Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

In this episode, the hosts engage in a deep discussion about the controversial downfall of Jack Murphy, a former conservative influencer, and whether kink shaming should have a place in the new right ideology. They explore sexual fetishes, societal norms around sexuality, and the implications of shaming non-normative arousal patterns. The conversation also touches on traditional values, arousal pathways, and the potential consequences of making private sexual preferences public. Join us for a candid, thought-provoking discussion on the balance between sexual morality and personal freedom in conservative spaces.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I had an interesting thing that happened in an episode recently where Ry Nationalist was on. We were talking about Jack Murphy, who used to be a famous sort of conservative influencer who had this, this club and this podcast and everything like that.

And then it turned out that he was in to being, I. Cued specifically his girlfriend sleeping with other people and into putting things in his butt and this, we're gonna go over all of that. I wasn't like, we weren't conservative influencers when that happened, right. So, like, we had nothing to say on that, when that happened, but when I heard this, my first intuition was to be like, oh, I feel kind of bad for him.

Like. I didn't have like embarrassing fetishes that I had to worry about like that, you know, like this is what turned him on, you know? And you don't

Simone Collins: get to choose what turns you on and what turns you on isn't a reflection of your morality either.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Tamura, I [00:01:00] miss me something. My computer's hard drive. I need you to dump it in the bathtub and fry it. All done. Please rest in peace, Satoru.

Malcolm Collins: And it made me think a question, right? Like. I want to go into all of this again, and I want to go into it, you know, as the, the new right.

And the tech right is sort of consolidating as a ideological perspective. Okay. And you and I are some of the, I'd say primary, regular influencers shaping that ideological perspective. What should be like as we unc, UNC ourselves from the left, as we Debra de brainwash, deprogram ourselves, what should our perspective be on kink shaming?

I like is kink shaming [00:02:00] something that we should continue to do? Is it certain kinks where we should continue to do it? And here, I would note when I talk about kink shaming, and I need to be as clear as I can about this,

Simone Collins: hmm.

Malcolm Collins: This does not include instances in which somebody else without your consent forces you to participate in their kink.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That

Simone Collins: is,

Malcolm Collins: that's very different. They talk to you about their kink. That means they dress up as their kink in a public context. That means they go to children's book readings in their kink. Here I am talking about things that people do in private, and the reason why I think it's, it's bad to pretend like.

All kinks are bad is, well, our book, the Pregnant Guided Sexuality, we did a, a survey on this just to see how common kinks are, right? Like non-normative arousal patterns. And we found that the average person is aroused by 22 weird things. People have. K people have a, a . I need to cut that out.

'cause I had no more swearing on this show. [00:03:00] Mm-hmm. A basket of kinks. It was 23.1 for men and 20.8 for women. So not even like that different. And if you're like, how clustered are these? There was a study of 2,300 people in the UK showing that roughly 75% had some kink. So the vast of people. Have a kink.

Mm-hmm. Our society works because we do not talk about it.

Alright, kid. Here's the deal. At any given time,

Around 75% of the people you interact with are perverts in some way.

Most of them right here in Manhattan, and most of 'em are decent enough. They're just trying to make a living cab drivers not as many as you'd think. Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either.

They're happy, they think they have a good bead on things, but why? Why a big secret? People are smart. They can handle it. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals. And you know it. 1500 years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. [00:04:00] 500 years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat.

And 15 minutes ago you knew that people were

Mostly just turned on by the opposite sex.

Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.

What's the catch? The catch? The catch is

just because you're aroused by something doesn't mean you have to indulge in it

And That doesn't mean it's okay to talk about this stuff in public. You keep that to yourself

or.

you will sever every human contact. Nobody will ever know you exist anywhere, ever.

I'll give you the sunrise to think it over.

Hey, is it worth it?

Malcolm Collins: If you're strong enough.

But it's, it's a thing where it's like you can have something unusual that arouses you without communicating it to other people. 100%.

Simone Collins: And without acting on it.

Malcolm Collins: And without acting on it. But there, there's, there's multiple categories here. Like if it's deleterious to other people, I can see, do not act on it, right?

Mm-hmm. If it is like there's, you know, if, if it's like, you know, just your masturbating to it or something like that, I think that's a [00:05:00] very different category than going out and doing it in public. Like say if you're gay, right? Well, that might be a too offensive one to choose. What's a less offensive one to choose?

Because I was gonna say like, it's, it's harder to get married and have lots of kids if you don't have a lot of money if you're gay. So it's better to just if you, if you're not like a successful tech bro, just. Not act on it if your end outcome is having a lot of kids. But that doesn't mean that like there's necessarily this huge moral negative to like masturbating to it or something.

And by the way, this does reduce the incident of like people like, oh, like masturbating to something makes you want it more. And it's like, no, like the actual studies are very categorical on this.

Simone Collins: You know, ALIST, latest substack as of the time of this recording is her earnest argument. In, in following up on her most controversial tweet saying that if we had more ai, PDA file porn, fewer children would be harmed.

So she's making the same argument. [00:06:00] Well, I,

Malcolm Collins: that is what got me thinking about this, but I wasn't Oh, really? To include that as part of the argument. Because I'm just pointing what you're saying. No, I'm saying that gets too spicy. I'm just talking generally kink shaming on the right, but, but you know, if you look at like porn more generally Yeah.

Like the idea that, oh, porn makes you do bad things. Mm-hmm. In countries where porn was illegal and then it was made legal, the amount of child, essay decreased by 50%. This is the check. Yeah. This,

Simone Collins: it is. Clearly if you care about children, you are not going to ban porn.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But, but it's like, okay, when people don't have access, and they, and it was repeated in other countries where they did this, it's just like a really persistent thing mm-hmm.

In the United States as access to the internet increases, which is basically access to porn. Rates of sexual assault also go down. Like, this is a very clear correlation. You are arguing for a aesthetic and not real, like an individual who says, I am against Child sa. And I am against pornography is [00:07:00] similar to a environmentalist who is like, I am against global warming and I am against nuclear power plants.

It's like those two things might be aesthetically aligned, but if you logically actually cared about the first thing, you wouldn't be pro the second thing. Mm-hmm. Because again, the, the people who are engaging in certain, but what I, what I wanted to get to here was this idea of, of this guy. What he did, his downfall.

Other conservatives, because there's other conservatives. The guy who ran the Proud Boys, apparently he did a thing that apparently a lot of people have criticized him for. Being like, oh, you know, anal stimulation in males is something that you can try without being like less masculine. Right. Okay. And apparently, I mean, just the

Simone Collins: sheer number of dudes who show up in ERs with I slipped in the shower and something random up their butt shows that this is actually way more common than people wanna let on.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, but I mean also like biologically, like if you're just looking at like the, the, the stimulation points of males, like the interior prostate is [00:08:00] one of the stimulation points Yeah. That a person could be using if we're

Simone Collins: talking just pure logistics. Yeah. If you're looking for more ways to feel things.

Yeah. If you're looking

Malcolm Collins: for pure logistics of how to maximize your turn on. Yeah. And, and the. Funniest thing about Simone and I is, I think one of the reasons we engage in sexuality topics so much is we find it so intellectually perplexing. Like I think if I actually had like a bunch of skeletons in my closet or something, I wouldn't be doing this because I'd be so afraid.

But like actually we're more like, yeah, humans, like sex is gross. Like this, this whole thing is gross and, and you can intellectualize it or engage with it, but some people, well, it's like

Simone Collins: watching. You know, pigeons court each other and being kind of disgusted and asking why do they do that?

That is, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but I also, you know, feel like Jack Murphy, for example, he didn't choose to have this like he was dealing with an No no. An entire category [00:09:00] of temptation that I have never had to deal with. Yeah. And that's rough. It's building up an influencer career is. Hard work. Okay. It is a lot of work and a lot of risk.

Yeah. And to have done that and then have that destroyed no, no. He did other things when he was caught with this. You know, we'll get, we'll get into all that. It made me be like. Should we normalize this in, in the new Right. Not the old right? The old right. Can do whatever the hell they want. Like the religious, funny duddies.

Okay. They're always gonna

Simone Collins: be sex negative. I don't that only sex, marriage,

Malcolm Collins: whatever, right? But we're not that, you know? Yeah. So what do, what do, what do we think about this? Let's go into this. So, this is, I'm gonna be combining some various articles and some various AI asks and stuff like that. Okay.

In like a narrative sense where I felt like it was interesting information.

Simone Collins: All right. He

Malcolm Collins: incurred the wrs of the online right when he rudely responded to podcaster Sidney Watson, asking him about the [00:10:00] article. The article in question was a 2018 piece Murphy wrote. On cultivating erotic energy from a surprising source.

The source being sending his girlfriend to have sex with other men. Yeah. And if I put this, but he was, he publicly talked about this. It wasn't like it leaked. No, you publicly talked about this. Wow. Okay. So if I, if I,

Simone Collins: so he felt really comfortable about this. He

Malcolm Collins: felt really comfortable about this.

Yeah. If I post the stories here, it's today I sent my adoring, loyal, hot young girlfriend of two years to have sex with a stranger from Tinder. She's currently at his apartment, checked in with me via text, and it's per route. Presumably sucking and effing her way to a good time. Oh, I'm alone writing. Be happier.

So he has a humiliation fetish

Simone Collins: too. Be happier. No, he, that blog post was part of it. He was,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. He was

Simone Collins: jizzing onto his audience with that. That is, that's like

Malcolm Collins: including your audience in this, which again, I don't think is great. Like I think that, that, that is, that is like, Hey, you guys wanna be a part of like me?

[00:11:00] No, no, no. Using,

Simone Collins: using an audience to get yourself off. I'm not like, no.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so in 2015, Murphy wrote an art a detailing the experience of his girlfriend to have sex with this danger from Tinder,

Simone Collins: Uhhuh

Malcolm Collins: describing it as a source of erotic energy. He framed cook holding as a manifestation of his control writing.

Today I sent my adoring a loyal hung blah, blah, blah, that suggests he was experimenting and intellectualizing his unconventional sexual practices. And then later after that. Murphy admitted to producing and posting amateur pornographic content with his fiance around 2019, driven by financial desperation.

He stated we didn't have any money coming in and there were no jobs at all. I was lost and desperate, so my fiance and I did cam porn at home. People paid us to F on the couch. We made thousands of dollars. These videos live stream publicly on platforms for tips, included acts with his fiance and solo performances by Murphy.

[00:12:00] So no problem

Simone Collins: with that, that everyone's consenting there. Everyone wins there. Wait, because he clearly enjoys this and she, I guess,

Malcolm Collins: wait.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: PJ Media National File claimed that certain SIL acts involved Murphy using a dildo for anal stimulation,

for example, national file article references a torrent was a username linked to Murphy, big beard, 1000. Containing content under a folder called Bear. Oh yeah. That is definitely gay. .

Suggesting Homoerotic material. But I mean, that's for his audience, right? Yeah. Though they did know.

No, you have to know your target audience and if you're looking to make money.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. No, hold on. He knows his target audience. He [00:13:00] needs money. He also enjoys that form of stimulation. I don't think that's as suspicious anymore. I thought that you meant like a person Yeah. Annel that leaked from his computer.

But that's totally different now.

Malcolm Collins: As far as specific allegations of of gay sex, and again, I have nothing against gay sex, but I do understand why people were like, wait, you're like an alpha male influencer who's been like, follow me to get girls, and this is what you were into. Like I get the incongruency of that.

Well, there's

Simone Collins: also just the issue, which you also see with same sex especially man, man. Sex where there's just a very, very strong disgust reaction in many people and, oh, no, no, I agree. People lack the sophistication to understand that a disgusted reaction is not, does not equal this equals morally bad, which is very annoying.

Malcolm Collins: A ton of males have arousal patterns that an average person, as I've pointed out, is going to because non-normative arousal pattern. This is why there's the meme of, you know, I'll put on the screen here of the, the, the [00:14:00] anime where they, his best friend after he dies, takes this computer CPU and throws it in a bathtub.

Oh, yes,

Simone Collins: yes, yes.

Tamura, I miss me something. My computer's hard drive. I need you to dump it in the bathtub and fry it. All done. Please rest in peace, Satoru.

Simone Collins: And,

Malcolm Collins: I, I. I, I, I'd say for me what's really funny is like if you look at my unusual arousal patterns, the truth is I don't think like our audience would find it like weird or disgusting at all. What's so funny though, is like people have actually apoplectic, people have sent

Simone Collins: us emails where they're like, I know exactly what your fetishes are, and Malcolm, not once have they gotten them right.

Malcolm Collins: Nothing never happened. Yeah, yeah. Progressives would freak out. Progressives would actually like panic. Yeah. Yeah. But, but right wing people would be like,

Simone Collins: what? Well, okay. Okay. Sex negative progressives [00:15:00] though. Because I, I think most sex positive progressives know all the kinks and are like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're like, yeah, they're all fine. Everything goes. So, yeah.

Moderate

Malcolm Collins: that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I guess I will moderate that, but yeah, so he, he labeled himself in one thing as Heteroflexible. Right. Okay, fine. So maybe he had, you know, male again, like, why is this, you know, again, I don't wanna say like, for, and I feel so comfortable talking about this because I am so disgusted by the idea of sleeping with me.

I'm like, oh the, the, the, like, this isn't. Like my particular closet thing. Like it's really not my particular closet thing. I'm, I'm just not gonna touch anything in that category. No, you're not. Um, But, but this, I'm like, come on guys. Like, he, he was into that. He did it at one point and now he's monogamously married with kids, right?

Like, oh, with the same

Simone Collins: woman, or is someone different?

Malcolm Collins: I think he's, yeah, I think it's the same woman kids. Oh, that makes me happy. Aw. It worked out for them.

So I had read that he had kids and I hadn't read anything about him raising [00:16:00] them alone, so I assumed he was married, but no, it turns out that he had kids and was divorced long before he ever became famous, and what he called like a blue pilled relationship, meaning he didn't probably think much of her or that it didn't go very well.

So no, he was not happily married.

Malcolm Collins: He was happy when you hear the trajectory, he really got sort of screwed over by all of this. And you know, I think he was, he was, he was putting out deal ideas that were so mainstream.

He was like partnered with Claremont, like,

Simone Collins: oh yeah, that's, no, that's the problem. You, you, he, but he made a very, very huge, and I would think obvious misstep. In doing kinky stuff while playing in the conservative realm, but that's the conversation we're having is should this still be the case? Should being kinky and conservative get you disqualified?

Yeah. As an influencer.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, that's the discussion

Simone Collins: here. I, I don't, because look, what what's your, what do you think? I know what I think,

Malcolm Collins: but before I go further, look, you, you've gotta keep in mind there is like a level of debauchery, right? Where it's like, , and debauchery should [00:17:00] not be defined by non-normative behavior.

Hmm. It should be defined by the effect it has on the self and others. Mm-hmm. So, like in Mormon circles, right? And we talk about like a lot of kinks seem to be bred by what the population did historically, right? Or, or, or negative stereotypes and. And Mormons were in ous relationships historically. Which meant that people who were okay with their partner sleeping with other people in front of them would've had more kids historically, or knowing that their partner was sleeping.

Mm-hmm. And so there's been this thing of like wife swapping and husband swapping where you do everything but full sex. And like, I would find that not just like gross, but like if you had done that with another guy in front of me, I don't know if I could get aroused by you. Like again, like it would be like, yeah, you

Simone Collins: wouldn't be able to, I just know for a fact it wouldn't happen.

Malcolm Collins: I try so hard. I try, I

Simone Collins: promise, I, I literally have bad dreams where like I'm assaulted. And I don't care about the fact that I'm like the biggest concern I have at that moment. Obviously I'm like distressed for many reasons, [00:18:00] but the biggest one is, oh my god, Malcolm will never. See attractive again, that's like the number one thought on my mind.

In addition to hating everything else, but like the number one thought is there, I know that this is true there and it sucks because you can't control that. You just can't

Malcolm Collins: control that. Yeah, I can't control that. Like I, I I. Yeah, I, I mean, there might

Simone Collins: be ways if, if, if I, I don't think so. I really, Malcolm I know you now, I know you well enough that it's just not, it wouldn't happen if this doesn't make you a bad person again.

And that's, that is how arousal works. It. This is not about what you morally condone or not. This is just about Yeah, how you feel.

Malcolm Collins: But apparently within Mormon communities, this isn't that strong. Yeah. That

Simone Collins: clearly doesn't play here, but that makes sense. That make sense. A lot of people are

Malcolm Collins: shamed like that.

This has happened and I'm like, like there's been some scandals around this and stuff like this, and it's like, what? Like why? Like this doesn't seem to hurt anyone involved. Particularly like I'm like. And if you, and if this is the, the, the, the thing that I talked about was like the, you know, the Dursleys and one of their kid ended up sleeping [00:19:00] with one of his, like, like assaulting his younger sisters and stuff like that.

When you tell someone all sex is bad, the all arousal patterns are bad. The daughters.

Simone Collins: The Duggar. Oh, you so confused. I was like, is this Yes. The nature of Dugger, not the Harry

Malcolm Collins: Potter family, the Duggars they, they end up thinking like, well, I'm a bad person sexually. They contextualize themselves that way.

Mm. And then they normalize other genuinely horrific behavior. Right. So.

And I think people can wonder why I hammer on the topic of sexuality and arousal patterns so frequently, and it's because it really is that central and important to the fight against the urban monoculture in that it is the core way that the urban monoculture peels people out of traditional cultures.

Many people within traditional cultures just don't have fully developed models. Or healthy ways of relating to their own sexuality. And so the urban monoculture can can go and where you don't have sort of mental scaffolding, they're like, oh, I'll just plug this USB stick in here and put in this self-replicating [00:20:00] mimetic set, which will eventually build out an entire world perspective.

And they do that within the field of sexuality. That's why so much of the urban monoculture focuses on this sexuality stuff. It's not just. The debauchery of the urban monoculture, it's that there are not appropriate defenses in place within many traditionalist cultures during their, uh, you know, puberty period, during their, their teen, late teen years.

That's when they're the most vulnerable. And so it is really, really important that we find ways of relating to this that did not produce vulnerabilities.

And just saying, you know, well, I'll pretend that all of this doesn't exist or that everyone's normal, or that blah blah blah. Like all of that is basically serving your children up to the urban monoculture on a platter. I.

As a, uh, analogy here, it would be a bit like, like I think we can all agree pooping is gross, but. Somebody could be like, well, what? Why are you on your show always talking [00:21:00] about pooping? And it's like, well, because for whatever reason, most of the conservative cultures started teaching kids that people don't poop and that if you poop, you're weird.

And I'm like, well, most of these kids, all of these kids are pooping. And if they think that they're gross and weird every time they're doing this. And then somebody else comes along and they're like, actually, you were lied to and abused. And it turns out everybody poops. that's gonna be potentially a compelling message to them where if you're like, no, both everyone poops and it's gross and weird

But it's like an anular bodily function and definitely not the purpose of your life. If you make it the purpose of your life or essential focus of your life, or build rituals around it, , that is a waste of your life.

, I think that that is going to be much better at preventing kids from being peeled out.

Malcolm Collins: So I think that like the new right should do a better job of like categorizing different types of non-normative sexual behavior in terms of like [00:22:00] acting on versus like, feeling. One, experimenting when you're young, I, I first experimenting when you're young or things you do when you're young.

When I say young, I, I don't mean just like a kid. I mean like up to like 25, let's say 23, 21, 22, 23. 23.

Simone Collins: 23. Like 20. You gotta get serious.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anything really done before 23 or 24, I'm like full pass, like whatever. Like this guy was talking about.

Simone Collins: Well, with the caveat that with women having a lot of sexual partners can, you know, that's kind of course, but women

Malcolm Collins: make mistakes, right?

Like Yeah. And. I, I, I think if you wipe every woman out of the sexual marketplace who was sexually active before this age, you know, you can say, you, you shouldn't do this. You should know this is gonna affect how the partner values you. But in terms of the public stage, like if a conservative influencer woman, I.

It came out that she had slept with a bunch of people before that age, like before 23. Like suppose it came out that like Louis Perry [00:23:00] or or Mary Harrington or Katherine Pak had had sex with a bunch of people before 23, and this is at odds was their current like conservative persona. I'd be like, you cannot count that against them.

I, I would, I would like actively attack anybody who tried to shame their adult publicly.

Simone Collins: Yes. But, you know, men would have an issue with that, which is why with our daughters, I'd still warn them again about it. Right.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. But that's not what we're talking about. Yes. That's not

Simone Collins: what Yeah. We're talking about should you be reputationally disqualified as a conservative influencer based on your.

History sexually. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Right. If anything, I'd feel worse for them. I'd feel like everything that they had done in terms of influence was in part to try to save young girls from their position right now and they just didn't want to have that publicly associated with them.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. I,

Malcolm Collins: I, I don't think I'd have an ounce.

I, I would've an ounce of anything but rage as somebody who tried to attack them if that came out. You know, and I think that this is what I'm talking about in [00:24:00] terms of like how we categorize this, right? Yeah. Like what actually I. Assuming they disclosed it to their current partner before marrying,

Simone Collins: which is important.

Yeah. Which is

Malcolm Collins: important. Right. You know, and again, I'm not saying that any of them did. I don't, I have no reason to believe that any of them did this. No, I was just giving an example here, right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, before the age of 23, I'd say, okay, throw that out. I'd say and, and keep in mind he was here talking about this camming stuff he was doing when he was like 19 or something, or his fiance.

Oh, it was from the past. I dunno what he was.

Simone Collins: No, it sounds like he published a blog post about. His wife doing it as she was doing it,

Malcolm Collins: whatever. Well, we'll see. We'll, I, I, I can go back and try to find out how old he was when this stuff's happened.

Simone was in the right here. It was as he was doing it, which makes it extra indefensible.

Simone Collins: All right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But in, in terms of stuff like anal play for men I see no reason why this should be shamed.

I understand it like it goes against norms. It's not like particularly dangerous. It's, it's something they can do as like a mono monogamy partner. It's also not

Simone Collins: even time consuming. [00:25:00] So, yeah. Like if it causes him to orgasm

Malcolm Collins: quicker and get the whole thing over with quicker than just do it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Power to the, yeah, absolutely.

I, so my, my stance on this is the really big contrast in my view between the left and the right in our modern age is performative activity versus consequentialist activity, and then hedonism versus values alignment. So the way that I look at acceptable sexuality versus non-acceptable sexuality has more to do with are you putting your sexuality above the pursuit of your values?

Like, are you spending most of your time dating people and trying to get new sexual partners, or are you spending most of your time doing what it is that that's meaningful to you? How much

Malcolm Collins: are you letting your sexuality distract you from your end goal?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or like be a part of your identity when that's not.

At all related to your objective function or if your objective function is hedonism, you just shouldn't be here. You shouldn't, you don't belong here [00:26:00] on the other side.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. I actually argue that, that Jack Murphy, if, if you look at this, he was allowing it to distract him. You know, he was no.

Simone Collins: And so that I, I, I hold all of that against him.

And also the fact that he was acting on it in a way. That logistically would've taken a lot of time, like sitting down with your girlfriend or fiance and saying, listen, I'm really into this. Listen, I want you to go out and do this. I mean, she's also taking a risk, going out and having an intimate experience with someone from Tinder, like that's not necessarily safe for a woman either.

And if, if she's doing it safely. Yeah. There's also a lot of vetting that's very time consuming. You, you, you have SDD testing, you have some, some kind of due diligence that you're hopefully doing on this. Lucky gentleman, so. Like, really? Don't you have better things to do? You really think, like, you really think,

Malcolm Collins: but, and this is, this is, this is why.

And it's funny again, like all of the stuff that I'm defending here, I would not sit on camera and defend something I actually do for fear that it comes [00:27:00] back to me. So when I'm talking about like the, the like anal simulation and stuff like that, that is not, I, I find it like the idea, the, the, like the smell.

I think

Simone Collins: both of us are too squeamish around. To handle. Like we don't, human bodies aren't our favorite thing. Yeah. Human bodies are not my thing. Like I'm I, well like butt stuff is way too human. Is way too human. That's

Malcolm Collins: always been your famous line was me, which is Malcolm. I'll do

Simone Collins: anything for you. But Anal.

Malcolm Collins: But anal. But she literally. All the time. Like it's funny that I don't think that's ever been recorded on air or anything that she this, but like within our personal relationship it's always like she'll hold my hands and be like, Malcolm, I'll do anything for you. But anal.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And for me, I'm just like, why? Why, why add that when you could just masturbate? Like that's like a gross additional step. Like, even, even,

Simone Collins: well, and I think, so my, my additional problem with anal when you have a choice, like when there are other holes available, is the amount of prep and [00:28:00] maintenance you have to do.

Yeah, let's go. I'd love to, do we have all the gear, do you think? You know, I've got my hiking shorts. Yeah, I think I have everything. Yeah, let's get the gear. Alright, hike. Yeah. What if it rains? You right. Let's get the ringer. You know.

