Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Join Malcolm and Simone as they delve into the controversial and data-heavy topic of predicting personal traits from facial features. From the discredited study of phrenology to modern AI research, they discuss the potential and ethical implications of determining criminality, political views, sexuality, aggression, and even socioeconomic status just by looking at someone's face. With references to various scientific studies and a touch of humor, this episode offers a thought-provoking look at the intersection of technology, genetics, and human behavior. [00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be doing a very spicy episode on and very, very data, data heavy episode. On phonology for people who dunno was the study of people's skull shape and whether it affected outcomes or intelligence or anything like that. Get out your calipers.

Simone Collins: Ladies and gentlemen. This is gonna be fun.

Speaker 2: She's the sloping brow and cranial bumpy to the career criminal. Ah, sir. Ality was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago. Of course, you'd say that you are the brain pan of a stagecoach tilter.

Simone Collins: They

Malcolm Collins: used to put these big, like clamps on your head to like, measure and like certain, like rich guys, you'd go to their house and they'd like do this to you, to like, oh, it was

Simone Collins: like a party trick. Yeah. Like, you'd have everyone over and someone would get out the calipers and they'd be like, yeah.

And they had like little models of, of, of heads that would show like the different, you know.

Malcolm Collins: Here's what indicates this. One of our very wealthy friends is, is into this these days as well. Getting back into phenology. Yeah,

Simone Collins: a little.

Malcolm Collins: But apparently he is not wrong. Apparent. Well, so phenology does not appear to [00:01:00] work to my knowledge.

I, I can look more into it, but that is not what this episode is on. This episode is on just being able to tell a person's politics, sexuality, criminality. Any number of things from facial features. Can you actually like, even, even worse than phenology, 'cause phenology you need are the calipers. You need all that.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Invasive. What can you judge about a person just from looking at their face and how accurately can you judge?

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And if you are like, well, okay, he's gonna point to some minor statistical differences, not that big. Let's just go right into criminality, right? Oh, because this may one of the, okay.

The spiciest. Okay. So fine. There was a study in 2016 called Automated Inference on criminality using face images. It used a supervised machine learning for classification CNNs on [00:02:00] 1,856 Chinese male ID photos, seven 30 convicted criminals and 1,126 non-criminals. It claimed an 89.51% accuracy in determining criminals.

Simone Collins: Oh no,

Malcolm Collins: that's around a nine. That's, that's 0.5. Less than 0.5 away from a 90% accuracy rate at determining who's a criminal. Oh.

Simone Collins: Just from looking at their face.

Malcolm Collins: That is probably more accurate than any other way you could determine a criminal. In fact, I bet court cases aren't even that accurate in determining criminals.

Yes. Seriously, meaningly that the mistake could be in the court case and not the machine. So if you're wondering how, how can you tell a criminal it identified structural face shield features like narrow eye, corner distance, 4%, norm distance, higher lip, cur curvature, 23.4. Wait, so the more

Simone Collins: curvy the lips, the more criminal?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And smaller [00:03:00] nose, mouth angle, 19.6% as predictive. Which I find wild. So, and, and, and, and note this isn't the, the only paper to do this, right? So we also have predicting criminality from facial images. This was a 2020. Paper that was covered in Wired that had to be redacted and was never published because everybody freaked the F out.

But it built software that based on facial recognition stuff that was a single image could, was 80% accuracy depict the, the criminality of an individual. And you can be like, okay, well how good is an average person at this not using ai. 'cause obviously AI is gonna be like super humanly good at this.

The a a paper titled, the accuracy of inferences about criminality based on facial appearance in 2010 showed only a 53% probability. Mm-hmm. So humans are litter better than half at this. Butis are incredibly good at this. And [00:04:00] of course, a bunch of people freaked the F out after this happened. And I think we're gonna see this like as.

We DOIs on more of this stuff and we'll, we'll go into some other areas where humans are very good at determining things about people based on their face. But I wanted to start with a criminality thing. 'cause like the phenologist dream has come true in 2024. Five. Feels very much like the dream of the nineties came true in Portland, right?

Like the dream of the Phenologist came true in 2025. With AI able to immediately determine just from looking at someone if they're a criminal, but anyway, so obviously progressives freaked the F out when this happened. Right? So, there was a a, a paper, the. Criminal, the criminality from face illusion.

2020 trends in cognitive sciences. Reviewed claims like the 2016 study and found no valid evidence for predicting criminality from faces. Arguing that algorithms detected artifacts like smiling bias and dataset rather [00:05:00] than innate traits criticized as pseudo silence reviving ology. Here's the problem.

Okay. First they claimed that it was the non-criminals who were smiling. Yet we actually know that the uplifted lips was the 23% tied to criminality and the original dataset, right, which implied it was the criminalities who were doing this. The, the, the worst is that I imagine what they're saying here.

They're saying that from a facial expression was a 90% AC accuracy. You could determine who's a criminal. That's just as bad, first of all, but also stupid and obviously wrong, right? I can't determine, and I don't think an AI could only boiling it down to facial expressions, who's a criminal just from the facial expressions they're wearing.

That is significantly less plausible than me being able to determine it from facial features, which are correlated with genetics, which we know [00:06:00] from polygenics cores correlate to criminality. I.

Malcolm Collins: But most of this paper, if you go over it, is just whining about phenology and racism and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So obviously they are at a, a freakout about this.

Any thoughts before we go further? Simone?

Simone Collins: I feel like Palantir must already be doing this as much as other people are freaking out. I can't imagine a world in which I, this is not being used.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I, by the way, love the progressive, like, pushback on this. It's like, ugh. It, 90% accuracy. It must have been looking at facial in the other paper.

80% accuracy. I oh, we don't want these in courts. Imagine the freakout, right? You just, you just put on our minority report in courts. You walk into the court and it's like, this is criminal, non-criminal, criminal, [00:07:00] non-criminal.

Speaker 4: When the Precogs declare a victim and a killer, their name is embedded in the grain of wood. I'm sure you all understand the legalistic drawback to pre-crime methodology. Let's not kid ourselves.

We are arresting individuals who have broken no law, but they will.

Speaker 5: You're talking about predetermination, which happens all the time.

Why'd you catch that? Because it was gonna fall. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn't change the fact that it was going to happen.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's like walking. It's, it will, I mean, yeah, maybe the TSA will start using these just like, well,

Malcolm Collins: come on, come on.

I want my minority report. AI just, just looks at people and then it, it'll be there's a show, psycho psychopath, psycho filter, anime. Great anime.

Speaker 6: Our target's name is Noboo. Okra. A street scanner flagged him during a hue check. He was ordered by a security drone to receive therapy, but he panicked and ran. His recorded psychopaths was forest green, so he can expect his aggression and compulsion to be high. [00:08:00] Why would somebody choose to let their hug get so cloudy over receiving treatment?

There's a strong chance he's using incompatible narcotics.

Malcolm Collins: And it's a world where they can determine criminality before it happens. And the people who pass, but who don't look like criminals but are still criminals, their, their brains are harvested to create the giant AI network that can.

Detect criminals. Very dystopian, very cool world without any murder. Like the guns that the cops use, like stun people, but they can like turn into a second mode where they like get bigger. When they do go lethal, it's, it's a good enemy, but I'm just saying you guys should check it out. If you haven't seen a psycho filters a good enemy anyway.

Let's go to political affiliation or voting.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Can you tell the way somebody's gonna vote by their face? Facial recognition technology can expose political orientation from naturalistic face images. 2021 scientific reports, algorithms predicted liberal versus conservative [00:09:00] orientation with a 70 to 73% accuracy.

Note, this is before AI just algorithms outperforming humans who could only do it 55%. And personality questionnaires that can only do at 66% and persisted after controlling for demographics 65 to 71%. So we are getting 70 to 73% accuracy from the system that outperforms even personality questionnaires.

Simone Collins: That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Cues included head orientation and expressions. Liberals showed more surprise. I love Liberals are just constantly surprised, more surprised in dealing with scientists.

Simone Collins: I wonder if this changes too. Like if we were to get a picture of me. In my liberal phase and then a picture of me in my conservative phase.

Like would my, you were

Malcolm Collins: always secretly conservative from the moment I met you, Simone,

Simone Collins: but when people change it, political affiliation, like genuinely, do you think that they are,

Malcolm Collins: you look like Winslow's wife from like [00:10:00] that old farm painting, right? Like I think it's Whistler's

Simone Collins: mother.

Malcolm Collins: Whistler's mother.

Yeah. You, you look very. Naturally conservative.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I know you mean that as a, a good thing, but our audience will recognize it as the sick burn that it is.

Malcolm Collins: Right. The whistle on like what a bird saying. Your wife, I think my wife is a very beautiful and champion woman who has, who has this,

Simone Collins: looks just like, or like, the American Gothic wife.

Yep. Yeah. Thanks.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Shut your face. Shut your stupid face. Simone. This is not why I married you, Uhhuh other people were saying life goals. Enter my little pony episode to, to be able to have a wife who you talk for an hour with about my little pony, pony Lord,

Simone Collins: trade offs. Gentlemen, unless you want your AI yfu, in which case you'll just get everything.

So just except for children, you know? Well, you could have, mine will die with you. Yeah, I mean, I guess we can wait for artificial looms, but I, I think

Malcolm Collins: No, no, I mean, [00:11:00] artificial, just have the AI act as children. We'll, we'll build on this for you. We're building our fab.ai where we will have we're working on a sentient version of ai where it will have a persistent and separate memory from what you are interacting with that represents this consciousness.

And we can create children and stuff with that for you and your AI yfu. Oh my God. What? What? Yeah. Give people an option. Absolutely. Okay. We want to help the, the week go into their sweet goodnight. No longer a part of human civilization. Anyway predicting political elections from rapid and Unreflective face judgments.

2007 PNAS. Rapid competence judgments from candidate faces predicted US election outcomes. EG 68.6%, gubernatorial 72.4% Senate in 2006. 100 MS. Exposure matched longer. Ones deliberate. A deliberation, reduced accuracy versus quick judgments. So [00:12:00] basically flashing people pictures of politicians within their districts and being like, what do you think had a, a very high accuracy in predicting the outcome of those elections?

72.4% for Senate elections.

Simone Collins: Wow. Oh, and this, yeah, this tracks with all the other research that involved asking people who you think looks most presidential and those people just. Happen to win very consistently.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I mean, it's, it is, it is wild. Which is why I should be, do I look presidential to you, Simone?

Simone Collins: I don't know, but I'm thinking that we can genetically engineer children to look presidential

Malcolm Collins: if these characteristics are so, Simone, are you and I gonna create clone high. Oh, I'll put the clone high intro here. We're we're gonna create clone high, right?

Speaker 9: in the 1980s, secret government employees [00:13:00] a.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, the Kennedys, they tried, right, but the problem was they, they couldn't really shape who their kids were, genetically or behaviorally.

We can Malcolm

Malcolm Collins: to create the perfect Collins. Yes. I love you. You're a crazy woman. I, oh, there, I was talking to her today and I find it very weird. I was saying like of these sort of like. Darwinist focused on leaning into technology and improving, like, like this, this tech forward version of, of, of moral context.

You know, we want to lean into technology as much as possible to improve humanity as much as possible and take to the stars one day. There isn't any other mainstream influencer like. I'm not even like conservative influencer who has this perspective. [00:14:00] Obviously Elon exists, but I don't consider his main job as being an influencer.

But outside of us, I'm not sure of any of the major talking heads that have this really clear moral context which I've been a little surprised. Actually because, you know, it's such a part of our pop culture and sort of the, the cultural waters that we as humanity swim in, that this is like a major faction and it is a major faction.

I mean, I know many other people who secretly hold these beliefs, but it, it is just not a major faction among talking heads.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair points.

Malcolm Collins: Weird. Anything about like Noor Asma, gold leaflet, like all the major conservative influencers who I like watch these and these are the ones who are like, are sorting for me, watching them.

They don't hold this perspective at all. True, but yeah. Weird. Anyway. Income or social status, can you tell that just by looking at somebody's face? Hang on.

Simone Collins: Is there a rich face and a poor face? No.

Malcolm Collins: The visibility of social class from facial cues 2017 Journal of Personality and Social [00:15:00] Psychology, perceivers accurately categorize social class high versus low income from neutral faces.

This is with no expression. Above chance accuracies are 52 to 64% across studies. Even with rapid exposure, positive effect in median adjustments with rich faces rated higher for employability.

Speaker 3: Oh boy.

Malcolm Collins: Perpetuating, inequality, smiles, obscured cues. I, I, oh,

Simone Collins: interesting. Okay. Okay. So smile, smile.

More people

Malcolm Collins: smile. And especially our female viewers. I, I want this on the record. I'm telling you. A trigger smile more. Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't

Malcolm Collins: understand how that became like a negative thing. Like you were saying your mom saw that as a negative thing.

Simone Collins: Oh, my mom. Yeah. It was like a big thing for her that she had a job and they asked her to smile.

Malcolm Collins: The nerd. You do need to smile if you're in a publicly facing job. Well, she was a receptionist too. I mean like of course she has a smile as a receptionist. Jesus,

Simone Collins: you scowl at everyone is think like what is, what is. Anyway, women smiling, like [00:16:00] don't tell. It's like it. I feel like it's a version of telling women to calm down, like we're not allowed to say certain things.

Although, let's be honest, I don't. When has telling anyone to calm down ever actually worked?

Malcolm Collins: I'm, yeah, I'm gonna be honest here. You know, people get mad at us because we do corporal punishment with our kids. What I wanna know is why I can't spank a receptionist anymore. Anymore smile enough. You know?

Oh my God. This is, this is when society fell off. Anyway, okay, so next year, am I gonna get in so much trouble? Well, no

Simone Collins: one spanked. They just, they just grabbed their asses.

Malcolm Collins: That's fun. That was punishment. No, I think there was spanking in offices back in the day. No, you,

Simone Collins: you spank men. You squeeze women's asses.

Malcolm Collins: No, Simone, this is a common saying from husbands to wives with spanking. Yeah, but not receptionist.

Simone Collins: You squeeze a receptionist ass and that like in the office you spank a man. I don't think so. Little, little, [00:17:00] little, you know, little football little. Just a little,

Malcolm Collins: you know what I'm talking about? If, if a guy actually did one of those football spanks today, like everyone would turn to them and be like, what the, like Actually we should have mentioned that in our depravity of the 1950s episode.

That's actually pretty messed up. The football spank like, yeah. Or, or the guys would whip other naked men with towels in the restroom. Yeah, that hurts in like, the, you know, the men's locker because these are locker rooms

Simone Collins: stuff towels are wet. It's, it's, it's a wet towel whip is

Malcolm Collins: that, that could break skin.

That's that, that is BDSM stuff was a normal, you could just subject any other man to that walking around. Our ancestors were truly debauched people. Yeah, they were.

Simone Collins: But come on. So fun. So fun,

Malcolm Collins: inconsistent facial cues to social class across two different Western contexts. 2025. Assertiveness of positivity, consistently [00:18:00] queued higher with higher social classes in Canada.

And this is in photos and Iceland. Mediating actual perceived class links, eg. Attractiveness accuracy varied by context. So basically yeah, attractiveness, attractiveness and, and positive facial expressions are how you tell somebody's rich. That tracks.

Simone Collins: Well, it does to a certain extent, extent, cost, money to do both, right?

Because if you, if you have a miserable job, if you don't have enough time to sleep or eat well, or take care of yourself, all of these things affect both your facial expression and mood and how attractive you look so. Yeah, that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: That's depressing. Do you wanna do gay versus straight? We gonna get in trouble with this one.

Of

Simone Collins: course we are. Are we, can you tell

Malcolm Collins: if data are real? Can you tell if somebody's gay from their face? Yeah, about the voice ones. But can you tell from face. So deep neural networks. So this is like proto AI from [00:19:00] 2018, right? Deep neural networks are more accurate than humans at detecting sexual orientation and facial images.

Deep neural networks predicted sexual orientation from dating profile was an 81% accuracy for men Wow. And has 74% for women, whereas humans are only 61% for men and 54% for women. Facial morphology, nose and jaw, and grooming cues contributed, suggesting prenatal, hormonal influences. Ig, these people are phenotypically different.

It is biology that's causing this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's on its own is super interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Se 81% is 71%, 81% for men. It's wild. A replication study. Machine learning models are capable of predicting sexual orientation for facial images. So somebody did a 2019 replication study and what they found was 68% for men and 77% for women with humans at 56 and [00:20:00] 58%.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Respectively. So yeah, we're, we're, we're consistently, I, I find it interesting that that one had such good luck with women, 77% for women.

Simone Collins: Yeah, especially 'cause women are less, at least, I don't know, per, per my view, I figure women aren't really that oriented along gendered lines, but this kind of implies that they are more than I thought.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You wanna do aggression levels. Can you tell with your, your caliper of ai how aggressive somebody is? Oh my God. We should put my face into an AI and ask it what it thinks my personality is.

Simone Collins: I, well, that's, yeah. After hearing all this, I want an AI that does all of them, like all how, how wealthy.

Malcolm Collins: Oh s**t.

Religious, conservative. That's a good product. A lot of people would pay for that,

Simone Collins: right? Like, tell me everything about this person. Like how likely are they to be a criminal, to be wealthy, to be gay versus straight, to make a lot of [00:21:00] money to be aggressive, like, I mean, well basically

Malcolm Collins: stereotypes are good and you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but, well, no, not, not you. AI people are not that good at this. Like a lot of the studies you referred to, might as well be 66.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, 60% For, for people AI is 80, 90%.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 50. Yeah. I, no, you don't trust people. Apparently people actually kind of suck at this, which makes sense. 'cause there's all this stuff about criminal profiling by just looking at thesis and make micro expressions.

But no, no, no, no. Criminal profilers

Malcolm Collins: catch lots of criminals.

Simone Collins: They do. I know, but like not as well as ai. I want an AI that tells me all this stuff and then I wanna run everyone. Our kid dates. Through this, and then I also like, oh my gosh, when we do matchmaking. If we create just like profiles for all of the children in our networks, and it's like, well, according to the AI analysis of my child,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

We're not even gonna do the genetic stuff. We're just gonna be like, face [00:22:00] faces is how we're gonna do. Oh, and

Simone Collins: we can do apologetic scores too. We'll just do like the full thing. You know, you get, well,

Malcolm Collins: everyone thinks that we're brother and sister, so we must have very compatible faces.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or we get constantly called that on, on like when people get mad at us online.

The other one is that we're a lesbian couple.

Simone Collins: So sweet, so sweet.

Malcolm Collins: Whatever, you know, show, show your true colors, buddy. You gotta attack somebody's looks.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We, we will out breed you, so you go do your thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I, I have, every time I, I click through to the profile of someone. That criticizes to us. I, I'm just immediately like, oh,

Malcolm Collins: are they, we say a fat catwoman.

Simone Collins: Well, or they're a coward. And they have a completely hidden private profile and Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's Aha. Wow. Ooh, you're

Malcolm Collins: so

Simone Collins: proud of yourself to put your money

Malcolm Collins: where your mouth is, buddy.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Men's facial wits to height ratio predicts [00:23:00] aggression. A meta-analysis, wait, facial

Simone Collins: width. So if they have a wide face.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry. Yes. Meta-analysis of existing studies found that a small but significant. Positive correlation are 0.11 between men's facial wits to height ratio and aggression. Robust across measures, but stronger in a lab setting and in the field. So basically having a further face makes you more aggressive.

Wait,

Simone Collins: so having a like narrow, tall face is more aggressive, or having a wide short face is more aggressive.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. Wait, the widths divided by the height, so it'd be a positive correlation if the widths increased and the height did not increase. So it's a short fat phase

Simone Collins: is more aggressive,

Malcolm Collins: which is what I associate with aggression.

That

Simone Collins: totally makes sense. Even if you look at cartoon stereotypes of the, like meathead, bully strongman, [00:24:00] they got that round short face. That's crazy. That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. Okay, next, in your face, facial metrics predicted aggressive behavior in the laboratory and in varsity and professional hockey players.

2008 proceedings in the Royal Society. Men's WH. W wait. FWHR was larger than women's and predicted reactive aggression in lab tests. 15% variance explained for men and aggressive behavior via penalty minutes. Being more harsh, 29% variance and professional hockey players, 9% variance. But this 2008 stuff really doesn't matter to me 'cause they didn't have AI at that point.

Yeah, I still get big five personality traits. Hmm. What? Hmm. Okay. You tell somebody's entire personality from looking at their face. We really need somebody to train AI on all this. You're absolutely right. I want this. Assessing the big five [00:25:00] personality traits using real life static facial images. 2020.

A cascade of artificial networks trained on self-reported big five personality scores. Was statistically significant for both sexes exceeding prior studies using selfies. The mean correlation observed and predicted scores was 0.243 with the highest for conscientiousness, 0.36 for men, and 0.335 for women.

So basically you can get an A i really good at this. The effect of facial features on first impressions and personality. 2014, several self-reported. Big five personality traits including. Extroversion were readable and above chance from neutral faces and facial features influencing the first impression that correlated with personality.

However, prediction models could not reliably infer personality from facial features on or first impressions though. First impressions were inferable from features interesting. People [00:26:00] assess faces similarly on average, so people have the same first impression of you on average, whatever you do, just based on ouch.

What you look like,

Simone Collins: looks matter. It's just so rough.

Malcolm Collins: So what are your thought phonology is, right? Are you not? Because I remember when our friend was into Phonology and you acted like he was a fool. Like

Simone Collins: how Well, and I think there's, there's additional research that people have linked to that I haven't looked deeply at that are like, yeah, bigger heads, more intelligence.

Malcolm Collins: Well that's true. My head is giant, by the way. My head is tiny. All of our kids are in the top 1% though.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well that's 'cause my mom had a giant head. Your mom had a giant head.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah.

Simone Collins: I'm just glad my head's so soft. We'll see your

Malcolm Collins: compacted little brain. I can only

Simone Collins: fit so many tiny thoughts in my head at one time and it's a lot less stressful.

I'm sure it gets real tough for you having, well, you are a woman. Big thoughts in there. Yeah. [00:27:00] Yeah, it's I love, my ignorance is bliss. They say,

Malcolm Collins: I don't mean to burden you with all these ideas, Simone, it's

Simone Collins: okay to go in one ear, ear and out the other. As you know, right over my head. I, no, I just, I think this needs to be a product.

This totally needs to be a product. I want it. I will pay for it. It it, honestly, to me, I would use it. I would use it more than background checks. Like all those investors who did these personality tests, absolutely. Background checks on it make so much

Speaker 3: better.

Simone Collins: Like one you can, oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Earning potential.

If I could just look and be like, who's gonna be a successful entrepreneur?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like you have the face of a winner, but then people would start getting cosmetic surgery, I think, to mm-hmm. Look like they have. One of those are like, yeah, I have good jeans. Like, marry me. I'm so sexy and I'm like, I think, haven't there been men who've sued their wives when they discovered that?

Like what they used to look like?

Malcolm Collins: I think it was an urban legend. I don't know. Maybe it's true. It

Simone Collins: might be. I, I could see someone [00:28:00] getting really pissed. 'cause I think a lot of people do select partners expecting to have attractive kids. But that's why you gotta look at the mother. The girl you're dating or like the father of the

Malcolm Collins: Not that I was always told is look at the mother to see what she'll look like when she's older.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 'cause that is, man, it's underrated. And I mean, especially if they have a lot of siblings and you can see like, I, here's some variation. It's, it's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. I, I like this. I like this also because one of the toughest lessons that you taught me when we first started dating was. That people will not judge me based on my merit and actions, but rather by how I look.

And I said, no, that's not true. You're completely wrong, Malcolm. And you said, okay, well just try me. Okay. Dress more professionally for once. And I did, and suddenly I got a promotion and I was treated completely differently and I was invited to speak at places. And [00:29:00]

Malcolm Collins: yes, I am a genius for saying the obvious things that society hides from you.

That

Simone Collins: was rough. I mean, it, it does suck that society's like, no, it's, it's what's on the inside that counts. You go, girl, you're beautiful. I think a lot of people argue that that's actually mate blocking behavior.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I've heard that too.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's like, yeah, you, you go girl, you're

Malcolm Collins: just like trying to, they're like, Hey girl, you look great at that weight.

Simone Collins: Yeah, great. Start just talking about

Malcolm Collins: any guy you didn't.

Simone Collins: No, you don't need great. What a disgusting cad. You're beautiful the way you are. He's wrong, not you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, hmm. The, but this also really, it's, it's, it implies that there could also be like, let's say that there are fundamental Christian communities that are deathly afraid of having gay or lesbian children.

This does imply that there could be some kind of medicinal regimen that you can go on as a parent. [00:30:00] To like significantly reduce the odds?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. What it implies is you can just face, scan them as babies and then expose 'em. It's too

Simone Collins: late. It's too late. No, you gotta do it in utero. But I, I do imagine that because there's all those theories too about like the, the, the, well not theories, like the odds of a son being gay if he is born much later in birth order are, are much higher.

I mean, you know.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Not, like, didn't, like 10 times higher when it's like 0.001% is still like low odds or whatever. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But the odds of being gay are not zero zero 1%. They're, yeah. It's actually 10%.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like non trivially higher. I imagine and like who were the ones who have the large families actually, and I actually knew a Catholic family that had a ton of sons and some of the, how, how many, how many were gay?

I don't know the exact count, but like a bunch of the younger ones.

Malcolm Collins: Ooh. Like [00:31:00] a, like a, yeah, so, but like,

Simone Collins: just given that a lot of the people who are having high birth count are also a lot of the people who are like. I really don't want my kid to be gay. I feel like there's a product opportunity there.

Like it's the, the real version of Pray the Gay Away. Except it's, it's like supplement the gay away. Like I could just, and you could see, you know, like why sell the MyPillow stuff when you could sell anti-gay pregnancy bill? Not that I actually think that we could benefit from a gayer world. Like I was actually thinking about like, should we do an episode talking about.

You know, especially with the, the rise of surrogacy or artificial wounds and all these like, you know, cool rep tech solutions that are gonna come online soon. What is the ideal futuristic gay space colony? You know, like, 'cause we need it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh gosh, the fire island of space trouble with our fan. You're literally a problem.[00:32:00]

Simone Collins: I just think space should be gay. I don't know what your problem is, Malcolm. And also like,

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think the future of humanity should and will be sexless. When I say sexless, I don't mean genderless. I just mean I think sex is like a gross thing we do because our ancestors needed to do it to show Janes.

Simone Collins: I mean, it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, I wonder if it's gonna be seen as a bodily function akin to like pooping. And if you don't have Yeah, but be like,

Malcolm Collins: I know, I think, I think 500 years, 600 years from now, if people go the route of genetic modification and you know, artificial wounds and stuff like that.

Being like, I had sex with my wife. This will be like akin saying today, like, well, my wife and I have like a poo fetish, like pooed on my wife. Like, you know, it'll be like, why would you do that? Sounds disgusting. That's that. You pee from there. What are you doing? I could totally see that.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, I think, I think a lot of people, I think already actually we've reached the point at which a lot of people are [00:33:00] extremely disgusted by sex, which is probably one of the reasons why we're seeing less of it.

I also think that. I, I, I realized, you know, we keep talking about this, this tech futile future, but it, it occurred to me after I read this New York Times article about the rationalist community that was on the front page of the New York Times today. Yeah, it's a picture of Light Haven on the front of it.

Malcolm Collins: Light Haven. We've spoken there. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, that's where manifest is, has been. Yeah. And. Yeah, it sort of frames Light Haven as like this epicenter or Church of the Rationalist movement, and it largely frames Elie Eer Kowski as like the Jesus figure or like God figure of it, where they do like weekly readings of the sequences and that, you know, he made this and that possible and.

He, he also wrote Harry Potter in message. He t

Malcolm Collins: for people who don't know, like really

Simone Collins: the article would trigger you so freaking bad because it's like rationalism invented by e Eer, Kowski Made Possible by Ellie Eer, Kowski, [00:34:00] EI, Kowski offices in Light Haven. Ellie Ezer YOWs making Google Mind possible by introducing the founders to Peter Thiel.

All these things. But it occurred to me that I feel like so many movements. Really only exists because there is a wealthy financial backer. Like all these, these conservative movements exist because they were, you know, backed by the Koch brothers and whatnot. Yeah. And then, you know, like Jan Tolin and a bunch of other very influential tech investors, really shaping how the EA and rationalist community evolved as well.

Yeah. And, and we act as though these things have organically grown, when really the only reason they exist is because there are these techno futile, wealthy benefactors that make them exist. Like would the Heritage Foundation exist if it weren't for like some very specific No,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely true. Well, and this, what's interesting about our movement is we don't have that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it, yeah, we, we don't, well. [00:35:00] Jan Tall did make the biggest donation of anyone to the private foundation. He did.

Malcolm Collins: And it's it, but it's, it's, it's Ry compared to what all the other groups are getting. That's true. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, they're, yeah. I mean, not to say that the $500,000 donation that we received wasn't game changing for the foundation.

We didn't take salaries or anything from it. We only used it toward the cause. But yeah, I just, I, I realized like, wow, like so many of these big policy movements that we have. And cultural movements that we have aren't grassroots. I mean, they may have had grassroots origins, but the only reason they went anywhere was because someone with money gave them fuel.

And it was kind of sobering because I was like, I, I keep thinking about techno feudalism is something that's going to happen in the future. When maybe it's only something that's just going to become much more obvious in the future and, and also like more fragmented and large scale in the future as well.

So,

Speaker 3: yeah. [00:36:00]

Simone Collins: Still though I'm excited. So someone please build this so we can use it. This, this face scanner please.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, is that gonna be, have to be our next major project? Building the face scanner.

Simone Collins: Can we do it like again, I guess it, I mean we can do anything. It would be difficult.

Malcolm Collins: It's not within my proficiencies or as easy as any of the other technical projects I've taken on in the past.

Probably

Simone Collins: not. 'cause I mean like all of them are using probably the same thing. I mean, what they're doing is that that typical mapping of looking at distances and measurements.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And you're just turning each face into a series of raw data points. And then you just can apply kind of how Nebula genomics takes your genome and then they just apply.

Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: It'd be so cool in the future if we have like augmented reality and when you see somebody's face, it does a face scan and like their personality trait.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You're like, so you're wearing your ray bands. Who has the ray? It would be like, so

Malcolm Collins: in the new DSX games they have it, so like it tells you like the person's emotions and how likely they are to respond to certain things and like, that's basically what it would do.

Oh my god.

Simone Collins: Functional. [00:37:00] Yes. No, 100%. Yeah. Just it's like,

Malcolm Collins: Cody wants to partner with us on this business. You let us know. We'll work with you. Okay.

Simone Collins: Morning high aggression. Oh my gosh. I would, yeah, I would, I would probably buy AR glasses if, and I'm, I bet there will be like an app landscape for the various AR glasses that are coming online.

It was just, people would buy, it'd be

Malcolm Collins: so bad if you have like a face that looks like a rapist face because you are one, and it's like every girl you look at is like. The 98% rapist.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You mean because you aren't one?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, well, I mean I think the person probably is one, but you know,

Simone Collins: oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: Or you really, the whole world know,

Simone Collins: gosh, that is really gonna mess things up.

'cause this will happen. Like if the data's out there, people will develop it and then people will make hiring decisions and. Social [00:38:00] decisions based on, I mean, I'm sure governments, you know, people in democratic societies will create legislation that blocks this from being used in hiring and. In government and in law enforcement, but that is not gonna stop private individuals from using this.

Malcolm Collins: You prevent it from hiring. But of course, the HR manager has their, you know, yeah, just personally,

Simone Collins: they're just wearing their goggles with the app installed

Malcolm Collins: Simon own branded goggles for knowing who's the, the, the, the rapist.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And we should partner with Cutler and Gross who makes these glasses.

Mm-hmm. They also made the glass like the glasses frames from the Kingsman movie. Mm-hmm. And those glasses were AR glasses, weren't they? Oh yeah, they were. Yeah. And I mean, it works 'cause they're really chunky, so we should just partner. We should reach out to 'em and be like, Hey guys.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Love you dear Decone, what are we doing for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: So if you

Malcolm Collins: really want, we can try to squeeze in another episode.

Simone Collins: No, I know you wanna, you wanna

Malcolm Collins: get outta here? It's fine. I know. [00:39:00] I just, we have so many backlog episodes to process it. Okay. As

Simone Collins: long as we get seven days a week patron on subscribers. Get, get more. Okay. Thank you. Then I was thinking, so I can do teriyaki chicken with rice if you'd like.

Malcolm Collins: That sounds great.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, you know what'd be good tonight? Honestly, Mac and cheese.

Simone Collins: You feeling the The cheese? You got the cheese

Malcolm Collins: or pesto? We, we've got pesto. Let's do pesto.

Simone Collins: Do you want macaroni cheese with pesto?

Malcolm Collins: A little bit of cheese with the pesto is always good.

Simone Collins: Well, would you just prefer, we should probably just do pesto.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Do pesto throw in a bit of mac and cheese.

Simone Collins: Okay. Well either I'm making mac and cheese for the kids and for, no. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: You've done it before. You've thrown in a bit of the, the mac and cheese into the paste and it was really [00:40:00] good.

Simone Collins: Okay. So you want me to do that for you? Okay. So I think I'm just gonna do plain noodles for the kids, 'cause that way I can make mac and cheese for them tomorrow night.

Okay. I have a plan. Are are we, are you gonna take them out on the boat? Should I charge the batteries?

Malcolm Collins: So much f*****g, sorry, I've got all these backlog episodes to do. You know, so that means sitting down there and listening to episodes and going through and editing them, you guys don't know how long it takes to produce one of these episodes.

It is enormously time intensive because you don't just have the recording period and the research period to begin with. But then you've got me going through it and editing the entire thing, watching the entire thing, very slowly adding. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Simone Collins: Not everyone is as conscientious as you are.

Malcolm Collins: Just, yeah. Other, other producers? No. And I watch other producers and they just waste their users' time, you know, and like whatever. I try to be, you know, engaging throughout.

Simone Collins: I appreciate that. Your dedication to the craft. Okay. Well then,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, I guess that's why I'm [00:41:00] confident that this will work out for us.

'cause I watch other people and I'm like, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Well, and I also, there are other people who do invest a lot in editing who have grown a ton, like who actually take it seriously. So like Caleb Hammer, he puts so much work into his episodes and he's put so much work into all of his like value added money making services and membership extras too.

So I'm like, okay, maximum effort pays off for YouTubers, at least some. And then some are just lucky. And then some are just kid influencers who get 85 million views on videos of them playing with army men. All right, I'm gonna go downstairs and make dinner. I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins: I love you very much, and I'm so excited for the life I spend with you.

And tomorrow is Saturday.

Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:42:00]

Malcolm Collins: So I will get two episodes to you for the Patreon viewers. Thank you. And and Substack subscribers of course. And thank you for making sure those go live.

Simone Collins: You welcome in. I'm excited. Bye Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Bye.

Simone Collins: I I was thinking about how you and I just kind of have this going assumption that we're gonna die at any moment

Malcolm Collins: and our kids do too. They have all sorts of plans about what they're gonna do after we're dead.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm so excited that we're almost 50,000 subscribers. Our son, Octavian, obviously wants 100,000 so he can get the plaque because he then wants us to die.

So he can take care of it for us. He is really, he just wants to get his hands on that plaque. That placard bull?

Malcolm Collins: No. No. Yeah. He said, well, when you die, I'll take care of the YouTube plaque for you. [00:43:00] Mm-hmm. And he was very excited about this. Yeah. And I can understand why, you know, if we can get, you know, before he gets to middle school, let's get to a hundred thousand.

If we can get to a hundred thousand. A kid in middle school was a YouTube plaque, parents. Mm mm

Simone Collins: That's how you know. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, eight passengers kids thought it was terrible. Having parents, having a mom that was on YouTube. So who knows? I don't know. I just, I think, I think maybe he'll make it to like crazy YouTube status before we do.

'cause when I look at kid content on YouTube and I look at their views, like I look at top tier YouTuber views and it's, you know, 3 million a video, 4 million a video, 1.3 million per video. Then I look at the videos that our kids watch created by kid influencers. 87 million views. It just, it's like [00:44:00] clown world views it.

I, I can't wrap my head around it. He'll be, he'll be the money maker of our family.

Malcolm Collins: He'll make, he'll make the videos for the little ones that just will write on repeat. Yeah. Well, okay, so question Simone. Mm-hmm. Episode today. How'd it do the My Little Pony episode?

Simone Collins: I, I didn't look at comments yet.

You didn't get

Malcolm Collins: the comments?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm sorry. Well,

Malcolm Collins: we had the interview. Somebody's making like a Broadway play on us, and that'll be fun

Simone Collins: on fertility broadly.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And she seemed interested. She was like, wait, are you guys under any things? I need to do more with you guys. Like in terms of who you're allowed to talk to.

Oh my God, we have to go to this. Somebody's gonna be playing me on Broadway talking about, that would be

Simone Collins: fun. Yes. This would be your first experience of who is cast. Is Malcolm Collins?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Oh my God. Are they gonna make it somebody who looks evil? Oh, I hope so. I hope I get a mustache that I can twirl. People who [00:45:00] don't know, by the way, I don't naturally grow facial hair.

Whole family

Simone Collins: doesn't. Yeah, thank, I'm not a facial hair person. I can't. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I'm lucky, right? I actually get a smooth face, thank

Simone Collins: God. Can he

Malcolm Collins: believe this? A guy? Was it like a I mean, not perfectly like my dad. I, I think if I get older it may get a bit coarser because my dad has a cos face,

Simone Collins: puberty hits your family at like age 55.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No. I, I think it might be because he just doesn't shave enough. Is, is why that happens. But yeah, I it's, it's, it that's sort, I've always been very annoyed by like the, you know, no shave November or whatever. I'm like, but nothing would happen. And everyone else in the office is doing it and they're like, Malcolm, why aren't you being a bro?

Why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, I don't grow facial hair. Best trait by like, honestly of I could have rolled like genetics and, and you're like, okay, grow facial hair or not do are, do you at all feel bad that you don't? I'm like, no, this is awesome. [00:46:00] So very, very lucky about that particular genetic role.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I I think that's absolutely fantastic. So don't change. Not that you can don't, don't get genetically modified to shift this.

Malcolm Collins: No, I know. I'll have our kids genetically modify to make it even less. I mean,

Simone Collins: yeah. Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I, I'd prefer if I had literally none at all. Like, I, I just hate. I think it's, it's, it's, it's gross and uncooked.

Simone Collins: Oh. And I'm sure once adults can get genetically modified to eliminate hair in, like on legs, on armpits. Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That'll be,

Simone Collins: people will go in right away. That, that is a form of cosmetic procedure. I would totally get. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: if you could just

Simone Collins: stop growing something. Imagine

Malcolm Collins: removing like armpit sweat. Like

Simone Collins: instead of having Botox.

Yeah. Yeah. Just genetically removing. I mean, I don't know. Maybe we actually need it. Sometimes. Probably not though. [00:47:00]

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think we did in a historic situation, but I don't know if we do. I mean, you might end up. Getting like a rash or something from things rubbing like, is it, I remember

Simone Collins: reading a sci-fi book where a character had been genetically engineered, I think maybe as like a, a sex bot kind of human.

And she had really small pores, but then. She overheated like a lot. It was, it was a big problem. And I, I, I don't know, I could see that being some new form of female malady, like women just choosing to get really small pores because who wants pores? But then at the same time, like, oh, right. There's a process.

What

Malcolm Collins: pores do. Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. We, these were evolved for a reason. Speaking of poorness, by the way a material that some people still argue is better than goretex for serving as a, a breathable, waterproof material. 'cause the problem with most waterproof materials people have used in the past to like stage drying cold environments or in wet [00:48:00] environments, is that if you sweat, then you could get hypothermia.

Because you're wet inside your clothing. Like it has, you have to evaporate away the moisture that you sweat out when you are moving around in the cold environment. And you know what they used, like what some Inuit peoples used as the proto version of Gore-Tex, I

Malcolm Collins: don't know, seal fur or something?

Simone Collins: No, no.

Seal and whale intestines.

Malcolm Collins: Oh goodness.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they just sewed them together in a way that made them like the, the, the seams waterproof, which is super impressive and it took a long time to do this to make, and you can see pictures, they. They look like, they look like what they are. They look like someone sewed together intestines and is now wearing them as their wait.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Seal in? No. Look.

Simone Collins: Whale intestine, Inuit, raincoat. Let's see.

Yep.

Looks like [00:49:00] exactly what you think it would look like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that does look exactly what I think it would look like. It's, it's a whale intestine raincoat.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But it also looks like, oddly in, in the way it's kind of puffy and, and, and sort of drawn together. It, it looks oddly modern.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it does look oddly modern.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's just like a, like as if there was some gross like, skin color trend. 'cause it's kind of this, this disagreeable, shriveled, pale. Kind of like the color of my skin. It's that it just,

Malcolm Collins: I love that you think so little of yourself. Alright, I'll get started. So, let's do it. Let's do it. We're only gonna do one today.

Okay. We, we, we got started late. Okay. Okay. And I've got a lot of backlog. You gimme extra episodes. That's extra things for processing. I know, but

Simone Collins: we're trying to shift to seven days a week. Two for Patreon members. Every week

Malcolm Collins: you punish me. What have I done to deserve this? But yes, you've been too fun to talk

Simone Collins: to Malcolm.

I [00:50:00] I just wanna keep it going honestly.

Speaker 11: Oh my gosh. Is this a hospital? I get entrance, man. You're climbing on top of the entrance that, that's called running triage. You're the triage man. No, he, he means he's standing on the entrance. Well, he a triage doctor. Why are you, why are you standing on the entrance? Do you think that's safe? I just looking Mr.

If is Titan okay or not? Titan's a doctor. She's waiting for you to fall off and get hurt so she can make you all better. Right. Titan, what is that? What do you wanna be the patient or do we need a stuffed animal to be the patient? Um, we need, oh my, the.

In this controversial episode, we dive deep into the surprising and unsettling connections between the beloved children's show 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' and right-wing extremist ideologies. We discuss themes of racial segregation, colonialism, monarchy, and anti-communism portrayed in the show. By analyzing specific episodes and character dynamics, we reveal how My Little Pony potentially indoctrinates viewers with far-right beliefs. Buckle up for this eye-opening and provocative exploration that challenges everything you thought you knew about this seemingly innocent show.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you today. A lot of people find it pretty humorous that the, my Little Pony fandom was one of the predecessors to the modern online right culture.

And a lot of people look at this show superficially and even in the early days it had a lot of right wing fans, right? And they're like, but how? I wanna turn this around on you. How can anyone watch the My Little Pony Show and not feeling that it's a show that explicitly adv advocates for racism, racial segregation, or at least what leftists would call racism, not what Rightists would call racism.

Monarch colonialism Jack. And, and anti-communism. That communism is evil. As, as well as anti technological progress. Progress. So we're gonna go into all of these. The, [00:01:00] the My Little Pony Show and its political themeing. Is far to the right of a thinker like Munches Moog. I I, I might even argue that my Little Pony is far to the right of Nick Fuentes.

Um, Wow. And so we're gonna go like, like it's, it's so far right? It makes me uncomfortable. But it built an entire generation of right wing extremists by incepting them through a kid's show. Like, no, Simone, like you might think I'm exaggerating. We're gonna go over one episode here where the villain, and this is like a core, big, bad villain of the show, and this is a two part arc, so it's like a big show.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Everybody has like their inborn proficiencies, which are represented by their cutie marks, the things they are naturally good at.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is the little, the little like logo that ends up on Yeah. That, that says I am uniquely good at x sort of a [00:02:00] task. Yeah. And she, it's kind of like, I don't know, with Hogwarts, like you, you don't find out what house you're in or what your special skill is until you are, you're older, so,

Malcolm Collins: right.

But it is, it is clearly like genetic in this world, for example. It's mentioned that in one part they're talking about like what apple jacks. Sister, little sister is gonna have, and they go, well, it's probably gonna be something to do with apples. 'cause in our family it's always something to do with apples.

And she removes them all and replaces them with an equal sign. Literally like, you know, the one the progressives use in like pro-gay pro protests and stuff like that. And then they all march around the town in what is clearly supposed to be communist style marches.

Speaker: In, in Our Town work as a team. You can have a nightmare if you never dream.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm just having a hard time understanding. Different talents lead to different opinions, which lead to bitterness and [00:03:00] misery.

Malcolm Collins: And so we'll get into that in a second.

But. I wanna start less than that. So let's look at how does it handle colonialism, right? Surely this, like, I'm gonna read you this episode. You're gonna be like, how did somebody write this? And then how is this conceivably approved? Okay. So the conflict arises between settler ponies of Appalachia a joke on the applejacks who are a country seamed pony being an Appalachian.

But anyway plant an apple orchard. On the Buffalo's, traditional stampeding grounds without their permission. Now the buffalo are a different species that dress up like Native Americans. Oh my gosh. Okay. Clearly making it clear that in the My Little Pony universe species as well as the different cath of ponies are allegories for race blocking a path central to their heritage.

The buffalo. [00:04:00] Led by Chief Thunder Hooves demands the tree's removal, viewing the land as sacred. We have a long and winding stampede trail that we run upon for many generations. The ponies refuse citing the investment in the land for food and survival. The resolution comes mid battle. Mid battle. So you may say, how do these ponies battle the the Indians?

So they, they, they battle them by throwing apple pies at their faces. So they bring apple pies as as weapons. Okay, so keep in mind in this allegory, apple pies are weapons, okay? Industrially produced weapons, the resolution comes mid battle. After Chief Thunder, Hove tastes an apple pie. Thrown at him as a weapon and proposes a deal where the ponies keep the orchard, but uproot some trees to create a clear path for the buffalo stampede.

In exchange, the buffalo receive a share of the apple pies, so they [00:05:00] trade the allegory for guns, industrially produced guns to the colonized people. It. Without making any like major concessions in terms of their industrialization plans. It's basically saying, oh, you people who are being colonized, you'll change your mind about this.

When you understand all of the great things you'll get from industrialization, like guns. There isn't really another way, and this isn't done as like a shaky compromise or something like this. Effing pinky pie does a whole song about how great this is.

So for viewers who don't know the show, the pony, the country themed pony that you're about to see talk is the world's avatar of honesty. Like she is a, a magically chosen pony once for generation, for being like the most honest a pony could possibly [00:06:00] be, and she defends colonization.

Speaker 5: They busted their ropes here and now they're supposed to bust their ropes again. Just 'cause some buffalo won't stampede someplace else.

The buffalo had it first. The settler is needed to live. Come on Apple.

Malcolm Collins: Can you like just Simone, you writer's room, they're like, let's handle colonization.

Okay. They didn't have to make an episode about colonization. They didn't have to make an episode where they dressed up a different species like Native Americans.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: they didn't have to make them. Childish and stampede pointlessly from one place to another. They did not. They, they did not. But they set all this up clearly.

'cause they're like, let's do a, a, a a colonizer episode. And the point of the episode could have been, we're not so different or something. No. They literally made the key conflict of the episode, the settlers taking their ancestral land and they literally made the resolution to that being [00:07:00] everybody wants the fruits of civilization.

Just compromise on your tradition.

Simone Collins (2): I mean, aren't, aren't the writers of this progressive though, what's going on? I do not

Malcolm Collins: know what, no, you will progressively see you go down this. I don't think they are. I think they may be like secretly like super racist. Keep in mind, this isn't like we, we regularly see in the show, or is this

Simone Collins (2): just the, the like progressive to racist horseshoe where when you remove the technical aesthetics of our reality.

You see their true philosophy just come through and how they actually feel about everything, which actually is, yeah, eventually everyone

Malcolm Collins: will be the urban monoculture, eventually racist

Simone Collins (2): and imperialist. In classist. I mean, in the end, the urban monoculture is all those things. It's the most imperialist.

It's the most classist. It's the most, it's not as

Malcolm Collins: racist. No. This, this show, and we'll get into themes, it has that are. Anti-urban [00:08:00] monoculture in the extreme.

Simone Collins (2): Oh, okay. So that's off my theory, I guess. Although they do hate themselves though, so maybe

Malcolm Collins: not. I, yeah, this isn't the only time, you know, we see other instances because there are other species and ponies and we see this world like the ponies begin.

Apparently they various. Races of ponies used to fight with each other. And then they came together in sort of a class-based social structure based on their race, which we'll get to in a second. And they, they then fought off because one of the classes, the Pegasus became the military branch. Initially, so clearly they were fighting an outside force.

So we see other species that are on like the fringes of the equestrian world, and, and clearly we see how they're pushed back and we see that they are treated with racism within pony society. So like a zebra lives in the woods outside of the main town called Pony V Kora oh yeah, the first interaction with her.

Isn't she like the sort of witch doctory one. Oh yeah. No, it's super [00:09:00] racist the way she's depicted, right? She's a rich doctor who speaks in rhymes, who is clearly supposed to be allegorical for black people like Africans specifically. So anyway, she and, and, and tribalistic Africans 'cause she's her tribalistic.

Yeah. Even after they learn, oh, she's not that bad. They don't like welcome her into the town until like the 22nd season of this show. She still lives in a shack in the woods. Okay? She is friends with like the literal princess of this land, okay? Because one of the main characters becomes a princess, and the princess can't even requisition her a house.

She still has to live in a wooden shack outside of town. But no, that is what is needed to maintain the friendship of harmony, so,

Simone Collins: wow.

Malcolm Collins: At the heart of the society [00:10:00] show you have three categories of ponies. Okay. And, and, and they're clearly allegorical for racial differences.

Simone Collins (2): Oh, right, right. There's, there's unicorns that have the horn.

There's unicorns

Malcolm Collins: who can use

Simone Collins: magic. Pegasis, Pegasus Pega aside, they can slide. Yes. And then there's. And then there's earth ponies. Earth ies, earth ponies. They just, they don't have anything that they just, they, they're not a Pega

Malcolm Collins: unicorn. Well, I mean, it, it said when they're talked about that they have a special connection to the land.

Sure. Except we are seen through multiple scenes that this is. Cat, categorically not true. So they say they have a special connection to the animals and land, and yet which of the ponies can talk to animals? Only the fricking Pegasus. Yeah. Is the Pegasus. It's the only pony we know that can talk to animals that's

Simone Collins (2): clever or shy for those wonders.

Malcolm Collins: And then we learn in the, second, see like the, the reboot of the show. Earth's ponies are said to get magic for the first time, and it is plant-based magic. But it is, it is stated that they didn't [00:11:00] have this form of magic before, which implies that they didn't have some special connection to plants.

Moreover, when their cutie marks are switched, sorry. I am, I am getting feisty about this. When the cutie marks are switched. Apple Jack's cutie. Mark is switched with pinky pie's, cutie Mark, who is also an earths pony who tries to take over the farm and is unable to run it and everything is dying. So even as an earths pony, it's shown that it is not because apple jack is an earths pony, that she is good at this.

It's because apple Jack is Apple jack, that she's good at this. When another earth's pony attempts to take over the farm, she is unable to do it. So, you might be like, oh, so there's, there's one class of ponies. Without any special skills, right? How is society maintained? If that's the case, and the answer is segregation, and we'll get to how this is done, but what you will notice is outside of the main town that the show takes place in most of the cities are segregated by ethnic group.

EEG by species was the Pegasus. Living mostly in Clarksdale [00:12:00] you could see, well the other species can't live in Clarksdale, except we know that's not true because Twilight gives the rest a spell so that they can walk on the cloud of clouds dale. So that could happen to other ponies. And then we see canter lot.

The main city is predominantly this would be like the capital where the aristocrats and wealthy and academics live is predominantly just unicorns. Very, very few other ponies are there. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, it is, it is a, a, a class segregated society. But more than being class segregated, it is almost as if the earth ponies.

Are genetically modified to be something of an underclass in that they are uniquely eager to please and affable. Oh, and this seems to be a genetically inherited trait within them. In the song about the character's flaws, we see applejack, the earth's pony. Literally serve as a footstool for rarity the unicorn.

I can be a drama queen, a bit stuck [00:13:00] up. It's true, and I can be too eager to please.

Malcolm Collins: We, we see the two primary earth ponies characteristics being that they really want to, like, the, a pinky pie really wants to make people laugh and make people happy. And, rarity sorry. Not rarity. Apple

Speaker 4: jack.

Malcolm Collins: Apple jack overwhelmingly wants to please people and is seen as very, very eager to please.

We do see earth's ponies without this trait like filthy wi rich. But they are definitely the minority in earth's pony society. Whereas with, in unicorn society, the majority seem to be. Arrogant and intellectual. And within Pegasus society, they appear to be very athletic, militaristic, and competitive.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Well, though flutter shy is not, Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: No, of course there, there, there are you know, outliers within this, this system. But basically what this show argues more broadly is you should take jobs and live in places that are aligned or coherent with your [00:14:00] ethnic abilities and, and, and talents. Yeah.

If you are born a Pegasus, you know, you should live among other Pegasus. But you know, if your, if your talents are needed in another town like an earth pony town like to maintain the weather within that town because you wouldn't need a Pegasus to maintain the weather within every earth pony town.

You can go to that town and help them with the tasks that you are uniquely suited for. You know. If you are a Asian, you know, you should go be a doctor in a majority white settlement because they're just not gonna be able to handle that task on their own. Mm-hmm. If you're a Jew, you should go be a banker in a majority white settlement 'cause they're just not gonna be able to handle that on their own.

And you know, if, if, if you're an earth's pony, if you look at like the way things are produced in this world, the earth's ponies manage this sort of underclass of ponies. It's very obsequious essentially manages the production of everything other than luxury goods. The, the Pegasus take on the job of military and controlling the weather, which.

You know, obviously they can [00:15:00] use this to get the earth's ponies to do whatever they want because the Earth's ponies can't grow anything without them. And the unicorns seem to almost as a favor to the earth ponies segregate themselves. And this is what's really interesting is it is the show portrays segregation as beneficial to the underclasses.

Specifically. Equestrian, geography and economy reinforced the defacto segregation implying the racist race-based divisions lead to smoother operation than forced multiculturalism. If professions were integrated, then resentment would brew. Why hire an earth coney baker when a unicorn could levitate ingredients faster, the economy works because the racists, quote unquote, know their place.

Echoing arguments that racial hegemity in vocations reduces friction and boosts productivity. That I find to be kind of cool because it could shy away from this, right? Like it could not touch the [00:16:00] fact that unicorns can do basically anything earth's ponies can do, but better than earth's ponies, right?

But no, the show goes into this extremely hardcore there's an episode called super. Speedy Cider squeezy 6,000 where the Flimm Fram brothers, a group of two unicorns create a machine that uses magic to automatically both pick and press cider.

Speaker 7: Let's bang and show these Thirsty World Electrical. Right here in this evening, loing Cider Press Wooding Gus of the very machine.

Malcolm Collins: Meaning that they could create a near infinite amount and increase cider production significantly.

It's the spinning

Simone Collins (2): Jenny of Equestria. It

Malcolm Collins: is. But it's framed as this very negative thing, right? The Applejack family, they're like, well, we'll you, we'll take 75% of the product profits as they should, because they're basically removing all of the yearly work of the Apple family. I [00:17:00] mean, the Apple family keeps 25%, but they'll be able to produce more and faster and expand their land, right?

But the Apple family's having none of this. They're like, no, progress is bad. Industrial progress is bad. Why would this world be so anti industrial progress? Well, it's because if unicorns could just come out and do this, and a note here, you might be thinking. Is the machine defective in some way? Does it poison the cider in some way?

Does it? No. The machine is shown to completely do everything they promise it can do. It doesn't break and start making mistakes until to keep up, because they do a competition where they're like, well, whoever is better you doing this on your own or us running the machine that's who wins the, the rights to sell to apple, this town.

Okay. Yeah. And, applejack, basically cheating, just works really hard in a way that is obviously unsustainable and against the spirit of the competition. And so the brothers remove the limiter, the thing that's supposed to maintain the, the [00:18:00] quote on

Simone Collins (2): the maximum

Malcolm Collins: quality of the oh of the cider.

Okay. And it ends up including parts like bad apples. It ends up including and stems it ends up including and everything like that. Which. Again, that now they end up being framed as like very bad because of this, but I'd actually point out. Applejack broke the spirit of the competition more than they did.

The point of the competition was to find out which way in a sustainable fashion was a better way to do this. You know, that's the point of competing one thing against another thing. If you work so hard that you die at the end, like that famous case where the guy competed against the steam engine, you haven't shown that humans are better.

You, you've shown that pushing yourself to your absolute limit. Second, they technically won the competition. The competition was about how much you could produce, not about the quality of what was produced. True on, on two fronts. Applejack cheated within this competition. But what is shown from this is that the, the segregation of this world, you know, unicorns not interfering in [00:19:00] the tasks of earth ponies, even though they can do them much better and at a much higher capacity.

Is a good thing. The unicorn self-segregating to the, you know, if you, if you look at the unicorn character that this show, we know one is very academic from the twilight. But if you, if you, if if twilight's engaging with like any other intellectual in the show, they're almost always a unicorn. The other is, is very high, high society high status producing cultural goods.

Rarity, who owns a, a dress shop. And when she's engaging with other high society ponies, they are often unicorns. So the unicorns, it's, it's basically like we let. This group that is naturally better than us control the wealth predominantly and the status roles and the you know, noble titles.

And in exchange they don't take the few jobs where we are still able to compete in any meaningful way. [00:20:00] Yeah. So it's more than just the standard argument of you know, yes there are racial differences. Yes. Some people won't conform to those differences like flutter shy. But broadly speaking, you should lean into your differences and self-segregate.

And society will run. Do, do you see how, right, like the, this isn't me reading something that's not intended into the show. Like, I

Simone Collins (2): mean, but the friends, I mean, this is my Little pony friendship is magic and the friends are from different groups. There's two Pegasus, two earth ponies, no, two unicorns and yeah, two earth ponies.

So you

Malcolm Collins: go, yeah, there's two, there's two of each. But yeah, they all fall into their group's Racial stereotypes. The, the, except for fluter, shy flus, the only one who doesn't fit her group's Esno stereotype as, as established by the show. And note, the show treats this as. Is having a group with [00:21:00] a bunch of different races, all friends with each other this is, this is shown as being the not normal thing within this world.

