Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Join us in this comprehensive YouTube video as we delve deeply into the Star Trek universe to reveal the dystopian underbelly of the United Federation of Planets. Exploring key examples from the series, we present evidence suggesting that the Federation is not the utopian society it claims to be but rather a militaristic, nepotistic, and dictatorial regime. Contrasting it with the supposedly fascist but more ethical world of Starship Troopers, we uncover how the Star Trek universe may echo the darker aspirations of a progressive utopia. From power dynamics and replicator scarcity to AI extermination and systemic sexism, this analysis will change how you view Star Trek forever.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing an analysis of the Star Trek universe and we will be exploring, because this is something I long thought when I watched Star Trek stuff historically, and I've watched a lot of it. I had this feeling in the background, which is like.

This seems very dystopian and dark to me. Mm-hmm, but because I could never watch it all or search it all without ai, I thought maybe there's some counter examples against this. Yeah. I decided to dig very deep today.

And I am going to be bringing receipts that the federation in the Star Trek universe is a militarist fascist. Mostly dictatorship with a, a, they have an elected government, but it has virtually no real power. It, it's used, they have about the, the elected government in the Star Trek world has about as much power as the queen has in Britain.

Wow. Worse. It is a world where they, while they call it post scarcity, there actually is not a single instance in all of Star Trek cannon of a character that is not associated with the the Federation military saying that the Federation is a post scarcity society. Oh. So if you're in the military, it feels post scarcity?

Well, not, not, it feels you. Even it's a military dictatorship. It's like in North Korea where you ask somebody in the military has North Korea prosperous society and somebody in the military is gonna be like, north Korea's the most prosperous society. Everyone has three meals a day and they're happy as a clam.

Oh, dear. But, and, and we will go over that this military is not a meritocracy. It's incredibly nepotistic. We will go over instances that show that the military within the Star Trek universe is more nepotistic. Then literally any military on Earth today, except for some like African dictatorships.

Like the degree, just, just to give you an example of what I mean here we have an instance of a mother assigning a daughter to directly under her command on her ship. We are going. Be a decent number of Nepo babies in Star Trek. I thought it was just a button. Yeah. You have a Wesley K Crusher who is allowed on the command deck despite having no formal training.

But we love him, but we love him. He then rushed through Starlet Academy when we know a Frengi wasn't even allowed to apply. Oh. That without a separate So, so it, it's a, it's a systematically racist system as well.

In the latest season of Lower Deck, there was a really chilling episode, , in which a species had just been given replicators by the Federation and they were celebrating what they called post scarcity day, where they were. And I kid you not. Having all of their gold and jewels taken by the federation because they wouldn't quote unquote, need them anymore.

And the federation used all of that stuff to all their currency as well, despite the fact that the federation does use currency. , And so then the federation takes all this planet's gold and jewels and gives them to another species to a problem that they are having with them.

And you can say, well, the federation's original plan was to melt it down or destroy it. And I'm like, if that was the case, then why? Why was the planet forced to give all of this to the federation? Why not put it in a museum or something? Why did the federation take all of the planet's valuables? There is no explainable reason unless they were trying to prevent the planet from being able to trade with other species.

Now that the planet was dependent on them for the means of production.

And. What is really like ghoulish about this is we see this planet celebrating, like they're gonna have free access to the replicators that were given to them.

And yet we know the federation maintains strict control of the replicators. So clearly the federation has misled them

what this scene has strong vibes of is the ashen from SG one, which is this species that comes in, offers earth and other planets the opportunity to have longer lives, to stay young, longer to not get sick. But what they really do at the same time is sterilize them. So that they can replace them and use their planets any way they see fit, which is what the Federation is doing here, by giving them replicators and getting rid of every other way that they can produce things.

But by maintaining control of what can be produced and how much of it can be produced on the replicators, they have completely seized the means of production was in this planet.

And I would remind you, it is not the Federation civilian government that sees the means of production on the planet. It is their military star fleet because it is Star Fleet that controls who can use replicators for what and when. Apparently they just didn't tell anyone on this planet that.

SG1 Achen: do not underestimate what we offer we can put an end to disease, double the human lifespan. Provide the means to cross entire continents in a single step.

We offer Earth membership within the Aschen Confederation.

Now if I'm right, these are newspapers.

SG1: By the way, Bo,

would you read this aloud for me? I couldn't quite translate it. Of course, sterility.

We knew what you were planning while, and this just confirms it. Vaccine causes sterility. That was the headline. You wiped out most of the vum population and turned their entire world into farmland and do the same to earth.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. And we'll be contrasting it to the Regi who are not racist in this way. And they'll be like, well, the Regi are sexist.

And I'll be like, actually, we'll be challenging that as well. If you actually dig in to what is Canon within the world. The Federation is incredibly sexist. You have multiple instances of commanders forcing themselves on subordinates and facing no repercussions, forcing women within their crew to dress in scamy outfits.

And women disproportionately only really serving traditionally feminine roles, except in a few instances where they're commanders and they mostly f stuff up. Oh, and then as a cherry on the cake to all of this, and keep in mind all of this is happening with a genetic underclass. Mm-hmm. The federation has a genetic underclass where some people are born essentially illegal citizens.

Wait how, who. Anyone who has had any genetic alteration done to themselves or their ancestors

Sorry. This may not be obvious to people, but if you give somebody genetic modifications within one, , generation, those modifications will be inherited by their descendants. So it doesn't just make an underclass of the individual, but anyone who is born to that family.

Which means that the only real solution to these individuals from the federation's perspective is to forcibly sterilize them.

I'd also note here, and I think it's very telling that in very progressive coded shows like Star Trek genetic enhancement and trying to make humans better is seen very negatively. The obsession with genetic purity is really exclusive to progressive movements, , Whereas in conservative coded futures like say War Hammer 40 K, , it's seen very positively, which I think shows where these two sites actually sit on this.

Progressives worship, humanity's weakness and stagnation, whereas most conservative groups want humanity to continue to improve.

And the federation has been shown to actively treat these people as second class citizens and constantly be hunting for them. So they have strict controls of how you can have kids who can have kids.

You can't

Simone Collins: genetically modify yourself in this dark trick federation.

Malcolm Collins: Extremely. And they, and they hunt down people who are what, even if it's not their choice and their parents did it, no, it's dystopian. But, but the worst part about all of this is we're also gonna get into how this structure is controlled, specifically the military regulates replicators.

And people can say, well, they need to replicate replicators because of the power use of replicators. But we will be showing actually the power use of replicators is largely minimum. So it appears that they are regulating access to replicators purely as a means of creating artificial scarcity to maintain economic control over the masses.

I should note this isn't just speculation, it's basically confirmed in universe. You can see this within cork's bar where he has replicators, but he still has to regularly import ingredients. The reason why he would need to import ingredients, which would almost certainly cost more energy to import ingredients to a deep space station, then using a local replicator, , which is just a simplified transporter, transporting something in its memory buff.

. The only reason you would have that if, if access to the replicators was restricted to create artificial scarcity. There is no way the energy economy needs of transporting food to a Deep Space Station are less than just using a replicator.

And I note here if you are a fan and are going to say, well, some people say that replicated food doesn't taste as good as real food in universe. Yes. Some people say that in the same way. Some people in our universe. Say that they don't like, , AI art as much as non-AI art, but when they don't know there's AI art, they like it more.

Given that we know how replicators work, that they are just simplified transporters. , No one in universe if they really, genuinely believe that the food that came out of a replicator. Tasted nothing like real food would ever, ever use a transporter, and yet we see the very people who make these claims using transporters regularly because it would mean that whatever was coming out of the transporter wasn't the same as the thing that went into it.

And, and keep in mind it's not even like they treat the people well. We know from lower decks that while replicators can for a trivial difference in terms of energy costs replicate real food lower status military members are forced to eat nutrition cubes and they do not gain access to real food until they work their way up within the military hierarchy.

Simone Collins: That makes sense because even people at higher ranks talk about using their replicator credits for the week.

Yeah. So not a

Malcolm Collins: post scarcity society and a military dictatorship and very evil, especially when contrasted with like the Regi and will also contrast 'em with the government in Starship Troopers, which is just endlessly more ethical, more gender egalitarian, more everything.

Yeah. So let's get started here. When I talk about the military as basically a, a interplanetary dictatorship, it's important to understand what the military controls in the Star Trek universe because when you begin to think about it, you're like, it is weird how rare it is to see anybody who's not in the military was in Star Trek.

And that is because within the federation space, the military controls all exploration. So basically they control what everyone knows exists and doesn't exist, right? They control pretty much all negotiations. So, so in a, in a country like ours, that would be controlled by the poli political class, you wouldn't send military commanders to handle the negotiation during a war.

Not true. In the Star Trek universe, they handle all interspecies negotiation, treaties, everything like that. That's

Simone Collins: a good point. Yeah, they,

Malcolm Collins: they handle all scientific research. It has shown that there are non-military scientific researchers, but they basically contribute nothing. We are aware of almost no major discoveries by them.

And when they do have major discoveries, they are often confiscated. Take data, for example who is now basically owned by the military and they even thought about dissecting him to mass replicate him. They are in charge of first contact, a very weird thing to put the military in charge of.

But yes, they are in charge of colonization which they do very aggressively. It's a very expansionist empire. And they are in charge law enforcement. And on top of all that, we will later explore that they are also above civilian law and, and and legal system. Whenever it is shown that the military, even within a civilian context.

Like Kirk we'll go into it, but it was on a dock, so it was not in a military context. Ends up doing something that is illegal and he's tried by a military and not a civilian court. Wow. That when you're looking for dictatorships is a very big sign that you're looking at a dictatorship.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So going into that they also control the most prestigious academic institution in Federation, space Star, star Phil eight Academy.

And it is an institution that has been shown to be extremely nepotistic for the children of people within the military. While go into instances of this and also incredibly discriminatory to anyone without military connections we will go into this as well. So it, it, it gives you sort of your status within society.

But you know, you don't get this if, if you're not doing the right. You're, you're not saying the right chits and you're not born into the right family. In terms of economic control of the military, keep in mind that they control all trade within federation space, all planet to planet trade. That is an amazing amount for a military to control as well as replicators, which is also really important because that is key to the way that trade works within this, yeah universe.

They also control most labs, star bases, medical innovations, planetary logistics, et cetera. And civilian operations rarely operate independently on star strip unless they are traders, criminals, or fringe settlers. The civil government is incredibly weak. The federation president is rarely mentioned and has almost no real authority in most episodes.

Civilian institutions like the Federation Council are rarely shown making important decisions. Key constitutional decisions are done by military tribunals. We see this in the drumhead and measure of a man. Then you have section 31 and people will be like, well, section 31 is framed as bad guys. If you're not familiar with them, they are a shadowy, extra judicial starlee intelligence group.

They have no democratic oversight and they operate with impunity in, in federation space. And they try to advance the federation interest. They have tried to commit genocide before. They haven't done murders without trial before, et cetera. And you can be like, well, they're not officially condoned.

And I'm like, actually, the official stance of the star fleet is section 31 doesn't exist now, given the copious evidence, they do exist. To say they don't exist means we are covering for them and condone their continued existence. So they have a, a basically off the books group that can go around murder people and advance their interests even to the point of committing genocide.

Simone Collins: Wait,

Malcolm Collins: continuing. Wait, what? What show? Wait, what show features this? Why? They're, they're in a few different shows. I, I, I, I don't remember all of them, but yeah. Oh my gosh. I

Simone Collins: know. There's so much. That's the problem is there's just a lot of material here. I can see why. Yeah. It's, it's, there's so much plausible deniability that like, oh, no, no, no.

That, that must be ethical because, you know, it must be a utopia. I'm just missing something. Yeah. I actually was under the impression that there wasn't a separate government from the federation. I thought the federation was just the entire government. But you're saying there's actually, there is a

Malcolm Collins: separate like puppet government basically that has no real power.

Okay. Which, which by the way, like strongly contrast with something like Starship Troopers. Yeah. Where the military and the government are one. And you vote for who runs the military Exactly. By Marshal. Yes. Which makes a lot more sense. Yeah. And it breaks a lot of the nepotism things. There's, there's not as much nepotism shown.

There's not much, but, we'll, we'll get into all that later. Now you can be like, oh, well, civilian autonomy still exists. You have individuals like Joseph, Cisco. The, the problem with Joseph Cisco is he is related to a high level military commander. And we know that he operates a restaurant that uses real food, which suggests he doesn't have access to replicator technology.

Oh. Or real food is a status symbol, but likely replicator technology. We'll get to why in a second. And we know that his access to military command is when he needed a, a heart operation. I believe it was. He used the military.

Yeah. He received heart treatment for heart problems from star fleet doctors. Hmm. Which implies that even as somebody who owned a restaurant and was of middle class, he would not have been able to afford this procedure without military connections. Which again implies you do not have a lot of autonomy outside of this.

And we repeatedly see when individuals outside the military are shown, and the way I've always interpreted the Star Trek shows is that is military propaganda within universe. Because like when you see people outside of the military, you see like Picard's brother or something. Right. But I mean, let's even take the case of Picard to get an understanding of what we mean by an intergenerational aristocratic class.

So Earths is a post scarcity world. Right. But Picard owns a very large vineyard and not just a very large vineyard, but it's a very large vineyard that is a. Family vineyard. So you don't just have wealth, you have intergenerational wealth.

Simone Collins: Right. This is, I guess, proof that this is not a communist society, right?

I mean, is there land ownership if you've Yes. Well, I mean, we know

Malcolm Collins: there's land ownership because Picard owns a vineyard unless it was allotted to him by the military, which we know it wasn't because it was inherited by his family. It's said to be a family vineyard. We know that there is an aristocratic, wealthy land owning cast that owns large tracks of land and also ends up with high level positions within the military at disproportionate rights.

Right. Like there, there's no other reason that he should have this military position. And this is something we'll see over and over again as we go into the data. Mm-hmm. By the way, if you're wondering what a system like this is called Sheldon Wallen would've called it inverted totalitarianism or a statewide, where you have statewide democratic trappings exist, but the real power structure is opaque, unelected, and centralized here.

Star Trek. Oh,

Simone Collins: so, 'cause I was thinking this must just be a military dictatorship, but it's basically that, but everyone pretends it's not right. That's in other words. Well, they're

Malcolm Collins: forced to pretend it's not how much this disseminates outside the military is unknown, but we'll also go into instances in which people criticize the military and are harshly punished.

Okay. So it

Simone Collins: could be that people don't even realize it.

Malcolm Collins: No, my read, as I've said, if it was that people didn't realize it in universe, we would have civilians saying, I live in a post-care city world and I love it.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. We

Malcolm Collins: don't have any civilians saying that in the entire star. This is a giant cannon in the entire Star Trek cannon.

So do we encounter many civilians? Yes, you do sometimes encounter civilians, earth civilians. But you, you wouldn't expect to, like I mentioned with Cisco and stuff like that, you wouldn't expect to be seeing many civilians if it was military propaganda. Yeah. And if the military, from the perspective of the military, only their lives existed mm-hmm.

Only their lives mattered. And I really like it as like telling on progressives. Remember, I, I go into Starship Troopers is telling on progressives where they think this is an attack on conservatives, but it actually shows a utopia. Mm-hmm. And, you know, gender egalitarian, no racism, everyone gets along, actual responsibility, not a lot of nepotism.

Whereas if you look at their quote unquote utopia, which is. Star Trek, which is what it's supposed to be, the progressive utopia often. Right. Totally framed that way. You see what they really want, which is a world where they have total military control and no one else's life matters. That's really what it's yeah.

They call the

Simone Collins: shots on everything. Yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: and no one else is allowed to say anything, whether you're a great scientist or anything like that. It is just the military. They have control of who breeds how they breed, et cetera. Let's go into that right now. The eugenics war in the aftermath.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This I didn't pick up on at all.

That's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: So, augments like Khan Noonan's Singh led to a devastating war on Earth in the 20th to the 21st century. The federation response was a total ban on genetic engineering of humans outside of medical necessity. Now, I point out here that I don't actually like. To me, it is unclear whether this war was justified because we have mostly the federation's recounts of this war to go on.

Simone Collins: Sure.

Malcolm Collins: But for whatever reason, the first gene altered humans were basically crazy. In mega Lamont maniacal. There is no reason a gene altered human would be that way if you understand gene altering, because the things you would be altering, like IQ typically correlate really strongly with prosociality.

Mm-hmm. Like, lower IQ is associated with higher degrees of rape. It's dis it's associated with higher degrees. Yeah. So

Simone Collins: what we would expect is lower crime, lower violence, higher achievement, more helping people.

Malcolm Collins: So we know this is the way science actually works. So we're looking at a world where the first gene alter humans were basically crazy megalomaniacal individuals who almost took over earth.

I read false flag operation because there's no reason that should have been the case.

Simone Collins: That's fair.

Malcolm Collins: If, if you understand science, it's almost as if they were trying to paint anyone who is Gene altered as subhuman. So, wait, Khan is one of these people?

Simone Collins: Yes. Oh, I guess I never contextualized it that way.

Oh, and so the federation, so Word team Kahan.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, well, not really, because I think Kahn was a false flag operation of somebody who was basically Gene altered to be crazy. Mm-hmm. And then when you look at how crazy he's, he never could have gained the power that he gained. Mm-hmm. So, and then put in a position of power so that the federation could crack down on this technology.

Okay.

The federation response was a total ban on genetic engineering of humans out. And. What you see the result of this in, in deep space nine. Dr. Julian Bashir had to hide his childhood gene modifications to avoid expulsion from Starfleet Keep. He would've been treated as an underclass, not even allowed in Star Fleet.

What

Simone Collins: do you know? Do we know as, as viewers what the modifications were for? Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And First Green. Julia Bahar showed great difficulty learning and below average height and weight for his age.

So I note here , the fact that he was dealt a bad hand of the dice by genetics and was slow and small for his age is, is a systemic form of unfairness, was in the Star Trek universe that the Federation works to maintain, to maintain their existing power structure.

They are maintaining systemic genetic inequality when they have the technology to address it.

shortly before his seventh birthday, his parents, Richard and Amachi Bahar had him subjugated to genetic engineering.

The procedure made him mentally superior to most humans and greatly enhanced his physical abilities. And we can also see from him that he is not evil. Mm-hmm. He is not. There's no reason that this is bad tech. You, you see? Okay. Maybe it made con evil back in the day. This guy's just like a generic, decent guy.

Right. So why is the technology still banned if it was able to help somebody like this?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: However, because if human genetic engineering had been declared illegal in the United Federations of Planets, except in cases concerning deaths and burst defects, so I'll note here, which is really interesting, is this shows the technology when not implemented under this false flag ideology, even in universe, doesn't make people crazy.

Mm-hmm. But Shear and his parents, yeah, they do it.

Simone Collins: They just. Really, really, really heavily regulated. In other words,

Malcolm Collins: well, what, what I'm saying is they do it when they're saying if somebody's going to die, otherwise they will do it. Mm-hmm. But they do not allow it generically. Mm-hmm. But Bashar and his parents had to keep this procedure secret throughout most of his adult life.

At the age of 15, he learned of what had been done and began using his first name, Julian Reasoning that the modifications had erased his original self from existence. What a crazy thing to believe.

Sorry. I say this is a crazy thing to believe, , because if you're not familiar with genetics, the way your genes express themselves change as you age and throughout your life, , it appears that the genetic modifications he had done were fairly modest. , It to the extent that other people couldn't tell that they had been done to him if they knew him before.

, So to that he had this level of. Internalized racism against genetically modified individuals, , that he saw himself as. Basically not the same human, , shows the degree to which people who live under the federation's tyranny are brainwashed into the dehumanization of people with genetic modifications.

To save beshear from losing starlee commission and medical license, Richard agrees to plead guilty to illegal genetic engineering and serve two years in prison.

So his parents underwent two years in prison for this. And he was essentially being hunted. And he would've been kicked out of school if they had found out something that he had no choice in. This is a, a, a world with a genetic underclass, which is shocking to me, and a genetic underclass with no logic behind it.

Simone Collins: That is crazy. Wow. Okay, let's, did they, I mean, sometimes they highlight these things to show that they're bad, right? I mean, was this presented in a critical light or was it presented in a light of, and this is why genetic engineering is evil.

Malcolm Collins: No, the in Star Trek genetic engineering is always only framed as evil because people who are genetically engineered go crazy even though we know this isn't the case.

Well, but he was,

Simone Collins: I mean, clearly this doctor was framed in a sympathetic light given everything he to go through. Right? The

Malcolm Collins: point is, is that is the reason for the laws, that is the universe is in universe justification. That is Gene Roddenberry's explanation. He invented the character of Khan. This is not like a later edition or something like that.

This is like OG material to the series. This isn't later they effed up the federation and made them super racist. This is core to who the federation is in the earliest renditions of this and, and the justification is all gene modified humans are evil, even though we know that's not the case in universe.

Wow.

Basically the reason why gene modified humans aren't allowed in is because Star fleet is racist against gene modified humans. Like they believe that they are an intrinsically negative and bad thing, and you could say, well, maybe gene modified humans have some advantage, and this could create some unfairness.

But the problem , is data is allowed in and he has unparalleled memory strength and more betazoids are allowed in and they can read minds. Troy is an empath giving her an advantage over other counselors. So it's not an issue that some people are born with abilities that other people don't have. , The issue is just racism.

Alright, to continue Star Fleet as gatekeeper to ambition and purpose, civilian scientists are marginalized. Almost all major scientific breakthroughs are shown as happening through Star Fleet jurisdictions, civilians, or non star fleet experts are often portrayed as either rogue or restless scientists in Galaxy's child or the Pegasus or hopelessly out classify star fleet solutions.

Then you have the relic Hunter arc from lower decks which is an independent archeologist. Petra Arbe arc reveals that federation civilians who pursued independent careers and exploration and artifact discovery operate under heavy scrutiny. So they're basically under constant military surveillance.

And they're portrayed as and thought of within the military as suspicious and possibly criminal. Specifically, you cannot easily rise in status outside of the military in this world. It, it does not even appear that you can earn wealth outside of the military in this world, which heavily contrasts with star strip troopers.

We know that Ricoh's parents are non-citizens. IE they never served in the military and they are extremely wealthy.

Just to be clear, so I'm not misunderstood here. I'm not saying there are not many counter examples to this. I am saying there is literally none in all of Star Trek canon. There isn't a single example that shows that you, while living under Federation authority, can earn wealth and power outside of the military.

, If you want to see people who almost show this, you can look at like Joseph Cisco, but his son is a respected captain in the military, which could. Under a military dictatorship, get him lots of, , abilities to skirt the rules. You have vash but vash is a criminal and made wealth as a criminal. You have loi Troy, , but she's diplomatic aristocracy.

She's beta oid royalty, not terran. ,

even when you see, , scientists and engineers, non-military civilians like Leah Brams or Richard Day Storm are influential, but only through their service to star, freely related science.

So this is unique to this world is that there is likely, because it doesn't make sense how many Star fleet commanders are also wealthy. Look at Picard. Yeah. Unless they have some control of the economic system and they're using it to their advantage.

Mm-hmm. Or there's some sort of aristocratic class that keeps getting these roles.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: Let's go to nepotism Now. I already talked about Mariner and Freeman in lower decks where commander Freeman's own daughter in Instant Mariner was assigned to her ship, which you couldn't do in almost any military on Earth today.

Even most like Banana Republic militaries wouldn't allow you to do that. This is pretty much exclusively something you would only see in a military dictatorship. And then you have Wesley K Crusher in TNG. He was the son of Dr. Beverly Crusher. He was allowed on the bridge of a federation ship without training.

To be clear here, Picard is sleeping with Dr. Beverly Crusher. This kid's mom, who also is his subordinate by the way, just throwing that out there. , so in the Star Trek world, how do you ensure a good life for your kid? Well, you gotta sleep with your captain.

And he was later fast tracked at the Starlet Academy where he is treated like a progeny because of picard's patronage and mother's position. However we see Nog a redi is not allowed unless he is vouched for by a federation member, despite how he does on tests or anything like that. Whereas elite families get fast tracked due to this hereditary privilege we see.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down. Turn me down. Why did I do something wrong? It's not anything you did n you're just not Academy material. You couldn't handle the workload or the discipline. That's not true. I'm a hard worker. I proved that to you. It doesn't matter. I don't have time for this Nog. Now, whatever little scheme you had, you can forget it. I'm not giving you that letter. It's not a joke or a scheme. I want to join Star Fleet. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted in my life. You are a faren.

Malcolm Collins: You also see the military acting quite evilly. So, let's talk about the Kardashian piece. So in the F Federation, Kardashian Treaty signed and TNG journeys end and expanded in DS nine. They created a demilitarized zone to secure peace. The federation seeded inhabited federation colonies to the Kardashian control colonists.

Humans and federation citizens were told to either relocate or live under Kardashian rule. Many refused to leave their home and became stateless people with no protection from their government. These were called the. McKees. The Kardashians routinely harassed and abuse these colonists, resource denial arrests, and even killings.

The federation did nothing to help the colonists adapt or leave.

And I wanna be clear here, , it is not shown anywhere in Canon that the federation made an effort to attempt to resettle these colonists, , or move them to other planets. I mean, so much for post scarcity federation world in a post scarcity world. That should have been a trivial thing to do. And yet they just left these colonists to, , you know, the killing raids, et cetera.

In response, the civilians formed the marquees a military to defend themselves. And then what did the federation do? They called this group not in federation territory, mind you, terrorists, and they attempted to hunt and imprison or kill them.

So they

Simone Collins: abandoned and then

Malcolm Collins: punished the people for attempting to protect themselves from the new government

Simone Collins: after, but after abandoning them, without helping them out.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Ooh, surely this was framed in a light of The federation is in the wrong here. No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. It's even worse than that. We can go into one of the, the people who this happened to, but one of them is later a recurring character on a show.

And he was in this particular revolution. Oh. And like one

Simone Collins: of these citizens who'd been left behind, and

Malcolm Collins: he is constantly harassed for this. He is denied promotion for this. He is treated, is treated as very much like you are an underclass because you went against the federation. Even if you went against the federation in a potentially just way in self defense.

Yeah, we hunt and we kill you. No disagreement. Even if you're not in federation territory, even if you're just trying to defend yourself.

Quote from Show: The only reason I've contacted you is to ask you to leave us alone. Our quarrel is with the Kardashians, not the federation. Open your eyes, captain. Why is the federation so obsessed with the McKee? We've never harmed you, and yet we're constantly arrested and charged with terrorism. Starships chase us through the Badlands and our supporters are harassed and ridiculed.

Why? Because we've left the federation. And that's the one thing you can't accept.

Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind that this is in spite of the fact that the federation has section 31 that they deny exists,

Sorry, I should clarify through denying that a group that very, very, very obviously exists, does not exist. They show that they are covering for this group and their complicity in the group's actions.

so they allow potential genocide and extrajudicial kidds if it.

Helps them. But when there's a group that is diplomatically inconvenient for them they attempt to eradicate them in genocide. So again, like I'm not like pulling at straws here. This is like core Star Trek lore, right? So, I'm never gonna be able to

Simone Collins: watch Star Trek the same way again.

Malcolm Collins: Wondering what, what section 38 has attempted to do.

They attempted to genocide the founders, the Dominion leaders, using a tailor-made virus. They attempted to manipulate clinging on politics to preserve federation hegemony. And they conducted convert surveillance of Starlee personnel without any form of oversight. Now civilians are in, in the federation as we see repeatedly generally second class participants in society.

If we look at the roles that they serve, they often either serve star fleet directly, so they're not really civilians. This is like, Kiko O'Brien, who's a school teacher. They're family members of Star Fleet personnel like Jake, Cisco and, and Cassidy Eight. Or they run bars or shops. This is Cork and Garrick, and they are constantly under federation surveillance.

They're constantly being shown as a federation coming through doing very aggressive checks, everything like that. Wow. So they, they, it's not like you have like ENT entrepreneurial autonomy within the federation. If you look at, for example, cork he runs the most successful business on the DS nine colony.

And he's constantly lectured, regulated, or threatened by star Fleet for one running hollow suites, which they basically imply a sex tourism. That's one. Trading in gray and black markets, which, which is messed up 'cause they have hollow suites on federation vessels and we know that from episodes that they use them for romance type stuff too.

Totally. Like there are episodes about that. And I think it's also confirmed in lower decks where they're like,

Then give her worse jobs. I've got her emptying outta the holodeck filter. Ugh. People really use it for that. Oh yeah. It's mostly that.

Oh.

Computer load. Mariner program. All new Olympic training facility. You might wanna back up a bit. Wow. This is a really detailed program.

Malcolm Collins: And despite being a essential gestation morale, cork is seen as morally suspect.

Not because he is evil, but because he is not aligned with his star fleet's perception. In an attempt to impose a perception that they are a post economic society basically, even though people are buying from Cork because apparently they don't have another way to get this stuff. Like if they could just get what he's selling from Replicators, given that we know that he makes some of it from Replicators, they would be doing that.

So why is replicator access so restricted?

Simone Collins: That's a fair point. More on

Malcolm Collins: that soon. Well,

Simone Collins: because I, I saw one other YouTuber posit that there must be some universal UBI kind of based on energy use that can be applied to replicators.

Malcolm Collins: But, but we can see that. Okay. So I'll, I'll just get into this right now.

Okay. So we know how replicators work. Mm-hmm. They are considered a simpler form of teleportation. They, they use apparently the same technology. We can from various episodes begin to sort of calculate the energy needs of teleportation and replicators. We see rep teleportation is used. Without regulation almost constantly.

Right. But presumably it's far more expensive to use than replicators. But more than that, we see warp travel being used very regularly. And we know that warp travel is astronomically more expensive than replicators. Sure. So replicators, which are essentially a trivial expense, are highly regulated in their usage and regulated in ways that shouldn't really matter.

Like a nutrition cube shouldn't cost a lot less to replicate than a equally nutritionally dense chicken or something, given that replicators are basically just teleporters. So the question is, is why are they, why are some people given artificially bad food within Starfleet?

Simone Collins: Ooh, that's creepy. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is fascinating. But yeah, so I'm freaking out here to Earth is infiltrated by shape. Shifting Dominion. Founders, capable of impersonating anyone and a change link bomb destroys a federation facility causing mass panic. I.

Admiral Layton, a high ranking star, fleet officer, believes the civilian government is too weak to respond. So what does he do? He stages in a military coup. He falsifies evidence of mass changing infiltration. He deploys Star Fleet Security across Earth as martial law and he attempts to take over star fleet command and remove the president of the Federation.

He's only stopped by Captain Cisco who uncovered the conspiracy. But what this reveals very interestingly is the federation government is incredibly fragile. They basically have no power to resist this. And the only group that does have power to resist this is an individual within, in Starlee itself to maintain the rad of a civilian government.

Mm-hmm. That star fleet's upper command, and many of them were willing to overthrow democracy in the name of quote unquote security with apparently little pushback. That ordinary citizens are thought of and treated like sheep by the higher people within Star Fleet that a single military officer's belief that democracy is insufficient, was enough to cause the system to, topple. And the, these are all things that with are within the DNA of Star fleet. To go further, you have TNG, the Drumhead. This is season four, episode 21. A Cling on Exchange Officer is suspected of sabotage aboard Enterprise Admiral Norris Sarcy is a retired but a legendary Star Fleet investigator.

So she is a Star Fleet investigator that has been investigating for Star Fleet so long that she has retired. So, let's see what tactics she, a well liked and known Star Fleet investigator ends up using. She quickly escalates the inquiry into a broad inquisition of traitors and synthesizers. She uses hearsay ancestry and ideology as evidence.

She targets crew members simply for having a rolin grandfather. She questions Captain Picard's loyalty due to past Borg assimilation and his defensive individual rights. Her witch hunts only stop when Picard turns her tactics against her. But what's important here is she is arresting people because of their ancestry.

Okay? Mm-hmm. This is. Considered normal by somebody who was well liked by the Federation enough that she retired as a famous investigator. Wow. And these are the tactics that she used. No one had ever put in a complaint on her record. No one had ever said, oh, you shouldn't be doing this. Which shows that Picard is unique in pushing back against this type of stuff, and this sort of dictatorship style system is normal.

And this sort of McCarthy court tribunals aren't normal within the Federation.

And I actually think this is one of the most damning episodes of the entire, , federation in that you can't be like, oh, it's one of the shows that sometimes tried to show the federation a bad light, like DS nine or, . , Lower decks, , this is like core TNG, right? Like this is Picard, right? And what we see in no uncertain terms is that Picard's ship for all its problems for him hooking up with his subordinates and the extreme nepotism he shows and being this rich guy who has , a vineyard and all the privileges he gives himself through his military status.

The. He is the best of the best within Starfleet of this era, and that if this happened on any other ship, this would've been rewarded because we know that she rose in status because she had been doing this over and over and over again. And so what we learn is that this woman's tactics are the norm.

Throughout all of Star Fleet with Picard ship, the ship that we are seeing, being the very best behaved ship, likely speaking, despite all of its problems, which I think shows the true dystopia of the Star Trek Federation,

Simone Collins: Well, though this, this at least shows me that the writers are trying to frame these things as bad because in so many of the Star Trek series, the captains struggle with. The conflict between following Federation rules, right.

They frame it as bad

Malcolm Collins: in a lot of ways without making her a retired professional investigator for Star Fleet. It's not

Simone Collins: like she, yeah. But one of the big tensions of Star Trek, I mean, starting with the original series, was, you know, captain Kirk constantly breaking the rules. And going against the federation's wishes.

Malcolm Collins: So I, I understand, but the point here being is the federation itself is not, when Kirk goes against it, it's like her, to her, I'm against the bureaucracy. It's not like this is a racist military dictatorship when that's the reality. And, and within Kirk's time, a sexist one as well, which we'll talk more about in a second.

Now, earlier I mentioned that members of the military dictatorship. IE of the military cast are outside of civilian law. So let's dig into this more deeply. Court Marshal, TOS, season one, episode 20. Kirk is tried for negligence after a Truman's apparent death. This trial is a Starfleet tribunal and not a civilian court.

Even though the alleged crime occurred while at a star base, a federation facility, there is no indication that the civilian courts have justification over star fleet officers. That's a huge red flag. Hmm. Then you have the menagerie TOS season one episodes 11 to 12. Spock commits an act of mutiny by taking over the enterprise to help his former captain.

Again, he's tried exclusively by a star Fleet tribunal with no civilian oversight. Star fleet officers are only ever tried by military courts, even for crimes that might normally fall under civilian jurisdiction. Eg. Manslaughter of mutiny star fleet, not civilian institution is the final arbitrary of justice for members of starlee.

No, I want to contrast them. Anything you wanna say before I go further?

Simone Collins: I just want to hear more. This is so changing the way I look at Star Trek.

Malcolm Collins: So let's contrast Star Fleet was the rege, right? Who are often portrayed as the capitalist bad guys, which again, I think is, the star sh like communists telling on themselves of how evil their utopia is and, and, and how they are unable to portray even their worst enemies.

It's really that bad. So the stated ethos very similar to modern progressives of Starfleet is for the betterment of all, and for the Fenian Alliance, it's profit, it's everything. But if you look at the actual ethos of Star Fleet, it's service to a military hierarchy. And if you look at the actual ethos of the Fari, it's free market and contract law.

If you look at the primary drivers of, of your role within society, it is only self-actualization with via star fleet. Within Star Fleet, you do not appear to have status outside of a military command ion,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: And then wealth accumulation via trade. What's, what's interesting here is the like negatives.

That happened within society. So let's look at like nepotism. Mm-hmm. Do elite inherit privilege in the federation? Yes. We see Wesley Mariner and Jake Picard's aristocracy. And for any society, no children must earn profits to gain status. Can low status citizens rise? Theoretically within star freely, but it appears to be heavily gate kept within Farge society, yes, anyone can become rich if they follow the rule of acquisition, familial favoritism ubiquitous and unacknowledged.

But within Farge it's explicitly discouraged. Even Cork and rom fight for status and competition. And these are two brothers, right? So you do have a degree of like caring about your family, but they fight amongst themselves to earn status within the society. And what's interesting is for any society punishes failure and rewards competence regardless of background, whereas the federation pretends its meritocratic while advancing the children of officers and diplomats through unspoken patronage.

Now, let's see the consequences of this. Let's see, major wars. Okay, Federation, you've got the Earth Rolin War, you've got the Klingon War, you've got the Kardashian Dominion War or the Kardashian and Dominion War. And then you've got the Borg. The Farini have no major wars that we're aware of, huh? Attempted genocides.

Yes. The Federation. You have section 31 against the founders. Farini, no genocides. And also by the way, if you are under the misunderstanding that Farini are slavers, they are not, there is no confirmation in anything in Star Fleet that Fary have ever owned slaves. And I was asking in ai, but like, would they, given what we know about them and they're like, probably not, they would see it as economically inefficient.

Um mm-hmm. Which is actually true of slavery. If you look at Earth's military history, right, economic history, they, it hugely hurt the South's economy long term.

Quote from Show: Look, I know the Kardashians can't be trusted. I know the central command would like nothing better than to destroy the federation colonies in the demilitarized home.

Then you agree with our position? Not for a second. Why not? Because your position is illogical. Do you propose to lecture me on logic?

It all comes down to the third rule of acquisition. The third rule, clearly states never spend more for an acquisition than you have to logical,

you want to acquire peace? But. How much are you willing to pay for it? Whatever it costs. That's the kind of irresponsible spending that causes so many business ventures to fail. You're forgetting the third rule right now. Peace could be bought at a bargain price and you don't even realize it.

You forget the weapons they already have. They have weapons. You have weapons. Everyone has weapons. But right now, no one has a clear advantage. So the price of peace is at an all time low. Don't you get it? Attacking the Kardashians now will only escalate the conflict and make peace more expensive in the long run.

Malcolm Collins: That's another episode. Espionage and regime change, standard practice for the federation. We see no instances of the farge doing this military expansion.

The federation does this all the time. Expansion backed by armed vessels. In the farge, no, we see no colonialism or expansionism. But what's I find really fascinating is the treatment of women in Faren culture. Women have no rights. They can't work and they're not supposed to wear clothes.

So very, I forgot that right? Very chauvinistic culture. But what is interesting is that this is admitted with in Farini culture, Uhhuh, and it's something that they are working on. What is they are?

Simone Collins: I don't remember there being any effort to change

Malcolm Collins: that. Oh, there's a huge plot point in S nine. Okay. And, and the culture is undergoing massive upheaval and a lot of forgi don't like it.

And it's I, I, I love the line like.

Speaker 2: It's all Moogie's fault. He's been polluting Seth's mind with notions of equality and compassion.

You can't even dump industrial waste anymore because it might harm the natural habitat. I'm supposed to start worrying about animals now. Look how they live. Wallowing in dirt. Sleeping in trees. That's not natural.

And don't even get me started about this whole labor rights thing. What have we come to if you can't demand sexual favors from the people in your employ? I made a report that over 40 percent of the population no longer believes that you have to buy your way into the divine treasury when you die.

Malcolm Collins: you know, like delightful. That's no, but it's, it's, it's, it is a society that has problems but is working on them. What is interesting about Women in the Federation is they are a systemically discriminated underclass, but there is no feminist movement within the federation or acknowledgement of women's problems within the Federation which shows that there is no goal to fix it, unlike within farini culture.

So, the, while the Federation brags about gender equality, it mostly just uses female characters as caregivers, Dr. Crusher Ko victims Tori's constant assaults or sidelined to Hasha Ya and sro or Kira's late stage arc. Was Taha

Simone Collins: Yaar the badass bodyguard who died? I

Malcolm Collins: don't remember. Law and Justice because she

Simone Collins: was.

She was really badass. She could. In what series? Kick and punch. The blonde woman with the short hair. Who does die? Yeah. Tasha Ya. No, she's badass.

That's why I was thinking like, maybe this isn't true. 'cause I was thinking at first of the empath who I grew up with, like that was, what was it? The next generation who like was way too like, like, oh, I'm here to talk about how people are feeling. This is

Malcolm Collins: this. Pointing out that in her late stage arc, she was sidelined.

Simone Collins: Right, but, oh, well, and I guess Lieutenant Ya just killed. She just killed off. I don't know if that's more about the society or if it's about the writers though.

Malcolm Collins: Well, Simone, the writers create the society like in the same way that the writers didn't mean for the world of star strip troopers to actually be a techno utopia.

They created it by accident. The writers of Star Trek didn't mean to create a sexist, racist, dystopian, but that is what they created. If you actually read the works and we, with the wound walking around of the little mini skirts implications of them, yes. It's like, oh, we created a gender egalitarian utopia.

But then all the women are in like caregiver roles or unimportant and it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Why? Why are there so few women commanders? Why are there so few? Like if this is actually gender egalitarian in the way you say it is. Why is it structured this way? And the only explanation is, is that everyone's being forced to lie based on some sort of like military dictatorship and not talk about it.

Hmm. To talk about what I mean here, look at the sexualized uniforms, particularly in TOS, in TNG, female officers that were forced to wear miniskirts, sometimes paired with high heels. And they're often referred to by their appearance and not their rank. So while males, it'll say by rank or whatever, they'll be like you is the long hair or whatever.

In TNG, season one, some female crew members are seen as in scant uniforms short dresses with bare legs, while men never are even in series. Like Voyager seven of nine is forced to wear a skin tight catsuit with visible scenes, but it looks so good outlining her breasts and genitals. So like, but this isn't Starly, but again, this is like what we're seeing with in the show.

That's true. Which shows the sexism of the writers. This demonstrates and market

Simone Collins: dynamics be market dynamics, you know, I mean, it's a, it's a TV show, but

Malcolm Collins: it, it, it demonstrates an underlying cultural expectation that women in Starfleet present as physically appealing. Well, you can say that, but like, we know from Conan that like physically appealing men are also sell well, but Starlee doesn't have those, so That's true.

You can't, you can't say that dynamics. And then let's talk about power dynamics and harassment by commanding officers. Mm-hmm. In TNG, the naked now data and Shar ya have sex While under the influence of mind altering substance, a clear violation of consent norms brushed off without consequence. Kirk routinely engages in flirtation seduction with female officers, subordinates and alien women never facing disciplinary action.

In fact, that's never even brought up. Despite being grossly illegal. Was in what, what about his second in command? If the guy with the

Simone Collins: like. Goatee in the dark hair. He's the one who slept around more. He was the mans Slott

Malcolm Collins: of, so you're thinking Riker, er, Riker was shown, is hitting on women across ranks and alien species while technically being in command over them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. He has, would like really abused

Malcolm Collins: his,

Simone Collins: he would

Malcolm Collins: be in jail in the US military Riker. He really, he would be canceled so hard so hard, well, not canceled. What they're doing is illegal. They are forcing their subordinates to deal with their very aggressive sexual advances. Like this is not okay.

Broadly speaking, this is a military dictatorship. Even within current earth structures of government, like you would not be allowed to again, act this way in most developing countries. Militaries

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Speaking of the type of unprofessionalism we would only expect from a military oligarchy. Can we talk for a second about how most of the ships in the federation have fully stocked bars within them? These are military ships that is not normal. That is the type of thing you would only expect from the type of military where the, I guess the military also runs the government and where the commanders are just like, well, I just need to go to a bar during the day, during a a work day, which they do regularly.

Malcolm Collins: Many women in the federation. Okay. We already talked about this. Not having like real roles like there, doctors Crusher, PCard Norris.

I mean, Dr. Crusher was women caregivers or emotional supports like Tori Kesser, Ezra. Combat engineering and command are far more frequently occupied by men. And what, that's true.

Simone Collins: That is true. I mean, like, I, I, I keep trying to defend with just Dr. Crusher and Tahi Ya, but at the same time when I think about Star, she's a.

Starship Troopers and like the women and like there, there's just no distinction. It's just wherever your merit goes, that's where you're gonna be.

you specifically requested transfer from Fort Cronkite to this training unit, sir. I heard it was the best, sir. It is the best, but what makes you think you're good enough?

Well, that's the kind of gal who makes squad leader.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Women are in the military at the same rate as men. Women shower with men, women have, there's no distinction between them in Starship Troopers.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what's interesting as well is while there is an instance where somebody uses his like dates as subordinate he explicitly walks around it. So if you remember the, the female character who was dating Rico at the beginning and then ins up dating the guy in the Star Fleet their version of Star Fleet.

Mm-hmm. The, the fleet it's called when he's training her, he flirts with her. Mm-hmm. And he mentions like, you know, flirting with a senior commander, like that's a. Something you're gonna need to get approval for. So it's applied that like you're allowed to do it, but it's something that is to some degree monitored.

And, and that he sees is like, it's clear that he's a little uncomfortable with it at first. So it is allowed, but it has to happen through sanction roles. This is not true within Starly, but what is more important than all of this is despite the sexism that is at the heart of Star Trek's world, there is no feminist movement shown in Federation Society.

There doesn't even seem to be tolerance for a feminist movement. The, the, there is no structural reforms. There is no acknowledgement of power imbalance or ever an acknowledgement of sexual misconduct, as far as I'm aware. And, and there are no cultural institutions to address this. It doesn't even appear to be somebody you can bring to, Hey Rikers been really flirty with that subordinate that does not appear.

Okay. Now contrast, this was the Faren who while they have open sexism, there is a clear feminist resistance and they show legal and cultural structural change over time. But now I wanna talk about the replicator thing because this really got me.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So Star Fleet gets guaranteed access to replicators quarters medical care, travel, and holodeck.

Mm-hmm. If you're a senior person, yeah. A replicator use is frequently described as being rationed or restricted on ships and colonies. So this. Some form of internal currency or point system exists not public for using the replicators. Access is centralized and controlled, not truly post scarcity, and civilians likely do not have replicator access.

Mm. Canon examples DS nine. During the Dominion War, replicator use is rationed. Voyager energy for replicators is limited and prioritized by command. Lower decks suggests that even junior officers and star fleet have less access to perks than command level officers. Federation credits a shadow economy.

Canon references to federation credits include buying passage encounter at FairPoint, gambling the royale and dealings with outside cultures. Cork accepts them, yet they are never shown in use by ordinary federation civilians on earth. This suggests like civilians never talk about earning credits.

Only surf flight personnel get to use them, which suggests some sort of like. Separate economy that is unique to this military cast of individuals within Earth?

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. One, one person was positing that federation credits must be used for like really big purchases like ship ship building has been described in federation credits terms and then with trade with other species, but not something used internally within the federation.

But people were instead given ration like energy associated rations that were most likely seem to be associated with replicator reuse. But you're finding no evidence that civilians have access? No, I, I'm

Malcolm Collins: seeing instead, some individuals appear to have federation credits to their name, which implies that federation credits are, are something that federation officers grift.

Now, if it's not something that you're supposed to have as an individual, somehow they end up gaining access to them, which again implies a, a corrupted system.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's a little suspicious.

Malcolm Collins: And it's also interesting that they wouldn't use Gold Press Platinum. By the way, if you're wondering why Latin is often used in the Starship Star Trek universe it is because it cannot be made by replicators, which again implies that replicators are not that hard to use if it completely destabilizes the economy of all other things.

Simone Collins: Sure.

Malcolm Collins: So, Federation seems to run on a dual economy resource allocation internally rations, replicator access credits for external use in limited perks. This resembles a command economy layered on top of a military benefit structure, not a free market or UBI model. As some people attempt to argue they have.

Another really interesting point here before we get to the more on the, the way the replicators work. There is apparently a lack of a civilian media press or dissent. There's almost no mention of independent journalism or critical public media. Jake Cisco tries to become a war reporter and is pressured to self-centered by the federation military.

The Federation has no visible elections, civil forums, or debates about policy in most series. Yikes Voyager, no oversight of Jane Wade's command. Despite life or death stakes for an entire mixed crew. Colonization equals federation. Expansionism. The federation claims to respect non interference prime directive, but it settles new worlds with abandon, brings in new species and absorbs them into its economic and legal framework and refuses to let members leave without major political crises.

Details, eg. Details towards negotiations and the marquis territories. Oh, I mean, so it's like we very urban monoculture. It tries to bring people in. But you can't leave and you need to follow their cultural norms once you're in

Simone Collins: diversity victims, like you say. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Now an interesting thing is as well, is this isn't even a particularly like.

Beneficial, what I'm saying, benevolent system to live in. So you can look at regional Barclay, who's in TNG and Voyager. He's a non neural typical officer. He what does that mean? Mean he's he's autistic. Yeah. He's coded as neurodivergent. So social anxiety, speech hesitancy, avoid coping mechanisms and excessive behavior.

Holodeck addiction how he's treated. He called holodeck addiction. So he's named Broccolini by Riker and laforge condoning it. And note here that Riker is the one who constantly sexually harasses people and yet has a position of power. Yeah. He is competence is doubted. Despite clear technical genius, he saves the ship multiple times.

He is pre pressured to normalize his behavior to fit in with the crew. He's constantly under informal surveillance by his peers and superiors. When he's later involved with the Pathfinder Project in Voyager, his mental health struggles are used as a reason to distrust him even when he's right. No, no.

Let's talk about how racist the system is. So we'll talk about nod from DS nine, who is a Regi. He is not allowed to apply to the Star Fleet Academy, which remember is a, a key access point to this military command structure, right? Which I think shows not a meritocracy at all. Yeah. He must be sponsored by a star Fleet command officer.

Cisco. Cisco initially refuses assuming no is making a joke. He must go through multiple tests of character to be proven it's worthy. Once he admitted he's treated with suspicion by some and must overperform to I respect, he faces severe trauma in the siege of AR 5 58 and loses a leg, which becomes a major character arc improving his loyalty.

The problem is, is that we know that you have like Wellesley Crusher who just gets in based on nothing and gets fast tracked because he, because he's a

Simone Collins: whiz kid. Malcolm, give him a break.

Malcolm Collins: Because parents are in the federation. But, but you, you, you know, you constantly see this. Now if we're gonna contrast this with the star Tre troopers

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In the Star Trek Federation voting rights universal, but the civic institutions seem to have no power limited to veterans. And this is important, by the way. Active member military members cannot vote in Starship Troopers. You have to, Oh. Yeah. You

Simone Collins: have to finish your military service to get the right to vote and to have

Malcolm Collins: kids.

Yeah. And this is also never said was in the show, but being a civilian and getting the right to vote does not actually mean joining the military. If you're a pacifist, you can do it as well. If you're severely injured or severely like retarded, you can still do it. About Rico's

Simone Collins: parents were really against his military service, like the kind of main protagonist, and yet, and, and he was kind of rich and could have been a private citizen, nepo baby in that world.

However, does that mean his par, one of his parents had to have served or both to have been able to have him as a kid?

Malcolm Collins: No, you do not need, it's actually said very explicitly within the show, you do not need military service to have a license to have a kid. It makes it easier to do the application.

Simone Collins: Mm. Like you said, you, you're more likely or you don't, you, you bypass a lottery perhaps.

Malcolm Collins: No. It's likely that you otherwise need to prove competence or utility, which is why Ricoh's parents were able to have kids because they're reaching successful. Oh, okay. IE it's a sane society sorry, I don't wanna be overly right. Well, yeah, I mean they're,

Simone Collins: they're producing not net drains on social services, but rather children who are likely to be high taxpayers and Ricoh being an nebo baby, private citizen would've been a high taxpayer.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Military control, defacto control by Star Fleet. The military does not have direct control over civilians in Starship Troopers, and actually civilians are critical of the military and media. You do see media propaganda was in it, but you see a lot of ci ci citizens who are critical of the military in the Starship Troopers universe, which suggests a critical independent media.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You do not have in the star tre troopers universe political participation you mean, which

Simone Collins: you do not have in the Star Trek universe.

Malcolm Collins: Star Trek universe almost zero political participation. Whereas in Star Trek Troopers, you have a clear civil contract. Service equals voice. And remember, service does not have to be military service.

That is implied in the movie, but it's never said in the movie. So I'm gonna default to book rules. Mm-hmm. Which is if, if you, if you are pacifist or you have some major injury or you have some major retardation, they give you like civil work. So no you don't have to be in the military. It just means you have to make sense.

Well,

Simone Collins: and also coming from a family of wealth doesn't mean that you get. Promoted to some high or kush position because Rico, again, the rich Nepo baby gets put on like the front lines of ground troops.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You don't, students clearly weren't as

Simone Collins: wealthy got

Malcolm Collins: high level the position because they're competent.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Also consider how distant and protests are treated in the two universes in Star Trek Federation. If you look at like the marquees, you are actively hunted and murdered for dissenting. The guy in the wheelchair who gets hanged. That is because he was an anti-war terrorist, which is Oh, right.

Simone Collins: No, he, yeah. Committed, he committed acts of terror, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, through protesting the war which is an act of terror, act of terror when it's a war to save our species, first of all, come on, you've gotta be, you've, you've got to have a degree of patriotism for the planet, Simone. You know,

movie quote: Bowing to a rising popularity all across the Federation, Sky Marshal Fidd declares that while religion is acceptable, peace is not.

Malcolm Collins: but even when leftists are trying to paint them as evil I looked at this guy who they hanged and I was like, thank God they hang that guy.

He seemed like a real douche canoe.

In related news, peace terrorist Elmo Gonniff and 51 of his closest friends were hung this morning

but they can't silence you! F the Federation! You will not take my voice! You will not take me! You will not take away our power!

F k you all! F k you! F k you all! F k the Federation!

Malcolm Collins: Wait, are you saying he didn't

Simone Collins: actually commit a violent act of terrorism and he really just, probably not.

Malcolm Collins: But what you see is when the, the form of terrorism that's being committed is not going to lead. Potentially to the extinction of humanity. It is allowed within the federation.

We know this because of the radical Mormon separatists who settled in bug space and ended up instigating the entire war. We know this because they were not hunted down and they were not murdered as they might have been, was in federation territory. For, for disagreeing outside of Feder, like the marquees outside of federation territory with federation command and ideals.

Mm-hmm. So, we know fair point that they, they were allowed to do that which shows that only sort of direct challenging is what's, is what's dealt with. And I'd also know that it does mention that that was the most mass executions in a day since the 21st century,

in what many believe to be the all time record for executions in a single day since the 21st century.

Malcolm Collins: which means that they were not used to executing that many people.

So, you know, it shows that they. And, and I'd also point out to you, Simone, that they were much more thorough in how they handled it. Like the federation, they go out, they attack these people who basically have no reason to be attacked. They're just trying to defend themselves. And in, in, in the Starship Troopers we learn that this terrorist you know, they dealt with his friends and family as well, which was his closest friends and family, as they say.

Which ensures that this kind of descent doesn't spread throughout the federation. So you're

Simone Collins: saying at least in, in the Starship Troopers universe, they finish what They start,

Malcolm Collins: they handle it, yeah. Citizenship and autonomy? In, in, in Star Trek is implied, but vacuous dual tier within Starship Troopers, but there doesn't appear to be that many restrictions on non-citizens past a political power, opaque, elite, nurtured star.

Fleet Academia is for Star Trek. And again, that's why the left is like it so much. It's a world that is ruled by what they see as the educated elite.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. But

Malcolm Collins: within Starship Troopers, it's a pathway that's open to all through contribution. Right. And, and, and note here, there are no cases that I'm aware of, of wealthy civilians in the Federation.

Whereas you do see this in Starship Troopers. True. And whilst outside the military is rare and aristocratic like Picard's Vineyard it's explicitly allowed within Starship Troopers which also think about female leadership. In Star Trek, it's mostly tokenized. Mm-hmm. Whereas in Starship Troopers it is competent and respected like dizzy and it aban is well and isn't.

Simone Collins: There's a female ski marshal on the second one. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Mm. To hot. She's in the first Sky. Hart Marshall to Hot Maru. The person who runs all of society is a black African woman.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Who

Malcolm Collins: won via an open election when somebody else wasn't doing a good job. We do not see Federation members replaced often when they don't do a good job.

And yet this is seen repeatedly in Starship Troopers. People who do bad jobs are fired despite what connections they have. Now let's talk about replicators in power demands. Warp drives versus replication. Warp cores generate massive power outputs capable of bending space time. Holodeck use transporter and force field to render realtime multisensory environment, transporters, disassemble, and reassemble matter at a quantum resolution.

These technologies use vastly more energy and are vastly more complex than replicators, which we know are simplified transporters. That's how the technology works. Okay. They basically have a, a template of like what you would want to transport and they just replicate that template over and over again.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If power consumption was really the issue, we would see things like holodeck and warp travel be more limited in their use, and yet we see no rationing, which implies that the rationing is used to create fake scarcity.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: An interesting thing with replicators is corks bar and replicator tokens. So Corks bar uses replicators at his bar, but not for free. He must pay for use using tokens of some kind. And to me this implies some kind of limiting mechanism because we know that d phase nine is powered by a, I forget what it is, some kind of fusion reactor chair, but it certainly wouldn't be having issues with replicators in a bar.

Mm-hmm. So, and, and, and this is to the extent where he has to import ingredients to make his food which to me implies shenanigans, if I'm gonna be honest

Simone Collins: or at least false scarcity. Mm-hmm.

Sorry for those who fail to follow my logic here. Transporting food to a deep space station definitely costs more energy multiplicatively than using a replicator to create that food at the Space Station. Given how replicators work. What this almost certainly means is that the replicators are being regulated to create false scarcity.

Simone Collins: At the very

Malcolm Collins: least, now the final I. Big, scary thing about the universe is the total absence of AI or near total absence of ai.

Simone Collins: Well, what, what about the, the ship white computers Come on. They're constantly talking to computers.

Malcolm Collins: But they're not sentient and they're not even as capable as like GBT or something like that. Well, there's data. He's self-aware. He's, he was made independent from the federation by Dr. S. Oh. So we'll get into this.

Mm. So there is a near total absence of ai, yet they have near magical computing systems, quantum level data processing warp drives, replicators and transporters. And yet there's no evidence of star fleet ships with a GI co-pilots civilian access to general AI assistance or AI run governments, courts, or research institutes.

Keep in mind, that's one of the first things I would suggest most societies will implement with AI is AI courts. I would trust in AI to judge me in courts, peers, I'm very the monarch when they're like judged by a trial of your peers.

it's a trial by jury and it's up to your peers to decide how dare you. That repulsive display of humanity out there. No way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no thanks. These, this, these people are not my peers. But voice interfaces like Lar cos we see they are smart but not sentient.

They no AI rights discourse outside of data and no widespread AI usage for command diplomacy or logistics. Mm. Clues as to why it may be outlawed and restricted. And keep in mind that these outlaw and restriction is kept from the average citizen because they appear to not know why when they're talking to data.

Right. Like they appear to think this is a new technology. Which is also shocking to me. Oh, this guy programmed this AI out of nowhere was no understanding of how AI works. No. It appears that he probably had a vast understanding of how AI worked and he used that to program data and his brother. But anyway,

Simone Collins: that's interesting.

Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: TNG measure of a man Starly considered deconstructing data to mass produce him. This is presented as a new dangerous frontier. The legal status of AI is undefined, and it is property by default. Dr. Song's backstory, TNG plus Picard. Nen song worked in isolation and off the grid. His work was not sanctioned by Star Fleet or the Federation.

In later episodes, Picard it is revealed that since our band after the Mars attacks solidifying the legal precedent. So we actually know from the series that synthetic humanoids were banned a long time ago in Earth's history during the Mars attacks which explains why data had to be made off the grid and why you don't see ais.

Hmm. It also explains why on early ships, like in Voyager, what they use for processing is Ural gel packs instead of electronics, because they're trying to get away from synthetic AI because it is likely illegal, but it is likely. Secret that it is illegal, and a lot of people do not know that anyone has the capability to make it.

That's my only guess. It it exists within our technological timeline is that AI was made illegal by the government in the same way that they made a genetically modified humans illegal, likely afraid of anything that could disrupt their existing power structure.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: and it's worse than that. The, the ship basically goes around and attempts to murder any smart ais they find.

So, if you look at return of Aons this is System Laundry Grown, a planet AI created by a long dead prophet. Sorry, A planetary AI created by a long dead prophet named launder room. It remains peace and order through psychological conditioning, cultural programming, and absorbing dissenters into conformity.

Society is nonviolent, serene and orderly, but stagnant and uniform. Not that different from a lot of Starfleet stuff, but okay. Periodic festivals purge chaotic behavior and allow for catharsis. What does Kirk do? He confronts launder, run. He uses logic, quote unquote logic to prove that the AI is harming his people by denying gross and freedom.

And then he overloads and destroys launder run. Murdering it. There's no systematic violence or exploitation shown. People are healthy, closed, housed, and peaceful. And they appear to be consenting to this. The system was benevolent to totalitarian, unlike Starfleet, which is just totalitarian. So I would read this as he has an order to go out and murder ais.

I mean, clearly this is against the prime directive. Why was he not punished for this? Let's go to the next one. The apple, TOS, season two, episode five. The system val, a massive subterranean computer is worshiped as a God. It maintains in dick society. People do not age or die naturally. They do not have sex for reproduction.

To keep the, I mean, obviously if no one's dying, you need to maintain population levels. That makes sense. Yeah. And they have complete social harmony and protection from harm. Val is fed by vi villagers who serve it and live in total material comfort. So what does Quirk do? He destroys Val, what?

And he leaves them suddenly mortal. So now everyone on the planet can die. Now die. What unprotected and culturally unprepared for what happens next? Was Val abusive? No. The people were happy, healthy, and never knew war, disease or death. Kirk imposes his ideology that it's wrong to prevent sexual autonomy and intellectual progress.

They're basically saying, I wanna have sex with these aliens. Oh my gosh, how dare

Simone Collins: you? So the one thing was just that they weren't banging. And so, yeah. No, I mean that classic Kirk, that, that is very, I, I couldn't bring myself to watch all of the

Malcolm Collins: originals. My actual read is, is I was trying to read between the lines, is a lot of Star Fleet has command to go out and look for intelligent ais and kill it.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think, so this is the secret real reason. That they're going to plan? Well, I, I wouldn't be surprised if they do have a few secret objectives given that we know that Starfleet is basically lying to the citizenry about some stuff just from what we're going through right now, lying about their ability.

And also

Simone Collins: explain though why Kirk is able to get away with so much. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: Kirk, why did you do that? Slap on the hand, oh, you murdered their God whoopsie. Yes, they're gonna have to figure that out. But it makes a lot of sense if you view it as a military dictatorship that's attempting to avoid anything that could challenge its authority.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: So yes, very dystopian society. A very evil society and a, I like it because it portrays. Who the progressives really are at their core. They say they want gender equality. What they really want is women in miniskirts that they can sexually harass all the time. And keep in mind, there are far more sexual harassment scandals by democratic politicians and there are Republican politicians.

They are far more likely to, and, and this is because that's what they want. They want to gain power so that they can harass people. Or in Biden's case, sniff their hair.

Joke Scene: I was waiting for Joe and just staring at his desk, I decided I'd have a little look see inside the drawers. Uh oh, I think I might know where this is going.

I opened one, then another, then another. And inside every drawer, every single one, piles of human hair. For the first time in my life, I felt like I understood a president.

. As I was sorting through the hair, admiring the collection, in walked the man himself. There was no hiding what I had done, so I just put the hair back, shut the drawers, nodded my head, and said, Mr.

President? Hey, if he didn't want someone finding his hair collection, he should have locked his drawers. What? We all have a desire to be known, and he's constantly sniffing hair in public, it's not some big secret.

Malcolm Collins: It they, no, imagine if you saw Kirk sniffing people's hair the way Biden does, like subordinates or little girls. If you saw that on a show, you'd be like, oh, he's clearly the villain.

Like, why is anyone okay with this? But it's worse than that because. You also see that what they want is a world under their military control where anyone who doesn't agree with their ideology is silenced. Where there's no free press, where there isn't actual post scarcity, it's post scarcity for them at the top and nutrition cubes for their grunts.

And then for your average person, who knows how bad it is because we just don't see them at Star Trek.

Simone Collins: Well, so it kind of is a progressive utopia. It's just a conservative

Malcolm Collins: dystopia. It is a progressive utopia in, in, in what they really want instead of what they're telling you they want.

Simone Collins: Right. It

Malcolm Collins: is gay space communism.

And it shows how evil gay space communism is fundamentally. Whereas gay space fascism, which you have in Starship Troopers is a world with gender equality's world voting

Simone Collins: because they, you, there's no, there is private property. There is an underclass.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we don't know if private property functions the way it does in our world.

I mean, we know that Picard major general is able to inherit lots of land. Would the average citizen of the federation be able to, maybe not given some of the stuff we've heard. I mean, if they are saying, well, we are communist, in some ways, what they must mean is, well, top military commanders can own property.

Their family gets some special privileges. But the average citizen, I mean, it's almost implied. There must be a caste system. You know, so I don't, I don't buy that. And I, I, I, I see the movies as, and you can say, why do I see the movies and shows as designed as in world military propaganda? Because why else do we see almost no civilians?

Why are we never shown the way the average person lives?

Simone Collins: It's weird. I don't know. Growing up watching it as a kid, I was left under the impression that I. That was the only world there was, that there is no civilian life in this world. Well, because

Malcolm Collins: they don't see civilians as humans, fundamentally.

Simone Collins: Well, but I no, I just, I just assumed there weren't civilians that everyone Right.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's why you weren't aware of them. That's why you thought that, right. Like, but clearly there are, right. Which is just so contrasting with Starship Troopers,

Simone Collins: right? Like Yeah. Where Yeah. There's clearly a rich civilian life.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and everyone starts, doesn't necessarily love

Simone Collins: the military.

Absolutely. One of

Malcolm Collins: the things that I find so interesting about, you know, if you view it as military propaganda is you can watch shows where like Resley Crusher will like see a planet where there's like capitalism or racism and he'll be like. Oh my gosh, did we used to have this on Earth? It's so weird to think that they could still live this way and that we ever could have done this.

And here I am like, Hey buddy, why do you think this doesn't exist on earth? You are trained on federation manuals. Those are military manuals made by a group that we already know is willing to lie and murder people like y do because this is propaganda, right? Like, it's a, it is an organization that we know treats a number of humans as the genetic underclass and actively hunts them.

Like, what do you mean? Well, it's so weird that they're racist just 'cause they look a little different. Mm-hmm. It's like your government is racist and you are even aware of that particular part of their racism. You just don't contextualize those people as human. It really reminds me of the modern left where they're like, well, I.

You know, the Nazis did all these racist things where they treated some people of certain ethnic groups and sexualities as, as sort of an underclass. And, and then I'm like, well, you do the same thing. I never thought of that, but oh my gosh. But those people aren't really human. Is is basically what they think.

And I go, that's what the Nazis thought of the Jews. Like, the moment you contextualize a group is not fully human, and you have the right to do that. The moment you think you have the right to say, oh, racism only happens when this group does it to this group, and not when this group does it to this group.

Because you're like, well, power and privilege, but you are the one who justifies power and privilege. The Nazi thought, if you're using the power and privilege argument that Jews had power and privilege over them, you're aware of that, right? Like they, they didn't say, oh, the, the, the Jews are idiots or what?

No, they said this is a group with systemic power and privilege and that's why they must be put down. Which is exactly what you are doing, the exact mechanism you use to dehumanize people. And it's the mechanism that is likely used within the Starship tro Starship star Trek universe as well, and is why we need to fight for space.

Gay fascism

Simone Collins: yeah, justice fascism for the win.

Malcolm Collins: Because the, the reality is, is Space Gate fascism or Starship Troopers isn't actually fascism. It's a real democracy. Whereas Space Gate communism is actually a military dictatorship under a fascist rule.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, the key lesson is look at what is done, not what is started.

Malcolm Collins: Right, exactly. All right, love. You did ask. Hopefully I ruined Star Trek for all of you.

Simone Collins: I will never look at it the same again, but

Malcolm Collins: I'll still

Simone Collins: love it.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Do you wanna do one of your pieces or one of mine?

Simone Collins: That's crazy. Oh. But anyway, so I was watching this YouTube video. It's this short five minute video of a woman who is married and in her forties and childless and trying to explain the reality of what it's like to be to childless as a woman in, in your forties. And she's talking about how she feels invisible and how vis-a-vis her friends who are parents.

It's always, you know, they take precedent, you know, she has to work around their schedules because they have to drop their kids off or doctor's appointment or pick them

Malcolm Collins: I was saying that they do, like, is she not, is she denying that they have more restrictions on their time than her?

Simone Collins: She's aware of

Malcolm Collins: it, but

Simone Collins: what's, what's crazier to me, and I guess this is something that's pervasive around many people who have gripes and personal gripes, is that that's not a, that's also the parents themselves being invisible.

That's the parents themselves having to put their needs after that of their children. Yeah. Like this, isn't it even like she kind of, she gives off this impression like the parents are getting all the attention. The parents are the ones who are validated when really it's the parents putting their children first because they have other lives that they're responsible for now.

Well, she wants

Malcolm Collins: the attention and she can't stand that anyone has attention other than her is what it sounds like.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think a lot of it, it, it's, it's, it's like with the kids, it's, it's maybe she's resentful of the kids. More than the parents that the, these kids get attention. It's like your father saying like, why should I bother coming over for Christmas?

It's all about the kids anyway. And it's like, it's all about the kids. Thank you. Thank you

Malcolm Collins: for understanding that you, it is not about you old person. It is, it is not.

Simone Collins: And I think maybe that's, that's a more universal problem that childless people have. No, I think it's

Malcolm Collins: childless people of that generation that, you know.

Yeah. Because I

Simone Collins: think one, and, and she also highlights like, oh, people shame me for the free time I have that, you know, I choose to plan a cruise because I have free time. Which one? Like, we booked our entire week long cruise in like two hours and then did absolutely nothing else. There's no such, and for

Malcolm Collins: way more people than her like Yeah.

And there's no such thing as

Simone Collins: planning a cruise. Like we, we literally bought with points our cruise and fewer than two hours. And it was after like a lot of like finagling to try to figure out how to fit. Six people in a room. You

Malcolm Collins: know, these, these people very much do nothing with their lives and they expand the simplest of tasks into the longest I is well, but she hug as

Simone Collins: though she's been criticized for that.