Simone Collins: Yes. So again, when it comes to are you spending your time pursuing and maximizing your values, if you do frequent anal. You're following all these steps. But I also hold that for like, someone who spends an hour a day doing their hair and makeup. That's, that is just as valueless as someone Oh, yeah.

Or spends an hour preparing for, oh, somebody

Malcolm Collins: football games or something. You know, uhhuh like,

Simone Collins: yeah. So like, I, again, like we, it we are not sex negative. Were was hedonism wasting time.

Malcolm Collins: Negative hedonism. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I agree with all that. But what I'm saying here is like, when I hear.

Like the head of the Proud Boys apparently got canceled for, for, for saying something like this. And I was like, [00:29:00] no, you shouldn't be doing that. Like, because then, you know, you don't know your own kids end up into something like this and you frame this as like this horrifying thing. And then now they're like, okay, well I guess I'm just a sexual monster, may as well great.

My sister. You know, and it's like, well,

Simone Collins: yeah, suppressing this stuff isn't good. And I think. Knowing about your arousal pathways and possibly even talking about it when it's relevant and whatnot, I have no problem with that. And people shouldn't be shamed for what turns them on and off. But.

Yeah, pursuing it, investing a lot of time into its pursuit. You should just be on the project. Well, I actually, this like

Malcolm Collins: if you're being logical puts like the new right. Strictly morally superior to the left around arousal and kinks. Well, because what we're saying is that's what every side thinks.

They're, you know, you could, you could have the kinks you want to have, so long as they don't have negative externalities in how you're applying them. And so long as you are not forcing other people to participate in them, which is what you are [00:30:00] doing when you. Dress up that way in public when you publicly blog post about something like this when you you know, like all of this is stuff that's done to involve other people in your kinks

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Without their, their

Simone Collins: consent. Yeah. And so that's why OnlyFans is different. It is opt-in. And I think that's, that's one of the really underrated great things about OnlyFans is if you have a. Humiliation, fetish. If you have a, like public exposure or fetish, all those sorts of things. Like this is the place where you can do it and make money and everyone can sense.

And I just think that's beautiful. It's wonderful. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like, oh, here's a great thing. If somebody, and I don't believe the Russian pee tapes are real, if some Russian prostitute really peed on Trump, like whatever I, I like even think was the right as it is right now. These came out, people would be like, whatever, like F off, no one

Simone Collins: cares.

Malcolm Collins: Like, I'm glad I wasn't born like that. But also

Simone Collins: like everyone knows Donald Trump would never, he's such a germ phobe, so it's not Yeah, he's, he's

Malcolm Collins: a [00:31:00] complete germophobe. He would never do that.

Simone Collins: He seems like the kind of person who would see like the tiniest stain on a carpet and be like, we need to leave this hotel right now.

You think he's gonna, he's gonna do water sports? I know. I also

Malcolm Collins: think that he's a sexual elitist like me. I, I, I would not be surprised if he has not slept with prostitutes. That he only sleeps with, like, he's, he's wrote articles about sleeping with like, not rote, but that articles written about him, about how he likes like sleeping with his friends' wives and stuff like that.

Yeah. Because they're

Simone Collins: high status women. High

Malcolm Collins: status. Yeah. I'm, I'm very, and squirmy Daniel was a

Simone Collins: high status like celebrity. So yeah. I think for him, status is hotter than. A lot of other, not status. It's

Malcolm Collins: hotter. I think low status women are disgusting to him. Oh. It's a version thing like myself. Interesting.

Yeah. Anyway, so to continue here, Murphy's own admission of the video's existence coupled with his attempt to label the redistribution as revenge porn.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. The claim

Malcolm Collins: debunked as the content was wily, publicly posted. Fueled the narrative. He locked his ex account and deleted his tweets. Furthering, escalated scrutiny.

Mm-hmm. His defensive to questions about the [00:32:00] 2015 Cook holding article, particularly lashing out lashing out. The podcast hoster the Sidney Watson is, is what caused people to get angry at him. From the perspective of manosphere letting other men have sex with your girlfriend is definitely a no-no.

And we'll earn you the ultimate put down C, which is to say cuck hold. By the way, cuck holds both in our data and other data was more common among conservatives getting cuted by your partner Yes. Than progressives. Yes. Isn't that interesting? Interesting. Murphy's defensiveness poured patrol.

Yeah. So the big problem is his defensiveness and sort of how he handled it. Now what is interesting here is his writings were criticized.

Its Smith Sandra racist and aligned with alt-right ideologies, which led to his doc. Sing in 2018. Hmm. This revelation that he was a senior manager at DC Public Charter School Board resulted in administrative leave in January, 2018.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: So apparently that's when he started leaving, leaning in to like the Jack Murphy live stuff.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: And [00:33:00] then His in 2021, his profile expanded as he became a Lincoln fellow at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank highlighting his influence in right-wing circles. However, December, 2021 brought significant personal revelations. He admitted to authoring in two a 2015 Cook holding article and producing amateur pornography.

So the cook holding stuff he had written when he was still like a public democrat. And he had this pseudonym that was doing right wing stuff.

Simone Collins: Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, and so it's

Simone Collins: fairly complicated.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah a a and then a, during this period, by mid 2022, Jack Murphy live ceased new episodes suggesting a withdrawal from his public role concurrently heal a large Rebel health alliance, a personalized healthcare service, focusing on optimizing longevity and metabolic health.

And it's something that is still operational and appears to be his. Mainstream source of income. So one thing I wanna look at is the stuff that got him canceled. Like how actually offensive is this guy, right? Yeah. Everyone says, oh, they're misogyny. And people say Are, we're misogynist and racist [00:34:00]

Simone Collins: uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: So he said, if feminists need grape, it is our duty as men to save feminists from themselves. Therefore, I am offering to grape to feminist as an olive branch. Who's asking for trouble? It's asking for trouble. It's provocative, but us saying that like the, the Handmaid's Tale is leftist fantasy and that the data proves it mm-hmm.

Could be seen as analogous to that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Fair. He said if you open her a, you open her mind. He said this is not something I'd agree. Like obviously my wife says I'm not interested in this. And I'm like, yeah, okay. Oh, I'm not interested in either. But but like I, okay another one here is big female myths.

Is that they are pure, true says they are hungry, dirty, and enthusiastic about sex. And I love. How feminists don't believe in agency. That is not an offensive statement at all. So he said like almost nothing here, wrong from [00:35:00] what I can see. Well, but

Simone Collins: also, no, I think that sweeping statement is not accurate.

That is accurate about some women. Definitely not. Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, okay. Here's one thing that I do have a problem with. He said in one post he wrote I've had s. Sex slaves, little girls and tied them all up. Feminists seek me out to f them, like the patriarchy which the little girls sing, like I can understand it sexualized, but like, maybe you shouldn't say that publicly.

Simone Collins: Maybe not

Malcolm Collins: like, like I, like, I what I mean is I do not think that he's actually talking about little girls, but I like understand

Simone Collins: DDLL. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dlg. Yeah. Sorry.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Here he is. It says he's talked about at an esno state where he said the logistics are necessary in the course of events in which leads us towards an esno state.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: That's, that's actually something that like, I think a lot of people need to think about when you have a large. Amount of immigrants in a country and there might be an a, a desire to preserve that country in the future, like Germany or something. Okay. You gotta think about, well, what [00:36:00] happens to the immigrants that have been imported into the country?

Like, how, how does the country, if it changes its mind about this

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Handle this, like, when it realizes it may eventually go extinct. And like what we mean here is 25% of the German population. Currently came to the country after the 1950s or their, their ancestors did. Mm-hmm. They have a higher fertility rate than the mainstream German population.

Like eventually Germans will be replaced. And this isn't like a, I'm not saying like some evil person plan this out or anything like this, but that this might lead to. Ethnic tensions is obvious, and if a far right government came into place, a question of what do you do that isn't genocide is something that is worse establishing so that people don't jump to genocide.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway and, and I mentioned the other one who this had happened to, which I found was interesting is, is, is Glavin McKinneys who, who talked about butt stuff in, in straight men and, and that not being unmanly. And I'm like, well, but like this manly [00:37:00] obsession is pointless in the first place. I think that, well, that

Simone Collins: is, again, it's, it's pretty preening and performative among men as well.

And to me it screams of insecurity. So I don't, I, I really don't care like a man who's very comfortable with his sexuality. Like there's nothing more masculine. And whether this is demonstrated by a man or a woman than confidence and comfort with your sexuality and being very open about it, that's a lot of confidence and that's very masculine.

And this whole like shaming thing, there's nothing more feminine than public shaming. Absolutely. Yeah. So this whole, it's not masculine stuff is, is very, you know, it doesn't, it's not the right brand. I think it's not the brand that conservatives necessarily want to. Project not, not dunking [00:38:00] on Man's world or anything for the

Malcolm Collins: health of keeping people was in their community.

If you've created a community, you know, one thing I mentioned to a progressive reporter recently is I was like, well, you know, back when I was a progressive. There were all sorts of ideas and arguments and everything like that that I had, that I knew I needed to keep private. If I was gonna maintain my acceptance within the community

Simone Collins: and

Malcolm Collins: within the new right, I'm able to say everything I believe about the world, right?

And people will be like, well, I disagree with you here, let's have a debate. But it is friendly, you know? It's like they, they actually want to convince me They're not like, shut up. You're not allowed to say that. Right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that alongside arousal patterns, you know, if 75% of people have some sort of a kink, and we're talking about like 20 kinks per person on average, right?

Like if, if you create a community where on average people are supposed to, to to know. That if something came out about them or something like that, that it would, it would be a reason to like shame and, and remove their [00:39:00] platform. And the average influencer in this space feels that way. Like the average conservative influencer by the statistics has something that turns them on, that they're hiding from you.

And they would hope that they're friend did dunks or PC in water when they die. Like, the, the fact that that is the case is, i, I think not the way we should structure sexual morality was in the community

Simone Collins: 100%.

Malcolm Collins: Because it, it's gonna push people out and it's gonna limit our audience. And instead to say you know, whatever arouses you can arouse you, just don't act on it.

Don't live your life in that way and to know, yeah, don't make it

Simone Collins: your identity, and don't structure your life around it. Just like with drinking, just like with eating, just like with exercising. All like, if it is not,

Malcolm Collins: don't, don't force others to participate in it. Like, this is what trans people do.

They're basically forcing others to participate in like their arousal patterns, right? They're like, Hey, everyone needs to, you know, and you, and you could tell like, part of this is about arousal. Like, they're like, none of [00:40:00] it. No, part of it's about arousal. Like, I, I, I get it. Like, for, for some of them it.

Definitely when, when the, especially when they don't even try to pass it's like, why are you forcing them to call you by a gender that you're not even attempting to look like? Like, oh, it's because you're getting turned on by having power over them. Right. When, when you have the who is the swimming guy who you wanted to be?

I can't

Simone Collins: remember his. Leah Thomas. Leah Thomas.

Malcolm Collins: And, and we have reports that, she would go into the locker room and hadn't had surgery, wasn't on anything, you know, and had a maley

Simone Collins: was out. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like,

Malcolm Collins: Why are you, we used to call this being a flasher. Like, what are you doing? Like you can, you can do this.

If you just wanted to be seen as a woman, you wouldn't be doing this clearly. Well, you know,

Speaker 17: [00:41:00] Ah!

Malcolm Collins: like part of me just

Simone Collins: wishes we lived in the Starship Trooper's world of mixed gender restrooms and like everyone has. A male like locker room approach. I'm much more angry than

Malcolm Collins: that because if it's a mixed gender restroom, then then she, she, oh, yeah.

Then it's not special. Yeah. Yeah. It's not special. Mm-hmm. She's not forcing herself on other people and that, yeah. See, no, that's, that's the solution

Simone Collins: is you just eliminate all gender neutral bathrooms. You just eliminate all gender neutral spaces and suddenly everything's okay again.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I also like that.

Because I think it desexualize the other sexist body, and I, I think that that's erection. We should be going Well, that's

Simone Collins: the point. I mean, in, in societies when things get arbitrarily sexualized, suddenly they are sexualized, whether it's an armpit or an ankle or whatever. And if we just don't make it a thing, guess what?

Suddenly, I mean, of course for some people, they're gonna.

Malcolm Collins: In the Muslim world, right? Like you, you get like [00:42:00] ankles and stuff like that, sexualized because they're covered up. If you just had everyone like seeing naked males and females normalize, you wouldn't sexualize the other gender much at all. You just, well, I wonder why,

Simone Collins: like, perhaps, so in Germany you get a lot more nudist colonies and resorts and stuff.

Mm-hmm. And the, the primary kinks that you see associated with Germany are BDSM. They're power dynamic based kinks. Yeah. Instead of like body. Body stuff. Like when I think of Germany and I think of X-rated material, it is always power dynamic related and not related to body parts. And yet when I think of the X-rated material associated with say, India or a lot of other regions that are much more conservative, then it's all about body parts.

And that is really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Is that a good thing? Yeah, I think it is a good thing. I think I, I, I, I think well, because in a good thing

Simone Collins: for it not to be an obsession with body parts, but rather power dynamics.

Malcolm Collins: Well, maybe, I don't know. Like, here's the funny thing in Germany, like why is it power dynamics that are the thing?

It's because body parts are not [00:43:00] shamed. Like they see naked people all the time. Yeah. It's like

Simone Collins: germane. It's like, well, of course, like my, you know,

Malcolm Collins: lack quality is shamed in Germany because they're like so obsessively progressive. And so the idea that somebody would have power over another person is what is most,

Simone Collins: oh ha.

It's a, it's germane,

Malcolm Collins: you would say, as a as an arousal pathway.

Simone Collins: Interesting. Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I, I, I find, yeah, this is my thoughts after I think through this is I would generally, like if I had been around when this was happening, I would say, look, the way he handled this was gross. He shouldn't have involved the public in it.

The, the way that he was defensive about this was also bad. But if you're talking about something like Gavin McKinneys, he's just like, look, you know, you shouldn't be seen as unmanly because you're, you're doing like prostate stimulation stuff. I'm like,

Simone Collins: what? Well, however, however, I think that it is important.

To separate your personal life from a professional life, even when yeah, your professional life is about your personal life. That's not true. When people are [00:44:00] influencers and it's all around their personalities, no, it's not about them as people, it's about the caricature that they've chosen to present online.

And the caricature that these men had chosen to present was of a, of that time classically conservative male, which didn't do the things that they suddenly started promoting. Mm-hmm. And it was them bringing their personal lives to work. That messed that up. And again, that is something I just wanna abide by.

We don't, we don't, we don't abide by that professionally. Don't bring your personal life into work if it doesn't help work. And they made that mistake. And so I, I, I, I still hold them responsible for it. If it came out, for example, that like their, their search history was leaked, then I would not hold them at fault.

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, like search history being leaked or like, who was it like, not Vosh one, one of the, one of the guys like had it. Pictures of Hint Eye. We've had, we have had Hint Eye leaked on this show, by the way. I accidentally put it on on, not accidentally, it's a joke. There were the, in [00:45:00] the, in the yak, the, the one about Yankees, the mild D Oh yeah, no, you

Simone Collins: put,

Malcolm Collins: you put the put hint tie on the show and other people are like, oh yeah, that's a great one.

I know that one. They're like, I didn't expect him to actually put it on the screen. The, oh, just for people who don't know, it's called like my childhood friend. It's broken or something. And it's a, it's a story. It's super awesome where they have a, a, like, a hint, I story about a, a ga ga, what's the word, G ya.

Guru girl, which is like when the Japanese women like do their face different colors and like, have lots of piercings and Malibu

Simone Collins: Barbie, Japanese edition

Malcolm Collins: garish outfits. And it's, it's apparently you learn. I, I, I decided to read the whole thing after putting in the episode. I was like, I gotta make sure this actually isn't like bad.

Apparently you learned. That in the past she was assaulted. And she dressed this way because she wanted to feel powerful and like reclaim a sense of power. And then she meets a childhood friend and they fall in love. And then he, he does nice things for her. And over time [00:46:00] she learns that she doesn't need to dress this way to feel like she's powerful and she becomes a mom and she has kids.

And the, the series ends. When her kid meets another kid playing in a park, and this is supposed to be a new childhood friendship that continues to cycle. Aw. Well, it's, it's, it's sad at the end actually, because they're commenting on how they, they don't know anyone who has kids their kids ages and no one's having kids anymore.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, but they're gonna be the new culture that generates. Or sorry that, that inherits Japan. So that's, yeah, all

Malcolm Collins: of the actual, like, cant I, like, not safer work scenes happen after that scene. It's, it's, that's so weird. There's this whole like, life

Simone Collins: arc that's super wholesome

Malcolm Collins: and then suddenly it becomes, well it created the wholesome like arc and in like the, the not safer work scenes are clearly supposed to happen at various parts of the life arc.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Because obviously she gets pregnant, but I just want

Simone Collins: to establish that like, these are, this is part of a wholesome. Loving relationship because that's part of the erotic experience for the reader.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This is, this is, this is people who want the erotic [00:47:00] experience of a wholesome, loving relationship that is, yeah.

And, and you

Simone Collins: can't get that full stimulus if you don't have the backstory that proves that that's happening. 'cause it's really hard to like lay that expedition exposition out in like three frames. That's really funny. That's really funny. But I don't,

Malcolm Collins: I don't, I don't want, you know, there's like 215 panels of this.

It's like Really? Oh my, my, geez. I, but I, I want that to be when Malcolm accidentally leaked tint tie episode that he, he had the that, that, that one where everyone No, I don't, I

Simone Collins: don't think that's when it came out though, that you have in the, in the past Consum Penta, because you've talked in the past about the fact that you like, or both of us agree that in an ideal world.

No porn would depict real people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I'm a hundred percent for only. And you expressed then that you found

Simone Collins: real porn to be extremely disgusting. So I'm pretty sure that anyone who was actually paying attention at the time would be like. Oh, then I guess Malcolm likes head tie because like, what else are you gonna like if you [00:48:00] can't,

Malcolm Collins: but if you're who, why?

I find it disgusting. I just can't like look at a real person in, in that sort of a position. There's somebody, somebody's

Simone Collins: daughter and or son. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like this is somebody's daughter, somebody wife, somebody's, they probably have

Simone Collins: kids. This is, it's rough.

Malcolm Collins: Like, this is gross. Like this, this is a human life that we're talking about here.

Like why is this okay to get off? No, I, I think it's, it's, it's it's rough. I don't know if other people have that reaction. Like I maybe, maybe other people don't. Maybe other people are just like, no, but like in this context, it's not them, it's just a picture of them. But like for me, it's like,

Simone Collins: I don't know.

Like it's, I, I think it, I was just thinking about. You know, would I feel different if they were someone, if it was you? Like, would I feel uncomfortable? But like then if, if ever I was watching even video of like, you made something for me privately or something, I'd be like, oh, what if this leaks? I'd be so uncomfortable.

And I think I think about that a lot. When I think about the other people, I'm like, oh, like. How old are they now? Are people [00:49:00] comparing their younger body to their older body? Like, what, what, what, what if their mother sees this? And you just start thinking way too much about it, and then you start thinking about yourself.

And that's one of the reasons I think why many female audiences like. Ywe, which is man on man drawn like manga and stories. It's sometimes explicit and sometimes not because at that point you're totally taken outta the situation. Not only is it drawn, so you're not thinking about humans in general, but there are no women at all.

So you're not thinking about you as a woman. Am I pretty enough? I think that there's some, there's a big theme in many genres of erotic material. That are instead of optimized around specific arousal pathways, optimized around avoiding specific, if not discussed pathways, then anxiety pathways.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I'm exactly the same way.

What a lot of you is, is now the AI stuff has gotten good, I don't even need to worry that like a human, like, like drew it

Simone Collins: and Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Humans were involved at some point in the process. Yeah. But I don't need to think about some guy in his basement drawing this. Right?

Simone Collins: Yes, that's [00:50:00] true. That is kind of a turnoff when you think about it.

Malcolm Collins: Thanks

Simone Collins: for ruining that for me.

Malcolm Collins: But I, I also point out with all of this, you know, the, the, the reason I say all this is I'm like, okay, so what if some guy is actually like a sabi guy and he is in a relationship and his partner is into this and, and they're into like him being a sub in the bedroom. Right. You know, like Uhhuh, are we supposed to be like.

That guy can't be a good man. They can't be a good masculine man. They can't be a good dad. Like I think what we need to say is like, look, if you're a Suby guy, and this is why, because I feel bad for all of the Suby guys because there's like a lot of Suby guys out there, right? Yeah. I mean, like

Simone Collins: the numbers indicate that there are a lot of out

Malcolm Collins: there.

If you are a savvy guy, that doesn't mean that you cannot be the perfect masculine man. You can be a good dad who is there for your kids. You can be in a, a relationship with your wife that is stable and supporting and when the lights are off [00:51:00] and you're doing your own thing. That, that, that can be your own thing.

And I don't think that we as a community benefit from those guys feeling in constant. Fear that they are gonna have everybody hate them if they ever found out about that. I think that that is not a healthy thing to, and that

Simone Collins: fear leads to a lot of avoidant problematic behavior. That's like, that's why you see this problem in states where porn is like banned or deeply looked negatively upon by the predominant religion that you see much more problematic behavior.

And yeah, this is definitely something, shaming is the wrong thing to do, but not so shaming the fact that you feel it bad, but pursuing it at the cost of your productivity. Also bad. That should, that should probably, yeah. And if not shamed met with a, like the same kind of concerned reaction. [00:52:00] That you react to someone who has an eating problem or a drinking problem or some other, like a gambling problem, right?

Yeah. Like those are things like, oh, you're disgusting. You gamble, you sports gamble. You have a sports gambling app. I can't believe it. I I'm never gonna be your friend. And you can't be an influencer. No. It's like. Hey, dude, are you okay? Like this? Can this, you're, you're ruining your savings. Like you're not gonna achieve your life goals if you keep doing this.

And that is, I think

Malcolm Collins: it's such a great way to frame it, is that we should, we should focus on these sorts of sexual prohibitions in the same way we focus on like gambling prohibitions.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: They're very, very serious. And they can hurt other people around them, but you need to, you need to frame them with you know, compassion in this way and be like, Hey like do you have a problem here?

Instead of, you know, one of the funniest things that everyone's like, people thought that like you weren't sexually gratifying me enough and that like they, they sent you emails about that.

Simone Collins: Yes. I've received multiple messages from people who are like, are they usually for women or men? It's been [00:53:00] both actually.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I can tell you that is not the case. No. Now they're

Simone Collins: gonna write to me again and be like, he's saying that this is his call for help, Simone. This is his call for help. He's calling for help right now. Understand how inefficient sex is. I understand. I don't think they understand.

Yeah, I don't think we understand that.

Like we're at the precipice, the turning point of the entire future of humanity, and that every hour that we spend doing something indulgent is an hour that we're not maybe tipping the scales in favor of human flourishing instead of extinction. Hello. People,

Malcolm Collins: timelines we're so short in terms of like what we're building and everything like that.

I just feel like. Like, do they not get that every because it, we're working on the same project together. So like, if I take Simone's time for like an hour of sex. Yeah. Like you, you only get so many hours a day. Like, it's not that we never do it, but it's, it's such a waste. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Anyway, [00:54:00] that's we'll see what they have to say next.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I dunno, I, I love it how you, for a while were like really acting weird about this with me. Like, I was like,

Simone Collins: Malcolm, whenever you want, like we're here, we can block out time.

Malcolm Collins: And I was like, Simone, 'cause

Simone Collins: y'all got in my head.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, no, you do not understand how much I appreciate the work you're doing.

Right. But whenever

Simone Collins: you want, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I was like, what is this worth more than the current Andreesen application? The current survival and flourishing? I know it's not, I know, but like,

Just in case

Simone Collins: this is like one of those double reverse blind. No, but it's like,

Malcolm Collins: like literally, what am I putting off for this?

We've got. Four kids that we're raising as well. Like Yeah. Of which one of 'em woke up, so I gotta gotta, all right. Love you to De Simone. I love you too. What am I doing for dinner tonight? Oh, yeah. It's a crumble.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But also, I'm gonna try something that I've never tried before, that I'm very curious about it.

I'm gonna try it too. [00:55:00] Shout out to Margaret for telling me it's possible.

Malcolm Collins: What are you gonna tell me?

Simone Collins: You will find out. What is it? If it succeeds tonight, I'm not gonna tell you.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I'm not

Simone Collins: gonna tell you. But it is something that you and I both like and that we can't get in America.

Malcolm Collins: By the way. Oh, scotch eggs.

