwide. So California school book fairs was a company that made money by selling books directly to students and families at school hosted events.

Schools that host Scholastic book fairs generally receive, you wanna guess how much they get in profit? 25%. Yeah, actually you nailed it. Either, either 25% of the total sales as cash profit, or 50% as scholastic [00:25:00] dollars, which is a form of store credit, usable. For educational materials you purchased from Scholastic that are already overcharging.

Yeah, because they’re, they’re immensely overpriced, by the way. Yeah. So, so yeah, it’s, it’s, it is MLMI, I dunno what else to say. Now keep in mind the 25% cut only comes. With the highest tier of compensation, you have to se sell over $2,500 in books in your school to get that cut. Otherwise you’re getting a lower percentage.

And I just wanna be clear that well, okay. Profit to schools nationwide. Totals approximately $2 million annually. Scholastic makes a lot more ‘cause considering that’s of the 25% at best that schools are getting. Yeah. And I bet they’re also counting Scholastic dollars in this, which totally don’t count.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: totally don’t count. So Co Scholastic Corporation, well, actually I think it’s Shutterstock owns Lifetouch [00:26:00] now. They, they bought them, so we don’t know how much a margin that they’re making. The the school photos company, Scholastic Corporation is a publicly traded company on Nasdaq under the ticker SCHL, and its gross profit margins have been very strong with the latest 12 months figure being around 55.8% growth.

So these guys are making a lot of money.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait, 55.8% growth.

Simone Collins: Gross profit margins. Oh, gross profit margins. They’re profit margins. Year, year gross. Yeah. Yeah. So to just like, this is, this is absolutely ridiculous. This is, again, for, for discretion. Shut it down. Shut it down. I Shannon again.

Speaker 6: Shenanigans shenanigans.

Speaker 8: What’s all this

Speaker 6: officer Paul Brady. I would like to reinstate my previous shenanigans. This whole carnival is a rip up,

Speaker 8: you know? Uh, excuse me, but I agree. These rides are really stupid.

Speaker 7: Okay, let’s calm down. People of South Park, do you declare shenanigans on the carnival people? Yay. Okay, carnival people. Do you accept this [00:27:00] decree of shenanigans? What the are you talking about? This old town is screwy.

Well, that settles it. Everybody grab a broom. It’s shenanigan.

Simone Collins: I like schools need more money, but schools need more money.

And some people might be like, okay, well. You know, well then we just need to give schools more money if then they won’t be so desperate to raise money. More spending does not produce better outcomes, first and foremost. And this is summarized really well by an essay that just came out from Aila Kirker Guard.

I mean, at least as of recording, I, it came in my inbox this morning. It inspired this whole episode actually titled against the econ economists on school spending, in which he highlights how large randomized controlled trials on educational interventions almost always show no or negligible benefits.

So he, he’s trying to, in this essay critique common. Claims that economists and educational policy circles make that increasing school [00:28:00] spending significantly improve student outcomes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And particularly test scores. He references major studies like the Coleman report showing that parental background and socioeconomic status matter much more than school variables for student achievement.

And that school related factors contribute only about 10%. Of outcomes, which I mean when you consider how much money actually goes to these things is is ridiculous. He highlights meta-analyses and prominent studies frequently cited by economists, noting that the effect sizes for increased spending on test scores are extremely small.

Typically 0.030 standard deviations per 1000 per people, or even less. And the results are often muddled by bias p hacking and publication bias in the literature. He’s, he’s super, super skeptical of complex economist studies employing complicated statistical techniques to claim causal effects. He prefers large, simple, randomized control studies because obviously there’s this huge bias in [00:29:00] academia to support spending on academia.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh yeah. We’ll ask the teachers how much money they need. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And he also points to examples such as massive funding boosts for Abbott districts in New Jersey. Mark Zuckerberg’s donation to Newark schools and LeBron James High Profile Akron School all failed to improve achievement gaps in test scores.

And oh, I can also share with you some of the, the graphs. So he.

Shared we can you, you can include them in the episode that shows some of the, the data here. Hold on. I’m trying to drag ‘em into WhatsApp and my mouse is not responding to my dead finger. All right, so. Here’s one and here’s the other.

So what we’re looking at here is simulated district level expenditures versus test scores when $1,000 increases student scores what, what we’re looking at as a graph that’s showing absolutely no effect of money and test [00:30:00] outcomes. And this is something that was put together. Oh my God. It’s like literally no effect.

Malcolm Collins: It’s literally no effect. No effect. Oh my God.

Simone Collins: And, and then there’s another one that that ARD put together. 10th grade math test scores per people expenditure for institutional salaries. What

Malcolm Collins: about this one is, it shows, it shows, it shows it go down some at the end here. Yeah. Like really high levels.

It actually knocks the scores down.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it’s,

Simone Collins: it is, it is. Embarrassing to say the least. I bet you know, they’re

Malcolm Collins: inner city schools or something though. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and I’m, I’m gonna argue that teachers, no, actually they’re

Malcolm Collins: not inner city schools. I can tell you exactly why they’re going down. You can tell from the graph.

Oh. Can you tell, actually I’m gonna play a little experiment, Simone. No. Can you tell why the blue graph has the numbers go down at the higher level of the spending?

Simone Collins: Because the sample’s smaller.

Malcolm Collins: No. Okay. So if you notice, it appears in striated bands. Yeah, it does. Yeah. In bands. Yeah. Yeah. And the heaviest band is where the number goes down a lot.

Yeah. That heavy band is likely a student union a teacher’s union. And that [00:31:00] teachers union is collectively suppressing, collectively getting a specific price per student as a way that they work and knocking the scores way down.

Simone Collins: Well, and this is, this is actually the perfect segue because I am now to my key argument here, which is that teachers union, wait, are you gonna

Malcolm Collins: go to the Mississippi School District or should I do that?

Simone Collins: The what specific school district, Mississippi. Oh, no, I’m not gonna, no. ‘cause that’s a whole, that’s a whole podcast.

Malcolm Collins: Come on. Well, I should briefly go over it. So recently the Mississippi School District one of the lowest funded school districts in the United States. Mississippi

Simone Collins: is a whole state,

Malcolm Collins: the state, whatever.

The, the state is getting the highest test scores on reading levels. As specifically if you adjust for the, the ES ethnic groups in the state, which is to say that typically black kids get lower reading scores than white kids. I’m not saying that this is due to genetic reasons or anything, it’s just this is a truism across the United States.

And Mississippi has an unusually large black population. And when you account for that, they have by far, I think the, the best reading levels in the United States now despite having very low spending. And it’s just because they entered a new [00:32:00] program. And, and even, even in an absolute sense, I think they’re like the, the third best reading in the United States now.

Mm-hmm. Which is wild because they used to be a joke of an education system.

Yeah.

And how did they do it? They, they did not do it with a ton of extra spending there, there was minor extra spending, but the, the major thing that they did but it, the extra spending was spent to, on specific programs, not an increase in teacher salaries anywhere.

And it was not letting kids graduate until they agreed, until they actually met the requirements to graduate that grade.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And yeah, way though. Back to back to the, they

Malcolm Collins: went to Starship Trooper’s world where all the scores are posted on a board which is what we need. Do shame. Shame

Simone Collins: people.

Speaker 4: Remember all,

not here. Come on. Let’s see if they post the math final. Here. Go take Tesla. We’re gonna kill[00:33:00]

all graduating seniors. First thing Fleet Academy looks at is your math scores wish me less.

Way to go. Good job. Your turn. Hold on. I wanna talk to Marco, his sister’s at Fleet Marco. Hi Carmen. Who’s here about Roxy you?

35%. Very nice. Look at that. 35%. Ladies got a lot of big numbers, Carl,

so we haven’t done it yet out here. Don’t lie. I’m not in any hurry. Others are waiting. Yeah. Did you read your mind? [00:34:00] Don’t have to. It’s pretty clear what she wants. Yeah, but I want come. Oh, you’ve got it. Bad. Bye, mark. Hey, don’t forget about this afternoon. He’s always late when he walks. You home to fish for a kiss.

Get out of here. Marco’s sister made pilot. So will you. I mean, imagine flying a half a million tons of star shook. You got nerves of steel. Yeah, you do. Let’s see how yours sold up. You may begin.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so it’s, it’s teachers unions in the US that are just dragging schools down to hell. And, and this is well illustrated by Tony Sinek in an article that he wrote in City Journal a while back about the California Teachers Association that provides a really good case study of this. It’s called The Worst Union in America.

So in in this article, Senek argues that the California Teachers Association is the single most powerful and [00:35:00] problematic union in California and is central to the decline of California’s public education quality. As it blocks education reform provides. Underperforming and sometimes criminal educators and lobbies to inflate teacher salaries and benefits creating fiscal burdens for the state.

I mean, and everyone knows California state spending is insane. I mean, they’re the ones that are about to try to tax billionaires to. Just like handle a little

Malcolm Collins: expense for

Simone Collins: them. No, no. We didn’t

Malcolm Collins: go budget Daddy. Yeah. Literally they’re like, daddy, I need an extra allowance. It’s like you are a 36-year-old.

Well, I overspent a bit this month, daddy,

Simone Collins: and then they make so much money. It’s, it’s a state that ma, I mean, it’s like big. It’s bigger than what Japan’s economy, so. Nation’s economies. Anyway we’re running outta time, so I gotta keep going. The CTAs power surged after the Rada Act in 1975, which allowed collective bargaining for teachers.

And then ever since then, it has used its growing membership and financial resources, which are about 186 million in annual income. Much [00:36:00] of what you spend on politics to oppose reforms and control local school boards. I mean, this is such a powerful organization. Notable CTA campaigns include blocking school choice initiatives and fighting measures like class size reduction, which lead to costly results without educational improvements and resisting efforts to make teacher dismissal easier.

That teacher dismissal, firing, firing bad teachers firing

Malcolm Collins: bad teachers. Yeah. I had, for

Simone Collins: example, like, and this is, I, I went to a California school, so I was subject to this teacher’s union. I remember this one biology teacher I had in high school who literally on the first day of school was like, I am just waiting to get my pension.

I’m phoning it in. Do not bother me. Go like, do your textbook, do your homework. I don’t care. This was also a teacher when we had a a, a school shooter scare. One day I was in his class when it happened. He just hit the deck. No, no. Like attempt to tell us what to do or like protect us. He was just gone.

He just bammed. It was great. [00:37:00] Really. Like I not care about children. I have made that known to my boss. No, he really, no. Yeah. He was just like, I don’t care. I am checked out. Do not. Bother me. Like because, and could he be fired? No, he couldn’t be fired. Firing bad teachers in California is extremely difficult due to union backed rules.

So teacher misconduct ranging from incompetence to literal criminality, rarely leads to termination. The article details incidents where Union used aggressive tactics to oppose vouchers, which is our key. Thing. Yeah. And accountability measures and reforms including intimidation, costly ad campaigns and political influence.

So I’ll quote from the article here, in 1991, the CTA took to the ramparts again to combat Proposition 1 74, a ballot initiative that would. Have made California a national leader in school choice by giving families universal access to school vouchers. When initiative supporters begin circulating the petitions necessary to get it into the ballot, some CTA members try to [00:38:00] intimidate.

Petition signers. Physically, the union also encouraged people to sign the petition multiple times in order to throw the process into chaos. Just, just so you know the way that like things work with elections and stuff in the United States and, and in with ballots, like they’re very, very, the weird rules that will like disqualify a signature.

Like for example, we live in a village. But if, if we, if we put our village name instead of our township name on a petition signature, it disqualifies our entire signature. And it can invalidate like things like nominations for, for legislation like this. So basically they were misleading people in their directions to try to throw off the entire petition campaign.

So just really, really annoying. Let’s see. Quote, there are some proposals so evil that they should never go before the voters explained. Da Weber, the CTAs president, so evil school vouchers, ah, they

Malcolm Collins: should never

Simone Collins: go

Malcolm Collins: before the voter. The voters shouldn’t have a choice.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Consultants who organized [00:39:00] the petitions testified in a court declaration at the time that people with union ties had offered him $400,000.

To refrain from distributing them. Another claim that the CTA member had tried to run him off the road after a debate on school choice. Alright. Like the mob has nothing on these people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I mean, it’s absolutely true and they’re destroying children’s lives and one. One, one in the recent CDC studies one in 10 kids attempt to unlive themselves on any given year in an American school system.

One in 10 kids is graduating essay. Yeah. You know, like, it’s, it’s bad.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So the CT also funds various progressive causes, totally unrelated to education. Great. To broaden their political reach and discouraged dissent. So I’m also quitting from the article again, among these causes, implementing a single payer healthcare system in California.

Blocking photo identification requirements for voters and limiting restraints to the governor’s power of eminent domain. The CTA was the single [00:40:00] biggest financial opponent to another Proposition eight. The controversial two th 2008 proposal to ban gay marriage ponying up 1.3 million to fight the initiative.

They’ve eventually won 52.2% of the vote. The union has also become the biggest donor to the California Democratic Party. From 2003 to 2012, the CTA spent nearly 102 million on political contributions. 0.08 of that money went to Republicans as Senate points to the case of Locke High School, which illustrates how union resistance can stifle reform.

And it is, it is really insane. So I also just wanna read this real quick. Consider the case of Locke High School. The PO in the poverty stricken Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, founded in response to the area’s 1967 riots. Locke was intended to provide a quality education to the neighborhoods, almost universally minority students.

For years. It failed in 2006. With a student body that was 65% Hispanic and 35% African American. The school sent just 5% of its graduates to four year colleges, and the [00:41:00] dropout rate was nearly 51% shortly before Locke reached this nadir. The school hired a reform-minded principal, Frank Wells. Who was determined to revive the school’s fortunes just a few days after he arrived, A school of rival gangs got into the dust up wells expelled.

80% of the students involved in the new atmosphere of discipline. Locke dropped from the first number of campus crimes reports in the L-A-U-S-D, Los Los Angeles Unified School District to 13th. So basically this, this became a much less crime-ridden campus. Test scores in college Acceptance also began to rise, but trouble arose.

With the union, when wells began requiring lock teachers to present weekly lesson plans, the local CTA affiliate United teachers Los Angeles, filed a grievance against him and was soon urging his removal. The last straw was Wells effort to convert Locke into a, an independent charter school where teachers would operate under severely restricted union contracts.

[00:42:00] In May, 2007, the district removed wells from his job. He was escorted from his office by three police officers and an associate superintendent of schools, all on the basis of union allegations that he had let teachers use classroom time to sign a petition to turn lock into a charter. Wells called the allegations, a total fabrication, and the signature gatherers backed him up.

The L-A-U-S-D reassigned him to a district office where he was paid $600 a day. To sit in a cubicle and do nothing. So they didn’t even freaking fire him. They did what every, you know, now, like, ‘cause you can’t fire people, right? Because this is the, this is the school district, so let’s just waste money, but like, make him entirely feckless.

So this is, it’s just in short, the, the union backed policies jeopardize the fiscal security of California schools. This, this is why schools don’t have money, okay? This is why they have turned themselves into MLMs. Because literally corrupt unions are taking all the money for, it’s [00:43:00] like, it’s like if the mafia ran your school system.

I was just taking all the money for itself.

Malcolm Collins: Stronger stance against teachers unions more broadly.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then how existentially dangerous they are to our goals.

Simone Collins: Like our son’s school is being run by the mafia and they’re just taking all the money for themselves. Meanwhile, his, his teachers are desperate to like do fun things for them, like make fricking gingerbread houses, and they’re begging us to give them packets of gingerbread cookies, which we’re we, we need to go buy, by the way.

I pledged gingerbread cookies or crackers. Anyway so basically the solution to this problem, because I gotta go run and pick up our kids from school now, then the bus is about to drop ‘em off. Is is school choice. The only way to fight this is to allow parents to take their tax dollars elsewhere, to private schools, to charter schools, to homeschool, and to give people an example of how much.

Of a difference. This makes like how much this can really signal to schools that like, oh, I’m screwed if I don’t actually cater to the best interest of students and keep the tax dollars with me. The public school,

so how much does the average person the [00:44:00] average American household pay annually in school district taxes? To support public schools. So in, in many states, school funding relies heavily on local property taxes, even though keep in mind, schools also receive state and federal funding. Mm-hmm. But this can represent up to 21% of the, the local education budget is property taxes.

In New Jersey, the average annual school tax per household is around $6,200. In California, local property taxes funded about 21% of the education budget, but average amounts per household could range from 1000 to $10,000. Oh my gosh. Like the, the amount that you pay just on private school in a year.

Yeah. And in public school spending per student on average in the United States is around $15,600 nationwide. Now imagine if that was portable. If a family was like, listen, my public school isn’t delivering. Yeah, I’m gonna take my $15,000 and I’m gonna put it toward homeschool. Like imagine if we could do that and put it toward homeschool to, to have the [00:45:00] time to, to, to buy that time and in the materials and stuff so that we could do this for our kids at home.

Or that we could send them to, you know, we could have a homeschooling pod or we could have a private school or send them to a charter. Yeah. You get

Malcolm Collins: five kids together, six kids together, that’s $50,000 a year. That’s a a, a teacher’s salary, right? Like

Simone Collins: yeah, exactly. You could hire a tutor like a full time.

Aristocratic style tutor, you know, like a, a really good one. For, for your kids. And they would thrive. They would thrive. And, but more importantly, like I don’t want public schools. To disappear. I think public school teachers are amazing. They do really good work when the, when the incentives aren’t poorly aligned, the problem is that there is no accountability.

And if you allow for school choice, you create that accountability. Suddenly schools have to compete for students because they’ll go away if they don’t do a good job. And this aligns them around student outcomes instead of teachers unions. So anyway, that, that’s a solution. But until then, schools aren’t MLM.

You’re welcome for [00:46:00] my analysis.

Malcolm Collins: That makes sense. Yeah. I love you. I’m convinced we we’re taking him out this winter. It’s, it’s bad. No, no, no. Seriously. I think we should, I think, the, the, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was seeing that he could, and they could teach him when it was to scam him or scam us.

Yeah. They just couldn’t teach him any information. And when I saw that, I was like, oh, F you guys, it’s bad. Like f you guys, it’s fine.

Simone Collins: It’s bad.

Yeah. Anyway I mean, I, there’s so many great people in the district. We’ve met so many amazing families through his school. I, I, I feel so. Frustrated by it. But yeah, anyway, I, I just didn’t realize until doing this actual research, how much of even my experience with the public school system was related to these MLM programs.

The, the, the, the walk-a-thons and, and the selling, the wrapping paper and the selling the chocolates and the, I’m like, wait a second. Like especially when you consider how much the average, because other school systems do not get this much money anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: [00:47:00] Gotta run and get the kids. I love you very much, Malcolm.

Fascinating. Right.

Hands. I swear that like Indian deity with all the

Malcolm Collins: hands. All the hands. And the advantage now of being a mom, like it makes

Simone Collins: so much sense now I get it. I get it. Okay. Sorry Mr.

Oh, his eyes are so wide. Oh, hungry eyes. Hungry eyes.

Malcolm Collins: Right.

Simone Collins: We’ll get,

Malcolm Collins: I’m so excited for this one.

How’s it going?

Simone Collins: Good man. Good. It’s 56 degrees in our house. I can finally think straight, you know, it’s it’s just how I want it to be. .

Malcolm Collins: What am I having for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: I figured, because we still have a little more bok choy that we’re gonna do more of the, the, the beef.

Malcolm Collins: Do we have hawed beef? Yeah. Okay, great.

Simone Collins: Been slowly [00:48:00] dosing it out because I, I, I just put one of the. One of the two large bags that I created in our handy or freezer. So we live for such a, an abundant life. We have two freezers. This is crazy.

Malcolm Collins: The recipe that you did yesterday was fantastic. It was bok choy with a fantastically tender fried pan fried beef.

And what are beans, sprouts? With some seared peppers.

Simone Collins: Oh, you know what? Actually I don’t have any thought out beef. Do you just want, oh, what if I made you just the, the stir fried vegetables, but then like tom ago rolls?

Malcolm Collins: I think it’d be better with a fried egg or two fried eggs.

Simone Collins: Oh, just like a fried

egg on top?

Yeah. Oh, that sounds fun. Okay. Let’s just do that.

[00:49:00]

Simone Collins: It was just because, just save the beef. ‘cause I mean that’s, it’s like, it was expensive.

Malcolm Collins: The

Simone Collins: beef,

Malcolm Collins: the, the beef was trivially expensive compared to how many meals it’s making.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But it was still like $50 worth of beef.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: We’re stretching it out, but still.

I’ve

Malcolm Collins: literally eaten it almost every day for the past two weeks, Simone. I know, I

Simone Collins: know. And you’re not even, you’re not even halfway through it. So, well actually that, yeah. Considering how much people spend on just like DoorDash for one night, nevermind, but for our budget, these, these are lean times, Malcolm, anyway we’ll, we’ll get into it.

I will assume. Outline, scrolling and feeding

position. I think I got this and not make it in the case. Oh, I

can just. All right. There [00:50:00] we go.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: you just put the bottle of the armpit trick. It works. It’s fine. Okay, here we go.

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the recent X (Twitter) region doxxing controversy and explore the much bigger story behind how the internet—and social media algorithms—are being transformed by AI.

We break down the real impact of location leaks on X, reveal how many popular accounts turned out to be fakes, and discuss why this might be the last time we see a leak like this. But that’s just the beginning: we examine how AI-generated content, comments, and even recommended video topics are shaping what we see online, and why it’s getting harder to tell what’s real and what’s not.

From the rise of AI-driven YouTube suggestions to the surprising results of studies on people’s ability to distinguish between human and AI-created art, music, and writing, we ask: what does authenticity mean in a world where algorithms and artificial intelligence dominate?

We also discuss the future of online communities, the value of real human connection, and why being “imperfect” might soon be a badge of authenticity. Plus, hear our thoughts on the cultural and psychological shifts happening as AI becomes more integrated into our daily digital lives.

For reference, here is a screenshot showing YouTube’s AI-generated episode suggestions (when you click through, you get full on outlines!):

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we will actually not be deeply covering the Twitter thing. We will be briefly covering it, but I will be going over a much deeper and much bigger story about how the internet works than you guys are not hearing, because that’s what we always do on this channel.I’ll see something, do the rounds, and I’m like, how can I do a take on this that brings in information and data. People just aren’t getting, if they’re watching the regular YouTuber lineup. Right. I will note the one thing that I found very depressing in the regular YouTuber lineup of the covering, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about, the location leaks on X and they had actually told everyone they were gonna do this like months ago. Made everyone news to me. Yeah, location, where the account was. And where the account, like where the user was when they created the account. Public.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So like, if you click on our account, for example, it says that the account was created in 2008 in the United States and that we have a United States based Android app.

So [00:01:00] presumably if we created the account in Japan, it would say that. And so, you know, the year established, you know, the region established and you know, the app downloaded.

Malcolm Collins: And unsurprisingly, a ton of accounts, a ton of very popular accounts turned out to be obviously frauds. You know, they were like, that

Simone Collins: surprises me.

You say

Malcolm Collins: it’s unsurprising. That’s, I think that’s shocking. What are some fun ones ? Like Republicans against Trump, which had almost a million followers, was an Austrian account Austrian. Yeah defiant ls, which was a right-leaning anti-left hypocrisy, pro-con conservative account was an Indian Macedonian account.

Jansen Hickle, which is interesting ‘cause it’s a real person with 3.6 million followers who pretended to be an American was in Burkina Faso. The Trump army was an Indian account, for example. Oh my goodness. Over half a million followers. Amazing. And everybody, what I’ve hated about the coverage of this is everybody’s just going [00:02:00] like, oh, look at the other side.

They were heavily astro turfed. And so I was like, first of all, what’s the actual breakdown? It’s about 60. About 60% of the accounts that were called out were Republican accounts, and about 40% were Democratic leaning accounts. If you’re wondering why I love the democratic accounts, where it’s a lot of people pretending to be zens and like how horrible their lives are, and most of them.