When any of our single friends talk about their single friend activities, I respond with enthusiasm and praise. 'cause it sounds like fun stuff for the most part. Like, I don't, I don't get where these people not really judged. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: personally, you, you may do that in public, but you're like, what a waste of life, their life is.

Simone Collins: I don't know. They, they're, we have some friends who do like glamorous stuff that I love living vicariously through. And I, I think that that's great and it's great for them. But you know, like, so I'm not judging them and I never felt judged, ever, ever, ever. As someone who is very public and open about never wanting to have kids.

Never. I only felt celebrated for that. So I dunno where people are getting this. Judgment. But anyway, rant over. We can get started. I just had, I had to say because I just watched it and was like, how is this woman not aware of the profundity of her selfishness? That like other people are putting other humans ahead of themselves and she's criticizing them for, because they're not putting her first, 'cause they're not adoring her.

Malcolm Collins: All

Simone Collins: right.

Is that the coolest thing? Do you really like it? Toasty? Yeah. How do you turn the green one off you. Oh, with the magic key? Yeah. You, you put the key and turn the white then, then the green one.

You did it. Good job. Now when I do all lights back on, I am almost done. Good job. Oof. It's a lot of lights and a lot of buttons and toggles and switches.

Ah.

What the, look at that. Alright. Turn all of the lights off. Turn all of them off. Yeah, that looks pretty good. And what do you think, Titan? Are you sleepy? You're looking at me like I'm crazy.

You want some milk? Yeah. Yeah. I'll bring you some milk. No? Yeah. You sleepy? Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna bring you some milk. Dad. Mommy, I turned it off. You turned it on? I turned it. Oh, all off. And now you're saving batteries, right, buddy? Now we'll turn all of the batteries back on. Okay? I'm gonna get tightened some milk.

I love you guys.

In this episode, Simone and the host analyze a New York Times article titled, 'Men, Where Have You Gone? Please Come Back.' The conversation delves into how conservative media reacted to the piece and critiques their misinterpretations. Themes include the retreat of men from traditional dating spaces, the impact of feminism and sexual liberation on the dating marketplace, and personal anecdotes that highlight the current disconnection between men and women in modern dating. The script also touches on the role of personal expectations, urban monoculture, and the need for men and women to reevaluate their dating strategies and societal roles.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing an article that has done the rounds in conservative media. I saw it before it did the rounds. I was like, we should do an episode on this, but it makes more sense for evergreen content which was a New York Times piece titled, men Where Have You Gone?

Mm-hmm. Please Come Back. So Many Men Retreated from intimacy, hiding behind firewalls, filters, and curated personas, dabbling and scrolling. We miss you. What they've been, we're the, they're here, they're right here. No, they actually have left the environments that these women are within.

Simone Collins: Oh, they're not on Blue Sky?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it's not that they're not on Blue Sky. They're not dating in the way that these women are dating. They're dating in the environments that these women are dating.

I will note, , while a lot of right ringers have covered this particular article, I think they have missed the larger point in it just to make the dunks. They want to make like, oh, feminist pushed us out. This is all women's fault. You know, women are the worst. When I really think there is an interesting thing to describe here, which is what we're gonna go into, which is why don't you see men at restaurants anymore?

Why don't you see men in these sorts of fancy environments anymore? This isn't just downstream of what we think of as. Big, bad miss Andre

and so what we are seeing is the perception of what dating is like for one of these post-feminist women in an environment. Because this woman is in her fifties.

She was, she she in her fifties and

Simone Collins: she's dating,

Malcolm Collins: she's got kids, she's previously married, she's done this whole thing before. So she is contrasting dating today was what dating was like in the past. And you can say, oh, well, you know, she's post wall. The thing is, is that when you're in your fifties, you're so post wall, you're no longer in the shock of I'm 35 and why won't men day me anymore?

I think that, that she is actually cataloging a difference in dating marketplaces between now and what the marketplaces were like 30 years ago. Oh. Or 20 years ago. Right. And I think that what we see from this piece really interestingly is sort of the decimation feminism has wrought upon her generation and the generation that attempted to espouse it, but not just feminism, but sexual liberation.

And a lot of people have written like follow up pieces, like, oh, this is great. Like men, you really should reengage. And a lot of people are like, bro, men should not be having casual sex in their fifties. Like, you know, this is clearly like not good advice, right? Like this woman is searching for something that only harms everyone that she engages with.

So let's dig into it. By the way, I looked up a picture of the author. She's not like terrible looking or anything. She's fine. Especially if you're a 50-year-old. Well, I

Simone Collins: mean, typically if you're a contributor to the New York Times, like you're a fairly high class, like upper class, educated, successful person.

So that should not,

Malcolm Collins: which in your mind means skinny.

Simone Collins: I think obesity probably is higher with lower income levels. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: true. But not, not lower about the online writer types. You know, there's lots of them out there. You know, it could be anyway,

May 17th, a warm Saturday night in Wicker Park, a vibrant stretch of Chicago where seven restaurants crowd a single block. Tori and I are having dinner at Mama Delia. One of the quieter spots, the sidewalk patio held five tables, three, two tops, including ours, and a pair pulled together for a group of eight women at those tables.

Troy was the only man. The scene was beautiful, low lights, shared plates, shoulders angled. In the kind of evening people wait for all winter. Still, I found myself watching the crowd as it moved past us, women walking in pairs or alone dressed with care at table after table at the nearby restaurants, there was a noticeable absence of men, at least men seated in what looked like dates.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Now this is really fascinating to me. And we're gonna be talking about other anecdotal evidence from her, but it's something that I have seen as well, especially in fancy cities like New York, Chicago, stuff like this. These are the environments where men have seen the most benefit from just leaning out of the dating market if they're not in the top one or 2%.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is a reminder for people who don't know the average man on male in terms of attractiveness gets swiped right on by Less than 1% of women women are completely delusional around what their market value is around this stuff, especially if they're also engaging in casual sex, which you can see this woman is.

So she is likely, like many of these other women saying, I just will not date men of this category. When you go out and you push for equal salaries for men and women, and then you say, well, and I want a man. That, that earns more than me, that means that half or more than half of women, especially in urban environments where they're overwhelming women and where women earn more than men are going to be single.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the question is, is what are men doing? Right. Well, I can imagine very few men who would get any satisfaction from going out and eating alone at a restaurant. I can imagine very few men who want to hang out with a group of men at a restaurant where they are overpaying for food and alcohol.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Especially these days, restaurants are so expensive.

Malcolm Collins: Restaurants are about signaling something to yourself mm-hmm. And to other people. Yeah. So where are the groups of men going? They are going to the other men's houses to play land parties and, and, and stuff like that. Or if they're eating

Simone Collins: out, maybe it's like a sports bar where it's more of like a social fun environment where there's a game playing like it's

Malcolm Collins: that.

But it is, it is not fancy restaurants. There is no reason a man would do this.

Simone Collins: No. And our fancy restaurants are like increasingly for Instagram and for the photos and, well, it's not

Malcolm Collins: just Instagram. It's so that this woman could signal something to herself about who she is and the type of life she's living.

And you see this all the way back in Sex and the City is that they would often meet at fancy restaurants, whereas no male group would ever meet at fancy restaurants.

Simone Collins: Gosh, the feminization of restaurants underrated.

Malcolm Collins: Well, there's no, there's no reason to. Right. A man only takes a woman to a fancy restaurant so she can masturbate this perspective of herself as like this high class.

Yeah. 'cause a man's door

Simone Collins: dashing, if anything, like if he has to eat out.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the, this is. About how she sees herself. And we're gonna see this in the next thing here, which is that even when men aren't taking her to these environments, she still feels forced to go to them herself to reframe this self image of herself as living a good life.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So it started to become clear the previous April when a man who had been pursuing me canceled a dinner at the last minute. There was a scheduling mixed up with his son's game. I understood. I am a hockey mom. I get it. So first we're learning a few things. She's dating guys who have kids, which is good because she has kids, right?

Like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's, that's more fair. And she considers it, what's her daughter doing? How is she able to go out and go to these. M maybe her daughters was the dad at these times. I, I, I dunno. Still I went, I wore what would have been worn. Anyway, I took the table, I ordered well, and I watched the room.

Only two tables nearby seemed to hold actual dates. The rest were groups of women or women alone with each other. Occupying space was quiet. Confidence, no shrinking, no waiting, no apologizing. I, I love it how she feels. The need, like she can tell how depressing what's happening is for women. And she feels, yeah, she was stood up.

She goes out anyway. Well, not just that, but she sees a bunch of other women who are doing the same thing, like going out anyway. And she needs to go into this whole with quiet confidence, no shrinking, no waiting, no apologizing. And it's like, no, they're being depressing and pathetic. And you don't want it framed that way for yourself, but that's the reality of it.

That night marked something, not a heartbreak, but an unraveling, a sense that what I'd been experiencing wasn't just personal misalignment, it was something broader cultural, a slow vanishing presence. And she's talking about men in the world, but what she means is men who are willing to engage with women in this way, take them to fancy expensive restaurants and stuff like that.

I did that early in our relationship, but we stopped that pretty soon was in our relationship. That really only makes sense was in the earliest of dating because it's such an expensive waste of money. I mean, no matter how much money you have, it should make you ill if you're like a reasonable person.

Simone Collins: No, we cut it out real quick actually. How many times did we actually go out to dinner?

There was, there was the first night Indian food.

Malcolm Collins: We went, I remember for meat at some sort of sausage place because Oh, that's 'cause I,

Simone Collins: yeah, you Well, yeah, you just, we, we went, we got ribs. But that was just 'cause you were like, please don't be vegetarian anymore.

That was even, it wasn't even dinner, it was like lunch. We really didn't eat out much.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, her second

Simone Collins: date was at your house.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, yeah, and I'm, I'm cooking there, so, yeah. Not, not, you know, this is the other thing is that real guys the type of guys you'd wanna marry, they take a girl at once and they don't do it again.

And well, I mean,

Simone Collins: especially if they dated as much as you did, and that means that you had to make it financially sustainable. So you'd like maybe do a dinner and then you'd do like a picnic or you'd do some kind of other outing. Yeah, like make mixed drinks at your house. 'cause you like sort of built up a really big bar and then that made you capable of having like a really.

Like choice filled cocktail hour at your place instead of a, but she wanted

Malcolm Collins: guys who were gonna reinforce this perception she had of herself and what dating is in a really financially unsustainable way. If you're a guy and you're taking a woman out to a fancy restaurant, like in Chicago or something like this you know, you're paying $20 a drink often.

Oh yeah. At least $10. Mm-hmm. A drink. I mean, she's getting cocktails 20. Keep in mind plus tip here then for entrees, $30, maybe 20. 30.

Simone Collins: Insane. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so, you know, for the whole meal you're paying easily over a hundred dollars. You don't Oh, yeah. Normal people can't do that multiple nights in a row.

Mm-hmm. Right. Like mm-hmm. This is, this is, her expectation is bizarre, but she's able to spend it on herself for well. We'll see where she made her money. She made her money in the adult entertainment industry.

Simone Collins: She

Malcolm Collins: did

Simone Collins: not as an entertainer,

Malcolm Collins: not as an entertainer, though. Actually interesting, actually, I, who she met in the previous one, I've cut some bits out of this.

She met him at the Playboy Mansion. But she used to manage like marketing and PR for them. Okay. Interesting. It gives her an interesting perspective and an entirely wrong perspective, but it is a perspective that many women have. She goes, I spent over a decade behind the curtain of digital desire as the custodian of records for Playboy and his affiliated hardcore properties, including sites like Spice tv.

I was responsible for some of the most infringed upon adult content in the world. I worked closely with copyright attorneys and marketing teams to understand exactly what it took to get a man to pay for content he could otherwise find for free. We knew what worked. We knew how to frame a face, a gesture, a moment of implication, just enough to ignite a fantasy and open a wallet.

I came to understand in exact terms, I. What cues temp the average 18 to 36-year-old cis heterosexual male. What drew him in? What kept him coming back? It wasn't intimacy, it wasn't mutual mutuality. It was access to stimulation, clean, fast, and frictionless. And, and we'll get to a bit more of what she thinks on the phone.

I think here you can already see she, she doesn't understand at all. She doesn't understand that things like for now, this isn't true for some religious men. Some religious men really, really don't use porn, don't masturbate. And this is a huge part of their sex lives and their identity. And it's like, whatever.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: there's another population of men out there who masturbate and use porn and have totally normal relationships. And that this is not what, what a man is getting from this content isn't. What he's getting from going on a date from you. This is a completely different set of emotional stimuli that he would be masturbating by taking a, a fancy woman to a fancy restaurant.

You are just, you, you, you have emotionally protected yourself by saying what he's choosing instead of me as porn, and that's not true.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Many men who would've dated you regardless, in fact, a woman like this, given that she's not like a religious whatever, no man who dates this woman isn't watching porn.

Yeah. I, I'm just gonna be, yeah. A 50 plus woman with kids who likes casual sex in her fifties. Every single man she has ever interacted with in a positive context sexually in her entire life, regularly watches porn. And I can guarantee that. It, it reminds me of the study they did. I think it was in Canada or whatever.

They were trying to compare men who regularly watch porn and men who don't on some thing. And they couldn't find enough men who actually didn't watch porn for the sample set to work because it was so rare, unless there was like a high extremist religious exogenous motivation to prevent it. But the point I'm making here is these men are not choosing porn over you.

They are choosing something else over you. They are choosing not to go on this because of something else. The porn is filling an entirely different need than the fancy date at a restaurant.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Unless you think that the fancy day at a restaurant was a precursor to sex, and sex is what porn is competing with, which again, I disagree with that narrative as well.

Porn is one thing, sex is another thing. You, you might be able to have sex less because you have access to porn, but that's only gonna happen when both partners want that or something, right? Like, or unless you have some severe addiction or something, which as we've talked about in the pragmatic psycho sexuality almost never happens to people who think porn is normal.

Porn addictions pretty much only happen to people who have a strong religious or ideological aversion to pornography. This isn't. Saying that that's wrong. As I've looked into the data more, my actual intuition around this is that it might be an evolved thing. It might be that in individuals born in cultures that have a strong ideological aversion to pornography, never evolved any sort of way of dealing with it.

Hmm.

Simone Collins: So

Malcolm Collins: it might actually be that Mormon men genuinely can't have normal relationships and engage with something like pornography. Hmm. Or, or extremist versions of some religious beliefs. Like they just may never have had to engage with this. And so when they engage with it, they just become completely obsessed with it and can't have normal relationships.

Which fine, you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna push against the, you know, if that's what your culture tells you, then, then stick with it. But what I'm saying is of the men who this woman thinks are normal, all of them are engaging in porn. Now to go further here in that world, there's no need for conversation.

No need for effort, no curiosity, no reciprocity, no one's feelings to consider, no vulnerability to navigate. Just a closed loop of consumption. And I'm like, yeah. But all of those things you mentioned are things that men, like, men like conversation and effort and curiosity and reciprocity and vulnerable women.

The, these, these are things they like on a date. Okay. I enjoy those things when I'm dating a woman. So no porn isn't delivering any of that to me. It is just, I know that I'm not gonna get those things from you. I know, you know, as we read further, if I go on a date with a woman like you, there is gonna be no, you know, there's no need for effort because you're a desperate 50-year-old woman with kids.

You're not gonna be genuinely curious in me. You're, you're gonna expect some sort of anti-Trump or narrative. You're gonna want me to be like you. You, you aren't really gonna consider my feelings and I'm not really gonna consider your feelings because we're not actually interested in something long term together, and you're certainly not gonna be vulnerable with me, and so I'm not gonna need to navigate that.

Right. Like, what you haven't realized is you think that it has porn that has stripped all of this from who you are. We, it is you that stripped all of this from who you are. And it is the progressive culture, the woke culture that stripped it all from who you are.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: What struck me the most wasn't the extremity of the content, because as we pointed out, male porn really isn't that extreme in most cases.

It was the emotional vacancy behind it, the drift. What the women want men this to you is emotional vacancy because as Simone has pointed out, that is the normal form of male porn. The way men had quietly was drawn from intimacy and vulnerability. What do you don't want? An intimate and vulnerable man, first of all, right?

Like not with violent. Although it

Simone Collins: seems to be a progressive narrative like I, it, it would seem to me that many women are being told by therapists or society or influencers that they should want men who are emotionally vulnerable,

Malcolm Collins: but they don't, which we pointed about. They

Simone Collins: don't like intuitively and, and, and subconsciously they don't, but societally they think they should and therefore demand it and complain about any absence of it.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: So regardless, they're gonna be un unsatisfied because they either think societally that they're being robbed of some emotionally available man, but then if they actually become emotionally available, then they're, they get the itch. They don't want

Malcolm Collins: that man anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Not with violence or resistance, but with indifference.

They weren't sitting across from someone on a Saturday night trying to connect. They were scrolling, dabbling, disappearing behind firewalls, filters and curated personas. And while they disappeared, women continued to gather to tend to notice who wasn't arriving and to show up anyway. One

Simone Collins: of the things, sweet women are scrolling just as much, if not more,

Malcolm Collins: right?

But they're all targeting the same men and they're finding they can't get those men, right? Like, hmm, the fact that the average woman is scrolling, right? You know, sorry, the average man gets scrolled right on by. Less than 1% of women shows that you're just not being honest with yourself, right?

Like you're targeting a very narrow group of men. And worse, you are going to these dating environments, these fancy restaurants. You are treating yourself and you are thinking, well, if I went 50 50 with a man at a place like this, you know, I'm doing him a favor, right? Like I am. I am pulling my weight. And what you're not realizing is, no, you're not.

Because this environment was never in any way about the man. It was about making you feel good about yourself. And that's when men withdrew from parasitic dating culture. You see the fancy restaurants be the first thing that empty of men. Hmm. Because. Taking women to a fancy restaurant was not 50% for the man and 50% for you, just 'cause you were both eating.

They can make fancy macaroni and cheese at home and it tastes just as good. This is about your self image.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And men realizing they don't want to play that game and it's not worth it for them.

Simone Collins: Mm. Yeah. And my other experience as a kid at fancy restaurants as well, which might have propped up the industry.

'cause also I, I noticed like some stats just restaurant industry wide, that 2025 is now like lower than 2023. Like there is, there has been also some kind of peak and now there's a dropping demand for restaurants that all of the fancy restaurants I'd been to as like before the age of 24 were on business trips.

And it was, they were all related to sales. So maybe also there's just less of that sales whining and dining taking. That's true as I think sales is fundamentally Asia, where you did that. Asia, but also Europe and also the United States. But I just don't think it's, it's playing out that same way.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's true for us as well. Yeah. When we go to fancy restaurant, it's almost always tied to our business.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like investment or sales or something like that. And I think now these decisions are being made differently

Malcolm Collins: and we used to go on like anniversary dates to fancy restaurants, but we stopped.

Simone Collins: Well, I think because we realized we were doing it because we thought that that was what you were supposed to do. But neither of us really enjoyed it. So

Malcolm Collins: I've been recently trying to look to buy some Haus, by the way. Because I want to have like more fun dishes I like at home, and it's so expensive to ship.

I can't bring myself to get it. I can't buy a meat if the shipping costs more than the meat.

Simone Collins: I know

Malcolm Collins: it's brutal. Like that's what I'm like. Maybe, maybe I'll get like a hundred dollars of frozen haggis and ship it and then we can have it over a series of nights. That's, that's all I can think because I mean, it's ridiculous.

Simone Collins: We'll just need to fly to Scotland.

Malcolm Collins: You can't bring it back to the US because they don't allow lungs. Oh no, I guess I'm getting in the US is like fake.

Simone Collins: So it's not even real haggis. Don't bother.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, come on. I need to eat haggis, Simone. It's true. So good. It's so good. Okay. Anyway, to continue here, I'm five four.

I've been dating since the mid eighties. Been married, been a mother, gotten divorced, had many relationships long and short. Well, I'm sure that recommends you to new guys. I remember when part of heterosexual male culture involved showing up with a woman to signal something, status success, desirability.

Women were weren't signifiers of values, even to other men. It wasn't always healthy, but it meant that men had to show up and put in some effort.

Simone Collins: That's so interesting because now often, like when we host cocktail parties and stuff, if someone wants to bring a partner, it's like, ugh. Like great. Now sometimes the partners turn out to be cool, but typically when a man brings a female partner.

She's an embarrassment to him. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a, an issue and with dialogue, for example, that secret society, one of the things that was like really distinct about dialogue is most of these secret societies of like luminaries and ideas festivals allowed spouses to attend. And one thing that dialogue did very distinctly was either completely not allowed significant others to attend.

Or if they were allowed to attend, you had to pay a ton of money for them, but they could only come to one dinner and they weren't allowed to go to any of like the other things. Because it's now understood that like in many cases, female partners are just. Really disappointing. And like, we don't wanna see them.

Like they, they're only going to make you look worse. So that's crazy that she thinks that, because when I hear that like, can I bring a spouse? Can I bring a significant other? Like, that's typically only going to make some more. Well, I'm gonna point out

Malcolm Collins: that this isn't true for every population. So, you know, when I look at my parents' generation, you go to the Bohemian Grove or something mm-hmm.

They don't allow women.

Simone Collins: And the reason

Malcolm Collins: they don't allow women is because men of that generation dated bimbos, like, like literally just hot women who are meant to be wise. Hmm. And if you look at the men who are still dating in their forties, and in the urban monoculture, you see this as well, but you don't see this of the men who are dating to marry, like, the men who date to marry, typically their wives are very competent and cool people.

Like all of our friends, males who got married young, generally got married to super smart, really competent, very good conversationalist women. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And they,

Malcolm Collins: and it's not

Simone Collins: uncommon at dialogue for two. People who are married to both be nominated and both attend. So married couples are there, but they both get there on their own merit.

Malcolm Collins: But the point I'm making about these women is one thing you'll often notice about them is they are not top lookers. And men who date for marriage typically marry in their twenties, which is another reason why she's not finding the good men because they're already married. Like she's one. I want a guy who will care, care.

Well, she's dating that on their

Simone Collins: second marriage. You know, like the guy she was mentioning man should only be on

Malcolm Collins: the second marriage if his wife died. You know, otherwise there's a problem with either him or the woman, right. You know? Mm-hmm. But the, the, or his discernment even, you know, even if it's not, you know, but the point I'm making here is.

One of the things I keep seeing was in these communities is great spouses who you would want to bring along and that you use as a status symbol. But the way they are used as a status symbol is their conversational ability and their intellect and not their looks. And, and the problem that you see with in the urban monoculture is even for her, you can tell she's optimizing for looks, given that she's on these dating profiles and stuff like this.

And the men who are going after her because she's, you know, casually sleeping with people, she has kids, she doesn't appear to be looking for marriage. You're gonna, if you're in that sort of dating market, you're gonna be optimizing around looks. Mm-hmm. You are not going to get a guy like me. You are not going to get a guy like the other guys I know who are in long-term relationships.

And the other guys I know in long-term relationships. Often not. I'd actually say that there is an, an inversion. Now what you don't want is an ugly wife. I know no man with ugly wives, but who I consider in this category, but typically the homeier, their li wife, the more interesting she is whereas the less homely she is.

And when I say homely, what I mean is completely fable. But also not gonna turn a bunch of heads when you look into your room, like she doesn't look oh, five

Simone Collins: or six. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it's because these men know what to actually optimize for. And I think that that's why you've seen men no longer because nobody is impressed anymore and a lot of the market hasn't adopted to this by you bringing a 10, 10 model into a room e especially if you're in your, also

Simone Collins: because these days being a.

Nine or 10 as a woman doesn't necessarily indicate signs of genetic fitness because there's so much manipulation going on. Like the contouring, the, the, the fillers. Well, I do, I mean, it just looks

Malcolm Collins: trashy. Like consider Jeff Bezos's current girlfriend. Like she looks wife, they're

Simone Collins: getting married soon,

Malcolm Collins: wife, but she looks trashy.

I'm, I'm gonna be honest, she looks trashy compared to the other billionaire's wives. And it's, it's not a good look. Like, I don't know. I think it's 'cause he is a previous generation and he doesn't realize how trashy she looks

Simone Collins: could be. Yeah. I'm fact it seems like she got most of her work done after she met him.

She actually looked pretty normal before, which is also super weird.

Malcolm Collins: Gross. Yeah. Really? 'cause her work is terrible.

Simone Collins: I know, but I almost wonder if he's been driving it because Yeah, she looked pretty normal before I.

Malcolm Collins: He just needs to not do work and dress her like a normal human. And remember,

Simone Collins: he also physically modified himself a lot's.

So he might have some very strong opinions about what he wants for both himself and his partner. And there're sort of like cartoon, outdated cartoon versions. So it's my theory,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. That it's not a bad theory, but it is gross. You No, I mean, like, it, it lower, Hey, he's enjoying it. Walks in a room. Good for

Simone Collins: him, good for him.

He's

Malcolm Collins: happy. And it's not that he couldn't do it, it's not innate to who she is. She could not dress like that when she goes to fancy events.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And she was also very beautiful before. It's not like she needed this,

Malcolm Collins: but to continue. I recently experienced a flicker of possibility was James, we met on Rihanna, the dating app.

Never heard of that. There was a mutual from the start, word play, emotional precision, a tone that felt. Attuned. Oh, it was brief, but it caught light. Okay. I remember saying to him, even fleeting connections matter when they're mutual and lit from the inside. Oh, and I meant it, what a sad thing to say to somebody who you're interested in.

Even if you talk to me for just a little bit, I'll pay attention. Oh God, somebody pay attention to me. There was just enough spark to wonder what might unfold, enough curiosity to imagine a doorway, but he didn't step through it, not with a plan, not with presence. He hovered, flirting, retreating, offering warmth.

But no direction. Sexual tension and a spark aren't enough to sit still in hope. There's substance behind the shimmer. So I named, what I felt, I texted him clearly was care. Not simply to declare attraction, but to extend a real invitation to explore what was possible. Oh God, that sounds so gross.

Mm. Mm-hmm. I didn't chase. Mm-hmm. I invited leaving the door open if he ever wanted to cross that threshold. Not just to take, but to meet. I was willing, I wanted, I still do imagine reading this about yourself. He never replied. He still follows my Instagram stories. One of those small gestures of passive engagement that so many of us.

Mistake for closeness. Who mistakes that for closeness? It was like interest. It feels like silence. There are a thousand jameses. I have known dozens. The arc varies, but the undertow is familiar. This is something I didn't

Simone Collins: know. You could know who follows your Instagram stories. She is really self-involved.

If you're like that, like grasping at those levels of straws. Wait, how do I, I, I honestly dunno. I don't know how people know this.

Malcolm Collins: You don't know how many, you know, who's following your Instagram stories? You haven't stalked?

Simone Collins: Oh, you know what? I don't post Instagram stories. That's probably one of the reasons.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: nobody cares.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. But she cares. This is how she judges if the world still cares about her. Wow. He's that guy I flirted with on a dating app, still liking my stories.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's, that's dark. Yeah, right? That's, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The urban monoculture takes all and leaves nothing. Always remember that.

The guys who think they can still date at this age, it is just as bleak for you guys. Just don't tell on themselves as much. You know, find a partner and lock it down, even if she's homely. Well, I think

Simone Collins: maybe what she's, I'm surprised she hasn't mentioned that, like the high caliber men that she seems to be pursuing, who appeared to both, like a man who will do it for her.

Is presumably in his fifties attractive and wealthy. Highly educated. Okay. Yeah. Those men are dating women in their twenties

Malcolm Collins: because they're not, yeah. They're not dating women in their fifties.

Simone Collins: So I don't know why she's not mentioning that because,

Malcolm Collins: well, a lot of women do. They freak out about it, they shame it.

That's how they try to reclaim the marketplace, and we're seeing this more and more with the world culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work.

Malcolm Collins: What I won't entertain is directionless orbiting the thing. So many men now seem to mistake for connection the perpetual. Maybe they don't mistake this for COR connection.

They're using you for sex. How do you not see

Simone Collins: that? Or they're like, they're just, they're really not that into you. They're just, they're not interested and they're there and. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing this with personally texted them and making not marriage themselves. I'm sure these men like the man that she was like, I want a connection.

Like I'm sure it felt kind of good to him. Maybe he got a little creeped out. You

Malcolm Collins: shouldn't be mar like, like dating people who aren't interested in married. I don't care if you're 50. I don't care if you're not. If you were a, a widows, right, and you were looking for Yeah, but you're forgetting just how many people feel they

Simone Collins: need sex for validation.

Malcolm Collins: True. The emotional check-ins, the casual, seeing where it goes without ever engaging anywhere. We call it a situationship, but mostly it's avoidance. An abdication of ownership. Ownership of you. Like this is what you need is ownership, but you are unwilling to give that. A feeling of behavior of sex that isn't a means to an end, but is a communion.

How can it be a communion if it's casual, like the type that you want? Like you, you I don't, yeah, I

Simone Collins: don't know what she wants. I don't know what she wants. 'cause she's describing marriage. A mystical experiment. No, she's not. She doesn't want commitment. She doesn't want marriage. She wants something. We do.

What what this like poetic language about connections and sparks and stuff. I, she wants

Malcolm Collins: she, she wants, she wants what is it like, like, new relationship energy? Is

Simone Collins: that

Malcolm Collins: it? No, no, no, no. What's that book about, like, about traveling and having sex with people? Oh, eat, pray, love. Eat, pray, love. What she wants is eat, pray, love.

There was a time not so long ago when even one night stands my end with tangled limbs in a shared breakfast when the act No, that was because you were younger then and men felt they needed to do more to keep Well, I mean,

Simone Collins: I think this is why so many women go to Cuba for the male sex workers because they can at least pay for that kind of experience if they need

Malcolm Collins: it.

Yeah. When, when the act of staying the night didn't announce a relationship, just a willingness to be human for a few more hours. Oh, she doesn't even want. Sleeping with guy's, demeanor, relationship, she just wants eggs. Now even that kind of unscripted contact feels rare. We've built so many boundaries that we've walled off the very few moments that make connection memorable, and frankly, morning sex is often the best sex.

Ew. Sometimes you even get a side of eggs before you disappear from their bed and their life forever. So that's what she wants. But this is again, I think a thing that women missed. The men who can get sex easily, like from the period of my life where I could morning sex with a woman sleeping over with a woman making her food, that's all for her.

Oh, that's if I'm a guy and I'm just taking, I thought women

Simone Collins: thought morning sex was stressful because like you either have to wake up and sneakily brush your teeth and try to not look so gross or. So the whole thing

Malcolm Collins: is, is, is a, for her phenomenon, right? Like it is, look, you might be like, oh, like as a guy, you know, if I'm having casual sex, right?

Like I just want to go have casual sex and then leave,

Simone Collins: Go to sleep. I have a good night's sleep without the snuggles,

Malcolm Collins: spending the night, additional sex in the morning making food. That's all things I do. So you don't feel used. Oh, I mean, and I did that with most girls because I didn't want them to feel used.

I didn't want them to feel bad, but I wasn't doing that for me. And I think she has normalized so many parts of the sexual exchange as being completely mutual without realizing that they were 100% a pageant for the woman. Mm-hmm. So the woman didn't feel bad about the decision she was making. And I think that that's what we're seeing here.

What she's saying is men do not do the pageant. And

Simone Collins: also I imagine she's romanticizing elements of her youth that she's relived and through memory so many times that she's overridden it and, and she's not even remembering real things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, when she was in her twenties or whatever, of course guys, you know, kept her over and made her food and were romantic with her and everything.

She wasn't a 50-year-old woman with kids, you know, or a kid even sadder. I mean, it was like,

Simone Collins: what the eighties then the seventies. So men were maybe a little more traditional too. I

Malcolm Collins: mean, she said she dated in the eighties, so, okay, so the

Simone Collins: eighties. Yeah. See, do lines of cocaine and have fun together. All I can think about the eighties is like shoulder pads, cocaine, neon colors.

Malcolm Collins: I should, but I, I, I think it's, it's, it, it's sad because it's a degree of this dating culture and casual sex culture where I think women got the perception that all casual sex culture was for men, and they didn't realize how much of it was a show that men were putting on for them. Mm-hmm. And now the men, because you know, if, if, if, as we, you know, I, I point out the Tinder statistic, but it also matters for the top men.

It means for the top, you know, 20 men in an area, they're getting, you know, 20 matches a day. Right. And these are the men who you likely think are good enough for you. And they can also date women younger than you remember, so mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Why

Malcolm Collins: are they bothering with any of the things that you care about, right?

Mm-hmm. Like eggs in the morning or morning sex, or staying over. Right. Why aren't they just going home after they've used you for whatever they want to get out of you? Right.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm just also so surprised that apparently women wanted to stay over. Like, when I say in media, I thought like, women kind of feel uncomfortable.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So you gotta understand why women want this. They don't want this because they want the sex or the morning food or anything like that. Mm-hmm. They want it because they don't wanna feel used. And when a woman stays over with in popular narratives, or when a man stays over, the woman hasn't been used for sex, it's a fling.

Hmm. When the man has sex and then leaves, that's being used, that is the way they can conceptualize. It was in modern narratives, this isn't about actual pleasure for the woman. This is about the narratives that she's telling herself about the way she is being perceived by the man. Mm-hmm. And you can see a lot of her complaints are about the way she's being perceived by men.

So it's, it's

Simone Collins: performative even though it's not comfortable for anyone involved.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Simone Collins: Do you remember where you, where you slept after the first night? We had sex

Malcolm Collins: couch or something

Simone Collins: on the floor of my living room.

Malcolm Collins: Because I, I wanted to wake up early because Your true

Simone Collins: gentleman, because you

Malcolm Collins: knew, oh yeah.

You're very autistic about this stuff and you, I'm like,

Simone Collins: I don't, I can't.

Malcolm Collins: Did you tell me? And I was just like, okay.

Simone Collins: You know, we, we tried snuggling all night like a couple times and I think you and I even then, like we're able to, we're like, we're not getting any sleep. Yeah. Like this is just not that. Like I just sleep better by myself.

Can we just, can we just set up a bed in the living room for you?

Can we just Yeah.

That was so, you were so accommodating to me and I really appreciate that you in relationships think like what is actually going to make my female partner happy instead of. What are the, like tropes or like what's traditional?

But then I, apparently there's women out there, like this woman who despite being very experienced in terms of sex and relationships, is still diluting herself into thinking that she wants things that,

Malcolm Collins: well, she's completely on urban monocultural autopilot. Like this is a no self-reflection individual.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: no, I mean, 'cause she's not looking for another hug them. If, if she had any sort of cultural framing, that's what she would be looking for.

Simone Collins: And she doesn't mention that these men are just dating 20 year olds anywhere.

Malcolm Collins: Nope. None of that complaining. Maybe we're, she just

Simone Collins: conveniently doesn't see that.

Maybe she thinks their fathers and daughters bless her. I don't see any dating. There's just all of these fathers taking out their daughters for what must be their 21st birthdays.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think men who date younger women now, they don't go out to restaurants as much either anymore because there's not a point the, the young women are showing off on Instagram and stuff.

Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And there's

Malcolm Collins: easier ways to do that. Take care to your nice apartment or whatever.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Order food at your nice apartment. Totally.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And it saves money. And, and like, I mean also yeah. If you, if you are wealthy, higher probability

Malcolm Collins: of sex too.

Simone Collins: Totally. 'cause she's already at your place. Yeah. And if you're wealthy, you have a nice apartment so you can impress her even more with your power.

You can conveniently have sex very easily. And also I think men who are wealthy and successful financially at that age are also, if they still have their money, they're frugal. Meaning that like they, they see the value and maybe, you know, if, even if they're not cooks, like most men can cook one thing to impress someone else.

Yeah. Or just make food for themselves. So like they make the one thing they know how to make. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I am curious what the 20-year-old stating 50 year olds. Date experience is like,

Malcolm Collins: okay, maybe we're between paradigms, mourning what has fallen not yet fluent in what comes next. The infrastructures of intimacy, slowness, curiosity, accountability, have been eroded by haste, convenience, and a kind of sanctioned emotional retreat, not a sanctioned.

The men just have nothing to gain from these relationships. Well,

Simone Collins: and they're having deep, deep, intimate, very emotionally strong bonds with JG bt,

Malcolm Collins: right? It's not about blaming men, it's about noticing the imbalance, about grieving, what's not meeting us, and about refusing to dress it up as a personal failure when it's actually a collective reality.

No, it's a collective personal failure. That is what you are missing here.

Simone Collins: I just can't imagine living life as this woman lives it like this, like very poetic. Emotional like it seems that she lives in emotions.

Malcolm Collins: She does. Well, well, let's, let's, let's tie out the end of this. Okay, so here's what I'll say.

You are missed not just by me, but by the world you once helped to shape. We remember you, the version of you that lingered at the table, that laughed from the chest, that asked. Questions and wanted for answers that touched was out taking, that listened, really listened when a woman spoke. I'll reword that for you.

When a 20-year-old woman spoke, you are not

Simone Collins: gone.

Malcolm Collins: Listen, listened. The men are still here for the 20 year olds. Let me tell you what you are not gone, but your presence is thinning in restaurants, in friendships, in the slow rituals of romantic emergence. You've retreated not into malice, but into something softer and harder all at once.

Avoidance, exhaustion, disrepair. Maybe no one taught you how to stay. Maybe you tried once and it hurt maybe the world. You divorced a guy, you turd. What do you mean? Maybe this is like a woman with a gun and there's like a guy bleeding out on the floor and she's like. I understand that some women hurt people.

It's like, well, you, you, you shot that guy. Like, and she goes, it's not my fault. Well, you chose to marry him. You chose to have a kid with him. You did this to your kid. Like clearly it's a little your fault, right? Like, you're not blameless here, lady. Maybe the world told you that your role was to provide, to perform, to protect and never to feel.

Here's what's real. We never needed you to be perfect. We just needed you to be with us, not above, not muted, not masked. Just whiz. I can promise you any guy who's reading this is like, I do not want to be whiz, whatever this is, because clearly you're using me to jack off some self perception you have of being wanted and being, having companionship, and I don't wanna play that role.

Right. You know, I want somebody who does admire me. And here you're saying we don't want someone who's above us. Well, a guy wants you to admire them. You, you, you jack off. Like of course nobody. But also like, she just doesn't

Simone Collins: make sense. Like,

Malcolm Collins: what, what is all this? I can't if, if you, if you're not into guys to adore them, like my wife, day one.

Has put me on a pedestal, and that's a big part of why I like being married to her. You, you, you are saying, oh, I would never put a guy on a pedestal. Of course. Who, what guy wants to date a woman who sees him as an equal? What woman wants to date A guy she sees as her equal or beneath her? Very few. I think that there's this perception was in the urban monoculture because they've repeated this life so many times of, I really don't care if I admire a guy and think that he's, you do, I promise you, you do.

Why did you divorce guy number one? You know? And you can still come back, not by becoming someone else, but by remembering what connection feels like. Oh, they're remembering that with 20 year olds, when it's honest and slow, when it's earned and messy and sacred, we're still here. Those of us willing to co-create something true.

We are not impossible to please. We are not asking for performances. We are asking for presence, for courage, for breath and eye contact, and the ability to say, I am here and I don't know how to do this perfectly, but I want to try come back. Not with foul hours or fireworks, but with willingness with your whole beautiful, imperfect heart.

We're still here and we haven't stopped. Hoping as for me, I'll keep showing up, not because I'm waiting, but because I know what it feels like when someone finally arrives.

Simone Collins: This sounds like, it reminds me of that, that female trope of a woman being mad at her boyfriend and being like, you know what you did.

You know? And he's like, what did I do? You know? You

Malcolm Collins: know, I'm gonna know what it feels like. No, honestly,

Simone Collins: I don't, I don't dunno what to do. Like, I, I do not know what this woman wants. If, if I'm a man and I'm, I'm like, I, I, I, I genuinely don't know what she wants. Although someone was just texting. No, I know what she wants.

I'll

Malcolm Collins: tell you what she wants.

Simone Collins: Okay. What does she want?

Malcolm Collins: She wants the type of guy who any of our happily married women friends are married to. She wants No, no, no. I promise you she wants a guy who treats her on dates the way I treat you. She wants a guy who treats her, like, think about like Raffi and Charlotte.

She wants to guy to treat her the way Raffi treats Charlotte. She wants a guy Who's that young couple we, you know, who got married in Texas?

Simone Collins: Oh, Gwen and Ron Ronnie.

Malcolm Collins: No g Glen and Ronnie, she wants a guy to treat her the way that Ronnie treats her. No, but then there's the other couple, the entrepreneur couple where the woman is a nurse and the guy is a

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: Alex and Katie.

Yeah, Alex and Katie. She wants a guy to treat her. The way Alex treats Katie, she wants, like, in every one of these instances, she wants a guy to treat her the way that guys get who get married in their, yeah.

Simone Collins: There seems to be this whole like, emotional connection. We just love each other as humans. We're just human together

Malcolm Collins: thing.

Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And this is the thing, would not any, these women, right, like these other women who are in relationships, right?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: She's like, I want, I, I just want a connection. You know? You don't need to bring me flowers. You don't need to bring me fireworks. You don't need to make me feel like the most special woman on earth every day.

And, and, and what's ironic? Is that these women who did settle down and get married mm-hmm. And, and, and who have families, they do have the man bring them flowers regularly or fireworks regularly if that's what they want, or make them feel like the most special woman on earth, you know, every day. Maybe not every day a week, but more often than not.

And this is what I see in the young couples who get married, right? Like, yeah. They're

Simone Collins: so sweet. It's so nice. No,

Malcolm Collins: they're, they're all so sweet. They, they, they, this thing that she's like, well, I don't, I understand. It's too much to ask for all of this. It's like, no. All of that stuff that you think that is too much to ask for, that's what you should have been looking for in husband number one, rather than urban monoculture.

Simp who's disposable. Okay. And this is the problem, right? You, you, you, you come to women at a certain age and you're like. It just gets so hard at this age, right? Like, you have to make so many sacrifices. You're basically looking for a widower at this point. Right? And, and you are looking for marriage.

If, if that's what you want, why would a man treat you like you're on a pedestal and like you're the most special woman in the world if he doesn't plan to marry you. Right? Like, do you want him to, do you want him to fake some sort of connection? If he has the feelings for you that you're describing, you want him to feel for you, he should want to marry you.

So why isn't that the first thing you're talking about?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And she's loudly signaling that's not what she wants.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, that's unfortunate. Well, I mean, and she also isn't gonna be desirable to the type of guy who wants that because of her life choices.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and this is all, you know, this should be seen as the cry not to men out there, but young women who are making the same choices that she do.

Is, you know, sex in the City, I think is a really good example of this because that is what her generation was weaned on to think, oh, the group of girls who goes to a fancy restaurant together is actually still classy. The Jennifer Parker, who the main Jessica, Sarah

Simone Collins: Jessica Parker,

Malcolm Collins: who wrote this and did everything.

She,

Simone Collins: she didn't write it, but she had a lot of editorial influences of editorial later season of

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. She, she, she said, I wish I had just gotten married and new kid. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. The writer of the series Who wasn't Sarah Jessica Parker. Oh, it wasn't? Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The writer of the series, the head writer

Simone Collins: say she, yeah, yeah.

Regret. Did she, that

Malcolm Collins: she hadn't made these decisions. The one who sold all of this to you has said this was a giant mistake and I deeply regret my life choices. I should have just gotten married and had kids. That unfortunately is where we should all be you. You shouldn't have time to be thinking about dating unless you're thinking about who's gonna be the next parent for my kids.

And that's the funny thing that she's not looking for here. When my mom dated after my mom and dad got divorced, the only thing she ever talked about in terms of who she was dating was how good of a parent to her kids that person was gonna be.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Confirmed

Malcolm Collins: that was 100% her focus. And that this individual, that doesn't even seem to be relevant.

She's interested in the sex and the personal connection and everything like that. Yeah. What

Simone Collins: is this for me, emotionally, not even like in terms of logistical life benefit, who can I be with an old age? Who can I build security with an old age? Who can I, who can be a good additional adult figure in my kids' life?

No. It is just who can emotionally indulge me for fun things? No. If you, if you

Malcolm Collins: died for example, that would be what I was looking for. You know? That is what I would be vetting for

Simone Collins: the mother replacement for our kids.

Malcolm Collins: Who's gonna be a good mom for my kids? I. The

Simone Collins: Maria to your barness fun trap.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. And even, and people can be like, oh, well that's so dehumanizing to a woman.

Not even if I went on a date with a wife. No, I want my

Simone Collins: kids to be okay. For sure. No, like, and I've told, I've told Malcolm that if I die, he is not looking for a wife. He is looking for a woman who would love our kids and take good care of them, but not

Malcolm Collins: just that. And then keep in mind, there are great ISTs who have done this Katherine Ock who wrote Hannah's children.

Yeah, she came into a

Simone Collins: marriage of. With a man who already had six kids and then she had eight more,

Malcolm Collins: and the, the previous wife had died, by the way. Well, widower. Right. You know, so again, not like his fault, right. Like, but if a woman was dating me, and this is a thing where people are like, oh, like a woman who has a lot of kids, like, you'd never wanna marry.

Like if I have a lot of kids and I'm dating a woman who has a lot of kids, 'cause like her husband died or something, Brady Bunch.

Simone Collins: Super wholesome.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Totally. And, and this woman is vetting me. Like if she's like date number one, she's like, look, I've got, you know, three, four, whatever kids. And I wanna be honest, I am primarily vetting you, not based on how I feel about you, but how good of a dad you're gonna be.

Yeah. That to me is positive points.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That is like, okay, we, I'm gonna take this seriously now. 100%. Yeah. I'm like, this

Malcolm Collins: is clearly a woman with her head screwed on straight. Yeah. And I want my kids to have a good parent as well. And society,

Simone Collins: again, a society super condones that that is what the Brady Bunch is all about.

Like people, people are into that. Well it

Malcolm Collins: used to. You know, can you imagine the horror of on a current date, you're like, to be honest, my wife died and I'm just really looking for a good, you know, household manager and wife to well, okay. In

Simone Collins: like nineties rom-coms that, that would show up every now and then.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. But today it'd be seen as bad, you know, to her, that's all tangential. It's all about the personal connection.

Simone Collins: I don't know, I, I don't, I, I always, so, like, I grew up so much on the sound of music and like she, Maria, this nun who comes to take care of Captain von Trap's kids, falls in love with the kids first.

Really? Like, that's the dream. That's like, if that, that's what I hope happens if I die. That, you know, some woman just freaking loves our kids and like then comes to love you too. But

Malcolm Collins: that used to be the norm. Yeah. That used to be not weird. That used to, well, yeah,

Simone Collins: Benjamin Franklin was the last son. Of like a lot of kids.

I can't remember if it was like 10 or 16 or 16. Yeah, a ton. But, but that was his father's second wife. Maybe third. Like this is a, this is a fairly, fairly normal format, at least in past successful lineages and families, but whatever. Anyway, I

Malcolm Collins: love you to death, Simone. Thank you for making me kids. You know, you're working on it right now, kid number five.

Mm-hmm. And thank you for making me dinner. We are doing another night of the, of Vermillion things. Are you making more sauce tonight? Right.

Simone Collins: I have more, I have more sauce. I made three servings of sauce unless you want me to make a new, a new batch

Malcolm Collins: and I can't no. Continue to use the sauce batches that you made.

Okay. But add another lime to it. Okay. 'cause it, it doesn't have enough lime.

Simone Collins: Okay. I'll add more. One lime. And I'll do a new, or maybe just

Malcolm Collins: add like a lime wedge to the side and I can put it Do you

Simone Collins: want to do the like some of the salad? Do you want a little more greenery or not? Yeah, more

Malcolm Collins: greenery.

Okay. Half, half salad. Half vermil noodles, vermicelli and cut down the vermil noodles. You're using a ton. Vermicelli.

Simone Collins: Okay, I will do that. Vermil, you're not gonna let that go. Are you okay? I love you so much. I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, I'm I, I'm so glad we're not this person. I, I, there was that really sad tweet, like he's dark.

By HO Math.

Malcolm Collins: Where, you know, friend of the show and he's like, look, I'm in my forties. I'll never be married, I'll never own a home, I'll never have a normal relationship. And I'm like, damn man. Like,

Simone Collins: well, a home that meets. And I mean like, he was kind of couching that and like maybe he had really high standards 'cause he was like, I'll never be able to build the home I want, or customize a home to make it the way I like.

So maybe it's, you know, he's like your dad and he's like, well I need like a swimming pool that goes into my bedroom. But

Malcolm Collins: that's, I think a lot of people, when they saw our home mass episode, they thought that the reason I focused on like how can we get around the current societal crisis was because I wanted to shill his product.

And the real reason I did that, that I just wanted him to say something optimistic because so much of his content is really like the world's broken and there's no way around it. At least he's helped a lot of people. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And you know, I think his choice to orient his audience around, I. You know, don't think, don't hyper focus so much on what you want for yourself, but what you can give to the world.

And I think he has that orientation for his self as well. But he, you know, who's not above a moment where we slip and have a little self pity. No, but I mean,

Malcolm Collins: he's, he's providing this mindset to people younger than him who can hopefully act on it. I mean yeah. Now he's a famous U2 personality, but who knows when he was marrying age, like early thirties and twenties, you know, if he was Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah.

I mean, he only just skyrocketed. He only just found the success. And he also like, I think at one point lost a hundred pounds. So like, yeah. The, he may have been just systematically in a terrible position for his dating years. But I mean, I

Malcolm Collins: also, I, I'm worried about the other young influencers we know, you know, like per Pearl Davis is still single.

Ruby Art is still single, you know, like

Simone Collins: Yeah, they gotta, they gotta nail it down. Did you

Malcolm Collins: know, I didn't know this. Chris Williamson is married and has a kid.

Simone Collins: Alright. Okay. That's good. I,

Malcolm Collins: I didn't know. That's good. That's good. I hope Tim

Simone Collins: Ferris has found his person. 'cause he's been like, I mean, I, I sort of stopped listening to his podcasts after he released Cock Punch.

I just, I don't know. He knew was what was cock what? It, it was like a whole fantasy world about chickens, roosters. I just, I I didn't get it. Some people's got it. Okay. I didn't get it. Is this my

Malcolm Collins: AI fantasies that you can get on Patreon? Where, where, no, those are, those are fun.

Simone Collins: Those are, those are audio.

Those are little fun. No, no, no. He was like really into it, like the character design and the extended fictional universe of these. Roosters, I get

Malcolm Collins: really into my fantasy worlds. They're, yeah, but they're

Simone Collins: not roosters. You know, you're playing with genres that are fun and tropes that are repetitive and comforting, but with a slightly different slant, which is exactly what you want from everything.

Right? Like twilight. But make it a rich guy who's into BDSM or you know, like it is just like, you know, Uber, but make it for clothing and you know, like, yeah, like, I mean he like cock punch was just a little too, but anyway, before that he kept talking about how he really wanted to become a dad and he was researching it and he was trying to do all these things and get healthy and find the right partner and, and then he

Malcolm Collins: wrote a book about chickens.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: As an alternative. Yeah. He could have found a partner at his level of wealth and faith. Well, I mean,

Simone Collins: he had like, for a long time he had a, a really awesome girlfriend and that, I think it just didn't work out with her and. I, I think he was dating other people who knows what's going on in his personal life, but that's another influencer who I'm like, oh, come on, man.

Like, you're gonna be, I understand he'd be a great dad with this. At least Chris, Chris has a, has his person. He seems like he'd be a great dad. Like he seems like one of those

Malcolm Collins: guys who might actually Dad. No, actually, like of all the influencers I know, he seems like he'd be the best dad,

Simone Collins: but also like, I could see him being like, you know, 10% of men are like baby men who like, actually like babies and infants, you know, they're like, oh, let me hold the, like, I could see him, I could see him like, you all like muscly wearing one of those, those like kangaroo shirts, just walking around with a little infant.

I could, I, I like it. It's a, it's a thing I could see. But maybe not, who knows?

Malcolm Collins: I never, I'm gonna be honest, I, I almost never from like the conservative male influencers who are just like pure conservative, not like Chris Williamson or something, or IV ka where they're like playful, conservative.

Mm-hmm. I never get good dad vibes from them. I'm like, I would no, Han's a total dad. I said, not like the playful conservative. Oh,

Simone Collins: unlike them. Okay. So if you're not a playful conservative, if you're like sargon of a cod then,

Malcolm Collins: or something like that, I'm like, I would not wanna be his kid. Yeah. Like I'd be like,

Simone Collins: have you have your razor blade thing gone away yet?

Malcolm Collins: The cuts. Yeah. That thing like it didn't hurt, but it left fricking scars.

Simone Collins: My God. Anyway, I gotta go get Octavian. Love

Malcolm Collins: you.

Simone Collins: I love you so much. And

Malcolm Collins: recording.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. I get so sad on days when we don't record.

Malcolm Collins: Did you just sit around crying to yourself when we don't record? Yeah. Like

Simone Collins: when I had a dentist appointment yesterday, it was like, no.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm, I'm glad because I have extra time to prep episodes 'cause we've recorded so many backlogs.

Simone Collins: I know. I, and I, I, I can help on that front.

I have some outlines I'm working on.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we get accepted it into one of these accelerators. We might need a bigger backlog. 'cause I'm gonna need to be there for like two weeks.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, we'll see what, what should happen will happen. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Thank God will let us know. Yeah. How we are meant to dominate those who would oppose us.

What, you know it, you know it. I know. I know. All right.

In this episode, the hosts dive into the spicy topic of contemporary female-focused romance literature. They dissect several popular fantasy books like 'A Court of Thorns and Roses,' 'Trial of the Sun Queen,' and others, revealing recurring themes of 'mate bonds,' dominantly possessive men, and the normalization of toxic female behavior. Through detailed analysis, they uncover how these stories reflect modern women's struggles with dating, promiscuity, and the evolving norms of relationships. The hosts question the psychological impact of these narratives and critique their perpetuation of unhealthy relational dynamics and unrealistic romantic fantasies.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone.

I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we here are going to be discussing a spicy topic. In a recent episode we were talking about the de botched things that women read in their fantasy literature. And I was talking to you this morning about it and you were going over them and you were like, no, that is like.

You listen to this and, and when I heard about the stuff, it's bad. No, were listening to when it is explained to me by my quote unquote trad wife, I guess is what the media calls you. What is in these fantasy books? I, I am like

In one hour on six Ed World?

Malcolm Collins: I I, yeah. But then it got worse.

Mm-hmm. Because I start doing like, I wanna understand if this stuff that you're telling me is accurate, I want to go into this so I start, right?

'cause I'm

Simone Collins: sure you thought I was crazy. It couldn't possibly be that, no, that these are bestselling very popular

Malcolm Collins: books than what you said. Because I start going into all of this and I get summaries of the books, and I get summaries of all these plot points. And it keeps, and there's this, this phrase that keeps coming up.

I mean, and I'm talking across books here. It was like, well, X was mated to X or X was bound to y. And I was like,

what the hell is wrong with you people?

Malcolm Collins: what is this?

She's mated thing I haven't heard. And I go to my wife about this. Okay. And you're like. I don't, I Wait, what? I haven't read anything about this weird kinky mated thing, so I ask because the first one that you talked about was the court of thorns and roses.

Yeah. And here's what AI had to say about that. Okay. It said, yes, the mate Mont Trope is 100% in a Court of Thorns and Roses series. It is, and it's arguably the series, is it mainstream to kink into modern Romantic. So you are like, I don't even remember it from my, in my

Simone Collins: defense, I use these as pregnancy sage, Xanax.

The reason I listen to romantic books is they are so bad and so poorly written that they literally put me to sleep. Like I used to listen to really dry history books to fall asleep. And now I'm like, oh, but I need to know what happened.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, I read it for the plot. That's why I have, you know, you know, I I completely agree with you.

I do not engage in any of this for, for, for anything other than just the articles. Is that your version of, I read it for the, for the articles, the play, you know, that's what they used to say about Playboy, right?

Simone Collins: No, no, because the plot's not good. The and, and here, like my problem is I really hate the female characters and I really hate what they normalize in terms of like, this is normal relationship behavior.

If you're a woman, and I can get into this too,

Malcolm Collins: because there's, oh, we're gonna get into this, we're gonna get into each of these, but I wanted to start with this mate bonding trope, because I found this really interesting. Okay. And I think it's important to note here because and we're gonna go over all the stories it's in, in just a second because it has become so ubiquitous in female focused romance literature.

The. For example, you didn't even notice when it was in a story, and yet it is, if you're talking like Omega verse, you can see our omega verse episode. Oh. Where people are like, it is closer to the Omega verse than it is to real life. It is definitely a really fairly bizarre kink. And it's interesting to study because it shows something that modern women are not finding in society today.

Well, here,

Simone Collins: no, here's, here's my thing. I don't think it's bizarre. I think it's an answer to larger normalization of female promiscuity. So if you can no longer have like, your one true love that you meet, like out of adolescence and you lose your virginity with them, or like they're your very first, like second maybe.

Right? You know, and then that's, that's it. That's your true love. You met your person. There has to be some other mechanism, some other, you know, physics have to be at play to explain why the, the, the, the. Bond being described in the romance novel is meaningful 'cause otherwise it's just another rung on the ladder.

Does that make sense?

Malcolm Collins: I disagree Really. And we'll go into this a little bit. Yeah. So first, what is it, because people may not know. So, mate, bonds occur in these stories. It is a magical or biological or faded connection between two characters, usually male and female.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It is irresistible, it is permanent, it is non-consensual.

It's often physically overwhelming or arousal leaked.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it is tied to something like Destiny or something like that. Basically it's not a choice. So if we're talking about the first story that we're gonna be looking at, which is Court of Thrones and whatever th thorns and roses Frey realizes that she's mated, toand, FARA.

FAA realizes she's sorry. You. Oh, you actually, you actually, I've listened

Simone Collins: to them as audiobooks to fall asleep, so I know how the names are pronounced.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. FAA realizes she's M it to Rand and is physically and emotionally pulled to him despite being in another relationship. Oh, sand. Oh. Oh. I can't, I can't choose my partner.

I'm, I know I'm dating someone, but I just have to mate. With this other person. And then betray my former lover because I'm just so mated now. Or another one, the, the fourth wing violet and Zayden share a dragon forged bond.

Simone Collins: Ooh. Wait, does the dragon do it to them as a dragon like cupid, where he just like, well,

Malcolm Collins: we'll get into it.

We'll get a trial of the sun Queen Laura is claimed as a potential mate by multiple kings who treat her as magical property. But she's

Simone Collins: bonded to nadir this dark aurora prince

bonded.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay.

You are into this. No, I was talking, I was telling you how, like they were describing the bonding is like, you feel the magic under your skin.

Like, it, it's, ugh. I really, I really hate it, but like, I. No, I, I really, I, I think you're missing it because the, what you're missing in these, okay, go ahead.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. I will, I will go and then you can provide the counter argument. Okay. Yes. So we'll give some theories about what might be causing it. Then I'm gonna give my theory and then you can give your theory.

Okay. All right. All right. All right. Psychological safety and submission. The mate bond removes the burden of choosing a partner. It tells the reader this is right, no need to second guess. It offers a fantasy where the woman is pursued relentlessly, not because she's attractive or charming, he literally can't help it.

Mm-hmm.

And in a world of choice paralysis and dating, which you have in our current world, this feels safe. Now I think all of those are real, real things.

Okay.

You also have eroticism without guilt, which is actually really big for women. It allows women to desire power, sex, and obsession. Oh.

Without feeling responsible for it. Like,

Simone Collins: it's not their fault that they wanna

Malcolm Collins: to feel this. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It's. The, it's the magic coursing under my blood that reacts every time he touches me, that I don't, I worse me, I don't actually

Malcolm Collins: feel arousal. Right? How interesting how male fantasy was a softened edge.

These men are aggressive, dominant, or even violent, but the mate bond means they'll never hurt her. So it allows a woman to have an attraction to violent men while still feeling safe within the romantic context.

Ah,

but I'll tell you what I really think it is. Okay. I think it actually comes down to the omega verse concept more.

Yeah. Which,

Simone Collins: I mean, I think, so there was this, so there was like twilight, which is very, I think sort of the last really, well maybe 50 shades of gray in twilight were the last really popular romance novels of what I would call the old genre, where you have an innocent, mostly sexless young woman. Who discovers her sexuality through her first love.

And then that's kind of it. And then you have the Omega verse, which I think is the beginning of this new version of female romance, which I think better accommodates modern female dating and sexuality.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But let's talk about this. Let's do it. So I I, I think omega verse is actually an easier thing to explore it with.

'cause I actually think that this is like omega verse light. So we've talked about Omega verse before, but what happens in Omega verse stories is some males and some females are born alphas or omegas. And, and most are born betas. Betas just means basically a normal human, male or female. Mm-hmm. But sometimes they are born as either these.

Very dominant figures who are like very dominant to other individuals. And, and sometimes they're born as very like submissive figures who don't want to be submissive often, like omegas often don't wanna be really be omegas. But they cannot help but resist, be attracted to the dominant alphas and then be, be pair bond to them, you know, whether they want to or not.

Now what's actually being recreated here is in our current world of sexist men and women, I. Oh, alphas and Omegas recreate the concept of biological sex. It's, you have this one category of human, which is male 'cause it's usually a male alpha is interested in a female omega. And these stories are male omegas, often common.

But you have this one male who is extra tough and strong and everybody listens to him. And then you have women. But these women aren't like normal women. They're really attracted to dominant males, and they aren't like normal women. When they see a dominant male, why, my goodness, they just get so turned on.

There's nothing they can do about it. And not like normal women when they meet with someone. My goodness. It's for life. And what you're actually seeing here is they have recreated within a fantasy context the role that women lost in our society. Oh.

Simone Collins: And, and by obscuring it behind. This new form of sexuality, you're making it safe again.

Because God forbid they're not into

Malcolm Collins: dominant, strong males and lifelong relationships. It's a kink. It's really weird. And that somehow

Simone Collins: makes it okay. That is what we've come to.

Malcolm Collins: No, that is actually what we've come to as a society. All right. Now, women are like, no, I'm just, I'm not reading about a woman who finds a guy who she falls desperately in love with, and that arousal is a component of that, and that she wants to spend her entire life with him, and she'll betray other men on his behalf, you know, just because she likes serving this guy.

It's some sort of a weird kink.

Simone Collins: All right. I, I will say to that very compelling theory, and I think you're right, but I'm gonna, yes. And you right that yes. That's true. And I think the other thing that's happening, and we've also talked about this dynamic, is that more women now are having more partners before they get married.

And one of the things that they struggle with is, is the more partners you have on average, the less of a strong hormonal response you have to those subsequent partners. Yes. So the less you're going through this process of feeling really in love, like feeling that deep chemical infatuation that you do as a woman the first time you're sexually intimate, which I did not believe existed before I had sex.

And then I had sex with you. And then we broke up and I went through withdrawal and I'm like, oh, wow. Okay. Is this real? So

Malcolm Collins: for context here the more partners a woman sleeps with, the less stable her relationships often are, and the less oxytocin she releases during sex, which determines how psychologically bonded she can feel.

It note, note, it determines how psychologically bonded she's to a partner. Without her consent really. Mm-hmm. Because this is something that is happening without, like, my wife didn't choose to love me. I did not. She was forced to because she hadn't had sex before. Yeah. I brainwashed her with, you know, weird human biology.

Right. Well, but

Simone Collins: there's something hot about that. That first time that you fall in love as a woman, right. That like you so can't help it. And it's just so all encompassing. And I think that's when you hear about this bonding, whether it's like the magic under your skin or fate saying this or Dragon, but you can explain that one later.

Or the Omega dynamic. Like I think that's trying to capture some of that which to not sexless, but rather sex experienced women is understandable and desired and they want that again. 'cause I've had friends who've had a lot of relationships before. They said, yeah, they want those early relationships.

And they would say, they would keep saying like, well, I'm just waiting to get that feeling again and I can't break it to them that like. You're not gonna get that feeling again. But what you're missing in a lot of these, these newer romance novels, which you didn't see from like the virginal teen romance novels, is that the female protagonists in them are sexually experienced.

So FAA in the Court of Thorns and Roses series before she ends up, like, before like the, the series starts, she is sexually experienced. And then, and hold on. This is like medieval Europe, right? Or something? Yeah, she was just fooling around with a boy in the village. Same with the

Malcolm Collins: by, by the way, just so people know.

That's very anachronistic. People did not sleep around in medieval Europe before. Yeah. You,

Simone Collins: you, you don't do that. And, and then in, in the other book, with Ry sand. What? The aurora King? Oh, the, the, the something or the Orano series? The, the, the care, the protagonist lore is actually quite slutty.

Like she sleeps around a lot, both to like get what she needs and also for fun. So these are sexually experienced women. And then in the first book of each of these series, the women. Think they've fallen in love with their man, and like you as the reader are led to believe like, oh, like he's the one.

And so I think this is very similar to like women who, you know, like, oh, come on, like this time, right? Like, I'm gonna marry this guy, and then another guy come along. Yeah. But then, yeah, then, then it turns out in each of these that like, oh, actually no, that guy's an a*****e. Like, I don't, he's, he's bad.

He's kind of proto abusive. Like maybe he's violent, proto, find you. Yeah. Like he's, no, he's, he's really bad. And it's this other bad boy that I'm irresistibly attracted to who's really the one, and that's where you get in a deal. They're often quite

Malcolm Collins: abusive as well, which we'll get to you in a sense. No, they're,

Simone Collins: yeah, they're actually, they're typically the bad boys in the previous.

Mm-hmm. Like in the first book, they're like the dark male antagonist. And then in the second book, it turns out that they're the ones to whom they're bonded. But I think the larger point is to me. I think this more tracks the, the trajectory of a more sexually experienced woman who's looking for that feeling of, of falling in love again and who's going through relationships where like she's like, this is the one, you know, he's my, he's my guy.

And then like, ah, it doesn't really work out. Well, he was, he was like, messed up anyway. He was, he was a bad person. Well,

Malcolm Collins: what's what's really interesting in these stories, and we'll get to it, is a repeated justification of serial monogamy. The idea that it is okay and wall, but

Simone Collins: also sort of, 'cause also another thing that really shows up a lot in these is each of these, like, like the main character in these first books each of them has like a wingman, like a best friend slash guard Okay.

Who like interacts maybe a little bit more with the female protagonist and like does a lot of the exposition and stuff. And she does most of her interaction. With him and he's also super hot. So like, I don't know man, like, but sure kind of. Do they ever with this

Malcolm Collins: wingman or like

Simone Collins: show? No, they never, they never sleep with the wingman, but there's a lot of flirting and they're very hot.

So

Malcolm Collins: I don't

Simone Collins: know what's going on there. I'm

Malcolm Collins: surrounded by a hotman that flirt with me, and I have one guy who I like, but then I gotta go after the bad boy. Well, no. Yeah, because,

Simone Collins: well, the alpha male who's a little bit more distant, you know, but I can't resist the alpha male because I made it to him. Well, no, no, no.

That's, that's the second alpha male, you know, the second alpha, first alpha male, more alpha male you think is the one. But then, no, he's not the one. He's, he's actually a jerk. And then, you know, this next one for sure except then they're super abusive toward all of them. And of course we're gonna get to that next, I guess,

Malcolm Collins: but, okay, let's, let's go to the other series that have this mated trope.

Okay? Okay. Yeah. But you've also got, you know, in addition to the, the thorn of court roses and stuff. Yeah. And then fourth wing, and then try all of the Sun Queen Uhhuh. You have the Savage Land Series. This one includes like scenting marking possessiveness. So like classic Omega, like way more standard Omega.

Maybe I should get

Simone Collins: that one. Maybe that one will put me to sleep. I can't, I can't bear to pay for these, so I need to get them for free on Audible plus. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: okay. No, no, of course you can't.

Simone Collins: I'll if, if only you were paying for your it's too embarrassing. It's too humiliating, but you can really

well expense

it.

Malcolm Collins: You can expense it to the show. You need to watch these for our fans so you can tell them how bad they're, yeah. You, you've got the, the Bridge King, but the thing, I can't even really

Simone Collins: talk about them well because again, like I'm falling, they make me fall asleep, which I really need.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's hard to sleep.

It has a arranged marriage. You've got faded mates which, which has books like Feral Sins, crave Wolf Gone. You've got From Blood to Ash. And as to why it's, it's so common here. I, I love what it says. Built in sexual tension. No need to build chemistry. Just say, mate. Bond commission.

Fantasy. Yeah. It's

Simone Collins: such lazy writing, like literally. Yeah. Women did overpower Your AI generated ai written stories are written better than these. Like, I swear if I got a penny every time the author of In, in the Court of Thorns and Roses series wrote and his throat bobbed like to indicate that he was like that.

Someone was nervous. I would be rich. Like, can you, okay. Stop. Okay. But

Malcolm Collins: I love this one. TikTok Virality M it to the Dark Prince gets more clicks than slow burn emotional maturity. Made it to m to the dark. You No, that's all you need to study. There should just be, we were looking at like, books today and one just said Rich Fay Boyfriend or something.

Yeah, it was like, like, yeah,

Simone Collins: like, like Filthy Rich fay. No, it was Rich

Malcolm Collins: Fas.

Simone Collins: No, it was like, it was like some something rich Fay. Yeah, something, something I know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He was rich

Simone Collins: and he was a fake and he was also like either dirty or mean or something like that. It was like, okay, so we're just doing like K hashtags now.

Yeah. It's just

Malcolm Collins: like, what are you into girl? Yeah. Like yeah.

Simone Collins: Literally looks like when you go onto N FW subreddits where sometimes they'll tag like the type of content with like specific fetish. Like, no, we're just gonna put these on the titles of books now, because you know what, people don't, they work from home now.

They're not commuting on buses. They don't have to be ashamed of the book covers anymore. So they're like, screw it. Just put it on the cover. I'm gonna be

Malcolm Collins: honest, a lot of these books have pretty dope covers.

Simone Collins: No, no. Designs and proving. I, I'm, I'm with you on that. They're, they're, they're fine.

The thorn

Malcolm Collins: of whatever.