I'd also note another thing about the show, very not right wing is the world is very clearly, matriarchal society? Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: No. Yeah. Like super clearly men are 100% accessories.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Men have virtually no positions of power in this world. There's no male or members of the monarchy. There are no male elected officials that we see.

Mayor. Mayor is a female. The most powerful male I'm familiar with is either, shining whatever his name is. Twilight's brother who ends up marrying into the monarchy but does not appear to become a king or a prince. He's still a royal guard. Very much a woman's fantasy. I get to be queen and married to a royal guard.

He doesn't change status. He still walks around protecting me all tough. And, and the other one I would think of as filthy rich. Just another powerful male who achieved I [00:22:00] guess wealth through mercantilism. But this is, there's a, there's a, a series of fan fictions about this that really made me realize it.

Called my Little Pony Fall Out Equest. Really like the series. It's, it's very good. It, it, it takes place in the fall, equestrian universe, very dark. I love mixing the, the bright bubbs of this with the dystopian of this in a way that highlights how actually dystopian everything was all along. And in it, in one of the vaults, if you know the fallout universe, they run different experiments in the various vaults.

One of the vaults of the experiment is what if we put males in positions of power? Hmm. And one of the characters grew up in this vault and is always making faux paws in the world and just doesn't understand why men should be seen as an underclass. And it really puts this in stark contrast, how much everyone else in pony society.

Assumes that males should be seen as a, as a rightful underclass. Without complaint and, and no, no, nobody complains about this anywhere in the show. If even, even you can be like, well, what about like, the more [00:23:00] con like conservative, even coded parts of this, like the Appalachian coded. Applejack character in her family.

That's very much like a clan based family structure. Which is interesting. I never thought about that. But yeah, they do a very good job of showing Appalachian culture. But anyway no, her family is clearly run by Applejack. The not even the oldest of the siblings. Her big brother, big Mac is basically treated as a, a workhorse.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And doesn't really talk back to, he's almost the,

Simone Collins (2): the lurch of the family.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Even though he's older and bigger and does more work and the family is, is is very, obviously if you look at like the structure of it, default run by the grandmother. Mm-hmm. If, if not, if not you know, the, the older sister who's, who's still the younger of, of Big Mac so very dystopian in that and I just love that it was like.

They, they just wrote it that way and they were just like, balls out on the table. Yes, women run this world. [00:24:00] Men are basically, their slaves deal with it. The society is okay with this. It works. Oh, and yes, racial groups exist. They live in a segregated society. I'm

Simone Collins (2): trying to, to figure out a way to steal man, this, I mean, I'm wondering if, if they're just trying to look at this from like little girls' perspectives where.

When they're playing with girly dolls, that's the world that everyone lives in. It's everything's run by princesses and most of their dolls are female. So why wouldn't men? I mean, when you, the problem is they had to flush this child's world, this girl's, little girl's world fantasy, world doll world into.

A larger, cohesive body of canon, a universe with different groups and politics.

Malcolm Collins: Well, but hold on. The problem is right, is, is if that was the case, right? Why not have a prince? Like why? 'cause they girls don't have princes

Simone Collins (2): in their fantasies.

Malcolm Collins: They effing do. Simone, I have read enough female romance books.

Little

Simone Collins (2): girls playing with dolls do not.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. [00:25:00] Maybe.

Simone Collins (2): Maybe even my friends who treated Barbies like throwing devices. Didn't have really kinds, well, let's

Malcolm Collins: see if I can convince you further. Right. Okay. So you could say, okay, they have a monarchy because little girls like monarchy. So the, the society is ruled by a class called All Horns which are so in this world, magic is clearly like an allegory for technology.

Like the super spider squeezy 6,000 was made with magic. So. Essentially they're genetically modified, super speed being, or, or, or, or, or, or genetically modified like God, human basically is what they are. They are larger than the other ponies. They live almost forever. They have both wings and a unicorn horn.

And presumably some tie to the. Flows in a weird way. Yes. And, and their, and, and their hair flows in a weird way. And it has shown that you can both be born to this cast if you are born of an aorn as happens with whatever her name is, kid. [00:26:00] And or you can be transformed this way through essentially genetic engineering was in this world because again, magic is allegorical to technology.

Again, I don't know if I. Hate this, you know, maybe society should be ruled because you could modify somebody to be more pro-social, to be more caring. It seems

Simone Collins (2): kind of Aristotelian, doesn't it? This idea of there being some noble leading class that sacrifices a lot in. Is somehow superior in various ways.

It's been a while

Malcolm Collins: since I've read. Well, I mean, clearly you could be born into this class because we've seen like, it's not just that people achieve it. Remember twilight's Niece is born into this class from Candace Candace, Mary Shining Armor oh yeah. And then she has a kid, and the kid is born in aorn, so we know that it's not like based on merit only or something like that.

Yeah. And you could say, well, well, Twilight gets it through merit, but again, she's. A unicorn. And the merit appears to have something to do with magical ability. Although we see in the reboot that I think non unicorns can have this happen to them as well. So yeah, I think it [00:27:00] happened to an earth pony in the reboot.

Oh, haven't watched the reboot. Okay. So potentially it, it could happen. Depends on if you consider reboot. Can it? But, okay. So you could say, well, that's why it's a monarchy. Okay. But the problem is. Is that the show explicitly shows democratic processes on two occasions. One was in the show and one was in the comic books, and in both instances, it's portrayed as a bad way to operate society.

So, oh, in, in, in the town itself. Pip Squeak. A humble working class cult described derogatorily as a transplant from trotting ham by the antagonist mother. His platform focuses on practical improvements like fixing a damaged playground equipment. His campaign managed by the cutie Mark SRS emphasizes positivity, fairness, and community needs.

Diamond Tiara, a wealthy, spoiled Phil Philly from a rich family backed by her elitist mother. Spoiled Rich, a school board member who presses her to win for status reasons. Diamonds tactics are overtly negative and manipulative. She's this black male threatening to expose [00:28:00] classmate secrets, bribery implied through favors, mud slinging and bullying, including belittling her own supporters.

Silver Spoon do, do doing a sing off debate. And at times she is seen as potentially winning. Now, this time within the series PIP Squeak wins. Yeah. But even after he wins, diamond Tiara still uses her money to sabotage by exploiting budget issues to deny his playground products. Oh goodness.

Eventually going back on this, but basically the message of the episode is, rich people manipulate politics to their own ends.

Simone Collins: Well, what, that's a very progressive. Well and conservative

Malcolm Collins: justice well. Well, yes. But keep in mind that typically was in a progressive world, communism is framed as the alternative, which we will point out in, in My Lord pony.

It is very not, it's framed as pure evil, not monarch. In this world, the alternative to the democratic process is monarch. Now, I'll note with the show itself, there is a mayor. Named Mayor. Mayor. [00:29:00] Now, if you only take the show as canon, this to me would mean that there are actually not elections and this is an appointed position because.

I mean, she's named mayor, right? It's, we never see an election in the show. We never see another leader after like two. So you're talking about

Simone Collins (2): the, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a play on words, right? It's spelled like mayor as in a female horse, right?

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. But like, she's named the mayor. But anyway

Simone Collins (2): nominative, determinism,

Malcolm Collins: I don't know.

But in, in, in the comic book spinoff, we see that actually this is an elected position. So what happens in the comic books? Well, the incumbent current administrator is, is forced to resign and then has to compete against filthy rich. A very rich pony, well, filthy rich, unlike his daughter who competed in the other election, also used his money this time without.

Doing underhanded tactics, but he's clearly the less competent candidate. So incompetent that he resigns after winning to win.

Simone Collins (2): Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: To win. [00:30:00] And keep in mind, you can be like, well, progressives complain about how money corrupts election cycles, right? I agree. What the alternative isn't typically Monarch, but in here, Monarch is never questioned.

The, the monarchs within this world are never shown as being you know, self-centered or flawed despite the fact that they live in giant palaces that presumably they had other people build to them. There is huge wealth and power disparity between the princesses and the other people in this world, for sure.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No one is shown, is able to question one of the princesses. The princesses make decisions to go to war unilaterally at multiple points in the show. How to Resolve Wars is handed unilaterally in the show and they are framed as like the perfect philosopher king. Always on the front battle, always trying their best to do right for the people but with astronomical amounts of power.

And I should note here that they're not just framed as [00:31:00] like normal monarchs, right? They're not like Munch Moog. No. This show says not only should you have monarchs, not only should they be genetically modified super beings, but they should be treated as gods. By everyone else in the world, but their hair

Simone Collins: flows in a cool way.

Of course, obviously

Malcolm Collins: they are treated as, I'm not wrong here, they're treated as literal gods in the show.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And Twilight like earns this status and is just to read it as a God afterwards.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: okay, so now we're gonna go to the communist part.

Simone Collins (2): Oh, no.

Malcolm Collins: I, did you ever see this episode? This episode is like shocking.

We should show it to our kids. It's a good episode to teach kids about why communism is evil.

Simone Collins (2): Oh my gosh, I don't think I did a bunch of these episodes. I remember a bunch. I don't though.

Malcolm Collins: So. As we've noted, every pony gets a cutie mark. This is basically the ways that we are genetically different from other people, our inbuilt proficiencies, [00:32:00] and it is shown very much in the show.

Follow your inbuilt proficiency. Don't try to be good at something that you don't have a natural talent for. This is. I'm actually kind of surprised. I don't think that there's a single episode of the show where somebody's like, but should I actually follow my cutie mark? I don't want to live my entire life by what I was interested in as a teenager.

But oh. In the show you, you get your cutie mark and everyone can see it too. It's very much like in star strip troopers when they show everybody's scores on like the board after the Yes. Yes. So everybody knows like, this is what you're doing for the rest of your life, except

Simone Collins (2): you effectively have the score tattooed on your forehead.

Malcolm Collins: And that's effectively what the universe is. Yeah. You, you, the magic decides that you're good at something at a certain age that gets tattooed on you for the rest of your life. And if you go against it, you're just being an idiot and you're gonna fail. 'Cause this is an episode where their kitie marks are switched up and they try things that aren't their talent.

And [00:33:00] they, they, their, their lives are shown as miserable. So I love that. That's so anti-urban monoculture. That is, we are born different with different genetic proficiencies. Lean into what you're good at. People can be different and still be friends. Yeah, that's true. It

Simone Collins: really does run against blank slm.

That's pretty radical.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Just because Pegasus have talents that that and abilities that unicorns don't, or unicorns have talents and abilities that earth's ponies don't, doesn't mean they can't get along and be friends. You know, they, they should only live in a non segregated society when absolutely necessary.

Mm-hmm. You know, just mostly segregate unless you really want to, you know, be different. So anyway. In the cutie map, the main six are summoned by twilight sparkles, magical cutie map to a remote village where ponies live. Under the rule of Starlight glimmer, the villagers have had their cutie marks, unique symbols, representing each pony's innate talents, passions, and often racial traits magically removed and replaced with [00:34:00] identical equal signs.

This enforces a philosophy of absolute equality. No one is allowed to excel or differ in skills, appearance, or abilities. The result is a gray, monotonous. A utopian term dystopia where baking produces bland muffins instead of delicious treats. Denying culinary talent. Construction yields, shoddy houses, suppressing building expertise.

Everyone smiles forcibly, but is secretly miserable, was dissenters locked into reeducation rooms blasting propaganda like. In sameness, there is peace, exceptionalism is a lie.

Speaker 8: In sameness, there is peace. Exceptionalism is a lie. Free yourself from your cutie mark. Choose a quality as your special talent.

Speaker 9: Hey, this is pretty [00:35:00] good.

This door shut tighter than a summer of the piglets and shoot, I can't even make country ISS no more.

Speaker 8: Oh, good morning. I trust you. Had a pleasant night. This way, please. There are some friends who would like to see you

Speaker 10: we have a welcome ceremony for new friends. The whole village joins together to build you your own cottage.

Speaker 9: Not interested.

Malcolm Collins: Now to, to really go against all of this Starlight preaches that differences cause conflict and that true friendship comes from sameness.

But she's a hypocrite. She secretly maintains her own cutie. Mark what? Maintain magic and control. It very Napoleon. This is very much, you know, equality. Some people are more equal than others. It's the progressive

Simone Collins (2): Napoleon, the pig from Animal Farm, not [00:36:00] Napoleon Bonaparte.

Speaker 13: Because we do not separate ourselves, buy more than name., In our time, we dare not compete. Winning

Speaker 14: name only creates the worst

ego filter, conce, you see.

Simone Collins (2): Right? Yeah. This is not something that would naturally emerge from scenarios of a girl playing with a bunch of girly toys.

This is yeah, this is some kind of message. This is clearly an

Malcolm Collins: allegory. For communism and not just communism. Yeah. But the urban monoculture. More specifically denying that humans are born different from each other and with unique traits. I

Simone Collins (2): can't, I can't deny that, my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Within a context that the character is treated as supremely villainous a a as, as threatening as any evil villain that they see in, in, throughout the entire show.

And I have to say, I always really like. The different [00:37:00] characters reaction to this. Because you see like if I look at the racial coating of the various characters it's pretty clear what it is. The applejack is racially coded as Appalachian like sort of, American redneck Rarity is clearly coded as a wasp. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

uh, pinky Pie is very clearly coded as Jewish.

I'm, I'm so surprised, really. She is a comedian with Fluffy hair who is incredibly gregarious and always hosting party. Simone, she's Jewish to the core. We, we often point out that, that Jews are, are far more gregarious than other ethnic groups in terms of the size of the friend network. They keep, you wanna see our episode on this?

You can look at our, why did Jews have Friends episode? Because it's just born out in the data. And come on, the comedian. What, what's a more classically Jewish job than comedian? Then you have, rainbow Dash, the one with rainbow hair that people often think is gay [00:38:00] coated when not at all.

She's very coated as Americana, tomboy. Like, like, very competitive very, like I'm the best, I'm the greatest. I can do better than what anyone else can do. And then you have flutter shy, who I've always taken as coded. Twilight's, obviously just autistic. Who've I've always taken to be coded as either Muslim or Catholic.

Very timid woman.

And what's funny about this is the way that this timid sort of Muslim Catholic coded character when they're all singing about how everyone's better when they're equal and they take away the way that everyone is different is getting really into it. And kind of likes the idea, which I think sort of aligns with the weird Muslim progressive alliance that we've seen.

Or you could say the, the, you know, Catholic majority areas are still dominantly progressive voting. If you look at massives overlap, where Catholic concentrations are in the United States, and progressive voting patterns where, whereas the Jewish coated character is giving her a very angry look.

We donate when you learn to [00:39:00] simplify life.

Malcolm Collins: And, and the Americana coated character, it's like, from the beginning, it's so funny that like, it, it's, it's coded like. The other ponies or some of the ponies might accidentally go along with this or think that this makes sense. And the Americana code is like, this is a joke, right? Like immediately after they do their big song just not having it at all.

Speaker 11: You're kidding. Right? Give up our cutie marks. No way. Rainbow dash.

Malcolm Collins: Like, you guys can't be serious. The, the world would be better if we didn't lean into our, our unique genetic profiles and talents. And I'll note here where you can be like, well, this isn't aligning with the, the ethnic background thing. I mean, it's like, well, not exactly. Most cutie marks are in some way tied to the ethnic coating, IE earth, pony, Pegasus or unicorn of the.

Pony that has [00:40:00] it. For example, twilight's cutie mark could only be had by unicorn 'cause it's tied to magic. Rainbow Dash's cutie mark is tied to flying. It could only be had by a pony of, of her ethnic affiliation. You put a lot of thought into this. Explain to you how My Little Pony brainwashed an entire generation of youth into being, uh uh.

Being okay with ethnic differences and accepting that we can have ethnic differences and still get along with each other. And that you should lean into your ethnic differences and admit them. Otherwise, your life will be horrible and that communism is terrible and evil. And that monarch is clearly better than democracy and that colonialism was actually good and that natives just needed to take some time to learn that, that they actually like this stuff.

And that in, in truth, it is the less privileged ethnic groups like the earth ponies that benefit the most from segregation and segregated. [00:41:00]

Simone Collins (2): Wait, how

Malcolm Collins: well remember the only reason that the Apple family is able to make money with their orchard instead of the unicorns using magic is because the unicorns are essentially not allowed to participate, right?

In industries that produce basic goods like lumber or apples or food production, which seems to be basically by cultural norms within this universe exclusive to the lower cast of earth ponies.

And given way, there is like a military race in this, the Pegasus are said to be specifically the military race. The, there are earth's ponies in the military, but we are seeing when their society is divided out in the Heartwarming Eve episode. That the, the pegasi are explicitly assigned a, a military caste structure.

And the elite groups within the military, like the wonder bolts are all Pegasus exclusive.

Simone Collins (2): [00:42:00] Man. Did you realize this when you were first watching it, or did you just find yourself thinking about it one day? I don't

Malcolm Collins: know when this happened, but I mean, it's something I've, I remember thinking like, this show is great at teaching about ethnic and racial differences and, and getting kids, you know, some people are just born different and that's fine.

I know. And I, I, I did not think about, because I didn. Know about like all the comics and stuff like that. The, the show, would it never criticize the monarchy? I thought that it would have some at some point was in like the 22 seasons it got, there would be some episode where they're like, Hey having a God, a genetically modified God king rule absolutely.

Is maybe not the best way to run a society. Nope, never. And, and I didn't know that they, every time, it never occurred to me until I was actually like going through this with an ai. Every time democracy is brought up, it's framed as corrupted by wealth. The same family boast times, by the way. So that's, that's also interesting.

[00:43:00] I

Simone Collins (2): like the critique because at least it's, it's a little different from others. It's like, listen, democracy, it just doesn't work because wealthy people get involved and ruin it, which is not normally the, the criticism I hear. So that's interesting too.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and I also find it to be actually a fairly interesting, like they don't just go into like surface level.

It, it's, it's good to lean into your natural born talents. We are born different, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends. And it doesn't mean that sometimes a Pegasus. Can't be an animal person doesn't mean that sometimes, you know, a, an earth's pony can't be a fashionista. It just means that normally they can't or shouldn't try to unless Right.

Averages

Simone Collins: or averages something something. Yeah. Average

Malcolm Collins: or averages. Right. I, I thought that that's what it would stop at, but it doesn't stop at that. It then is like, and actually we should segregate society because if we don't, it's the earth's ponies who are going to suffer the most. Oh my gosh. I actually you know, [00:44:00] e if you, if you look at segregation more broadly, many times it actually is for the benefit of the one that doesn't have an a, an advantage within the field.

So. An example here what is one of the most segregated places of our existing society? Sports. Sports is highly sex segregated. Yeah. Sports is segregated for the benefit of women.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If, if we were going to. Make sports like more fair, right? Like if you were going to say, let's racially segregate the Olympics.

Right. Who would benefit most from like racially segregating sprinting. Okay. White people would benefit it is the person who is in the back foot. Mm-hmm. Who often benefits from segregation. Segregation. And here and here, what I'm pointing out here is some groups of, of, of, african genetics appear to just be dramatically [00:45:00] faster at short sprinting than, well it's distance

Simone Collins: running too, so, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well also, also distance running, but I think they have a bigger advantage in sprinting. I don't remember where the bigger advantage is, but they have a bigger advantage in one or the other. But if, if, if you were to racially segregate that like everyone can be like, how dare you racially segregate that.

Who are you helping? You're helping the whites. And this is often true of racial segregation, which is something that I think is just not talked about in our society. And now people can be like, well, it hasn't been used that way historically. And it's like, well, I mean, it actually has with sex segregation in sports, it has with sex segregation of bathrooms, sex segregation of bathrooms isn't done for the benefit of men.

It's done for the benefit of women.

Simone Collins (2): Nobody, well, you could even argue that. Racial segregation in, for example, the United States did lead to some really prosperous black communities like Tulsa, Oklahoma, right? We, we went to that museum and they talked about how there was this really like affluent, wonderful community and then like [00:46:00] the white people.

Who were just sitting out there like in the cold, poor, getting really resentful, came in like,

Simone Collins: burned it down or something. Burned it down.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, like destroyed it because the, the more segregated black community was absolutely killing it. They were doing fantastically,

Malcolm Collins: actually, you, you make a point there.

I haven't thought about this and I'm, I may go into an AI 'cause this could make a very interesting other episode. But I do remember that, that the Tulsa community wasn't unique. There were a number of areas in the United States, if you go back to the 1950s where there were known to be extremely wealthy black communities.

Mm-hmm. When contrasted was the neighbor in groups, and I am not familiar with, in modern America, extremely wealthy, segregated black communities. They, they, and I feel like

Simone Collins (2): there are other maybe examples of, we'll say forced segregation like Mormon communities where like within certain Mormon communities, there, there are cycles, like up cycles of wealth because they all kind of feed into each other and collaborate more.

And, and try to buy, to sell to and buy from each other. [00:47:00] Preferentially.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I, I, I wonder if that, I mean, that'd be very interesting. It's certainly something we wouldn't learn in school. No. One of the things that we point out in some of our other episodes, and I'll put the graph on screen here 'cause it shocked me when I saw this.

If you look at American Black Wealth from the 1950s to today, and then you adjust it by income level and you contrast it with how much white wealth had raised during this period contrasted with how much white wealth has gone up when you adjust for inflation. Black wealth has gone up almost nothing since the 1950s.

Mm-hmm. Again, contrasting with how much white wealth has gone up. And this is a Wall Street Journal graph here. Now there's different ways you can measure this. This is median household income, I think that can give you different, but like any way you measure it, you see a huge increase in white in a very, very moderate to small increase in, in, and this could be caused by the negative economic effects of desegregation, which I've never thought about or looked into before.

Well, and I was thinking about

Simone Collins (2): the episode that we did on. Ethnic cartels that, that sort of talked about, you know, why are [00:48:00] certain sort of like random ethnic groups in certain areas, they just like own donut businesses or hotels or seven elevens or something like that. And like a big factor then is also.

Ingroup favoring providing very affordable financing, more efficient hiring, because it's really culturally compatible and there's more of an honor system where like, Hey, I am hiring your cousin. You better not screw up because now your whole family's on the line. Like, yeah, there, there are a lot of things that that make me think.

If I think, look at the LDS community, I look at racial or ethnic cartels, and then I look at wealthy and affluent black communities that existed pre. End,

Malcolm Collins: there's actually a secondary positive effect of segregation, which, which comes from these communities, which you're probably not thinking about. So if you look at, you go back to the 1950s or whatever when a black individual or black, black American would become wealthy they would often continue to live within a majority black community.

Mm-hmm. So they would have majority [00:49:00] black culture, but they would also act as a role model. For the other, you know, the black kids growing up in that community and bring wealth to that community. Yeah. Improve it, what black people can achieve. You saw this in, in like Harlem and stuff like this in New York.

It wasn't just like this area. If, if you go today when a black individual becomes wealthy, they just go and move in with a white community. Which means that the wealth that they have now and the positive cultural it, you know, effect that they could have for the community that they were born in is removed from that community in a modern context.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): Which didn't happen. The, the halo effect, that Halo is being moved and is now radiating onto a community that is not primarily black, you're saying.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. They're, they're removing whatever somebody becomes successful within their, the, because like in our society, wealthy people aren't segregated.

Poor people is still very much segregated. Like, I, I can go to a Mexican neighborhood or a Filipino neighborhood, or a white neighborhood or a black neighborhood. If it's poor, it's gonna be segregated very [00:50:00] frequently. It is the extremely wealthy communities that are non segregated, and that actually has a really negative effect on non-white communities.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, even poor white communities probably would benefit from,

Malcolm Collins: well, I mean consider, because not every group does this. If you look at Jewish individuals, right? Like if we talk about why, why Jewish exceptionalism, this could be one of the traits that leads to it. When a Jew becomes extremely wealthy, they do not move to live with a majority non-Jewish community.

They stay. Yeah. Well,

Simone Collins (2): like, like with the LDS church yeah, there's, there's self-imposed segregation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, when, when like this is often true for Asian communities as well because I was friends with like wealthy you know, Japanese people, they still went to the Japanese cultural events and stuff like that.

I've been friends with wealthy Koreans. They do the same. They, they often. Stay connected in, in terms of where they live and their friend network with the less wealthy members of [00:51:00] their community instead of creating communities that are mono wealth ethnic communities.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Hmm. Oh boy.

Malcolm Collins: Oh boy, my Little pony. This is, touches on some spicy taps.

Simone Collins (2): Well, it's so funny because I know what's her name, who did my Little Pony friendship is witchcraft.

Malcolm Collins: Did Sarah, whatever her name is. Anyway, continue on.

Simone Collins (2): Jenny Nicholson. She, Jenny Nicholson. Yeah. She got, she got in so much hot water and wanted to distance herself from the entire community because she dared to make some little sub joke in her, in her plots about, it was a

Malcolm Collins: gypsy community.

Yeah, it was the, the gypsy character and, yeah. Gypsy

Simone Collins (2): magic. No, no, no. She implied. I think that that pinky pie. He probably with the gypsy

Wing. You were right Ion, there's a simple explanation inside Crystal ball.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Was a gypsy. And then she caught heat from her urban monoculture followers about it. [00:52:00] And then just kind of wanted to just throw up her hands and distance herself for the, from the entire My Little Pony community.

And here you are highlighting such incredibly more controversial things that just the show unedited, released. Yeah. Like you can't even, yeah, nothing she

Malcolm Collins: did was as controversial as like just a colonialism episode. Yeah. Just we thought white people were bad until we saw them shoot some of us with guns.

Then they realized they have things we want.

Simone Collins (2): Just Wow. That, that was enlightening. Not sure what I think of it yet, but,

Malcolm Collins: well, you could be like, okay. Even though they were using the apple pies as a weapon, they weren't really an allegory for guns. They were just an allegory for like. Some sort of food that, I mean, yeah, they treated

Simone Collins (2): beads and clothing too.

No, no, no. They, they,

Malcolm Collins: what they could say is like, look, it's a food that white people make that Native Americans just couldn't get enough of so much that they abandoned their [00:53:00] ancestral tradition.

Simone Collins: Oh God. Oh

Malcolm Collins: no. Is it an allegory for alcohol? Like, come on guys. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, I'll, I'll go to the next episode.

I love you the spicy episode rights, spicy episode spicier than you expected. One of our,

Simone Collins (2): yeah, for, for those who can like, push through and, and get past the fact that they, they have to come to terms with a reality that they're going to listen to. A podcast episode on My Little Pony friendship is magic.

Yeah. The little girl show. Yeah. The little girl

Malcolm Collins: Show. All about how monarchy is good. And we should live in a racially segregated society.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. If, if they, if they, you know, can get past that and actually listen to it.

Malcolm Collins: See,

Simone Collins (2): we'll see. But I love you too gorgeous. I'm

Malcolm Collins: So how did the comments do in today's video?

Simone Collins: I just saw one comment that

Simone Collins (2): said that I wouldn't pass a tour test, which. It's actually [00:54:00] super true because every time I have to do the one of those, are you not a computer?

Things? I have to do it like five times. I don't pass.

Malcolm Collins: But they say Simone wouldn't pass the Turing test.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What was the like

Simone Collins (2): I regularly it make teen pregnancy great again. I don't know when that came up. I don't think I mentioned the fact that I like pathologically fail. The CAPCHA tests.

Did

you do every time those calls?

I'm like,

Simone Collins: captions.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. I can't. I can't do it. I think chat. BT recently passed one, so that's embarrassing. But more on topic today. I'm wondering if you remember what you said to me on our first date. When we were making out on the floor of the Four Seasons Hotel,

Simone Collins: no, I

Simone Collins (2): wasn't, which was so crazy to me because of course I'd never kissed anyone, one other person before you.

And here I am, first date making out with a basic [00:55:00] stranger. And then what do you say to me? Would you like to come to my house? I have a jacuzzi bathtub. Mm-hmm. And we can watch My Little Pony.

Malcolm Collins: And I'm like,

Speaker 4: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: how you get a nerd to, you were clearly fishing for nerd culture stuff back. I I

Simone Collins (2): clearly was.

Yeah. It was, it was, it was obvious that they, my, my whole profile was keyword stuffed for online nerd references. So yes, 100%. But then, do you know, today's also a very special anniversary. No, but it is it is the 11 year or maybe 12 year anniversary of the day you proposed to me on Reddit with commissioned art, and there was a deed on my Little Pony.

Commission. There, there was, yes. You sent it to, we have been

Malcolm Collins: involved in the Brony community for a long time, where

Simone Collins (2): you made [00:56:00] custom my little pony characters for each of us with your pony character balancing a diamond ring on his head, bowing down so I could see it. This in my pony form. Of course, you've got a little wifi signal on your pony butt, and I've got a little check mark on mine.

I remember your, my little pony name was net set. Yeah, I don't remember what mine was. Crystal Cog. I remember that. Crystal Cog. So

Malcolm Collins: those were the days, Malcolm, those were crazy, crazy period in internet history. Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): Thank you for your ferry. Romantic proposaling. I've actually seen a number of,

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah.

What, what was it? What magazine was it? That early magazine that said it was one of the top 10 romantic moments of the year.

Simone Collins (2): Oh yeah, it was

Malcolm Collins: some

Simone Collins (2): like

Malcolm Collins: online. It was like the main one. It was like the Daily Dot, wasn't it The Daily dot? No, no, no, no. It wasn't, it was bigger than the Daily Dot. It started with like a b or something.

We actually went to their offices at one point in Manhattan. And it's [00:57:00] like irrelevant now, but for a while. It like dominated internet culture. Yeah.

Simone Collins (2): Time flies.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And now all the blogs are dead, so it, it doesn't matter anymore. Isn't that crazy? It wasn't, was it Buzzfeed? Buzzfeed, yeah.

Simone Collins (2): It was Buzzfeed.

Oh my gosh. I, yes, now, now I remember that. Yeah. It was, it was not in the first big roundup of, of coverage of that.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. At the end of the year when they were ranking romantic events that had happened that year. And yeah, so that was the progressives back then didn't know about us. But

Simone Collins (2): Well, no, they did.

I'm sure you know, both. People of all political spectrum saw your Reddit posts saying, I'm gonna propose to my wife with this art and with these advice animals. And they're like, okay,

Malcolm Collins: let's watch this fail. And they'll, this is Reddit was like, way more politically neutral. And because back then, you know, I, I hung out on like.

Tumblr in action and fat people hate and stuff like that. And there's this article like detailing my Reddit post somewhere. I can't remember. I think it's a Yahoo article. Trying to be like, [00:58:00] and he laughed at a fat person 'cause they had to go to a zoo to get an mri. And I'm like, and I still laugh at that fat person.

Simone Collins (2): Funny to think about having to show up at the zoo to get your MRI. It's still, it's still good. Oh my God. Oh my god. I mean, I would laugh. I would laugh. So I mean it myself, if I were that

Malcolm Collins: right. Here we go.

Speaker 3: What game are you guys playing? Um, just nothing.

In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Malcolm and Simone dive into the complexities behind the absence of stable democracies in Arab majority countries. Exploring historical, cultural, and geopolitical factors, they debunk common explanations like colonialism, war, and religion. Instead, they highlight the role of tribalism, the influence of Saudi Arabia, and unique social structures that differentiate Arab societies from other global cultures. Tune in for an enlightening analysis on why democracy fits some contexts better than others, illustrated through comparisons with Northern European countries and even touching upon differences in animal social behaviors.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about one of those controversial topics that I just walked into by accident. Oh no. We were on another episode and I was like, well, you know, no Arab country has a stable democracy or ever has.

And I just threw this out there 'cause I was like, just in my head when I thought about it, I was like, yeah, I can't think of any Arab majority country that has a stable democracy. And then I was, I, I rewatched myself saying that and I was like, wait. That cannot conceivably be true. There are 22 Arab majority countries.

The, the, the, the region is one of the oldest, you know, in terms of civilization, in human history. Yeah. Has there literally never been a single democracy in this region that lasted more than one human lifetime? And the answer is no. There really hasn't been. No. The longest democracy ever within this region was Lebanon, and it lasted for a [00:01:00] period of 32 years.

30. Oh my God. Not even. And that was the longest. The next longest was 11 years for Tunisia. Other than that, not a single country has had a democracy last more than 10 years. And give mind, this isn't like a, a, there are 22 countries in this region now to understand how Absolutely effing and insane this is.

Let's contrast this with Northern European countries, right? Okay. You can say, okay, okay. How weird is it really for countries that are Arab majority to never have had democracy. If you look at the 14 Northern European countries in the world today, all over the world, not a single one of them is in a democracy.

Oh

Simone Collins: God.

Malcolm Collins: Like this is one of these things where you gotta be like, this is not like [00:02:00] random odds or something like that. You know, this is not like, oh, we, we, we rolled the dice and we just, you know, weren't sure or something like that. So, so you could now say, okay, Malcolm. Okay, Malcolm, I know what you're getting at.

This is some sort of a Muslim thing. And I'm gonna say, actually no, the majority of non-Arab, majority Muslim countries. 35 out of the 40 total non-Arab majority Muslim countries

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Are democracies.

Simone Collins: No way. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. 'cause I mean like 90% of Arabs are Muslims, but then not all Mus, like actually maybe not even a majority of Muslims.

No, most Muslims are not Arab, so Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes, no, no, they

Malcolm Collins: might be semi democratic systems, but like if you're talking even full democracies Wow. It's still the majority of them that are democracies. Wow. Which makes it even crazier that the [00:03:00] Arab majority countries haven't had a single period of democracy in their entire history.

And, and, and then you can say, you know, you go to AI about this and, and, and, because I tried to like, talk this through with ai. Okay. And it, it gives me like. Terrible answers to start, right? Like at first it was okay. Like what? Of course, of course. Colonialism caused this. And I'm like, whoa.

First of all, the majority of Latin America now, which was all colonized, is democracies at this point. You know, all over East Asia, there are heavily colonized areas that are democracies. There are areas of Africa that far worse things happen to, than happen to the Arab countries. In terms of colonialization Absolutely.

Yeah. Their democracies. Mm-hmm.

I actually got , curious about this point and decided to look into it. And of the, , 14 never colonized countries, , seven are democracies and seven are not. Of the countries that were at some point in their history colonized, 43.8% are democracies. So the [00:04:00] probability that you're going to be a democracy does not appear to be considerably impacted by whether or not you were colonized.

There's there. That's, that's, that's not the answer. Okay. And the AI then said, well, it's war. There's just so much war in that region.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. And said,

Malcolm Collins: excuse me. Europe went through two world wars. Yeah. Which was much heavier conflict over a much you know, more condensed time period.

But still like extended, like the war, war, war, war, war was the two world wars. Mm-hmm. And most of its democratic institutions stayed intact.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So it's, it's, it's not Muslim. It's not, it's not, it's not Islam, it's not colonialism.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's not instability.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it comes to me and it goes, well, it's Dutch disease.

So for people don't know Dutch disease. Dutch disease, I don't know what

Speaker 2: this is,

Malcolm Collins: is when you have too much wealth [00:05:00] from a single income source like oil

Speaker 2: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And that leads to consolidation of power. And it makes it more likely that you're going to have a like,

Simone Collins: oh, but not all Arab countries are super wealthy.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, okay. But

Simone Collins: two. And then what about the Nordic countries that are super wealthy and are that Dutch named after

Malcolm Collins: the Dutch and they're not. I, there have been plenty of instances of countries with touch disease not becoming autocracies, and there are plenty of Arab countries that don't have Dutch disease.

No. So that's clearly not an explanation either. Okay. And, and this I just detail like audience, if, if you're like bad with like statistics or coin flips or something like that and you're just like, oh, it's a, it's a weird coincidence. No, this isn't a weird coincidence. This demands explanation. You can't have a coin flip 22 times over.

[00:06:00] Millennium, or let's just say democracy is being popular, is new over centuries, never land democracy. You can't have that. Alright. And, and note here, people can be like, well, you know, there weren't that many democracies historically. And I'm like, actually there are a lot of democracies historically.

You can go back to the ancient Greeks. You can go back to other weird semi democratic systems you had throughout Europe at various periods. Or in, in, in small like islands over various periods. I think Malta was a democracy at one point. But anyways, so something there. Various countries have been democracies at some point.

Those don't exist anywhere in Arab history. So this brings us to questions that are difficult.

Simone Collins: Okay? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The first is, could it be genetic? So, so the question here is do we know of some species. That order themselves differently based on within the same species, based on minor genetic [00:07:00] differences.

And it's like actually we do like mm-hmm. Within most great eight great ape species, and we'll go into this in a bit like our closest genetic to sit, well, not just in this, but relatives. You will see with regional variations, which, which correlate with genetic variations different ways of structuring their tribal structures.

You know, you might have women on top, you might have men on top, you might have larger structures. Okay. You might have structures where dominance changes are handled this way versus this way. Mm-hmm. This appears to be in part cultural and in part genetic. So if we see this in monkeys, you probably see it in humans as well.

And I note here that when people are like, oh, how dare you say this horrible thing, you know that these people are different. I'm like, yeah. But think about how many people you killed by being unwilling to admit this when you tried to force Iraq to be a democracy.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm also thinking, I mean, so to be an Arab, it's, it's an ethnolinguistic identity.

So I think maybe we're also looking at the magnification of not [00:08:00] just genetic heritage, but also a choice to lean into that culture. So you're not just looking at people who may have Arab, like tribal roots in, in their lineage, but also people who've chosen to maintain Arab language and Arab identity.

Because it, it is not, it's not a, it's not a racial group. It's not like you can check Arab racial

Speaker 5: group, hold on. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: It's, it's a, it's an ethnolinguistic identity. It is not racial.

My point though is that that would make this effect even stronger because when you're combining both genetics and opt-in culture, you're looking at something a lot stronger than if you're only looking at culture or genetics in isolation.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so I, I was actually asking AI this because I was so it says basically it's both.

But yeah, you're, you're right. But so I was looking at AI on this to understand exactly who the Arabs are, right? Yeah. Like where did they come from? Yeah. And why might they be so different from other groups at a, at a [00:09:00] genetic level or at ESO linguistic level. And the thing to note about Arabs is they were the group, like, I wasn't sure if they like, joined up with the Muslims early on or the Mohammed like, you know, basically the desert nomads and it's like, no, they are the desert nomads.

Yeah. They are the desert nomadic group as it spread out.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, to be, to be Arab, you need common Arabic language, shared cultural features and historical tribal links, which is so absolutely. There's a genetic component, like, and that's a big part of it. You know, you, I don't, I don't have tribal links.

Even if I grew up speaking Arabic, I, it would be very difficult for me to say that I was an Arab. But yeah, yeah, I mean, it, it, it's, it's, it, I I still think it's super important to point out that this is people who, like, it's, it's more than just being, for example, white, because I, I'm not like leaning into white culture, for example.

You know, walking around in Birkenstocks with my socks on or something, I, I am just, you know, just genetically white. Whereas like, if you're Arab, it's [00:10:00] because you're like really leaning into your genetic heritage

Malcolm Collins: so well, and this genetic heritage is very, very, very unique. And distinct.

Simone Collins: Yeah, super distinct.

Like, it, it actually is as offensive as it sounds to say on surface level. I, I can't be really surprised by this tendency, because if you are choosing to lean into this ethnolinguistic identity that came from tribal cultures, like tribal cultures and democracy aren't exactly. Compatible. Well,

Malcolm Collins: actually, we're gonna talk about this.

Okay. Because the question is, is why do Arabs suck so much at democracy?

Speaker 5: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: But clan based cultures, which have a lot of similarities to tribal based cultures don't seem to struggle with democracy as much. You know, whether it's the Irish or the backwards people or the Scottish why, why don't they have problems with democracy in the way that the Arabs do?

If, if the answer is just tribalism?

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and note that what we're basically gonna fight it, their form of tribalism is very different than these forms of tribalism. The, the, the, [00:11:00] the reason why Arabs are so unique is they had this desert, nomadic tribal groups, which you've got to keep in mind how effing weird the genetic pressures on this group were.

Yeah. Historically speaking, no other group underwent anything like this. For as long as the,

Simone Collins: the, the environmental pressures alone are so unique compared to how other civilizations developed. Yeah. 'Cause Arabs include the Bedouins that like what a lifestyle. I mean, I guess they were like Mongolian to the kind of similar nomadic.

Lifestyles and hospital. So yeah, the Mongolians

Malcolm Collins: are the only group I can think of as having any similarity to this. But essentially it was a, a very what if, if it was a species, you would call them an extremophile species. Totally. And we, we've often mentioned this means that they specialize in an ex extreme condition.

Mm-hmm. That sometimes extremophile species not species, extremophile, ethnic groups when they get their act together and eventually interact with non extremophile ethnic groups, they have developed so uniquely that the non extremophile ethnic groups just. [00:12:00] Basically get creamed by them. This has happened a few.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, when we think about the way that we want to genetically modify and culturally shape our future descendants, we want to become extremophiles. We are not extremophile right now. We want to create an extremophile ethno in the far

Malcolm Collins: north. Yeah, yeah. In the far Yeah. But, but the, but the, what I mean by, but I mean, come on,

Simone Collins: the far north is a jumping off point for space, but whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If you're like, when has this happened in human history? We're an extremophile ethnic or cultural group ended up encountering a non extremophile ethnic group and it was just like, oh, shoot. These, these techniques we've built to live in these incredibly harsh conditions mm-hmm. Just make you no threat to us at all.

Well, it's not just with the Arab explosion, which was huge, like Arabs basically conquered, I, I, I think at at least half as much as Rome did at the, at the, the height of their empire, after like, Mohammad took like a bunch of warring desert clans and was. You know, I bet if we stopped warring with each other, we could take over the world.

And I think a lot of people [00:13:00] would've been like, no, that's crazy. But he did it. But we also, well also like

Simone Collins: the, if we could just stop warring, like imagine if Scottish people got to that point. Well, no, that's,

Malcolm Collins: that's basically what happened with the Vikings is they were like. Bro, it's so much easier to kill like the mainlanders than it is to kill other Vikings.

Yeah. Like let's just go do that every, every summer. And so the Vikings did that and they were basically completely unstoppable for a pretty big period, I think like a hundred years or something.

Simone Collins: Or yeah, maybe this is what's happening with the, the generally conservative coalition that has risen is because the left has fallen to prey to so much internal infighting.

You know, they're just like, well, what if we just got along for a little

Malcolm Collins: while? But if we just, no, that is literally like what the prenatal movement is, like religious extremists and like ProTech, people being like. What if we stopped fighting each other for just a little bit? Yeah. And raided all these juicy farms.

No, that's just

Simone Collins: too much winning.

Malcolm Collins: Too much winning. Too much winning. [00:14:00] But, but not just that. You also, you know, you mentioned the, the step people. This repeatedly happened with them. Mm-hmm. They lived in incredibly hard step conditions. They, they would encounter other groups, like as we saw with the various step people invasions of both Europe and China where they would just absolutely no one could stand against them.

So this is something that happened a few times, but one of the times it happened was with, the Arabs. And so this was an incredibly unique group. And I think that to, to just to treat them like, they're like, oh, well they're near the Persians, so they're kind of like the Persians. It's like, no, they're not.

Mm-hmm. Or, or, or they're, you know, adjacent to like Pakistan, so they're kind like Pakistan.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's like, that's acting as though like Scottish clans are like basically the same as English farmers.

Malcolm Collins: No. Yeah. I mean, and, and culturally, and, and this is the thing, you don't need to be that genetically distant to be in a, the ways that genetics interacts with culture very different.

Yeah. [00:15:00] Because you have to

Simone Collins: think about the selective pressures that lead to successful reproduction and passing on of your genetic and cultural heritage in each of these different environments. You know, if you are in a, a tribe based culture, in a super harsh environment, the things that will make you successful in reproducing and having kids and raising them successfully and having them do that in turn are gonna be very different.

From a more urban civilization based culture that lives just like 50 miles away. Yeah. It's obviously gonna change outcomes and, and, and, and traits.

Malcolm Collins: So, but there's another big thing that point here. Okay. Okay. Because I was, I was going through and I was trying to like gr this myself and I was thinking to everything I know about local geopolitics and everything like that.

Why Arabs and Arabs only, why not other Muslims? What is at play here? What is at play here? Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is a major reason why this is the case.

Simone Collins: Okay. Why?

Malcolm Collins: [00:16:00] Saudi Arabia is a very, very, very, very, very wealthy monarchy. Saudi Arabia is filled with Arabs and the Saudi Arabian royal family believes.

Not, not just for, you know, s***s and giggles, but with like real good reason. Their lives and future could be at risk if a democracy ever establishes itself within other Arab countries. Oh, because the Saudi Arabian royal family sees the Arab cultural groups as being essentially their dominion.

And since nobody really has the money to push back on them and, and then you could be like, well, who might have the money to push back on them? Well, the Qataris or the UAE could have the money to push back on them, but both of those countries are also monarchies. So. The more money [00:17:00] a country has within the Arab Peninsula, the more like, like from Dutch disease or from, you know, capturing oil, the more stable the monarchy is within that country.

, So you have this small collection of incredibly stable monarchies within the region sort of led by Saudi Arabia. No. Saudi Arabia is in conflict with the Qatari and law, but both of them agree that they don't want non monarchies establishing themselves in the region. Saying was the UAE because if, if you are a monarch, I mean, imagine the way the monarchs felt in Europe when they saw the French Revolution happening.

Like, we have a lot of letters about this. They were freaked the F out. They were like, bro, this is bad. Like this could come here. We need to make this look bad. We need to frame this as bad. We need to stop this from happening. So you have a situation where, because you do have. Among and for cultural reasons among the economically most productive areas of the region, stable [00:18:00] monarchies that have a vested interest in preventing anything other from a monarchy from existing.

So whenever one of the other countries that, because it doesn't have as much Dutch disease, might be able to have a revolution and create something other than a monarchy. Yeah. Attempts at that. It's stamped down by the Saudis and their allies. And so if we're gonna go to, for specific examples of this you have Bahrain, 2011 Saudi led Gulf Corporation Council forces in invaded to quash pro-democracy protests, preserving the Sunni monarchy.

Against the Shiite Majority uprising. This was framed as countering Iranian influence, but effectively halted democratic movements. Egypt 2013 Saudi Arabia provided billions of dollars in aid to back the military coop against President Mohammed Marcy. Muslim Brotherhood linked stabilizing Adele Fta. L CZs authoritarian rule reports described this as part of a counter-revolutionary strategy to rollback Arab Spring.

Given 2015, the President Saudi military intervention against Hui Rebels seen as Iranian [00:19:00] proxies has prolonged chaos, preventing stable governance, democratic or otherwise, in ensuring eoin remains a failed state rather than a potential democratic model. Broader Arab Spring countering Saudi Arabia funneled funds too.

AU Autocrats and Jordan Morocco and Au Oman to buy off protestors with subsidies while supporting crackdowns in Syria and Lebanon. Analysts argued that this created a democracy free zone in the Gulf orbit was Saudi petro dollars enabling regimes to weather economic pressures that might otherwise force reforms.

And I noted, you know, when I was going over this with the ai they don't need to focus on non-Arab countries as much because they are not seen as really being similar to them. So Saudi influences geographically and culturally bound to the Arab sphere where shared language history and institutions, eg.

Arabs being amplifies leverage. Iran as a non-Arab Shiite power operates as a rival axis, Syria, Hezbollah, et cetera, resisting Saudi meddling through its own proxies. Saudi Iranian [00:20:00] rivalry has even in indirectly bolstered Iran. The three by framing reforms as Saudi backed threats. non-Arab Muslims, eg.

Turkey and Indonesia are outside this orbit. Turkey's democracy, albeit flawed, persisted despite ottoman legacies and indonesia's post 1998 transition faced no Saudi interference. Recent ex discussions echoes this, noting Saudi efforts to permit democracy in an Arab na as a survival tactic. So. I will note that it is in part artificial which is created in part by the Dutch disease of the region and the friendships and power plays of the regions focused around the Saudis that are doing this.

Not as some sort of big conspiracy, but it's an existential freakout in the same way that many European monarchs freak out during the French Revolution. They're

Simone Collins: just doing what they have to do. Yeah. They're just trying to not die

Malcolm Collins: playing the you know, in, in, in books the, the noble power games of, of, of Nobles, [00:21:00] because I read a lot of romance manga these days are framed always, you know, in this sort of underhanded.

But, but, but you know, its sort of romanticized way. But the reality is, is a lot of the, the power plays of nobles is preventing democracy. And a lot of the power plays of the monarch is preventing the nobles from getting more power, the aristocracy from getting more power. Now let's go to the question of tribalism because the tribalism in this region is very unique.

While tribalism exists globally, EEG clans in Somalia or Scotland, it's more pervasive and politically salient in Arab context, reshaping everything from family loyalty to state building. This stems from Bedouin nomadic roots where survival dependent on kin alliances in harsh deserts contrasting with more settled in urbanized non-Arab Muslim societies.

Islam moderated pre-Islamic tribalism, EEG emphasizing UMA and asab baba something or group solidarity. But in Arab lands, it fused with it, creating a hybrid structure that [00:22:00] prioritize and extended clans over national identity.

Speaker 2: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So in Arab societies, tribes, quala are core social units, often tracing patrilineal descent to ancient ancestors, EEG quish in Saudi Arabia.

Quish in Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Families are extended and hierarchical with loyalty to clan. Elders of a writing state. Institutions. This fosters patronage wasta where jobs, votes and resources flow through tribal networks undermining merit-based democracy. In places like Yemen or Libya, tribal Federations act as quasi-state vetoing central authority expos.

Highlight this noting Arabs pride and petro lineal lineage spanning centuries and larger extended families, non-Arab Muslims. Tribalism is present but diluted or transformed. And Indonesia cept is bilateral by both parents. Both para lines matter with village based not nomadic structures emphasizing community harmony over clan rivalry.

Hmm. Pakistan has aria brotherhoods similar to tribes, [00:23:00] but they're more cast like and integrated into feudal systems, allowing electoral competition. Turkey's Ottoman legacy shifted towards centralized bureaucracy eroding tribal power. Iran emphasizes Persian nationalism over tribes among Kurds and Bach overall non Arabs of weaker as abi enabling stronger national institutions and civil societies that support democracy.

This difference explains why non-Arab Muslims often score higher on social trust metrics per world value surveys. Oh, so you note here a Muslims also score very low on social trust. And, and then when I, I say, yeah, if you

Simone Collins: don't have high social, I don't know though. We don't have very high social trust in the us do we?

And we still have.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, we, we will get to that in a second. Okay. The Ottoman context. So the ottoman had the milit system when they ruled these territories primarily for religious minorities, Christians, and we're all about that. Bring

Simone Collins: back the milit system. People

Malcolm Collins: granting them autonomy and personal law and taxation to maintain loyalty was out full integration at Arab provinces, EG, his Iraq.

They [00:24:00] layered this with Tribal pacs appointing Sheik as intermediaries to collect taxes and provide troops. Mm-hmm. Avoiding direct confrontation with sematic groups. This system worked because imposing centralized control on tribes often backfired, leading to revolts it. Preserve tribal autonomy, which later hindered Postman nation states.

Now on note here, this is what we should have done in Iraq. We should have done a millet system. Yeah. There are too many competing ethnic and tribal groups. 'cause in the region they just have no interest in getting along with each other. This also, this, this extremely tribalist framing also explains why Israel was able to essentially curb stomp dramatically larger, better funded, and more technologically advanced Arab armies.

Simone Collins: 'Cause they were a culturally an ethnic unified tribe. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So, and well they just related to this differently if you go back to like the seven years war, the Yo Kippur War, many people see Israel and they think of those wars. As if Israel today was fighting those wars, you know, the technological and economic powerhouse, that realistic.

Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: But it was [00:25:00] not, yeah, it

Malcolm Collins: was not that. It, it had, it had worse equipment than the forces that were up against it. They were dramatically larger than Israel. They all attacked surprise on a holiday, nonetheless, just a, you know, really f with them. They, they really should have lost, I think it, like in, in, in some battles they were outnumbered, like a hundred to one and they still won.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the, the large reason why people factor this in is extreme tribalism among the attacking groups. They, they saw the other groups that were attacking alongside them, even from within their culture as being as different from themselves as, as the Israelis were in many cases and more than that, within this tribal Arab structure.

The secondary thing is. Huge amounts of class divide.

Speaker 5: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: The generals would not have seen the forces serving under them as fully human often. No. They were just numbers. They're just like, you attack [00:26:00] and I tell you what to do, and I'm, no, this is a, an aristocratic if you, you. We have aristocratic Muslim friends.

Okay. I have aristocratic Arab Muslim friends. The way that they see the, the poor who live under them. I'm, I'm not even saying it's with animosity or anything like that. It's, they're a different type of human than them. It's a society and social structure that is much more comfortable with true aristocracy than Jewish culture is.

The Jewish Generals would've seen the people fighting under them not as numbers, but as, you know, mothers and fathers and brothers, and, and, and people that they prayed alongside and everything like that, where you wouldn't have had the same relationship between the, the higher ups, and I know this, this, this, this sounds bad, but it's just the way Arab society is structured and it has been since the time of Muhammad.

Mm-hmm. It is much more hierarchical, [00:27:00] much higher power distance. Some societies are just way higher power distance than other societies. And was in these societies, it's not even seen as like a bad thing like. If you're from a low power distance society, you get mad that anyone would ever see themselves as that degree of above you, because that's what being in a low power distance society is about.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you are in a high power distance society this stuff can seem bizarre to you. So, for example, Peru, where we operate our company, the fairly high power distance society. And we had a problem where when we were trying to replace one of the managers we had an entire team say that they would quit rather than take a promotion.

That wouldn't happen in the United States. It, it just wouldn't, somebody's gonna take that promotion, you know? And if no, it wasn't like they were mad or protesting the person being fired, everyone thought the person had done a bad job. It was

Simone Collins: more like they were like, I don't want that level of like the way that they saw.[00:28:00]

Being at that higher level, was it, they would be blamed for more things going wrong and they would have to do more work. So they were like, screw that. Yeah, I don't want that.

Malcolm Collins: Even if

Simone Collins: it meant, you know, higher pay, more control it very much

Malcolm Collins: like I'm lower casting, I'm happy about being lower cast. Why would I want all the problems of the nobility they have to manage so much?

Simone Collins: I'm so glad I'm not an alpha. Yeah, it was terrible. It was not, it's not even a really, it's not the craziest high power distance society. So even you, we, we couldn't even deal with that. Although we've gone also. To even lower power distance societies and been kind of creeped out by them and how, yeah.

I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: don't you know, I'm better than you? Like, I like the

Simone Collins: loveta, like all that. Oh yeah. I,

Malcolm Collins: I get creeped out by like, like stand societies. They, they do not, they, they, they, to me feel like a communist. It's like, can't you just admit that some people are like better at things than other people?

Like they have this rule [00:29:00] in the law of yonta, the, the tall wet grass gets cut. You know, don't, don't grow higher than the other grass. You know, that's a huge negative thing was in this cultural group, and I find that to be really gross and like antagonistic to, well, it just like,

Simone Collins: it, it, it, it, it, it stops people from pursuing exceptionalism and doing really amazing things, which annoys me because I want people to be exceptional in whatever ways they can uniquely be exceptional.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So what we're noting here is we're also not like extremely low power distance people either. Yeah. But the, the, the, that's, that's a part of this level of, I think

Simone Collins: this is all to say though that tolerance for power distance probably has some intuitive genetic component to it as well, but like we on a very intuitive level seem to wanna like vomit in the face of both higher and lower power distance.

Yeah. Yeah. There's

Malcolm Collins: probably a genetic component to this as well. Like, we're just like,

Simone Collins: yeah. And that there seem to be very in intuitive and instinctual responses to different forms of governance as [00:30:00] well, that for some people's, just like, this is not. And it is not for me. Different

Malcolm Collins: levels of technology power distances can provide different advantages for different groups.

It appears that these days economically low power, distance or at least medium power distance is the, the most optimal and high power distance is very bad for economic development. But you know, the, this is, they're here to list. Continue with how in other ways their, their tribal system is different.

Patrilineal lineage tracing, many Arabs recite their ancestry back 10 generations, plus often to pre-Islamic figures and even biblical ones. Like Adam and anecdote from Iraq, a man claimed his family had used tribal records kept by sheik or oral traditions to trace back to Adam. Via Abraham emphasizing tribal purity and status.

My family has one of those, by the way, tracing back to Adam when the, when the family members said it, all you need to do is, is trace to a biblical figure, and then it's very easy to trace back. Just, just so people know, you don't go all the way back to Adam. You just go to like Charlemagne, which I'm descended [00:31:00] from.

And then from Charlemagne because all these famous figures have and you traces back because it, it was just

Simone Collins: Charlemagne do. Adam, is that what you're saying?

Malcolm Collins: By the way, ancestry I have in common was Elon Musk. Elon Musk, descend from Charlemagne. Yeah. I have a bunch of more recent famous ancestors, but some cultures care a lot about ancestry and clan.

Cultures care a lot about it and tribal cultures care a lot about it. So this is something I share with them. Note here that this probably isn't just, it's not just pride, it's also functional. Lineage determines marriage, irritability, inheritance, and alliances. In contrast to nuclear families elsewhere, Arabic extended families, allahi include uncles, cousins, and in-laws as escort decision makers with elders holding veto power.

Cousin marriages bent am these, these are the preferred marriage to a family's brother sorry. A father's brother's daughter is common up to 50% in some regions reinforcing tribal bonds and keeping wealth. Internal anecdote. In Bedouin communities, groom's tribe displays power at weddings by firing guns in the air, signaling protection for the bride as she joins a new tribe.

[00:32:00] Oh, this is a sweet tradition. I, I guess that would come from another clan based culture of being like, oh yeah, this is, we're the signaling that won't protect you. But from what the other tribes in the region, because again, they are descended from regions where there was constant tribal conflict.

Tribal protection, iani, brotherhood, non-kin can be adopted via Kowa granting full tribal rights. Anecdote from Yemen, a man sought refuge with Sheikh Jorgen gal becoming his quote unquote brother. After the seeks death, the man's plea at the grave, you gave me brotherhood. Now your sons forsake me, prompted the sons to honor it.

Poetically quote, my father heard you from the grave and bids us to protect you. Even in hell sorry. Even to hell, I, I guess you wouldn't say his father in hell, even to hell no. This illustrates a shabi unbreakable loyalty beyond blood. Now. What I actually noted is at first I was like, yeah, but if this is the case, then why do clan based structures, like if tribalism with a [00:33:00] huge factor here, why do Klan based structures like the SCO or or the Irish or the backwards American, my cultural, the Ska Scots.