Simone Collins: That's what I'm

Malcolm Collins: gonna say. Ah, wait. Oh my God. But okay, so if you're gonna do scotch eggs, don't bother with frying the rice. Just do like regular rice and I'll mention the crumble. No,

Simone Collins: no, no, no. Because what if they really don't turn out? This is my first time trying

Malcolm Collins: regular rice with crumble and toy sauce will be fine.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, just let me, let me do my thing, but let me go now so I can actually prep everything. I love you. All right. Love you to death. Why? have this permanent crease in my eyebrow region, but I realize now you do too. So

Malcolm Collins: you have a what? Val region.

Simone Collins: Permanent crease. Like a little look at. Look at your furrow lines. Even when you're not furrowing, they're, they're still there. And that's the problem. Well, not the problem. It's just naturally part of [00:56:00] our aging process.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I wonder, do you have, do you have the, the smile lines yet?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: that's your fault. That is your fault. The furrowing is my fault. The smiling is, is your fault because you make my life too fricking awesome. And we laugh way too much.

Malcolm Collins: No matter how big your wrinkles get, I will not leave you. So don't you worry.

Okay, we'll

Simone Collins: see. We'll just see how, how big they need to get.

Malcolm Collins: No, we'll see if you stopped being able to have kids, that's where things get dicey, Jesus.

Simone Collins: Just in case anyone thought that you were being nice and charitable.

In this episode, we dive into the alarming state of religion in the United States with shocking statistics and insights. We discuss the significant decline in church attendance and religiosity among Americans, highlighting key findings from various studies, including the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study. The conversation reveals a startling drop in religious affiliation, particularly among younger generations, and examines how different religious groups, such as Mormons and Catholics, are faring. We also explore the implications of these trends for the future of religion in America and the potential societal impacts.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be discussing the horrifying state of religion in the United States. I'll be discussing some statistics I found, and you'll be discussing the statistics you found. Mm-hmm. The fifth one that I found that was shocking, where there was a recent study where they looked at where people were going in the United States using cell phone data.

Mm-hmm. And they found out that despite 21 to 24% of Americans saying they attend church weekly, only 5% do. Which is way lower rate of religiosity than anyone expected.

Simone Collins: Why would you lie about going to church on a survey? We'll get to that when we get to the interesting stuff. What is your, the gist of what I found is that religion is literally dying in the United States in every measurable way, and specifically by dying.

I mean that the only people who still had God were the old ones. This isn't even about young people losing their faith. They never had it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and this is something that people really get [00:01:00] wrong, is they look at the pupil where it showed religion going, not going down this year in the United States, and they think that that's an indication that the erosion of traditional religion in the United States is over.

It is not. But let's go into the data

Simone Collins: so with regard to the United States and what the pew, and by the way, you should definitely check out the interactive tools with this pew research to give some background, has a religious landscape study.

This spans over 17 years. They first did it in 2020, 2007. Then they did it in 2014, then they were gonna do it again in 2021, you know, every seven years. But then. You know, pandemic. So they actually did it 20, 23, 24. So you get this really wide span and you're able to see really how quickly over this 17 year period, we lost God.

So, basically what happened was we went from 16% of Americans being religiously unaffiliated, like, you know, not that many to over 29%. So almost, almost a third of Americans just aren't religiously affiliated. And I would say it's [00:02:00] gonna be higher than that because they considered other religions to be things like Unitarian Universalists and spiritual people of like new age and that no, like dangling crystals does not make you religious.

I'm so sorry. What? People fall

Malcolm Collins: into that category other.

Simone Collins: It's, it's like one, 1%, so very, very little. Now 2% actually. So it was 1% around 20 2007, and then around 2% in 2014. But I still, you know, that's. That ain't religious. So everything, I think

Malcolm Collins: before we get into the statistics, the reason why a lot of people from religious communities aren't seeing this is because they are from religious communities.

Yeah. And definitionally, it's the people when they leave your community. I. That they are disappearing from your religion so you no longer see them, you know, when they move or whatever. Mm-hmm. This is and, and people when they deconvert from religions, don't do it for the reasons people think.

The, the number one reason why people stop attending church is just because they moved and they didn't, they didn't start going. Yeah, [00:03:00] because it was,

Simone Collins: it was a community thing. It was a friend group thing. It's very similar to our models of friendship where you have. Convenience friends who are basically just the people that you were friends with because they lived right next to you.

And I think a lot of people grew up, and especially this is the old people who are now dying, they were only religious because it was convenience, religion, that being a part of your community kind of mandated your being religious or showing up at church. 'cause that was also culturally normative. And you get a lot of side eye.

Suspicion if you didn't show up at church. So they did it, but it was convenience religion. It wasn't utility religion. People didn't practice religion because they, on the whole, because they found it really helped them perform better in life, even if it did. And so,

Malcolm Collins: and, and, and so this is why when Covid came and people started doing religious services from home mm-hmm.

And all of these communities stopped, many of them never really fully reopened. That 5% number that I gave you that was measured before Covid.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. There is one really interesting statistic that actually runs against a lot of what you've said so far.

Okay. About Mormons. That [00:04:00] gives me a lot of hope for Mormon. So when you dive into this research and you look at at age distribution among different religious groups, every religious group over time is seeing an erosion of their 18 to 29-year-old range, which is really bad because again, what this, this research is finding is that.

Religion is, is going down, not because, and I know you're, you're gonna argue it's because people are like actually changing their behavior over time. What Pew argues is that, no, it's just that the religious people are dying and the younger people aren't religious at all. And yet when you look at Latter Day Saints, Mormons.

25% of Mormons are 18 to 29, which is a pretty healthy ratio. Cons, and what, what was it in the past? So it's actually better than it ever was during the survey period in 2007, 24% of thinks were in that range. And in 2014 it actually dipped. It was 21%. Now it's 25%.

Malcolm Collins: That's really [00:05:00] impressive.

Simone Collins: So I'm, I'm actually seeing, and it's subtle, but they also just signs of recovery because actually what we are seeing in, in sort of, inverse is we're seeing fewer proportionately Mormons in the 30 to 49 range.

Yeah. And I feel like there's this millennial. Millennial slump that the LDS church had that lost a lot of people. And I feel that they've developed some cultural technologies to start recovering from that. And or the LDS community started realizing early people who left or they saw people who left and they're like, wow, it's not working out for them.

I'm gonna stay in, I'm not gonna jump the ship. So you

Malcolm Collins: look. The numbers that she has here. Sorry, this is important to get to because you, you're just, you're saying the graph says something, but a lot of people listen on podcasts, so we've gotta explain what the graph says. Yeah. So, if you're looking at the elderly population.

Within the latest measurement, the 23 to 24 range, it was 20% in the two. Previous to 2014 and 2017, it was much lower only 15% and 16% [00:06:00] respectively. Now that's really striking when you consider that now they're dealing with a bigger, much older 65 plus range in much younger, under 29 range, 18 to 29 range.

Which implies that there was sort of a baby boom within the LDS church for one generation. No, and

Simone Collins: this is really important because just to give you some perspective, okay, in 23 to 24, 20 5% of Mormons were in this 18 to 29 range. They were young. Compared to that, to Catholics in the 23 to 24 range, 14% of Catholics were in the 23 to 24% range and 28%.

Basically a third plus another 29%. So basically two thirds of Catholics are over 50 years old with 29% being 50 to 64 and 28% being 65 or older.

Malcolm Collins: It gets worse when you look at the historic data because if you go to 2007, not that long ago, only 16% of Catholics were over 65 and now it's 28%. Yeah. [00:07:00] Catholics are dying

Simone Collins: and this is, this is huge.

' cause I mean, I, I, I'm, I, so I do have hope for Catholics because I think that there are a couple very small communities. That are very high fertility that could come to represent the new version of the Catholic Church. However, I also have my doubts in this model. You know how a lot of people are like, oh, the future will be inherited by the Amish.

It's hard to even find Anaba. Mm-hmm. Let alone like, I mean there's on Amish, there's Mennonites, Mennonites, there's heater Hutterites, right? Like there's literally different subgroups. But of all the Anabaptists in general. It's, it's around 1%, maybe less. And this could be a polling issue, right? Like it's probably harder Of the

Malcolm Collins: US population, you mean?

Simone Collins: Of the US population? Yeah. If you look in this, it

Malcolm Collins: doesn't matter if they're 1%, if they're, if they're growing at the rate that they're growing now, like they'll be a huge

Simone Collins: chunk very shortly. Yeah. But I don't know, I don't know if they're actually growing at that rate. I just, they're, they're so small. I, I'm really putting all my hope in

Malcolm Collins: are we can look at the data.

This happened in another country, specifically Israel. So Israel, right now, if you look at the Hawaii population, you know how [00:08:00] they don't. Have to participate in war and stuff like that. Another 16% of the population. Yeah. The reason why they got the war exception was because when they first went to and applied for this, there were like 10,000 of them or something.

They were basically, they're like, oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And now they've exploded. So yeah, this literally has happened in other countries. Simone that's, that's, that's the power of compounding interest

Simone Collins: maybe. But

Malcolm Collins: I'm also not, the, don't really matter because they don't have technology.

So no matter how big they get, they're not gonna be a force that can impose its will on their neighbors. So you don't really need to think about them. And because they're pacifists, they can't defend themselves. If anybody wants to, like, if they don't have the state protecting them, it's, it's, it's irrelevant.

But the, the Catholics here. I find to be really fascinating how much they're arose. I actually, it's so much

Simone Collins: worse than I thought. I would not have guessed it was that bad.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it, it's, it's bad for the, the, remember that phone survey I, I found so, only only 2% of Catholics [00:09:00] actually attended church Weekly.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, no. So here's, here's the thing too though, and like to put things in perspectives, at least from a starting position, Catholics are coming off from a, a stronger position. So 19% of Christians in the US which. To be fair, only make up 62% of Americans, but of those 19% are Catholic and only 2% are LDS.

So, you know, that's a,

Malcolm Collins: but again, this doesn't really matter. I, again, you, you have to look at this in terms of compounding returns. A a as I've pointed out, if we have eight kids and they have eight kids, and you do that for just 11 generations, we have more descendants than there are people on earth today.

When you're starting with existing large populations. There was a one population that I was looking at of Hutterites and I, and I'll. Put the exact gross numbers after, but I, I seem to remember that they grew I think it was something like. God, I can't remember. I wanna say like three, 350% in just like 50 years.

Mm-hmm. Like you can [00:10:00] explode really. And then keep in mind when you're growing on top of that, it's compounding. No, no. You

Simone Collins: make a fair point. And you also have

Malcolm Collins: compounding collapses.

Simone Collins: And also Yeah, like when, when there's nobody left. All that matters is who's still there and they'll still be there.

So that's good for them as long as they don't change. Yeah. But this, another, the

Malcolm Collins: thing with Catholics is, and to to, to focus on this Yeah. Is, is they internally don't accept how bad things are for them. They don't accept their deconversion rates. Yeah. They refuse to, they don't accept they're low fertility rates.

They're like, the ones that I can see are fine. And as I've said before, this is like looking at a battlefield and being like, my troops are purposely healthy. And I'm like, what about all the dead ones? And they're like, why would I count them among my ranks? It's, it's survivorship bias. The, the, the Catholics who matter are the ones who are deconvert.

It's, and, and, and leaving. It's not the ones who are there. But I was actually just talking with a Catholic earlier today. He's a fan of ours. And he was sort of asking like what he should do as his future. He really wants kids and a family. But he was thinking about the priesthood, you know, and he knows like this is a, a challenge and a choice.

And this is again, one of the problems. Oh boy. This is just. [00:11:00] Remember how we liked the opus Day before? Yeah. Did you know 30% of the Opus day are silhouettes? Oh, this

Simone Collins: was the guy who, so he's the same guy who wrote to us about this.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he got the guy in Poland? No, no. Different guy.

Different guy. This is a Oh, totally. We have lots of Catholic fans. Okay. Anyway, the other Catholic fan was thinking about what he's gonna do with his future. The guy in Poland actually had some really interesting points. Both, yeah. Like, is actually pretty bad for family creation because they gender isolate people.

Mm-hmm. And they have 30% celibate and they're just more focused on this like performatively. And so I went to this guy, I was like, well, what if you like. Pitched the Vatican on starting an order that takes, oh snap. The opus day's idea that you can dedicate yourself like faithfully to like anything you're doing in your daily life.

Yeah, but refocuses it entirely on the sacrament, just being

Simone Collins: apparent.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, REFA not, not being a parent explicitly, but the next generation. Mm-hmm. So what you would do is not just be a parent yourself, but you would like religiously put together things like, like [00:12:00] daycares was in existing, like he was talking about a parish that was about to shut down near him.

And I'm like, well, what if you, you know, build a, a daycare facility in there? You know, what if you find people to, in their free time within this order. As a way of giving back to the church man, this what have you, you know, this is the type of thing that the church could get really excited about.

Simone Collins: Yeah, actually that's, I mean, I think it's worth pitching. It fits

Malcolm Collins: Catholic ideology.

Simone Collins: Like we should pitch that to the person that we've spoken with in the past. He's a priest.

Malcolm Collins: Who shoulda not. Yeah. We could connect, we should pitch it to them.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Be like, yeah, because I was like a wow to think I have connections in the Vatican, but Yeah.

Okay. But yeah, connect them because I think that that, that it's, it's completely conducive with Catholic's current belief system. It would work. It's, it's something they desperately need. Yeah. It works with their theology. And so why not just put that together and then you can build this like.

Prenatal as Catholic sect. And you already have the justification from the [00:13:00] opus day that lay people can, can, can like, live a life of, of, of sacrifice. Like what if you canonized this idea of sort of like living martyrdom to the next generation.

Simone Collins: I like it. Oh, very. Techno puritan. Of course. I'm gonna share with you one more thing that I think is relevant at least to our, I told you so narrative that came from this.

Pew study, which is that the urban monoculture is spreading and has really effectively spread from the university system in more elite parts of society to mainstream society. Mm-hmm. And that is you can see this when you look at the levels of education and then the loss of Christianity. So when you look at these numbers for the beginning of this survey in 2007.

The percentage of people with high school or less as their education was 60 some, 66% Christian 5% other religions, and then 27% religiously unaffiliated. And then by 2014 I, I guess they [00:14:00] don't have the most recent stuff. It went to 75%. Were Christian which is really interesting. Like they sort of became like the uneducated became more Christian.

But when you look at people with postgraduate degrees 56% of them were Christian. So very, very few, like from the very beginning, oh, sorry. When you look at 2014 and. People with graduate degrees, 62% of them are Christian. So almost like the sort of level of average Americans today. Mm-hmm. And I feel like this has very much trickled down to mainstream society now.

It's even, even fewer. Only 56% of people with postgraduate degrees are Christian. But compared to today with high school or less, that's, that's 66% in other ways. In other words, the gap between postgraduate. Americans and high school or less were Americans was actually higher in terms of religiosity in 2014.

Mm-hmm. It was 10% [00:15:00] different in terms of Christianity versus 16% in 2014. And I feel that that difference in like wow. Postgraduate people were a whole lot less religious. That difference in 2014 decreasing is a sign of basically just the urban monoculture spreading from just elite culture to all culture.

So even people without high school. Wait, you said

Malcolm Collins: that the uneducated became more Christian, so that's, that's almost like the urban monoculture. Sorry, I

Simone Collins: got it wrong. I was looking at the, the wrong tabs. 'cause there's a lot, there's a lot of tabs here. So, okay. Then say it correctly. Yeah. In 20 14, 70 5% of people with high school or less were Christians.

Now only 66% consider themselves to be Christian and with postgraduates in 2014 waiting for it to load. Come on. Okay. Okay. And with postgraduates in 20 14, 60 2% were Christian. Now only 56% are, but as you can see, the gap got narrower. And I think that's just a [00:16:00] sign of the urban monoculture spreading from the university system to, yeah, mainstream culture.

Things have just become a lot more normalized. Another thing just that's important to point out. In this, this survey finding is on every area that they measured religiosity, people were moving in a less religious direction. So it came with identity, it came with beliefs, and it came with practices. So people aren't going to church or praying as much as your data shows.

They are not identifying as religious as your data shows. And they don't believe religious things, which. Part of me would've wanted to think, okay, well people still identify as Christian or they identify as Jewish. They're just not going, you know, they're not actively practicing. Or they maybe don't even believe, but they, you know, they still call themselves that.

And then the final important thing to note from this pew in data, which is interesting and does kind of feed into the natal con, we have to protect the west narrative, which is surprising because it's not what [00:17:00] I expected, is it? Only Christianity seeing a decline in the United States When you look at the United States in general.

Yeah. Or we do that.

Malcolm Collins: I wanna go into the Protestant data because I find it interesting. Okay. The Evangelical Protestants. Yeah. These are Protestants who identify as evangelical Protestants and they're actually in. As bad a situation is the Catholics. So not, maybe not as bad, but, but pretty bad. No, it's

Simone Collins: pretty pathetic.

No, no, no. Don't, don't, don't understate

Malcolm Collins: it. This is embarrassing. Look at evangelical Protestants. They're 18 to 29 percentage is the same as Catholics. 14%. Yeah. It's pathetic. And, and they're over 65 percentage is 27%, which is the only

Simone Collins: group I saw that had me thinking, oh, you guys are getting it together.

Is is Mormon. Period.

Malcolm Collins: Period. They're, they're over 50% over the age of 50 right now. Like that's crazy. Like well over 50% again, and

Simone Collins: because they're dying. And that's what you see in these numbers is it's like the skew is shifting to old people. Because literally as this survey has progressed over this 17 year period.

People's views have stayed the same. It's just that the people who had faith are

Malcolm Collins: going to die

Simone Collins: soon.

Malcolm Collins: The Protestant [00:18:00] numbers are more stable than the, than the Catholic numbers in that if you go back to 2007, they were already at only 16% of their population, you know, being 18 to 29. Yeah. So basically there isn't something new happening 2007 to now in the Protestant population.

Yeah. The evangelical Protestant population. And note here, like I've talked about this, I've, I've said the evangelical movement is. Dying. Like, yeah. Like the extremist, like Quiverfull, Protestant, et cetera they don't really exist within this generation in large numbers. They're not a major voting block anymore.

They're not like, they used to be like super, super, super important to American politics. Yeah. They defined their Republican party. And they have been replaced by four C Channelers, I guess you could say. Like, yeah. As, as like the key voting block before Chans

Simone Collins: aren't exactly known for having faith.

Also, this has serious implications for Tism in general for, for America's birth rates in general. Because the, the research also tracked things like marital status and it is very clear that there is a correlation [00:19:00] between religion and marriage. So as of 2007, I mean, it was very stark. 81% of married people in the United States were Christian.

Only 14% were religiously unaffiliated. 80 Wait, 21%? What? What? 81%. So eight out of 10. Eight outta 10 married people in the United States were CED Western Dinner, or Americans are Christian and Oh, in general, on that year.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like that. That justing means nothing without knowing how many,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah. Sorry.

Let give you the comparison.

Oh, come on.

Let me find this. It's a Littley.

Malcolm Collins: No, you literally just Google it.

Simone Collins: I don't know what's, okay. 67%. 67%. No. Hold on. Go to US data. Oh, there we go. Okay. In 20 17, [00:20:00] 70 8% of Americans in general. Were Christian, 81% were married, so there wasn't that much of a gap. Let's go to 2014. Suddenly 76% of married people are Christian, and yet the US population that is Christian goes down to 71.

The gap is getting bigger. Then 20 23, 20 24, only 62% of Americans are Christian, and yet we're, we're seeing a slight uptick. 68% of married people are Christian, and I'm, what this says to me. Is it the thing that is keeping people getting married is religion.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: In more cases than not. Which is, which is meaningful.

So we're gonna see if fewer marriages, because we're gonna see fewer cultural frameworks that make marriage make sense. Especially in a country like in the United States, where for a lot of middle and lower income people getting married gives you a tax penalty. Like, it's not, it's not a culturally logical, like in the absence of religion, it doesn't make [00:21:00] sense to get married if that makes Yeah.

Like just, and that's, that's insane. But like we live in a country that actually penalizes marriage in many cases, especially for normal people, not like, not for very rich people. So this is going to hurt birth rates, just period. And it, it makes me really sad because this, this is getting reflected in, in rates of sex and everything else.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you are you were gonna give data on the fertility rates of non-Christians in the United States and what's happening with them?

Simone Collins: Oh, like the parental status of non-Christians? No, you said

Malcolm Collins: the only groups that are dropping are Christians. And then you were going to talk about groups that weren't Christians that are not dropping.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. So just in general, an important thing to note with this research is that. The fairly low, but, but now apparently constant percentage of non-religious people, or sorry other religious people has sort of stayed the same. So in 2007, 5% of US [00:22:00] adults were other religions. This includes Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and then what We wouldn't count Unitarian Universalist and New Age and Native American religions.

Then in 2014, it actually jumped up to 6%, and in 20 23, 20 24, it jumped to 7%. So the only reason it jumped to 7%, by the way, is that we now have more people identifying as New Age and Unitarian Universalists. So I don't actually, I think a lot of people would be like, oh, that means we're getting more Muslim immigrants or like more Jews.

No. Those have stayed constant. They have not changed. 2% of the other religions are Jewish. That's just stayed the same. Same for 1% for Buddhist, 1% for Muslim, there was a slight increase in Muslims because in 2007, fewer or less than 1% of American adults were mu, or of the 5% that were other religions were Muslim.

It switched to just 1%. But the problem is that like, is that, is that 1% of

Malcolm Collins: Americans or 1% of the 5%,

Simone Collins: 1% of the 7% that are other religions are Muslims [00:23:00] now.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. So very small. So there's

Simone Collins: very, very few Muslims, extremely few Muslims extremely few Buddhists. And then, and then actually a, a way more than there should be new age and we would argue and hearing universalists.

Yeah. So one new religions we, I would argue have not actually increased because you shouldn't count UUs and New Age Crystal. People as religious that is religiously unaffiliated and being into a trend. And I think that that's important to note because it runs counter to my world model that like western civilization isn't falling and like Christians are doing just fine.

I mean, Christians are still a huge percentage of Americans, but. They are eroding. But I also, like other religions are coming from nowhere and they're basically just holding steady. They're not increasing. So I don't see this as real as Christians being replaced by any stretch of the imagination. However, these other religions aren't tanking in the same way that [00:24:00] many Christian religions are, except for the Mormons, which by, you know, we keep tank.

We like. We keep saying they're doing a terrible job. They're saying a huge exodus. They're bouncing back.

Malcolm Collins: They're, they're taking this situation seriously. Mm-hmm. Which I think is why they're doing well. Yeah. Like they're actually like sitting down and doing like, what the Catholic should be doing is like starting new orders based on having kids and stuff like that.

Like, they're the, they actually do this stuff. Yeah. Like when. When their fertility rates started to drop. A lot of Mormon things that we think of as, as having been around forever are new cultural technology. Like the singles wards were invented in the 19 seventies. Like, that's, that's not that old, that's not like always been a part of Mormonism.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And it's, and actually those, it was the perfect time to do it because it was during the age of. Female professional empowerment. It was during the age when people were not as tethered to their childhood communities, which I think made getting married a little bit easier. So the church either intuitively or very intentionally and logically saw where the headwinds and tailwinds were and [00:25:00] decided to create new forms of institutions that would make it possible for people who were not moored.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: To a single community and who had careers to find someone, which is so cool.

Malcolm Collins: Like a question I have internally is like, why are Catholics not able to take this as seriously as Mormons or treat this as seriously? Yeah. And I have a hypothesis.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: It has to do with how their central leadership is decided.

Mm. So both Catholics and Mormons have a central church that could disseminate these messages if it had a mind to, okay. The Mormons Central Church, the people who end up is the, like prophets and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And like the, the head people in the central church a lot of them have a background in.

Bus business, like they show their company. They're, they're like bane type people. Oh. They're like,

Simone Collins: yeah. McKenzie type people. They're private equity people. They own businesses. Yeah. They're private

Malcolm Collins: equity type people. And, and so when they come into religion, they're, they're viewing it like a giant company, right?

Like they're trying to, to make money and grow and think long term, right? Yeah. You know, that's, that's their goals. The Catholic leadership is made up entirely of people who have dedicated their entire life to theological [00:26:00] study. Hmm. Not just that, but celibate people who have dedicated, it's, it's almost like lifetime

Simone Collins: politicians making policy versus business people making policy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and because of that, the issue of fertility collapse is just not something that's on their mind. And when it's brought up to them, they would believe that they have some form of theological protection from its implications, I believe. Hmm. You know, because they're relating to this all through, through the lens of theology rather than through the lens of like, well, let's be practical about the situation.