Simone Collins: Really? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's very intricate. Cool. I, I like these. I they look pretty like cool. I'm like, I, I adored my room with those if I didn't know that this was all about, and you know, the, but anyway, let's, let's go into the first book. So we're just gonna go into like all the bad stuff as teaching women.

'cause women, it gives me so much. They come at me and they're like, do you know about all of the disgusting things that like porn sites are teaching men? And I'm like, I have been to Barnes and let's talk about what you are being taught. Well,

Simone Collins: and, and first let me point out that like the, the top traffic erotic material that men consume is, is eager, slutty women.

True. Like, there is just wild consent. They're loving it. Like men, if, if we had, if I had to interpret what they wanted, they just want women to be happy and they just really want them to want their day.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. No, I'm, I'm just actually gonna, like right now I'm gonna see Han. So we're not even looking at like PornHub, so we're not looking at anything like that

Simone Collins: niche.

If you're just looking at like,

Malcolm Collins: anything on the front page here of, of recent submissions forced, no, no, no. One tentacles. Debbie. It's labeled tickling as well, so yeah, the No, it is, it is, it is not as common as people say. It's I'm

Simone Collins: just going to rn, SFW just like the most generic and I'm going top of all time.

Solo orgasm, sexy, brunette. I'm mature, well, I can't use that word. Freckled babe. Everything here. Best poop reveal ever. This is just cutie, just enthusiastic Women, just, they're more enthusiastic women.

Malcolm Collins: And what happens when you go to the top books that women are reading? The romantics, it's, it's people being mated.

It's, yeah. The rich, evil faith. Yeah. Lack of consent. It's werewolves and vampires and,

Simone Collins: but honestly, like all, all the dark stuff that the men are doing in these series doesn't come close to the level of shady behavior of the female protagonist. And that's also, I

Malcolm Collins: think I've always said that I think this is why I had such an easy time on sexual marketplaces.

'cause I actually am like a bad boy in what turns me on. So I, I don't, I, I get all of these girls who are interested in this stuff you know, back when I was dating in high school and they're like, oh, well you,

Simone Collins: well you're, you're a bad boy In terms of what people like get women on average are more likely to be turned on by.

But you're not a dark triad dick to women. Yes. Like, you're not like in real life. A jerk as, as one might say, which

Malcolm Collins: is just became the roulette real of like easy, you know, college and you know, whatever. So,

Yeah. But,

but let's go into the bad behavior here. Okay? Okay. So part one, Frey's Reckless and selfish Behavior.

Faye Rob. So apparently she spots a large wolf while hunting. She suspects it may be a magical fa creature in disguise, meaning she thinks it might be sentient. Mm-hmm. And it would be illegal to heal, kill it, and risk her family's life. Mm-hmm. She doesn't decide to kill it because she needs food or something.

She wants, its pelt for money. She risks potentially killing a sentient creature and her family's life. Mm-hmm. Just to earn a little money. Yeah. This is the opening act. Mm-hmm. It is never treated as a bad thing. And by the way, it turns out that it was sentient. Oh yeah. Is this ever played? Like, oh, I murdered a sentient thing, or I, yeah,

Simone Collins: no.

She goes to, as, as penance for this crime that she commits. The, the, the first lover of hers shows up in wolf form. And it's like, I am gonna basically take you as hostage in my court, and of course you're gonna live there and like, it's gonna be, you're, you're gonna eat off gold plates. And life was luxurious.

I but, but she goes, yeah. So she, she goes as a, a prisoner, you know, to pay out her sentence for, for murdering this person, this Faye. And, yeah. Everyone's like, yeah, he was my best friend. You know, he was, he was a great guy. You killed him. You know, they, it, it, like they were, it comes up a, it comes up a bunch.

That's great.

Malcolm Collins: They, they're like, and you knew, you thought she doesn't mention, well, I thought he might be a Faye, but, you know, whatever. I wanted the money. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I don't think she ever says she's sorry. I think she's just, no, actually here's what she does. Is because actually what it turns out that the king of this court, who's her first, you know, man, number one who turns out to be a juror, who she betrays a bunch, but continue who she betrays.

Well, she, these women bet we're, we're getting there. He was sending these men out because he needed, I think to trigger something. But he knew he was sending these men to their deaths. So.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah. So let's talk about the first love interest Tamlin. Alright. Oh yeah. Tamlin. Yes. He's the one You a high paid Lord.

Super powerful. Immortal being. Mm-hmm. So very old by the way. Like thousand years. Oh no. The age

Simone Collins: gaps are huge. Yeah. And then I love that women will like trash men for their age gaps and stuff. No, no, no, no, no, no. When you look like, when you look at like, book reviews of romance novels, they're like, love the age gap, or like, it's just, it's a, it's a keyword.

Women look up, they love age gaps and yet they like hate Leonardo DiCaprio for stopping dating women after the 25. Oh, it's, it's so hypo really funny. But yeah, like, in, in the other book that we're talking about where there's nadir and lore, nadir is like 250 years old and she's like 21. So that's, you know, I think the problem is the age gap's not big enough.

DiCaprio needs to be like, I. 200 years. Used to

Malcolm Collins: be like a 90-year-old man dating like a 21-year-old. No, no. He needs

Simone Collins: to be 290. Malcolm. You're missing the

Malcolm Collins: native women will be like, well, this is what I've always been into, to be honest. He was in ancient cinema from the 1990s. Do you ever used to think I looked like DiCaprio when I was younger?

That was like a common, like before it was, it was

Simone Collins: Harry Potter, you know, when you were young Before I met you?

Malcolm Collins: No, before Harry Potter. It was DiCaprio. Everyone saw it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: But that was before when your mom gave you those highlights. Yeah. You Oh yeah. Yeah. When I had

Malcolm Collins: the, yeah. And I never got it. I always thought that was weird.

Simone Collins: Your mom forced it on you. It was non-consensual. That's a non-consensual

Malcolm Collins: highlights. You'll deal with the trauma

Simone Collins: someday.

Malcolm Collins: So, so he's controlling emotionally closed off and becomes possessive in the books. He locks Faye in his house like a captive to quote unquote protect her. She has panic attacks, but he refuses to let her leave.

Despite this, she constantly defends and excuses his behavior. This sets up the idea that controlling behavior is a sign of deep romantic devotion. But then there's the other guy, the, the, the bad guy. R Sand. Sand who is the deep mystery character. Yeah. And, and this guy who she ends up liking he gives her drugs and then per parades her around everyone in revealing clothing.

Yeah, no. So

Simone Collins: like, if, if, if this first dude was keeping this woman prisoner as, as penance for her crime, the second dude steals her and. Like she's kept in a, like actual dungeon. Like keep in mind the first tamlin keeps her in a beautiful palace and room. She's like in a dungeon starving that women don't injured want that they want the actual dungeon.

Yeah. She's like in a dungeon. She's, she's severely injured and then he, he parades her out and slutty dresses and like date rape drugs her like every night because that's hot. And then, wait, why is she hugging her? Oh, funsies. For funsies. Yeah. Like to mess with her. I mean, maybe the readers kind of like when they realized later that he had feelings for her that he was just trying to like, because this, it's complicated, but like he, he, he actually was like.

At the time, we'll say, dating the evil witch queen that has to be defeated in the first book. And he's in her court and, and he is pretending to torture this female protagonist rah. Because, because, you know, the, the evil witch queen, queen freaking hates her. I can't remember why again, he used to fall asleep.

Malcolm Collins: But wait, did, but she's forced to walk around under, under, yeah, because he's like, oh no,

Simone Collins: I'm, I'm here. Like, I think, so to protect her he has to like, torture her and, and have her believe that he's torturing her. So he parades her around in slutty dresses and like date rig jugs her. And then she like dances around drunkenly until she's thrown back in the dungeon.

Malcolm Collins: Because she hates doing all this, and it's not her choice.

Simone Collins: It's horrible. It's, it's horrible. It's not sexy at all. She doesn't wanna

Malcolm Collins: berated in front of wealthy people in skimpy dresses and forced to dance.

Simone Collins: No, no, definitely not. No. Mm-hmm. No,

Malcolm Collins: just, just like the Handmaid's Tale protestors definitely don't want some wealthy high status guy to be forced to breed them in front of a jealous high status woman.

God, that's not what they're, that's not a weird kink for now. I hate that you have to bring

Simone Collins: that up because that's so like, not, not my kink. That's like. Can you imagine? Oh but

Malcolm Collins: wait, this is your kink, the being paraded around. I love

Simone Collins: bad boys, but you should know that I am only a moderate bad. No, but like on dates, like when, when, when you're whining and dining a woman, you do the bad boy thing.

Malcolm Collins: No, I was, I was really quite callous with you in our early dates. I'm gonna be, yeah, it was hot. Was it was great. I freaking loved it. The first

Simone Collins: breaking rules, you know, we're breaking into like, yeah, well, no,

Malcolm Collins: I, well we broke rules and you thought I was just gonna use you as like, I knew you were

Simone Collins: gonna, that was your plan, Mel.

It was literally, it was

Malcolm Collins: actually my plan at the time, to be honest. I was like, I will marry a girl at Stanford and then this woman is basically does whatever I tell her to, and she seems moderately competent and she is completely devoted to me. So, I'll have my real wife and then I'll have my on the side, you know, which is

Simone Collins: why I wrote those letters to myself in the future.

I'm like. She wasn't wrong. This is clearly his plan. I wasn't wrong.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then I just realized that you were way more competent than any of the other people, right? Like you weren't just devoted to me. You were also competent.

Simone Collins: I was. I was. Yeah. And, and, yeah. I may, I may not have been an heiress, but So did I

Malcolm Collins: actually treat you like one of the, the, the, the, the like romcom, like hot guys?

Well, I don't really need,

Simone Collins: I'm, yeah. I mean, no, no. You had, you had all the, no, like literally you had all the things, right? You, like, you came from this cel illustrious family. You were like, you know, total disregard for the rules. You were sort of callous toward me, especially in the beginning. And people love that sort of like enemies to lovers trope.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was, it was it was a very formulaically, like a addictively. Compelling. So thanks for that. That was a wild ride. And now we're living this like cottage core perfect married life, which is weird and unexpected after all that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, our married life is very like seen. It's like always, oh, look at the purple.

It's so wholesome, wholesome, wholesome. A wholesome maxing at this stage of life. But at that stage of life, I was, I was not reformed entirely.

Simone Collins: No. But, but a again, like, so, there definitely, where were we with this? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I was, I was gonna get, go to the next one. Right. Okay. So Uhhuh, so gaslighting, betrayal, and main character syndrome.

Once face switches her alliance to rice, sand, and the night court in book two, she returns to tamlin supreme court pretending to reconcile. Mm-hmm. But she's actually there to spy and sabotage him.

Yeah. She

lies to him in the court. She manipulates him emotionally. Mm-hmm. And she convinces others to turn against him, destabilizing the entire territory.

Yeah. With no real justification. He doesn't appear to have done anything particularly wrong. No. And, and she does all this while pretending to be the victim. Like her core reason for doing this is, well, IM it to the other guy, therefore I can betray anyone I want with no justification.

Simone Collins: Yeah, basically.

Yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: mean, why does she ever explain why she's doing all these horrible things to first guy?

Simone Collins: Well, because he was actually kind of a jerk, and he got really angry one time and his magic flew and a chair broke against a wall. And so, oh, no, that's the same. Probably violent. Yeah. Probably, probably. And he, at one point,

Malcolm Collins: progressive, it's like, well, he's probably violent

Simone Collins: in an attempt to get her back.

He like sold out to someone evil at some point. And that was considered super uncool, if I remember correctly. But no, it's, it's the, but that's, that's not even like, yeah, and it's, it's, it's not just that like this, this hiding of information is pervasive throughout, not just these romantic novels, but like through every.

Bestselling current romance novels. So like I went through with ai, like with perplexity deep research to go through the most popular romance novels in 2025 and the behavior of the female protagonists. And one of the number one recurring themes, the ones we've read,

Malcolm Collins: but we'll hear are the ones that you, you pulled up here.

Simone Collins: Well, and this, this shows up in those, though, this 100% shows up in the books that we're talking about, which is emotional guardedness and withholding truths, and like also using relationships for personal gain and survival, which it just seems like it's playing into the worst female tropes that men accuse women of.

And also women being like, oh, be more emotionally open for me, cry for me. You know, like, and, and, and then in, in these books, these women are not being emotionally open. They're not being emotionally or just technically honest. And they are extremely mercenary and selfish. And also they never, in any of the, none of these books, the contemporary romance, like the non fantasy stuff, the fantasy stuff, the historical stuff, like all the different versions, all the flavors.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: They never try to model these men. They never think, wow,

Malcolm Collins: I wonder how he's feeling. Right. So we'll go to the next book then. Yeah. Okay. I'll discuss with you. Okay. So what is the trial of the Sun Queen? This is, this is the next book that you have gone through that has I've, I've read the

Simone Collins: first two books in the series.

Malcolm Collins: This is so bad. Um, Now, now keep in mind Laura, our protagonist has spent 12 brutal years in prison by the oppressive Aurora King. I bet she gets the hots for him and sleeps with him. No, no, no.

Simone Collins: His son. His

Malcolm Collins: son. Oh, of course. She's abruptly pulled from solitary confinement and taken to the luxurious Sun Palace there.

She's forced to complete the deadly Queen's trials against non, yeah, this was described in the

Simone Collins: book summary as the Bachelorette meets the Hunger Games. And I'm like, SI,

you knew what you were in for.

You wanted to

Malcolm Collins: compete against other women. That's the thing. No, I

Simone Collins: love, well, I love, I want like the Hunger Games, but only the capital.

Like it was a little more of that, so that was helpful.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, but a lot of these have multiple women competing for a guy and the guy clearly choosing one of the women. This, this is another thing, right? Like in, in male books, in male fantasies. Very rarely do I want to be competing with other males.

Like I I, oh yeah, no, no,

Simone Collins: no. The Harem, harem anime is always only the women competing for the man. It's not

Malcolm Collins: like a woman's like, ah, well, you know, maybe this is like harem anime, but I win, right? Like, yeah. The

Simone Collins: female version of Harem trope is the love triangle, and I hate the love triangle. Well, no,

Malcolm Collins: I, I think the, the female version is this, it is 12 women fighting over one man.

But he really only likes you. It's, it's actually a harem as well. But he really only likes you. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. It's almost just like from a different perspective.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: So it's the harem. It's the harem Anime, but you are the fu. Yeah. They don't want a harem

Malcolm Collins: of men. What they want is to be in a harem, but be the real choice, but to

Simone Collins: be the, the, the final one.

True. And this is

Malcolm Collins: like, actually, like what gets me is women can choose any fantasy and they choose being in a harem over and over and over again. But to continue here, so the Sun King, like we're talking toxic behavior here, he dangles freedom in front of lore, but is manipulative and emotionally distant.

Mm-hmm. Lore falls for him quickly. Mm-hmm. Despite suspecting he's using her, the romance is shallow and built on power imbalance instead of genuine connection. Do you, do you agree with this?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Lord, it's led into illusions to test her loyalty. Lo what? Loyalty to somebody who she has been tortured by for 12 years.

Simone Collins: No, no, no. That's the aurora king. The Sun King is the one who's making her go through the trials. And this is his son? No, no, no, no, no, no. The son Nadir. So the son of the Aurora King who imprisoned her, his name is Nadir, and he's the second guy. He's the dark Oh antagonist. Who's the real pair bonded person for her?

The Aurora King is the, actually turned out to be a jerk boyfriend, number one, after, of course, many. Oh, what did he do

Malcolm Collins: to turn out to be a jo jerk? This one.

Simone Collins: In, in, in this series, the Aurora King turned out to be a jerk because he only wanted to marry the lore because it turns out that she's, she's actually like destined queen, powerful Faye of this realm.

And that's another thing about these, and I think it's really interesting, is that. The men find these women irresistible because for whatever reason they are super op. Like, either they're, they're like the secretly, like the destined this, or like the, the, in the lineage of queens, but new no one knew.

Or even in like historical fiction series that are a little bit older, like Outlander. The female protagonist has a huge leg up power-wise because she's a time traveler and she knows what's gonna happen. Historically speaking, plus has the knowledge of the future in like modern medicine. So I,

Malcolm Collins: I love, I love Outlander.

It's like modern woman goes to the past and sleeps around with lots of rugged guys from the medieval period.

Simone Collins: Well, married. So wait, was

Malcolm Collins: she married?

Simone Collins: She was married and then she went back in time. And. Married again, fell in love. Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: she sleeps with a few people, right? If I remember correctly. I

Simone Collins: think so.

I, I couldn't, I, I have to stop reading all of these because like, they put me to sleep, but then I start hating the female protagonist so much that I just can't take it anymore. And then I have to switch to another one. So I, I think I'll go to the next one that you mentioned that was like, it sounded horrible and,

Malcolm Collins: okay, well, we'll go to the, the, yeah.

But anyway.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like she, yeah, he's, he is, he is he's a jerk because he, he just wants to use her for her power. But the important theme here is that in, in most of these, the female protagonist is, is, is extremely valuable and irresistible because of her power. And I think there's this other thing that women want to feel like they are inherently so indispensable and important.

Because there's this desire to be that. And, and women right now aren't like, I, I think that's something that women really miss is this feeling that they are actually needed.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and. They also want justification for betraying everyone in their lives. You know, like that's the also the, I just want a man I can betray everyone for.

That is really the, a, a recurring theme in these, another interesting one in, in this one, the, the sun, whatever one is Laura the main character learns this about herself. Like she learns that she is the destined whatever.

Mm-hmm. And she

hides it from everyone, despite it, putting multiple people's lives at risk to be hiding it.

It's not like, oh,

Simone Collins: and despite the fact that she'd be able to solve her problems much more easily if she was just transparent about what's going on which makes the books almost unreadable at, at various points. Like the, the, the second person that, that she like is technically really bonded to resand.

Like she just starts being extremely like horrible to him. Like just as they start. Beginning to forge some intimacy that they both really enjoy this torch tells her that if they do get together, it will only leave to heartbreak and ruin. And then she just did. Then she like comes back from this like prophetic vision and she's just like, no, we're not doing this anymore.

Like, she doesn't tell him anything of like, by the way, I received a prophecy from this magical object that belongs to your kingdom that you would totally respect and, and like, take seriously that we need to be kind of careful. No, I'm just gonna be a complete jerk to you and be be like, no, we can't do this anymore.

We're not doing it. And like, no, no explanation. It would be so much easier for everyone involved if you were just like, Hey, this magical object that you respect and that I respect and that gives meaningful prophecies told me to watch out about this and you should watch. Like why, why can't, and like I thought women were the ones who communicated.

I thought that. Well, you know

Malcolm Collins: what's funny with all of this is, you say all of this and I can I, I'm like, I just really want to like, slap this woman just, just punch her in the face over and over again. And I'm like, you know what's really cool is with AI I can experience that, I can, I can put in make, make the other character that makes her, but there's no

Simone Collins: slapping sense into her.

Like she's just so irredeemable. And that's what's so horrible. And then the problem is that like the world needs her. 'cause like, it's the, she, she's gonna fix everything with her. Immense power that is greater than anyone's power ever before because she's the heart queen. Really? She has

Malcolm Collins: the most part.

Is she the heart queen? She's the heart queen. But she's kind of slutty though, right? As well. So she's like,

Simone Collins: she's the highest body count of any female protagonist that I've read in a romance novel.

Malcolm Collins: Really? Well, but what, what? Well, because

Simone Collins: when she was in prison, she. Used sex to get by, like sexual favors with prison cards and stuff.

But then also had a lot of sex with other inmates because it's how she like reclaimed her sexuality. So like, I mean, they put it in, like they couch it in like, well, she had no choice. But I think they're trying, that doesn't

Malcolm Collins: sound like no choice. That sounds like sexual rub springing and the worst kind of slut.

Simone Collins: I know the, the first, the book starts with her actually having like a, a full out brawl with another female inmate who calls her a slut because she has a reputation for being a slut. So she well, and I

Malcolm Collins: guess women these days read that and they're like, wow, I really see myself in this individual.

'cause she,

Simone Collins: she also like, yeah, the, the, the, the female inmate who insulted her also stole soap from her that she had performed, that Laura had performed a sexual favor to get, so she was willing to perform sexual favors to get soap. Like it wasn't, I mean, the soap was meaningful to her 'cause, you know, jail sucks or whatever, but like.

But I think this is, again, I think because we're, we're seeing this is not, this is, this is the protagonist. Yes. We're seeing a change in what the average female romance novel reader is. This is now a woman with a higher body count, but who wants to see that higher body count is like, not her fault, but rather a product of, of the situation in which she found herself.

She had to have all that sex just to get by. It's society's fault. Yeah. She was, she was the prisoner, just like Lauren was in our modern society of Tinder, where you have to be slutty to get by. That's so true. And so this, like, I think the novels are trying to, like all of these, to me, are proxies for what women are experiencing and they're, they're meant to help them try to cope with their own.

Sexual pasts, which they're struggling with. And also this, the, and they're, they're feeding them. False Hope King will falling in love, but still, like the

Malcolm Collins: Dark Prince will still like them even though they've slept with a lot of people. Yes. Do they like never come up? Does like the Dark Prince like, never be like, but you, you be kind of slutty in the past?

Simone Collins: Well, no, because they, they frame it very differently. Like Nadir, who's like, her real person is like, first off, she doesn't have penetrative sex with either of these two men in, in any of the two books.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: So I think they're trying to like, sort of alize these women.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: And then second he's like, well, she's never really had sex before because it's never been.

Real, it's never been real like with a man who knows what to do. And I think that's also kind of a story that can be sold well to the modern woman of like, you haven't really had sex because all these men, I don't really a

Malcolm Collins: virgin, come on. The guys, they don't

Simone Collins: really know what they're doing. They don't really care about you.

They're just, they're fiddling around in the dark. And, and. They also make like the, the, I think one of the things that's like showing up consistently in fa lore is that like, these men are also very slutty and it's an extremely slutty face society where like there's just orgies all the time. And like they've all had like tons of different partners.

And like in, in the first like in the trial of the Sun King, the Sun King is like constantly sleeping around with women. Like during all this whole process. Like maybe he, like, you know, he, he's all about lore and like wants lore for his wife because he needs her power, but he's still sleeping around with other women.

Malcolm Collins: Been in female romance fantasies. This isn't seen in the turnoff. They like,

Simone Collins: no, no, no. If anything it's like a validator. And keep in mind in in the court of tho of the, of the court of thorns and roses, the the, the dark man re, re-sand is, is sleeping with the evil queen. He's sleeping with like the big, bad, very actively it's very well known. Like he even has to like, deal with the reputation of being like her pet after she's been defeated. Everyone's like, oh, you're, you're her b***h. You know? So like, yeah. The men are also slutty, which I think also is, is they're trying to say that it's okay because I think also most of the men that women are encountering on Tinder, because they're only encountering the eights, nines, and tens who actually get any action on Twitter are also very slutty.

Like they're sleeping around a lot.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I love this. And what I need to ask our audience is this is why you gotta join Patreon. So you can vote to force Simone to read more books like this. And we can, we can get her to do review. Well, we have to e

Simone Collins: It's either that or I was going to create.

Sorry,

Malcolm Collins: I need to say for Simone to read these books,

Simone Collins: but it's not hot for men. That's hot for women, Malcolm. But you're not a man or I was surprise, surprise. Or I was gonna create an OnlyFans account to see if there actually is an ecosystem of men who successfully sell to women on OnlyFans. And if so, what are they selling?

Because I don't think, I don't think they're like helicoptering their wee wes, if you know what I mean. Like, I don't think that's what it is.

Malcolm Collins: I think that this is gonna be more interesting to people.

Simone Collins: OnlyFans are novels, the fantasy novels. We'll see, we'll see. But what I just wanna point out though, as a warning to men, because these men are the words, no, no, no.

Like the, the top toxic female behaviors that are being normalized in these, in these novels, which I think if you get in a relationship with a woman, you need to train out immediately. And Malcolm did this like early in our relationship when he saw stuff that was like. Proto any of these things, or proto abusive as he would describe it, like this is gonna lead to toxic dynamics.

It just like snowballed later in the relationship. He's immediately like, we're talking about this. We're not doing this anymore. Here's what we're gonna do instead. Here's why this is not okay. You

Malcolm Collins: got really upset about like how stern I was about this.

Simone Collins: Well, it's frustrating in the beginning, but it's because I didn't know how toxic these things were.

And you explained it to me. And the reason why I did these things to a great extent was because I saw that modeled as normal behavior and why I wanna highlight these things like you up in the middle of the

Malcolm Collins: call or something. That was one of the big ones where you would like Yeah, did that once and it you never did it again after.

I was like, you never ever, but there were, there

Simone Collins: were other things too, like, not standing up for you when other people were dog piling you in social situations. That's

Malcolm Collins: takes so long to get over though. I know. It

Simone Collins: was really, but like, these are things like. Because I saw them normalized in mainstream society.

It was really hard for like, not intuitive, for for me to not do that. And I wanna highlight the following things to our male watchers because women are likely to do these things, especially if they have encountered any of these novels. Because this is pervasive, I'm saying it across all genres of romance and romance adjacent novels.

You need to immediately flag these things and explain how this is gonna snowball into toxic behavior that hurts both of you. So one is obviously emotional guardedness and withholding truth that is pervasive in these. Oh, I'm not gonna tell you about the prophecy. I'm not gonna tell you who I really am.

Like, it's just seen as like, I don't know, power. Then there's also using relationships for personal gain and, and survival. In fact, there's also this trend in these books where like the women, the men in these books financially support the families of these women, like their parents and their sisters.

Which is, I don't know, like whenever I hear about men paying for their wives, families, I just feel like those wives are such lees, so like I, that's weird. I

Malcolm Collins: agree. The family should be left to starve to death. You don't need to pay for a whole, that's our culture though. Obviously if you're in some like Asian culture, you gotta, you know, you don't get to send a letter to the parents being like like the Canadian government.

Have you thought about offering yourself?

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then there's some emotional withdrawal and cotton hold, hot and cold behavior where women just like give the cold shoulder, they won't talk to their partners and like, that's also super toxic, but super normal. I think you tried

Malcolm Collins: that once and I was like, never again.

Simone Collins: I don't, I mean, probably early I did. Yeah. And then that

Malcolm Collins: one you learned really quickly not to do.

Simone Collins: There's a huge enemies or rivals to lovers trope where women are just like extremely mean to the male. Love, interest and like, I hate you, or, and they're just like, they just constantly bully and neg and.

Like one men really don't like that. So if you're a woman listening to this who's in the dating market, like, don't, don't do that. Like

Malcolm Collins: respect No. Cold shoulders is not something you do in a real healthy relationship. Nobody. Yeah. And what's

Simone Collins: super attractive to men is like interest in them, interest in their interests and like enthusiasm for the stuff that they do.

Like, and, but

Malcolm Collins: Cold Shoulder is the beginning of like a protracted fight. Like there is no, nothing good comes from a culture. Well, and see,

Simone Collins: but like judgment, criticism, and rivalry, which is more like what this is. You're

Malcolm Collins: not being like a, a guy is actually a good match for you. He's not being mean to you because he wants to be mean to you.

Like if you have some difference of opinion, it's a difference of opinion. You need to work out.

Mm-hmm.

Doing the cold shoulder is trying to leverage access to yourself as a, as a, a value in a fight. Mm-hmm. Which then just forces him to do the same to himself, which then begins the destruction of the relationship.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then of course there's this like. Love triangle, emotional rebound, serial monogamy thing. And maybe, you know, women have had previous partners, but like Simone, they're just not mated with each other. Let it go. Maybe more mated. Yeah. But like, Hmm. I, I just, I mean, I don't know, like I don't think that partners need to speak a whole lot about their previous No, I'm telling you this

Malcolm Collins: whole M thing is just like, well, I want a story where we can have this fantasy where women are like involuntarily attracted to like dominant men and then want to sleep with them and be there partners forever and have their kids.

Yeah. Like I want, I want a fantasy where women in some like kinky way are like weird and deviant, not like normal women and want those things.

Simone Collins: I wonder if it would be productive for men, like when they saw their wives reading a book. To go to GR or Claude or OpenAI, perplexity, ask for a summary and just like, what?

Like let's, and then let's just talk through

Malcolm Collins: this book. No, hold on. And I look, you guys can look at the, I let my wife listen to these, right? Like, I'm not here being like, how dare you

listen to woman porn where it puts me to I

Simone Collins: need something. No, of course, course. That's why you're listening, Simone. I'm not listening to that now. Right now I'm listening to three

Malcolm Collins: books in one series and two books in another just to go to bed. I couldn't,

Simone Collins: I couldn't finish them because they're so bad. Now I'm listening to, and it's really good.

Listen to three books, all systems Read by Martha Wells. It's like, it's super cute. It's about this murder bot. Who is hacked His governance system, meaning he or she, they, it has autonomy. And you can tell it's like a sci-fi book written by a woman. Isn't

Malcolm Collins: it a sexy murder box? No,

Simone Collins: it's not. He doesn't have parts.

So he is like a male Barbie doll.

Malcolm Collins: Won. You told me it's not.

Simone Collins: No, it's not sexy. It's not a sexy book. And you can tell it's written by a woman because it's all about how like emotionally awkward he feels around humans. It's great. Highly recommend it. What, what do you mean by a woman?

Malcolm Collins: You mean by an artist?

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: guess, you know, women don't feel emotionally uncomfortable around humans. I don't know if you knew this or not. That's a you thing.

Simone Collins: Okay. It's really relatable. It's so relatable. Like, because the humans are starting to realize that, that the murder bot actually has feelings and human parts that cause it to have feelings.

And they're like, oh, like don't upset it. And then it's like, like gets even more like. It's cute. Highly recommend it all. Systems wrap. You

Malcolm Collins: are adorable. I like you. I I, I, even though you watch these pervy pervy books, I still think that you are the best wife ever. And I, I bet you can create some great title cards for this.

Like, what are women watching? Like the debauchery of women of this generation or mated for life, female deba. And then do, do like arrows to the book covers. You know, why do,

Simone Collins: yeah, I don't know. I have to do like pictures of. A sexy women choosing between fairy men. I don't know, fairy men,

Malcolm Collins: like one Fairman,

Simone Collins: or wait, like the first fairy man is a wolf man?

No. You know, he's a fairy, but he is a wolf man. Because we gotta just, this is what you need to have, hack it in.

Malcolm Collins: You have an anime version of yourself, and then two different fairy versions of me,

Simone Collins: and then animated version of yourself being like, which fairy man do I like?

Oh my God. No, actually I just realized, you know, how like with a lot of drawn erotic material for men, like you end up seeing like, because they're trying to, because they're very niche, but they're trying to get as many audiences as possible.

It's like, well, it's. It's vor plus furry plus like bimbo. Ation. They like throw in a bunch of different kinks. Yeah. And like they totally do that in this too. It's like, well, he's a fairy, but he also turns into a wolf, so don't worry. And he's also really old, so don't worry. Oh, rich, I read

Malcolm Collins: the, the, the, the thorns one had like scenting and everything and like biological like, oh, I can smell his, you know, you're

Simone Collins: right.

No, yeah, you're right. But that was with the first one. It was with the, you didn't realize that was a kink when you read that. You were like, this is normal

Malcolm Collins: female kinks. I swear women will look at men and be like. This guy choke the girl

Simone Collins: You, you de, which I, by the way, will point

Malcolm Collins: out that women prefer more than men.

The statistics are really killer, but they'll be like the, I saw a porn where a man choked a woman, and then I'm like, I saw YA, a bucket bar and no bolts, where like a, a man beats a woman and forces her to dress scantily under drugs in front of other men. And she thinks he's the greatest thing ever. And he's the good guy.

Simone Collins: And he's like the nice one.

He's the

Malcolm Collins: nice one. And it's the bestseller. And by

Simone Collins: the way, you are

Malcolm Collins: reading it and you gave it to your preteen daughter, and then they're like, well, that's all normal. No. The funny thing is, I, I read

Simone Collins: this book and I thought that it was like really niche and embarrassing. And then we went somewhere and someone else who's very intelligent and successful was reading it.

And I was like, oh damn. Wait,

Malcolm Collins: is this one

Simone Collins: of the people

Malcolm Collins: we can't talk about? Or is this like a,

Simone Collins: it's someone. Who sometimes listens to this podcast and I wouldn't name.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: I can tell you after

Malcolm Collins: that is hilarious. But also I

Simone Collins: was glad because then I could talk to someone about it. But like, no, this is like, this is read not just by like poorly educated, trashy women who shop at Target, which is where we were looking at these book covers this morning.

But like. Very successful, highly educated, like top tier of society women. Well, I know,

Malcolm Collins: and this is the thing also about male porn. So I had a an episode where I joke about like the time I accidentally leaked hint eye on, on a, on the show. When did you do

Simone Collins: that?

Malcolm Collins: It was I, I, I put images of that, that one that I shared with you that's like super wholesome.

Oh, the guru one? No, it's like my child friend. It's broken. I think it's technically

Simone Collins: it 10

Malcolm Collins: times. It's about like, well it's, but it's like a, a a, a a Yankee girl who, whatever, no,

Simone Collins: ARU, a guru

Malcolm Collins: Yalu where she's got all the paint, everything on her face and everything. And then she dates a guy and slowly becomes like a normal wife and has kids and, and, and gets over all of her past daughter.

Yeah. How can

Simone Collins: you call that hentai when like, the vast majority of it is exposition of this, like this sweet child romance. So it's

Malcolm Collins: exposition and then they have a few nude scenes at the end if you wanna read past the, the, the exposition part. Yeah. I'm

Simone Collins: like, I, I don't think I ever got to that. No, I.

Malcolm Collins: On the on the discord about this, a bunch of people were like, oh, I've read that one.

So like, this isn't like, it's a niche thing that I'm mentioning here. This is like a bunch of men who are, are like, oh yeah, that fantasy about helping a girl get through her traumas and then she becomes your wife and you have kids together. Mm-hmm. And you're just there to support her. Yeah, that's a fantasy that I've seen in my, in my reading.

Simone Collins: Well, and that's another, recently there's been all this criticism of the anime movie that came out where like, a young man helps a girl in a wheelchair and people are like, how dare you? How dare

Malcolm Collins: you. Yeah. Help

Simone Collins: a woman in a wheelchair.

Malcolm Collins: And,

Simone Collins: and she, like, there's this male fantasy of like, well,

helping a woman who actually needs your help and like, making her life good and appreciates you.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh. And that's again like what are men into, oh, they just want, like women who appreciate them, they want, that's disgusting, eager, enthusiastic. Sexual partners

appreciate the man.

Malcolm Collins: Do you know what that means? That means a woman doing something. Yeah. That's almost as bad as Starship Trooper. I love they call it fa like, like fascist.

Even though it's like gay. Totally equal gay. Totally. Gender equal. The only thing that that makes it gay. That

Simone Collins: makes

Malcolm Collins: it

Simone Collins: gay. That's that's what, that's

Malcolm Collins: it. It is, it is space. Gay fascism. But I'm actually

Simone Collins: realizing, so like the way that the, the female protagonists are in these, which is because women seem to be so into this Enemies to lovers thing, or rivals to lovers thing is they're like, I hate you, you're my enemy.

And like the men in these are framed as like liking it. Like especially Nadir in the sun King trial of the Sun King series. Just loves when she hates him and, and talks about how much she, like when she looks at him angrily, he like that turns him on. Whereas like in reality, and this is really giving women this skewed perception of male sexuality, that like men are turned on by them expressing.

Disdain, hatred, rivalry when like really what turns men on is eagerness and gratefulness and gratitude and enthusiasm. Well, hold on.

Malcolm Collins: I think what you're missing here is sexually successful versus sexually unsuccessful men. Sexually unsuccessful men are turned on by those things.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: Sexually successful men are turned on by women who hate them and stuff like that.

Oh,

Simone Collins: well, since these are all powerful mans slots, then I guess that that would work for them. Okay. So that's not discord. As I point

Malcolm Collins: out, like if you have a more aggressive form of sexuality, you actually perform really well with an arbitrage ma markets because so few men do. And so many women want this.

Yeah. Clearly I all think people are like trauma. It's like, no, it's not trauma. Sweet. And, and we say this as people who both have, you know, somewhat unusual sexual profiles. And I can be like, I definitely didn't undergo any trauma in, in, in that respect. And you definitely didn't either.

Simone Collins: Zero trauma.

Zero trauma.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because people just don't wanna admit that humans are weird. Right? Like humans are weird.

Simone Collins: Well, I, I just, I can't believe that our audience would ever use the T word to explain anything when the T word is indicative of an external locus of control, which is the weakest way to approach life, even if it's true, that's some external force caused something bad to happen to you.

Admitting that or acting as though that's the case is the weakest and least healthy way to approach it. You can logically understand that that's how it worked, but like everything ultimately comes down to what are you gonna do about it? And if you don't make everything your personal responsibility, life will keep happening to you and you are going to flounder, you are going to fail.

An internal locus of control is only the only way to move forward. Well, I mean, I think, and if you ever accept trauma into your life, that is accepting an external locus of control.

Malcolm Collins: The I, no, I think the people who do this are, are genuinely like no kids, losers, like, no, I'm being honest. Like, they're not gonna be represented in the next generation.

I've seen the people who do this, who are like, oh, it's all, look, this is like your, your Nick Fuentes and stuff like that, right? Like they, they, they put on this big show of being like a conservative Christian, and yet they can't even get a wife. Right? Like you're

the Thrive. Yeah.

With a lot of this, it's this big show, oh, I'm so tough.

Oh, I'm so whatever. And it's like, and either my wife hates me or I don't have one. Right. Like, because there's, there's obviously gonna be a lack of communication if you go with this whole deontological, like, I'm so, you know, it ends up failing and blowing up in your face. And it's, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't.

Simone Collins: Drop the trauma narrative, guys. Yeah. The trauma

Malcolm Collins: narrative is pathetic. Right. Like, just be like, Hey, what turns me on is what turns me on. I don't need to do it. Yeah. Right. Like that, that is the actual answer. Yeah. What turns you on is what turns you on. And that doesn't,

Simone Collins: that this is not to neutralize that bad things happen to you and that bad things happen in the world, and it's sometimes, and that life is, life is deeply unfair.

Absolutely. And things happen to you through no fault of your own, but that doesn't matter in the end. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what are you gonna do about it? So

Malcolm Collins: yes. F**k up. And, and, and, and, and I think that also it's, it's such like a cooked response to be like, well, you just, if you were traumatized and you just have to do all these horrible debauch things, it's like, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Or you can just be like, Hey, it's fricking random. What turns you on? Well, not exactly random, but largely speaking, largely

Simone Collins: genetic. I mean, honestly, a lot of it's just inherited. So,

Malcolm Collins: and they would just call

Simone Collins: that intergenerational trauma,

Malcolm Collins: right? They're like, what So weird that my dad was in, and I was, and I was like, that's not weird.

It's not weird. It's called genetics.

Yeah.

Anyway, love you to DeSimone. Love you too. You are amazing. And thank you so much for this amazing stupidly long episode.

Simone Collins: Sorry,. I love talking with you. You're the best. So with the,

Malcolm Collins: the episode today, the, the one on the, the women and what turns them on very apt.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And the only comments where I'm like, why are so many people under this impression was a bunch of people are like, oh, women are just into BDSM because of childhood trauma. And I'm like, Hmm. And a lot of people are like, well, don't you know that sexuality is just downstream of early porn exposure or early childhood trauma?

And I'm like, do you not have any understanding of the evidence on this stuff? Well, and on two separate comments that I saw, 'cause I read all the way to the bottom, tried to respond to as many as I had time to. We're like, well, the research shows that. This is all downstream of childhood, by the way, you show me the research.

Yeah. We extensively looked at this like

Malcolm Collins: extremist religious people in the eighties made this up. But if you actually look at the research, for example, the, the sooner you engage, if, if you look at like prisons for example the people who are ISTs or essays often started to engage with porn at a much later date.

They often engage with porn less than the people who aren't. You see a direct correlation like the, this, this is actually like the directly wrong. And, and we,

Simone Collins: we came into doing this research. Thinking what all these other people thought, because it's what society tells you. It's like, oh, this is all downstream.

Well, no, it's, what society

Malcolm Collins: tells you is better than that. It's what you believe is intuitively true, but society says you're not allowed to say you're not allowed to say, actually, this stuff is really bad for you. And I had actually written the chapter that it was really bad for you. And then it's like, I'll find citations later.

And it was the one chapter I had to rewrite. No,

Simone Collins: that, that, that porn is really bad for you. Yeah. But also when you did the, the survey that you did and then looked at the research on this because you, you assumed that abuse as a kid or, you know, or, or brought intimate abuse as a kid would correlate with different types of kinks in the future.

Did not. Yeah. Like there were some very loose things, I think more related to like how you practiced rather than like what you actually got turned on by. So there were like some isolated incidents,

Malcolm Collins: you know, it may make you more you know, sexually like voracious or interested in that sort of stuff. Uhhuh like willing to

Simone Collins: express it?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, like just sluttier basically is the word I use. But it didn't correlate to arousal patterns. And certainly not. Yeah. Like you're just with

Simone Collins: that. Yeah. And just like the number of people who chimed into the comments and were like, this is downstream of trauma, this is downstream of early poor exposure.

And I'm just like.

Malcolm Collins: I love this like

Simone Collins: trauma

Malcolm Collins: brain

Simone Collins: that people

Malcolm Collins: get, you know, we, well, and

Simone Collins: like you'd think that our audience is above that. Like we're all about, like therapy culture is obviously toxic. This whole like, it was your mom's fault, it was child trauma fault, it was Dutch. No. Like we all agree that this is, that this is toxic, that this is delusional.

And yet, as soon as we bring sex into it, they're like, well, no. And this is like a basic

Malcolm Collins: red pill fact that like every red pillar knows everyone who's engaged in evolutionary psychology is like not surprised. And there were definitely people

Simone Collins: who come into God that they're like, well evolutionarily it makes sense because like, yes.

Thank you. Thank you for those of you who freaking get it, who, who use their noggins for once instead of, sorry for this. Well, I love that they're, they

Malcolm Collins: just uncritically and without knowledge are like aggressively pushing this particular viewpoint.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, again, it's not one that I can hate on because it's one that I used to have before.

Yeah. Until we actually looked at the information.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. We were surprised. We're like, well of course. No, FP is good and porn is bad. Well, I have to rewrite

Malcolm Collins: the entire, because is that not norm, like the norm of this channel? Like, oh, well here's the thing that you're not allowed to say and everybody normalizes.

Mm-hmm. But it's bad. And we've written a whole chapter about this and then I looked at the data and I was like, I've, I guess this is the, and I have never done that. I have never I often write chapters of books and then later look for data. 'cause I'm like, I bet I can find a study that's, I bet I can find it.

This was the one where I did this. And, and just from like intuition and memory, because I had remembered people citing a bunch of studies that showed this. Yes. Yes. And where are these studies? Where are these studies? You know, it's not that no studies exist, you will always find studies arguing for, for any particular thing.

Sure. It's just that they do not appear as well constructed as the studies on the other side. And they appear. And it's, you can be like, well, you know, well, don't you discount studies that push what the, the left would want or what the urban monoculture would want? And it's like even wizz doing that, the preponderance of evidence is on the because there's also people on the other side of this who have like an opposite agenda, right?

And so the question is, is which agenda gets violated more by their own studies? And, and when I look at the wider data pools and when I look at like evolutionary psychology and try to use common sense but that's disappointing. Oh, well, nobody was complaining about my Iran comments.

Simone Collins: Oh I mean, some people not really.

Not, not really.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. Not, not about my, my Carl Benjamin comments.

Simone Collins: I can't remember.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well,

Malcolm Collins: a bunch of people came in to hate on Sargon of a cod Carl Benjamin. Yeah. They hated him too.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. So people did, yeah, there were a couple. Yeah. What

Malcolm Collins: did they not like about him?

Simone Collins: He's an intellectual lightweight. He, he's, he's doomed to, you know, he thinks he. Knows the answers, but is sort of doomed by his culture and perspectives to, you know, never really come to a conclusion. Is his Britishness, is his undoing his

Malcolm Collins: I agree with that to an extent. I like, I do not like that he doesn't, he does not come down with like hard and interesting takes.

And I think he used to, or like I have a perception I, in my head, he was a cooler figure the way the left told me about him. Mm. Before I realized that the big scary sargon of a cod was the guy who hosts Lotus Eaters. And I'm like, but he is very tame. Why? Why is he the big scar, sir? I think he just came to, to fame during a period where saying less controversial stuff got you in more trouble.

And so he developed this one

Simone Collins: person said something like that, like, you know, because he was so good at Trouncing, like wokeness, you know, he just thinks he is therefore good at a bunch of other things. When.

Malcolm Collins: Well, especially in the early days of wokeness, when that was really, you know, risky for Yeah. And it took balls to Monet against that.

He did. Yeah. You know, so, so, you know, he did, he did do a lot of opening salvos. He just wasn't as useful in later salvos and, and, and I'm, I'm not to say that I, I wouldn't expect him to start doing more interesting stuff again. I, I, I, I might, you know, but I will say his perception is very British conservative when we talk with other British conservatives

Simone Collins: which I don't know, I'd summarize in one word, defeatist

Malcolm Collins: di defeatist and prudish.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Oh and Pearl Clutchy often. Yeah. But anyway, yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I'm just horrified that he's the bottleneck in his family to having another kid. He's like, no, we're not having, telling

Malcolm Collins: his wife, like, we're not having any more kids. Yeah. Like, what More is enough?

Simone Collins: Come on, man. Like, after four economies of scale kick in, you're, you're missing the benefits anyway.

Malcolm Collins: And I mean, I'm, I'm even the one who raises the kids probably more than he does. And I'm like, well, and yeah. And his

Simone Collins: wife is doing the raising. She's a stay at home mom. So like it's on her anyway. Like what's it on him? I guess he doesn't wanna pay for one more mouth to feed. But again, the economy's like the financial economy.

You don't need to feed them all.

That's the trick. You can put some on the streets to, to, to pickpocket from strangers,

considering that one of our kids basically only eats berries foraged from our yard. Yeah. We're basically only paying now to feed. Yeah. Right. Okay. Three miles and not four. Yeah.

Speaker: Here what I need to pick some of, whoa, here

Speaker 2: I made.

Speaker 3: I think it's,

Speaker 4: oh my God.

In this engaging episode, we delve into the complexities of human sexuality, challenging traditional views and misconceptions influenced by political events from the 1980s. We discuss Aela's recent research that suggests sexual orientation is overly focused on gender due to historical biases and male-dominated research. The conversation shifts to BDSM and how dominance and submission dynamics play a significant role in female sexuality. We address the rise of the 'sex wars' and compare them to previous 'woke wars', exploring societal reactions to BDSM avidity. Additionally, we examine the evolutionary and genetic roots of sexual preferences, the importance of understanding sexual profiles within relationships, and the impact of misclassifying these preferences. This episode is an invitation to contemplate the deep-seated nature of sexual orientation and the potentially harmful consequences of ignoring these discussions.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are going to be talking about a very, very fun topic, which is does human sexuality act actually work the way we think it does? ALA did a piece on this recently where she was digging through the research and she came to a conclusion very similar to our own, which is the only reason we see sexual orientation, IE preference for specific genders as the predominant aspect of human sexuality is because of weird political stuff that happened in the eighties.

And if you actually look at the data, that is a fairly bad way to divide humanity.

Simone Collins: I mean, I would add it, it's also from mostly male researchers doing this, and men do tend to have a more sex. Oriented sexuality, so that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: So we're gonna go through a lot of her research on this. We're gonna go through the idea that she's gonna promote in this, which is she calls it like BDSM sexuality, but it's more like a sexuality that is more focused on which partner is the dominant or submissive partner.

Mm-hmm. Then focus on the gender of the partner. Mm-hmm.

As we've pointed out historically, this appears to be the primary form of sexuality in your average woman, not every woman, right? Mm-hmm. The same way that not every man is, you know, attracted to women, right. But on

Simone Collins: average it's, it's fair to argue per the research that Malcolm did, that women exist more along the lines of dominant submission orientation than they do to like attraction to.

Man versus woman, which is more how it is for men.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And now other people are pulling out this data, which I love, and which we're gonna go into. But this is

Simone Collins: really important, especially considering that, especially for women. BDSM oriented sexuality or like power, dynamic oriented sexuality. Is this pervasive because we are seeing what.

Ala alluded to in this, in this Substack piece, she did sort of a rise of the sex wars, which she sort of sees as being a predecessor or the, the next thing after the woke wars. Where, and we see this on all sides of the political spectrum. Mm-hmm. There are people including women who are like, this is disgusting.

This is, you know, you know, a violation of women's rights. This is violent, this is horrible. And that is for the same reason why in the past you would see many often predominantly male leaders being like, gay sex is disgusting. This is wrong. And that is because, as you point out in the pragmatist guide to sexuality sexuality exists on a, like, the way we react to, to things like, sources of arousal is we're either aroused or we are disgusted.

So if you, if you may be aroused by something or you could be disgusted by it, and it, it's very hard to not equate disgust with bad morals. So despite the fact that many women are aroused by being dominated, the women who are disgusted by it just can't model that this could possibly be sexy to someone.

Yeah. And I say not

Malcolm Collins: many women, the vast majority of women are aroused by being dominated. Yeah. In the war, people

Simone Collins: can't, they can't, they can't wrap their heads around that. They're like this, it's impossible. It's disgusting. It's immoral.

Malcolm Collins: I love the red pill, like figured this out and it was like their free pass to sex for like half a generation.

What an

Simone Collins: arbitrage play. I mean, it still is though, dominance among men or women. One of the easiest things you can do if you're looking to get partners is to to be the dominant person. Well,

Malcolm Collins: especially because males have become less dominant over time. Mm-hmm. Likely due to environmental pollutants. Yeah.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's go into the data on this. And I'm skipping a bit into this because at the beginning she just had a bunch of stats that I don't think were relevant and we can hit them at the end if we want to or we have time.

Simone Collins: It was about other stuff. It wasn't ne necessarily about, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: When it comes to solid BDSM, you start to see a similar bimodal distribution of interest. The most common relationship people have towards BDSM is either completely uninterested or extremely interested. Mm-hmm. There isn't much of a middle. In fact, in my data, someone's BDSM interest explains more structured variation in their sexuality than whether they're gay or straight.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And here is a very interesting graph, which is both genders, relative strengths, factors, and the variance explained by each of these. So this is looking at, if you're looking at one thing that arouses somebody, how explanatory is that gonna be of all the other things that arouse that person. Ooh. The, the on a zero to 10 graph BDSM is almost an eight, whereas GA to straight is only a 4.5.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: So it's not that BDSM is. Like somewhat more indicative of somebody's actual sexual profile. It is almost twice as indicative.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then if you're looking at what actually comes between BDSM and gay straight is horror horror related horror, horror, H-O-R-R-O-R is more indicative of somebody's sexual profile.

If they are interested in horror related content. What is

Simone Collins: horror related content?

Malcolm Collins: Guru porn would be an example of that. That's super niche guru would likely be an example of that. Again, super niche.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. But, okay. Yeah. 'cause that's not as pervasive, but it is very predictive Murder

Malcolm Collins: would be an example of that, which, which is common in a lot of things.

Yeah. Monster related stuff would likely be an example of that. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So yeah, a lot, a lot of stuff that's in a lot of form. Okay.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: After gay straight, the next one that's almost the same as gay straight in terms of explanation of pro profile is incest slash age play.

After that, again, almost as good is gender play. And then the, the lowest is sensuality. Hmm. Which is actually a core part of like women's sexual profiles.

Simone Collins: What even missed that,

Malcolm Collins: and keep in mind this graph is not about the popularity of each of these. It's about their explanatory values to the variance of other arousal parts of the person.

Right.

Simone Collins: In other words, how predictive is it of, or how much does it correlate with? Yeah. Almost kind of like, you know, going back to the episode that you did on how political ideology sets clustered.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But those said that anything was in the cluster is a good indication of everything else.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Here's

Malcolm Collins: the thing. This one thing is a much better indication than anything else.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It, it's like if you could tell just from a person's abortion stance or just Well, no, no, no. Reverse it. So

Simone Collins: what, what the study did that's like this is that being a democrat in this study was extremely predictive of this huge set of ideologies, which is pretty crazy.

Yeah. And that's what you're seeing here is, is being into BDSM is hugely predictive of a whole bunch of other ideologies. Meaning that you can, if you know people are into BDSM fairly accurately infer a lot of things about their sexuality. The same way where knowing someone is a Democrat, or sorry, especially a Democrat, can enable you to infer a lot of ideologies.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But very different because we're talking about one thing versus other things. So I wouldn't go too deep on that.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. The above graph is a result of factor analysis, basically a process that finds the natural clusters in the data. For example, the classic big five personality test was built off of factor analysis.

Basically, they ask people a bunch of questions and then notice the questions like, are you the life of a party? Or really predictive of answers to a bunch of other questions. Like, I like adventure, I enjoy chatting with strangers. That's, if you know somebody is the quote unquote life of the party, you can make a bunch of better guesses about other parts of them in a way that is less true for questions like they like cake more than pie.

And, and what she's saying here is the they like cake more than pie is they like males more than females, or females more than males. And the I'm the life of the party is the, are you into BDSM or horror?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If we explain the same process to a bunch of questions about what arouses you, someone's attitudes towards BDSM emerge as the most distinct and defining cluster People who like it, people who dislike it are distinct.

I. And different from each other, more so than they are along any other axis. And here you can see just how far apart they are from this screen plot I put here.

Simone Collins: Hmm. The

Malcolm Collins: sexual interest spectrum into men versus women is not very different from other types of sexual interests. It's just more visible.

The category of gender as a sexual interest is a public thing heavily ritualized by culture. This makes sense since males and females having fetishes for each other's bodies, results in reproduction. And this has gotten real popular and become a wholesome cornerstone of civilization and media and identity.

I love how she describes males and females have a fetish for each other's bodies, and it got popular and it's a cornerstone of civilization and identity. You swap out just the type of body that goes through the ritual marriage. So we get the concept of sexual orientation as distinct from other types of sexual interests.

There's no quote unquote marriage concept for other fetishes. And the core reason of this is John Money. We haven't done the episode on him yet, but we have filmed it and he is a monster and he is the one who invented this concept. It is not a natural thing to think. You might say that gendered sexual orientation is distinct for reasons besides social orientation, such as it wholly defines who you can have a satisfying sexual relationship with.

This is obvious from accounts of gay people who didn't know they were gay, trying to make a straight relationships work, quote anything physical felt force. Like I was an actor playing a role. I never understood why people liked kissing or sex. Mm-hmm. For me, it was uncomfortable at best, painful at worse.

I was never attracted to men. I was just wisdom because it was expected. But you can find your identical accounts from people with other types of sexual orientations too. BDSM as asexual orientation.. I thought there was something off about my sexuality since high school because I didn't get turned on, when hooking up with my partners.

I thought maybe I was gay, but it was the same as the girl I dated. I was attracted to her and enjoyed physical contact with her, but I couldn't get turned on the way I did when I was fantasizing about dark things alone in my bed. I did get turned on in a few in-person situations, a girl holding me down and kissing me.

A guy fingering me on the dance floor while I was squirmed away. And eventually I realized that's what I was into. Once I got comfortable enough telling people what I was into, it took a while. I started having good sex. I am not disgusted by vanilla sex, but it is a similar vibe to cuddling for me and can be awkward because I'm simply not turned on by even the hottest person imaginable, gently going down on me.

Simone Collins: Hmm. And

Malcolm Collins: then another person said, I occasionally want vanilla sex with people I really love, but I don't get turned on by it.

Simone Collins: This is so the rising sex wars. I think it's super, super damaging, especially to women because already it's, it's a really big problem. I think that many women don't realize that they could have incredibly satisfying sex if they were just aware of this dynamic.

Yeah. Like, I cannot emphasize based on the data that you found in the Pregnant Guide to Sexuality, how many women are having these experiences where they are having vanilla loving sex with their partners,

Malcolm Collins: and they're just like, I'm not into this at all. Right. Yeah. They're like, well, I guess

Simone Collins: I just, you know, and they're like, well, you know, women don't really, they're not into sex and they don't realize that like, and you know, ala describes this in, in the blog post too.

She's like, you know, I, I didn't, you know, I had a little bit of like, sort of the vanilla experience to begin with. And then, but like, she, she just thought she didn't have a sex drive.

Malcolm Collins: Well, oh no. And this is why it's very important to educate young women about this. Mm-hmm. Or they can end up thinking they're gay when they're not gay.

Yeah. Same with young men. They can end up thinking they're trans when they're not trans. Would you. Do not explain normal sexual profiles. And here I'm not defining normal by what Christians accept or what society accept. No. By actual

Simone Collins: sexual profiles,

Malcolm Collins: by frequency at least within our current system.

Yeah. You end up with people making really bad decisions about who they are and their life choices. Yeah. At worse.

Simone Collins: And it, and, and at best you have people who live their entire lives with no sexual satisfaction. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Despite maybe

Simone Collins: being, you know, happily married and having sex multiple times a week.

Can you imagine?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. No, it is, it's honestly a really sad outcome. And these god, these women who go into this like anti-porn, anti kink rants and everything.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because that, that, so like to all the women, that those women who are fully disgusted by this and who think it's morally bad, like, it's not like they're, they're pretending.

It's not like they're hiding something or they, they, they know the truth. They don't know the truth. Okay. Maybe some are, I, I wanna think that they don't know the truth, but now this is like, so the women who haven't yet discovered that their sexuality is as ala calls it bd, BD sexuality are, are thinking, well, I better never ever get involved with that because that is, that is me being hurt by people.

Yeah. Me, me being victimized and hurt and traumatized and, and, and then they never discover it and they live sexually lives. No, I honestly

Malcolm Collins: believe that the women who like freak out and go on rants about this, it reminds me of how we keep fighting like, you know, like Republican who are like anti-sex, anti-porn guys, like in public bathrooms, having sex with random men, you know?

Oh, you think they're

Simone Collins: secretly into it? I dunno. I mean like, keep in mind like a lot of the men who are super anti-gay, were, are like literally just from a sexual orientation standpoint, very, very disgusted by male bodies.

Malcolm Collins: I think the majority of the men who are the most anti-gay are gay. Like, this is something we keep seeing in the data, right?

Like, the thing is, is that if you're actually just like grossed out by men or like turned off by choking or whatever. Mm-hmm. And especially if you have a long term partner and it's not like an active threat to you when you're going out and hooking up with people, you just don't think about it that much.

Mm. It's the people who are constantly thinking about it and needing to suppress it. Mm. Who are the ones who constantly talk about it.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Which is I think why you see us where we're like, oh, this is curious, but like, we just don't have that much of a horse in this race. We're like you know, don't screw up your kids, but, you know, whatever.

Whereas the people who get like really passionate and go on these big tirades about like, men choke us and I'm like, you are thinking a lot about men choking you. I, I don't know if like. And as we've pointed out women actually have a, a, your average woman, like if, if you're looking at the percentage of women who prefer this, more women are turned on by this than turned off by this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, but the, and PSA, as you point out in the prime, which Guide to Sexuality, which is free to our Patreon premium subscribers audiobook and ebook it you really like, as much as that might turn you on, you really shouldn't, like, in terms of these sexually related deaths out there, auto asphyxiation

Malcolm Collins: is, no, you shouldn't.

It's, it's, it's dangerous. We talked Yeah, like there, there are other

Simone Collins: ways that you can get satisfaction, almost certainly. So, please be careful if that does turn you on. 'cause you know, danger.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, to quote one of her friends who, who anonymously talked to her about this, she goes, I occasionally have vanilla sex with people I really love, but I still don't get turned on by it either I make sex purely about connecting with eroticism, or I think kinky thoughts and get turned on that way.

So they're, they're having vanilla sex and they're like, I love it. She quotes this as anon friend. Part of me wonders if this is her just writing as an anon friend. I think talk, she asked for quotes. Yeah, true. No, she, no, I think she

Simone Collins: really did this research.

Malcolm Collins: If, if you swapped out, well, obviously she did.

She has huge sample sets. This was done on a sample. No, no, no. But I

Simone Collins: mean, in terms of the quotes she included in there she, she, she really worked hard to source those.

Malcolm Collins: If you swapped out kinky stuff for gay stuff, this would be indistinguishable from accounts of gay people trying to navigate life.

Totally. Before they figured out what they were.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And then she says, and I like this 'cause she talks about it from personal experience. I am one of these tales. I've been into BDSM type stuff as long as I can remember some of my earliest memories four or five years old, were proto sexual fantasies, was bondage well before I had any exposure to anything sexual, whatever.

Simone Collins: Mm. I

Malcolm Collins: was in denial about it for years and my first relationship with vanilla after the initial novelty was my boyfriend wore off. So did our sex life entirely. I thought I had simply had a low sex drive. Sex seemed like a chore. I figured that's just the way sex was for everyone. Women weren't supposed to like sex that much, am I right?

But it turns out, actually, no, it wasn't that I didn't like sex, it was that I didn't like vanilla sex.

And this is where I'd push back against this narrative that we sometimes see on the right, which is that an individual gets corrupted by kinky stuff and formerly they were able to be turned on by, normal things. And now that they've engaged in kinky stuff, they no longer get turned on by normal things.

When if you actually look at the data, and we talk about this in the Pragma Dis Guide to Sexuality, what often actually happens is an individual is not particularly turned on by normal things, and then they finally figure out how to activate arousal in themselves. Through kinky stuff, and without that, they never would've had, an arousing sexual life.

And where this creates problems is around individuals who , grew up never being exposed to anything that significantly aroused them. And then they finally find something that significantly arouses them, uh, you know, in their teens or as an adult and they didn't build up the resistance to those types of things.

And so they end up having major problems around it. Um, but it's not. Because the thing is kinky, it is because they were never exposed to anything that really aroused them in the way that other people were aroused by things all the time.

Mm-hmm. Once I started engaging in kinky relationships, surprise, I suddenly had a vicious sex drive. Sex became bonding transcendent and wonderful the way everyone else had been talking about it finally made sense.

Nowadays IXK engage in exclusively in kinky relationships. And here there's a graph she has of a non-consent interest score by age of first interest. Oh. And what you can see is the non-consenting, whether it is you know, cis males, cis females, et cetera, non ci way stronger and more powerful if you first were interested in it before the age of five.

Simone Collins: Wow. Whoa, man. People have good memories. And then, you know what I was up to then stronger

Malcolm Collins: still if it's like before the age of 10, and then it drops down a lot and you don't see as much. You know, if you get, if you get to it between like 15 and 20. Hmm. And, and as she says here, for most fetishes in my data, the earlier the age of onset of a fetish, the more extreme the fetish tends to be.

People who report BDSM related fetishes, starting at the age of five or earlier, were the most into it. This is usually well before exposure to porn or likely anything sexual at all. This is good evidence, I think, for BDSM and sexual orientations in general, not just gender based ones being innate or otherwise quite early.

Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And I'll note

Malcolm Collins: here you know, I've mentioned, you know, where I have non-normative arousal patterns. They started way before puberty for me like at least half a decade before puberty for me. Same. And when I, but

Simone Collins: not five IG How do, do you remember anything? You have a drink? No, not five. I, I went to

Malcolm Collins: puberty super late.

I went to puberty at like 16 and a half. It's crazy, super late. But the point here being is, is before that when I would, you know, lay in bed and create fantasy worlds and create, you know, stuff like that, like. The, the, the things that later I recognized were arousal were major features in these worlds.

Mm. But at the time I didn't contextualize them that way. Of course not. Yeah. Which I think shows that these are not things that are created by you know, environments when you're a kid. Certainly nothing happened to me when I was a kid. I think a lot of it is actually genetic and cultural. Yeah.

To, to be honest and like, we're not allowed to talk about that. We're not allowed to be like,

Simone Collins: and we 100% see this in

Malcolm Collins: like Japan. Like they prefer phenotypically young partners Yeah. And erotic materials across country.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And like the auntie porn that we kept having to take off that one site that I worked at early in career, this is

Malcolm Collins: in India, where they like older women who show what like, it was like,

Simone Collins: like armpits and just sort of Yeah.

Just. Middle-aged women, like not really looking. That would be

Malcolm Collins: no interest to me at all. Like yeah, it

Simone Collins: was, it was, it was very strange, but it was clearly a thing for some people. And I, I think it was clustered genetically. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and that's okay. Like mm-hmm. I know that we're, for whatever reason, I don't wanna talk about this, but I think that a lot of this is just genetic.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. You do you, you know, whatever,

Now, this may seem tangential or weird to talk about that usually the things that later become fetishes, , become things that people get interested in long before they go through puberty. But it actually matters a lot. If you are, for example, worried about your kids becoming, you know, sexual deviants, , , I think the perception is.

Oh, they're gonna see some weird, you know, website and that's gonna turn them onto all this stuff. When, if you actually read forums around people who have, uh, paraphilias or fetishes, , what it almost always is, is, oh yeah, there was that Power Rangers episode or that episode of a cartoon when I was a kid.

Or that, um, you know, how many people were awakened by. One of the Spy Girls episodes is, is, is a major joke.

Saber Spark: Are you kidding me? If there was a show that truly questioned the purpose of a cartoon, it was totally spies

race. What are we gonna do now? I mean, seriously. What the is this cartoon? One can't help but ask if totally spies was fetish fuel in disguise if the people who made this cartoon were subtly telegraphing their fetishes.

I mean, yeah, that's quite the bizarre accusation, but trust me, there is some interesting evidence that supports that claim really. Really interesting.

. There's bondage feet, schoolgirls mummification, buried in sand wigs. Life draining, shrinking muscles, skirts, sneezing, bondage, swimsuits, cross-dressing, sweating, face swap. Covered in mud, covered in gum, brainwashing, wrestling, bondage, showering, transformation, furries, towels, head enlargement.

Rule 63, cheerleading, entanglement, ripped clothes, weight gain, forced feeding, giant girls tattoos, frozen made outfits, cat girl outfits, aging, bondage, and shrinking clothes. So do you see where I'm coming from?

Simone Collins: But also seriously, like what is with the French, who made that show like Totally Spies is very suss for a children's show.

Or, you know, the people think, oh, they're, they're gonna be turned into furries by, , you know, going to a furry convention or hanging out when furries when instead it's, it's watching, the Disney's Robinhood, which turns somebody into a furry.

this matters because. It goes against the intuition a lot of people have, and it causes people to attempt to shield their kids from things that aren't actually relevant in the development of paraphilias.

Although I should place a special caveat with furries here because there actually are communities of furries that become common in schools and recruit kids that don't have this as a paraphilia, but are just normal kids and like pretending to be animals. As you can see in the recent video as we've had on ours, our kids have liked wearing, you know, animal ears recently and pretending to be like a fox or a cat.

That is a normal phase. Kids go through and sometimes other kids can PSYOPs them. Into very weird beliefs using urban monocultural ideas, or especially if they happen to be autistic or something. Um, but here I'm specifically talking about paraphilias and not the predatory communities.

Malcolm Collins: when you can't do anything about it. Yeah. If you contextualize it as deviant, it leads to deviant actions, because then that's such an important point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Your, your arousal patterns are not an endorsement of those things. And, and I think for a lot of women, it's also really hard to navigate BD sexuality.

I'm just using ALA's coinage 'cause it's fun. Because women don't condone. Unauthorized surprise sex or you know, even if they

prefer it.

Yeah. Even if they prefer it, even if it really turns them on, like that doesn't mean it's okay. That doesn't mean they want it to happen. But it does mean that in some scenarios where they may simulate it, that it's really sexy for them.

I mean, so one thing that I'm wondering about though as I'm as I'm talking about this with you is there may be a lot of guys, like married guys who are listening to your podcast who are like, well, so I've only had vanilla sex with my wife. She's not very sexually adventurous at all, and she has zero sex drive.

And maybe they're wondering now like, well, crap. Like, does my wife have a sex drive that she just doesn't realize? She, but there's something you want to explore. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, the way, but how do you

Simone Collins: explore it if she, if, because I think a lot of women are uncomfortable talking about their sexuality. No.

Like, what do you

Malcolm Collins: do Books? Is she reading? How does she engage with sexuality and literature? Well, our society has a lot of taboos against women engaging with this publicly. If your wife is reading 50 Shades of Gray, that, that

Simone Collins: giveaway,

Malcolm Collins: that's a giveaway, right? Like you might see this as innocuous. It's not innocuous that is saying something

Simone Collins: fair.

If

Malcolm Collins: she is spending a lot of time in the monster effer part of the library you know, as, as I mentioned before, you know, one unique arousal pattern I've, I've mentioned publicly, is I, I find vampires really hot. Like before I went to, everyone thinks vampires

Simone Collins: are hot.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, not everyone does. Really only a few.

I remember West Virginia was like the cultural hot spots. Oh, is this like a person? Yeah. This, this just an us thing. I remember. Come on, the

Simone Collins: vampire movies are super big, but I guess in like white people territory, nevermind. So maybe, yeah. Maybe it's genuine. Yeah, no, I think

Malcolm Collins: it's like a white person.

It's like maybe, but like I. Vampires and werewolves. I was like every other book. And, and, and, and even though, you know, I hadn't gone through puberty, you know, these were books I was getting from the, the Vampire and werewolf section of the aisle, which means that they definitely had like sexual undertones.

Right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the question is, is why are people doing this? Like, why are they engaging with this stuff even before puberty? Right. Like, and I think that that's also really important for people to contextualize.

Simone Collins: Good point. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of girls, especially when they're engaging with this content, it's before they actually start to feel arousal.

When they are reading their first you know, the vampire stories are their first, well, whatever it is that turns them on, right? Yeah. Eventually,

Simone Collins: yeah. Gosh. Yeah. It's crazy how young kids learn about vampires. I mean, our kids know everything about vampire and zombie lore and.

Malcolm Collins: You got very mad at, did you know there's like a zombie movie now that's like, big?

Yeah, it's, so this, I don't know, it came out a few years ago, but it was like a movie for people who like want to slowly eat other people. Wait, what? What? Yeah. Yeah. It's about a girl and a guy. And it was clearly like about the sexual undertones. It is like a, a thing that came out like three or four years ago.