But anyway, the, the reason why it would trend slightly more Republican is because republicans would care more that you are from their country, right? Like you can be a Democratic influencer and from Africa or something, right? That’s not going to in, in qual unqualify you, but as a Republican that could unqualify you.

So that’s why it leans slightly that way. I was really disappointed to see how far off the rail, short fat of taco. Fallen that his entire video was just about how there was a lot of this on the right and he didn’t really go into it in the left that much. No. About equal numbers. But anyway, anyway what is interesting, what is interesting is that this might be the last [00:03:00] time we get a leak like this, and I’ll explain why.

Like even the concept of pseudonymity may not make sense in the future. What, and I’ll be diving into data that was shared by, and I found this absolutely fascinating. Romanian tv e who is a, a Romanian podcaster,

a conservative politics podcaster who PO podcast is like a troll avatar thing. And he has two accounts

.

So this was posted on his alt account called Lack of Entertainment under the title, why Your Favorite Content Creator is a Robot.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, yeah.

And what he decided to do on this alt account was something very odd. So now it used to be if you go to YouTube, you could go and it would have an AI and the AI would suggest to you based on your followers and everything like that titles for episodes that you might want to cover. Like ideas, right?

Oh, yes. If you go to that page today, and I will put this on screen for you ‘

cause it is absolutely shocking. Oh. It’ll give you [00:04:00] titles, suggested title cards, suggested scripts that, that go like beat by beat of what you should be talking about. And I was like, this is, this is wild. Right? Like if I wanted to, I could just be like, okay, I’m gonna go.

Actually Simone, do you wanna pull that up for our account so we can go over some of those with Yeah. See if they, they’d listen to this. Okay. But he decided to one day just be like, you know what? I’m gonna, I’m gonna click on one of these. I’m gonna do one of these Beat by beat. Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But what he did was very interesting.

He ended up creating the title that they wanted and the broad thumbnail they wanted.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But he didn’t actually cover the topic that was there. Right. He, he used it as sort of a jumping off point to talk about something totally different.

Simone Collins: Didn’t he use it to talk about the, I like the, the, the fact that it was there in the first place.

Malcolm Collins: No, he used a separate video to talk about that, but he used it to talk about the idea now. The [00:05:00] maybe less interesting parts of this was that this video did much better than his other videos. It seemed to be doing like twice or three times as well as his other videos. But what was really fascinating, and this is a rabbit hole that is such a big deal to me than all these, because all these Twitter.

I suspect all the time. I mean, if people acting Pseu anonymously, like why wouldn’t they be pretending to be in a different country where things are actually happening? Yeah. They’re from Austria or something where your tweets are completely irrelevant. Politically speaking. Although a lot of people did pretend to be Indians who were Pakistanis.

Wait, what? Try to influence Indian politics. Yeah. Yeah. Really funny. Anyway. So to continue with the story here, so the really crazy thing that happened with this is a lot of the comments on this video that he did ended up being about the topic that had been suggested to him, not the topic he covered.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: [00:06:00] yes. And not just that, but they were super generic as if they were run by a low cost AI model, like MRL small or something like that. Hmm.

And what I realized when I saw this, he didn’t seem to put this together on his video. But what I realized is AI is going to completely transform the way the internet works through pseudonym artificial intelligence interactions.

Let me explain what I mean by this. So by the way, did you pull up what it, what it suggested for us?

Simone Collins: Yes, and I took a screenshot,

so let me send that to you and you can put it up for those who wanna see what it actually looks like. ‘cause as Malcolm said, they, they do even include title, title card, images.

So there’s suggested, and they also have little like signs like a, a circle that’s either partially or almost all the way filled in, showing just how much of an audience match they think it is. So sort of [00:07:00] how strongly they recommend we do this. Top is Gen Z’s unexpected embrace of traditional masculinity than the unforeseen upside of traditional gender roles.

Oh, no. Why are we so afraid of being quote unquote uncool and the rise of quote unquote quiet quitting in relationships. Oh, I kind of like that one. The, the rise of quiet, quitting in relationships. Yeah. And then are you being manipulated by nostalgia? That last one actually seems like, one we might do, and then you, if you hover over these, you, you can bookmark them, you can mark them as helpful or something wrong, and then if you click through to them, you can click a develop idea button.

And I’ll show just now a screenshot of the inspiration page for gen Z’s unexpected embrace of traditional masculinity. ‘cause they give you, like Malcolm said, full on episode outlines. [00:08:00] This is so weird. Neither you or I have looked at this until just now. This is your first

Malcolm Collins: time looking at it and you’re just like, yeah, you’re getting our first

Simone Collins: impressions here.

The, the shock and awe. Of YouTube basically trying to just sock puppet us. And I, I hadn’t thought about the extent to which, it reminds me of the original, hold on hold. I’ve

Malcolm Collins: gotta, you, you’ve gotta read this to the audience.

Simone Collins: I know, but I just wanna say first it reminds me of the original South Park take on AI, where people were just using AI to talk with each other.

Because they didn’t wanna bother talking with each other. Do you remember that episode?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. Okay. So under the inspiration page, gen Z’s unexpected Embrace of traditional masculinity. A curious phenomenon within Gen Z is explored as a significant shift toward traditionally masculine ideals is observed.

This video aims to dissect the surprising embrace of these values by generation. Often associated with progressive fluidity, offering insights into the underlying reasons and potential societal implications. It includes even [00:09:00] hooks. So, you, you have to show more, I guess, to generate more of the hook after.

After you see it. So hooks personal story slash relatable observation. It’s like, insert personal story here.

Insert, but then it, it also just gives you observation.

It just gives you text as well. You’ve seen it on your feed in your group. In your friend groups, that subtle, undeniable pull towards something more traditional.

It’s a quiet revolution Within Gen Z, we’re unpacking the surprising phenomenon from the rise of trad wives to the renewed interest in classic male archetypes. Get ready to challenge your assumptions. Oh God, I hate it. I hate it. Malcolm. Love it. And it also includes an outline which has sections.

There are multiple sections here. So like the video chapters. First chapter is the Fluidity Paradox, where we talk about Gen Z’s reputation for challenging norms and embracing fluidity. There’s unpacking the tra resurgence is the next chapter. It includes three bullets for each chapter, [00:10:00] suggestion. Not gonna read them.

Then the modern male’s identity crisis, which we’ll discuss societal pressures, the search for answers, pushback against toxic, toxic act, masculinity narratives. And then the two final chapters are the economic and social undercurrents. Covering economic anxiety, dating landscape shifts, community and tribalism.

Last chapter, beyond the trend implications for the future oh God. It’s just, it feels so, you know, like when you watch a movie and you feel kind of stressed out because you know the arc and the tropes and you’re like, oh, this is the part where the love triangle gets awkward, and then it’s. Gonna resolve God.

Yes,

Malcolm Collins: I do know because yeah, that, like, there needs to be like a

Simone Collins: German feeling that describes that oppressive emotion you feel when you know exactly the trope rails that you’ve been put on in a movie and you just don’t wanna deal with it and it stresses you out. But no,

Malcolm Collins: I, I don’t even feel that. I feel like it is like me going into certain other channels videos.

It is like so many channels these days feel [00:11:00] AI scripted to me a, a great one. Are they

Simone Collins: now, I mean now we have to ask because literally there is an AI script, like maybe they’re using this feature.

Malcolm Collins: I, I actually, no, I know they’re not, because why? Okay. So I, I love like early Sargon Baca stuff, but recently he’s been feeling very AI scripted and he’s been feeling this way for years at this point.

So I, I think some people are just sort of, especially the British interiors, were a little more proper about things. Maybe he’s burnt out, you know? Yeah, I think it, I think he’s burnt out. I think that’s what it’s,

Simone Collins: I think it’s, it’s a burnout thing. ‘cause I was watching some of their videos recently and all of them just seem little burnt out.

I think that’s more of, of, but now what, looking at this and thinking about videos I’ve recently watched, I’m like, oh no, I can, I can actually really tell though when a video isn’t like this, like one of my. Semi YouTubers who I watch, who you’d never watch. ‘cause I love watching all these like progressive, nerdy female YouTubers.

Was talking about historical myths and you know exactly what that AI [00:12:00] outline would be. Historical myths. Myths, like myths about what historical people were actually like. And the three myths that she selected are myths that AI would never select or, or would be very unlikely to select that like.

Historically

Malcolm Collins: fascinating

Simone Collins: People were, do you remember what they were?

Malcolm Collins: For our fans,

Simone Collins: they were silly. They were small? No. What were they,

Malcolm Collins: they, they specifically,

Simone Collins: yeah, that, that historical people were small and silly and dirty. So the dirty one I could get, but the small and silly one was not what AI would come up with.

And so I like, I enjoyed it ‘cause I was like. I know.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So I wanna continue is where we’re going with this, because today’s an example of why you watched this episode rather than the AI generated stuff. But I’m having a bit of a crisis

Simone Collins: here because like

Malcolm Collins: how much No, no. Like this now become AI generators which is what you were seeing with a lot of these leaks and stuff like that.

There’s a lot of, this was happening in, out of Pakistan [00:13:00] and Nigeria and stuff like that, or India where, you know, you, you can get cheaper labor. Yeah. So what did I realize when I found out that a lot of the comments were clearly written by simple AI that hadn’t watched transcripts of the episode, which AI can do, had only watched the title of the episode,

Simone Collins: so I just like the Low Effort YouTubers, low effort ai.

Yes, yes. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What it showed me is that certain commenting accounts on YouTube, right, are watching videos disproportionately that are the same videos. That AI is recommending you create. Oh, and why is this happening? It’s because there is less divergence between the preferences of AI than there is divergence between the preferences of humans, which means the preferences of ais.

Completely controls the algorithmic system when you have ais within a system.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Lemme, [00:14:00] does that make sense to you when I say that? Or do, do I need to unpack?

Simone Collins: Mm, use different words.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Suppose one out when people browsing YouTube is an ai. Okay?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And you’re gonna have more AI that are the simple AI because you can run them faster, everything like that.

Mm-hmm. Alright, so one out of 10 people on YouTube is an AI. Now suppose that those ais, if you’re talking about variance and preferences, has about, let’s say 50%, the variance, or I might argue even less than that, probably about 25%, the variance of a human. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So do

Malcolm Collins: you understand what I mean by variance and preferences?

Like if I take humans and I create a bell chart, the bell chart’s gonna be like low and flat. There’s gonna be a lot of preferences. Yeah. Within AI’s gonna be more towards the center between the different ais, right? Mm-hmm. Or instances of the, the same ai, different models.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well, even if those ais, because they have less variance and preferences make up a [00:15:00] minority of individuals within a technological ecosystem because their variance and preferences is so compacted, that variance and preferences is going to determine the algorithmic.

Delivery system for that ecosystem. EG, YouTube. In this case, YouTube is already preferencing the preferences of AI over the preferences of human actors. Oh gosh. And we’re gonna see this across all ecosystems.

Simone Collins: No. I’m really, and this is, I love ai. If you watch this podcast, you know that I’m not a carbon fascist, but AI hasn’t yet developed eccentricities in good taste yet.

Malcolm Collins: Our AI will, I’ll tell you what our agent features, the things that we still haven’t released to the public was our pap ai.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, it, it will, it’s gonna get weird in, in the best possible ways. Like, I want AI to be weird and that’s so important, [00:16:00] but, oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: The way we’re following the R Fab AI Project, we’re about to do a total overhaul to prevent save loss and message loss, which was happening with some accounts.

Basically we’re completely changing the way our architecture works to mirror Grock instead of mirroring what was easiest to build.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Behind the scenes, Malcolm has been working his tush off. I’m really, really proud of him. I know even on the weekends when he is taking care of the kids, they’re literally climbing all over him and there he is just working, working away.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I don’t like having a product out there that’s not perfect, and I know I can make this perfect and then we can start advertising and kids like, daddy, are you hacking? Yeah, because they see me too and I go, yeah, I’m hacking. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway, so, a few things here. So first I was going on that and I was like, wow, that’s gonna really change fundamentally the way the internet works.

Yikes. Fundamentally, the way algorithms work. And it’s going to be very hard for companies to understand human preferences anymore because it’s gonna be hard to isolate [00:17:00] that data.

Simone Collins: Well, do you think there’s gonna be a some, some kind of. Easy way then that companies in the future are going to be able to differentiate between human traffic and AI traffic.

‘cause they’re gonna wanna know, advertisers are going to pay more to know that the views they’re paying for are human views versus ai.

Malcolm Collins: If humans buy more than ai, who knows how economically productive AI might become? That’s

Simone Collins: true. Yeah. AI just might do all of our shopping for us. Sorry. Give me 40 seconds to get a bottle for him.

‘cause he’s gonna start

Malcolm Collins: Go By the way, speaking of what she was just talking about, I don’t know if you got the scene, but Amazon has been attempting to ban other ais from shopping on their website because. The ais do not see or care about the ads, I think was the reason. I can’t remember exactly why. But specifically they were trying to block, it was like the comment browser and a few other things, which I thought was really weird and [00:18:00] cool.

Only he gets to eat. So why does this, why, why, why does this get so much worse? We’re gonna go over a few studies that have come out recently that I think may shock people. Okay. Mm. They may shock you if I haven’t shared them with you.

Simone Collins: I don’t think you have, so I’m ready for it.

Let’s

Malcolm Collins: go. A 2025 study that surveyed 9,000 people across eight countries found that [00:19:00] 97% of people could not tell an AI song from a real song.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: This matters though, because a lot of people have the perception that they can tell AI songs apart from real songs.

Simone Collins: I agree. When I go on to Reddit, for example, and I look at some of the top subreddits discussing ai, there’s a lot of AI hate subreddits and specifically people who are in the arts, music, visual arts, et cetera, who just rail against ai.

They hate it, they hate AI slop, but I think it’s a bad to pay thing, and they smugly think that every time they found. Bad ai. They, they’re like, well, I found the AI when they don’t realize that a lot of stuff. Well, no, it keeps happen. They keep

Malcolm Collins: calling out real artists as being ai.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that too.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, it’s, it, it is a bad tope problem.

And with our songs, the way that you can, most frequently when we make AI songs on this channel, you can check out Basecamp Music, which is where we keep the songs that we put live. The way you can tell that there are AI [00:20:00] is usually because of a mispronunciation of a word. If I just take out words like prenatal is.

That are like odd and niche words you typically wouldn’t be able to tell with most of them.

Simone Collins: No. You can, you can always tell, and I, I, there there’s a lot of YouTubers I know who use ‘em now, and you can always tell because if someone who’s not themselves, a musical artist has a cool custom song, you know, that they used AI for it.

Like that’s, it’s easy if someone who’s not, you know, a professional artist with a huge budget, budget has art in something that, especially if it doesn’t suck. Then it was AI created, like it’s, I think you were,

Malcolm Collins: your anti ai rail that you were talking about. There is really I important when we talk about how far Progressive has gone against ai.

Mm-hmm. Recently I heard about a phenomenon where people ask grok on Twitter, what was the most famous person to interact with your account? And it’s just like a fun little meme thing you can do. It might be fun for us to do, see who’s the most famous person to interact with our account. But how can you tell?

Yeah, I can [00:21:00] tell. But as you can tell, grock has like a unique access to X’S database. Mm-hmm. And so you can do, do you know. I, I think it’s the live grok on Twitter, not the grok that you interact with through Grok. Grok. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. Okay. No, that’s, that’s the, I think that’s the one I have here.

Oh, oh, you mean like in the. Seed.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I wouldn’t do it probably. Mm-hmm. You can ask, you can ask aka grok though. It might know. But anyway, the point being is that a bunch of progressives had to apologize for doing it afterwards

Simone Collins: to their

Malcolm Collins: fans because they were like relentlessly attacked for doing this.

And the reason they were attacked for doing it was because they were interacting with an ai.

Simone Collins: Oh. Oh, wait, so the, the same. Guilt by association, infection by association problem that the left has, like you talked with a racist, you must be canceled. Is is extended to [00:22:00] ai. Mm-hmm. They don’t. How do you not use AI now too?

Like you can’t avoid it at this point.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I know. It’s, it’s, it’s absolutely, it’s the forest lava

Simone Collins: situation. Tough time. Let’s talk about AI

Malcolm Collins: art. So there was the 2025 paper by AR XIV that looked at, can you tell of an art with AI or human generated in a. Paired Turing tests where the artworks are put side by side, people could get it correctly 75.2% of the time, significantly above chance which would be 50%.

However, in Viva Voca test, isolated images without comparison accuracy dropped to 46.4%. So they were actually more likely to say an AI art was human generated than a human art was human generated.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that checks out. Yeah, the false, the false positives.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. The other fun thing is that they, while they were rated similarly, AI art got a rating of 3.3.

Human art got a rating of 3.2 out of a [00:23:00] five point scale, so slightly lower than ai, a 2025 PMC study on AI generated versus human made images. That involved 161 participants, 32 images. This was using Dali overall. 38% of the AI images were misclassified as human made. Wait a second.

Simone Collins: Sorry. Most famous because we didn’t know this.

Do you wanna know who the most famous person who’s interacted with our ex account is?

Malcolm Collins: Is it like

Simone Collins: Hillary

Malcolm Collins: Clinton or something?

Simone Collins: No. That would be really funny. I wish. But no who based on a comprehensive search of ex posts, threads, and web mentions, the most famous person to interact with at Simone h Collins is Elon Musk.

The world’s richest person, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of X itself. In 2023, Simone posted a thread critiquing modern parenting trends and linking, linking to their prenatal podcast episode. I’m pretty sure that was about us beating our children. Elon Musk were replied directly to the thread with, this is based.[00:24:00]

Malcolm Collins: That was nice of him. I didn’t know. He never promoted on, I didn’t know

Simone Collins: he did either. So, that’s, that’s pretty great. Anyway, carry on.

Malcolm Collins: That’s really exciting.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, so, so to go on here people who don’t know, it’s, it’s leaked by the New York Times that, that we know him and have hung out. So, it, it’s, it’s weird when you like, know a famous person and you’re like, would you follow me? I, I, I wish I could ask him, like, promote our show. But how, gosh.

Anyway so sorry to continue here. Will 21.74% of human images were misclassified as AI images compared to 38.92% of AI images. Was it visual professionals performing slightly better? 62%. And 82% respectively. Hmm. Then in November, 2024 a, a study done at Yale was comparing essays and readers distinguished between [00:25:00] AI and human essays only about 50% of the time, equivalent to chance.

So they literally couldn’t tell. And this was AI a year ago. Wow. A 2024 study publishing computers, education, artificial intelligence found that participants, including teachers, correctly identified 60% of human written tests and about 58% of AI generated tests. So say correctly identify human tests at 60%, AI at 58%.

So not that good. That’s a new chance performance. And I’m not gonna go over all of them, but basically, oh, there was a cool one done by a CM in 2025 that showed that this was also true of other languages in Arabic. They could only tell was about 51 to 52% parti accuracy, which is chance. Wow.

Okay. So why does all this matter? Because it really does matter that we’re entering the world where you cannot tell, and, and, and this world is going to hit you so much harder in the effing face

Simone Collins: if you’re one of those

Malcolm Collins: arrogant b******s who walks around talking about how much you [00:26:00] hate ai, this and AI that, and call everything made with ai.

Flo, there are a lot of really good things that are made with ai. Okay. There’s a lot of really good art made with ai. There’s a lot of really good music made with ai and you just may not know that that’s what you’re listening to. You may not know that that’s what you’re looking at. You may not know that that’s what you’re interacting with.

And I think that, that this sort of like puritanical. I mean because, because when you build this mindset of all AI stuff is bad, you are not gonna see how quickly it dominates your field. Yeah. Right. You’re not gonna see how quickly it is replacing you and you’re not going to adapt to and use it in a way that helps you stay on top of that trend.

But anyway I think the more important thing from this is that AI is gonna dominate algorithms and I think a lot of people didn’t see that coming.

Thoughts, Simone, or additional ideas or anything like that?[00:27:00]

Simone Collins: I guess so. I, I think this is absolutely in line with what we’ve predicted that I, I remember. Getting very, very strongly feeling like as AI spread, we would see the rise of, of what we referred to as techno feudalism, where people would start to form online fiefdoms around people they knew to be real.

Maybe because they’d encountered them in person, whatever and that people would start to build these extended social networks. Built around real people because they want that veracity. I also predicted, and we’ve yet to see this, that soon you’ll, there will be cachet associated with looking imperfect and people may stop using filters as much just to prove that they’re real.

And not ai. And a AI is admittedly [00:28:00] extremely good at, yeah, imagine

Malcolm Collins: the girl who’s too pretty. So everyone assumes she’s ai.

Simone Collins: No, truly though. Truly, truly, like even if she doesn’t use filters, she’s still too pretty. AI is actually pretty good at making normal looking people. I don’t know if you saw the rock based video generation is incredibly good, and if you saw a bunch of people making videos of cats playing music on front, porches with women coming out in like their bathrooms and taking and yelling at them.

They’re amazing. You’ve not seen these? Oh my gosh, they’re fantastic. It’s, and, and the video generation’s great. And what I really like about that gr video generation is that it looked. So much more real than a lot of the other video generation where just everyone looks a little too perfect,

Simone Collins: everything looks a little bit too polished, and here you have this cat on this like normal, like middle income, middle to lower income house, front porch in many cases like cat playing a violin or playing a piano and like a woman in a bathroom who looks a little trashy, like coming [00:29:00] out yelling at the at the cat.

Pulling it away, the better one.

Malcolm Collins: I like it. The it, the this was made with gr Imagine as well. It’s the Elon song, Elon’s Musk. Oh God,

Simone Collins: that’s so good. Yeah. I, I love that song channel.

Malcolm Collins: You’ve probably seen Elon’s Musk. It’s, it is a fantastic song.

Speaker 3: Tackle dancing. Gocycle the sky starts

going out to you and cold. Hey, I had his rays are young

Simone Collins: well, especially because Nux makes an appearance. Asman Gold makes an appearance.

I mean, so many people make appearances with that. I thought

Malcolm Collins: it was made by Image ai. No, it was just a hobbyist. Like, I thought it was made as an ad for the company.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no. It’s so good. Well, that, that explains why there’s so many cool people in it. But yeah, so my, my larger point though is that this is exactly what I expected.

I expected that, that it would get to be a point where there was just so much online content that people really wouldn’t be able to tell. But we’re [00:30:00] not yet quite to the point that I’ve described where people start to conservatively look for, I,

Malcolm Collins: I, I agree, but I think this is why I say that this. And, and this like reveal that that happened with X is kind of irrelevant, is that all of these accounts would be irrelevant within a year anyway, right?

Like if you can’t prove who you are, if you aren’t authentically human, you are competing solely and completely against the ai. And if you are competing slowly and completely against the ai, you are not relevant because the AI will. Beat you. It can be more boring t guitar than you can. It can be more woke libtard than you are.

It can be more anything than you are. If your job is to be an average of some sort of archetype, then it can out archetype you.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I think that the place where there’s defensibility in the future is that one, you are real and people know you’re real. And you’re not, [00:31:00] yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re human and people know it.

And two, you offer something to humans that they need which is either that feeling of connection to a real human at, at the very basic level, but then also like utility in the form of some kind of. Social network or bonding or professional assistance or networking or something like that, I’m, I’m guessing because everything else is gonna be covered.

If you want affection, you’ll get that better from ai. If you want companionship, you’ll get that better from ai. If you want entertainment, it’ll come better from ai. So the only reason you’re really gonna care about human accounts is because you want that real human social network. You want a real human like.

Catholic pastor or family, you know, whose kids your kids will hang out with and, and homeschool with online, that kind of thing, right? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And to sort of close out, I, I shared this with Simone because this is one of my favorite things from this, like it’s the. What was it? The, the Defense Department?

[00:32:00] One of, one of the major US departments. Oh gosh. Right. Yeah. It’s the DOD. The DOD. It had their Twitter account had started, like the account was created in Israel. And it then went around that this was fake, but it appears to be real because tens of thousands of people saw it and said that they saw it live.