Now, Mormon fertility rates have taken a hit, but like, as you've pointed out here, they appear to be already riding the ship, like the, the, the, the torpedo hit and the ship is now coming back online. Whereas. Yeah, this is interesting. Evangelical Protestants, the reason I don't mention them is 'cause they don't have a centralized structure, so they can't disseminate new messages.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And they're kind of, they're, they're unmoored and listless and they're isolated communities.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So if you, if you're like, what's going to replace them? Well, I hope something like techno Puritanism [00:27:00] replaces them, to be honest. Like, I'd be okay with that. I like, I, we don't actively proselytize, but I like the the structure of this.

And I think that and when I say something like, what's replacing the evangelical movement? The Jordan Peterson movement the the, the various new forms of Christianity that are more melds of secular self-help slash Protestantism. Mm-hmm. Mixed with religiosity. These, this, this is where that community is going.

And I see Techo Puritanism as an iteration of that, that's more extreme. And, and, and more dedicated and more is sort of like the techno puritanism is like the opus day to whatever Jordan Peterson is. You know, like if Jordan Peterson represents the Jesuit branch of this Protestant faction, we would represent the Opus Day faction.

Mm-hmm. Just like the way more intense about it, the way more extreme in expectations. And, and like, I think that, that, that works. But the thing about Protestantism is, is unlike other groups, you [00:28:00] know, you don't have some higher group deciding what's canon and what's not canon. Mm-hmm. You need to go out there on the ground and convince people of your perspective or out breed them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And parents especially, I mean, parents see what's happening to their kids on the ground. They're the ones who know what their kids need as they go through whatever religious system is rearing them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow. I mean, it's it's worse than I thought.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I was, I was surprised by the e how cooked evangelical Protestantism is.

Like I've mentioned it before, but like, it's something you don't see 'cause nobody really molds. I don't know. But yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's so much of the content that we create, you know, about the new right. About the interesting religious movements. Where are the evangelicals? Where are the influencers in this space?

They don't

Malcolm Collins: come. Like, I literally, like, I have been involved in politics a lot recently in terms of meeting with political influencers and people who work in politics. I haven't met a single evangelical project. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They're just not there. And that's the thing like that, that's, to me, that's why I'm not at all surprised.

I'm like, well, yeah, they, this explains it. You know, [00:29:00] they're all just dying. They're, they're old and they're offline and they're dying. Well, but here's the thing. I've met tons of

Malcolm Collins: Catholics. So they're also dying. And that is, yeah, that is the reason have institutional power. That's,

Simone Collins: but that's why I have hope for Catholics is, is they are getting organized in their communities and if anything, they're literally

Malcolm Collins: not bro.

They're literally not. They have like some communities that seem to work, but I think they need something from up top going down. I think they need border. So you don't think that over time

Simone Collins: as these groups are the only ones that are left, they will influence policy at the Vatican level? You don't think so?

Malcolm Collins: Like already. I mean, I think the majority of Catholics, at least the ones that I found who take it seriously, are very unhappy with what's happening at the Vatican level. Like the, yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The idea that the Vatican is, the point is though that their opinion doesn't matter now because

Simone Collins: they're too small and when they are bigger, they, their opinion will matter.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. I, I said the majority of Catholics I know are actually involved with their religion are not so already. Okay. Interesting. Already the Vatican is not a democracy in the way, like America's [00:30:00] democracy, right? Like if the average Catholic is, is is like suppose like you had like super prenatal Catholics having lots of kids growing and everything like that, the the entire.

Career pipeline to getting in the chair that votes on the Pope is celibate. Mm. Like you are not near those people. Yeah.

Simone Collins: That's not gonna help.

Malcolm Collins: So, so you do have this and, and if you believe you have divine protection, you're not gonna take threats like this as seriously.

Simone Collins: That's also fair.

Malcolm Collins: So that does worry me.

Yeah, I can see that that potentially not going on. What's even more sobering though,

Simone Collins: if we wanna get to this though, is we're just looking at the P research data for the United States. A actually fairly passionate religious country. I think if we were to see EU data, we would, I. Oh, absolutely. It'd be so hot.

Vomit with anxiety. Yeah. Japanese jata, south Korean data.

Malcolm Collins: I've pointed out, like if you look at like ic, majority of countries in the eo like, like Italy, right? Where like the Vatican is, it's at 1.18 now. Fertility rate [00:31:00] they hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. And there are, but this is a good thing because there are like small high fertility Catholic communities.

I think that they might be able to stabilize and like replace a lot of the rest of the Catholic population pretty quickly. Hmm. The questions I have is just like, what's the deconversion rate in these communities? 'cause I don't feel like that's being taken seriously. Yeah. Like the communities exist, but like the Quiverfull movement also existed.

Right. You know, and I know I'm saying all of this only because Catholics can actually do something. Like, Protestants can't really, like

Simone Collins: they lack the top down organization necessary.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they lack the top-down organization necessary to address this outside of the way that we're doing it. I mean, I think what we're doing is the best way to handle this as a Protestant.

Yeah. Which is to create a living religion, which continues to update in the way that Protestants have updated in a long time. I mean, Protestants have undergone major re-understanding of their faith throughout American history. And us having that [00:32:00] was like the track series and stuff like that.

Is not in any way discordant with American Protestant traditions. So I, I'd argue like we are fighting for the Protestant thing, is what we're doing with tracks is what we're doing with second Puritanism.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Fair.

Malcolm Collins: So, I mean, maybe somebody else can create some, some other form that's like persistent, but I, I, I think I'd, I'd like to see that.

That'd be cool, right? Like, it, it could work, but you just don't see many of them. Like, like at at Natal Con, you don't see many Protestants.

Simone Collins: I guess not. I mean, if you do, they're not the main speakers or influencers there. Yeah, which is interesting. Cool. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But in terms of church attendance, I'll put a heat map on screen here.

So like who is actually attending church? Yeah. In what regions are they?

Simone Collins: Okay. LDS church is a must 'cause you have, you know, your callings, you have to, you've, you have a job. Like you can't Yeah. Not show up at church because you literally have to play piano or help man the kitty [00:33:00] pool or what, whatever their like daycare version thing is.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm trying to find out where, where the LDS was. I seem to remember for the LDDS, it was 11%, which is really high for weekly attendance.

I went back to double check, so I'm gonna get some of these numbers wrong coming up. So just remember these are the right numbers.

For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7% of Protestants to attend mass weekly. And for LDS it's 14.6%. Attend Mass weekly.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. 11 percent's actually pretty low. Low

Malcolm Collins: when you consider the way their face is structured. Yeah, yeah, look

Simone Collins: low when you consider what a proper practicing Mormon should be doing, and if you are a proper practicing Mormon, you have a calling at your local ward.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like

Simone Collins: you, you have a job. You have to do something.

Malcolm Collins: Well, there may be, there's just not that many proper practicing Mormons of the Mormons. That's

Simone Collins: crazy. Okay. That's actually, now I'm worried about the LDS church. This is not good. This

Malcolm Collins: Protestants, it was like, I wanna say 5%. The remember was Catholic.

It was only, two to 1% I [00:34:00] think. Whoa.

For Catholics, it was 1.9% of Catholics to attend mass weekly. For Protestants, it's 7%

To get into some more data here, only 19% of Americans self-identify as Catholic, down 24% in 2007. This is a 20% decrease by comparison. Protestants decreased by 21% while religious nuns. Increased by 81% and Muslims increased by an astounding 200%, although they still make up a small percentage of the overall population, only 1.2%.

Even though the Pew Survey headline suggested a decline in Christianity in this country may have quote unquote leveled off, it's clear the overall direction is downward. This is a quote from a Christian magazine about it. .

Malcolm Collins: If you look at the map, you can clearly see the Bible belt. Like the Bible belt is just like dark, dark, dark. You're looking at like 6.4% in those regions. If you go to like Massachusetts or Maine or something like that, you're looking at like under 1% in all of those regions.

Wow. You go to Texas, you're looking at like 4.5%, [00:35:00] 4.8%, you know, around 5%. Same with Florida. Pennsylvania, you're looking fairly low. You're looking at around like it seems maybe like 2.3%. And, and, and what you might be surprised about is California, you're looking higher than that.

California, you're looking in like the 4% range.

Simone Collins: Is that from all the inland Christians?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. California has a big conservative population in it. Yeah. It's basically

Simone Collins: San Francisco and LA

Malcolm Collins: is, and then a bunch of conservative

Simone Collins: progressives and then like the rest is, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it's funny. Nevada's also in that range, Washington's also in that range.

Interesting. Oregon is actually pretty Blue Oregon is, is is in the like 5% church attendance range.

Simone Collins: I guess these rural regions help to hold

Malcolm Collins: them up. So like close to like, you know, New Mexico or Florida or something, or Virginia. Which I, I found pretty interesting. That is interesting. But you know, another thing you might be surprised about is how low church attendance to this in the Midwest, Montana, Wyoming, North [00:36:00] Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, all of them have around 2% church attendants.

Simone Collins: Wow. Oh man. Okay. Yeah, no we are, it's over. We. Yeah, and this is just an, I think this is also a lot more evidence indicating that going back to the old boys, like we just have to get more traditional Catholic, traditional evangelic, whatever is clearly not working you. You can't just go back to that. People have clearly chosen to abandon it.

It's not trying to make that work, I think is the wrong approach.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. I agree a hundred percent.

Simone Collins: But then you know what does work? Because I think it's also very difficult for people to do the othering, to do the weirdness if they don't feel like there's at least some safe tribe that's doing it with them.

I think we're unusual and that we really don't care that we dress weird and have weird names and do weird holidays. I [00:37:00] think other people would be very uncomfortable if they did that in isolation. So how do you.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's why's that why people are gonna go extinct?

Simone Collins: Oh, so just the people who don't care what mainstream society thinks will survive.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's what I mean. If you look at our video on like, they're gonna replace you like the Japanese subculture and the, the tradies and the, you know, the, the, a lot of these are people who just do not care what mainstream society No, no. But

Simone Collins: the tradies and the. The Japanese soft Yankees, they do live in tight-knit communities.

They do live close together. No, they

Malcolm Collins: have communities that they choose, but it's not like everyone in their community lives the way they do. They, they, they choose these groups. It's like a subculture, right? You know? They're like goths or something within the United States.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I think that they're more representative of what I would expect from future high fertility cultures and that they do geographically concentrate and live next to each other and feel solidarity in their weirdness together.

I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Also, you'll note here if you're, if you're looking at the, the regular church attendants, the greater Appalachian region [00:38:00] is like also really darker than the other regions around it. Hmm. Which is interesting. But yeah, as, as, as I you know, one thing I didn't get a chance to point outta that video that these, that these Yankees, that these whatever guys.

That dress like, you know, greasers and stuff like that in Japan are, are staying high fertility. This means that we're in the timeline where space dandy or red line happens. There's been a number of, of, of far future like space animes where one of the characters is a Japanese Yankee.

And I can totally see that like

Simone Collins: yeah, they called it without realizing what they were calling.

Right. Which is interesting. Yeah. They're just like, no, this, this subculture is visually interesting. Little did they know that it was a future friendly subculture as everyone else chose to die out? Well,

Malcolm Collins: I unlikable, you know, I, I think one of the thing is is, is J Japanese person could be like, well, does Japanese culture really survive?

If it's the Japanese Yankees, I mean, you don't walk around in like samurai armor or whatever, right? Like, you don't walk around dress like somebody from the ma maing whatever period. Like ma you, period. Yeah, yeah. Like. You, you, you change a lot as, as things go on, and you might be undergoing one of these changes [00:39:00] right now where when our descendant think of Japanese people, they're thinking of somebody who looks like whatever, like the Yankees and, and Gaza or what, what are those girls called?

Who dressed Goldman? Ros become. Yeah. And if you're thinking about Americans, you're thinking about like, what, what, you know, the, the Hill people became the country music culture. And, and the Mormons. I, I think that they're gonna write the ship on them because Utah and Idaho are just so high fertility right now.

And that's where the, the Mormons are based.

Simone Collins: I'm thrilled. They not high

Malcolm Collins: fertility, high high church attendance. They're, they're Boston in Lake.

Simone Collins: So then, you know, space Mormons too. They called it. Yeah. Starship Troopers. The, the few that will remain, by the way, she's referring to

Malcolm Collins: the scene that they started the war, they Mormon separatists you know, were not listening to, to the sky Marshal and settled a, a remote outpost called Brigham Young.

I love you death, Simone. Have a spectacular day.

Simone Collins: And may we never lose religion. [00:40:00] Yes. Space Mormons.

Is this daddy's phone? Yes. So be very careful with it on tv. What you doing? Um.

No, look. Careful, careful, careful, careful.

Uh oh. She's gonna clobber you guys.

Join us as we delve into a riveting conversation with Raw Egg Nationalist, the mind behind the provocative 'Man's World' magazine. In this episode, we explore the unique aesthetic philosophy of the new right, its cultural significance, and the inspirations behind the artistic movement. We discuss the rebirth of men's magazines, the influence of anime and Greco-Roman aesthetics, and the importance of producing engaging and beautiful art in today's sociopolitical landscape. This video is a must-watch for those interested in understanding the burgeoning right-wing cultural scene and its impact on contemporary art and literature. Don't miss this engaging and thought-provoking discussion!

Malcolm Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello everyone. I'm excited to be here. We have a raw egg nationalist with us again. I am so excited. And what we wanted to talk about is, I was looking at his, his, his magazine. I'd never seen a print copy before Man's World. And hold it, hold it up so they can see the anime girls and everything.

'cause you're, it's

Simone Collins: perfection. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And I'll try to put like one on the screen here if I remember, and you can, you can turn it over to show sort of the back of it. But when I was looking at this, you know, like Shinzo, Abe, big titty, anime girl, Trump like, and missile also just

Simone Collins: the formatting in general though, like, I remembered.

From my, my childhood years, just really loving, for example, wired magazine because just had this incredible formatting and layout and I've missed that. And we're seeing it again here. And it's just so fun to see like this. Well, yeah, I go to one of us where

Malcolm Collins: it's like racist or whatever, right. You see how they did our article in it.

But the reason I find this interesting, and I wanted to focus on it, is the, the new right has developed a very unique aesthetic philosophy. Mm-hmm. [00:01:00] And I think that this covers, sort of perfectly represents it so people understand it's not just Malcolm saying like the, the, the, the alt-right cat girl phenomenon or whatever.

Yeah. No proof.

Simone Collins: This is not just in Malcolm's head. This is awesome and it's here.

Malcolm Collins: And, and I'll also put a sargon of a cod, a tweet here.

死んだ は 初めて 俺 に 伝えて いる 絶望 の 匂い だ 面白い こと 見せよう か ほら こんな に ガチン が 多 すぎて お父さん アカン ドナルド君 は まだ 死ぬ 時 じゃ ない でしょ ア アメリカ 万歳 さよなら ここ

で 絶対 負けない よ ランドトゥライド まで 出ろ だ って まだ サンキュー 言ってない でしょ 一回 も 言って ください おい[00:02:00]

仲良く して この 世界 に 傷ついて いける かな 昔 グレート だった 大きに また グレート に なる

かな あの さ 有名人 なら 誰か の マンコ 掴んで さ そうそう そうそう やらせる で

Malcolm Collins: Which I found amazing where they had like anime style Trump and over the top, and I thought it was the best. But I, yeah. I'd love to just hear your thoughts, how you constructed this and how you think about this sort of aesthetic move because it's really a new artistic movement that is starting and I don't think many people are cataloging or talking about.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. So I mean, so I started Mans World really by accident. You know, I was, thinking of, well, I mean, I write about masculinity a lot. You know, that's one of, that's my bread and butter. That's what I've been writing about on Twitter and, and [00:03:00] writing articles about, you know, for, for five, five years now actually.

But in the sort of summer of 2020, I was thinking about men's magazines and I was thinking, you know, why are, why are there no men's magazines anymore? You know? So play Playboy is totally paused now. Playboy is so, you know, I mean, they had a transgender centerfold, I think.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh. Okay. Yeah. What was that

Malcolm Collins: men's magazine that I used to love?

Maxim. Maxim. Do you remember this? Okay. So it was little fashioned though. I felt like it was. No, no, no. So, so I gotta talk about this because this is the, a, a historic phenomenon that disappeared, but was like, I think a staple of our childhoods. When you would go to the magazine rack before you get on a plane or something like that.

There was always a, like a, a category. I think Maxim was sort of the main one where we'd have like irreverent, funny articles that were targeted at men. And sort of the point of it was to be edgy and man focused. They even had a TV channel called Spike [00:04:00] TV that was edited this demographic in this format.

We actually know the guy who was one of the, the showrunners for that, who now runs Dad Saves America. But anyway, they, they had shows like. So funny that it, the person who ran the the Man Show was Jimmy Kimmel. But I remember like an example of like a joke they had on the show. Can you believe that Jimmy Kimmel ran this joke?

Is he would have a young kid go around and try to buy alcohol at convenience stores. And when they'd ask him for his id, he'd ask them for their green cards.

. I just need to help old ladies cross the street. Old ladies. Yeah. I'm not old. Sure you are.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, continue document this.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, so I was, so, I was thinking about men's magazines and, you know, why Playboy has disappeared. You know, I mean, part of it's something that I remember from my teenage years, you know, growing up things like Maxim, FHM, but also Playboy, you know, and there's this old Chestnut I read Playboy for the article.

Yes. But it's, but it's, but it's true. I mean, I, I say this a lot, but it's, you [00:05:00] know, it's true. Like Playboy used to have great writers NAL, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, all of these great, you know, great writers of the middle and, and late 20th century, you know, would regularly write for Playboy. Hunter Thompson too, right?

Yeah, yeah. Hunters Thompson. Yeah, exactly. So you'd have, you'd have, you know, it was, it was like a re it was a trendsetting taste setting thing. Playboy. Yeah. You know, it was, it was for like a. Aspiring men, you know, men, men who are, who have aspirations, men who want to, you know, sort of better themselves and, and but also

Simone Collins: cutting edge culture.

Yeah, very. It was on the forefront of change. These were age agentic people.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Exactly. Exactly. And it, it, I mean, it wasn't just about the beautiful women, the native women. I mean, that was a big part of it. That was part of the lifestyle. And obviously that was part of Hugh Hefner's lifestyle. But you know, play Playboy was a cultural phenomenon.

And so I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if we actually on the right, if we had a new kind of playboy for the, for the new massively online internet [00:06:00] era? Something that sort of combined the best writing on, you know, on the dissident, right. Whatever you want to call it with kind of lifestyle stuff and, and also this kind of, basically like the Twitter four chan kind of aesthetic where you, where you are, you know, so you'd, you'd be mixing like classic Playboy, the classic Playboy layout. You know, I mean, the magazine looks like a classic playboy in many respects, but it's. But it's just, it's, it's kind of bizarre and, and sort of a bit postmodern and, and it has all of this.

Yeah. You are

Simone Collins: really combining like all the new aesthetics, which I really like got this like vintage. Well, no, but

Malcolm Collins: I, but I mean, I think that, that what you're showing there, can you put that closer to the camera so we can really see that Is is a, a artistic style that is unique to this sort of new right movement where you're combining nostalgia with.

Irreverence and, and cultural subversion.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But still like with Yeah, like irreverence, you know, like this is, you know, there, there are puns. It's playful around the world in [00:07:00] 80 Lays is what it says. Yes.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was, that was the winner of, so we had a pulp fiction contest in the magazine, and that was the winner of the Pulp Fiction contest.

I wanted people to write classic pulp fiction short stories racy, exciting, you know, for men. And I mean, the, the winner, the winner is great. All of, in fact, most of the entries that we had for the competition, we had hundreds of entries. They were really good. Wow. It was really very, very high standard.

But I mean, the thing about, the thing about the aesthetics thing, I suppose, is that you know, really it's, it's quite heavily influenced by Bronze Age, pervert by Bronze Age mindset. I mean, he helped mm-hmm. To put. Aesthetic considerations, I think back on the radar in a, for the writing in a way that they weren't before.

You know, I mean, Bronte's mindset as a book is as much about the kind of, the kind of madcap energy of the, of the book, of the style the kind of irreverence, the style of re and

Simone Collins: well, and vitalism too. [00:08:00] So yes, the, the aesthetics is permeated in every grammatical choice that he makes. Mm-hmm. As well as this, like very heavy.

Vitalistic enthusiasm which is somewhat reminiscent of the Playboy days. I think, you know, there's that same sort of enthusiasm for the future in Vitalism. I think he, he tones it up.

Malcolm Collins: So if we wanna talk about Bronze Age pervert, there's a few things to break out here. One is, his name is intentionally, you know, I talked about combining nostalgia, bronze Age with subversion pervert.

It does that perfectly in the way that he constructed it. Yeah. If you look at his writing style, he intentionally does not use correct per periods and everything he correct does lots of run-ons. He doesn't follow the rules. We associate with high status writing. Sure. And post him and you being dox.

We now know, you know, he went to Yale, you went to, what was it, Oxford or Cambridge like? Both. Both bo of both. So you have all of the [00:09:00] criteria that we would associate with access to high class, high culture. And yet when both you and him entered the public community, you did so pseu anonymously to negate the, the classic signs of status.

And then you and, and he more than you to start, you know, wrote in a way that you could almost say was, was vulgar to high status because it could not be used to signal high status. It intentionally subverted everything that we associate with an educated man while presenting ideas in an educated format.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, I think, I think that's a very interesting way of putting it. And certainly, I mean, you know, just with the magazine then there are fake adverts throughout the magazine. I mean, that's been a, that's been a big part of the magazine from the start, is these kind of fake adverts. So one of them, for example, there's a, I've created a, a kind of a mock coffee brand [00:10:00] that's very like, that's like black rifle coffee, basically.

'cause I, I find Black rifle coffee absurd. And these like veteran owned coffee companies, you know, where they have this like men shooting flame throwers and stuff, and women with big tits and, and it's all like, it's, it's. It's an, it is almost like a parody of itself. So I created this veteran owned coffee company called C Operator Coffee Company.

And it's like basic, basically it's about, it's for like ex special forces guys who have a, who have a C fetish and, you know,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, hold on. This is so. Perfectly capturing all of the things we're talking about here where I, I mean, I think part of it is like Americana and over the top Americana. And so here you're taking the idea of consumerism and over the top American consumerism that is inauthentically sold to.

Because I, because I think, you know, the point of this is to is to, is to capture the [00:11:00] inauthenticity of the way consumerist trends have gone. As, as sort of art. And what's funny about, you know, hearing you do this is, is you would look at something like this and if you were studying this in art history, you would associate this with a lot of the classic artistic movements of like the seventies and the sixties and stuff like that.

It's like, oh, there's subverting you know, like over the top inauthentic advertisement. Whereas today, because the left controls so much of the advertising and everything like that, you know, and we're like, they're, they're subverting the cringe ness that comes from corporations trying to market to people using and, and, and you remove any authenticity from that by making it entirely fake.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Which is like really satisfying to engage with, but continue. Sorry, I'm, I'm just sort of like analyzing that's what I wanted to do. Grappling

Simone Collins: in the brilliance of it. We can do that. That's why we're here today.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, so I mean, so I mean, the, the fake adverts are a really, really big part of [00:12:00] man man's world, and they have been, it is actually, it's actually a bit of a burden for me coming up with, with these new fake brands.

Like every, every, every issue I have to come up with something new and I have to top what I did in the pre, the previous issue. And, but there are some long running ones like Duck operator coffee company, and yeah, we just, we just do, I mean, it, it's integral. It's not filler. That's the other thing as well, that that's important, you know, it's an integral part of the actual package.

You know, it's, it's, well, I think anyone who grew up reading

Simone Collins: magazines half or at least a quarter, read them for the ads because the ads have been like, they're sometimes the, the best part of many magazines. They're what many brands invested so much creative energy into creating. I like, yeah, it. Now also ads are just so awful.

And most of the magazines I've looked at, it's like for SaaS, software and stuff, like, it's not relatable, it's not creative, it's not fun. It's not visually, visually interesting. So, you

Malcolm Collins: know, you know, what'd be fun is the, the gayest children's [00:13:00] clothes line ever. Like we, we've been voted by by like Queer Magazine and Pride, the gayest children's line ever.

And like just try to overdo the top when they had like the the, the, the target scandal and the the Bud Light scandal. I think, I think that something funny could be done, but I think looking at the ways that corporate culture has gone over the top was in the last cycle and then subverting that mm-hmm.

Is, is really, fun. Another thing I find about the artistic style that you've chosen here. Oh, I should

Simone Collins: probably too. Sorry. I found the page. Show that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. It's great. Like they're, they're, they're great. They're nicely formatted.

Malcolm Collins: Bag of Cook operated coffee company, signature, K blend, cup operated coffee.

I love it. How it says company with a K. Yeah, of course. They're very, very, see that here. C Operator is a proud cook hold owned company.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And then, but on the other, on the other page, on the facing page. Then of course you've got the cuck beard. The, yeah, the Jack, the Jack Murphy Cuck beard.

Malcolm Collins: Beautiful.