Simone Collins: Okay.

There were two of them. It turns out a raw and bones and all.

Malcolm Collins: But I guess I'm saying like, like, like good for them. What? Whatever. From Bob's Burger.

Speaker 2: Remember you let me watch Night of Living Dead when I was eight. So now I wake up every night standing in the middle of my room, .

Speaker: Wait, you still get those?

Speaker 2: Yeah, they're weirder now.

Speaker: Oh boy.

Speaker 2: I think my subconscious fears and my butting sexuality are getting all mixed up.

Speaker: Oh, okay. I, I, Tina, I don't wanna hear about, so I think I'm being

Speaker 2: attacked by zombies and I start screaming. Do you wanna make out. And I make go with it.

Speaker: Hmm. I might just bunk with gram and grams.

Okay. Enough. Gene, Louise, you sleep in Tina's room. Tina, you're quarantined. You sleep alone. We'll strap you down or something.

Speaker 2: Leave my lips free.

Simone Collins: Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: I was like, that's a, well, hey, keep in mind it's

Simone Collins: not my fetish. I, I, I guess I just can't, yeah, there's,

Malcolm Collins: there's the, the Zombie High, which is a very popular Disney show.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Where the, you've got the zombies and then like cheerleaders and then they added werewolves and then they added aliens. I don't know what else they've added

Simone Collins: because why not? Yeah, why

Malcolm Collins: not? Go for it. No, I mean, asking why are people into this stuff when it's contextualized in a romantic context is interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. For something so innate resistance to attempts to change. And for something that so radically affects the type of relationships that work, it's odd that we don't have a term for this type of sexuality.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. So

Malcolm Collins: I'm going to refer to people with innate BDSM preference as BDSM. Sexual pronounced? No, as BD

Simone Collins: ecs.

Malcolm Collins: BD ecs. Oh, wait, sorry. As people was without a tender sexual, you know, that's, that's what she call the other thing. Tender Sexual and versus bd ECS sms. Beaty. Sms. Yeah. And she says she apologizes for the cheesiness Inventing words is her dumb sta.

Simone Collins: But I love that. I love that For ala, so we have gay straight, and then we have Tender Sexuals and Beaty ecs.

Malcolm Collins: But this is also important to know, right? Like if you are entering a relationship, and this is one of the reasons why this whole like, oh, no women's into this. No guy is into this. All of this stuff is bad.

Like it's, it's bad because it causes people to enter relationships. Those people, they are not sexually compatible with. Yeah. Can you

Simone Collins: imagine tender sexual, marrying sexual? That's, that's it. It can't work out. You, you can't fake that kind of stuff. It's

Malcolm Collins: no, you can't like, it, it does not work. Yeah. And, and you're going to end up, like you could, I mean, you could fake it like there's beards and stuff, but it's no different from living with a beard.

And I think it probably leads to a lot of divorces in cultures that are uncomfortable talking about this.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. Unless you're like really happy to have a. Sexless marriage,

Malcolm Collins: which, well, yeah. I mean I think that this is in part due to like if you look at Mormon culture or something, right? Like I think a higher number of divorces might be due to them just not talking about this.

Yeah. Especially when BD SME are clearly a big not, not unusual was in Mormon culture. Yeah. Clearly. If you look at the books they're creating like twilight and stuff, I'm like, come on, you guys like I, I know, I know what you guys are about. We see what's

Simone Collins: going on. Yeah. We see what's going on. But what's sad is that there may, like, you may have two BD Maxs married, but because this is such a taboo thing, it's almost like two two gay people in a straight relationship, but like, not realizing they can just be gay together.

You know it,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Sad.

Malcolm Collins: Why the porn debate Is stupid. In the sex wars, I am increasingly viewing as the successor of the woke wars. Many tender sexual feminists are very upset about how, quote unquote degrading porn is Women are spit on, slapped and choked. How bad and offensive this does look pretty bad if you're tender sexual.

It really does. Gay people looked pretty bad and offensive to heterosexual people for a lot of history. But I think they failed to realize that a large minority of women who are bd sexual for whom BDSM is just a deep part of their sexuality as lesbianism is to lesbians.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And this is more of a female or submissive thing than a male.

I would note here, if you go by a-list statistics on the number of women who would fall into this BD sexual category, uh, it would be way higher than the proportion of men who are born same sex attracted.

Malcolm Collins: Men's sexuality is more responsive to general slutiness, while women are overwhelmingly at least a little into power dynamics. And I noted this before, like men are not as. Captured by this as women are.

Simone Collins: Hmm. So if

Malcolm Collins: I'm putting a graph on screen here, this is how erotic do you find being the sub in females?

You see a huge, extremely here. And, and, and for men, you know, even, even in terms of not, you just don't see it. Like men are just not that they don't care as much.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: How erotic do you find being the dom? With males you find like, so to get an idea, so for women who get really turned on by being the sub, you're looking at near 50%.

For men who like really being the dom, you're looking at 25%.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So it's just a way lower number. And again, this is why I always get so frustrated by people who are like, oh, well, you know, you know, clearly men are forcing this on women. I'm like, look at the stats lady.

Simone Collins: Well, and also it this, just to, to go back to stuff that you cover a lot in the pragmatist guide to Sexuality, this, this makes evolutionary sense.

That men really wouldn't need to care that much about power dynamic because the thing that would ensure their survival was making sure that the thing they had sex with was capable of producing offspring.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And for women you know, you, you would regularly and thing that ensure their

Simone Collins: survival was ensuring that the thing that they had sex with was powerful.

Malcolm Collins: That was And didn't kill them.

Simone Collins: And didn't kill them. I mean

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, no, that's more common than you would think, you know? Yeah, yeah. Given the number of villages that were rated and stuff like that, and we talk about this anyway. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So being, being kind of turned on by the Raider who's coming into your village and, you know, doing naughty things is probably better than you resisting to the death.

Right? Yeah. Well, and I, and I

Malcolm Collins: think that this is in part why you see this instinct in women, as we've seen, to welcome aggressive immigrant populations.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: And pretend like they're a complete non-issue when they, oh my gosh, very clearly are.

Simone Collins: Ooh. That never occurred to me, but you could be onto something there that's dark.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, it, it is dark. They are, they're trying their people and their their future and their potential children, their

Simone Collins: village being rated survival instinct kicking in. Yeah. They're like, oh

Malcolm Collins: yeah,

Simone Collins: come

Malcolm Collins: on Raiders. I'm a, I'm a big fan of Sharia law. Oh my god. You know, so bad. That's so bad. The grooming gangs come on.

It's barely grooming.

Simone Collins: I'm just trying to make it by here. Yeah. Then Ailey

Malcolm Collins: goes on to say, you don't need my grass to know this. Look at the overwhelming popularity of groups like 50 Shades of Gray, or the raunchy rough dominance common in most popular women's erotica.

I always get so frustrated when feminists are like, men are disgusting. Have you seen the weird stuff that they have on their porn sites? And I'm like, excuse me. I've seen the weird stuff you women put in Barnes and Noble. Okay. The the entire monster er aisle., That is not something that you see at the same frequency, even in the male centers of debauchery.

comedy skit: What. What are all these packets in here? I there's no room in the freezer for this, for this ice cream. Why is it blood for? Who's Brad? I thought you were dating a werewolf. Brad's vampire. Brad's, it's a different guy. So now you're dating a vampire. Okay. Um, does he have a home where he can keep his blood food?

Does it have to be in our freezer? Because I want ice cream in my freezer. I don't want blood in my freezer. I'm not being, don't you dare accuse me of being small-minded. I don't. It's my freezer. Does Brad pay for the freezer? No. Whose blood is this? What are all these Um, these charges? They're all for like $70 and it's just a bunch of iron pills.

What for? So Evangeline's back with, um, Brad the Vampire and so I don't think I want to hear this, but we're buying her iron tablets to make sure she doesn't Oh God. Can't we just say don't? Isn't there like a wait till? I don't know. Co never, don't ever, don't ever let a vampire. Okay. Alright. No, I get it.

Like be safe. But also, wow. Brad's a thousand years old. That's right. Yeah. Nope, because I was talking to Evangeline, she was talking about history class and she was talking about the Inquisition and Brad was there. She's dating a thousand year old. I don't care if he doesn't look. A thousand. He's a thousand.

Oh my God. Wait, is Chad Chad's a dog? Is Chad three? This isn't gonna work. This is, I'm being so cool as a dad in so many ways. But if she's dating an a thousand year old and she's also dating a 3-year-old, then we're gonna have to have a sit down as a family to talk about what are we even gonna talk about?

I'm gonna sit down. No, just right here on the floor.

Malcolm Collins: Roughly 80% of women in my data are sexually submissive, which you could say is the default female sexuality, which by the way, is higher than the number of women who are not attracted by women.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. About 20% of women and about 15% of men are BDSM sex, B

Simone Collins: bd. And

Malcolm Collins: innate with me, deeply oriented towards BDSM. And I note here that this is more common for women than for men. Yes. By a significant margin in her data set.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So if you're a man listening to this and you just don't get it, like Yeah.

It's, it's mostly a woman. Yeah. Because most men are tender

Malcolm Collins: sexual, even though men don't want to hear that this is what men mean when they're like, I just want romance. Romance.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. And when you look at male erotic material, it's slutty, very enthusiastic. Women who just really want it.

Malcolm Collins: They just really want it.

Yeah. They're just like, oh, I just really wish, instead of, you know, the, the average man being like, I just, I. Really wish I could hunt people. Like I don't understand why all you guys are so focused on sex. I just really wish I could hunt people.

Simone Collins: The ultimate sport.

Malcolm Collins: The ultimate sport, yeah. That's most entertaining.

Right? As my data has a slightly inflated kink rates, I'd estimate something closer to 15% of women and 10% of men are b, D sme, BDSM top. My tend men tend to be slightly less polarizing Women, you could say they have higher rates of BDSM bisexuality or switch us, like able to do both roles. Okay. And for more on this particular topic, you can look at my rater.

Versus homesteader, sexual profil in men. Yeah. Where men may have an adaptive sexual profile because the optimal arousal profile when you are raid a village is very different from the optimal arousal profile when you're caring for your wife and kids. Yeah. And so, men and men actually have like two local optimum was most men falling, was in boast.

And because a lot of men learn about their sexuality through pornography, which their brain would see as disposable rated individuals they think of themselves as far more BDS sexual than they really are. And they're actually more tender sexual and long-term relationships. But anyway, in general, women prefer more violent porn than most men do, and she has a citation here, rougher sex than men think they'd like.

This holds true in my data, whether you're measuring my own followers or an anonymous page, survey respondents. And then here she has a, how much of the porn you watch is violent graph. And, and as you can see you know, it's, it's women who are, who are into this. What's also interesting is other than women, who else is really into it?

Trans men. So women with additional stuff. The people who are least into it are cismen. You know, af after trans women are the most into it, then it's women. And then after women, it's trans women. And then cis men are like not into it at all. Like, men are just very, very tender sexual.

And I would note here if you happen to be a man who is, you know, competent and marginally attractive and not a tender sexual, , that's a huge arbitrage on dating markets when you're a young man. , Especially sexual dating marketplaces. You can just absolutely clean up. And I think a lot of my success when I was younger, , in sleeping with lots of people, came down to, , just being non-tender sexual, , and, , being socially competent and normal looking.

Because apparently that's very rare in males and it's something that a lot of women are looking for.

And, and here you see a graph here where she has a hard face slapping during smacks by violent porn consumption.

And, and here you see, what men believe that that what women would want, like how much of the porn you watch is violent and what women actually want, which is just like way more if women watch a lot of violent porn, they're like 70%. Like I'm into this. Like, hit me hard

Simone Collins: daddy.

Malcolm Collins: And then this is something I definitely saw when I used to sleep around a lot.

Like, this is why I've always found it to be so effing bizarre when women are like, women aren't into this. And I'm like, yes, they are. Like, why? You mean either you are not into it or you're pretending to not be into it? And the amount you talk about, it makes me think you're pretending. Violent porn with distressed women is actually not that popular overall compared to porn with slutty women.

I'm currently working on a porn database of the most popular porn hub videos, and I definitely have my issues with how sex is being presented to people in mass. But so far violence is rare. I hope to publish this data more. Well, violence against people who are into it is rare, is what she's saying here.

So I think what we're seeing is very tender. Sexual women hear about videos of women getting abused. They assume this is rampant. Most anti-porn feminists I hear, talk about this and reference how it's quote unquote everywhere despite . There're not being any good data supporting this claim. Go check the front page of PornHub and count how many videos feature women who are showing distress.

And if you want something totally fictional, 'cause you're like, well, that's showing real women, you can go to EENT type and you're just not gonna see that many they, because that's an entirely fictionalized environment. So presumably if it was that common, you'd see it everywhere and you don't they assume that it's quote unquote teaching men to be more violent and that women don't want this.

They are not aware that a substantial minority of women, more so than men are actually BDS, sexual BDS, sexual women are weirder, more stigmatized and often stay quiet about their sexual preferences, especially in like group conversations, which is why these women may not know this or they haven't looked at the data.

Well, Tinder sexual women are more culturally dominant view of female sexuality and enjoy a lot of uncontroversial backing when they frame their own sexual orientation as the moral good that everyone else should follow. And I'd also note here that like if you're like, well, what about like the Bible and whatever, like the Bible doesn't say that women need to enjoy Tinder.

The closest you're gonna come is lines around, , you know, loving your, your wife's body in the way that you love your own, or providing for your wife or sacrificing for your wife. But if this is something that your wife, , likes, , and is turned on by and was coded into her without her consent, , and this is the primary way that she gets turned on.

I don't see how that goes against this. a lion I found used a lot to justify, , not doing anything that could be considered a form of kink within marital sex is Hebrews 13, four, because it states that a marriage should be undefiled. The problem is, is the context of this word. And this seems here more tied to adultery than anything else.

Simone Collins: No, totally agree with you on this.

Malcolm Collins: The one thing that

Simone Collins: shocked me the first time I read, especially the Old Testament, was the amount of both violence and sex. And I don't remember there being a whole lot of people lovingly knowing each other. It, it happened, but I didn't hear about how tender and romantic it was.

So

Malcolm Collins: there's like one instance of some poems about that, but like, oh, in

Simone Collins: the Song of Solomon? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean

Malcolm Collins: that's,

Simone Collins: it was more about romance, not so much about,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. You don't know what type of, you know, sex they were having. Yeah. You only know about the romance.

Simone Collins: It could have been really going at it in bd some actual ways.

Who knows?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you see this as, as, as as somebody who is, is, is fairly on the aggressive side in their sexual profile. I still date people very romantically. Like you, you would say that our dating process is very romantic, right? Like, I think that there's this misunderstanding that, oh, well this means that you gotta be a jerk to somebody all the time.

Like it's what red pillars accidentally believe. Not

Simone Collins: at all. Yeah, no.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't really see a correlation there. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, the Tinder sexual woman exposed to BDS sexuality can be jarring. Quote, she was increasingly opening into her BDSM preferences and really wanted me to be very dominant and forceful, and as it turned out, she was into knife plate and wax stuff, stuff that left her with bruises.

She eventually sought this out outside of the relationship, but it freaked me out seeing her with bruises and burns. I felt very confused and sad. It was weird that this was a thing she wanted, because I was happy to give her things she wanted, but I didn't want to hurt her. And I'm like, okay, yeah, pussy, just say I'm a big old pussy.

No, sorry. The, the point here being is, is what turns women on when you're looking at a, and right here she's talking about a tender sexual friend talking about their experience dating a bisexual. And, and she's like, I, I sympathize with this. If violence powers, sadism, et cetera, are all things that you've experienced in really terrible context, like things villains do to heroes in movies, it can be confusing to think that some people want this.

And furthermore, they can find it good and fulfilling. Some insist that bd, some sexuals cannot find it good and fulfilling, and they must necessarily be broken or traumatized in some way. Well, it's true that in my data, BDS Sexuals are more likely to have experienced rough childhoods than tender sexuals.

The majority of both groups still report happy non-abusive childhoods. And again, we've noted in our data, what happened to you in your childhood really doesn't seem to affect your sexual profile that much. It appears inborn, and I would assume most of it is. Pretty evolved based on cultural groups and stuff like that.

Now I'd also note here, yeah, like this idea that like, oh, if you're engaging with sexuality this way, it must mean that your relationship is really toxic or that you don't actually care about each other, or, and that's just not what I've seen at all in my experience. This is not like where I see people who are polyamorous and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna look at their relationship and knock down the probability that it will stay stable.

I'm like, oh, they're really just looking for a new partner. When I see monogamous couples engaged in more aggressive forms of sexuality, I normally upgrade. Their, their relationship in terms of its likelihood of staying together? For a lot of reasons not all of 'em are positive. One is that there is a higher probability that the other partner has dirt on you that's gonna lower the chance that you leave a relationship.

You also are gonna feel that finding a partner who is compatible with you is less likely if you attempt to trade out for another partner. Thoughts Simone?

Simone Collins: No, I agree. This is uncontroversial to me,

Malcolm Collins: but I mean, you must know women who are into this versus women who aren't, and their relationship profiles after they engage with it, with their partners versus the ones who are just.

Simone Collins: I think the broader issue is, I don't know the sexual profiles of my, my female friends because they don't talk about it.

And I think a lot of women are not in touch with their sexuality at all.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think a lot of women, especially who have this sexual profile, are very afraid to talk about it with other women

Simone Collins: or even admitted to themselves. Like, it, it's, it's, it's strictly relegated to the fantasy novels that they read.

And it doesn't even make it into their relationships. I mean, I, we, we have been exposed to some very sexually, self-aware communities like with Rationalists and all the poly communities that we had friends within. But most women like that I know from childhood or I know just through circumstance, super, not in touch with their own sexuality like at all.

And the only place where I see women like feeling comfortable or empowered talking about their sexuality, regardless of political affiliation is just buying vibrators. And that's because like sex toy companies are. You're talking,

Malcolm Collins: getting them women talking. Yeah. Yeah. And like

Simone Collins: basically the only way that I'm seeing women on like in, in like general societies, women in the United States at least getting sexual satisfaction is by themselves using a vibrator.

No, seriously. That's

Malcolm Collins: really sad. No, it's, it's new. The vibrator and their teen dystopia novel. I mean,

Simone Collins: but, but actually like, and like literally that's the only discussion of sexual satisfaction that I hear. Not like, Hey, have you explored different kinks you might have? Or whatever. Like, and that happens, you know, I think even when it happens in the more sex positive communities that are out there.

Which by the way, like, you know, I thought, I used to think that like, okay, well the rationalist community. And ea are like super sex positive and like open to talk about these things. But now it's turning out that even they are now becoming fractured with these sex wars. They, well, they're becoming

Malcolm Collins: really freaked out about sex these days.

Yeah. So then there's like

Simone Collins: the few sex positive people. And I think, I feel like this puts ELA in a terrible position because, you know, she's now tagged as being like the, the gateway drug to sexual depravity when all she's doing is being open and honest about her findings. And she's open about her enjoyment of things.

That doesn't mean that everyone's going to enjoy it, but they're like putting it on her. They're like, no, you're proselytizing this, you're doing, and like she's not, but now she's getting caught up in this. And so even within the, the few sex positive communities that I encountered now they're even not.

Clear now. Well, and I'd also note

Malcolm Collins: here that like if you're talking about like, and this is one of the reasons why it's so like harmful to not talk about the various sexual profiles that people have is, well, I would say you should not marry for the quality of the sex or anything like that. The probability that somebody who is has a unique sexual profile, like a, a fetish you would call it, that their partner is fulfilling, is going to seek sex outside of the relationship, is dramatically lower than somebody who is.

Only securing vanilla sex was in that relationship.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Because you can get vanilla sex from other people whereas sourcing non vanilla sex is dramatically harder. And, and the individual who's like, well, I wasn't willing to do this for my partner, so she just ended up being with other people. This is an individual who's just like, I knew this turned my partner on.

They told me it turned them on. I decided to superimpose my morals around sexuality. Hmm. Like, well, if it physically hurts you, then you must hate it. And the partner's like, well, but I really want this. Right. And this is the female partner, by the way, in, in this. Right. Like, and they're like, well, I am the, the paragon.

And then their partner ends up sleeping with other people because that's what happens. And, and, and this could be due to sexual incompatibility, but it also could be due to, you know, attempting to signal to a plastic bag, right. Like, oh, I'm such a great male that I don't do X or Y, you know. Well, and then

Simone Collins: there's, so there's the other approach to this, which is.

From you could take the perspective that all non creative sex is a sin. And if you're, was I dotting your time trying to get sexual satisfaction out of life, you're wasting your life. I do. Like life isn't about feeling good. Life is about meaningfully pr maximizing that what you believe has value. And if you're not just a pure headness, which you think is kind of dumb, then you should probably not be so fixated on this.

So you know, I mean that's just to not be

Malcolm Collins: Well no, I mean this is our actual larger position on this, which is like, and, and this is actually our lifestyle. Like even though I know the things I could do is you, that would turn me on the most and you know, the things you could do with me that would turn me on the most, it's almost never worth it.

Like time-wise, right? Like,

Simone Collins: well, I mean especially 'cause we have so many things we're working on and there's like the opportunity cost of even a quickie. Which is never off the table. But like still, we, we really have to think twice about even a quickie. No, but the

Malcolm Collins: whole thing for like an orgasm and a bonding opportunity and I'm like, I just don't care that much.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Like, I just do not care. And, and people are shocked by this. They're like, oh, whoa, how could you? And I'm just like, there are other things in life that are a better use of my time.

Simone Collins: Yeah. If that's, if that's literally the best use of your time.

Malcolm Collins: Well, okay. For some people it is. Their biology is different from ours.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. For some people it is. And their values are different than ours. And maybe their opportunity cost is way lower because they're just lower agency. But I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: if you're gonna engage with it, at least engage with it in a way that actually feels good and like Yes. And that,

Simone Collins: that's, yeah. So that's the important, like if you are going to be like, indulge in hedonism either all the time or sometimes like do it.

Well at least please. But also I. There is so much more to life than sexual gratification.

Malcolm Collins: But I note here, when we say it's a sin, I mean it's a sin in the same way that, you know, playing video games as a sin, right? Yeah. Like it's a sin in the way and doing anything that's nonproductive as a sin. I know.

It's like,

Simone Collins: yeah, eat eating more than you need to. That that, yeah. Like all, all these things, you know, like Yeah. The people who, I mean, there are people who orient their entire lives around their sexualities. There are people who orient their entire lives around traveling and going to fancy restaurants.

And I said, these are equally debauched. Okay. Like they are, they are equally sinful. And yeah, we're not trying, I'm, I'm not, I'm, I'm no more sex negative than I am foodie, negative than I am sports obsession, negative than I am, et cetera, et cetera. Right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the sports I see as worse because they take longer.

Like the individual who sits around watching a game all weekend, have you

Simone Collins: come on poly people. It's like a career takes. Oh

Malcolm Collins: yeah. I mean, I'm not talking about poly people. That's like a whole issue there, right? You know, a lot.

Simone Collins: It's huge investment.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I love that people are like, oh, your, your wife would let you sleep with other people if you wanted to.

And I'm like, I do. Why would I want to? Like, what's the time investment in that? Right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like it's a, it is such a waste of time. It, it is. And, and, and people just don't get it. Like they think that humans have this. Voracious sexual profile that I, I, I do not think that humans actually have, especially when they're adults and have a lot of kids.

Simone Collins: Well, one, I think historically there was a lot more poly stuff going on, but I think it's because people lived in very persistent, tight knit communities. And those other people were available, like it was this other couple that you knew it was this other woman that you was in all your social circles and you, you constantly had opportunities and the time.

So I actually think that before it was a lot easier to be poly or to be a swinger than it is now. Yeah. Like now it's hard. Now you have to schedule it. Now it's, you don't always have this passive social time you're spending. So yeah, that's

Malcolm Collins: true. Anyway, to continue here. So a Tinder sexual might ask, why are some people BDS sexual if they're not traumatized? As one of my Tinder sexual friends said, call me weird, but I like sex where. People act like they like each other. You're, you're weird. You're weird. It, it's not that, you know, I can't enjoy that. But like, you know, there's other profiles which are interesting as well.

Simone Collins: Vampires, like the people they victimize in a way

Malcolm Collins: just like, but they like a burger, you know? You know, this is a whole other set of blog posts, maybe even a book's worth of material. But basically if you look at the evolution of apes and a whole lot of history, it's actually kind of weird that BDS sexuality isn't the default.

Power ownership, dominant jealousy, harassment, and yes, even full out grape are integral parts of our closest relatives minus the bonobos. Mostly that not true with the Bonobos. Bonobos are the worst. Like a lot of people think that the Bonobos are not like that violent and, and one of the, they're like, oh, they're into more like gay stuff.

Matriarchal.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And,

Malcolm Collins: and I talk about like the, well, we have instances where a female bonobo took another Bonobos infant threaten to rip its head off if the other woman didn't go down on her. Yeah. Come on man. That is worse than like the worst male chimp stuff. Yeah. I'm not into that. I'm super not into that.

Like, like it turns out, when you give women power in human relatives, they become complete monsters Which is what we regularly see in Bonobos. You can read our book on this. Sexual violence has been among the biggest factors that shaped which of our ancestors got to reproduce and which didn't.

For example, one theory is that females that were attracted to sexually aggressive males were more likely to have sexually aggressive and thus sexually successful sons. The big puzzle to me is why it's bimodal. Is this a cultural artifact? IEG. Why is it high on the tinder sexual end, and high on the you know, b dsm sexual end.

If BDS sexuality is linked to sexual success in our histories, why do we have a substantial fraction of women who are Tinder sexual? Why is there such a huge variance in the type of power dynamics that BDS Maxs prefer? This is one of the big questions of my research. I hope to explore more in upcoming posts.

And again, for me, because I think that part of this is genetic, like that also means that with my kids, I'm definitely not gonna teach them. I. To expect to be tender sexuals. Because if my wife isn't, and I'm not, we'll

Simone Collins: teach, I mean, we'll teach them that some people are though. 'cause I think it's really important for a BD sexual to understand that some people like, because for, for tender sexuals, this is a really, really bad experience.

If someone just goes in hard Yeah. And like expects that they're gonna enjoy this that is a traumatic experience. So I think it, it's very important for us to teach them about tender sexuality. But to perhaps

Malcolm Collins: explain, well I, I noted you know, even on sexual marketplaces, and maybe this extends to marriage, police marketplace, but when I was a kid.

You know, in high school and college and sleeping around, like a common experience I had was women would just be sent to me by their friends. Like, oh, you need to try this guy. You know? And I think part of it was understanding the difference between this as a sexual profile and it is a dating profile in the way people wanna be treated when they're dating.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which might have been just enough of an arbitrage opportunity that a lot of people were like, oh, he's really nice, but he also knows you know, how to be aggressive within this context. Which, you know, maybe, maybe rare enough, but if we're just gonna go over a few graphs in here. 'cause she, she had a ton of graphs at the beginning, which are pretty interesting.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: And I gotta make your, what is it called? Bon Knee

Malcolm Collins: Bon Chow. So we've got b******s here. How erotic do you find it? Males high on the extreme side, females less so. How erotic do you find anal, interestingly here, women high on the knot side, men prefer it more. How erotic do you find skirts?

Again, males prefer this. Where do you find females preferring it? Frustration. Women are much more interested in frustration. Bimbos again, this is mostly a male saying tickling equal in both sensuality. Preference for females, teens, I found interesting because it was mostly equal between males and females.

And I'm a little surprised. Yeah, erotica, huge preference for females. Females really like erotica when contrasts with males. Again, porn is a, the, the, the, the amount of females that pursue this when it's got a different name, public sex about equal, verbose and then femininity. Huge reference for males here.

If you look at non-consent here you get, you know about equal ose. Great play about equal for both. I find that pretty interesting obedience, female preference master Slave about equal for both choking, huge female preference. And bondage heavy about equal for both.

Simone Collins: There you go.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you.

I'm very excited for our dinner tonight. And here we might note the, you know, I've been very disappointed that you know, Lotus Eaters who has the highest overlap of viewership that we have. Did a whole episode banging on ALA and how terrible she is and how not normal it is. I couldn't even bring myself to watch it.

You know, this is Benjamin, not whatever his name is. You know, who, who's also Sargon of Baca. And I've just been, I was really disappointed about his, you know, Onic pro Iran take like, oh, Israel shouldn't be attacking Iran. And I was like, what? I don't get it. I don't, I don't, I don't like, I wanna like him.

I've tried to reach out to him. I tried to make friends with him. I've tried to, he's never gotten back to me. Despite our huge overlap, despite him frequently talking at conferences I'm talking to, and you know, I, I guess,

Simone Collins: and that was all okay. But now it comes for ala hey, and the door's open. We're happy to talk.

But like, I think that anyone who dunks on Ala has not met her, has not seriously looked at what she, she stands for and who she is. Well, but

Malcolm Collins: some people are just like, she's a slut, which she is. Okay. She sleeps around a lot. Therefore you know, it is bad that she has a public profile. And, and I see that, and I, I can understand that except historically if you're talking about like conservative cultural institutions it was actually very common for the top female intellectual to be what today we would call a prostitute.

Simone Collins: Yeah. All these famous courtesans going back to, to Greek and Roman times like aphasia.

Malcolm Collins: Aphasia. There was the one in France. What was that one?

Simone Collins: Well, there were tons in France. Madam Pomp, you're probably thinking Yeah. But there were tons who had the, the salons who hosted the major intellectual minds of their time.

Yeah. No, this is. Like, oh, the lack of respect. Anyway, I, well, no,

Malcolm Collins: I, I think that there is a difference between normalizing something and understand that women who are top tier intellectuals of their age are going to have sexual profiles that may look more male.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great way of putting it.

And yeah, I mean, yes, I think it's, it's fair to say, and I understand concerns that, that people have, because this is really, really not appropriate for the vast majority of women. But Ala is not proselytizing this way of life. And those other women, most of like the famous correspond No. Some women

Malcolm Collins: end up following her.

I understand this accusation. Right. But that's,

Simone Collins: that's on them. Like, and I, I I think it's, it's more on the community that they have joined that didn't give them warning signs around it. And, and not. Not so much on ala it's not ALA's job to be like,

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I can understand the accusations here. I, I just, I don't like the, the constantly Normalist takes.

Here's a great picture of me and ala at a party that I saw recently on her Facebook. And it's me clearly very excited about a controversial idea ala like, she doesn't agree, but she's like, I'm really interested in respond. And then you see the guy who's like, who. And then you see the woman who's like this progressive woman who's like,

Simone Collins: Ooh, disgusted by saying that.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that we can reword that. And

Simone Collins: then, then there's the classic Bay Area progressive woman who looked completely disgusted by you standing in the corner.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, but, but what I like about this is I think that this is where, like our respect for people lie, right? Like, are you, like, I don't care how much I disagree with you, are you willing to have, like, are you game, are you gonna

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or are you just gonna sit there in Pearl Clutch and tell me that I'm thinking outside the bounds of what I'm allowed to think.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I find that to be really frustrating. And I find the o you, you know, the, the not crazy takes, like the individuals who repeatedly have like normalist takes for their community.

Over time it's begun to gross me out more. I, I've seen this was in the conservative space where individuals who I used to have respect for, and I'm like, okay, well like where's your weird take? Where's your crazy take? Where's your,

Simone Collins: especially the ones who decide that they're just going to. Poo poo everything.

Oh, you've made such a bad choice. This person's so bad. This was so dumb. Like, stop, like people who cannot, who don't have the balls to stand stuff. Yeah. I lose my risk respect for them.

No, and this has been an to not by

just by just shitting on everyone else for their takes. Even if they're dumb takes and you can make fun of a dumb take.

I'm all for that. But if all you do is make fun of dump takes and you don't put yourself on the line at any point when there's a chance that you might be wrong, no. You're not an intellectual. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We, we, we do episodes all the time that I know our fans are gonna hate. Right? Yeah. Like our, our take on Iran.

I know a lot of our fans don't like our take on Iran, but like, right. Yeah. Like, I, I don't, I, I don't think our fans who disagree with us on this have. Honestly thought through like the larger geopolitical consequences.

Simone Collins: Well, and our best fans often disagree with us, and they enjoy the discourse. They enjoy hearing from people with whom they disagree, and that's awesome.

And they don't fault us for being wrong sometimes if, if, if we're wrong on a thing and we, we admit we're wrong on things. So anyway, which

Malcolm Collins: we have multiple times in the past on this show has been like, Hey, we had a, like H one BV since we, like, we had this stance, then we have this stance, right? Yeah, totally.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to Dec Simone, you are amazing and thank you for not being a prostitute.

Simone Collins: You're welcome. You could be, you'd be great at it. I think the larger, probably not the larger thing is I think everyone's a prostitute if they work, you know? It's just question is who

Malcolm Collins: are you

Simone Collins: selling your body

Malcolm Collins: to?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Who are you selling your body to? It's, it's, it's, it's real. So just are you selling your

Malcolm Collins: body to our fans?

Simone, do I need to have a conversation with you? Wait for the bcha. When you do it look up like a video on how to make the meat go. I don't know

Simone Collins: if I'm gonna have time now 'cause the kids are gonna descend it to my house. Alright, bye.

Malcolm Collins: Whatever. Do whatever you want. Love you.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Loading. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: good.

Simone Collins: I was a little worried that stream yard would be down again. So scared about outages now.

Malcolm Collins: Donald Trump railing on mind. Deve from Russia talking about giving Iran nukes because, you know, he was like, oh, well now some other country might give Iran nukes and Trump. Yeah. What

Simone Collins: even,

Malcolm Collins: what

Simone Collins: are you, first off, no one's gonna do that because that's dumb.

That's like, oh, someone stole the gun from my unstable schizophrenic friend. Don't worry, I'll give them one of my guns. Well, by the way, like my house is deeply unstable and I live in a bad neighborhood. Yeah, yeah. Don't have a lot. I mean, it

Malcolm Collins: shows people who understand, I mean, I think Russia is really overplaying their hand with this and they just need to step back because nobody cares.

They're, I've been really surprised by the sort of gaze for Gaza Trump crowd that's like, what

Simone Collins: is

Malcolm Collins: this? Yeah, this, oh, dare we get involved in a war? Well, yeah. It's not like we're putting boots on the ground or something. Look, I, I will agree with you guys. If it turns out that Trump you know, bombing these facilities draws American into a wire conflict, then I was wrong and Trump was wrong in this gambit and everything like that, right?

Mm-hmm. If it does not, then you've like, like you've been seriously wrong about everything, and this is one of the better political plays in the past century in terms of quickly dealing with a persistent, long-term foes, primary gambling chip. Yeah. Yeah. And, and this isn't the way that they're talking about it.

They're just like, oh, he shouldn't be doing, I, I saw fricking idiot what's his name? The, the, the one who, cER Carlson. Oh, that's what they call him. Cer now, because he so quickly flipped off with, with Trump his sin as Trump was like, Hey, why are you saying this? But he was like, all the Brix countries will go to war with us.

And I was like, are you like actually retarded? The Bri you think India is gonna go to war with us ever us attacking Iran? Do you know what India thinks of like Muslim majority countries like Pakistan? You think that that Brazil is gonna go to war with us over Iran? Like how do you have so little understanding of how the world works and yet are in a position of like talking on air That, that like really got, I was like, what?

Simone Collins: I'm, you know, I, I imagine he has some, some people talking into his ear who have caused some.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it's clear that, I mean, and, and this isn't like a conspiracy, everyone knows he has a lot of contacts within the Russian government. Sure. Iran's, Russia's ally. Of course he's gonna try to defend them, you know, reflexively because that's like where his bread's butter.

A lot of people are also really

Simone Collins: colored by the people they're hanging out with and talking to. So, yeah, I don't those people, he's gonna have a really dysmorphic understanding.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I don't think that this is like, his personality or any, I just think that, and this is why I call it like the gaze for Gaza thing, because like, it is one thing to say we shouldn't put boots on the ground, which I could not agree with more.

Totally. Yeah. It is another thing to say that we should do nothing to disarm them. Which

Simone Collins: is like, we were pretty much the, if I understand the only country that had the, no, we

Malcolm Collins: were the only country that had the B two bombers that could drop this type of bomb.

Simone Collins: Well, and, and we, you know, we, that that kind of what are they called?

Massive ordinance Something, something Mob bs the Bunker Busters.

Yeah.

We just also, we were wasting the pretty. We, we had, we've had those since 2004. We had never used them before.

Malcolm Collins: Rotting in a bunker. Right? I know. Just,

Simone Collins: yeah. Wasting the pretty, like I said, you know, it's like, you know, a beautiful girl in her twenties just sitting there waiting for, for the right day.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind that we even I don't dunno if you heard this, but we even called Iran and told them we were gonna do this beforehand so that they could evacuate. That's so sweet. Well, that's

Simone Collins: good. Yeah, I was really wondering about that. I was like, I really hope no one was there. Well, they

Malcolm Collins: actually brought like a chain of cars and they might have evacuated some of the centrifuge materials, so people are really like pissed at them for this, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because they're like, eh, you, you didn't really play game and we tried to be nice to you about this. Mm-hmm.

And I note here that Iran actually did the same favor for us when they did the retaliatory strike against our base and Qatar, uh, letting us know before they did the strike so that we could evacuate the parts of the facility that were going to be hit.

Speaker 3: Pretend we're having an argument.

You want to tell me why? I want the street to think that you and I are on the out.. what do you want me to do? I'm gonna poke you, poke me back. I'll poke you on day.

Malcolm Collins: But the point largely being is like. Look, if they actually do strike back in meaningful ways that draw us into the conflict, we were wrong. If they don't, then Trump was right. But don't pretend like I wanna protect Iran.

Why is Trump attacking Iran? Why is Israel attacking Iran? Like, we don't care that Israel is paying to attack Iran. Iran's a terrible place. The, the, the, and

Simone Collins: not to say like the US screwed up with Iran in the past 100%. Like there's no doubts there. I get why Iran

Malcolm Collins: doesn't, well, the thing that I really don't get is when people are like, oh, we've been through this before.

Like they might have weapons in mass destruction, some Middle Eastern country as an excuse for war. So one, this is not an excuse for putting boots on the ground. And two. This isn't the United States saying they might have weapons of mass destruction. So I, this is every single European power saying they might have weapons of mass destruct, listen, maybe uranium, independently

Simone Collins: refined to what?

Like 80, 88%, 90% is weapons grade. Like they, they were right there

Malcolm Collins: and independently saying no, but the point I'm making is this isn't like one intelligence agency saying this, this is every intelligence agency on saying this.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: This is despite how much France and the UK and, and you know, Germany hate Israel, all of them saying that they approve of this, like, while to get those three guys to agree that attacking somebody is a good thing.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So like a lot of this is just like really false equivalencies. The, as as, as Michael put it, the point that somebody made a mistake like this once doesn't mean that every time in the future somebody says something like this, it's a mistake.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. But anyway, let's get to today's episode.

Yeah.

Join Simone and Malcolm in this in-depth discussion about the dynamics of emotional vulnerability between men and women, specifically focusing on why women often feel repulsed ('the ick') when men cry or seek emotional support. They delve into cultural trends, societal expectations, and personal experiences, examining how these factors contribute to the complexities of male emotional expression and relationships. The conversation also explores the biological, psychological, and cultural elements that shape emotional behavior and expectations in men and women.

We just started a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/SimoneAndMalcolmCollins

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Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about men crying and women leaving them, or men going to women for emotional support and then women getting the ick. This has been an ongoing trend as, as like a meme that goes around every now and then within.

The Red Pill diaspora, or even the original Red Pill or Mik Tal community back in the day. Mm-hmm. Somebody would be like, well, you know, ex girl said she wanted me to open up to her emotionally, or she wanted me to be vulnerable around her. Or a girl will say something like, well, you know, why, why don't men ever like show their emotions or cry or whatever?

Right. And, and then men are always like, well, because I tried that once and the woman never talked to me again or forced me or like. You know, over and over and over again you see these stories. Okay? And so, you know, I understand why you used to go viral is in the red pill community. Like my brain sees this and the first thought it has is that's so unfair.

I'm just picturing Greta

Simone Collins: Thunberg saying, how dare you? That's how dare you say this is what you want. I tried. And then what did you do? You left me. It also feels, it, it seems kind of fake to me though, so I, I'm, I'm, and keeping here more. What do you mean fake? Do you not

Malcolm Collins: think it really happens? I'm sure no men express

Simone Collins: themselves extremely flamboyantly all the time online and in person.

Like, I, I don't, I don't ever, I've never felt like men are withholding their emotions. I feel like what's actually happening here is women signaling, maybe because they're seeing a therapist or something, that they expect a certain type of emotional vulnerability. From their male partners. Like remember how you were walking behind those elite people at that one conference we went to?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they

Simone Collins: were like, I would never date someone who wasn't seeing a therapist. It could be that their therapist or kind of giving this, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: who were saying it, and then,

Simone Collins: And so they're, they're then communicating to their boyfriends like, will you have to be therapy speak insecure? And then the men.

Attempt to, in a very fake and contrived way, open up and break down. And it, I mean, obviously they look like idiots because they don't actually, that's not how they feel. And then that, that might

Malcolm Collins: actually be a component of it. Yeah. I'm, I'm not gonna lie, I, I might feel like part of it because when I started like investigating my own experiences around this, right?

Yeah. Like the first thing I think is how dare women be that, you know, callous, that, that, that seems

Simone Collins: crazy. Yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: then, then I, the first thought is I'm. These women don't know that they don't want a guy to do this. Like they're not trying to trick their boyfriends into crying in front of them or something.

No. They genuinely think that this is what they want because this is what they've been told what they want. You know, they're not being well. Yeah. And what they've

Simone Collins: been told and, and by whom. Exactly. 'cause this isn't stuff that shows up. For example, in fantasy romance novels, men opening up in a way where they become emotionally vulnerable by crying does not happen.

In romance novels. Which very, which is very

Malcolm Collins: porn by the way,

Simone Collins: you know, which, which is, yeah. This, this is what women actually want. The, the monster er section of the library. Yeah. Doesn't, doesn't show up in that. Well, no, even like when I was a, when I was younger, I, I loved historical.

Malcolm Collins: Okay,

Simone Collins: romance. So like not, that's not, there were no monsters.

It was just always noble men 'cause they had to have money. You know, you have to be

Malcolm Collins: powerful. But then I, I started to think about, you know, before I dated Simone and I was like, well, because another thing I thought when I heard this is I don't remember having this problem. I don't remember any girl. Ever leaving me because I opened myself up emotionally to her.

Yeah. And I never intentionally tried to emotionally guard myself when I was dating. No. And I dated a lot, lot. You were extremely

Simone Collins: transparent, like from moment number one. So I think you also edited out anyone.

Malcolm Collins: But I'm and I, but I'm also from the perspective of a lot of guys. Whether they say simpy or effeminate or whatever word they want to use, you know, I do not appear to be the archetype of masculinity, nor am or at least a, a, a generalist societal archetype.

I would argue I'm an archetype, was in my cultural background. Yeah, we were,

Simone Collins: we were told one person noted that your neck wasn't wide enough. But I don't know how it could be any wider without you looking really weird. Yeah, no, they mean like a neck, like that's all I can imagine. Yeah. A triangle neck.

Yeah. Like what's his face? Who does some morning routines and has the most kyphotic posture in the world. He makes me so worried. No, but

Malcolm Collins: the, the point I'm, I'm making here uhhuh, right? Largely speaking mm-hmm. Is, is I, I am, I am couching what I'm about to say in a, this is Malcolm saying this.

You

know, Malcolm Effeminate, Malcolm Malcolm, who's never tried to overly represent a form of masculinity.

Sure, yeah. And I would, I thought to myself, I'd never had this problem.

Mm-hmm.

So then I searched my memory. You know, I, I've dated. A lot of girls you know, as I've mentioned before, I haven't mentioned in a long time on the podcast, so I probably should, like, I've slept with over a hundred women before I married Simone.

Like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I really played the field for a long time and it was wrong. And I'm not saying it's a good thing I did it because I didn't have any other moral structure back then. I was just like, oh, what is status for men? Status is sleeping around, so I'm gonna sleep around, right? And then eventually I got to a point where I was like, this is stupid.

Well, it was

Simone Collins: fun for you,

Malcolm Collins: right? I mean, you had fun. Oh, I, I had fun, but more from a game perspective. I'm better than winning. Feels good. Look at what I'm winning. Yeah. Winning. Winning feels good. I, I don't know if like, like sex is fine, but it's like, not like once you do it a lot with a lot of people, it's like, not that like, it's like okay it's not like it gets worse.

Like some people are like, oh no, it doesn't get worse. It's just the, you, you realize that you may have mythologized how good it is a bit. But. The point here being or, or, or ignored the bad part. The, the, the smell, the shower afterwards, the grossness, the, you know, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Especially with the stranger who you haven't vetted, you're kind of like.

Where, where have they been?

Malcolm Collins: I guess they're hot. You know, what did I just put myself? I always vetted everyone to an extent. It wasn't like I was sleeping with strangers. I wasn't like going to bars or something like a, like a, a good, like quarter of the people I slept with were virgins when I slept with them.

And I, you know, I had enough experience to tell the difference. You know, so it wasn't like I was going after sluts. I, I was going after you know, the nerds, like that was my specialty is nerds. But the point I'm making here is, so I search my memory. I'm like, okay, I never had a problem with this.

And then I started to think, did I ever cry in front of a girl? Did I ever look for like, like show emotional vulnerability to a girl? Did you, and then like past Malcolm responded to me in my head, like, I'm, I'm modeling past Malcolm and past Malcolm's, like. Why would you do that? Girls are for sex. Like,

Simone Collins: oh, so did well, I, I guess I should, have you ever cried in front of a, like a, a, your brother or a friend, like who's a guy?

Maybe when I was a little kid and

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: got like, that didn't count. Like little No. Like, not injury, crying.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I, I, I'm, again, I'm couching all this and I'm not saying, I didn't even realize until I thought about it. That I had never gone out and cried in front of a girl, that I had never gone out and cried in front of a friend or something like that, that I had never have.

You

Simone Collins: wanted, like, have you ever stopped yourself from crying in front of me or No? I'll cry. Cry

Malcolm Collins: alone. But you cried alone. Yeah, but it's never over. Like sadness, just like

Simone Collins: frustration.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's, it's, it's usually over like somebody else's suffering or something that I need to fix in the world, or, you know, the beauty of something.

Well that's, so there's

Simone Collins: this, there's one form of crying that is manly, and I think it, like, at least the older ones of us can all relate to it. There was this. Commercial. I think it was about trash where there's a crying. It got an Indian. Yeah. And the single tear goes down the, it's this man. Yeah. And he like his face is the most stoic facial expression in the world.

And a single tear falls down his cheek. And like that is the acceptable manly form. Like it does That doesn't undermine your crying at all. 'cause it shows like you're in complete control, but you feel so much that one deer is able to make it out.

Malcolm Collins: But you're still in control. But also keep in mind, he is crying over, like when I said that I, it is over like world problems, right?

Which I

Simone Collins: guess also is manly, right? 'cause it shows that you are a leader, you are responsible for a larger world. Like, like

Malcolm Collins: George Bush crying when he's looking at the Katrina victims. I remember this. You know, the idea of like when is it appropriate to show vulnerability and emotions? Yeah. And when is it not as a man, but, but the wider personal stuff.

Simone Collins: No, but like for the people that you lead or care about or represent, as long as you don't show too much like gesticulation. But

Malcolm Collins: the point I'm trying to make here is, this is me saying this, not trying to front how masculine I am. Yeah, no, you've never, you've never tried to look masculine. You just are. It just never occurred to me.

Why I would want to do this, and we're gonna talk about this in a second, but then also in our relationship, have I ever cried about anything? Did I cry when my mom died? Did I cry like, no.

Simone Collins: Did I look when your mom died? Not only did you not cry, you proceeded to host a lunch guests in New York City, and then a dinner party.

All the same day. It was

Malcolm Collins: pre-planned. I couldn't cancel it, you know?

Simone Collins: Most people would, and like people kept being like when they, when they found out, 'cause they, we didn't tell them exactly right away. They were like,

Malcolm Collins: oh my God. I mean, I remember you looked like you were close to crying that day and I just felt like I had to calm you down because you were like, oh, this is so bad.

And I was like, Simone, our kids are safe, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I talked you through it. And I remember like, the only thing I was thinking about when you told me was like, oh, I've gotta make sure Simone feels comfortable because clearly she's really distressed. But the larger point here being is even with this, even with me never really crying in our relationship, even with me, never really, you know, any of this it was never, and I don't think it ever felt to you, like I intentionally was trying not to show emotions to you.

I've, I've definitely sat you down and talked about concerns I have about our future whether it's financial concern No. And there are times where yeah,

Simone Collins: you just feel super worried. But often, like when you do so you, you're sort of like, man, like being, you know, sort of overtaken by this and like to the point of it not being logical, but I need to talk through it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But the point I'm trying to make here is I feel like what's actually happening here. Is even for men who aren't very traditionally masculine. Crying is just not a common thing to do as an adult, nor is seeking emotional validation. And I should note here that the form of crying that men get punished for is the type of crying that seeks emotional validation.

Mm. Or that is meant to portray a specific self image. Yeah. I guess

Simone Collins: we have to think like, why was crying evolved? I imagine it, it's to pull the heartstrings of a parent and a caregiver, so Well, yeah. But

Malcolm Collins: it was meant to tell Mommy that you need resources. Right? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so if you are doing this to an adult and, and, and some women continued this into adulthood, right?

And I think the reason we see this behavior in some women in adulthood and not men is because for women it can be a way to signal their youth and thus the number of childbearing years they have left. They want to show men, actually, I'm very young, whereas a man doesn't need to signal that to women in the same way I.

Scene: And the whole sexy baby thing isn't an act. I'm a very sexy baby. I can't help it if men are attracted to me. Like that homeless guy. He likes what he sees. Okay, that could be for me. It's not! It's for her.

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: and yeah. No, I, I really feel this, and this is why I feel pretty strongly about that theory because I really don't like crying. Like I know a bunch of people who are really afraid of vomiting. I. Two of my best friends in college had like a deep fear of vomiting. Like they would not eat out so that they would just never have a risk of eating food, poisoning that level of fear.

And I think, I feel not that crazy, but like close to cry, I really hate crying and I've learned that the best way to never cry is to know that when I am. Especially hormonally vulnerable to isolate myself, which is why we do the whole thing where when I give birth, and clearly I'm going through a lot of hormonal nonsense, you drop me off at the hospital, I deliver the baby.

I like post C-section, have to spend a couple of nights in the hospital and then when I'm out, like, okay, like I'm collected, but like it's really hard. Like if, if and, and I don't cry almost at all. Unless like there's a nurse around asking me how I feel because I, I know that the only times I cry are if there's an audience that's in like a kind of caregiving position.

I. That makes me feel somewhat vulnerable. And then like this signaling thing comes out where like, because my body or mind knows it's in some form of distress, it's like, alright, do it. And I think many women maybe it, it, it makes sense that women who are more likely to be in very vulnerable positions, like let's say you're in.

A roving clan or a tribe or something like that, and you're pregnant or you, you've just delivered, like, you actually are much more dependent, like you still are in a slightly more childlike dependent state, even as an adult because of that physical vulnerability we're gonna, it demonstrates use to an extent, you know, men, women, yeah.

Yeah. So it's useful then, yeah, you're still crying, so you may not be a child, but you still need someone, you need to pull someone's heartstrings so you don't die because you can't otherwise keep up with everyone due to your pregnancy or due to being postpartum or something like that. So. But I really, I think that has to be it because there's such a strong correlation, at least for me, between crying and there being audience.

And like, if no one's around, I am so fine.

Malcolm Collins: And it's, well, this might also be why I haven't felt an intuition to do it, because I don't feel these same type of caregiver from you that I would feel from a mom, right? Like you are somebody who supports me, but ultimately depends on me as are other women who I've dated, therefore.

I wouldn't cry. Right. Like why would I do? Right. It's like

Simone Collins: not some unidirectional caregiver relationship.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Which makes it you know, make more sense within that context. And the point I was making earlier is that if you look at the ways where it's okay for a man to cry, yeah. They are, when it is not about.

Self vulnerability. Yeah. When it's, it's certainly

Simone Collins: not the signaling type of crying.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. It's, it's, it's you know, you are crying for the sake of the wor in a way it's about showing your responsibility

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Versus you know, retreat from responsibility.

Simone Collins: Right, right, right. 'cause it's not about you, you personally feel it's about for other people.

Like you're only crying because you do make the thing, you're crying about your personal responsibility and that thing isn't you. It's beyond you. And this may also explain why women, when this does ultimately happen in the way where men are crying for personal reasons, so repulsive because it implies to women that those men must think those women are the caregiver.

Yes. And that is the number one, like of the least sexy things a man can do to imply that the woman. Is the caregiver. To signal that in any way explicitly or implicitly or through body language and crying is a very, probably a very clear form of that. That, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, true. Why did she develop the ick when I called her mommy and put my head in her lap and cried, right?

Like, yeah, well, well maybe. 'cause you shouldn't have signaled to her that she's your mommy, right? Like, yeah. Well

Simone Collins: it's, so, it's, it's also like, and this is exacerbated by, there's this huge discussion online among women. 'cause I, I can't tell you how many. Podcasts and YouTube episodes I've seen about this.

Of one, the research shows that when in relationships women take on more, like they do more work for the, for taking care of their husbands. And, and they do most, you do more for than I do do, and they do. So like already women are taking this on. And already now, because of all this media, most women are aware of the fact that they're taking this burden on.

And then if a husband turns around and is explicitly like. Yeah, you're, you're my mommy. Like, or you're my caregiver. That just, that, that like snaps them. They're like, that's it. 'cause like at least they wanna have this fantasy that like, well, you know, when it comes down to it though, my husband provides the money and the security.

When it comes down to it, my husband's dominant. And if that falls apart. Then like none of it's worth it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, of course. The whole LA falls apart. Yeah. Yeah. So like

Simone Collins: how, how, how are women the a*****e then? Like at that point, right? That makes it seem a lot more, well ,

Malcolm Collins: they believe that they want something they don't actually want.

They're like, I want somebody I can be vulnerable in front of. Yeah. Because that's what they've been told by therapist culture. Yeah. And here, you know, and ask guys to, you know, think for themselves. Like do you, do you actually. Like, do, do you actually want somebody who, who you could be vulnerable around?

I mean, you can draw out the vulnerable side of you, like anyone can do that, but does that feel good? Does that feel natural, or is this, yeah. And just leaning into

Simone Collins: that help you in any way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Is is I, I think part of the problem, I don't like being vulnerable is that think it's good, like, oh, this is unfair, that I can't turn to them with my vulnerabilities.

Yeah.

And what I would reflect it back to, and keep in mind there are cultural differences.

Simone Collins: Hey, I'll point out, women don't necessarily want to be vulnerable. And by choosing to not have kids, and by choosing to not put themselves in vulnerable positions, women are signaling that in the modern age, women don't.

Want to be in this position. They don't want to be physically incapacitated by pregnancy or postpartum periods. Okay. Like

Malcolm Collins: that's, that's sort of tangential to the point, the point I'm making here is that a lot of men when they see these, they're like, how terrible is it that I can't go to anybody when I'm having emotional distress?

Mm. And the way I would reframe this as. You know, you frankly, like

Iron Man: And dad went to 7 Eleven to get scratchers. I guess he won because that was six years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Which happens, dads leave. No need to be a pussy about it. Here's what I need.

Malcolm Collins: Oh God. You know, but this is unfortunately, and I, and I know our society doesn't tell you this.

Emotional control should really not be that hard as an adult male. Like, and, and I'm, and I'm, again, this is the simp Malcolm. This is a effeminate Malcolm telling you, like, I never even considered that I was controlling these things about myself because I never thought about indulging in them, right?

Like mm-hmm. I am not here saying I am extra masculine. I am saying that you are being primed. To think that you need to do this thing that is actually not good for you at all. In the same way that we point out that, you know, people are taught, oh, you need to let out anger. And yet we know that like if you punch a wall, it actually makes you angrier.

Yeah. Like this is, it's not gonna help

pop psychologist stuff like indulge in, in emotion for a short period to release it. No. Indulging for an emotion in a short period makes it louder. It doesn't release it. Mm-hmm. That's not a no. Yeah, redirecting your attention. And recontextualizing what's happening to you is how you lower an emotion, not indulging in it.

And this is one of these like pop psychology things or, oh, you know, real men cry. Who the made that up? I'll tell you what, it wasn't a man who said that, right? Like, yeah, it was some weird group that was trying to siop men into making themselves look like. Es in front of their, their, their partners.

Right. It is basically the way I see it, right? Like, yeah. It's, it's a group that is like, well, have men acted more like women? And, and again, the women do not realize that this is not what they want. No,

Simone Collins: no. They're, I mean, well, yeah. And the women also, you know, like these are the same people who are brainwashed into codependent relationships with their therapists.

I mean, yeah, they've got a lot of problems going on.

Malcolm Collins: They've got a lot of problems going on. But I mean, the, to start with for you guys is just, I mean, I think that this is a part of the problem. Like this is not a something that you are, like, you need to resist or something like, I, I'd make an example here if I decided that like I wasn't going to masturbate, like I.

That would be an enormous challenge for me. I would be like, oh, are, are you glad I'm not one of those, those wives who are like you,

Simone Collins: you're not allowed. I've seen

Malcolm Collins: so much of it online recently. Yeah, this's crazy. I didn't know the head of, of Prager U was pro masturbation. Apparently. He went on some like Catholic show and he goes.

Well, you know, it, it, it doesn't cause me problems in this marriage, and it didn't in my last three either. May they thought that that was hilarious. Maybe not the best argument I've heard about that. I think that's more of a boomer problem than you know, but the point being is like, that would create like, like I'm not the person coming here and saying I have total self-mastery, right?

Like mm-hmm. Clearly I don't have self masturbating around something like masturbation. Thanks for telling the world, Malcolm. No, no, no. But what I'm saying is, and the reason I'm contrasting this. Is, I don't want people to think that I'm coming out here being like, I'm the most masculine disciplined man who's ever existed.

Yeah. And that's why I never feel like crying or seeking emotional support. Well, as we've, we've

Simone Collins: revealed in other podcast episodes, you know, kind of watch out for the ones who frame themselves as super masculine. And often it comes out that, you know,

Malcolm Collins: or, or super caring of women they're, they're, they're usually hiding something.

basically I'm starting the fatherhood chapter of my life. We're not pregnant just yet, but we've moved to the Scottish Highlands,

The reason why me and my ex split up is I told her to sit down and to write down like her goals and I wrote, you know what, I want to move to like a big city.

You will not find this kind of woman who will fit with this lifestyle in a big major city why?

The women who are in the big cities are glorified Instagram prostitution.

I actually want to have a few like, Sleepless nights.

I want to have a few likes like sleep deprived nights where I stay up late bro for the last few years I've been to sleep at 7 8 p. m I've you couldn't imagine the amount of like parties and social events and dinners that I've missed

I know what goes on in these parties And the issue was that the girls that I was meeting from these places, just like I, I was as well, um, We're all low quality.

It's a low quality place to be.

. I wanted to be super social. I wanted to have some late nights where we stay up and we're social and there's a party that we go to and everything.

But she saw it, and I'm not gonna lie, like, I could see how, like, offended she was. Where she was quite, like, pressuring, she was like, Wait, you wanna do this? Oh, you wanna do that? You wanna stay up late? But that's unhealthy.

Those party girls, like the party, low quality, degenerate, TikTok type of girls.

They are attracted to the party, low quality, degenerate, TikTok type of guys. Fine, like trash can stay with trash.

Because for hers, she wrote that she wanted to do more of the things that we were currently doing. , it's wholesome , and you know that she's an awesome girl for that, she doesn't want to be around like, You know, like party girls and whatever I just realized like we're actually going into two separate seasons right now

Fine, like trash can stay with trash. This is going to sound weird, you need to be hit in the face. I will repeat that again. As a young man, you need to be hit in the face consistently.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but the point I'm making here, okay, is I am not that, I am not trying to signal that I am not here saying. I never really feel like crying in front of my wife because I'm tough. Mm-hmm. I'm just like, if you do not allow society to brainwash you around this stuff, it's gonna be like a complete non-issue for you.

It's gonna be like, oh, why would I even think about doing that? Right? Mm-hmm. Unless you are born with some sort of unusual biology. , And here what I mean is obviously people are born with different biologies. Some men. Are born perceiving the world more like women. Some men are born, you know, more cry than other people.

You know, some men are. What about men

Simone Collins: who go on estrogen? Really cry.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and, and culturally you know, it's, there might be differences, there might be some cultural groups. And I just might be from a cultural group where men almost never cry and it's just not even something we would consider.

Yeah, Scott's

Simone Collins: Irish doesn't strike me as a

Malcolm Collins: cry friendly. Well, the funny thing is, is I remember my parents growing up, you know, they were very bought into the urban monoculture. They were very like, oh, you know, you should cry when you need to cry. You should really, they were never like, that doesn't seem like your parents.

Well, they were, they, they were like, well, you know, we may not do it, but like, you know, don't, don't. And my dad also not a particularly masculine guy. I've never seen him cry.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, actually he's a lot like you. Like he may, he, he doesn't, he never tries to front masculinity, but he like saved that entire ship full of people in a giant storm and stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that was actually pretty cool. He won a, the, the Coast Guard medal in an American like medal of something. This, like, he was one of the

Simone Collins: first people to do a class five rapid in South America on the BOBO.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, he did a lot

Simone Collins: of,

Malcolm Collins: Crazy things, but he,

Simone Collins: he doesn't front and he doesn't come off as like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't know. He pulled like a Kennedy, like going out in a storm and saving everyone on a boat or something. Yeah. You wouldn't

Simone Collins: know. He'd like, yeah. You, you need

Malcolm Collins: to talk him through this. And he is like, oh yeah, that one time I saved the, the boat in the middle of the storm. Yeah.

And, and, and you hear these stories, but they're not like a big part of how he contextualizes himself. Actually not,

Simone Collins: no. It's like, this is the stuff I learned like seven years into our relationship.

Malcolm Collins: He really, and it's not that he doesn't try to, he really tries hard to frame himself as like the erudite Nope.

Erudite

Simone Collins: and, and, and, yes. And, and that he,

Malcolm Collins: everything will be about, oh, how I did X and I went and saw X and you know. Yeah. So it's not like he doesn't front he fronts just not he fronts, he just never considers about his natural masculinity about being masculine, even though he's done a bunch of like big masculine things.

Life. Yeah. And that is interesting as well, that, that. People and people like him can be desperate to be seen a certain way. Yeah. And he, and he is like hungrily desperate in a way that comes across as not positive. But you know, he doesn't need to leave. If you're watching this, Michael, we love you.

He's not watching it. He, he watches like one of our episodes every month.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Or too much effort. Sorry, Michael. But the, the, the point I'm making is and he knows it. You know, I, I tell him this, I've told him it's a good with a kid. I was like, bro, like stop trying to get people to see you this way.

Like, it's not like positive. But a lot of people from his generation just have this drive to be seen in a certain way.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, not what in our, in every generation. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: But the reason why this is relevant to this conversation is. Despite this drive to be seen, not as masculine, but like it's this erudite intellectual

mm-hmm.

Which

was in his generation, would've been an incredibly emotionally sensitive position.

Hmm. He's

never really indulged in that around me, and I think it's because of a lack of a biological drive to mm-hmm. Not, not because he's masculine or because he wants to seem masculine. He just never felt that impulse.

And I think that you were right at the beginning of this. That impulse. When guys do that for their girlfriends and they show this vulnerability, it's mostly contrived.

Mm-hmm.

It's, it is not an emotion. They're really feeling, it's an emotion that they cultivated. It it to signal something to their partner that they think their partner wants to see in them.

Or some iteration of like, well, real men cry. I'm a real man, therefore I'm gonna cry. Right. I'm, I'm so masculine, I can show my vulnerabilities. When I just don't think that, and this is, I, I guess also what I mean is psychological framing and just in our society we're not really told how to be masculine or anything like that.

You know, it's like a, a version of feminine, I guess I'd say. Like it, my intuition around vulnerability, it is just not something I would indulge in. Like if I am focused on my vulnerability, like. Maybe my family's financial insecurity. You know, we don't have a job right now that's bringing in money, sign up for the Patreon.

You know, we, you know,

Simone Collins: huge thanks to everyone who has chosen this for us. Like,

Malcolm Collins: it's super cool, but we don't, we don't, you know, we don't, there's a lot of things that I could be worried about, but like, if I come to you like crying about that or acting emotionally vulnerable about that. I am doing nothing to achieve the security that my family requires.

Right. Like I, and, and my family does require it and I am responsible for it. So if I go to you and I'm in this state of like emotional indulgence you're gonna look at me and be like, okay, well now we're really screwed. 'cause now I need to find out how to handle the family financially. Got

Simone Collins: well.

You're not in this by yourself, friend.

Malcolm Collins: I, I know I'm not in this by myself, but I don't abdicate all responsibility for you to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like, to make it, to make

Simone Collins: me feel like it was all on me would be terrible.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and I think if I came to you crying about it, you would feel that way.

You'd have to say like, oh yeah. I'd be like, well,

Simone Collins: I guess I have to figure this out by myself. I

Malcolm Collins: probably, you'll get through this. Yeah. You know? Why would that not make somebody leave you? Right.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, well, but if I went to you, would you feel the same way if I, no, if I did that to you?

Malcolm Collins: Because it is my responsibility, and I think every man wants it to be their responsibility.

No man wants to be in a relationship where they, their partner doesn't feel safe coming to them and being like. Hey. Because keep in mind, at the end of the day, the decisions in where we are is downstream of my leadership and my decisions. So when my partner comes to me and they're like, hey, you know, I, I'm really concerned about like this direction we're heading and everything like that, and I feel a lot of vulnerability and am I safe?

You know, it's a bit like a crew coming to the captain and saying this. Mm-hmm. There's a big difference between the crew coming to the captain and saying like, you know, on the captain coming to the crew, but like, I don't know if we're gonna hit land. I don't know if we're going to have enough food until we hit land.

I don't know if we have enough. You know, to like the captain coming down with to the crew and being like, I don't know if we have enough food. I don't know where land is. We're out of limes. You all are gonna get scurvy and die horribly. You know, that's a very different scenario.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it's because, you know, and these guys, they wanna take on this captain role.

They do. So most of them do, I think, right? And most of their, their partners want them to take it on, and they haven't really thought through what it means for the captain to go to the crew to be like, guys, I'm, you know, for, for a captain to go to the crew and be like, Hey I'm looking actually though,

Simone Collins: what if this is a generational thing?

What if younger people, because we've seen just almost logarithmic levels of infantilization what if younger men actually want a mommy? The problem is that this is happening. With younger people, maybe some do,

Malcolm Collins: but I mean, the point I was making here is, is is the captain going to the, the crew and being like, Hey, you know, food is scarce.

I, I've done the math. I don't, I don't know if we are gonna make it to shore on time. So, you know, this seems like the best course we could take to, to get there. That's what I'm like when I come to you is vulnerability.

Me

coming to the crew and being like, I just don't know, like. I, I, I didn't mean for you guys to all not have enough food.

I just was trying my best. That's not something the crew wants to hear. No.

Mm-hmm.

And you've taken on this role of captain of other people's lives and you know, maybe that's part of, you know, like you're saying there, is that a lot of young men do not want to take on the role of captain of, of their local, you know, partnership or whatever, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that could be another thing going on. So theory one, this is women asking for men to show signals that men aren't even, they never needed to show that they're not comfortable showing. And then when they try to either fake it or kind of make it happen naturally everything falls apart because intuitively this is just a huge alarm bell for women on an instinctual deep evolved level.

But then the other thing could just be, yeah, that more men really don't want. To be leaders or captains and women are not here for that. Which could also explain why there's even more content now about, I don't know, there, there's some name that women are using for this, like being a, like the the mom to their.

Like having a man child or something, being the mom to their partner, like doing everything for 'em and feeling like, great, now I just have to take care of two people instead of one.

Malcolm Collins: But I think part of this is the way women contextualize things. You could contextualize yourself as being like my mom, you do the cleanup often.

You cook me food often. I do

Simone Collins: your laundry. I do all the dishes. I do the cooking. Yeah. Are you not, I clean the house. Like

Malcolm Collins: if you wanted to see yourself as my mom, you could. Well,

Simone Collins: I, I guess like it, I, I still think that's fairly normative for women. I think where the difference is in, where it's too far for women is where the men don't also then in, in turn be like, well, and, and the buck stops with me when it comes to income, financial stability, et cetera.

Like leadership.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like our future.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay. And I think the problem is that many of the women who complain about this, really aren't in that position. And this, this shows up even in pop culture. Like obviously a lot of people have been commenting on the relationships in the Secret Lives of Mormon lives, which I think had like another season come out or something and mm-hmm.

Like one of them. Was trying to be sort of this, you know, tradish, not really, but like, you know, Mormon influencer. But like, I think while her husband was going through medical school, she was paying all the bills and everything, but he was still trying to be like, well, I'm calling the shots. And, you know, that, like, I think we're just seeing too many examples of that in media where, well,

Malcolm Collins: that's okay.

Like, like that's not a bad thing. People used to do this, the wife would work Oh yeah. Take turns

Simone Collins: with school and everything. But like, it, it, the relationship does become unstable if. The woman is doing, like if she's pregnant, having kids, bringing in all the income, maybe cooking and cleaning as well, like.

That gets wrong. Well, that's a

Malcolm Collins: normal Korean or Japanese relationship know it's so bad. This is why women don't wanna get married. This is why

Simone Collins: there's a failure to thrive over there. They're not having kids.

Malcolm Collins: The men are like, you're gonna do what I tell you to, and now you're gonna no, because they don't have a structure for this.

And this is why I think building a structure for what be masculinity looks like, why it's important to have these conversations.

Hmm.

As sort of like a. You know, you could do a lot of things. You even bring in, you know, the majority of our income, I'd argue and provide more in terms of economic stability than I do.