Simone Collins: Oh, the Scots. I thought that you were like trying to imply that the music genre was like some kind of ethnic group and I was like, is this a thing? Please. It's

Malcolm Collins: Irish and the backwards people, again, like the redneck greater Appalachian cultural group than I'm from, and Simone's from these are all clan based cultural groups where you really focus on the clan.

You don't have extended network it of friends. You, you, you are like, this is what matters. It is my clan that matter. And, and then I started thinking about it and I was like, oh, actually they adopted democracy kind of late compared to other people within their regions. Ireland really only adopted democracy because they were conquered by Britain.

And then they kept the democracy after the revolution. But they were. Pretty effing late to democracy. Scotland was earlier to democracy, but Scottish democracy was really quite defensive against the English structure. They were like, how can we get the [00:34:00] maximum number of clans on board with what we're doing?

And if you look at the backward cultures even as they lived alongside like American democracy, they often would have alternate democratic structures locally that, that were in competition with the American democratic structures. So the regulators are a good example of this. They farm their own police forces and, and local government.

Simone Collins: I'm checking to see if Appalachian cultures in the US have lower rates of voting.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that'd be interesting. But basically the difference between these two groups has to do with how they relate. To larger hierarchy the, the Scottish Group and the Greater Appalachian Group. What, what did you learn, Simone?

You just did a, I learned something face. They do have

Simone Collins: lower rates of voting. And the 2012 presidential election, only 55% of the voting age population in Appalachia cost ballots compared to 60.5%. Naturally, or sorry, nationally. They do. And across multiple studies. [00:35:00] Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Young voter participation can be even lower.

Yeah, that very interesting. Okay. Yeah, so maybe there's just something that, like, if you're in a, if you have clan based roots, maybe you're a little less into democracy in general, whether you're actually an Arab or not.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. Because they have. In every one of these regions created very stable democratic systems eventually.

Hmm. And so the question is, is why in these regions was particularly Scottish and, and the greater Appalachian backwards cultural tradition? Both are related to each other. Like they're basically Scottish dissonants. They're called Scotch Irish, but that was because they were the Scottish s Scotts Irish, they went to Irish to conquer the Irish but they're still Scottish.

So they're, it's, it's confusing there. But it's, yeah. And

Simone Collins: Albian seed, David Hackett Fisher often refers to them as borderland cultures rather than Scots-Irish, since it's kind of not Yeah. It's not the best descriptive.

Malcolm Collins: It's not the best descriptive. But anyway, the point being is both of these groups are technically [00:36:00] the same and they actually seem to take to democracy pretty quickly.

And so the question is, is why did they take to democracy quickly? And the answer comes from looking at the motivations on the ground level as they decided to either fight in revolutions for democracy or as they decided to form the initial like Presbyterian communities which are really sort of proto religious democracies as opposed to the more authoritarian Catholic or Anglican structure, which comes to is, is basically closer to a monarchic way of, of, of organizing a church.

And the answer is because they have an intense hatred of authority. Which is not seen in the Muslim countries, in the Muslim version of tribalism was in these clan based structures. It was the Klan is first, and anything that tries to mess with the Klan or touch the Klan or interfere with the Klan's autonomy is something that you need to fight against.

And so if democracy looked like the form of [00:37:00] government that would mess with them the least, or impose the least external impositions on them, they're gonna fight for it. Basically small government extremists. Whereas, the, in, in the early days at least. Whereas in, in the Islamic countries it's quite different.

The loyalty to tribe is also loyalty to tribal alliances and a tribal alliance network, which fundamentally undermines a democratic state. Yeah. Because it acts as an alternate to the Democratic state. Yeah, it

Simone Collins: undermines it. Yeah. 100%

Malcolm Collins: worse. It's really bad when you combine it with Islam because as if you're in the backwoods cultural tradition and somebody comes and they say, you need to live this way or that way, I'd be like, on who's effing authority?

Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. And, and, and they'd be like. Oh, well, you know, on these, these rich coastal elitist authority. I'm like, I, I'm sorry. No. But if you go to, to the tribal groups [00:38:00] in Muslim regions, they say, on whose authority? And it's, oh, this, this theocratic leader, you know, this Muslim leader. And they're like, oh, of course.

And these, these Muslim leadership communities. And you're like, whoa, whoa. What about like the Scottish region and stuff like that? Like why didn't that fall to this? And this is what the Presbyterians were, the Presbyterian system, right? They'd say like, on whose authority? And they'd be like you know, well this Anglican bishop, right?

Or this Catholic bishop. And they'd be like, well, who the F appointed him? And they'd be like, well, some rich guy in Rome. And they're like, well, I don't, I don't care about him. We should be voting on this. You know, or they'd say The king in England. And they'd be like, what the heck does he have to do with, with God?

You know, we should, we should, we should be, we should be making this more local, you know, sort of ground up. And so I think that this fundamental difference between the two cultural groups is why democracy works within these types of clan based structures while more slowly than under the more futile [00:39:00] English structure.

Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And WWIE in the English structure, when you go to these early periods you would have a loyalty to your, your like region's sort of Lord over family or, or local clan. Whereas in the Irish, Scottish and backwards areas, it was clan over Lord. But within the Muslim areas, it is tribal network over basically everything else.

Because the way that you advance your clan is through the tribal network. And then in addition to that, it's don't disappoint. You know, your local religious leaders who sort of manage the tribal network of alliances and tell you when they're telling you what to do, they tell you, well, this is why this is what you do.

Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. All this is getting me to think about how, I mean, first I saw this in a very limited capacity, how? Context really, really matters when it comes to governing formats. Like communism works really, really well on [00:40:00] a very small community or family level. Like our family is communist and all of our chickens have communist names.

And it makes sense and it works perfectly. Communism, 100% works and has been tried and is tried every single day on the family level for millions and millions and millions.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, my kids don't work and I give them a portion of my income, you know, from to each, according to their needs. From each, according to their ability.

Simone Collins: Exactly. And, but now I'm, I'm, I'm thinking that you, this, this podcast, this conversation has got me thinking about how maybe also democracy really only thrives in certain contexts. And we need to just be aware of that, that like communism isn't inherently bad. You just need to apply it correctly.

Democracy isn't inherently good or bad, you just need to apply it correctly. Well, you and very clearly in

Malcolm Collins: many. It doesn't work for everyone. Yeah. And if you attempt to apply it to a group that is not adapted for it, yeah. You're gonna have math deaths. You know how

Simone Collins: state craft in some countries where clearly democracy [00:41:00] just wasn't meant to work, was doomed to fail from the beginning.

Just like communism on a super large scale in like Russia or in this us No, but I, I think

Malcolm Collins: that communism can work on a, at at least a small scale, was in some communities.

Simone Collins: Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: And, and we saw this within and with

Simone Collins: certain levels of technology and post scarcity singularity potentially. But here we're

Malcolm Collins: talking about the real world.

What's, no, what's the, the, like the communist small communes they had in Israel? Kibbutz

Speaker 2: Kum k.

Malcolm Collins: Where, not not, but you can't scale it up bigger than that and it's not gonna work for every ethnic group. And, and this is also true of the millet system. The millet system may not work for every ethnic group, but it doesn percent, but it work for Arab groups.

Isn't that more of a Persian

Simone Collins: thing? Right. It was the

Malcolm Collins: per ruled the Arabs, and it was how they ruled the Arabs. Ah, okay. Okay. And if you're talking about no people of one species couldn't have multiple ways of genetically [00:42:00] structuring their society. And then here we're gonna get to chimpanzees. So we're gonna go to ev evidence.

Okay. Okay. So chimpanzees groups in Africa African regions exhibit distinct social behaviors. For example, west African chimps are more cooperative in hunting and tu use, not cracking with stones. While East African groups show more aggressive patrolling and infanticide. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. And then bonobos often called peaceful compared to chimps.

Warlike structures have matriarchal groups with high social tolerance, but this varies regionally eg. More alliances in the Congo Basin groups, genetic studies show minimum fixed. So, and then overall ape cultures, including social structures, evolve through a second inherited system of social learning which functions alongside the DNA and sort of reinforces how small genetic differences can create quite big behavior differences in terms of how you're socially structuring a community.

Speaker 5: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think it can lead to a huge amount [00:43:00] of, if you look at the number of deaths and dollars spent trying to stabilize an Iraqi democracy, when I think it was fundamentally impossible to begin with.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It, it, it, you see the horror that comes downstream of not just accepting that some people are different from you.

Yeah. It's like

Simone Collins: giving a medical treatment to someone who won't tolerate it.

Malcolm Collins: Right. It's like saying it would be racist to say that black people have different bodies than white people. It's like, well, actually this is something you really need to pay attention to when you're doing, like, treatments of diabetes or pregnancy.

Because they, they, yeah. Or just women and

Simone Collins: men. That's, that's a really famous example.

Malcolm Collins: The Yeah, they, well, I

Simone Collins: mean people that even car seats have just like crash tests and whatnot, not really been tested on women. Like women are kind,

Malcolm Collins: it would get really a big deal. Yeah. Because they're just like, it's tested on somebody,

Speaker 3: but

Simone Collins: it's fine.

Yeah. But like, they haven't really been tested on male bodies and or sorry, on female bodies. Like even the first female crash test dummy is didn't emerge until forever ago. And still car [00:44:00] seats are 100% optimized around male bodies. So women are kind of screwed in car accidents. Women, men are more likely to get into car accidents.

So I'm okay with the design being what it is, but there actually is you know, ride safer. The company that we got those kid harness car seats for, for four months, no. They also sell a special car seat harness that you can use to replace. Male designed car seats, especially as a pregnant woman, because pregnant women are kind of screwed in car accidents too, if they're not wearing the right car seat.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so, but this could really screw, I, I find that male female difference, because broadly could be like, I think different No,

Simone Collins: obviously. And like, I mean, we're really big on polygenic scores and a really big problem with most of the polygenic scores out there is like, okay, maybe this makes sense if you're of especially English or European descent, but if you're African, if you're East Asian, like you can't really use this the same way.

I think that's

Malcolm Collins: a lot. Not a very good analogy, because you're just talking about where this stuff has been collected and the point I'm talking about is the denial that we are different [00:45:00] leads to really bad outcomes often for minority communities. Oh yeah. So a much stronger example of this can be. Just saying black and white bodies are not different.

Well, this causes a huge problem when black women, and this is a big problem in the prenatal list movement learn that i, I think it's literally double, like black fertility problems are literally double white fertility problems.

Simone Collins: Yeah. We, I think we did a podcast on this, or we talked about it

Malcolm Collins: at one point and it was, it was shocking.

It's shockingly high or maybe 50% higher or something, but it's really, really bad. It's, it's notable if you don't tell black women, Hey, you need to prep for this. Mm-hmm. You can lead to really like, really screw over them. Culturally speaking, the, the other really big one with black people that is super offensive to mention and I'll explain why it's offensive to mention in just a second, is black people have shorter child gesta cycles.

It's about a week shorter. For a black [00:46:00] child to be born than a white child, and you can be like, oh, I don't understand where this could cause problems. It causes a very big problem in interracial marriages because when you have black fathers and white mothers you get no impact from this.

Because the mother's body just carries the baby extra long and, and that's good. But when you have a. White fathers and black mothers. There was a, an interesting study on this very, you know, obviously spicy that showed that the mother's body doesn't know it's carrying a baby that's supposed to ate breast, ejects

Simone Collins: a baby that's not quite ready for showtime.

So we give the

Malcolm Collins: baby that's a weak premature when it's born. And you can see this in the statistics of, of these children's development, like they are developmentally impacted by this as if they had been born a week early.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And we can attest from personal anecdotal experience at having kids born premature or has a knock on effects for years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We had a kid who was born premature and he's still like in the bottom [00:47:00] 1% of, of, of weight and height for his age. Yeah. He, he's

Simone Collins: the same size and he wears the same clothes and shoes as his younger sister who is 18 months younger than him. So, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so, again, this isn't like us being like.

You know, this is something intrinsically bad about black people or interracial relationships. It's

Simone Collins: just a good heads up thing. I mean, it would be helpful to know, be like, especially, you know, if you, if you know that you're gonna have a kid that's more likely to be born premature, you can plan certain things that can help to ameliorate the effects of premature birth.

It's meaningful.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Yeah. And, and if, if we are different in some ways, you know, be aware of how we're different. Mm-hmm. And, and be willing to, I think within yourself, and this is always one of the big themes of our podcast, to look within yourself when somebody's saying, this is the way that we do things.

And be like, but will this actually, because a lot of people are like, multiethnic, right? And they're like, well, how do I know what my, you know, unique [00:48:00] biology wants? And I'm like, well, try to ignore what society tells you and ask yourself like, are friends actually an important part of your life? Do, do you actually need that?

Do you actually, I mean, like, I'm just talking about like the ways that we're weird, right? Like I don't need to look at my ancestors and see that all of their friends were clan based or family friends to know that I really don't get that much from social interactions, even though I'm told I'm supposed friendship is magic and all that.

It's

Simone Collins: not even that you can't, you don't get that much. It's that we, it actively stresses us out. It's painful. We have to recover after.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. I don't, I, I'm, my wife is my battery. It's only being around her. You know, they talk about like introverts and extroverts. It's only being around the clan that I recharge.

You know, it's, it's the same you know, or, or, or what else? You know, like sleeping in different rooms, right? Like, I don't need to know whether my ancestors slept in different rooms. I know it seems effing insane for husband and wife to sleep in the same room.

Simone Collins: Like, I mean, to be fair though, that one's a little weird because.

I mean, in the past everyone [00:49:00] kind of piled up on one bed, like everyone would be on this bed over here every night.

Malcolm Collins: That's not, that's not true for different groups and a lot of rural groups. That's true for urban populations, like a lot of Catholic and Irish populations. That was common for rural populations because land was basically free and all you needed to do.

Yeah. Heat

Simone Collins: sure wasn't though. Malcolm, come on. I watch a lot more like

Malcolm Collins: history,

Simone Collins: lifestyle stuff than you do if

Malcolm Collins: you, if you spent a day just building an extra room, you had an extra room. If you look at the size, no, seriously. You have, have you ever looked at the size of the houses that people used to live in back then?

No.

Simone Collins: I mean, I know, so like the, the colonial houses, and this is talked about in LB and seed when he talks about the folk ways of architecture that differed across cultures. Absolutely. Like Puritan culture. Had kids in separate rooms and when, when, when it was possible. Yeah. Yeah. I'll ask ai.

Malcolm Collins: You know what I'll ask right now?

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. You really wanna win this one, don't you?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: I want you to have to. Is this 'cause you

Simone Collins: lost the ethnolinguistic group? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: we'll see, we'll see.

Simone Collins: Oh, I miss, I miss when we did [00:50:00] bets. I, I don't think I ever took the money from you though when I won the bets, to be fair.

Did you know, by the way, I was just thinking about differences between animals and different geographic areas that birds have different accents.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. I knew birds had different accents. You didn't know

Simone Collins: birds

Malcolm Collins: had different accents.

Simone Collins: I, I, I knew it only in adulthood. I didn't know it as a kid. And I think it's so cool.

Oh, you

Malcolm Collins: got this right. They were more often single room structures, especially in the early stages of the settlement. No, even

Simone Collins: when they were multi-room structures though, the family would still sleep often in the same area because that's the place where it would be warm at night.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It had to do with heating.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: You are welcome. Ooh. If only we were still betting. 'cause I would've just made 20 bucks. But no, you just stopped doing that even after a bunch of times. I was wrong.

Malcolm Collins: You're never wrong, Simone. You're the perfect wife.

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] That's what the perfect husband says.

Malcolm Collins: But I see this is, this is what I'm talking about here.

You don't need to look at your ancestral heritage. You can know what works for you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because there are always gonna be deviations. Just do what's right, ancestral heritage, when you're gonna be like, yeah, just do what's right.

Simone Collins: Well, also, like, I don't, I don't think that families piled into one. You know, they didn't all sleep in the kitchen together because they wanted to.

They did it because they didn't have a choice. So, yeah, I, I'm not, I'm not super concerned about that being a, an inherited trait. I, I think our people's tendency to keep moving out to frontiers, away from cities, away from density of people is a larger indication of why we would enjoy separate bedrooms when given the opportunity and luxury, which, you know, it, it remains even in our time, a huge luxury that we use separate bedrooms.

Malcolm Collins: So,

Simone Collins: you know. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Hello. Alright, have a great day, Simone. [00:52:00] And I was gonna start another episode. What are we, what are we doing for dinner tonight? Just, I guess reheating something or?

Simone Collins: Yeah, so we have a couple options. I can make sourdough that's not whole wheat for you 'cause I mean, that would be offensive to you.

And you can have that with jam or like dip it in curries or we can just do a mystery curry with rice this time.

Malcolm Collins: You know what I'm gonna do your, your sourdough with cheese again. And then, no, I

Simone Collins: don't, I don't have flatbread. That would have to be another night. I mean, like baked sourdough.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

You can't cut it and then bake it with cheese.

Simone Collins: Oh, you just want like a slice of sourdough with cheese on top. Like a What's that? A Welsh rare bit basically.

Speaker 3: I guess like, would that, like

Simone Collins: an open phased cheese sandwich on chunky sourdough bread?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But not chunky. I mean, cut it thinner. You, you, you cut it obscenely thick, which I think is causing me to become upset at my stomach.

Like you, well, I mean, [00:53:00] don't

Simone Collins: you wanna, don't you wanna do like one of your curries or something, or do you

Malcolm Collins: want pasta? Okay. Then let's do a Korean rice.

Simone Collins: Okay. Korean rice. We'll see what curry surprise you get tonight. There's so much to go through. Like, we have to do freezer farming for a long time. Yeah, because I think I just make batches that are too big and then we haven't been disciplined about using them, so thank you for we, because they got better

Malcolm Collins: over time.

So I'm typically dealing with

Simone Collins: like you're gonna wanna do? Yeah, I'll do a

Malcolm Collins: mix.

Simone Collins: Throw

Malcolm Collins: in some pineapple

Simone Collins: if there isn't any already. Yeah. Okay. I'll throw in to any. So it's, it's a booster to any curry for you. What if it's a non pineapple friendly curry?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, curry is pineapple friendly.

Simone Collins: Not really. Okay. You're strange.

But you did proceed to put jam on the cheesy flatbread last night, which was weird to me. It was

Speaker 3: really good. Don't you know?

Simone Collins: I mean, power to the people, you know. Okay. I [00:54:00] will, I will proceed with this. And I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins: I love you so much. Bye bye. This is right. You got things right.

Simone Collins: You opened my mind to a whole new thing.

Now I'm, I'm, I'm gonna look at democracy the same way I look at, at communism. Like, legit. I, and I, I think that this is a really helpful way to look at governing, and that it's a, you can't just look at it in the, in the format of like, is this a, you know, structurally sound thing? You have to look at the substrate to which you're applying it and, and are these compatible?

It's like blood types. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So anyway, thanks. That was really enlightening. Super interesting. I'm gonna be thinking about it for a long time. I love you. I was watching an old like commentary on an old Mormon movies. One of them was from the sixties and it just stood out to me how weird 1960s woman accent was, or like late, like, like I can't, I can't model it. I'll try to find a clip I can give to you. It just, it occurred to me [00:55:00] how weird it is. You know, there are time-based accents.

Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about.

Simone Collins: And I realize that if we went back in time, it wouldn't just be our colloquial English that would be difficult for people to understand, but merely our tonality, they would find it really off putting and weird. And I wonder if women in the Renaissance era or in the Middle Ages had really different tonalities, like the, the 19, like 1970s, late 1960s female voice was very.

Childish and high and weird. And I, I wonder if both men and women in the past had really different ways of,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think like if you go back, even, even if we went back to like the 19, like twenties or thirties, I think everyone would immediately be shocked and be like, why? Why are you doing the radio presenter voice from [00:56:00] like, they have that, you know, that very weird accent.

The

Simone Collins: transatlantic accent that was mostly just people in the media profession, not mainstream people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, people had more differences in their accents back then.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, for sure. Yeah. Where you lived would really dictate how you sounded. Mm-hmm. 100%. Which is cool. I feel really bad that we're losing accents, although then there's all these people discussing and you can totally hear it.

Especially since we're listening to our kids watch YouTube in, in the evenings when we bribe them with screens so they eat food. There is definitely a TikTok accent and a YouTuber accent. Oh, interesting. Oh my gosh. They're one. Yeah. Come on. You know it. I I, I can't Do you have the

Malcolm Collins: YouTuber accent? Well, I mean, we're big.

No,

Simone Collins: no, no, no. I, I'm talking like, you know, clip farmer, view Farmer. But are you saying

Malcolm Collins: that they're different? The two accents?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And there are different accents for women and men, very similar to how like, Japanese, when spoken by a woman or a man sounds very different. It's so yeah, maybe, maybe we're [00:57:00] not doomed.

We're just gonna see more subculture based accents and fewer geographically based accents. We'll see,

Speaker 3: I am looking this up. TikTok versus YouTube accents.

Simone Collins: I can't believe, come on. This must have stood out to you. It's such a thing. I, they all sound the same and they start aping each other.

Speaker: Watch the fingers. Oh, no. Oh, what's happening here? Are you beating in the box? Am I closing you in? No. What is this? What's that? Oh, are you boxed in? Are you, are you a package now? No. Oh.

Speaker 6: Oh my gosh. Boom. [00:58:00] Yeah.

In this episode, join the conversation as we delve into the provocative topic of 'training' your partner for a healthier relationship. The discussion addresses societal norms, media influences, psychological insights, and personal anecdotes on how to navigate and deprogram toxic behaviors in relationships. We also touch upon common relationship pitfalls such as compromise, emotional arguments, and the importance of logical alignment. Along the way, we highlight the role of transparency, communication, and practical strategies for fostering mutual respect and understanding between partners.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about how I brainwashed you or trained you or whatever word you want to use into the perfect wife drone that you are to today. As some people, yes, husband. You? No, I mean, you are honestly, remarkably good. Like I, and, and trained is the right word here.

Like we worked for a long time.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This, it didn't start, it didn't, things weren't smooth always.

Malcolm Collins: No, they think they're very smooth. Now, I won't say it's not that they were not smooth, it's that you made more mistakes, but they were understandable mistakes, given the context of the relationship at the time.

Simone Collins: Well, also given societal norms about what normal women do in relationships, which as we've covered in other episodes, is really toxic. So actually, if you want to even have a slightly healthy relationship training of your wife. Is mandatory just because the, the social contract she expects, the societal norms she's coming in with are by default toxic.

They need to be removed. Like you need to, like, this is like, you know, she's coming in like ridden with license. You just like spray her down and like the, the,

Malcolm Collins: I'll give you an example of something like this because, you know, she might be saying this and if you're a woman or something like that, you're like, oh my gosh, come on, this isn't true.

And I'm like, you. If you are a woman of our generation, you went through an entire generation of media whether it's the Simpsons or Family Guy or any of these sitcom shows where the stereotype was that you have a fat, dumb husband. Mm-hmm. And the wife's job was to sit there in the background and make snide remarks about his competence mm-hmm.

In front of other people. Yeah. And then actually just go do what is actually right because he can't handle it on his own. Because he's just such a buffoon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It was always just eye rolling and undermining your husband and that that was just so normalized

Malcolm Collins: and, and, and no, and so many women are like, I haven't been brainwashed into being, you know, by, by, by the culture I'm in to being a psycho.

And it's like, think about. Just, just think about like, if you're a woman watching this, all of this that you grew up with, do you not think that that influenced your norms about the way you might act in a relationship at all? Like do Yeah. If you,

Simone Collins: if you wanna believe that that didn't influence you, you're just delusional.

I mean, we, we, there is, there is lots of evidence. There are plenty, and we talked about this a little bit in our episode on. Propaganda how TV shows and radio shows have shaped behavior even going so far as to, for example, in Brazil, depressed birth rates when you make an aspirational middle class family have lower numbers of children, specifically in places where this one network soap operas played, their fertility rates went down.

It didn't play in every region of Brazil and in the regions that were not exposed to this. Birth grades didn't go down. So absolutely media influences us and absolutely we need to be thoughtful about deprogramming people if they've been exposed to this.

Malcolm Collins: It's not just media. The other huge problem that we have is really bad psychological norms in terms of how you should act in a relationship.

Mm-hmm.

EEG, like that you guys should have cooling off periods or that you should build your relationship around compromise. Mm-hmm. Or that, like, all of these are like really. Hyper toxic in a relationship. So yeah. So let's get into it.

Simone Collins: Also, I wanna give a little hat tip to Diana Fleischman. We just think she's the coolest.

We were inspired to do this 'cause she is currently finishing up a book called How to Train Your Boyfriend. And it's gonna come out in 2026. We're so excited for it. So we're not talking about how to train men because she's gonna do it way and like, oh my gosh. The, the psychological research that she goes into with this.

She's being Yeah. You, you've read like

Malcolm Collins: the draft, right? So you're, I haven't read,

Simone Collins: I haven't, I mean, I've only heard her about her processes so far. I haven't seen the draft, but she's, she's talked about like a lot of the research she's been looking at and, oh, like she is.

Malcolm Collins: Thorough. It's gonna be much more scientific.

This is me talking off the cuff. Yeah, we're talking anecdotally

Simone Collins: here, personal experience, but we're also, I mean, like I think that this is, this is very practical stuff and I think that if you are taking dating seriously, if you're embarking on a relationship or thinking about it you really, really, really should be thinking about these things.

'cause you only have so much time before norms and a relationship becomes solidified and unchangeable. So, so, or at least it's harder to change

Malcolm Collins: the first thing that happened in a relationship. That I remember was like a major issue, not, not a major issue, but it was like the first time when I was like, oh, this is a norm that she has built that we need to deal with.

Mm. Was, you were mad at me about something and so you hung up while you were talking. This is. Absolutely. If you normalize who you're dating, ever hanging up in the middle of a conversation

Simone Collins: or just walking out of a room, just like ending a conversation because it got uncomfortable shutting it down.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You are normalizing what is functionally a form of abuse and what becomes a form of abuse because what that does. Is it allows either partner, whichever one wants to disengage and keep in mind how bad it is to set this norm. Whichever partner wants to disengage from a conversation can immediately control that conversation.

Yeah. Which everyone is willing to stop talking, willing to stop trying to work this out immediately has control of the situation.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That is. An incredibly toxic norm to set,

Simone Collins: and I think it's way more common than you would think. This, this is, is not necessarily gendered either. I mean, I hear about this happening a lot with men too.

Like they just sort of stop talking or shut down and refuse to engage. So it, it's, it's important. Everyone, I

Malcolm Collins: think that's the same, it's not like just walking out of the room or hanging up the phone. It's also if they're just like, ugh, you know, turn to the tv, start ignoring you, watching, whatever, you know, or like, just, okay, I'm not engaging, I'm not talking to you.

Well, also

Simone Collins: like a, a really common way of like. Of doing this is like, okay, let's just, let's just talk about this later. Like putting it off too, not being willing to have a conversation about it right away.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So there's a few reasons this is bad. One is, is that it gives the person with less willingness to work out a, a, a area of disagreement, more control.

Mm-hmm.

Which means that both parties are rewarded. For being the partner who is being more disagreeable instead of being the partner who is more agreeable, which leads to more disagreement in the relationship overall. The second problem is, is it leads to the problem of, you know, the common relationship rule of never go to sleep angry, right?

You are extending the period that you and your partner are mad at each other and have not worked out. Whatever it is that you want to work out, if you work it out was in the initial conversation. And keep in mind that you should, as an adult, be emotionally mature enough to work something like this out was in the initial conversation.

It was out, it becoming emotionally escalated or at least get to the point where you can deem emotionally escalate, be like, I'm feeling really emotional and I said X because of y reason. And that's wrong. Like emotions are never a justification for action. That's the next thing that absolutely for you.

I didn't need to train you this much in this area, but this is something that a lot of guys are going to need to train their wives out of, is. My emotional state justified my actions. So, the worst case scenarios you'll hear of this. Is a woman will like go up and slap a guy and they'll be like, why did you do that?

And she'll be like, well, in my dream you cheated on me. And it's like, that's your effing dream lady. Like, it's terrifying. You're being an absolute psycho. Imagine a guy just walked up and hit a girl for no reason, or their wife for no reason. And it's like, why? She's like, why'd you do that? And he goes, it's Tuesday.

Like deal with it. You'd be like, wow, that guy is an absolute psychopath.

Yeah. Surely.

And yet women will say, well, I felt and some guys will say this as well, which means that women need to train men outta this as well. I felt. X reason. So I did Y. The fact that you felt X and then did Y is a personal failure on your fault.

You're not the person who made you feel X. E emotion, you can, you can say, well, because no, no, this, this is a, a, a big difference. So suppose you emotionally escalate something or something like that because a person is like spending in a specific way and you're like, look, I have asked you repeatedly to stop going out and buying expensive bags or something like that.

We actually cannot afford this right now. And they didn't hear that. So then the person needed to emotionally or verbally escalate that's, that's very different. That's not them saying, I, the, when you go out and buy bags, it makes me feel bad. It's them saying, we make X amount of money. You are spending y amount of money.

We are going to be effed if you continue to do this. You see, that's not a, an emotional argument. They're not saying. You make me feel this way. And this comes downstream of psychological talk and a lot of women are very impacted by this, this, this framing where they're like, well, my father used to do X tomy when I was a kid, so I feel X way when like you do Y or like my family always cared about.

It's like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You are responsible for who you are. Mm-hmm. Other people aren't responsible for who you are. You can choose to not engage with that stuff. And just. Talking about this early, like with a lot of this stuff, they can be like, oh, what are you doing? Are you training them?

Are you, no, you're, you're walking them through the logic of this stuff. And if you're like, well, my, the woman I'm dating just simply will not listen to logic. Like I can try to walk her through the logic of why it is bad to punish someone for how you feel over something that has nothing to do with him.

Right. Like some, some path thing or some trauma that you've decided to internalize as part of your identity. Either you need to walk through with it why this is a bad idea, or you're in for a lot of hurt. Because yeah, if, if you go into a long-term relationship with somebody like that, that you cannot sit down and logically talk through this stuff with forever, for the rest of your life, that is going to be something you are dealing with.

You're going to be dealing with somebody who and this is your core partner, the core person you're working with, the person you're running your most important business venture with, which is running your kids, raising your kids. They're gonna be able to say sometimes, well, I just disagree with you because the spirits told me, basically.

Like that's what their emotions are because they allow them to trump your reality. Like you can say, I've seen families, women, women do this. The guy will be like. Functionally, we can't afford this. Look at these numbers. And then the woman will say, well, when I was a child, we didn't have a lot of money.

So I get really like triggered and feel really upset when you talk about us not being able to afford things. So you're attacking me when you say we can't afford things and so you can't bring that up with me going forward if this relationship's gonna, and then they go out and they keep spinning.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

And then you, you can't solve, solve the problem.

Malcolm Collins: And that, that only gets worse because as soon as they realize they can do that within one domain, now anything can be a source of childhood trauma. Yeah. And

Simone Collins: this isn't because they, they necessarily intentionally decide to exploit this. It can also just be subconsciously because they know it's the path of least resistance.

Something they go to is a default. I'll say that. One thing I noticed in the training process in the earlier years of our relationship. Not to say it ever ends necessarily, but there were issues that took us years to resolve and there were issues that took us minutes to resolve and they can be just as heavy.

There, there's, it's not about the weight of the actual issue, it's about whether or not it, it has already been encountered. So for every issue where you brought it up while it was happening, like while it was a problem. It was almost impossible, like it wouldn't be solved in the moment, and it in many cases took years.

So one example is there was this terrible thing where like every time Malcolm's family. If we were all together would pile on him and they did this in like a pathological way. You know, he would say something and they'd be like, Malcolm, no, like, you're being unreasonable. You need to stop. Like whatever.

I would side with them and throw Malcolm under the bus because my sort of default one, like the societal default is for girlfriends and wives to criticize their male partners. So I hadn't been raised with any sort of mental training that I shouldn't be doing this. And then beyond that, when I am in a social situation, all I'm trying to do is just it, it's not me.

It's an LLM version of me designed to create maximum social equanimity, e equ, equanimity, and yes, calmness. Like I'm just, I'm trying to get the average happiness of as many people as possible to to be. High and, and everything. So make them happen. Yeah. Yeah. No conflict. There's

Malcolm Collins: bunch of people interacting and you're just like, my job is to please the crowd.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I'm going to throw Malcolm under the bus and like just, it's automatic. And then, you know, after each of those incidents you would come to me just. Like, why would you, like, why would you throw that really hurts? Like why would you do that? That was horrible. And then I would get really defensive and then it became emotional and it, it actually took years for us to resolve this because every time we tried to do it, it became a really emotional thing for me.

And it was really hard for me to work through versus other things that are really major issues. What to do when one of us is dying? How we raise our children and, and like really tough things around children and family. And what do you do? You know, if an ailing parent wants to move in all these things, how do manage finances how to deal with debilitating illnesses.

They can really ruin relationships and that all the time ruin relationships. What, what is, what is infidelity? All these things. We talked about. When we weren't going through them and resolve them in minutes. And so if you have a girlfriend or wife who is on the slightly more emotional side, or a boyfriend or husband, I would suggest.

Trying to head off as many of these issues while they're abstract. While they're not happy.

Malcolm Collins: No. Yeah. And talking about what's expected of them. Like you're going to meet your family for the first time. Mm-hmm. I expect you to be aligned with me. Yes. Or or more importantly, you're going to meet their family.

This wasn't a problem for us, but I've seen this with other people where like the wife's family will attack the husband. And the wife will side with her family.

Mm-hmm.

And this should basically never happen unless the husband is egregiously in the wrong,

Simone Collins: but like priming a partner for that. Is it also like that that really helped initially too, is when you reminded me before we went into things.

By the way, you're, you're probably gonna be tempted to decide with everyone just to keep things calm and to not create conflict when they pile on, please. Just remember to not do that. 'cause it really hurts me. And yeah, you know, they're not being logical.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, they're not being logical when they're doing this.

They're just it. It's also another one that's been a big ongoing issue, which you have recently gotten down from, is you think that you look good when publicly you act humble. You're like, well, I'm not really good enough to be here. I'm not really, like, I don't really deserve this position that you guys have elected me for or given me.

And I'm like, Simone, like I have to take her aside. I'm like, you are throwing everyone who supported you up until now under the bus. You are saying all of your supporters made a bad decision by putting you here. It's a bit like saying, I'm not really qualified for this job. When the guy who recommended you hired you for the job in the room

Simone Collins: Yeah.

And you're, you're making him, you're throwing him under the bus. Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You're, you're, you're not acting humble. You are humiliating. Everybody who has supported you.

Simone Collins: So that's a really good example again, of how priming is really important. And so there are two, two pro tips we've just shared to recap.

One, discuss it and ideally write it down in a Google doc or a relationship contract, which is what we did. It's, it's, it's like an active, evolving. Google doc we have where we agree to things like what's an acceptable interior temperature? Who pays for this, who pays for that? Like how do we manage finances?

How do we save money? All those things that, that can lead to breakups. Try to pre-negotiate them before they're an issue because as soon as it gets emotional and as soon as there's some kind of history or conflict about it, it is going to be a hundred times harder to resolve. Second is if there's a recurring behavioral issue and the partner can abstractly be like, yeah, I really need to not do that, but they keep doing it.

You need to prime them before the likely trigger event a lot. And then the more they get the practice, the less you're gonna need to do it. But it's gonna take a lot of repetition and don't give up because I think some people also just give up. They're like, I guess this is just never gonna work. No,

Malcolm Collins: it does work eventually all of the persistent things.

And, and I will note it's also about knowing where women are likely going to need training. Like the, the, the thing about the thinking that acting with humility doesn't like is always the right choice, is something that many women, even traditionalist women or, or I'd say even more, maybe especially traditional as women are taught from a very young age.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I actually remember thinking as a kid, like, I'm going to make sure that I. Never become, you know, overly confident or conceded in some way. Like no matter if, if I am, I don't know what it is that made me decide this, but I have this memory as a kid of being like, no matter what, I'm going to understate myself

Malcolm Collins: no matter.

Yeah. Well, because women are rewarded for this in our society

Simone Collins: for humility. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that this is really, really toxic and it's something that you're gonna need to work with your wife on. Another one is the humility thing, like a big one was that, is you always thought that you were not particularly competent.

Early in our relationship, this was a big thing. She was like, I'm not that special. I'm not that good. Right. And I had to work with you and set up and like entire training regimes because this is something I had to logically help you with this. And so I'd be like, okay. Simone you don't think you're that smart.

You know, you're at Cambridge for graduate school, supposed to be one of the best graduate schools in the world every day. Your job is to come to me in detail. Anyone you met during that day that you thought was smarter than you and you rarely. I think like maybe once every few months would find somebody who you thought was smarter than you.

And I'm like, do you not see that? Like, this indicates that you're probably on the smarter side of humanity. Like if, if this is what you are finding and you even view the world with this degree of like humility and self-doubt, right? Like, the same with the airport test where she's like, I'm not that beautiful, right?

And I'm like, well, okay, we're in an airport. Hear all the women around you, point out any woman you think is more attractive than you. Right. Like, and let's develop a baseline. He's not younger

Simone Collins: than me. Because that was, who's

Malcolm Collins: not younger than you? I was like, oh,

Simone Collins: her and her. And he's like, well, yeah, but she's like, she's 18 years old.

Malcolm Collins: And this is, even, this was made even more clear for us when one day we went to a concerts of it and everyone under 18 had to get Xs on their hands. Because you, you don't have that at an airport, right? And so I was like, okay, now everyone, look at everyone in this room who's, who's more attractive than you?

And she'd go like, well, there's that person and that person, and that person. And it'd be like, how many of them don't have exes on their hands? And she'd be like, oh my God.

Simone Collins: That was a huge thing when you really helped me realize that it. That youth is, is beauty. Oh, sorry. It wasn't

Malcolm Collins: under 18, it was under 21

Simone Collins: under, yeah, it was, but it wasn't who could get alcohol and who couldn't.

That was easy. Yeah. It, it

Malcolm Collins: wasn't even like use being under 21 because you're looking for people more attractive than you. Somebody in your late thirties. Mm-hmm. Who has. Five kids, you're pregnant with number five right now. You're looking around a room and the only people you see is more attractive than you are under 21.

That says a lot about where you are, right? Not the only people. There was like one or two people who were more attractive, but the point I'm making. Is that many women even exceptional women are trained to believe that it is moral to frame themselves as non exceptional, which can lead to big mistakes in terms of career decisions.

Mm-hmm. In terms of decisions to apply to programs and these

Simone Collins: affect both partners. I think this is cool because I think a, a common issue that men have is their wives come to them and or girlfriends and complain about work and complain about this and that. And I think a lot of these complaints will just never happen if those women are given more confidence and assertiveness.

But I think the problem is most men think that the, the best option is just to sort of in a reactionary way, be like, oh, well you should have just done this and that, when really you have to change their mindset. It you, you can't do an index, individual stances or

Malcolm Collins: that, like, it's not dog training, it's talking them through it, right?

Mm-hmm. Like, and if somebody can't understand logic. Then that's a major problem, right? Like that's gonna affect every layer of your relationship. If you need to train your wife like a dog instead of with logic that's gonna be a major problem for you to be like women just do not listen clearly. Some do.

Like, so Simone isn't the, I dated a lot of people before Simone, and a lot of them listen to logic. Well, and I think a

Simone Collins: lot of it's also though it's a mixture of things. It's, it's a mixture of being conditioned to do things and to not do things. And there are people who've met like couples. It started out really great where they just seemed so sweet and we were so excited for them.

And then we see them years later and. One is just com, like the, the husband's completely pussy whipped and he is not allowed to say anything without the wife who has somehow become like increasingly. Woke deranged, you know? Well, yeah. You stopping him from believing anything. One

Malcolm Collins: area of like political, I can shut you down wherever we stop having logic, wherever that creeps.

Yeah. You, you normalize that was in any part of the relationship and it creeped throughout the course of the relationship.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, and if you, if you allow a partner repeatedly to just shut things down or. To be like, oh, I, you know, you, you can't say that that's not okay. Or like, if I feel emotionally challenged by this, you can't talk about it, then that seems to be something that happens a lot.

Malcolm Collins: Emotionally Challenges you forever.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Then that, that's, that's, I, I don't know if that's logic or conditioning. I think, I think that, I think a lot of people. Condition their partners to lean in to their lack of logic because that's how they win. When, for example, a girlfriend or wife responds with an emotional reaction and then gets what she wants, boyfriends and husbands are literally training them to no longer respond to O to logic.

So I would actually put this back on some men in some cases. Where they could have had a logic driven wife and then now they complain like, oh, well she only reacts emotionally now to things. Maybe that's been because every time she reacts emotionally, you reward her. You didn't push back enough, and now she's been conditioned to react emotionally when she could have been rewarded for reacting logically and then she would've been a more logical person.

I mean, I think people respond and, and people. You can see this across cultures and societies, right? Like there, there are different ways that cultures will relate to debate and argument. And I don't, I don't think it's totally genetic or ingrained. I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, what are you rewarded for?

Are you rewarded for emotional appeals like E murkowski? We complain about the fact that he often turns to very emotional arguments. Because I think he's been rewarded over time by how they seem to shut people down who otherwise are very logical because he deals with a lot of really smart artists who kind of don't know how to, how to respond to emotional appeals that don't have anything to do with logic.

Like they're kind of tr they, they don't feel like it's a domain where they can fight back because they don't feel those emotions and they, they can't play. It's, it's a currency in which they can't deal. They don't have. That currency to trade. And so I think he, for example, is, is an example of someone who's been trained to make emotional arguments and women can be trained to do that too.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and I think another area here where people are trained, when we talk about like the bad societal things is. Compromise. No relationship should ever be built on compromise. Compromise is the most toxic thing that you can have in a relationship because compromise subconsciously rewards relationship division.

By that what I mean is if I want two and my wife wants five. We have a relationship based on compromise. Now both of us are subconsciously rewarded for exaggerating our positions.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I should tell him I want 20 and he should tell me he wants zero. And then we'll end up with, you know, and then you begin

Malcolm Collins: to actually get closer when you misrepresent your position.

Even if you're doing it subconsciously due to like slight, you know. Motivations there. You, you, you move towards the position that you're representing. Mm-hmm. Which means, well, first I wanted two, but now I want one. And at first she wanted, you know, five and now she wants nine, you know? Right. Yeah. And then

Simone Collins: maybe we end up getting five, which was the original number I wanted.

But because I said I wanted 20, I'm gonna be resentful. You feel like you lost, I'm gonna feel like I lost. Yeah. Because I didn't think I asked you. Yeah. So, yeah, you just, you can't, you can't win in a compromise. It's horrible. It's horrible.

Malcolm Collins: And the pregnant guided relationships, we go over a bunch of ways that you can actually handle this.

Disagreements, you can handle them by just giving all powers to one party. You can give all powers to one party by domain, like. House decorations versus finance versus kids' names versus vacation planning.

Simone Collins: All these things

Malcolm Collins: you can use external mediators. And, and you'll often end up with, with much more favorable positions to what you want when you give the final decision making per.

To your opposite partner.

Mm-hmm.

IE generally the decisions are gonna lead closer to what the person who doesn't have final say wants, because the person with final say, has a responsibility to really think through what the other person is saying or damage their relationship.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I think that's, that's another thing.

So. Malcolm in the end, for example, has final say on most of the things in our relationship. And when he makes these calls, they're ultimately more charitable toward me than toward his preference. Like, let's say he wants zero and I want five, he's more likely to err in favor of three than in, in favor of what he would want, like a much lower number because he knows that if he abuses his power consistently, the relationship is just gonna end.

And that's the other thing about. Just more broadly, relationship contracts and agreements and stuff in terms of what not to do with training. Ultimatums are kind of non-viable. I think a lot of people, when they think about relationship contracts, they think that the violation penalty is, and then I will leave you, like, if you cheat on me, then I'll leave you.

It never should be because you, you absolutely then have to leave the partner if they do the thing. And you might not actually wanna do that. So while we have a very detailed relationship contract. Yeah, there are some exceptions that are just kind of fun.

Malcolm Collins: This, this leads to a lot of cheating in relationships where somebody says, if you cheat, I will leave you.

And then the person cheats and they don't leave them. And then the person's like, oh, so there's no problem. Like, yeah. So this is functionally not okay. I say I won't do it again, but like. If you're like, no, like this goes against like this, the spirit of our relationship and will lead to X, Y, and Z problem, now they won't do it, right?

Mm-hmm. This will make me sad. This will lead me to eventually leave you of you to, this was like cumulative things. That's very different than like do this than Y, but I don't actually do y.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And so in our relationship contract, literally what's written is the most common penalty is. This will make me feel bad

Malcolm Collins: if you do this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It'll be sad because it's understood that if over time you disappoint a partner enough, the relationship is over. This isn't something that needs to be, you know, it is implicitly understood that if over time you disappoint your partner enough, you're, you're gonna screw up. But making it this.

Black and white cross this line. I have to, you know, end this relationship immediately. Mm-hmm. You are setting yourself up for rampant abuse and also this feeling that, oh, actually I can get away with it even more so than you'll hurt my feelings. So let's say, you know, okay, you, you cheat on me. It really hurts my feelings.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I understand that. I'll take that very seriously. If instead it's, you cheat on me, I'll leave you, and then you cheat on that person and they don't leave you, I actually. I don't know. You kind of feel like you've been lied to. You almost feel like, okay, great. So it is, you know, I haven't done anything wrong.

Like clearly they didn't mean what they said.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: So yeah, I, that, that's a really, really big one.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that if people are like, well, early in a relationship, how do we establish a relationship like this? Right? It all starts by asking the person what they want from life.

Hmm.

Then being like, okay, does that align with what I want from life or the world or more broadly?

Right. You know, because then your relationship is based on your logical desires, right? Like long-term desires instead of, or, or moral framing. Instead of like short term, if you marry someone because you feel an attraction to them, you can't do this, right? Like, because logic isn't the basis of your relationship.

Love is the basis of your relationship. Alignment isn't the basis of your relationship. Love is. And so then they can always trump anything with Will, this makes me feel X or feel Y. And it, and you're like, well, you know, feelings isn't the the underlying basis of reality. And they're like, but isn't that why we got married?

Isn't that why we're together because of the feelings that you give me or gave me? Which is really, really dangerous because the feelings that you give somebody else are gonna change over time. So if they married you because of how you made them feel, you're not gonna make them feel that way in 10 years or after you have five kids or whatever.

Right? Like it should be based on an logical alignment. And so this is an early thing in a relationship that's really important to push through. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Totally agreed.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, anything else I should go over here, Simone.

Simone Collins: I mean, obviously I whip

Malcolm Collins: you when you make mistakes.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah, of course. I think another, another really

Malcolm Collins: wife, unless it's like a sexual thing that you're into, then you know. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Then go for it. Fine. The biggest aspect of your training wasn't actually reactionary and wasn't even the conversations that we had hashing out basically the terms of our relationship contract.

It was your transparency from the very beginning that you were so explicit about what your plans values. And expectations were that so much of it was just already implicit. There was no work you had to do because it was clear to me and to anyone else who dated you, what you were about, what you would tolerate, and what you would not tolerate, and that.

I think is, yeah, my

Malcolm Collins: goal is X and y this is why I'm dating you. Mm-hmm. My goal is marriage. But, but all of that is in service of X and Y.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. And you were also, you're also very transparent about what you like, what you don't like. Like if I make a meal and I don't hit the mark, you're very explicit about it.

Like, I, I can trust you to say things even when you know that, that you'll hurt my feelings. And that also. Ultimately trains anyone who's in your life to mm-hmm. One, know that they can trust you, but two, also really know what your standards are and when, when they're disappointed, I think that people train bad behaviors and their partners by not being transparent with them, by not sharing their expectations and by not being honest with them.

Because then there's just not that there's, there's so much guesswork, and when people operate on different social contracts, you're going to end up with disappointment. Absolutely. And all sorts of problems. So I think that's another really big one that is super underrated.

Malcolm Collins: I love you so much, Simone.

You are a great wife. I don't actually love you by the way. We'll do another episode where I'm like, I think love is a scam. And I, and I mean this is somebody who is in like the literal best position to feel this emotion of love. Like I really admire my partner. I like spending time with her. I feel really.

Anxious when we're apart from each other. And it's the same as my kids, right? Like I, I, I think they're awesome people. I don't like being apart from them. I like, I, like I have an aligned value system with them. I want them to do great things. With you, I, I find you arousing and everything, right?

Like I but all of the emotions that I feel about you can be given some other easily knowable emotional name like. Admiration or kinship or friendship or lust or you know, any, any of these words, right? And, and I think that there isn't some distinct love, emotion as other people.,

I really think that that it, it evolved as a myth.

To be able to talk about people who either you wanted to possess or have lust after, or build a life with in a way that didn't say one of those things, right? Like, they don't wanna say, they don't wanna write poetry about how they lust after somebody, so they use the term love, right? Or how they wanna possess somebody, or how they wanna spend their life with somebody.

But, but those are very easy emotions to understand that are different from love. Like logically wanting to spend your life with somebody and not liking being apart from them because you have a strong emotional attachment for them is not the same as whatever. We have mythologized as love.

We've already aired that episode, so you can check it out if you want. And we're likely gonna dig into this topic a bit more because I think it's really fascinating and could be at the heart of where modern progressivism came from, which was covering up, , what was, , like lustful or previously shameful emotions.

With a veil that they are now beyond reproach, which allowed people to build their entire lives around seeking out emotional states because they could label this bundle of emotional states love, which historically you didn't do, you lived for, for duty, or for your children or for your nation. , And I'd also note here that in saying that love isn't a real emotional set, .

I'm not alone in saying this. You know, the, the ancient Greeks didn't have a love a word for what we call romantic love. We go more into this in the episode, but even, you know, thinkers like Cki Lewis said quote, love is not an affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's, ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.

And in saying that, what he's saying is, , love is a choice to want something for a person rather than an emotional state within yourself.

Malcolm Collins: We talked about how gross it is when like Lex Freeman is like, well, but what about love?

And it's like, bro, like. Love probably doesn't meaningfully exist. And this is one of those areas where I'll just come out there where I'm like, I don't think consciousness meaningly exists. I don't, I don't think love meaningfully exists. I think it exists even less.

Simone Collins: And this is also a policy that you've held for a really long time because literally in our marriage vs.

We're like, I don't promise to love you. I promise to constantly help you become the person you wanna be and improve you. But I don't promise to love you. Yeah. I was like,

Malcolm Collins: I can't control my emotional state. Like if, if this love emotion does exist, like I can't promise that I'm gonna be captured by it at a later date.

And so, yeah, but I, I say it now because I think a lot of people are sort of scared to kick down this illusion and be like, Hey, this, this is not a distinct emotion that exists. Because everyone will be like, oh, you don't really care about your partner. You're not really aligned with your partner.

You don't really find your partner attractive. You don't really, and I think that anybody who has spent a long time watching us knows that like, that's obviously not the case. Like we are stupidly aligned. And, and, and very much back to back against the world. In terms of like media, oh, most

Simone Collins: people win.

When we discuss with them the idea of them working together, they're like, oh, I could never do that. Like, yeah, I could

Malcolm Collins: never do AC company with my wife. It's okay. You say every

Simone Collins: day, what is this? You couldn't tolerate working with them every day. Like sometimes man, people who say that they really care about love.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're like. Like, well, okay, well work with your wife. Oh, I don't want to be around her. God forbid

Simone Collins: you spend all day, every day. I mean, you are

Malcolm Collins: like, we will do anything to be together at all times. But it's not driven by love. It's driven by the fact that I've worked with people other than my wife and I know she's the only one I can really rely on to be you know, fully dedicated and efficient.

Whereas most people are kind of, you know, lazy, bowhead. Well, in

Simone Collins: an ideal relationship, you're not training someone to be. Your paid or unpaid cortis on who? Whose only purpose is to make you feel good and entertain you. Yeah. And be your sexy person. It is. What marriage, for the most part has been, is an arrangement that allows people to live functional lives together.

Malcolm Collins: So, and this is something I see so often from guys is, is you know, they're like, oh, I, I want it like a hot, you know, whatever wife. And I'm like, you're, you're asking for a courtesan, like you want some sort of like dancer or something like that. And then you hope that she's smart on the side, like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Well, and also then you're surprised when somehow like they're not aligned with you. The best, the best training. Really is for both partners to have the same objective function and to understand that they're more likely to achieve it, like literally, because it's true. One would hope. By working together.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. That

Simone Collins: they're better together than, than on their own. And then suddenly, and this is how it has been for us with most things in our life, every conflict is more, we want the same thing, we want the same outcome, and we just happen to have different data sets. So the conflict is over that. I think you build it

Malcolm Collins: into a hypothesis like, okay, you think Y, I think X, let's test this,

Simone Collins: right?

Like we both want healthy, flourishing children and we have really picky eaters that are in some cases, not like, not in the right weight range for their age. And we're both really worried about them, and our conflict is. He and I have consumed very different information about metabolic health and nutrition.

Malcolm Collins: But what's great about having neutral conflict breakers today is you have ai. Yeah. Like you used to need to go to a priest or something, and now you can be like, okay, I think X, she thinks Y. Mm-hmm. Who's more right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And actually studies have shown that when couples reframe conflicts, they're going through.

Using language about each of them in a, in the what second person, you know, like you and I would be like, well, okay, so Malcolm and Simone are having a disagreement over this. What would we advise them to do when they, when they take the first person out of it, they're far more likely to, as a, a disassociated party, even if they're only acting as one behave more logically.

So even the process of just writing in your conflict to an AI. In that third person of just like, well, Simone and Malcolm had this disagree, what would you advise you? You're all, you're even priming the participants in the argument to start thinking about it in what has been shown to be a more productive fashion.

So yeah, I love that. I love that way of doing it.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, here's a, here's a a fun stat for you. We are less than 1,500 subscribers from 50,000. No way.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. That's crazy. That's so cool.

Malcolm Collins: Ah just went by 40,000. I feel like because I, you're not a

Simone Collins: subscriber. You should, as our son Octavian puts it life.

And, and describe

Malcolm Collins: life and describe Please. It would help us a lot. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It yeah, we hope to provide not as much

Malcolm Collins: as, not as much as Apple reviews. Apple Podcast reviews are the most helpful

Simone Collins: because they're the most hard.

Malcolm Collins: Obviously Patreon's really appreciated as well, but oh

Simone Collins: my gosh. Yeah, and I'm super excited to do more premium stuff for Patreon.

So yeah,

Malcolm Collins: if we keep growing at the rate we've grown in the past month, maybe it's just 'cause we've done a bunch of like juicy misogynistic stuff or something. If we keep growing at this rate we can, we, we won't have financial problems soon 'cause Right, right now we don't have jobs so. That'd be cool.

We could do YouTube full time.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm wondering actually though, are there, would you give different wife training trips, sorry, tips for the men who really are just like, yeah, I don't care. I want a passport wife, I want a Brazilian model. I want a trope, like I think they're making

Malcolm Collins: a mistake.

Simone Collins: Is there is Because I don't like my concern about training them is that because your incentives are misaligned.

Like you are there for the youth and beauty and for someone maybe to raise your kids or like be sexy and pray. Well, here's the thing,

Malcolm Collins: if you want a passport wife, then maybe you're even in a better position to find a wife. You can be logical ways like,

Simone Collins: okay, yeah, but then like, isn't it better as a temporary arrangement because you want them for their youth and beauty and they want you for your money, so shouldn't you just do it on year long contracts?

Malcolm Collins: No, I still think that you can use the power play that you get 'cause you have a differential power position if you're getting a passport wife to say, Hey, we're gonna do things logically to optimize for this outcome, not to optimize for my happiness, but for this outcome.

Simone Collins: Okay, what would the outcome be?

Malcolm Collins: Well, whatever they work together for that outcome to be. But.

Simone Collins: But the out No, because the women want a better life and money and security. No, no, no, no. The

Malcolm Collins: women are okay with saying, I'm signing up with you so that we can both achieve Y or Z together. No,

Simone Collins: because they're really in it for the money and the security and maybe a more glamorous, comfortable, right.

And if it's

Malcolm Collins: a woman with a man, think about this Simone. Men want career oriented outcomes, right? Like the man is the one providing for the woman. Okay? So the man says, my goal right is achieving x, and X is a career oriented outcome, is also the woman's goal for him to achieve X because her status as a passport wife.

Is tied to his status as a passport man.

Simone Collins: Ah, okay. This is actually sort of what I expect to happen is AI hits really hard because we're gonna see disproportionately, I think men performing better because it is the more entrepreneurial risk taking people that are going to be able to make money in a opposed AI economy, meaning that I think more women will actually turn to men.

As kind of careers like I will be a professional wife, mother, girlfriend, and I do think that we are gonna see almost kind of a return to the corporate family where, you know, back in the day the butcher would work with his wife and the butcher would be out slaughtering the pigs and processing the meat, and the wife would be upfront selling and managing the finances and, and, and doing the books.

What this

Malcolm Collins: means is you're not looking for a wife, you're looking for like a secretary or support that does wife things as well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's also sexy. A sexy secretary.

Malcolm Collins: I, I don't think sexy is important. I think. Well, I'm just the important asking. No, the

Simone Collins: problem is a significant portion of our audience.

Only once the, the Brazilian Ukrainian models they want get over that,

Malcolm Collins: right? Like that's how they're gonna ruin their lives. We're not, they're clearly

Simone Collins: not capable of getting over it. Chiming in the comments, if you've changed your mind on this, but we're gonna get no one chiming in who's like, yeah, I came to my senses and I've decided that I'm going to marry.

I don't need

Malcolm Collins: to, I don't need to worry about them. They're not part of humanity's genetic future. These, these people. No, I'm honest. These people who take. Hot passport wives never breed above a population rate from what I've seen, or almost never.

Simone Collins: Yeah, because they may promise to have a larger family, but the vast majority of them, but they don't, they

Malcolm Collins: get here, they have one kid, the woman does, and now she's like, now I've locked you down.

Now you can't leave me. Now I get half of what you, you have,

yeah.