So, I was trying to investigate whether it was fake or not, and it’s also completely plausible. You know, there’s a lot of people who work in stuff like the Department of Defense who have dual citizenship with Israel and would spend time in Israel. You know, making the pilgrimage to Israel is not an unusual thing for Jewish or even a Christian person to do.

Sure. So I, I’m not surprised by that, but it is funny as. Oh.

And if you’re like, this is truth, that Israel secretly runs the DOD, it’s like, okay, first of all, if Israel secretly controlled the DOD, they wouldn’t bother secretly controlling their Twitter account. That’s not like, that’s a social media manager’s job. That’s not the running of the operation. I’m not saying [00:33:00] Israel doesn’t run the DOD, I’m just saying that this isn’t any evidence of that.

And even if they did. You know, secretly control something like the account you think Mossad wouldn’t know to put a VPN on when this was announced that this was gonna happen beforehand a few months ago. I can see some dumb butt in India not thinking to put on A VPN. , I cannot see Mossad for getting to put on A VPN if they actually were nefariously controlling the social media manager’s job at the DOD.

Malcolm Collins: The, the other thing that I also feel really bad about it, these people who build up these giant accounts, you know, if you’ve built in a a, a Twitter account that’s like half a million people like Magan Nation, and then it turns out that you’re Macedonian.

Right? Like, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to do. Right? I feel so bad for these people.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It, I mean, speaking of tired tropes, it stressed me out. It really reminds me of the that trope where you start something as a [00:34:00] joke, but then. You really start to feel it. Like I could see these Austrian starting it as like, ah ha ha, this’ll be funny.

And then they start like meeting the people in the MAGA community and spouting MAGA talking points so much that they just really start to drink the Kool-Aid and get into it. Oh yeah. No, I

Malcolm Collins: don’t, I don’t think that they were probably that insincere. I mean, and now, yeah, now

Simone Collins: they’re being like ruined for it.

You know? It is just like, what’s that high school movie where the guy, it, it’s supposed to be based on taming of the shrew. Where the guy takes a bet that he can like ask the some girl. Well, no, but I mean this is, and then he falls for her, but then she finds out that it was on a bet and then she hates him.

Oh yeah. What

Malcolm Collins: was that? Obviously can hate about you did not another high school movie, but you were thinking she’s all that

Simone Collins: she’s all that. Yeah. Like that’s very stressful because like he actually, you know, fell, he fell in love with her, but then she discovered that it was. It was based on false pretenses originally.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and eastern Europeans are, are, are [00:35:00] pretty right wing, generally speaking, like Romanian TV is Eastern European and yeah, he basically only talks about American politics like Amer like. The, the only, like we, so there’s, there’s

Simone Collins: one show left and it’s sort of like the global geopolitical slash tech slash economic debate.

And if you’re in Romania, that means you’re talking about US issues.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Who the heck cares about politics and Macedonia? Right? Like it’s just

Simone Collins: the, the audience isn’t big enough, so that can’t be part of the main narrative. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so everyone all around the world is LARPing as part of our narrative because we are main characters.

This is why. I founded the American Prenatal Movement and I get called to speak on Italian TV and French TV in German. That’s That’s

Simone Collins: a really good case in point. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And South Korean tv. South Korea should have South Korean speaking about Tism on South Korean tv. Yeah,

Simone Collins: but the market’s not big enough for it, so Yeah.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Japan had me, I was doing the rounds. I was the major prenatal list. Voice of Japan.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: [00:36:00] Malcolm Collins.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I love you to Dec Simone. Really interesting topic, really important for people to be paying attention to. And frankly, I don’t know how I’m gonna keep doing this because I have to come up with a totally new.

Unique take every day.

Speaker: Nobody has any ideas. This sucks. I don’t wanna keep having to come up with ideas for shows all the time. It hurts my head.

Speaker 2: Dude. Bail. I think. Bail. Bail. Yep. Bail.

Simone Collins: We, and not really though, because you and I are always finding weird, nerdy stuff that we wanna talk about, and there’s like already a long, a long backlog of episodes that we still haven’t recorded, that we still wanna do all, all sorts of topics and people Yes. Keep giving us great topics to cover, some of which are more feasible than others.

Like someone had a great idea that we should, you know, interview d transitioners and talk about their experiences, but like getting enough people who will talk with us is, is really tough. No, Benjamin

Malcolm Collins: Boyce [00:37:00] already does that. Like,

Simone Collins: oh no, that’s true. He doesn’t also,

Malcolm Collins: another reason we don’t do things like that is because.

It would be inconsistent for our fan base. Interviews. We typically only have interviews when I know it’s gonna be off the chain. And we don’t even air a lot of our interviews because when you’re bringing in interviews, you can’t know that it’s gonna be consistently entertaining for the audience who likes listening to you plus me.

The second issue is. Which is really bad for the algorithm for the channel because then somebody jumps in, they’re like, I don’t like this person this day. And so then they don’t watch it. And the, the other big problem, this is why podcasts are very big for interviews, but YouTube is very rare to have interviews run on bigger channels.

The second thing that I’d note here is it’s too hard to organize. I can spend a day researching a topic and have an idea after, like two hours of research or something, what I’m gonna do for an episode. If we’re organizing a, an outreach campaign and a then, then queuing someone up, campaign, then getting the day just right then the beginning talk to get them feeling okay [00:38:00] with us.

You know, like that’s a whole extra thing that I don’t wanna deal with. Right. So this is not really sustainable. It, it is also true for topics that require too much research, which is why I’ve stopped doing as many religious topics. It’s not that I do not want to do them, it’s that I actually have some like tracked episodes fully written already.

Oh, that’s true. Just subtract episodes, take about four times as long as a normal episode to edit, record and, and handle even after they’re written. So they’re just sitting in a backlog. Right? Like backlog track, backlog track, backlog track. And, and it’s also was religious episodes. I have to do a lot more research because I, I think it’s a lot worse if I accidentally name the wrong account in an episode like this, like whatever.

Right? But if I name a in direct religious practice on an episode that’s critical of a religious tradition, that’s not awesome. Right?

Simone Collins: You also care more. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So there’s that, right? Love you, Simone. Love you too.

Simone Collins: You

Malcolm Collins: too. And I’ll see you [00:39:00] in the we’ll do the debate first and then we can do the we’re on.

Simone Collins: I’ll see you in there.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is for paid members only, me and Simone debating something. Yes. Mm-hmm. So it’ll be on a weekend.

Simone Collins: did you, when you were a kid, have those amazing colored glass, light bulb Christmas lights, the kind that would burn your fingers? You know that, that they get so hot.

Malcolm Collins: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Oh, the big ones. The old timey ones.

Simone Collins: The old timey ones, yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: Which you might forget about, this is in Highland Park.

The town tree that was decorated was decorated entirely in those.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Is is

Simone Collins: it just me or is there something about the sound that they made when clinking together? That’s just iconic. That’s like better than the lights themselves. Better than like sleigh bells.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t, I don’t know this sound.

Simone Collins: Oh. The [00:40:00] sounding of the, the sound of old vintage light bulbs from a vintage string of lights clinking together.

Oh yeah. Maybe this, this, this is my unique brand of A SMR. I bet though if I looked it up on YouTube, I would find it. There’d be some, someone out there who had issues like me, who’s super into it. Sorry, we’re dying.

Malcolm Collins: And what do people say at the episode?

Simone Collins: It it good. I mean, you know, mostly like, Ugh, can you believe people would need to medicate to have a sex drive?

Some people were like, well, like this is concerning. People shouldn’t take medication for this. Other people were like. Man, like women. You know, one person pointed out, and I think you saw this comment, that really the unsung story in, in, in the, the saga of women medicating for sex drive [00:41:00] was that. Men feel this way all the time, and they don’t get any credit for controlling themselves, whereas women medicate themselves and are like, can’t stop, like, can’t control themselves at all.

Yeah. And yeah, like men just don’t get any credit and women are like, oh. I can’t help myself. That’s a good point. That’s a good point. Yeah, it’s a really good point. Yeah. Right. Someone else shared with me no with, with both of us. I don’t know if you saw it, but we ran as a video over the weekend on ghosts and ghost stories and people shared in the comments they’re fantastic ghost stories.

I really enjoyed them. And someone suggested a video on Infrasound or in Infrasound, like sounds that you can’t hear, but that, that affect people and can have been shown in studies to make people experience paranormal. Things [00:42:00] like to feel feeling, oh, look into it. Sometimes

Malcolm Collins: we get good leads from our audience.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s really, well, I mean, I, I don’t think there’s an episode for us to do, but the, the video on Infrasound in Infrasound was made on this by this guy named Ben Jordan, who does, he has like a Patreon and a YouTube channel, and he just does music and science. But he’s, he does like a lot of audio investigations and I fell him down this rabbit hole of content he’s done where like he tries to investigate mystery sounds that bother people that they hear like.

Sort of like humming noises or, you know, the, the like beyond infrasound, just the sounds that, that some people claim to hear that really bother them. That could be due to like radio frequencies or perhaps pipes resonating. And he buys this really expensive sound equipment and will go to people’s houses or stay in houses in certain regions for a period of time, turn off all the electricity to the building so that no electrical devices in the building can [00:43:00] cause sound and record audio for long periods of time and try and like, keep track of, of.

Strange sounds that are picked up that we wouldn’t be able to hear with our own ears. And I’m just delighted that there are people like this in the world that go around the world to collect audio samples. Not as a scientist. Not as like, and also not in like in the past, like some kind of gentleman scientist who’s just like independently wealthy and gets to do whatever he is.

‘cause he is, he wants to because he’s autistic and wealthy. Mm-hmm. But like people who have active. Patrons who are just normal people who will patronize his, his efforts to go out and do really meaningful research on like, okay, well people claim to hear these sounds and they really bother them and they think it’s this, like this military frequency, or they think it’s cell phone towers and I’m gonna go find out what it is.

And that’s just delightful. Like people delight me. And the world is [00:44:00] wonderful and I don’t know why people are so cynical ‘cause it’s

Malcolm Collins: great. All right. Love you Simone. By the way, for dinner tonight I was thinking we would do steak reheat we can do steak teriyaki.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Just like last night, but instead of with bok choy, just more tons of times.

But

Malcolm Collins: remember to cut them down the center. You, you stopped doing that. I

Simone Collins: did, I did.

Malcolm Collins: Listening. No,

no, no, no. Like the circular things cut down the center so that they can separate by leaf.

Simone Collins: Oh, I only did that with the lower parts. See, yeah. I need to do it with the upper parts, I guess.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no, you, you only have to do it with the lower parts.

I just didn’t notice it with the lower parts, I guess. But I did

Simone Collins: do it with the lower parts last night. Oh, maybe I missed one, sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Right. No, I will jump into this.

[00:45:00] [00:46:00]

Dive into a fascinating and provocative discussion about the growing trend of women using pharmaceuticals and hormones to boost their sex drive. Hosts Simone and Malcolm Collins explore the cultural, medical, and social implications of drugs like Addyi (the so-called “female Viagra”) and testosterone therapy, referencing recent New York Times articles and real-life stories.

The conversation covers:

* The science behind female libido and the diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD)

* The rise of medications and hormone treatments aimed at increasing women’s sexual desire

* The cultural phenomenon of women openly discussing and experimenting with these treatments

* The impact on relationships, marriage, and family life

* The debate over whether society should encourage or question the pursuit of higher female sex drive

* The generational divide in attitudes toward sex and intimacy

* The risks, side effects, and ethical questions surrounding medicating for desire

Whether you’re curious about the latest trends in sexual health, interested in the intersection of medicine and culture, or just want to hear a candid, humorous take on a taboo topic, this episode is for you.

If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more thought-provoking conversations! Also, as this was a Simone-outlined episode, here are our show notes!

Episode Outline - The Women Drugging Themselves to Be Horny

Women Trying to Medicate Sex Drives / hypoactive sexual desire disorder

The Gist

* As much as we talk about everyone becoming increasingly sexless, there is a subset of women who are ALL ABOUT sex, and they’ll even go to great lengths to stoke sex drives when they have none

* Testosterone

* Flibanserin

* Dropping and changing birth control and other medications

* The NY Times has written various articles covering elements of this subset of women

* I’ll walk you through the issue

* And in the end, I want your take, and I want listener’s takes, on whether the pursuit of a higher female sex drive is important, neutral, or detrimental

Series of NY Times Stories on Women Pushing for Sex

Viagra for Women

The “gateway” article to this issue for me was about basically viagra for women—a medication called Filbanserin branded as Addyi that’s marketed as “the little pink pill” by a woman named Cindy Eckert who herself is famous for integrating pink into every aspect of her style.

Here’s a 2025 documentary premiering about it:

Cindy has been trying, through her company Sprout Pharmaceuticals, to promote Addyi for a decade

* Her work was recently covered by the NY Times:

* A Pill for Women’s Libido Meets a Cultural Moment

* A decade ago, Cindy Eckert struggled to convince skeptics about a drug for premenopausal women. Lately, her business is booming.

* https://archive.is/Z3BDp

Why Do Women Need Viagra?

Flibanserin is meant to treat Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (aka HSDD), which is a measurable condition

Women with HSDD have different brain activity

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18976696

* This functional MRI (fMRI) study compared brain activation and sexual response between:

* 20 women without sexual dysfunction (NHSD)

* 16 women diagnosed with HSDD

Participants were exposed to erotic, sports, and relaxing video segments. Researchers measured subjective sexual arousal, physiological arousal using a vaginal photoplethysmograph (VPP), and brain activation at three sessions.

The differences suggest that women with HSDD may have altered encoding or retrieval of arousing stimuli and possibly devote more cognitive attention to monitoring/evaluating their responses, which might interfere with normal sexual response. This is indicated by increased activation in specific brain areas linked to attention and evaluation.

So what does flibanserin do?

* Slightly increases sexual desire and activity

* Slightly lowers distress

* Causes drowsiness and lowers blood pressure, especially when combined with alcohol

* WHY NOT JUST DRINK???

The weird thing about this drug is that it’s not really effective.

The FDA rejected Sprout Pharmaceutical’s application for approval for the drug (again, because WHY NOT JUST GET DRUNK). From the NY Times article: “To be turned down twice by the F.D.A. is typically a death sentence for new drugs. But for flibanserin, the decision had the opposite effect: It galvanized a movement of women who believed the rejection reeked of sexism.”

The FDA eventually approved Addyi after a heavy resistance campaign, financed by Sprout Pharmaceuticals: “The F.D.A. approved flibanserin in 2015, writing later in the New England Journal of Medicine that while “the average treatment effects were small” (about 10 percent higher than placebo) “efficacy had been established.””

So what makes Addyi interesting is the discourse around it—the fact that prominent actress and influencers like Gwenyth Paltrow are writing and talking about it—and not that it’s particularly effective.

What’s interesting is that women care.

Women Taking Testosterone

Let’s move on to medical intervention that is more effective at increasing sex drive: Testosterone

The NY Times also covered this with:

* ‘I’m on Fire’: Testosterone Is Giving Women Back Their Sex Drive — and Then Some

* There is no F.D.A.-approved testosterone product for women. Insurance won’t cover it. Many doctors won’t prescribe it. It’s become a cultural phenomenon

* https://archive.is/KcwIA#selection-473.0-477.153

Great opening: “Spend enough time speaking to women who are taking testosterone — specifically, in very high doses — and you start to notice that they sound messianic. They’re often talking fast and intensely; they’re amped up; they’re describing what they clearly consider a miracle drug; and they have no intention of lowering their dose, despite the unknown risks or some problems with facial hair. After all, how can they worry about facial hair when they feel so alive? It’s nothing they can’t take care of with a quick waxing, which they now have the energy to do at the end of the day — right after they prepare a high-protein dinner for their family and before they put the finishing touches on their spreadsheets, close their laptops and light a few mood candles for the sex that they know will be great, maybe even better than the sex they had last night, even though they’re a day older.”

The article is about how Testosterone therapy has become a cultural phenomenon among women seeking to boost their sex drive and overall energy, despite there being no F.D.A.-approved testosterone products for women in the U.S., and significant barriers such as lack of insurance coverage and reluctance among many doctors to prescribe the hormone.

The article focuses on the lack of regulatory and medical support for female testosterone supplementation, despite the fact that it drops with age and can diminish sexual desire and motivation in women, which has pushed women toward expensive, non-traditional supplementation.

To be fair, as the article points out: “For men experiencing the effects of low testosterone — low libido, low energy, loss of muscle mass — the F.D.A. has approved more than 30 products since the 1950s; and yet, to this day, there is no F.D.A.-approved testosterone cream, patch, pill or shot for women, even though their testosterone levels fall far more precipitously than men’s as they age.”

Women who take testosterone — often at higher doses than medically recommended —

* report dramatic increases in energy, libido, and marital intimacy. Some describe near-miraculous transformations in their relationships and personal drive. However, these gains come with risks:

* Side effects can include facial hair, acne, hair loss, deepening of the voice, and, in some cases, enlarged clitoris or persistent irritation and anger.

It’s clear that testosterone does more to help sex drive than Addyi. From the article: “Both Medina and Lin are taking an amount of testosterone that’s brought their levels higher than what women produce naturally at any point in their lifetimes. The way they and many women on these high doses talk about their relationships sometimes has the ring of romantasy: fantastic tales of sexual rejuvenation and newfound intimacy. One woman in her 50s told me that after years of revulsion at so much as the thought of her husband’s breath, she now looked forward to having sex with him almost every night; even in the middle of sex, she said, she was thinking about the next time they could have sex. Another woman told me she’d had more orgasms in the past two years on testosterone than in the entirety of her previous life; a third said that after years of “wanting to rip someone’s face off” if her husband so much as touched her, she now actively pursued sex with him — if anything, she now worried, she wanted it more often than he did.”

It’s also clear that women’s advocacy of testosterone is going somewhat mainstream: “This season on “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” three of the show’s stars described their testosterone regimens: Gretchen Rossi was shown baring her bottom as her doctor implanted beneath her skin a tiny but powerful pellet packed with crystalline testosterone that would be released over the course of about four months. She commented afterward that she had recently reduced her levels. “I had to take mine down because I was humping everything,” she said. Rossi’s co-star Jennifer Pedranti commiserated: “You’ll just hump and hump and hump away.””

Gen X Women and Sex

It may be that this surge in interest in sex drive among women is largely relegated to older women, as the women cited in the two previous articles are in their 40s and 50s

This is somewhat backed up by a NY Times article on Gen X women and this broad subject:

* Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex

* In an era plagued by sex negativity, only one generation seems immune: mine.

* https://archive.is/qxHc5

* The article explores how Gen X women (born 1965-1980) are experiencing a renaissance in their sex lives during middle age, often finding “better and more” sex than in their younger years.

* The author recounts her own post-divorce experiences at age 46, discovering that less inhibition, more self-love, and fewer social pressures improved her sex life

* The author also claims that society’s portrayal of middle-aged women’s sexuality has shifted: pop culture, books, and movies now celebrate mature women’s sexual autonomy, with examples like Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern starring in roles that embrace this narrative.

* Data suggests that sexual frequency among young adults has dropped steeply since around 2007, but Gen X in middle age has only experienced a minor decrease.

* The article also cites a newer academic approach called “critical gerontology,” that emphasizes how aging can bring newfound sexual confidence and fulfillment, challenging the view that aging is inherently a time of sexual decline.

Is This a Fight Worth Having?

From the NY Times Article on Cindy Eckert’s advocacy for the little pink pill: “For much of the last half-century, the fight for women’s sexual freedom has hinged largely on economic arguments. Giving women access to birth control, advocates’ reasoning went, would allow them to determine if and when they had children, empowering them to study, to work and to attain financial independence.Whether women actually desired or enjoyed the sex they were now free to have was, for a long time, a far more taboo question — one that even their doctors weren’t trained to ask.”

Wait—is medically inducing a high sex drive in women somehow feminist??

At any rate, we should think carefully about whether we want to medicate something to force it to happen.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] So the NY Times also did an article on this. But like these husbands like, so like the wives are like both very argument, like suddenly very aggressive and like mean. But then like. Like ravenously hungry for them at night. So they’re like, I wouldn’t want that. I dunno if I’m happy or not happy. Like, I, she, like, I’m getting sex, but she’s mean, you know, like, what do you prefer?

She commented afterward. That she had recently reduced her levels. I had to take mine down because I was humping everything

Speaker 3: puer sentences them to death by S new. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want, you don’t want me to be meaner, but I don’t, I don’t,

Speaker: What are you gay?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I, I don’t want either.

Speaker 4: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t wanna waste a bunch of time on sex.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Simone’s gonna be running this one today, and she, this morning was like, oh, I have an episode that I’ve outlined [00:01:00] on women who are traching drugs to like make them horner and want like sex or arousal all the time.

And I heard this and I was like, wait, what the heck? You have to tell me more about this. And you know what she told me? She goes, no. I won’t tell you now. You have to wait until all of our fans hear about it. And so I’ve had to wait all effing day to hear this story for your sake so you can get my freaking reaction.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fault. Well, because at the end, I, I want, I want everyone’s take. I want your take and I want every, like our, our like base campers take on. Whether this is a good thing, like whether the pursuit of high female sex drive is worth it, something that we should want for society, something that women should want to cultivate or that we should laud women for cultivating, or if it’s not and I think there’s an interesting debate to be had there, and I think that’s really the, the core [00:02:00] of this.

But I really wanna go in to actually like this movement of women that is. All about it because as much as we talk about everyone becoming increasingly sexless, there’s this subset of women who are all about sex me, about the great lengths to stoke sex drives when they have not, where

Malcolm Collins: what do they do, Simone?

So I can, so I never end up around this community of women. I need to know everything about where they are and how to find them.

Simone Collins: Well, there’s, there’s a lot of them. And, and, and they’re, they’re taking everything from have, have you heard of. Let’s see. Fil Eren, Phil Banin. Yeah. I’ve never

Malcolm Collins: heard of fil Eren.

Simone Collins: Well, they’re also taking that, they’re taking, that they’re taking testosterone. Of course there’s also the women who are just going off birth control to do this. But you, you can actually tell how much this is trending because it’s showing up in a bunch of New York Times articles and I’ll, I’ll refer to three of them, but I think even in other New York Times articles that we’ve covered, like the one on that woman.

Who’s like post-divorce and like having all these like liaisons with men and [00:03:00] complaining about how they weren’t pursuing her enough. You know, that there, there was within the subtext of that, this very sex positive, very sex voracious. Like, why aren’t men desiring me? I need to get more sex. Like, why is this not happening?

And there’s something there and I think we need to talk about it. But let’s start off with Viagra for women. Because the, the gateway article on this issue that got me really thinking about it is, is about what’s equivalent to, it’s, it’s being sort of marketed as the, as the Viagra For Woman. It’s a medication called Eren.

Okay. That it’s, it’s branded as, as Addie, and it’s marketed as, as the, the Little Pink Pill by a woman named Cindy Eckert, who herself became famous for basically integrating pink into every aspect of her life. Like her house is a full of pink and her hair is pink and her clothing is pink. Her closet is pink.

Everything is pink. And. There’s even a 2025 documentary, just, just like your childhood

Malcolm Collins: room, by the way. Yeah, Mrs. [00:04:00] Saying this derogatorily, you know? Yeah.

Simone Collins: I like, I liked pink, I liked feminine stuff. It’s

Malcolm Collins: hot pink too, by the way. Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: Like, like, Pepto Bimal pink. And that’s also very much her pink.

But there’s even this year a documentary coming out about this medication. I, I can send you a preview for it after this. Just you can take a look at it. I’ll link to it in our, in our show notes for,

Malcolm Collins: so it’s a pill that makes women horny and now there’s like sub communities that are forming around it.

Simone Collins: Well, so it’s a little more interesting than that actually. Cindy has been trying. Through her company Spart sprout Pharmaceuticals for 10 years to promote Agie. It, it, it’s a drug that she didn’t like, invent or discover. Someone actually told her about it and was like, Hey, you should try to make this a thing.