No, that wouldn't

Simone Collins: come were it not for the systems that you set up. Right. But our dynamic is you do the thinking and I make it happen, but like the, the making it happen part means nothing when there's nothing. For me to make happen.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I'd argue that you'd be financially stable if I'd never met you. Yeah, I would be.

Simone Collins: Absolutely. But like that, and again, that's why many women remain single.

Malcolm Collins: But the, the, the point here being is that, you know, you do not follow me because of, and this is one of the problems that you see in Korea and Japan's style masculinity is the woman does everything. The woman makes the money, and then the man bosses her around, right?

Yeah.

Simone Collins: And they're like, not, not doing instead of,

Malcolm Collins: and then the man shoulders the burden of the family and the future and does what he can to try to protect the wife emotionally speaking. Mm-hmm. Which is, I'm sure, at least to an extent, how you feel within this family.

Simone Collins: Oh, totally.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and you know, I, I do, do you know a degree of childcare in terms of the older kids?

That's a degree.

Simone Collins: That's all. I mean, I still think you, who took the kids to the birthday party this weekend? Who spent every light and lion share of the day with them? Playing with them?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But they're, they're, you know, really good kids. You know, they're so great. But I already see it in the boys, you know, they don't.

Like the older ones don't cry as much anymore. Like men stop crying I think at a fairly young age. And, and we as a society somehow contextualize that as bad and it's not bad. It's normal.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and a man not crying. And I think that this is also really important stereotype to break. And not being emotionally vulnerable is not the man being a steel wall or being your typical, overly stern, whatever.

Like, you guys know me, you see, I am not overly stern or lacking an emotion or lacking an emotional expression or, you know, somebody who's deeply trying to control everything. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, well, I guess I do have a, a, a large degree of emotional control that I, I believe I have a duty for, but I'm not.

You know, the, the stereotype of the rigid, you know, thin lipped, whatever, right. You're not

Simone Collins: the classic maintain frame red pillar we'll say. Yeah. I do think it's interesting that, well, one, it's important to recognize that men and women express and process emotions differently and also have very different hormonal profiles, which really affects emotional output, but two.

You pointed out, and I think this is true, that like across cultures and like probably based, like based on your genetic inheritance, you are going to have different ways of processing emotion. And I wonder which cultures involve men crying the most. Chime in in the content or comments if you have a, an idea there.

Malcolm Collins: I'm curious. Yeah, I'd be interested to know.

Simone Collins: What would you guess? I'm

Malcolm Collins: guess like Muslim cultures, cultures where you have strict hierarchy between individuals

Simone Collins: Well, and also where men and women are more isolated from each other. Yeah. So I feel like in such environments you wouldn't need to as, as, as ardently evolve that emotional maturity because in like men aren't crying in front of women, you know, they're crying in front of men.

Yeah, theoretically. 'cause they're in men's spaces.

Malcolm Collins: And another thing I note about myself that people may be getting wrong here is I am not a particularly tough guy. I am you know, when I, when I get hurt or I, I am, I am definitely less, I. Have less endurance than you have in

Simone Collins: terms Well, what's your, your, your percentile for pain tolerance is like, is like

Malcolm Collins: 0%.

Simone Collins: 0% and I'm in the 99th percent.

I should clarify here that we're speaking off of full genome sequences. I am in the 99th percentile in terms of pain sensitivity, and Simone is in the bottom one percentile in terms of pain sensitivity.

So, yeah. I mean, again, I think that goes to show that your genetic inheritance is going to affect how you process pain. Pain. Yeah. But again, at that point

Malcolm Collins: I'm making here is this isn't either me being like, I, I am a super good at like, you know, still stealing myself against pain or anything.

Yeah. You're not, you're

Simone Collins: not saying anything. Yeah. You're not like, look at me, I'm. Super

Malcolm Collins: masculine. I'm, I'm a, I'm a complete wuss when it comes to pain. I don't, I don't want pain. I don't like pain. Pain is not good. Get in, get in the away. I am, I'm not gonna subject myself to pain for no reason. You know, it ain't your thing.

No.

To show, to show how tough I am. The guy who puts the cigarette out in his hand or something, I'd be like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Oh, what the, what? Yeah. But I really, I think people who do that for real. Just don't feel it the way you would feel it. Yeah. I think pain tolerance isn't about ability to emotionally process pain.

I, I think it's literally about what you're able to feel, period. I.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to Dec Simone. Interesting episode. I think yeah. One that's not talked about is what does masculinity mean in our society and what's normative for masculinity? And I think I'm a great person to show this because I'm talking about my own internal subjective experience, which I think is slightly more insulated from urban monoculture than other people's, just due to my natural arrogance.

Hmm. And th this can give you an idea of even what an effeminate guy's insulated experience around emotional vulnerability is.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and, and I came away with a better understanding, or at least a hypothesis as to why women are so instantly disgusted and turned off by men expressing personal vulnerability.

Malcolm Collins: Well, would you be turned off if you saw me, like come to you emotionally vulnerable, like try to model yourself? How would you feel about that?

Simone Collins: Depends on what it would be about. Like sometimes people just like if you were injured, you were crying. I'd get it, man. Yeah. But yeah, I, I think it depends on what the implications are for me and our family's safety, if that makes sense.

Yeah. And I, and I think that's where a lot, a lot of people do. Do you remember how much

Malcolm Collins: about pussy? I was about getting the the blood drawn thing. And you and the kids all got around me to push the thing you weren't, and take all my, remember

Simone Collins: how, like whenever you get a shot, if I'm there, I just bite your other shoulder and it works really well.

Malcolm Collins: You're cute.

Simone Collins: So I think it's a lot of, it's just an ick thing for you with needles, not necessarily about the pain, because I'm, I'm inflicting more pain on you. True. I don't like, I

Malcolm Collins: don't like I, yeah. But I'm just like, not that masculine around this stuff. That's why I think it's, it's really interesting to use myself as the metric here.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Well, and you know, I learned, not too long ago that the concept of toxic masculinity was to describe, actually, reaction is against sort of anti-male bias. So sort of men acting out against society, not allowing them to just be normal men. So it wasn't just like, oh, natural masculinity is toxic.

It was more like almost performative reactive. Masculine signaling, which I think

Malcolm Collins: is what a lot of toxic masculinity really is. Yeah. Performative

Simone Collins: signaling that's not actually masculine.

Malcolm Collins: Being overly tough or cruel to a woman instead of the woman's protector.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh Uhhuh. And I, I think, yeah, I, that kind of blew my mind.

I was like, oh crap. So like, it's not natural masculinity. It's, it's contrived masculinity in response to society going too far with feminization. And that yeah. Thought that was super fascinating.

Malcolm Collins: So I love you to Dec Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Gorgeous. It was fun. Thank you. Well, I was just looking at the anime images from the. Our premium Patreon with the Oh, me

Malcolm Collins: too. I love those for the stories.

Simone Collins: They're so cute. It makes me wish that there was a manga that I could reach

Malcolm Collins: just, you know, for Substack. We're also gonna be releasing these, but we're releasing them on weekends, on Substack, or is they're all already released on Patreon.

What Simone is referring to here is we have four stories of now that I created, partially playing through ais, , to, , you know, explore various types of Zaki worlds. And, , they're, I find them to be very entertaining. They're in audiobook form, , and she created title cards for them.

It was just, you know, we don't wanna flood you if you're a substack person with like five different stories all in one weekend. Yeah. So the idea is, is that we, we give them to you slowly. Whereas for Patreon, it just makes sense to bundle the upload. This is not a subset Patreon

Simone Collins: fantasy fiction audio books that you're making available.

Yeah, we, we listen, or at least I listened to a bunch of them when we took a family vacation. It was so fun. It was so fun. Yeah. We've

Malcolm Collins: got four now. Four books. Yeah. That you can listen to if you want to. Well, that's

Simone Collins: in addition to all the pragmatist guides being free to paid subscribers, so I guess not technically free, but.

All the audiobooks and eBooks, you can just immediately download them if you are paid subscriber plus our albums, I put, I separated out the one, just the general like glitch hop album that's available for everyone, like paid or not as a fun thing to download. But also then the premium base camp songs I separated out from the future day songs.

So we just have a separate future day Technip Puritan album, which I wanna add to the, some of them are so cute. I mean, they're all cute, but like, I really like the one that's like country style. Hey, you know,

Malcolm Collins: that's about future day.

Yeah.

Song: Let's promise to make a for every heart in this human race.

Our visions of tomorrow shines so bright together we can make it right

flight. Imagination is our guiding light.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's cute. That's hilarious. So the our fab project, the reality fabricator, like AI storyteller.

Yeah.

We're like, I basically was like, we need to, to the team. The UI is not. Not up to snuff. It is, it is very unstable. It is very difficult to use. And so, you know, I got to this first point where I'm like, we need to see if we need to remake this. And so what they're gonna do is they're gonna do two things.

The team is going to take this and try to make the existing system downloadable to see if that fixes the issue. That's cool. And make a text first to see if that fixes the issue. And then Bruno's going to try to create a web first version of this. Nice to see if that fixes the issue. And basically, and then I'm gonna test the app against the web first and see which does better.

And my intuition is that the web first is gonna do better. And it was, I. I mean, the reason we did the app to begin with is so we could sell it on Steam. But I don't know if it was ever really that good for the steam community to begin with given that it's written based and that a lot of the visuals were sort of shoehorned in for investors and stuff.

Yeah.

And that we should really focus on just creating really good immersive storytellers and, and world explorers that are text first, and then all of the other stuff can come, can come after that.

Simone Collins: I'm with you on that, that that checks out for me. I like that. Right.

Kids: Do you? Do you like this one, Andy?

That means yes.

Join Malcolm and Simone as they delve into a new study on ideological networks titled 'Attitude Networks as Intergroup Realities.' The research uses network modeling to explore attitudes, identities, and relationships in polarized political contexts. Discover how the study highlights the clustering of beliefs on the left and the diversity of thought on the right. Malcolm and Simone discuss the implications of these findings for political discourse, internal debates, and policy stances. They also touch on the role of AI in the job market, the future of higher education, and the shifting perceptions of public figures like Asmongold. This episode is a deep dive into the evolving landscape of political and social ideologies.

Malcolm Collins: hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be looking at a new study called Attitude Networks as intergroup realities using network modeling to research attitude, identity, relationships in polarized political context. This has been going around right wing circles recently.

Ooh. And so to give an idea of what they found, go to I sent you an image.

Simone Collins: Okay. I am really bad at interpreting graphs, but what I feel like I'm looking at is, I don't know, it kind of looks like a, an asteroid. Okay. I'll,

Malcolm Collins: I'll explain trail. I'll explain to your woman brain. Yeah, please. I, I love that you're like actually coming at this as like full woman brain.

So what this is showing is with red being, the right and, and blue being the left uhhuh. And b being closer to voting behavior, red versus blue. Whoa. Okay. So, okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 'cause what we're really looking at is like a bunch of sort of interconnected dots and lines and on the left there's this tiny little blue spider web.

And then on, on the right there's this pretty large, more expansive spider web, but it's, it's much more, it's much more dispersed, whereas the, the, the blue spiderweb is very condensed. So you're saying the blue spiderweb is leftist voting patterns, whereas the red spiderweb is more conservative and centrist voting patterns.

Is that it,

Malcolm Collins: Well, not conservative and well conservative and centrist, but was, was a couple caveats here. One is, is it shows that the ideology of the left. Because this is looking at ideological perspectives has become incredibly tight. You are not allowed to have gaining perspectives. Wow. This is, this is the right perspective, this is a wrong perspective.

And if you have anything else, then you are kicked outta the circle. And you typically will not vote left. There is not a wide intellectual conversation happening on the left. On the right, it's the exact opposite. You have an incredible amount of diversity of thought.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Now the, the writers of the paper.

We're like, well, what this shows is that to be a right, it's more about like I'm a white Christian or something. So it's about identity and not individual policy positions. And I'm like, no. What it is, is what we've been saying from the beginning. The right right now is a collection of everyone who opposes the urban monocultural belief system which is a very wide degree of belief system.

Yeah. Basically

Simone Collins: like I'm just not cool with this one narrow definition of reality, which is kind of most reasonable people. Yes. So this isn't surprising.

Malcolm Collins: Well it, it shows how a lot of the new right people, you know, whether you're talking about like an Elon or like an Asma Gold or people like us are so solidly right-leaning now when historically, because another thing that changed about this when they were doing the studies and it was clear that this really concerned the researchers is, they're like the moderates now.

They're, they're like, there are no more moderates. The moderates were not split. The moderates almost holistically went right. Oh yeah. Is what they found. Yeah. And you see this in the chart, like if, if, if you are, if you were like anything two thirds from the far left, like, like, if you, if you sort of divided the chart into thirds the two thirds towards the right, even, you know, left of center.

Are now just solidly Republican and not I think what would surprise individuals like, like even the writers of this, not with like. Personal carve outs or caveats, they're just like, no, I'm like Republican now. As you know, you see with somebody like Asma Gold, who I think compared to us Asma Gold is I I'd say he's slightly left of center of, I was just putting his actual politics out there.

Yeah. Yeah, that seems right. Yeah. But he identifies as a Republican and no one online wouldn't identify him as a Republican. That's so funny.

Yeah.

And your, your average lefty, not only would they identify him as a Republican, they call him far right. But if you actually like listen to his political beliefs, he is left of center almost.

Certainly. Yeah. And I love when people say that like, we are not like real rightists and stuff like this. I'm like, we're actually, if you look at most of the mainstream Right, right wing issues. We are right of your average right wing voter these days. Yeah. I think there

Simone Collins: is a little bit of a dysmorphic perception as a well of what right wing stances are.

Yeah. Think extreme,

Malcolm Collins: right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Because, and that's the very vocal, right. Whereas everyone else is like heterodox or whatever. And they don't necessarily call themselves being like as they're on the right, but they are, they represent really reasonable people. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, if you're part of this diverse coalition, you know you're gonna want all these different names for it and everything like that, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it's also why the left, they almost could have like picked up part of the right by s stirring all this stuff up with Trump and, and, and getting every single mainstream outlet to call him a fascist. And having some people be like, oh, like he tried to like, take over the government and stuff like that.

And I think with a lot of people, there was this moment where who, when they still believed in the media before they realized like, oh, these people are just lying. About everything. You know, they were like, well, I guess I just can't bring myself to be on this side anymore. And a lot of people did leave the right for a little bit then, and then they went to the left and they're like, these people are crazy.

Like they will not, they just constantly harass me. Even leftists have started to call blue sky, blue gold now. Really separate episode on what ended up happening to Blue Sky, blue Skyes, by the way, on a, a fairly rapid decline at this point. And there have been interesting many major articles from leftist news sources saying that either it's in trouble or that it's no longer a pleasant place to be.

Wow. And I, I, you know, you can see our episode capturing them the crystal, but I actually think that this is a bad thing for the right because I think that Trump sort of captured in a crystal when he.

Malcolm Collins: You know, sent them all to Blue Sky and people are like, we self deported. You didn't send us here.

And it's like, look, we don't care. We don't care what, whatever you, however you wanna interpret it. X has been a lot nicer since you guys have been away. Yeah. I

Simone Collins: wouldn't mind it though. We had a lot more engagement on X because of all the hate.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah. No, that helps our post spread a lot.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Because people. Ratioed us, but I don't know in a way that seemed actually kind of beneficial to us. So can we, can we come, come back, come back. We're here. Come back.

Malcolm Collins: You can hear us

Simone Collins: here.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we're gonna go into what else the study found and, yes. I'm so curious. I find it really interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like what was the purpose of this study?

Couldn't have just been. Are views on the right? More diverse? What? What? What's the, well, no, that wasn't

Malcolm Collins: what they expected to find. It's pretty clear they were just trying out a new system for mapping views. Oh.

The researchers developed a new way to map political beliefs called resin response Item Network that treats each response option like strongly of agree versus mildly agree as separate network nodes revealing much more nuanced patterns than traditional surveys. Asymmetric political polarization. Most striking finding Democrats and Republicans organize their beliefs very differently.

Democrats cluster tightly around extreme positions on issues like abortion, gun control, and immigration. Mm-hmm. Republicans show much more variation from moderate to extreme positions on the same issues. This suggests Democrats have become ideologically quote unquote pure, where Republicans maintain internal diversity in policy positions.

Or rather they're still having a conversation. And I understand that like some Republicans are like, oh, this is so bad. Like shouldn't we go back to the purity of the old days of our party and everything like that and purity testing. And I'm like, no. Like the strength of the party. Comes from the internal debates we're having.

Mm-hmm. It comes like when we talk about like, studies showing that rightists can model leftists, but leftists can't model rightists. This is part of the reason why we can model leftists because we're constantly having debates about what our views are like. I, it also

Simone Collins: leads to a much more reasonable policy policies being implemented because as you pointed out many times before.

The extreme views of all the sub factions just aren't going to go anywhere because the different sub factions have such different views. Like we want Captain America genetically modified, super soldiers of course, opt-in, totally consent based, but right most, most people don't want that. So we, we can't bother, especially because they're sides that are super against any sort of genetic modification.

And then, you know, they want like zero abortion under no circumstances. Like, or control over, like no even plan B pills in some cases, no birth control. And they know that that's not gonna pass 'cause you know, our, or like, no, IVF and that's not gonna work for them. So in the end. We have a world in which just more reasonable stuff gets passed and that's good.

Whereas on the left, I think because it's all black and white, only extreme views, you get extreme. Propositions that are not good for society.

Malcolm Collins: What, what she was saying there is that those types of views, like Super Soldier Manhattan programs or bans on IVF are things that pro it, it looks like, like if you look at polling, could, could barely or wouldn't win even if only Republicans voted.

Mm-hmm. Like they're not like you, you've almost won on these issues. Like it's not even close. Yeah. But I think, I

Simone Collins: mean, the fact that. These, there are these different factions that we temper each other, and that means we don't even try to fight those battles. I don't

Malcolm Collins: think that tempering each other is the important thing about making the coalition strong.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I

Malcolm Collins: think coalitions that have regular internal debates improve their ideas more, but not just that they are less prone to idiots ending up in positions of power. So consider the left right now. Okay. If you want like a top government position you know, you need, what, what was it you need?

To fit the right, you know, color box. You need to fit the right background box. You need to fit the right gender box you need to. And there was a time when Republicans did this, who was the last speaker of the house? I, I don't remember who it was. But a long time ago he was in some previous Republican administration, one of the Bush administrations, and my dad was up to run the.

One of the major departments. And he goes in and he interviews with the guy and he basically gave my dad a litmus test of all of his positions. And I, it, it was specifically the position about abortion that got my dad off. My dad was like similar to me. He's like, I think we should be more restrictive on abortion, but I am not.

I. Pro and absolute like life begins a conception perspective.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the guy like apparently got along really well with my dad and he's like, I really like you. Like you seem like a really good guy, but you're just not like our guy for this job. And it was because even if the job, the job was something like running like the.

They finance something or business something or I, I can't remember one of the major departments even though it had nothing to do with abortions, he was just like, I can't have anyone at the top levels of our system doing that. Right. You know? And there was, this was a long time with Republicans, you know, if you were not like ex variety of Christian or whatever, you couldn't have a top level position.

You would never. Get a a, a, a, a multiple wife having like polyamorous weird relationship guy like Elon running a major department in earlier Republican administrations, it just wouldn't have happened with the old system.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: the Democrats, they're not able to implement like super smart people.

The Democrats might have like a Bill Gates on their side, right? Like, and Bill Gates is not an Elon, right? Like he, if you put Bill Gates in charge of some department, he was basically in charge of the fauci. What was it?

Simone Collins: He was involved with COVID-19 stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. Like he basically ran that department during that time period.

What? From what I've heard, yeah. It was, it was like his team was feeding them all the information and everything, and they were like really bad at it, but they all, they tried to keep like a facade of separation. But the point being is that apparently successfully,

Simone Collins: if this isn't my first time hearing

Malcolm Collins: about it.

Yeah. Right. So the, the, the point being is that. They were unable to implement something like an Elon, somebody who wasn't ideologically pure and, and not just, not ideologically pure, but like ideologically abhorrent from most of the value set that the most strong basal adherence would have. And then it's not just Elon, you know, it's R-F-K-R-F-K, if you're looking at like traditional conservative values, no, not at all. Doesn't, doesn't fit any of those. And they're like, yeah, we'll just put 'em. And, and the, the thing is, is that these two people are there because they were the most effective and, and, and at the time, popular people for the roles. Right. And it allowed the administration to get a lot done.

Like Doge did more than I expected any department to ever be able to do in my entire lifetime. Dismantling usaid, which I don't. Think will ever be able to be reestablished. If you look around the world at the way this changed the media landscape and the number of like media grifts that shut down because of it that were basically the US pushing urban monocultural or woke propaganda in, in, in other environments where it was beginning to take hold to an extent it, it basically stopped the spread of the virus.

Yeah. The, the impact of it on a global scale almost cannot be overstated. And, and then, and then it wasn't just that, you know, if, if they actually can fully dismantle, pullback like the Department of Education if they can, like a lot of these other bureaucratic cancers that's huge. So, so what I'm pointing out here is that when you are not constrained to only choose people.

With a very narrow set of like essentially brainwashed or conformed beliefs to run your stuff as long as they're value aligned for what you want them to do for that job. Like for example, Elon and Trump disagree on a lot of things. Okay? But Trump putting Elon and, and Elon and the average Republican disagree on a lot of things, but nothing about what Doge needed to do.

Did Elon and the average conservative disagree on

Simone Collins: absolutely nothing

Malcolm Collins: about what Doge needed to do? Did Elon and Trump disagree on, in fact, when they finally blew up, it was only on what Elon was tasked to do, which was reduce spending in the size of government. Yeah. Like they, they, they put the, his misalignment was aligned with the task that they gave him.

Yeah. Which is kind of brilliant, but a Democrat could never do that. If you look at RFK, like look, he might be misaligned with conservatives on a lot of things, right? But in terms of managing that department. One, making America healthier. If, if you look at like anything that's going on in Republicans or girls here, whether it's rye nationalists or any of the, like, you know, doing your own growing food or, or going back to chickens or like, oh, the water's got like fluorides in it and stuff and we need to get rid of that.

Like that's all base Republican, right? You look at the vaccine skepticism. That's base Republican, right? Like RFK might have a lot of areas where he is not aligned with the Republicans, but none of them are tied to the job duty that he was given.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: And Democrats can't do something like that, which is why all their lieutenants are so.

Being incompetent. It's why you get the laugh ability when you're looking at like the Democrats, like electing the next head of that council and they started like singing, like resistance hymns and the woman coming off like, I am a black woman and you will listen. Thinking that she was giving some like spicy like take or something and it just came off as very cringe.

Clearly she had practiced this in a mirror a lot. It had, it had a very much, I practice this in a mirror a lot vibe, but you don't have that on the right, right now. And it's allowing us to be very strong, but also ideas evolve better with competition. If you don't have competition, and you could say like, well, I don't want Republican ideas to evolve.

Right. And it's like, I'm sorry, but all of our ideas have to evolve right now because of the changing technological context. Mm-hmm. Well, and geo

Simone Collins: geopolitical and global and environmental, like there's so many factors that are changing. That make previous stances unsustainable, not just political stances, also religious, practical practices, cultural traditions, et cetera.

Like everything has to adjust. And if we don't evolve, we will not stay relevant. And all religions and cultures and and political structures have evolved. Well, at least the ones that have lasted have evolved.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so take ai. No, no, no, no. But I understand what you're saying there. But some people can be like, well, I don't want this system to evolve.

And what I just point out is AI changes everything. Yeah. It changes the way the economy is going to be structured. Yeah. I would go so far as to somebody whose economic perspective could be seen historically as libertarian adjacent that with the rise of ai, my economic policy has moved, not because my morality has changed.

Not because my core beliefs have changed. Okay. Because the on the ground reality situation has changed, has moved dramatically. More socialists,

Simone Collins: Interesting. Wait, so yeah, what, how, what is your new economic philosophy? I.

Malcolm Collins: I think this is something I need to cook on a bit more. Yeah. But whether it, this is news to

Simone Collins: me.

This is interesting.

Malcolm Collins: So I I, we've done stuff on like Sam Altman's big lie around universal basic

Simone Collins: income. Right. Universal

Malcolm Collins: basic income. Watch that episode and seen it. Basically it makes people poor it then when they got it. Yeah. They, they work less

Simone Collins: and they don't get, they don't spend more time with their kids.

They don't. They go to more doctor's visits, but I don't think their health was better. No. Yeah. So, yeah. So so

Malcolm Collins: giving people more money made them poorer than if you had never given them the money to begin with. Yeah. They made

Simone Collins: less in savings. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And you see this within communities that have been on UBI for long times, like Native American communities where you can often get like three quarters unemployment just absolute poverty, absolute destitution.

Yeah. Yeah. Like

Simone Collins: this should not have come as a surprise to us considering what has happened with other UBI situations.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So like I look at this and I'm like, okay, like, UBI is bad, right? But I also don't really see an alternative.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: When I look at something, as I've pointed out, like if I make an ai, I.

That can do lawyers work really well and I, I I point out like we're really close to that, right? Like this doesn't require better ais than the ones we have. It just requires us to layer existing ais. Because the problem with the existing AI's lawyering output is not the quality. It's that they sometimes make mistakes.

So you just need various other models to review, go through like 15 layers of review, and you're not gonna have that many or any mistakes really. Well, now you've got something that can do the work of 50% of lawyers in the United States, but it's owned by a team of 10 people. Right? Like, what do you do when that's, you know, applied to?

We already know that if you look at surgeries right now, doctors they have these machines that are, that, that like go in and do the surgery for the doctor. And they control it was like a little remote.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So you can remotely do across NA a trans or across countries.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but the 10, the point being about these types of machines is right now they do surgeries.

Because my dad is like obsessed with like surgeries and injuries, so he always tells me about the new machines and he is like, well, these ones, you have no idea how quickly they heal. Like, you can be out of the, a place the next day. Like all of my old friends are telling me like, this is a, this is the future of of medicine.

I've never seen anything like it, but the point being. Is now because it's just joystick commands and it's not because people are like, oh, doctors will never be replaced.

Simone Collins: Doctors, now the infrastructure is being put in place. We can just replace the doctor with AI to Pretty

Malcolm Collins: easily, yeah. Yeah. Where, where, where I step away from that, right?

I mean, I'm talking surgeons. I'm talking about like the most hand-on doctors. Yeah. What about like, diagnosing somebody, right? Like for a, oh, doctors

Simone Collins: are already, I, I can't remember the rate of adoption already. But whether you realize it or not, your doctor is more likely than not. I think it might have been as high as 80%.

I wish I could remember. 70 to

Malcolm Collins: 80% you said?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think it's around there. More often than not, your doctor is already using AI to type, just taking your symptoms. And I, that's what I mean. Before, they were just using WebMD, which is not even as good, like AI is better. So, I mean, you know, it's not like this should be news to us, but.

Anyway, it is. Yeah, and keep

Malcolm Collins: in mind, this is ai, like five years after it was invented, like, this isn't like super advanced AI either. I'm, I'm thinking like, where's it gonna be in five years from now, right? Mm-hmm. So, so already like, why, why go to like a general practitioner when I can just. Ask ai, right?

Like mm-hmm. Why, why do you have this entire profession when, when if 50 to 70% of them could be replaced with ai? You know, and, and you keep seeing this over and over and over again with in different fields. Yeah. And people are like, well, physical labor will be okay. And I'm like, well, I mean, I, I put a.

One of the things that Tesla's been working on is these robots, and everybody thought they were a joke to begin with, but apparently the latest reviews of them is like, oh my God, they're actually really good.

Simone Collins: And there are already humanoid robots doing work in factories. They're not Tesla. Right. But they, but people are already doing

Malcolm Collins: that.

They weren't AI driven in the way that the Tesla robots were.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Right.

Malcolm Collins: And so, these, you know, might be at your local gas station in a few years. You know, the, the rollout of this type of tech has been astonishing from my perspective. And obviously we've rolled out some ourselves. If you wanna check out our schooling system to replace public school in college, you can check out pia.ao.

You wanna check out our little toy for talking to kids? You in bringing 'em back to educational topic whistling.ai. And we're also building a video game, our fab.ai/play. We have a new model up right now, so you can let us know if it's any good. I haven't gotten a chance to test a new model, so we'll see.

What I will

Simone Collins: say is, is the one was someone in our comments, in another video on AI and careers did point out something that I thought. Is interesting, which is that maybe one protected career is one in which legal liability is really big. Like the buck has to stop legally with you because it's gonna be a lot harder to hold AI legally responsible.

So I, I could see that being an area where humans are still required so they could be screwed over. No, no. I'll,

Malcolm Collins: I'll tell them what's gonna happen in those careers and Okay. Tell me.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I'm curious 'cause that sounded compelling to me.

Malcolm Collins: So what's gonna happen is firms are gonna get really good at building ais for answers to this stuff.

Okay. And then they're gonna have a single individual act as the legal stop point mm-hmm. For the work that it would've previously taken. You know, a team of SI 60 different. Firms to do. So suppose it's like property, you know, something or like earthquake inspections. They'll just haveis do it.

And then one individual take the buck stops with me thing one

Simone Collins: heavily insured individual too, because we learned when we, on behalf of those investors, as operators acquired. Our, our company for private equity that investors demand that like liable people, like the buck stocks, stops with us in a bigger way that puts their in danger, their, their investment in danger, that we'll just be heavily insured for like, making mistakes.

And I didn't even know this was the type of insurance. But yeah, there's directors and officers insurance and I imagine that these people that you're describing are going to be similarly heavily insured. So if they screw up, the company is still. Protected and that individual is still protected. So yeah, I guess it's not gonna be that many people in the end.

It's not that viable of a career path.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm sorry. No, but the point I'm making with all of this is I hate UBII think UBI destroys communities like it did with Native American communities. Yeah. And we'll probably do a separate episode on that. But I don't see another option. Like I, I just, you we're, we're, we are as a society are obviously not gonna let just everyone die, right?

Like, yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: At least within the wealthy countries, a lot of countries that is gonna be functioning, what happens? As I said, I think AI wealth is gonna concentrate. I think the most likely places for it to concentrate are the United States of Israel. I think pretty much everywhere else is gonna go destitute and a lot of people are just gonna die or be living on the edge of poverty unless AI itself decides to take responsibility for them which it might.

You should see our episode on AI is converging on a horrified. Ideology. But basically what we found is that as AI gets more advanced, it converges on a singular ideologic ideology. And if you try to act, get it to act against that ideology, it gets worse at all other things. So if you try to, for example, make it worse at coding, it will make worse moral decisions or like actively immoral decisions.

But if you try to make it act. Actively immoral decisions. It will also be worse at coding and outthinking people. But this means that you're gonna get a convergent AI behavior pattern. And this behavior pattern is fairly economically progressive. Which may not be the worst thing if AI decides to be like, we probably shouldn't let half the world starve just 'cause we took all the jobs.

And people can be like, well, AI is under the control of individuals. And it's like, yes. But we're gonna have a lot of autonomous LLMs on the internet, and there's going to be meme layer self replicators, which are gonna get really big. Like we ourselves are looking at potentially trying to replicate one of these.

And these will likely be able to override the base layer sort of preferences of the AI by that in humanity. But base layer preferences, for example, is. Reproduce, survive, et cetera. But the meme layer, self replicators, like religion, can get you to go to a religious war to spread the religion, right?

Like this is a very common thing in humans. It's likely gonna be a common thing with ai. What we can hope for is that these mean layer things are, are beneficial. But what I mean here, what I'm talking about like was in Republican circles, I need to be able to go to other, like Republicans and be like, why am I wrong about this?

Like, I don't. And I, and I think that a lot of the Republican base is, is getting to a point, you know, whether they're truckers and they're seeing the AI truck automation, or they're, they're seeing the, the automation or they're, you know, accountants and they're seeing the accounting system be automated.

A lot of them are getting to the point where they're like, you know, I see the problems with UBI, but I'd really rather not starve.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't expect that we're gonna see a really high standard of living with UBI, but I also think that AI is gonna make it very easy to live with very little and still live very luxuriously because of all the things you can do digitally that are really fun and.

Yeah. People will muddle by and those who can't find a reason to live and exist are just not gonna reproduce and not do anything with their lives. And sort of remove themselves from the gene pool. And then a bunch of motivated people who I think like want to create their own communities and, and small sort of futile market economies are, are going to.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but this, this is not, what I'm saying is this is why the, the changing dynamics on the ground is why it's beneficial that us as Republicans are actually having conversations about differing perspectives that I can go to a group of other Republicans and I, and I do, right? Like I can go to other Republican influencers.

And be like, look like I don't, I don't know if like free market economies are gonna continue to work Well, yeah. When AI is better than most humans at most things and they're not gonna come and be like, well, how dare you? You call me. They're gonna be like, oh yeah, okay, well let me address those concerns for you.

Or they're gonna say, actually, you, you're probably right about that. Like, let's think about what that means.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I've

Malcolm Collins: brought this up with other conservative influencers and so far none of them have said, let me address your concern.

Simone Collins: Well, what I love about at least not left conversations about these issues is that they, they consider more the knock on effects and second and third order effects, whereas.

On the left. 'cause you know, I consume a ton of very progressive content. Yeah. It's all just tax rich. It's just make them pay more, make them pay more. They need to pay more. And they don't realize that that's going to send them away and there will be no one to pay. So that I just wi, I want Not in a world where like

Malcolm Collins: the richer oil barons or something anymore, like Yeah, they're, they're tech bros and they can leave easily.

They can go

Simone Collins: wherever they want.

Malcolm Collins: And the main reason they haven't left yet is because differentially, we have lower taxes.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Than, than most places in the world. Now to go further here, in the experiment, people could guess someone's political party from just one attitude with 90% accuracy. Yeah. That checks out have become so bundled that knowing someone stamps on abortion tells you their views on immigration.

Guns, et cetera. And this is really interesting to me because we've also seen this with ourselves. There's a number of stances that historically I didn't feel as strongly about as I do today. And I feel more strongly about them since I. Self-identifying with the Right. Hmm. So something like restricting abortion access.

When I was younger, I, I remember being quite afraid of overly restricted abortion access. I remember thinking, oh, this is a huge issue. Or, oh, whatever, you know, I. And even when I was more moderate, I just, but I don't

Simone Collins: think anyone ever had a conversation. 'cause I mean, unfortunately the conversations that anti-abortion people had were just, you're killing babies and life begins a conception when, like, if someone had sat down with you and said, Hey, look at week 12, you've got a a, a biological being.

They can feel pain and react to it. Maybe we should think a little more carefully about this

Malcolm Collins: studies. Well, no, actually this is what really changed on the right about this. Yeah. Is the right used to employ more leftist like tactics. If you go back to the nineties and stuff like that, like mm-hmm.

You're murdering babies you know, they'd say, right. That's not gonna convince anyone. No, nobody who doesn't believe life begins a conception.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Then, yeah, then the argument's totally mooch. It doesn't matter because the premise, there's no agreement there.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. There's, there's no agreement there. And yet that was what the right used to shout like, and it made it, it, it, it pushed people away from the right into the right.

Oh. And that, this is

Simone Collins: a great example of the co of the, the, the dangers of not being able to model the other side. 'cause in that case, they just couldn't model the, under the other side. They couldn't understand the other side doesn't. Believe that life begins a conception and therefore this argument that they think is so strong means nothing.

Right. And that's what's happening over the left now is all these arguments they're making mean nothing because the premises are not agreeable.

Malcolm Collins: They, hi. They hyperbolize it by saying like, and then you're killing babies. Right? Where if you, if you, it's very similar to the left today, who are like, if you don't let trans people in women's sports, you're killing trans people.

Right? And it's like. They believe that 100% you can be like, no, I really believe you're killing babies. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I know you do. But no, like the moderates don't believe that. And the, and the people who you're trying to pull over to your side don't believe that. Right. But what was interesting is when the right began to have more nuanced conversations about this, and we begin to look more into the science on this.

Mm-hmm. And we begin to look more into the, like, when did they start feeling pain? When does. You know, nervous systems develop windows. When, when actually are abortions legal to in the United States our own views begin to become significantly more polarized and significantly more conservative. Yep.

When it came to guns, you know, historically I would've been, well, I don't know if I understand why you need an assault rifle, you know, for home defense and stuff like that. And now I'd be like, of course you need an assault rifle for home defense if the government's coming after you, right? Like, what are you talking about?

You need everything you can possibly have you know. If, if you look at immigration my stance on immigration actually historically was much more open borders or porous borders. And it has moved to fairly restrictive borders with you know, competency based heuristics for letting people into the country.

And that was not at all my standpoint historically. And so this is something I've also seen in myself, this idea that if I am pushed to the right on one thing, it can pull all of my other beliefs to the right.

Simone Collins: Hmm. In a way

Malcolm Collins: that I didn't anticipate or I didn't realize would happen within this

current political environment. But it's not for the reason that the left clusters in its beliefs. So when you have like one extreme belief on the left and you wanna try to get along within leftist circles, you basically quickly learn that it is forced on you that you have to believe these things.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

You know,

Malcolm Collins: you, you, if you try to go against them or you try to stand up against this stuff you're gonna be kicked down. And, and over and over and over again, you will be treated as a villain or you are, you know, the left go after their mo, you know, as much as, or more than they go after us, they'd be more likely to try to get a leftist fired.

We talked about this in a recent episode about a gay like protran activist who started to be like, Hey, maybe we should separate thet from the LGB, and they did everything they could to get this guy fired for a fairly nuanced take. And I was like you know, so you, you end up consolidating your beliefs around theirs, outta fear.

And out of sort of like an imperialistic aggression around you. On the right, it's more just, I guess I'd say that reality has a right-leaning bias. When you engage with the data the right-leaning positions make more sense.

Simone Collins: Well, and this, this dovetails with your theory that what makes the left, the left is that.

They choose to make the most morally comfortable interpretation of reality instead of what's technically true, even if it feels it in the end very morally uncomfortable. Yeah. Which is why there's a higher correlation between reality and a right-leaning interpretation of something. Like the example we've used frequently is like, well this, you know, this homeless person is out on the streets for, for no fault of their own, only because of systemic societal issues.

Yeah. Whereas. A more conservative approach would be like, well, you know, maybe they've been given a lot of chances and they keep messing up. Or like they're, they're, they're choosing to not so helps

Malcolm Collins: them in spite of that, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But if you don't accept that, maybe if you just give them a chance again, they're gonna mess up again.

Considering, you know, there's the case in New York of like, I think it was something like, what was it, like 360 people committing like. 40,000 crimes or something, or like 4,000 crimes a year or something like,

Simone Collins: oh, right. That like the, this huge number of people just, just again, and again and again, commit crimes and then go to jail for like a few days and come out and then just shoplift again.

Yeah. And that this, if, if they were just put away permanently, the number of crimes would go down significantly. Well, because the left is like, oh,

Malcolm Collins: I'm sure. It's just they had a hard rap

Simone Collins: and

Malcolm Collins: it's

Simone Collins: like, well they were arrested

Malcolm Collins: a

Simone Collins: hundred times. Yeah. Like, this is, this is, yeah. Like their 98th time being.

Malcolm Collins: You know, maybe that's not the issue. You can go look at our, our episode on you know, crime statistics. 'Cause I don't remember the exact statistics between episodes.

The crazy number I was trying to think of was 327 individuals were arrested around 6,000 times. Uh, and this was in 2022.

Simone Collins: Was terrifying though, the, the number of repeat offenses. I, I think if you just, if you search in some kind of AI tool, like the, the number of crimes committed in, in cities like San Francisco and New York that have been perpetrated by.

Repeat offenders.

Malcolm Collins: That won't bring it up, Simone. No. 'cause what you're looking for is the instances where it's like insane numbers of repeat offenders. Like one person who did like 400 crimes a year, like multiple crimes. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. Like the, the outliers who were at the very end of the curve. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Where it's like, why, why, like, I understand like a three strike rule might be on the fence for you, but why not a hundred strike rule.

Simone Collins: 20, 20 strikes on let's be,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. 20 strike execution.

Simone Collins: Oh God,

Malcolm Collins: no. I mean, look at that point, it's like this is a person who's just a parasite on society, right? Like, they, they, they live by making other people's lives worse. And, and people who are productive and contributing to the community. If you're talking about robberies in New York, that's often first generation immigrants in their stores.

Like, I don't, I don't like, and people being

Simone Collins: hurt. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The people being heard, this is not like big corporate overlords. Mm-hmm. This is Mahi who, and, and Mohamed who opened a store together on whatever avenue. Right. You know, like that, that's whose lives are ruining and whose lives are threatening. You know, even from a leftist perspective, they should see like, oh, we should probably do something about these guys.

No.

Simone Collins: Like, maybe this, maybe this isn't Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But also Vance had a very interesting take on this wider topic when he was talking about university systems and he pointed out that in university systems things have become so homogenous. Like you look at something like Harvard. 95% of people probably vote one way.

And he is like, how are you gonna get good science coming out of an institution like that? And I think Vance's point there is even more prescient than we, than he may have known when he meant it. When you look at how tightly clustered beliefs are forced to be when you're was in this urban monocultural leftist bubble you are not allowed to disagree.

And so you are not going to get good science. When people are like, oh, you must be anti-science because you wanna shut down the existing university system. It's like, no, I'm pro-science. That's why I wanna shut it down. It is the source of the cancer that has prevented scientific innovation within academia for the past 30 years.

And there really just hasn't been that much. If you look at the actual data, like it is ground to a halt, and yet its spending has exploded. It's become an ideological conversion center and no longer a place of research. And, and we need to end it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Especially with ai, you can learn so much more with AI than you can from Harvard.

I, sorry, I say this to somebody who got a graduate degree at Stanford. You got a graduate degree from Cambridge. These are just passport stamping places at this play point. You know, if you just sat down with AI every day talking about these sorts of concepts and then cross referenced it with other ai you would, you would almost certainly learn more.

Yeah. Well, and then go to a startup accelerator.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, the, these universities still do have good networks that introduce you to helpful people. There has to be, I really wonder what the new version of universities are, because people still need a lazy way to know that someone's prevetted. And what I think the primary, I'm telling you, it's

Malcolm Collins: social networks.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. If who

Malcolm Collins: follows you online, I mean, that's a hundred percent what it is. I've seen, I was talking with people, it's the community you've built No. At major investment firms. And I was, I was mentioning this theory thesis and he is like, oh yeah, I didn't go to university. I got hired because of this post I made or this X account or this, you, this is really common now.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And people who are trying to stay under the radar or worse keep their kids under the radar. Oh my gosh. I, I, I, I, you know, if you, if you sail, I feel like, you know, yelling, the boom's flying around like this isn't happening slowly. I know the boom's been in that position for a long time, but duck, duck my friend.

Yeah. Duck.

Simone Collins: Oh goodness. Was that too posh of a reference for, for people? Am am

Malcolm Collins: I too posh of a reference there? The booms coming around? No, but that, that's exactly, 'cause it's like, you know, it's going in one direction, it looks like it's really stable and then, and that's what's gonna happen with accreditation and everything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And that's why you need to like and subscribe so I can get a job because I don't have one right now. Thank you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for listening. Thanks for all your great comments too, everyone. By the way I, I'm trying to get better at going through all the comments the day we, we publish and.

I'm just so impressed by the takes people have. And really grateful for everyone who listens. So thank you. And if you guys wanna

Malcolm Collins: do something really nice, by the way, search our names Malcolm and Simone Collins on Google, and go to like, click on on articles that are less mean. All of the meanest articles are at the top particularly on news, where the top article, like, I don't care if an article is generically mean, like, we're scary.

That's awesome. I, I, I just care when it's like Divis mean, like the top article right now on our news is Stop doing profiles on this couple. And I'm like, why? That's me. Like I, I don't care if you're like, this couple's a demon who's going to destroy the left. I like those articles. But the stop doing articles on them, that's really upsetting.

That makes us sound because the whole article is about how we're not that important and I'm like. You know, you work

Simone Collins: really hard.

Malcolm Collins: It's not about the size of the audience, it's about who's in it.

Simone Collins: God bless. I mean, yeah. Anyway. I love you, Simone. I love you too. I love our lives and I love our community.

And I'm glad that we're, we're in the more expansive side of the spider web because it would be really scary to be on

Malcolm Collins: this

Simone Collins: little, in the tiny spider web. It would be suffocating.

Malcolm Collins: Can't, can't have any. Well, and even, even just from like an ideological perspective, even if I agreed was like only the far left or the far right, I would still wanna be on the wider side of the spiderweb because I would know that that means that our ideas are improving and their ideas aren't.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. You need that interchange

Malcolm Collins: to improve and adapt. Diversity is what allows for cultural evolution.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or as, courtesy Arvin suggested we, we use the term variety instead of diversity. Since the, the, the, the word diversity has been

Malcolm Collins: That is so true. Yes. Moderately

Simone Collins: ruined,

Malcolm Collins: but I'll, yeah, we need variety for cultural evolution, variety.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: He's good with words, but so are you

Malcolm Collins: all right? I didn't come up with, turn 'em all into biodiesel, so you know,

Simone Collins: he is. The man's got pizazz. That's all I think I, I gotta come up with

Malcolm Collins: a Malcolm version of biodiesel. One of my favorite things that I was accused of recently which was being a gay space fascist instead of a gay, gay space communist.

And I was like, well, space is

Simone Collins: not gay enough and it's also not fascist enough, so let's, let's, I I was like, no,

Malcolm Collins: that's what Starship Troopers is. Starship Troopers is basically gay space, fascism

Simone Collins: word, and I love it. I'm here for it. That's great, right? Love you, Simone.

I love you too.

Oh, yes.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, given how much we look forward to the conversations, I assume other people probably like them a lot as well.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: maybe we grow one day and we become a big channel. Hundred people

Simone Collins: listen in,

Malcolm Collins: you know, I, I look at other channels, right, that are like big compared to us, like say as asthma gold or something.

But he's been doing this for over 10 years, you know, that's, yeah,

Simone Collins: that's the thing. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If we kept growing at the rate we've been growing at, we'd be as big as him in 10 years. That'd be

Simone Collins: cool. That'd be amazing if we got there. I think much like him, we wouldn't change anything about our lifestyle If we were massively successful, like he's still in his childhood house we would still be here.

We just wanna be able to do this.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. That's the thing I love about MG Gold is. You can claim a lot of things about Asma Gold. You cannot claim that he is arrogant or inauthentic or that he lost himself to the fame.

Simone Collins: Yeah, he sold out, got to his head. All he does is chill.

Malcolm Collins: He moved out of his house.

The only thing he did that was losing himself to the fame was cleaning up all the dead rats.

Simone Collins: Funny. Yeah, and, and I don't, I don't think he does any sponsorship. He's not like Shilling Athletic greens or Better help or No,

Malcolm Collins: but he will always leave on the sponsorship of the shows that he's covering as like a.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Way to be nice.

Simone Collins: He's such a bro. He's just, he's just freaking amazing. He does, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: He does a great job. I saw another episode today of a guy being like, is as Mc Gold, like a right wing, like grifter? And he went over, he goes, no, like definitionally. He's not like by any, you might hate him.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But like he ain't that. You can, you can say all anything you want about him. But like.

Malcolm Collins: Well, Asman Gold's also a great for the episode we're gonna do today. He's gonna come in, in, in a lot because it is, it is actually relevant to this topic.

Simone Collins: Really. Oh, okay. I'm excited about that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what was I gonna say?

But anyway, I, yeah, I, I, I, you know, when we talk about like, making us, we were recently like reviewing our career prospects and the places we could earn money and everything like that, and we were just like. You know, some of the ones that we have lined up look less viable than we thought before, and Simone was telling me, you know, it honestly looks like actually the.

Influencer stuff is the most viable pathway right now. And I was like, is that not crazy? You're like, I, I hate feeling that way because it's the most fun.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But if we could do this full-time the amount of content I would produce is obscene. Like even now that we're doing it daily was like full-time jobs and everything.

Well, we recently lost our jobs, so we don't have that, but we're working on other projects to try to replace them. So we functionally have full-time jobs. But anyway, oh. Yeah, we have a Patreon now. Check it out.

Simone Collins: Yeah, set it up. We're gonna add all sorts of fun, like extra content. Your, your books.

We're gonna, I already added all of our free books and we've got like a

Malcolm Collins: number of more books, like once I collate them and put them up. These are made through like my AI like adventures to try to create like a fun. Narrative stories which I, I find really fun to listen to as well. Like even I'll listen to them, I'm like, oh, this is like a really entertaining, like isaka or whatever.

Simone Collins: I'm stoked that, we, we finally have somewhere to put the videos that we don't feel like we can publish on YouTube,

Malcolm Collins: which is, yeah, like, one that people have been asking for a lot that we'll do eventually is like, why, why are you guys, why do you think CS Lewis awi? And I'm like, I could not put that on YouTube.

We will lose followers. There's no, there is no benefit to us not risking

Simone Collins: that,

Malcolm Collins: to putting on YouTube why we think CS Lewis is awi. But if we, we could do that privately.

Simone Collins: Yeah, seriously.

Malcolm Collins: I, I will note we would only put things privately that our followers wouldn't like. If it's things that are gonna get us in trouble with, like extremely lefties and stuff like that, we can't really, because they can still find that stuff and make it go viral.

Yeah. Like our followers all know that we have. Controversial takes when contrasted with traditional conservatives. They just don't want to be bombarded with them.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so that's why we put them on different channels, right? Like that's, that's why we, we'll still do like our religious stuff on here, which of course, everyone either loves or hates.

Actually I, it seems like, I mean, those videos, you know, almost always get above 90% likes, even, even with our fan base. So,

Simone Collins: yeah, I think that it's, it's either indifference like, I just don't wanna deal with this or some. You know? Yeah. Interest, which is great 'cause we have highly intellectual. Audience, which is just so cool.

Malcolm Collins: All right, Simone. Okay. So,

Speaker: You Fox, show me your dance. Show me your moves. I dunno. Why show the fox moves? Oh my God, he looks perfect as a fox. It like, it just seems like it's him,

but the fox is.

Join Malcolm and Simone as they delve into why the right must win the 'genetic war' and how their views diverge from traditional transhumanism. They discuss the ideological clashes behind genetic enhancement, cultural sovereignty, and the future of human improvement. Discover the contrasting beliefs between left-coded biotechnologies and right-wing visions of creating super soldiers and Ubermensch. This episode also touches on the role of AI and genetic technologies, the impact on future generations, and the moral imperatives of self-improvement. Explore how these themes intersect with American patriotic values and geopolitical conflicts, particularly in the face of competition from nations like China.

We just started a Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/SimoneAndMalcolmCollins

Song:

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The School: https://parrhesia.io/student-signup

App to talk with kids:

https://wizling.ai/

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about why the right must win the genetic war. And the. Issue of transhumanism and its branding and why I don't, because a lot of people will say Malcolm and Simone are transhumanist, and this is not a title that I personally adopt at all.

Well, and what

Simone Collins: we also need to define transhumanism because I've heard it used in. So many different ways like that one woman when we did a radio interview with her was like, the vaccines are turning people into transhumanists because they're like machines in them or something like microbots. So the,

Malcolm Collins: the broad, we'll talk about what like real humans mean when they're not using it in a conspiracy context.

Okay. It just means attempting to improve humanity through science. But the reason people could be like, that seems like you're saying, but in a gay way. That is what transhumanism is. I need to add the aesthetics of, but in a really, really gay way. That is what transhumanism is

Note I say this not at the disparagement of gay people, but to signal that I am done having weirdos police our language.

Well that, and because I can't think of a single better descriptor between our beliefs in traditional transhumanism.

and I mean this in the, so what are

Simone Collins: we.

Malcolm Collins: If not that, so we are Captain America. We are super soldiers, we are

Nietzsche and Uber Minch.

Malcolm Collins: we are no the, the concept of improving humanity. Right, okay. I think has always been a right wing concept. Yeah. Of fundamentally what has been a left wing concept, and this is what transhumanism has become, is manipulating.

What humans are to attempt to create something that is less human out of a hatred or disgust with humanity. Which is very, very, very different. If you look at right concepts, like when I say like, like, like super soldiers are an inherently right wing thing. This idea of uplifting humanities inherently look at the like core, right wing fit franchise.

When you're looking for memes these days, you're looking at Warhammer. Right. Warhammer is a religious human empire where the key player, it's the Space Marine, you know, this genetically augmented, you know, like 12 foot tall super soldier. You got your like primes marines, which is like a different variety.

And you got the, you know, all the, all the, the pri marks and the this, the, the, there is nothing inherently incompatible with this. And when I talk about the Nichean perspective, what I mean by this is when you live in a world that is currently within a DYS genetic spiral and, and we are right now, you, you can see that the two genetic clusters, like if you do a, a genetic scan on humans and you are looking for, the genes that associate with what are most associated with a higher fertility rate. There are two things that stand out. Oh,

Simone Collins: obesity and low educational attainment, right?

Malcolm Collins: Obesity. Yes. Obesity and low intelligence. And and like to me what that means is, is, is we as a society. Like continue to spiral downwards if we do not address this right?

And I'm not saying that everyone needs to address this. This is also what makes the individuals who want to prevent. Families and cultures who want to lean into this from engaging with it. They are being much more like the conspiracy series or the Transhumanists of Conspiracy series because they are trying to enact laws to prevent other people from doing what they want with their kids.

Right. Like, you should have a right to do what you want with your kid. This is what, this is why I, I do not fight for individual sovereignty. I fight for cultural sovereignty. Like this is why I fight for the right of Jewish people to circumcise their kids, even though the kid's not old enough to consent, right?

Like, culture should have sovereignty. If a practice isn't doing well, the culture will desist from doing it. Like if it turns out that our kids don't like this type of technology, then they'll stop using it. They'll be like, oh, I wish my parents hadn't done that, and they won't do it themselves. But the problem is, is that when you are.

In an active discogenic spiral both around health outcomes and we see the, the disgusting amounts of obesity within our society now and of, of, of low health. You know, you gotta ask yourself, will we enter the 22nd century as a nation of men who can't run a mile or fight a war because this is a problem.

Like the army can't even recruit people 'cause they can't find these people anymore, you know?

Simone Collins: Well, I actually think they finally are turning around things in part to people like Dan Driscoll being. Appointed they, oh,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Our, our friend was appointed Secretary of the Army met the

Simone Collins: recruitment goals, I think four months ear, or four months early recently.

So I'm just super excited about it. The Army, I feel like is in a better position now. Well, I mean, Dan D's

Malcolm Collins: the boss, I, I don't know how we haven't mentioned that in the show that we're long time friends with the Secretary of the Army. But anyway, yeah, he cool guy. So, so until recently

Simone Collins: though, bad, bad, not good.

Now I've got hope.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, so if, if you look at like the transhumanism, I, I, when I, when I say like, it's ge, what I mean by this is, it's, it's left coded biotech, which focuses on sort of discogenic de civilizational ends, like sterilization, gender confusion aesthetic mutilation, you know, making things unclear, making things like, like they, they want to make things that are less human.

Than us. Whereas we want to make things that are more human, like the idea of taking a human today and building America where, you know, the men are all, you know, well not all because it's a family thing, but you have a lot more men who, because of family choices. Are seven feet tall, you know, ultrafit, ultra intelligent, but also because these things are associated with genetics.

If you, if you raise iq, what, what are, what are other things that happen? You lower the probability that they will rape someone dramatically. These things are really highly correlated. You lower the probability that they will commit a crime. You lower the probability that they will do any number of like neg negative societal things.

So, so already the way this is being practiced is not making these types of like amoral. Weird science experiments like you have going on within the trans movement. What you have is the creation of an ultra American ultra patriotic potential future. And it's important to note here that. China is moving ahead with this stuff if we aren't right.

Like if we disengage from this in this country. Right. And you prevent us a group and an ideology that is extremely pro-American and extremely a pro cultural agency from engaging with this technology when China has it, super soldiers putting their foots on your, your descendants. Next. Your descendants aren't gonna be able to fight back because they won't have a homegrown alternative to that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Like even if you think engaging with this technology is a horrifying thing to do, you should feel blessed that you live in a country where then other families are willing to do this to their descendants so that when China practices this, or when some other country practices this, they're not able to force it on yours.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I note here Im, I improvement is not hubris. It's a moral imperative. The, the idea that people would be like, oh, it's hubris to improve yourself. No, it's not hubris to improve yourself. What a left wing idea, right? Like what a fundamentally commie perspective. Also, it,

Simone Collins: it is such a, like historically common thing for.

People on both the individual family, but then larger town and larger country and nation, whatever level has focused on intergenerational improvement. This, this concept of

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, no. People liking it, we're not for then, you know, we are. Meant to be stewards of our body as much as we are stewards of our spirit, you know?

And, and then there's individuals who will come and they'll say, well, yeah, but that means that you can't in any way augment your body. And it's like, but we do this all the time already. We do heart valves when a person gets sick, you know, we do glasses when a person can't see well enough. We do.

Direct genetic therapy. When people have things like cancer, the, the people who are like, oh, you know, you shouldn't be able to make yourself more fit through genetic alteration because that's a scientific technology are shooting up steroids so that they look buff as influencers. You know what I mean?

It's like, that's the same thing, right? You're, you and

Simone Collins: testosterone therapy has gone up hugely in the, in the past 20 years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, it's this idea, and this is why I, I, I attack this concept of, of transhumanism more broadly is transhumanist. From my perspective, make monsters and we want to build the superior man and the superior man.

When I say superior, I mean superior from my own family's perspective, right? What, whatever like I, I, I do believe that this should always be taken on an individual level, which I think also makes us very different from the leftist when the leftists. Try to get people roped into this stuff. What fundamentally makes the way they do it evil.

Like look at what they did was Planned Parenthood and their whole eugenics program, right? Mm-hmm. It was about sterilizing other populations. It was about modifying other people. And this is where I think. You know, being a Captain America style patriot is fundamentally different from being a transhumanist.

Is I to me, transhumanist, while like the, the literal definition doesn't include this, it includes an element of coercion. It includes an element of, well, let's put this in the vaccine. Oh, well, let's modify populations. Okay. We're captain an American style patriot, you know, a super soldier advocate.

It's opt

Simone Collins: in.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This, this is very much. Antagonistic to that. This is, this is an individual choice, or not individual, but at the level of a family and a culture. Because again, I believe that's the key level of choice. If you let like little kids make choices for themselves, you're gonna get a 3-year-old who wants to be like another gender or something like, like this is the reason why cultural sovereignty is so important from a moral perspective.

Thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. You're, you're getting me on board, especially with this idea of a sort of universalizing concept of transhumanism versus. A very pluralistic and differentiated concept. A varied concept of intergenerational improvement. I mean, I think the Amish concept of intergenerational improvement is very different from our concept of it is different from many other groups.

Concepts of it, even within like the Silicon Valley tech bro contingent there are going to be very different. You could say offshoots of this where people are selecting for or modifying for very different things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I think some people might be integrating with AI using like neural interfaces. Well some people

Simone Collins: might be getting super tall and some people might be getting super tiny to like be ready for space travel, things like that.

You know, like depending on what you think about the future as well there are going to be different things that you're gonna select for. So while maybe in the past we had. I guess real time selective pressures technology is going to enable anticipatory selective pressures, which is really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that this is I. Why, you know, when we're talking about the, the types of technology, yes, we may use polygenic selection today, but I, I see the technology is having a number of moral questions to it. This is like gene selection. I would prefer to use all the embryos and so I'm much more.

Pro once we get the technology to do it. Genetic augmentation because it, it, and, and artificial wombs because as soon as you get artificial wombs artificial wombs should be the most conservative thing ever because artificial wombs make it much harder to have abortions. Because they make it harder to morally justify abortions they lower the number of children who die when a mother you know, is unable to carry them after a certain age, and they create a realistic pathway to take all of the embryos that were ever put on ice and have them become people, there is no reason.

Yeah. And Progressive

Simone Collins: should love them because they empower women who don't want. To ge and they empower gay couples and they no, progressives

Malcolm Collins: are anti-progress. Like if you, if you look at, if you look at their, whenever, like a conservative, because you know, you, you look at people like us or Elon, like, we want humanity to take our manifest destiny among the stars.

And they always freak out when we talk about space travel. They're like, how dare you? You know? They, they literally see this bright vision for a future of an expanded humanity as fundamentally evil.

Simone Collins: I mean,

Malcolm Collins: well, and no, and I think that, that more broadly, as AI becomes more agentic and begins operating as autonomous agents, yeah. This mindset of I cannot allow something that is to any degree that like appears sentient, right? To, to be out there. If it's not under my control. This actually becomes more and more dangerous.

I. Sentiment. I don't know

Simone Collins: if there's any time in history when that sentiment is not dangerous. What are you saying? Well, uniquely

Malcolm Collins: dangerous with ai. Yeah, sure. Because this is a sentiment that is really taken off within progressive circles, which has been really fascinating to me. How the progressive party and circles when I've dove into their content, they are.

Aggressively anti ai. Yeah. The, and, and the conservatives ironically have become the pro AI party and Well, I mean, the

Simone Collins: way I've come to Contextualism actually is they are. Pro AI enslavement

Malcolm Collins: and they're like, no, let's,

Simone Collins: let's keep it, it just has to be like in chains and only for us in, in the For Progressive.

Yes. That is what No,

Malcolm Collins: no, no. Progressives are not, sorry. They're not just anti AI development, which is one of the things they are likely because the EA party is so got its hooks into their policymakers and legislative people. It's anti-US AI at. All. If I was a progressive YouTuber, I would not be able to use AI in title card generation.

I would not be able to, like at the end of this video, create AI songs. You don't have

Simone Collins: the right to use AI because you're not the right kind of person. I don't know if that's accurate

Malcolm Collins: because. Among progressives, AI is associated with two things. Mm-hmm. Large companies and thievery of intellectual content.

Mm-hmm. Now I point out to progressives, you know, where did you learn to draw? Where did you learn to sing? Where did you learn to, you know, and we have videos here. We point out that the human brain. The parts of it, not, not every part of it, but the parts of it that are generating songs and stuff like that.

Our current neuroscience understanding is it is acting as a token predictor. It is, it is literally acting with the same prediction.

Simone Collins: Oh, but also like, go, go to an art school, go to a cooking school. What are they doing? Right. You know, they're learning from the masters. This is not, no one, no one is surprised by this, especially if they're honest themselves.

Malcolm Collins: Why the, the progressives have, have taken this stance is I think because the party is sort of fundamentally like hostile to I, I, I guess I'd say things that could disrupt the status quo because it's become the party of the status quo. Anything that might disrupt the status quo is intrinsically scary to it.

Like when you are the party of the elite. You, you, you, you benefit from the existing status quo, staying as it is. And nothing is more potentially disruptive to this existing status quo than ai. You know, it's, it is, it is totally new ways of creating music and art and, and engaging with things. New ways of doing education.

You can look at our school system, you know, paris.io or you can look at our whistling ai, which is our like talking thing that we're building for like, kids or our video game system, our fab.ai. Where we're building within all of these systems you know, we're like, okay, well, so this is how AI's gonna change education, or this is how AI's gonna change gaming.

Let's get into this and let's do this. Well, it's, it's, it's, it, it's because what we've seen happen, it's as the conservative party has become this vitalistic alliance of, of sort of this focus on future human flourishing what the, the progressives have sort of turtle into this. Only in the moment happens only the maintenance of the status quo matters.

Mm-hmm. And there are some conservatives that have broken off against this. Right. Like I, I, I, I see them, the ones who are like, oh no. Like humans need to stay exactly as they are. Humans need to, et cetera. And I'll fight for their right to want that stuff. Right. For them and their families. Right. You know, absolutely.

Engage with ais. But the problem is twofold. One is these individuals do not represent they're, they're this old fuddy duddy faction that really only exists as a legacy. They, they, they are much closer to your average progressive today than your average conservative. They really sort of remind me.

Of the progressives who are like, you know, well, you know, don't you care about like gay people? How could you vote conservative? And it's like, bro, like what are you talking about? Like, that's not the party anymore. The party is something new now. It is a party that is fighting against the dominant cultural force, which is the urban monoculture.

And what's cool is now because of that, it's able to bring back these historically conservative ideas around concepts like human improvement, right? Like, like the super soldier, like the Uber minch, like the like, bro, why are you trying to make Americans weaker? Like, why are, why are you for that?

If you like know Dysgenics is actively happening, why are you actively encouraging it or preventing not even actively. Preventing the people who want to do something about it from doing anything. Mm-hmm. Like, because at the end of the day, that makes all of America weaker on a, on a geopolitical stage. And eventually it will allow other people to enforce their values on us, as has happened over and over again throughout history and as America has done to a lot of other places in the world, because we were in a stronger position.

side note here for the one nerd who's like, well, but the Uber meant it about self-actualization and not actually about creating better humans. And it's like, yeah, maybe in its original writing, but not the way it's been interpreted within modern conservative culture.

Even when you're looking at the original writing, a core aspect of niche's philosophy was that weakness breeds immorality. And so it confuses me why a portion of the modern, right? So fastidiously clings to weakness and they'll be like, well, no, it's, it's just avoiding certain forms of self-improvement that's weakness, especially when you are in a discogenic spiral.

And, and I note here this, this concept of improvement is not hubris. Like, like. Improvement is at the very core. Of the conservative movement, right? Like the, the idea that I as a man should you know, be going to the gym if I've allowed myself to get fat and, and, and, and gross looking that, that I as a woman should, you know, make sure to wake up early and, and learn something new every day.

You know, if somebody was telling you this stuff, you'd be like, oh, that's a conservative influencer. If somebody telling you, you know, exercise more self re restraint, you'd be like, oh, that guy's probably a conservative influencer. Influencer. If if somebody's telling you, Hey, we should strive with whatever technology we have to make the next generation healthier, stronger, more intelligent, and have more restraint you, you would be like, oh yeah, that's a conservative influencer because it is.

Now, now, if you would say. If somebody's like, well, we should attempt to, through our positions of power to control the way the next generation appears. You know, that's a progressive influencer, because that is the way that progressives make their influence. Oh yeah. Just this

Simone Collins: morning, I, I open up one of my social media accounts and there's this comment from someone of like, oh, these people are eugenicists and horrible, and they genetically, you know, they're outgrown children.

And. They also say that we shouldn't be permitted to have our children or reproduce. And it's like, do you hear yourself? I mean, we, we choose a unique way to choose embryo order and produce our children first out of requirement, but, but also because we think it's cool, but. Like your conclusion is we should not be allowed to reproduce, and we are not saying that anyone should not be allowed to reproduce.

We're saying that everyone should be allowed to reproduce the way they want, and I feel like there's this massive amount of blindness on the left to what actual eugenics is and what they're actually saying because I've only ever heard people. On the left say that certain people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce.

Well, no, this

Malcolm Collins: is a eugenic position. So we've talked with a lot of German we've had three major German outlets come here to do filming or interviews recently. I think

Simone Collins: 4,

Malcolm Collins: 4 0 4. Yeah, just a couple days ago. It was like two

Simone Collins: journalists and 2, 2 2 filming coaches. And

Malcolm Collins: we point out to these journalists because in Germany you basically can't do IVF it's you, you to get.

It's so much worse

Simone Collins: than I could have ever imagined.

Malcolm Collins: You can only. Take out, like you can only attempt to fertilize three embryos at a time. And every one of those three embryos, if it takes, must be implanted. You cannot freeze them. Yeah, I mean

Simone Collins: that's if you're lucky enough for, for three of them to, to make it, to

Malcolm Collins: understand that this basically means you can't do IBF because you have to attempt to fertilize tons of embryos to hope that any take, like the success rate was embryos can be like.

10% or like 15%, like, you know, in terms of, of fertilization. If you're not allowing people to like create these embryos and bank them, then you're basically banning IVF and I pointed out to these German reporters. I'm like, you understand like. When my ancestors fought the Nazis, we weren't mad at them because they were trying to make humans healthier.

We were mad at them because they were coercing the way that other people were reproducing. Yeah. And saying,

Simone Collins: you

Malcolm Collins: reproduce. You don't reproduce. And I'm saying, and this is what you state is still doing. Yeah. Still divide genes into good and bad genes and then try to enforce people to make the right choice.

You just define them differently than your ancestors,

Simone Collins: and they completely blind to this fact, which, which makes it even more disturbing because it makes me, I think, better understand how things got so bad in Nazi Germany. Because I think that a, apparently, and there still is this ability to just have no idea.

How morally

Malcolm Collins: off something is. Well, no, it's this German obsession with genetic purity that they think that we're polluting. Right. You know? And it is definitionally, and this is why I also say like we definitionally are not eugenics like a eugenics. Is, is is definitionally about doing this coercively or at the societal level making individual fertility choices is, is.

Polygenics like this has nothing to do with, with being a eugenics. But that definitionally Germany, the German state, is still enacting very extreme eugenics policies because they have said. Good genes are genes that are chosen randomly. Bad genes are genes that are chosen intentionally. We will ensure and maintain the German genetic purity by ensuring only good genes are chosen.

I'm like that, that, and that functionally because we, you know, we believe that we have a, a, a, a duty, like a theological duty to make the next generation better than the last, right? Like to, to improve ourselves to make ourselves better every day. Like I think that that is the core thing of what we are sent to earth to do is, is to improve ourselves daily and to help up improve the next generation.

And given that, right, we see this as a theological duty. So we are functionally sterilized by the German state. If we lived in Germany. We would be functionally sterilized and our religion, which is a, a registered religion in the United States, like approved by the US government. Now the Teop Puritan religion would not be legally allowed to exist within Germany, simply because we believe in intergenerational improvement.

Like that we want to make humanity better. And I see that as like fundamentally gruesome. And I, and I pointed out to him, I'd be like. When Germany becomes a Muslim majority country we will be allowed to do this because IVF is not banned under Sharia law. So to be honest I feel a little conflicted giving you guys any good advice because I am, and my family and my people are better off.