Oh, beautiful. [00:14:00] Oh my God. Wait, wait, so hold on. What's this whole cuck Jack Murphy thing? I don't know. This is this story. Oh

Raw Egg Nationalist: God, this is, I mean, this is a, this is a rabbit hole. So Ja. Jack Murphy was this like masculinity guy who had a masculine, you didn't die. I

Malcolm Collins: remember. Continue. This is interesting.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I mean, I, I rere kind of regrettably, I, I actually went on his podcast early on when I didn't really know who he was, but he he

Malcolm Collins: seemed fine enough other than the holder thing.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And, but yeah, he, he had this he had this masculine fraternity called the liminal Order, and he had a meltdown on a, on a podcast because somebody brought up the fact that he had written an article some years before about cadry, about sending his girlfriend off to have sex with random guys from Tinder.

And then after this meltdown, it came out that he had actually been like a cam, a cam guy. And he'd Wow. Stuck stuff up his, up his bum on camera and stuff. And there were videos and they were posted and it all kind of imploded. So that's, oh. [00:15:00] So that's where, that's where the beard comes from. That is my, I'm,

Malcolm Collins: I'm deeply, I mean, look, I, I kind of feel like I wasn't born with like, embarrassing fetishes.

Like I, I am, I am deeply happy that I do not get turned on by that. I'm just

Simone Collins: glad he monetized it. You know what, that's, if you, if you do it for profit, I monetize it. You're so differently about it. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You can make a lot of money doing OnlyFans and stuff like that. You know that the couple who got the the squirrel was killed.

Peanut, the squirrel and all that. Yes.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: They were making $80,000 a month on OnlyFans.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And they were using, they were using the death of the screw weren't there as a funnel as well. It was like, yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: don't think they, I bet they were. I mean, you gotta, you gotta, it doesn't hurt Malcolm monetize everything.

Right. Yeah. Oh, there's something about the, the, the ghost of the squirrel or something like that could be a fun company thing. Just like the, I don't, I don't know. I'm just trying to have fun with this, but I I'd love your thoughts [00:16:00] on why the modern Right. Has adopted the aesthetics of things like anime.

I, I mean, my thesis would be is that anime was one of the last, like if you look at Japanese culture, it was one of the last bastions of mainstream media that was not affected by woke ism because woke ism took a while to get there. There's still fan service in anime. I, I would say it's still largely exempt.

They still, they still have like openly prenatal list shows. So you have that, you have the idea that anime was considered low culture. So in the same way that like writing poorly could be a sign of, I'm not playing into your cultural game using big TTY anime, girls can do that. But I'm wondering if there's anything else or what your thesis is on this.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, I mean, I, I think you've, I think you've nailed a lot of it with the, you know, by talking about the authenticity of, of anime. I think that anime is fundamentally like an authentic expression of Japanese culture, largely untouched [00:17:00] by the west, or at least the way that, the way that anime kind of relates to the west is interesting and it's not kind of colonized by the west so much, you know, in a way that often a lot of other foreign foreign cultural products are or have been since the second World war.

Yeah, I don't, I mean, I just think intrinsically, you know, like the subject matter of so much anime, it's just the kind of stuff that guys like. I think there's guns, swords, you know, har heroes, harem, that kind of stuff. Lots

Malcolm Collins: of harems. I want, I want at least Simone. Why do you deny me my harem? I, I, I, it's, it's Malcolm Harems are for closers.

Harems are Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll work on it. I'll work on it. No, but I, I think that you're right about this. One of the things, and it, you know, anime, I think one of the interesting things about it is I think it fulfills some male fantasies in ways that are almost like subversive, where a, a common trope within anime is.

A [00:18:00] girl who is, you know, phenotypically young around a guy, and I've noticed that a lot of these are actually showing the girl and the guy in a father-daughter role for a society that has so lost the idea of father-daughter relationships that the only way it can think of a guy being around a young girl as in sort of this perverse context.

And I've always found that to be deeply sad, where it's very obvious to me if you watch one of these shows, oh, this is trying to give you the feeling you would have if you had a daughter and you were raising her damn and you were protecting her, but it's not his daughter.

Raw Egg Nationalist: I mean, I think, I think that that anime in general deals with a lot of, and Japanese Japanese culture and Japanese media more broadly I think deal with actually a lot of, a lot of subjects that actually would get swept under the carpet would be very difficult to be depicted in Western media. I mean, you know, I think the Japanese have a very different idea about, well, there's a Jonathan Bowden essay actually [00:19:00] about the kind of difference between Japanese and European culture where he says, you know, like, we have this idea that kind of shameful or difficult faults, difficult urges have to be repressed and hidden away, whereas actually you to make them safe.

Whereas actually the Japanese think that the best way to deal with them is to depict them and to bring them out into the open so that people can see them and actually recognize that they exist. And so, I mean, you do get, yeah, I mean you do get a lot of obviously you get some pretty extreme stuff in anime and but I think that that has a, has an appeal. I mean, it has an appeal beyond simply being appealing to like perverts. You know, it actually has an, actually has an appeal to people because it, because it depicts aspects I think, of the human experience that are actually either taboo or perhaps, you know, just aren't depicted in, in Western media in the same way.

It, it's a very co it's a very complex art form, actually. Anime, you know, you can laugh at anime and you can say, oh, it's, you know, it's these school girls in you know, [00:20:00] with, with short skirts on and, and you know, all this kind of like silly stuff, sailor Moon. But actually it's really not, I mean, it's really a very, very deep art

Malcolm Collins: form.

The vast majority of media I watch is anime. I, I think, no, it's, it's

Simone Collins: sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's just girls who are ponies who love to race, but, right. For most. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and, and, and the ways that it can subvert. I mean, we have a whole episode. I, I encourage people watch it 'cause it's an episode that I really like is that we've done.

On Urin Log and other over the top prenatal list anime where Tism and, and environmentalists being treated as villains in Gerin Log, which is one of the most famous animes ever made. The core bad guy believes that Earth can only have so many people on it. Basically, it's, it's against the concept of like environmental thresholds.

And, and they're presented as like Captain Planet villains. But I, I note here that the new rights aesthetic, when it takes anime, it doesn't use it in the way that Ja, the Japanese use anime. So the [00:21:00] Japanese use anime as sort of a broad cultural, way of expressing things when the new right takes the anime aesthetic.

What it does is it overt, tunes it with vitalism to be like over the top as you saw on the video, or as you, you know, if you put up the cover of the, the, the, the, the piece Simone. Like, it's very much like vitalism, like, like life, like, you know, the missiles coming outta the mouth and everything. Like so much is happening.

Yeah. And then so

Raw Egg Nationalist: that's, so that's an image of, so that's supposed, you know, that's Trump, that's the fight, fight, fight image, basically.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And what was the thought on the two things on the side here? I'm not familiar with these.

Raw Egg Nationalist: I just, I just got, I just said to my design guy, look, I want an, I want an animate.

I want an anime Trump fight, fight, fight, you know. Do do whatever you want to do. And he, he came back with this and it was, it was perfect. It's

Simone Collins: perfect. And with, with Shinzo Abe, who, you know, clearly saved his life as we had to explain to as, as confused Italian the other day yeah. I

Malcolm Collins: had to, the Italian reporter through, at our house this weekend, I had to explain to them how Shinzo [00:22:00] Abe saved Trump's life.

And they're like, wait, do people like believe this? And I go, well, like emotionally we believe it emotionally. We don't need to actually believe it

Simone Collins: emotionally. I mean, there's, you know, the difference between emotional belief and real belief is, is actually pretty vague. I wanna know what the negative aesthetic prompts are for the new, right.

What, what is the aesthetic antithesis to the new, right. Because I mean, we've got, we've got anime, we've got Greco Ruman influences, we've got 1940s to 1960s aesthetics. I'm digging it. We saw there's like a bit of a slightly fascist sci-fi vibe as well, which I'm really loving. Sure. Yep. But you know what is not, what is not new, right.

Aesthetics.

Raw Egg Nationalist: So I would, I would say that the new right is kind of ideologically and aesthetically rebelling against the kind of, on the one hand, like the William Buckley I kind of conservatism. So like Tweed Jackets and, I mean, there's a pla there's a place for prep in the new right? Absolutely. Yeah.

Like the, the Ivy League style, classic prep, all that kind of thing. There's always a place for it.

Simone Collins: Yes. [00:23:00]

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's classic, it's Americana. I mean, yeah, when it's done well, it's done well. But there's a kind of, there's a kind of like, stayed conservatism that's represented by the kind of the kind of William Buckley style of conservatism, you know, standing a thwart history, yelling stop and all that, that kind of stuff.

So like,

Simone Collins: yes. To Kennedy Prep? No, to Country Club Prep.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. And just, and just to the kind of like closet closet homosexual kind of, yeah. Conservative lavender Mafia. That kind of mega

Simone Collins: church polo shirts and khakis.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, sure. Yeah. So, yeah, exactly, exactly. The kind, the kind of like. Especially that you might associate with like a university conservative club.

You know, where it's like, it's a bunch of, it's a bunch of dorks trying to look like preppy. Yeah. And they never get any girls and there's never Yeah. There's nothing sexy. The Pink Vineyard Vines

Simone Collins: T-shirt. Yes. Or I mean, color shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Something like that. But then also what you've got as well, I think is you've got a revolt [00:24:00] against the kind of like I was saying with C operator coffee company, like that kind of.

Silly kind of, it's basically conservative, like beer and boobies kind of masculinity. Mm-hmm. I think that's what Cernovich calls it, you know, where it's like, I like cigars, I like whiskey. Yeah. I use, I use man wipes on my face. You know, it's like there's this whole kind of, there's this whole kind of really, really kind of debased kind of conservative aesthetic that's built around like the Second Amendment beer man caves and all this kind of stuff that's irreverent really kind of, really kind of sad.

And, and, and, you know, kind of like, doesn't actually have any genuine, genuine energy to it. And all of these guys who know are kind of ruled by their wives and, you know, only allowed to go in the man cave at certain times.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that kind.

Raw Egg Nationalist: It, it, I mean, the, I would say yeah, the, the, the, the negative prompts or anything really that isn't [00:25:00] kind of, sexy and young and, and that doesn't kind of have a, have a genuine organic energy to it.

'cause a lot of

Simone Collins: you, another thing that occurs to me actually I was thinking about this, not just when I was looking at, I think it was like New York Times or some publications page, or sorry, illustrations that they made for their authors. And they were just hideous illustrations, like, just really unflattering.

And then I was also thinking about Mary Harrington's, one of her most canceled opinions that at least she told us at at the time, who knows what new thing has been like disagreed upon. But she's, she had this hot take that children's book illustrations that are modern. They're, they look terrible. I don't know if you've seen them recently, but they're incredibly ugly.

We're kind of like this low key. Propaganda, normalizing lower achievement ugliness. Yeah. Mediocrity. Yep. And I, I think that that's, I mean, that's just another thing that's so absent from, from the page of this magazine. Everything is gorgeous, [00:26:00] actually wanna highlight everything is gorgeous.

Malcolm Collins: There has been a thing was in leftist art for a while mm-hmm.

To intentionally amplify the art.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And to, yeah. Like, why, why, for example, for like op-ed contributors, do you need their illustrated portraits to look, look ugly? Well, I'll explain to you why I, I've

Malcolm Collins: gone over this before, but it's important to understand how this happened. So what happened is, if you go to the 1980s or the 1990s the core emotion that conservatives use to motivate behavior, voting, everything like that was discussed.

Mm-hmm. This is when you had the Christian majority in America and they were like, like gayness. Isn't it gross? Ew. Like, doesn't it generate disgust in you? And then we as a civilization sort of moved a. Past just not doing things because of disgust. Like that's what Mother Teresa largely represented. Oh, look, the lepers disgust me, but I understand that that's just an evolved emotion that's meant to protect me from disease and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, so we moved against disgust and an artistic leftist movement then became about elevating things that were disgusting for their own sake. I think is, is, [00:27:00] is is one thing we saw here. The other thing that we saw at the same time was trying to break the male idea of what. Beauty looked like. And I think that this is in part why within new right.

Things like that, you have the, the, the trio, like Trump, hold on. I find this insulting, but it's not a

Simone Collins: female ideal of beauty. I mean, I'm kind of No, no it's

Malcolm Collins: not. But did the, what I said, a female idea of beauty, like the big titty enemy girl. Okay. Like this is an idea of feminine beauty that the left has completely removed.

Mm-hmm. If you look at their characters, we've noted that like ironically, they have taken female characters and they've like made them sort of masculine book looking and removed their breasts. And I'm like, you've just made them look underage. Like this is not okay. Like, you look at like Sherah or something like that, like the remake.

And so I, I think that it's, it's a, it's a revolution against these two things.

Raw Egg Nationalist: See, I mean, I, I think, I think it's very deep. I think this kind of war on beauty is actually, I mean, you see it in architecture, you see it in mid 20th century. Oh [00:28:00] yes. Modernism, I mean. Ugliness, brutal brutalism. I mean, brutalism was called brutal.

Absolutely. It was called brutalism. Oh, yeah. And not subtle, you, it was u it was used as an ideological, literally an ideological hammer to crush people with. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, there's a, there's a reason why basically all of the, all kind of communist public buildings are hideous. Because, I mean, they tell, and, you know, Roger Scru has written about, or wrote about this at a, at great length, and, and others have too.

You know, it, it's a way of, among other things, crushing individuality and crush crushing aspiration. It's like, you know, you make people live in an inhuman environment where they d where they're not surrounded by beauty. And it's demoralizing. It really is. It really does. It really does crush you. And I think that there's something, you know, there's something about this, like you say, children's illustrations.

There's something about this in movies as well. Mm-hmm. You know, where the heroine is never beau. I mean, snow White is. Snow White is not a beautiful woman anymore. Snow [00:29:00] White is, you know, snow White is one of these strange creatures.

Simone Collins: Well, and she's no longer the fairest of it. All of, of us all. She, she's, she's the most

Raw Egg Nationalist: communist.

Simone Collins: Yeah. In most equal distribution. This is not about looks anymore,

Raw Egg Nationalist: but it's, but exactly. But that's, but I mean, I think that in large part, it's about eliminating particular forms of aspiration. Mm. Particular visions of, of like the good life. You know, what, what, what is it, what does it actually mean? What should you, what should you strive for?

Should you strive to be unique? Should you strive to be, should you strive to be beautiful? Should you strive to improve your appearance? Or should you, should you, you know, accept that you are just one of 7 billion people on the planet, you know, all of whom are, all of whom are deserving of exactly the same base level of like material subsistence and, and nothing else.

So, I mean, I think it's. I think it, I think it's been happening for a long time and I think it's, I it's not trivial. Ugliness is not trivial. Yeah. And surrounding, surrounding people with [00:30:00] ugliness, cocooning them in ugliness is actually, I think, is a very, very powerful propaganda strategy. And it works.

It works.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I I, I wanna point out here you know, one of the artistic pieces that I think has been really critical to the formation of the sort of sci-fi, you, you could say, pseudo fascist vibe of, of new right art that Simone was talking about is Star Strip troopers. Mm-hmm. And when Vander Hoven was putting that movie together, I'm talking about the movie, not the books.

Like, we have an episode on the movie where I'm like, this movie is like the left telling on themselves. Like, this is a, a democratic society with a black African leading it. And they freak out about it because people are expected to pay some price to vote. They're expected to do something to get back to the state.

They're like, if anything is required of me, it's the worst thing ever. But anyway within Search Troopers, when Paul Vander Ho was making it, and I I view it as a, as a almost a perfect piece of art for what it means to be right leaning today, because it was a leftist who was creating this. When he created it, one of the [00:31:00] questions he asked himself was okay.

How will I cue people that this is an evil government that you're not supposed to wanna emulate? And what he said to himself is, he said, I thought everyone would know because I chose only beautiful white actors to play the main parts. And he, he, he thought that people, when they saw all of these attractive people would know that it was supposed to be evil because only only in an evil government would you have only attractive people.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. It's, it's interesting as well because I mean, in the book the Robert Heinlein book, then the main character Johnny Rico is actually, I think from the Philippines. And he's not white. I. Actually in the,

Malcolm Collins: no, in the movies. He's not white either. He's from Argentina.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Buenos Aires. Yeah. Whatever, though.

I mean, yeah, it is, it is telling.

Raw Egg Nationalist: But yeah, I mean, it's a, yeah, I mean the, then the Starship Trooper's discourse of course rolls on on Twitter, you know? Right. Oh, you are supposed to, you are supposed to em empathize with the bugs, you know? [00:32:00] And it's, and it's an, it's an ama this, this kind of ridiculous media literacy kind of meme, you know?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And

Raw Egg Nationalist: it, it's very telling, you know, that actually the communists choose the bugs. They choose the, the soulless bugs that literally tear humans, limb from lemons suck their brains out via feeding tubes over, you know. Attractive, high achieving say, because they a

Malcolm Collins: democratic united human planet with, with like the protagonist from South America.

The leader of the world is from Africa. Sky Marshall to Hot Maru. Like what, what? And African woman, by the way, sky Marshall to Hot Maru. But I, I'd point out here that, that when he's saying this, you might think, oh, they're not actually saying, oh, the bugs, no, like search on Google. Mm-hmm. Like, yeah, they're star Starship troopers.

False flag attack Starship troopers. Like, were the bugs. Actually, the good guys, like people actually think this, and this was part [00:33:00] of the authorial intent that backfired so hard.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And what's, I mean, what's interesting as well actually about the film is that Johnny, Johnny Rico the main character in Casper Manian, he's from a very prosperous family.

Mm-hmm. But they're not sit, they're not citizens. Yeah. They're not cit and they don't want him to do military service. But actually, so you've got a society where you can be prosperous and have a wonderful life. Yeah. Without political participation, I mean, it, it doesn't, it's not, yeah. I mean it's really, it's really not a simple, a simple, it, it doesn't imply, 'cause

Simone Collins: normally in the, in the fascist worlds, if you are not fully bought into the governmental system, you are suffering.

You are in an underclass. And like clearly that's not the case. Clearly people have freedom. Yeah. It's wild.

Malcolm Collins: And it's the freedom that instigated the war. It was the fact that we allowed for religion, remember it was started by Mormon separatists settling on a planet they weren't supposed to be settling on.

But the very fact that Mormon separatists were able to get to a point where they could do that in opposition to the government. And keep in mind, we know this was an opposition to the government because we know they were separatists. It was not the government that started [00:34:00] this war.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a, yeah, exactly.

It, it doesn't, it doesn't really repay this kind of ridiculous heavy handed kind of Marxist retelling that the left wants it to. It's a, it is a very, very interesting cultural artifact actually. You know, I mean, I, I remember watching Starship Troopers when it came out in 1999, you know, I was 12, and it was the cool, it was the cool, it was the coolest thing ever.

You know, I, I just, I loved it because of the, because of the fight, you know, the battles and stuff. Yeah. Denise Richards obviously, and, you know, but like, it's actually, I mean, as, as a, as a piece of its time, as a, as a kind of, as a cultural artifact, and it's actually much more, much more complex than than just being a, you know, just a sci-fi film where there are big battles and stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. Well, I mean, recently you had the hell divers too come out. Mm-hmm. Which, yes. You know, mimicked a lot of the art and ideals from this. And I think a lot of, one of the reasons it did so well within the gaming space is it came off as right coded art.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Hmm. Yeah,

Simone Collins: people want it. There's, [00:35:00] there's, I think that backlash, that desire to fight against the ugliness and to feed into this vitalism is 100% there.

It's, it's really the time for man's world. It's time for this movement to, to rise. And I mean, at least we have the vibe for it now.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I, I think so. I mean, I think, I think young people are tired of being stamped on, and especially, especially young men. I mean, it's not, it's not just young men, but I think, I think more than anybody else, it's young white men in particular who Oh, yeah.

You know, told, you know, you can't, you can't well, you are a bad person and you can't trust any of your innate desires. Anything that you want, you know, it's illegitimate. You have to change, you know, you are stamped with, basically with original sin. And, you know, it's being, it's being rejected across the western world.

You know, it's not just in America where you are seeing zoomers and Gen Alpha being, you know, more and more right wing. Than previous generations. It's Germany as well. You know, [00:36:00] you've got attractive young people singing Outlander rouse to the tune of Gigi Dino's au or whatever it is, you know?

I mean, it's like, it's it's a civilizational thing actually. Mm-hmm. There is, there is very definitely this kind of youthful, irreverent energy that's really surging up. And I think the older, the older generations don't actually know really what to do with it. But, you know, you, you saw this even actually with the, the Trump tariffs thing, you know, when everything looked like it was going to s**t.

And you know, you have like young people saying, well. I got nothing from the system. I get nothing from the system. What, what buy-in do I get from the system? So if Trump wants to burn it all down with these crazy, you know, tariffs, whatever, then, then let him. I mean, that's the, there is a kind of mad cap.

There's a kind of mad cap energy, energy to this and a kind of, you know, accelerationist desire. Oh, continue. No, that was, no, that was it. That was it.

Simone Collins: But when all you have is debt and when, when all you have is [00:37:00] nothing on the stock market, you have no problem with this. If there's inflation, it's gonna be a lot easier to pay off that debt.

And it's kind of satisfying to watch all the smug people who've acted as though they worked so hard and really didn't to get so much that you can't even get when you work twice as hard. Sure stuff for a little. It's very satisfying, if anything.

Malcolm Collins: And I know the tariffs paid off. You know, he, he canceled most of them.

76 countries are now at the bargaining table. Delayed. Delayed, yeah. Delayed. But, but he is given them the opportunity to negotiate without the big economic. And then China went against us and now has a 125% tariff on them. Which I think can rally the rest of the world around China, which has been treating the rest of the world very unfairly for a long time.

Mm-hmm. And I think that this is the sort of vitalism that people wanted to see from the White House. They wanted to see big moves. Like even if he, he goes in and he goes out, they just wanted to see the White House do something. You know, it feels like when Biden is in office, nothing was happening.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Just, yeah. Well, yeah. Well, I mean, look, I mean, Biden was. Biden was a zombie. I mean, Biden really was a zombie. [00:38:00] Biden was a, Biden was, he

Malcolm Collins: was literally puppeted by the deep state. Yeah. Like, I love how we, like, at first it was Trump is like, I'm fighting against the deep state. And everyone's like, you're crazy.

This is the conspiracy theory. And then we learned that like Biden hasn't been making decisions for like years and, and, and that the Democrats like didn't even hold primaries. And we're like, oh yeah. I mean, well obviously the deep state handled all that, but, you know. Yeah. No problem.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. Cra crazy.

And I mean, you know, and during the election campaign before Biden dropped out and you know, you had Axios, they did a, they did an article saying, meet the Biden oligarchy where it was like, yeah, these, these are the people who are actually making decisions for Joe Biden. It's his wife, it's his best friend, and some other people.

And you're like, well, you know, who voted for this? Who voted for an oligarchy rather than an actual executive? You know? 'cause that's what the president is, I mean, the president is the executive, it's the executive function. But, but actually it's been, it's been transferred to an oligarchy. So, yeah, I mean, I, I think that the, the [00:39:00] contrast between Trump, I mean, okay, Trump is an old man.

Sure. But, but he doesn't have old man energy. I mean, he's not, he's not Joe Biden. I mean, Trump is the most insanely youthful 70 whatever old, 76-year-old, however old he is, you know? And he really has captured. It really has captured, you know, with his meme power because he, I mean, he's just, you know, he's a, he is a phenomenon there, isn't it really Anybody like him?

Simone Collins: Truly, yeah.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And so, so yeah, I mean, now, now is, now is very definitely the time for a different vision of, of not only rightwing politics, but also of rightwing culture more broadly. And, and, you know, one of the things that's very important about man's world is that about the vision for man's world is that, you know, right Wingers over the course of the 20th century retreated basically into economics.

They seeded the, they seeded the entire cultural ground to their enemies. They said, you know, you have the universities, you, you make all the art, you make all the television programs. [00:40:00] We, we'll just have like liberal and neoliberal economics, you know, we'll make sure that the free market reigns and that will mean that we have a right wing society if we have free market economics.

Well, actually it doesn't actually. It doesn't. And you know, we've learned over the course of the 20th century that it's one of the, there's been one of the biggest mistakes actually, that the writers made to seed so much cultural territory to its enemies to let them have art. You, you just have art, you have, you have Hollywood, you have you have music, you have everything, you know, and we'll just have economics.

So, so yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's important, you know, to have, to be producing culture, to be producing innovative culture, not culture that's stayed and boring and that doesn't appeal to young people, but actually culture, that's exciting. And you know, because there's nothing exciting about the left anymore.

I mean, the left is, the left is ruled by committee. It's ruled by, you know, committees of women and, [00:41:00] and obese minorities and dis disabled people. And you know, like there's nothing in that that's exciting for young people. I mean, yeah. And, and leftist art, you know, leftist art has, has totally abandoned the kind of core mission of art.