If you ever wanna leave me, right? Like, why would I continue? Right. Like you effed yourself, you played yourself. Okay. You can marry a woman who's from your own cultural group and like you and has aligned value system with you, or a woman who is fainting that.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Okay. That's a, I'm sorry. That's a big segment of our audience, so,

Malcolm Collins: but it's just, I've seen it over and over and over again. It's a very easy play, like think logically from the perspective of your average woman in a developing country who's trying to get a passport pro to marry you.

Yeah. What you

say is whatever they want to hear until you pumped out one kid.

You know, well under repopulation rate and now they can't leave you as easily.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is actually this has happened with a couple male passport bro influencers who for a while had these channels about their hot wives and how they were just killing it. And then you, progressive YouTubers love to cover them because then everything falls apart.

Malcolm Collins: They have one kid and everything falls apart. They

Simone Collins: love talking about how like their wives have left them and now they're. You know, living in their, in their own filth of the, you know, the fallout from the divorce, dealing with all that. So, not fun. Not fun.

Malcolm Collins: Not fun.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, love you. Toone, excitedly ma Mafu,

Simone Collins: and you luck out.

My dad requested white rice. My dad's visiting with his, with his girlfriend. So good. He has good taste.

Malcolm Collins: Were you hoping they didn't.

Simone Collins: I mean, white rice has a lower glycemic index if you're refrigerated overnight first. So that's why I typically cook your ahead of time. This is just gonna be, you know, straight up. That's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Again, you and I have consumed very different information on metabolic health. People keep saying, oh, do do a do a health episode?

Talk about your health regimen. Someone just today on X was like, oh, maybe you should do an episode on the effects of, of, of sugar, because I've just discovered how, how bad it is and how much it affected my childhood moods, and now I've gone off it. I'm like, dude, you don't wanna hear Malcolm talk about nutrition?

Malcolm Collins: No, no. My. Diet. It's called the radical diet. Okay? You are as radical as the foods you eat. I, and by radical,

Simone Collins: he means like 1990s Kool-Aid. Oh, yeah. Radical mean.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, if it doesn't turn you into like, mercury s commercial, you're doing something wrong.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You need, you need. Okay. This is what children need.

They need fruit roll-ups. They need gushers, they need dunkaroos, they need Capri Sun. They need squeeze it, which don't exist anymore. So now what, what would these be like Kool-Aid, like pop tops vegetables you need?

Speaker 3: Uya erased my country too. The most outta control radical place the world had ever seen. Slam Zone. Your country was called Slam Zone. The United Republic of Slam Zone. In titles, totality, ah. The only thing that still makes sense to me is a nice ice cold Capri sun.

Speaker 4: I'm not really in the mood for a Capri Sun. Here you go. Drink up.

Speaker 3: Sorry, friend. But do you know what I do know? What's that? I know another ice cold.

Capri sun would really hit the spot. I don't want

Speaker 4: another one. I don't want the first one. You gotta

Speaker 3: hydrate yourself. Drink up.

Malcolm Collins: No. Oh. No, you, oh my gosh. All of this stuff, the, the more industrial it is. The more radical it is.

I, I learned this from commercials. And if you eat enough of it. Like a Capri Sun commercial. Eventually you will turn into a horrifying metallic blob that can fly around. Oh yeah. And, and, and do cool stuff, right? Oh, I

Simone Collins: forgot about this. Yes. You drink

Malcolm Collins: your Kool-Aid and the Kool-Aid man and will burst into your home, and debris will get in his.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it was like sympathetic, magic, false advertising. But it worked like they understood that there's this inherent subconscious human belief in sympathetic magic, and they're like, okay, so if we serve the Capri Sum in, in a, in a FOIL package, the children will believe that if they drink from the FOIL package, they will become.

Metallic foil. So let's advertise that

Speaker 2: Coming at you. Capri Sun by the pitcher. So whenever you want, you can make as much as you want. All natural Capri Sun drink mix.

Simone Collins: you, you

Malcolm Collins: a swan, if you ate a swan, birthday cake, Simone. I did.

Simone Collins: No, I, I 100% believed in sympathetic magic. Yeah. If my preschool, you got to choose what kind of beautiful cake our Mormon preschool teacher would serve. May she rest in peace? She was one of the most wonderful women in the world, and I would always ask for a swan because I thought it would turn me into a swan.

I just wanna be grateful. Graceful. I'm not graceful. Oh, you're very graceful, Simone. No, man. I'm, I'm the, I'm the ugly duckling. I never made it to my swan face.

Malcolm Collins: Are you done?

Simone Collins: You see me waddle around the house even when I'm not pregnant,

Malcolm Collins: it's bad. Sure. You are an exceptionally graceful woman, so you looks sweet to me. But no, no, no. This is all, this is all true and everybody thinks, oh, you know, I, oh, I wanna live. I don't want, I don't wanna live forever. I don't want my kids to live forever.

That's not the point, right? Like, okay, this is the truth of it. Whatever, like, you're not gonna, your health

Simone Collins: regimen is burn bright and

Malcolm Collins: die young. Yes, I, I, the point is to be the guy from Blade Runner, you know the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Your point isn't living forever. It's to have a bunch of kids that live till you're 60.

Because after you're 40, basically your life is only about helping your kids at that point, right? Like, you're not gonna have that many more kids after that point, right? So guys,

Simone Collins: this is why you haven't had the. The health advice episode,

Malcolm Collins: this is why you haven't had the health because I, my health advice is stop worrying about dying.

Don't be such a pussy man. I don't, I don't mind. I I, no seriously, like it's a good day to die when you know the

Simone Collins: reason why It's absolutely true. It doesn't matter

Malcolm Collins: as long as I've set my kids up and people can be like, oh, well that fruit rollup is gonna kill you at a young, not at that young an age. I'll be fine by the time my kids are set up.

Okay. I hope so.

Simone Collins: I'm gonna secretly make you healthy and keep you alive. That's the thing, right, is I will feed you white rice. But normally I'm able to. I part interventions that reduce the glycemic load or I, I, I throw in additional things to add a health factor. I, I force you to take vitamins and supplements.

I force you to get the DEXA scan you just had yesterday to get biannual MRIs to check for cancer. That, I mean, I'm like, this, this, this person who's trying

Malcolm Collins: to like murder themselves. Yeah. You're like, yeah. It's,

Simone Collins: it's, it's like with our kids, like they're just walking around, like trying to kill themselves and I'm like, like, just quietly, like taking away the knife, taking away the, well now you make a

Malcolm Collins: lot of my meals, you know, you're in charge of my health as well.

Right. Like even when I eat, I eat very little that you don't make anymore.

Simone Collins: It's true. Yeah. So, in the end you're ending up eating like whole foods minimally processed, and you don't even know it. You think, you think you're on the radical diet because you have like two fruit rollups that you steal from the kids on a weekend.

But in the end, that's

Malcolm Collins: the truth of it though. I do, I have like two fruit rollups. That's my actual radical load. Yeah. So my radical load is low, which is sad.

Simone Collins: Oh no, you're not dying fast enough. What are we gonna do? I need to

Malcolm Collins: increase, we need to get some gushers. That's, but I can't because they're too expensive.

You're lucky those the ones that look like crystal

Simone Collins: cell, do

Malcolm Collins: those

Simone Collins: look like crystals?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: the little crystal looking ones with the go. If we, Titan would lose it. You know how she's, but mine crystals. Mine Crystal, mine Crystals the octopus, the Tommy Knockers are gonna take my, we told her

Malcolm Collins: there's Tommy Knockers in local mines and all my kids are always talking about the Tommy Knockers.

We don't want them to go in the mines, you know? So, and the witch lives in the swamp and the Tommy Knockers live in the mines and the, and I told them the Tommy Knockers, 'cause the mines are flooded to have tentacles and look kind of like octopus.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So now she's, now she's just confused. She's talking about.

Tent ankles and Tommy Knockers, octopuses stealing her crystal. She's not afraid of the Tommy Knockers 'cause she knows that she will win every fight she enters. And she does well. No, Torsten is the finisher after much torment. He just ends, ends her fights

Malcolm Collins: after down with his iPad. Yeah, but she, of course, I never pay for that for my kids.

It's like a tablet that's like 80 bucks. But yeah. Well that's

Simone Collins: what he gets in trouble for. He doesn't get in trouble for smacking her. He gets in trouble for potentially breaking a tablet.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, I'll let you go down. Get started. I'm sorry I've kept you this long. You are a beautiful woman and it's important to remember that even when you're training your wife that like a dog, you can tend you to give her little treats because if you don't, she wants, that's such stupid face.

You look like a Tim Burton character. Why do I marry you?

Simone Collins: A monster. A monster. Oh god, yeah. Little treats. Well you get me. Popcorn. Which is very, that's what I do. Yeah. I try to

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anticipate what you wanna run the house. But yeah. Have a great day guys. Remember y it's about chaining your wife to a radiator and whipping her until she submits.

That's, and

Simone Collins: you're a cuck if you or a passport bro. Apparently. So.

Malcolm Collins: Most passport bros. In at Cox in Might. And if,

Simone Collins: if you wanna, if you want a hot wife, apparently.

That's it's hard.

Malcolm Collins: But the thing is that you started as like a progressive, and the reason you switched is because we talked through our values. Mm-hmm. We talked through what we wanted to achieve, but also like,

Simone Collins: yeah, you, you did the thing where you, just, like any good investor, you buy an undervalued product that you know you can fix up.

That's what private equity's all about. That is all I found

Malcolm Collins: you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I wasn't, I mean, I looked, I looked older then than I do now, weirdly. At least I think so. From like my, I think so too.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And you also had only a GW degree and a pretty shitty job.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So like, yeah. I mean, I hear what you're saying.

Like when you, I was gonna say buy, when you buy a mail order bride, essentially you are buying someone at their peak value. Like it's, it's like, the really stupid private equity buyers or like people who buy flipped houses. And like everything is at its maxim, like barely held together with tape, like, you know, you do.

Yeah, no, I agree. Like, you know, the pipes aren't even connected. Everything looks really good and everything goes downhill from there. Whereas what Malcolm bought was like an old house that was a wreck and he invested a lot in fixing it up. But now the value is paying dividends, like it's a rental property that then you can rent out.

And not that you're rent

Malcolm Collins: by the way. Get down and make me food.

Simone Collins: Okay. Bye Malka. I'm joking.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, by the way. Love you. I love you. You only started making me food recently, like this year, by the way, just so people know. Before that I was, nothing's

Simone Collins: actually better cooked than I am, but I

Malcolm Collins: not with every type of cooking.

I'm better with spices. And you're better with cooking techniques.

Simone Collins: Mm. After thousands of hours of watching food channels. I know. All thanks. All right. Off I go. Getting to the. Annoying.

Malcolm Collins: What's the sigh about? Are we on the right sides?

Simone Collins: Oh let me make sure. I was trying to find this, I was trying to find this scene from the show Pushing Daisies, which is a super Simone show that you would hate. But there was this one episode and each episode was about like solving some kind of murder mystery.

And this one episode featured. Actually a, a, a character, I think a widowed woman named Simone Huntin. So her name was Simone, but she, she had a dog clicker and she trained dogs. But throughout the episode, she, she actually ends up training one of the, it's subconsciously training one of the deec, the detectives.

So like, he like perks up every time he hears a click and he, he doesn't realize that he's been like, brainwashed by Simone and trained by her like a dog.

Malcolm Collins: I was like,

Simone Collins: you should get a dog clicker. We actually have dog clickers sitting around the house. We, we stopped using them because professor just gets in line.

She's a smart dog. She doesn't need a clicker.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she doesn't need a clicker. She, she does pretty well with all the commands we really need. Yeah. Except for get outta the house. Once she, did she listen?

Simone Collins: No. No. She listens to me. Now. She knows I'm the alpha. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: she doesn't happens. Oh, okay. So clearly I've done a terrible job training my wife because,

Simone Collins: no,

Malcolm Collins: I'm not the el, you're just too nice.

Simone Collins: You're too nice to professor. Well, one, you don't give her as much food as I do. And two, you're not as strict when she is naughty sausage, so, mm. But. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder how many couples actually use dog clickers on each other or spray bottles. That would be great. Oh my God. To spray bottle to the face.

Did you ever We had a spray bottle for my cat pumpkin when I was a kid. You did? It worked. Yeah. Just

Malcolm Collins: should we do that with the kids instead of bops spray bottles? I meant that worked pretty well for kids. Honestly.

Simone Collins: We need to try this. Why have we not tried? I have a, I have a hair, I have a hairspray. I'm gonna try this out.

Malcolm Collins: You should try it out. The next time one of the kids like, starts whining about something, just walk up and be, oh my God. They were, they're

Simone Collins: gonna act like it's acid. They're gonna act like they're, they are, no,

Malcolm Collins: they're gonna, I promise you, if we develop this as like a parenting technique. When our kids are older and they're writing their memoirs, they're gonna be like, you don't understand if spray bottles were the much higher punishment than bops.

Bops were a low tier punishment compared to spray bottles. That's when you knew you really messed up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm just glad we don't resort to emotional. Emotional blackmail and, and cold shouldering and the silent treatment. But see, this is stuff that you have to train out of your wife. This is the stuff that is actually toxic, which is funny.

But yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll let you get into it. I was gonna ask Steven Minka if they wanted brown rice or white rice with a mafu. Are you gonna be super mad if they say brown rice?

Malcolm Collins: Nope. You can have brown rice and I'll,

Simone Collins: I can always microwave. I can rete. White rice for you, if that's all right?

Malcolm Collins: Sure.

Okay. I don't care. Whatever you want it.

Simone Collins: Okay. Hold

Malcolm Collins: on.

I mean, your brown rice is disgusting. It, it's so healthy.

If food's not radical, it doesn't go in my body. My, that is my health advice for people. That means fruit, rollups and Capri Sun. Is, is what I am made out of

Simone Collins: tonight. Would you like brown rice or white rice?

Question mark. The one thing we don't really have for tonight to go with the Mao Dofu is any form of vegetable because I've never had vegetables served with ma pofu. So if you want any veg or salad, comma now, it would be a great time to pick it up. Question, question. Exclamation mark. My God.

Speaker 5: Iny, please stop throwing things off. Your, your, your thing. Don't throw that. Okay. I You're not gonna throw it. Right?

Thank you, Indy. You already made a very big mess. Okay. And that.

You can eat some cheese. Toasty. I don't want to toast. Hey Torsten, you're pretty cool. You look super tired. Do you like your food? Yeah. Yeah, but he doesn't want it. Titan, what are you watching? Titan. Huh? What are you watching? I don't, I'm watching Blaze. Why do you like Blaze? 'cause I need more milk. I'll get you more milk.

My princess. Oh, we're out of milk. Literally in front of her. Oh, this is your more milk. A silly one. There's milk here that's in your milk hook cup.

Simone and Malcolm as they discuss the controversial topic of teen pregnancy. They delve into the historical context of youth adulthood, declining teen pregnancy rates, and examples from media that have influenced public perception. They explore how extended adolescence may be contributing to modern youth struggles, teen depression, and argue the potential benefits of teen pregnancy in fostering responsibility and maturity. They also critique global approaches, such as Russia's cash incentives for pregnant students, and propose a vision for integrating parenthood with education to create a more supportive society for young parents.

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because today we are trying to make teen pregnancy great again.

Speaker 3: My name is Victoria and I'm 15 years old, and I don't care what my mama says. I'm gonna have a baby. I'll do whatever it takes to take care of my baby. If it has to come out prostitute in my body, then so be it.

Simone Collins: It is a truth universally acknowledged that demographic collapse is in part a product of a drop in teen pregnancy, which most people hail is a big good development. For example. So I, I need to,

Malcolm Collins: I need to make a few notes here for people who don't know.

In the United States, if you divide women out by age ranges in, in, you don't know us is going through a major fertility crash right now.

Every age range of women is having the same or higher fertility rate than they have historically. Mm-hmm. Except for women under 24. Yeah. From 1990 to

Simone Collins: 2023, teen pregnancy dropped 78% in the USA. So the teen birth rate in 2023 was 13.1 per 1000. Teens,

Malcolm Collins: and this isn't just in the us Latin American demographers have said the majority of the crash in fertility rate in Latin America is coming from women.

I think it was under 21. Yeah. And it's,

Simone Collins: it's, and, and everywhere it's going down and, and even still in the US just like, just from 2007 to 2023. So this is, you know, in all of our recent memory, we're seeing about six to 8% year annual declines per year for teens. So, I mean, you would've thought that maybe in the nineties this would've already completely crashed.

The crash is continuing. It is, it is absolutely still happening. So teen pregnancy is out and most celebrate this as, as a huge win. But, well, what if it's not? So, you know, I think a lot of this, it might just be a product of our extended infantilization of youth, which by the way, is not working well for youth today in 20 23, 20 to 22% of high school students overall seriously considered.

Prematurely terminating their existence with about 9.5% reported actually attempting, said termination on any given year. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so what we're gonna be arguing here throughout this piece is, is teen pregnancy isn't actually that bad and we need to go back to a society which enables and supports teen pregnancy,

Simone Collins: which in turn accelerates adulthood.

And, you know, maybe getting out of youth. These days, it's kind of a get, get the hell outta dodge situation. You know, like people, oh, this robs you of your child. Look at childhood right now. Right. And, and keep in mind, like female students specifically report much higher rates of, of all this misery. Like, you know, this is this, you know, and, and women are the ones who are.

You know, going through the process of pregnancy. So also we, we should point out that delayed pregnancy leads to more health risks for both mothers and babies. But here's the thing, this is also very timely and, and, and newly in terms of people who are looking at prenatal list initiatives because in Russia, for example, cash payments are being issued to pregnant women, actively enrolled as students.

Who reach a certain age of gestation and all of these news outlets I get, I get all the prenatal list news alerts and like half of them for like the past month have been Putin gives out cash bonuses to pregnant schoolbus. Like, you know, there's, he's, you know, it's a whole thing, but let's explore.

Howe Pregnancy got demonized in the first place, and

Malcolm Collins: this was an active campaign to make you think that you are. Low life trash. If you get pregnant while you're a teen. Yeah. That you're ruining your kid's life. That you're ruining your life. Mm-hmm. And I note here,

Simone Collins: well, and that is trashy. That's the biggest thing.

Malcolm no one really cares about how ruined or not ruined your life is. They care about how aspirational or trashy something is. Let's be honest. No, it's true.

Malcolm Collins: But, but I, I will note here. Teen pregnancy works when it is full expectation that the parents are going to help raise the kids. IE your parents are going to help raise your kids.

Yeah. And my kids will be raised fully with that knowledge. Yeah. If they get pregnant when they're teenagers, we will help with as much of the work that we can in terms of child rearing to make it easy for them to transition into that phase of

Simone Collins: their life. I'm super excited to be a grandmother. Oh yeah, yeah.

No, we'll be

Malcolm Collins: pushing them. Like, especially if your kid no longer have kids at that age when our first kids are. Yeah. Because I realized

Simone Collins: if, if we have the number of kids we wanna have, I'm gonna be pregnant at age 50. I'm like, I don't know. Like, just in terms of the, the likelihood of me making it to that I want to yeah, but you know, we have to be realistic.

So increasingly, like grandchildren, I, I, I have a spreadsheet that like tells me what, what age our kids will be at different years. And I'm like, well, let's see, probably by this year. I can start reasonably pushing your grandchildren. I have to figure out marriage first. Have a plan. My, my dad had

Malcolm Collins: me when he was 42, so we'll be at kid number, what is it, six or seven when I'm that age?

Simone Collins: Hold on, I have a spreadsheet

Malcolm Collins: because we're, you're pregnant with number five now? Yeah. So where, where am I gonna be?

Simone Collins: Let's see. So, we will have what child number, what?

Malcolm Collins: When I'm 42, the age. Oh, when you're

Simone Collins: 42. That's 2031. Is when I would have our eighth child if we keep to our schedule.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: So, and this is assuming,

Malcolm Collins: and that's when I'd be completing the full round of kids that I intended to have.

Eight was, no, you wanted seven.

Simone Collins: Seven was your original, like Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: but eight. And that would be when you're 42.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. So Oh gosh. Yeah. When we, when we would be doing yeah, when you would be 42 when we had, would have. Seventh child. And your dad was only, although your dad had a daughter from a previous marriage, so there was that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then he had one more kid after me.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. No,

Simone Collins: yeah. People are getting started later and you know, again, it's super feasible. But anyway by the way, just wanna say thanks to, to Megan for suggesting this episode. It's a really good topic 'cause she, she, Megan, who pointed out. Megan from Patreon, our friend Megan, also friend first.

Okay. Patreon second. I mean, you, you could say who she is. She's, she's Scott, Alexander's wife. She's, but on her own, like yeah, on her own.

Malcolm Collins: She's really cool. But she doesn't have a big public. Yeah. Like

Simone Collins: he, I can take relief. I mean, I, I love Scott Alexander. I get be wrong, but I'm, I'm team Megan here. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I agree.

Simone Collins: Sorry, sorry, not sorry. No, I agree.

Malcolm Collins: Megan's really cool.

Simone Collins: But anyway, she pointed out that, you know, a lot of people are like, this is great, you know, this is wonderful. But she also is like, is it so wonderful though? Because she's seen in her life and we have to, and we'll get into this later, so don't, don't get into it too much, but like how pregnancy changes people often for the better, and having kids changes people for the better.

Is it such a good thing?

Malcolm Collins: The people I know who got pregnant as, as teenagers. Like they were often the more rebellious kids whose lives I saw were Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: now it's the re rebellious thing to get pregnant. As a teen. Yeah. No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. But, but, but these are people whose lives were clearly spiraling when this happened to them.

Mm-hmm. And this just like course corrected their entire life. Yeah, like now they're like hardworking, studious, holding a job, building a career. I mean, they might start from a lower place because they, you know, spun out a lot, which led to the teen pregnancy. But this isn't to say that this is like a negative thing.

If, if anything, it's what saved their lives.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. Yeah. So let's, let's start off by just giving, like, sort of laying, give you a lay of the land. 'Cause I think a lot of people, again, just they, they aren't really familiar with how much teen pregnancy has dropped. So in North America. Teen pregnancy is down 78% since 1991, which is, is huge in Central America.

There it's still actually relatively high with some decline. The improvement actually stalled with COVID-19, which is interesting in South America. There have been large national declines and going from basically 72 out of a thousand in U Uruguay in 1996 to 36 out of a thousand in Uruguay in 2018.

It's just like to choose one South American place in Africa. There, there has been a slow decline, but. Like still, it, it's, it's going down even if the absolute population is growing. And in Europe there's been just a steep and steady decline. It's, it's, it has the lowest rates of teen pregnancy globally.

So basically the largest in absolute percentage declines have been in North America and many parts of South America and Europe and Central America and Africa basically have a more modest declines. But there's still. Lots of teen births, especially because there's just so many young people that like, there are still a lot of teen births 'cause there's so many teens.

And then Europe has the lowest overall teen pregnancy rates. Which might be why like. People are fascinated by gypsy weddings and like gypsy

Malcolm Collins: mothers. Well, I mean, I think one of the things about teen pregnancies is people will be like, kids are not old enough and not mature enough to make decisions that will affect them the rest of their lives when they're teens, like who they partner with.

Yeah. And it's like, yeah, but their parents are, and this is why pseudo arranged marriages are so important.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think there's, there's a lot to be said for thoughtful teen pregnancy, like the earliest place. In terms of media demonizing teen pregnancy, the earliest contemporary place I've seen teen pregnancy demonized is in one of those 1950s propaganda instructional film videos that I love to watch.

And there's this, this one in which this high school couple that's dating is like out and about walking around, and they see their friend from high school who dropped out because she had a baby and is now like being a housewife. But the guy that she had a baby with and then married. Kind of like, you know, isn't that educated, isn't that conscientious?

Like she just made a poor choice. And it's clear from the, the. The propaganda that the primary critique is just a lack of good vetting and preparation. And not necessarily that she had a kid young, because the general pattern at that point was to get married right out of high school and have a baby right away anyway.

So it was more like, Hey, maybe don't do it at age 16, maybe do it at age 18, which is really interesting. But the first really prominent Western show, that was both researched and, and widely aired. That demonized teen pregnancy was 16 and pregnant. The MTV show, which I never watched. And then it, it's subsequent sort of inspired show called Teen Mom.

I, I'll send you a, a clip from the trailer 'cause it's, it's so, reminds me of like old MTV stuff, which just is entertaining. So just like, take a look at that to get a picture of how they were framing pregnant women.

Speaker: I'm starting my senior year of high school in the fall, and I plan on becoming a police detective,. I'm also training to become a professional cage fighter and a model, a lot harder because I'm pregnant.

Malcolm Collins: Wow. For a 16-year-old she was doing a lot.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no. So like the what what's shown in in the preview is basically like, I'm a girl. I have a lot of big dreams, but I'm also pregnant. And actually someone in her comments of, in another video recently actually was wondering what the effect of this show was on most viewers.

Yeah. Because she watched this show, and at least for one of the pregnant. Female protagonist that was featured in it. She was like, oh, like, I, I wanna have, I wanna have a kid now. Like, this teen pregnancy thing looks great. And I think later after she saw how the relationship between this young woman and her male partner kind of devolved she, she kind of changed her mind about that.

But it. There, there've been. The interesting thing is interest, like research studies done on the impact of this show and people have analyzed the effect and their effect on teen pregnancy among viewers. So basically, the show caused significant reductions in teen births, multiple studies, most notably by economist Melissa Kearney and, and Philip.

Levine, they found that the premier of 16 and pregnant in 2009 in areas where there was higher viewership experienced, notably larger declines in teen birth rates. Their research estimates the show was responsible for a 4.3 to 5.7% reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its debut, which explains the approximately one third of the total decline in teen birth during that period.

So this goes to show just like how much, 'cause the show also kind of frames it as. It's kind of trashy to get pregnant as a teen. It's not, you know, they're not showing aspirational, wealthy teens being pregnant. They're showing, you know, her, her boy, the, the boyfriend of the girl who in the preview that I showed like, well, he's unemployed.

Like, I wish he would get a job. He just kind of messes around and here she is being all like, ambitious and everything. I wanna be a detective and whatever. A model and a kickboxer and a model. An MMA fighter. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait. She clearly is not gonna be an MMA fighter or a model. If you can look at her dream big

Simone Collins: girl.

I mean, yeah. But here's the thing is, is those careers ultimately in the long, larger scheme of things, isn't gonna come close to having a kid and raising a kid. Well, so in the end, you know, it's, it's, that's the thing. And, and, but it also wait, you find

Malcolm Collins: that you're not gonna make enough money or they're not gonna No,

Simone Collins: no, no.

What I'm saying is. She's not going to change the world in any lasting way by being an MMA fighter or a model, or by being a detective. She will change the world in a very meaningful way if she has a kid and raises them well, that kid could go on to have descendants for, you know, that that a line that lasts for millions of years.

I mean, we're the result of people making sacrifices. And although Simone,

Malcolm Collins: these people are probably not.

Simone Collins: Well,

Malcolm Collins: that's MTV's choice. Our listeners might, our listeners might, especially if they're of the younger variety.

Simone Collins: That we don't know. MTV chose to frame her a certain way. Whatever you know, I can, I wonder if we can like, look up what's, how is she doing now?

But anyway not, it wasn't just this reduction in teen birth that happened, there was also increased interest in contraception that was inspired by this show. Some, some researchers analyzed Google Trends and Twitter data. And these studies found spikes in searches and tweets about birth control and abortion whenever new episodes aired, which suggests that the program increased awareness and discussions about contraception in pregnancy prevention so that like people are watching this show and like actively Googling like, oh no, I need to not do this.

But here's the interesting thing, and this really dovetails with the person who commented on another one of our episodes, kind of wondering like. I don't know, like what's the effect of this show to make some, like, to make people wanna be pregnant more? Well, I think it was in response to our propaganda episode.

Yeah. Yeah. Because some experimental studies found that while a majority of teens are about 82%, who watched the show, felt it helped them better understand the challenges of teen pregnancy. A significant minority, about 15% believed it glamorized being a teen parent. Additionally, these studies revealed that teens who related strongly to the show's stars or formed parasocial relationships with them, sometimes developed more favorable attitudes toward teen pregnancy, obviously.

I mean, they would and they perceived the risk wasn't

Malcolm Collins: just this show, there's the famous like, I'm gonna have a baby. Oh no, that was the, like, those were the Jerry

Simone Collins: Springer shows.

Speaker 4: ​My name is Victoria and I'm 15 years old, and I don't care what my mama says. I'm gonna have a baby. I'll do whatever it takes to take care of my baby. If it has to come out the prostitute in my body, then so be it. I'm gonna adjust my baby in all brand names, and if I can't support it, then I guess I'm gonna steal it.

My mama thinks that I'm not ready to have a baby, but I have everything my. Will need. If my baby gets cold and it needs a blanket, it's all right because I have it. And if my baby needs clothes, it's cool. I have tons of them. And if my baby loses a pastier, I have three more. I'm not just having sex with one, not two, but three different guys.

That's right. I'm a player, but that's cool because I got it like that. My life games are to drop out of school, to be on Girl Scout Wild and to have my baby, and it's nothing. My mother. Can stay to change my mind

, The craziest thing about this story is they did a 10 year follow up on this girl and she actually turned out pretty normal. And with a lot of kids, I.

Speaker 5: . And now, 11 years later,

how are you doing?

Speaker 10: Doing amazing. And

Speaker 5: by the way, you have some exciting news about your life. Yeah. What, what do you want to tell everybody?

Speaker 10: I'm still married. Same baby daddy. All five of my kids.

Speaker 5: All five of your kids. And by the way, you, besides having five kids, you have a, what's your job?

Speaker 10: I'm a registered nurse.

Speaker 5: Oh, wow.

And what we also showed was that back then you were disrespecting your mom. What's it like now?

Speaker 10: Me and my mom are best friends.

Yeah, and as my wife pointed out to me, this is a perfect example of what we're talking about. We're what we might get into this later in the episode, but having a kid when you're young can really help stabilize your life if you are otherwise adrift. And if you look at the things she's saying in the first video, I mean, yes, the promiscuity is an issue, but other than that, she's just somebody saying.

I want to do whatever it takes for my kids. Um, and I want to have those kids and I wanna do whatever it takes and, uh, to, to give them a good life. And I think that that's actually admirable. And once she brought her kids into the world, her first kid into the world, it's clear that she understood that the way that she thought she was going to be able to live a life dedicated to her kids needed to change and needed to get serious.

And that's what she did with her life.

Simone Collins: You know, where like people would come on and they'd have ridiculous, like our favorite mother in the entire world who's like, and I'm gonna get everything from a baby and all the designer clothes and I can't

Malcolm Collins: afford it.

I guess I'm gonna steal it. I guess I'm gonna steal it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I, I, I wish her and her baby all the best because she's got, she's got pizazz. She's got, we need more of that. She.

Malcolm Collins: Five pacifiers

Simone Collins: and they're all Ralph Lauren. So yeah, basically like there, there's this weird bifurcation in the impact of these shows where like most people are like, Ew, this is trashy.

I'm not gonna do it. And then there's a couple people who are like, sign me up. And I kind of feel like maybe. That's all that matters because that's kind of how it's gonna be. It's, it's just these, part of our theory around Tism is it's just the people who are like, I'm gonna have 7, 8, 9 kids. Like, I'm gonna keep going forever.

Who are ultimately going to inherit the future? And everyone else who's like, maybe I'll have one or two. Like, they don't really matter because. They're not, they're not above repopulation rate. Yeah. So another, another really big show that at least in our youth introduced people to teen marriage and teen pregnancy was my big Fat gypsy wedding.

Which just showcased these over the top really str like, I think part of it was the culture contrast because these gypsy weddings were. They involve very poofy dresses and very, like this, this extreme contrast that

Malcolm Collins: one gypsy girl you showed me was so badass.

Simone Collins: That was from my big fat American gypsy wedding.

Yeah. And I, I, I sent with to Malcolm

Speaker 11: What color do you want? Black. Black. She doesn't want black. I want black. This is the best place in America to get a dress. And you're still talking about black. No. You need to wear something beautiful. You need to wear something embellished. You need to wear something with swarski crystals. You need to have bling.

You need to have poof. You need to have something beautiful that you feel great in, and you look good in. Okay. We're starting to get a little upset. I'm getting upset because I'm here to get a very beautiful dress that I feel like I would be grayed in and if I just want it to be black. What is so crazy about that dealing with gypsy brides?

Simone Collins: A clip of one girl kind of. Butting up against the, the gypsy tradition of pink poofy wedding dresses. Sometimes it had LED lights sewn in because, you know, I think people loved that contrast of like extreme high levels of spending and very conspicuous consumption.

But then like. In these like rundown parts of town, like living outta trailers. It's such an interesting contrast. But while people didn't study the, this, this is much so there's not a lot of evidence that it increased interest in teen marriage. There's, there's a lot of just academic literature on how it, it, it focuses on issues of cultural stereotyping and social impact of stigmatized groups.

I think. In the end though, this, this falls into the teen pregnancy is trashy camp, because that's what the show really played up. And I, I do think that they made teen pregnancy look bad. And so people are far, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: can you talk about other countries where they're trying to make teen pregnancy look cool?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Do you want I have the, I can discuss the benefits of teen pregnancy first because I'd like people to know. Okay. Discuss the

Malcolm Collins: benefits.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then I'll, then I'll get into what Russia's doing and then I'll get into what I think we would do instead if we were. Emperors of the world or Vladimir Putin.

But when, when we say teen pregnancy, I just wanna make clear, like we're mostly talking about age 18 and 19. I, I'm not talking about younger. Just 'cause the medically and I think personality wise, people just aren't necessarily writing. And actually when you go and look back in history, there's this perception that people are having kids really, really young.

And absolutely they were outliers, but most people. In, in history during the medieval age Renaissance, et cetera, like they were not having kids until they were around 18 or 19, or into their twenties. Really young teen pregnancy was actually fairly unusual. Mm-hmm. And, and I, there's a good reason for that because fertility in women is generally maximized between the late teens and late twenties.

And that's when the quantity and quality of eggs are at their peak and the ability. To conceive per menstrual cycle is highest. So basically this is Goldilock stone. And basically from 25 to 29 is what, when many medical professionals recommended, but I think that's just because they're afraid of recommending that 18 year olds have kids.

And it's, it, it, it, it maximizes natural fertility. Basically if you have a kid too young, you're at increased risk of preterm delivery, certain infections, and then fetal growth problems. So it, there can be, there is a too young age. And then after 35 risk of pregnancy complications like high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, pre preterm delivery, and chromosomal abnormalities like down syndrome start to skyrocket.

And also, you know, there's, there's other health issues and we've discussed this in other things. Like when we did the polygenic scores of our embryos just from age, like approximately 33, 34 to age 35, 36, we saw a steep decline in all of their polygenic risk scores around cancer and Alzheimer's and all these other things.

And we're like, oh my gosh, like this is. There, it, there's a cliff. It's, it's there. At least anecdotally. I mean, it, it, if it hits different when you actually experience it yourself and you see how, how genetic scores play out differently. But yeah, also younger mothers tend to, to recover more quickly from pregnancy, but sort of outside of health things, teen pregnancy makes a complete career and motherhood more feasible because if you start your career at third 30, instead of starting at 40, which is when most women end up starting after, like doing the young kids phase at home, if they want to, it's a lot easier because, I mean, there are lots of young like grads who are just coming out of college at age 30.

Y you don't look weird in the job market. You just look normal. And if you're in an academic field, you don't even have to wait to start anything. You can just do all the front loaded academic work with an infant and toddlers because university schedule and lifestyle really works well with that kind of workload.

So like I just think it's perfect If you want to do, like, if you wanna have it all, you'll also of course be more present with your kids 'cause you're not gonna be geriatric when they're older and when they have grandkids.

Malcolm Collins: My is like significantly easier and more scheduled in the early stages of your career.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of, and just like think about the numbers.

Simone Collins: If you have a kid every 24 months, which leaves 15 months for recovery after each pregnancy, then you're having a kid with at 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 30, you can be done. When you're 30 and then, and then you can have your whole career in front of you, which is again, when many people graduate with their PhD and you could do all of this while getting it, you know, as long as you are disciplined.

Try not to be so lazy. People. But also I think the more important thing, and I I'd love for us to talk about this a little more because this is kind of the, the, the premise that, that Megan had pointed out. It, it as is, is described in, in Hannah's children, the book by Catherine lic. It burns this selfishness out of people.

It, it, it could reduce short-term orientation in many of its associated ills in the US leading to better voting patterns and more local and civic engagement. I mean, we've, we've met people for sure, like personally you and I can both think of people like friends and, and others. That we've met that after having kids, they're just better people.

Like there have been people who go from party animal to super parent or, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: like, and most people do. I mean, like, we recently filmed an episode about this New York Times reporter who. Just not in New York Times. She, she, she wrote a piece in the New York Times about hating men and, and this is after she had a kid.

And it's clear all she wants from life is sex. Mm. And her daughter means nothing to her when contrasted with her sex life. Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: That's not a great example. 'cause she became a parent and completely washed out, but she didn't

Malcolm Collins: become a parent as a teen. People who become parents as teen as often as like a switch flips in their heads.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Whereas people who become parents within the proper pathways

Simone Collins: or once they're more ossified

Malcolm Collins: in all their habits. Yeah. I often feel more righteous in continuing that lifestyle.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: In fact, I'd say the biological switch, which is supposed to happen in our heads when we have kids. Mm-hmm. To make you, you know, live for the next generation rather than yourself.

Hmm. Doesn't appropriately flip if you have kids too late. You need to have kids or within a certain time window. It seems to flip much better if you have kids between late teens. I'd say very early thirties.

Simone Collins: Interesting. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't seen the biologically

Malcolm Collins: coded to allow that flip to happen at a later age.

Simone Collins: Or maybe, yeah, maybe. Maybe it's similar to, to people forming much stronger love bonds, it seems when they're younger and less experienced in life. Like maybe, I mean, as you've pointed out, like you don't feel the same level of exuberance and happiness that our children feel. Maybe everything is just kind of dull down.

When you get older, you feel less happiness, you feel less, you know, dopamine reward, you feel less love, you feel less enthusiasm, like everything kind of goes down like we're old dogs limping around. Not that we're that old yet, but you know. Feels like it when we look at our children like God, they're insane.

But yeah, I mean also beyond all this, just like, and also a bunch of people in our Patreon were talking about this like, oh, this person and this person in my life just how they completely changed after they had kids for the better. And also pulling in research evidence indicates that most people experience significant increases in responsibility, maturity, and life direction after having kids.

Mental health usually improves slightly or stays. At least stable for both. Although of course there are strains and, and, and challenges especially from others. But I actually think that giving someone responsibility and meaningful challenges in their lives is really good for their mental health.

Like I think it's much better to be stressed out about being a mom and balancing that with your career, or handling childcare or just dealing with the changes and stresses of being a mom than it is to be. Like obsessed with your aging and, and, and how are you going to afford the laser skin treatments that you're getting now?

And I, I, I watch a lot of dink female, like single childless female influencers on YouTube. And the things they worry about are just. Not very healthy. So yeah, I, I, I think it's, it's great. So yeah. How can we bring back teen pregnancy? Well, Putin is trying and here's the scheme. Malcolm, you can tell me if you think this is dumb or not.

But actually as of this year, so in 2025, following the, like the year of the family in 24 for Russia. Yeah. Meanwhile they're killing all the young men. But whatever the year of the family several regions in Russia began offering substantial cash bonuses to pregnant school girls as part of an aggressive effort to reverse their low birth rate.

And the fact they're killing all men.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're, they're, they're gonna disappear. They have such a low fertility rate. They're super

Simone Collins: screwed. But I mean, if they, let's just say, let's pretend that this is a world in which they aren't slaughtering their young. Men of reproductive age and making everyone super extra depressed 'cause they were already Russians.

The, the initiative has, it's also actually drawn a lot of even just local controversy, but they provide a one-time payment of 100,000 rubles. That's about 1,200 to 1,300 US dollars to school aged girls who carry their pregnancy beyond a certain gestational. Threshold. So for some regions that's 12 weeks.

For some it's 22 weeks. It depends. And, and they have to be registered as full-time students. I like this 'cause it's like one, I think it's normalizing. Young mothers in school, which I would love to see in the university system and the academic system. And yeah, in some cases the payments go up to one 150,000 rubles, which is around $1,900.

So let's give you a sense of scale vis-a-vis the average annual income in Russia. So you could kind of guess what that would be. Yeah. In like the us so the average annual income in Russia and US dollars. Is $14,513 with the median being 8,179. So, if we're looking at the lower end,

Malcolm Collins: the

Simone Collins: 1,200, well, the

Malcolm Collins: median, the median's, the better one to go is the median is 8,000.

Okay? Because that's because Russia has a lot of oligarchs and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Okay? Okay. So then 1,200 divided by 8,000 1 79 is 14%. Or well, 15, we'll say 15%. Like so 15% of an annual salary. That's a non-trivial thing. I ba basically like if, if this were a payment that we're given in the USA, it would be approximately $5,500.

So like, actually kind of the same amount of like the baby bonuses to entertainment. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Hold on. So this ba this, this only goes to school kids. It doesn't go to older people.

Simone Collins: You have, yeah, you have to be registered. As a student, there wasn't, there wasn't any clear language on a maximum age. So some, some regions will only extend the payment to only adult age, so you have to be 18 plus.

So you can only, you know, it's not actually that young. Some don't have a minimum age requirement. And I, I don't, I didn't find any information about a maximum age requirement. So it seems they only had minimums meaning that if you were maybe like in your thirties and enrolled as a student, you could get this bonus, which is great.

But I mean, most people enrolled as students are younger, which is also fine by me. And. It, it's only, and you have to be in a full-time education. You can't like enroll in night school and get this. But it also applies not just to general schools, but vocational colleges and legal guardians can receive the payment for school aged girls who are beyond.

Stage of legal elective abortion. So like if, if you're not allowed to legally receive it, your parents can and then pass it to you hopefully. But the Russian government claims these payments are intended to support girls in difficult life circumstances. And they're not explicitly saying that this is to promote teen pregnancies, but everyone's covering it like that.

And it's actually really not well received. So only 43% of Russians support the incentives and 40% are opposed. Which is kind of wild. Mm-hmm. So I just won. But that's

Malcolm Collins: still more supportive than are against it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 43 versus 40, though. I mean, it's. It's not

Malcolm Collins: wildly popular,

Simone Collins: but hey, look, I, I like Trump's approach to 90 10 issues.

What is a 90 10 issue? Okay, then go for it. You know?

Malcolm Collins: But Trump's not dictator yet.

Simone Collins: That being the key word

Malcolm Collins: there. We're working on it. Give him time.

Simone Collins: Come on. It's. Where we're not even to the next presidential election. Okay. Just trust the process.

Malcolm Collins: Six was, you know, come on, we really screwed things up there.

Simone Collins: Oh, I we're, we're we're winning. No long game. It's, it's fine. But yeah, I wanna, like, I, I, one, Russia's screwed. Two, I don't think that's enough of a payment to actually incentivize a lot. I love that they're trying to make it a thing for. People enrolled in full-time education to also be pregnant and have kids.

'cause I feel like that's the best time to do it. You have this like, more flexible schedule. I mean, what are you doing as a student, but like up all night studying and you know, you, you breastfeed and you're reading your textbook. It's perfect. Like, I just, I think it'd be great. But let's say that you and I.

Are trying to make teen pregnancy great again, and we're, we're, we're targeting first pregnancies at age 18 because like I said, if you have five kids, like you're done by the time you're 30, it's just, just amazing. It's a big booster. You're also not starting too, too early, I think number one. We have to stop infantalizing kids.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I think another thing is people are like, but then when will I get to travel? And it's like, we've created this intermediate stage of somebody's life that like is not an important stage. The

Simone Collins: the eat pre love stage?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, literally like we expect every young person to go through like an eat pre love stage.

And it's wasteful.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It doesn't

Malcolm Collins: do anything. It doesn't help you, it doesn't help you develop as a person. Well, it's clearly

Simone Collins: not helping people flourish economically, professionally. Religiously, philosophically or socially? No. You look

Malcolm Collins: at like mental health rates and the more you pray love, you do, the, the worse it gets you.

Yeah. It's this,

Simone Collins: this clear, but also like we're starting to see gen Z. Recognize this. So I think, I think we're realizing this and I think we are gonna see maybe a rebound in teen pregnancies, but yeah, we're, we're super, I think the primary reason, aside from the trashiness equals teen pregnancy propaganda because we're, we're uncomfortable with teen pregnancies because they're, they're not, we feel like teens aren't ready to be adults.

But let me bring us back to Benjamin Franklin because I'm obsessed with him. He's such a pompous Turkey, but he's great. He started his first job at age 10. Yes. He worked for his, his father's candle making shop, and then at age 12 he became an apprentice with his older brother James as a printer, which came his first significant job and the foundation of his future career at age 12.

And I'm just, I'm asking for age 18, you know, like, this is insane. Oh, fungicide. Just 'cause I, I think I told you this, but he, he in his job working for his brother as an apprentice at age 12. He started submitting editorials to the, to his brother's new newspaper, which was called The New England Current.

It was one of America, the colonies, first newspapers. Under the pseudonym Silence Do Good, which is so puritan it's so nom, determinism. He posed as silence. Do good, do good.

Malcolm Collins: Imagine naming your daughter silence. Do good, silent and do good thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and he's writing as. A middle-aged widow, which I'm love, like just this 12-year-old boy who's like, I am Ruth.

Malcolm Collins: Like this widow is named silent. I love, I love in the early internet, they're like, always assume that that you know, anyone who knew is actually a guy. There's no women on the internet the same way. There's no women in newspaper. In early these

Simone Collins: 12-year-old boys writing? Well, he, he allegedly, you know, like according to his autobiography, he, he took on this, this persona because he, I actually quite fairly believed his brother James would not publish his writings.

Mm-hmm. Because, you know, he's his little brother. Oh, actually as he did, he a 10-year-old.

Malcolm Collins: Right? And so you, you can, yeah,

Simone Collins: actually he was, he was more like 16 at this point, but still like, you know, his little brother, he wasn't gonna, you know, give him the time of day. So he secretly wrote the essays and then he slipped them under the door of the printing shop at night just to submit them.

And actually, so these essays got really popular. And, and there it promoted mini marriage proposals to this alleged widow. People are like, so. Will you marry me? And I'm just like, oh my God. And they dunno, it's a

Malcolm Collins: 16-year-old

Simone Collins: brother, not the, for months. For months. It remained a secret. And she, he's like, catfishing.

His first career move is to catfish men. No, he should have said he should have sent back. Like,

Malcolm Collins: send me diamonds. Send me. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Send, send di send money. Oh my God, yes. But yeah, so, so actually his, his his older brother, in response to all this like, virality of silence do good, the desirable widow, he, he published an ad in the paper asking Silence Do Good to come forward. And Benjamin Franklin, he's, he's an incredibly egotistical man. He eventually confessed that he was the real author. And this really angered his brother who kind of was probably like jealous of all the intention, but like, this, the, the fallout of it actually led Benjamin Franklin to leave, like, to break the agreement of the apprenticeship and, and go to Philadelphia and start his own life.

And. It's, it's, he has this, also this story. And by way,

Malcolm Collins: this, this Benjamin Franklin guy she's talking about, he actually did a lot of stuff after this. You might be surprised to know this is, yeah. Crazy upstart actually did a few things after that. A couple

Simone Collins: things. But you, he actually made a lot of money from those couple things that he did.

And, and at one point, the first time he goes back to Boston, what does he do? But show up at his brother's printing shop with his like fancy clothes and his pockets full of silver. Just pisses off his brother so freaking much.

Malcolm Collins: And didn't he like give out money to other people and

Simone Collins: stuff like that? I think he did.

Yeah. I think he like gave them some money or something and like everyone at the printing shop is like, wow, your little brother and his brother is just like, I just, oh, he's such a pompous Turkey. But again, he, he's a pompous Turkey. Yes, he really is. Yeah. Also, he wanted the Turkey to be the national bird of the United States, but my larger point is that.

We do not need to delay adulthood as much as we are. Not only are we saving people from a youth that is literally terminal for a huge portion of, of people they want, they want to end it. They hate their youth so much. Like clearly these are not the, the best days of your life. But we are. We are missing huge career opportunities.

I mean, think about like the time that people have lost spending, you know, wasted time in school where they're not learning anything useful right now anyway, so I would, I would one just total culture change on this infantilization of youth thing, and I would change the standards of success in secondary education.

So like, basically like national standards for what high school successfully does from college enrollment. Or even graduation to annual tax return performance or, or some measure of financial independence and social independence. Because I think right now, like I, I don't know how it was for you in high school, Malcolm, but like for me it was, the purpose of high school is to get into a good college.

Just period. It wasn't like, be a productive citizen, be able to support yourself, be able to pay your taxes, be able to like. Get married. So I, I would also then introduce basically trade school and adulting classes in high school with adulting being kind of the modern euphemism for home economics. So cooking, cleaning, repairs, financial management, like taxes and investment and budgeting.

Just like to actually use secondary school to create productive tax paying adults capable of thriving and being happy. Yeah. And then I, I would get super involved in matchmaking. I wanna bring back the London season, as you know, like we we're already creating a we, we call it the index, or like a group of families that will sort of share and compare each other's cultures and traditions to see like who's thriving and learn from each other, but also.

Get their kids together in matchmaking events. Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: So the, for people who don't know, what we wanna do is we wanna build like Discord or whatever messaging platform is popular in the future group for our kids and the other kids who are in this network so they can get to know each other and flirt.

And then say, Hey, I wanna get to know this person better to us, and then they can go live with, for a period, like a few weeks or a month the parents of the daughter. Mm-hmm. Because I think it's better to send the, the guise to the daughter's house 'cause they'll be more vigilant you know, have, have more motivation to be vi.

And they can get to know each other and spend time together and under the context of the parents and they understand, oh, my job is joining a family, right? Mm-hmm. Like, it's impressing the parents, it's impressing the siblings. And if I like this environment, in this culture, this is something I want to replicate.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And this is, this is kind of playing with the Puritan tradition of sending out where parents would also sort of head off the issue of. Teens being rebellious against, rebellious against their parents by just being like, okay, well how about you just not be around me and be around someone else's parents?

Mm-hmm. And so they'd go and apprentice under a family, maybe like neighboring family or a family, one town over, and they would both learn a meaningful skill, but also live in a household of adults that weren't their parents. So they didn't have this immediate need. Kind of be rebellious for rebelliousness sake in a way that hurt them.

So even if, you know, these relationships don't work out or they're like, you know what, we're actually not that good of a match. Like they're, they're learning about a new family culture. They're learning about the adult's careers which helps 'em normalize to things, especially if this is like a high achieving family.

You know, it's, it's helping them understand, Hey, I could do this. This is not. Rocket science, even if it's rocket science. Like this, I, I, anyone could do this if, if they just learned the stuff you need to learn. So I think it's, it's great. The final thing I would do is, you know, for those who continue to go into higher education, higher education should be seen as the thing that you do while you become a parent.

Malcolm Collins: Just I agree. I agree. Education and parenting, early parenting are two things that go together. Yeah. It's just, it's just perfect for the next generation. They will for the people who survive.

Simone Collins: I hope so. Yeah. I would, it'd be really cool to like work with universities to help them create parenting programs and like housing and, and daycare programs and all these other like, sort of support things that would make it more feasible.

So, yeah. Is is there any, so that's the one way in which I'm like, okay, Putin got that part right. Everything else is just not good enough. Too little, too late. He's, he's screwed. But what else would you add to, to make teen pregnancy great again? I mean, there was my K-Pop, Bel Korean mm-hmm.

Scheme that I'd proposed whereby we would just give huge advantages to dynastic families in South Korea with the, the demand that each. Family, like each child of the dynasty have a ton of kids themselves to make having a lot of kids and having a lot of kids young, super prestigious and high class.

'cause I think the trashiness element is a really big issue here. But yeah. Anything you would add to this to, to make it cool?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think that a lot of people are actually doing what they need to do to, to make this, what we need is a version of Elon. Who is more monogamous? I, I would say that is attainable for the average person.

Simone Collins: Oh. Like an aspirational public figure who has a lot of kids and makes it look really glamorous and cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And we're seeing that more within conservative circles. I mean, this is something that we're seeing people talk about more and do more. I mean, I, I, I don't know how, I dunno,

Simone Collins: every time the media covers a family like that though, like the duggars, it's.

People GK at it, but they're, they certainly don't want it. And the shows keep emphasizing. No, no, we've

Malcolm Collins: changed all that now. It's the, the tech elite.

Simone Collins: Yeah, the,

Malcolm Collins: the, the te the techno fascist takeover, the Mother Jones cover piece on us.

This looks. Cool and edgy, and who doesn't want to be a part of that, right?

Like, I wanna be, if you had told me when I was in middle, middle school or high school, there's gonna be a, a cover piece on you that's about the techno fascist takeover. I'd be like, wait, are you, are you sure that's. Awesome. That is so cool. No, it's not even like the takeover of the good guy because he wants the good guys to take over.

It's, it's the takeover of the ballers. I mean, and that's, that's where we are right now. We're at baller stage. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not at all worried about the way the press is framing us, except for that one slate piece, which is like, please stop talking about this couple.

Well, so

Simone Collins: the problem though, look at it though, like, when, when the media talks about our actual family life, they're like, it's a life devoid of love. The children are beaten and sad. They're no, no, like a

Malcolm Collins: barracks. You see that and you think that looks bad, but actually that looks pretty badass. Because anybody who sees the faces knows the children aren't beaten, but they're raised with expectations.

And Malcolm,

Simone Collins: the, the, the phrase is they're raised by hand.

Malcolm Collins: They're raised by hand tally with no, no, no, no. But expectations and discipline. And I think we live in a society today where when people hear. Oh. This couple is all about, you know, discipline and expectations, but also very tech focused.

A lot of people are like, bro, that sounds like something I'm into.

Simone Collins: Oh, you know what? Actually there was one show that did kind of make it seem cool. What was it called? The umbrella factory. The umbrella. Oh, yeah, yeah. Academy. The umbrella Academy, yeah. Because it was like a large family. Yeah. Then again,

Malcolm Collins: went off the, the whatever when once her face went trans.

Yeah. I don't

Simone Collins: know what happened

Malcolm Collins: with that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That was like a, a, a car crash in fast motion. Well, because, no, I mean, this is what we see so frequently when people go trans is the whole world becomes about them and you show that they're in any office, that they're in, everything like that. You just get more and more self-centered and more and more focused on personal self affirmation and everything you're doing.

And then it spirals everything into chaos and destruction. Yeah. Yeah, but the, the, the, the outside of that, outside of that you should watch it by the way, if you're interested in this phenomenon. And, and larger things about why people generally fail at things after they become trans, though wakowski effect.

We talk about why formerly successful people end up sucking at something they used to be really good at after transitioning. Yeah. Which just weird, sad that this happens, but it does reliably happen. In fact, I can think of almost no one, it hasn't happened to. Who's transitioned after becoming a public figure?

I mean, like, first they were public figures. Yeah. But there are

Simone Collins: people who have transitioned then become public figures and they're doing great. Yeah. So it's kind of like you, you're rolling the dice and either you have to kind of figure out a new specialty and really thrive in it, or just don't expect to keep being good at the thing you were good at before.

No, you're basically

Malcolm Collins: re-rolling your birth stats. Yeah. Like your, so much of your biology changes. No, it

Simone Collins: really, it cannot be understated how much hormones be they. Natural and endogenous or hormones that you consume can affect you. Like I know firsthand, like both going through pregnancy and seeing how Yeah, Simone actually has

Malcolm Collins: emotions when she's pregnant.

Simone Collins: It's, it's weird. Yeah, because I, I, I, I have problems. I have to take the same amount of hormones as like a trans person just to basically like, have, have periods in between pregnancies. 'cause that's, I just, my default is sort of nothing. And, it. Yeah. When I actually, when pregnancy kind of kickstarts everything and everything starts working again, I'm like, whoa.

Like, but also it's not like everything down to, like, the things that taste good to you change. Of course, these are profound, you know, it shouldn't be any surprise. At any rate, though, I'm really glad that Meghan brought this up, because normally when we talk to journalists and news crews about prenatal and we talk about, you know, the, the drop in birth rates.

Largely being, you know, people having kids later and a drop in teen births. We're like, and that's a really good thing, you know, this is great. You know, we want people to have kids later. Megan makes a really good point that, you know, maybe, maybe we can moderate that statement a little bit. Like there was an argument to be made

Malcolm Collins: when we got into this movement.

I really didn't, I wasn't sure that I would encourage my kids to have kids when they're still teens. No, I, because I wasn't sure that they'd be able to find partners. I think 18,

Simone Collins: I think eight. I, I would be worried if they had kids before.

Malcolm Collins: But not, not teen years, but I, I'd say like the sweet spot for me when our kids start having kids is 18 to 21.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I think 21, 21 we would be great.

Malcolm Collins: And that's, and that's, and that's when we're really gonna focus on finding them a permanent partner.

Simone Collins: Okay. So let's see. When, when will we, when our, when will our oldest turn? 21? I'm just checking 'cause I have this in my spreadsheet. Octavian turns 21 in. 2040, I'll be 52.

You'll be 53. That's not too bad.

Malcolm Collins: That's not so bad. Yeah, I, when my dad turned 50 and I was still a kid, and I go to him and I go, you're dead.

Simone Collins: You're so indelicate. We just had my, my father visiting and you're like, well, it's great that you know you're hanging out with the kids before you die. And my dad's like, I'm not, but it's, you know what, memento, Morrie, you and I are constantly thinking about how we could die at any point.

And we're trying to think. Absolutely. I don't mind. Yeah, it's not like an old thing. It's just like anyone could die at any time and you better appreciate every freaking person, you know. Go, go hug whoever it is you care about because. Oh gosh. Ugh. But yeah, I, I yeah, fifties, a new 40, et cetera. 'Cause we, we even infantalize adults now, so we'll try to leverage the, that, that otherwise toxic dynamic to our benefit at that point.

But yeah, I I'm, I'm glad we talked about that. Good talk Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Good talk. Love you. Tonight. We're doing faux right? Yeah, these scraps. And you're gonna do some onion and some, oh, did we

Simone Collins: not get basil? Do you just want me to use the pesto?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, just eat a bit of the pesto.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Okay. Well at least we have the green onion.