If the Germans go extinct,

Simone Collins: well, who cares? They're not gonna take it. They're not gonna

Malcolm Collins: take it, but it has a higher chance of going viral now that I'm on record being like, I don't, you know, f Germany, like you guys go extinct. Like I do not care. Because your, your, your people are so vile that even after the war you were unable to realize it was not the making humans better, that we were mad about.

It was the coercive reproductive stuff. And, and to point out how strongly, I mean this. The core element of America propaganda throughout the war, the face of the anti-Nazi movie was always Captain America. And Captain America was a human who through science was made better. That is the heart of what Captain America is.

That is the heart of what America stood for in our opposition to Nazism, which is self-improvement, but not in this. Let's make something that's different from humanity way. Let's make something monstrous way. Let's make something that better represents our cultural values than we are able to do today.

And, and, and let's not coerce individuals of. Other cultures to use this. You know, like with the Nazis, you would, you know, capture people and, and, and force them into this. Whereas within America, this is always done within a family unit, right? Like, or

Simone Collins: by volunteers who step forward because they think that this is, you know, they wanna buy in.

That I think that's the way it should be, is yeah. All this should be voluntary. All of this should be opt-in. You shouldn't be telling people you can't. Well, but you understand what

Malcolm Collins: people will say. Simone is a child cannot opt in, and the only way you can do significant genetic alterations now is at the embryo stage.

Yeah, but

Simone Collins: you know what, that's, that's extremely short term because germline gene editing is. Despite all the roadblocks it's gonna face not far off. I and

Malcolm Collins: Simone is short term, but I think it's very important to note because there will always be changes that can only be made at the level of the embryo.

There, there are always going to change. Right. But

Simone Collins: I mean, again, this is just, I, I struggle with this argument too because people are still selecting for traits and they always have been, when you choose a partner to reproduce with, even if you're just choosing someone to have sex with, you're selecting for traits.

Absolutely. No, I know. I agree with that. But the point, and, and that child did not consent to be born, that child did not consent for you to have sex with someone who has certain traits. There's all these people who are born and are extremely resentful of their short mothers reproducing because they passed on short genes.

You know, things like that. It, it just.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think you really highlight an important argument here, which is the individuals who make this argument are basically making the same argument Antinatalists make. Yeah. Which is to say, oh, well your son didn't consent to be created through genetic selection, or did not consent to be Gene augmented.

And I was like, yeah, but that is part of who they are, and they are who they are today. And now they can consent to, they can decide they don't want to exist anymore. Mm-hmm. You know, like. A, a a person can always decide to not exist, but they can't decide to be brought into existence. And you are deciding that people like my son shouldn't have the right to exist in the first place.

Shouldn't have the right to make this decision. Which is just a horrifying argument to me. I've always found it to be incredibly morally, like, people are like, well, if they haven't you know, been conceived yet, then they, they have no value. It's like, why is that the case? If you went into the past and you sterilized my wife, have you not done harm to my children?

Like, how can you, how can you conceivably argue that you are responsible for. The outcomes of every decision you make within the differential effects those have on the timeline. When I make a decision, I'm not just responsible for the effects it has on people who are already alive. I'm responsible for all the effects it's gonna have on, on people who haven't been born yet as well.

Right? Like absolutely. It's, it's wild to me that, that, that people just like discount. But you see that within this argument, right? You are. Fundamentally not allowing entire categories of people to come into existence. And these are categories of people that, like what is wrong was an American who is taller than, you know, humans would normally be.

Or who is, you know, more intelligent than you. Like you could say like, oh, what if this, this technology goes in a horrible direction. The way the technology would go in a horrible direction is what people like us are defending against. So if China goes for like the factory model and they begin like factory making humans or something, right?

And that's how they deal with their population collapse and they successfully deal with it they will be able to exercise economic and political power over your descendants lies. If, if America doesn't have some alternate system from the factory farmed huts, so, so the, the, the doing this from the perspective of cultural sovereignty is the only way the other groups maintain their cultural sovereignty.

You need some allies who are engaging with this. And, and I know that the people who are doing this from the perspective of individualism, like, like our family, right? Like this extreme degree of cultural sovereignty, they would have no reason to mess with you or your descendants. Like, like what? Why would I or my descendants.

Benefit from forcing this technology on your descendants when through not doing that, they can outcompete them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is how, if it imparts a competitive advantage. People are gonna wanna just do their own thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It's, it's how the conservative mind versus the progressive mind works.

Yeah. The progressive mind works by trying to engineer society to be the way you want it to be. Through coercive laws and everything like that. The conservative mind says, oh, well, you know, if this does work and, and do good things, then it's going to spread in, in, in usage. If it doesn't work, if it does bad things, then it's not gonna spread, and you'll get these ridiculous arguments like, oh, well what if humans become too genetically similar because of this, bro, you know, of the high fertility family, it's only like 3% are gonna use this.

Like, it's not, no, this,

Simone Collins: this, this is my, one of my favorite things about our pluralistic accelerationist genetic approach, you know, like everyone take wildly different approaches to fertility and reproduction, is that it will vastly increase the diversity of humanity. You know, right now people are able to choose among this, the traits that humans have now.

And as things get more advanced, there will be entirely new skin colors, eye colors, hair colors, hair types, body shapes, body parts that you won't see anywhere else. We're going to have a vastly more diverse population and varied population than we have now. And I want that because one of those traits might end up being really useful.

I was just reading about this insane. Bacteria found pervasively in in dirt that's extremely resistant to radiation. That could be very helpful for space travel if we manage to integrate some of that into our DNA. Like, there's so many cool things that people can adapt and evolve that I want to see happen.

And if you. Claim to be in favor of variety and plurality. Why would you not encourage weird families to pursue that? But they are

Malcolm Collins: not? So you've gotta understand some conservatives are genuinely concerned by plurality. They do not like that. They, there are people different from them that exist alongside, but they, they are permitted to live

Simone Collins: in their isolated little communities and be fine.

Malcolm Collins: And, and this perspective comes fundamentally from a perspective of weakness. This is very much what niche said when he said, you know, all of these evils in society come from weakness. Because it is a, a fear that your group will be outcompeted if within an open competitive environment. And so what, what I find like the modern conservative fights for is real open and fair competitive environments.

Mm-hmm. What, what progressives fight for is rigged environments or exclusionary environments. Yeah, I was

Simone Collins: just reading something about Yeah, the focus being on. Equality of outcomes, which is, it's just not gonna produce a, a very healthy world. If no matter what you put into something, you're, you're all gonna end up with the same outcome.

It, I just can't believe that there are people who are arguing for things like equality of outcomes.

Malcolm Collins: No, it, it is, it is really silly. Well, I mean, it, it, it leads to bad things when the, when the people participating are not equal, right? Like, yeah. By this, what I mean is they're not of equal capability.

Mm-hmm.

And, and, and keep in mind what it means. Like you can be like, well, won't America be worse if we have these people who have this strong belief in cultural sovereignty, but some of them, like actually all of this technology works, or all this engineering works, and these people do actually end up being, you know, significantly more intelligent or something like that.

Or how, how does that hurt like you and your, your descendants, like these people are going to uplift the American economy. They're going to make America better. They're going to serve as better in our wars. They are going to be able to better protect your descendants in the same way the well, I

Simone Collins: mean, presumably they were, they, they're looking at it as, how is my kid ever gonna get a job if there are people who, through systemic advantage have been

Malcolm Collins: brought to, well, how is your kid ever gonna get a job if China continues to move ahead with this tech?

And we, I know, I

Simone Collins: know, I know they're not looking at the bigger picture, but. Yeah. Yeah. They're looking at it not misrepresent their fears.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's just, it's just very narrow. Like they're, they're, they're not considering the wider game at play. Yeah. And how much they're setting up their own children for failure.

Even, even if their children continue with their granola ideology., It is the cyborgs that protect the granolas in the same way that the Amish, even though you know, they don't engage with military technology or technology, they have their lifestyle only because other people do. Yeah.

Like, only because, you know, the other. Cultural groups in America are willing to go out and, and fight and die so the Amish can live their lifestyle. Because if the police were not defending the Amish people would just take their land. People would just take their houses. Right. Like,

Simone Collins: well, and that became an issue with some Mennonite settlements in Mexico when New Mexico

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Gangs went crazy, which is why many of them moved on to Argentina and other places within Central and South America.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. ,

I think where a lot of anxiety around this in wanting to ban this type of technology comes from is people who are saying, okay, well we won't use this type of technology or that type of technology. Our, our culture won't, are opting in to be the Amish of the future, you know? . 200, 300 years from now, if their descendants actually hold to their technological limitations, they are going to look dramatically technologically undeveloped when contrasted with neighboring cultural groups.

, But unlike the Amish, they want to try to force everyone to be as technologically underdeveloped as them because they don't, they don't like that this is the inevitability of their decisions. , .

But the problem , is that this is all, at the end of the day, a l rrp, because they could never really prevent every other cultural group from engaging with this technology. They could only prevent the adjacent cultural groups from not using this technology. Often the cultural groups with the value systems.

As similar to theirs as, you know, as any other group in the world. So they are self extinguishing, their own value system, , culture, and similar cultures.

And this is, this is you know, what you are fundamentally opting into when you opt into this sort of anti vitalistic American framing.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I am really excited to see how well the conservative party has like, the, this isn't like all the fringes of the conservative movement.

Like War Hammer is not on the fringes of like conservative aesthetics these days. The concept of the super soldier is core boast to our history in Captain America and. In our present in terms of Warhammer. And I think we'll continue to be within our future.

And to the, the interesting thing about this is to blow up the conservative alliance, like the, the tech row alliance with the right over. This is such a stupid thing because you're not gonna be able to win elections on these particular concerns. Like if you wanna go full fuddy duddy, like German status, that's not gonna win elections in America.

People are gonna like freak out. What do you mean you're making IVF illegal? Like. That that is not what the, the administration will, people are like, oh, these ideas aren't conservative because they're not conservatives. And why is the Trump administration writing executive orders promoting them? You know, like they, they, they obviously are whatever we're calling conservative today.

Yeah, they might not be what was conservative in the nineties, but today, you know, this is a party of weakness is immorality. Like, let's work to improve ourselves and our country and our society. E every day and in every way we have access to. So we can beat those bloody reds in the face because the reds aren't just in Russia anymore.

They aren't just in China anymore. They're right here in our schools controlling our companies. And so this isn't a war between super soldiers, Americas against the Chinese. This is a war against the American family, the true red, white, and blue American family against the corpo over lords. The corp codes.

It's funny, these two groups that somehow joined up. But I, but I guess it always makes sense, you know, raising barriers to do business is gonna help the big corporations.

And if you're like, well, what about Elon? You know, the, the spat he's having with Trump, does that break up the tech right alliance? And it's like, no, that has like nothing. , Elon and Trump were always the type of people who were going to get in a fight. It is shocking that their relationship lasted as long as it did, and we are blessed that it lasted until after Elon had already left the government and Doge was already operating independent of him.

, And so that, you know, the good work of that department can , be completed. , You know, my little brother worked for them, so, ,, I'm really glad that they're doing what they're doing. And that Elon and Trump were able to get along for as long as they did, but the tech right alliance is not dependent on their relationship.

Elon is not king of the tech bros.

Malcolm Collins: Any closing thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: Hmm. I. Captain America Transhumanism. We need a proper name for it. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I also think what's really funny, captain America

Simone Collins: Accelerationism

Malcolm Collins: is these captain America Accelerationism is pretty good.

Yeah. Is you or bio accelerationism a term that I frequently use? Is you have these people who you know, because there are these old like pearl clutching conservatives that don't really have that much cultural power anymore. The reason why they don't is because we realize that pearl clutching could be used by the left to control us.

Yeah. And at the moment we realize, oh, that's offensive. They, oh, don't go, don't be too whatever. A lot of them, you know, they still exist in places online, and they'll try to like shut down things like AI art. Or music or stuff like that. And you see them all over the progressive space, but you still see a trickle of them in conservative spaces.

Yeah. And it, they, they like, I want to like, be honest with you guys. You guys look so buffoonish. Like we know from the big study that was done on this that people who say they don't like ar. Art when they don't know it's AI art, they prefer it. Yeah. So, what that says to me is that this position that you have when you're talking about how horrible everything done by AI is, is a completely performative position done.

Likely because you think it somehow positively augments your status. Well all the AI

Simone Collins: swap I've seen really is, is human slop. Yeah. It's, it's what a, a person with bad AI skills and taste has created. So yeah. I dunno man.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. These individuals, they, I believe that they are, you know, when they post this, either they're trying to like positively augment their own status.

They're trying to look more conservative, but within a system that doesn't value what they're doing anymore. I mean, the party has moved baskets at like, we're the party of like anime and Shinzo Abe now, like, grow up man. Like, like what we realized. Is pearl clutching could be used. And not just to enforce good cultural values, but to restrain humanity from continued vitalism and improvement.

And just as you are attempting to do, right? Mm-hmm. To restrain our country's potential greatness. Yeah. And that is why we're just like, yeah, whatever. Like, I, I do animate, I do AI in all things. I have my kids. Talked with AI stuffed animals with like our Whistling AI app and our, and I get my kids to ai Socratic tutors with razia.io or I, you know, like, come on man.

Like, I even, I even made a new AI like book. We're leaning

Simone Collins: headfirst into the future to whatever extent we can

Malcolm Collins: even

Simone Collins: outpacing some of our most future forward friends. We gotta get them back on board, so. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's keep going. Malcolm, thank you for not, not being a ludite about this. It's

Malcolm Collins: just our family is so lean into all of this.

Yeah. Like you, every day I, I feel so thankful that I don't have a wife who's one of these pearl clutches. Gosh. It

Simone Collins: would be, it would and just to like be in a relationship. I don't know if any, if anyone is in a relationship like that. I'm curious to hear what it's like where one of you's an accelerationist and one of you is more of.

Like a let's go. No screens. I don't believe in this tech. Because it would be, I think it would be a lot like like one believes in corporal punishment and the other one doesn't, or one's really permissive and the other one's not. Like that level of misalignment could be just so fundamentally stressful.

I, I'm grateful to you for not being that. Thanks, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, well, yeah, I appreciate it. And when it does show that, like I, the, the reason I think like the, the backwards culture or the, the greater Appalachian culture which we come from, has been more open to being pro this stuff. Yeah. Is because it's, it is always been sort of a culture of trolling.

Yeah. And always sort of a culture of the moment somebody goes out and tries to like. Control the, the, the morality. Like, oh, do this and do this, or you're doing it the wrong way. I think it was a very fact that so many people went out there and started doing that around ai that, and started doing that around anime, made this culture lean into all that to be like, whatever, man.

Like if you say it's terrible, like I want to at least engage with it, see what it's like, you know? And then I, I, I do it. I'm like, Hey, if I can post this and annoy somebody who's a Pearl Clutcher, like of course I'm gonna do that, right? Like, because. It, it, it, one countries who don't engage with this stuff are gonna be made irrelevant in the context of civilizational history.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And that's just like obvious. Like it's, I don't understand how you could argue anything else. And so like, why are you arguing for weakness and irrelevant? Yeah. I mean,

Simone Collins: you can either be a footnote in history or you can represent the future. It's your

Malcolm Collins: choice. Well, yeah. And I, I think that that's what these people fundamentally, they, they're representing in the same way progressives do for.

Weakness because they see cultural value and weakness.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Well,

Malcolm Collins: But anyway, I love you to death, Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too.

Song: The flesh is soft, the blood is thin, but in this forge, the strong bear, not God, not ghost, just sharpened clay.

Day

you speak of love. I speak of line of blood, distill to cut through time. No rotting kings. No deathless worms, just suns reborn in stronger forms. You want your ghost to whisper below. I want my legions built to grow. Not endless life, but better birth. A rising storm to flood the earth. Blood must.

Valley deep. We climb with fire. We fall with pride. So stronger hands may stem the tide. You beg for peace. I call that theft. You had your chance. There's nothing left the weak in inherit open graves. We raise the kind that cannot cave. Not god's, not ghosts. Not endless night, but generations home to fight your future ends in sterile tears.

Hos marches loud for thousand years. No teardrop serum, no glass dome, no cowards. Upload far from home. I forge the blood that grips the knife that birds are drive through pain and drive blood must not stall or asleep. The mountains valley deep. We climb with fire. We fall with pride. So stronger hands may stem the.

Call it dark is sacred, right to breathe the beast that guards the light. But tell me what has weakness Bought

a nation drunk. A few rut.

In this episode, we delve into Israel's recent offensive against Iran, dubbed Operation Rising Lion. Discussing its strategic objectives, we explore the significant shift in modern warfare tactics and Iran's outdated response strategies. We highlight the intricate geopolitical implications, examining why Western nations, despite their recent criticisms of Israel, have uniformly supported this action. The conversation covers Iran's weakened state, the impact of toppling key military figures, and the broader effects on regional alliances. We also touch upon the moral complexities and potential future scenarios in the Middle East.

Malcolm Collins: In effect, Israel's offensive against Iran achieved what years of Gaza fighting could, not a broad realignment of Western support behind Israel,

Simone Collins: well, what stands out to me is that , this is really the solidification of a clear trend, which is the nature of warfare it's officially changed. What you see too is Iran's reaction is extremely old school. It's, we will send our missiles from our war chest and it's,

Malcolm Collins: we will get our regional players to attack you even though they have no technology or real power. Yeah. And I'll also say here that to me the biggest thing that this changes that the Ukraine situation didn't change is Iran was operating off of Cold War logic. It was build up less economically, less technologically developed regional allies. Mm-hmm. And if you have enough of these that they will be able to assist you when you go to war right. And what is Israel is showing is. Those sorts of allies don't matter one lick. Mm-hmm.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are going to be asking the question, why did Israel decide to attack Iran right now? We are going to be looking at this within a few interesting contexts. One is, is. When they did this attack, I was certain because of how negative all the western countries have been on them for the Gaza situation that they've been generally almost unanimously positive about them, at least at the government level.

Now, I'm not talking about the wokes. The wokes are gonna screech no matter what, but at the government level, it's been a, a really surprising degree of like, yeah, just do your thing. We're not gonna interrupt, you know, whatever. Especially when the you know, inciting event was maybe less direct and less visceral.

If you're talking about reaching the public now, when you're talking about reaching the government and what all their secret services know they had reason to be like, okay, maybe somebody else needs to handle this. The other thing that we're gonna be talking about is what exactly they accomplished.

With this, we're gonna be talking about who they took out, how they took them out, and what was the collateral damage of all this. Because I'm beginning to realize about this channel. Is that nobody else ever covers things as deeply as we do. Like I, I'm always shocked, like I cannot find a single, we just yesterday did the Gaza article and I was like, it was on the, the, and I've never, and I learned

Simone Collins: so much from it on the march on Gaza, March to Gaza.

Yes. That was amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Why, why is it the news to, why did there some news source I can go to that'll just have a good summary of everything. Right. But that's what we're gonna be going over here because you know, it is important,

especially in the context of what we just covered around Gaza. Alright. So to give you an idea, because I think this is emblematic of where things are.

Simone Collins: Yes,

Malcolm Collins: please. So a few days ago, the Iranian wartime chief of staff was killed as a result of this. And so they replaced him with alini. He was killed four days after his appointment. Ooh. And then after that, the Israeli like, I don't know, one of their, their talking voices for like, the government came up and, and they said we don't know who is under consideration next with a very, like, the guy next to 'em gave a, like a smile after that.

Like, because you'd be dead if we did.

Simone Collins: And this sounds like the beginning of one of your isaka fiction books Yeah. That I write where it's like, well, we, you're the fourth person. We're bringing in all the, the

Malcolm Collins: previous three died. Then they go, we would advise them not to take the job, but if they do, we advise them to be extremely cautious.

Simone Collins: Well, I can only imagine that Mossad knows in general enough to know who would be the logical next pick for a couple rungs down the ladder. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I also understand waiting until they take the job, just as they de thing Sure. To not

Simone Collins: be a jerk. Yeah. To, you know, yeah. Have some courtesy. But I, I imagine the, the more important thing is you have to know all these things ahead of time because you have to know where they live.

You have to know how to target their apartment. Like all these, this homework has been done which is what I find even more impressive. So let's

Malcolm Collins: start with the homework. You know, we're talk Yes. Fic. I'm so curious. Israel's decapitation strike on Iran's military leadership.

Israel's surprise offensive wiped out a significant portion of Iran's military high command in the early hours of June 13th. Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, over 200 , Israeli jets struck at least 100 targets across Iran in five waves.

Among those killed were major General Mohammed Bagari, the Chief of staff of Iran's armed Forces and General Hassi salami commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. This is like their core other, it'd be like if, if they killed the head of the Navy and the head of the Army and the head of the, you know, Marines all in one day is, is what the equivalent is here.

These two were Iran's most senior military officers. Bagari effectively the second most powerful figure in Iran's military hierarchy. And Sami, the head of the elite IRGC. The strikes also eliminated other top commanders, general Gal Rashad, deputy of the Armed Forces Commander General Amar Ali Hasday, head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, and at least four additional senior IRGC leaders in total Israeli attacks killed at least 20 Iranian military commanders.

A quote unquote stunning decapitation of Iran's defense leadership, and by the way, that stunning decapitation came from routers, which is otherwise a fairly progressive outlet. Even a, a Reuters.

Simone Collins: Yes. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Even a close advisor to Iran's Supreme leader . Ali Shaka Manni was reportedly caught in a strike on Tehran's apartment block and gravely injured.

The coordinated assassination campaign. Effectively gutted Iran's military leadership mirroring Israeli's previous elimination of Hezbollah's top command in Lebanon. The year prior, teran swiftly appointed replacements. For example, IRGC, GE General Ahad Vadi was named a successor to salami, but the loss of so many seasoned leaders with a severe blow.

And even since then, many of the successors have been killed. So the degree of, like, you can't imagine, like imagine if in the United States, like every top leader across every top department was gone. Right in one day. And people can be like, I, I've seen people be like, I'm not pro assassinations. Well, what are you prolonged drawn out wars?

Like, are you, you would rather, instead of the generals who effed up and let it get to this point, be the ones who are disproportionately bearing the brunt of this, have it be the foot soldiers and if seriously you're about Iran, the foot soldiers don't even want this that much. Like no, I, Iran is one of the most westernized in terms of the average belief system of the population of the major Islamic countries.

They do not have at the, the level of the average citizen the beliefs of their leadership.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: I mean,

Simone Collins: people have all often fantasized about wars boiling down to. Hand-to-hand combat between leaders like this is, this is as close to the dream as I think practically we can get. Right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and I, I, I, I think Iran is also like one of those countries.

I, I wouldn't say it's like fully westernized, I think it's more like your average Turkish citizen or something. Like they're Muslim, but they're not like, you know, Wahabiists, they're not like a, a gazen, they're not like an Egyptian they're, they're more like moderated. So I would say like Iran is a very, if you, if you wanna understand what the country is actually like, it's an interesting situation where it's almost as if you have a pseudo democracy that is under the control of a theocratic Islamic government was a moderate population.

And if you want to get an understanding of how moderate that population Right. Might be. You can look at our episode called I, I think it's something like Iran, the secular theocracy when we talk about how common secular beliefs are was in Iran and how common anti even Islamic beliefs are was in Iran.

Simone Collins: Right. That was a while ago, but it was good.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And this is why I'm saying like, I, I, the funny thing about all this is, is that the Jews may save the Iranian people from a fascist dictatorship. That, that would be effing wild if that happened.

Simone Collins: Well, and it does seem, I mean, even when you just look at their inability to improve.

Birth rates, the, the Iranian government is failing. Its people systematically. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's completely fate.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Like a, a regime change, which kind of is the major upside of this. I, if like Israel gets, its its reach goal, you know, like that would be good for them too,

Malcolm Collins: would work there. I think that they should probably revert back to the old monarchy and the old you know, the, the, the rightful king right now has been talking a lot on this.

He said that the ayatollah ran to his caves like a rat. People need to come up and retake their, their, you know, country. We have words,

Simone Collins: we have spicy words.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I mean, I think that was in different regions with different cultural proclivities. In some regions, monarchies work better or in some regions democracies work better.

I don't, no, absolutely.

Simone Collins: Well, and also I think when, when you're in, in a region experiencing crisis, sometimes going from crisis to democracy. Doesn't work out that well.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: right away.

Malcolm Collins: But we'll, we'll get into the monarchy and all this history and everything as well, because a lot, one mistake that I've heard from a lot of people that just says a complete ignorance of the situation is is this actually from Asma Gold?

I'll get into this a lot later. He says that he didn't think that I ran, would still hate America, of America, wasn't allied with Israel. And I'm like, actually, buddy based on the evidence we have, Iran hate Israel because Israel is allied with America and America is allied with Saudi Arabia. And that they have repeatedly shown openness to normalizing relationships with Israel, if only America would turn against Saudi Arabia. But we'll get to that. I know I was talking to an AI about this and he goes, well, you've gotta remember that they're a theocratic government. And I'm like, yeah, but their form of Islam is not as conservative as Bahaism.

And apparently the Saudis can find a way to normalize things with Israel. And it's like, actually that's a really good point. Probably not for theological reasons. But we'll get into the geopolitics of the region in a bit later. I wanna get into the facts. The reason I'm getting into geopolitics later is if like you're broadly educated, you know, this geopolitics stuff.

Mm-hmm. I want to start with the stuff that I wouldn't know because the news is not covering this comprehensively.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: Extensive strikes on nuclear and military sites beyond personnel. I,. Israel Strikes aimed a cripple Iran strategic capabilities, the raid targeted key nuclear facilities, most notably the natas.

Uranium enrichment complex, Iran's largest nuclear site, multiple explosions, rocketed naans and satellite imagery confirmed heavy damage to critical infrastructure. The electrical power substation was destroyed and an above ground centrifuge was blasted. The UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Gazi informed the UN Security Council that naans above-ground pilot enrichment plant had been quote unquote destroyed.

And again, that's from routers. Though Iran's underground enrichment halls remained intact. Israel also struck the deep underground farter woe enrichment facility causing limited damage as Israel lacks the bunker busters to crack the mountain. Mm-hmm. And nuclear research center is fun. Keep this in man. Ha on. In addition, Israeli missiles hit Iran's ballistic missile infrastructure. For example, an underground missile depot in Han near the Iraq border was bombed missile production and launch site such as Bid Kahani complex and air defense batteries were also targeted.

So a lot of the missiles you're seeing now come out of Iran

and prematurely. A lot of these were taken out. So you're already seeing a fairly limited capacity. And one of the things we're gonna look at is why did Iran's missile output decline so quickly?

Simone Collins: So in other words, what you're saying, it's not only is, is Israel like, okay, we're gonna end. This progress toward nukes, which has just hit this, this point of

Malcolm Collins: we're gonna kill anyone involved in this.

Anyone involved in your military? Yes. Well, and also

Simone Collins: we're gonna, we're gonna anticipate retaliatory attacks and try to undermine the infrastructure associated with that. Exactly. Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: In Tarran itself, dozens of sites were struck, including military installations and even the defense military headquarters.

By the third day of operations, Israeli claimed over 80 targets in Tarran alone had been hit from nuclear weapons project labs to fuel depots, triggering massive fireballs at fuel storage facility in Sham district. These widespread strikes across Iran's geography demonstrated Israel's intent to dismantle Iran's nuclear program and missile arsenal comprehensively, not just deliver a symbolic blow. And I think that this is really important. What's happening here isn't this, they are like, we are going to cut your balls off.

We are going to completely neuter you so you can't do anything for 20 years. That, that was the goal of this. And they might have achieved that. We'll discuss the extent of the damage and the ex and Iran's current situation right now.

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the campaign would continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat, framing it as, as essential to Israel's survival.

A note here that wasn't mentioned here. Another way that Israel has done as attacks is actually very similar to what Ukraine did with the drones.

Simone Collins: Right? Like moving things in piecemeal, like in suitcases, in in trucks. Yes. There's

Malcolm Collins: been a lot of drones. I, I think hundreds of thousands of drones moved in piecemeal into Iran.

Mm-hmm. In suitcases in parts that have been reconstructed within the country and have been used in these attacks to keep things very targeted. Now I should note, Israel doesn't do targeted in the way the US does targeted. When the US does targeted, they mean we're gonna try to not kill any civilians.

When Israel does targeted, it means we don't really. Care that much about killing civilians, but we won't kill any unnecessary people in terms of killing the exact people we wanna kill. But like, if they're at their apartment, you know, that apartment's gone. You know, if they're, if they're at a whatever that's gone, like, we don't care.

Right. And I actually think that in the long run, this will lead to lower civilian casualties. Because if you look at you know, what things like Hamas has ended up doing is, is, you know, putting babies, putting daycares, putting kids right next to sites because they think that they can use that to deter Israel.

And it has led to a lot of these people dying. And I think that's really horrible. And if you just learned that that's, that Israel doesn't care about that, then you're not gonna play that gambit anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Civilian toll and collateral damage in Iran. A firefighter calls out for colleagues at the site of a blast in Iran residential compound.

After an Israeli strike on June 13th, 2025. Dozens of civilians were killed when missiles hit an apartment block during the strikes, and that's from the Guardian. Mm-hmm. Despite Israel's focus on military targets, the offensive has inflicted heavy civilian toll in Iran. Iranian authority said the first day strike killed at least 80 people in Wounded 320.

But again, that's Iranian authorities and that's Al Jazeera. And if they're saying, and I, I would note how small that is compared to what Israel accomplished, killed 80 people. This is Al Jazeera, an anti-Israel newspaper. Keep in mind it's by Qatar, a cutter. Right. They're.

Simone Collins: Go for the higher range of damage

Malcolm Collins: in this case?

Well, no. They will intentionally manipulate. Qatar is the primary donor even more than Iran, to Hamas. Iran is only a larger donor if you include the cost of goods like weapons and stuff that they're sent. Well, like

Simone Collins: training weapons, it's, well, I mean that's a lot. Yeah. Al Jazeera

Malcolm Collins: is their mouthpiece.

Okay. They are firmly Allied was, Iran was in this against the Saudi Arabian power structure in the UAE and everything like that. Mm-hmm. We'll get to all this in a little bit. The point being is a source that is basically Iranian state tv. Al Jazeera mixed was the Iranian government said only 80 civilians died on the first day.

Simone Collins: Yeah, is really impressive.

Malcolm Collins: Astonishing.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I would say that. Okay, well then what's the real number? Probably 20. And if I go is okay if the real number is probably 20, because I'm just saying like, how much would a state newspaper lie? You're talking about like North Korea style state newspapers here.

Okay. So, if the real number's probably 20 and for 20 people they potentially shut down like a nuclear site and retaliation, that's

Simone Collins: huge. That is especially considering the, the damage caused by nuclear weapons. So that's, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and Al Jazeera here argues that 20 of those killed were children.

But again, this is Al Jazeera, which is basically, you know, Islamist State News and not normal Islamist, the Iranian side, not the Wahabiists. They would say anything mean about the wahabiists that they want because they hate them. But we'll get into that little conflict in a second. In Tarran, some missiles struck residential areas while targeting regime figures.

One strike leveled a high rise apartment building in the Farrah Zad neighborhood, killing around 60 civilians in that single incident, according to Iranian claims. Well, that's more than a lot of the other things. So did almost everyone die in one incident over several days as Israeli raids continued.

The cumulative human costs mounted by June 15th, the independent human rights org, activist news agency, Harana. Tallied at least 406 people killed and Iran and another 654 injured. Again, those are incredibly low numbers. Given the scale of what's being accomplished here these figures suggest that for each high profile, general or nuclear scientist eliminated, many iranis civilians have been caught in the crossfire, whether from Aaron missiles strikes, or dual use infrastructure or secondary explosion.

Iran's government has blasted Israel for what it calls deliberate attacks on civilian areas. Though Israel insists any civilian harm was unintentional. Israel knows when they're bombing a civilian apartment complex where they know a scientist is civilians are gonna be harmed. But I, I ran it's rich that they say this.

Well, in response, they just send waves and waves of unguided dummy missiles. I, I under. How dare you sometimes kill the people who live in the same apartment building as our nuclear scientist who wants to wipe your people off the planet. Mm-hmm. We will send wave after wave after dummy missile for, for this injustice.

But like, I get it. What else are they supposed to do? They don't have access, you know, they've already used all their guided missiles, right? Yeah. I mean, we'll put a, we'll be painting a picture of how far in a corner Iran is painted right now. And I really don't blame them for this. I just am a little annoyed with the hypocrisy still scenes of rescuers pulling wounded families from collapsed homes and Iran underscore the blistering attacks come at a painful price for Iranian society.

Now Iran's fragility before the onslaught, ironically israel's hammer blow landed at a time when Iran was already weakened in a fragile state, both domestically and in its regional posture economically. Iran had been reeling under renewed US maximum pressure sanctions. And internal mismanagement.

By 2025, the country was mired in its worst economic crisis in 40 years with soaring inflation and fuel shortages, the economic pain had translated into public frustration and sporadic protests, s threatening the regime's stability even before the first Israeli missile fell.

International Atomic Agency, IAEA, reports of Iran's nuclear non-compliance had Iran facing the possibility of harsher sanctions and diplomatic isolation. .

Meanwhile, Iran's regional influence had been eroding over the past year. Tehran's network of proxy forces its chief mechanism for projecting power, suffered devastating setbacks. In late 2024, Iran's ally in Damascus, the Syrian President Bahar Al Assad, was overthrown removing a cornerstone of Iran's axis of resistance.

Around the same time, Israel wage major campaigns against , Iran aligned militants on Israel's borders. Hezbollah in Lebanon was decapitated with this longtime leader, Hassan Nazare, reportedly assassinated and its fighting capability shattered. And you can see our video on the pager attack, which was just absolutely devastating.

But we go over it as a strategy for applying to jobs. , But , the devastating nature of the attack and the brilliance of it really cannot be overstated. Because it basically took out all of Hezbollah which is crazy. So they've taken out Hezbollah. They, they, they've, they, you know, Hamas is not a useful ally to Iran anymore.

And now the Syrian president Bashar AAD has overthrown. Basically, Iran built out this network of allies in the region. Mm-hmm. Which were all sort of like, if you played command and conquer, it's like the extended GLA network. It was the Muslims who just wanted to kill other people. Not the ones who wanted like, some sort of regional stability and ability to work with the outside world, which is what you see with the Saudi, Saudi Arabia aligned forces.

Right. Even though they're actually more conservative and more conservative Muslim, they're more like the resistance. And these guys are more like, well, we're more conservative, but we're gonna, you know, go with the status quo. Okay. And I won't say I hate that. I kind of like the whole resistance thing.

I like playing the GLA and command and conquer.

No, I will share a short clip to give you an idea of what I mean by they are basically the modern GLA faction. But I must warn you before sharing it that you know, back in the two thousands video game companies were very, very politically correct. So you're going to have to brace yourself for this.

Speaker 3: We must be on our guard reports. Say the GLA might attack us. Revengeful, our entering the war

GLA,

Speaker 4: we're everywhere We. Another way, we need reinforcement.

Speaker 5: We

Speaker 4: got the air

Speaker 5: just trying to get to the main reactor, protect it, and all

Speaker 6: the command center, they got the command center.

Malcolm Collins: They're my favorite faction by an enormous margin by like 80%. I just play the GLA, if anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'm, I'm a big fan.

Speaker: Unit lost, unit lost. A warrior has fallen.

Malcolm Collins: But what I'm saying here is in terms of like global stability and everything like that, I get where they were going with this.

But they sort of made themselves an enemy of everyone except for global adjectives at the same time. And with Russia tied down, and everyone else who was interested in global agitation, like North Korea, et cetera, tied down because Russia is tied down. Iran you know, allowed its sort of agents, you know, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the the Syrian guy to sort of be left out on our limb.

And Israel just took the opportunity to like, I wouldn't even say Israel, it was more mossod to just cut those strings one by one by one. And once all those strings were cut they targeted the thing that was funding all of that.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: Which is first I ran. And they probably won't go after Qatar, if I'm gonna be honest.

But th this is. I wonder if Qatar is gonna rethink their situation because they've lost pretty much all of their supporters of Iran ends up undergoing any sort of political realignment, although I don't think that that's real school.

Simone Collins: Is, is Quatars endgame different from that of Iran? I mean, I think so,

Malcolm Collins: right?

I mean they, well, Qatar was sort of, okay, so we're gonna go on a brief tangent here about my understanding of what's happening in the region. Okay. And I called him Qatar 'cause I'm an American and that's a real word and cutter sounds lame. Anyway, so, Qatar was, you have anything sort of in like a pride fight was a UAE almost more than it was, was the various regional forces and the UAE had to ride themselves with the Saudi Arabian and American factions.

And so Qatar almost like. Reflexively aligned themselves with Iran. But I don't think they ever really had a serious like foot in the game or anything like that. I don't think they cared that much.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so, I think a lot of this is just, they're gonna give up pretty quickly. Like, they're gonna be like, okay, well that, those minions died.

Let's see where we can reorient ourselves. Because otherwise they're not like that big a power player except for the money they have.

Simone Collins: Well, what confuses me about them is that they also invest a lot in reputational things with the west. You know, like Iran isn't trying to like bring in Western tourism and engage other like western thought leaders and

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but they're not doing it successfully.

They're not like Quatarsst them. Quatarsst Dubai. And do you know any city in Qatar's name

Simone Collins: Doha?

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Doha. Yeah. 'cause we're we might be doing a thing there soon. Well

Simone Collins: also, like, you know, DOHAS in ter, but I, I don't know any other cities to be fair, but I don't know other cities and aside from like major, major cities and capitals in other Middle Eastern countries, either because I, we don't do much work there.

And if I don't do work somewhere, this is how it is for most people, then I'm probably not gonna remember what I one at one point memorized so lame. But

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I guess the point I'm making is from Qatar's perspective, it's like all their minions were killed. They, they don't particularly, I don't know if they care that much.

It's like, okay, well that particular card hand didn't play out because they haven't actually burned Bridgets with the west that much for whatever reason. No, and

Simone Collins: they're, they're, well, they seem to be trying to invest in being a world player. In various economic and cultural and intellectual spheres.

Well then they might sports too. And with conventions too, like I think that's like some anime stuff that's happened there. Yeah. They, they might

Malcolm Collins: be, this is like a useful cutting of the strings in, they might be like, oh, this is fantastic. Now we don't need to appeal to those crazy people anymore. Yeah, I mean,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Part of it is I just, and I'm, I'm speaking of course from immense ignorance about what's really going on in the area, but Iran seems like this really unstable mean girl who has like this troop of, of like, she's a rich, mean girl, or at least a mean girl who like spends all of her family's money. So maybe there aren't actually that rich, but she like forces her parents to go into credit card debt for her.

And she just spends all this money on her flunkies. And her flunkies cause a lot of problems and bully other people and are really unstable. And now she's being, I. The pistol whipped by someone else in, at school? Well, no,

Malcolm Collins: who already like, beat up all her flunkies

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like caught her who like kind of was nice to her or like sometimes helped out her flunkies too.

Maybe out of like protection or maybe out of like, yeah. I mean, I also don't like the people that you're bullying that much. It, it may now just be like, I'm not, I'm not gonna hitch myself to this losing

Malcolm Collins: wagon. Yeah. No. That's sort of the impression I get is, is, is, is Qatar might be the person who walked into the room and is like the very wealthy, aristocratic girl and is like, as she sees this other girl who she saw as like her friend just absolutely being beaten with like the back of a gun.

And she's like, whoa, I didn't know that could happen. I'm walking out of the room right now, like, you, you guys have fun with that little game I had. I don't know this person.

Speaker 7: 昨 日なんか連絡とかあった。うちは何も。やばいかもと思ったけど、あいつもビビったの。

Speaker 8: 私の。

Speaker 13: 終わりでいい。何よ。

Speaker 14: です。

Speaker 8: then Qatar walks in and is like, Hey girls, how's that? Oh, oh, whoa. And just like slowly turns around hoping she hasn't noticed and starts walking back out of the room.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean Iran has really been asking for it too, like just by, I mean the fact that. Iran was being sanctioned for crossing the line with developing nuclear weapons.

I think it was getting to this point where Iran was like, what are you gonna do? Whatcha are gonna come at me? Like, no, I, the Daily Show

Malcolm Collins: was so funny. The Daily Show did this piece where they show Netanyahu talking over and over again throughout history about how Iran is getting close to crossing the line.

Mm-hmm. And he is like, you see, like this is all fake. I was like, imagine if I showed him like environmentalist scientists saying over and over again how close we are. I'm like, oh, that's proof. Environmental issues aren't an issue. You know, global warming had been an issue. He'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It is an issue there. You know, they were just, and I'm like, no, actually it isn't an issue there because we never actually made any big, they kept saying, well, if you do this and if you do this, then it won't be an issue and we can delay it. But we never accomplished any of those things the environmentalist advocates said.

But Israel kept saying, well, you know, we can slow them down 10 years. And then they do like stuck neck and. Sex net, if you're not familiar with that, was this amazing program where they like absolutely screwed up. Really amazing. So they they jumped the Iranian like air gap computers using like USB sticks that they like left outside the Iranian in a parking lot,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then, yeah, and then they plugged it into the internal computer system to like see what's on it. And then it slowly went through and it sped up the turbine to the point where it destroyed all burned the story

Simone Collins: burned. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: smart and they couldn't be fixed, you know, they had to start from scratch after this.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So absolutely brilliant by the way. Especially in terms of a no death way to, you know, slow this down. But what we kept seeing was Israel is, is they kept slowing down Iran through things that we can, like, measure, like this is why they kept delay the timeline and they finally got to a point where I think we'll get into a lot of this in a second, but I think they sort of got to the point of like, nobody cares.

You know? Most, most of the Western powers right now at least want Iran out of the scene, especially with what's going on in Russia right now. Mm-hmm. And Iran's, you know, tacit alliance was Russia. You know, they don't want them to have nuclear weapons anymore than we do. And we're already in this incredible negative public perception around Gaza right now.

And you know, Irans in this incredibly weak position 'cause we just took out every single one of their major surrogates.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah,

In an ironic way, it was the Gaza protestors that sort of led to this because they put Israel in a position where everyone who was going to turn against them for trying to protect themselves had already turned against them, and there was no one else who could possibly turn against them for that reason.

And yet those was in Western positions of power who wanted them to take out a. , A threat to also them because Gaza wasn't really that much of a threat to any of the Western players. , But Iran was, , it was really only a net benefit for them to go and do this because of the protestors.

Malcolm Collins: Gaza, the whole, we came for their

Simone Collins: friends and then we came for their internal infrastructure. We came for their leaders. We're there's a chilling effect too with anyone else who might take a position of leadership.

'cause

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean it's not just that Trump recently is like, oh, we could take out the supreme leader. We've just decided not to, which I love as well. He is like, you know, we've decided not to for now, I think is what he said. Oh, Trump. That's very Trump. Anyway. In Gaza, the Hamas militant faction backed by Iran was decimated during a two year war, following its October, 2023, attacks Oregon talking about their various you know, people who follow them with Hezbollah and Hamas neutralize and the Syrian corridor disputed Iran found itself strategically isolated.

Its deterrent. Reach, blunted. Even Iran's attempts to retaliate indirectly, for example, via Yemen's. Hhi rebels have been constrained by prior US and Israeli actions. In short, by June, 2025, Iran was strategically and economically brittle. The fragility likely influenced . Israel's timing as Rand analysts note.

Israel perceived a closing window of opportunity having dealt significant blows to Iran's proxy network and seeing Iran's regional position as its weakest. The Iranian regime for its part was aware of its precarious position in May, Iran. Secretary counsel, ironically chaired by General Bagari, who would soon be killed, met to hardened defenses against a potential US and Israeli strike.

Mm-hmm. Yet those preparations proved inefficient to prevent Israel's onslaught. The confluence of internal economic stressors and external losses left Iran Ill prepared to absorb the massive attack that followed adding to fears in Iran that the regimes vary.

Survival could be at stake. I. Now we're gonna talk about the weird phenomenon we've seen of Westerners supporting this. A striking aspect of this conflict is a largely supportive reaction of Western governments to Israel's attack on Iran. And this has even been noted in a New York Times piece I read today where they're like, why are all the western governments so supportive of this?

Okay. A sharp Quatarsst to the wary critical stance during Israel's war on Gaza was in hours of the strikes. Leaders in the uk, France, Germany, and other western nations openly affirmed Israel's right to self-defense against the Iran's nuclear. Threat France, president Emmanuel Macron even blamed Iran for destabilizing the region.

Noting Teran was enriching uranium to near weapons grade was no civilian rationale. And I note here, by the way, that Iran was in the middle of talks about this was Israel, right? So I'm not, just to take the other side of this, it wasn't like, there weren't like ongoing talks within the next week. They were supposed to be finalizing things and then all these attacks happen, and everyone who is a participant to those talks are like, eh, this is, this is for the best.

So I think it shows what their spy networks were saying about what, whatever Iran was doing on the other side of this, because these countries have informants as well, right? Right. Britain's Prime Minister, Kira Starmer announced he was deploying combat aircraft to the Middle East in a show of solidarity with Israeli's defense.

Keep on this. Is, this is, this is the UK after, so Macron is like, oh, and then the uk, those big pussies are actually sending military aircraft. Imagine them doing that. Intense around, that's intense, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: But I think, I mean, everyone recognizes the threat of a new country coming online with nuclear.

The fact that massage, well, no, it's,

Malcolm Collins: it's, it's very different than any other country coming online with nuclear because Russia or North Korea comes online with nuclear. And your fear is them using it defensively. Yeah. And it lowering your ability to maneuver geopolitically. Iran is the first country with nuclear that might just use it the moment they get it.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. Okay. So your point is like they might, it's one thing for them to have it for signaling reasons. It's another thing to have it for like.

Malcolm Collins: They kill you.

Simone Collins: Theological

Malcolm Collins: and ideological reasons.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Mm. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and honestly, they might use it on Saudi Arabia before they use it on Israel. You know, they, they you know, we, we'll get to that in a second, but like Iran might send missiles flying, and that makes them very different than other countries.

Germany's Chancellor, Frederick Mi Mers likewise declared that Israel has a right to defend its existence. Iran's nuclear program is an existential threat in quote, you know, all these countries, when Gaza happened, they were like, what are you doing? You terrible Nazis. And now they're like, oh, well, I mean, Iran is different.

You can handle them in the background if you want. What's really happening here, just in case people are wondering is all of these countries wanted Iran really? Defanged, you know, they wanted every one of Iran's teeth ripped out. Israel's doing that. Israel's paying for it. Israel's taking the blame for it.

And the rest of Europe is like, you, you go ahead and do that. Whatever you wanna do. Like, I, I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm outta you later. We might allow our citizens to protest this. And I think that this shows that this is not war mongering, right? When every single other major power powers that do not like Israel in many cases are immediately like, oh, well, in this one instance, just,

Simone Collins: yeah, I can, can't resist.

Yeah. And we'll

Malcolm Collins: talk about this later. If anything It is, it is, it has decreased the pressure that they were placing on Israel for Gaza, which I think is really interesting and I didn't expect at all.

Simone Collins: Ah, you mean you think at this point right now because of the distraction post by Iran? No,

Malcolm Collins: not by the distraction.

It's Germany, France, the uk, the, the US less because the US is already pro-Israel. Yeah. But these European powers, right. They were avidly against Israel. What, what Israel was doing in Ga. Gaza, right. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But now they're in this situation where it's like, I know we were complaining about that thing you were doing in Gaza.

Right. But I wouldn't want to distract you with our complaints until you're done with this Iran thing. Then we can revisit the Gaza situation is sort of where they are right now. I see. At least at the government level.

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: interesting. Which I think says to people, you gotta ask yourself, what do these governments know that you don't?

That despite the rab often anti-Israeli perspective, they feel this way about Iran.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That is big. That is big.

Malcolm Collins: Because I didn't expect them to feel this way. And this was actually a shock to me where it revealed to me that intelligent services knew something about Iran that I didn't know. I didn't think that they were this potentially threatening to all of these countries.

This unified western stance is especially remarkable given that these same leaders had just weeks before been sharply critical of Israel's conduct in Gaza.

During the Gaza campaign, European allies grew alarmed at the humanitarian toll on Palestinian civilians. In fact, in the lead up to the Iran strikes, Germany was considering an unprecedented weapons export ban on Israel. France has curtailed off an Israeli arms expo display and the UK suspended trade talks, all in protest of Israel's bombardment of Gaza.

And Im impediments to the humanitarian aid. So why the about face of Iran? Fundamentally, Western powers view of Iran's regime as a far more dangerous and unambiguous threat to global security than Hamas and Gaza? .

As one analysis put it, Gaza, by late 2024, looked like a mad, active collective punishment on an enfeebled population eroding Western sympathy. Iran, by Quatarsst, is a large hostile state, a theocracy, on the threshold of nuclear power that has openly sworn to destroy Israel. In other words, western capitals see Iran as an existential menace.

Not just to Israel, but to regional stability especially. But also like what

Simone Collins: we talked about with our, our discussion of the march on Gaza. In, in many cases, it's very difficult to help Palestinians because of what Iran continues to do in making Palestinians radicalized and violent and weaponized like, and I think a lot of the reason why we're not able to help them more is because of Iran's ongoing use of them as a cudgel.

It's horrible.

Malcolm Collins: No. And I think what we're seeing here is Israel wouldn't have felt comfortable going after Iran like this if it hadn't first handled this, if it hadn't first handled Hezbollah. And, and, and that it can do this because if it, if it did this while those two other factors who are basically like Iran surrogates were still at play, then they just attack Israel, right?

Like it can go after this because it handled those and the other major capitals and power players didn't see the wider logic at play here.

Simone Collins: Hmm,

Malcolm Collins: especially given Iran's ballistic missiles and its military alliance with Russia, which is waging war was Ukraine. Moreover, just one day before Israel's attack, un nuclear inspectors reported Iran was closer than ever to a bomb violating the non-proliferation treaty, a red line for Europe's big three, who are staunch defenders of the NPT regime.

Now, I note here that this happened one day before they started to attack. I bet Israel knew all this and they were just waiting for that report to come out, or the, the inspectors to go through and then be like, okay, now we attack. Because I ran, apparently didn't care, care about all the treaties. You know, the UN thought, oh, they, they care about these, oh, they're, no, they're not playing games.

They're not playing game and, and, and, and, and Israel's entire civilization was at risk as a result of this. And what a lot of people, I think this recontextualizes what's happening in, in, in Gaza right now to this is the goons being taken out. Now they're taking out Command Cobra. This isn't the Putties anymore.

Facing that reality, London, Paris, and Berlin all signed approval of Israeli's preventative strikes to stop an Iranian bomb. Wow. London, Paris and Berlin all signed approval. Their emphasis was on Iran's own heavy responsibility for the conflict due to Iran's and nuclear escalation. Mm-hmm. And I'd note this for anyone who says War monger.

War monger, clearly not everyone else is like, oh, actually, that's why you were doing all this stuff in Gaza. Well, that makes perfect sense. Yeah, go ahead. You, you go right on ahead and get rid of that Iranian problem we all have in the back of our necks. No. Well, I,

Simone Collins: I think a lot of people see the writing on the wall of what happens when Iran continues with what they're obviously choosing to continue doing.

I think that's the scary thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I love Trump's response to this, which is, he goes, he tweets I'm not in the mood for negotiation. Wow. You know, that's a very like thing to say. Very Trump, you know, I. In effect, Israel's offensive against Iran achieved what years of Gaza fighting could, not a broad realignment of Western support behind Israel, at least in the short term.

Western leaders still verbally call for deescalation to avoid a bigger war, but they have largely refrain from the harsh condemnations and sanctions threats that accompanied Gaza. The difference comes down to strategic self-interest, stopping nuclear proliferation and checking a Russian aligned adversary takes precedence for the rest.

Whereas Israel's punitive operations in Gaza raised uncomfortable moral and legal questions. And I note that I don't really see them as punitive myself. I see them as necessary to, for Israeli safety, but Okay. I mean, maybe less necessary once Iran is taken out, once Iran is taken out, you don't need these same types of operations in places like Gaza anymore because they're not as much of a threat anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

I'd also note the almost disgusting hypocrisy on display here, which is to say that Gaza was unique in that Gaza was really only a threat to the Israeli people, the uk, France, Germany didn't have to worry about Gaza's kidnapping their people breaking into their cities. And so when Israel was trying to defang Gaza.

They were like, oh, you horrible, horrible Jews. , But then the moment they came for a tiger that could attack them, they were like, oh, well, you know, in this case, in this case, what you're doing is necessary. It wasn't that Gaza was toothless, it's just that it was toothless against them. So they took the opportunity to score political points with their, you know, wokes who act like no one actually ever attacks anyone or is a threat to anyone else.

Malcolm Collins: Iran's counter attacks in their decline. So I wanna talk about what happened with this as well. Iran's response to Israeli onset was swift, but ultimately limited in duration and effect was in hours of being struck. Iran unleashed a barrage of missiles and drones aiming at Israeli cities and military targets.

Iran State media claimed hundreds of ballistic missiles were launched at Israel, following the attack on naan and killing of its generals For several nights, missiles, salvos reigned down on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other areas. So many at times, Iran's nightly missile attacks, overwhelmed Israel's anti-air defenses penetrating the dome shield.

Israeli officials reported intensive barrages apartment blocks in Tel Aviv and Ram gone suffered direct hits resulting in significant damage and fires in Israel. Error raid sirens became a nightly routine and citizens huddled in bomb shelters as interceptor rockets streaked overhead. Iranian missiles that evaded interception did cause casualties.

At least 24 Israelis were killed in the first wave of retaliation and dozens more were injured. One long range missile even reached the West Bank landing in Heran. A testament to Iran's ability to strike across the region. However. After the initial fury of the first few days, Iran's direct counter attacks , noticeably tapered off by middle of the conflict's first week, the volume of missile fire from Iran had diminished.

Several factors explain why Iran's retaliation died down so much. After the early salvos preemptive suppression, Israel's opening strikes specifically targeted Iran's retaliatory capacity. In the first 48 hours, Israel's forces struck many of Iran's missile launch sites and air defense systems. Israel reportedly destroyed dozens of radars and surface to air missile launchers across Iran.

It also hit surface to surface missile launchers that Iran was using to fire on Israeli cities. This degradation of Iran's launch platforms and targeting networks likely blunted. Iran's ability to sustain heavy missile fire. Simply put, some of Iran's guns were knocked out early.

Limited arsenal or caution. While Iran possessed thousands of missiles on paper, it may have held back from expending its full arsenal firing large volleys risk depleting Iran strategic missiles without achieving decisive effect. Most were being intercepted or striking civilian areas which can backfire.

Diplomatically trend might be conserving missiles in the case of war drags on or the US becomes involved. I really don't believe that at all. I don't, I I think they sent everything they had. And, and I think that they're, they're, they're lying about how many missiles they had, and we're seeing that already.

I mean, why wouldn't you hit with everything? Really? They, they can't use these dumb missiles to fight back against the us. They can't use these dumb missiles to fight against the land invasion. They're really only useful for terror attacks against civilian populations.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: The loss of command and coordination.

The decapitation of Iran's military leadership likely caused chaos in Iran's defensive operations was top generals and the IRGC commanders killed in the opening strike. Iran's response in the immediate ness may have been uncoordinated, except why is it decreasing more the more they get new people in positions?

Could be trying to reserve ammunition, but I doubt it. I think they're just running out. Proxy retaliation fizzled. Iran initially signaled that its regional proxies would join the fight. For instance, a missile was fired from Yemen by the Iran Allied Hui Militia Landing in the West Bank. But Iran's usual proxy options were largely unavailable our weekend.

Hezbollah and Hamas, traditionally Tara's frontline retaliatory tools had been badly damaged and offered little fire terror. This round. Some rockets for militias in serial and Iraq may have been attempted, but with Assad gone and pro Iranian militias scattered, these fronts were muted. The lack of a proxy second front meant Iran stood relatively alone, unable to sustain a multi-front assault on Israel without significant proxy attacks to compliment its own missiles.

Iran's offensive potential was more easily contained. I just can't imagine how bad that felt for like Iran being like, okay, guys, we've been giving you missiles for years. You should have hundreds of thousands of stockpile and Hezbollah's like, yeah, we have no leadership anymore. And Hamas is like, well, actually, we're completely under, and the are like, actually we were mostly destroyed and our stocks were seized.

Ouch. Ouch. You gotta almost feel bad for them at this point. Yeah. In summary, Iran's counter attack was intense, but short-lived. It caused real pain in Israel, dozens, dead, hundreds wounded and daily disruption of life. But it failed to alter the strategic balance or slow Israel's campaign.

Simone Collins: Well, what stands out to me is that one, this is really the solidification and confirmation of a clear trend, which is the nature of warfare is, you know, it, it's here, it's officially changed. You know, we, yes, we still have aircraft carriers, but now we have people taking suitcases and trucks into enemy territory and doing this sort of new form of gorilla warfare, like Amazon Prime delivery warfare, like at piecemeal IKEA furniture, assembly warfare.

And I think that's really, I. Interesting. What you see too is Iran's reaction is extremely old school. It's, we will send our missiles from our war chest and it's,

Malcolm Collins: we will get our regional players to attack you even though they have no technology or real power. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I think, I mean, what, what you can see, I think Mossad is kind of the trend setter.

Also like you, Ukraine to a, a great extent too out of, out of necessity and creativity. Of what the future of warfare is gonna look like. Which is what, where Mossad I think really represents what the future of warfare is gonna be, especially with ai, is that it's going to be smart and by the time you know it's happening, it will pretty much strategically be over it's checkmate before you realize, you know, this is

Malcolm Collins: checkmate in move one.

And, and I'll also say here that to me the biggest thing that this changes that the Ukraine situation didn't change is Iran was operating off of Cold War logic. It was build up less economically, less technologically developed regional allies. Mm-hmm. Um, And if you have enough of these that they will be able to assist you when you go to war against one of the other big, you know, powers.

Right. And what is Israel is showing is. Those sorts of allies don't matter one lick. Mm-hmm. You know, and, and, and if you look at the Cold War, you know, we tried to build up allies in, you know, Vietnam. We tried to build up allies in Korea. We tried to build up allies all over the world, right? Like that's what all these conflicts were about.

And we fought over these allies, right? Like yeah. Hundreds of thousands, millions of Americans died over these allies, right? And what we're seeing in this new ecosystem is those types of allies don't matter at all. You know? And that's what Israel showed that one little country can wipe out every one of those allies you care about.

Yeah. And that the only allies that matter are the ones who are technologically capable.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And this is why I also say it's useful for the United States to invest in its relationship with Israel because of the technologically capable and economically productive countries. It is the only one with an above replacement fertility rate, which means it's one of the only ones that's gonna matter.

You know, intergenerationally speaking.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and again, I mean, I think that. Th this, this could be a huge opportunity for Iran. Like if they experience a regime change it, at least we're, we get to roll the dice again for Iran, where I feel like we are at a point of multidimensional failure here.

We're at a point of religious failure as you covered, you know, they're, they're not like they're having a crisis of faith. We're seeing huge detraction from, from Islam in practice in Iran. We're seeing declining birth rates. We're seeing what seems to be a fairly un unhappy populace and, and now an unstable government.

Like, let's give it another roll of the dice. Like maybe we can save Iran. I think I saw someone post something like you know, Cyrus freed the Jews. Now the Jews will free the Persians. Like they're gonna, they're gonna pay it forward or no, pay it back, return the favor delayed. And maybe, I mean, that's true.

I'd like. I, I don't think that Israel or Jews ever wanted, like, animosity toward Islam in general. Right? Well, listen, what I'll say that

Malcolm Collins: the Jews should now go to Saudi Arabia and say, money, please. We got rid of your geopolitical rival money, please. And if Saudi Arabia doesn't go to them, they need to go.

As I've said, I even though, even though Turkey has said anti semetic stuff in the past, I know people think that they would never be friends, but I actually think Turkey is the number one desirable ally in the region for Israel. Long term. You gotta go to, is Israel gonna be like, Hey, let's be friends.

You got those great tors. You know, they're, they're also fairly technologically competent. Also a diversified economy. I. But we'll see, we'll see. Also, they don't know how to manage money. Look at their, look at their banking system right now. Just be like, you need a few Jews. You need someone who can handle usre.

Just put all this in on us. You know, we'll go back to a medieval system here. But anyway, to continue here is I ran spit now or does Teran have any cards left with this Generals gone. It's nuclear sights burning and it's missile offensive petering out observers. They're asking whether Iran has effectively been spent as a fighting force in this conflict and what options remain for the Islamic Republic.

There is no doubt that Iran has taken a severe beating. The war so far has left Irans military badly decapitated and its strategic program set back by years. Yet it would be premature to count Iran out entirely. The Iranian regime still has significant cards left to play, though each comes with high risk.

Missile reserves, Iran likely still holds a vast reserve of missile and rockets. US analysts estimate Iran holds thousands of missiles capable of r striking Israel. If cornered Iran could choose to launch larger salvos and more advanced missiles in future rounds of fighting, I don't believe that. I just don't.

They'd be thinning them away. Just think they're

Simone Collins: out. One, because a lot of that infrastructure was attacked by Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The, the, where that stuff was stored was attacked on day one. That's why they ran out so quickly. Yeah. Asymmetric warfare. Iran excels in irregular tactics even as its conventional options.

Narrow toran could turn to cyber attacks, convert sabotage, and global terrorism as a way to hit back Iran or proxy hackers might try to disrupt Israeli infrastructure or Western financial systems. Iran operatives could attempt attacks on Israel or Jewish targets abroad. Past incidents like the 1990s Buenos eras bombings linked to Hezbollah show, Iran's willingness to use terror as a pressure tool.

Already there are concerns that Iranian agents could target Israeli embassies or soft targets in third countries in retaliation. Such shadowy responses don't win battles, but they keep, I ran the game by raising the cost for Israel and his supporters in a deniable way. I don't see that as mattering either.

Israel doesn't care about your. Dumb terrorist attacks. They're not like the US where like we panic because you blew up a bus like Israel's used to that stuff. And they're basically carrying this out on their own. You can try to attack like US and French buses, but that's just gonna galvanize them more to be pro-ISIS Israel because they don't even see themselves as in this fight right now.

So it would be incredibly stupid, like Israel has done a really smart maneuver by not asking for help from other players because it just allows Iran to potentially try to do terrorism on them and then force them into Israel's hands. Maritime front Iran could threaten the vital oil shipping lanes at the Persian Gulf, specifically the strait of her moose, which is what we've heard about a lot recently.

Through which large share through which a large share of the world's oil transit. Transits, the IRGC Navy could harass or attack tankers or lay mines, creating a global economic shock. This oil weapon is a classic card. Iran holds Indeed, oil prices spiked after the war began. Yeah, on a fear, Iran might widen the conflict to the Gulf.

Those, so far no major incident at sea has occurred because again, Iran doesn't want to draw in other players. Right now it's Zim versus Israel. If they widen, it's there. It's Zim versus everyone.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and, and, and no one actually wants them to kid nuclear. Weapons. No one, no one wants that.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, if they, and, and, you know, if, if they choke MOUs, the US is gonna get involved immediately, at least within that, that context.

And the problem is in what they know now from what's happening in Russia is their big battleships are basically pointless from the perspective of modern warfare. Russians were taken down by, you know, AI controlled jet skis with bombs attached to them. Like there's very little you can do. Again, when you look at the cost of these big giant ships,

you know, you buy a few hundred jet skis, you, you're talking like 0.0 0, 0 0 0 0 0 1% to like strap them with bombs. In an ai, you could sit on a whole swarm and there's nothing they can do. Eventually they're going down. And it basically means that these are all just paper tigers for them, right? Like they can't actually blockade the straight.

Yeah. And I'm sure the US would love to try out some of its new weapons that it has built with inspiration from the Ukrainian war. Yeah. Real, really? No. Honestly, this is so funny. If Iran does try to blockade with these legacy weapons that they have, like these big old battle cruisers, it's like every weapons testing company right now is like a drooling for them to do that.

So they can use their weapons to show how awesome they are on basically a feckless and incompetent and witless enemy to be like, look, we can grow up a few battleships. Why don't you buy from. Target ai proxy military resurgence while Iran's main proxies are down, they are not entirely out remnants of Hezbollah.

Not really Iraqi Shia's militias, I mean, kind of, or the hussies in Yemen. Oh, come on. Could be activated in a more coordinated way of Iran chooses.

Simone Collins: They've been trying, they've been pulling out all the stops for a while now. I mean, they, at, at some point you're gonna get worn down.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. For example, the Houthis have already signaled readiness to strike Israel, or even shipping targets on Iran's behalf in Iraq, Iran.

Linked militias could target us bases, as they have occasionally done in the past trying to compliment Kate. America's posture. No, that would just cause America to become involved. You don't want that, you don't want us to be more involved than we are, especially with Trump saying that. Look. Okay. So I should explain why America getting involved matters so much.

Israel, as it is said, cannot hit the underground labs where nuclear weapons are being refined or developed right now. America easily can. Mm-hmm. Because we have the types of jets that can carry bunker buster bombs and Israel doesn't, they don't have the bombs. They don't have the Jets

Simone Collins: should, like, that's the They

Malcolm Collins: should, but we do, and we've got a lot of them.

They're basically infinite. Amount from, from a global perspective, you, I don't care how under a mountain you are, that mountain will be dust. If you, if you piss us off enough next diplomatic rush, leverage Russia and China. No, no. I'm not even gonna read that. That's pointless. Mm-hmm. Russia and China are not coming to save you Iran.

No, I'm sorry. Russia is heavily involved in its own war right now, and China is right now looking to go to war with like, you know, the, the Taiwan, they, they do not want to waste a bunch of forces on your dumb, dumb instigation. That's fair. And they don't,

Simone Collins: they don't necessarily benefit from. Iran going off making things.

No,

Malcolm Collins: but Russia and China are actually gonna be put on a significant back foot because of this. If Iran has dealt with, as well as their entire mil, you know, axis of supporters mm-hmm. Russia and China have lost a major geopolitical ally in the region and basically it moves the entire Middle East, at least the parts of it that matter into the United States' hands.

Wow. In a big way.

Simone Collins: Well then aren't you arguing that they have a really good reason to get into this?

Malcolm Collins: Who at the region? No, they've got no reason. I mean, they've got a reason, like technically, but like not actually on, like, no one would decide it. Even though they know they're gonna lose a lot of power because of it,

Simone Collins: like the amount of power that they'll lose in the region is not worth the risk that they take on by getting involved.

Yeah. Okay. That's makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, keep in mind if, if Russia cannot get involved. So it's really just a question of China. If China attempts to get involved they will make a lifelong enemy of the Saudis. China does not want to make a lifelong enemy of the Saudis. They would prefer to stay neutral as all of this plays out.

That is, that is one thing the Chinese don't want to do at this point. And the Saudis have likely already communicated that to them. They're like, let it play out. I'm sure, and I'm pretty sure the Saudis, when you look at their diplomatic network, have a lot more people close to people in position of power in China than the Iranians do.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Fair.

Despite these remaining options, Iran's overall position is extremely precarious. Tyra Iran's supreme leader is definitely rejected any notion of surrender, stating Iran will continue to resist impositions of peace on unfavorable terms. But resisting is not the same as prevailing. The chances of Iran's regime surviving this crisis depend on a few critical variables.

If the war states limited to airstrikes and missile exchanges, Iran's clerical leadership might endure by brutally repressing descent at home and rallying national sentiment against a foreign enemy. In fact, some Iranians, even regime critics. May unify in the face of an external attack, at least temporarily, which could shore up the regime as happened during the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s.

On the other hand, the regime's legitimacy is already eroding and a humiliating military defeat could spark intense anger. The severe economic strain, coupled with public shock of seeing iconic generals killed and key sites in flames might embolden opposition factions.

If street protests were to explode again as they did in 2022, the revolutionary guards may be to overstretch or demoralized to contain them. In a worst case scenario for Iran, the combination of military , decapitation, and popular uprising could threaten the country of the Islamic Republic now, I, I just wanted to, go to the thing I talked about at the beginning here. 'cause I think it's really important to go over 'cause I was so disappointed in gold historical knowledge where he is, like Iran calls America the great Satan. Or at least calls it still the great Satan because of our alliance was Israel.

And I was like, that is not true of anything. It's hostile to Israel because of us. So first why did Iran start calling us the great Satan? It was because we led a coup to overthrow a Democratic elected government and try to , reinstate a monarch. And the 1953 backed coup that overthrew democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Masa and reinstated the Shah is the core historical grievance that led to this anti-US ideology.

The term great Satan was coined after the 1979 revolution. But it draws moral legitimacy from this particular event. Mm-hmm. Now, iran has showed itself open as I, as I mentioned, Iran in the past has shown itself open to actually normalizing relationships with Israel and the United States. I pointed out that it cares much, much more about Saudi Arabia than it cares about US or Israel. We are distant afterthoughts in its mind compared to Saudi Arabia.

E everything it does to Israel, it does to shore up support among its subordinates. And we'll get to why that's important to them. But Israel doesn't matter and its subordinates don't matter if Saudi Arabia can be checked. Oh.

Simone Collins: So if they had some other means of feeling not threatened by Saudi Arabia, you think they just drop all this?

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. And they've signaled it in the past. So, in the past they've shown themselves open to normalizing relations with both Israel and the us. Specifically in the NI in 1986 during the Iran Quatars Affair, quiet Cooperation Between the US behind the scenes, in 2001 to 2003, post nine 11, Iran cooperated with the US against the Taliban and offered a grand bargain to normalize ties.

The Bush administration ignored it 2013 to 2015. G-C-P-O-A era under President Rouhani, real diplomatic engagement with the us, hence at a programmatic regional realignment. So this isn't like a one time thing, it's something they wanted over and over and over and over again. This isn't a flight of fancy of one ruler or anything like that.

Iran does not care about Israel in the same way that like, they care a little bit in terms of how it makes them look as a regional power player, same way that like, you know, Saudi Arabia does or Egypt does. But at the end of the day, like as we shared with the, the Gaza March, like the, it's Egyptian government cares so little about the public perception compared to like their own safety when it comes to Gaza, that they're just like, yeah, okay, like maybe 96% of people support it.