It's

Malcolm Collins: pleasant. Yeah. It's, it's, it's actively unpleasant. And that's the thing that I find when I look at something like man's world, is that it is actively pleasant. Like, it, it like, like looking at it as visually engaging and, and, and makes my brain like, I, I think it's interesting that I'm like, oh, this makes my brain feel pleasure.

When I look at this, I feel vitalistic, I feel excited. I want to look at more of it. And it's so, different from the other. Like if I go to an art museum these days mm-hmm. It's just like depressing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I just come out, we don't anymore. It's too depressing. Yeah. Come away feeling. Well,

Raw Egg Nationalist: when, when we were in, when we were in Miami, so we were all at heretic on, well, in Miami in October.

So I did a panel with Lomez, Jonathan Keman, [00:42:00] you know, who runs Passage Press. They published a magazine and with Curtis Yin and Peach Keenan. Mm-hmm. About Right. All friends. Great people. Yeah, great, great people about rightwing literature and the art, the rightwing arts scene, all that kind of stuff.

And in attendance, actually, I, I found out afterwards was a guy from Playboy and he came up to me, a journalist from Playboy, and he came up to me and he said oh, we we're all taking notice of what you are doing at Playboy. Okay. So they're actually, they're actually about to release for the first time, I think in five years, a physical edition.

So they've retreated to the website. Over the last five years 'cause sales have been down so much. So, you know, you won't find Playboy on the store shelves because it's just a website at the moment. But he actually said, he actually said to me, look, I would, I want to interview you in Playboy about what is wrong with Playboy.

Mm. Which I thought was, which I thought was quite, quite interesting, quite brave potentially, you know, for the, for the magazine to do that. But

Simone Collins: I love

Raw Egg Nationalist: that. Yeah. There, there isn't, there isn't really any [00:43:00] competition for this at the moment. I mean, my, my, my hope generally is that, you know, we end up actually creating a broader scene where you get loads of people making, you know Right, right.

Wing magazines, whatever. Rightwing art. I mean, one caution though that I do have is that actually, I mean, in, in many ways, I think it's actually a, a, it's actually dead end to. Produce right wing art. I actually think that you know, the left has totally seeded the ground. Of all of the kind of traditional values and virtues of art, basic like representation.

It's out the window. Out the window. The best thing we can do actually is produce art. Just produce good art. Because the left isn't doing that. So absolutely. You know, return, return to the kind of traditional tenets of art, the, the, the, the return to the, the basic framework of art and just produce good art, produce art that's appealing.

That, that actually, you know, that, that people want to see. And likewise, you know, produce, produce, [00:44:00] writing that people want to read, produce films that people want to watch. You don't have to, you don't have to lay on the ideology with a trowel, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to bash people over the head with this is a right wing product as opposed to a left wing product.

I think it needs to be, it needs to be kind of subtle. I mean, I know that with Mans world, you would look at the cover, you know, it's got Donald Trump on the cover and the stuff inside, and it, it's unmistakably, I would say, Trumpist, right wing, whatever. But actually there's room to be subtle as well. And I think that, I think that yeah, that, that's really what, that's really what we need to do.

I mean, if we're gonna, if we're gonna have a kind of cultural takeover. Then it should it, it doesn't just have to serve as a kind of like tool of indoctrination. And in fact, actually, I think that will make it less attractive.

Simone Collins: There's nothing inherently political about vitalism, about beauty, about enthusiasm and, and optimism.

There

Malcolm Collins: wasn't anything inherently political about beauty. Well, I'm saying it [00:45:00] doesn't have

Simone Collins: to be political and we can capitalize on that has been, it doesn't have to be,

Malcolm Collins: but I, I point out, you know, if you look at the, the artistic movements of the past, it's a verse of artistic movements of the past. They often had like scenes where, you know, you'd be in New York or you'd be in Berlin and you'd go to the secret clubs and everything like that.

And what's really interesting about this is that because we live in the age of the internet and in the age of four chan, the, the, the scene is. X Networks. It's, it's, it's heretic con. It's, you know, this will be remembered as the scene where this artistic movement was blooming. And we'll also see, I think you are absolutely right to point to, you know, bronze Age pervert as one of the progenitors of this.

I think you have a zero. HP Lovecraft is another one of the progenitors of this. But people who will be remembered if humanity survived. This is, hey, we're, we're at an interesting time in human history, right? I don't know, but I'm, I'm saying like, if humanity does survive another a hundred years and we're looking back and we're [00:46:00] studying this as an artistic movement that's really fascinating to me, the way that this lives in online circles.

Mm-hmm. Instead of and another interesting thing is it's very non. It's, it's got this, this combination of you know, you could almost sort of say not, not not, but, but sexualized content within the images, or if you look at our podcast, like we talk about sex sexuality pretty frequently, but instead of like the artists of the past where that sexualized content was paired, was debauchery, was in the personal lives of the people who, who, who output it.

The, the engaging in debauchery. Like if I engaged in debauchery, like the guy who's into like aldry and filming and whatever, like he's been expelled from the community to an extent. That, that you are supposed to. You know, treat your wife well, you're supposed to, you know, be in, in these sorts of like, stable relationships.

So, so it's, it's a, it's a [00:47:00] contrast in the art behind what's depicted in it and what's expected from the creator, which is really I think subversive of what was historically expected of your cutting edge artist.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, I think that's a great point. I mean, there's certainly, there are certainly tensions, I think, and there have been tensions with, with Mansfield.

So in the first issue, I mean, so the first the first 12 issues were all digital. They're online and they were just PDFs. And in the first, the very first issue then I, I reprinted some classic 1980s centerfolds. And I called the FE from Playboy and I called the feature of Vintage Bush because, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a very, the, the decline of pe it's

Malcolm Collins: so great, but come on.

But people are like

Raw Egg Nationalist: this. Yeah, I know. Like, but you know, like the decline of pubic hair in, in soft sort of pornography and in pornography more generally is, is an interesting and in society more generally. In fact, you know, it's an interesting thing. And so I was like, you know, these are like. [00:48:00] Kind of quite charming actually.

You know, these, I mean, obviously attractive women and yes, they are nude, but they have, you know, sort of like expansive pubic hair. And there was, there was a, there was a lot of, a lot of people found it really funny and they were like, yeah, this is really cool. But then there, there was actually quite a, quite a pushback, like the trad and people like that, you know, were like, oh, this is, I love the magazine, but I, I can't in good conscience share this.

And so. Oh no. That kind of went out the window actually having, having centerfolds and stuff. I mean, we,

Malcolm Collins: I, I love the idea of it being nostalgic and subversive at the same time. Like it basic, the aesthetic, but I can also understand why TriCast would've problems. Yeah. One thing I note, and I, and I wanna hear, because the, the magazine is very different, and I didn't realize this until I saw it printed at the event, and I was like, oh, I get this now.

It does not look like, and I'm, I actually may wanna subscribe, Simone. We'll, we'll talk, we'll talk about it. I'll ask you how much it costs to subscribe as well. So for people who wanna go and look at it, but it, [00:49:00] it's really structured more like a coffee table book. Yes. It's where it's supposed to be a really nice thing bordering on like a, a, a, a high quality soft cover book.

Well, that's what good

Simone Collins: magazines were always supposed to be. You would always have them out.

Malcolm Collins: They, they, for a period, like, I remember when I would buy like Maxim or something, it was like floppy. It was flimsy paper. The images were like, okay and engaging, but it wasn't meant to be in, in enthralling. This reminds me a lot more of like, I don't know, almost like the Clutz series when I was a kid and had like all sorts of like weird things that I just remember being mm-hmm.

Delightful to me as a kid. So, so how much does it cost? How often does it come out?

Raw Egg Nationalist: So, at the moment it is biannual, so we're doing two issues a year. I believe at the moment it is 39 99 an issue. But like, but like you say, it's not a regular magazine and it's not supposed to be. So, I mean, we are, you know, we are doing in magazine terms, we're doing small runs, you know?

[00:50:00] Mm-hmm. However many thousand, rather than a hundred thousand or 200,000 or a million or whatever, you know, like Playboy in, its in its heyday. And so, you know, we're doing small batches and, and what we want it to be is we want it really to be like a collect, each one should be like a collector's item, you know?

I mean, it's not, it's an item that's designed to last. It's on beautiful acid free paper. You know, the cover will have something like the, the logo will be covered in gold foil, for example. You know, I mean, it's really, yeah. I dunno if it's, it's really, really high. It's really, really high class, you know, it's like.

If that was, if that was on a news stand, that would be the best magazine by all

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah. Top shelf.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn't, it didn't look like a magazine. And when I saw it, and when I hear about your contextualization of it now, I was like, oh, I get this in a way. I didn't get it before seeing it. I was like, oh, I like, yeah, it, it is,

Simone Collins: it comes across different in print.

It's, it's great online. This is the type thing, different.

Malcolm Collins: I want my son to stumble across [00:51:00] and dig through because he finds it stimulating. Like, he's like, oh, this is weird and subversive and like, and, and and I didn't see, like with all the film crews in our house, we definitely need to get a subscription, Simon.

It's only twice a year. Like definitely. Because, well, I wouldn't want it to be more than twice a year because it, it's so, like, like solid and engaging that it's like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want more than that. I want, you don't wanna get to a point

Simone Collins: where you don't have time to read through all of it.

That's one of those things. Yeah.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And, and also, I mean, it is still just me making it, so, oh my gosh. So,

Simone Collins: wow.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have a good on you. I have a I have a designer who I, who I get to do some of the images and stuff, but I layout, I do the layout, I do all the editing. I write, you know, I make the memes.

I write probably one or two articles per issue as well. So I mean, it's, it's all me at the moment. So two is, two is enough for now. But I mean, I think, you know, we have, we have plans to expand and so at most, I think we'll probably do a [00:52:00] quarterly. At most. That's fair. And that, that helps to

Simone Collins: explain though why it's so cohesive.

I mean, the quality control, therefore just quality.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's just me. It just all goes through me. But yeah, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to release an issue every month. I mean, you would have to have a really big you know, really slick operation to be able to do that. And and that would be, that would be my job.

That would be my full-time job then. And so,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Well, I am, I'm really glad we had you on. I'm glad we had this conversation because I think that future art historians will be studying this conversation and saying, oh, what was this artistic movement that the May, because the academics can't engage with it, you know, because they're afraid to, right.

Like, it, it is. Subversive.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Well, they, well, there are, there are actually some academic articles about me and about Mans well, which is interesting, but they're like, no way. Yeah, they're, they're totally, it's all like, oh, this is, you know, this is the aesthetics of fascism. This is about, you know, like the glorification of the body,

Masculinity and

Simone Collins: Oh, how [00:53:00] dare we,

Raw Egg Nationalist: so it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's typical.

It's the kind of stuff you'd expect. And it's largely, I mean, it's very funny, you know, they go into, they try to analyze the means, and it's also also hand fisted, and they don't, they just don't get it, you know, they're not conversant with the culture. They don't understand the degree of irony, et cetera.

So it's, it's kind of, it's kind of embarrassing really for them. But yeah, I mean, I think that's

Malcolm Collins: amazing. Oh my God.

Raw Egg Nationalist: I think it takes someone, it takes someone with a, with a softer touch. I think to understand it takes someone who's actually conversant with the culture.

Malcolm Collins: Well, well, so this reminds me of John Oliver's segment where he was looking at Trump, and Trump took up you know, Riley Gaines, a woman who's been campaigning against the trans stuff.

And he goes to her, he goes, well, you know, anyone who can look at me and her can see that I'm a much larger and stronger person than her, and I could beat her in any swimming race. And of course, this is a actually a very funny joke from Trump, but John Oliver thought he was being dead serious, of course, and was making fun [00:54:00] of him for it.

And I was like, is is comedy dead? Like, how do you not see that? He's, he's having a laugh here. But I also think that what you're pointing out here is academia not being able to engage in it. Nothing. If academia is close to the center of power within our culture, you can't be the new subversive artistic movement and be something academia can understand.

Hmm. If academia can understand you, then you're not the new subversive artistic movement. And I don't think that any other movement on earth right now has can, can, can claim that. Like, it's so weird that like the beatniks of our generation or the, the whatever is like this right-leaning. And, and you know, it's funny that you mentioned like the centerfold 'cause that's also a tension we had on our show, which is on our show.

We used to, we, we do lots of clips on our show of like memes from the nineties and South Park and stuff like that. And we used to have a lot of gamer words or curse words. And then somebody reached out and they were like, I watched, this was my kid, can you [00:55:00] please, you know, remove all curse words? And I was like, you know what, yeah, I'm gonna do that.

It doesn't hurt us to just remove all curse words, like the adults who know what's being said if I delete just those words. And I was like, I, I, I think that that's part of it. It it's to be provocative you know, sexually to be provocative in terms of how we engage with stuff, but to remove all of the actual vulgarities I wouldn't want my son engaging with.

We

Simone Collins: actually see this on old media. I don't know if, if this ever really aired in the uk, but there's a kids show called Magic School Bus that we watched a lot as kids.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yes. Yeah, I remember that.

Simone Collins: And we're watching again with our kids now and. There's a lot, there's a lot of episodes that imply that Mrs.

Frizzle has had sexual relationships with a lot of other people. Basically

Malcolm Collins: every other competent man has a very clearly had a sexual relationship with her.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And we're like, whoa. Like this is really interesting. And there's a whole bunch of other things that happened in it where we're like, this is extremely sexual suggestive one time when the kids turn into eggs and then have [00:56:00] fish fertilize them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And they become

Simone Collins: fish. I was like, what's that whole thing with Phoebe and her teacher too? But yeah, anyway, so like, I think that there, there's a lot of that subversiveness in the past quite recently where it's it's, it's communicable to adults, but available to children as well, which is, is interesting.

And it, I think, you know, pretty prenatal when something is capable of being multilayered like that. Whereas, you know, we've devolved into an era now where. I think it was Tina Fey describing how they wrote the script for the sitcom 30 Rock, describing how whenever they do a joke, first they do the joke, and then they like explicitly explain the joke for the, the people who can't process what a joke is, I guess.

And, and we sort of come to that point where we like literally have to explain every joke we've just told. Very much

Raw Egg Nationalist: so.

Simone Collins: I, I think that there's also sort of unsaid between the pages of what you've written, that not every academic is able to pick up this level of [00:57:00] nuance and cleverness that we've forgotten how to communicate.

That I'd love to see more pervasive again.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I, yeah, I, I think that it's, like I said earlier, I think that the humor and, and the kind of irreverence that's important, that's not, that's not secondary, that's central. That's a, that's absolutely no, clearly. Yeah, it's absolutely integral to the, to the package.

It's integral to the message and to the, to the whole vibe. And to the whole movement actually. And so, you know, I mean, I, there are some, there are other magazines on the market, you know, in the same space, but none, none of them really captures, I think the kind of, that kind of energy, that kind of irreverence, which I think distinguishes the online world distinguishes the, the right wing sort of Twitter world, four chan, et cetera.

Yes. And has, is obviously now actually is, is kind of dominant in American culture because Trump is in the White House. Yes. So, you know, I mean, I think [00:58:00] that, yeah, it will be, it will be good actually once that spirit really does start to spread to other publications and to other, to other media.

Simone Collins: It'll happen.

You're pushing it forward. You, you are the, you are the spark. Love this.

Malcolm Collins: I hope, I hope you are remembered alongside, like, who is that writer who you mentioned like Michael Thompson or what, what, what? Hunter. Hunter s Thompson. Hunter. Hunter Thompson. I hope you're remembered as, as our generation's version of that you know, defining a, a style of of, of a right.

Because you're, you're both defining a style of writing and art and collating it. And I think that if humanity survives, that will be seen as a central part of this generation.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I, no, I do

Simone Collins: may your cremated remains see shot from the equivalent of a Canon ai. I

Malcolm Collins: think they're gonna be making a lot of movies with this style.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. All

Malcolm Collins: of the popular movies of the next generation are gonna be made in this style in the same way that we take up the popular styles of the past. So anyway.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, cool. Check out everyone Mans [00:59:00] World. You can, I mean, you can still access everything digitally, right? And then there's the twice a year publications, correct?

Yeah.

Raw Egg Nationalist: So, so there's Mans World mag.online. You can read a selection of, of articles from the magazine. We also publish two exclusive online only articles every week. There's a store as well. We've got absolutely great t-shirts on the store, like hilarious Trump t-shirt.

Simone Collins: Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

Hello? Yeah,

Raw Egg Nationalist: there's some great, some great ones. There are some, there's an an anime Trump tee, and in fact, I would say that he's got the best Trump tees around on the website, mantel Mag online slash store. And then you're

Simone Collins: also at Baby Gravy on X. Yeah. And Baby

Raw Egg Nationalist: Gravy nine. Yep.

Simone Collins: You should also, yeah, baby Gravy nine.

And, and check out R Nationalist on Amazon, because you've also written some very influential books.

Raw Egg Nationalist: And I've got, and I've got a, and I've got a new book coming out this month. What with? Yep. With Passage called The Last Men Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity. That's about testosterone decline.

Oh, fertility decline. As a, as a like a [01:00:00] civilizational problem.

Simone Collins: Yes. Yeah. Which was really the, the, the big topic of the first time he came on our podcast. But that was our,

hold on, hold on. I gotta, I gotta say what some of these shirts say. What does an anime girl like looking like? Oh, you better be paying attention.

It says A right wing bodybuilder is talking. Listen, learn.

Raw Egg Nationalist: So that, so there was a, there was a, there was a, a very funny T-shirt that said. That's, this is based on it said something like A black woman is speaking. Listen and learn. And so that's there. That's

Malcolm Collins: amazing. Hold on. They've got a Baron Trump one here.

Look at this. No, no. They've got lightning eyes and like a Caesar thing. Ave Baron.

Simone Collins: Yes. You're putting these on screen, right? Malcolm? You're gonna put them in post? I'll try to, I'll try

Malcolm Collins: to better I can. Yeah. We got one here. Trump 2024. Riggs could be here. I don't get that one. Oh, that's

Raw Egg Nationalist: a, okay.

That's a, yeah, that's a, that's a four chat. That's a four chan meme.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. I'm not gonna say more on that then. We don't wanna get This is, this is good. [01:01:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah, well congratulations on your book coming out too. I'm very excited to read this 'cause yeah, I mean, you've, you've found some of the best research that we have have read on the subject.

God, get into

Malcolm Collins: crystal Tard. It's Donald. So can you explain the crystal meme that was like fantastic.

Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. I dunno where that came from. But people, people started saying that they were gonna imprison, libtard in crystals when Donald Trump got elected. And so, you know, every time a libtard would post something on Twitter and somebody would, would post a picture of a crystal and it, it would be a countdown to Trump's election, you know, for inauguration.

So

Malcolm Collins: this, this seems to have come from liberals. Our video when Trump was elected, said, report to the Mar-a-Lago breeding pens. And, and it's very much along that, where liberals were acting like everyone was gonna be like, arrested or whatever. And so I think they went was the idea of like, a, a, you know, from like eighties Superman and stuff like that.

Like capturing people rif. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: It's good stuff. Yeah. All right, well everyone definitely check out the book when they, when it comes [01:02:00] out. Do you have a date?

Raw Egg Nationalist: I think it's, hmm. It will be ready for order this month from Okay. Perfect press, but just keep your eyes peeled. Watch my Twitter and I'll there.

Yeah. There'll be a big announcement.

Simone Collins: Awesome. Cool. Oh, national.

Join us in an engaging conversation as we delve into the mysterious roots of modern leftist beliefs. We explore the perceived borderline theological nature of these beliefs and address three main areas: environmentalism, trans politics, and genetics. The discussion highlights the urban monoculture's tendency to ascribe moral value to perceived weakness, creating a 'noble obligation' that diverges from traditional self-preservation instincts. We also touch on the inherent mistrust of advancement, the industrial revolution, and the anti-human sentiment among progressives, drawing comparisons with historical and cultural contexts. This episode provides valuable insights into the cultural and ideational forces shaping present-day ideological dynamics.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be tackling and, and trying to work our way through something that I see as particularly an interesting mystery that I don't know if I have a formal thesis on what's causing it yet but it is when I look at you know, the urban monoculture from which, you know, modern leftist culture derives itself.

Where it holds beliefs that I would say appear to an outsider to be borderline theological. And, and it is a sin to go against these particular beliefs. Most frequently these beliefs fall into a few categories. Environmentalism is a really big one. Another one is trans politics is a really big one.

And then another one is genetics is a really big one. And I'm, I'm like actually like, sort of [00:01:00] surprised because not all of these things are like intrinsic to a leftist worldview. How they arrived and consolidated around these particular areas. Where they most frequently say things that just like on face value or was like the littlest bit of research are not true.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: You know, this can be, you know, in genetics it's like, well, everyone has exactly the same capabilities. And it's like they, they very obviously don't, like if you, if you do even the basis look at science, some of our. Proclivities and traits have a her component. Like that's a weird thing to claim.

And people can be like, oh, well this is like downstream of like fears about like nazim and eugenics and stuff like that. And I'm like. Maybe, but it's weird that it's so core to the way they see the world. And Min was environmentalism. There's this form of not real environmentalism, but aesthetic environmentalism.

I persistently see them retreat to mm-hmm. You know, where like they're taking [00:02:00] down like nuclear power plants in Germany. Despite their only other source of energy being like Russian oil, which is like obviously dirtier, but like as environmentalists we're anti-nuclear. Like, and, and it's not just that, it's also like when I mention something like this is like reporters frequently have like a visceral reaction when I tell them fertility collapse will affect people's lives more in the next hundred years than global warming will.

And they're like, are you sure you don't wanna restate that? Like, they see this as like an absolutely insane thing to say. Like I'm saying the sky is red. When I say global, it's not the most important thing. Or they're like, well, don't you care about like a, a, a huge. Collapse in the number of species you know, like a mass extinction.

And I'm like, a mass extinction is bad. Like it's not awesome. There are consequences of a mass extinction. They're not existential consequences. Like it's, it's, it's, it's [00:03:00] bad. Like it's not great. I'm not aiming for it, but it's not, you know, threatening to human survival or even the existing way that we structured our civilizations.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: In the way that they seem to be like implying it is. And I don't think that they really believe it is either. They're not afraid of a mass extinction because of humans. They're afraid of a mass extinction because the mass extinction matters. So as somebody who used to, I think you maybe used to genuinely hold some of these beliefs, maybe you can explain to me sort of how they work and, and where they're coming from.

Simone Collins: I think maybe a lot of people steeped in the urban monoculture, super progressive modern religion have this modern version of noble abl in that they're indoctrinated in. That leads them to believe that their purpose is to protect anything that is perceived as less [00:04:00] capable of defending itself than they are that the last person for them to defend is anything close to them because they come from this position of privilege.

So it's different from the old concept of noble obl, which I think had a little bit more of a self preservation instinct. This one's a more like suicidal form of noble obl, if that makes sense. That's just like, I don't matter. I am wretched. And I must protect all that, which is. Relatively more defenseless.

Malcolm Collins: That's a really interesting point. So essentially they ascribe automatic moral value to whatever they perceive to be the weaker party.

Simone Collins: Greater victimhood holds higher moral val value. And that is indeed, I think why oppression Olympics kind of went out of hand because I think some people have a deeper instinct to still want to be at the top of a dominance hierarchy.

And they realized intuitively. That they could only be at the top of the dom hierarchy by being more of a victim. And that's why you get every, everything from people playing oppression [00:05:00] Olympics to wealthy to middle class teenage girls becoming spoons and playing, yeah. Oppression Olympics by getting sick.

Well, this

Malcolm Collins: explains a lot. It, is it, yeah. That, that part explains where you get this like invented trans identity and I think that the, like the, the, the, yeah. Well, it also

Simone Collins: explains why. In those heat maps, for example. And sort of research of the, yeah, progressive versus conservative brain. Progressives hold more things as having moral weight that are not their family, their immediate community in themselves.

That makes

Malcolm Collins: sense. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually. But there's

Simone Collins: more than just that. I think there's an inherent distrust of advancement. I. And the concept of manifest destiny or conquering the natural world. And I think this is why among progressive circles, the book Sapiens took on so much.

I've never heard a conservative, I. Talk about Sapiens. Yes. And, and be like, oh, sapiens, my dad. [00:06:00] And like a big, a big aspect or thesis of Sapiens. So it's admittedly been almost 10 years since I've first read it. Is that hated, hated I made me so angry. It's just wrong. It's like just sort of talks about how.

Everything kind of went downhill after agriculture and our teeth got horrible and we'd lived in stressful environments and we'd lived in diseased cities, and it was just always so bad and like, oh, somehow our hunting gathering period was so wonderful. And I think the reason why that resonated so much with educated, progressive audiences is that there is this inherent mistrust of modernity and of conquering.