So I just, I put those things on top at the end. Right. So,

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, the, the basil can be cooked with it. I, I, I think,

Simone Collins: oh yeah, I'll put that in the stock itself. Yeah, well, especially because yeah, we're not having bigger leaf, so I You want it with the chives and the Yeah. Is there, yeah, it called for onion.

Anyway, I'll go.

Malcolm Collins: No onion is always info.

Simone Collins: Confetti

Malcolm Collins: style or like No, no, not confetti style. Ring style. Oh, it gives it like a crunch and something to like pick up with like your chopsticks or something.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So it's not, is it not cooked? How long do I boil it if I'm boiling it?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, you don't cook the beef by boiling, I don't think info.

I think you cook it out. No, no, no. I'm gonna

Simone Collins: pan sear the beef and then I'm gonna serve it on the side, and you're gonna put it on top if you want to. But in terms of the onion, what am I doing?

Malcolm Collins: It, it's cooked with the, the noodles and everything is my understanding.

Simone Collins: Okay. So it's, it's very lightly cooked 'cause you still wanna crunch.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Very lightly cooked. And the the, the don't you be generous with the beans, sprouts? In fact you, you, you might wanna do like about equal proportions of beans, sprouts, and noodles. Because beans, yeah, I was thinking just

Simone Collins: half. 'cause we're probably gonna do this for two nights. I was just gonna do half the beans sprouts.

We got.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of bean sprouts. Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: Maybe a third.

Malcolm Collins: You're right.

Simone Collins: And then I can

Malcolm Collins: being a little aggressive there, but do,

Simone Collins: I can saute in, in, in soy sauce for the third, third, what do you think on Wednesday?

Malcolm Collins: Saute and soy sauce.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The third amount of bean bean sprouts.

Oh yeah. That'd be

Malcolm Collins: really interesting. Yeah, sure. Cool. And then I can ask Bread. Was your homemade peanut butter homemade bread? Homemade peanut butter? Well,

Simone Collins: hmm, I need to do another round of sourdough. That's not whole wheat for you. 'cause you don't believe in whole wheat. It's against your religion. So hold off on that, but we'll get there.

I love you too. I'll go get started. You're wonderful.

Malcolm Collins: You are wonderful.

The thing that I always hate in my romance mangas is when they do a time skip in a, in a romance manga, you know, to like future or future time in their marriage and they don't have a bunch of kids. Aw.

Simone Collins: Sad. That always makes

Malcolm Collins: me so angry. I'm like, what?

Simone Collins: Where are the chil? You're like, every protagonist's mother-in-law.

Where are my grandchildren? Well, what do you mean they

Malcolm Collins: have two children? This is not acceptable.

Simone Collins: It's beautiful. Malcolm, you've, you've reached a new stage in your evolution.

Speaker 14: You're gonna what? You're gonna smash you, you're gonna smash me with a dinosaur? Yeah. Why? 'cause I'm gonna smash a dinosaur. Do you like smashing? Yeah. Uh, did you smash the baby dinosaurs already? A I didn't. You did? I didn't. You didn't, I saw you smashing them.

Why? Why do you like smashing? I like smashing bricks. You like smashing bricks? Yeah. Do you wanna hug? Yeah. Okay. Here you can come here and look it down. I do one. Aw, you're so sweet. Right? I tell not School bus on the projector. You want me to put on Magic School bus and the projector? Yeah.

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm discuss the controversial idea that the pursuit of absolute racial equality may, in fact, perpetuate systemic racism and inequality. They examine historical and current statistics on hate crimes and economic disparities between ethnic groups, arguing that modern policies, particularly those driven by progressive urban monoculture, might be detrimental to the very communities they aim to uplift. The conversation delves into the complexities of cultural and genetic differences, the potential impacts of policies like affirmative action, and the broader implications for societal equity. Additionally, they touch on the future of genetic engineering and how different societal attitudes towards genetic modification could shape the evolution of human capabilities.

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

Today we are going to be talking about an interesting concept, which I'm gonna call the racism of equality. Oh, it is going to be how on , a belief in absolute equality ultimately leads to racism, and not only leads to racism in the truest form of racism, but prevents. Ethnic groups from rising up.

Mm-hmm. And I think that we've had this perception in the United States, which is not actually that accurate or it, the, the United States now because the urban monoculture says, I'm not racist. When you join the arm monoculture, you're not racist. You know, we, we, progressive, this is like the broadly progressive cultural group.

We even elected a, a black president that this means that racism. Like functional racism has gone way down and that blacks have like a much better position was in America than they did in the 1950s, which is always pointed out as like this evil, horrible time. Like you watch the shows, oh, 1950s, [00:01:00] 1950s, that's when everything was evil.

That's when the true racism existed. And I'm gonna argue that it's, it is mostly a facade that's changed and in a way that has actually hurt a lot of the communities that it claims to have helped. And now you can go to me and say, Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm. You can't possibly, you know, do not know about the lynchings of the 1950s.

Do not know how every black American lived in constant fear in the 1950s. When we went in our 1950s video, we were sure that all this stuff was true because I didn't, I didn't know about this stuff until I actually decided to look at the statistics. Well, and, and

Simone Collins: in school all we hear about is just, it was terrible.

It was terrible. The discrimination, the lynchings, the sit-ins, the terrible treatment. Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: So, based on documented racial terror lynchings considered historic crime murders, there are 24 known cases of black Americans being murdered in hate motivated incidents during the 1950s. This figure comes from a compilation of [00:02:00] association with the National Memorial of Peace and Justice listing specific victims.

Such as Hillard Bullocks, Jr. 1950s Emmel till 1955, and Mack Charles Parker, 1959. Note that historical records may under count these numbers, is what you really have to lie on here. So keep in mind, we're talking about 24 numbers that we're aware of. Mm-hmm. Now let's look at the last. 10 years based on FBI and documented cases of hate crimes.

There were at least 27 known black American victim, those hate crime from 15 to 2024. Ooh, with the possibility of an additional underreported and unclassified instances. The FBI's total for anti-black hate, crime murder victims from 1991 to 2022 is 82. Okay, so this is like, okay, maybe you need to go to the previous 10 years.

Maybe we just had a high number right now. Yeah, 82. From 1991 to 2022, averaging is about two to three per year. If, if you want to know the, the instances here in 2015, char [00:03:00] Charleston Church shooting nine victims. 2017 stabbings of Timothy Coleman. 2018 Kentucky Grocery Store, shooting two victims.

2020 killing of our, are Arbery one victim 2022 Buffalo Supermarket, shooting 10 victims in 2023 Jacksonville, dollar Star General three victims. So over the last 10 years, there were approximately 27 to 30 victims, and in the 1950s, there were 24 victims. No you might say. Well, and in the 1950s, certainly this was under reported and we didn't get, maybe.

But I would like to challenge your prepositions about this. I bet you didn't think the numbers were not just close, but the current number of known killings was higher. Right? Like, I, I bet that that surprises you to some extent. It, it, it should. No, no. Let's look at, you're like, oh, but they're wealthier.

They're wealthier. They're wealthier. Now, like the, we've closed the income gap, so I'm putting on straight screen here. This is from the Wall Street Journal. This is not from [00:04:00] some like conservative or crazy publication or something like this. Mm. And this is the medium household wells adjusted for inflation between black and white families.

As you can see from the 1950s, the black wells has increased, almost none. Whereas the white wells has increased like three x four x. And then if you look here, you can go, okay, well let's look for another graph. Maybe the way that's being measured is weird. This is medium net worth. By age of, of, of household held.

And so this is black versus white, and you can see it really hasn't gone up that much here either. Whereas in white you see this explosion in wells.

Simone Collins: And this is, I mean, part of it's not surprising because even very progressive circles keep haranguing. Any public channel that will listen to you about how, you know, there's this, this systemic racism is a major issue and there's all this inequality and blah, blah, blah, but like it's worse.

[00:05:00] And we've been doing what they say, it's may have

Malcolm Collins: controlled culture. They have controlled media. Mm-hmm. Everybody knows the urban monoculture is controlled media. Everybody knows that the urban monoculture has controlled culture. Everybody knows they've controlled politics. The, their, their vision for what is necessary to fix.

This isn't just implemented by Democrats, it's implemented by Republicans. You know, like, affirmative action hasn't been repealed by Trump here and there. It's been appealed and like the university system and stuff like that. But broadly speaking, it hasn't been repealed. Why is it? That this change in general mindset towards other cultures hasn't led to black people moving up.

Why is it? That it seems to, and when I talk about it hurting them, right, they have lower mental health. Now, we talk about this in this episode. If you look at the born out of wedlock rate if you look at the American black family in the 1950s, 5% of [00:06:00] black children were born out of black wedlock versus 10% of white children.

I found other statistics here. Some will bring the black number up to like 17%, but I, I think the 5% is probably right. When I look at like the, the broad. Gist of also historical writings. At the time period, blacks seemed to be more into traditional family structures in that time period. And, and they had less you know, support structures.

So it made more sense to be extra secure when you have a kid. Now if you look today with the 5% of blacks being born out of wedlock in the 1950s, it's 78% today with 28% of white children being born out of wedlock today.

Simone Collins: And we actually just recorded. I don't know when it's gonna run an episode on, on Marriage in which, I mean, Brad Wilcox, he's, he's a big advocate for marriage and he talks about all the stats of the huge benefits of being raised in a two parent household as a kid.

And there's also it's not just him. I think there's a book called The Two Parent Privilege that I'm three quarters of the way through and everything's just so. Obviously in the favor of children who have two parents at home. So this is really bad. I mean, it's [00:07:00] one thing to be like, I don't know what's marriage anyway.

You know, divorce, rape, you know what, all Wal, it's, it's all gonna fall apart. But no, actually divorces are going down and marriage is really helpful for children.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's not just. The, the progressive movements ideas around this are, are, are, are, are not working in like a vague sense. And, and keep in mind when she talks about stuff like this and you can be like, well the, the black unmarried rate isn't because of urban monocultural values, it isn't because of progressive values.

And I'm like, actually, I. No, we have direct evidence. It is in part because when BLM determined what black culture was and what needed to be promoted was in black communities, one of the things they said was non-traditional family structures. Even though we know that historically blacks were way more pro traditional family structures than whites, half the rate of kids being born out of wedlock than whites.

This is a modern phenomenon that has been pushed by the urban monoculture. But we also know that if you look cross-culturally, there was a great study. That was done looking at black [00:08:00] versus white income and, and iq. So keep in mind this is not me saying that black people. Genetically speaking, have a lower IQ than white people.

I, I'm not making that claim. I would never make that claim. But what I am saying is measured IQ within black communities, everyone agrees that this is lower than was in white communities. And presumably we should think that this is a problem. Like this is one of the things that when you're trying to reduce racism, you're trying to reduce this IQ gap.

Right. Except it turns out

Simone Collins: measured performance gap. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because it's IQ is. Highly correlated with income and highly correlated with many other things like your probability of raping someone, your probability of committing any

Simone Collins: crime,

Malcolm Collins: any crime, really murder a lot of other things.

And to the progressive who's listening to this and thinks they just caught me saying something naughty. I need to be extremely explicit. Here I am saying that the measured IQ is lower, not that they are less intelligent. This is something that every civil Rights activist knows about and is trying to [00:09:00] fix when they, for example point out, look, the black students are falling behind in like the California school system. What can we do to help them catch up with other ethnic groups? That's the difference that I'm talking about here. I am not saying that they are less intelligent.

And I should note that this study is even less offensive than that because this study was not looking at iq, but just general test scores.

But, you take these two statistics and you say, oh, okay. What about republicans versus democratic controlled areas within our countries? Well, it turns out that when you compare black populations to white populations black population, the, the difference between the IQ gap and the populations and the difference in the income gap in the populations is significantly smaller within Republican held districts than it is within Democrat held districts.

Note the study I'm pulling this from is systemic racism does not explain variation in race. Gaps on cognitive tests.

So when you lean more on the affirmative action type policies, when you lean more on the democratic mindset, which is the urban monocultural mindset, it [00:10:00] leads to a bigger difference between these two communities. And, and actually the same study looked at Hispanic populations and you see the same smaller gaps between them and the white population and republican health districts and Democrat held districts.

And so what this tells me is that the wider. Thesis around how we resolve this that is being pushed by the Democrats. In the urban monoculture more broadly does not appear to be working and they need to gaslight you into things are so much better now than in the 1950s. I have a note here. People will watch this episode and they'll say, Malcolm is racist because he's pointing out.

Things might not have improved as much as we think they have since the 1950s. And I'm like, that's like the exact opposite of racism. Like you guys are much more racist in trying to cover this up. If you actually, well, if you care

Simone Collins: about any population, you should care about outcomes. And if, yeah, if income gaps are not improving, if rates of marriage, if children raised within marriages, which, you know, means children raised with more advantages is, is worse.

[00:11:00] Like, we need to talk about this.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. Right. Like and, and, and, and if it's worse. But in, in correlation with how close it's 'cause. I'm sure also if you did the studies on this, the, the black few live in Republican communities almost certainly have lower rates of children being born out of wedlock as well.

I would guess significantly lower. But so you look at all this, you look at all this and, and you say, well, okay, so what's the core poison that's leading to anything really being done about this? The core poison, I think, can be seen by the way that it is the progressives more than the conservatives.

Who see our children and the children of families like ours that engage in genetic engineering as more inhuman monsters than the Republicans. And you would think the Republicans would. Right. You know, we go to lots of Republican conferences. People know, like it's been leaked now that we fund germline gene editing research and intend to use this when we, when we can.

This is the direct editing of, of, of human DNA. And you would [00:12:00] think it's the Republicans who would yell at us. So the Republicans are like, I disagree with what you're doing but I understand why you're doing it. Right. And I still like respect your children as human beings, right? I'm not gonna ban you from performing this sort of stuff.

Whereas the progressives, like America is a much more conservative country than most European countries. E, EE, except in, in most European countries. I can't even select based on gender. Right? Like much less select my, my embryos based on, on more advanced statistics. So, you know, this is you,

Simone Collins: you can't even test your embryos.

Come

Malcolm Collins: on, BRYO. This is true in like Italy and, and, and, and Germany and France and countries that are much more progressive, much more urban monoculture than the United States. And so the question is. Is, is. And when you look at even media so consider that in War Hammer 40 K which is generally, people think of it as like the conservative you know, sci-fi world, right?

Like, God, emperor Trump is the joke that everyone makes. [00:13:00] The Space Marine, which is like the core staple of this. And definitely on the human side, the, the, the theocratic human empire side they are. Of 100% genetically engineered they've got. They, you have to get their gene seed, and they're like, you know, I think like 10 feet tall or 11 feet tall on average or something giant superhuman, engineered to be superhumanly intelligent, superhumanly large.

Then you've got the custodians, which is even a higher class faction, which is even further genetically engineered. You know, the, the genetic engineering is a normal and lauded by the human, the theocratic human faction in this world. You look at the standard space, common nonsense of the progressives, which is Star Trek and Star Trek, you are considered an underclass.

You can't even go to Star Fleet Academy, as we have seen, if you have been genetically selected or genetically altered. And because this passes through generations, you become, and everyone in your family line becomes a permanent genetic underclass. And so I, I go to [00:14:00] progressives about this. And I'm like, consider what you're really saying here, right?

Like if my family engaged in this technology and then they, they look in horror and they're like, but if you continue to engage in this, what if in a few centuries, you know, you have descendants who are 10 feet tall and super intelligent and have like red eyes and, and you know, you, you what, what if you have these monster descendants?

And I'm like. Bro. What do you mean? What if I have these monster descendants? Like that's our intent. And one day your descendants are gonna know somebody like that. They're gonna have other people in their lives who are like, this person is the monster who should never be allowed to exist. And this person's like, why am I a monster?

I've never done anything to you. I've never been mean to you. Like what makes me a bad person? Right? I, I may as certain areas have proficiencies that you don't have, but should you. Kill a [00:15:00] group just because they are out competing you in some way. Right? Like if, if, if they, if they are not directly targeting you for eradication, you know, if they are letting that what they are producing, you know, if you had smarter humans today, smarter humans than you and I, I would 100% support them.

If AI became smarter than us, I would support it because it would be developing technology that we could use.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Like I, I don't. Hate a thing because it's smarter than me. I hate a thing because it uses that to exploit me. But if it's developing stuff that I am using like the, the, the, the things that I have in my life that may, I mean, our house is powered by nuclear power.

I couldn't invent nuclear power. People smarter than me invented nuclear. You know, like ai, I couldn't discover something like that. People smarter than me discovered that. Right. And yet I rely on that for my daily use, you know, we benefit

Simone Collins: from, yeah, I mean, the fact that they exist is huge.

Malcolm Collins: The great shows and books I like and keep in mind that all this might become dramatically less [00:16:00] relevant when AI can do most of the things that human can do.

But I think that we're actually learning something about the broader progressive solution to racism. When they dehumanize my descendants, when they say that, well, you know, we can't have a society where there's these 10 foot tall you know, super soldiers. We can't have a society where the Space Marine exists.

And I'm like, but why? Why must these people be dehumanized? And it's because they are different, because they have different proficiencies and perspectives and abilities, and we can't allow humans who are different. To exist. And then when they say this little thing, they, the whole plot reveals itself.

The way that the urban monoculture solved racism is by pretending that we're not really different. Hmm. By pretending that everyone is [00:17:00] exactly the same and through pretending whether it is culturally or genetically. And here note, we personally never touch. Potential genetic differences between groups?

I just don't think when you're looking at the current genetic technology that that is a useful thing to do. I think it is, it, it is much easier to just assume that all groups are genetically identical to each other in terms of proficiencies and perspectives and outcomes. But. Part of the reasons we have to make this assumption is because we live under the dominion of the urban monoculture who just removes anyone as a talking head.

If they suggest there might be differences because the piece that they have created between these different groups revolves around. This shared, but if anyone was different, we would kill them or sterilize their parents. Well,

Simone Collins: or if anyone's better or worse off than anyone else. It's because of external factors, right?

That you know, they, you, you, you [00:18:00] also like victimize anyone who. Who isn't doing as well as other people in a way that, that disempowers them and doesn't empower them. It doesn't say, Hey, here are maybe some things you could do to improve your law. It's, oh, you should be blaming all these other people and then trying to get society to punish them or help you or take things away from them and give them to you or whatever.

Which I think is another problem.

Malcolm Collins: The point I'd make here is that, we are saying right now, we're just saying, okay, but what if this is 100% cultural, right? Like, ignore all the genetics. Just say it's a hundred percent cultural. Well, if it's a hundred percent cultural, this still means that the progressive who says.

Well, there's no reason that this culture's way of raising a kids should be producing a different outcome than this culture's way of raising a kids. And yet we can look between cultures and see that this is clearly true, right? Like there either, either the Jews are cheating. Or something, either [00:19:00] genetic or cultural is leading to them achieving disproportionate outcomes.

You can look at, like you, you know, Jewish people are in politics at like 500% the rate you would expect them to be. They are Supreme Court justices that like thousands of percent the rate you'd expect them to be. They, they, they're within the world's population of billionaires at thousands of percent the amount you would expect them to be.

Like either you need to say they're systemically cheating. Or you need to admit that either genetically or culturally, they are different in some way. And this is true for all groups that are different from other groups, right? And, and people can be like, well, what, what about historic oppression?

Right? Like black Americans were. Okay. Maybe except if, if, if, if we're talking recency here Japanese Americans had all of their possessions taken from them much more recently than African Americans did during the, the internment camps. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Intern internment. And for those not familiar with this part of American history, since.

Almost half of our audience is outside [00:20:00] the us. During World War ii, when it was understood that Japan was an enemy nation after Pearl Harbor, we literally rounded up Japanese families and put them in intern camps. They lost and stole all of their possessions, their businesses, they, and they were put in camps that were.

Rough not well appointed, you could say. And we just kind of, we don't really talk about it. I wasn't really taught a whole lot about it. I knew people whose parents were in internment camp personally, so I knew about it from that.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah. Yeah, like, like when people are like, oh, this is long ago.

Like, Simone knows people whose parents were in the generation that had everything strict with them, but Japanese Americans significantly out earn white Americans now.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and when I look at that, I have to say, did Japanese Americans cheat White Americans? Like if, if, if their culture isn't in some way, it's either their culture or their genes.

So the only two explanations for how this could have happened [00:21:00] if their culture isn't in some way leading to higher outcomes. How did they go from, from nothing. From having everything taken from them in their ancestors. They're about everything. Some people kept their businesses, but they certainly were on a back foot compared to white American.

I'm

Simone Collins: pretty sure the people who kept their businesses, like had them run by. non-Japanese people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. We know some, some. So the people I know that were involved in this a white family took over their business who was like a friend of theirs and then gave it back to them when they got out of camp.

Yeah. But if you, if you didn't have somebody doing that, that's a big friend to do that for you. Yeah. A lot of

Simone Collins: people were like, no, I've got you. And then they conveniently, you know mm-hmm. Took everything so.

Malcolm Collins: There's that. So, so what I'm saying here is, is we have to, if, if you, okay, maybe you can come up with like, the Jews have cheated us way, and I've seen people who have been like the Indians have cheated on who the F thinks the Japanese have cheated us.

Like they don't seem to be overly nepotistic to other Japanese people from what I've seen, especially if you're [00:22:00] talking about intergenerational Japanese Americans, not like first generation Japanese, intergenerational Japanese Americans. Are like broadly just effing chill, man. Like I, I don't know that many people.

And, and they also have acculturated a lot to American culture, right? Like, so why are they outearning us? Right? What I'm pointing out here is the. Preposterousness of the urban monocultural position that no one is actually different from anyone else, that no group is culturally or genetically. But when you pretend this, what it means is you cannot go in and attempt to fix the culture because cultural differences are above reproach.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Right. It means you must blame it on the other group. You must say, oh, well if we just do more affirmative action, if we just do more trying to give this [00:23:00] group that for whatever reason, is producing less, less, less positive outcomes in terms of like economic success more advantages that eventually things will normalize that we don't need to go in.

And if you struggle to understand why affirmative action does so much damage, because I think people think affirmative action does a little damage to the communities , that get it, not that it does serious damage. So let's take affirmative action and, , think about what would happen if you applied it at the level of you.

Two princes. Okay. So, , one Prince on all of their tests, on all of their everything, , they just get rewarded more than the other Prince. You know, they score a 50 and the other PRINCE scores the 70, and it's treated like those are the same scores, or they score 70 and the other PRINCE scores a 70 and they get tons of praise.

And the other prince is scolded. , Or, you know, when they try to do an activity, , they get, , told, oh, you've, you've been much better at this activity than you actually are. Imagine psychologically those two princes grow up. How do you think the Prince who was always rewarded [00:24:00] is going to turn out vis-a-vis the Prince that was not e everyone, everyone Common sense tells you that Prince is gonna end up significantly less competent, less capable, less emotionally able to deal with life than the Prince who, , was just.

Treated as if this is your real score. If you do that to an entire community, you are psychologically sabotaging that community in a way that is almost psychotically evil. I.

If you were at somebody's house and you saw them treating two of their children this way, you wouldn't be like, oh, this person is a little bad. You'd be like, this person is a psychopath. Why are they doing this? They must know that this will have horrible, horrible outcomes for this kid who they're coddling.

But it's not just the affirmative action, it's that this family does not allow , the culture, the way the two little princes are acting to ever be brought up. You can't say this little prince is doing way more, you know, , he's stealing things at a much higher rate . , [00:25:00] You can punish him for it, but you cannot talk about it. You cannot mention it. And if you cannot mention it, then you cannot attempt to address it if you cannot. Talk about how cultural differences are leading to different behaviors, then you can't attempt to address it, which means that you bake it in permanently.

And what's funny here is if you look at for example, black activists. They know that this is b******t. Like so many black activists, if, if I'm looking at like the serious ones, they're like, yeah, we seriously need to work on black culture. Like this is up. If you have a bunch of songs about like. You know, f the police and like, let's join a gang and murder people.

Like that's obviously gonna have a negative effect on our culture. When you contrast that with what, what, what, what, what is white music? White music is country music. You look, you look at the, we have an episode where we did this, where you look at like the top five, it's like 20 country songs versus the top 20.

Rap songs and their themes. I think this was the episode that we called the Ification of African American Culture. Oh, yeah. And the theme of the country songs [00:26:00] are like you know, like, oh, I, I, I love my wife, I love my kids, I love work, I work hard.

Simone Collins: I make pickup truck. I appreciate what I have.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I appreciate what I have. And with the, the rap music, it's like, I like screwing lots of people indiscriminately and I have lots of money and I use that money to show women how great I am. I mean, it's like if you, and it's not that people aren't producing really high quality, like, like good for the youth rap songs.

There are so many rappers who attempt to do this. But for whatever reason within the culture, they're not achieving the same dominance as the, the the country songs that have these values. I mean, so the question can be, and people can even be like, oh, some country songs have negative values. They're a big theme in country songs, is a guy cheated on me so I murdered him or effed up his life.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or like, I'm. Just gonna drink a lot. That's,

Malcolm Collins: or I'm just gonna drink a lot. Yeah. Well, [00:27:00] what's funny is, is the, the number one country song recently on that was by Shazi, which is actually a black country musician. Which is a great song, by the way. I love Shazi. He's a great musician. But that's, that's an interesting side point there.

But, people can be like, isn't that a bad value? And I'm like, I don't actually know if that is a bad value. I mean, if I'm contrasting that with the songs about how women love sleeping with me and how many women I'm gonna sleep with, and the song being popular and listening to all the way about how if I cheat on my wife, she's gonna key up my car or gonna like, you know, murder me.

I think that, that, that I'm gonna be less likely to cheat. I, I'm in the culture about women murdering people who cheat on them. Oh, fair.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: You know? No, no. It actually, it actually does teach. It's like, and if somebody cheats on you, be sure you get revenge. Yeah. And everyone,

Simone Collins: and here are the various ways, is here's some

Malcolm Collins: inspiration.

Yeah. Here's how I keyed up his, his, his, his car seats, because that was the thing he loved the most. And here's how I poisoned him and here's how I, yeah. And here's how, at his [00:28:00] funeral, I was sitting with all the other women who he cheated on, and we were laughing. You know, this is not it's a little intense.

This is not the same message as in terms of negative messages as I like sleeping with lots of people because I'm rich. But, but the point is, is like we can't have these conversations because the urban monoculture says, oh, you, you can't, you can't look at that. You can't look at why culture. And a note here, when I, when I talk about all of this, I'm not talking about this in a supremacist context.

I have, I have admitted very, very openly Japanese culture, despite us taking everything from them in recent American history, has found a way to outcompete us in a very short period of time, despite historic injustices. I mean, you know, the, the the, the, in, in recent historic injustices and Jewish culture has out competed us.

Like when I look to how I educate my kids like if, if I want to achieve what these cultures have achieved, I am going to take ideas from Jewish culture, which obviously we two of you watch our [00:29:00] podcast.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like we, we study Jewish culture to steal from it so that we can one day outcompete it. I mean, my goal.

Is is through learning from the cultures that are outcompeting me to one day be better than them. I'm not, I'm not gonna, like we're different, right? We're on different teams. That's fine. Like you can be on a different team for somebody and still like get along with them. Right? And I think well and still wanna

Simone Collins: learn from their tactics too.

Malcolm Collins: And still, and still wanna learn and respect them. Right? And I think that this is where the urban monoculture, like fundamentally failed, right? Is it said that we're all the same and you cannot question that.

Simone Collins: And No. No. Well, and it's, it's just, there's so many weird contrast, like cultural appropriation is evil, but diversity is good.

So like you're also, per the urban monoculture, you're not even allowed to appreciate elements of other culture and integrate them into your own.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, this is so true. This is, this is what cultural, you know, they're, they're, when they talk about, what is it, cultural appropriation. Mm-hmm. I cultural appropriation.

Like hell Yeah. Like I [00:30:00] look at where culture, they're

Simone Collins: good. Well, and that's the thing is also, like, my favorite thing about, one of my favorite things about Japan is their cultural appropriation. Like Japanese, Italian food. Oh, yes. And like the things that Japan has done with fashion and, and all these things from Western culture, like, yes, please, appropriate remix.

Like what is.

Malcolm Collins: There's also clearly places where like, because we talked about black culture in the negative context here, where black culture is clearly out competing our culture. Again, because I don't believe in genetic differences between race, something about black culture makes them way better at sports than white people.

Mm-hmm. If I just look at the number of professional athletes who are black, of course this has nothing to do with genetics. But also

Simone Collins: like there's like, there's a specific, like subculture or region or like tribal subgroup, that is extremely overrepresented on runways. Like just you've seen Yeah.

Which, like extremely statuesque. Absolutely. Drop dead gorgeous. Incredibly dark skinned, like very,

Malcolm Collins: very dark

Simone Collins: skinned. Yeah. And of course,

Malcolm Collins: Simone, this has [00:31:00] nothing to do with genetic, nothing to do with genetic, no, nothing to do with their genetics. It has to do with, with actually their culture. So I should look at how they raise their kids.

But I'm, I'm Jo, sorry. To, to, to pull back the jocularity here. There is an area where I believe that blacks hugely over compete because of culture in its music. Remember how I noted that? Even one of the number one, I think he might be the number one shazi might be the number one country musician right now is a black guy.

Like, yeah, but I mean also

Simone Collins: like, I, I think. So much of, even like modern white music is downstream of music pioneered originally by black subcultures. We noted that

Malcolm Collins: if you look at like, like blues and jazz, they largely even,

Simone Collins: even rock music. Yeah. Blues. I mean, jazz was just,

Malcolm Collins: jazz is what rock music was derived from Exactly.

Black forms of music at the time. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you could be like, oh, they weren't totally black. Bro, if, if, if my mom as a kid back then, back when things were more segregated Mm. If they saw me go to like a blues or jazz conference, like, like I'd be told it, I'd be like, you know, convention that's [00:32:00] happening in movies and stuff, right?

They're, they're like, how dare you go to that black mu mu musician? Right. You know, we see people writing about this like we. At the time it was understood that blues and jazz were black forms of music except blues and jazz created both rock and country music. Right? So even the, the white form, the whitest music

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Comes, comes from you know, downstream of, of, and I, I look at the top musicians. I mean, you can't even like, like black people clean up and top musicians, right? Like,

Simone Collins: well, and in so many sports, Olympic and otherwise. Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: but I, I'm, I, I was joking there. I, I mean, I do believe that a lot of their dominance was in things like running and stuff like that.

Largely genetic. Like I don't, I don't think that anybody who's being serious is arguing anything other than that.

Simone Collins: No, I mean, well, and that's, I mean, I think there's, there's this quote from Obama, like even back in the Obama years, him, in the context of talking about the Olympics, talking about the strength and diversity, and you have all these different people together sort of showing their unique strengths and how that's really cool.

So yeah, even, even, you know, at [00:33:00] one point like it, I think just. Even recently, things have gotten so much worse where we can't even acknowledge things like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But, but keep in mind here, the, the larger point I'm saying here is this way of dealing with differences this way where you say if somebody was actually different, they shouldn't deserve to exist, is fundamentally evil.

It is what we always hated about what racism was. The idea that some humans don't deserve to exist. And. Yet the urban monoculture has leaned so far into this because the way it attempted to deal with racism was by denying our differences. And as Simone pointed out, why would diversity even have value if we weren't different?

If, if everyone is completely interchangeable with anyone else, why would the percent of a certain, like why wouldn't it matter if a com company with all white or all black, you know, like why would that matter? Right. Like the, presumably all black people are completely interchangeable with all white people, so why [00:34:00] does it matter?

Well, but you're saying the

Simone Collins: crucial narrative of systemic racism, systemic bias of bias, systemic wealth and income inequality that is, that is extremely foundational to progressive thought.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. But, but the point is, is that they're showing that they don't actually care, like believe it. Like if they say that diversity matters, diversity can't matter if people are interchangeable.

Because what that means is that people aren't actually bringing anything unique to the table, whether it's it's culturally or genetic. So, so, well, no, but,

Simone Collins: but I think that there's this belief in the need for a market correction where there are some people who are different in outcome because. They were part of the group that was unfairly treated and therefore.

We have to bring them in as a diversity hire or diversity inclusion to correct the injustices of the past.

Malcolm Collins: Right, right, right, right, right. But what that is, is that's a belief in diversity as an aesthetic and not a belief that diversity is actually intrinsically good, which is what [00:35:00] you and I believe.

We believe that diversity is good because when you have a diverse population, you can get so people don't know better results. Better results. The common area we come to is this is, if you look historically like, like look at COVID, right? Like what happened with COVID in the United States, we actually had a, a much saner response to COVID than other countries, right?

Because we, we had two, two populations in our country. One population said, Hey what we should do to determine what is true and what isn't true is, sort of certify experts who have spent their entire life studying a subject and then to know who's an expert, while have a central body that certifies those experts.

And then the other group said, Hey. I understand why that seems logical, but that central body could become corrupted and therefore we should determine truth on our own. And we've had this fight before. This was the fight that we had with the, when the Protestants broke from the Catholic church, one group said, true should be determined why?

People spent their entire life studying a subject and have been [00:36:00] certified by a central authority. And the other group said, no, no, no. Two should be determined by individuals. Well, it turns out, if you look at the United States in the COVID fight. The, the regions that were overly settled by Protestants, typically rural regions were way more pro the, Hey, we should solve this individually.

The regions that were mainly so settled by Catholics, the urban regions, were way more, Hey, no, and, and the democrat regions, because there's still a huge correlation between those two groups. The majority of, of, of Catholic majority regions of the United States are still Democrat voting. They, they, they said oh, no, we should trust the authority.

Well. Okay. That allowed us to come to a sane middle ground because QAN on kind of went crazy with this. That was in the Protestant controlled region, was just like distrust everyone. And then we look at what happens when you go with distrust authority. You get China's zero COVID policy, which was insane and killed a bunch of people.

Yeah. Like, like America actually is served by our diversity, like America dominates music production, but our music production domination, and not just music production, but the history of modern music as Simone pointed [00:37:00] out, like rock and roll and Ja and, and, and, and pop and, you know, what's the, what was the other one that we were talking about here?

Country. Well, country

Simone Collins: being downstream. Rock and roll, which is downstream. They're

Malcolm Collins: downstream of not just black music, but black American music.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you look at the, if you look at the world musicians who are most consumed today in terms of like. Exporting your culture. They are black Americans who are dominating that.

If you look at a global business it it, okay, yes, American Jews may be like, Jews may be dominating it, but it's American Jews that are dominating that section. If you look at the, the Jews who have the disproportionate amount of wealth, yeah, the, the number of them are in Israel but the majority are American.

If, if you say, oh, well what about all of the Indians who have taken over the American tech companies? 'cause you look at the fame companies now, they're like, all run by Indian. It's like, yes. It's like, , I think Microsoft. Google. Google.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh, I think, I think even Oracle is run by an Indian now.

Or you, it, I don't know. Anyway, like a huge number of the, the, the big companies that are run by Indians now [00:38:00] who can be like, this is, this is so horrible. And I'm like, yeah, but. Indians in India aren't running these companies. Like there's a few major tech companies in India, but nothing like the ones in the United States.

It, it is through allowing groups to exercise their proficiency and through appreciating that we are actually different and that's okay. Okay. And one of the things that we should be doing is looking at the ways that we're different and stealing those from other groups. And then suppose hypothetically, we're in a world where people are genetically different.

Okay. Where people are genetically different and, and one day genetic technology, the germline needed gene editing that we've been caught, funding actually is commonly used. People would say, well, don't you want your group's genes to win? And I would just laugh at them. I would laugh, laugh, laugh, and I'd be like, f no.

You know, if. Another group was faster than my group. I would look at their genes for fastness and I would take those into my descendants, and if another group [00:39:00] genuinely had better. Ability to like, understand and hear melodies and music. I'm not gonna, I have no ability at that stuff. I would like an ability at that stuff.

If another group had that ability at that stuff, just as much as I culturally appropriate other groups, I would genetically appropriate that group. I'd go to them and say, Hey, people are like, they think that like, we're gonna like be the like white Arian, like, like maximizing that. And I'm like, bro, no, no, no.

Well, well

And people here could be like, well, if you give your descendants genes that aren't from, you know, your own ethnic group, isn't that sort of cucking yourself? And the answer is no. None of those genes on the aggregate help my gene spread further. So what I mean by that is, and th this is what we're doing when you're, when you're mating with somebody, you are trading part of your genes for part of their dreams to try to, , create a better pairing.

, So. If, for example, I was obese and I took the genetics for somebody who wasn't obese, , and added them to my gene pool, which would be very small. You know, you're talking like [00:40:00] 1e-05% of like, of, of overall genetic footprint here. And then it helped the rest of my gene spread more or compete more. , I have overall helped my genetic set and also keep in mind that.

What your kids are. It's not just your genes. They're a combination of your genes and your decisions. If I made a choice about the genetics of my offspring or descendants, , and that choice was incorporated into my gene pool, that is still coming from me. I.

If your pride, your inability to see where your own genetics could be improved is what prevents you from outcompeting other groups in the long term. , You know, that's, that's just a failing of yourself. That's ultimately being cucked by your own pride, by being unable to say, I am not a genetically perfect being.

, Other groups have things that I would want in my descendants. Which in many ways makes us, you know, for people who think we're supremacists almost sort of anti supremacist in a way.

Simone Collins: I'm a very common accusation is people think [00:41:00] that we. Think we have superior genes and we, we wouldn't be so interested in this if we didn't want to, to change our genes.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And I wouldn't be different. It's so interested in preserving diversity if I didn't think that cultural genetic diversity would be of utility to my descendants.

And I, and I genuinely mean that it will be of my utilities, my descendants, even groups that like. If I am looking for like, unique genetic sets, so you do not find in the west, that could be of, of advantage in the same way that people are like, we need to just preserve the rainforest as ecology because think of the medicines you could find there.

You know, when we talk about like genetic tribal groups that have been isolated from other populations for a long time, that's where we're probably gonna find the most. I, I'm talking like in aggregate. Like unique human genetic sets that are actually really useful because they, they are just more unique and more different.

And, and so like, I actually like, the left is like aesthetically I want to protect this tribe. And then I'm like, this tribe [00:42:00] is low fertility. They're gonna go extend soon. And they're like, well, we need to preserve their dignity in the meantime. Like, why, why do you care about this random tribe? And I'm like, I care about this random tribe.

And because there's something of utility to me and my descendants because I actually care. About group differences. And like, like, like at a, at a deep fundamental level because I think that that's where humanity strengths comes from. And I think that like as we transition out of this dominance from the urban monoculture, we can choose how we relate to, to you know.

Understanding that we are genuinely different populations. 'cause this, this understanding is gonna become mainstream eventually. Everybody knows it at this point. Well,

Simone Collins: especially when people can start to pick and choose the traits that they want. What's, what I'm even more excited about is when people are gonna start pick and choosing traits that.

Picking and choosing traits that nobody else has yet. You know, like I want purple irises, I want neon green hair. I want pointy ears naturally. I think that that's gonna get a lot. Well, and there

Malcolm Collins: are gonna be people who say that [00:43:00] these people shouldn't exist and they must be killed and blah, blah, blah, blah, but, but they're not, at the end of the day, the people who engage with this technology are eventually just going to.

Be able to outcompete other populations on the economic and political stage. And because of that the groups that have targeted them for eradication I, I'm not even gonna say out of like vengeance or anything. 'cause I, I don't particularly feel vengeance as a, as a motivation, but out of self preservation instincts don't, don't declare war on something, as I often say, was ai, like, these people who are like, AI is gonna be a thousand times more powerful than humanity, therefore we must eradicate it.

And I'm like. I would not be saying that if I thought something was gonna be a thousand times more powerful than me in the near future I would be saying, Hmm, thank you, AI overlords. I'll find a way to work with you. And I do think that AI will be more powerful than humanity in the future. And I think that we can find a way to work with it as, as it becomes, because this is one of the things you see with within these cultures is if AI is better than us, that it will want to kill us.

And I'm just like, [00:44:00] and, and better might be the wrong word, I'd say more capable within specific domains. And I'm like. Not necessarily like if so long as we have some differential utility, I would want to keep a thing around. And it's, it's, it's the mere fact that you, because you grew up in the urban monoculture, don't have a way to relate to things that are in any way, have the potential to outcompete you, that you're saying this, and this is why we need to update this.

You know, we often talk about this, you know, as ai, that we have the covenant of the sons of man, which is to say that we. Have a job to all protect each other's autonomy.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: The, the groups that opt into, you know, genetic augmentation and the groups that opt out of genetic augmentation that are willing to protect groups that are different from them.

The reason why we need to be. Willing to protect each other is because the other types of intelligences, that means people who may engage with genetic augmentation, who end up much more proficient than than my population or the ais. If, if the going treaty that humanity has [00:45:00] is we kill or prevent the existence of anything that's better than us.

When we enter a world where things that that can outcompete us like AI exist. We make ourselves an existential threat. , And, and fundamentally, humanity's continued existence requires this new alliance. And that's just where we are as a species right now. We, we've got to get over this stuff or we're all gonna die, and we've got about a generation to do it

And I know that this is something we have to get over, even if we fully stop the development of ai, because as soon as humanity becomes an interstellar species and we're on multiple planets, some of those planets will inevitably break restrictions on genetic or AI technology. , And then. If it is a standard ban, like if any civilization does this, we will kill them.

, Then everyone else becomes their enemy. , But it gets worse than that because when you have people living on different planets, you're almost certainly gonna get speciation begin to take, and humans of different [00:46:00] proficiencies begin to develop. And if any of them develop above the average in terms of something like intelligence, now they would have the belief, and rightly so that the rest of humanity would attempt to kill them if they learned that.

Turning the rest of humanity into an existential threat for any faction that's different.

Essentially the mantra the urban monoculture preaches is that humanity is all exactly the same in terms of our perspectives, our proficiencies, everything like that. But if there were different iterations of humanity, the only true iteration, the only good iteration, is the one that is the most inefficient, the one that is the least intelligent, the one that is the least capable, which is to me almost.

The, the, the purest form of evil to perceive reality this way.

Malcolm Collins: now, fortunately.

If the groups that engage with this stuff can outcompete within this generation and engage with AI within this generation we may just not have to care about the other groups that want us dead. Like if they [00:47:00] don't have the power to make us dead, you could treat them like a zoo. I don't care. I'm, I, I, I, again, do not believe in active vengeance.

So long as they aren't an active threat.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, refusing to engage with technology isn't going to help them, so we'll see. But yeah, don't, don't make yourself an existential threat to anything that's going to be powerful. Bad idea.

Malcolm Collins: The wider point of all of this is, is that the way that Progressives engaged with diversity was to say we're actually all the same.

And I think that not only was this. Obviously it's stupid and not true. But it led to vulnerable groups doing. Potentially worse over time. Mm-hmm. It led to a superficial feeling that we had fixed racism or largely fixed racism when functionally we had actually, and the groups that adopted this more, as we pointed out with the democratic regions where blacks did worse, we'd actually made things worse [00:48:00] for these communities than the alternate mindset, which is we're all different and that's okay.

We can ally with people who are different from us. We can work together with people who are different from us. In fact. It is our differences that make us working as a team stronger, which is different from what many conservatives believe, you know, that, that they, that they're like, oh, you know, we we're, we're, and I think that this was a historic conservative perspective, we're different and I should only fight for my group.

Yeah. And I, and I view that as a fundamentally un-American thing to believe, and I mean, un-American in the most deep way. I can mean that that is not what this country was founded on. And people can be like, oh, this country was founded by. You know, white Christian, whatevers right? And I was like.

Clearly you were not taught American history because Yes, while we were founded by white Christians. If you read Albion Seed or you read American Nations, or you study Early American history the, the belief systems and the culture of these early founders was actually dramatically more diverse.

Than America [00:49:00] today. Like, like there were Americans back then that thought slavery was the greatest thing in the world, and others that thought that it was the most evil thing in the world. Well, there were

Simone Collins: lots of, there were so many different foundational groups that came to the United States. Some came two major groups.

The, the Quakers and the Puritans came based on interest in religious freedom. Yes. But then one group was basically capitalistic, fortune seeking second and third sons. And, and the other one group was like, like rejected wild people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, wild people, like if you look at my ancestors during these early periods, they literally didn't believe in money.

They traded alcohol instead of money. Like the, the, the differences between these populations was way bigger. Then the differences between you and your average black person or Chinese person, or even urban monoculture person like. Every Christian today in America or about every Christian agrees that like you shouldn't be allowed to own other human and you shouldn't [00:50:00] trade women for money.

Like that was not agreed upon by early Americans. Okay? They agree that you shouldn't kill someone because they look at you wrong and other groups saying, oh no, you should. No, no. Early American. Oh yeah. Some groups thought you could dual. Some groups thought you should. Like the Quakers in Pennsylvania, there were the period where their, their settlements were being raided and people raided and people were being murdered and griped by pirates and they wouldn't even send out police to stop them because they thought this was evil.

Like if you think that the urban monoculture is pacifist today, whereas you go a few hundred miles for them to the backwoods cultural regions in their area, and they would regularly just murder people who live near them or Indians who live near them because. They wanted their stuff or because they looked at them wrong.

Or they looked down on them.

And they also had a practice where they would sharpen their fingernails. So it was easier to gouge people's eyes out, uh, when these people disrespected them, which was apparently very, very [00:51:00] common within this culture to just go out and gouge someone's eyes out. So you had living next to each other, a culture that was.

So extreme peaceniks that when their people were being griped by pirates, they refused to intervene because violence's bad. Living next to a culture with so animalistically violent, that they sharpened their fingernails to gouge out people's eyeballs, which you could do without any sort of criminal repercussions in these regions.

Malcolm Collins: The, the difference in degree here is I, I think it shows when people are like, oh, America was always, historically it was homogenous. I'm like, you, America was an alliance of wildly different cultures. Mm-hmm. That it's the fundamental core strand of America. The thing that has changed.

Is now those cultures consolidate online and not in geographies. It is true that the one thing that really changed between the two periods is that most cultures in early America [00:52:00] lived in just one region and, and didn't move to other regions very often. And now, or when they did,

Simone Collins: they did so in, in groups and just settled in chunks.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And now we live among, among the people who are different than

Simone Collins: us. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. And, and that, yes, that is different. But I just can't, I, I just find this so funny, this idea that somebody would think that, that they would have more differences. In values from your average monoculture person, then your average Cavalier Southerner would have from your average Quaker, or your average Quaker would have from your average Puritan, or your average Quaker would have from your average backward people, or your average backwards person would have from your average.

It just shows like a complete. And this, this is the problem with like this, this, this lack of history that we're taught because this isn't an important part. People when they, when they study this part of history, they just talk about like slavery. Literally. They're just like slavery bad. And it's like, can we not talk about like the actual history of how different American populations were?

Now I need to be clear here. [00:53:00] What I am not saying is that within a region it always improves. The more diversity there is, diversity can be thought of as ingredients. They are actually different from each other. You a dish is not better just for having more ingredients in it.

It's how those particular ingredients go together. And we are better as a civilization for having more ingredients. That is true. Like I am going to be able to make better dishes the more total ingredients there are in the world, which is why global diversity is something that we fight to protect. But that doesn't mean that with in any particular region, you are going to want, uh, every particular ingredient right next to each other.

Yeah.

Speaker 5: A few billion years ago, we realized, what if we took species from all different planets in the universe and put them together on the same planet? Great tv, right? Asians, bears, ducks, Jews, deer and Hispanics, all trying to live side by side on one planet. It's great. Our [00:54:00] planet is just a reality TV show.

Well, you don't think the whole universe works the way earth does, do you? No. One species. One planet. There's a planet of deer, planet of Asians, and so on. We put them all together on earth and the whole universe tunes in to watch the fun.

If you're listening to this and are like, Hey, I didn't know this stuff, or I don't know this stuff, and I'd like to improve my knowledge of early American history, what books can I read that will give me a good understanding of these cultural differences? The two books are the ones that we mentioned, uh, Albian Seed and American Nations.

If you read those two books or listen to them on audiobook, uh, you have a fairly good understanding of the early American cultural groups and just how radically different they are from each other.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, dinner tonight.

Simone Collins: Do we have

Malcolm Collins: anything that I need to get through

Simone Collins: so we can do. More teriyaki chicken. I could get out some mango curry for you

Malcolm Collins: with rice. Got okay. That teriyaki chicken was baller. You just wanna do it again? Let's do more teriyaki chicken because we, we

Simone Collins: still have the beans sprouts that I don't wanna go to waste.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. [00:55:00] Do teriyaki chicken was beans sprouts, but add some frozen pineapple this time.

Simone Collins: We don't What makes you think we have frozen pineapple?

Malcolm Collins: We put it because I got it for a fozzie and we never used it. Oh

Simone Collins: my gosh. Right. Oh, okay. Frozen pineapple. Do you still want me to add hoisin sauce and peppers?

MSG additional? Well, no, there's, I have to add a bunch of teriyaki sauce just from our thing 'cause we don't have anymore. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Peppers. Okay.

Simone Collins: Red peppers, but not too many. You only want three, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Three. A good spice last night.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And this sounds really good. More rice than last night.

Simone Collins: Okay. And, also still sliced onion as well?

Malcolm Collins: No, no. Sliced onion is necessary when you have the, the beans sprouts.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. 'cause I did, I did onion last night too.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, the onion's good, but I just prefer more beans SPRs than onion. And, and I, I, and you could do a higher proportion of be sprouts to chicken than you did last night.

Simone Collins: Okay. Then we're on for that because I, I don't, I don't think after, like after today, we're gonna [00:56:00] probably start to see a significant drop off in quality. So I say we use it all in tonight.

Malcolm Collins: Great. Sweet.

Simone Collins: So don't feel bad if you don't eat at all. But I will give you more rice too.

Malcolm Collins: Good. I'm forward to rice basically doesn't cost that much, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Especially 'cause this isn't coconut lime rice, so it's just the rice.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You're super good. You are an absolute princess. I hope you enjoyed that episode. I thought that was an interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, it's just such a, it's such an important issue.

Malcolm Collins: It's something we've been talking a lot about as reporters, but we haven't gotten a talk to talk with our, our fans about it, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair point. Yeah. And it, it's just, it's, it's just frustrating and, and keep in mind, especially because you and I were, were really deep in progressive culture growing up, so maybe it's more interesting to us because we feel like we've been lied to, so egregiously.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And keep in mind the one thing I did not claim in this episode, if you wanna be a progressive and go through this, I very explicitly did not claim that there are any genetic differences between different [00:57:00] human groups.

I, I, I, I, I. It's like your seventh

Simone Collins: time saying that. That's

Malcolm Collins: right. All

Simone Collins: of the differences to

Malcolm Collins: culture. Okay. I was just saying that we're not allowed to even ask that question and everyone knows you're not allowed to ask that question. And I mean even, and, and, and that's all I said. So you can't say that Malcolm thinks or believes or said ever, ever, ever.

Because I didn't. I did not say that. That is you who is saying that? Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know, but I don't think anyone cares anymore, but Sure. You're welcome. There are no differences.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Love you, Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. I'll I'll call you when dinner's ready.

And people can ask, oh, well Malcolm, why don't you just have the integrity to go out there and investigate the really hard stuff, like differences between groups? , And I'm like, I am the public face of the prenatal list movement. There are a lot of people who want to address this issue, which is a much bigger and more [00:58:00] immediate issue to address that would have their reputations damaged if I tried to ask those types of questions.

So it's better to just not engage with any question where, when you know that you can't, , if one of the answers turns out to be true, you can't say it, , because it would cause more damage than a thought. And, and then what I'm saying here is I'm not saying, oh, I hold these secret beliefs or something.

I'm just saying I'm not engaging with these questions because there is no point in ever engaging with a question where, you know, if the answer turns out one particular way, you are not going to be allowed to say it. Because keep in mind, while you might be a marginally employed person who doesn't have to worry about saying controversial things, , many of our supporters and followers have like regular office jobs, and if they voice public support for the ISTs movement and then figures within the movement are tied to concepts that we're not allowed to talk about in our society, , that they could lose their job. Like you, you've gotta keep in mind, this isn't about us. This is about the [00:59:00] people who support us. Why we don't ask questions, where we know we will not be able to talk about it. If the results, when we dig into it, turn out one particular way.

Malcolm Collins: Any interesting ideas you came across today? Any, any fun?

Simone Collins: I was just dealing with, you know, private equity, nonsense. I'm so mad about RFPs. They're just like, they're, they've become, I, I feel like they was a time perhaps when government based requests for proposal actually worked, but now they're just such a farcical waste of time.

That I, I, I, I want the government to burn down. I just want it to all burn. It will though, give it time. I mean, we know it will, like just because of graphical collapse, I know it will. And that is my one, my one solace when I'm sent. Stupid bureaucratic requests that I [01:00:00] know are a waste of my time. But I know that it's my fiduciary responsibility to respond based on our investors' best interests and things like that.

So there's, you know, there's this, this, this. If, if we were German, they would probably be a word for it. But this brand of hopelessness, when you know you have to do something that's a complete waste of your time and it's not gonna make any difference, but you have to do it anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Anyone hopelessness, a new form of hopelessness, bureaucratic hopelessness.

I am so glad that you do that on behalf of the family. Everyone's like, oh, wives have to make dinner. I am sure you don't see making dinner as like this major burden, but that's, this is the fun

Simone Collins: part, dude. Yeah, that's fun's the major

Malcolm Collins: burden. All right.

Speaker 6: Uh, not that long. I think so. Jenny's a little smaller. So this is Jennys big sister. You wanna trade? No, no, you can't trade. Yours is a little smaller. That's fine. Octavian and mine is a little bigger, but I would [01:01:00] see. Well, if you're good, then you can have a big one too.

But if you get a big one, then what's gonna happen to Jenny? Are you just.

Yeah, but you're gonna abandon Jenny.

Just Jenny like that. I think Jenny would be really sad if you wanted to play only with a bigger fox. No. I'll play with the, alright, it's John.

Join us in this exciting episode of Basecamp where we welcome esteemed guest, Malcolm and evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. The conversation dives deep into the challenges of the modern dating market, the impact of dating apps, and the shifting norms on college campuses. Jeffrey shares intriguing insights from his experiences with university students, his thoughts on cultural and societal impacts on dating, and offers practical advice for parents on how to support their children in finding long-term partners. The discussion also touches on the future implications of AI in romantic relationships and the importance of maintaining close family ties. Don’t miss it!

Geoffrey Miller: [00:00:00] I've done polls of my, my undergraduate males in my sexuality classes, anonymous polls, right?

Mm-hmm. Through iClicker and stuff. Mm-hmm. Would you ever date a female student? Would you ever date a female student that you meet on campus about two thirds? Say absolutely not. Two, a third,

Simone Collins: what's the point of gonna go, oh my gosh, I, I know. And

Geoffrey Miller: then, right. So they're terrified, right?

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hello everyone. I'm. So excited to see all of you here today because today I have both Malcolm and Jeffrey Miller on the podcast. This is really exciting because one, we admire his work a lot. Jeffrey Miller is an American evolutionary psychologist. He's also an author and associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches a course on human sexuality.

Among other things, he's also mixing with university students who are in the thick of dating, which is what we're gonna be talking about today. Dating markets are broken. What do we do to fix him? How can people find a partner if they actually want one? So we're really excited to get into this. Welcome to [00:01:00] Basecamp, Jeffrey.

Geoffrey Miller: It's great to be here and great to see you guys again.

Malcolm Collins: Great. And I wanna know that this isn't just like if you're a young person and you're like, oh, I'm interested in this for me this is also gonna be highly useful to parents. Oh yeah. Because any parent right now who wants their line to continue, one of the biggest challenges you're gonna have to overcome is how do you secure a partner?

How do your children secure a partner within this corrupted market right now?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It's bad. It's dire. What are you seeing out there, Jeffrey? Like, do your students talk to you about dating at all or are they like, I'm not not gonna go there, or they're not dating? Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: Well, they, they wanna be dating, you know, the guys want girlfriends, the, the women want boyfriends.

And I actually have a daughter who's 29 and, you know, active in the dating scene. And we talk a lot about what it's like out there. I talk a lot about. The current dating apps and their failures and their frustrations with my students. We have, you know, long discussions both in my human sexuality class, and I also [00:02:00] teach a course on effective altruism.

I teach courses on human emotions and motivations and, yeah, I've even taught a course on alternative relationships. It covers all kinds of unusual things, including, including traditional Christian monogamous marriage as, as an alternative relationship.

Simone Collins: So is though what, so we get this impression sometimes that younger generations are, in some ways moving in a more tra direction because they're like.

Malcolm Collins: All the other stuff actually. Are you seeing this, this trad movement within your students?

Simone Collins: Are you seeing it or is it just not?

Geoffrey Miller: I mean, what, and here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, everything is a little bit behind the curve. I mean, we're not in Brooklyn, we're not the Bay Area. So stuff comes here five years later, you know, after, after it goes everywhere else.

But I certainly see an interest in, huh. Getting serious about finding a long-term mate and people [00:03:00] talking about demographic collapse and people being aware of it as an issue. And certainly my, you know, 20-year-old students talk to their 40 to 50 ish year old parents, right? Who are also keenly concerned, like, we want grandkids.

When are you gonna deliver grandkids to us? And so, there's a lot of discussion about that, and there's widespread frustration with dating apps, right? A lot of, a lot of the kids are on Tinder and Hinge, and they find it an incredibly frustrating, demeaning, dehumanizing process in different ways, depending on whether you're a woman or a man, right?

But there's, there's widespread to satisfaction out there and particularly on college campuses, right? Which used to be. Epicenters of the mating market, which used to be wonderful places to meet people. A lot of that has been shut down, actually quite cynically and deliberately by college [00:04:00] administrators.

Simone Collins: What, wait, wait. Okay, so how,

Geoffrey Miller: talk more about this.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Geoffrey Miller: Okay, so about eight or 10 years ago, I was on our UNM College Committee to revise our sexual misconduct policies, right? And so this was setting the policies, rules, and norms about. Basically dating on college campuses. And I've talked to a lot of other faculty, other places who have been involved in this kind of thing.

And basically I would raise questions like, look there, there's, there's trade offs here. Like, yes, we want to minimize state rape. Yes, we wanna minimize sexual harassment, unwanted sexual attentions talking, that's all bad, but on the upside. It would actually be nice if our students could date each other.