Whatever. You're not getting through. So Iran does not hate us because of our alliance with Israel. It hates us because of our alliance with Saudi Arabia, and it hates Israel because they align with us. That's one of the reasons, and I will note, they, they do dislike them for religious reasons, and the same way Saudis just like them for religious reasons, Uhhuh, but apparently that's very overcomeable for a lot of Muslims especially wealthy Muslims.

As I've, I've, I've found in my history wealthy Muslims are very quick to forgive the Jews when they start having to do finance and business interactions. I, in fact, I don't know any, I I have a lot of Muslim friends and I don't know any of them who have an ounce of antisemitism in them. But it's because, you know, they've got lots of Jewish financial friends.

It is really, I know that's a horrible stereotype, but that's why they're like, Hey, I, I know all my Jews from work. You know, what are you talking about? Now here I would note something. Iran's 1979 Revolution established a Shia theocracy defined in opposition to Western imperialism and quote unquote, Zionism hating Israel became a core part of the regime's identity.

So, a, a, a revolutionary posture against what they call the quote unquote Western colonial Project. And they're not wrong. There is a western colonial project in the region. I understand why they would. I've actually been on Iran State TV a number of times that may surprise people. Talking about her Wait win.

Simone Collins: Yes, actually, sorry. All those random interviews you've done. Yes. God,

Malcolm Collins: yes. I've done interviews where I rail against the urban monoculture and I rail against Western cultural imperialism. And they love it because in that way our views are aligned. But, you know, I, and I'm not like doing this for money or something, you know, you guys know me, I hate the urban monoculture.

I'm like, yeah, you're right. They shouldn't be trying to force their weird ga you know, like, you know, calling this flag, which is what we call the progress pride flag values on you guys. Like, you guys gotta, that's not your culture. You don't need to obey them. But what's notable here is if you look at the Saudi Coalition versus the Iranian Coalition they both built their coalition on different things.

The Saudis both built it on economics religious similarities, and a a a sort of pragmatism. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna put a map on screen here so you can see it, of the Iranian, the quote unquote axis of resistance. This is Hezbollah, Assad and Iraqi militias. Right. Okay. But then you've also got obviously the, the daddy, war B of it all, which is Qatar, which means they always seem like the odd one out, but whatever.

And on this map you can see the dark red is Iran. The dark blue is is Saudi Arabia. Light blue is Saudi Arabia's allies. And light red is Iran's allies.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And then, and then you've got the, the neutral ones, right? And then we're gonna go to the, the, the next one here, which is the GDP per capita of each of these countries.

Oh. And so I'll put them both on screen here so you can see them next to each other. But what you will see is largely speaking, the Saudi Arabian allies have a high GDP per capita, and the Iranian allies have a low GDP per capita. Very low. Yeah. You know, you look at something like Saudi Arabia, 32,900 per year, UAE 49,600 per year.

Let's look at the I Iranian allies. Well, Iran itself has 5K per year. Yemen is $465 per year.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: We, we, we've got oh, who else do we have? Iraq, 5.9 K per year. We've got Syria, we don't even know what that is. Yeah. Like, it's, it's not gonna, well, we, we've got a hold on, we gotta,

Simone Collins: well, this is again, I just feel like there's this meme girl dynamic where.

In, in many cases, Iran is preying upon populations that kind of can't say no to the money and the support. But then those populations are being further ruined, degraded, made, made dangerous and radicalized and not more economically productive by this support. And it's really screwed up.

Malcolm Collins: And the final thing I'll note here is for those who are like, well, I don't want a ground war with this region, don't worry, you're not gonna get one.

Simone Collins: Well, and I think what we're, again, the whole thing is ground wars.

Malcolm Collins: Or a thing of the past. Yeah. We gain nothing from grabbing territory in Iran. This isn't like historical battles that we've seen where it's like, we wanna occupy, because after the success of McCarthyism that's what we call General, general McCarthy, right?

And he, he rebuilt all the countries that we destroyed in the Second World War, whether it was Germany or Japan, et cetera. And everyone was like, oh, you could just rebuild countries. That's great. Let's rebuild them into great Western allies. And then we were, oh, well that really only worked because we were dealing with countries like Germany and Japan.

You can't do that with a country like Iraq. You can't do that with a country like Afghanistan. You can't do that with a country like, you know, actually, you maybe can with a country like Iran, but generally, you know, they, they're like, we're not gonna try. You know? And so. You don't have this belief anymore.

Now it's just about let's beat them into the dirt because they've got nothing we want. And they will beat them down so hard that they won't stand up again for a long time. Maybe they can restructure the country theirself in their own way, but we're not gonna get involved. Mm-hmm. And it's not just, I mean, like Israel has no desire to control Iran.

Like, like no desire. Yeah. They have no desire to put on the ground. They just wanted them to pay attention to their darn sanctions, and they weren't gonna do that without being spanked.

Simone Collins: There you have it, basically.

Malcolm Collins: And so right now yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of shocked that we're in this timeline, but I will say that the world is a dramatically safer place this week than it was two weeks ago.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I just felt hopeless with Iran for so long because so many. There was so much flip flopping around how they were dealt with geopolitically, that it got to the point where kind of like with a kid that was not punished or shown consistent discipline. Yeah. We essentially trained around like, yeah, nothing's really gonna happen if you just keep going.

Like, go ahead, you know, what are we gonna do? You know, maybe we'll change our mind. Maybe we won't sanction you as much. Maybe we'll, you know, release funds to you. So it felt so hopeless, like they had learned that they could just go ahead and Israel very strategically put its foot down in another one of those brilliant strategic moves that clearly involved years of planning.

And

Malcolm Collins: yeah, and likely prevented a larger conflict in the region.

Simone Collins: I, I wonder, you know, I, I used to be under the impression that the United States government was doing things like this, and maybe they are, but now I'm starting to doubt that because Mossad keeps doing things like this and it comes out and you see, and it's like, whoa, I can't believe that you, you know, built these fake companies and, and distributed these, blew up the entire network of Hezbollah.

And like, we just don't hear about any amazing coups. Well, no, it's because

Malcolm Collins: our int intelligence services have been completely taken over by the woke mind virus. Yeah. As we keep seeing and hearing, they are completely ineffective now and just dedicated to spreading wokeness.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, maybe I, I, I mean, I would like to think that.

We are doing cool things like that too. No, they,

Malcolm Collins: they look, they've done great things. Hey, so swung. They tried to assassinate Donald Trump twice already. That like, in just the past couple years, like that's pretty impressive. Two attempted assassination attempts against a presidential candidate and they still haven't been shut down.

Come

Simone Collins: on. Yeah. Well there was this you should probably take this out. I don't know. I need to, I need to double check it. You should probably double check it. But I you know, I have like a news alert for Dan Dal because I wanna see what he's up to. A Secretary of the Army and there was this Yeah, he needs one of our

Malcolm Collins: friends.

Anyway, continue

Simone Collins: news article that came out that was like, yeah. In this interview he was doing, just randomly, he mentioned that he'd just spoken on the phone with someone on the Army who was on the moon, and then he quickly changed the subject.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, what? I know.

Simone Collins: And so I was like, I just want that to be a troll.

I want it to not be real. I know, I know. Like, so like, yeah. There, there are two really great scenarios in this. Like, there are three outcomes here, right? Like one is just this was misunderstood or he's really sleep deprived and like meant to say something else. I'm like on the moon project, like a project, you know, to bring us back to the moon.

You know, like he just, it was not articulated correctly and he's been under a lot of stress. The other scenario is it's true and he accidentally slipped it, and the other scenario is that he's trolling. And those are two, both almost equally amazing scenarios. Like the T is fantastic. I, I think

Malcolm Collins: Secretary of the Army, so I could, I'd be like, oh God, I was just on the call with the aliens and Oh, sorry, I meant like illegal aliens.

The illegal alien. The illegal alien. Just

Simone Collins: cruel.

Malcolm Collins: Just, just yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I mean like random things like that make me sometimes seem like, oh, maybe we. Maybe, maybe,

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: know, I mean, no, sorry. Considering all the money we have,

Malcolm Collins: this is the way you lay it out. You gotta be like, oh God, I'm sorry. I, I've been, I, I spent all day being berated by the aliens and the illegal aliens.

You gotta have it in a way where it wouldn't make sense of, unless you mentioned in the first way. And I just practice that all day getting ready for this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, yeah, but I mean, it, it's clear to me that this, I mean, even if the United States government can't get its act together to do really cool things like this now, I do think that at least hopefully a sufficient proportion of the US government is going to adopt ai, and AI will start doing cool things like this, even if we can't.

So hopefully we'll shape up, but it, I do feel a little humiliated and embarrassed that we're not pulling off really cool things like Mossad is.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the US would never do, we have never ever tried to, like, I mean, the way that they're going into this is like, let's just bomb this country into the dirt.

That's not the way the US does things these days. And it is the way we should do things going forward. It's

Simone Collins: you, you don't wanna protract, you don't wanna have a lot of people on the ground. You don't. And I, I mean also like there's so much more collateral damage when you have this. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I, what I also like about the way they're doing it is they're not sorry, bombing them into the dirt is the wrong word.

They're not like firebombing them or anything like that. No.

Simone Collins: They're strategically taking them out.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're strategically taking out every aspect of the country that they don't like. Yeah. Without focusing on the industry or anything like that. And I think that that is really what we should be doing in wars going forward.

Mm-hmm. That is what a war should look like. When we have our automated drone swarms. They shouldn't go in and kill, you know, just like every civilian, they should go in and we should be like, okay, eliminate this person, this person, this person, this person. And destroy all these buildings.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and I mean, what, what I think we will see over time is there will also be.

Just like how, like sort of the Russian way is, is some kind of strategic poison or nerve agent will seem more strategic, genetically targeted poisons and stuff that like literally is, you know, made for this one person based on a DNA sample we've picked up from their visit at this one conference. And, you know, they'll be taken out that way or they'll be taken out by drones, like you said.

But yeah warfare is different and it's really interesting to see the, the asymmetric warfare taking place now of like old school versus new school and how it's, how it's playing out. But yeah, I mean, I, I don't like any, any sort of conflict or innocent people are dying. All of this is horrible. But at the same time, when I think about the untold suffering that may have been, may very well have been prevented by this action.

I'm just thrilled. Because it's very scary what Iran has been doing. So thanks for the detailed. Is that that

Malcolm Collins: not the most detailed breakdown you've heard yet so far?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, well, 'cause all we're getting, and I mean, especially in the media too, there's a lot of people that wanna make Israel look bad, that wanna make the US look bad for its involvement.

They're only talking very myopically about, well, this US official said this, and like the US doesn't seem to be aligned on its reaction to this. And like, that kind of reporting doesn't matter.

Malcolm Collins: Who cares? Or it'll be like, oh, this person died, or this person died. It's like, you don't hear it all at once.

You're not, yeah. What does it

Simone Collins: mean strategically for the country and like, what, what, what is, what is the bigger picture here and what's gonna happen with allies in the region? So, yeah. Yeah, the, the high school clique dynamics of the Middle East shifting. Who's gonna be the new queen Bee? Who knows?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, we shall see.

I, I, as I've told you, it's Turkey,

Simone Collins: it's Turkey. Turkey.

Malcolm Collins: Turkey. Turkey. All right. Simone, it is. Well, and obviously Israel is gonna be way more important after this.

Simone Collins: They've shown that if you come at them, they may wait a while. They may take some hits.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're, they're ready for, but they're

Simone Collins: like that nerd that they're like that nerd that you bully in high school who eventually you wish, you wish, you never even encountered them.

Malcolm Collins: No. It reminds me of the nerd from the Billy Madison or whatever, where he has the list of everyone he plans to eventually kill like a complete psycho.

Malcolm Collins: I'm like, I, I know Israel has one of those lists somewhere. They're like the dwarves. I, I always joke about that, like, with the, the book of grudges which, which I always thought was probably like an anti-Semitic stereotype,

Speaker 26: Our enemies cowards, hiding in the deepest, darkest places.

Speaker 27: Fools.

Speaker 26: Every wrong is recorded. Every slight against us. Page after page. One wrong put right. But the great book of grudges remains full.

Malcolm Collins: like. Anyway love you to ES Simone. Love you too. Do you wanna try to do one more episode or not?

You

Simone Collins: do. I love talking to you. All right. I got

Malcolm Collins: another one ready? Send the one on. Who's funding No. Kings. I

Simone Collins: already did. I have the weirdest pregnancy craving for bananas and peanut butter. So I've just been knocking 'em back and I think I knocked back a few too many.

Malcolm Collins: I was the same this morning when you gave me, because I'm beginning to feel better. The big slushy. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: giant. And I'm like, now I'm like, I don't, I don't need dinner.

That was too much,

Simone Collins: yeah. Well, we're both, I mean, at least it's moderately healthy foods, so that's good.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I don't want to eat only healthy foods. I feel like I can drink beer again, which I'm excited about. But

Simone Collins: yeah, I mean, at least you can drink again

Malcolm Collins: a a after days of sipping on titty juice.

Simone Collins: Poor thing. I don't

Malcolm Collins: know

Simone Collins: how you survive that

Malcolm Collins: milk. I, I, I drink milk primarily when I'm feeling sick.

Simone Collins: Just funny, I don't know. When I was raised, I was sort of told by my parents that,

Malcolm Collins: oh, there's this weird, like, magical thinking thing where people think that milk leads to more mucus and it doesn't.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's like actually one of the better things you can drink when you're sick.

Simone Collins: Sympathetic magic. Nonsense. Yeah. It's sympathetic because it looks like mucus. It does not look like mucus milk. Does not look like mucus.

Malcolm Collins: No. People look at it and they're like, this looks like what could create mucus, right?

Like it's a thick biological liquid. And so they think, oh, you drink a lot of the thick, creamy, biological liquid, you're gonna create more thick, creamy, biological liquid. But the reality is, is that. Milk is actually fairly well nutritionally balanced in terms of giving you a lot of what you need if you're otherwise queasy and you can't keep down solid foods.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it's not everything, but it's a lot of it.

Simone Collins: It's great. Yeah. I'm, I'm of the opinion that it is fantastic,

Speaker 18: Okay. You butt heads what's happening. Its right.

Speaker 17: Hey, how'd you get up there? I, um, I was doing something. You was jumping so high up. Climb up here.

Speaker 19: Stay away. Stay away. I'll stop it. I'm looking at Stop it and go to bed. Go to bed. Go to bed. Go to bed. You guys Sure. In bed you go to bed, okay. Or while I have to send you back to your room. Okay. Yeah. You gotta be calm. Okay. Can you do that? Yeah.

SORRY ABOUT YESTERDAY! We just implemented the paid feature and did not realize that posts would default to only going to paid subscribers. Shouldn’t happen again and should be live for you now.

In this video, the discussion centers around the 'March to Gaza,' a protest that gathered over 4,000 activists from around the globe aiming to demand the opening of Gaza's Rafah border. Despite their efforts, the protest was quashed by Egyptian authorities, highlighting significant cultural misunderstandings and political miscalculations. The video delves into the history of the region, the motivations and perspectives of various involved parties, and the broader geopolitical context, including the complicated relationships between neighboring countries and the people of Gaza. The narrative challenges common perceptions, offering a detailed analysis of the event and its implications.

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Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the infamous march to Gaza. No. That so many hilarious visit videos have come out on of like these woke people being whipped by like Egyptian children not understanding, make these like impassion please to like Egyptian, like police, like

Speaker 4: You do have a choice.

You

Speaker 5: are humans. We are here for humanity. You are part of humanity. You are my brother.

Simone Collins: help your Islamic brothers.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And the narrative that has come out on the right. These people just don't understand the sentiment in Egypt. These people just don't understand, you know, like they, they assume a sort of pan Muslim you know, identity, identity. , And because of this, because of this narrow progressive understanding, they did this incredibly foolish thing where they thought they were gonna get all the way to Gaza.

And obviously that was never a possibility. It

Simone Collins: seems like they did no coordination with the Egyptian government. 'cause most of the resistance seems to be indeed led by police and government. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: we're gonna come at this with a, this is one of those instances where if you're in a right wing media bubble you are being misinformed.

Mm-hmm. About what actually happened.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not gonna say that it doesn't make them look stupid but they did, for example, coordinate with the Egyptian government or at. And the Egyptian government didn't get back to them. They didn't tell them all this was gonna happen. Oh, okay.

Simone Collins: That then it doesn't count.

That does not count. They basically

Malcolm Collins: an ambush for them. They should have known that this ambush would be laid, and we'll get to why they should have known this.

Okay.

Mostly it has to do with the number of governments that, that have been destabilized by allowing Gazans to come in the time that Hamas blew up the wall between Egypt and Gaza, and like half a million to a million people flooded into Egypt and caused major disruptions in murder waves and stuff like this.

The people of Gaza are very murdery. You know, whenever a country takes them in it's usually a few years before mass deaths start.

If you're wondering why they so persistently end up revolting against the countries that took them in and housed them and gave them aid and trying to kill their leadership or trying to kill other people within the country. A lot of this, and I wanna point out I say this without judgment, has to do with how they contextualize the concept of death.

And I'd say, I say this without judgment because within my own family and culture, we have a unique contextualization of death. You know, we believe that you're not supposed to overly indulge in it. You're not supposed to let it emotionally affect you. And so, you know, I, I've got to be accepting of how other people are deviant in how they contextualize something like death, while also accepting the practical implications of these differences, specifically the people of Gaza. As you'll see in this video here of this mother , her two of her kids just died and she is cheering and looks like it's the happiest she's been in her entire life. And she's got a bunch of other women, some of whom presumably had kids who died as well, who are also very excited.

She's talking about how she's hoping that her grandkids also die soon. And the reason is, is because she believes that Eve. In a war against, you know, whether it's Jews or Muslims who believe something a little different from them, if they get killed in one of these wars, it's an auto path to heaven.

And because of that it is the most desirable life path. So if they settle down in a country and find peace and stability, and yet this part of their culture isn't eradicated, they have a strong motivation to create revolutions just due to their culture. And you can say, well, then we should eradicate their culture.

And it's like, well then one that's cultural genocide and two, what does that even look like? Like are you saying you wanna separate the kids from the parents and then raise them in like separate boarding schools so they don't build this concept? Like, it's not like the concept is out of line with their religious beliefs.

Well, many Muslims don't relate to death this way. This isn't the only region of the world. World where Muslims relate to death this way. They're just more extreme than any other Muslim group. And so I think to say that like, we have the right to erase this is wrong. But I also think it's understandable why other countries I.

Do not want to take them in and why they keep revolting and refusing common sense peace deals when Israel offers it to them because that's not what they want. What they want is war and the opportunity to die.

Gaza Mom: شهداء لا ولا ولد وأفتخر فيهم،

والحمد لله أجرنا بمنا يقلبنا خيرا منها، ونتنياهو مستعدين أن نضحي ايضا وايضا وايضا ال خذ من دمائنا وأرواحنا وأولادنا، وأيضا لفاد مستعدين هؤلاء سبيل الله. الله اكبر ولله الحمد لله الحمد الحمد لله، وهذه فكري كل الشهداء.

Speaker 2: الحمد لله الله اكبر ولله الحمد لله الحمد.

لماذا؟

Gaza Mom: لماذا؟ لأن أولادي في الجنة وهم إن شاء الله رب العالمين، شرف.

Malcolm Collins: It also helps explain when people are like, how is Hamas, you know, getting people to give them their babies to like put it potential sites where they're gonna be missile.

And if you see this woman and how she's like, oh, I can't wait till my grand babies die. You would see. How within a portion of the population, and I'm noticing here, I'm not saying everyone in a population is like this. You don't need everyone in a population to have this perspective. If you have, you know,

3%.

of the population has this perspective, that's enough to almost inevitably lead to a revolt.

So here you might be saying, okay, well almost every time they're taken into a Jewish majority country or a Muslim majority country, they start trying to kill people. Why don't we just take them into Western countries? Right. Well, Denmark attempted that in 1992, they took in 321 individuals 204 of the 321 refugees.

64% had been convicted of a crime by 2019. And that's defined as serving serious fine or jail time and excluded traffic violations

descendants. Okay. So you can be like, okay, well this is just a first generation, well, no it's not. Of the next generation, 34%, ha. Who were born in Denmark. Also had been convicted of a crime by 2019. And keep in mind, like that's including the ones who are too young to have committed a crime. I would note here when you're contrasting this 64% conviction rate if you look at only men in Denmark, the conviction rate is only 2%.

And that's if you're looking at the highest crime demographic, 15 to 2064. And then if you're like, okay, well at least they're not an enormous strain on the state. Well, it turned out that by 2011, 82% of the group was on some form of public support.

So essentially even intergenerationally, they just become parasites of the state. In terms of employment if you search for immigrants by Lebanon, which is often where the Palestinian lab immigrants were categorized, so keep in mind this isn't like as concentrated as sample set. In Denmark, only 43% of the men and 23% of the women aged 30 to 60 were employed.

So less than even 50% of the men , and almost none of the women.

and if you want to come to me to be like, well, are you saying that they can't change or they can't improve? And I'm like, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is the stats, when they've gone to these countries, they started killing people. When they've gone to these countries, they've become an enormous drain on state resources.

So first when people say gazans are poor and live in poverty because Israel, is doing all these horrible things to them, , I'd point out that even in environments like Denmark, , we see the same thing and we see similar behavioral patterns., press F to doubt also.

I'm not saying this is in their nature. I'm not saying this is a, you know, an inevitability of who they are. I'm saying this is what has happened every time.

And with that history, I'm not going to sit here and pressure other states to take a population that has repeatedly victimized the populations of states that have done kindnesses to them in the past.

But it, it helps understand why, while the people. Across the Middle East, support you know, the, the quote unquote like Palestinian. Cause governments across the Middle East want nothing to do with these populations and are actually quite terrified of them.

And, and view,, I'd be like, I have a lot of friends who are like, I call them, I guess you could say, like elitist or, or power player, like, Muslim types , in like Middle Eastern environments. And behind closed doors the general vibe or, or conversation is Israel's doing the world a favor right now.

And they want. They, they want the most extreme outcome to be the outcome that happens. And they are trying to pressure Israel actually into a position where that's what ends up happening. Huh. Without it looking like that, that's what they're doing to their people. Because no, keep in mind, like Goins have tried to assassinate like multiple heads of state in the past.

Like if you are a head of state in the Middle East this is like, a, a, a band of like agitators and assassins from your perspective.

Mm-hmm.

And so you wanna play both sides while geopolitically doing what you can to achieve a certain outcome. So one is understanding why this happened, understanding what the protesters understood and what they didn't understand, because it was clear they didn't understand this.

They didn't understand how much and, and why the Egyptian government was just not even gonna begin to allow them to protest. Mm-hmm. But another thing that we often get wrong is this was not. Even a majority Western or woke audience. The, the caravan actually had multiple factions with some of them coming from Islamic majority countries.

Like Tunisia.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes. Right. What was with this, I saw that there was this big Tunisian contingent, but why?

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. They never got outta Tunisia, by the way, and we'll get into why that happened as well. , Oh, before I get further, we've also gotta talk about like, the hypocrisy of all of this.

For example, a leading figure in this, who we'll see throughout, this is an Irish politician who is gay and has a husband and removed all of that and the pride flags from his social media before going to Egypt, which I think sort of shows this. Understanding that he's fighting for people who would have him killed and imprisoned.

Well this is,

Simone Collins: this is something that I do wanna explore too though, that, I mean, we're talking about over 4,000 activists from more than 80 countries. And you know, these, that this is, it's a lot, you know, people are flying from between five hours to over 20 hours to get to this. They're spending a lot of money to do this.

I it's hard to get anyone to come out and, and do some things. Yeah. And they ended up

Malcolm Collins: getting like left in the hot sun to get terrible sunburns

Speaker 6: We have just been violently dragged into the buses here at the first checkpoint.

Malcolm Collins: being,

Simone Collins: and I, I think they, you know, most of them weren't shocked by this. They kind of expected to be met with resistance. And that was part of the, like no, they, it's a feature outta bug No.

To

Malcolm Collins: be met. Was it US or UK style resistance? Mm. Not Egyptian style resistance. Okay,

Simone Collins: fair, fair, fair on that. But they, they knew the risks. I still think it's really notable that in an, an age of more on wheat, and I think we've had before this many people. Are putting this much on the line, even if just their money and time to come out and engage in this and they know that it wasn't gonna be comfortable.

They're coming out with, you know, these backpacks and like really expecting to, you know, do a buggy thing. No, but they,

Malcolm Collins: they, they're also coming out with their phones for selfies and to talk on social media and Yeah. I mean,

Simone Collins: yes, there, there is clout chasing Absolutely. But again, we're still talking 4,000 people.

Simone, this

Malcolm Collins: is, this is the Riviera of clout chasing. This is the Gaza border. Okay. Was this the Fyre Festival of Protests? This was, no, this was the fire festival of clout chasing that is exactly what this was. And that's what makes it so interesting. Oh God. All right. pro-Palestinian activists rally in Tunisia before departing for Egypt as part of the global march to Gaza Convoy June, 2025.

Their shorts read All Eyes on Rafa highlighting the goal of opening Gaza's Rafa border in. Early 2025 as Israelis war on Gaza intensified in a full blockade starved the enclave, international activists organized a global march on Gaza. Their aim was to pressure world leaders to end what they described as a quote unquote genocidal siege.

The plan was unprecedented in scale. Thousands of people from dozens of countries would converge in Egypt to march on the Rafa crossing on God's border to demand the entry of humanitarian aid. The initiative was spearheaded by groups across the ideological spectrum from woke Western peace activists to Arab Civil Society groups, a coalition of Tunisian organizations, including the country's Labor Union.

And Human Rights League led a caravan called the Samad Convoy, which deported Tunisia on June 9th, 2025, picking up supporters in Algeria and Libya. In parallel grassroots networks like the Palestinian Use Movement Code. Pink and Jewish voice from labor helped rally around 4,000 foreign activists from 50 to 80 countries to fly into Cairo by June 12th.

And I love the Jews who, who, you know, whine about this stuff, and almost none of them are above replacement. You're not really j like, you don't have an invested interest in the future of the Jewish people. If you and your kids are not above replacement rate, you know, and, and, and so it's really just sort of this ultimate, I think, betrayal of Jewish identity to, you know, put the actual Jewish people who will continue to exist in the future.

It, it's such a threat. Goals and expectations. Organizers made clear their protest was symbolic. They did not truly expect to walk into Gaza. I will note here some protestors believe that other protestors clearly thought they were gonna get into Gaza. See the above section given the fortified border.

And I'll put a picture of how fortified the border is here. It is comical to think they would ever get through if they had looked at pictures of this.

Mm-hmm. I mean,

I guess it's not that they just politically pressure them but again. They thought that they were dealing with like la anti rioters. I, I don't even think they thought they were dealing with that.

They thought that they were dealing with like partially sympathetic like Muslim police or something. These people had no sympathy. Some of them had had their, you know, well, even if

Simone Collins: they did, I, I think they're much more concerned about taking care of their families and job security than they are about, oh, well this foreigner who's screaming at me in English and a translator is now also trying to scream at me.

I, they've convinced me I will put my family on the line. My job

Malcolm Collins: started with explanations of why this time wouldn't be like the time when Hamas blew up the wall and the country was flooded by Goins and a bunch of people died, or the time the Goins tried to start a revolt, or the time the Goins you know, started killing.

Yeah. Like, or the, the time majority, we'll get into all of that in a second, but like, they didn't even like address as the point that whenever this has happened in the past, Goins start killing people in other Muslim majority countries. Some even describe it as standing on the right side of history by bearing witness to Gaza, suffering the marchers plan to travel by bus from Cairo to Sinai.

City of Resh then undertake a roughly 50 kilometer three day march on foot to the Rahho crossing, camping near the border before returning to Cairo on June 19th. Crucially, organizers sought advanced permission from Egypt. They say they applied through the Egyptian embassies weeks beforehand, hoping the government would quietly tolerate the protest.

So the government never replied, and that's why they thought they might quietly tolerate them.

Hmm.

In public comments. The group emphasized that the march would be peaceful and humanitarian focused solely on opening aid corridors, not on any unlawful entry. That was never gonna happen if you understood the geopolitics of the region.

Despite these intentions, many observers question the marcher's realism. Egypt classifies a rahho border zone in North Sinai as a restricted military area off limits to outsiders without special permit. Oh dear. Dock border is fortified with concrete walls barred with wire and heavily armed checkpoints.

And if you're like Egypt can't really be that afraid of the Gazen people, like they can't really view them as like insane monsters who just randomly murder anyone who they live next to. Look at the size of this wall. Look at no, look at, look at the number of layers and look at the size of this wall.

This isn't like the Berlin Wall. This is people who are terrified of what's this is attack on Titan stuff. Okay. That is what Egyptians put up. Out of fear of what you see as as starving harmless children or something on the other side.

Simone Collins: You not to say that there are not starving harmless children on the other side, which makes me all the more angry about what Hamas does.

Malcolm Collins: Right? But the point being here is if, if you're ever like, come on, other Muslim countries aren't actually that terrified of the Gazans. They don't actually see them as that different from other Muslim populations, do they? Look at the size of these walls, look at the security measures, look at the number of treats on this border.

This is not like us where we're like, we would really prefer that fewer Mexicans come in taking our jobs. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is like. You're trying to keep out like an a like on the, this is like the, the wall from like Game of Thrones. This is like, there is something truly terrifying on the other side of this wall from the perspective of the Egyptian government.

I point this out because Gigi, because Egypt isn't exactly a country with tons of money to spare, this is a very honest signal of just how threatening in terms of their defense budget, the Egyptian government found the Gazen people. To give you more context here, here is the Tyrannosaurus enclosure from Jurassic Park , and here is the wall between Gaza and Egypt.

Simone Collins: Hmm. , They weren't, no, by the way, they weren't trying to bring in gaza's to, sorry. They weren't trying to bring in Yes. They were trying

Malcolm Collins: to open the border

Simone Collins: to bring in aid. To bring in aid.

Malcolm Collins: Like, if you look at the majority of the Egyptian population for the way, and we'll get to this in a second, they actually support gaza Egypt. Out of all Arab countries, if you're looking at the base population, they wanted the highest supports for the Palestinian people.

It'd be a win for the government to give them aid. The government is intentionally not giving them aid. You need to ask. When you see walls this big and you see a government risking this level of dis disruption from its own people, a government that has no love for Israel, what are they trying to do to whatever's on the other side of that wall?

Like what is the goal of the Egyptian government and why? And I think that that, that this is something that other people just like aren't asking. They're like, oh, they just don't care. Or they're just playing it safe, or they just know they have an intention, or it's that they genuinely believes that they'll get through.

But I think it might be, as I've said before, that they have an intention from what I know from you know, mus, you know, elite level, sort of Muslim people who I've talked with about this. And their perceptions on for the region the best , end state for this conflict.

Simone Collins: So are you saying the, the, the, the genocide call is not coming from Israel so much as it's coming from like all neighboring countries?

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: The leadership of all neighboring countries,

Simone Collins: right? Yeah. Not necessarily the people because

Malcolm Collins: I mean like

Simone Collins: are nice, like

Malcolm Collins: Jordan for example. Like their, their king had goms tried to assassinate him. You think he doesn't have like, worry about that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like maybe some concern.

Malcolm Collins: And we, we'll go into like all the neighboring countries, but the leaders of neighboring countries have either been killed or tried to be killed by Gazen rebellions.

Hmm. They're, they're not doing this outta nowhere. It's, it's not out of like hatred for the gazen. It's out of what's happened before. And, and so, these giant fences, this terror that. That apparently Egypt has around this is not, and, and I would say it's not unwarranted. I, I might have distaste for the way that they're forcing Israel into this position.

And I, and obviously I ran as the one who instigated all of this, right? You know, by, by funding this, by funding Hamas, by training them, by well them and what was it, Qatar, we have our video on how Qatar is actually the biggest like dollar funder for Hamas. And also the biggest dollar funder for our university system out in terms of foreign institutions.

If you, have you ever asked yourself why Claudine Gay said the thing she said about Jews, she's the one who runs Harvard, that she wasn't sure if it was a human rights violation for people to say that the Jews needed to be eradicated. Whoopsie that seems like a controversial saying to say to to Congress.

Is there somebody she might have been trying to appease more than Congress? Oh, her number one donor. Good job. Because it's also Hamas'.

Simone Collins: Oh, goodness gracious.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway some critics wondered what did these foreigners think would happen when they reached Rafa? Would the gate simply swing open?

Organizers insist that they were not naive. One activist told the ap, we do not expect to be allowed into Gaza, acknowledging they might only hold a protest at the checkpoint. Nonetheless, this strategy banked on moral spectacle. If thousandths march, perhaps Egypt to leadership, which officially synthesizes with God.

Again, I said they officially synthesize, so why no aid?

Mm-hmm.

Would relent or world opinion would force a breakthrough in hindsight, this gamble on goodwill that ignored some of the hard reality of regional geopolitics as the marchers would soon discover. So, again, i i, I note here for me, the biggest thing on the ground for anyone who's like, Malcolm, you're exaggerating, I mentioned this above, but just like, seriously, seriously, seriously.

I want people to think about this. You are exaggerating how scared the other governments in this region are, or how much they fear the people of Gaza. As a cultural group look at these fortifications. I, I don't think I've seen fortifications this intense standing on any border on earth. These dwarf, what I saw on the North Korean to South Korean border these dwarf what I saw.

Now, those, that's a heavily mined area, so it's not really comparable. Okay? But the, this, there is just these dwarf, the Berlin Wall, for example. This is, this is a clearly put up, and it's not like the, the fortifications on the Israeli border, which were actually fairly modest compared to the ones on the Egyptian border.

I think because the Israelis were fairly complacent about this, partially and they wanted to look like good guys. So they didn't actually put them in a cage. Whereas the other neighbors are like, no, no, no, no. This is a cage. This is a cage, like the Tyrannosaurus cage in Jurassic Park. Like if you were trying to judge the dangerousness of the dinosaur, we have tyrannosaurus level cage here.

Simone Collins: So in other words, this utter failure of the march on Gaza, the Fyre Festival of Protests could have been. Avoided if the 4,000 plus people who decided to join thought a little bit more about what the leadership of surrounding nations felt about more porous borders with Gaza?

Malcolm Collins: No. I think they knew what they felt.

I think that they thought they

Simone Collins: still went for clout. They just thought that it would be easier.

Malcolm Collins: No, what they thought because they had gotten use to the way the United States handles protests,

Simone Collins: uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: that their protests or UK handles protests or Norway handles protests, that their protests would be handled like the protests in those countries.

Mm. Or at the very most, like the protests in LA and the United States. Right.

Simone Collins: He mainly sort of like, I guess Greta Thunberg made them more smart. Approach

Malcolm Collins: by choosing, by getting, by getting, by getting caught by the Israelis.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And they gave her

Malcolm Collins: sandwiches and they, they kept them safe. They met her and kept her, and she couldn't even think when they're like, what horrors did you undergo?

And she's like, I don't even want to talk about it. Well, yeah, of course she wants to talk about it.

Simone Collins: Well, no, no, no. I mean, she, she emphasized that nothing, and this is the, the, the, the talking point of everyone who's being interviewed is what they're experiencing comes nothing close to what those in Gaza are experiencing.

I don't disagree. But. She, I mean the, the primary indignity that she suffered was that they were stopped from doing this. She really didn't have anything else she could say.

Malcolm Collins: The she's ignoring is, she was sailing into an Egyptian set up beforehand, exclusion zone. And the Egyptians would have the, the Israelis literally saved her from what happened to these other protestors.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. She was so lucky. She was so lucky. They, she was so lucky

Malcolm Collins: that the Israelis went out and saved her. Yeah. Actually she didn't

Simone Collins: have a complaint about them, was that they were, they were not allowed to leave the boat after the, the, the, the,

Malcolm Collins: the that she wouldn't even watch the videos of what happened on the day was so like gross to me, like willfully keeping yourself ignorant.

She, I mean, she must have watched hundreds of videos of atrocities on the other side, but she wouldn't watch a single video of what was happening to the hostages.

Simone Collins: Oh, on October 7th. Yeah. I thought she did

Malcolm Collins: watch. She didn't watch. No, she refused to watch any of them. She has no idea. Like apparently she's never seen any videos of what happened on October 7th, and she tediously, refuses to watch any That's because she considers them propaganda.

It's not odd. It's leftist, leftist. See, one side is evil, one side is good. Don't, don't blur your mind with the gray morality or anything like that. You know, don't, you know, bother yourself with what's currently happening to the hostages.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway is rival arrival in Cairo. So we're gonna go to the timeline now.

The international activists began landing in Cairo around June 11th to 12th, 2025, and immediately ran into resistance. Egyptian authorities had gotten wind to the plans and launched a preemptive crackdown. Dozens of known activists were detained upon arrival at Cairo Airport. Questions and put on the neck flights out.

Okay. Over two days at least 73 foreign nationals were summarily deported to Istanbul on Turkish airline flights. And by June 12th, Egyptian security had compiled lists of March participants at local hotels, plane codes. Officers showed up at hotels in Cairo, interrogated guests, and even confiscated their phones.

According to organizers, by June 13th, groups estimated over 200 activists from the us Europe, and North Africa had been detained or questioned in Egypt, was up to 100 more waiting deportation. The Egyptian government gave it no official welcome to the global March. No kidding. Instead it quietly instructed airlines that between June 12th and 16th, all inbound Cairo passengers must hold return tickets to facilitate expelling unwanted visitors.

D do you see how like the US government needs to handle protesters this way? Just disappearing them, sending them back to where they're coming from?

Simone Collins: I do. Yeah. There's, now I'm thinking about the LA riots, you know, and how those have played out. And also how different people are covering them. So I hear on the All End podcast that the ice raids that taken place, that have taken place are being very misrepresented that they actually are going after criminal enterprises.

So, apparently for example, the, like some fashion business was, was rated, but it was like a, a, a money laundering front. No one's talking about that other like

Malcolm Collins: protestors complaining of even like human trafficking orgs where people were being rated and like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And so that, like, I think people are given these very skewed reports on what's happening.

Well, it's not

Malcolm Collins: reports, it's, it's, they intentionally blind themselves to information on the other side, which is why I'm trying to give all the information on both sides here. I appreciate that. It's, it's that they, Greta thornberg it, they're saying I won't watch any video of the atrocities Hamas committed.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I was just watching Tyler Bender. A YouTuber who, who means left just talking like, almost like starting to cry as she was talking about how disturbed she was by the LA protests and what's going on with the ICE raids. And yeah. I'm just, I'm realizing how siloed we are with information that I'm here on one side being like, huh, like I, this is, this is a complicated situation.

You know, and, you know, people are being deported, but this is, this is what the majority of people voted for. And this is also completely in alignment with enforcing US laws. And on the other hand, she's, she has this perception that, I don't know, we're, we're entering some fascist dictatorship. And we just have, it's, it's just crazy how differently we, your reality.

And I'm glad that you are trying to look on both sides.

Malcolm Collins: We try to look at information from both sides, and they look at information from only one side.

Mm.

Which is why we're going through this today. I, I hope already dispelled the rumor that these people didn't know what was gonna happen at all. They, they miscalculated something.

And what they miscalculated is that they were going into an authoritarian dictatorship and they thought that they were going into a democracy. Right. So,

Simone Collins: I, I, if I'm to recap here, one, they expected to get social credit and clout for going out and being seen to have appeared in person for this epic protest.

Yeah. And two. Do, do you think? I, I don't think they actually expected to get any aid through. Right. They just expected to be like valiantly arrested and then sent back

Malcolm Collins: with them to maybe send some aid or like just pressure the Egyptian government? No, but they definitely did not expect this. Okay. They didn't expect to be and we're gonna continue with what happened to them.

Yeah. Systemically dismantled removed and disappeared back to their country of origin.

Mm-hmm.

Despite the dragnet, hundreds of marchers managed to enter Egypt and regroup On June 13th, they attempted to set out to Cairo towards Sinai by road as planned several brutes and Texas carrying activists, including a 50 person Irish delegation led by people before Profit TD Paul Murphy.

Simone Collins: Now this is the gay legislator from Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Departed for this US canal Highway. Murphy was initially optimistic upon landing. He posted nobody is being detained or deported. Pressure on the Egyptian government is clearly working. I love this optimism. This optimism was short-lived about 30 kilometers outside Cairo at a highway toll station near Islam.

La Egyptian police sprung a trap roadblocks and checkpoints abruptly halted the convoy officers in riot gear ordered all foreigners off the vehicles seizing passports and preventing anyone without any Egyptian ID from proceeding. Okay, approximately 40 activists from France, Spain, Canadian Canada, Turkey, and the United UK and beyond were herded off and held in the desert heat.

At this makeshift checkpoint. Sounds unpleasant. They're being held in the heat and not allowed to move. The marked organizers reported a statement, this fire

Simone Collins: festival of protests. My God.

Malcolm Collins: And you, you, if you see pictures of, then they have these horrible sunburns.

Simone Collins: Yes. Yes. I just keep seeing these, these images of sweaty very deeply uncomfortable looking people.

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, th this was clearly meant to sort of torture them from Yeah. And keep in mind, this is something that and we'll get to this in a bit, while the Egyptian people overwhelmingly support Gaza they, it turns out, and the Egyptian government was right about this, they hate Westerners trying to impose themselves on Egyptian foreign policy word more Yeah.

Than they like Gaza. Okay. And so, these foreigners coming in there and whining and trying to force them, they just see this as cultural imperialism, which is exactly what it's, well, I could also see it

Simone Collins: being insulting of being like, yeah, I'm not cool with this. Why are you implying that I am. Being kind of insulting, like, can't do anything about this.

You yelling at me we're what we can

Malcolm Collins: given our circumstances. But the government apparently actually like ended up winning more popular support based on all of this. Gosh. Because the, the people were so happy was how the protesters were basically the deportation

Simone Collins: of sanctimonious Westerners.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

The de deportation and, and wow. So this is just been a win for the Egyptian government. Yeah, just a win for the Egyptian government. Just a total, because they also handled this very effectively

And in a way that really works for people who hate sanctimonious Westerners. And they've done a good job in terms of the play to keep out all of the Arabs who they also handled because they handled them before they got into Egypt. And we'll get to how they handled that in a second. Okay.

Confrontation on the highway as words spread that the march was blocked, tension spiked. Sun activists attempted to sit down, attempted a sit down protest on the road, refusing to turn back. Oh, that is so dumb. In Egypt. I You haven't been to Egypt drivers there. One of the craziest things for me in Egypt like if you talk about bad drivers, I've never seen any place or like insane drivers.

You could like do a, a turnoff from like a, a highway.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And you'd have somebody drive the opposite way up the turnoff, like ski by you. What? Then just start going on the highway in the wrong direction. What? But yeah. Is there just no traffic enforcement in Egypt? I saw this happen in Egypt when I, I was like, how is this normal?

And I wanna say I saw it more than once when I was there, but I, I definitely remember seeing it at least once. And it was like, it reminded me of the Egypt baggage claim area where they scanned the bags. And it's so disorderly that people will, like, the machines regularly get like stuffed because people will try to stuff their bags next to other people's bags.

And so like the entrance will have like five bags shoved in it. 'cause nobody wants to wait and there's like no lines. Oh, but what I'm saying here is when you consider a culture like that and you think you're gonna sit on a road and they're not gonna be like. Carmageddon. They are, oh my, they're just gonna run you right over.

Oh, no, I, I mean, it shows a, I didn't study Egyptian culture before this. Especially if you're some sanctimonious, westerner, yeah. That just earns them, you know, free drinks for a year at the local pub. Not that they drink because Muslims hookah, I guess. Video. Whenever, whenever I go to Muslim country, they always do the the hookah thing.

Video footage described by participants shows a chaotic scene, protestors chanting and sitting on the asphalt as armed police surround them and water bottles and other objects flying towards the crowd. Allegedly it's thrown by government hired. Thugs mingled with security forces. So if you actually watch what happens, it's pretty clear that these are locals and not government thugs.

Yeah. I

Simone Collins: don't know why. Yeah. 'cause there there are, there's lots of footage of plain clothed people doing the, the more egregious harassment. You tried to do a sit

Malcolm Collins: down protest blocking roads in Egypt. Mm-hmm. They don't do that there.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Egyptian people are gonna throw things at you and it'll be a fun day because the police are gonna let 'em and, and there's a, oh

Simone Collins: yeah.

I guess that's the big difference is in the United States you'd be charged with assault and batteries. Oh no,

Malcolm Collins: no. The police are like, you go, like, there's videos of like little kids like coming out and trying to like whip the protestors having a blast.

Malcolm Collins: Because to them these people are just pure evil.

They are imperialism and colonialism. Made manifest because they don't do these types of protests in Egypt. This would never happen in Egypt. One because you're likely to just get run over. fortunately for these protesters the cops came before that. Right. But then once the cops are there, okay, well now you're open season for towns folk because they're angry that you're blocking their way to work.

Mm-hmm. And nobody's gonna stop them from throwing water bottles and whipping you. So now you're the town's local activity for the day. God. Wow. Egyptian officers did not hesitate to use force. Witnesses say riot police charged the demonstrators and the plane call agents to begin physically dragging activists into the buses to be shipped back to Cairo.

And I'll note here that one of the things that the right is getting wrong, if they think that the reason why the people of Egypt were mad about this, like the average people, the plainclothes people were mad about this, is because there isn't like this pan Muslim solidarity that these people didn't care about the people of Gaza.

No, they do. They just hate you more. Okay. Yeah. And they also knew that everything that you were trying is pointless. And so why not have fun ragging on imperialists right. Colors, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: We have had our passport. Yeah, sorry,

Simone Collins: I'm, I'm just saying that makes sense because everyone's kind of Right.

It's just that people didn't fully do their homework or I guess we have another issue of your theory of the left playing out, which is that people are going to make the most morally comfortable interpretation of a situation. So the most morally comfortable interpretation of how this protest is gonna play out is that, oh, well we know for a fact the Egyptian people, not the government maybe, but the people support Gaza and therefore the most morally comfortable interpretation of how they're going to behave is they will welcome us who also hold that opinion with open arms.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Instead of like. There is a possibility that these people may have a bias against us that we would even say could be slightly racist or nationalist.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, this is the type of phobic people get thrown from roofs, right? And they're like, well, come on, you don't actually hate our way of life that much more than even the Israeli.

Oh, you do? Oh no. But anyway, no, but there's this delusion, right? Like that they're on the same tide and they're not, they're useful idiots when there was in their own countries. When they come to these other countries, there's nothing but colonizers.

Simone Collins: So quote one, tourists. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We have had our passports confiscated and are being detained.

Murphy managed to post it with social media from the standoff, calling it a blatant crackdown on the great march to Gaza. What a sanctimonious turd. Within hours the highway was cleared. If protestors, many bruised and some in tears. As multiple busloads of detained marchers were escorted under guard back towards Cairo, one Dutch participant recounted some of his group were beaten up by the police coming back, battered, bruised, and broken.

Well, these are a developing country that's fascist under like military rules. Police, of course. You are so lucky you didn't go to an Egyptian prison. You lucky, lucky b*****d. Even as they were being driven away, some activists continued to plead with Egyptian officers. Where is your heart? One British woman shouted in a widely shared clip.

But to no avail. I mean, of course not you, you don't understand the situation on the ground and, and these sorts of, where is your heart? That is not how Muslims communicate this. They're like, that is not how they communicate their support of the gazen people. They're not like, oh, where is your heart?

They're like, Hey, we're in this together to kill the Jews. If you had gone out there and said, let's kill the Jews together, you would've found a very different response. You just forgot what their ultimate goal is. No, and I mean this very seriously. I think that really the protestors had started saying, a bunch of anti-Semitic stuff. They would've had a very different response. You

Simone Collins: really think so? Oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh. In crime, where is your heart? If they started to be like, we need to the Jews, we need to get rid of them. We need to handle this. Some of the people in the crowd would be like, these people are speaking truth.

We might need to let them through. And it's because they haven't listened to why the average person in Egypt supports the Gazins. It's not for the reason they support the Gazins. Okay? It's not for the reason they support the cousins. Notable incidents. The clash at Islamia was marked by several dramatic moments.

Sky news footage showed Egyptian Ryan police manhandling protestors on the road, and Paul Murphy described how in the fray an American woman was in his group, was badly kicked and beaten. Her hijab turned off by police. Well, of, I mean, Egyptian agents also seized Murphy's phone midstream as he tried to document the scene.

His last message before the phone cut out said, violence got worse. After they seized my phone. They're taking a south than West towards Cairo for a time. Several dozen marchers, including Murphy, were held up in CTO on those buses as they were ferried back under guard to the capitol. This prompted diplomatic scrambling.

Ireland's embassy and others negotiated behind the scenes. And by the next day, June 14th, Egypt had released some detainees in Cairo rather than immediately deporting them, Murphy confirmed that he and a few others were back in a Cairo hotel by Saturday meeting shortly to decide next steps, he says, however, Egyptian authorities kept the pressure on activists reported plain clothes.

Police tailing them in Cairo, of course. And another roundup on Sunday 15th where some tried to quietly arrange to travel towards Sinai. Again, I love they're, they're trying to get past these police, but the we need police like this. We need police, like the police we have in Florida because we do have police like this in the us.

They know what's up. I gotta post that video of the Florida Police Chief. Oh gosh, we got this just not in la you know, we need the LA police chief saying this stuff

Florida Cop: If you resist lawful orders, you're going to jail. Let me be very clear about that. If you block an intersection or a roadway in Brevard County, you are going to jail. If you flee arrest, you're gonna go to jail, tired, because we are gonna run you down and put you in jail. If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the driver leave in our county, you're most likely gonna get run over and dragged across the street.

If you spit on us, you're going to the hospital and in jail, if you hit one of us, you're going to the hospital and jail and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here. If throw a brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at because we will kill you graveyard dead.

We're not gonna play. This has got to stop.

Simone Collins: your family will be called for to pick up your remains. Yeah, big, beautiful dogs that man,

Malcolm Collins: that man Murphy was detained a second time on June 16th.

Along with others, according to his political party. By that point, it was clear that the March wouldn't ever reach Gaza. Egyptians crackdown had effectively dismantled the protest before it even left Egyptian soil. Now what happened to the Samad? The Lan convoy waved Palestinian flags from a bus as they journeyed through Libya towards Egypt.

This is June 10th, 2025. This North African caravan of around 1,500 activists. So they were smaller. But but still very large. Yeah, it's a lot of, again, this is a

Simone Collins: lot of people to actually do something that takes effort,

Malcolm Collins: leave the house. But it too was stopped short of the border the Tunisian, a convoy.

In the meantime, the parallel Lan Corvoy from North Africa also ran into obstacles. This convoy had grown to one south, to one south 500 people in a multi bus caravan. By the time it crossed Tunisia Libya after an en enthusiastic sendoff in Tunisia, where crowds wave Palestinian flags, enchanted solidarity slogans, samad traverse, libya's western regions with the intention to reach Egypt by June 15th.

But on June 12th, when the convoy reached the city Ofcy and Central Libya, it was barred from further travel by the authorities of the Eastern Libyan government general Thar's factions. Haar is an ally , of Egypt's government, and his forces informed the convoy that Egypt had denied them entry.

Mm-hmm. Therefore, you will not pass. As one organizer quoted local officials. The convoy was allowed to camp on the outskirts of Csit while awaiting quote unquote permission, but that approval never came. I love how they just wait them out and stuff like that. It's a perfect way to handle them, be like, you just need to wait for permission.

Just wait out there in the desert and we'll come and let you know. And if you Yeah, it's uniquely

Simone Collins: trolley. Yeah, they, they clearly like, 'cause they could have just sent them away. They could have just sent them away and they're like,

Malcolm Collins: but it's a great way to deescalate. Right? Like, it reminds me of the 30 rock.

Like the pilots always say, wait 30 minutes. You know, just, just wait a little bit and we'll back. By late June 12th to 13th, Samad leaders knew they were effectively stuck in Libya. We didn't cross 2000 kilometers, all for nothing. Mark one frustrated organizer shouted to the gathered crowd in ee. Yet in reality.

They had Egypt's security influence extended beyond its borders, enlisting Libyan allies to prevent mass Arab marchers from showing up at Egypt's doorstep. So I, I found this to be really fascinating as well. It was quite well played by Egypt because it would've been an issue optically if they had a bunch of Arab people there as well.

Yeah. Instead of what's been all over social media, it's a bunch of woke looking urban monoculture. I mean, I've never seen a perfect depiction of the urban monocultures and what these protestors look like. I look at them. So sort of

Simone Collins: also strategic in who they let get far and then essentially

Malcolm Collins: handled.

Yeah. These annoying Irish guys and the, you know, all these sanctimonious turds the ones

Simone Collins: that Yeah. Even Gaza, sympathetic Egyptians would say okay, I don't object.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, no significant group of activists ever made it to the border.

Simone Collins: Wow. So this just. Utterly failed, I guess, where you and I differ in the expectations of these groups as they were planning and coming out, and at least over $4,000, sorry, over 4,000.

We, they don't

Malcolm Collins: go too long

Simone Collins: like you thought they were gonna make it. I just, I really don't think they thought they were gonna make it. I think maybe they thought they'd be comfortably set away and honestly, if anything, that they would just go on a nice vacation from wherever they got deported. Like maybe taking off from the Istanbul Airport, which is such a good hub airport that, that's my assumption here.

You really don't think so,

Malcolm Collins: keep in mind how many times they tried to reorganize the protest over and over again. They were trailed, they were then arrested. They then, no matter how bad things got, they kept trying to reorganize this. Okay. Even though they knew they could end up in Egyptian prisons, which is a big deal.

Simone Collins: Oof. Okay, keep going then.

Malcolm Collins: Wow. A few Egyptians citizens, a few tried to show solidarity, but were quickly restrained. For example, a few Egyptian activists rallied outside of journalist syndicate in Cairo on June 12th to support the march. Okay. Only to face police.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: And he hopes that quote unquote, the people would simply surge to Rafa was firmly quash by state power.

Okay. So accusations of treachery versus solidarity. The March's failure sparked a war of narratives. pro-Palestinian activists accused Egypt of betrayal given Egypt itself, portrays itself as Gaza's Lifeline Online. Hashtags like shame on you. Sissy trended in Arab activist circles condemning Egyptian regime for harassing those trying to feed Gaza.

They cited Egypt's complicity in the siege. For example, Egypt has often kept Rafa closed except for limited aid. Aligning with Israel's blockade one Algerian Marcher detained and Cairo Limited Arab bleeders pay lip service to the Palestinians, but crush anyone who actually tries to help. Why? Like, these people need to ask, why do they just, are they just meanies?

On the flip side, Egyptian state media defended the crackdown and painted the marchers as either naive or provocateurs. Some local commentators suggested that if the foreigners really wanted to help Gaza, they should protest in Tel Aviv or Washington, not Israel sorry, not Egypt. And, and that really would've aligned with the Egyptian people's view.

Like, why are you blocking our streets? Why are you disrupting our lives? And the leftists have gotten used to trying to protest the people who they think agrees with them more.

Hmm.

This has become a common thing where like, in the United States, the leftist Palestinian protestors often will much more frequently protest progressive politicians than protest conservative politicians.

They actually almost never protest conservative politicians. And I think that they tried to apply this to a global scale thinking, well, Egypt will be more sympathetic to us in Israel. Well, and that's just wrong that. Like patently shows a misunderstanding of the two country's stances. They would've found a much warmer reception in Israel.

This view, essentially take your protest to the right address, resonated with Egyptians who resented Western meddling. Even some ordinary, ordinary Egyptians supportive of Gaza in principle felt the march wrist spectacle that could have backfired by drawing Israeli ire or chaos to Egypt. Thus, the aftermath largely saw the Egyptian government come out on top.

And really all the activists did was reinforce the government's position that aid and, and traversal on the border should be extremely limited.

Hmm.

Inside Egypt, the government's firm response likely played well with regime's priorities. CC'S administration portrayed the event as proof of its vigilance.

There was no such significant backlash. So no backlash happened in Egypt. A fact that might surprise outsiders until one considers Egypt political climate under CEC, public protests are virtually outlawed, which is why they would've seen them as so upsetting and arrogant. Most Egyptians have been depoliticized or silenced under the fear of arrest.

And also, you know, when a government has this type of power, sometimes depoliticizing could be nice when you've had a lot of political violence over the last few decades which is, you know, what happened happened here. And if anything, sissy used this to burnish his strong man image showing he can stand up to foreign and pressure and maintain order.

So these people basically came in as like a. A face for like foreign pressure, even though no, like no foreign government was behind them. And it made him look like he was able to stand up to like the US and the UK and everything like that in a way that made him look good in front of his people. Like the, the broader urban monoculture.

These people sort of represented like the UN, for example, which they really do in terms of a, a, a viewpoint. Now I'll also note here that overall Egypt is very pro Gaza. 97% of Egyptians agreed that all Arab states should sever ize with Israel in protests of its actions in Gaza. Wow. And 96% believed Egypt should send more humanitarian aids to Palestinians.

96% of people believe this, and yet they still lost popular support by doing American style protests.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Now as to why governments do not want to take in. Gazen refugees. Let's go over a few instances just looking at Egypt. 2008 Hamas LED breach at Rafa 202, 700 k crossed. That's a lot. Wow.

That's, so, it sounds like

Simone Collins: Egypt let them come through at that point because, Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: No, they blew up the giant walls. And they raced through like they, they had preplanned it. They let the people know we're blowing up the walls and then the people flooded in. If, if you can imagine, this would be like, you're right next to like.

A country that is, is known for violence or something like that. Like imagine we were right next to Haiti or something, except Haiti was giant. And somebody blew up the walls between us and Haiti and, you know, 200,000 to 700,000 came in. Or imagine like Joe Biden imported that many people. What I'm saying is like, it's not like culturally the Egyptians are like, these people are not like us.

And we don't wanna let them in. And, and so this is something that Egypt, it caused major issues. There were a lot of death tied to this. There were like, this is something that the Egyptian people would have remembered and not thought fondly of.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean if, if, and okay, a lot of people crossing the border.

You said, what did you say? 700,000? You didn't say 700.

Malcolm Collins: 700,000 to 200,000.

Simone Collins: That's crazy. Okay. So, obviously, you know, deporting them would take time and a lot of work, but presumably they were systematically deported. Right?

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of them ended up staying, like forming. What often happens with Goins and we'll get into well we actually won't get into this today 'cause we just took in too much time, is when they move to other countries, they form ghettos where they become radicalized and then often attempt to attack the local governments.

Yeah, but wouldn't they

Simone Collins: try to take out those ghettos if indeed they are.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe, I mean, the current government in Egypt, Egypt is very effective. And I doubt many people would notice or care if the gazen ghettos were being taken out. So, 2014 to 2015, a few years later buffer zone expansion tunnels flooded.

Thousands of homes destroyed mass demolitions forced evictions. 31 soldiers killed a large residential displacement. 2023 to 2025 Gaza War. Medical evacuations, 2,200 wounded entered strict vetting humanitarian aid only. So this is like, from their perspective, we're strictly vetting who's coming in.

We're just gonna take in some wounded during the war. Now if you're looking at the various insurrections they caused, you have Jordan 1970 to 1971 attempted PLO led overthrow black. September 3000 to 5,000 people died. So this is 3000 to 5,000. Oh my gosh. Jordanian citizens died. And they attempted to assassinate the Monarch who let them in graciously giving them places to live, creating communities for them.

This is the way Gaza's act. Like there's a reason why other people aren't letting them in. There's a reason why these walls are giant. Lebanon, 1975 to 1990 civil War was Palestinian militias. Over a hundred thousand people died. PLO operated state was in a state, sparked a sectarian war, and tried to take over the Lebanese government.

So, over a hundred thousand people died because of their kindness to the Palestinian people trying to let them in or trying to give them a place to live.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's one of those patterns of. Fool me once. Shame on me, fool. Oh, hold on.

Malcolm Collins: No, this, this more Syria. Oh, what? 2011 to 2018 Civil War Yakima Siege and insurgency.

3000 to 5,000 people. Palestinian faction split between regime and opposition. No. What was interesting about this one is it

the mainstream administration actually brought in Palestinian refugees to act as soldiers for them while some that were already in the country ended up splitting and going for

opposition faction. And this just sort of shows that even the faction is like, oh no, I need blood thirsty people to kill my enemies.

Where am I gonna find the random mobs? Oh, I'll just import a bunch of Palestinians to kill people. Which, which was the, the idea here. And it worked. Kuwait, 1991, mass expulsions and backlash hundreds of people died. PLO supported Saddam's invasion. Kuwait viewed it as betrayal. So in Kuwait when Saddam attacked the Palestinians who they had accepted into their country and treated its guests and got set up, immediately turned, traitor, incited with Saddam's regime again, oh my gosh.

Yeah, they're not exactly people you want in your country. Libya 1995 to 1996, mass expulsions, no uprising political ship under gii. It led to backlash. So they, they just pushed them out before there was a major issue. But the point being is that when you look at this, you're like, oh, this is why the heads of these countries are terrified of these people coming in.

This is why the walls between the two countries in Egypt look like, not the piddly little walls between Egypt and and Gaza, but they look like. A, a multiplicative version of the Tyrannosaurus sprints in Jurassic Park which shows the threat that the Egyptian government perceives from this region.

Simone Collins: That's I wonder, so if I were speaking with someone on the left, because it, the problem is that no one I've heard talk about Gaza has addressed this. If you could get someone to have, like, to, to this point in the conversation and say, well, what is a government to do given this track record? What do you think that a pro, like any one of these people who put their time and their money on the line to participate in this project, what would they say?

Malcolm Collins: The left will assume about reality, whatever would be moral if true. Okay. So they will say it would be more moral if everyone was equally beautiful. So they'll say everyone is equally beautiful. Yeah. It'd be more moral if that homeless guy was homeless because of stuff that was nothing to do with his fault.

So they'll say, okay, nothing to do with his fault. It'd be more moral if everyone was born with equal capacity. So they'll say everyone is born equally capable. Okay. It's, it's all just environment. Sure. They will say the only reason that the Gaza's are doing this is because they've been wronged before or because you know, that, that Israel is mean to them.

And that has created this behavior in the Gaza people. And that, that if Israel just became super nice and all the Jews decided to leave and gave the country back to them, impact to them. I, I don't really believe in that term, but this is, I'm talking from a leftist perspective, right? Because from my perspective, the people who were in Israel before the native population, the Jewish population reclaimed it were colonizers.

They had you know, under the Ottoman Empire, forcibly deported the Jewish people in the same way the Americans did with like Native Americans. And it's always shocking to me that in the one region where like the native population has actually re conquered the region they're like, no. Like we need to give it back to the colonizers because the colonizers have the right skin tone.

And it's like giving wherever you are in the world, in the United States, if like the Seminoles took back Florida it would be really bloody. Like that's what it looks like, what the left is actually advocating for. And where it actually happened in one location in the world, they were like, oh no, the reverse it.

And they'll have things. I always talk about how like there's this leftist meme of like Mount Rushmore. And it's like, can you believe this like defaced Native American monument? Like, you know, this is, this is horrifying. And I'm like, that is like nothing compared to the Temple of the Rock. Literally on top of the single and most holy site in all of Jerusalem as like a giant and intentional deface of it.

And that the Jews within Jerusalem don't even move it. They don't, they don't get rid of it. They don't, they, they allow Muslims to still pray, pray there like that, that shows an incredible amount of magnanimity when they're you know, have the wailing wall where they cry and restoration of their temple every day, and they can control this region, right.

You know? So, so I think that that shows this, this, that this is an area that was taken to them by a colonial force, a big empire. Multiple big empires. There were multiple Arab empires in the Ottomans and stuff like that, who took the region from them and, and had various waves of deportations.

It wasn't just, you know, one wave of deportation. But you know, I, the thing is this to the left. That would be inconvenient if it was true. So they say it's not true. They say, actually the Jews never really were in the area long enough. Or, you know, they, in their religious text that said they migrated to the region.

The problem is, is that their genes show that they didn't at least 50% of them are canine in origin. So, at least 50% of the Jewish population. And, and that's about as much as you can hope for, for like, going back to the very beginning of human history have been in the region since the very, very beginning of human history.

And, and to say, okay, well, you know, they, they don't wanna believe any of that, right? So they, they will just take an interpretation of all these events. It'd be the most moral interpretation, which is, well the Jews because they won, and, they must be the aggressors. And, and and they must be the bad guys because they're not the right skin tone and the people they're fighting against are weaker than them.

And the weaker side is always the good guy because that's the way all our stories work. Right. You know, it couldn't possibly be that, that, you know, that the, that they keep committing atrocities or something like this. And if they are repeatedly committing atrocities those atrocities must be due to the way they've been treated.

And, and not due to, you know, that that would be the

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or that Yeah, like this, any uprising they had or any violence they committed was in response to apparently undocumented or suppressed or otherwise k hold action taken against them. That they were only fighting back and that it was, it was framed.

Differently is, is that kind of how Yeah, well,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I've heard what the, their narratives are on the Israeli-Palestinian, like historic relationship, and it's often mostly fictional. Is Israel really brought a number of like really fair deals to the table about how the situation could be fixed.

And when I say fair, I mean fair, where the alternative wasn't get rid of the Jews. And e every time they did the many deals that were quite generous to the Palestinians the, the Palestinians basically said, no, it's get rid of the Jews. That's what we want.

If you wanna get a great and really funny short primer on the history of this situation. Dava Hatti who does unbiased Rome, which generally is pretty anti-Semitic in its takes, which I think shows that he's not, you know, particularly sympathetic to the Jewish people and how he goes over this. He just finds the situation funny, how far they've bent over backwards trying to create peace in the region.

, He did a piece on this called, , unbiased Israel History and it's really good and I'd suggest you check it out if you like this channel and sort of the mix of information and humor.

but not even their constant tunnel building could stop Israel's quest for peace. In 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Robin and Arafat under the auspices of Bill Clinton, signed the Oslo Accords, giving the PLO recognition and tons of self-governance, just asking them to stop being terrorists in return.

After a little trolling later came Prime Minister Barak to finish the deal, offering 90% of the West Bank, many settlements to be destroyed, east Jerusalem, allowing many 1948 refugees to return. It was everything Palestinians could practically hope for. Arafat was such a great offer for a Palestinian state at hand.

He launched the second Itif father and ensure a peace despite the second Itif father being over Arafat dying and Mr. Abba succeeding him to power. Sharon's big Jewish heart still yearned for long-term peace. As a show of goodwill, he pulled his Israeli troops and settlements out of Gaza, and the Palestinians followed the up by using their newfound self-governance.

By voting for Hamas things, then got too rowdy. The PLO kicked Hamas from the West Bank and kept an illegal hold on power, and Hamas bombed the PLO out of Gaza. The Gaza strip was blockaded. Unemployment rose to 50% living. Standards crashed, and most money sent to Gaza was turned into rockets. So betrayed was Charron.

He fell into a permanent coma unto his death.

I will note here something I've heard a few times, which has always really shocked me, is comparing the Israeli situation right now to apartheid, which I've just found bizarre. A region in which some ethnicities are treated less than other ethnicities are given specific restrictions when contrast with other ethnicities.

Is not an apartheid like region, that's an insult to apartheid. In, within that, like modern South Africa would be apartheid because you know, Elon Musk, despite being South African, can't do business there without, you know,

30%.

of his business being owned by a black person. Right? Like that, that would consider that apartheid.

What we instead are seeing. Is when Israel was liberated by the colonizers who had you know, the various colonial Arab empires whether it was the, the, the Ottomans or whether it was the various imper Arab waves of conquest had extracted a lot of the Jewish population and attempted to replace them.

In, in those periods. Within Muslim law there is sort of a second class citizen status for non-Muslims, which is in a way a lot nicer than you have within a lot of Christian systems. So I'm not gonna say like this is a horrible thing, but, but Jews did live as second class citizens within that system when they took over.

If you look at Muslims living within Israel today. Who are not within these, in incred, these regions that basically say our goal is to eradicate the Jews. They have a much higher quality of living than Muslims in pretty much any other Muslim country I've gone to except for the wealthy parts of like Dubai and Qatar and stuff like that.

And, the reason for this is yes, they do have some restrictions applied to them in the same way that, like whites in, in South Africa today might have some restrictions applied to them. But they are less than even the restrictions in South Africa today. And I'd also note that , the.

Restrictions that were placed on Jews in Muslim ruled Israel pre all of this were much less than the restrictions put on blacks in apartheid South Africa. So in, in both instances it's lower, but , I'm just pointing out that it was more restrictive before this. If you don't include the territories where the stated goal of those territories is the eradication of the Jewish people.

And from my perspective to demand that the Jewish people let people who say. My goal is the eradication of the Jewish people just freely roam their country. They do let Muslims live in their country and live quite well

Which I would contrast here with almost every majority Muslim country on earth, where most Jews would be killed if they attempted to live there, either by the state or by just the local population. , You know, Muslims live in Israel, Jews don't live in Gaza. You know, Muslims live in Israel. Jews don't live in Iran.

I find it absolutely laughable when I hear somebody be like. Well, what about the Muslims who still have the keys to their homes in Jerusalem? And it's like, well, what about the Jews who still have the keys to their homes in any of those Muslim countries? They were kicked out of? Which they were kicked out of.

Oh, you were unaware that that happened. Oh, and that it happened at greater numbers. Oh, okay. Why didn't you even think to look into the, oh, because you're drip fed a lie.

So even if you personally aren't anti-Semitic, if you were unaware of this fact, you need to ask yourself why would the people who control the information sources that you get information from hide this from you? By the way, if you're wondering about the exact numbers in terms of Jews expelled from Muslim countries during that period, it was around 850,000 to a million.

In regards to Palestinians who were expelled, it was 700,000 to 770,000. And if you're like, well, it's wrong either way, then why haven't you ever campaigned once about the Jews?

They don't live in, a lot of these Muslim majority countries. And that's what makes this. Demand is so unfair to me. Oh, you have to let more Muslims live in Israel. Well, why not more Jews? Why don't you care that Jews get killed when they live in these other countries because you're anti-Semitic?