For example, nature. And I think this is also seen in the contrast between the way that conservatives have historically engaged with the environment and conservation. Versus how progressives have engaged with the environment. So conservatives are all like, yes, conservation. Like, let's go out hunting. Like let's go out camping.

Let's enjoy conquering [00:07:00] nature and protect it so we can keep conquering it. Yeah. Again, because it's so freaking fun. Our training simulator, we can't disrupt it. Yeah, yeah. Like let's, let's keep it around 'cause it's really, really great. And then progressives are more like, no, let's tear down. Our nuclear plants, our modernity, let's tear down our cities, let's tear down our modern infrastructure.

In some cases it's literally, you know, engage in degrowth and tear down our economies and civilization to let nature take back over. And of course the extreme version of this is antinatalism. Wouldn't it be great if a comet wiped out all humans? Wouldn't it be great if all humans died?

Malcolm Collins: Which is surprising number of progressives believe when we did our survey in the United States, 17% of the respondents said the world would be better without any humans continue.

Sorry.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But that's the, I think that it's that combination of this modern noble ablation, I am wretched and everything outside me that it, that has higher victimhood status or less agency is more important. It takes precedence over my needs. And [00:08:00] remember you, it took you like. Seven years to convince me that I was not the dumbest, lowest value person of everyone.

Yeah. Like this was deeply ingrained in me. And it took so much work on your part to convince me that you were deeply

Malcolm Collins: unspectacular. And I was like, no, you are spectacular. You are one of the most desirable humans on Earth. Well, and one of the most talented humans on earth. And I just like,

Simone Collins: like literally though, I mean, I, I would see someone, you know, who.

Had a lot, like very serious problems and just assume that they were better, smarter, more age agentic than me. Like the, the, it was, it was I think some people will hear that and be like, I don't know. She's a four. She's mid, she's not what Malcolm says he's wearing husband goggles. No, I, this was actually dysmorphic.

Malcolm Collins: I'm not saying I'm not, hold on. I'm not even talking about attractiveness here. I'm talking about competence,

Simone Collins: intelligence, competence. Yeah. A agency, all of that. I, I thought that I was lesser and, and, and more wretched. And so like, if anyone. Or to say something like, well, that's not true, or [00:09:00] I'd just be like, okay.

And that, and I, and I made her

Malcolm Collins: play this game at Stanford when she went to Cambridge. 'cause I sent her there for graduate school. I was like, okay, Cambridge is like the best place, right? And I was like, every day you gotta tell me if you met anyone smarter than yourself. 'cause you were at least able to judge that like, like more interesting started than yourself.

And she just never did. And I was like, okay. So this is supposedly where the smartest and best people in the world. Like go, if you're not finding people better than you here and now, you know, we get invited to events like heretic and stuff like that, right? Where like. Some of the wealthiest people in the world you know, who, who run like major funds and stuff like that, like it's really run by Mike Solana and Peter Thiel.

They, they go out and they invite like whoever they think is changing the world most. So it's bringing together like literally from a top down, like the most agentic people. And I'd say like within that environment of the women in that environment, you're easily in the top 50%. In, in terms of, I, I'd say like intelligence and agency and interestingness.

And so that's wild because that's already like a super [00:10:00] preselected crowd. And, and so I think that yeah, you, you really struggle to be like, oh, I'm actually like you know, competent. Right?

Simone Collins: And I think that's pretty pervasive in this culture, and that's another important part of this.

Malcolm Collins: That's really interesting actually, because, because the call culture values a lack of status, so much like a victimhood mindset so much that it doesn't really give you the tools to see yourself as anything.

But to see yourself as something other than like you, you're, you're only supposed to go into everything expecting the least of yourself which is, yeah, I, I have a story. I remember, about this, that, that you would find comical, Simone. Which is the first time I went to buy condoms. I was like, well, I am like a normal whatever person, so I should buy small condoms.

Which now not accurate. Somebody slept around a lot. [00:11:00] I'm like, oh. That was a very, very big mistake. That must have been

Simone Collins: a deeply uncomfortable thing to discover when you first

Malcolm Collins: Oh no, they just immediately broke. But that's what I thought because I was like, oh, you know, I am average. I am, well, not even average to assume I'm average to assume too much of myself.

No, hold on. I must. Be a little below average. Right. You know, because that's, I think you're right. Yeah. We're taught that that's a value to not have pride in yourself. It No, it's, it. I don't,

Simone Collins: no, it's not even so. To a certain extent, we're taught to value things that are, are lesser in victimy, but we, we are also demoralized, and I think some people end up playing oppression Olympics because they, they put the two together.

They're like, oh, I'm demoralized, but also I can leverage this to gain status. I never made that connection. You never made that connection.

Malcolm Collins: But some people do well, subtle underground connection you know, that that is rewarded [00:12:00] subconsciously. But a lot of people don't realize, because I think a lot of people like, like genuinely, I think the vast majority of trans people do not realize that they are being treated with a special degree of status was in urban monoculture environments.

They, they genuinely are. Unable to see the systemic privilege they have over cis people. They, they genuinely think that that like what's going on around them is a form of oppression. And I think it's because they see you. You you remember there's a great chart of women. And, and men progressives.

Right. But, but women specifically who today think that being a woman severely damages the prospects of being successful in life. Well, I think people have come to equate

Simone Collins: literally life just being hard sometimes. Being alive, being hard sometimes to oppression.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. So over 50% of progressive women, I remember we were looking at a chart think that women are systematically discriminated against when it comes to getting into college.

Mm-hmm. Like the. That's [00:13:00] insane considering women make up like the vast majority of college goers these days, right?

. So here you can see two graphs titled Trends and Perceptions of Discrimination Against Women Amongst 12th Graders by Sex and Ideology, 1976 to 2022. And you can see that female liberals. The purple line here to the question, to what extent do you think your sex will prevent you from getting the kind of work you would like to have?

Went from around 40% in 2010, which is ridiculously high, but whatever, um, to 75% as of like 2024 or 2022. Like why is it going up so much? They're just being brainwashed. And you can see in other groups it's going down. Then in perceptions of discrimination against women, again, you see it going way up after the 2010s in both, uh, male liberals and female liberals.

Malcolm Collins: Like they, they think Oh yeah, women, they have it so hard in college because it's so, you know, may maybe because they're, they, they make up a larger portion of the population or something in college.

I, I, I don't know. I could see

Simone Collins: [00:14:00] college being harder with more women being present.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: But, but the reality is, is that actually no. It was always the dudes on the group projects who made life miserable. Get back. They did.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Dead. That is an interesting point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I want the Lisa Simpsons. You know, I want, I want other people who are as like, do goody as I was.

I hated the dead way. Screw you guys.

Malcolm Collins: And then you get me on a group project and I always just like, all right, this is how we're gonna do. I, I was actually really good at that stuff. You were, you,

Simone Collins: you were a, a major, like you did disproportionately, you were very unusual. No,

Malcolm Collins: not, not even that. I was very good at splitting up work and making sure people did that work.

No, you made them

Simone Collins: functional. You weren't, you weren't like the, you weren't the girl who was just like, I'll do it all. Yeah. And everyone else just is quiet. You were like, you do this, you do this, but you also like, because you did that, you were disproportionately doing more work.

Malcolm Collins: I guess I never felt that way.

I was taking more rewards, I'll tell you that. I, [00:15:00] no, I, I in college I was running like every society. I was like president simultaneously of like multiple large societies on campus, and no one had ever done that. Good leaders

Simone Collins: know how to recognize talent. And leverage it and delegate. Well, that's good.

Malcolm Collins: I, I guess I wanted power or whatever. Like I, I, I liked doing it. There's that. I wanted it for my resume to get into decision. Your

Simone Collins: power hunger had nice negative externalities

Malcolm Collins: with negative externalities or positive externalities. Sorry.

Simone Collins: Nice positive externalities.

Malcolm Collins: Mm.

Simone Collins: But okay, let's focus on

Malcolm Collins: the environmental stuff, like I still don't. Fully. I guess what you're saying is that environmentalism from a progressive perspective, they see like imperialism is bad, like the expansion of European culture and wizard industrialization is bad.

Progress. Progress. Just

Simone Collins: human intervention and I, I, I actually think, so we, we talk about antinatalism and anti-human sentiment as being a novel advent. I, I [00:16:00] think it is, it has deeper and older roots than that, and I think that it was first manifested as. A hatred of human advancement, imperialism, and manifest destiny.

That it ultimately was about anti-human sentiment and this, this resentment of humans conquering nature and conquering natural environments and that, that, that looped into environmentalism and was combined with this, I think Christian derived, but I'm gonna say corrupted Christian sentiment derived.

Adoration of victimhood.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know if the victimhood, adoration, I like a lot of people have made this claim that it comes downstream of Christian culture. Mm-hmm. Or like Protestant culture.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know if I believe that.

Simone Collins: Why? On what

Malcolm Collins: grounds? So it seems to work all by itself without the Christian culture.

You know, you, yeah, I wasn't,

Simone Collins: yeah, certainly [00:17:00] from Christian

Malcolm Collins: culture, you want to protect the weakest thing. 'cause that's how you prove that you are the best. Right? Like, that you're not doing anything wrong, you know? And it, and it comes from, if you just make this mindset where like, well the Goins are weaker, therefore they're in the right.

And you're like, well, they do like torture gay people. Like, are you okay with that? And they're like, well, they don't because a weak person can't be evil. Like there's this understanding that, that the morality of a group is, is. There's never like a case in which a weak person is a bad person.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And, and yeah.

There's never a case in which a weak community or group is abusing other communities. Yeah. No matter their

Simone Collins: crimes. And if their crimes were horrendous, well, it was because of what we've done to them. Well, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: you see, this was the grooming gangs and the grape gangs of mm-hmm. Of Muslims that you have around Europe right now.

Mm-hmm. They're like really prevalent and like capture and grape lots of. Girls or the case in the United States where you [00:18:00] had a, a group of black teens who invited over a white teen with like mental disabilities and like beat him near to death or something. And like the progressives were like cheering this as like a, oh, you know, I.

You know, like, them winning like you keep seeing this of, of, well, because they're in X group and obviously the real weaker person is the white, the real weak old person or the, the Israelis who were captured. The real weaker person is the person who happens to be born gay in Gaza. But it is the, I think a larger community, like they're not able to see this on the individual level.

They try to look at the community level. Mm-hmm. In terms of how they structure this ideology. And then say, okay, so the weaker individual at the community level is the individual that's deserving of, of, of higher status, and therefore we just assume that everything they're saying is right is very much like the, you know, believe all women thing and stuff like that.

Right? Mm-hmm. Including Israeli women who are being griped in, in, in gossip. Well, not them, you know, they're not, you know. So the way [00:19:00] it sorts, I'm trying to say like hierarchically, how it sorts well this also comes to, you know, whether it's genetics or culture thing, but like genetically and culturally we're all the same.

There's no differences in us. And this explains where you, and I've mentioned this in previous episodes, it's where it's reiterating why the urban monoculture always ends up turning to antisemitism and against the Jews because it explains all human differences because it doesn't believe in genetics and it doesn't really believe in cultural differences.

In proficiency, it believes all differences in groups must come from one group discriminating against another group or exercising some form of like, you know, power over another group or cheating in some way. And so, you know, because Jews disproportionately succeed in economic and academic context, they must be cheating.

Right, right,

Simone Collins: right.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that, that at the end of the day, so long as Jews have the Jewish exceptionalism IE achieving at an, an unusual rate was in multiple fields. They will be seen as the core oppressor group, especially due to their smaller size. 'cause they're like, well look at their proport success and [00:20:00] smaller size and they don't fit into any of our special categories.

So, you know, we need to get rid of them. And I think that many people were surprised how hard the urban monoculture turned against the Jews. And they expect this to be a short-lived phenomenon tied to this. War that they're having right now. And I don't think it is, I think it's a, it's a going to be a persistent shift.

Simone Collins: Oh, dear. Well,

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it's, it, it's, it's good more broadly because it, it brings the Jews who believed that the progressives were their friends into the sort of new Right cause into the prenatal cause, into the, you know, the persistent alliance. I think it's causing

Simone Collins: two things. I think it's causing some reformed Jews who are progressive to completely disown.

If you're not having kids, yeah. They'll, they'll

Malcolm Collins: be gone soon anyway.

Simone Collins: Yeah, probably.

Malcolm Collins: And what's the other thing?

Simone Collins: And, and yeah, the, the, the rest will just drop. But I don't know. I think it's really hard for some people to accept that they're no longer [00:21:00] part. Of the urban monoculture. There's a lot of fear around that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That the urban monoculture has turned on. Well, I think it's, you know, you were talking about this and, and some people on Blue Sky, you were trying to be like, well, the Collins aren't really that bad. 'cause we went viral on there recently. And, but they're, they're progressive, right? And so they're trying to explain this.

And they, they dealt with like major cognitive dissonance and someone was like, why, why is this happening? You know? And, oh my God. This is like actually like a, what is that? Oh what? There was like a white line on my glasses.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is actually like a thing that's happening. And I think that the, the reason is, is because especially some women, and this is where I see this happening the most, have such a like, instinctual desire to fit in with whichever the dominant culture is.

They struggle to think outside of that box.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah. Specifically an argument that she was trying to make was [00:22:00] that they were saying, well, they have, they have been to conferences with bad people. They didn't use that word. They used other words. But you not, these of course, conferences with bad people, therefore they are bad people.

And she's like, well, how are you gonna change the minds of bad people if you never talk to them? And they're like, ah. But then she, she felt like somehow that that was a weak argument. It's not a weak argument. Like you really, if you don't engage with people that you disagree with, how are you ever going to like.

You know, expose them to ideas that might change their minds. And, and yet she somehow was like, well, that was a dumb idea. I can't believe I said that. That's embarrassing. You know? No,

Malcolm Collins: the, the urban monoculture really protects itself by creating a cultural norm around not engaging with outside ideas and not exposing yourself to outside ideas.

And I, and that's what we're seeing here is this. It is a very powerful norm from like a more, it's about social

Simone Collins: contagion. Just like there's something, and I don't understand it. There's [00:23:00] something going on with social contagion.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. This is the point being Simone, is that the urban monoculture has developed a pattern of isolating anyone who might have engaged with an outside idea.

That's what they're trying to do to us. They're like, oh, these people appear to be immune to our, the cultural virus. These people appear to be able to engage with outsiders. If they engage with outsiders, they might bring some idea into this larger mimetic cluster which is dangerous to it. So we can't engage with them.

The easiest way to protect. Your ideology is to never engage with the, the ideas of the people you disagree with.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that that's what's happening there. And this is why, you know, you persistently see, you know, in in studies that have looked at this, is that conservatives have a much easier time modeling progressives than the other way around.

Is that they, they, they literally build a wall. And that's one of the most interesting things about debating what's progressives on, you know, policy or whatever is they're like, you guys are, are Nazis and racist? And it's [00:24:00] like, well, I mean. Right. You know, this is just like as you're gonna lock up women and rela black people, and it's like, well, that hasn't happened.

Right? So that doesn't appear to be where we're going. And they really struggle with the idea that the, the world that we're living in, you know, under the Trump administration isn't the world that. They, they said, we're fighting against the Trump administration to prevent, right? Like their, their, their idea of the other side is so fictionalized that they have trouble engaging with it in any way, but it needs to be fictionalized because they, they did engage with it.

They'd understand that the urban monoculture is at its core, very imperialistic.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it is, it's, it's, it's you know, I was talking with a reporter recently and I was like, okay, so, you know, you understand when I talk to somebody in the urban monoculture and I'm like, well, the people in Africa who you claim to love so much, you know, they have very different rules [00:25:00] around gender roles in marriage and very different rules around a woman's role and very different ideas around you know, gay people and very different views on what's like moral and which happened after death, et cetera.

And, and, and, they are thinking in their heads. Well, I mean, of course one day, you know, every one of their churches will be fi flying. The what, what, what do we call this flag?

Simone Collins: Colonizers. Fly flying. The colonizers

Malcolm Collins: flag, you know, I. And, and this is the, the new weird pride flag. Ev ev every church in Africa is gonna be flying this, and they're all gonna have our idea about gender roles in marriage.

And they're all gonna have our idea about how you should raise your children. You know, corporal punish, if that's what they do now they're, they're all gonna have our idea around, you know, gay, you know, they're all gonna have our idea about everything. And it's like, well, they functionally eradicated their culture.

There is nothing more imperialist than that perception. And I think that that's the irony of the urban monoculture. It is of all cultural groups, the most supremacist in that they believe themselves to be naturally superior to all others. The most [00:26:00] imperialistic that other groups are supremacists, but they are supremacists with qualifications.

You know, like evangelical Christians for example, have a respect for Jewish culture, right? Like. Frequently, right? Like, they're like, oh, we gotta help them rebuild their temple. Like they have this degree of like, let's work together. The urban monoculture does, it sees everyone else's, basically like savage monsters.

Like completely dehumanized.

Simone Collins: Well, very patronizing too. Yeah, and also misleading past man. Oh, we respect your culture. We, we are the only ones who respect you. But like secretly. We're gonna change all of your savage ways of, I mean, you know, you'll see the light, of course you'll do this of your own free will, but.

We will cure you and in a very creepy way.

Malcolm Collins: And it's such a beautiful dystopia to live through because, you know, we know they're going to lose at the end of the day, right? Like, that's so, I can't imagine living through this and seeing them in positions of power and feeling like, oh my God, they could actually succeed in this like insane [00:27:00] conquest where they eradicate all of the cultural diversity of our planet.

And, and one day everyone just thinks like them, and yet they still believe they're the victims in all of this. It's, it's, it's literally like almost the most evil conceivable perspective to both see yourself as a victim while systemically oppressing those other than you.

Simone Collins: Yeah, not great.

But I mean, I, I think it really just comes down broadly to these things of anti humanity and victim elevation.

I don't, I don't know how else to explain it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, anti-industry I think as well. I mean, we really, when we chose anti-industry is

Simone Collins: anti humanity. I mean, industry is the most human thing. You know, it, it is finding more efficient ways. It is a prefrontal cortex. Industry is an emergent property of the prefrontal cortex.

Take away the prefrontal cortex, and there is no industry.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I think, you know, you look at our, [00:28:00] that we use in the techno puritan stuff and we use in the hard EA foundation and everything, and it's, it's, it's a gear, right? Like it represents industry, it represents innovation and. Moving forwards. And if I had a second one, it would be like a, a factory pumping out smoke.

You know what I mean? Like, the idea of, of a progress as defined in, in, in the age of the enlightenment in the you know, industrial revolution. I. How that's continuing with AI and whatever, you know, it comes to symbolize AI in the same way that a, a, a billowing factory represented industry during the industrial revolution.

That is what we stand, and it's also why we're so antagonistic with individuals who want to, you know, belittle. I the same way in the past, somebody might have belittled industry and been like, oh, well everything handwoven is is better. You know, they'll loom what a, what a joke. That's never gonna catch on.

You know, and that's why I feel with people, you know, talking about AI art and traditional artists and ai, you know, whatever, why we're so interested in getting in AI [00:29:00] was like our AI education system and our AI gaming system, and,

which I'm really excited about. We'll see if they, you know, it'd be cool if we end up actually raising money for, for both and.

Simone Collins: It'd be amazing if we do. I am really excited. Well, hopefully we'll find out within the next three weeks, so we'll see. We'll see.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah, I, it's, it's what you just submitted the second application.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: I did.

Malcolm Collins: This is so wild. If, if we both get in, it would be so wild. We might actually have to move the kids out there.

Simone Collins: I am pregnant, Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: you need to be at your local doctors. I understand. Yeah. We'll find a way.

Simone Collins: We'll, we'll find, I mean, we can commute a a bit. We, we will make, we'll find, I'm committed to these projects, so we'll find ways to make it work. For sure.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I think we personally need to be there [00:30:00] part of the time if we're gonna build relations with the VC firm and continue to raise money.

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So we'll figure it out.

Simone Collins: I'm there. No, I'm, I'm super there for this. I'm, I'm all about it. I'm very excited about this.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway oh. By the way, if any of our listeners in NBC firms feel free to let us know that we can get warm intros on these projects. 'cause yeah, I think that like, the way that we view industries the same way we view ai, where other people are like, oh, it's so slop, it's so whatever.

It's like, well then improve it, make it better, make it, you know, like this has the potential to transform everything about being human. Like why are you poo-pooing this? It's, it's so. Like techno optimism is, I think the only path to true vitalism was in humanity. There, there are these, like reductive vitalism, like liver king, like get back to nature and everything like that.

But at the end of the day, you know, I think that the people, this is the interesting thing about the techno optimists. Very few of the techno optimists have turned out to be [00:31:00] fraudsters.

Common for fraudsters appear among the traditionalist optimist community, the ones who wanna go back to nature and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that it's because these beliefs are less authentic. They're more about trying to sell to a specific audience or something like that.

They're not really driven by this constant need to move humanity forward. They're driven by this need to move themselves forwards in their own ideology forwards.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on, I think. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, any thoughts, Simone,

Simone Collins: that I love you and steak tonight. Yeah. Do you want steak with your fried rice reheated, or would you prefer to have steak with some other form of starch?

Malcolm Collins: Fried rice reheated will be great. Yeah, you did a pretty good job with that. And I think it'll taste good with the steak. And you are really good at cooking steak, by the way.

Simone Collins: Thank you. That's really nice of you to say.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, maybe, I think Gza dipping sauce would taste really good with steak. [00:32:00] Okay. I'll make a sauce.

I, is it hard to mix up or No, it, it

Simone Collins: turned out like, I know I gave you this huge, like, ugh when you asked me to make it from scratch, it, it wasn't that hard. So I

Malcolm Collins: can, I think it's just. Soy sauce and then without it's soy? No,

Simone Collins: it's, it's it's equal parts. Soy sauce, white wine vinegar, and sesame oil.

Plus you can and probably should add garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes. Okay, so

Malcolm Collins: I'd make a change to it going forward. Soy sauce, sesame sauce. A splash of white wine vinegar.

Simone Collins: Okay, so half the amount, so like one teaspoon of each of those, then half a teaspoon of the white wine vinegar. 'cause you felt that that was too heavy.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Off I go. And I'm gonna speak with a, a journalist while I do it, so, don't, I love that

Malcolm Collins: you do that. Who are you speaking with tonight? My sweetheart? Can't remember. I don't care. Whatever. Do your thing. Love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Are you sure to tell

Malcolm Collins: her that you're a Nazi?

Simone Collins: I they know already.[00:33:00]

They know. Sadly the truth is out there, it's mine comp. What can I do off? I go this. Well,

Malcolm Collins: in private you always use words like, ah, it's amp. Or she's like, we need some lemon rum. Like, our kids don't give me enough lemon rum. I

Simone Collins: need to eat my dinner.

Malcolm Collins: They

Simone Collins: don't.

Malcolm Collins: You are gonna get us in so much trouble one

Simone Collins: day.

Never. I'm not, I'm not gonna get us in trouble. I'm not gonna get us in trouble. I'm fine. I'm not the risk taker. You were just on NPR

Malcolm Collins: today. You did a, a great job with that, I'm sure.

Simone Collins: We'll see. I bet it's gonna be on YouTube and it's just all gonna be comments. And I'm actually gonna check now if they like put it on and I, I can almost guarantee you like the top ranked comments are gonna be like, she's a, not she.

So W-H-Y-Y-N-P-R genetic.

The ethics of screening and designer [00:34:00] babies, but that was from one day ago. Yeah. So they, they, I don't think they've brought mine live yet. This is probably part of a series they're doing. So, so I, I, I one of the things to buy with this is mentioned by the way, on the interview, where I was like, wait, is this true?

He was like, well, you know, people might screen out for Al Albinism, or he was talking about that, and he was like, well, but like, it's, it's kind of interesting that like seven Nobel laureates have have albinism and I'm like, what? Is this true? That seems like bias. I'd be like, that seems like bias. Yeah.

They're, they're, they're so white that they have to be smart. Laureate, it's, it's like, like it seems super racist or something like list of, hold on. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: It's like models with that weird potential. I met with them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. V Yes. With, yeah. It's like that's the result of

Malcolm Collins: bias. That's not inclusivity.

Simone Collins: I know. But it looks really cool. I think that's, I think the reason why like people think it's woke, but no, it's because it's cool. And that's the, the unifying [00:35:00] thing of runway models isn't that they're beautiful.

It's that they look very distinctive. And what's more distinctive, hold on. If we

Malcolm Collins: made our kids all albinos, like that'd be so cool for the techno puritans. Like all white skin and red eyes. Like people out stay inside all the's. Many, like

Simone Collins: not having any melanin is such a risk with outdoor exposure. I mean, as much as wrong, well, no, but outdoor exposure is such a risk

Malcolm Collins: to productivity.