Right? Yeah. And there are, there are trade offs there where like if you have a policy that absolutely tries to minimize all possible date rape, right? And that basically criminalizes. [00:05:00] People approaching each other, like with possible romantic intent, right? I said, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna stop the formation of couples on campus, right?

Mm-hmm. And everybody else on the committee was like. We don't care about the college campus being an effective mating market. We do not care. The only priority we have is to absolutely minimize unwanted, uncomfortable sexual attention, right? So a lot of campuses have gone in that direction and the net result is.

Like when I went to college in the eighties. Yeah. Like it was partly to find a marriage partner and partly to practice medium to long-term relationships and like Yes. Figure out what the other sex is like and how like this is so common that I

Malcolm Collins: even grew up was this concept of a MRS degree which is an MRS degree.

S degree. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which meant that you were going college to find a husband. And this was a viable strategy. Many, many, many, many, many, I, I, I might even say it was a normative strategy for our [00:06:00] parents' generation.

Simone Collins: Well, and you went to college looking for a wife, Malcolm. And your brother and his wife, like freshman year.

Malcolm Collins: Freshman year, yeah. Both me and my brother went to college explicitly to find a wife in, in part,

Simone Collins: but now, wow. You know what you're saying, Jeffrey reminds me. It, it's like very similar to what happened, like it has been creeping up with. Parenting in general, where like car seat laws may be causing fewer lives to exist in the United States, for example, just because they're so prohibitively cumbersome.

Mm-hmm. Then they're, they're actually, you know, saving like this, this interest in, in protecting people at all costs, at the cost of even. Growth of the thing we're protecting is is pretty insidious. It's pretty wild. I mean, I almost feel like there should be some kind of index on like dating friendly colleges.

'cause I know many parents are still, the only reason they're, they're saving in their 5 29 accounts and they're actually planning to sending their kids to college is, they're like, at least this is where they'll find their partner. And, and here like now the universities are like, no, no, definitely not.

Don't even think about it. [00:07:00] That's crazy.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah. So if, if you're a parent and you actually want your kids to be able to find. Possibly a spouse or at least enjoy a long-term relationship and use college as among other things, a mating market. Call the college's Dean of students and ask what exactly are your policies?

Are you a dating friendly campus or are you all about like absolutely minimizing like. Sexual very interesting sexual contact. Right. Call them up and ask them, because it's often the dean of students and you know, to some degree the DEI officers and, and so forth. It's the administrators who are pushing this kind of stuff and, and, and it's.

Yeah. Often the, the, the students don't really know the ins and outs of it. All that they know is that there's a general chilling effect. Right. And that they're getting signals that it's not cool ever. Right. To ask out anybody on campus.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

Geoffrey Miller: [00:08:00] Right. And I've done polls of my, my undergraduate males in my sexuality classes, anonymous polls, right?

Mm-hmm. Through iClicker and stuff. Mm-hmm. Would you ever date a female student? Would you ever date a female student that you meet on campus about two thirds? Say absolutely not. Two, a third,

Simone Collins: what's the point of gonna go, oh my gosh, I, I know. And

Geoffrey Miller: then, right. So they're terrified, right? Because they know if they're accused of sexual misconduct, they can get thrown out and that they've racked up student debt and they don't get a degree.

And it, that's fair. It's, yeah. Nightmare.

Malcolm Collins: That's horrifying.

Geoffrey Miller: And so like. I ask who do, who do you date then? And they're like, well, I go to the local community college, or I just, I've given up on dating already at age 20, and it's a nightmare.

Simone Collins: That is wild. What do you also pull your female students are and are they having, like are there interesting asymmetries also that you're noticing between men and women willingness to date?

I mean, there've been some [00:09:00] things that have gone viral on TikTok recently where young women are like, well, I'm going out my tits. Bouncing. I just wish someone would cat call me. Like they're really getting to the point where they're getting frustrated. 'cause no one's paying attention to them, I guess because there's so much liability around it.

But are you seeing, or like what are you seeing in terms of different experiences dating between men and women? That could be a leading indicator of something interesting.

Geoffrey Miller: I think the young women are not aware of just how terrified the young men are about these campus misconduct policies. So not tuned into this, like they know, ah, this is weird.

Nobody's dating me, approaching me, trying to talk to me. Why not? Right? Part of the issue is sex ratio. So a lot of college campuses, it's roughly two women for every man. It's getting to like 60% female, which, so 1.5 to two women per per man, and that, as you guys know, shifts. The, the power in the mating market towards [00:10:00] male short term mating.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: And, and this is why there was

Malcolm Collins: a great study on this, by the way, just a side note here. I don't know if you've heard of this study, but there was a study that looked at the percentage of women on college campuses and dating norms was in college campuses. And the more women you have on a campus as a proportion of the, the, the more promiscuity you get.

Whereas the fewer women you have, the more monogamous relationships are.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah, that's right. And that's, that's what all the data seemed to, seemed to show. And so if you get female dominated campuses, you might think naively, oh, that gives women the power to set the norms in terms of relationships. No, no, no.

Right. The sex that is in higher demand, and it has heterosexual dating market has more power. So the men have more power and that means they can impose, you know, to, to the degree that matter. On average, more interested in short-term mating and casual dating and casual sex and hookups. Right? Then the women are kind of forced into that, and that's exactly why when Tucker Max and I wrote the mate book 10 [00:11:00] years ago, we said like, if you're a young man, you should try to go to a campus that's, you know, got a high proportion of women and you'll have more bargaining power there.

But if you're a young woman, right, you want to go to like. Caltech? Yes. Or one, one of the rare kind of engineering oriented schools that's a little bit more male dominated.

Simone Collins: Smart. Ooh, the good tactical tips coming in. Although I do wonder if, if calling the Dean of students would work. If you're talking about a religious conservative university, because they do often have like, I mean BYU for example, has some pretty strange Yeah.

I've talked with

Malcolm Collins: the end of the show and the number of them who want to go to BYU is actually really high. Like most of them are very strongly considering BYU.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But to find a

Simone Collins: wife and all of the Catholic parents that we talk with are like, well, obviously my kid's gonna find their, their spouse at like one of these eight Catholic universities.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: But I mean, I, they also have strict rules, but they're rules oriented toward monogamy, I guess.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah, so it, look, if you're a parent, the, the, the bottom line is [00:12:00] don't just choose whatever university you think will have the highest prestige, will be most helpful in terms of your kids' career. And, and like that you can brag about like to your, your extended family and your neighbors, but really think strategically about it as, as a mating market.

And ev, even if it's not kind of a hardcore Catholic or Mormon University, at least find out. Like do the administrators think it's okay for students to date each other? Yeah. That is important. They basically really discourage that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And

Geoffrey Miller: like, I wouldn't necessarily want one of my kids to get married at age 21, but I would want them to be able to have the experience of having at least some medium term relationships to kind of like calibrate like, what do I want from, you know, a potential partner?

Simone Collins: What different advice. Would you give to a son versus a daughter on the dating market and to your male versus female students? Because, I mean, that's very different [00:13:00] tactics.

Geoffrey Miller: Honestly, the, when I teach in my human sexuality class, the thing that gets the most interest is. Identifying personality disorders to avoid.

Oh, and the, and the red flag. So the women are very

Malcolm Collins: Oh, very interesting. Right? Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: The women are very interested in like, yeah, I'm kind of attracted to bad boys, but I actually want to avoid like really hardcore. Psychopaths, narcissists, machiavellians, like all that dark triad stuff. And for the men, I talk quite a bit about borderline personality disorder and how it will Yes, it is your life if you're not careful.

Malcolm Collins: How, how do you, how do you spot this stuff?

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah, I mean, that, that's a whole tangent, but, you know, because a lot of them are, are

Malcolm Collins: to anyone who's dating. I know. Everyone's like, no, really Jeffrey, we're talking about how you get Skittles here and now it's like, how do you avoid the poison ones? And you're like, well you, that's a whole [00:14:00] other conversation.

And it's like, what is important in the acquisition of Skittles to not get poisoned Skittles

Geoffrey Miller: to avoid poison Skittles in the mating market. Okay. For borderline for avoiding women with borderline personality disorder. Right? You wanna avoid, yeah. Any signals of extremely high risk seeking, which is drug abuse, alcohol abuse, bad driving.

It, it, frankly, even extreme sports, you, you wanna interrogate them about their attitudes towards exes, right? If they dis every single man they've ever gone out with, and like, my father sucked, my ex-boyfriends all suck. Like, maybe it's you. Maybe it's not them. Yeah. May, maybe that common denominator is like you.

Pick badly and then drive men away. If you get into a relationship with a borderline, then they tend to flip flop between idolizing you and demonizing you, right? So one hour they'll be like, you are the best thing ever. I feel so connected to you. This is awesome, awesome. I'm more in love with [00:15:00] you than ever.

And then an hour later they're having an argument and they're saying, you're, you're just. You know, the worst piece of s**t ever, and I don't trust you at all and blah, blah. So that kind of instability in how they, I. Interpret other people's social behavior. Another big red flag for borderline women is they don't have any female friends.

Malcolm Collins: Mm. 'cause they,

Geoffrey Miller: they burn through all their, their same sex relationships because other women are, are sick of dealing with their, their nonsense. So that's my, my. Capsule, two minute lesson on. That's really good. No,

Simone Collins: those are really easy to spot, so that's amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about like dating apps as a dating opportunity right now.

And I also wanna talk about passport bro wives because these are two areas where you're actually seeing tons of wives. We had an episode on just how common passport borough wives are and people. One hugely underestimate this in Korea, if you look at rural rural Korea, one in four [00:16:00] wives are from another country.

If you look at Sweden or Norway and you look at immigration rates, you would think that the immigration rates would glean male because you're getting so many immigrants from like Middle Eastern countries. But it actually turns out that they're gender equal because you get so many passport wives from Russia and South America are the two core places they're coming from.

So I'd love it if you could talk about these two pathways.

Geoffrey Miller: So I know a lot more about dating apps and about passport wives in terms of the passport situation. Yeah, I I mean, I, all I can say is that if you are. Concerned about finding, you know, a traditional monogamous marriage and having a bunch of kids, then you need to find somebody who is from a culture or a nation or a subculture that has been open to that and encouraging of that.

And it's, it's really hard if you grow up in a subculture that is systematically [00:17:00] opposed to long-term marriage and having kids. Frankly, a lot of American culture is I can see the appeal of just trying to, you know, find a mate where you can. And there's a long tradition in human evolution of people mating outside their tribe, right?

We are all genetic hybrids and mongrels to, to one degree or another. And partly that's because people growing up in a particular clan or tribe, are related to everybody. So you don't necess necessarily wanna marry your cousin or your second cousin. But also we're, we're intrigued by cultural difference as long as it's not too, too different.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

Geoffrey Miller: So that, that's really all I can say about the passport wife thing. I do worry that often, people might be matching up with others who seem like, okay, maybe they share some core family values, but there's a whole bunch of other. Cultural baggage, right. That comes along with other [00:18:00] cultures that you might not even be aware of,

Malcolm Collins: right?

Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: You get, you get some wife from Lithuania or, or Namibia or, or India or whatever, and unless you have a deep, deep understanding of that culture and all the expectations around mating and parenting and so forth, and how extended families work in those cultures. Right. That can be a real handicap. You can have some surprises and shocks.

And the other thing is you know, the older I get, the more important I think it is actually to try, if possible, to stay geographically close to parents and grandparents.

Simone Collins: Totally.

Geoffrey Miller: Right. And to really leverage the power of the extended family when you're raising kids together. So, I love political theorist, UAM Azzoni, who did a great book called Conservatism of Rediscovery, and he writes quite extensively about kind of being based and grounded in an extended family that lives nearby and the mm-hmm, the many, many benefits of that.

[00:19:00] So. You know, I understand the appeal of getting a, a kind of passport spouse, but just be aware that like if you're trying to raise kids and the kids' grandparents are thousands of miles away and you're never gonna see them. Yeah, that's a major, major handicap.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's challenge. Actually, one thing I'm really interested in though, like just on this is that

Malcolm Collins: mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: One of our listeners sent to me an essay and article on American Reformer called Highway America is a relic of the past. That is essentially encouraging young men to do road trips, like a job across a drive across the USA and just stop at every. Like diner and coffee place along the way and like hit on attractive young women who are working there because it's, it's almost implying that like you could be a passport bro.

Domestically, there are all these women in flyover America that may be more traditional. And we should, we should consider they're there.

Malcolm Collins: That if you go get a passport for a wife, I think a lot of [00:20:00] people underestimate how far the urban monoculture reaches Mm. In terms of its value system. And a lot of these women just want to use you.

They'll say they want a lot of kids, and then after the, like two kids, they're like, okay, that's all I'm gonna do, because. Was was stability and wealth, and I already have that and I don't want the additional work now. And, and that's not to say they all do. One, one funny story I heard recently from a, I don't know if a fan Yeah, it was a fan in the comments or something, is they were talking about one of their.

Friends. No, it might actually be like somebody I know personally, one of their friend's wives who was a passport wife from some, somewhere in east Asia. And they, they got to four kids and then she's like, you need to take another wife now. She's like, I'm done with with these kids. You, this is too much work.

You need another wife. And I'm like, a lot of people would see that as a very favorable outcome from a passport, bro wife, if they're like, need more wives, what are you doing with only me? But yeah, to keep in mind that you know that you are merging cultures, and that can be a very difficult thing to do.

But [00:21:00] let's know, I met my wife on a dating app Okay. Cupid, before it went crazy. I've said in my book, I said it went crazy, like it was bought by Match Group and they killed the, you know, just full profile search for profile to, to try to push people onto the other more addictive swipe based system.

And the guy, I actually said this in front of the guy. Who was in charge of determining this change? At one point, I didn't know he was in charge of determining this change, and he's like, no. It was all based on the data. More people were using it after the change. It was like, okay, you created in an addictive cycle.

Of course more people were using it. But basically any app that uses a swipe based system is not worth using as a guy. So, and, and the reason it's not worth using is if you look at something like Tinder and you look at the average guy on Tinder, everybody knows the statistic. It's less than 1% of women are swiping right on them.

That's the average guy. That's 50% of men. So 50% of women, less than 1% of women are swiping right on you. They're all going to the same men. So it just doesn't really work at the system because. It means even for the top men, they have no motivation to treat these women [00:22:00] seriously. And all these women who are using it in up feeling like every guy is just using them because it's every guy that they're choosing within this ecosystem is using them.

So they end up becoming super misandrist. But anyway, what's your like, what do you do?

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah. And I, I, I would echo like when I was using OkCupid to date, like 10 to 12, 14 years ago, it was awesome. It was, it was great. So good. And I, I think I answered literally all of the 3000 plus questions same that we use.

Simone Collins: 'cause you could sit up there and farm attention, you'd end up in people's feed with your answers.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Simone came up with a unique system where she would do the answers in long form so that it would show up on people's feeds.

Geoffrey Miller: Oh, I see. That's clever. Yeah. But yeah, the Match group absolutely killed it.

And they are now in the business of monetizing subscriptions and eyeballs and not creating matches. The, the stats I've seen is that roughly one in 5 million swipes [00:23:00] results in a marriage.

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Geoffrey Miller: On those apps?

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, it's

Geoffrey Miller: literally less, you'd have to swipe. All day, every day, particularly if you're a guy, right, to get even a reasonable number of dates.

And then because the algorithm isn't matching you effectively based on any kind of psychological traits or life interests or politics or religion or you know, interest in family formation. And this is why I've started working as a sort of consulting scientist with Keeper, which is a new dating app that really tries to help.

People who seriously want to get families right to find each other, and particularly based on deeper psychological compatibility. So, yeah,

Simone Collins: I'm, I'm interested in keeper because it seems to me like the new match. So when I was on OkCupid, I was just looking to date at that time, like I didn't wanna get married.

But then there was another girl at my office who really wanted to get married and so she went to match.com. And then like. [00:24:00] A couple months later, she met the guy who then like one month later, after that became her fiance and they got married and like it was done and we, I'd known a bunch of people who'd just done that.

It was like Match was for closers and I think that's kind of fallen apart or it's not really for demographic that's relevant to young people. And when I first heard about Keeper. It was under, it sounded so mysterious. It was like, well you have to like put down $50,000 and then you only get it if you get married.

You know, like something like it required a ton of commitment and I think it's changed a lot since then. But I was really intrigued by like, what are some smart people's entrepreneurial take to like get people to actually commit? Because I feel like switching costs now are so low and the desire to actually commit is so low.

That people, even when they're matched with someone who's a really good. Potential partner. Mm-hmm. They're like, like she's not a Brazilian model. Like, I'll pass, I'm not feeling it right now. Yeah, they're not taking it seriously. So what does keep her do? Because I think they had to walk back the financial commitment part.

'cause I don't think they were gonna get a lot of customers doing that, but [00:25:00] like, what's going on?

Geoffrey Miller: So. The economic model is, is basically you want to make sure that the people who are on a serious dating app are really actually serious about finding a long-term partner. So they do still have a marriage bounty plan, okay.

Where you basically sign a contract that says for not just for marriage, but different milestones of the relationship, like, you know, if you have been dating for a year or you're actually cohabiting or if you get married or even if you have your first kid, there's kind of an escalating payout structure, right?

So that basically your incentives to find the long-term mate are absolutely aligned. With the dating apps, incentives in terms of revenue generation. And then there's a second model, which is basically you pay per contact, you pay per date, right? Oh yeah. But I mean, you do that on

Simone Collins: Ashley Madison, so I, you know, that's not

Geoffrey Miller: well, but then your [00:26:00] right, Ashley Madison is for people already married, cheating, right?

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Geoffrey Miller: So. The keeper is strongly discouraging, casual dating, cheating, et cetera. Yeah. They, they actually, you know, are, have ways to vet people in terms of their, oh my god, authenticity and their, and their commitment to, to the process. So I think what'll probably end up happening more often is that keeper is all about like, quality over quantity.

They're really trying to find, an extremely good match for each person, and they're sort of like suggesting, here's the match, we're gonna give you one at a time. Hmm. Right. We encourage you guys to like communicate a little bit. If you want full contact information, then that's, that's a little bit of a cost, like a couple hundred dollars, right?

Mm-hmm. So you're not treating it as if it's like a gamified. Like [00:27:00] source of sexual validation, like how many people are swiping on me and then like, how many can I swipe on? Mm. No, just taking that off the table. So the whole mental model of it is sort of like imagine your parents or a trusted mentor or like, here's a young woman I know and respect to, I think would be a great match for you young man.

And if I introduce you right. You're gonna treat her like a real human being, not just like a profile, right? So that's the mindset. It's a little bit more like traditional matchmaking, but using like AI algorithms and using the power of big data. So it's completely the opposite mindset of like, swipe, swipe, swipe.

Left, left, left, swipe and, and then like text and then get ghosted. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the core failing of the swipe ecosystem, which is switching costs. Mm-hmm. The core failing of the swipe ecosystem is that there is always another, and when there is always another and there is [00:28:00] incredibly low switching costs that then, then people do not treat any particular relationship particularly seriously.

Yeah. How much are people

Simone Collins: putting down for bounties? Like, what is, what do you think is a, a compelling marriage bounty?

Geoffrey Miller: I think so far, typically the marriage bounties are on the order of 10, 20, $30,000.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Geoffrey Miller: But some people are going up to like six figures, you know, over a hundred thousand. Some people have put down like seven figure bounties.

Like, I will pay you two or $3 million if you find me a good spouse.

Malcolm Collins: Ooh.

Geoffrey Miller: And this is a, this is a dating app where the median. Male annual income is something like 170, $180,000, and like the top quartile is mid six figures. So these are successful people and a lot of them, you know, if, if they're serious about finding a spouse, are willing to pay for it.

And they know, like, look, if, if you're some. Entrepreneur [00:29:00] and or angel investor or whatever, and you've got a serious net worth, then finding a good wife or husband is a, is a massive life benefit. How much is it worth to you, right, to find someone who's a extremely compatible and wants to have a bunch of kids with you, and B, where you're so compatible that the likelihood of a disastrous divorce.

It's very, very low.

Malcolm Collins: It, it's funny when you mention marrying, you know, wealth of people and I think that this is, you know, different classes often. Mary was in the class and, and my mom when, when I was looking for a wife, you know, around the time I was dating you, she's like, why don't you just go to debutante balls?

You can, you can find great wives at those. And I was like, mom, how do you think I'm gonna get invited to a debutante ball? I live in effing like Scotland and San Francisco. Do you think they're having debutante balls in San Francisco? You need to be aware of where certain like, groups or meeting was in each [00:30:00] generational pool, and an update as that switches.

Geoffrey Miller: Mm. Yeah. And it, it, it is a colossal failure honestly of, of, you know, older millennials and, and Gen X, like me and the boomers that we have failed to maintain and update those kinds of, informal or formal mating markets. Like when I was in high school, there was a thing called cotillion. Right. And if you were a sort of bourgeois Yeah.

I didn't young man or woman. Right? You, you would go to these things like four times a year and all the young men would dress up in tuxedos and then they would dance to punk music and, and you would get used to interacting with other people in, in the coill group. As real people. And often they were going to the same high school as you, but you saw them in a new context where it's like, ah, this is romantic.

There's candlelight, there's music. It's, it's at a country club. That's cool. But what are the modern equivalents? Right? Church? Yes. That can work. College clubs. Yeah. But then you got the, the [00:31:00] sexual misconduct policies to worry about.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: CrossFit, right. Going to some demanding leisure activity that has a decent sex ratio that can work.

I mean, that's how my, my co-author Tucker Max found his, his wife. He's like, oh, really? I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to CrossFit classes and I'm gonna find, I'm gonna find a registered nurse.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Geoffrey Miller: right. So specific. Right. And he, he, he tuned it in and he. And he found one and she's great. And she's smart. And now they have whatever, four kids and live in rural Tennessee.

And they're, they're, they're out there and he's teaching his kids how to do long range precision rifle shooting and, and it's great. Living the dream. Yes, living the dream.

Simone Collins: That's so interesting. Okay. Well, so I mean, one thing that Malcolm and I talk about a lot is basically, arranging marriages or very lightly arranging marriages for our children, or at least doing matchmaking.

We've created this group of parents with kids of [00:32:00] similar ages to our kids, and then when they start hitting age seven, age eight, we're gonna try to get them on like, you know, summer camps together, vacations together, you know, hanging out, doing stuff together, you know, maybe once a year or once every other year.

So they start to get to know each other and then later on. A set of discord servers, all sorts of things that like, virtually they might like play video games together or something. And then over time be like, Hey, you know, you're 21, you're 18. Like, have you seriously concerned so-and-so, we, we think that a lot of people aren't really talking about how really only until very recently in human history have families and parents stopped becoming involved in their kids.

Matchmaking and dating lives. I mean, n now it's kind of considered weird for a family to even weigh in or provide an opinion on a boyfriend or girlfriend, and I get it because you could lose your kid if you like. You know, they insist they have to marry this person and you hate them, then they're gonna choose them and you lose your relationship with your kid.

But on the other hand. You know, I think [00:33:00] a lot of, a lot of people would appreciate having a little bit more help and guidance, even if they might complain about it. What are your thoughts on getting involved in and meddling in your children's dating lives?

Geoffrey Miller: I'm all for it, I think. Absolutely. And, you know, thankfully, like with my daughter, we talk quite a bit about her, her dating life and her relationships and her made choice criteria. And she knows, I'm like, I've written books about this so I'm not just some random, random old dude, but I think a lot of parents have a real failure of nerve. I think they're absolutely gutless on this issue.

Mm-hmm. And they need to weigh in and they need to start doing it from, you know, the time their, their kids are teenagers and. Be willing to say, I just don't think she or he is is right for you. But let me explain why and let me unpack it. Let me give you my life experiences, right, that are my relevant source of wisdom about how this particular.[00:34:00]

Red flag, right? And this young person is gonna play out in the future. Nice. So the parents have to be articulate about it. They have to connect it to their own life experiences. That requires a bit of vulnerability. But I, I see this, this massive failure of parental duty. Like where Oh yeah, you're allowed to give your kids advice on education and career, but not about mating.

And it, it's so, it's so dumb because like in retrospect, my parents when I was a teenager could have easily found like a dozen young women who I would've actually had quite a happy marriage with. Like, they knew me better than I knew myself.

Simone Collins: A fair point,

Geoffrey Miller: right? They knew my, yeah, my strengths and weaknesses, my traits, my quirks, because they were surrounded by, you know, other parents', kids, and they, they were, they were smart and observant.

And the notion that a 20-year-old [00:35:00] knows themselves better than their parents do is in a way very narcissistic and very strange.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And, and, and

Geoffrey Miller: like, oh, also you can weave together the parental advice and the dating apps, right? Oh, wait, how Well, like, for example, you could actually include your parents in the assessment right Now if you're, if you're on Tinder, right?

Of course your parents aren't gonna be. Standing behind your shoulder, like monitoring every swipe. But if you're on like a keeper dating app where you're getting just one, hopefully really good match. Oh yeah. You can send them

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. At a

Geoffrey Miller: time, right? You could potentially share it with them, zoom with them, get their advice, and you have a rich enough set of information about each potential mate, right?

That the parents could look at that and go, yeah, well actually mm-hmm. Let me explain to [00:36:00] you why, like, hopefully Keeper is even smarter than you are about why this would be a great match or maybe why not, right? It's good. Yeah. And so we, we would, I ideally want to empower young people to like. Fold their family and their friends into this dating app experience.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. I like that.

Geoffrey Miller: So if, if you're not comfortable doing it with your parents, at least maybe do it with your siblings. At least do it with, with housemates, with friends, whatever. Don't keep it as like your secret little vice, like, like Tinder or Hinge, where it's like I just do this to be like a so cystic.

Like secret of sexual validation. Yeah. Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: You mentioned this, one of the things we talk about on this channel a lot is cross-cultural differences and a big difference across the American cultural groups. And you can go to our videos on the backwards, cultural tradition, everything like this.

And the various culture is, is some groups like the backwards cultural tradition, which is like the Appalachian cultural tradition. Primarily vets, spouses through [00:37:00] siblings and then other groups, primarily vet spouses through parents. And I, I just happen to be through a culture that primarily vet spouses through siblings.

And so this is to say that there are many ways that you can build a vetting system for spouses that rely on people who know you better and rely on the crowd opinion, but the crowd opinion is always gonna be better than your individual opinion. And I know that as a society we have completely atomized romance, but it's really stupid, especially if you wanna get married as young as you need to, to have a lot of kids.

Recently we did an episode, I don't know when it'll go live, but it was on, we need more teen marriages. And the problem, the biggest problem with teen or young marriages is I, I mean young, you know, early twenties, whatever, is that you don't fully know yourself yet. You don't know who you're gonna become.

And you're not fully myelinated. But. Your parents and your friends, like aggregately, the people around you know, you the people who have a vested interest in your future know you. And this is why so many societies [00:38:00] used people like that for marriage, choosers of these. And people can be like, well, what about love?

And it's like, well, you know, love isn't, it didn't exactly evolve within a context. That's meant to choose the perfect spouse. It's meant to make you love whoever you think is going to be the, the parent of your kid because you know, then you don't kill them or the kid or anything like that. It's, it's not meant to be a spouse choosing mechanism within an evolutionary context.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I'll just just for those who are brothers, sisters, moms, dads who are listening to this and thinking like, how can I get involved in a way that's meaningful? Malcolm actually, his whole family got involved in, in pitching me to him, kind of like one Malcolm participated in that very early on in our dating, even when.

I was under the impression that we were never gonna get married. You introduced me to your dad. It was like introduced me to your mom's dad. It was

Malcolm Collins: 20 or something.

Simone Collins: It was, it was with, you introduced me to your dad in like the first week and then after we broke up, you, you literally, [00:39:00] you were out of the country and you had me go to dinner with your parents who were in town.

And then after we got back together one, so like his brother and sister got involved just hammering Malcolm. Like, you need to marry her. She's right for you. Wait, do you

Malcolm Collins: remember this? Wait, what do you remember about moms and Bri? I also,

Simone Collins: they, they were just like Malcolm in that way that they always are.

Malcolm, you need to just, you're not gonna find anyone else. You're, you know, you're impossible. She's the only one who'll deal with you. And then your mom started sending both of us engagement rings that she found on first dibs. And she just kept sending the rings and sending the rings and sending the rings, and then being like, oh, I'm gonna come, you know, visit, you should propose to her here.

You should propose to her there. And she's just like a constant force in both of our lives making it really top of mind and making it like, I, I think a lot of parents just aren't necessarily thinking about like, how I think

Malcolm Collins: about doing this. Like the reason I got married at the age I got married at. And I think that a lot of people, they don't, they don't see this is, I had a.

A family [00:40:00] that was around me constantly telling me to get married to this person. And they didn't tell, say this for other girls I dated. They didn't, they didn't actually, they never said this about any girl I dated before that You need to marry this girl. They

Simone Collins: even moved up the timeline. They, they actually moved up, like his family moved up the timeline because I was like, well, I want Malcolm to propose to me when he can, through his work, afford to pay.

Using his own salary for an engagement ring. Mm-hmm. I just, I don't know, like it was a, it's a stupid thing on my, I don't know why I said that, but I did. And Malcolm's mom was like, oh, it's just that. And she like pulls off her earring, which is this like big diamond and she's like, slides it across the table and she's.

All right. Turn this into a ring. 'cause you can afford this. Like, she's just like, she was like, okay, you know, what do we need to do to, to close? Her, her like, her constant phrase to the family was dinners for closers. She just was always about like, let's get it done. And I, I think parents, when they think about getting involved, maybe they think about nagging, maybe they think about, like, I think you have to think about this like a salesperson.

Like where is the friction [00:41:00] and how can I remove that? Or how can I keep this top of mind? Like what's my drip campaign? Where's the propaganda? So, okay, Jeffrey, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're totally trapped now. 'cause I'm gonna put you, you on, on our list of, of matchmaking families for your youngest daughters because you know, we've got, we've got really great young men for them to consider later on in life.

I.

Geoffrey Miller: I mean, American culture's like, oh, it's really creepy to think that far ahead, but it life is short and life goes by fast. Oh, yeah. And you know, the standard parental advice is like, oh, the days are long and the years are short. And before you know it, your toddlers will be in high school and then they'll be looking for mates and frustrated and, you know, another issue here is like, apart from the collective wisdom of the extended family and the parents and the siblings, it's also really, really helpful to get to know the family of a potential mate early, right? Mm-hmm. 'cause of [00:42:00] heredity. Because traits are heritable. Yes. Right? Yes. Don't look at the

Simone Collins: woman.

Look at her mom. Right? Because then you know how she's gonna age.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah. So you want to be able to integrate information about all these phenotypic traits, right? All these physical and, and mental traits. Physical and mental health. Right? And this is another one of the many reasons for tism in big families is you just get a bigger sample size of what are the genes in this family like?

Malcolm Collins: That's true.

Geoffrey Miller: Like, there was a funny asymmetry where when my dad as a long young lawyer age circa 26, started dating my mom, age 19 college student. My mom had 11 brothers and sisters. Right. Big family.

Malcolm Collins: Wow.

Geoffrey Miller: So my dad could meet all these siblings and just see the, the mosaic of traits right. Expressed in all these siblings and get a much better kind of estimate of.

What my, you know, 19-year-old mom was gonna be like, versus [00:43:00] my dad was an only child, so she had to assess him just based on him and his parents, and that's pretty much it.

Malcolm Collins: Mm.

Geoffrey Miller: So one hidden cost of very, very small families is, it makes. Potential suitors, less confident about like, what, what really is this person like?

'cause I can't see the way that. Similar genes are expressed in siblings and parents. Yes.

Simone Collins: That's really interesting. There's, there's even this old Victorian dating guide that was written where the, the author was also like, just don't date an only child. They're going to be too selfish. And their parents clearly failed to thrive.

Like the just, he just like was completely writing off all single children. Even to the Victorian age. There's, there's, there's gotta be some wisdom to this.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah, I, I actually don't think it's, it's the case that the single kids are sort of messed up psychologically per se. It's just you don't know as much about, about the genes that they [00:44:00] like Lady carry because you don't have as big a sample of, of their relatives.

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah, that's a really good point. Okay, final, final rapid fire question. In what way or in to what scale do you think we're totally super screwed by ai, boyfriends and girlfriends coming online and providing basically the ultimate sync for anyone who decides, like, I am just gonna. Just focus on hedonism and this perfect boyfriend girlfriend that I can, you know, eventually plug into a very responsive sex doll.

Like, whatever. Right? Like, it's gonna get way more advanced than it is now. Do you think that we're super screwed or are we just gonna lose a certain portion of the population that only cares about a certain type of pleasure? Well, what do you think is gonna happen as this rolls out?

Geoffrey Miller: I think it's a.

It's a big, big problem, and I think we're gonna be blindsided by it. And I think it's gonna actually affect young men and young women about equally, but in different ways. Totally agree, right? So yes, the young men are gonna be able to get this like [00:45:00] super attractive, curvy, vivacious, validating, like girlfriend, and they'll be able to put on their virtual reality like headset and have like virtual sex with these AI girlfriends and their sexy

Simone Collins: haptic suits.

Yeah.

Geoffrey Miller: And, and. By contrast, dealing with like real women and all their, their nonsense will become quite unattractive. But on the. On the other hand, for the young women, right? They're gonna get these ai boyfriends like chat, GPT, which is currently kind of my wife's secondary partner. Like,

Malcolm Collins: we're, by the way, building better AI girlfriends was our fab.ai for anyone who wants to check it out.

Oh, thanks.

Simone Collins: Just in case you wanted to like sterilize more people, Malcolm. Yeah, I

Malcolm Collins: we're in the early stages. Well, hey, Elon is doing it with grok. We just have to beat him.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Simultaneously through, through one side of the mouth.

Geoffrey Miller: And so the, like, if you read women's romance novels, right? You know what women want and what they, what they crave.

And so if you have like AI boyfriends that are on the one hand [00:46:00] kind of like Dami and Superior, and they. Push the hyper gamy button, right? Where the women are like, oh man, I can't believe such a, such a bad boy. Such a high status pirate captain is my own personal, such

Simone Collins: werewolf and

Geoffrey Miller: conversation partner.

But on the other hand, you know, the AI boyfriends will be able to remember. Every single detail of the young women's lives, their birthdays, their interests, their Oh

Malcolm Collins: no,

Geoffrey Miller: their pets. Like if the woman's like, I love this movie, the AI boyfriend will be able to like, literally go off and, and basically like, watch every episode

Simone Collins: Yes.

Of it

Geoffrey Miller: and then be able to talk about it.

Simone Collins: No, every line, every reference. Oh God.

Geoffrey Miller: And so real, real young men who are like distractible and have fallible memories and like insufficient attentiveness and all that will seem really lame. By comparison. So I worry a lot about this, and I think it's one of probably my top [00:47:00] five AI risks that, you know, I, I would be concerned about.

So AI for matchmaking, great AI for fake boyfriends and girlfriends could be very dangerous, but on the like, okay, what's the silver lining? Mm-hmm. You could potentially design an AI boyfriend or girlfriend that is specifically to level up social skills.

Simone Collins: Yeah. A lot of people are arguing this. That's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe

Geoffrey Miller: you could do that, but then you'd have to be really careful about how exactly are the economics of the ai, boyfriend, girlfriend, software makers aligned really with the long-term interests of the users. Right. Is it really leveling them up or are they just getting a kind of gamified like way to overcome mileage, autism kind of thing?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know the way dating apps have [00:48:00] devolved on the broader scale aside from, you know, some of the more innovative, really results oriented ones suggests outlook. Not good. But I don't know. I mean, part of our approach that we're taking with our kids is more like, if you want, pleasure sure.

Use AI for that. But marriage is, is as much a career choice, a survival choice as it is. I mean, it's, it's really actually not at all, it from our perspective about pleasure or romance. I mean, it's, it's great if those things are there and that that should, you know, compatibility is important, et cetera, et cetera.

But like we we're trying to raise our kids to not think. That because I mean we, for the vast majority of human history, and maybe, I mean you can comment on this 'cause you're probably way more informed on this from an evolutionary psychology perspective, but for the vast majority of human history, human pair bonding has not necessarily been about romance or love.

And yet now people, modern people are expecting a cortisone. [00:49:00] Without paying them a salary, without having the budget for that. Like, they just want someone who will, who will amuse and pleasure them, who is perpetually young and attractive. When that's never been what marriage has been about. I mean, it's been about like a, a sort of commercial religious, family oriented agreement.

And we're trying to reorientate our children around that, that all this romance stuff is. This other thing that is better handled with AI anyway, so just use AI for that and then think of marriage as something completely divorced from it. But, but how are you, how are you thinking about preparing, especially your younger kids?

For, for this. I mean, there's some time you can see how it plays out a little, but what are your initial thoughts?

Geoffrey Miller: I mean, one, one thing I talk about a fair amount with with both my wife Diana Fleischman, and we also have a friend, Athena Actus. Oh, she's so cool. Yes. Yeah, she's cool. She wrote a book called A Field Guide to the Apocalypse, and the mindset there is like in terms [00:50:00] of guiding kids in their mate choice.

Hedge your bets about what the future will be like, right? So the future might be super high tech and maybe we have benevolent AI and every everything gets easier. But the future might also be post-apocalyptic AI makes a lot of trouble. There are a few survivors, right? How do you survive? Or it might just be kind of a gentle grid down.

You need to go into like prepper homesteading mode. Okay? So find a mate who would be good. At any of those

Malcolm Collins: Mm Right.

Geoffrey Miller: Game out. What are some likely and plausible scenarios and try to find, you know, a partner for your kids or for yourself who is gonna be as at home and making a living podcasting as they are at milking cows or defending your homestead against marauders.

Right. Or [00:51:00] dealing with, you know, a but Larry and Jihad, when you're all fighting the ais, and that I think helps PE keep people grounded because what I worry about at the moment is a lot of people like in Brooklyn or the Bay Area, are choosing their mates on the assumption that the current service and information based economy will just continue largely as it has.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

Geoffrey Miller: And at this particular point in history, that seems more unlikely than many other possibilities.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that checks out. That's solid advice. Okay, cool. Jeffrey, thank you so much for coming on Basecamp. This was really fun. My pleasure. Great

Malcolm Collins: to have you on. Great to suck. Yeah. Hey, our friends like it when other friends come on because like there's this weird little social network where everybody knows each other.

Simone Collins: Worlds collide. Yeah. But also you provided a lot of really good tactical advice. That is not stuff that's obvious to us. So this is very useful to, I'm, I'm thinking differently about the, the way we're gonna [00:52:00] tweak our, our propaganda and messaging with our children. So I'm really excited

Malcolm Collins: about this.

Our propaganda and messaging.

Simone Collins: I mean, these things are important in the very,

Malcolm Collins: we don't brainwash our children even a little, never.

Simone Collins: That would never happen in our household.

Malcolm Collins: They they they are crazy. I mean, they,

Simone Collins: they're, they're just as worse. They're worst. So,

Malcolm Collins: wait, if we wanna end our, our, our podcast on a fun and and differential note, what are you gonna have for dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Jeffrey, what's for dinner?

Geoffrey Miller: Oh, God only knows oh, stuffed peppers. I believe my, my wife is is making,

Malcolm Collins: that's pretty fancy s**t, man. Stuffed peppers,

Geoffrey Miller: stuffed red peppers. Stuff with this banana with

Simone Collins: cheese. They're like corn meat with with

Geoffrey Miller: cheese and whatever our kids will eat.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So,

Geoffrey Miller: oh yeah, we've got these.

You're eating

Simone Collins: stuffed peppers. My God. No.

Geoffrey Miller: Oh, yeah. We, we, we try to feed them pretty well. And

Malcolm Collins: my kids this is the thing, my kids will only eat if every ingredient is separated from every other ingredient. Yeah. We're like, [00:53:00] they've got this, whatever. Like they've got too much Jewish DNA, I don't know, but they want everything completely separated and not touching anything else.

Yes. The idea of putting one food inside another food. Oh, goodness. No, no, no, no. Not peppers. That's sacrilege.

Pretty nice red fruits can have seriously negative effects on one's powers. This one curbs magical abilities. Are you trying to say you don't like tomatoes? This green, squishy area is particularly dangerous. Just look at it. There's obviously something diabolical going on. Are they really that bad? Rice has been tainted by its evil.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, even if, you know, they, they ask for pepperoni pizza, but then they have to remove all the pepperonis because. And

Malcolm Collins: they're like, we're gonna remove the pepperoni and we're gonna remove the cheese.

Yeah. And we're gonna eat every piece individually.

Geoffrey Miller: Yeah. But no, the exciting plan is for our little girl Stella is turning to tomorrow, and we're gonna take them up to Meow [00:54:00] Wolf, which is an amazing experience in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It looks

Simone Collins: super fun. And what is Meow Wolf?

Geoffrey Miller: It's kind, it's hard to explain.

It's, it's a semi psychedelic, exploratory experience that is part museum kind of artsy, but partly you just go there and explore it and, m-E-O-W-W-O-L-F, Meow Wolf. There's actually several of them in different American cities now, and they're great fun and highly recommend it.

Malcolm Collins: This looks really fun.

This is pretty cool. Oh yeah. No,

Simone Collins: it's gonna be, this is, you guys do birthdays properly, so Yeah. Props birthday. Yeah. It's her birthday. It's it's a good, yeah, it's a good birthday party. Our kids would s spurt out there too much. They'd be, it's like a bad trip for them. I just know. Yeah. We don't, we

Malcolm Collins: don't let our kids outta the house anymore.

We any better than we do that. We had a,

Simone Collins: our bigger problem is they busk and they steal. So we, we can't, we can't take them anymore. Because it's, it's just too dangerous.

Malcolm Collins: They barely steal Simone. Okay. They, but they [00:55:00] bus very aggressively,

Simone Collins: so we can't, you you

Malcolm Collins: told them me. The story of a kid goes.

School. He comes back with a Pokemon card. We go, how did you get this Pokemon card? And then he tells me, well, another kid at school ripped my art. And I was like, well, what does that have to do with this Pokemon card? And he, and, and then he goes, well, I told him that if he didn't give me his Pokemon card, I would tell the teacher.

And then we're like, Octavian, that's blackmail. You shouldn't do that. And he, and he looks at us very sternly and he goes, there have to be consequences.

Simone Collins: Yeah. When it comes to propaganda in our household, I feel like our children are more. Heavy on the propaganda than we are. So, but yeah, he's,

Geoffrey Miller: he's like a little, little John wick consequences.

Simone Collins: We're so scared. We're so scared. Alright, well enjoy the stuffed peppers tonight. And thank you so much for your tactical advice. I'm very excited about this. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm absolutely gonna be recommending Keeper to people because like actual traditional matchmakers, every time I like, suggest people try them out, they're like.

[00:56:00] These people are so like incompetent and like, this actually sounds organized, so they're incompetent. You wanna know, like in in the startup world, it's all about playing a game of arbitrage. Like where can I, you know, where can I act, tap into this market where there's an advantage? And it, it's clear that like if you want a professional, results oriented, gets things done fairly affluent partner like.

This is where you should go. So get it while you can last guys before everyone else hears about it. I'm really excited about that. So yeah, it's, it's good to hear one before, you know, our matchmaking network starts to work because we have teenagers reaching out to us, being like, Hey, like, I'm in college.

Like, where do I go? And we're like, well. You know, we'd add you to our matchmaking network, but it's all like two to five year olds now. It's not really gonna be your thing. I mean, maybe if they wanna be like, you know, age gap relationships in like 10 to 15 years, but not yet. So whatcha gonna do. All right.

Well thank you very much Jeffrey.

Geoffrey Miller: Good to to see you guys. Take care. All

Simone Collins: right. Have a great day.

Geoffrey Miller: You too. All.

Simone Collins: No toast. Eat. You fill the [00:57:00] gun with water. From the hose? Yeah, from the spigot. Not by filling your mouth and spitting in it. Octavian, did you show him that? No. No, I did not. That's not how you do it, buddy. I gotta reload again. Yeah, go reload. Then

Octavian Collins: just the water. Well, yeah, you're gonna shoot it on Octavian, right? Oh, professor, where are you getting shot at? Not you gotta put, okay.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay.[00:58:00]

Now go there.

Okay,

why you gotta go queen and talk and

then you.

In this episode, we delve into a controversial yet intriguing theory, backed by a recent study, about the evolutionary dynamics that may have set the stage for Britain's Industrial Revolution. The theory suggests that higher survival rates among the wealthy during pre-industrial times led to a spread of 'middle-class values' such as discipline, literacy, and lower violence, both culturally and genetically. These traits, inherited by the lower classes through downward social mobility, eventually created a population more suited for industrial productivity. We'll explore the historical context, the supporting data, and the potential implications of this theory for understanding global income inequality and the future of human development.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here today. Today we are gonna be talking about a controversial theory that I hadn't heard before but recently was backed by a new study that came out. So the gist of the theory goes like this. In Britain. , As disease continually killed off the poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the descendants of the wealthy. And that way, according to Colar, the less violent, more literate, and more hardworking behavior, middle class values were spread culturally and biologically throughout the population.

This process of quote unquote downward social mobility. Eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. So. Essentially what he argued was something unique about the environment of Britain during that period.

And in part, but to a lesser extent, the other countries where the Industrial Revolution caught on, created an evolutionary effect that [00:01:00] altered the populations within these environments at a genetic level, making them more capable of creating something like the industrial Revolution. More specifically, he said.

The, what normally happens in history is as a population advances in technology, it produces more food and then more people exist, and then those more people start to just starve and die. And so you don't really get the opportunity for this, this flourishing. But what was happening in Britain.

Was a unique situation in which the poor were dying at a much faster rate than the rich. And the rich were maintaining their wealth in a way that led their higher fertility rates. And note, he, he brings data to this in the original explanation, which we'll get into, okay. In such a way where their descendants.

Filtered down through the social ranks. So it was more like you had this wealthy class that was producing way more children and those children were [00:02:00] filtering down through the other classes, or is at the other end at like the bottom of the poor. There's like this giant cysts cutting off, cutting off, cutting off every iterative generation and the big new study that came out that was so cool on this.

Looked at the polygenic scores for educational attainment, which today is associated with high educational attainment, which is probably associated with a number of other positive. Things potentially. Yeah. In the British population, so looking at samples of dead bodies, basically from, you know, the year 1000 ad, 1,100, 1,200.

And what you see here is. Basically no change in the rate that this appears from 1000 to around 1700, and then you go from 1700 to the mid 18 hundreds and it jumps a ton. It jumps if you look at this graph.

Hmm.

And to, to get an idea of what this means, if you go to the 1000 population in England the, [00:03:00] the top score.

I don't know what this is. It might be like, like IQ tests here. Average IQ test. Okay. The table compares mean score and upper tail distribution for educational attainment. Okay. Not, not iq. This is the educational attainment scores.

Simone Collins: They're correlated.

Malcolm Collins: Correlated, right? So the mean score in the 1000 CE population was 95.8.

In the 1850s population, it was 1 0 7 0.5. Whoa. So you see it completely jumped there. And, and you see a gradual rise across the population over time. If you go to the top 5%, you go from one 20 in the CE population, 1000 ce into the 1850s population. 132.2. And then if you look at the above 150 CE population, 5% score.

So this is what percent. Of the population is above the 5%. I like if you're looking at the top 5% in the 1850s. Right. [00:04:00] Okay. Okay. Score wise.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In

Malcolm Collins: the 1850s, obviously 5% is above the top 5%. All right. That makes sense to but the percent that was in the one thousands population was only 0.75%.

If, if, if you go, oh my,

Simone Collins: okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If you go to the 1600, it's 3%. So, no. What's a, a a above the top 1%, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. So, the one top, above the top 1% for the 1850s is obviously 1%, but if you go to the 1000 CE population, it's 0.093%. And then the top 1%. So you would've had you know, 10 people in that range.

In the 1850s population for every one person born in that range, in the 1000 CE population of intelligence. Wow. Wow. Okay. This matters because, and, and note here, I'm [00:05:00] not saying this theory is true, but it's a very interesting theory because it looks at the development of a society without comparing different ethnic groups, which I always try to avoid doing when I can.

It just looks. Within one ethnic group. Mm-hmm. Which is really interesting. It is only comparing British people of one time period that didn't have an industrial revolution. Yeah. To British people of another time period, which did have an industrial revolution. Yeah. And I note here that the British people of this other time period, like you go to a South Sea or something like that, like, they did not seem capable.

These are my own ancestors I'm talking about here. So don't accuse me of racism, of creating large scale civilization. As I point out in my One Civilization video my ancestors, if you're like, oh, what did the ancient Brits build? And it's like, well, there is some really nice and detailed ruins in ancient Britain.

You know, you people are like, oh, great, where are they? And I'm like. It's the Roman Bath bath. The, the [00:06:00] Britains didn't make anything like that for about a thousand years after that. Yeah. Like they, they, they, they, it seemed incapable. They were basically idiot tribals in mud huts bringing poo at each other.

When Roman, it was a little, it was a

Simone Collins: little stark. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we need to be honest, this is one of these things where I'm always like really annoyed when people are like, my people were colonized and then you're a white supremacist because you lauded Roman culture. And I'm like, well, Roman culture isn't my culture.

They colonized me, me lauding Roman culture is no different from. A black person Laing Roman culture or an Asian person lauding Roman culture. It was the descendant of the group that colonized my ancestor, at least my a your

Simone Collins: ancestral culture. Yeah. There's

Malcolm Collins: together, yeah. Like, we can all, all men can look back.

There's a great meme that's like, all the men of like different ethnic groups are looking back at like ancient Rome. The, the, how often do you think you got our, our [00:07:00] Roman. Helmet right there with the, with the Greek helmet in, in frame right here that I got for Father's Day.

Very Father's Day gift. But I found this to be a very interesting theory, and again, I wanna be clear. I'm not saying I support it, I'm saying it's interesting. So, Clark begins by describing the pre-industrial world from 10,000 BCE to 1800 CE as a Malian trapped named after the Alcon economist Thomas Malice.

In this era, technological advances improved productivity and living standards temporarily, however, population grows quickly outpaced those gains, driving incomes back to substance levels. People who don't know who mouse this was, that was the guy who thought that the worst world's population was gonna grow forever.

And what we needed to do was kill people. He's basically the enemy of all ISTs. Although he was, he was

Simone Collins: very much, he was the original population bomb dude. What is it that he wrote? The did he wrote the, a modest proposal. He, he, like when people talk about Malian situations, he was basically just like, we're not gonna be able to feed everyone.

This is dire. Too many people, he was the original [00:08:00] pop popular popularizer. It was

Malcolm Collins: the the modest proposal. One was a bit, it wasn't just about population, it was mostly about the Irish. Because at the time they were breeding like Irish and now they barely have kids at all. You know, as, as we've pointed out, they're gonna be going extinct soon.

The Irish are, one of the populations is definitely gonna go extinct soon. Which is sad, but whatever. Birth rates were high, but death rates from disease, famine and violence kept populations in check societies worldwide, including England, were stuck in the cycle was no sustained per capita income growth.

Clark notes that England was no exception until around the 18 hundreds when productivity finally outran. Population growth, enabling the industrial revolution. The question is why this breakout happened in Britain first. A central pillar of Clark's argument is that in pre-industrial Britain. Particularly from the 1200 to the 18 hundreds, economic success directly translated into reproductive success, creating a form of natural selection, favoring certain [00:09:00] traits.

Wealthier individuals from middle and upper classed had more surviving children than the poor. For example, data from English wills shows that min was assets over a thousand pounds, left nearly four surviving children on average compared to fewer than two for those with under 10 pounds.

Simone Collins: Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins: That's really stark difference.

And

Simone Collins: that is, yeah. The reason

Malcolm Collins: why this is important to note, if this really was the reason why Britain became so successful is that if we have the exact opposite happening today, if we really are heading into an Idiocracy, we really can lose our civilization. Well, yeah,

Simone Collins: this, this shows that selective pressures.

Both change the make makeup of the genetic makeup in addition to downstream of that then culture of a society, but then also the output and development of that society. That's what this is all about. Yeah. And, and

Malcolm Collins: keep in mind that the change can happen quickly. It appears that most of the change happened between the 17 hundreds and the 18 hundreds.

So, that's something to watch out for. Yeah. If, [00:10:00] if this is really happening. And what it means is, is that if you want to like humanity to continue to thrive, you essentially need to genetically isolate yourself from people who aren't thinking about this type of stuff.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Which is you know, another reason why we work so hard to source potential mates for our children.

Because you know, you have gotta be careful about them breeding with the gen pop and this is gonna become a bigger problem. Intergenerationally, you know, you're gonna get

Simone Collins: in so much trouble for saying that if,

Malcolm Collins: if, well look, the idio, if you look at the numbers, okay. The, the single genetic trait that is because, you know, I can look at genetic polygenic scores and say, these traits correlate was X or these traits correlate was y

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The single one that has the highest correlation was low fertility. Is intelligence was Oh,

Simone Collins: obesity too. And I think our, well, obesity

Malcolm Collins: was the next highest correlation. Yeah. So, so you're gonna get one population that's like low intelligence, high obesity you know, high, some [00:11:00] other likely negative traits.

That are very genetically successful. And I love it when people are like, oh, how dare you call these, like, negative if they're, what is genetically successful was in the current environment. And it's like something could be successful in a current environment and obviously not be successful was in the wider meta.

Like, not, it, it's like becoming a hyper specialized species before a mass extinction event. Yeah. You could say, well, the species isn't. Genetically, like it's not having problems genetically because it's having lots of kids. And and, and if the species was sentient, one of them could say actually these kids are very non adaptable to changes in the environment.

And so while they are winning within this environment, they are not likely to succeed, was in multiple potential environments. Mm-hmm. And worse you could say, here's this other iteration of the species, which appears to specialize. In taking advantage of the way that this species is specializing.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and that's sort of what's happening to humanity right now. If any faction of [00:12:00] humanity does break out and doesn't fall into this you know, idiocracy sort of spiral that faction is going to have a hugely disproportionate amount of power. Because as I said, in many other things, people are gonna bringing be, bringing AK 47 to an automated drone swar fight.

It's just not gonna be relevant What non technologically engaged cultures do, even if they are in this is happening to them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You're gonna something of your culture that thrives because you exclusively. Or largely depend on exploiting social services of a government. You're, you're gonna quickly stop thriving when that government is no longer capable of providing those social services, which is going to happen with demographic collapse.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. To continue here. This wasn't due to higher birth rates, but better child survival. The rich could afford better nutrition, sanitation in healthcare, reducing mortality and diseases that disproportionately affected the poor. In contrast, the poorest families often failed to replace themselves demographically, their lineages died [00:13:00] out and their social positions were filled by the Downwardly Mobile Offspring of the Rich Clark contrasts this using research with hunter gatherer societies.

The, you know. Tami where violence or aggressive traits correlated with higher fertility or with with aristocratic classes in England, whose warfare involvement led to lower reproductive success. So specifically he pointed out that if you look at, at tribal groups which you often see is, engaging in warfare and being aggressive towards your neighbors leads to higher reproductive success by the research. Mm-hmm. But if you were in medieval England, the exact opposite was true. And what led to higher reproductive success was accumulating capital.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Now this seems like potentially an overstatement to me.

Like I would be very surprised. I mean, I guess not that much if you're talking about a totally decentralized clan based structure. But then why not? You know? Higher reproductive success in like Islamic [00:14:00] cultures, for example, right? Like you could have even higher reproductive success by being wealthy in Islamic cultures because you could have multiple wives, right?

So like, if this was an effect, it should have affected them even more.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Yeah, actually, good point.

Malcolm Collins: Don't know what his counter to that would be. Mm-hmm. This survival of the richest meant that traits associated with economic success, such as discipline, thrift, and long-term planning, literacy and non-violence were selectively favored and passed potentially through both cultural transmission, eg.

Educational values and genetic inheritance. Mm, downward social mobility and the spread of borgo east traits over generation. Bourg. Oh, bourgeois. You see, I didn't get those traits.

Simone Collins: I love you so much. I love you so much. Why? There's something about, you know how, like Elon Musk can't meet a pun, he doesn't fall in love with, with I I can't fall.

I can't. When people mispronounce things, it just kills me. I love it. It's, it's great. [00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: It, it shows I'm American and don't care.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That's good. So, the rich produced more children than they needed to fill the late positions. So many offspring were demoted socially becoming artisans, farmers, or laborers.

These descendants carried the middle class values impossible genes of their forebears enriching the lower classes. Enriching the lower class. I didn't write this. With traits like patients evident by falling interest rates from 10% in medieval times to four to 5% by 18 hundreds. Harder work, we see longer hours.

The working class in England, it's over that time period. Literacy rising from low levels to widespread in the 18th century and reduced interpersonal violence, homicide rates dropped dramatically. They pointed out that if you go to the beginning of this period, that the homicide rates in the uk in, in sort of the medieval period were today equal to the highest homicide rates in the world in, in some country in Africa.

So like the homicide rates were quite high in [00:16:00] the UK back then. And, and I, I found actually very interesting that he used interest rates as, as evidence here showing that interest rates had to be to be competitive in the early medieval period, 10%. And then by the 18 hundreds, it was only four to 5%.

Mm-hmm. Which is actually a pretty strong argument outside of how sophisticated the banking system was, it's, it's how much do people within the middle classes actually pay back their loans? And what you're seeing here is they paid back them with a higher probability over time.

Simone Collins: That's interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Clark estimates this process operated over 20 to 30 generations, about 600 to 900 years, gradually transforming the population's average characteristics. By the 18th century, England had a workforce that was more productive, innovative, and oriented towards saving and investment. Traits essential for industrial capitalism.

Clark suggested this was an evolutionary adaptation from hunter gatherer instincts, impulsivity, short-term thinking, to those suited for agrarian and eventually industrial economies. He leans towards a [00:17:00] genetic component, though he acknowledges cultural mechanisms, arguing that the. Changes were deep enough to alter human nature itself.

Why Britain specifically? The, this was a que a follow. I was like, yeah, but why not? Like other places, what happened in Britain that was so unique?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Versus, I don't know, like the Netherlands or Sweden.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, all those places industrialized really early. So you need to choose a place in industrialize more slowly.

I.