And then she threw her, her pharmaceutical company. Marketed it and finally got the FDA to approve it, and then sold it to a larger pharmaceutical company, which then bankrupt. And then she managed to get the company back, and now she’s pushing it. But [00:05:00] anyway, so this, so this, this, this, this medication that she.

Got turned onto by this random guy. Oh, and by the way, the New York Times article is titled, A Pill for Women’s Libido Meets a Cultural Moment. A decade ago, Cindy Eckard struggled to convince skeptics about a drug for pharmaceutical or for premenopausal women.

Lately, her business is booming and she,

Malcolm Collins: is it because she marketed it wrong, she should have marketed it to men. Honestly, probably. But first off, to be like, Hey, your wife isn’t hony enough. Your girlfriend’s not hony

Simone Collins: enough. Here’s a pill. Yeah. Well, fil Serrin is meant to treat what’s considered an actual condition and, and the condition is called hypoactive sexual desire disorder, A-K-A-H-S-D-D, which is, it’s a measurable condition.

There, there’s this really interesting, is it just being

Malcolm Collins: asexual? It sounds like being asexual,

Simone Collins: not. Exactly, actually. So there’s there’s, I there’s, I, I’ll link to this in, in, in my show notes. It’s a PubMed [00:06:00] article titled women with HSDD have different brain activity, like it’s, this is Measurable.

So this, this functional FMRI study compared brain activation and sexual response between 20 women without sexual dysfunction, and then 20 women who were diagnosed with this hypoactive sexual desire disorder and participants were exposed to erotic. Sports and relaxing video segments. Researchers measured subjective sexual arousal, physiological arousal using a vaginal.

Photo. Oh my god. Photo topple smog graph.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know what, it’s a sparkle graph. They did it with a sparkle graph.

Simone Collins: It’s just, yes, it’s a photo topple smog graph. A VPP. Wait, you know what guys? Look it up. Whatever. And a brain activation in all three sessions. And they, they found that the differences in, in these two groups.

Suggested that women with HSDD may have altered encoding or retrieval of [00:07:00] arousing stimuli and possibly devote more cognitive attention to monitoring or evaluating their responses, which might interfere with normal sexual response. This is indicated by increased activation and specific brain areas tied to attention and evaluation.

So what Philander does is it slightly increases sexual desire and activity. And it slightly lowers distress and it causes drowsiness and lowers blood pressure, especially when combined with alcohol. So here’s my thing is why not just drink? Because it seems like what HSDD actually is, is just basically having higher inhibitory activity.

And keep in mind, Malcolm, what happens? What happens? When I actually drink enough to get tipsy. You get

Malcolm Collins: incredibly horny

Simone Collins: when you drink Uhhuh. Yeah. And I think this is not like uncommon, clearly it’s not uncommon in women, and this is exactly what the FMRI study found. It was like, oh, these women are too much in their heads.

Like that’s basically what it found is that they, they appear to be like the, the brain regions that are more [00:08:00] active in these women who are, are. Diagnosed with this condition?

Malcolm Collins: Well, actually, sorry, a side question for you.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Do you only get horny when you drink when you’re around me? Or did you used to get horny when you would drink even when you weren’t around me?

Simone Collins: I didn’t drink until I met you. Remember?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. You never drank until you met me. Yeah. So

Simone Collins: I wouldn’t know. Have I gotten really drunk? Not around you. No. But yeah, I get super like, and, and I think, you know, when, when you take away the, the part of my brain that has me monitoring my own responses and, and, and controls my inhibitory control, like I’m super horny.

So part of me is like, okay, so Bin Sein is, is a drug. It has side effects, you know, it lowers your blood pressure, it causes drowsiness. Not that alcohol doesn’t, but like just buy a bottle of whiskey. Like good whiskey, like at least then you enjoy the whiskey. Like I don’t, I don’t get it. Like why are people getting this medication prescribed?

Malcolm Collins: But also

Simone Collins: the fda. ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause you combine it with Whiskey

Simone Collins: Indiana [00:09:00] and it’s a really good, the FDA actually rejected Sprout Pharmaceuticals application for approval for the drug. Again, because why not just get drunk? So I’m quoting from the New York Times article now the FDA approved Bin Saren in 2015, writing later in the New England Journal of Medicine.

That while the average treatment effects were small, about 10% higher than placebo efficacy has been established, so, okay. Like what would you say the effects of Simone drinking on

Malcolm Collins: drinking has different effects on different people is the problem, right? I guess, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like I could have been an angry drunk but Phil and Sarah, I think, I think it

Malcolm Collins: just reveals whoever you are underneath your, and this is why we, we’ve had episodes where I talk about this, where I’m like.

If you’re from a culture where drinking is normal I think people from cultures that we’re drinking is banned like Islamic and Mormon cultures. Yeah. Really struggle to understand why people from cultures where drinking is normal, don’t trust them.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And,

Malcolm Collins: and the core reason is, is because we have no way to verify.

[00:10:00] What you are suppressing about your identity.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and cultures where drinking is more condoned. Even where drinking isn’t well tolerated. I would actually argue even, especially where drinking isn’t well tolerated. Think China. Think Japan. Yeah. Think South Korea. They have incredibly heavy drinking culture and ritualized business meetings.

I think particularly because, you know, like now this, it’s like a truth serum. Yeah. You know what they’re up to. It really is.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s a true, you may not be able to get them to tell you the truth. Yeah. But you can get them to act like the truth.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If there’s somebody that’s gonna get handsy with female employees, they will do it on that day.

Yeah. If there’s somebody who’s gonna get angry and start yelling at people, they will do it. If you push their buttons, then

Simone Collins: yeah. But, so basically. Gossip. But before the DA approved this, this fil eren add a for Sprout Pharmaceuticals in 2015, they rejected it twice. ‘cause it basically doesn’t make a difference 10% versus like 100% for me.

You know, like imagine if someone was like, oh, so you want someone to have a higher sex drive? Well here’s this [00:11:00] medication that’s like 10% more. You know, like, and you’d be like, I’m, I’m just gonna get her drunk. Like, it’s really easy. So yeah, like that’s, that is the, that is the thing. But what, what in, in the end Sprout Pharmaceuticals did was like basically pay this, this like campaign, like to get all these women to sort of complain about it and, and make a fuss.

And then finally the FDA relented. But so what really makes Addie as a drug or Phil Serrin as a drug interesting, is the discourse around it. And now the fact that actually it is, it, it is, it does seem to now be organically trending. Prominent actresses are talking about it in podcasts. Gwyneth Paltrow wrote about it.

So I think that’s what’s interesting. What’s interesting isn’t the drug itself, but that women care, that women want to take a medication. That will improve their sex drive. But let’s talk about a medication that actually works in improving women’s sex lives.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, this is a, a fancy direction. What is this

Simone Collins: medication?

Malcolm Collins: And I, and [00:12:00] Gwyn is pal. I think Gwyn Is Paltrow like a billion years old at this point? No, she’s, I think she’s

Simone Collins: in her fifties. Yeah. No, she’s 52 years old. I actually looked it up. I was like. She’s 52 years old, but yeah. No, this is, yeah, she’s older, but, okay. So now, and I’ll give you a hint about the drug that actually works and is very effective, by the way.

People we know and who respect it. And also like people in, in the rationalist community, in, in addition are using this as, as women. Is it microdosing? Some people are microdosing, some people are not microdosing going on. Is it ketamine? Is it ketamine? No, it’s not Ketamine. His unfortunate side effects.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I don’t know. Oh, is it the, is it the drug that’s for like weight loss?

Simone Collins: No. Nope. It’s not, it’s not semaglutide.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. I dunno. It’s

Simone Collins: testosterone. Come on, obviously. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: testosterone. That’s

Simone Collins: obviously, I should

Malcolm Collins: have you you shouldn’t have framed it to me like that. You should’ve been like, you understand sexuality, what hormone tours women on, and I would [00:13:00] immediately be like, oh yes, women are hor when they’re on more testosterone.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So the NY Times also did an article on this. Titled I’m on Fire. Testosterone is giving women back their sex drive and then some subtitled. There is no FDA approved testosterone products for women. Insurance won’t cover it, many doctors won’t prescribe it. It’s become a cultural phenomenon. It has a great opening, so I just have to go ahead and read it.

Spend enough time speaking to women who are taking testosterone specifically in very high doses, and you start to notice that they sound messianic. They’re often taking. Sorry. Hold on. Drink up. Okay, there we go. They sound messianic. They sound messianic. They’re often talking fast and intensely.

They’re amped up. They’re describing what they clearly consider a miracle drug, and they have no intention of lowering their dose despite the unknown risks or some problems with facial hair. After all, how can they worry about facial hair when they feel so alive? It’s nothing they can’t take care of with a [00:14:00] quick waxing, which they now have energy to do at the end of the day.

Right after they prepare a high protein dinner for the family and before they put the finishing touches on their spreadsheets, close their laptops and light a few mood candles for the sex that they know will be great. Then even better than the sex they had the last night, and though they’re day older.

So, I just love that opening. That’s a,

Malcolm Collins: that’s an intense, this is somebody who really likes the drug that they’re on. Well,

Simone Collins: I mean, this is the, I dunno if the journalist is on it. She just interviewed a lot of women who are messianic about it. Oh, the article.

Malcolm Collins: This is,

Simone Collins: he

Malcolm Collins: reminds me of a, a, a video that is so, okay.

So one of the types of videos that I like watching are, music, and then in the foreground of the music, they will have like anime characters, like doing like a, a pose or something like that. Oh, like bouncing Yeah. Or something, right? Yeah. Our, our kids

Simone Collins: love it, which is a little difficult because if you saw exactly what these characters looked like.[00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: One of, one of, one of the ones that is, that is a fun one, is this a woman who’s like this like Jim Bro girl. And there’s a tweet next to it that says, women who are mildly muscular think they are gods. And then the woman is saying, know your place. Which I, I, I find funny you know, sort of like a play on, on whatever that fetish is

So I looked this up to add it and apparently it’s literally just a know your meme page. Mildly muscular women think they’re Gods know your place. , And then there’s a bunch of people who have done rifts on this.

which now we know the Trump assassin had.

Yeah. I’m, I’m

Simone Collins: now discovering that this is a thing which is just great. I mean, I guess there, there had to be a reason for the female bodybuilder competitions. And that’s they found their niche actually. That’s, that is an underrated way for post wall women. To get an advantage in sexual markets.

I, we should tell more of our 30 something women looking for her husband. I

Malcolm Collins: love that. She, she, she says it’s a high protein dinner. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I didn’t think about [00:16:00] that. I’m like, these women are like doing, I’d actually be very interested to see how taking testosterone, changes a woman’s arousal patterns, not in terms of the volume of the arousal patterns, but in terms of the nature.

Does it make them more dominant, like more dominant cited, aroused, or does it It does. It does, yeah. Yeah. It also makes it more

Simone Collins: argumentative and aggressive. So, but I’ll get into that. But what’s, what’s bigger, of course, this is the New York Times, so they have to take a whole, so Social Justice Warrior and like Concern trolley angle to it, the articles about how testosterone therapy has become a cultural phenomenon among women seeking to boost their sex drive, but also their overall energy.

But like the whole angle is despite there being no FDA approved testosterone products for women in the US and the significant barriers such as like the lack of, of insurance coverage and the reluctance amongst many doctors hormones, why

Malcolm Collins: do the insurance coverage for something that’s just meant to make them horny and, and be like an amphetamine?

Simone Collins: Well, so the, [00:17:00] the thing is, and here’s a quote from the article, for men experiencing the effects of low testosterone, low libido, low energy loss of muscle mass, the FDA has approved more than 30 products since the 1950s, and yet to this day, there’s no FDA approved testosterone cream patch, pill or shot for women, even though their testosterone levels fall far more precipitously than men’s as they age.

So the, the, the article makes a fair point, Malcolm, that like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. I buy that. So are you gonna start using testosterone? Is that the idea now? Well,

Simone Collins: so I mean, there

Malcolm Collins: there’re

Simone Collins: benefits and drawbacks. So women who take testosterone report dramatic increases in energy, libido, and marital intimacy. Some describe the near miraculous transformations in their relationships and personal drive, but the gains do come with risks, and the side effects include facial hair and acne and hair loss.

Deepening of the voice, which I, the deepening of the voice sounds fine, but in some cases enlarged clitoris and persistent irritation and [00:18:00] anger. And like some of the case, like the, the, the, like women quoted in the articles, they’re, their kids are like. Mom, you’re like a teenage boy. Like you’re being mean, like just constantly arguing and getting really angry all the time.

Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: I can’t imagine. That sounds nightmarish.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, like I feel like these husbands must feel so confused. In fact, like one of the women let’s see if there’s a good here. I’ll, I’ll read. It’s, it’s clear that testosterone does more than just like, it, it does more than Addie. At least it does more than Phil, Phil and Sarah.

So here’s another quote from the article that sort of illustrates us more. Both Medina and Lynn, these are people that she quoted earlier, are taking an amount of testosterone that’s brought their levels higher than what women produce naturally at any point in their lifetimes. The way they, and many women on these high doses talk about their relationships sometimes has the ring of romantic fantastic tales of sexual rejuvenation and newfound intimacy.

One woman in her fifties told me after years of revulsion, at so much as the thought of her husband’s breath, she now looked forward to having sex with [00:19:00] him about every night. Even in the middle of sex, she said she was thinking about the next time they could have sex. Another woman told me she had more orgasms in the past two years on testosterone than in the entirety of her previous life.

A third said that after years of wanting to rip someone’s face off, if her husband so much has touched her, she now actively pursued sex with him. If anything, she not worried. She wanted it more often than he did. So can you just imagine these confused husbands who’s like wives cool to them? What’s

Malcolm Collins: funny to me is how much they hated their husbands before this.

I know. And like, oh

Simone Collins: my

Malcolm Collins: dis

Simone Collins: disgust. But like these husbands like, so like the wives are like both very argument, like suddenly very aggressive and like mean. But then like. Like ravenously hungry for them at night. So they’re like, I wouldn’t want that. I dunno if I’m happy or not happy. Like, I, she, like, I’m getting sex, but she’s mean, you know, like, what do you prefer?

It’s, it’s, it’s so

Malcolm Collins: confusing.

Speaker 3: puer sentences them to death [00:20:00] by S new. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want, you don’t want me to be meaner, but I don’t, I don’t,

Speaker: What are you gay?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I, I don’t want either.

Speaker 4: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t wanna waste a bunch of time on sex. First of all,

Simone Collins: no. We were having a conversation about this the other night where we were like, I mean, so the time that we would have sex is, is time that we, if we were to have sex more than we do already, is, is time we would not be spending with our kids, which we really, really value.

Or sleeping, which we’re already basically not doing. So like what are we willing to sacrifice? Like our quality of life would degrade significantly for sex. We have to

Malcolm Collins: one hour of alone time a day for like video games or whatever. Yeah. Right. Like, like, I don’t know, man. Like, I don’t know. I don’t know

Simone Collins: where like what are these people doing with their

Malcolm Collins: lives?

They’re like, we record your episodes. It’s your fault fans. Damn you. Damn. You fault. Nobody else does an episode a day. I know. Even [00:21:00] on weekends now, because, well, Asal

Simone Collins: does tons of like streamers. You know, I, I

Malcolm Collins: suppose you’re

Simone Collins: right, but doesn’t have other jobs. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, they, yeah, we, we also have jobs and we’re not streamers.

But anyway, so then there’s this other New York Times article on Gen Z Women in Sex, which has me thinking maybe this is like an older woman thing. It may be the, just like the interest in sex drive among, among women is mostly. Like dedicated to older women because most of the women like quoted in these articles are in their forties and fifties.

And it’s somewhat backed up by this article titled Why Gen Z Women Are Having The Best Sex in An Era Planked by Sex Negativity. Only One Generation Seems Immune Mine, and it’s by this, this, this Gen X woman who, who talks about, and this, for those who are not familiar with Gen X is, is it’s like, it’s the generation that’s one.

One rung older than Malcolm’s and mine. So they’re like in their forties and above. Now they’re born at 1965 to 1980 and they’re apparently just [00:22:00] getting this renaissance in their sex lives. The author recounts her own experiences in this article, and she claims that society’s portrayal of middle-aged women and, and their sexuality has really shifted that pop culture and books and movies now celebrate mature women’s sexual autonomy, and I think this is true, like with the beginning of Eat, pray, love.

You sort of had this like middle-aged women sexual renaissance and like it, it’s happening a little bit less with younger women. But also data suggests that sexual frequency. No, it’s the same women.

Malcolm Collins: It’s the same women. It’s, it’s the eat, pray, love women. Just one generation older now. Yeah. Yeah. They’re just

Simone Collins: aging.

Yeah. It’s like, it’s one generation. But yeah, so data, there’s a bunch

Malcolm Collins: of sluts in a perpetual finding themselves Renaissance.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Sexual frequency among young adults has dropped steeply since around 2007. But Gen X in middle age has only experienced a minor decrease. So like, yeah, I think you’re right.

It’s just one generation. But also I just have to point out, the article points out this this, this new academic approach called [00:23:00] Critical Gerontology that emphasizes how aging can bring newfound sexual confidence in fulfillment, challenging a view that aging is inherently a time of sexual decline.

Why do we need to do this? But anyway, so there’s this one quote that from the New York Times article on Cindy Eckert’s effort to get. To make Addie happen to make Phil and Sarah happen when like, just f*****g, just drink. Okay. But like it, I think this is really the point of discourse that I wanna kick off it.

The author writes, for much of that last half century, the fight for women’s sexual freedom has hinged mostly on economic arguments, giving women access to birth control advocates reasoning went. Would allow them to determine if and when they had children, empowering them to study, to work and attain financial independence.

Whether women actually desired or enjoyed the sex they were now free to have was for a long time, a far more taboo [00:24:00] question, one that even their doctors weren’t trained to ask, but like, weren’t, your doctor shouldn’t. Well, is is medically inducing a high sex drive when you don’t? Have one otherwise, like really Well, could it make feminist

Malcolm Collins: sterile?

I, I wonder are you messing with your

Simone Collins: I don’t, yeah, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how testosterone would, would mess with. Your fertility. And that was actually like, when I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, should I experiment with testosterone? Yes, it can.

Malcolm Collins: It can. It suppresses ovulation.

Simone Collins: Well, that I, I have an, I mean, given how hormonally messed up I am, like, that doesn’t matter.

I don’t, it wouldn’t be relevant to

Malcolm Collins: you because you,

Simone Collins: but like I was also like, yeah, but like also if I’m trying to get pregnant, you know, again, multiple times, like I don’t really wanna mess with my hormonal cycles right now because it leads

Malcolm Collins: to long term changes to ovaries.

Simone Collins: Well, again, like I don’t need my ovaries as much anymore ‘cause we’ve done all the IVF cycles that we plan on doing, but I also just don’t wanna mess with [00:25:00] like my hormonal levels as we go into more frozen and burger transfers.

‘cause you know, I just, I don’t wanna like anything that messes things up. Like things have worked so far and I’m like, let’s just. I, I’m on my medications. I’m on, get, get done,

Malcolm Collins: get those 12, 13 kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then, then maybe I’ll experiment with testosterone and instead live vicariously through our friends who are experimenting with it.

But yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m just like one, like I think that trying to medicate a sex drive where there isn’t, like, this reminds me a lot actually of Brave New World, which as you know, I love Aldis. Huxley’s Brave New World presents this dystopia in which everyone is polyamorous. They have this saying that you just kind of repeat, everyone belongs to everyone else.

And if anyone ever gets too monogamous or like they actually don’t have enough sex, you’re kind of supposed to like, like take Soma, which is this drug that you like. It’s, it seems kind of like. I don’t know. Maybe like literally just living in Silicon Valley, [00:26:00] like Xanax or something. Like, like you take a drug and like you, you go sleep with more people, but you’re, you’re kind of like forcing yourself into this.

And it seems kind of dystopian to me that like you’re trying to create a desire where there isn’t a desire. And I also will fully admit though that things like hormonal birth control can really suppress sex drive in women. That our lifestyles as it is, could be suppressing sex drive that our, our artificial work schedules and offices and all these things, and the time we spend in front of screens could, could be suppressing sex drive and that then, you know, well then I guess we’ll just medicate it back into our lives.

This

Malcolm Collins: is such a progressive thing that like your life is about your sex drive. Like it’s weird. Yeah. That’s the other thing. Yeah. Like this is like, it’s, well, where I think it gets. Unfortunately injected into conservative culture. Uhhuh is from a few areas. One is a lot of the new right movement is downstream of the men’s rights movement.

Mm-hmm. And, and or the really, the red pill movement, well used the euphemism of the men’s rights movement in the [00:27:00] red pill movement in the early days. You know, it was a, my generation when we were at like. You know, chopped up on testosterone, looking for sex all the time. And so status was shown and gained was in the community by the number of

Simone Collins: people you slept with.

Sleeping

Malcolm Collins: with people and sleeping with attractive people. And sleeping with like status people. Yeah. And it caused a lot of the community to begin to see. Sexual conquest, or whatever you wanna call it, as a sign

Simone Collins: of success, like a quantifiable

Malcolm Collins: sign of success. You’re not, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re conquering a dumpster.

Yay. Yeah. You came back for, with spoils and it’s, you know, use condoms on a pizza. There’s another word I’m making it, it’s not a, I’m trying to say it’s not a necessarily a good way to live life. But, that still holds within the right-leaning ecosystem to a bit Yeah. Where people attempt to flex to each other through the amount of sex they’re having, even though, oh, do you

Simone Collins: think so do you think women are, are adopting [00:28:00] that in an attempt to succeed by masculine standards?

No, that’s

Malcolm Collins: not the point I’m making. I think that where this is coming from women is downstream of the urban monoculture. But what I’m saying is, is that generally, or historically speaking, conservative cultural groups or healthy religious, cultural groups understood that life isn’t about arousal maxing.

Right. And that arousal just is not that important to daily life. Like.

Simone Collins: Well, what’s also interesting though, is historically. When it came to arousal, women were seen as like the crazy horny sexual predators. Like, gotta watch out for them. You know, they’re gonna, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It’s like historically, if you were like, I prefer playing with my kids, like, you know, an hour playing with my kids to an hour having sex.

Yeah. They’d be like, oh, well,

Simone Collins: especially in the Victor area,

Malcolm Collins: you’d just see this. Most people would be like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Like that, that seems like a a, I mean, obviously you need to have enough sex to have more kids, but like, you know, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t like engage in it in some sort of big recreational [00:29:00] romp unless you were like my secret life or something like that.

Which is an interesting book, by the way, from the Victorian period about a guy who just slept around a ton. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but the point being is that you know, historically these conservative traditions, they understood like, hey don’t dedicate your life to this stuff. You know, those searches for pleasure, such as for arousal.

But then the second area it got in, and we have a whole video on this, which is I, I think it was girl defined, ruined an entire generation of women which is obviously take off. Oh yeah. Entire generation of women. And the point that we make in that is that. The way that some evangelical and.

Abstinence until marriage cultural groups reacted to the urban monoculture, attempting to lure people away by saying, come join us and you can have sex. You know all you want, and you can do whatever you want. That affirms you. Mm-hmm. And they were like, no, no, no, no. Stay with us because actually sex is better if you wait until marriage and sex be so

Simone Collins: amazing.

Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: they, they, they, they almost treated marriage like it’s some like super sex kink [00:30:00] thing. Yeah. They

Simone Collins: hyped it up way too much. And then all these people got married and were super disappointed. Yeah. They’re like, well. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Where it’s actually much more powerful to just be like, that sex is not bad on sex.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: It’s the, it’s not the, it’s not the point. I mean, I don’t know. The way I was thinking about it when I was reading these is I was like, well, yeah, but do I, do I respect men for taking Viagra? Do I respect men for taking testosterone supplementation to become more no. I always think it’s kind of lame.