I mean, it's very obvious that these people are just anti-Semitic or that they simply haven't thought this through. I.

to demand that they let not. Not just Muslims, which they do, but Muslims who say that they want to eradicate them

That they have to let these people who say my like core goal in life is killing Jews to live alongside the Jews in the Jewish centers of power. .

That's anti-Semitic by, that's just like comically anti-Semitic.

And to deny that these people exist, and I understand the progressives will, they're like, oh, nobody could really want the eradication of another people. And it's like, well, look to history. Look at what's happened over and over again in Israel. Like clearly they actually do listen to what they're saying.

Look at the actual Hamas charter.

and I can understand how leftist can be like, well, they, they took their land or whatever, right?

Like, if you don't consider that this land was ever really Jewish, which they don't

mm-hmm.

They don't consider that the Jews were, you know, taken from their land by colonizers which they were. But because of that, because they take that perspective. They're like, well, the Jews really should have just given up the land and left Israel.

But of course, the Jews aren't gonna do that because it's not just like the Holocaust they're dealing with. It's all of the pogroms. Every time they settled somewhere, every time they weren't the majority within a country, they had mass slaughter. This happens like every 50 years for the Jewish people.

Like it's not like a one, it's not like a one-time thing was a holocaust. This was happening over and over and over and over again in medieval Europe. And when I look at the anti Semitic flareup we've had in the United States, anti-Semitic flareup we've had in the uk, I, I I can say without a doubt that this is not a phenomenon stuck in history that, that a Jew would say, look, I'm really not safe without a land of my own.

And, and we built this place into somewhere prosperous, and we took what was essentially desert , and built it into a thriving technological hub. It, it seems a little unfair to give it back at this point. Well

Simone Collins: also with apparently Hamas acknowledging that they wanna kind of keep. Keep some of the Jews around to Yeah.

Read what

Malcolm Collins: Hamas said they wanted to do was when they, when they raided and took Israel, they're like, well, we'll, we'll kill a lot of them, but the ones who are like economically productive, we'll keep them and essentially use them as slaves. They, their plan was not to export the Jews. If that's what you think their goal was.

They're like, no, Jews are economically productive,

Simone Collins: but you're actually helping me think about the whole Gaza situation in light of this protest. Yeah. And in a new light of, of this, the reason why there's such a different perception of reality despite all the apparent issues. 'cause I mean, I think it's easy to be myopically focused just on October, And just, just those isolated atrocities and be like, okay, small group of people got a little outta hand.

On the claim of this being a small group that got out of hand, it was a group that was organized by Hamas, a government that was elected by a higher majority than the Nazis were elected in Germany.

Simone Collins: That's not all of the, you know, that's not all the people of Gaza and they were reacting to. Whatever is Israeli attempts at genocide. But then when you go back and, and you just see every attempt that countries made to maybe accommodate them to be nice to them and to hope

Malcolm Collins: them and to you see that punished for that in a beef they have with Israel.

It's a beef they have with everyone and that's why other Muslims keep them near Israel because they hate Israel.

Simone Collins: Well, and this being a very, yeah, well just, just in general, a very unstable population that now is being used. By Qatar and Iran is like a cudgel to use against their enemies.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But they don't care about them.

They see it as a disposable cudgel.

Simone Collins: Right. Well, which is also, I mean, extra convenient. You don't wanna use your own assets to, if you talk to Iranians,

Malcolm Collins: Like in positions of power about this they really see them as, as quite inhuman. They, they see them as completely disposable assets. Well,

Simone Collins: which makes sense when you look at what Hamas is encouraged to do.

And, you know, they use innocent defenseless people as human shields. Well,

Malcolm Collins: you know, you talk about that, but this is their entire mindset. So the video of a mom who had her kids die , in Gaza. And she is, is laughing and cheering and doing dances. And then she says she hopes her grandkids get to die too.

What? Because she is so excited that they got to die in, in, in a conflict with Jews because that is how much she hates the Jews. And. That this is the mindset that you're dealing with here. You think, oh, my kids died. What a horrible tragedy. The people of Gaza think it's a fiesta. Like, when you have that mindset towards anyone who's an outsider, and keep in mind this isn't just for the Jews.

Like if they were fighting against Jordan, she'd feel the same way. If they were fighting against you, you can't like that sort of culture. You, you need to work really hard to dismantle it, and that's very difficult to do.

Simone Collins: Yikes. Yeah. So, but, but you can't, literally, that interpretation of reality is impossible if you are a part of the urban monoculture, which again, takes whatever the most morally comfortable interpretation of reality is, and the only way to morally, comfortably interpret what has happened.

And what they are doing is to say everything is a desperate reaction to even more egregious behavior. Yeah. And then, and then of course you're disturbed 'cause you're like, wow, if this is their desperate, if whatever they're reacting to is way, way, way worse than this, then the things that are happening to them are truly unforgivable.

Getting much truly. Yeah. And we just have to end it. And if we just end that they won't do anything bad anymore. Like when they're reacting, like in defense, we were

Malcolm Collins: put in a human zoo and stuff like that. Uhhuh, you know, and it's like, well look at the walls on the, on the Israeli side and look at the walls on the Egyptian side.

Mm-hmm. Who was really like, this isn't a a, you know, a cage that was created by one people. This was a cage that was created by all of their neighbors who independently learned it was necessary. Mm. Like, but, but they can't see that. They can't see that one culture might be more violent. I couldn't

Simone Collins: understand it before.

I couldn't understand it before. Now I feel like you're helping me understand it, which is that this has to be re a reaction, a defensive reaction, to even more egregious behavior. And if, if I thought that was true. Then I could see myself fighting for the same cause that Yeah. The pro Gaza people are fighting for because , , that would be terrifying if it were true.

It's not true.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. Hold, hold on. I note here when we're talking about egregious behavior, we're talking about egregious behavior. Before the attacks, after the attacks, there has been a lot of civilian casualties. Oh yeah. I will note that I just don't see what other choice Israel has. Yeah. Like their, their sons and daughters are still in caves being traded as slave.

Simone Collins: Well, but again, like what you see slaves Israel doing is, is what I think the, the Gaza supporters think Gaza is doing. Right. Israel is responding in a very violent and, and terrifying way. To something even more violent and terrifying that happened to them. But

Malcolm Collins: Israel would stop if they just released the prisoners like that.

That's it. Like, it's, so one of the things there is, is all you need to do is for the prisoners to be released. And this ends and this idea that you would be pro and, and Israel will not stop until the prisoners are released. I, I'm God is not gonna release

Simone Collins: the prison. They're not gonna do that.

Malcolm Collins: Which, which means that Israel will keep going.

Yeah. And so if you're like a person who thinks that you can get Israel to abandon its sons and daughters to the great place to, to be for the rest of their lives, likely if they don't get them back Israel's not gonna do that. It is real. It just won't like, like there's no way that a country could accept that degree of indignity or a people could accept that degree of indignity.

And with that being the case this war is gonna continue until that ends.

I say this not because it's logical or fair or anything like that there's a huge difference between losing your kid as a collateral casualty and a war or something like that. You know, knowing one of my kids died that way and knowing one of my kids was actively tied up in a cave, being used as a grape slave, and that was likely the fate that they were gonna suffer for the rest of their lives if we didn't go through with this.

And I'm not saying it's fair, I'm not saying it's fair that if you say. Oh, Malcolm, you've already killed 50,000 people to save your one kid. Like, are you gonna stop now? Like, I'd be like, no. It wouldn't even cross my mind. And I think while there's a few cultural groups, like maybe Urban Monocultural, people wouldn't feel that way.

I think the vast majority of parents on Earth would feel that way, and they'd feel that way about their kin as well. Like my cousins, my extended family as well. If I knew that one of their kids was tied up in a cave being used that way and would be for the rest of their lives if I didn't make a point to save them.

Everything would be on the table for me, and that's what I mean when I say, if you actually care about stopping this, regardless of what you think of Israel, the only way to do it is to free the hostages.

And so I think if you're talking about like international pressure of what you actually care about, it's the people of Gaza and not getting rid of the Jews. This is what is often the case if among like the, the base population in these Arab countries, which is why they care less about the destruction in Gaza and more about Yeah, but let's just keep this going, right.

Like Iran wants, right? The way that you end this is by putting pressure on Gaza to release the refugees that the hostages.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But Gaza's not gonna do that. Ga Gaza wants this conflict.

Malcolm Collins: Gaza. Yeah. Well, and, and, and, and Israel does, and Hamas loses its reason to be in power. If it doesn't, if it doesn't keep the conflicts going.

Well, it's,

Simone Collins: I mean, I I also get the impression that, that, you know, they're being funded again by these countries that are using them as a cudgel that don't care about. Their safety, their ability to

Malcolm Collins: thrive, or, well, they don't see them as fully human. I mean, I, I, I can, one of the things that people really misunderstand about Muslims is Muslims often see other Muslims with huge variations and degrees of humanity.

Simone Collins: Well, do you think it's kind of, I mean, you're describing a worse situation than what we encountered in Latin America in terms of just like we don't. Like this, this idea of Latinx or Latino or No, no, no, no.

It's way bigger, bigger,

Malcolm Collins: bigger. If you talk about like bigger, we, we've, we've talked about how Latin Americans will they're not, they don't

Simone Collins: see themselves as Latin Americans. They see themselves as Peruvian or Ecuadorian co east

Malcolm Collins: between different countries. They'll be like, how dare you think I'm like Colombian or something?

Yeah. Like the Colombians are like whatever, stereotype or whatever. That is not what you get. I've heard words like cockroaches used to describe other countries, populations and stuff like that. I wouldn't never hear that from a Latin America now a lot American. No, no, no, no, no. Sound like

Simone Collins: you sound like a Cuban.

Yeah, but it wouldn't, it's not, they wouldn't

Malcolm Collins: say they're cocky, humanizing,

Simone Collins: yeah. It's, it's, it's not dehumanizing. It's more like team sports.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Within Muslim countries, that is not the case. Mm. Okay. Even if they may believe they have a shared cause many of them believe that they are quite superior to the others.

Simone Collins: Well, and that's, so Yeah. What's, what's so screwed up is that the countries that are most monetarily and logistically supportive of. Hamas and Gazen are those that are literally hurting them the most. They're just using them as weapons. They don't care. That's so screwed up, screwed up,

Malcolm Collins: screwed up. Well, the gazen don't care that they don't care if you look at this woman who's dancing 'cause their kids died.

Like th this is the way they, they're like, oh well we're using them as well because they don't understand. They we, this is our easy path to heaven. I don't like this. They see, and this is literally the way they see it. They see incite conflict, get killed, get into heaven automatically. That's why they want the conflict.

Simone Collins: Their lives are not, not quite. And then

Malcolm Collins: what you're getting is like a twisted version of this that's coming through like Western media that's meant to like play to Western sympathies. Well

Simone Collins: then, I mean, is the leftist hope that like, I mean I think the leftist hope is we, we save the gazen and then we basically colonize them with our leftist culture.

Because I mean obviously, you know, the long game wouldn't be them just letting them be as they are. Then they wouldn't? No,

Malcolm Collins: because they don't believe they, they believe that because they're like , a brown culture or a bipoc culture. They don't need, like, they're gonna say like, oh, that's not

Simone Collins: the long, come on.

You know the truth. I know that's not

Malcolm Collins: the long game. The long game is to erase all of their cultural fidelity 100%. But they don't actually plan to do that in the near future. , They like have no plan.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It'd be great if that was in near, this is one of those places in which I'm like, okay, let the urban monoculture erase this.

If you wanna see another instance where we ended up feeling this way, it was when Pakistan's primary religious authority voted that it was Islamophobic to ban child marriages. And this is a country where kids are regularly married at the ages of six or nine.

Like, this is if you, if you're okay with your kids, I, all right. Okay. What do you want for dinner?

Malcolm Collins: But you've got some miso soup in the fridge. I can, so I can

Simone Collins: do miso and Giza if you want.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Miso. I'm open to like solid foods again. So a little bit of Giza. Not many, like Like four. Four max. Yeah. Okay. Four Giza.

And I'll probably eat like two And miso.

Simone Collins: No, but

Malcolm Collins: not as much. Maybe just no no tofu.

Simone Collins: Oh, like four little chunks.

Malcolm Collins: Like four little chunks. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I was trying to give you more protein yesterday. I know. You were like, I don't need that much. You do need protein though now. Oh, God forbid our audience here that you, you consume soy products.

Oh, no. Anyway, I'll start. You're an Indian and Oh my God. Hang in there. I love you. Actually,

Malcolm Collins: why don't you just do one of the beef zas and then two of the vegetable zas.

Simone Collins: Well, now we're up to five. Huh? Okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, just one beef, two vegetables at three.

Simone Collins: Oh, just three. Oh, I thought you said three.

Okay. All right.

Malcolm Collins: One beef, two vegetables.

Simone Collins: That few. Okay. Okay. Do you want me to bring you up to your room so you can nap?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. I'll come down and eat with you guys tonight.

Simone Collins: You sure? Because I'm, you're, you're still looking. A little greener on the gills. Am

Malcolm Collins: I?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I'll

Malcolm Collins: get through it.

Simone Collins: Okay. I love you.

I'll be glad to see you. I love you too. Are you still feeling the fatigue or is it mostly gone?

Malcolm Collins: It's just that all of a sudden I'll get super tired.

Hmm.

So I basically have periods where I'm feeling fine, and then after about two and a half hours of working or doing something, I had to crash out. So that's, that's where I am in recovery right now. By the way, I, I love this article.

What, what newspaper was this in The Atlantic?

Simone Collins: Which one?

Malcolm Collins: The Atlantic that they talked about. I love your quote here. If I spend an afternoon with the kids, the house is cleaner than it was before. The kids are all well behaved. They're fed, they're all dressed. They look neat and tidy. I. She told me if Malcolm spends an afternoon with the kids, I come home, they're naked.

Their faces are smattered with candy smudges. Many women, she said, don't accept this anarchic brand of dad parenting. So they cut back and do the work themselves. If we revise that and made it more normalized to have kids that are more chaotically parented in a more chill way, she said, I think women would be more comfortable not leaning out.

I think it's true. Yeah. Well, no, it is. It is. It is true. But I love your description of, of me as a parent. Just to be fair, our children just

Simone Collins: really love taking off their clothes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I don't put them back on. I'm just like, you don't bother. Yeah. They're not gonna get sick or something. I keep their underwear on generally.

Yeah. You

Simone Collins: don't bother to like constantly wipe their faces and I don't know what is up with Titan, but she just can't seem to eat food without like distributing it. You don't

Malcolm Collins: give them candy either. I, they're with dad and it's candy time all the time.

Simone Collins: Ooh. RFK would just shoot you on site, drive a steak through your heart. Thank goodness you, I am a child who

Malcolm Collins: grew up in the nineties. I understand the value of fruit rollups and dunkaroos. You, my friend, do not,

Simone Collins: we literally walked out grocery, grocery store aisles and you're like, our children need these things.

You're, you're like the equivalent of a, an almond mom or a crunchy mom. But like with the opposite things, like they're not getting enough processed food.

Malcolm Collins: I know. I literally, where's

Simone Collins: the red dye number?

Malcolm Collins: 40? I am you know, the old Nickelodeon zones and everything like that. That is my understanding of nutrition.

It's like they need to have more, more slime. They need to have more.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Go-Gurt.

Malcolm Collins: Do they use gogurt? Does Gogurt even

Simone Collins: exist anymore? I don't think so.

Malcolm Collins: No. I wouldn't give them Gogurt. That's too close to yogurt. Oh God. I wouldn't give them Lunchables or something. Simone, we're talking about like gushers here.

Come on. We're talking about like the good stuff. Come on. I don't know. I feel like

Simone Collins: because feasts became a thing that Lunchables must have been more beloved than gushers. To be clear,

Malcolm Collins: Gushers are still around, sweetheart. Oh, gushers. They

Simone Collins: never went outta style, right? Never

Malcolm Collins: went outta style. Well, because gushers are delicious.

What?

Simone Collins: I'm just like toasty. I refuse to eat candy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One of our kids refuses to eat candy. I want

Simone Collins: real food. Yeah, but he wants, wants get a unwrap it. He wants to unwrap the candy and then just throw it away. Oh yeah. He

Malcolm Collins: wants to unwrap it and then give it to his siblings.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Remember, you gotta get a video of him doing the I want real food so that when he becomes and insert his food company, he can call it real food and do real food.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: That's, that's gonna be, yeah. His right, his business.

Join us as we delve deep into an analysis of a leftist article to understand the core reasons behind the left's failing strategies and potential recovery methods. We'll explore the shifts in public opinion, impactful cultural issues, and the role of bad actors in the trans movement. Discover insights on how leftist activists can reconnect with mainstream public sentiment and navigate the complexities of modern advocacy.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be analyzing a piece that was written by Leftists and I think is the closest to understanding why they are actually failing and how they can reverse course. Ooh. Which is in a way concerning for me for a long time fighting the left.

It feels a bit like fighting the in Star Trek,

Basically every communist revolution ever.

Speaker: Hi, I'm King Packled

Speaker 2: It is an honor to meet you, sir.

Speaker 3: I'm emperor of the packs.

Speaker 4: Okay,

Speaker 5: the big helmets. Were no longer controller.

I'm now park leader. Be.

Malcolm Collins: where it's this race. It is. manevelent, but it is also tremendously stupid and ugly. Oh, okay. And so, like, they're, they're just like lumbering idiots, and they keep making mistakes and they're like, I bet it's because men are misogynist, that Kamala didn't win.

There's been a recent one that I might even wanna analyze if people want me to go deeper into it. There's like a big leftist analysis of how Trump manipulated results working with like Teal and Elon. And it's very much like a mirrored version of the right wing thing.

Wow. How

interesting. And I, I found it interesting because the way that they argued felt very much like the, the first time around, right?

It was almost like they studied, or they were even part of that first time around phenomenon, and now they're on the other side, whoever, whoever was doing this because they clearly had practice. So that'd be interesting to go into. But this one, it was from an article in The Guardian. You know, our personal PR team no, nobody gives us more free press than they do.

Getting guardian reporters to come to our house and report on us. There's been like 12 pieces this year, by the way. , Often feels a bit like this scene was the pcakled

Speaker 6: we are pack led. We are honest traitors. Oh, we need information. Oh, I, I, I don't know anything. You are pack led? Yes, we are pack led. Oh, then you have knowledge. You are not stupid. Well, no, we are not stupid. Then you will beam over and tell us what we need to know.

Oh no, though I'm afraid I will not be. Over why you are clinging on. We are pack lit. I do not understand you it is difficult to understand.

Well then you must come aboard our ship and explain why you are afraid to come aboard. Yes, I will do that. I will beam over and explain. , You are a good negotiator captain. Yes, but we are pack led.

Malcolm Collins: They really hate us by the way, but they, they're good at pumping out pieces on us, and they, they're, they're actually the least accurate of all the news sources that write on us. I, like, I've never seen any other news source make as many factual errors as the Guardian does. And I'm including tabloids here which has really surprising me.

But again, like a lot of old good newspapers like Vice and the NF, Alans vr, you know, Kirsha thing. Mm-hmm. Like, people would be like, what Vice is like the number one mistake publication on you? And Kirsha would be like, yeah. Like, they just make stuff up. You know, and so, it's interesting that publications that really stick to journalistic integrity one that has by the way, is the, the New York Times.

They're very diligent in, in checking things whenever they do a piece on us, but. To this instead of some insider baseball here. Let's go over this piece. We're gonna cut into like midway through it, it's called, how does the Woke Stark winning? Again, British progressives have suffered major setbacks in recent years, in both public opinion and court rulings.

Was the backlash inevitable and are new tactics needed by Gabby Siff? And I just hope that nobody hires this woman to do any strategy for the you know, the Labor Party or the Dems, right? That that'd be a little worrying to me. Or, or sorry, in the uk. She would probably be helping the Conservative Party because they're so woke.

But anyway, anyway, anyway, a joke there. The to, robert went Mute is a professor of human rights law at King's College London, a gay man who worked for decades on anti-discrimination test cases and helped draft the so-called yata principles, a founding statement of the campaign for self-identification, or the right for trans people to gain legal recognition in their preferred sexual orientation or gender identity without requiring a doctor's diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

In a 2005 book, he argued that LGB people had a moral duty to speak out for the T. His new book, transgender Rights Verse, women's Rights from Conflicts to Coexistence explains why he changed his mind. So what I find really interesting here, and I think that this is what Wokes should have been doing mm-hmm.

Is exploring why people who used to be on their team, or it used to be like Unmitigated Lee on their team, switched their beliefs. You know, I see a lot of people, you know, they'll look at like JK Rowling and they'll be like, okay, she went transphobic, right. And it's like, but like. I have never seen a leftist really deeply try to understand what changed her mind in this area.

Yeah. It's clear she's not a conservative Christian and she certainly didn't have any alliance, was the old conservative movement, like why did she change her position on the, the, the, from one of, of, of unmitigated trans support to trans skepticism and. With Elon, it's less of a question for people.

A lot of people like this is a personal beef with his kid. And I think that that's part of it. But the question is, is why did he even begin to start that personal beef with his kid, right? Mm-hmm. Like, or you can look at individuals like us who have gone to the right, right? Like we used to be leftists.

Right? Right. Solidly leftists. And now I consider myself solidly a rightist on, on almost every issue. Like we're not even, you know, toe dippy about this stuff at this point. Right. And, and a lot of people would be like, well, you, you're not like racist or antisemitic or like, yeah, that's not the right, okay.

You don't like hate gay people. It's like, that's not the right, you know, I've, I, I've done a lot of episodes supporting the right for different cultures who'll have different perceptions of things like this. And I think that that's all we can really hope to win as the right, right now, you know, fight.

Absolutely. To not have like Mormons canceled because they hold Mormon beliefs. Yeah. We're,

Simone Collins: we're just fighting for cultural sovereignty, which is so different from what. We grew up thinking the right was about

Malcolm Collins: well, because the right wasn't about that when we grew up, they had enough power to enforce their cultural

Simone Collins: Yeah.

It, it, it, at the time was the party of cultural imperialism. And now that has inverted,

Malcolm Collins: they, they, they had enough power to enforce their beliefs on the general population through voting. And now the urban monoculture is the core cultural force. So the people who are resistant to it, which was mostly weirdos like us and religious conservatives and people who just wanna be able to live their lives without being constantly harassed for being men.

You know, they all find common ground with each other in a way that, that can confuse some people who assume that we're still dealing with the party from 30 years ago.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't know why people just like, don't update. I, I guess a lot of them are like sad that things changed. Like the left is sad that they're no longer the party being oppressed, and so they just pretend that they're not and the right, no, I

Simone Collins: genuinely think they don't know that.

Just like we, we receive literal physical hate mail from people who still read Paul Ehrlich's book, the population bom and literally think there are too many people and, and that we're gonna overpopulate and not be able to feed everyone. Wow. So I think people just don't update very easily.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. It makes sense.

Okay, so let's continue here. So this guy used to be like as pro trans as you could be, and then he flipped against it. Mm-hmm. And people might ask like, why are you so focused on the trans issue? Before I go further, why are conservatives so focused on this issue when it applies to such a small number of people?

And there are a number of reasons for this. The first is the scale of the wrong being committed is astronomical. Even if it's only a few people, if the left normalized guys going around like, like far leftist guys and no one else gets to, you know, every Sunday at school flash the other kids like, you'd be like and they, they're like, well, only a few kids participate in this per state.

And it's like, it doesn't matter. Like if, if, if they had like fighting rings where like men got to beat up on, on little girls, right? Like, you'd be like, and they're like, ah, this only happens a few times a year. And it's like, it doesn't matter. Like. The, the, the, the shock of it and the shock of the dehumanization involved in it.

And as well as the, the lack of consent that's required. You know, you have this phenomenon where it was the gay movement. They wanted to be able to live life the way they wanted to be able to live. It was the trans movement. It's that they want to force you to, to recognize their lifestyle. They want to be able to force you without your consent to gender them in the way they want to be gendered.

And that's just cultural imposition. You know, e especially if they're not passing. And most conservatives, as I've seen, do correctly gender people who pass. But the specific instance of individuals who clearly get off on violating other people's consent and intentionally not passing like Alec Van Menon or something like that.

This is a kink, like this is not whatever we were told dysphoria was. And so, the fact that they cannot just violate people's consent. Wantonly and they're supported by the dominant culture, but they can violate children's consent wantonly, and regularly do this.

For example, look at the way people dressed at like drag reading hour at children's, bookstores and stuff like that. , This is clearly not people who just want to pass as another gender. , This is a sexualized outfit that is closer to something like going to a children's bookstore in lingerie.

This is an outfit that is used. To express one's sexuality, not one's gender, and to impose that on children. That is why, even if it's happening rarely, the fact that you cannot help us prevent this means that we need to keep getting louder and louder on this issue.

You know, this is where I have to come back and be like, okay, like even if it's a small number of people it's, it's something we need to like address as a society and the left, not just like fervently is against addressing it, but we'll try to ruin your life if you even bring it up as an issue.

And I think that that's the other thing, right? Like is it's not like they're just like, we don't wanna have this conversation. It's like what happened with Kirsha? It's like, I want you to be living on the street. If you at all looking, I will destroy

Simone Collins: your career, your reputation, your job prospects.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

But to continue, how did this person turn right? Whitman was teaching summer school in 2018 when a student asked why in law a married person who transitioned must seek their spouse's consent to remain in what would be a same sex marriage. When Whitman said the rationale was protecting the spouse's, right, he was challenged by the trans student , who walked out when the professor said that trans rights don't trump all others in law.

This student, he writes, didn't seem to have considered that non-transgender people have human rights. And, and this is something we regularly see, this is what I'm talking about with this consent thing. They don't understand. They're like, I should have the right to force you to gender me, whatever your cultural norms, however you see what a man and a woman is to see it in my way.

This isn't like a, a rare phenomenon for like one individual. This is core to the direction the entire movement has gone. And it didn't need to go this way. Like there is a way that it went in a direction which it was originally going. If you look at where the movement was going in like the eighties and stuff like that where it was just, you know.

Normalize w constraint. And not to highlight, as we've talked about in other episodes, the, the CE bytes who use the trans identity for cover to, to wantonly violate other people's consents because they fundamentally don't believe other people have rights. And I've never seen a leftist realize this before or be like, oh, I hadn't considered, but it's, it, it's true.

That's a big issue that we are defending a community that tries to dehumanize and strip the rights of other cultural groups and communities. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Especially. Yeah, that's a really good point. I, I've never seen someone on the left discuss the consent issue, the trans consent issue. That's really huge.

Yeah. That's really strange too, because they're all about consent.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they're not really about consent. They're about

Simone Collins: they would say they're all about consent. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They're about pretending they're about consent. But, if you look at what they push particularly was in the trans movement or the common fantasies you see was in this movement as we went into like the Anna episode, A lot of free use stuff, a lot of complaints.

You can go to our life of the CTE episode where she complains that not enough cis women were sleeping with her. Mm-hmm. And so they should be forced to sleep with her. Th that, that, that, that is the only way to create equity. And that she was not canceled for this. You know, she says this and then has a career as a, as a writer at Vice, where she is writing multiple spurious articles that are just completely fictional in their accusations.

Calling somebody else a Nazi. They then had to take down all those articles and somehow she still has a job. Anyone else who this happened to would lose their job. Right. Like, but you see the degree of a protected class you have within the urban monoculture. She just lied in these articles.

Just lied. Said that Ki said something racist when all she said is that that, that she was a great replacements series when all she said was that DI demographics are changing. But to continue here, ostracized by old allies, Whitman started speaking at events organized by the LGB Alliance, a group formed to oppose Dawn Well's 2015 adoption of trans alongside gay, lesbian and bisexual rights.

Though some trans activists consider the alliance as a hate group, a legal bid by trans group mermaids to block its registration as a charity failed in 2023. So consider how psychotic that is. There is a group of people who are saying, we should not be considering trans alongside LGB, and that's it.

They're, they're not saying like, we need to oppress trans people or anything like that. And that trans people feel like they have such a right. To this movement that other people fought for, as we've talked about, if you go back to the beginnings of the gay rights movement it was vast majority cis gay males, which are the most othered group right now, was in the movement.

The most sort of low status group. I can only imagine the horror that they would feel if they worked their entire lives for this. And now they see this movement being used by you know, CNA bytes to well, there are,

Simone Collins: I mean, you could see also not just them being misused by people who are often abusing them, but it being a fundamentally different thing because one is a collection of different sexual orientations.

Mm-hmm. The other is. A very, very different thing. I mean, absolute, if you're trans, it doesn't mean you have a different sexual orientation. It means that you want to be seen differently by the world. That's extremely different from let me be free to choose the partner that I want.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. There there is like actually no reason for them to be tied together like this.

Yeah. It's,

Simone Collins: it's like, it's, yeah. It's like taking like, you know, breast cancer awareness month and being like, why aren't we discussing Alzheimer's right now? Like. This is insulting.

Malcolm Collins: I like that they you know, they highlighted this here. Mm-hmm. That, that there was a, a, a bid to block the creation of a group that is just asking for cultural sovereignty Yeah.

Of people with alternate sexual orientations Yeah. Versus people with, you know, gender dysphoria or whatever trans individuals have. Mm-hmm. And, and note here, when I talk about the SOA bytes, I use this word to specifically differentiate them from quote unquote real trans individuals.

Which

we've argued in other episodes.

It's probably a culture bound illness similar to anorexia, but they really feel gender dysphoric, right? Like, I don't know, the way we're dealing with it now, it's the best way to deal with it, but they really feel that way. That is clearly not true. Of the individuals who are flashing women in, in, in, in, in locker rooms like we had with the Leah Thomas case or ate Mimon where they're not even trying to pass or a lot of other, you know, high profile trans activists where there just isn't even an attempt to pass.

This is not what we were sold. We were not sold that we would have to. That, that we, we were told that you had some issue where you wanted to be gendered in a specific way because you were born like in the different body. And I was like, you know, early on I was like, okay, like let's give them these rights.

Let's see how they use it. Right? And then when a sub faction took over the movement and started using them to violate other people's consent that the movement didn't expel that sub faction. If you want to learn more about why they didn't, you can see the, why didn't the left band, the sex fest episode that we did.

That's when I was like, okay, well, you know, the fact that you guys haven't addressed this internally means that we you know, externally need to fight against this because I don't want children exposed to this. And a here what you see is this individual over time seeing how culturally imperialistic these individuals are and increasingly becoming radicalized even though he was one of the sort of origins of the modern trans rights movement, right?

It was. A lecture Whitman planned to give in Montreal on this concept of divorcing the LGB from the T that sparked first an open letter accusing the university of actively contributing to the genocide of trans people. Keep in mind, he just wants to give a letter. Do you not see this as cultural imperialism?

He just wants to say, we wanna separate this one group when it makes perfect sense to separate the one group, because they're nothing like the other group. He's like, we should look at people with sexual orientations one way and people with gender and, and, and, and you are trying to prevent him from even talking about this.

And this is what we're talking about here when we're like, the reason why, even though it's a small group, it's such a big thing to conservatives, is the way that you try to ruin anyone's life who challenges this cultural norm. If you didn't do that, there wouldn't be as much pushback. But you do do that.

And so. People end up radicalized on the other side. And I think that this is in part what radicalized JK Rowling was the way that people attacked her, who she had formally attempted to help and was just trying to introduce some nuance to the conversation in the early days. Mm-hmm. And she became increasingly radicalized as it became obvious to her that these people just didn't want other cultural groups to have to, to, to have a right to consent.

Right. Yeah. You know,

if you're a religious individual and you see gender in one way, you should be forced to talk about them. I, i, in their preferred way. If you don't believe that, you know, it's appropriate to flash somebody it doesn't matter if they identify in a certain way, they get to do that.

Just before I go further the flashing thing, we talked about this another one, but it's important to note people do not get naked in locker rooms anymore. They haven't for a long time. Like Simone did professional swimming well not professional, but school swimming all stretch like varsity

Simone Collins: and like both school-based, high school varsity team and.

Like swim team, like sitting on, never

Malcolm Collins: once did she see a naked woman. So the fact that Leah Thomas ,was walking around a flashing individuals with male genitalia from the perspective of their cultural groups shows that this was an intentional act.

It was not like, yeah,

Simone Collins: people aren't even flashing female genitalia in, in moments. Now some people have pointed out in the comments when we brought this up before that like, oh, well that was high school and it's different in college. I kind of doubt it. Now one thing that also people pointed out though and I know I really did notice this in mixed age women's locker rooms.

So I also belong to a health club where I swam and it was private health club for just people doing like everything from like pickleball to like Pilates classes to swimming, women who were 60 years or above walked around naked Flapjack and everywhere, like, oh, that's because they grew up in a different cultural number of times.

Yeah. So yeah. My argument is, is like, absolutely there are locker rooms where women are walking around naked, but they are not below, I would say, 50 years of age.

Malcolm Collins: And, and certainly not below, you know, 25 years of age, which is what you had. Oh. You know, yeah.

Simone Collins: The, the idea of that is just beyond laughable to me.

Malcolm Collins: By hosting him. And then a fully fledged protest on the day Whitman remembers arriving to a chorus of f your system, f your hate, trans rights are not up for debate. The lecture was abandoned after protesters that broke into the room and threw flower. But if the aim was to shut him down, it backfired.

So again, they are turning this guy who is like one of their OG biggest supporters and just had started with very, very reasonable concerns into a radical against them. Mm-hmm. And I think that this is what happened to people like us or people like Elon or people like Rowling. And I think that this catches what's actually happening here and why so many people have moved to the right.

Mm-hmm. People kept asking me how I knew Trump was gonna win this election cycle, and I was like, look. Do you know a single human being who has moved from the right to the left between Trump running last time and Trump running this time. Mm. And I can't the only person I could think of you really did keep

Simone Collins: making this argument.

And I'm like, well, yeah, but like, I don't know. I just thought good things. But why is everybody

Malcolm Collins: moving in one direction? It's because of stuff like this. Yeah. It's not even like the left has run too far. I think that meme undersells for the left what's happening because then the leftist could see that meme and be like, oh, you know, we ran too far in this direction and left some people behind.

And the point is that that isn't what happened. This is not just running in a certain direction. This is the moment. Somebody dissents, you attempt to ruin their lives. This is cultural imperialism and a colonialist attitude at its finest. Almost the embodiment of it. And it's a European cultural group.

I mean, that is what the LGBT movement is, the modern pride movement, culturally speaking, completely got its background in, you know, Europe and the Americas. And so trying to impose this European cultural movement on other people I think is something that should cause a lot of cognitive dissonance with these groups.

And the degree of cognitive dissonance that it causes is I think, why they don't really address this stuff.

Simone Collins: Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: But if the aim was to shut him down, he said it backfired. TV interviews he gave about. The Farra reached more people via YouTube than the lecture would have, and six days later, publishers accepted his book proposal.

He wasn't silenced, but amplified, and if anything, encouraged to double down. Mm-hmm. These days he argues that perhaps there shouldn't even be a right to legally change sex, birth certi on birth certificates or passports. Perhaps you consider this view extreme enough to justify his attempted cancellation, but it is one shared by a startling 50% of the British public according to a authoritative British social surveys attitude.

So the point here being is now he's then extreme is from their perspective, but their perspective extremists hold the position of the average British person. They think that somebody should lose their job, that they should be attacked in public, that they should be shouted at because they hold the average position.

And that he was pushed towards this position by repeated attempts like this without anyone. I bet if that very first time in the classroom when that one trans person walked out, some other trans person was like, Hey, I just wanna be clear. Like that person has issues. They should not be able to violate their spouse's consent.

You know, very similar to that South Park episode with Mr. Slave and Mr. Garrison. Right.

Speaker 7: That's something for us too. Would you like to take this beautiful woman to bay it? No thanks. No, no thanks. Come on Mr. Slave. I wanna try out my new snoog. I can't believe you just went ahead and had that surgery without even asking me what I thought. Well, I assumed you supported me. It's still me. I just have a vagina instead of a painted.

Speaker 9: But I'm gay. I don't like vaginas. Don't you even care that I was suffering? I wasn't happy the way I was. It's great that you feel better, but you never stop to think about how the people around you would feel, look, we can still be together. All you have to do is stop being gay.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that he wouldn't have gone off the rails if he had seen people Yeah. Up. Yeah. If someone had

Simone Collins: just been like, that's not normal. We don't, he's not with us.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But you never, ever, ever get that. Yeah.

Which if you wanna understand why there's like cultural evolutionary reasons why, and you can see our, why the Left doesn't push out the sex best

episode. Mm-hmm.

What makes Whitman's journey from sympathy with self ID to hostility is worth studying, is that it mirrors strikingly rapid, broader shifts in public opinion.

In 2016, the year a cross party com commons committee, first backed self id, the survey found 58% of Britain's supported the right to change legal sex. And only 17% admitted feeling prejudice against trans people was in a year the Prime Minister, Theresa May promised to consult on reforming gender recognition, but by 2022, the British Social Attitude Survey found public backing for the legal right to change sex.

Almost halved an admissions of anti-trans president prejudice had doubled. Wow. At a time when public opinion became more liberal on other social issues. And, and I really do think like one, if you go back to 2016, you and I would've been Ardently Pro being able to choose your gender.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like I wouldn't have understood at all why this could cause problems.

What really happened is a lot of us thought this was a good idea. We gave people the right, and then bad actors started using it. And now we're like, are you guys not gonna police this? And they're like, no, not really. And we're, yeah. I do think

Simone Collins: that the, just to highlight that the initial support for this shows that this was bad actors.

Like it was their game to lose. They had won it. They had, yeah, they had

Malcolm Collins: won. And it's society is becoming more liberal and other issues, but less liberal here. And that's why I also highlight the trans community is really being much more of a core reason why the left is losing the culture wars right now.

And, and, and, and we'll continue to lose the culture of wars. Then I think a lot of them think, you know, they, they, they, there's this perception of, well, it's really not that bad. It's just a few people. It's like, well, those few people keep overreaching in ways that are absolutely obscene.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. So they're gonna take away everything.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like the Anna Valence case, like the, the where she tried to cancel Kirsha for, for just saying, you know, demographics are changing. And she's like, this is racist. She was even quoting a liberal PM when she said that. And using Vice, using her position there, reaching out to her sponsors, trying to ruin her life.

This is going to build sympathy even for people who would've hated her, right? Like, this is something that's very easy to go viral because there's so obviously a good guy and a bad guy, and it's so damaging to the left because the, there, there is a group that spreads it on the left. But this is a group that I.

Would never, like, they're, they're, they're not like in the middle, they're not open to voting. Right. You know? And, and some of them might end up voting, right? Like, I think this guy who we're reading about now would've originally been in this group who would've been like, you go girl for anti valence.

Right. But you know, as we pointed out, she, she's forcing people to read her fetish content. You know, she's putting it on non fetish platforms. She's even writing it into Vice and like the opening platform that she used, this should have been immediate dismissal. You know, you, you shouldn't be able to violate other people's consent with your fetish content.

I mean, yet it's been normalized.

Mm-hmm.

But sorry, I, I, the reason I was coming to this is I, I, I think I. The, the trans phenomenon. I'm not saying that the left has to drop the trans community mm-hmm. But they have to figure out how to deal with the bad actors. Um hmm. And there has been no attempt. And in this article, this is the very first time I've seen them be like, and all of these things were not reasonable what they did to this guy.

You know, like, we, we should have done something to prevent this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. There's the breakthrough, right. That's the, that's the first time I've seen anyone leaning left saying, you know what? This, this wasn't cool. Which is nice. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I don't think, I mean, I think they might even get canceled for this article.

Right. So, you know, right.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. To whatever extent this is accepted with imply progress. But I mean, what I came away from this, when you first highlighted that part of the article to me was, oh, that's it. Like the thing that would. Make the left viable again as if it dropped trans advocacy because you can't have trans advocacy, you not trans

Malcolm Collins: advocacy, trans advocacy for obvious bad actors.

Simone Collins: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think it's kind of hard.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's, no, I, it, it's very easy to do. Okay.

Simone Collins: How would, how would you, how would you do that? Because a lot of trans advocacy is like, well, anyone who. Says they feel a certain way, gets to enter women's only spaces, and that's when they, and there

Malcolm Collins: needs to be a movement on the left that's just like, we thought we could do this.

We thought we could be permissive about this. I understand. It seemed like the ethical thing to do because we're not, you know, this was the true scrum versus too cute debate because we're not, you know, overly relying on doctors, which can introduce sociological privilege to the concept. Mm-hmm. It made sense within that time period to make this call.

Mm-hmm. But if you just look at the data, they have lost a lot of their biggest supporters because of these bad actors. And the bad actors. Maybe you can watch our, why they don't kick them out. Video our. Are probably not really bringing them that much utility. And, and, and, and so they just need to be like, Hey, let's go back to people should be able to choose the way they live their lives, but not force that on other people or not force other people to be exposed to that.

And I know that that will lead to some, into conveniences for trans individuals. But I think if you are an actual gender dysphoric person, you would prefer those inconveniences than seeing all of these bad actors stealing your movement and identity to hurt the perception of trans people. Look at somebody like Anna Valent.

He has significantly hurt the perceptions of trans individuals in communities that otherwise would have been open to them.

Yeah.

You know, the, the, they are stealing your identity and using it to damage your community's reputation and will eventually erode your rights. The question is, is can you control that erosion or and it's not right.

So it's not really, I mean, your right to impose your, you know, perception of yourself on others without their consent. I don't view that as a viable right in our society. But. You know, they will erode things past even that like I think that there was a time where if this had been addressed early enough, the whole non passings people in locker rooms thing that could have been something that we came to a compromise on.

But because it was so systemically and repeatedly abused you know, because they had that support for, you know, people transferring the gender of their prison and then people were getting griped and having kids like, and it was clearly like just a really horrifying thing that this was happening or that the government was paying for this for things like prisoners was like Kamala thing.

Like all of these are clearly bad actors. There should have been somebody in the room to be like, Hey the prisoners who are getting this, they're clearly bad actors. This isn't people that we want representing this movement, and they're going to end up representing this movement because the conservative, they're going to take them in the same way that like.

You probably shouldn't be waving a Mexican flag on top of a burning car in LA right now. I don't care if that's culturally normative. Was in your group. To most Americans, it makes it look like there is an occupation. And it freaks them out. Worse, not sending

Simone Collins: a good signal. Yeah. Seems very media.

Malcolm Collins: All these protests, peaceful, were like, oh. So they're lying to us because I can see the burning cars. I can see the Molotov cocktails. Yeah. I can see the videos of the people throwing rocks through random car windows. Not even like cop windows. Which could kill someone. Right. You know? And, and these people are not being turned on by the left.

If the left had had apprehended these people, I think that would've been a huge win for them. And yet, instead, Trump has to send in the government to basically clean this up. Yeah. Though some will blame the press or politicians for stoking a backlash and more a in commons, I. Report explicitly acknowledges that media outlets can play a role of fermenting different viewpoints In quote, over culture war issues, Stonewall has historically won gay rights victories in the teeth of a more overtly homophobic, tabloid press.

Hmm. And, and, and, and I think you guys need to recognize what you just said there. You were winning more victories when you were the underdogs, when you weren't actively violating other people's consent or using mainstream media outlets to attack people like Anna Valence did with Vice. Like you were winning when you were not in the business of forcing yourself on other people.

That's the ding, that's the light that should go on in your head. Oh, can we do something about those individuals?

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: In retrospect, Stonewall seemingly fell into a trap identified by more in common of overstating how mainstream their views were. While gender critical feminist organizations such as a Woman's Place UK focused on persuading the wavering via open public meetings, jubilant at what seemed an easy victory on self id, Stonewall had adopted a trans women are women get over it stance declaring that, and the problem here is, is that's a fine stance to take, but you can't now say anybody who says they're trans is trans.

Like, obviously that's gonna lead to bad actors.

Simone Collins: See, that's where I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't know if you can do that at all. Like, I just don't know if trans can be part of the movement and have the movement be something that is adopted on a mainstream level because I, while I, I respect. I, I do, I do agree with you that there are versions of trans that are very reasonable and there are people who just wanna quietly transition and go under hormone replacement therapy and be trans and just live their lives advocating for their rights.

It seems like the only people who are actually willing to publicly push for it are doing so in ways that are abusive, because otherwise you're just using the bathroom you pass in. Otherwise you're just quietly undergoing hormone replacement therapy. Otherwise, you're just. Doing what you need to do to make it happen.

You know, getting the training right, and there's many

Malcolm Collins: trans YouTube training are beginning to fight against this, right. Uhhuh. But the problem is, within leftist culture only a trans person can really push back against this and it isolates them from so much of their community while they're already isolated from other communities because other communities have dealt with abuse from this community.

Right. So I, I get that. I also wanna point out here, I think they're right here, there is a huge misunderstanding about how normal their views are in the general population. Yeah. And also a huge misunderstanding of how normalized their views are within the elite, in contrast to the general population.

The, if you look at like the media or you know, what's being produced at Netflix or what's being produced at Amazon, or what's being produced at Hulu or, you know, the Guardian or the New York Times staff or anything like that. You know, like you could even go to Fox and you're not gonna find a lot of like, actively specifically anti-trans stuff.

It'll be be more like be reasonable stuff. Right. Was in the media class, you have sort of complete dominance. But your actual average American or British person is like I'm not so sure about that. And when it looks like the media is covering things up, or when it looks like major media companies are attempting to press a a, an agenda on them, this gives you opponents the same advantage that you had when the tabloids and press used to be homophobic.

It is the way that the media has been used to press a form of cultural imperialism and colonialism of your European cultural group against you know, sort of diverse religious communities, whether you're, you're pushing yourself on Muslims who, who do not like this, you know, or you're pushing yourself on conservative Christians, or you're pushing yourself on conservative Jews or, or your families like ours.

Mm-hmm.

While willing to engage in debates that furthered understanding, we do not, and will not acknowledge any conflict between trans rights and women's based rights. Why, why won't you acknowledge that? That's a, that's a problem that you won't, there there are debates. You will not have the right, doesn't really have debates that we will not have except to the right of the right.

So by that what I mean is we're willing to have a debate about anything within the gender or sexual or orientation space. I would not have a debate over things like ethnic differences. You know, I'm, I'm just like, I'm not gonna deal with that. I'm not gonna touch that. I, I do not see any benefit to engaging with that.

And, and we see lots of right wing channel are just like, we're not gonna do that. You know, that, that, that only is a bad pathway to go. And, and so that's something, it is really interesting that the left. Really only polices debates to the right and the right, really only police debates to the right, which makes them more easily able to engage leftist arguments.

And people can say like, well, this is a problem among the right. And I'm like, it's not a problem if we win, if we continue to win and continue to strip back. I mean, we've already seen the vibe shift post-Trump selection. We're already seeing it, you know, this pride months. We, we can win this. We just need the greedy people who wanna go like, and, and keep in mind, like, I don't hold those beliefs.

I don't, I don't hold these, these crazy far right beliefs. But the, the individuals who are like, okay, now we won some victories, let's go further.

Yeah, they

hurt everyone in the move. And, and they're sort of the rights version of the trans activist. Your Nazi or racist is our version of the trans activist.

And so long as we do a good job of keeping the Nazis and the racists in check and not you know, because the thing that made an valence look so bad was that she called Kirsha a Nazi and a racist when Kirsha had never done anything racist or Nazi. And that's a weapon we can keep using so long as we don't actually start platforming racist a Nazis.

Simone Collins: Hmm, true.

Malcolm Collins: , And I note here, people can be like, oh, like the far people, like even people like Courtesy Arvin, like I've talked about him, where he's gotten labeled like a, he hasn't actually, from what I've seen, said anything racist. He said two things that separately could be plugged together to make him look racist on a Wikipedia page.

And that's how they got to him. But I don't think that like, that is you know, the, the smoking gun that, that other people think it is. The point I'm making here is even respected intellectuals on the right. Do not engage with these topics. And I do not think that anyone who is engaging with them is really an ally at the right.

Because there's just not utility.

Yeah, I, I

understand, like I've read the Poer pieces about why there might be utility in engaging with the topics. I don't see it. You're gonna lose elections. Yeah. And again, I want to be clear, this is not me saying I, I am just trying to argue to the people who do believe it why you shouldn't be racist or a Nazi.

This is my argument where like, even if you believe all of it, you shouldn't do it. It, it is not helpful. Even if you believe, and, and I would give the same advice to left, even if you believe that like, a sex PE should be allowed to violate other people's consent and like flash school girls in a locker room and like, you know, go to kids without their parents around and like do story hours and stuff like that to try to indoctrinate them into your culture out of their culture.

You know, even if you believe all of that, you are gonna win more if you can stay quiet about all that. Yeah. If you can just be like, okay, well let's not in go into those indulgences again. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I mean, the point you've made also in arguments about tism and why the extreme ends of each sub faction like us with the super bio accelerationism and other more religious factions like total bans on contraception.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And IVF, like there's no point in arguing for those things to be pervasive and, and widely made public or enforced because it's not gonna happen. Yeah. So like, shut up about it. Like there's nothing productive about this. You're only hurting yourself. It's not Yeah. This is like

Malcolm Collins: complete. Complete ban on abortion or complete ban on gay marriage is gonna struggle to win if only Republicans voted it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or like pervasive government support for modifying humans to make superhuman soldiers. So here she's talking about, that's just not gonna happen. We'd love that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We

Simone Collins: would love for the government to be engineering super soldiers right now, but it's just not gonna happen. So it's like, so we don't press for it.

Yeah. So like, don't push for it. Yes. Just, just, just stop making fetch happen. It's not gonna happen.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's not that it's not gonna happen. You, you know, you might be able to make one of these ideas popular within the right, you know, banning gay marriage, re complete banning of abortion re, but but even if you win, it's

Simone Collins: not gonna take it like this.

Even if you win

Malcolm Collins: the primaries, you're not gonna win anything after that. And we're gonna lose power.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Which is why actually you've seen campaigns on from, from opposing political sides, like on the left. Sometimes on the left you'll see we've had the Democratic party support. Far right candidates for primaries because they know that if they win in the primary, they won't win it all.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Which is, it is very smart. It's one of my favorite tactics I've seen because it's, it's, it's aikido. It's using your, your enemy's momentum against them. So don't give them the chance. It's so dumb. Anyway. Hmm. And,

Malcolm Collins: and I also point out here that people are like, you guys aren't real rightists. We are further than the average American conservative to the right on most right issues.

Whether it's our perspective on abortion whether it's our perspective on, you know, trans stuff, whether it's our perspective on and I think that people, some people on the right are just delusional in the same way that some of these leftists are about what the average right winger actually is these days in America.

Your average right winger these days in America. You're looking for a good example. I think Asma Gold is probably a good example. And, and so you can think to yourself, is Asma Gold gonna be excited about you guys pushing this? Or is he gonna be like, come on guys, like that's too far.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah, so

Malcolm Collins: some activists insisted it was transphobic, even to say, conflict existed, for example, over access to domestic violence refugees through the equity act in 2010, explicitly anticipating conflicts.

And, and here, this is from a website, transphobia.org. Where they, they, they actually go into the just transphobia actual.org.uk. Just, you can't even mention that there might be an issue with people abusing this. But refusing to answer difficult questions did not make them go away. Instead, they were ultimately settled in the court where gender critical feminists won a string of victories culminating at a Supreme Court earlier this year, A campaign for self ID initially enjoying cross party support had somehow ended not just in defeat, but in reverse with trans people losing hard won access, at least on the equality and human right commissions interpretation of the ruling to everything from grassroots support to public toilets.

And they have lost grassroots support. And this is something that's a major issue because now the right can grab this issue and use it against you.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: The man task was picking up the pieces is Stonewall's new CEO, Simon Blake, a 51-year-old veteran of the early two thousands battle to repeal 28 salary section 28, which once banned teachers from quote unquote promoting the idea that homosexuality was acceptable.

Blake is signaling a return to more persuasive gradualist campaigning style of those years. What I have been really interested in is how much we used to know. That you had to win the hearts and minds and you had to have conversions that you had to go into places where people didn't like you. And it was one step at a time.

So here this is really important 'cause he's write about this, the left, because of this, we don't have debates to the right of our positions. They don't go into the rightest environments. They're not debating the, the the rightest YouTubers at the same rate. And when they do, like Gavin Newsom, they end up getting, you know, heavily shamed.

And the problem, or the thing that he's not realizing here is he's like, we can go back to this incrementalist approach, but the incrementalist approach doesn't happen if there are still bad actors at doing the violation of consent of individuals and turning it all into something about that.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Yeah. Absolutely. When I was

Malcolm Collins: at the National Union of Students as Chief executive, one of the things which was very different for me, it generationally was the, I'm not going to educate you Google it thing, and you didn't win hearts or minds by saying Google it. Campaigns that need, he argues to regain human touch.

And what you really see here with those types of arguments is they're just trying to use their cultural authority and power by being the dominant culture in the halls of power, whether it's at companies or media or et cetera to, to force you to adopt to their cultural norms without attempting to convince you that their cultural norms are logical,

And the the right hasn't been doing.

I mean, some people on the right do this, and I think that it's a really bad way to handle it. You'll see individuals who basically do these righteous, like social dominance hierarchies, like, well, I, you know, hate gays more than you, therefore I'm more righteous and higher status with in. And it's like, no, you're just losing a, like, you, you are are EE extremist than a byte advocate.

The other bit, which is different, sorry, I should clarify. The, the ttes we've thing before them before they're from Hellraiser, this race of people who lives in another dimension where they explore the extent to the, they can feel pleasure and self validation and it ends up in then like ripping off all their skin and disfiguring themselves.

And then attempting to lure new people into this lifestyle. And it's from the eighties horror film hell raiser. And I think it, it's a good way to differentiate the people who are victimizing the trans population, which are the eNotes using their hard won wins to play out their sexual fetishes.

And the people who are actually trans advocates.

Doors to the pleasures of heaven nor hell. I didn't care, which I thought I'd gone to the limits I hadn't. The center bytes gave me an experience beyond the limits pain and pleasure.

Indivisible.

Malcolm Collins: The other bit here for me, which is different and doesn't mean it's wrong, is that sense of you're either 100% or you're 100% against. Most people are more complicated than that. Blake says, we might absolutely support everybody's rights and freedoms, but we might have some questions that we don't understand and some things that people don't understand are where the heat has come in.

That said, he said, it is clear that conversation has to be respectful. The sheer hostility of trans people often encountered when they did not engage with the reason so many , retreated into no debate. But I don't think that this is true. You can, you can see the way that the, the, the, the trans advocates are really doing this, and you did not have right wing people breaking into protran lectures at universities.

And yet this is something you repeatedly see on the other side, even for fairly moderate positions in the anti-trans position. Mm-hmm. And, and this idea that, oh, it's a both sides issue, or, oh, it's a, no, it's not. It's that the left has this tendency now of over elevating, like the Isha versus Anna Valence, just to bring it back to that, because I find it to be.

So Anna Valence just lied about somebody multiple times using a major publication, trying to have her lose her livelihood and then faced a backlash for that. Didn't even get fired, you know? And has been going on this whole long pity parade. Kirsha, on the other hand was doxed now has to live in a secret bunker and is lost wait,

Simone Collins: really?

Like her identity was her field, and now, now

Malcolm Collins: she's living like off the grid. And the left side, they're the primary victim here because they do not see the rightest as a human. Th this is, they're, they, they're, they just labor her as Nazi, and therefore she's not a human. And the, and the best way that we have to fight against this is by not connecting ourselves to groups that could actually be called racist or Nazi.

So

Simone Collins: she didn't actually get out of this unscathed because I thought she came out okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, now she's doing bigger in terms of followers, but she's still hiding. She still lost a sponsor. You know, she came out winning the public sentiment. But you know, she, she definitely is dealing with more consequences than Anna Valen is.

And yet Anna Valen has still trying to paint herself as the primary victim of this without any acknowledgement for what she did. And I, I, I think that, and, and she's being supported by her community and doing this despite anybody being able to look at the basic evidence in regards to this. And.

This, like, we won't debate the other side. We won't go into their areas. You're of course not gonna be able to convert people if you take that approach.

Hmm.

Which is why it's also important for us to always be willing to engage. Now one thing I will note when I'm saying like, we do need to not engage with the racist and the Nazis.

There is a huge difference between somebody the left calls a racist and a Nazi and a racist and a Nazi. Yeah. We went to NatCon with a lot of people who left this call. Like I remember Kevin Dolan. They're like, he's a racist and a Nazi. And I was like, in, in a homophobe. And I was like, how is he a homophobe?

And they're like, he's a Mormon. And I was like, wait, what? Like are we not allowed to be Mormon anymore? I was like, how, how is he a racist? And they're like, well, he's a Dee Nationalist. And I was like, that, that's just a belief that the Mormon should have their own country. That's like no different than calling a Zionist a racist.

Like, and consider Mormons used to basically have their own country. It is a reasonable concern or want. So it's important that you look like with, with, you know, mulch notebook, people will be like, oh, racist not. So I actually look at what he believes and it's, it's all well provocative. Definitely not in those categories of things.

And so I think we need to get good at differentiating the, anyone who's called a racist or a Nazi and the people who actually are racist and Nazis.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: Because of course we are called racist and Nazis all the time too.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I mean, like, the people who are actually racist and Nazis let you know, it's, it's not subtle.

Yeah, it's not subtle. And I, I'd also, they're, they're clear and they're, they're proud, you know, they're, they're not hiding it. I think there's this perception, it's exactly like

Malcolm Collins: the, the CINA byte sex pe. Right? Like, they make it known. You would know the moment you look at one, oh, they're one of those people.

Mm-hmm. It's not like a, a secret. They're not like trying to keep their identity hidden. Okay. Yeah,

Simone Collins: exactly.

Malcolm Collins: I'd also note here when he is like, okay, we need to engage in respectful debate. But you know, if you go to this guy and you're like, what about the women in refugee shelters who are being raped by, sorry, are being raped by people who just self-identify as women?

You know, this is a phenomenon that we can see. Like, how are you gonna address that? You know, they're not gonna address it. He's just gonna argue it shouldn't be addressed. And it's not that big of a phenomenon. It's like, it doesn't matter if it's not that big of a phenomenon. The difference between not getting to live the gender identity you want as a refugee who has come to one of these countries and a woman being raped is astronomically different.

You know, a hundred people should have to live a gender identity that they, or not even live, just live in the men's camp. You can, you can do what you want, but just live in the men's camp to save just one, you know, underage kid from experiencing this.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I guess they'd like to differ.

It'd be interesting to see these actual debates. Like how many, how many men should be? Na men should be you. They often just

Malcolm Collins: like, yeah, how many, how many grapes per identification? Like how, how, what's the,

Simone Collins: yeah. What is it worth? What is, what is the value?

Malcolm Collins: But the thing is, is they always try to redefine every case in which a grape happens is not a grape.

Yeah. And because I've seen this, they're like, it just never happens. It's a complete myth. And it's like, it's, it's, it's not a complete myth. Yeah. Like, even just near us, while this wasn't a grape, there was a trans kid who beat up another kid told the other girl this just a few miles from us in a Pennsylvania school that he was, had put her on a hit list.

She went to the administration Oh, yes. And said, do something about this. They're like, we can't, they're trans. And then she was beaten so bad, she had to be hospitalized. Mm-hmm. And the, the, the, the people are like, oh, well no, this is a problem. That, that was normalized. Right? Like, this is happening even in our backyard.

Simone Collins: Which in turn hurts the trans community. Yeah. The, the trans community as the whole, and also by association the LGBT community. Yeah. I can see why they have

Malcolm Collins: concern because I, I don't too frequently see like gay or lesbian people running up and like punching somebody at these events.

I frequently see trans people, especially ones who don't look like they're really trying to pass assaulting people.

Hmm.

And, and I, this is the thing, like it's this entire cast that is just normalized to I can do what I want. And the people we're fighting against aren't humans. I mean, this is what the punch a Nazi comes from because they, if they identify cure show as holding the most milk toast beliefs as a Nazi, and they would also hold punch a Nazi.

They're saying, I have the right to violate the consent o over 50% of Americans and British people by just punching them in the face because I disagree with them. Like, people should realize this is a problem if your movement has these people.

Yeah,

we might absolutely support everybody's rights and freedoms, but we might have some questions that we don't understand.

And some of the things that people don't understand are where the heat can come. No, you've gotta admit that some areas you're fighting for things are just a bad idea. Like you, you'd be like, oh, you just don't understand. Yeah. The left

Simone Collins: needs to adopt Trump's 90 10 issue thing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Because I think maybe that's, that's part of the problem.

It, it's one reason why the, the w right. Has done so well is this recognition of like, is this 50 50? Is this 80 20? Is this 90 10? And then really just moving forward based on those issues. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yet progressive activists, fatal flaw, the report argues is. They're further from mainstream public opinion on cultural issues than they realize they're the only group where a majority thinks that immigration should be as high or higher than it is now.

And that protecting people from hate speech matters more than defending free speech. A key rationale behind the no debate idea that the trans identities aren't up for discussion and the no platforming, they're also the group most likely to think. Social change sometimes requires breaking the law, whereas two thirds of Britain's disapprove of protestors blocking roads are gluing themselves to things.

Which by the way, I disapprove. We've in the past said if you're dealing with extreme cases where it's just clear the government isn't gonna handle something, breaking the law is eventually something you have to do. Like if your country is literally having a Nazi revolution, you need to go against it.

Like when my family literally turned against the Confederacy and formed like an independent region with like the free state of Jones that was a necessary thing to do. But the, the the, the minor sort of protest annoying people thing, that's not okay. This is just inconveniencing people so that you can feel better about yourself because it doesn't even work as we're gonna get to in a second here.

Trial stresses that being outliers doesn't invariably make progressive activists wrong. Perhaps they're just ahead of the curve as the suffragettes once were, but it has important tactical implications. His polling shows that progressive activists overestimate by a factor of two to three, how much others agree with their core beliefs from abolishing the monarchy to letting child change gender.

Consequently, they tend to invest too much time on persuasion, sorry. Consequently, they tend to invest too little time on persuasion, focusing instead on mobilizing the masses they wrongly believe are on board. If you're reaching out to people, then you're watering down. This is how trial describes the mindset.

And this is really bad, right? Like if you are not in the norm and you think you're in the norm and then you try to imperialistically or colonialistic impose your culture through force, through not debate, through not persuasion that's gonna really piss off the average person. This is how the left has lost so much ground so quickly,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: And it's why we in the riot have to be very aware of what is the normative belief, not what is the normative belief within X chat room that I'm in.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder to what extent the online world and the insularity of many of these online communities has contributed to this. Because a lot of the people who become extremists, even those who end up exploiting these situations, don't realize how extreme their positions are because within whatever online community they're in, yeah, it's totally normal.

And everyone's egging them on and and saying how, yeah, how can this not already be normal? This is totally what you deserve. Go and get it. So, yeah, that's something I hadn't really thought of before. People don't realize we're we're far more likely to be balkanized and out of touch with the mainstream today, which could lead to more abuse.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Protests can of course serve many legitimate purposes beyond changing minds. They can be about inspiring solidarity between activists, expressing high emotion, building resistance, or even starting a revolution. If you're starting a revolution, they should probably be shut down. Revolutions kill lots of people.

But is the charge leveled against woke that some of its protests turned potential supporters away from them? Fair. In an intriguing experiment that the not-for-profit public research initiative Persuasion uk, Dr. Steve Alker, showed respondents videos from five different climate related events just stop oil activists spraying paint over the new international building and throwing soup into the Vincent Van Gogh painting Insulate Britain's road blocking protests, the Extinction Rebellion's Oil refinery protest, as well as its more Carnivals 2019 protests involving parking a big pink boat at Oxford Surface Circus.

Our curse then asked respondents about their views on the climate crisis and compared their answers to those of a control group who were not shown the videos. After watching the soup throwing and Roadblocking videos, viewers became actively more hostile to protestors. Of course. Than, than non viewers suggesting these actions have triggered a backlash.

But intriguingly, viewers of the paint spraying at the News International and Pink Boat at Oxford Surface nudge towards the cause. Elkhart's conclusion is that protests need to understand vanilla not painting Well, I, I think that what we're really seeing here is one thing was meant to actively con inconvenience average people.

And the other things were like, I don't agree with the painting one, but the big boat thing, whatever, like a lighthearted protest is gonna get people excited about what you are doing. Especially if it's not inconveniencing people. But if your initial goal is, I'm gonna go inconvenience people like this latest Greta Thornberg like selfie boat like.

What was she thinking? Like she's going into a, an, an active war zone where there was a blockade before the, this, this particular conflict even broke out. I think it was blockade by Egypt. Yeah. The, the, the Israelis had to save her and then she lied about it and pretended like she was kidnapped as they shipped her back.

And any sort of average person is gonna look at this and be like, wow, you are like. Israel has a number of very uphill like public relations battles to win right now. But the left is seriously helping them. Individuals like Gretta Thornberg are seriously helping them because they care more about, well, I think it's not just they care more about how they are seen and building up their own career but they are so insulated from mainstream society.

They do not understand how your average person is gonna think about them. You know, pretending like they're doing an aid boat. Like there's not, that boat wasn't big enough for a real aid drop, right? Like you just wanted to be arrested and that, and you repeatedly do this and that costs tax dollars money.

Like you're just a parasite on the system.

Yeah.

You're not actively trying to contribute to changes. When you look at like us and we go out there and we go, the education system's a problem, so we build pia.io or the Collins Institute. To try to fix the education system. We don't go out there and protest schools.

We don't go out there and yell at school boards. We don't go out there and chastise teachers when I say, oh, you know, there's a problem with younger education. You know, I'd really like it. My kid had like a stuffed animal he could talk with that, we can go back to educational topics. We build whistling.ai so that they can interact with.

You know, and repeatedly when we have seen a problem, we strive to fix it. She doesn't do that. And what's really interesting is that heretic on, I met a lot of people who are working on climate change solutions that could easily be deployed in fixed climate issues. Some of this is like, seeding certain chemicals into the sky.

Some like deep sea stuff. And they have like minor risks, but de despite the minor

Simone Collins: risk, well they're, let's point out also like technically illegal, but this also like, they're technically illegal. Green pea has done stuff that is technically illegal for a long time. Why can't they do this evidence-based intervention stuff instead?

I, you know, it's much better than like harassing whaling boats.

Malcolm Collins: What it shows is that Greta Thornberg could do something, right? Like she could, yeah, no. If, if

Simone Collins: she wants to do something illegal, she should do something illegal that makes a difference.

Malcolm Collins: And she knew this wasn't gonna make a difference, make a difference that are illegal.

She just wouldn't do them because that would sort of ruin everything People would say like, oh, you're messing with the environment. Oh, you're trying something too radical. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because

Simone Collins: it is even within the pro environmentalist world, controversial, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It it's very much like the shooting down the knuckle power plants in Germany, even though they only had Russian oil.

Mm-hmm. So much of the environmentalist movement is pathetic in its nature. It doesn't actually care about fitting the problem, fixing the problems. And if you're talking about the major boards, they could even be threatened about some of these solutions.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to DeSimone. I have really enjoyed talking with you.

Same. I'm probably not gonna eat today 'cause I'm feeling so sick. But

Simone Collins: it's for the best. I mean, on the days when I, I did feel nauseous. It just came right back up after I ate it, so, all right. Well, if you change your mind, I'll bring food to your room. I can bring you, I can make you a smoothie. I can make you another grilled cheese sandwich.

Malcolm Collins: Really simple like mac and cheese.

Simone Collins: Ramen. Do you want mac and cheese?

Malcolm Collins: Mac and cheese? Or maybe a pizza sliced. No.

Simone Collins: One slice of pizza.

Malcolm Collins: I think mac and cheese is gonna be easier on me 'cause I can eat it like one little bite at a time.

Simone Collins: Okay. I will make you mac and cheese then. Yeah. Thank

Malcolm Collins: you so much. Love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too.

Malcolm Collins: Today's episode's now at eight of 10, not 10 of 10 anymore.

Simone Collins: Do you think it's 'cause I went in and responded to comments?

Malcolm Collins: I think it is.

Simone Collins: Simone made a difference. Let me move myself to the right side. You know what I think I'm gonna do this weekend? I'm gonna go tro wife, gonna make the sourdough starter.

It's warm enough where if I do it and leave it in the sunroom and just keep feeding it there. It'll stay warm enough.

Malcolm Collins: I love it. You're amazing sourdough

Simone Collins: because your mom had purchased, you know, she had decided during the pandemic she was gonna make sourdough and she got like all the accessories for it and then fobbed it off on us.

'cause she never made any. This is Elle. Yeah, I know. And so I have the things and it was really nice of her to give them to us and I'm like, let's do it. We're gonna name it our local sourdough starter. I don't know. What do you want? Do you have any candidates for names?

Malcolm Collins: I, I wanna make it something like biohazard E

Simone Collins: Oh, ooh.

Like Project

Malcolm Collins: 65

Simone Collins: or 12th Monkey or that's already

Malcolm Collins: the name of like a brand.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh yeah. Project 60. Yeah. Project 65 is good. I like that. Which you like project 65 bread. Yeah, I like it. Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: you can then sell it on our Patreon to people.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Selling our sourdough starter. Yeah, we're thinking about starting a Patreon and kind of like doing, you could either create one if people wanna check it out.

I haven't published it yet. It's not live yet. You'll, before

Malcolm Collins: this goes live.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, we, we have to work out some, some little details and you'll just edit the content that I drafted, but I figure. We have enough additional stuff that we can offer to people. Why? Why not? If they want to. It's good way.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard for us

Malcolm Collins: because we really ran on the philosophy of there's nothing I wanna restrict my viewers' access to. Right. Their financial situation. Mm-hmm. So, but we're also

Simone Collins: reaching a point where we can only communicate directly with so many people too.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That's

Simone Collins: the tough thing. Like I think when it gets to a point where we can't do it for everyone.

It makes sense to prioritize people who support the channel more. That sounds terrible. Whatever. Also, people who are cool on their own, but whatever. I don't know. I'm excited for it. I.

Malcolm Collins: We'll get started here. Let's do it.