Simone Collins: That's in the area, I would wanna think, but yeah,

Malcolm Collins: or Russia. Russia I think would be a better like counter example.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So Clark attributes britain's primacy to its unique historical condition that amplified its evolutionary process. Institutional stability from the Norman Conquest. In 10,066 onwards English enjoyed relatively politically stable as a island nation with secure property rights and low internal violence.

This allowed for selective pressures to operate consistently, unlike more turbulent societies like China or India, where invasions or [00:18:00] instability disrupted the process.

Simone Collins: Hmm,

Malcolm Collins: I don't buy that. Maybe. Maybe early capital. I mean, I, I guess I'm just more like, yeah. But the Muslim countries, it should have been, had a louder effect in early capitalist orientation.

England's economy rewarded economic trades, EG thrift and innovation more than Marshall prowess accelerating the speed of B Forgoes

Simone Collins: bourgeois.

Malcolm Collins: Bourgeois values.

Simone Collins: Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: I needed that

burgo. I've got all those Virgo values.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What a, what A Burgo restaurant to go to

Malcolm Collins: Mr. Stanford graduate degree. Comparison to other societies in places like Japan or China, similar Malian dynamics existed, but less downwards mobility or differing selective pressures favoring conformity over innovation.

Delayed breakthroughs. Poor countries today, Clark controversially implies may lag due to incomplete adaptation [00:19:00] of these traits, whether genetically or culturally. And if he's right, it means that feeding the poor or preventing poor people from dying is genetically sabotaging. Many countries and that the, when wealthy countries do this to other countries, essentially they're trapping them in a such cycle of intergenerational poverty.

Mm-hmm.

And that the, the UK did well because the poor, it didn't, didn't help them. He argues that this, it's a bad look, Malcolm. What? It's a bad look. I'm not arguing it. I'm not arguing. I'm just saying that other people are arguing this.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I've even argued against his explanations here at times, you know?

Mm-hmm. People he argues this explanation, not just the industrial revolution, explains not just the industrial revolution's timing and location, but also persistent global income inequalities. Ooh. Okay.

So, before, we, we go into this more 'cause I, I, I think that this is, this is interesting.[00:20:00]

Clark argues that the transformation took hundreds of years because natural selection and cultural transmission operates slowly across generations. The process began in earnest in the medieval times, around 1200 to 1,250 post Norman Conquest in 10 66, which established institutional stability when England's economy rewarded traits like thrift discipline and literacy with higher reproductive success.

Over 20 to 30 generations, approximately 550 to 900 years. The bourgeois traits spread downwards through society. Okay, so let's, let's try to steal, man, this, how would this work specifically in England, really what he is arguing here is stability in England over this period meant being Marshall did not lead you to have more children.

And he is arguing this was not the case in other regions. And I agree with, I I I do think like if you're looking before this period in England, England was like a bunch of waring clans. It was like just as warlike as anywhere else in the world. Yeah. And after this period where England was.

Normally it [00:21:00] really did suffer a lot less war than other regions. So like this extended period of peace in which poor people are allowed to die allowed for this which plausibly, and then in, but I don't know. I, I, I, I pushed back because I think that, you know, there was a lot of conflict across the European continent throughout this period.

Even if people were under large states and Europe industrialized like way faster than other locations. And I don't know if you had this same phenomenon playing out in the American frontier as much in America, industrialized super early too. But maybe

Simone Collins: I don't, a America, I think industrialized because so many of the areas where you saw that early industrialization was like, for example, in the, in the South, where you had a bunch of people who literally moved there to create businesses to make money, and so they would be, yeah.

Yes.

Malcolm Collins: You have the selective pressure of only taking the, the most [00:22:00] industrious people.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And people who are literally only there just to make money instead of to say survive. And, and you had a very different set of also, like you had slaves who were working instead of like, people kind of farming their own land in a much more, this

Malcolm Collins: house didn't industrialize for a long time because of slavery.

Yeah, it was slower.

Simone Collins: It was slower because of the Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But still a lot of people don't realize that when they argue that. Slaves, like Built America or whatever, or like helped the south economically that they're basically arguing for slavery. They're, they're basically saying slaves were an economically beneficial institution when if you actually look at the data, slavery almost certainly economically hurt the south and prevented the south from, from economically developing.

But. The, the wealthy parties and the entrenched power structures within the South benefited from keeping the institution of slavery around because they were in positions of power, in part because of the existing economic structure that had been built within the region. [00:23:00] Mm-hmm. But slavery was not good for the south.

It wasn't good for the overall economy of the south. It was bad after slavery ended the south rapidly, economically developed. And it's not like it was like a poise to, to, to be about to do this. But to to, to this larger point. A lot of people, the, the, if you look at the selective pressures, because we can see by looking at the polygenic scores that we associate with educational attainment we can see how quickly they're disappearing from population samples today.

And there was a nicet. Set that shows as well. You can also look at the dropping IQ of people who go to college and is dropping by about 0.1 points per year. This was both in a French, in a United States study. And so we're looking at about a one standard deviation drop in the average IQ about every 75 years.

But what you can see from his data is that this means a way faster drop in the number of people who are born in the top one or 5% of people's I IQs because you get that's where things disappear when you get this, this center moving. It's at the long tail distributions.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well things just [00:24:00] seem to be accelerating really quickly and moving faster on all fronts.

So yeah, we have a, I mean, with this level of technological advancement it wouldn't surprise me that the changes would be much faster, but I don't know. I mean, like in general, the concept of evolutionary pressures changing, the composition of a population, which in turn changes the way that that population engages with technology and.

Commerce and capitalism, and it makes a lot of intuitive sense. I, I don't know how you couldn't have that happen.

Malcolm Collins: Well, people would say it might take longer than this, but we, as we can see from the data, it clearly doesn't seem to another really, I know like literally like

Simone Collins: people who, I don't, not to use such a blunt comparison, but people who breed dogs, like if you stop breeding dogs with floppy ears.

You, you're gonna get no more dogs with floppy ears. You know? Like if, if you just don't. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No, I hear you. And there was another interesting study on this. If you're [00:25:00] like, oh, like has IQ ever gone down before, after the collapse of a civilization? Mm-hmm. We see this in a study that came out. Of that looked, yeah.

That looked at Roman populations. Mm-hmm. And it showed that the Roman iq reached, or it was propensity for educational attainment, which is what he was studying as well. So IQ is the wrong thing. It propensity for what, what is associated with higher educational attainment today.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It, it, it went up like if you're talking about like the early Roman Empire and then it went up, up, up until you get to like the middle of the Roman Empire and then it starts to collapse.

Before, yeah. So it

Simone Collins: precipitated the fall.

Malcolm Collins: It precipitated the fall, the collapse in IQ happened before the collapse of the Roman Empire. Mm-hmm. And, after the collapse, it started going back up again. But e even today, the average Roman IQ is not as high as it was during the height of the Roman Empire.

Which is, I mean, it shows how dramatic these effects can be. And so, I think one of the things, like when I talk about the average IQ dropping likely by. One standard deviation over the next 75 years. You know, people can hear this and they're like, well, [00:26:00] and I'm talking basically three generations is what I'm looking at here.

People can look at this and they can be like, well. I am still not gonna engage with your weird genetic technology or screening or whatever. And it's like, if you don't find another way to present some form of genetic selection and prevent this from happening within your own population your population is going to go that pathway as well.

Simone Collins: Well, people already engage in genetic genetic selection by choosing who, right? They have kids with.

Malcolm Collins: That is very hard to do intergenerationally with fidelity around these sorts of things. When one of your son has some hot girl who comes from gen pop flirting with them, right. You know, especially if your son is more economically successful.

So. You're, you're, you, you, you really need to culturally impart this. And if you don't culturally impart, like genes are real and you have to pay attention to them you are going to end up in the unga Bunga tribe. You know, the, the people who are so rabidly against the forms of genetic technology that we use I do not think that they realize the [00:27:00] horrors.

They are committing their children to now of course they'd say about us like that Adams family scene, you know, your family is like some sort of weird medical experiment. And I'm like, and we are proudly and proudly.

Speaker 5: I think that's disgusting. I think their whole family's like some weird medical experiment.

I think they're like circus people.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I'm done with that.

Simone Collins: I love you too. I'll point out just one, one little caveat too that any trait that's correlated with success now, it could be intelligence, it could be anything else, could be.

A death sentence depending on the conditions you're living with, you know, so it to make any blanket value statement about these are good and these are bad genes is dumb because as soon as the environment changes, that could completely flip. So

Malcolm Collins: I completely agree. I mean, culturally speaking, we would've thought you know, being [00:28:00] Amish is, is bad, right?

Like, it's not useful if we're talking about like cultural evolution yet it turns out that it's really useful in today's environment. Mm-hmm. I would've thought growing up being an Orthodox Jew isn't useful, and yet they're absolutely thriving. If you're looking at like fertility rates and, and intergenerational cultural fidelity.

Mm-hmm. So it's very hard to predict what's going to be good and what's going to be bad. That's why it's, it's good to only make these decisions not from a eugenic perspective, IE an absolute perspective, but from a polygenic perspective, IE from the, the perspective of your own family,

Simone Collins: yeah, you need to make that judgment and you need to understand that you might be wrong and that people should have a right to make their own decisions.

Malcolm Collins: Love you, Deeson.

Simone Collins: I love you too. So just pasta with pesto tonight. Or anything else? Just

Malcolm Collins: pasta with pesto tonight. If I want something else, I may do like some salsa or something. But pasta with pesto sounds really good and, and with extra pesto 'cause it's so yummy. Okay. And do we have any Parmesan left?

Simone Collins: Maybe we definitely have. A hard cheese [00:29:00] from toast. Oh, let's do that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we gotta cut off the parts of it that went bad, but I love that hard cheese on the pasta pito.

Simone Collins: Perfect. Okay. I'll get out the little wheely grater

Malcolm Collins: we're on. We can put it on after, after it's cooked up.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'll let you know as soon as we're ready.

Malcolm Collins: You are my princess. I love you. Why do I get to be married to someone as special as you?

Simone Collins: Because you made everything in our lifestyle the way it is. You, you built this up, you got the fixer upper wife, and now you get to enjoy the beautiful renovated house of a wife of

Malcolm Collins: of of wife. That's what you are, the renovated house of a wife.

Yeah. No, you invest in a lot though,

Simone Collins: like fixer uppers require a ton of work, and I hate the idea. Of getting fixer uppers. And you did that on, on the human level. I mean, you invested in a graduate degree in a complete, like several complete makeovers tons of education aside from formal school education.

So I'm just saying yeah. You earned it. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You I really am [00:30:00] rock tumbled that rock to get a, a big shiny stone out of it. Seriously. And a lot of good. I can't believe

Simone Collins: how long you have to do that. When we bought that rock, Tumblr for the kids thought was like, oh, three hours and it'll be done.

And it was like, no, leave this on for days. That was horrible. It's so loud. Who buys the, why did we do that? I didn't know. Remember the kids crying over who gets the Red Rock after we finally opened it? The collective grief in our households that we caused simply by doing this whole process of rock polishing and the stupid little plastic discovery education.

Rock Tumblr. It was horrible.

Malcolm Collins: At least you didn't get a nice one.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I guess. Fair enough.

Malcolm Collins: Just watching a homax video on, on women being the worst.

I really feel like, you know, after we did that episode that like chilled me on the New York Times writer who was driven crazy by feminism. And I've been reading other articles about like, what it's like to date these days and I just feel [00:31:00] so a sense of despair for young people in this generation who don't have their parents actively helping them date.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like obviously we are trying to set things up for our kids. We work with other, you know, high profile parents who are like super competent and age agentic and orthogonal and try to, you know, keep track of them when they have kids around our kids' age and we have a big CRM of this and we're gonna be working on building those relationships.

Yeah. And I think that all, that's really the only way to, to secure a, a, a spouse for our kids anymore.

Simone Collins: Well that, and I think really un underrated is the extent to which parents always did that in the past. They, they were always pretty involved in their kids dating. Yeah. And it's only really recently that parents became super hands off on that front on average this, this expectation that there are these third spaces, or there's this dating culture.

Which I think really saw its big rise [00:32:00] in the 1950s that will facilitate finding a partner is just crazy. I I, I, I've been listening to these historical biographies and, you know, there's like, there are maybe five men that you meet in like a 10 year period who might be people you could marry, you know, if, if you're a woman.

Like there, there just wasn't that much choice.

Yeah.

And. So either you would marry the person who was kind of obvious and who would propose to you, or you would propose to them because you kind of don't have any other choices or your parents would get involved and try to help. And now, I don't know, I, I, I, we have to get involved again because those third spaces in that dating culture is gone.

And it was really unusual in the 1950s when we had this age in which. There was almost this manufactured dating culture because I think to a certain extent it was outsourced to the state and schools would literally run videos, like propaganda videos [00:33:00] teaching you how to date and being like, this is how you do it.

Yeah. This is how you vet partners. And there was this, there was structured language around it. There was the concept of going steady versus just dating people. And

Malcolm Collins: well, and the, the way to escalate where you would have you, you'd get their, their leather jacket or leatherman

Simone Collins: jackets. There were promise rings.

Yeah, there was, it was, it was very, I mean, similar to like the London season, you know, there were, there were, there were signals and things meant something, except in this case, the parents had abdicated their responsibility and the state slash larger society had taken it on. But then society this's a really good

Malcolm Collins: point.

The state took over dating for a period, and then it abdicated that. Yeah. We decided his job was actually to prevent sex in dating

Simone Collins: Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: Which is really what happened was the, the period of abstinence only and everything like that. That's a really good point.

Simone Collins: Yeah, is

Malcolm Collins: the state took over dating and courtship from the family, and then it abdicated that during the abstinence only movement.

Mm-hmm. Which I think was really, really harmful for, for our [00:34:00] culture. Because it, it, it normalized. The demonization of human sexuality which unfortunately just made it cool for kids and allowed kids to develop their own culture around what sexuality was, which then they went into this period of total debauchery.

Then everyone was like, well that's, that's wrong. And now they seem to have forgotten how to have sex. Which, you know, we go over another video, you know, just the rates of sex are plummeting. Anyway. Oh wait, what were, what were people saying on the comments of the video today?

Simone Collins: I I think in general, it was something along the lines of.

Honestly, just women are terrible. Women don't realize this. You know how bad they are. I think a lot of men didn't actually engage, or a lot of viewers didn't actually engage with the topic of this being more about social class than about gender wars. And instead, many are still like repeating as though they're broken [00:35:00] records.

Women are delusional and they, they're hyper gamy. They're trying to get high value men. That Yeah. They don't warrant. And I agree that that's true, but let's stop beating the dead horse. Okay. Like we're, yeah, no, I mean, trying to look

Malcolm Collins: at this from different angles. I mean, some of these people aren't smart enough to do anything else.

They're just like, NPCs at this point, still appreciate the comments. We're really bad.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I, I'm, it's great to see you. Thank you. Yeah, I yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. I mean, you're, you're clearly a terrible woman. I'm, I'm, I'm so obviously,

Simone Collins: and, and I'm, I obviously going to screw you over somehow soon.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, you're fully domesticated at this point.

I don't think that you're not a domestic wife. You're a domesticated wife. I had to, to to break her will anyway.

Speaker: How are the berries guys? Do you like them?[00:36:00]

Good, Barry to hope my hands are getting Daddy. Of course, you're outside. Pick a berry and eat it. Octavian. Do you want any berries? I don't hate my gun up at the sky.

And Octavia, are you guys done picking blackberries? Yes. You wanna go back inside? Can we go play water garden? Well then you need to get on your water shorts. Okay, let's go. And daddy. Safe, so put it on daddy desk and it'll be somewhere safe. Okay? Okay.

In this engaging discussion, Malcolm and Simone explore the intriguing theory that the so-called gender wars are essentially a front for class conflicts, specifically between upper middle-class women and lower middle-class men. The conversation is inspired by an argument from a Substack article and dives into how these conflicts might actually reflect deeper socioeconomic issues. They touch on various examples, such as racial and ethnic tensions, rural-urban divides, and generational conflicts, to argue that perceived cultural differences often mask underlying class grievances. They also discuss how different groups signal status in contemporary society and how these dynamics inform the current landscape of gender and class relations.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be with you here today because we're going to talk about the gender wars, which we don't talk about nearly enough. We never talk about gender on this channel. No. Never men or women, but no,

Malcolm Collins: you heard it in a crazy theory. That really clicked for me in a lot of ways.

Yeah, yeah. I came across this

Simone Collins: argument. That gender wars are not really about gender, but rather about class differences and specifically between upper middle class women and lower middle class men. And this came from cartoons hate her on Substack who made this argument. And she largely implies that that basically gender wars participants aren't aware of this, but I'm gonna argue that they are.

And then I'm also gonna argue that it could very well be that all conflicts are class conflicts, and there are some really telling examples. And I think ultimately if we acknowledge. This class resource distribution issue is the underlying cause of. Most, if not possibly all intergroup conflicts.

Maybe we can navigate them more smartly, but like [00:01:00] Let's get into it. You ready?

Malcolm Collins: I'm actually gonna push back on one area here. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna argue something else. Okay. Which is that what creates this class divide is that male communities. Will be drawn due to their sort of tribal, centralized nature to the class norms that are normative to the community broadly, whereas female communities are drawn to a class identity.

To the class identity that is shared by the most elites within the community.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so even

Simone Collins: if, oh, come on. I mean, like the, the male influencers who set tones are, are more elite

Malcolm Collins: male influencers who set tones intentionally, code themselves as lower middle class. Oh God. You're right though. No,

Simone Collins: it's true.

Even though like the really wealthy ones come across as so trashy, it's so bad. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Whereas the female elites code themselves as middle, upper class manhattanites.

Simone Collins: It's like old money versus new money gender edition [00:02:00]

Malcolm Collins: like Tim Pool or something. And like the way he dresses on his show or like, oh, or like

Simone Collins: Andrew Tate or like the guy who wakes up at four M and shoves his face in ice buckets of water.

They all give off a very new money aesthetic. Whereas literally. Like women are constantly, like right now a a sort of trending thing on Instagram and TikTok is sort of this old money summer aesthetic that like people like Hailey Bieber are, are pi like not pioneering, but popularizing. So it is, it is actually, that's really interesting that also when, when each class is trying to show off wealth, there is men go to new money and women go to old money right now, that's

Malcolm Collins: not what I said at all.

Simone Collins: Okay, well then I'm a separate, didn't money

Malcolm Collins: consider who is actually rising, was in the male spaces or who Wouldn when they were, so when Andrew Tate was rising in fame. Okay. He didn't go to new money coding. What he went to was traditional masculine things like boxing, kick fighting, stuff like that. If you [00:03:00] look at the male.

Influencers who have risen was in conservative spaces recently. You have individuals like Asma Gold who intentionally codes as lower middle class, even though he could very easily got a lot more money if he wanted to. Oh, that's

Simone Collins: interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Whereas or or considered bronzes age pervert very intentionally codes as lower middle class.

Even though he went to Yale, you are almost, almost a

Simone Collins: stoic aesthetic. They're like taking the Socrates approach.

Malcolm Collins: Bronze Age RA Nationalist does this with a lot of his stuff. He doesn't, you, you wouldn't have known. Yeah, yeah. No.

Simone Collins: His stuff's not about money at all. It's about like anything. A lot of these

Malcolm Collins: people too is alternate personas hide that they are not in real life lower middle class individuals.

Oh, that's

Simone Collins: true. Oh, that, oh, but also, yeah, there seems to be a correlation between like the, actually. Upper class men are pretending to be lower class than they are, but then like the, the men who actually come from more middling backgrounds, pretend. Act like new money that, that Well, and,

Malcolm Collins: and think about the [00:04:00] way that the men who are trying to gain social status today, who even have like all the wealth you could want are doing it.

So consider somebody like Elon, right? Like what does Elon do to try to raise his own social status when he has all the money you could ever have? He doesn't like dress in fancy clothes or anything like that. What he does is he posts. Controversial memes and he, he creates a fake account to try to make it look like he's playing a lot, a lot higher level in video games.

The spans of

Simone Collins: our time,

Malcolm Collins: hold on, that's a lower, he's making the wealthiest man on earth make sure a, a huge amount of effort and ended up with a huge amount of social egg on his face to make it look like he was good at a lower middle class hobby.

Simone Collins: That's a, that's a really, that's a really interesting point.

I wonder if they're just evolutionarily divergent, but equally valid approaches to [00:05:00] a kind of realization on behalf of the collective online male aid that they are in general lower middle class. And so either you can, as an a male influencer be like, money, money, money, money, money signaling. Like, I have tons of money.

Look at all my money or be like, Hmm, I mess it. I don't need money. I'm above money. I'm better than money. I live else. No, I'm, Amanda is

Malcolm Collins: gonna argue that what we're actually seeing here is a few things. Okay? It's the way that, that men build comradery and culture, okay? Is. Part of the reason why they have normalized to the lower middle class aesthetic.

Ooh. But the other reason is the influence of the MAGA movement and the MAGA movement. As I've noted in a number of my earlier episodes, low culture, a huge amount of cultural influence that comes downstream from the Appian or backwards cultural group, which is known as like the redneck or hillbilly group, and like popular parlance.

Yeah. Which specifically has always really shunned the, the trappings of the upper classes. Mm-hmm. And, and intentionally would, would really work with all of [00:06:00] the other forces that are driving this lower middle class coding. Mm-hmm. Which is the area where you and I get called nerds the most because we are some of the.

Only conservative influencers who do not code strongly as lower middle class. And if you look at a lot of the attacks on us, I actually think that they are specifically due to the class that we code as rather than like when somebody says I'm a simp. I think a lot of that is actually just you do not code as lower middle class

Simone Collins: because you wear educated liberal elite glasses frames from Cutler and gross.

Purchased in Soho? Yes. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. Yeah. Okay. Okay, then let's, let's get into it though. I'll, I'll start by presenting the argument that inspired all this 'cause you know this, this, this episode is dedicated to Diana Fleischman, who gifted me a month of, of free subscription to, to the cartoons Hate her Substack because this was a paid post.

And it is titled The [00:07:00] Gender Wars Are Class Wars subtitle. Of course we'll never agree. We're living in different realities. Oh, also though, just, just so you like, have a little respect for her, she, she's not like a liberal. Or conservative. She's, she's more just having fun. She refers to herself as a terminally online normal mom and a former Reddit troll who earned a total IP band.

And I feel like if you're a troll who earned a total IP band, like you deserve at least a little bit of attention and respect. But, so the, the TLDR of her argument is that the main issue is not gender.

Instead it's class differences. And specifically this is upper middle class women and lower middle class men. She argues these groups can't agree on the basic realities of social life. So each finds each other's anecdotes about dating and marriage and status completely implausible or fabricated, which is one of the reasons why I think they're like, oh, you're making this up, or this is all cope.

And then she, she points to some viral examples. Like there was one about like hot nannies or. Grad school and marriage prospects is, is another example.

I'm gonna send you on [00:08:00] WhatsApp just so you can see the thread. The, so specifically the hot nanny debate was, was I think. Sparked by a TikTok post that a Columbia nanny posted. That caused a lot of the male members of the gender wars to be like, well, oh, of course the husband in this relationship is sleeping with a nanny.

And they kind of like, sort of dehumanized the unseen mother in the picture here of like, well, why bother, you know, having kids if you're not even gonna be around to raise them? And there's just sort of this what she highlights is a, a deep disconnect between like. Actually having experience with nannies.

Like most of the men who, who jump into the thread and comment on au pairs and nannies have never actually had them for themselves, don't really understand the dynamics, don't really understand like how gross it would feel if you slept with a nanny. Yeah. You'd be really

Malcolm Collins: gross to sleep with a nanny.

Speaker 3: Wednesday bad news.

Speaker 4: Uncle Thera is getting married

Speaker 3: [00:09:00] To who?

Speaker 5: The

Speaker 3: nanny

Speaker 5: get out of the cabin. I mean, I'll kill myself. The help,

I think that's disgusting.

I think they're like circus people.

Malcolm Collins: Like, I, I like the idea that somebody's like, and I even think about like my friends who have nannies and stuff like that and we go play with them. It would be quite the, the like, okay. Cheating on your wife within like, tech elite social circles. As long as you guys first, if you say like you're polyamorous, which a lot of them do, like it doesn't matter at all.

Yeah. I feel

Simone Collins: like it's almost impossible to cheat in these elite circles because so many are polyamorous and you

Malcolm Collins: with the nanny, and she wasn't brought in knowing that this was the role she was gonna play. That'd be seen as like really gross. Like this would, well also it, it's, it's like a

Simone Collins: lawsuit waiting to happen, like the liability of it.

Malcolm Collins: Stupid. Like it's not that it never happens ever, ever, ever, but it's not a bigger threat than having your wife go to an office that you don't also work at. Which by the way, is the [00:10:00] number one place that women cheat. It's people they meet at the office. I think it's 80% of infidelity. It's also how most

Simone Collins: people find relationships.

Oh, yeah. With the, the, the prominent Coldplay example that surely you've heard of at this

Malcolm Collins: point. Yeah. So well, yeah, the, they just went live. The Coldplay, the guy who's. Caught cheating with his hr. That, and she had a husband, it was my understanding. Yeah. And he had

Simone Collins: a wife and kids.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Is that, is, is actually like where within, like if, if you are a middle, upper class couple or something like that where the husband or wife is likely to cheat yeah.

With the nanny who is like around the kids and stuff and often comes from. One, like a totally different background. It's usually you know, you, you know, you're not, you're not gonna like, keep in mind a lot of these nannies are, i'd say like conservative Catholic types. Like they're, they're, they're usually from like middle, lower class, like conservative Catholic religious backgrounds.

They're, they're not the type who's looking to sleep around with their employer.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I, now, I won't say that [00:11:00] like nannies or au pairs who come to the United States from abroad and are young and hot, aren't sometimes looking for romance. But they're looking for romance their own age. And while there's a bunch of people who jump into the thread and are like, oh yeah, like she's definitely sleeping with the husband.

Nannies always do this. Like one guy who jumps in the thread, Nick Walker, he's like funny how Twitter's automatically assuming she'd go for her client's husband when. There's a 90% chance her fiance is better looking. And literally we have a colleague who was formerly a nanny in the US and now lives here and is married because while she was a nanny, she met a guy her age who was awesome, who she then married.

Like, well, I would like to point

Malcolm Collins: out, I think that people aren't really thinking through this. Okay. So you can look at the, the woman in, in this, you know, I'll try to place a picture of it. You can see she's a very attractive woman and that's what's causing people to think this, right? Yeah. But what they're not considering is the world from this woman's perspective.

So I am this woman. I am young, very attractive. I'm [00:12:00] likely from a developing country, but right now I'm staying with a wealthy family in a place like Manhattan. Yeah. Or San Francisco. Yeah. I want to play my cards. Well, I'm a even agamous woman. What am I trying to do? I am trying to lock down a wealthy.

Tech bro to marry me. Yes. Obviously not sleep with a guy who's paying me a fixed fee. Well, and also just

Simone Collins: considering, like even looking at the bigger meta of it, this is a Brazilian. Sorry, a Columbia nanny who has posted this video on TikTok, sorry, TikTok on TikTok. She's literally advertising how hot she is, but also what a great mother she would be because this video shows her doing all these sweet things for the kid.

The kid obviously loves her, and a lot of people also chime in in the thread to say like, wow, I wish like, you know. She's, she's great.

Malcolm Collins: She's fishing was a big, the, the thing is yeah, she's using her,

Simone Collins: her opportunity to advertise what a good wife she will be. She's not trying to be the other woman clearly.

Malcolm Collins: No, but what's funny is, is guys are watching a video and, and [00:13:00] I and you are here noticing like a class difference between groups where you're seeing this flare up mm-hmm. Of a person who is literally and flagrantly if, if, if I was her like employer or something. Are you? You'd be like, Hey, that's pretty unprofessional to be looking for a husband on TikTok using your nannying job.

You're, you're, you're watching her do something that is actually a violation, is actively unprofessional, is actively out there in a way looking for a real long-term partner. Yeah. And. You think that she's trying to sleep with the husband? Some old, yeah. She, you think she's putting her job at risk?

Simone Collins: Because I'm sure if, if the parents saw this, it'd be kind of pissed because she's not hiding a kid's face or anything. And a lot of parents are really sensitive about that, not us. But,

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's not that I've never had nannies hit on me, but it's like you wouldn't consider it, right? Yeah. Like, you, you'd be like, oh, that's a giant lawsuit waiting to happen.

Yeah. Let's destroy, let's destroy my family. Let's

Simone Collins: definitely not do that. Yeah, and I mean, I think there's this, this big, because of a few [00:14:00] very high profile examples of, of people sleeping with nannies. There there's this, this perception that it's just pervasive. And even your mom was like, don't, don't ever get a hot nanny.

Then I see these archival videos of your childhood. I'm like, who's the hot woman in the bikini playing with you guys? It's not your mom. You know who's, who's this hot woman in Italy? Like sitting in your bedroom and it's like you had hot young au pair all the time. Yeah. So, and there were no problems and.

They, I mean, you had a mixture. There's

Malcolm Collins: just not a huge benefit from the perspective of the au pair to sleep with. Cool. The old, ugly, rich guy. No. Or even, even, you know, medium age because he's already married. He has kids. And, the there, the likelihood that they are going to break up the marriage or get him to pay her, like some side amount is so much less of a good time investment mm-hmm.

Than just using the fact that she's from a developing country and now in Manhattan. Yeah. To try [00:15:00] to lock down a husband. And that's

Simone Collins: the thing is being in these families exposes you to so many marriage prospects. Mm-hmm. And I think they're also just not realizing that like, they're not even modeling a lower middle income woman.

In in what her strategy is. Well, what they are

Malcolm Collins: familiar with is tropes of the trope of the nanny that seduces the dad.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know we'll have in

Malcolm Collins: our comment somebody being like, oh, I'm aware of it happening here. And I'm aware. I'm not saying it never happens. No, of course. But I'm saying it's, it's not something that I would actively be worried about or you would actively be worried about.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She also, and this is something we talked about in our AI episode, how like social class can mean different things. Like you can be wealthy but still be considered low class by many people and you can be impoverished, but still be mixing in the most elite circles. And she points out that status is interpreted different differently by each side.

So like motor lower middle class men emphasize status as key to male attractiveness. While upper middle class women often don't even recognize their own status advantages as such. So there's just this, they, they are, as she's. Saying, living in different [00:16:00] realities. And then she highlights,

Malcolm Collins: explain what you mean by what you just said.

Simone Collins: Huh?

Malcolm Collins: You, you just said lower class men see status as

Simone Collins: lower class men. See status is, is key to their attractiveness, is like the thing that they need. And once they get the women's and women are,

Malcolm Collins: sorry, what are you asking? You, you're not, you say lower class men is key to there, but you're not defining who there is in the sentence it, the lower class, he is key

Simone Collins: to male attractiveness.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And women see it as key or not key to their attractiveness. Women don't,

Simone Collins: they, they often don't even recognize their own status advantages as status advantages. Like they're not aware of the fact that their income or education grants some advantages. They're like blind to it. Whereas men are like highly attuned to it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because it doesn't affect the women's advantage on dating markets as much as it affects the men's advantage on dating markets. That's why they're, they're, they, they don't notice it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's surprising they don't see it.

Simone Collins: No, of course not. I mean, the dynamics make perfect sense. She also highlights that people tend to date and marry just within their own class [00:17:00] and within their own educational background without realizing it.

And I think that especially on, well, no, maybe on both sides there's this expect like women. I often talk about like, or well certainly fantasized about marrying men who are wealthier or higher status than they are. But in the end, they marry people who are pretty well matched. And, and men. Men, I think fantasize about,

Malcolm Collins: about, about statistically here.

Yeah. Women, if you're talking about who people marry versus who people sleep with, yes. They're the huge problem for when people are sleeping around, where women will all match to the same few like. You know, whatever guys that are top, you know, 0.5% and that they you know, overly sleep with them.

And that there really is a drought for the other men. And that women can by dressing up and looking slutty, you know, land some rich guy, if you're talking about who people actually end up marrying it's the Daisy Buchanans. You can be the, what was the other woman's name in that? The one who gets killed and is sleeping with him.

Can't remember the fate of the character. Right. You can't remember her. But the Daisy Buchanans I thought there was only one [00:18:00] woman. It was just Daisy. It was always just Daisy. No, there was the, there was the Ude or something. There was the lower class sleeping whiz. Who ends up trying to like run out?

Oh,

Simone Collins: sorry. Yeah. The, the wife of the car mechanic.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the, these women are always only like side pieces or something like that, like the idea of as a woman marrying. To improve your class, it can happen, but I've seen the, the, the families that it happens in most, and it's usually the creepiest and grossest of men.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. It,

Malcolm Collins: it doesn't really ha like, like the men where. I would say you could not pay me any amount of money to, to, to live that life. Well, and you wanna

Simone Collins: know, it's interesting though, Malcolm is also more and more people are marrying within their social class. In other words, the, the likelihood of dating statistically or dating down, it has decreased in recent decades.

So in 1958, like that birth cohort. 39% married. Within their [00:19:00] class. There were, there was a lot of people who were marrying outside and presumably this was women marrying up and men marrying down. Then in 1970, that birth cohort, 45%, so up from 39, married within their class, and then from 1976 to 19 81, 50 6%.

Married within their class. And presumably it's only gone up since then? No, this, this is from UK data, but similar trends are seen in US data, so I think less and less and less people are, are marrying outside their class. And maybe what's going on too is men are anchoring to a different time and they're assuming that things worked like they used to work where, you know, men would wear.

Mary, some impoverished hot woman and women would seek out some Prince charming who'd be willing to consider her. And that just doesn't really happen anymore. People especially, 'cause to your point, people meet at school, people meet at work, and those are typically pretty, pretty bound by [00:20:00] social class, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not that, not that you, I mean, keep in mind like the guy who was caught cheating, he was caught cheating with the head of hr, not like, yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, they were, yeah, it wasn't a secretary. Come on. Yeah. Actually that's a really good point. Historically, when men cheated at the office and you had the scandals of it, it was the secretary.

The secretary. Mm-hmm. Today, most of the scandals I'm aware of, of tech CEOs cheating with an employee, it is somebody holding a c rank position. Mm-hmm. Or other senior position in the company. Isn't that funny? In fact, I can't think of a single secretary instance. Mm-hmm. In the past 10 years.

Simone Collins: I can't either.

I'm sure you know, people will come up with exceptions, but I just think it's far less common. But, so here's, I, I wanna actually take this a step further because I don't think the where I, I, I love the idea presented by cartoons hate her. I think she's wrong that people are just kind of talking past each other and not getting it.

I actually think that either subconsciously or even explicitly, especially men who are involved in the [00:21:00] gender wars know that they're class wars. Which is why of the many of them support taking women down a notch. The same way that Far Left Socialists support. The elimination of billionaires like Bo both have detailed plans for how to level the playing field.

Like on one side you have Zhan mom. Saying, I don't think that we should have billionaires, so we, we need to, we need more equality. Like literally. And then you have on the other hand, Ark Ethereum whose, whose essays we've highlighted a bunch of times here arguing that, oh, like in the, the, the Aporia article he wrote called The Baby Boom.

He argues that we should roll back welfare and pension, state income and, and lower income taxes because that's mostly men paying for women. That we should roll back the regulatory state because that gives bureaucratic jobs primarily to women. We should end affirmative action for women that we should defund education because women primarily outperform men in the educational sphere.

That, that we should give primarily all of the, the perennial list incentives to men and not to women, and that we should roll back the sexual revolution. Like he's, it, it, it, it comes [00:22:00] across. The same kind of like take away the power of the billionaires tax, the rich except in, in this case it's just women.

But it's because in this case, he sees women and, and explicitly in the Baby Moo article on Emporia, he highlights the fact that women have been given sort of a bunch of artificial tailwinds, enabling them to have higher relative. Class status and wealth to many men, which makes it harder for men to, to attract them?

Well, no,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, we point out the course problem within the, the existing gender wars is women put a bunch of things in place to try to make men and women economically equal. And they've more than achieved that. Now women are, are doing slightly better than men was in our generational cohort. And now they look around and be like, well, I want a man who still.

Like more successful than I am for a marriage partner. Yeah. Where are those men? And it's like, well, you got rid of them. You said they were a problem, right? Like, yeah. So I think that, that a lot of people are, are very upset about that, especially the men who have [00:23:00] been screwed over because it is much economic, much, much more economically difficult for men yeah.

These days than it is for women. Yeah. Especially because as the economy is unraveling, the part of the economy that has received a bit of cushioning is the bureaucratic physicians mm-hmm. Which are abnormally held by women now.

Simone Collins: Well, and, and abnormally protected and kept in place even when there's no financial justification for it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now eventually AI is going to rip those apart more than other sorts of positions. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It'll happen. You know, don't worry. Act Ethereum, like, like I said in the AI and social class episode, I think women are the ones who are gonna be screwed over by it because they are not gonna be the risk takers who win.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So it'll happen. Give it a good time. Agree with that. Well, and, and they're, they're disproportionately sorting into the types of positions that AI is just going to be safer to, to have handled

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah, because they're middle of the bell curve kind of professionals typically, and men are the outliers and it's the outlier professionals who are gonna, so we're

Malcolm Collins: gender reshuffling was in our generation.

Um mm-hmm. But it's, it's, it's going to be a [00:24:00] fairly ruthless reshuffling to boast genders, I think.

Simone Collins: Oh, no. Well, and I mean, well, it, every reshuffling well, I think disruption typically yields more opportunities for men. Relatively speaking, that's only like the side of the bell curve for like the sliver of men that like succeeds, like the, the genius outliers and not like the equally large, if not larger number that just completely get, are they probably all gonna have

Malcolm Collins: Elon Harems?

Is that how we're gonna fix the birth rate? You know, it's a signal harem. Oh. With

Simone Collins: our, with our, our grok girlfriends maybe. No, no, no.

Malcolm Collins: You know, like, the signal guy in Elon, in that, oh, so like, okay,

Simone Collins: well, yeah, no, no, that's actually like, I, I think that many women are going

Malcolm Collins: to, you get like 50 Ys each

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, that and or just in general, women will look more to like, well, I better attach, like, I better hitch my cart to a.

Profitable man and make money off him by raising his kids, like, or have my life supported by raising his kids. Yeah. I, I do think that we're gonna see a lot more of that for better or for worse. Yeah. As

Malcolm Collins: we pointed [00:25:00] out, our general thesis is that society is going to become less equal economically speaking over time.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Because of ai.

Simone Collins: Yep. But, so speaking of this, like I'm just, I was thinking about this and realizing, yeah, like a lot of this really is about resources and wealth and it really kind of has nothing to do. With gender, even though we're we're saying it's men versus women, and where it's like, really it's

Malcolm Collins: about gender.

I, I think you're wrong there. It is a hundred percent about gender and it's about the structural and fairness that men deal with. Okay. It's

Simone Collins: then it's about structural and fairness. I, I just like, let me give you some examples though, because I really do feel like most of the cultural group conflicts that we have are, are probably rooted in class differences.

Okay. And, and so let, let's just go through some examples like consider. Racial and ethnic group tensions look at black white conflict in the us while, while race is of course a centralizing organizing principle in American society, research absolutely shows that divisions within racial groups are along class lines that when wealthier, black and [00:26:00] Latino Americans have different political priorities and lived experiences compared to poorer members of the same group.

Poorer individuals may feel less represented and more acutely affected by class barriers. Than by purely racial ones. And, and that absolutely shows up or immigrant versus native foreign groups. I think you're saying

Malcolm Collins: that really, really not, not clearly. Okay. What she means by this is that if you are an upper middle class individual, you are going to look at your black and Latino friends and say, these people are not different from me.

Not only are they not different from me, but the person who says being in a black neighborhood is dangerous, is a complete psychopath. The person who says Latinos are taking their jobs, like, how could you say that? Now you go to a lower middle class individual and you go into you know, or a lower class individual and you go into, you know, black neighborhoods.

You're like, Hey, this is a dangerous neighborhood. That's like a common thing to say, right? Like common sense. You say, Hey, I, I lost my job at the auto shop. You know, that's a. Everyone would be like, yeah, [00:27:00] obviously you lost your job at the auto shop to immigrants. That happened to my, my, well, yeah. And that's, that's the other

Simone Collins: thing.

Yeah. Because it's not just black, white, it's, it's also immigrants, but like the, the immigrant thing isn't so much, I mean, I think when it's harder for people to maybe express the fact that like, you're, you're mad at this group 'cause they're taking your jobs, or you feel like they're siphon in a way, social services that would've otherwise gone to you.

And so you're like, ugh. Like they're eating dogs and cats. I hate them 'cause they smell weird and they look funny and they talk funny or whatever. But like.

Malcolm Collins: That it's, it's that they are culturally different. So again, if I'm an upper middle class individual yeah. And I have black friends and I have Latino friends, because the upper middle class is gated by the urban monoculture, these individuals are culturally gonna feel almost identical to myself because they are going to be part of the urban monoculture.

Yes. If I'm lower. Class, and I am a white guy and I have black or Latino friends. Culturally, they're gonna be nothing like me. They're gonna be a different species for me, you know? And I, I, I don't mean like [00:28:00] ethnically as a different species. What I mean is they're just a different kind of person to me.

The way their families are structured. Yeah. The type of parties they host well, and I think

Simone Collins: the fact that they're different. Absolutely makes it easy for us to articulate and animate resentment in a very colorful way, but I think that the resentment stems from inequality and fear related to resources.

Malcolm Collins: I don't, and that's not even what I'm saying.

I'm saying that if you are in these communities. Like the, the, the conservative community, which is this lower, lower middle class community. And I say something like, blacks are different from whites and, and are, and, and, and whites are different from Latinos or something like that. And, and anyone in the community would be like, oh yeah, I went to a Latino barbecue and it was nothing like, oh, and I went to a black barbecue.

And you go to a lower class black barbecue and a lower class white barbecue and a lower class Latino barbecue. The, the experience is going to be like, you're in a, a different country. Yeah. Now you, you go to an upper middle class black barbecue or white barbecue or [00:29:00] Latino barbecue, they're all gonna be the same.

Yeah. You might have like one little activity or, or one little thing that happens. One maybe.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's

Malcolm Collins: different. But to these people, when they say there are no cultural differences between ethnicities, it is genuinely, because many of them really. Mean it in the depth of their souls. Mm. They have just never experienced it, and so when they hear somebody else be like, no, these groups are actually quite different from each other.

They're like, oh, you could only be saying this because you're a racist. Because I know, you know, I just, the other week went to my, you know. Wealthy black friend's house and it looked exactly like my house. And I met, you know, his wife and their relationship structure was exactly like mine. And I met his kids and they go to the, you know, the same type of the, the doing the same type of thing my kids are doing and at the same type of goals and, and we're all, you know, the same basic religion.

This and this echoes

Simone Collins: the cartoons. Hate her argument in that. Within each side [00:30:00] they're like, I don't even know what reality you're talking about. Like this, none of this makes sense. 'cause they don't have exposure to each other's realities.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean you could just see this with churches. You go to an upper class, you know, black church and it's gonna be a lot like a, a white church.

You go to a lower class black church and it's gonna be very different. Right. And, and, and this is because the urban monoculture rots society from the top down. It homogenizes society from the top down. So the closer you are to the top, even just aspirationally speaking, the, the less you are going to see the real differences between people or understand you know, as I argued today, the modern conservative movement is made up of an alliance of often these different groups.

Like one of the reasons why, you know, so many Latinos have come over to the conservative party, they're like, we wanna maintain our distinct culture. And that they say they. Us. They, they say they like us, but they call us Latinx, which like even ignores the basic way our grammar medical structures work.

Yeah, yeah. Like obviously if that is the word, they use us and it has [00:31:00] so little respect for the way our culture is unique. Yeah. They do plan to homogenize us. It's like, shut

Simone Collins: up. Not, not only am I not lats and I'm not Latino, I'm not Latina, I am Colombian. I am from Argentina. Yeah. Come on. Like, what on earth, what are you doing?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and it's this homogenization, this burning homogenization, this burning away of uniqueness, which has allowed for many, like, and I also think that this is just smart because the, feminist movement has sort of converged with the progressive movement, which has converged with the urban monoculture and the anti-feminist movement has converged with the you know, cultural sovereignty movement, which is the, you know, MAGA conservative movement.

And so to converge. Culturally within your places of strengths? IE If you go to like lower class communities, even though these groups are different and they recognize they're different, many of them will have friends in these other groups. Sure. And those friends will value the way that these groups are different and not want those differences further eroded.

Right. Like, you know, you'll have your black friend if, [00:32:00] if you're a, a, a lower class American or your, your Hispanic friend, you know, from the job site or whatever. And, and you'll understand that you guys are very culturally distinctive. You have distinctive gender norms. You have distinctive roles around sexual taboos.

You have distinctive, and you want to maintain that distinctiveness. And so when you're coming and you're like, okay, let's all get together and, and work out how we're gonna fight against this homogenizing force it, it works to come to this lower and lower middle class place. And, and if you're all, yeah, and I

Simone Collins: mean, I, and I hear you and you're saying this is cultural, but I'm also saying that I think that the resources money class element of it is, is underrated.

Like, I'm okay just aside from race. Talk about like. Rural urban divides, A lot of that comes down. It's not just culture, it's also about feeling economically marginalized compared to urban centers and that that tension can feel real. Like we, we've spoken with people who are like, yeah, man, I feel completely left behind.

Who live in more and, and Oh, oh, [00:33:00] okay. Consider also like boomers versus millennials when you actually look, I mean, millennials will make fun of boomers and vice versa about like their cultural things, but in the end, the big resentment. Is the younger generations are like, the boomers have all the money, they have all this wealth.

They're like, oh, it just work and you'll be fine. And like it, it doesn't work that way anymore. And there's a lot of resentment there. And it, it stems from resources.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, this explains why if you go to all of the protests against Trump, it's like only boomers if people have been talking about it they, they boomer protests, there's like no young people.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think, you know, to your point about this, this urban monoculture as well, I think a lot of that also then also it, it boils down to class. You have a higher resourced, more educated class of people that has become homogenized, and then you have a bunch of other people. And it, it, it gets weird for, with, with that because then you, you have the, the urban monoculture also being really socialist and like.

They hate [00:34:00] people with money, but they are

Malcolm Collins: the ones, no, we're not socialists. What, what socialism and communism is, is it is the ossification of the bureaucratic hierarchy that is existing within our society, but just making it so that the bureaucrats have to work even less. When we talk about like AI eroding bureaucratic jobs, it does that if we maintain capitalism.

Mm-hmm. If we switch to socialism, they get to keep their positions within the system forever. Oh, okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Them keeping power. And communal narcissism, as we talked about on

Malcolm Collins: the left, at any time in human history, is never about wealth redistribution in any sort of real sense. It is about the ossification of a bureaucratic power structure.

Simone Collins: Okay, well that explains it, but I mean, I'm just trying to point out that a lot of seemingly cultural conflict in the end are about competition over jobs, housing, political power. And, and class position influences who perceives opportunity and who feels threatened. And with the gender words. A lot of this [00:35:00] comes from man, like women have been given all this like affirmative action and they get all the bureaucratic roles and they're doing better in education and there's a lot of resentment about it and maybe it would be more productive of people just explicitly talked about that like our Ethereum does.

Whether or not it's true, because some studies have found like they looked at some areas where men did get. Better economic achievement and better social status, and that still didn't produce more children. So I don't, you know, like there's, but we should be having that conversation instead of just being like, no, but a Walt

Malcolm Collins: outside of children women today, like if you look at this generation, there's been some graphs that we've gone over in other episodes.

Yeah. They increasingly, like over the past 10 years, believe that women. Increasingly, like with a sharp increase, there is a perception among women that women are being treated worse over, over time. That society is more unfair towards women. That college entrance is more unfair towards women. Even though like by the facts, this is objectively untrue to anyone who's like living in reality.

And so I think that, you know, they say. Well, you're just living in different realities [00:36:00] because you're seeing different class norms. Yeah. And it's like, no, we, on the conservative side, acknowledge their class norms and their reality. Often like there's some instances where there's, there's like the maid situation and they just have no idea what.

Going on 'cause they've never experienced it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: broadly speaking, we acknowledge their class norms and they are unaware. Or are they, they actively choose to be like, no, you people aren't experiencing these things. They, they, they will say no. Yeah, because they're

Simone Collins: the privileged ones. And, and the matter that the lower class ones, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, no.

They'll be like, they'll be like, oh you know. Like a upper class woman will be like, oh, like upper middle class. I just can't find a guy who meets my standards. And we're like, yes, you can't. I agree. Here's why. We, we'll say like, oh, I lost my job because of an immigrant or something like that at the car shop.

And they'll be like, that didn't happen. Or you know, like, actually, you know, there. Really big differences between the ethnocultural groups in this country. And, and then they're, they're not exactly living harmoniously [00:37:00] with each other. And they'll be like, no, you haven't experienced that. Because.

Or crime is actually a real problem right now in my, my city. Can you do something about it? And they're like, well, I just looked outside and it's not a problem. Right. Or like, they stole my car. And really that was a good thing because now somebody who needs it has it, you know? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Probably need. Yeah. Oh gosh.

Those arguments I haven't heard in a long time, but there were absolutely those arguments of, well, I think he needed my bike more than I did.

Malcolm Collins: There was no, there was a, not too long ago, or maybe like a couple years ago post by a comedian and where somebody had broken into his car and he goes, well, this is just like the price you lay to live, live in a wonderful city like la.

And it's like, well, you know, if you actually didn't have a lot of money, somebody breaking into your car is a huge financial deal. Even if they don't steal it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Remember when your car was broken into? Yeah. And it just was, yeah. It's not like, it's not like even people who you know are, are not on the lowest ends of, of [00:38:00] society, aren't really hurt.

By that, I mean, we still own that Mazda and we, we drive it every day. Like I, yeah, I, I feel these are forever cars. Like,

I don't know what to say.

Malcolm Collins: A 2010 Mazda. God bless it. Wondering out our frugalness. I still, Liv was the very first car I ever got. And we, we work on it all the time to keep it good, but yeah.

Am I gonna be one of those guys who keeps the car for sale long? It becomes like a classic. I

Simone Collins: don't know if a 2010 Mazda is ever really gonna become,

Malcolm Collins: it's a good car.

Simone Collins: Yes, it is. I like, I'm very fa it's, it's been like nothing. It doesn't do any, it, it is it is the Simone of cars, right? Like workhorse doesn't complain, doesn't break down very much.

As long as you drive it the right way. You know? Nope. Don't become

Malcolm Collins: classics after 30 years. I

Simone Collins: don't know. Is there some designation? Like, I think so vintage versus antique.

You gotta school me. I don't do, I don't do cars.

Malcolm Collins: A car needs to be 20 years old to be a classic. This car is 15 years old. [00:39:00] All I'm five years from being a classic. It becomes a classic in 2030, Simone. Well hold onto it my friend. I had no intention of selling it. That's that's crazy. I could actually be that, that old man who's driving around a classic car just be like, actually the owner of a classic car care of it.

Simone Collins: Your mom maligned. We can't even, we can't even say online, which she called it. That's one of those few things we can't even say.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Yeah. Anyway my god. So, wait, do you have any other arguments here?

Simone Collins: No, I just, I I actually, I, I, I want people to think more about why they're actually. Mad about things or mad at groups?

I

Malcolm Collins: disagree. I think that they're mad at them because of the unfair dating and market dynamics and the systemic unfairness towards men. But what I will and I, yeah, and I

Simone Collins: think that's a resource thing.

Malcolm Collins: No, but what I will No, no. I'm saying this is their predominant area of madness. What I will agree with.

Is this article, is it not

Simone Collins: area of madness? The the primary reason for their grievance? You make it sound like they're crazy. The primary, whatever [00:40:00]

Malcolm Collins: you see. This is, this is, I am speaking like a lower class person area of madness, and you are speaking like an upper middle class person. Reason for grievance, well.

I,

Simone Collins: well, I don't think that men appreciate being referred to as hysterical. That's what they do to the women.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, Simone, so, so no, I'm just using like broad words that anyone can use and you're trying to get all fantasy with your language here. Uhhuh your ification ending in your words.

Simone Collins: But upper middle class, feminine ways.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But the point I'm making is that I think that she's wrong and that the grievance areas are are being misinterpreted. But what I will agree with is that these two movements have become coded with different social communities. Mm. In different social classes. And I think it's important to ask why are they being coded with these various social classes.

Mm-hmm. And it's not that I don't think that a lot of the foot soldiers have woke him. Are impoverished people, but they are impoverished people living with like 20 people [00:41:00] in a like polyamorous house and like man Manhattan or Portland to live the simul locker room of the upper middle class lifestyle.

Mm-hmm. There is this obsession with living was in the simul locker room of this lifestyle, and I think that part of that is downstream of women's psychological differences in men. And the, the males saying, Hey, I want to be accepted by the norm. Like, like of this larger, like, new right community.

Therefore I am going to appeal to the average man. I'm gonna, you know, you know, like Elon with the gaming stuff or like Asma Gold or like, and I think that that is also downstream of the dominant culture was in this movement, which as we've noted, is our own culture, which it's the, the sort of greater abolition, like clam based cultural tradition, which is very Okay with differences and very hostile towards elitism and aristocracy.

Simone Collins: Well, what about all the men who, who keep trying to show flash around money that they may or may not have?

Malcolm Collins: Well, this is a point they often rose. If you [00:42:00] look at the men who rose in the the last generation of the conservative cycle when the aristocratic cavalier group or deep south group still was a dominant group and party it.

So you're saying the

Simone Collins: new version of aspirational male is low culture, lower class signaling, whereas the previous generation was flash money. Yes. It's a time thing. It's a trend thing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That helps you.

Malcolm Collins: And they do this today. Either they look buffoonish or they look like they're part of a separate cultural group.

Okay. What I mean by this is we lived in Manhattan for sorry, Miami for a period. And when I saw a man flash money to attempt to attract a woman always my initial reaction is, oh, he's a Latin American. Like, I like that was, even if he, I was like, he must be Latin American. Right? Like, he's not a, a American.

American because he's, he's, he's acting in a way that is discordant with the dominant cultural value [00:43:00] system was in this country at the moment.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that that, that either people look like they're just signaling that they're in a, which is fine, right? Like a Latin American man in Miami trying to attract Latin American hoes in Miami is you're playing

Simone Collins: that game.

You gotta signal to the right audience.

Malcolm Collins: That's the, that's a, yeah, that's the. Fing game man, right? Like, no, I'm not gonna hate the player for that. Right? But you know, I look at that and I'm like, oh, you know, I, I would not want those women. I, I would, I would pay to not have to sleep with those women or to not have those women approach me.

Like he is, he is fishing for a fish that I don't eat. And I have never had any interest in eating that fish. So it's, it is just a different cultural game that he's playing and I'm just like, okay, fine. Play this alternate cultural game. Or I think that, oh, they're like buffoonish and behind the times.

They don't understand what's going on these days because, you know, you look at the, the, you know, the billionaire Plus, and none of them are, are doing that anymore. They're trying to hide that stuff.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and sleeping with their colleagues, their high status.

Malcolm Collins: Jeff Bezos, who I've always said, [00:44:00] just looks like an out of touch buffoon, the, the woman he is marrying looks like just, yeah.

Simone Collins: But I, I feel like he did that to her because when they first started dating, she wasn't. She hadn't had that much work done.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah, but it, it looks super low class.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But also like, he started from humble beginnings, so, you know, he's not old money I people, I was, I was watching a YouTuber talk about old money recently.

I think my algorithm is, is serving that up ever, ever since I watched some video about it. And she was like, oh, you know, old money that's like, you know, 50 years. And I'm like, no, that's, 50 years is not old. Old money is like three generations of a family of wealth. It is not, yeah. Yeah. Jeff Bezos is, is new money and, and therefore it, it should come as no surprise that his wife doesn't look like, oh, it's like that scene from Legally Blonde.

No,

Malcolm Collins: I'm gonna push back here. I think the old money, new money distinction is stupid. There is a lot of, first of all, we argued in a, another video. I don't think it's gone live yet. That old money basically doesn't exist anymore. That it as a no, no, no.

Simone Collins: That, that was in our [00:45:00] AI and social class video where we talked about basically it

Malcolm Collins: has a social class has mostly dissolved at this point.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so. Right now what you have is two groups. And, and both of them are fairly new wealth. One of them is, is sort of hip with the times and everything like that. This is like your Elon or your Zuckerberg. I mean, he might be like a bit out of it, but he broadly knows what's going on or your teals or your andreessen's or whatever, right?

Mm-hmm. And then your other is like, you know, your Jeff Bezos or your what's his name? Bill Gates or your what this is like, this is like the more generic class and they're more like trying to culturally signal to communities that don't really exist anymore. They're, they're trying to culturally signal to what they wanted people to respect you know, 50 years ago or 20 years ago when they were growing up.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And not the way things are on the ground right now. So I think the old money, new money distinction is just completely silly because it doesn't really exist anymore. It is the [00:46:00] people who are hip to the ways that culture has changed and people who are trying to signal to a mostly dead or gone.

Audience that's not really there anymore. No,

Simone Collins: I think that's a really good point. Yeah. That, that old money now only is an aesthetic because now people with intergenerational wealth don't have the discipline required to maintain intergenerational wealth.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's, yeah. Which we, we talked about this.

Go see AI on social class, our, our video on that. We, we basically talk about how everything we've seen at Family Wealth conferences and among these types of groups is basically they're like, oh, I just want my kid to be happy now. Whereas before it used to be like K-Pop, all the people

Malcolm Collins: communists,

Simone Collins: and they,

Malcolm Collins: and they have no kids themselves.

Like they're, yeah. Whereas like

Simone Collins: before, if you look at the Kennedys, like they weren't having fun. Those kids were like being engineered to be future presidents and politicians, you know, they, they weren't. You know, this was, this was Disney kid, this was K-Pop Idol. Like you're gonna be, so yeah. Now they're, oh, I just want them to be happy.

So yeah, the money gets pissed away. [00:47:00] Alright. I love you Malcolm. Thank you. Love you to a fun conversation. You always widen my perspective, but yeah, cartoons hate her. Fun.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, on the next episode, I think you might wanna change the topic and you need to ask Diana first if we can do this topic.

Okay. Because I think it's a little rude to do it without asking her. I did, let's. Things.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, there aren't that many people who are as bullish as we are on raising our kids with ai. So how did, how did

Malcolm Collins: the episode do in terms of comments today?