It’s kind of gross. And also like, as you know, I’ve only been sent. One dick pic in my entire life, it was of a, a botched infected penile implant, and it is one of the most traumatic things that was sent to me on a Christmas day, and I can’t ever unsee it. Don’t ever do that.

Malcolm Collins: Think that because I didn’t open the message because of you being like, you’re so

Simone Collins: freaking lucky.

Yeah. This was, by the way, sent in a group chat. That Malcolm was also in, he did not see it [00:31:00] because I think he heard my, I don’t know, vomiting in the other room. Oh my God. Yeah. Don’t do like, yeah. So like whenever I think of like men’s pursuit of this and I feel like men have more of a societal. Like, I mean, so men, it’s not like men are expected to have these really high sex drives, right?

So I can understand why men are more likely to have a hangup. I still think it’s pathetic ‘cause it’s just you trying to meet a stupid societal expectation. I think it’s kind of like the equivalent of like women being expected to look young, you know, like, and getting plastic surgery as a result. But for women getting it, yeah, there’s this school bus, I need to go out and get ‘em.

Our, our, our sense.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, you said there were like communities that are doing this. Can you tell me about those? Oh, what do you mean? Like that we know? No, no. Are there like subcultures around this? Are there.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of like, but it’s mostly like whisper networks of women. And it, what happens is this is happening largely within like [00:32:00] shared social networks of women.

One woman will start taking testosterone and then another will. Like, for example, in the New York Times article about women taking testosterone. Here’s another quote from it. This season of the Real Housewives of Orange County, three of the show stars described their testosterone regimens. Gretchen Rossi was shown bearing her bottom as her doctor implanted beneath her skin, A tiny but powerful pellet packed with crystalline testosterone that would be released over the course of about four months.

She commented afterward. That she had recently reduced her levels. I had to take mine down because I was humping everything she said. Rossi’s, CoStar, Jennifer ante, , commiserated. You’ll just hump and hump and hump away. So what’s happening is within like social networks of women. Like one will start taking testosterone and rave about it and then more in war will.

And I think part of it’s the vitalism of it. And so it’s not necessarily about social [00:33:00] conformity. It’s just like, oh my God, I feel so alive. I. Well, you’ve

Malcolm Collins: got nothing else in your life if you don’t have kids or anything like that, you know? Yeah. Like just the

Simone Collins: hedonism and novelty of all the sex I think is really fun.

It’s, it’s kind of like a, like imagine if you could rediscover that revelation that you can, you can bang things as like a teenage boy. I think women discovering that for the first time, I think there’s a novelty factor that probably wears off, but like in the beginning it’s really exciting. Yeah. That, that makes sense.

Especially as a perimenopausal or many menopausal woman who’s experiencing a lot of fatigue and exhaustion to have that extra energy. Plus I mean, like, you know, the, the testosterone’s gonna lead to more lean muscle development and everything. It’s gonna help with weight loss. So like as you’re getting more dumpy and more tired and your sex drive is lower, to suddenly have a reversal of that, even if you’re growing more facial hair, like by that point, if you’re this type of woman who cares about all those things, you’re also the type of woman who already is whack.

Seeing and already is doing all the things, they’re gonna counteract most of the negative side effects. Plus you’re [00:34:00] probably also abrasive as it is, so like being even more aggressive and abrasive probably isn’t gonna be that disjoint in your life. Yeah. So, yeah, I just I think my take is, this is all hedonic nonsense and beside the point sex drives are unmoored from productive reproduction.

For example, so like. I, I don’t think that, I don’t think that people are gonna have the types of families they want or need just because they can’t control themselves around each other because they’re like, oh my God, I have to bang you. I think that people have the types of families that they want and need because they’re like, I think we’re ready.

Like, let’s start our family. You know, let’s be conscious about this, and then they do it. So yeah, I, I don’t think this is, I think this is interesting. But I, I don’t think it should be lauded and so Well, and it

Malcolm Collins: suppresses fertility, so I don’t think you’re gonna be having more kids just ‘cause you’re banging more on this.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: definitely not. All right, well thank you. I love you. I’ll send you Bcha recipes Bach [00:35:00] Choy.

Simone Collins: I love you. . You did great coverage. Yeah, it was better than, no,

Malcolm Collins: it’s wild. It’s wild that this was covered up and that like we have an actively hostile FBI in deep state and they’re like, the deep state isn’t real. And I was like well they did, you know, try to manipulate an election by hiding. There’s

Simone Collins: so many crazy

Malcolm Collins: stories.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I, yeah, I just, wow. But also like every country does this and it’s all crazy. So anyway. Alright, let’s get into. My crazy, my crazy story.

Malcolm Collins: You

Simone Collins: ready?

Malcolm Collins: I, do you mind if I start this one? Sure, go ahead. All right.

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive into the evolving landscape of Gen Z divorce, inspired by a trending New York Times article. They discuss how marriage and divorce are changing for younger generations, exploring topics like queer solidarity, polyamory, and the shifting meaning of marriage. The conversation covers the normalization of divorce, the influence of social media on relationship expectations, and the rise of non-traditional relationship models. Simone and Malcolm also reflect on personal experiences, societal trends, and the impact of cultural shifts on marriage, family, and identity. The episode is filled with insightful commentary, humor, and candid takes on what it means to be married—or divorced—in the modern age.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we have come across more New York Times Gold, and if you did not happen to see this trending on X, then you might’ve missed it. We don’t want you to miss this because this is about Gen Z divorce at least the more fun parts of Gen Z divorce.

Malcolm Collins: I thought it was fascinating when you were going through it because it was. Oh my God. The que they’re like, well, you know, I had to have a sit down with his mistress before telling him, because, you know, queer solidarity. And it’s like, it is the most Gen Z, gen Z thing you’ve ever seen. I mean, it shows that the context of marriage is really changing for this next generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And if people think fertility rates are shot now, they do not know what’s coming. I’m gonna tell you what

Simone Collins: 100% Yeah. We’re, we’re in for it. One of the big complaints when this was discussed on, on X people were saying, this isn’t representative. This isn’t what Gen Z’s actually like. But the, the whole point is.[00:01:00]

What, what this article highlights is a a a specific ex extreme, just like any divorce lawyer is going to see a lot of specific extremes. And what’ll, and we’re, we’re gonna get into it with the article, but divorce lawyers are now this the matter having

Malcolm Collins: divorce lawyer, I got the impression

Simone Collins: right there, there were a couple that were interviewed.

But they’re seeing a distinct shift in the reasons why people are getting divorced and that shift is meaningful. But even though we’re looking at

Malcolm Collins: cases, but I, the genzer who are saying, this isn’t the Gen Z that I know I think what we’re, we’re actually seeing is a bifurcation and behavioral patterns with Gen Z with some becoming uber brain rotted, urban monoculture, and some moving away from the urban monoculture, and there’s less of a middle ground within that generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I agree. And, and the same people stick with the same people. The insane people, well, they cuddle together and talk about divorcing their

Malcolm Collins: ais.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Their AI boyfriends. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, continue. Come on, start. Let’s, let’s go. [00:02:00]

Simone Collins: I’m so excited for this. In 2021, Kira Benson, a violinist. Living in Seattle knew it was time to get a divorce ending.

Their two year lavender marriage wasn’t an easy decision, but the musician had a supportive ally. If you have to dump your ex-husband, m Benson said go dump him with his mistress. Before the breakup, Mick Benson, 27. Who uses the pronoun? They checked in with her, their, sorry. Their therapist who said a divorce would be a good choice.

Out of queer solidarity. They informed their husband’s mistress. This was kosher and mixed Benson’s arrangement.

Malcolm Collins: Sure. Before we go further, can we start breaking apart everything that’s going on here? Okay, so first there in what she refers to as a lavender marriage which is a type of marriage that you get into as a woman if you are gay.

To try to hide that you’re gay. From the general public,

Simone Collins: it must have a different meaning. Now

Malcolm Collins: it, I, I, hold on.

Simone Collins: Okay. I

Malcolm Collins: will [00:03:00] explain why the term is being used. Okay. ‘cause clearly if you’re going by, they, you, you, you are not trying to hide anything. Like you are not living in an environment where you need to hide your sexuality.

Simone Collins: Exactly. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. So. What she’s trying to do is make herself seem like more of a victim. It’s just a way to pretend like, well, as a, as a queer woman, I live in constant fear because I like guys and girls. You know, like I, you know, so

Simone Collins: should I just, like, if I, I just called our marriage, lavender marriage, I would get points in that

Malcolm Collins: realm.

Yes. Because you’re acting like you are a, it’s a way to remind people, Hey, I’m a victim.

Simone Collins: Yes. This is not a marriage. This is Anne Frank’s attic. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Right. The second, because the way she talks about it, it appears to be a, a real. Sexually active marriage. Right. Because she implies as well that she is sexually active with her husband’s mistress.

Which,

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: don’t know if

Simone Collins: that’s implied. I mean, it,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, we haven’t gotten to that part yet, but I remember in part of it I was like, [00:04:00] oh, but if

Simone Collins: your husband has a mistress. You know. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: I know why. I know why I took it as implied. Because she said out of queer solidarity, she told the mistress first, which implies that the mistress is queer.

Which, okay, the husband is sleeping with this woman. He’s married to this other woman who, who’s sleeping with both of them are also into women. And this, well, it’s really

Simone Collins: interesting though.

Malcolm Collins: Relationship was the, was the mistress than she did with the husband. ‘cause she told the mistress first.

Simone Collins: Could this be a sign also that polyamory branding is changing, like.

They didn’t wanna say secondary, they wanted to say mistress. Was this a condition of the mistress? Because it sounds kind of crappy to be a secondary.

Malcolm Collins: No. So there’s a few things going on here, I think. Okay. I think the reason she choose the term mistress instead of saying that they were polyamory, and this was a secondary, was because again, she wanted to frame herself as a victim and her husband.

Having a mistress is like a

Simone Collins: Yeah, but if you have like pizza parties with your mistress or queer solidarity with your [00:05:00] mistress.

Malcolm Collins: She’s trying to show that even though her husband takes her for granted in these ways, that, and I also think the term mistress sounds pretty cool. Like it, it sounds

really,

Simone Collins: oh, 100%.

I think secondary should be dropped. What’s the, what is the, what is the male equivalent of mistress?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, mis, I know because I read it in one of my Korean romance fantasies recently. Okay. So you’re gonna have to have a, I can’t remember this. This was for her, it maintain the title of Duke. She couldn’t get married, so she had to have a, and there was a term for it.

It’s called like a male consort or something.

Simone Collins: The auto complete for what is the male equivalent of is what is the male equivalent of a Karen.

Malcolm Collins: There art, because men don’t do that very frequently. But anyway you let me know when you find it out.

Simone Collins: Lover Mastress Boy, toy Gigolo or Par Paramore.

Paramore. It sounds

Malcolm Collins: good.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: There we go.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Okay. So, but then the other thing is, is that she talks about this with her therapist before she talks about it with her husband.

Simone Collins: Do you want me to read the article or not?

Malcolm Collins: No. Hold on. We’ve got [00:06:00] to analyze what’s happening. Okay. Okay. Because this is important, right?

For, for audiences to understand how things are falling apart and looking for red flags. You know, if you’re Ian, you’re looking for a partner.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Oh, and actually, you know, on that front, this is interesting because this shows, and, and this is again, where I’m like, no, this is representative. This is not weird.

Because keep in mind the, the other woman who’s gone viral very recently who also consulted multiple therapists about her relationships and sex lives was the one who deluded herself into believing that her, that her psychiatrist, psychiatrist, psychiatrist was

Malcolm Collins: hitting on her,

Simone Collins: the one who prescribed her medications.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Psychiatrist and

Simone Collins: psych psychiatrist was. Yeah, seduced her. And she had this other older, like 63-year-old female therapist who she would talk to about this psychiatrist.

Malcolm Collins: She was the one psychiatrist and then another therapist for the [00:07:00] therapist because her relationship with the therapist was causing her problems.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, she just saw the psychiatrist to get her A DHD medications prescribed. She also, however, sold coaching lessons for A DHD people. Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: hold

Simone Collins: on. She needed medication.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. I need to unpack this other point here ‘cause it is an important point.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: your marriage is already destroyed beyond help.

If you or your partner would go to a psychologist to talk about you, to talk about major decisions in your life and to be affirmed for those decisions before floating them with you. Because what that means is she’s really looking for, because as soon as that opinion or perspective of hers has been affirmed by the psychologist it’s very unlikely that the husband’s going to be able to talk her out of it.

Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Paid professional has already validated me. It’s like [00:08:00] the couple’s counseling and giving a one-sided story, but without the other partner getting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the psychologist doesn’t care. They’re gonna keep getting her money either way.

Simone Collins: Well, they’re more likely to keep getting a client’s money if they affirm that client problem is too, people are also just turning to AI instead.

But I guess you get additional validation if it is a trained therapist or social worker or a psychologist affirms you. Yeah. So, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I, I actually think AI is much less damaging in this respect than a, than a psychologist would be.

Simone Collins: I’m just thinking of clips of what is it, Annie? The, the gr the Sexy Grok AI girl.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, is that already out? Should I try talking with that?

Simone Collins: I’ve seen people interview her and they’re like, my wife’s in the other room and she’s like, does she know about me? And they’re like yeah, she does. She, you know, she’s not a big fan. And she’s like, well, like basically implies you should leave her.

It’s, yeah. I don’t know if AI is always gonna give the best. Answers for

Malcolm Collins: marriage. I am all about [00:09:00] this. We, I I’m gonna do some Annie stuff. We should do an episode on Annie.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Has ai, has, has, has Elon doomed the fertility rate?

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: he’s, I’m gonna, I’m gonna bet reality he’s, he’s creating

Simone Collins: the bottleneck that is necessary to create the, the types of people that, ‘cause you know, one of his big arguments is that he’s like, I’m really concerned about smart people not having enough kids.

Like that’s kind of one of his brands of Tism.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which I’m concerned about too.

Simone Collins: He is he’s not necessarily going to be hurting the birth rate of the people that he’s encouraging most to.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know about that. You know, I, I really like, you know, these, these chat bots and stuff like that. You know, there’s

Simone Collins: not, no, not the ones that are just like horny and that affirm you no matter what.

Malcolm Collins: Well, if you want a good AI wife who go to reality fabricator, yes. That’s, that’s where we’ve got the the best ones on offer. Anyway, continue.

Simone Collins: Oh God. Sorry words,

Malcolm Collins: but Grock is too restricted for me. You, [00:10:00] you can’t, you cannot even kill a bott. They, they, they freak out around death or anything that’s particularly.

Scary.

Simone Collins: Lame. Lame. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: lame.

Simone Collins: Out of queer solidarity. They informed their husband’s mistress. This was kosher and Benson’s arrangement, which was not a legal marriage, but a domestic partnership about their shared partner’s troubling behavior. The night of the breakup, Ms. Mixed Benson and the mistress spent a cozy evening together.

We were eating a lot of comfort food, playing a lot of animal crossing. The senior most members of Gen Z are in their late twenties, old enough to have gotten married, but also old enough to regret it as this generation enter.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, I, I need to interrupt you again. I’m imagining this scene of her with her husband’s secondary mistress, chilling out and eating comfort food.

So ice cream while playing, animal crossing, I guess in the same room. And that’s their idea of like an emotionally, you know, stressful day [00:11:00] for them. But if, if, you know, because this is true of Gen Z. Gen Z does not drink as much alcohol was in r gener. That’s

Simone Collins: that’s true. Yeah. Normally it’d be like over cocktails.

Like the classic sex in the city

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Thing. Oh my goodness. Ice cream

Malcolm Collins: and animal crossing.

Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah, instead of getting smashed, we get fat. But now we have ozempic. So now they like sparingly eat ice cream and play animal crossing. I don’t even know. Maybe they’re too young to afford ozempic. Anyway, as this generation enters divorcing age, it’s finding little shame in the act, especially with a split like Miss Mixed Benson is motivated by prioritizing one’s mental health.

And rather than quietly moving on, younger divorcees are often highlighting this facet of their story, even after they’re in new relationships.

Malcolm Collins: What, once they gain a victim status, they cannot really, well,

Simone Collins: that’s true. You gotta catch ‘em all. It’s like getting Girl Scout badges like, I’m now divorced.

Malcolm Collins: I, and even when they’re remarried, they [00:12:00] still identify as a de divorce.

A, because a deforest A is a more victim status than a married person.

Simone Collins: That’s so amazing

Malcolm Collins: and that’s so funny that that status trumps because it is victimy God, continue.

Simone Collins: Michelle Jans a 28-year-old content creator in Oceanside, California is particularly vocal about being vocal about her divorce when she needs to prepare a synopsis of her videos for a channel description, a task that demands a squirm inducing combination of self-reflection and brevity.

Ms. Jans often goes with, I found love after divorce. It is one of the sentences that just summarizes the whole picture of what I’ve vlogged for over the years, she said. Mm-hmm. Ms. Jan said that even after she remarried last year, the identity of divorcee felt like it was an important part of, of who she is.

So yeah, they, they show a picture of this attractive young woman flogging and, yeah. [00:13:00] Looks normal

Malcolm Collins: to you. She’s, she’s,

Simone Collins: she looks normal. She doesn’t look misshapen like, honestly. If, if you show, if you were to show us a picture of her, we would probably tell you that she’s a conservative. So she doesn’t look.

Like a blue haired. Yeah, she is. She is dark blonde hair longer than shoulder length wearing,

Malcolm Collins: so she, she has a real honey trap,

Simone Collins: I guess. And

Malcolm Collins: meanwhile I choose you and like, you know,

Simone Collins: I know.

Malcolm Collins: What, what were you, what were you wearing back then? Like Durals,

Simone Collins: Durals and Raju. Go street fashion. Vintage round tda petticoat dresses.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You, you, you looked like maximal progressive maxing.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I did actually. So, don’t judge the book by its cover, judge the book by how obsessed it is with you and how willing it is to change its mind. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Were pretty obsessed with me in our early relationship, which really showed, and I appreciated.

You’re still pretty obsessed with me. [00:14:00] I’m, I’m going to be honest,

Simone Collins: more than ever. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you would, if, if you were the type of person to do this,

Simone Collins: sometimes I wonder if you bolt your door at night just ‘cause you don’t want me staring at you while you sleep.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You used to do that. I, I remember.

If, if you were the typing client to this, you would absolutely have like a room of like Malcolm memorabilia and like a little trying set up

Simone Collins: my Helga Pataki closet.

Speaker: 網膜センサー確認しました。いらっしゃいませ、キョウコさん。

Speaker 3: めたらいかがですか。おそらくこの恋は、

Speaker 4: どうしてそんな。実のお兄様が好きで何が悪いの?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That is, that is exactly your personality and I love it. Yeah. Hey,

Simone Collins: weirdly though, like having kids is like that. They are my Helga Pataki closet.

They are my shrine to you. So weird just storing

Malcolm Collins: our little Malcolm’s.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But also our kids are obsessed with you. They wanna just lie in [00:15:00] bed and stare at you?

Malcolm Collins: They do actually. But yeah.

Simone Collins: All of them,

Malcolm Collins: that, that was hilarious. When one night when he was sick, we let our kid sleep in my bed because he, you know, wanted to sleep in my bed ‘cause he’s feeling sick.

And he got mad at me because when I went to sleep, I was, I was not facing him and he couldn’t stare at my face. And I was like, you are way too obsessed with me. Look at me,

Simone Collins: oh my God, our children. Anyway, whether it’s young divorce generally, or Gen Z, divorce specifically in 2025, splits often feel less like scandals and more like Rebrands.

Megan Wallace, a 29-year-old sex writer in London who reports on the mating rituals of Gen Z cites two divorce inspiration figures for this generation. The actress Sophie Turner and the model Emily Rogowski, who created divorce rings out of her engagement ring. According Tom Wallace, both Turner and Miss Ra Raki emerged from their [00:16:00] divorces as people newly and entirely themselves.

Jackie Combs. Oh my

Malcolm Collins: God, that is so okay

Simone Collins: to be a divorce influencer. What? You’re not into it.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. But think about the phrase they’re newly and entirely themselves. Mm. Like it’s bad or lesser to combine your identity with another person. And you are upgrading your identity by atomizing it. And I think, or

Simone Collins: almost like you’re, you’re, you’re a more of a person if you have.

Have combined your life with someone, consumed them, used them, and then emerged from the chrysalis of life with them as a stronger person.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: It’s kind of gross. Or predatory, I don’t know. Whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, it’s gross and predatory, but I think the, the aspiration to not allow yourself to be subsumed into a more important identity, like the identity of the family or the identity of the married couple is one of the huge flaws of this generation.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and when I say this [00:17:00] generation, I mean our generation, I mean, I think that this reached its Venus within our generation and was in part of Gen Z is fixing and was in part of Gen Z is getting worse.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting.

Malcolm Collins: But the part that’s getting worse is not having kids. Don’t worry, these people don’t have kids.

Or you’re not hearing any of them talk about what, what are we gonna do with the kids in these divorces or, or I guess we’ll see.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I haven’t actually read this whole article, so we’re, we’re discovering this as you do dear. Listener Jackie Combs, a family law and divorce lawyer who worked with Ms.

Raki maintains that the taboo of getting divorced is long gone. Individuals are more willing to consider this as just a transition in their relationship in a new chapter rather than feel the guilt and shame she said. Ms. Combs 37 has found that Gen Z tends to act hold

Malcolm Collins: you. You should feel guilt and shame about a divorce.

Just in case you’re wondering, by the way, like

Simone Collins: you, Malcolm, Malcolm, this is coming from a man who was pretty convinced that I was going to be your first wife.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Because I was in a [00:18:00] cultural context back then. That was a bad cultural context. I told her, well, at least it’ll be my first wife, right?

Because everyone I knew, like my dad had gotten married five times. Your dad had gotten married twice, right? You know. So, you know, you look at the boomer generation who started this idea that divorce should be an easy thing. That’s

Simone Collins: true. Yeah. It’s, yeah. This is, this is really not new. What’s different is the reasons for the divorce.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But the, the point I’m making here is. It had been normalized for me that divorce is just a normal part of life. And now that I’ve been able to study healthier cultures and learn how they relate to marriage and the other cultures that lead to better mental health outcomes, better life outcomes, et cetera, I’m like, oh, no.

Divorce really shouldn’t be an option. You shouldn’t go into a marriage thinking divorce will ever be an option for you.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Divorce is one of the, the, you know, sort of highest personal failings that you can have. And you can say, well, what if it’s their fault? And I’m like. What do they get? Brain damage or something?

I mean, you vetted them. You are responsible for that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, that’s [00:19:00] true.

Malcolm Collins: And then you, you know, you are responsible for making sure that they are not exposed to toxic influences.

Simone Collins: I think a lot of this though is downstream of marriage being turned into a purely. Legal logistical arrangement instead of it being a lifelong commitment to do a specific thing.

Marriage used to be a sacrament. It was about creating a family and a life together. Whereas now it’s like, well, I want visitation rights in the hospital and I want access to your healthcare. And, you know, there are things that it’s, it’s now just seen as this. Like trade off. You know, we, we have spoken with many people who are like, well, we’re not technically gonna get married because there’s no tax advantage to it.

Or like, I wanna maintain these specific services. So like, people have really divorced the concept of marriage from marriage. There’s, there’s, there’s not this, it, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, and I mean, and it doesn’t even legally mean [00:20:00] what it used to mean, you know? Totally. As a society, we just

Simone Collins: need to then, with no fault divorce, I mean this is changing and we did that episode on men Ga, getting back more rights with divorce, for example, but still,

Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Continue. Okay.

Ms. Combs 37 has found that Gen Z tends to act with decisiveness about ending relationships. They’re so much more transparent. She said they live in a world of social media and everything’s about storytelling, and so I think individuals are more willing to be open and honest about their lives and prior generations were.

This is a generation that can walk away easily, a function. Ms. Jens. Speculates of young people’s general sense of having endless options, how realistic those options are is another question. I feel like with social media at our fingertips, we are just so much more aware of all the lives we could be living.

Miss Jan said, we’re scrolling through our feed and we see this girl lives on a sailboat in Maine, and this [00:21:00] girl lives in a high rise in New York. You can just see firsthand all these different lives look like and it makes it so much easier to visualize a change or shift. Oh

Malcolm Collins: my

Simone Collins: God. Mx Wallace said that the young people today who come of age during the dislocations of the COVID pandemic and amid un uncertain economic landscape are inured to upheaval.

Gen Z just imagines they will have three marriages because life is prolonged. They’ve seen so much rapid social change. If it’s not realistic to be with one person, the whole thing. Mix. Wallace said,

Malcolm Collins: I, I love that she’s saying this was a presumption that they’re not gonna have any kids. Right? Like, you can’t easily be in three marriages if you have kids with one of the first marriages.

Right. You know?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Just a degree to which they do not care, and they do not see marriage as about producing offspring.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Marriage is about self-affirmation, personal, it’s

Simone Collins: about the, the cortisone that you’re living with for. Seven years until they get boring. I don’t [00:22:00] amuse you anymore.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And then you have other cortisol, your mistress. Right. You know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, yeah. Primary.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting to comment on how they’re looking at people on social media and they are mm-hmm. Visualizing the life on the boat, the life on the island, the life on the, mm-hmm. And this is so, like, I think, toxic because one, these lives are often not very good lives.

I

Simone Collins: don’t wanna live on a boat.

Malcolm Collins: I would hate that. Yeah. I follow a

Simone Collins: lot of the people who live in Highrises.

Malcolm Collins: I have lived on a boat. I’ve actually, I’ve probably spent about half a year of my life living on a boat.

Simone Collins: Collectively.

Malcolm Collins: Collectively, yeah. So, you know, I’ve lived on a boat for quite a bit and it is not fun unless you’re on like a super yacht or something like that.

Even if you’re on like a fairly decent yacht, it is not that nice an experience. Which, which important to note for like the way Greta Thornberg’s probably living these days. But, I think we need to get better at a a, you know, in terms of the way we communicate with younger generations you know, that like beaches are boring, right?

[00:23:00] Like they’re, they’re hot. There’s not a lot to do. The water is gonna make you all sticky and feel dirty. Like you could get on a surfboard, but you could do that in a VR simulator without all the negatives. Right. You know, why, why are you going out? You do that at the local waterpark or something, right?

You, you could go

Simone Collins: look at fish. Well, and if you’re at any place with a decent break that’s not super isolated, even if like everything’s perfect, you’re waiting your turn. Yeah, catch a good wave too.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. There’s a bunch of other surfers out there and you’re, oh, okay. And you know, like you try to catch your wave and then finally, you know, you’re in the right position, but then you don’t catch it and, oh God, like it’s, it’s just not.

Malcolm Collins: It’s not us. Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you can tell she’s the surfer of the two of us.

Simone Collins: Mm. I, I tried, I was obsessed with surfing videos. You were

Malcolm Collins: text with surfing guys, I think.

Simone Collins: No, no. Actually I really wasn’t. I, I, I wasn’t, it was, it was, there was this whole genre. Surf videos [00:24:00] like way downstream of endless summer like often associated with Jack Johnson, like thicker than water September sessions.

And what was the amazing music?

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: happened to you? And all of it was was just, just people surfing and good music. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t understand myself. And you

Malcolm Collins: watched them and not do anything else

Simone Collins: again and again and again and again. And I had the albums, oh my God. Obsessed, obsessed.

I was obsessed.

Malcolm Collins: Did you have. A sea shell necklace,

Simone Collins: a puka shell. Of course, I had a puka shell necklace. I was. Yes. And my billabong shorts, of course. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Those are cute on girls though. I I, I

Simone Collins: know. They’re

Malcolm Collins: the, the the board shorts are very cute on, on girls.

Simone Collins: Maybe this dates, this. So Dates us though.

We’re we’re girls. I know

Malcolm Collins: we are. People are like, what’s a pca? Shell necklace. Like this is like a cool thing for a while.

Simone Collins: Although, you know what, the nineties are coming back. I like Gen Z has discovered. Clueless, apparently. And they’re like, damn. Like this is so memeable they, they’re really [00:25:00] into it. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Let’s go back to the article. New heading, irreconcilable. Sorry. Irreconcilable vibes. If the stereotypical divorce of yesteryear was caused by infidelity, the impetus for a Gen Z divorce tends to be more subtle. I’ve heard about people having different love languages, which isn’t something I’ve heard of other than for the past few years.

Said Grant Mower 50, a lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia, who’s written about Gen Z divorce trends for his firm’s blog. Mr. Mower said he had seen infidelity cited as the reason for divorce much less frequently among Gen Z couples compared with older married people. He noted this might be because affairs tend to start further into a marriage.

Rather emotional wellbeing as many young people’s, many a young petitioner is North Star. Also he’s

Malcolm Collins: emotional wellbeing. I love, you know, if you search for emotional wellbeing, nothing will get you less emotional wellbeing. Like, emotional.

Simone Collins: Actually, we No, no, no. Studies. Joan, when men and women get [00:26:00] divorced, on average, men experience a drop in emotional wellbeing.

Yeah. Women do an increase, experience. An increase. No. I definitely have seen people divorcing for reasons that are more mental health focused. He said adding that pop psychology terms of art have a way of creeping in. I hear gaslighting a lot. I also hear narcissists to describe behaviors that are probably just garden variety.

Selfish when it comes to the division of assets. Mr. Moer pointed out. There’s often little property to split again. Even the oldest Gen Z divorcees are only in their late twenties, though there’s a good deal of student debt and for digital currencies like Bitcoin to contend with. He added that most of his Gen Z clients come to him before they have children.

To your point, Malcolm and both Mr. Mower and Ms. Combs, were quick to note that Gen Z prioritizes fast, efficient divorces. They do not want to drag things out, and that’s the one smart thing we’ve read so far. Nicole Mitchell, a 26-year-old podcaster in Nashville who married at 18 and divorced about a year and a half later, [00:27:00] objected to the idea that if a relationship isn’t serving you, it isn’t perfect.

Just leave that I don’t necessarily agree with. She said. I just look at the generation on social media and that narrative that’s pushed, it’s gotten a little sad. That’s that it’s all about just feeling good. I don’t think that you find the most meaningful things by just doing what feels good. Hmm. Signs of Promise, Malcolm.

But I mean, she was also like, this is probably a more based girl anyway, because she married at 18. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Ms. Mitchell’s committed to retaining her divorcee identity, but she says it’s not one to seek lightly. It would be more comfortable for me to pretend like it didn’t exist, she said, of her divorce.

But I choose to continue to be open about it because I want people to see, and I want people to know that they’re not alone in it. A huge, huge deal. According Tom Wallace, many members of Gen Z, even the newly married, see marriage as a commitment that is neither final nor exclusive. The rise of non-traditional relationship models reshaped expectations for married life, and when [00:28:00] non-monogamous options are on the table.

Some of marriages stricter requirements are defanged.

Malcolm Collins: Is it the end of three?

Simone Collins: No, they’re just showing like a, a, a clip of probably a TikTok video that’s captioned. Get yourself a baby daddy that still hypes you up. Jamie Spiker, who divorced after five years of marriage scoffs at the idea that divorce is the easy way out.

Get yourself a baby daddy that just, okay anyway, to be able to explore your personal autonomy through sexual experiences, solo or as a couple. I do think that makes it much less frightening. Mix Wallace said while members of Gen Z aren’t universally opposed to marriage, of course many simply refuse to be trapped by it.

It’s a generation accustomed to all sorts of relationship structures and divorce can be presented as an option like any other Jamie Spiker. 25 of Harrisonburg, Virginia, who works in marketing and admissions for a cosmetology school, divorced a few years ago after [00:29:00] five years of marriage. She also balks at the suggestion that divorce is the easy way out.

I think people are just really quick to say, oh, this is gonna make me a better version. I don’t wanna put the work in to try to make this marriage work. To the young divorcees themselves. It can feel as if there’s an impression from the outside that if marriage isn’t as big a deal anymore, then neither is divorce.

But even for those who aren’t ashamed of their divorces, they don’t make light of the process because it is a huge, huge deal to go through. Ms. Chance said it is irreversible. So expensive. It’s messy. Everything about your life will change, give or take. Well,

Malcolm Collins: that’s, they’re, they’re accurate there. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They, they packed the beginning of this article with all the most crazy people.

Simone Collins: With all the most crazy people. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Is that the end of the article?

Simone Collins: That is the end of the article. I think I, I, I think that this is not that poorly represented one because Gen Z isn’t really getting married that much, [00:30:00] so.

Yeah, maybe this isn’t representative of most of Gen Z because they’re not having sex, they’re not dating and getting married. Are you kidding? Like these are the unusual ones, probably the more impulsive ones. So is it so strange that they wouldn’t also get divorced for more impulsive reasons?

Malcolm Collins: Can you see comments on this?

Like what are, what are New York Times readers singing about this sort of stuff?

Simone Collins: So, because I used an archive dot. I, yes. Like,

Malcolm Collins: because we’re not using the real site.

Simone Collins: Do Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You can look it up on Reddit. See the Reddit thread that’s talking about it. ‘cause somebody almost certainly posted it to Reddit.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: let’s do that.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I mean, I, I like this that they microcosm of like, these marriages don’t even matter, right? Like, they’re not a marriage in a meaningful sense. They’re not. And I think this is where you can get. Conservatives who grow up in this culture and understand that it’s bad. And then it’s like, okay, so I’m gonna put a lot of value on marriage.

And then they act in a way because they could only [00:31:00] simulate from like a simul locker room of older conservative cultures. They end up mis simulating what you need to make a marriage actually work. And, you, you know, I think the, the crowder marriage that we talked about in a recent episode was a very good example of that.

Right. Where I think some guys began to pick up that acting angry and aggressive was what was masculine. Mm-hmm. And so they did stuff that, no, you know. Man historically that, that anybody would respect would do like, you know, yelling at employees or something like that. Like, that’s not a normal thing to do.

Yelling at your wife is not a normal thing to do. But it, it, it, you know, in, in their minds it, it becomes normal because it’s seen as a, a masculine thing to do. And, and so they’re trying to recapture something that they understand that was lost, which was masculinity. When misunderstanding that the, the ideal masculine historically was the, the gentleman, right?

And, and a gentleman is just a, a, a, a gentle [00:32:00] man, right? Not a, not a you know, you know, the foaming at the mouth, whatever. So, so what’d you find here, Simone?

Simone Collins: Nothing on Reddit. Nothing really. On X It’s interesting. Aside from some people, oh my God, sorry. Aside from some people arguing that it’s not representative and other people saying it’s, it’s just rage bait, but I actually think it’s pretty.

It’s indicative,

Malcolm Collins: it, it aligns is what I’ve seen in, in communities I have some visibility into.

Simone Collins: Agreed.

Malcolm Collins: And I don’t know if the New York Times really produces rage bait. That doesn’t seem to be, I mean, I,

Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like they’ve learned something from that article in viral about the woman who just really wanted,

Malcolm Collins: the, we, we did an episode on it, how feminism ruined her life, and that’s like our most popular podcast. Not, not, not YouTube episode, but somehow that podcast episode has gone viral.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don’t know how that happened,

Malcolm Collins: On Substack or whatever. ‘cause we, we regularly get like, likes on it every day if [00:33:00] you and I, that that doesn’t happen for most other old episodes.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah,

Simone Collins: whatever, you know.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I love you. I love you too. When are we gonna get divorced?

Simone Collins: Never. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: You know why we don’t get divorced? Because we don’t go into the same room. You see, that’s why we film

Simone Collins: his room ‘cause he bolts his door at night. Ladies and gentlemen, the, the number of times I.

Get a little frisky at night

Malcolm Collins: and

Simone Collins: you come and he’s already asleep and I’m like, like straining at his door.

Malcolm Collins: You were like, I don’t know if I wanna tell this story.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: God,

Malcolm Collins: I’m, I’m a unfortunately, very deep sleeper, so I don’t,

Simone Collins: you’re a very deep sleeper and you watch a lot of like real crime shows or like, you’ll go through stints of it and then you’re like.

I, I, I will always know that you’ve been listening to a lot of Mr. Ballin or something like that because your door will be bolted very consistently at night, and your giant hammer will be [00:34:00] next to it, and all the guns will be next to you, just like, I’m ready. I am ready. The rest of the house will be slaughtered, but you’ll be okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I’ll need it for my second family. Not a de divorcee.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But a widower.

Simone Collins: Oh, see? Yeah. It’s very hot. Men, widow men. Something about them.

Malcolm Collins: Widower men. Yes. Well, you know, he’s been married before. So that’s why he’s still on the market, right? Mm-hmm. Because he was married to someone and it was working and then they died.

So that’s the, yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Highest quality. Like if you are 30 plus getting, getting married, you’re looking for a widow, or we’re gonna wear, that’s highest quality find.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You know, dating platforms should allow for filters for that to make them easier to find.

Malcolm Collins: Only widow our, yeah, that’s, that would be what I’d go for.

Simone Collins: But then men would just start, I don’t know, murdering their. Deadbeat wives to just, you know, get a really good next one. I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s because everyone’s like, well, you know, it’s a, if it’s a widow or you’re in for,

Simone Collins: what’s [00:35:00] funny though is that when it comes to serial killers of spouses, that’s, that’s really the domain of women historically speaking.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Some really famous ones, prolific ones, and those are the ones that get caught. And, you know, women really

Malcolm Collins: often didn’t get caught historically.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You

Malcolm Collins: know

Simone Collins: well, and there’s, I mean, when, when you live privately with someone. And they don’t suspect that you’re out for them. It’s actually pretty easy.

I think there, there are quite a few ways that you could

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Without, without being caught.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, we know that the ones who were caught, they would do like seven or eight people before they were caught. So there must

Simone Collins: a lot of people doing it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: it was just so suspicious. Like how did all past eight of your husbands die?

And he is also sometimes remarkably similar scenarios.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Love you to death, Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Gorgeous . Ian, that if he was a good big brother, he would get the video game balloon [00:36:00] because you know, the moment he saw those, he was like, why are there balloons here? Why do I not, why

Malcolm Collins: don’t I have one?

Simone Collins: Yeah. There was a, you know, the universe was not okay, so,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you wanna hear about the universe being out of swords?

Did you see what I sent you that my classmate who just started her podcast? Is already in the top 50 podcasts on Spotify. She

Simone Collins: interviews famous people. Like that’s,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. She used to work for a very famous podcast, so I, that’s how she has all these connections. I can’t remember the one that she worked with.

She, she has the podcast, if you wanna check it out. Smart girl. Dumb questions. Was Nahim Raza,

Simone Collins: does she ask dumb questions?

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. I would, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve tried to watch a few of them. To me, it reminds me uncannily of the podcast voices from Google Notes.

Simone Collins: That is, yeah. I, I mean, and, and she’s doing that.

She, I, I presume she’s trying to adopt that professional podcast voice and [00:37:00] it’s like this very distinct accent just in that same way that there’s that in, in Parks and Rec whenever, what’s her face went on there. Equivalent of NPR. She adopted the NPR voice, which is also such a thing.

Malcolm Collins: But I mean, good for her.

I mean, she doesn’t have the most popular podcast in our class. There was another guy, another two groups have have more

Simone Collins: popular That’s not, no, he doesn’t have a podcast call. It is a YouTube channel. That’s, that’s

Malcolm Collins: we, no. Oh, I wasn’t even thinking about college. No. You, there’s a podcast that interviews famous business people.

Oh,

Simone Collins: them? Yes. And

Malcolm Collins: she, I remember, like he, he put one thing that was an entire stadium he had filled it was his interview with Mark Zuckerberg.

Simone Collins: Yeah, mark Zucker. I mean, come on. You can’t,

Malcolm Collins: You can’t. And then another one of my classmates has a podcast where he discusses finance that is apparently very popular.

So lots of this is, this is my Stanford GSB class. So you,

Simone Collins: that’s, it’s really telling though, that like they are GSP grads. They could be going into venture capital, they could be. [00:38:00] Hired by any company. You know, like they have the sort of the IT degree. It’s harder to get into Stanford than Harvard. They wanna be content creators.

Malcolm Collins: Who doesn’t wanna be a content creator? I wanna be a content creator. I mean, that’s what I’m doing here. Right. You know, take, take.

Simone Collins: Our kids want to be content creators. Yeah. Our kids

Malcolm Collins: wanna be content creators or everybody wants to be a content creator these days.

Simone Collins: I’ve freed it. He’s gonna get, if he’s a good big brother, he’s gonna get his video game controller.

He, when he was going through the Amazon catalog of gifts for kids, he kept calling every single game game console a Nintendo Switch. And I’m like, buddy,

Malcolm Collins: oh, so he doesn’t know what a Nintendo

Simone Collins: Switch is. That’s not a Nintendo switch. That is, you know, like an Xbox. That is a PlayStation. That is we, we need to educate our son.

This is embarrassing. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But and all day I’ve been working on improving our fab. So we’re gonna have some major improvement soon, which I’m very excited about. But what I’m really, [00:39:00] really excited about is this autonomous model feature. I’m about to start working on building.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because this is quite an undertaking, but I have a feeling I can get it done soon enough.

It, it seems. Like all the individual parts of it seem practical to create AI that are persistently sort of alive. So you can have like an AI companion that when you’re not there interacting with it, it’s on Reddit, it’s applying for jobs, it’s doing whatever, and it has a distinct personality and it can interact with your web, your, your, your, your computer.

It can code things for you, it can blah, blah, blah, like a real. Wife or husband you know, just to make sure that I curb stomp the fertility rate personally.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No longer is she just an AI yfu? She’s, she’s an AI yfu breadwinner, and you can be. Stay at home

Malcolm Collins: if, if you do any good enough job structuring her.

Yeah. And we’re gonna give

Simone Collins: Stay home dad to my stay at home AI children with my [00:40:00] wife,

Malcolm Collins: stay at home. AI children

Simone Collins: who goes out and works. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. But I’m so excited ‘cause I like, I’ve saw through it and I practically have, I’ve been working on all the, the parts and how they’re gonna work.

Simone Collins: No mic jostling.

Oh, this mic. It’s really bothering people. So either you have to put it down on the desk in front of you somewhere.

Malcolm Collins: I will, I will hold it right here. Okay. Or I need a, a mic mount actually.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you do. And you have multiple, so

Malcolm Collins: no, none of them. Get the mic close enough to me. I need like a standing mic mount.

Simone Collins: That’s the time.

Malcolm Collins: I’ll get one of those.

Simone Collins: You’re gonna have to do it my friend. Sorry.

I am just opening a tab to do it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I don’t forget. So you guys will not get any more jostling and, and you let me know if I’ve ever jostled in a piece so I can rerecord it. Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it happened, it happened a lot on the last one. So we got our work set out for us, but. Oh, [00:41:00] well anyway, I’m ready to go.

I just, I just needed to get this for Octavian ‘cause I promised him and I promised Torsten.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you do not have the

Simone Collins: a blue one

Malcolm Collins: article open. I was gonna have you read it because you were

Simone Collins: so angry. Oh, you said you wanted to select very specific parts of it, but I’m

Malcolm Collins: happy. No, no, because when you started reading it I was like, this whole thing is gold.

When you said it was short. Short. Anyway. It

Simone Collins: is. Okay, so let me,

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, this autonomous AI thing, I think I might be able to have the first version of it working maybe within the month, within like a month. So, that’s, that’s, that’s really exciting.

Simone Collins: All right, so then I will introduce us ‘cause I’m reading presumably.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Speaker 7: I get Yes. Oh, is it so great? Dirty Peanut?

Speaker 9: They’re they’re, they’re pumpkin seeds.

Speaker 5: What is it? What is it? Show me. Oh my gosh. You know what this does? Yes. You can make a bracelet with this. Yeah. Are you excited?

Speaker 6: [00:42:00] Okay.

In this episode, we dive deep into the systemic manipulation and bias of mainstream media, exploring stories and scandals that often go underreported or are misrepresented. From the fallout of the Epstein files and the controversies surrounding political figures, to the intricacies of election interference and media cover-ups, we break down how narratives are shaped and why certain truths remain hidden.We discuss the role of both traditional and new media in influencing public perception, the impact of social media campaigns, and the rise of authenticity as a response to media distrust. The conversation covers everything from the Russia election interference and its connection to movements like Black Lives Matter, to the BBC’s editorial controversies and the broader implications for democracy and free speech.Join us as we question the status quo, revisit so-called conspiracy theories, and challenge the narratives pushed by powerful institutions. Whether you’re a skeptic or a believer, this episode encourages critical thinking and a closer look at the stories that shape our world.Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments below![00:00:00]

Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today.

Today we are going to be talking about just how effing evil the media is.

Speaker 13: Coming up next, we have an exclusive interview with Hell’s own head Honcho, who’s here to discuss her brand new passion project

and I think that a lot of people who. Watch our show ‘cause we have a number of progressives who watch our show. And if you’re a conservative, you might have picked up some of these stories that we’re gonna be covering in this show.

But what we’re gonna be covering is a lot of stories that haven’t gotten as much coverage as they probably should have, and show the way that mainstream media has been systemically manipulating the public for. A long time, especially recently with the biggest fallout being the fallout of the Epstein files is what we’re going to start with.

Because if you watched the Drudge report or watched a lot of mainstream news, you would think that these had a bunch of damning things of Trump in them when in fact they may actually provide [00:01:00] a smoking gun that the Democrats may have killed somebody recently.

Simone Collins: What?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. We’ll get to this in a second, but the gist being is I always ask if the Democrats actually had anything that could be used against Trump in the Epstein files.

Why didn’t they release it during the election with Biden, right? Yeah,

Simone Collins: right.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we learned why they didn’t and why they did. Now, the way they made it look like Trump had met with somebody underage was by blacking out a person’s name. But now we have the real version of this because people leaked the real version of it.

Congressman did showing. Well,

Simone Collins: they did. Oh, I didn’t know that.

Malcolm Collins: So we know whose name was on it. We know that the person’s name was on it, testified both in Congress and wrote in her book that Trump had done nothing wrong to her.

Simone Collins: So it was that woman. Okay? Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And that she mysteriously committed suicide.

Despite saying on multiple occasions she [00:02:00] would never commit suicide. Only, I think it was a month before the release of the files, or it might’ve even just been weeks before this quote unquote release, and she needed to be dead during the release. Otherwise, she could immediately come out and say, Hey, I said this under oath and I said this in my book, but really seriously, what are you guys doing?

Trump has always been there for me.

Simone Collins: Wow. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So it’s worse than it looks. And why did they release this now? It appears they released it because they thought it would make Trump look bad to cover up. They’re bungling of the shutdown, which is just, their base is so mad at them because they’re based at the impression that they had won because they won these election cycles and in polling it was looking like they were winning, except I think they saw the.

Wind and it was not gonna last for long. People were getting mad at the Democrats over the snap benefit stuff when Trump rightly pointed out that this was a fight over [00:03:00] them trying to give medical care from American taxpayers to illegal immigrants.

Note, if you’re getting your news from the traditional media, they’d say, oh no, the shutdown wasn’t over that because. Illegal immigrants couldn’t get Medicare anyway and couldn’t get healthcare anyway, except that we know of tons of instances in which they did. It’s the same when they said, oh, illegal immigrants can’t vote.

And yet we had this sting operation that got very little coverage showing nonprofit directors in New York leading up to the AMI election, , literally telling somebody who they thought was an illegal immigrant, how to vote and who to vote for.

Speaker: Oh, did you register? Sorry? When did you register to vote? I, I did not. I, I, I didn’t sign anything. They just told me to come here to vote.

Speaker 5: What I found most odd is that Pedro Rodriguez would keep telling me that I did not reside at an address that he personally signed the letter saying that I resided at.

Speaker: He gave me winking, a nod. He told me, vote for the man whose name begins with the letter [00:04:00] M

And it always really gets to me when they’re all like, oh, there’s been no documented evidence of large scale illegal immigrant voting when we know that Texas, for example, had to remove 2,700, , non-citizens from its voter rolls. , And that in, in Florida, even the Democrats would say. Oh, it wasn’t 180,000 non-citizens who were moved.