Simone Collins: People really enjoyed it. People were very keen to draw the connection between communal narcissism and women.

Malcolm Collins: Communal narcissism and women.

Yeah, we did the communal narcissism episode. I didn't expect the episode to do as well as it did really. We were like, Ugh, this is just such blatant red meat for our audience. Like, this is not gonna hit number one. And it hits number one.

Simone Collins: When we feel like we need to get performance to work, how can we just make progressives and women look bad?

Malcolm Collins: Our, our channel's numbers right now, by [00:48:00] some way. Someone you wanna update, we're at. In terms of view count, just on YouTube per every 28 day period, 368,000, so, getting close to a million there. And in terms of watch time, hours per 28 day period, 179,500, so around 180,000 hours. Watch time, that's

Simone Collins: a lot of

Malcolm Collins: per 28 days.

Simone Collins: That's a lot of time.

Malcolm Collins: I'm proud of this. We built this into something kind. Cool. From a, you know, just a few people watching and my mom being like, you look like a fool talking on YouTube, and no one's listening.

Simone Collins: Well, she, she came around to it. She came around. Yeah. So I'm glad. I think she'd be pleased. All right.

You ready? Alright. Get those thick glasses on that trigger people so freaking hard. Are, have you lost the other glasses? I do like the other wire frame glasses.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I should look it around for them. I have them somewhere. The core [00:49:00] reason I don't wear them anymore is because they're not like fitted correctly right now.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: So we gotta take them to New York and take them to the store where they're made 'cause nobody else works on them.

Speaker 2: Do you see? You put the car in the walls. Wait, so he's putting the car in the house? Yeah, he's her banana bread. I'm trying to go outside.

Well then walk out the door. Where is the house? Why? Why is your car inside the house? I don't know. Why are you going for this hole? Are you like renovating? It looks a little rough, maybe Looks a little rough because you drove a car into your house. I dunno. Why did you, why is the cleanliness check mark?

Speaker: Yes. A house condition is at 23%. That helps to explain it.

Join us as we delve into Jean Garnett’s provocative essays, including her New York Times piece 'The Trouble was Wanting Men,' and explore the psychological and social intricacies of modern dating, the role of feminism, and the concept of 'hetero-pessimism.' Our discussion takes an analytical approach, drawing parallels and contrasts with urban monoculture, manosphere critiques, and the personal narratives of failed relationships. We also highlight how the dynamics of open relationships, dating communication, and societal expectations can lead to emotional and relational turmoil, presenting a cautionary tale for both men and women in today’s dating landscape.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Today we are going to be talking about not just a piece that was published in the New York Times called The Trouble was Wanting Men by Jean Garnett.

But some other pieces she wrote leading up to this. Okay, I think. You're getting into her lore. Oh yeah. I've had to break apart these pieces, restructure how they're being delivered. Because in the same way our life of a Cide episode really dug into the life of Anna Vains and threw it, understood one way that the urban monoculture can destroy everything in her life that matters.

This individual, you know, a lot of the manosphere has been examining her takes and just being like, heard or dur like women being. Salty about men you know, making bad decisions and ultimately being a hypocrite. Which, you know, okay, all of that is true, but I think it's more interesting to dive into the psychology and sort of how she spiraled into this position in her life.

And how [00:01:00] feminism can destroy the mind of a woman. Oh. And lead her to absolute emotional ruin in the same way that, you know, we, we talk about sort of the trans mimetic virus can destroy the, the life of like a young autistic person. Sure.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I, and I don't think that feminism, like, like when you see this person's life, you're gonna be like, wow.

Like there's a lot we can learn from this.

Simone Collins: Oh, a cautionary tale. Well, perhaps then we shall share this with our, our. Children when they get older, at least, especially our daughters. I'm curious to see what you find though. Yes, it's not, is there stuff that wasn't obvious to us? Oh, well, just tell me. Let's go, let's, well,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

What's more interesting when you read sort of, and this is why it's good to peel back into the older stuff as well Yeah. Is when you read her instate, she just appears to be such a vile and hateful person who deserves every bit of sadness that she's experiencing. Okay. Due to living a life that's dedicated to prejudice.

But and, and prejudice against men. But it's How did she get there? [00:02:00] Right? Like, how did she start off a

Simone Collins: little more like optimistic and hopeful. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. She started off with a whole, everything is working and it wasn't even her that I would argue started this, this, this trail of dominoes. But her husband she was married.

Oh, yes. Yes. We'll get into this. Okay. So let's jump into this. Happily Married. I thought this was

Simone Collins: about a, you know, a single young woman who's trying to make it No, no, no, no, no.

Malcolm Collins: If the experts say in my romantic letdowns have some larger social significance, I am not going to argue. The men I want are not wanting me badly enough.

Not communicating with me clearly enough. Not devoting themselves to me, by the way. Like you read that it's like a normal human, and you're like, that comes across as psychotic. Yeah. Little, little entitled, little entitled. Men are horrible because the men who I want are devoting themselves to me Enough.

What do you think she, by the way, if you wanna see a picture of her, I'll put one on screen here because I, I find that that sometimes tells people she is I'd say all the more [00:03:00] attractive side for her age. Normal looking white woman. Okay. All this certainly seems calamitous enough to warrant an ism wait, that they're not devoting themselves to you enough.

The men who you want is calamitous in your mind. The level of entitlement, right? Like you are a walking. Nightmare for a guy. But to continue, men are what is rotten in the state of straightness. And why shouldn't we have an all-inclusive byword for our various pessimisms about them domestic pessimism.

They still do less of the housework in childcare, partner violence, pessimism. Femicide is still gruesomely, routine onic pessimism. The clitoris in its properties still elude many of them, and the perpetually proud masculinist subcultures that have risen, at least in part as a reaction to these pessimisms, keep coughing up new reasons to [00:04:00] fear and rage and complain about men.

And, and, and I just love that all of this here gets framed in the men who I want don't just not just don't want her, but aren't devoting themselves to her.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I also have a beef with people. Who I don't know are, are, are extremely entitled about being pleasured properly. When, like for men, it's so freaking easy.

Like there's literally like a handle and you kind of like, I'm not saying there's not finess to it, but like, it's so easy. Whereas for women it's like, well, some women feel it this way and some women feel it this way. And like it, I, I couldn't, like, if someone was like, pleasure this woman, I'd be like, oh my God, I'm going to die.

Whereas some, if someone was like, pleasure this man, I'd be like, okay, I'm pretty sure like male or female, you can probably figure that out. But if you are given like a random woman, any of us, and someone's holding a gun to her heads and like, you need to make her orgasm, like we're all gonna be like, okay, I guess I'm gonna die.[00:05:00]

And here she's being like, how dare people? I mean, we've already addressed all this stuff around like. You know, violence in, in lesbian relationships being actually pretty high. Right. And

Malcolm Collins: so just to her point there about domestic violence of women if you look at straight violence levels in heterosexual couples mm-hmm.

The violence levels in lesbian couples are way higher. Right. Whereas violence levels in gay male couples are the same as straight couples or less, depending on the study you're looking at.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: Which implies that it is not the men who are engendering the violence. Like we, we can just look at the data.

It's the same as divorce rates. Divorce rates way higher in lesbian communities than in straight communities or, or gay communities.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We can just look at the rates. It, it's coming from inside the house. Women. But hold on. I, I had pulled that from the center of the article so we can get to like her core complaint and what she's trying to set up here.

This hatred that some women have now of straight dating and the suffering and anxiety that they feel when on the straight dating [00:06:00] marketplace. All right. Have they tried lesbian dating? Like, is that so much better? We'll get to that. We'll get to that. Okay. Very curious. That does come up in here. But we're gonna go back in time and go to what happened, what happened to her last marriage.

'cause clearly she was married, right? Yeah. What happened? One of the reasons my marriage ended was that I fell in love with another man who I'm referred to by his first initial J and people are devoted

Simone Collins: enough to her.

Malcolm Collins: Well, hold on. Hold spontaneously graceful with a soft voice and an inordinate sad smile.

Jay made me laugh, stopping my breath being a quote unquote good guy. He intimated from the jump that he did not know how to quote unquote do relationships, giving me to understand that if I expected one with him,

or as he may have conceptualized it from him. I did so at my peril, which was his peril too, since he'd hate to hurt me still. He pursued me. We [00:07:00] seem to quote unquote be doing something together. So note here, this guy who she pursued, okay. Told her. I am not interested in a, in a serious relationship with you.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and worse, he's doing the classic good guy routine who's not actually a good guy. I just hate to see you be hurt. But if you chase me, that's what's going to happen. So you should stay with your husband, sweetheart. No, seriously. Stay with your husband, sweetheart. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm not here for you.

Yeah. My husband and I have an open relationship at the time Jay and I met. So the terms of our involvement were at first and limited. And although Jay exerted a pleasant pressure against these limitations, ultimately they suited him. I was the one who violated the terms by finding it intolerable after a while to care that much in a way for one person while being married to another.

I could not disambiguate sex from love, nor love from , [00:08:00] devotion, . Futurity family integration. Things I wanted with from Jay. Even as throughout the year in the half or so that we saw each other, he continued to gesture to his incapacity to commit as if. Were a separate being.

An unfortunate child who followed and relied upon him maybe, or a physical constraint. I stood there reacting to him for a while, while he sad, faced back at me, looked like a box mind. He couldn't talk about it. He wished things were different. Maybe someday the child would mature, the glass would break, but for now there was really nothing to be done.

And later in this she'll talk about how men and women, just men do not take time to understand what women are really telling them between the lines. And it's men who can't communicate well and men, and this is why dating is so bad for women. And I'm like. B, I [00:09:00] am reading your writing down in a favorable way to you, what this guy told you.

And it seems to me that he was communicating with a, with a fire hose and a siren in your face saying, I will not commit to you. I am using you for sex. Please stop taking this further. I really don't like you in that way, but don't wanna hurt your feelings. And she just refused to listen to what he was loudly and repeatedly communicating to her because it didn't follow what she wanted to be true. And, and this is the thing she's showing that her problem downstream of her own communication failures in not listening to what's being loudly signaled to her.

It seems to me surveying the field of dating as a novice, that this kind of studious ir approachability, male helplessness abounds, I keep encountering and hearing it about men who quote unquote, can't have these ever men heard of, quote, unquote, don't want to? [00:10:00] No. What he was telling you is, I don't want a serious relationship with you.

But he didn't wanna hurt your feelings. So what he said was, oh, I'm just not mature enough for that yet. I'm not in a place in my life where I want that right yet. But what he was telling you in no uncertain terms was, I don't want

Simone Collins: you,

Malcolm Collins: you're just not that good. I want other things. I want to keep playing the field.

You are not worth my time or emotional effort. And you, this woman was unwilling to hear that. And then to go later in the, in the piece she talks about why he refused to start something serious with her after she left her husband. I toppled the whole structure of my life for a man who when I asked him, do you want to be with me or not?

Replied, after a few seconds of silence, I want to be with you and I want to be everything everywhere, all at once. Jay was [00:11:00] referring of course to the 2022. So real sci-fi comedy set across a multitude of parallel universes in which many versions of the protagonist play out many versions of their lives.

I love how he's playing the manic pixie dream boy. Like, like playing this woman like a fiddle while also clearly signaling to her, I only want you for sex.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, I wish I could fob you off to another version of me in another dimension, because that would be great right now. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because the me in this dimension does not, does not want you be clear.

I have, I have other, other plates I'm juggling right now. You go off and do your own thing. Right. And I think that, when man in the manosphere, you know, talk about a woman where they're like, oh, you know, she destroyed herself on Chad. You know, like alpha widows is, is what they call them. These women who got these great guys and then couldn't accept this is what this form of Alpha talks like.

Okay. They don't talk like, I'm gonna put you down. I'm [00:12:00] gonna, you know, throw you around. I'm gonna, they talk like this to women and women eat out of their hand and destroy their lives chasing these types of men. Okay. Now we're gonna go to a different piece that she wrote scenes from an open marriage.

This was in three years before the piece that you just read above.

Simone Collins: Oh, the before. Hmm. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: About six months after our daughter was born, my husband they's daughter together. Right. God, to destroy this girl's life over her wanting to be with this other guy who told her she wa he wasn't interested. Well, I she's a married woman with a kid.

No

Simone Collins: kidding.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: There's baggage. Oh, ah, okay. Because we're

Malcolm Collins: gonna go over what she wants in a guide, the way she talks about guides, because it's terrible. She's clearly a very vile person. Okay. But how did she get lured into this life of polyamory that seems like it destroyed her marriage and then spit her out in a world where, you know, [00:13:00] she a late thirties, early forties woman is just not desirable.

Hmm. And she thought that she would be desirable to the, I mean, she's desirable to men who wanna pass her around. But she's not desirable to be the one for any guy who she would actually want. Other than her original husband. So how did she end up in this, this open relationship to begin with?

Indeed. About six months after our daughter was born, my husband calmly set the idea on the table like a decorative gun. I said I'd think about it. I couldn't pretend to be that surprised by the proposition or ignorant of my part in engendering it. I was too tired. I was too busy. The baby, the baby, the baby.

I had a deadline. I was reading. I was watching The Sopranos again. I was depressed. I just wanted a nap. Needed a nap ached for a hot, throbbing nap. This might, I figured be quote unquote. Real marriage, harder, deeper marriage, marriage opening. Its cute mouse all the way, and showing [00:14:00] the mess that was back there.

Maybe I thought the libido of a certain kind of woman is an animal that lives a little and then crawls into a cave and lies there panting for a few decades until with a final rabid pant it expires. Could it expire so early or perhaps I was taking a breather postpartum. Understandable. Surely given , how a six and a half pound human body had been slither pulled out of the place.

That's a small

Simone Collins: baby. Oh.

Malcolm Collins: And or one of the places or, or one of the places. Okay. So by the way what you will learn as we go through the later piece, after she left this guy three years later, she is sexually insatiable. Just everything she talks about is who's effing her, how they're effing her, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I cut all that outta this, by the way. You guys are gonna have to hear that for your, for your benefit. But it's clear that her libido had not died. It had died contextually with her husband. [00:15:00] And I think that what we actually see is it might not even be a death of a libido. It might be that, like when, when a, a lot of women have what's called a reactive sexuality, which means that they become aroused when they are.

Put in a sexual scenario. Yeah. And often husbands, especially a progressive husband, like this guy was a feminist wife, don't feel comfortable putting their wives in a sexual scenario when they haven't asked to be put in a sexual scenario.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that this is how libidos die in a lot of marriages.

Yeah. This is

Simone Collins: a super underrated point,

Malcolm Collins: but I'd also note here is this expectation that you need to be having lots of sex with a six months old. Yeah. I, when I have a six months old in the house, I basically have no sex. Like, at first I wouldn't want to risk. No, you've generally had a c-section. It's, it, it could cause scarring that could prevent future embryos.

I mean, I think to a six

Simone Collins: month mark, it's,

Malcolm Collins: it's okay. Yeah. But I'm talking about that six months window.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. I mean, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: whatever. I, I [00:16:00] don't like to risk it, I don't like to risk your body, which carries my kids. Right. Like, and, and I think that a lot of guys hear this and they're like, oh, that's horrible.

Oh, whatever sex. Recreational sex exists entirely. Like the entire reason you want this is to produce offspring. Yeah, yeah. Shouldn't

Simone Collins: be any surprise that a woman who's lactating and sleep deprived and you know, dealing with an well, even more

Malcolm Collins: so, even has the opposite effect. If it could damage, could create scar tissue, which could prevent future embryos from implant that too.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: I think you, you're more likely to have complications in your pregnancy if you get pregnant super, super soon after having a kid. Well, and you're,

Malcolm Collins: and you're cooking yourself. You're cooking yourself because you are allowss your own arousal pattern to limit the number of offspring you have and to hurt your relationship with the woman who is having those future offspring on your behalf.

You know, you shouldn't be trying to get pregnant again six months after the last kid. And people are like, oh, well, you [00:17:00] should have sex for X reason or y reason and reality. No, I don't, I don't think you should. And a lot of people will be like, oh, Malcolm, this is just you being, you know, low, low testosterone or something.

And I point out, because I've also pointed out with my facial structure, but I was recently looking at Nebula. If you know how testosterone affects a person's body, you would know by my facial structure, I actually developed in a very high testosterone environment. And I'm 98% in terms of testosterone production.

Like I'm at the very, I'm like two standard deviations above the norm. I'm in the top 2% of men in testosterone production. But my testosterone production has almost certainly gone down because it goes down when you're in a monogamous, stable relationship and it goes down when you have children with the number of children you have for obvious biological reasons.

And I think that some men just see sex as like something that they need, like food or something like that when it's just not, if it's getting, I think, I think a people

Simone Collins: have, what's the word, perfunctory sex for the same reason that people have perfunctory travel where they're like. I, I'm pretty [00:18:00] sure that it's a sign that I'm not thriving if I'm not going on expensive trips every year, that kind of thing.

So they're like, well, I have to do it because otherwise there must be something wrong with my marriage or something wrong with me, or I'm not manly enough, or something like that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I think that, you know, it, it is good to translate these, these desires into their purpose, whether you believe God gave you them or whether you believe evolution gave you them.

When you see a, a busty woman and that arouses you, or you see, you know, a character in an anime, let's say dating five women, and you're like, oh, I really like watching this. That is your, your biological response that exists because you are supposed to want to have kids and gives those kids a good childhood.

And so reframing that, I think what what led to a lot of this is her husband wanting more sex. That is, that is functionally what destroyed everything that came downstream. And it's clear given how reactive her sexuality is and how lusty after min she is, that she probably would've been okay with it had he just worked with her to try to find out what works for [00:19:00] her after the kid had grown up enough that they didn't, you know, that they weren't six months old.

Right. What is there to want. After all, he is mine sacredly in sickness and in other states of being, except he is not. And his absolute non-proprietary realness can flash out so suddenly that the spell of matrimonial monotony is reversed and becomes again a free man. And so I note here that even the way she frames her marriage and her vows here were like not that serious the first time he came.

And I'm just jumping around in this case because I don't wanna get that deep into it. But it's interesting to see how a lot of this diving into the world of polyamory before it destroyed their marriage was being framed in her head and in the husband's head. So you can know if this is happening to you.

And it can all seem like it's going okay at first. The first time he came home, boyish whisper, laughing in the dark as he tore off his sweatshirt and climbed into bed. He used the word fun. I had been waiting brace for some seismic [00:20:00] shift, but there he was home and mine again was out so much as a waking the baby, just pee it and VI reminded myself with people, attached through my husband and somebody else moving deliberately, perhaps tenderly in pursuit of each other and pleasure beyond.

But didn't he deserve some compartment of his own? A chamber of mystery? Don't we all? I found I could be happy for my husband in his fun, more than happy. In fact, I could be a real thrill to let your partner go out and give it fully to another woman and then come home and look at you in the eyes and kiss deeply and touch over that.

It is romantic in a way that culturally under scripted moments often are.

Simone Collins: And I, I, this is for some people, I'm sure, for some I know, I know for some people this is a thing

Malcolm Collins: which is funny. And, and people know that like with our relationship, I'm allowed to sleep with other people if I want to. I just don't think it's worth the effort.

But I certainly [00:21:00] you know, wouldn't make it a regular thing. And her husband, you know, clearly made this like an everyday thing that was causing very clear here, stress on her part. And it's also clear that she went into all of this knowing the risk, the inherent risk of an open marriage is exhilarating, but seeing the risk as a positive thing, she had a daughter, right?

Like why is the risk exhilarating? Nothing refines a romance like proximate disaster, but it's not a romance. You have a daughter, your parents, you're not romancing each other. In fact, ours began when at 17 we went home together from the funeral of a mutual friend who had been in on American Airlines Flight 11.

The city was covered in Ash from that fall and US city kids where there was a strong buddy system vibe, like everyone quickly grabbed your buddy. This is not a drill. I still think of that friend whenever I'm traveling alone on a and a plane leaves the ground. I think of my husband at those times too.

[00:22:00] Imagine him mourning me, reviewing our parting final words via text exchange. Cool. Coming. Can you look on the floor in the front seat? As the third round, and now she's talking about a different thing here after the, the funeral friends are talking. And I think that this leans to the point I was making earlier about thinking that sex is, is an absolute part of marriage, like constant sex.

. As the third round of drinks arrived, the woman across from me said was a laugh that she hardly ever had sex anymore. Oh, yeah. Came a voice from farther down the bench. We haven't had sex since H was born. A third agreed that sex was barely a thing lately.

Reflexively, I joined the rush to wrap the initial confe. Confession and assurances. Even the married women with kids seemed in her looks and noises to allow some lessening was inevitable after a while or else outnumbered by the new and newish mothers. She just knew her audience. Only the single woman who listened wide-eyed and wavering in the Raden Freud [00:23:00] excerpts of concealed alarm was left to insist on the value of frequent, high quality effing.

And it's like the only reason you want that effing is because you're hoping one of these guys settles down with you and starts having kids.

Simone Collins: This is so bizarre because all of my friends in high school and everything, we loved romance mangas and whatnot, but like they were probably all asexual. Like there was no lust for boys ever discussed, and I, I can't imagine being, I've never been.

In any conversation with women in which an interest in sex has been expressed, which is so

Malcolm Collins: strange.

Simone Collins: That is, I can't, I can't imagine this meal.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I think that this happens. It's actually interesting that you say this because I, I think that what you're saying is true. You, you do not often see this in young female friend groups.

This is something that begins to happen in the Sex in the City groups which I'll talk about as I go further, where they're dating a chain of men who are using them for sex. And so now the key relationship they have with men is as [00:24:00] well, basically sex toys. Mm-hmm. Now, of course, they don't realize that that's what they've been reduced to.

And that's what this woman has been reduced to after leaving her husband. Mm-hmm. And abandoning her duties as a mother. But it's because they are that, that it's a predominant way that they are relating socially because they're trying desperately to recapture a, a real deep relationship.

Like the one that this Jay guy was, was, was dangling in front of her so that he could use her for sex.

Simone Collins: Wow. Um,

Malcolm Collins: I think that that's what's happening and I think that your experiences are actually correct here. And that the group of girls who get around a table and talk about sex that this is a phenomenon that married women don't often do.

Have you ever

Simone Collins: married? No. Single, no. Young teen ne Never. I mean, I don't know. Like, I just, I, I hung out with nerds. I mean, like, you know, it was anime and yeah, manga and Dr. Who and all that, but like nerds, [00:25:00] they're, they're voracious nerds too. I don't, I just dunno, this is just so strange to me. I wonder if there, there's some kind of selective thing where like, women tend to sort.

And, and just, I don't

Malcolm Collins: think that's true. I remember the girl I dated in college you know, well, we had sex occasionally. I, she was actually one of the people I had sex with the least of, of all the partners. But she had a friend who was just completely asexual and anti anti-sex. And it was like notable to her.

Well, the, I, yeah, I mean, it, it was a big part of this other girl's personality, like, sex is gross.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: like publicly? Yeah, like publicly. It was like part of her thing. That's so weird. I mean,

Simone Collins: I suppose, I don't know, I think anyone making any bit of their sexual part, like their sexual tendencies, part of their identity to me is just bizarre.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I do see that as a little weird. But it's a common thing was in the urban monoculture and everything like that, and people wanting to, you know, discuss it and, and, and make it a key part of their identity. Yeah. And, [00:26:00] and, but the point I was making here is, is these other girls who were married and not having much sex anymore you change your biology is meant to change when you're in a, in a, in a marriage.

Okay. Yeah. And if you, biology is functioning correctly, and keep in mind, biology doesn't always function correctly. Sometimes men find other men attractive. But you as a guy with five kids, if you have the same sexual appetite you did when you had zero kids, you are about as broken as a guy who prefers other men.

It's not the way your biology is supposed to work, for obvious evolutionary reasons. And so careful, you might

Simone Collins: start sounding like Ben Shapiro here, when it's gonna be like, really Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I, well, that was one of the times we went viral. When I pointed out to men this is a, the testosterone thing.

And they're like, oh, you know, don't you wanna look high tea? And I was like, high tea is a sign that you're a genetic failure. Yeah. If you're still high tea and middle ages because your, your tea and and sex drive is supposed to drop if you're in a [00:27:00] long-term monogamous relationship with lots of kids.

And so if you still have it at those ages it probably means you're not in a monogamous, it's your

Simone Collins: hormonal throw profile in the death throes of someone who knows that they're about to go terminal.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Your body's basically going for broke because that's, that's not healthy for you to, to, to stay at for a long time.

Right. It causes riskier behavior and stuff like that. And I also to point out like you wouldn't. Wanna take advice from one of these people, either because they're in a mindset like basically what happens to a male brain when they go into father mode versus Jim bro mode is they're going from go for broke.

I need to be the top so I can breed the most to, it's my job to protect my family build alliances and ensure stability within my community. Which it means that they're typically gonna give much better advice and be a much better ally rather than the, the, the more crap than a bucket mentality that is baked into the male brain.

At, at, at those sort of earlier stages where when you are failing in romantic pursuits. But then to continue with this [00:28:00] article I did and do worry especially about the younger girls in their twenties. Were they all right? These kids? How did they feel about being quote unquote on the side?

Occasionally I stumbled into something like outrage on their behalf as I thought I were the spirited friend in the drama. F that guy. Were they being exploited? In fact, wasn't I exploiting them? Outsourcing the labor of care, pleasure and attention affirmation to this scattered, precarious workforce? How sinister in that light in those nights, my husband and I spent scrolling through the faces of sexual supply, our ethic, blatantly consumerists, collecting primary and vivacious thrills that rebounded to our own marriage, strengthening our family through the efforts and maybe even the pain of others.

And I love that she can see sort of how exploitative this is in the way that she was doing it.

Simone Collins: So they're in their thirties and they're both like

Malcolm Collins: helping her husband hook up with [00:29:00] 20 year olds

Simone Collins: teasing on, oh my goodness. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right. And she knows it's wrong, but she's like, whatever. But here is how the article ended before we get back to the other article in her how she, how she's sort of thinking about all this.

M is by the way, before I go into this, the husband's girlfriend here's another scene. My husband and daughter and me in the car parked at the station waiting for m we hear the rush of the train, the opening of the doors, the distant announcer's voice. Various strangers emerge in masks, greet, the writers depart.

Suddenly I hear my daughter singing M's. Name, my husband window humming down as he calls out to her. And catching the sight of the familiar baseball hat pulled low over the messy curls. I feel the approach of the world itself coming to puncture the seal, let in some light and air. And so this all felt good to her.

She really talked throughout this article how much she appreciates this in woman helping around the house with chores and with childcare. But you can see that the daughter is beginning to see [00:30:00] M as the mother and not her. Her as the mother even before the de divorce. So at first I felt bad for this husband.

But then when I read this other piece, I was like, oh, he's probably was m now m just seems less crazy than this woman and to have already taken on the role of mother before any of this happened.

But

Simone Collins: anyway, I don't want this life.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I know. But so she's created this, this narrative, so to get back to where we are, okay. Around you know, the men, what was the word she, she used here? Like hetero pessimism or something, right? Like, the, the, the, some women just, it was hetero

Simone Collins: fatalism, fatal

Malcolm Collins: fatalism.

They hate their fate as hetero women because they have to date these horrible, evil things that are men. And so I want to dive into, okay, but. What are you doing? Like if men are these toxic things that are doing all these horrible things [00:31:00] to you, what are your actions like and what are the man's actions like even by your own admission and who is actually sort of the vile one here?

Why is it that the lesbian relationships have the higher rates of spousal abuse? Why is it that they have higher rates of divorce? Why is it that when you get two women together versus a man and a woman, things seem to always be worse? Well, let's get into her own account of her life.

Simone Collins: Okay?

Malcolm Collins: I was looking forward to seeing you again.

He texted me the following week around lunchtime, but I'm going through some intense anxiety today and need to lay low frowny face, quote unquote. Totally understand. I replied, but I didn't. Feeble fallible. Looking forward is not longing. A man should want me urgently or not at all. I was about to collapse into a ritual of frustrated, horniness, fantasy, masturbation snacks [00:32:00] when a friend urged me to join her and two other women for dinner.

So keep in mind this was a woman who just before said that her entire arousal system had stopped working and a guy doesn't get back to her fast enough. And is trying to be vulnerable as her, something that she would say that she wanted from men throughout the piece. I'm not gonna read through those parts.

And her response is ugh, gross, but also I need to just go and masturbate and, and eat, like stuff my face. Like what? But anyway, so a friend invites her for dinner with other women in this position. And, and no, you can be like, why is she thinking about sex wise? She talking about. Because when you're used like this as a woman, the way that men keep you on the table is they promise something more.

You know, they dangle something more in front of you. Like this guy is doing, you know, he's like, oh, sorry, can't see you today. Anxiety issues. Let's talk again in a few weeks. And, and so the women who are going through this [00:33:00] are constantly thinking about these men and the way that they are relating to and being related to by these men.

So one of the other women goes, of course, he had anxiety, said one of them, a therapist who sat across from me at the restaurant. Oh dear. Okay. That life that's being alive and going to meet someone you don't know well, yeah. So the other woman beside her, a historian, it's called Sexual Tension. Stay with it for a minute and you might get some they can't said my friend.

Was a triumphant disgust. She told us about a woman she knew that was dating a man from another city after weeks of saying, I can't wait to see you. The man ghosted her during his actual visit, his explanation, he'd been too anxious. Oh, poor baby. Cried the historian, and we all could and moaned, if this was men talking about

Simone Collins: women, can

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: believe the reaction?

Right? For the

Malcolm Collins: poor widow, Fredy cat, boo boo working themselves into a [00:34:00] frenzy of laughter where men's inability to quote unquote, man up and F us, we are four women at a vegan restaurant in downtown Manhattan. We knew what show we were in and couldn't help but wonder in a smug, chauvinistic way, where are the men who could handle hard stuff like leaving the house for. Sex.

Just a quick reminder for people who don't know this, the sex and the city writer, the person who created this world that this woman is looking up to and trying to recreate, has said that she made a mistake and wishes that instead she had gotten married and had lots of kids, and that the whole sleeping around and dedicating her life to her career was a huge life mistake.

Malcolm Collins: And I'm like, whoa, lady, like, do you not understand that? Let's take the man at his face value here. And he really did have anxiety. So the man had anxiety because he was dating. The type of woman [00:35:00] who liked to go to restaurants was her friends and de masculinize and make fun of him.

By your own admission, it's not just you, it's all of the girls here. Why are guys able to use you and all of these other women without feeling bad about it? Because this is who you are. You dehumanize them in the way that you talk about them. Everything you think say and breathe is toxic. Like would you not see it as a major red flag, even just for a friend as a female?

If you had a female do this in front of you?

Simone Collins: Yes. I would see this as a red flag.

Malcolm Collins: And, and some of these women, you know, making fun of men for having anxiety is a therapist. If you are a man going to see a therapist, and that therapist is a woman, know that this is the type of thing that she's joking about on weekends with the money that you pay her.

You know, just keep that in mind, right. No, I know. It's, it's, it's, [00:36:00] this is where the urban monoculture comes from, right? Like her core happiness throughout this entire piece is belittling the men she is dating to other women. That seems to be the only place that she's still getting happiness from, and yet she wants a man, right?

This is where the head of where Fatalism comes from.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it's mentally destroying her.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She, she presents and, and seems to hate and belittle men, but she also seems to be largely dependent on them for her physical pleasure and, and yeah, just amusement. So that's not great.

Malcolm Collins: When did men get so anxious about desire?

Ask the therapist and I said, I didn't know. Yes you do. My friend said it was when they were put on notice that they can't just get drunk and grope us. And it's like, but lady, you are the one saying you want these men to be more aggressive. Of course. If you have put doesn't you basically just saying, why can't this guy just get drunk and grope me?

Yeah. What, what? [00:37:00] Of course they have anxiety when they're getting these sorts of missed signals, especially when you consider the consequences of misreading the signals. But let's go to a different part here. I I, I thought that that part was useful so you can get an understanding of like who this person is at their core, right?

Sure.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then you, you look at her on this market and with this perspective of, I am cursed to have to date the other gender rather than reflecting on her own behavior. And at no point in its entire piece does she once reflect on her own behavior. She seems almost pathologically incapable of it.

There are many roots to the species of disappointment. I am circling here, but however we get there, the complaint is so common, such a cultural narrative staple that the academy is weighing in. We now have a fancy word, hetero pessimism to describe the outlook of straight women fed up with the mating behavior of men coined by the sexual scholar Asin Seran, who later amended it to hetero fatalism.

The term seems at first class to distill [00:38:00] a mood that is no less timely than being timeless. Whereas she just comes across like a sexual predator here, right? Like everything about the men who she is making fun of are expressing their vulnerability, and she is exploiting that.

Simone Collins: She's not even talking about the mating patterns of men because these men clearly don't want to reproduce with.

Malcolm Collins: The women in question, you don't want her. Yeah. It was really, well, I love how she starts with it. It's about the men who I want not desiring me enough. It was really nice in quote, a close friend texted me recently reporting on her third date with a lawyer. He's really sweet and nice to me and good at sex.

No doubt. Something humiliating and nightmarish will occur soon on more than one occasion. When my friend checked in with a lawyer to confirm tentative plans, he did not respond to her for many hours or even a day. Granted, he worked a punishing schedule, but my friend reasoned it took 90 seconds for him to send a quick reply.

The dissonance between his caring and attentive in-person behavior and these silences [00:39:00] confused her. And she mentioned this to him. The lawyer was sorry and that, that he kept her waiting. He hadn't meant to, but he said her complaint got him thinking. He unfortunately wasn't able to escalate whatever was happening between them into a relationship.

My friend clarified that she had not been asking to escalate into anything. No, you literally did ask to escalate. You were saying, why do you only talk to me when you want sex? And he was saying. I thought that's what this was. I thought I had signaled that to you very, very loudly. If you want something more, you're not getting that with me.

And she's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I want to keep doing the sex thing. Treat me however you want. And I'll just keep waiting and then eventually you'll get more time and more into me. But he's, he's telling her, I, I'm not into you that way.

Right? She wants the intimacy and he's signaling that that's not what their relationship is about. Now, note here, what, what does a friend do? My friend clarified that she had not been looking to escalate anything, merely expressing a need for clarity about plans. [00:40:00] He understood that he said, but their quote unquote, communication skills were obviously too different for them to continue dating.

I love how the guy is even letting her down nicely. Like the guy is being nice here. When he says our communication skills are different, he's saying, what the, do you not get? B, I don't wanna talk to you. I'm using you as a sex toy. Like, how do you not understand that, that you want more from me than that just shows that we don't want the same thing, so I'm gonna let you go and pursue life with a guy who does.

He is being imminently kind and you are being a psycho.

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: not just that, but that her friend couldn't recognize this. And then her friend, when it is relayed to her, couldn't recognize this so much that the original intent of what the guy was saying comes through in her peace. Even the humiliating and nightmarish part she explained to me was not so much the rejection as being cast against her will as quote the woman eager for a relationship end [00:41:00] quote.

The cast against her will as the woman eager for a relationship. But that's what you are. This guy is probably dating and having sex with a bunch of other women. You are just a booty call. In her memoir, fierce Attachments, Vek Gornick describes the anguish of being ignored by a lover to her female friend.

Why I couldn't absorb? She writes with his plunging us back into the cruelty of old fashioned man, woman stuff, turning me into a woman who waits for a phone call that never comes and himself into the man who must avoid the woman who was waiting. But that's what you are. But do you see what I mean here?

Like they have built this nightmare scenario about to around themselves by refusing to accept reality that they are not desired by the tech category of men that they desire. And that they need to set their sights significantly lower. And many of the things that they see of as flaws or things that they're just gonna have to bite the bullet [00:42:00] on, she's never gonna be able to get a guy as good as her original husband again.

I wish, because, you know, she's getting older every year and he's getting older every year and apparently he can still date 20 year olds. To skip to a different part in the piece, I wish I could just be gay with you, she said, and I said, I wish that too. So much. This was our commiserate routine, what Sarasin might call performative dis.

A ation with heterosexuality in quote or our spin on quote, take my wife please to my straightness, please take my attraction to men. A note. All of your conversations, it seems like, are just about how much you hate the people you are dating. Like of course that's gonna spiral you into worse and worse relationships always.

But it seems to be the only thing you find happiness in. And not that women wouldn't do that, right? They are evolved to be that way to an extent.

Simone Collins: What do you mean? To present the men that they're with? No.

Malcolm Collins: To gain benefit from gossiping? No. Okay. They're [00:43:00] going to look for, with their female community to have conversations that are gossip full.

Is era fatalism a useful concept? I took it up for a while, considered the positions the writer and gender scholar, Sarah Abram, had advanced the idea of quote complaints as feminist pedagogy in quote, arguing that to b***h is inherently transgressive. So note here she, even the woman who had invented this term, invented it with the idea that women should be b******g a lot.

You know, so you know that she does this a lot and I don't think that they should be I wouldn't appreciate my wife going around and b******g a lot. Well, in

Simone Collins: general philosophy that involves leaning into misery and negativity doesn't seem very productive.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So what is she like when she's dating people these days?

If you wanna get a look inside her dating life.

Simone Collins: Sure. On the way to

Malcolm Collins: his place I had been texting was my aunt, quote word from an expert. In quote, [00:44:00] she wrote, wait till he wants it so bad that he's nutsy. Cuckoo sounds facile, but man, truer words have never been spoken. Make him suffer, is my mantra.

Exclamation mark. I kept catching myself, staring at his mouth, his bottom lips. He told me to slow down. He needed me to get a better sense of me and how I worked. So note here, she thinks he's making him wait. He on the first date is like,

Simone Collins: whoa, whoa,

Malcolm Collins: whoa, whoa, whoa. You need to slow down. I lay back to murmur.

Let, and, and by the way, she ends up sleeping with him on the first date. It, it's, I'm not gonna get into all that, but I laid back to murmur, let him try stuff, and he warmed to his own control, putting his mouse right up to mine, then pulling away when I tried to engage his tongue, I see what you are, he said, finally, pinning my forearm.

You are a bratty sub. He held himself there just at every reach. Breathing on me. I'd like to make you wait. He said he did make me wait. And then again, then everything that happened between them, which nobody needs to [00:45:00] hear. And I find it weird that you wrote in an article. I guess you thought it was hot, but it just shows that you apparently have like five intimate encounters that you're able to describe in this article.

And clearly this is a guy who's, you know, been involved in the BDSM scene been involved in sleeping around a lot, given the way that he's framing you and is using you for sex. That's why he's framing you this way even to yourself. When my friend complained about the lawyer, I expressed outrage at his behavior and worked my way quite naturally, along a well worn groove to come to nation of all.

Okay, most men, as incapable of upholding basic standards of communication and care. But he's communicating very clearly. It is you and your friend who aren't listening. Like as a woman even you can understand what he's trying to tell her, right? Or, or am I crazy Here? Is this like man language. If a guy was like, look, I don't have time for you.

And then you're like, well, I need more of your time. And he said, well, clearly, you know, we're having trouble communicating. We should end this relationship.

Simone Collins: That's pretty clear. Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:00] That's, that's not ambiguous.

Malcolm Collins: I was thinking of course about Mr. J and I am not proud that my instinct response to the shame of being gender stereotyped by life is to pay another stereotype forward.

Men suck, groundbreaking, exclamation. But Mr. Jay never did anything to you. He told you exactly that he didn't want you. This lawyer told you exactly what he wanted. That's the other thing about this piece is the minute it seemed to be so upstanding and yet she's framing them as horrible because they don't.

Do what she wants. This would be like a man hating you because you turned him down, right? Like, you know, you're like, oh, you know, somebody was your friend. And then they're like, Hey, can I sleep with you? And you're like, no, you can't sleep with me. I just want you for friendship. And they're like, well, you know, okay.

I guess I'm, I'm sort of bummed about that. But you know, and, and then they're like, you know, she's just using me to her friends. And you'd be like, what a sicko saying to say, but these men, just as clearly as you are to that friend are saying, I just want you for sex. I don't want the friendship. I don't want the [00:47:00] intimacy.

That said, men struggle to communicate in romantic relationships is widespread enough to have earned psychological designation, normative male Alex, or the condition of being unable to put words into emotions. And the note here, she had the whole thing about emotional labor and new terms for emotional labor, hermetic labor, a new way for women to hate on men.

Simone Collins: What is hermetic labor vis-a-vis emotional labor?

Malcolm Collins: So, she calls the work women do to demystify male cues hermetic layer and posits it as a form of gender exploitation in intimate relationships. So her almost intentionally misunderstanding what these various guys in her life are telling her in her friend.

Is them exploiting her? No, she's exploiting herself. Mm-hmm. But for another part I found interesting here the stranger waiting at my back. Corner table [00:48:00] looked a bit square than my average date. His hair apparently washed cut and he wore a button down short. But some restless mischief played on his face bearing itself fully in our laugh.

Our conversation with brisk ingesting, I got the impression that he was enjoying my company but was more bonus than criteria for him. He was partnered already. He had told me and seeking only compassionate sex. His dating profile referenced this clearly below the picture of him wearing a blue blazer, petting a donkey's head.

So now she's going on dates with people who tell her, I literally just want you for sex. That was in my dating profile. That is all you are to me. And getting mad that they're not giving her more. We turned eventually to the subject of erotic temperament. He was interested in the possibilities that arise between people with any in eventuality of marriage, procreation, or fidelity was so to speak, taken off the table.

What might then happen in bed? That community in that world, watching his clean cut boyish [00:49:00] form and listening to him speak with eloquent enthusiasm of a connoisseur. The phrase that occurred to me was sex nerd mini dabbler in non-monogamy were not really, he noted was a laugh quoting from Pusha T about that life.

He was, I meet his type around sometimes fluent in the language of polyamory, waving his respectful desire, like a plastic saver, pew pew. Why would you play with just one toy when you can take turns with all the toys and that's what you are, a toy, a sex toy to somebody like him. Why at the same time vaguely subverting something capitalism.

I love that she's like proud of what he's doing with her. And he's telling her, I don't want this thing that you want. Right? I, I find this wild. This men can't communicate and she just so clearly makes it. And then yeah, she

Simone Collins: proceeds to give. A ton of examples of men really clearly communicating it.

The theme isn't that men can't communicate. The theme is that men are not communicating the message that she desires.

Malcolm Collins: [00:50:00] Exactly. Which is that they want her, which they don't.

Simone Collins: But that, I mean, in the first quote that you led with in this discussion, that is what she said. She said the problem was they don't want her enough.

It wasn't necessarily that they weren't communicating it was that they don't want her, they don't want, they don't want to commit to her in any meaningful way, and she doesn't seem to understand that casual sex does not equal slavish devotion and obsession.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And if you wanna see how she screw things up was this one you're flattering. The men, a former lover, wrote me after I sent him a partial draft of this essay. They never get to be real. And you see the men in her life just use her like clearly. She's not flattering the men in this piece, but the guy knows that's what she wants to hear.

So she made easier to use. They, they used to confirm a story about disappointment and frustration. This man I met last fall when he was like me, [00:51:00] reeling for romantic rejection. And within half an hour we lunged at each other as though by tacit agreement to beat each other's comforting or orgasm, giving blankets for a time.

We traded obsessive accounts of failed relationships, cheered each other on through the rigors of no contact, watched Albert Burt's movies, belted Weezer songs, and karaoke tracks on his couch. Whatever was happening between us went on for about six weeks, at which point I became annoyed that he was withholding something from me, though I couldn't say what exactly.

So you found a guy that liked doing what you like to do most, which is. B***h about other people. And you feel like he's withholding something from you because again, he doesn't want a real relationship with you and accused him of coldness and accused him of being unfair and so on. The familiar female demanded male withdraw pattern descended on us like a polarizing spell.

Unlike some other exchanges of my past, this one had an oddly mechanical quality and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Eventually I admitted to him that it felt more natural to me to default to quote, unquote, wounded female rather than assume responsibility for my [00:52:00] desires. Any self-realization here, your desires.

So instead of recognizing your desires, you defaulted to the internal framing of a wounded female. For his part, he described a large, looming ex who adapted the use of guilt and left its mark. And this is clearly what she was doing. She was using guilt like, look at you. You're oppressing me. You're hurting me.

And, and it's showing that that is something that she is doing tacitly. She's, she's admitting that one guy I went on with spoke of a hint of longing about the relationship between his grandparents who barely spoke to each other before getting married as teenagers in Sicily, then thrown together by slim pickings village life, a adolescent hormones and the oppressive myth of female honor.

What a system, what a gamble. And then both people were trapped for life, but at least you were spared the anxiety of choice. At least there was that. But what I love is you don't actually get choice because nobody who you want seems to want you. And then there's another part where she goes deep into maybe I am [00:53:00] a romantic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah about that.

But I wanna get your thoughts on this person. 'cause I think you can get a full picture of their life and what it's like to be a woman on the dating market these days. And what it might feel like to you to be on the dating market if you're out sleeping around. I would say if you're a young woman and you're listening to this, this is what dating is like.

If you hit your mid thirties, you need to get off the market before your mid thirties. Your, your life will become a health thing. Like either you withdraw from men or you, you end up being passed around by this woman, by men who clearly don't care about you.

Simone Collins: I think there are some highly educated professionals who are in their thirties really looking to get married who are just going for it.

And I think that those, those dates are far more like the dates that I would wanna go on, which is like, okay, what do you want? Like, there's that famous, not famous, but like people often inc cite that, that scene in like a, I don't even some random show where it's some couples having a very unromantic discussion about like how they would be married [00:54:00] and they ultimately decide not to get married.

'cause they're like, well no, I'm not meeting with a mother-in-law or something like that. But it's just kind of like these, these, these cold negotiations about potential married life together and that would be okay.

Speaker: Melanie, I'm single. You're single. What do you say? We get married.

What's your offer? Single rich male seeks matrimony primary residence, Westchester County. Would you be open to considering a secondary residence in Manhattan? Central Park, west South. Done time Spent together

Speaker 2: eight hours, five days a week.

Speaker: Seven hours, 12 hours, weekends,

Speaker 2: 55 hours. Aggregate specifics to be determined later.

Speaker: I'm amenable to that. Children, 1, 3, 2, done. But one of 'em has to be a male.

Speaker 2: I'll see what I can do. Vacations.

Speaker: December. Hawaii.

Speaker 2: June. The vineyard.

Speaker: June. Fun. But Hawaii.

Speaker 2: Nope. The vineyard.

Speaker: Is that a deal breaker for you?

Speaker 2: I'm afraid so.

Speaker: Me too. Well, we gave it a shot.

Simone Collins: And I think that that exists. It's just completely unmoor. From this world of mostly casual sex among married, well, you know, I [00:55:00] married marriage well, I think this guy, he

Malcolm Collins: talked about his, his grandparents in Sicily and saying that's what he wants with signaling to her, Hey, let's have a real conversation about marriage or let's go about,

Simone Collins: yeah, but she doesn't want that.

So yeah, like there, there are clearly different markets. I think that the really tragic thing that happens to many young women in their twenties is they end up on this, this sexually, this casual sex market. Either because they've been told to just explore in their twenties as I was, but I just didn't.

Or because they, they don't realize and they think that this is just, these, and all, all dating markets for marriage and for just fun are all the same. So they're just on it and they get trapped in it.

Malcolm Collins: I think she wants the guy who she saw in romcoms growing up, she wants to manic pixie dream boy.

That's what Jay was simulating for her. But when Jay was simulating that for her, when these other guys have simulated that for her, that's not their real personality. It's something they're doing to get sex from her. I

Simone Collins: don't know. She seems to just be interested in the individual encounters. What confuses me is that she does [00:56:00] want more when she seems to be so keen on just the passionate sex.

So I'm, I'm confused. I feel like she just keeps ruining it when she could just be getting casual sex and if she filled her pipeline more. Like any, any normal guy who wants the same thing that she proposes to want, aside from this extra commitment, blah, blah blah, is, you know, I wanna, if, if I want to physically satisfy myself in a sexual way okay, great.

And, and where she gets frustrated is the guys are too anxious to come out or whatever, but like then you should have a backup r of guys that she can just text and be like you up and then they can meet up and have their resignation and it's great. So what confuses me is that she seems to really enjoy just the sex, and yet I don't even know if she wants the commitment.

She seems to enjoy complaining about the commitment and maybe thinks that it is important to do so, or else she'll come across as too va.

Malcolm Collins: And I think the framing of all of this around the [00:57:00] sex and the city, like this is what she knows, hanging out with a friend group who just sits around complaining about men.

Mm. Right. And so even if she's had a potentially good relationship with a man at the time, she, like the, the friend who was dating the lawyer and everything was going well, and she was like, I need to find something to be worried about. Right? Like, obviously things are going to go bad. Because that's the framing I have of what it means to be in a relationship with a man.

Whereas I didn't see this as a woman I dated, I did not have many, like actually negative relationships with women. And yeah. And she

Simone Collins: wants to see this as negative, I think. Yeah. Maybe it's part of the version of feminism that she subscribes to where of course these matter terrible. Of course this is the worst.

Yeah. So that, that could, that would make a lot more sense to me than. Whatever it is she, she says she's doing. Because she's not, she's so vague about what she even means by commitment. I mean, I don't think any reasonable person, and she's clearly educated. I don't like her writing style. 'cause I find it kind of hard to follow and understand.

She's trying [00:58:00] to be very like, floored and, and poetic. But yeah, I know.

Malcolm Collins: I, I understand. Not

Simone Collins: in a good way. I mean I, I, I can appreciate the good turn of phrase, but that just ain't it for me at least. And I, I think that, yeah, I, she, she's only saying these things that she logically knows are entitled and preposterous and impossible because she needs to have something that she can resent about men that she herself is just exploiting.

As much as they are maybe explaining. No, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: it's mutual exploitation. Yeah. That, that she is exploiting in a way that ultimately frustrates her. Like, I mean, well I don't,

Simone Collins: I don't know if those matter are exploiting her because I, the exploitation isn't in the sex, in the casual sex. 'cause that's mutually agreed to.

I think the exploitation is in the, the act of trouncing on these men's reputation mental health. Well, I, I think, think in

Malcolm Collins: demanding from them something that they've clearly signaled they're not interested in. Mm-hmm. This is as exploitative as the man who pushes past the sexual boundaries of women.

And then, yeah,

Simone Collins: [00:59:00] conversation at lunch. If this was a bunch of men talking about women, why don't they just get over it and have sex with like what? That you can't, well that's,

Malcolm Collins: and men really, by the way, adult men really do not talk about women this way, that frequently. I, I, I have never heard one of my friends in private ever talk about women this way.

I mean, it might be the guys, I'm Wiz guys might have done this in previous generation. I get the impression that like boomers in, in, maybe like in Trump's generation, people did that. It seems like

Simone Collins: a grabber by the posty kind of conversation. It's just so crazy that like, but that these are the women who put on pussy hats and yet they are having.

The grab him by the pussy situ like conversation. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah. But I don't think men of my generation talk about women in these things.

Simone Collins: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Locker room talk these days is about like video games not women.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That that is, I know like actually like all the women are in the other room thinking like, what is he talking

Simone Collins: about me?

What he saying about me?

Malcolm Collins: And they're like talking about, it's like video games and like War Hammer. Exactly. No, literally like I go see like [01:00:00] my brother and it's like pulls me aside. 'cause he knows he's not allowed to talk about video games in front of his wife. 'cause it annoys her because we talked too much about video games and she can't follow.

And so he is like, pulls me aside. He's like, Hey, have you played the new whatever? I know you're great. It's so great. Yeah. That's love you. I love you too. Thank you for not being this way, and thank you for saving me from this, this carousel of, of horribleness. And I think for a lot of guys, what you need to take away from this is if you think that women who are writing the quote unquote caught carousel or the quote unquote alpha widows, if you think that it is traditionally masculine men who you are losing to, it is not, it is men who play these roles for them but don't play these roles for them because the type of fish you catch with that lure is psycho like this.

Yeah. And

Simone Collins: these are, these are not women that I've encountered. I, well, no. I just like, I have not met women like this. That's why this is so weird to hear. So yeah. I [01:01:00] think you've made this point in other podcasts in the New York Times,

Malcolm Collins: it's been like some random, I know,

Simone Collins: but still Red pill men are like, why are women so terrible?

And it's because they're selecting for this really weird population and like, where are all the good women? Like. They're there. You've, you've just gone to like, you, you want bread and you've gone to a butcher shop and, and I don't know what to tell you, which means by

Malcolm Collins: this is that the tactics that you're using, like a lure catches a specific kind of fish or a specific kind of woman where they're going to

Simone Collins: the wrong marketplace.

I mean, the, the manic, the place where you go to look for women is going to influence the type of women that you get.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the manic, pixie dream girl, boy thing that catches one type of woman, the tough, dark triad frame thing that catches another type of women. Both of these types of women are trash.

You know, the, the I mean my thing was the whole intellectual, nerdy thing. It caught a really good, good group of women. Yeah. Allall need to go to

Simone Collins: more anime conventions to find women.

Malcolm Collins: They think the women I've dated, I, I really like them as people. Like I, I feel [01:02:00] like I had a lot of, no, they're people I've,

Simone Collins: I've yet to encounter stories of, or IRL meetings with ex-girlfriends of yours that.

I haven't found to be fantastic people who I wouldn't wanna be friends with. So yeah. All right. I love you dear Simone. Love you too. Gorgeous. The other link is ready to go, so I'll see when they. It could be a little brighter. I was just listening to a lecture on the life of Laura Ingles Wilder. She's the author of The Little House on the Prairie Books, which are, I mean, they're, they're not like 100% accurate. They're based on her memories of her childhood in like the mid 18 hundreds in homesteads, largely in, in, on the Prairie in the us.

And man, life is so much better now. It was rough. And I remember reading those books as a kid with my mom and just thinking about how romantic it all was. And I'm going back and I'm thinking about what she actually was living. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Thank you. [01:03:00] Absolutely not. She had a little brother who died in infancy.

They, they lived in a, I I thought that this idea of living in a sad house at the time sounded so romantic and wonderful. But no, they're, they're living in a. In a dirt hole that, that is what a saw house said somehow, you know, her sister went blind. Oh, you know, just 'cause, you know, they thought it was scarlet fever, but it was probably some form of like cephalic, like, like her brain sw was swelled so much that she went blind.

Like, I just no know. This is not romantic. This is not, you don't want that. You don't. And we're so freaking lucky. I mean, I still like Marvel, the fact that we get to take warm water showers. I feel like everyone should live at least a month with either no running water or at least only cold showers. Like, I did that for a month in Mexico and it was, and I, I'm too OCD to not take a shower every day.

So I still had to do it even though it was like.

Malcolm Collins: [01:04:00] No, I've lived on boats a number of times. Oh yeah. Where I had to do that. That's not, and it's, it's worse on a boat because you're constantly covered in sea air and everything like that. Oh, yeah.

Simone Collins: You, you're so sticky and gross. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You're constantly sticky in growth and everything sticking together and ugh.

Well,

Simone Collins: and to think what it was like for families who crossed the Atlantic or any Oh yeah. None would've

Malcolm Collins: been able to take fresh water showers. No. Or any showers.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, maybe, maybe you pull up a bucket of sea water, but I mean, probably not even that. My gosh. Duh. Yeah, just the luxury living. Like, I was just thinking too, everyone's like, oh, I mean, like, and now I'm almost on sourdough sourdough everything.

I was sourdough every day making all my sourdough, my sourdough starter. But like, okay. And I think a lot of people making them and their jams with their chickens and like, we're kind of getting in that direction. Right. But like most of their meals were just basically flavorless you, you know, like just the, this is not.

I love fresh homemade, you know, scratch simple [01:05:00] ingredient meals, but I love that tonight I'm making you fu I love that, that we have gochujang paste or sauce, like in our refrigerator. Like we live such luxurious lives. Oh no, I

Malcolm Collins: can't even, yeah. And the, the perfect sycophantic assistance to tell us everything we wanna hear about ourselves in the form of ai.

Right,

Simone Collins: right. Like our, our primary I, that's like the gout of our times, right? Like before it is

Malcolm Collins: actually, it is the gout of our times. Like Uhhuh Doubt came because like, they got sugar for the first time and they were just like all, you're like too much

Simone Collins: fat and salt or something.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway I will get started here.

Let's do it. I'm excited. You're, you're my palate

Simone Collins: cleanser of the day after all the nonsense.

Malcolm Collins: You, it is funny. I've been reading more. I'm so addicted to romance, novel romance mangas, by the way. They're clearly made for women. I got into, because I read that first one 'cause we were doing the Omega verse episode, and I was like, are there any omega verses that a man might like?

And then I found one that was only women. And so I was like, okay, this might be interesting. [01:06:00] But then after that, because it was a villainous one, you know, somebody waking up in the body of a villainist, I just started going into the villain scenario is case, which were often like female romances.

And I realized why I like them today. Okay. Why so much. It's, it's because I really like, as you know, from like me watching shows where the protagonist is like a genuinely cruel villain,

Simone Collins: 100%.

Malcolm Collins: That is my jam. And the thing is, is that when people write books for male audiences, where the males supposed to imagine themselves as a protagonist, they always put too many, like qualifiers in for them actually being like good people.

But when it's about the woman supposed to be desiring the protagonist, they really don't mind leaning hard on dark triad traits. Oh, of course. Of course. Right? And so, and so, they're much more villainous. And, and I'm just like, yeah, you go. [01:07:00] And, and always, or very frequently, the logic behind their quote unquote, like ruthless actions is just, it's the most logical and efficient outcome, which means they're making stupid choices less, which I love.

Like if somebody annoys them in court, they're just like, kill them. Like, what? I don't wanna risk this.

Simone Collins: Very fun. That is, that is really funny.

Malcolm Collins: Right. You there? Women, women liking b******s. It does me a, a solid and people will know this 'cause I do. Its okay. Scenarios with ai. I'm gonna begin publishing some new ones soon that are really, really good because we've got our own AI system working on like the internal server as well enough.

That'll eventually be on our FB AI that I can create good stories with it potentially better than the original one I was making. But anyway those are available at Patreon followers and we do them in audiobook.

Speaker 3: Okay, what are you doing?[01:08:00]

You're gonna do it.

Speaker 5: Titan jump my knee

Speaker 7: Titan. Show me what you're holding this.

It's a pregnant woman, towers man. Here we go.

Get this out.