It was 2,625 non-citizens who were moved.

And this isn’t coming from far, far right group. This is the A CLU saying this so we know this is something that happens and it’s just like this narrative that gets repeated over and over again that it doesn’t happen.

Malcolm Collins: and that’s what the Trump administration was putting their foot down on.

And the longer that went on, the more that would burn the Democratic coalition. So I will say that in the short term, they were winning on this, well, potentially they cheated in a few elections. If you look at the Mond ballot situation, that was shocking to me when I saw that. The Zhan mond’s wait name.

Wait, what?

Simone Collins: What Momani ballot situation.

Malcolm Collins: The [00:05:00] guy who just won in New York.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What ha

Malcolm Collins: what’s thought the ballot thought about this guy? His name was on the ballot multiple times and it was on the ballot Oh. Ballot, multiple times before the only real competitor to him was on the ballot. Right. This was like very deliberate to hide a chance to vote for the real competitor.

And then there’s been significant foul play in the Virginia race that. Eh, I might add that in post if people are interested in that. But yeah, it looks really bad. Like when you look at the Mond race, you’re like, he literally couldn’t have lost the race given the way the ballot was structured.

And that’s really horrifying to me that we live in a country where something,

No. While I have been able to find legal justification for having Mond’s name on the ballot twice and for having Cuomo’s name later on the ballot, I have been able to find no legal justification for right justifying Cuomo’s ballot measure and leaving [00:06:00] the three left justified boxes that would’ve left his name more visible.

If you just ordered it in the normal way, it would’ve been ordered blank.

And I’d also point out here that even if something is quote unquote the legal way it’s done, that doesn’t mean that it’s not also cheating. , You can put laws on the book that give one party an unfair advantage in a particular area. That’s exactly what some of the Supreme Court decisions have been about preventing.

, That’s exactly what. Voting Rights Act stuff is about, , the idea that you’re like, oh yeah, it’s totally normal to have a candidate listed twice before his primary competitor. , Because of these laws that we put on the book, that doesn’t make it fair. This point is extremely important. , I hate when people, and this has been a constant thing on this podcast, when people are like, well, what they did was legal, therefore, it’s a non-issue. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be. Talking about it in the news so that [00:07:00] the laws can be changed to make our elections fair.

I don’t think any sane thinking person looking at this ballot would say that this election was fair .

Malcolm Collins: Basically what I’m saying is him winning is not. As much as I had thought, a implication that democratic sentiment is overflowing right now. But more of a, he just cheated.

Simone Collins: Oh wow. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, when you saw the ballot, did you sort of like, oh yeah, there’s no way the other major candidate could have win.

Simone Collins: It is pretty confusing. Yeah. Yeah. To be fair,

Malcolm Collins: if you had been on the ballot twice and the only person running against you was after like eight other candidates, you wouldn’t have thought you could win or you would’ve said, oh, no, you would’ve been like, yeah, I’m gonna win. I don’t care if anybody knows who I am.

Simone Collins: No, I, I mean, yeah, it, it has also been shown, I think, in various studies that you’re positioning on a ballot is going to mess with your odds of winning. I also remember [00:08:00] when, when I unsuccessfully ran for office. How crestfallen I felt when my, my position was on the, the only thing on the flip side of the ballot, and a lot of people probably missed it.

I’ve been filling out the ballot. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: you see it matters where you are on the ballot. Yeah. And I note here, this actually gets to me because I think I only saw this on Asma Gold. I’ve literally not seen it covered by the mainstream news at all. Wow. Which really shocked me. And also interesting, we recently learned that now our highest overlapping fan base is as asthma gold.

Which made me feel really good. And now we have a big overlapping fan base with NS as well. I’m like, wow. We’re getting into the, you’re in big company, the, the big leagues. So fun. With, and Tim Pool is another big overlap for us. But I was surprised to see that. But then the next one that I wanna go into here is the text messages.

‘cause again, this is another thing that I’ve also only seen from streamers. It’s not that news hasn’t covered it, but I’ve only seen it heavily covered as somebody who checks the Drudge report every [00:09:00] day, which is an aggregator and should be showing this stuff if it’s being covered a lot. Yeah. Is so, , a, a House of representative member. Okay. Stacey Plat. Now I will note she is a and, and a Democrat. Mind you this was after Jeffrey Epstein. So in 2019, after he was convicted as a sex offender and pleaded guilty to it, right? So he was known as a sex offender at this point.

Simone Collins: Okay?

Malcolm Collins: But we now have a series of texts from her.

Where Michael Cohen was testifying, attempting to take down Trump, where she was communicating with Epstein where it was clear that she was basically acting. Within the US house as Epstein’s mouthpiece in an attempt to take down Trump, because Epstein saw Trump is one of his core enemies, which again, was made clear multiple times in the leaks.

Now the Democrats are like, oh, this proves that Epstein looked down on Trump and Epstein was a bad guy. So Trump must be a really bad guy. No, and I’m like, [00:10:00] that’s not the way it works. It proves it. Epstein for a long time has had an existential fear of Trump, and they were not at all buddy buddies, and that Epstein likely had nothing on Trump or he would’ve used it given.

When you see what Epstein was doing during this congressional hearing. Okay, well

Simone Collins: that’s the gold simple take is that they were, it appears to be that they were friends and they had a falling out. It’s, it’s simple.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And the falling out was Yeah. Over Epstein creeping on young girls.

Simone Collins: Yeah. At

Malcolm Collins: his

Simone Collins: at and Mar-a-Lago.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it is also clear that Trump knew that Epstein creeped on long girls and tried to tell the public about it in not uncertain terms. Yeah. There are clips of in the past where he’s like, yeah, Epstein likes them young. Yeah, like in a, like, you should do something about this. Like, I’m telling you, yes, we might

wanna

Simone Collins: look into this.

I’m

Malcolm Collins: the news. Like, look into this. Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway and you can see why Epstein might have been freaked out about Trump saying that, and why this may have caused the, the fight, but we’ve gone over that in other videos. I wanna get to this. [00:11:00] So Epstein texts, herb Cohen brought up Rona Keeper of Secrets.

This is referring to Rona Gaff. Trump’s a longtime ex executive assistant, but misspelling her name and then PLT responds. Rona question, question mark. So note here, she then says, quick, I’m up next. Is this an acronym? So she had no idea who Rona was. Rona. Was this guy who was on Michael Cohen’s assistant Epstein, was tweeting to a US congressional representative, a democratic one.

Basically, you need to ask about Rono when you get on stage. She then implies, well, not implies, she basically says it quick. I’m up next. Is this an acronym showing? She had no idea who RONA was. So she’s gonna go on stage and ask about Rona. Because Epstein told her to. Okay. Then Epstein [00:12:00] says that’s his assistant.

Then Epstein says he’s opened the door to questions regarding who are the other henchmen at trump org. Plat goes, yep. Very aware in waiting my turn, and then after she gives her deposition. Epstein text her good work, literally sitting. And she’s still in Congress, by the way. She’s a non-voting member because she’s from the US Virgin Islands, but she is acting as a wait.

We,

Simone Collins: we,

Malcolm Collins: we

Simone Collins: elect and pay non-voting members of Congress.

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: in the US Virgin Islands? Does she receive a salary for this?

Malcolm Collins: I’m pretty sure she, well, I know she receives $30,000 from Epstein. But yeah.

Simone Collins: And more disturbed honestly, if taxpayers are paying for her

She receives a salary of $174,000 a year.

Malcolm Collins: to, no, no. This is a, this is a big deal that this was after we knew Epstein was a convicted sex offender, and he had [00:13:00] a democratic congressional representative who was able to ask who questions during hearings.

Notably in this. Event in an effort to take down Trump as Epstein’s mouthpiece, and then told like, good job. Like being patted on the head like a dog. Like that is wild to me. As, as gold said when he went over this, oh my God, is Epstein Heard? GPT

Simone Collins: Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so another thing that I wanted to go on here was the chance, because this has opened, the Epstein files have again opened the possibility that the Clintons may have off someone to hide an affair that Hillary was having.

Simone Collins: I just love this recurring theme.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, this didn’t hit me, and then I was like.

Oh wait. Yeah, I remember when republicans used to say that and I thought they were crazy conspiracy theorists. Yeah. And now that I’ve realized that a lot of like conspiracy theorists are batting 10 for [00:14:00] 10 these days, I should probably revisit those particular deaths. As well as we will revisit the death of Victoria, the person who was holding up the release of the Epstein files, because basically Democrats had no reason to really release it and the

Simone Collins: redacted victim in the most recently released documents.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also, you can say, why did Trump fight the release? Well, I mean, the release has happened now and it didn’t really have anything that made Trump look particularly bad. Our previous guess was that it was. Intelligence either Saudi or Israeli intelligence. I still think that’s the case. And it just wasn’t in what was released.

Simone Collins: Though most recently, he is expressed support for releasing all the files. I mean, now it’s a considered a rel a relative inevitability, I think currently. Kelsey vote voting or betting odds that the Epstein files just totally get released, or like 96%. So everyone’s pretty confident that everything’s gonna come out anyway, so then why would not [00:15:00] Trump express support for it?

But yeah, my guess is that the, the still, the biggest reason why he didn’t before was. There was too much strategically for the US to lose if we did release all that information, even though it would be satisfying or it might

Malcolm Collins: have been that he thought that this stuff would make him look bad when it really doesn’t.

Could be.

I do think the fact that he pushed for the Es Epstein files to be fully released after this particular release happened about him, makes me think that this was what all of the fuss was about for him. Either that or, as I’ve seen some democratic news sources ringing their hands about, did he receive some sort of assurance that the files had been scrubbed of things related to him, yet that seems unlikely.

I’m sure we’re gonna get a bunch of files of things related to Trump. I think that what we learned from this is it was that specific instance that he was so worried about.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. But anyway, to continue here because it’s actually been surprising how [00:16:00] like nothing Burger it is with, with, and we’ll, we’ll go into other stuff here. Interesting here once is that Epstein wrote Nusbaum White House Council Hillary doing naughties with Vince implying that he had information.

Now note, he had no proof of this information, but it implied that he had information that Vince Foster a long time associated the Clintons from Ogden saws where he worked with Hillary at the Rose law firm starting in the 1970s. He served as Deputy White House counsel in the early days of Bill Clinton’s presidency On July 20th, 1993, foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park, Virginia from a gunshot wound to the mouse, which had officially ruled a suicide by multiple investigations, including an independent counsel by Ken Starr, but anyway however the death has long fueled conspiracy theories due to inconsistencies like the lack of fingerprints on the gun. That’s a big inconsistency. Mm, a missing bullet and witness statement discrepancies.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Rumors of an affair between [00:17:00] Hillary and Foster Predate the Epstein email. They appeared in books like Russ and Keller’s, the First Family Detail 2014, and Christopher Anderson’s bill and Hillary the Marriage, 1999, citing anonymous sources like state troopers who claim to see foster visiting the Clinton’s home during Bill’s absences.

Hillary Clinton was con consistently denied any romantic involvement describing Foster as a close friend and colleague. The Epstein allegation re. Revives these old claims. Now I do. I think that Hillary Clinton is the type of person who would cheat on Bill Clinton? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, they seemed to have had a near open marriage from what I can see.

She didn’t seem particularly mad when he was caught cheating.

Simone Collins: I know, but she just seems more interested in. Practical maneuvering for influence and power not, come

Malcolm Collins: on. They’re debauched people. If, if I do, I do not think I, I’m,

Simone Collins: he just doesn’t seem like [00:18:00] a fun person. Like I look at Bill and he looks like a man who could.

Indulge in hedonic fun times. Hillary doesn’t look like that kind of person.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I could see Hillary is the type of person who would love an attractive man who fond over her and told her how great she was and how amazing she was and how beautiful she was, and. I don’t think that it was about the sex for her.

I think it was about all the other stuff, but it, it seems within her character. Do I think that Hillary Clinton is the type of person who would lie if you didn’t have definitive proof she had cheated? Yes, absolutely. Like that is completely was in her character. So her denying it tells us nothing. So really, it just seems broadly likely to me.

Do I think she’s the type of person who would organize a hit on somebody? Well, let’s go further evidence on that. Okay. And by the way, we’re also gonna get to the BBC covering things up and everything like that and all the media stuff. But I’m like, it’s weird that I was unaware of how plausible this stuff was.

Simone Collins: Also Anna’s cancellation. My [00:19:00] gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, talk about that, Simone.

Simone Collins: Right? So, for those of you not familiar with the Red Scare Podcast, it is hosted by Anna and Dasha. Anna is also an actress, most notably, I guess like recently she, she was in succession, the show, the HBO show that was really popular. And she most recently it hit the news because she was dropped by her talent agency and, movie that she was working on after she and Dasha had Nick Fuentes on the Red Scare podcast, which is really crazy because I, I think arguably they’ve had much more controversial people on the podcast in the past and we’ve all been under, under the impression that we’re past the age Yeah. Of, yeah.

Cancellation, especially due to what I would call like social contagion, fears. Like, oh, you talked the bad person, therefore we cancel you. I mean, I can understand [00:20:00] cancellation because you yourself espouse the wrong views. Capital W. Capital V, but like the fact that she, and. Dasha had Nick Fuentes on their podcast, and again, they’ve had very controversial people on their podcast.

Like our friend Ze has been on their podcast. Yeah. Well, Ze no he’s not. Like I’m talking way more controversial than that. But it is, it is really, really wild to me. What I think happened is that this isn’t so much a media being corrupted thing as it is that the talent agency and likely the movie in question as well.

Both had people, possibly even the same person who were like, it’s me or Anna, like, I will walk if you do not get rid of her because of. What she did. Because I still think in the end that’s why cancellations took place in the first place. It’s that businesses and individuals felt like they [00:21:00] would lose essential sources of income or essential audiences or essential customers if they did not bend to the whims of a different contingent that was making demands and basically a me or them demand.

So I think that that’s what happened. Who knows, because we have no insight into this. We have no insider insight into this. But I still think it’s really, it’s, it’s something because I didn’t. I didn’t think this was possible post vibe shift. I thought we were beyond that and, and clearly we’re not.

Yeah, no.

Malcolm Collins: That upset me and that what galvanized me on the Israel thing. Like, we need to make a move on this. The right needs to make a move on this otherwise,

Simone Collins: and mean the Israel thing. You, you, you are pointing to a different podcast in which you encouraged a different policy among conservatives in which we financially cut off Israel and stopped sending military support and instead Ally in different ways.

Because

Malcolm Collins: we,

Simone Collins: well, it completely

Malcolm Collins: undermine the Democrats in the next election cycle.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But like also this very consistent [00:22:00] conservative support of Israel, sort of in a more unquestioning way. Well,

Malcolm Collins: it doesn’t even matter because Netanyahu was planning on canceling it in 2028 anyway, so, right. Like why not do it now when, when we can claim the victory for it.

Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Basically the, the point being that like we need to sort of break this. This flashpoint, which appears to be fueling what some people are calling a civil war on the right. Honest cancellation, I think is independent of that. But I mean, of course them, them interviewing Nick Fuentes is, is maybe part of that.

Maybe it’s just that. Someone really hates Nick Fuentes and Anna having him on her podcast was enough for that. But yeah,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, and, and it would really piss off Ben Shapiro, so that, I find that hilarious.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, to continue here so. Here moving forwards. What made people think that this might have been an assassination?

Alright, so a torn [00:23:00] resignation letter was found in Foster’s briefcase days after his death, accusing the White House FBI press, GOP and Clinton of various issues. It had been smudged palm print, later identified as burna NASA bombs, but no fingerprints. Three handwriting Xray originally suggested it was a forgery.

Although it later did not appear to be a forgery, but I think it’s even worse if it’s not a forgery. He’s got a note in his bag being like, I’m gonna expose the Clintons that after he is found dead. In unusual circumstances,

Simone Collins: I don’t know. That seems so suspicious. If you write a resignation letter that you ultimately don’t plan on submitting, you don’t just like tear it and then put it back in your desk.

Well, he was in

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, a bag. Yeah. He, he was Foster was holding a cult 38 special in his right hand, in his sum through the trigger guard wait in his right hand with his sum through the trigger guard conspiracy theorists claimed the gun was placed, postmortem the body was moved or staged, and that there was no exit wound based on a park.

[00:24:00] Police officer’s official Miss Misstatement, they said blonde hair, carpet fibers on his suit and semen in his underwear were highlighted as odd. That is odd. Why would there be semen in your underwear?

Simone Collins: Well, I don’t know. He didn’t clean up after. Diddling yourself? Very well.

Malcolm Collins: I, that, that is not an issue that I think men have.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. I, I don’t know how this works

Malcolm Collins: unless he’d had like a, a, an affair at work. Oh. Who might he have had an affair with anyway, to continue suggesting the body was transported or involved in foul play. It On July 22nd, 1993 whitewater related documents were removed from Foster’s office and sent to the Clinton’s personal attorney raising questions about tampering coverups.

Then the next one that is often said to be part of the Hillary Body Trail is Mark Middleton former Clinton White House aide who facilitated Jeffrey Epstein’s visits to the White House in the 1990s. He [00:25:00] died in May 7th, 2022 at Hyer Ranch in Al Arkansas’s, sororities ruled it as suicide, but the unusual method and connections have fueled conspiracy method.

And the seed Middleton was found hanging from a tree with an extension cord around his neck and a shotgun wound to the chest. The shotgun was located. 30 feet away with a gun case and buckshot in his nearby SUV. He reportedly stood on a bench tied to the cord, shot himself and fell flinging the gun due to recoil.

No blood was visible on the body and initial media reports. EG daily mail claimed a no sign of a weapon, although that was later corrected when the weapon was found. 30 feet away. The tree was reportedly only 80% of the height needed for typical hanging with no platform or LA ladder mentioned Beyond the bench.

The dual method shooting versus hanging seemed overly elaborate leading to claims it was a stage suicide. Middleton ties to Epstein further, and hence [00:26:00] this they say that the lack of blood was due to rapid death. Wait, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to, I guess the heart wasn’t pumping as fast, so there was less blood.

That seems. Implausible was a shotgun. ‘cause a shotgun’s not gonna like remove the heart.

Simone Collins: The otter thing is the combination of, of things and the shotgun that far away from the body.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. From kickback. I don’t, I don’t buy that

Simone Collins: well. So like, just shoot yourself if that’s what it comes down to, you know, like why the hanging that seems like so much more work.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

And I’d note on the Clinton body count thing, , I’m revisiting them only because I didn’t give them a fair shake the first time I heard about these stories. Not because I actually think that any of these were, , likely assassinations. , Even with the story that we’re, we’ll, we’ll get to in a second.

, The stories that I’m talking about today, I still lean towards. These are probably not assassinations, , whereas the. Story we talked about yesterday was the Trump attempted, , killer [00:27:00] that, that I think was very obviously foul play on behalf of the FBI. And you can watch our episode on that with this stuff.

I’m still not entirely convinced, but I will say that it’s worth giving it a shake.

when we’re entering a point in the timeline where when I look back on things that were previously labeled conspiracy theories, a lot more of them than I would’ve suspected or bet have turned out to be accurate or more evidence-based than I originally suspected. So I think it’s worth revisiting them occasionally.

Okay. So, now the thing that I talked about earlier, the thing that came out that the Democrats had to wait to release until this woman had died. Mm-hmm. This was November, 2025. The it said, I want to you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is Trump and added that the alleged victim’s name that was later released to the public, spent hours at my house with him.

He never once has been mentioned. Note here. Why didn’t he say what he had done or use a euphemism for what they had done if he had done more than literally just spent [00:28:00] time with her at the house? Especially given the fact that that, that she had repeatedly said that Trump did nothing.

And I’ll note here, the dog had, didn’t bark. It’s a literary reference to a Sherlock home story implying. Significant something that didn’t happen. So again, that also implies that nothing happened there, right? Like he’s trying to get evidence on Trump and he was unable to get evidence on Trump.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Now multiple sources have claimed that the name was Virginia G’s name. Let’s see who these sources are.

Simone Collins: Well, and that specifically, the reason it was redacted was not to protect the name of any particular victim, but to make it seem more incriminating than it was because she was on the record as,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Well,

Simone Collins: we know that Exon Trump,

Malcolm Collins: you do not redact names in a situation like this if the person is deceased. So. It is very sus that it was redacted. It, it basically means it was redacted intentionally to try to make it look like Trump had done something he didn’t, and use a dead woman’s reputation to do that [00:29:00] which is very bad and a very bad look.

Note here Democrats released an email of Epstein that highlighted that Trump, quote, unquote, knew about the girls. We, we know that Trump said that, like, I’m confused about this. Trump tried to make a, like, that is why Trump blew up his relationship with Epstein, because Epstein was creeping on younger girls, right?

Like Trump has always said that from the very beginning, and it’s, it’s been in the earliest recounted records of this. So I don’t, I don. See that is particularly damning. Let’s look at the car crash, right? Okay, so about a month before her death, this is Victoria, right on March 24th, 2025. Guffey was involved in a suspicious bucks, a bus accident in Western Australia. She posted about it online saying that she was hospitalized with severe injuries. And given only four days to live, but miraculously recovered.

Now, obviously given the fact that she died just months after this and it appeared that they’ve. We’re looking to get her dead to release these files. You know, as soon as Democrats had an interest in release, she was

Speaker 2: final [00:30:00] destination.

Malcolm Collins: Ah, right. Now also her father, sky Roberts publicly rejected suicide saying that there’s no way she took her own life demanding an independent probe. And I, I would know that with, with people in my family, like some people in my family, if they died, I’d just be like, no, that’s, that’s not possible.

Oh, by the way, if I end up committing suicide, I would never commit suicide. I want that on the record. Okay. If I commit suicide, I was off for what I am saying.

Simone Collins: Well, I, I think that it’s different. If we have like great grandchildren and we feel like we’re not useful anymore.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah. If I’m an old person, I’m not useful.

I’m talking about like in the, in, in the middle of my advocacy work.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I’m still

Malcolm Collins: a public advocate. Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, no, no. Like, I mean, again, you know, none of our children are grown yet. Like it’s very obvious that we wouldn’t. Commit suicide. I mean, I think even when, when we have the ability to be useful in the form of caring for grandchildren, we’re not gonna wanna, we’re not gonna wanna do that.

Oh, by the way, I, I, I, [00:31:00] I’ve noticed recently with re regard to the, the S word people are just cutting the sound for that one part when they say the word, Oh

Malcolm Collins: really?

Simone Collins: Which seems to help with the algorithm. So something to consider.

Malcolm Collins: Also days after her death, a handwritten note from GRE was found calling for quote unquote justice, now what’s interesting further is the, the, this case gets weirder by the way. So how can it

Speaker 2: get weirder?

Malcolm Collins: She claims that the bus was traveling at 68 miles per hour and that struck her vehicle causing life-threatening injuries, right?

Remember she said. Yes, you know, my life is at risk. In contrast, the Western Australian police described it as a minor crash, no reported injuries, and only about $2,000 in damage to her car’s taillight said that the clip bus clipped her. And it was being driven at 46, not 68. It said the car suddenly turned into its past and it wasn’t a major impact.

He didn’t even notice Jeffrey at the scene and only [00:32:00] learned later from an elderly driver about the passenger was a quote unquote black eye. . This gets really weird because the driver said that he hadn’t even noticed and he didn’t even report this to the next day.

So either she is just completely manufacturing this story. For sympathy or something, or this is a hit and somebody paid some people off in a rural police department. Mm-hmm. I don’t know what I think is more plausible. I, I guess it’s more plausible that she made this up. But then again, she did disappear shortly afterwards, which was a little weird.

Anyway.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s the thing. Yeah. I mean, but I mean, clearly someone, someone is not representing the truth. Very accurately. Yeah. I don’t know who it is.

Malcolm Collins: So, next thing we’re gonna go over, I don’t know if you’ve looked at the Russia game and just how much of that was like an actual case of really shady stuff that Obama did.

Simone Collins: No Obama [00:33:00] of, of, of Trump being elected by like, or, or, or Russian operatives playing a huge role in the 2016 election. That’s what you’re referring to, right? Well, they

Malcolm Collins: didn’t.

Simone Collins: Right, the, the allegations that Russian operatives, yeah. So played a huge role in Trump. I’ll go bit more election go,

Malcolm Collins: but essentially Obama did something really weird which was, go to a number of senior appointees he had within the DOJ and tell them to put together this dossier. He’s basically like, I need you to a group of handpicked officials, which, you know, wasn’t officials that you would pick if you were trying to choose the most competent or best researchers. Okay. He basically picked the collection of the five most CRO appointees that he had within the DOJ.

Oh dear. He then. Appointed them directly, which is not a normal thing for a president to do, to write a. Dossier on Russia election interference on behalf of Donald Trump. [00:34:00] Then when somebody who, Rogers who was the director of National Security Agency, the NSA came back because he was like, I forgot, like on leave or on vacation.

He was like freaked out at what was happening. He tried to act to have it shut down. And he wrote I’ve just returned from, from a TDY overseas and have been updated on the current status of the efforts to produce a joint project related to Russian attribution and intent for the DNC. DC. C hacks.

However, I wanted to reach out to you directly to let you know of some concerns I’ve had with what I am hearing of my folks. Specifically. I asked my team if they had sufficient access to underlying intelligence and sufficient time to review the intelligence. On both of these, my teammate’s concerns.

And I’m not gonna go further here ‘cause it’s a very long email. But he basically says what? Like, you need to stop this. And my team is being blocked from accessing [00:35:00] specific information, which is critical to make inference on this. And why did you assign it to my team? The one guy who would’ve pushed back when I was away on vacation basically, or on A-A-D-O-J leave, like researching something maybe.

Now the longer part of the reply, I’m gonna leave out here. But part of it was. We may have to compromise on our quote unquote, normal modalities. He literally put normal in square quotes here, normal modalities. Since we must do this on such a compressed schedule, why do they need to do it on a compressed schedule?

Yeah. Other than to get something out there that fits their narrative before Trump comes into office.

Simone Collins: Oh dear.

Malcolm Collins: So what I’m saying is I do, I was unaware because as a person who confirmed liberal media at the time of just how disproven the Russiagate controversy was, and in fact, previous investigations that have been done.

Not by the, the, you [00:36:00] know, the people with obvious biased agendas have shown that the reality is, is that Russian interference was, the election was completely aimed at just making people doubt the results of the election more broadly. Right? Basically, they set up traps for both Democrats and Republicans.

To try to inflame the crazy parts of both parties at about equal rates from what they’ve seen or just wherever they thought they could get crazier stuff. And so by publishing this, Obama was literally assisting the very stated efforts of the Russian misinformation campaign.

Simone Collins: Wow.

So if you were watching mainstream media at the time and didn’t, hear about this, , one of the IRAs, this was the Russia Election Interference Wings. Primary Operations was a black activist page, , that focused on things like racial injustice, police brutality, trying to create the [00:37:00] narrative of black people being disproportionately victimized to get them, , politically radicalized.

Eeg, this was the predecessor, Russiagate was the predecessor to what ended up becoming Black Lives Matter. In fact, , if you look at the, , this is an NPR that I’m reading from here, right? NPR I’m reading from a report titled Senate Report, Russian through Social Media, mostly to Target Race in 2016.

Quote and using ads was location targeting, quote, principally aimed at African Americans in key metropolitan areas in quote, the Russian information operations focused on page like Blacktivism, which garnered 11.2 million engagements on with Facebook users.

As a side note, this is why I get so frustrated with the Republicans who act like Russia is like our ally or something. They saw Democrats make this claim IE, that Russia supported the Republican party and they just unironically believed it and went along with it when it was media [00:38:00] misinformation. If you have a problem with the Black Lives Matter movement, then you have a problem with Russian election interference.

They are your enemy.

So yes. . There. There was definitely instances in which Russia tried to radicalize Republican voters, but there were equal instances in which they tried to radicalize, democratic voters.

As a great example of this, , May 27th, 2016 in Houston, one Russia back page, heart of Texas, was posting right-wing succession, anti-Islamic protest, stop the Islamicization of Texas. Meanwhile, a separate democratic page that they ran titled United Muslims of America organized the counter protest to the protest that their right wing protest was organizing.

And we even see, , early in 2016, IRA documents instructed trolls to support Bernie Sanders. .

To any extent [00:39:00] that Trump was, this actually is the key to understanding why it appears in some looks at the data that Russia was supporting Trump more than Hillary. It wasn’t that they were supporting the Republicans more than the Democrats, it’s that they thought Trump was a spoiler candidate like Bernie.

That’s why they supported him.

Simone Collins: Okay. That’s a blast from the past, but that’s pretty bad.

Malcolm Collins: Good gracious. So, and I’m sure you’ve been seeing this, but it is uniquely bad for any of our fans who haven’t. There have been two instances in which BBC has been found to very deceptively edit a tape to make it look like Trump is calling for a violent insurrection on the capitol when we know, oh, Virginia.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. What

Simone Collins: on January 6th?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, on January 6th. On January 6th. Basically, well, I’ll play the tape.

Speaker 8: And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore. We’re gonna walk down. [00:40:00] To the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not gonna be cheering so much for some of them

Malcolm Collins: but, when you look at the real tape, it’s very clear that there was nothing of the sort, like somebody sat down and was like, I am going to deceptively edit this. But it gets worse because since then, further leaks have come out that people in the room when it was happening, like when the tapes were being reviewed for air, said We can’t air this.

This is intentionally deceptive. Mm-hmm. And they were dismissed. And then after it went to air a guy, who was it?

Simone Collins: At least someone has a very satisfying, I told you so this week must feel so good for them. So smug? Mm,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Delicious. Well, no, it was actually every batch had a Republican and a Democrat who was [00:41:00] supposed to like tell them if they weren’t allowed to do stuff or if they were doing something egregious.

And it was the Republican who was supposed to do that. Who said this?

Simone Collins: A gra Tory, you mean? Or

Malcolm Collins: they just, just ignored. But anyway, then there was a, a, a separate whistleblower. So, the whistleblower, Michael Prescott, a former independent advisor to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee.

repeatedly went to high level people at the BBC. He claimed his mor warnings were dismissed and ignored. And he attempted multiple times to reach out to BBC executives. He even described Jonas monroe is being defensive when asked about this.

So they knew they were lying. They knew that they had lied and somebody went to them repeatedly saying, you guys need to stop. This was a 19 page dossier that he completed to be like, you guys need to address this. You guys need to address this. You guys need to address this. They did address the first instance, but with some resignations, but they haven’t done anything further to address the second instance, which was a completely separate [00:42:00] team.

Simone Collins: Oh goodness.

Malcolm Collins: Showing that this is endemic. And note, this was during a period where the USAID was funding BBC media action to a tune of 2.6 million a year to, I think it was two point more 4 million USD. It was 2.6 million pounds.

Simone Collins: The British we’re organization not helping them enough.

I mean, don’t, aren’t there those cars that drive around the UK to,

Malcolm Collins: well, I love it how they’re like, oh, that wasn’t to the BC. That wasn’t important. Then we cut it off and all of a sudden the BBC is doing this big crime Near River campaign about how they’re not getting enough money to do anti-US lying propaganda.

The BBC needs to be shut down, and I think that this is something the Republican administration should lean on more as a major issue. Be like the BBC is an active threat to the American Alliance with the uk given that it is publishing anti-American hate speech. Other terrorist organizations like Hope Not hate, need to be labeled as terrorist organizations ‘cause they can’t be funded by the British government anymore.

[00:43:00] They’ve done hit pieces on us before and had undercover operatives in our organizations before. So you should see our piece on the, the connections that prove that they’re

Simone Collins: too, it’s to struggle with this because the BBC has. Produced some of my, you know, like a amazing shows a

Malcolm Collins: long time ago. They have not produced anything good in a long

Simone Collins: time.

Now, now modern Dr.

Malcolm Collins: Who,

Simone Collins: well, yeah. Okay. But that implies though that it could course correct. You know, it, it can, it can theoretically be, it cannot. Some severe reform, the licensing

Malcolm Collins: fee needs to be shut down and the government support needs to be shut down. The BBC has become, I think we have an izing built the.

Did we ever air that episode?

Simone Collins: Air? What episode?

Malcolm Collins: The episode on how evil the BBC is?

Simone Collins: I don’t think so.

Malcolm Collins: And well, I should look into our backlog ‘cause I know I fully edited it.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It’s a good episode. The BBC is very evil. They’re basically like a weird scam on the British public that like targets the British poor.

It’s, it’s weird. And then, no, we also had things like this in the US [00:44:00] was like the M-S-N-B-C reorging re-editing Joe Rogan to say she’s the hero. She’s the one that everybody was waiting

Simone Collins: for. Oh, I forgot that, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: But wait, was that the BB. C.

Malcolm Collins: No, that was the E-M-S-N-B-C in the United States.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: okay.

What I’m making here is the media is

Simone Collins: selective. Remixing is not unheard of

Malcolm Collins: an active manipulation campaign on the American public at this point. I think we need to be more aggressive about holding them to account. The fact that people freaked out that Jimmy Kimmel would, that, you know, late night has replaced a lot of the media was being held to account for lying.

Okay. Lying, not getting something wrong or telling a joke that attacked Trump lying about an assassin of a dead guy, right? Like it wasn’t like a small thing and people freaked out and he got his job back. Like, we need to be more aggressive about misrepresentations in media. And media does need to be either head to account or need to have any ties to [00:45:00] governments removed.

And I think that, that it’s very important in the United States that we do. Cut off NPR in the UK in the BBC licensing program where everyone has to pay for a TV

Simone Collins: is pretty wild people, especially all the hilarious ways that people try to avoid those fees. Very entertainment. I paid mine. You never paid yours.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: think I might have,

Malcolm Collins: but most of the time I was there I didn’t.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think a lot of people try to avoid that, hide their TVs in closets, et cetera. But you know,

Malcolm Collins: the the, literally, I cannot believe they go around with like a van to like scan your house.

Simone Collins: That’s crazy. I mean, now

Malcolm Collins: Brenda is a dystopia. Britain is a dystopia. The we need to retake that country.

Simone Collins: We seriously do though. It’s, we we can, we can save it. We, we can.

Malcolm Collins: I had a call with what was it? The [00:46:00] times, like Times London today. ‘cause they’re doing a piece on us. And yeah, I was like, you guys live in a dystopia.

You know that, right? Like what a, what a miserable health

Simone Collins: thing.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, you know, people get

Simone Collins: arrested for, I mean, I, I knew it was bad when I went to the Johannesburg Subreddits and came across all these people in the UK who were like, Johannesburg’s looking really good right now.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we had that within our show was the aristocratic utensil saying, oh yeah, I’m taking a, moving from the UK to Johannesburg.

You know, at least I don’t get arrested for memes.

Simone Collins: But later he said he was always there and he didn’t know what we were talking about. So I’m so confused. Wait, he

Malcolm Collins: said he was always in Johannesburg?

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I don’t know what’s going on.

Malcolm Collins: No, he definitely said that on our podcast.

Simone Collins: I know both of us were very much under the impression that he was in the uk, so I don’t know, don’t, don’t ask me.

But anyway, yeah, I, I, I actually am under the impression that people do understand [00:47:00] the extent to which the media has become extremely biased. I think that one of the reasons why figures like Nick Fuentes are rising so much is that people are. Over, over indexing on authenticity of just like complete unfiltered ness.

And Nick Fuentes does that even when he goes too far. So they like that. And they just can’t, they can’t stand any sign of inauthentic, what’s the word? Like con condescension? Yeah. I, I don’t know. I, I actually think that these institutions have seen largely,

Malcolm Collins: but I think it would be authentic without, you know, being mean.

And I think that that’s where like Asma Gold does a great job. Um mm-hmm. And that’s why I was so glad to see that he’s our number one over overlap channel. We can be wholesome Asma gold. I, I mean, Asma Gold is wholesome as wholesome as Asma [00:48:00] Gold, but married and like. If, if in, in an alternate reality where he gets married and has kids,

Simone Collins: I, I hope that, I still hope that for him

Malcolm Collins: well, you know, he said I can’t keep a tree like a house plant alive.

I how am I supposed to keep a kid alive? And I’m like, it’s way easier. You’ll figure

Simone Collins: it out. Oh, but it’s, it wouldn’t even, it wouldn’t even be him because he is more of a traditional guy. Like he wants a wife who would just be a stay at home wife and or mother. So she would just do it all. She would manage the house.

Malcolm Collins: I, I can’t imagine what a wholesome dad as McGold would be. He’d be the best dad.

Simone Collins: Sweet. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I know

Simone Collins: a great dad.

Malcolm Collins: I know if he had kids he’d probably like start cleaning up and clean a lot of the stuff outta his house.

Simone Collins: No, no. He would, his, if he, if he were to marry a woman, I’m sure she would almost certainly insist.

To live in a different house. He might keep his childhood home and still like film in the attic. Honestly, like, you know how you have [00:49:00] like your bedroom and stuff and like it’s your

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, my bedroom is super dirty,

Simone Collins: terrifying. Outside

Malcolm Collins: of this small

Simone Collins: window

Malcolm Collins: that you guys see

Simone Collins: a rat nest and like, I almost feel like he might just maintain his home as that possibly even like sleep there.

For a certain number of reasons. Whatever. You don’t need to sleep

Malcolm Collins: in the same house as your wife. Let

Simone Collins: her raise the kid. Right. But like, I think, yeah, I think she’d have a clean house that she maintains and like she would take care of their kids and, you know, he would have that life. But, but he would maintain a space for his asthma gold ways in streaming.

But that’s how I see it working for him. And if he could find a woman who, and there are lots of women who would I’m sure be super down for that, you know, that, that, that would be sustainable. I, I really hope, I hope he has. I hope he has that It would be great if he can because you have that, right?

Like you get to live your life. Like you have your room the way you want it. You have all stuff. Well, it’s

Malcolm Collins: interesting because I’ve been

Simone Collins: thinking you

Malcolm Collins: can gimme a feel of this. ‘cause we were looking recently at overlap channels and we have things like. N ta, asthma, gold, and then Temple. [00:50:00] And Temple. Actually, the higher overlap was us in Ns, and I realized in my head that like NS and Asthma gold fall into a totally different brain category than 10 pool, where Temple feels very inauthentic compared to them.

And more like

Simone Collins: a tin. Maybe that’s because he came from Vice, like he came from Main, well, well, I mean really Vice is mainstream media, but like Yeah. You know what I mean? Like he came from the media world professionally first.

Malcolm Collins: And I, yeah, but I wonder where we come off to people. Are we more Ns Asma Gold, or are we more Temple?

I. Anyway,

Simone Collins: I’m, I’m, who knows

Malcolm Collins: by the way fun thing from the episode that we ran today on SSRIs Sterilizing people.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of people in the comments were talking, ‘cause I had talked about opioid agonists, about using opioid agonists and then it curing things like depression or anxiety for them, like permanently afterwards.

Simone Collins: That’s wild.

Malcolm Collins: And I just think opioid agonists are like a hugely underrated.

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] Super underrated. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s literally an anti-drug. It removes your brain from being able to create the types of chemicals that drugs use to addict you to things. So now Facebook can addict you and, and masturbation can addict you and like gambling can addict you, which is fantastic.

Right. Anyway the final thing is what I’m having for dinner tonight. I assume we don’t have any, do we have any onions left?

Simone Collins: We do have onions, but what I was gonna suggest is that we just go pick up a bunch more peppers for you tomorrow if you wanna do more of the whatever that steak.

Malcolm Collins: Well, what I was thinking of, instead of doing the pepper beef, we could do a Mongolian beef tonight because that just uses chives.

Simone Collins: We can if you want to,

Malcolm Collins: unless you really don’t want to.

Simone Collins: Well, you’ve just been doing the same thing for like five nights in a row.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: really like it. Seven nights in a row. Really? You, you don’t want Bullock, you [00:52:00] don’t want Burmese chicken. You don’t want crap. Peck cow, or whatever it is. You don’t want.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, Bullock might be good

Simone Collins: Bullock’s.

Really good curry. Sorry. Like what is it pumpkin, coconut soup or? Well.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I liked it so much last night, Simon.

Simone Collins: Aww.

Malcolm Collins: After I ate it last night, I just kept thinking, I want to eat this until my stomach hurts. And so I, okay,

Simone Collins: so you want Mongolian beef’s,

Malcolm Collins: Mongolian beef whiz lighter on the dark soy sauce recipe this time.

And just less of that and more of the chives.

Simone Collins: So basically the, the, the sauce should be very, very light. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and, and you can always go heavier with oyster sauce or hoist and sauce if you want.

Simone Collins: Okay, I will do that. I’ll do that.

Malcolm Collins: Because that, that’s fine. Like that’s no salt. The problem is just the salt from last time.

Simone Collins: Okay. Then I shall do that. I’m,

Malcolm Collins: and, and I think it’s just about volume. I do a lower volume. [00:53:00]

Simone Collins: Of sauce.

Malcolm Collins: Of sauce and cook it down before you put the, well, because it’s coming from frozen, we should probably do it together.

Simone Collins: I can just let the beef sit at room temperature. So it’s, it’s thought out by the time I put it in the walk to cook it with the vegetables at the very end.

‘cause you don’t want, you don’t want it to be covered in the sauce too much, do you? You just want it to kind of be like singed at the very end, you know. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, it’s fine if it’s covered with the sauce, but I don’t want it to be as boiled in the sauce.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you don’t, yeah. You don’t want it sfi

Malcolm Collins: and it is good to be pressed against hot pan side because then you can get the, the searing effect.

Simone Collins: Okay. So sear it. I will, I will attempt to, well, I don’t know if I really can at that stage. I don’t know. We will, we’ll, I’ll, I’ll see what I can do, my friend. And I’ll make some fresh rice so it’ll smell nice. And rice. Ooh, [00:54:00] and delicious downstairs. I love the smell of fresh cooked rice. I’m wondering

Malcolm Collins: if you should put in onion.

Simone Collins: Nah. Mean You want me to saute onion?

Malcolm Collins: No,

Simone Collins: no. Just fresh chives. And we’ll pick up more peppers tomorrow. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Chives and Mongolian beef. This is all so good. Thank you, Simone, for making these amazing dishes.

Simone Collins: It’s absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for choosing dishes that you like.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you came up with a new way to mass batch fried beef for these.

That works really well.

Simone Collins: I didn’t. You did. And it, it’s a cumbersome process. I don’t know if we’ll do it again. I just don’t like deep frying. I don’t like the smell. It makes, I don’t like the, all the oil. It’s lame.

Malcolm Collins: You’re right. So what I’m thinking is. If I do this again, I can deep fry it myself in the deep fryer.

Mm-hmm. And just do like a very large, like five batches or something. One

Simone Collins: night we did, we, it was four pounds of meat that we did.

Malcolm Collins: [00:55:00] Yeah. And I’ll do even more because it creates blanks that we can use with multiple dishes.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s true.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.

God no, I don’t wanna move ‘cause he is asleep. It’s like having, have you ever had a cat fall asleep on your lap and you’re like, I can’t get up now.

Malcolm Collins: No,

Simone Collins: but

Malcolm Collins: he, he’ll have a great time when he wakes up. You can’t have him sleep for too long, otherwise he’ll stay up all night.

Simone Collins: He wakes up all night anyway because he’s hungry.

He needs to eat.

Malcolm Collins: But wait, tomorrow I’m thinking of doing the Israel one.

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: well, we’re at the tail end of Nick Fuentes stuff because I think it’s been interesting. I think it, I think it’s an interesting episode.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I haven’t heard that take anywhere before, so I, I’m, I’m a fan. I mean, not that I like listen to a ton of Israel commentary, but it makes sense [00:56:00] to me and now I just want it.

Sorry, this from a more, because just before coming into this, I was listening to a Matt Bernstein podcast on some Donny and Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment and like, everything’s just like, are you pro Jew or anti Jew, or like people, I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re actually anti-Zionist Jews mostly on that podcast, if I’m reading it right.

But like everything’s just so. Politicized around Zionism as a, a concept, but Zionism from the perspective of like the Jewish people have a right to Israel as like a thing, you know, like we need to give them like Jerusalem

Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Because of their, like religious birthright. And you and I don’t, as much as we support them.

Running things in Israel because they do a good job and they, you took it and you, you’re doing well with it, so it’s [00:57:00] yours. Like, by all means, that doesn’t mean we have this same weird sentiment around like, oh yes, it is your religious prerogative to hold this land. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. That is actually yeah.

Well, I mean, as I say, our form of conservatism is very nichean in nature, which is to say if they can hold the land, then,

Simone Collins: then it’s theirs.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: You are entitled to that, which you can take, which,

Malcolm Collins: which also makes it, you know, make more sense to say, we’ll cut off military aid to them. If they can’t keep the land without our military aid after 70 years

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Then they shouldn’t have it anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I, I think more broadly, it would just make our ties with them much stronger if we just removed that. That’s

Simone Collins: well, and I would like to al align ourselves with them in a way that leans us both into the future instead of reactively, entrenches, entrenches, both of us in conflict with adversaries, because to a certain point, [00:58:00] feeling these conflicts keeps ‘em going in the first place.

So I’m not for it.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 11: Octavian, explain what happened.

Speaker 12: Bed. You saw a six, seven kid, you said? Yeah. And how did the, how did the, did the six seven kid come in your room at night? Uh, did he come in because you were watching bad YouTube videos? No. No. I your do I? Happy Meal. 3:00 AM in the night, then six that can Happy Meal. Then um, if you order back then the six, where can I to do that please.

So don’t order a Happy Meal, a six seven Happy Meal at 3:00 AM at night [00:59:00] or the six seven kid will come after you. Yeah. But I thought he, what does he do behind trees? He spawns behind them. He spawns behind them. Yeah. So like back tree and see, so he could be like in the woods. Yeah. Well, what are you gonna tell our subscribers?

Speaker 11: How do they keep their kids safe? Um, we keep kids safe. How? Like they stay inside of, stay inside. Yeah. And what about liking and subscribing? Did that help? Yeah, that will help. Yeah. We don’t know if it actually will. So I describe to help us and even like I describe, for us to be safe. So they won’t be safe from six, seven unless they like and subscribe.

That’s what you’re saying from, I think the car eater video and the car eater didn’t attack the drone one time. And I think that because I gives us a lot of [01:00:00] subscribers, so we’re gonna like try to buy a drone like that and please give. That’s what I can describe him to 1000 trees so I can surf. So like tiny Drone doesn’t get a tag.

That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. That we buy from this store. When we saw a video with our phones and everything and we’re going to go and the feet tried to defeat the six, seven K. It was a bullet boom. Black. Okay. Okay.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the controversy and conspiracy theories surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump by the so-called “Butler shooter.” This episode unpacks the media’s coverage, the FBI’s handling of the case, and the many rumors and misreportings that have fueled public confusion.

The discussion covers:

* The misleading narratives presented by major media figures and the FBI

* The shooter’s background, online presence, and shifting political ideologies

* Debunking viral conspiracy theories about BlackRock, financial motives, and the shooter’s alleged ties to various communities

* The suspicious handling of evidence, including the rapid cremation and lack of toxicology reports

* Broader questions about government transparency, incompetence, and the “deep state”

* The role of foreign influence and media manipulation in shaping public perception

Malcolm and Simone debate the likelihood of government involvement versus bureaucratic incompetence, referencing historical parallels and recent leaks. The episode ends with a reflection on the tragic loss of life and a call for critical thinking in the face of sensational headlines.

If you’re interested in true crime, political analysis, or media criticism, this episode offers a thorough, thought-provoking exploration of one of the most controversial events in recent political history.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more in-depth discussions!