I love you, Sean, so much. I love your like eye roll there. That was intense.

Simone Collins: Is is it true though? I'm, I'm asking perplexity.

No, it says no. Nobel laureate is known to have albinism. So you just made it up. Sorry, I gotta

Malcolm Collins: delete

Simone Collins: that. Do people just lie on the internet? People just lie on npr. You just go on NPR and lies go on. Apparently. Yes. I mean, did I mishear him? Or Well, you'll hear, oh

perplexity is looking into it. Deep research. So [00:36:00] if it's out there, we'll find it. No, no. There's no evidence that people with albinism are disproportionately represented among major award winners. In fact, the available information suggests the opposite. People with albinism are underrepresented in most high profile fields in including entertainment, politics, science.

Octavian. What? Hey buddy. Hi. You're home awful early.

Malcolm Collins: You wanna have him talk to the fans really quick.

Simone Collins: You brought surprises. Do you want to talk to the, the.

Octavian Collins: What I've been doing so good. Stacey gave me this present. Stacey give me, Stacey gave me this present because I was so good. Oh,

Simone Collins: what else do you have in your box of mysteries?

Octavian Collins: Oh, what?

Simone Collins: What is it my friend? The work. Oh, [00:37:00] yes. What's. You want me to open it?

Octavian Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: What

Octavian Collins: she, Hey, check if this check, check if

Simone Collins: it's, it's the underwear your sister requested.

She, Hey. Hey, you. Can you

Malcolm Collins: ask him to tell people to like and I,

Simone Collins: Hey, Octa, can you tell the people to like, and subscribe,

Octavian Collins: like, and subscribe to our video if this is good.

Why,

Simone Collins: why should, why should they like and, and subscribe? 'cause

Octavian Collins: because my dad told me they can make money and they really wanna be rich. So subscribe first

Simone Collins: you. Well, you heard the boy. Yes.

Octavian Collins: So like, like si gives me special permission that I have this truck. So like tomorrow I can put my [00:38:00] army man, like my tan on me guys.

They can drive I to the green team, to the green team like this.

Bye. I'll see you all. I'll see you a little bit. I'm, and I see him like, learn about this good boy.

Simone Collins: And that's go burnout from Octavian. Have a

Malcolm Collins: good call with that journalist. Okay. Thanks. Do you want me to take Octavian and deal with him?

Simone Collins: Yeah, if you could so that I can start dinner and talk with her.

'cause otherwise she won't.

Oh.

Simone Collins: Such a good gardener. They're so pretty.

Malcolm Collins: Just can't stop watching that a and v on loop. It's so good. It's really good. It's, it's one of this little shark girl Gora, gora. I'll put it in the, the comments below if I remember. Or here. But it is really, it's like. You see [00:39:00] these, these young, rebellious girls, and I just like, so hope my daughter grows up to be like this.

エンディング

Malcolm Collins: And I know she will because I've already said like, it's, it's very clear there'll be, I've been reflecting on, I was talking to you about this is. How deep the desire in me is to have the type of young children who, you know, in my fantasies are, are, are first and foremost, like mischievous rule breakers.

And not like, and I know that other parents seem to want like obedient rule followers and I don't know you know, this is genetic. I don't know if this is cultural. Simone said, it's just 'cause I want somebody like myself. And, you know, that's like a, a way of, I guess, culturally passing on. It's

Simone Collins: not just that, [00:40:00] it's that there's, you have a, an extreme aversion discussed reaction to people who follow rules that you think aren't logical.

Yeah. So you, you don't wanna be disgusted by your children. So obviously you. Like it the other way.

Malcolm Collins: Do you fantasize about the kids being like rebellious and, and spunky and mischievous? No.

Simone Collins: Who cleans up their messes for the most part.

Malcolm Collins: What do you, what do you want them to be like when you think of successful?

I

Simone Collins: like to think about the businesses that they start, like I was telling you this morning, like. Tourist starting. Oh, and you,

Malcolm Collins: Titan and industry starting a business together and Yes. Yes. The two next ones the names that we're probably gonna go with, oh, you won't let me say them because you haven't bought the URLs or whatever.

I need

Simone Collins: to get the, I need to get their, like email addresses.

Malcolm Collins: They're good. Very, very frustrating.

What [00:41:00] did

you bopped him with? A soccer B Dusty. You gotta get him back.

I stronger. Oh yeah. Oh, Josie, you gotta power up. Power up. You gotta boost your power. Bam, bam, bam.

In this episode, Simone and her guest delve into the fascinating history of mail order brides in the Old West. They explore why men and women opted into these arrangements, what each gender valued in a partner, and how societal values have changed over time. The script covers a variety of firsthand accounts and marriage ads from the 1800s to early 1900s, highlighting the practical and often business-like nature of these unions. The hosts also discuss the broader cultural implications and talk about how modern individuals might learn from these historical practices.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to go into an interesting deep dive to learn more about dating in the old West. We are going to look at the widely practiced concept of mail order brides in the old West. Talked about why people opted into it, why they did it.

Review a lot of firsthand accounts of what men were looking for back then and what women were looking for to understand what they valued in a partner and how that has changed in society. Because I think that that's something to go back to, like different cultural periods to one, better understand our own ancestry because I think a lot of Americans have forgotten what their great grandparents valued, what they were looking for in partners, et cetera.

And we, we, through seeing different cultures, we can be like, oh, this is a different way to relate. To marriage and sexuality. And, and a lot of people would ask, they'd be like, how really, like women would do this. They would like get in a carriage and like drive out to meet with someone in the middle of nowhere in like the old west.

Like, weren't they afraid of like being turned into [00:01:00] like a sex slave and like chained up in the basement or something. And it's like, well actually there wasn't that much risk of that because that was sort of like a strictly like worse value proposition for a guy than a wife. Sex slaves are very high maintenance.

Especially if you're living on the frontier, like yeah, they're

Simone Collins: not doing that much work, which is, I mean, I guess you could, you could force them to work. There was like that, that tragic story recently of the. Mm. Well now man, but who had been trapped in his house for a long period of time and he was occasionally let out to clean the house.

So he did do some housework, but then otherwise he was in his room. Yeah. That's

Malcolm Collins: strictly less like even if they were just cleaning the house, that's strictly lesser than you can get out of a dedicated wife who like you, you dedicated part of your time to. Right. You know, like you get a lot more labor out of her just by being nice.

So we'll, we'll get to like the dynamics of this, although there was an instance. Where a woman did get married to a nice guy, only to realize shortly after her wedding, and we'll go into this case in a bit, that he had robbed her stage coach on the way over, not knowing it was his future wife, [00:02:00] and he was just on the low down, also a stage coach robber.

Oh, oops. Well, he was nice about it too. He didn't know it was gonna be his future wife, and he let her keep her wedding outfit and everything. And Oh, that's, she was like, oh, I'm gonna get married. And then he's like, oh, yeah. He's like, I can just imagine his face when she arrives, like, oh, sh uhoh, uhoh.

What a start, huh? That's, that's before getting into all of that. I want go into some marriage in the old West. Okay. Rucks coffee, coupons and rings. In late 18 hundreds, rucks Coffee was a dominant brand across the American frontier, especially among cowboys, homesteaders, and miners. Coffee was a staple, and Arbuckle stood out by including redeemable coupons or premiums in their three pound bags.

These weren't just throwaways. Think of them as loyalty points. Customers collected them to train for goods like kitchenware, razors, and notably. Finger rings, the rings often simple bands or [00:03:00] modestly adorned were marketed as keepsakes or engagement symbols. The claim of 80,000 wes a year was, was one of their, their things.

So the old wesler was a common practice of you would buy. Now, the, the reason this brand of coffee became popular among the old West first is they built a a way. To seal it so it stayed fresh longer so they could ship it further. And so, then the next thing they did is they built a system where you would get like this coupon book that you could use to buy things, but one of the most popular items in the coupon book was wedding rings.

And so people would save up for various wedding rings that they would buy with coupons.

Simone Collins: That is that, I mean, that makes sense. It, it sounds honestly like buying. A wedding ring with your credit card points today, which a lot of people do. So I bet if I log onto our credit card rewards, I will find ways to buy a ring.

Which time all day. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. We spend all our points on, hey, this year, never

Malcolm Collins: [00:04:00] one to rest on his laurels. Our buckle next came up with a voucher plan. He printed a coupon bearing his signature on each package. A given number of coupons would earn the bearer one of a hundred items available in Arbuckle's catalog.

The wishlist book of its day items included everything from a toothbrush to a double action revolver. A young man could even order a golden wedding ring for his lady. Love his lady love. Oh, I love that. You could be killed by a gun that somebody got was coupons in the old West. Not only was the coffee a lifesaver to those early westerners, so was the packaging coffee was shipped with sturdy main fur crates, 100 pound bags to the lot.

The crates were used to make furniture coffins and cradles. The Navajo Indians even used the wood to make a hogans and trademark flying angel that embezzled each package of coffee , adorned mini, a Western Christmas tree.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. That is very interesting. Right?

That is so cool. I love that.

Malcolm Collins: I, I thought you'd get excited about this. I was like, [00:05:00] that's a, that's a cool little anecdote. I'm moving that right to the beginning.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Hold on. I wanna, I wanna see if

Malcolm Collins: I can find pictures of these, these books. I, I, I, I could find pictures of the books, but not the rings.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, I imagine the rings looked pretty you know, nondescript.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like just a gold band. Yeah. That's my guess. So a common cording custom in the old West was something called cording mirrors. Cording mirrors were another quirky tradition, more common in rural America, including the old West during the 18 hundreds. They were small handheld mirrors, often four to eight inches long with wooden or metal frames, sometimes carved or painted with simple designs like or flowers.

Aw, a sooner gifted one to a woman. He was courting, and it wasn't just about vanity mirrors were pricey and were rare on the frontier where glass was a luxury. Mm-hmm. Giving one signaled thoughtfulness and investment, like gifting a high-end gadget. Today the mirror had symbolic weight too.

It was intimate. A personal item tied to appearance and identity, suggesting trust and admiration. Some stories claim that women used them to reflect on their suitor's [00:06:00] intentions, . Although that likely was romanticized folklore, practically a mirror was useful for a woman living in a sod house or cabin with few possessions.

In some cases, couples exchanged mirrors with the man keeping a smaller one as a memento reinforcing mutual commitment. That's sweet. They both would bring a mirror and the man would just keep whichever one happened to be smaller. These mirrors that weren't mass produced like our buckles rings, they were often handmade or bought from peddlers, making each one unique.

By the 1880s catalog companies like Sears began offering cheap versions, but earlier a mirror might cost a day's wages serious for a farm, hand or cowboy. Their popularity waned by the 19 hundreds as manufactured goods flooded markets, but they left a mark in diaries and family heirlooms often passed down as quote the mirror he gave her in quote.

That's, that's so also sweet.

Simone Collins: And yes, I checked in 100%. We could buy a wedding ring with credit card points even on Etsy. You can now like convert credit card points to an Etsy gift card. [00:07:00] So. Well, I love it. And I, and I love craft the, the,

Malcolm Collins: The, this, this mirror idea. It's actually really sweet that whatever your only possessions, it's a

Simone Collins: keepsake thing.

And practical. I love this mixture of practicality and writing. Well, it tied to your identity, symbolic. Mm-hmm. I should give you all your also like, take care of yourself. Like, girl, I forget, like a

Malcolm Collins: vacuum, like you look rough.

Simone Collins: Here's the evidence. It's a mirror.

Malcolm Collins: But, and, and it's important to understand how little people owned back then when we were going back through my family diaries at that time.

And it was like my great great grandfather talking about being raised. And the episode's called People used to Like Their Parents. That's the, it's a really good episode, I think one of the best we've ever done. Because it was going over his diaries and at one point he catalogs everything he owns and everything he owns was.

Like a dirt roof shed that they slept in an outhouse and then a, a weaving loo, a loom. And, and apparently some pigs. And that was it. I mean,

Simone Collins: pigs are so, looms are useful too.

Malcolm Collins: That

Simone Collins: all

Malcolm Collins: sounds good to me. Yeah. Yeah. But I was, it's, it's interesting to [00:08:00] me that today, like, have you thought about making a catalog of everything that your family owns?

It would not be like a four thing catalog. It's not like, well, we've got some pigs and I've got a, a loom and an outhouse.

Simone Collins: Well, and in just a few years you'd buy a house on a catalog, so. I don't know. Catalogs really saw this. Amazing catalogs were the pre-internet, internet, and

Malcolm Collins: I love that. Yeah. Like Sears, you know, you can, in my hometown of Dallas you can drive around and some of the old Sears houses that were bought from a catalog are still standing in, in neighborhoods that I lived in.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And they're, they're nice houses too. Like, I've seen YouTube tours of them. They're well-built, built, classic design. They, they look a lot better than modern modern builds and McMansions on average.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, for if people are wondering like, like, okay, I'll, I'll go into the story now of mail order brides.

Yes. The story of the famous mail order brides of the Old West began when the gold rush brought men over the rocky mountains to new mining communities. Oh, only a few [00:09:00] prospectors struck it rich, but many young men stayed in the west, mining, ranching, farming, hunting, or opening businesses. As towns begin to grow, these men wanted wise to create.

Families and to build more stable lasting communities in the Western territories, men outnumbered women drastically, sometimes by as many as nine to one. Oh my gosh, not good odds. The obvious answer was single women from the east willing to start new lives. And this wasn't just a phenomenon in the Old West, it was also a phenomenon in Australia.

So here are some Australian ones because, you know, you had the men in the Outback farming and stuff trying to bring women out and, and they're really interesting to analyze because you get an idea of what. A man valued in a partner back then. Like when he's out and he's like, I want a woman that meet these criteria this, this is what he's thinking.

And, and keep in mind how this would work. He would like go to the Telegraph office and you'd be like, I wanna contact one of these, these magazines or newspapers out eastern and, you know, one of the major cities in Australia. And I, I wanna write you know, to them like descriptions of what [00:10:00] I'd want in a wife and, and, and, and.

Okay. So, and you also gotta think, really it

Simone Collins: was more like singles ads. I mean, it was kind of male, it was long distance singles ads.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And you've also gotta think when you're hearing this, what it says about like, how they're trying to sell themselves to the woman as well. Like their understanding of what the woman values.

Okay. So. This one, matrimonial two young men, age 31 and 25, wish to correspond with young ladies with a view to matrimony. Photos exchanged if necessary. Ladies must be able to read and write and capable of conducting a store on goldfields if required.

So what's really interesting in this is first, like they don't care that much what they look like. It's like, okay, if you, oh, photo's optional.

Simone Collins: I'm little confused by two men together looking. No, they're,

Malcolm Collins: they're, they're okay. So they both want basically the same thing. A competent woman, right? Yeah.

And so they're like, well, let's just pool on the ad, you know? Because we both want a woman who's like, good at accounting and business. I'm just picturing this

Simone Collins: really cute gay couple that's like. [00:11:00] We just need wives,

Malcolm Collins: beards, that's it. No, no, no. You see that pretty frequently in these is that people will pull, it's just going in

Simone Collins: together.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're like, well, let's just go in together and, we'll, we'll look at the, the, you know, the correspondence and see which ones we like. And then what's also really interesting here, and we've noted this before, and like people don't believe us, we're like women. Historically we're expected to work and work in the family business.

This is what a corporate family was. The idea of a nuclear family where a woman stayed at home and did nothing, does not represent what your ancestors were

Simone Collins: doing. No, you were, you were getting a business partner. These were more ads for business partners for sure, except

Malcolm Collins: for a very short time from the 1910s to like the NI 1970s.

So if you go back to the old, we, you know, li Li listen to what the, the one qualification they want in a woman. Ladies must be able to read and write and be capable of conducting a store on a gold field if necessary. IE you need to be able to run a business. That's what I need you for. I'll do like the gold panning and stuff like that, and you run the [00:12:00] store.

Like that's the way it often worked. Which is a really interesting, and understanding what was expected from gender dynamics in a relationship. And also what you'll see in a lot of these is women were expected to manage the finances. So here's another one. Matrimony a young man about 24 years of age of respectable connections, having an income of about 120 pounds per annum.

Wishes to obtain an introduction to a lady about 19 or 20 agreeable in person and capable of looking after domestic affairs property. No object. Okay. Huh?

Simone Collins: So again, what he, what he's

Malcolm Collins: saying here is he's, he's not asking about looks. He's saying, I need a woman who can look after my financial affairs. Which is really fascinating.

But I think it's also signaling to the woman like what type of guy these are as well. Yeah. Like this is, this is part of a two part signaling. This is, look, I'm a respectable guy. And you know, you come, you meet with me and we'll, we'll start a business together and we'll build something that matters together.

Right. You know, it's not like, Hey, I'm looking for a. Mama, you know. Any, any thoughts on that before I go further? [00:13:00]

Simone Collins: We need to get back to this. Okay. This, but this does what I'm thinking already when I hear this is there's this phenomenon within the rationalist or EA community online, whereby some people will post marriage bounties.

Mm-hmm. And they're just like way too wordy versions of this. And I, when I compare these succinct ads with the marriage bounty descriptions. I'm really seeing the difference between why people were able to get married back then when being practical and why practical, logical people today can't.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, keep in mind they're paying for the letter on these, but I understand.

I know, but no, my point though is like

Simone Collins: these people worked out to like, what do I really need? You know, someone. Who owns property and can, you know, or like someone who's practical and not crazy and can help out domestically around the house, doesn't have to be a supermodel. Whereas when I, when I go through some of these, these marriage bounties that people describe, it's like long documents [00:14:00] and like I'm an INTJ and I'm looking for someone with like.

They're being completely unreasonable about what they want and, and they, they also are being way too wide. But, but

Malcolm Collins: I think it's, I think it's unfair to just point this out with the EA community. It's, it was in our own fan base. We'll talk to people and they're like, I want like a hot woman, and I'll get a hotter woman and like, you know, I'll go a Latin American and find a hot wife, you know, and it's like, yeah.

No, you, you shouldn't even be caring about that. Like, you know, like, you, you should be focused on their, like when I met you, your attractiveness was of, I think, a very obvious to me of, of little concern. I was much more interested in your industriousness and your breadth of knowledge and, and curiosity to learn new things.

Mm-hmm. That was it. That was like my criteria, like. Yeah. It was, it was not big. But I was, I wanted people who, someone who's world class at those things, which is, I think, you know, why our relationship has gone so well. But to, to go to the, whereas, you know,

Simone Collins: there's, there's other, like, when I look at other ads, and this is from later periods, so you're talking around the, the gold rush around 1849 to [00:15:00] 1856, I imagine all the way up until like the 1920s, people were still that.

Practical, like I'm, there's, there's a Pittsburgh Press 1921 ad that just reads, I'm 27. Employed by the government. Have a small but reasonable salary, will make some poor working girl from 18 to 25. A good husband in a happy home must be Protestant. No dancers, flirts, or street walkers. Need answer. I had that one.

I was gonna

Malcolm Collins: do this one. I thought this was a good one. It's so. No, but it's always, I, I want a woman of, of strong moral character, Uhhuh. And, and not even, no, he doesn't, he, he's not even here. Like, oh, you know, you can't have never slept with someone before. You can't have never, yeah. Just like,

Simone Collins: don't bite your character.

Be someone who's addicted to that. That's it. He's being reasonable.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. He cares about like religious ideological compatibility. That makes perfect sense. I actually really don't understand how interfaith marriages work. Yeah, and

Simone Collins: that's the thing is, is it, it. And you, you don't have to say this in so many words, and I think when you say it in too many words, then [00:16:00] you, you're losing people and you see his

Malcolm Collins: aspiration here is to be a good husband to somebody.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: He, he's, he, he, he's explaining right up front, I'm a man of modest means, right? Like, I'm not making, I'm not a sugar daddy. I'm not a wealthy man. But if you're poor and you want a decent, stable life, I'm your guy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You know? That's

Simone Collins: great.

Malcolm Collins: Here's one. The respectable man desirous of forming a matrimonial alliance with a young and respectable female, but I love that line instead of a wedding, a matrimonial alliance.

That's what I, that sounds good.

Simone Collins: That sounds really, that's prestigious. Sign me up for that. Hmm. People, maybe people go for it more if it's a matrimonial alliance and not a marriage.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. Oh, hello? Sorry. It's somebody from the New York Times. I, yeah, I, I, I'm happy to take your call now.

Yeah, it is just a fact checker from the New York Times.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So, she's gonna call back. She's got something else going on. But you No, I, I mean, I think that we should view marriages that way as matrimonial alliances. Mm-hmm. That's like a really powerful way, much more so than like a [00:17:00] matrimonial submission.

And this is when people are like, oh, in the old days, women submitted to their husbands. Does this sound like you want somebody to submit to him? Like, no, A matrimonial alliance mm-hmm. With a young and respectable female is informed of a person ready and willing to change the state of the single blessedness for the hazardous chains of wedlock life.

Exclamation mark. So. He's saying willing to change the state of single blessedness for the, the hazardous chains of wedlock. Like saying, I, I know that a marriage is a risk for, for both of us, but, but I want somebody who's willing to take that risk. Yeah. Now here's the, here's the first thing.

We've got her appearance very attractive, a temper, excitable, and a mind capable. To enlighten the dark shadows of his sly pilgrimage. Wow. He's looking for a muse. Yeah. He's looking for somebody. No. You know, he's like, I want somebody who's attractive, excitable. I, I like excitable women too. Excitable.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Yeah. I guess, yeah. Someone who gets [00:18:00] jazzed about your ideas. Yeah, you're right. I mean, not all of these are agnostic to appearance, like the, the one that, that says desires to meet a single. Or widow lady of some means and of refinement in Christian age 33 to 43, weight 1 25 to 145 pounds. Height five, four to five seven.

Stylish and of neat appearance, but plain. Which is really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: So you had, you had read another one or.

Simone Collins: Well that, yeah, I mean they're not agnostic to appearance. Not all of them are, but like weight ranges like 125 to 145 pounds, height five, four to five seven. Stylish of neat appearance, but plain.

Malcolm Collins: plane. I love it. Okay, so, I asked like, why, why did women do this?

Right? Mm-hmm. Women who answered the ads for wives in the West were those who weren't finding men or men of quality at home, or those who wanted to get away from home for some reason. Reasons included. Having strict parents being subject of a scandal that was ruining their reputation or simply wanting [00:19:00] adventure or a new start after something bad had happened at home.

These women needed to find a husbands elsewhere far from where they lived. Surprisingly, no shortage of women answered these male order bride ads. Many old Western marriages were made this way. In most cases, the marriages went smoothly as both parties represented themselves accurately. No one wanted to travel a thousand miles or more across a continent or wait for someone to travel.

That far to get to them, only to find out there were lies involved that would make the marriage unpleasant for one or both of them. Right. However, the occasional stories of mail order bride ventures went awry. And, and I think this is the core thing is you know, the reason why this didn't end up poorly that frequently is just because you gotta live the rest of your life with this person.

Right. You know? Yeah. Yeah. You're not gonna,

Simone Collins: Lying works on a one-off. I'm never going to see you again basis. It doesn't work if you need to depend on that person the rest of your life, and your spouse, whether you're antagonistic toward them or not. They can [00:20:00] really make your life miserable. Your life is in their hands.

Your food is in their hands. Your safety is in their hands. If you are sick and vulnerable, they decide whether you live or not. No. As a

Malcolm Collins: husband, like that's absolutely true. If you piss off your wife, she can just dab you at any time in the night. Like Yeah. Or

Simone Collins: if you're, if you're deadly ill, she could just not getting water.

You know, like the, there are ways. You know, even without, it was, it was difficult

Malcolm Collins: actually. There was one serial killer woman who just like killed tons of husbands. Yes, yes. I I think

Simone Collins: there's, there's been multiple of them in history 'cause it's, it's a pretty easy game to play.

Malcolm Collins: One notable example though, by all means, not the only one, is that of 22-year-old school Mistress Elizabeth Berry and Bachelor Minor, Luis Dr.

Pelvis.

Called her dream will be, I pretended I couldn't pronounce it. Lewis described himself as a lonely minor in his ad. Elizabeth was concerned about becoming a spinster since she was still [00:21:00] unmarried at 22. I wonder if this is related to Brittany which was approaching old age in the old western marriage market.

That is hilarious. 22 was considered approaching old age back then. Oh dear. So Elizabeth packed up her things after a short correspondence with Louis and married him in California on the way her stage coach was robbed, but one of the three robbers allowed her to keep her luggage, which had her wedding dress and other belongings for her new life.

In it, she noticed the man had a ragged scar on his hand. Later that day, she reached Lewis's house. And they went to the justice of the Peace to get married after she got dressed for the ceremony. After the exchange vows were pronounced man and wife. Elizabeth thought she recognized Louis' voice and saw the same ragged scar on his hand she had seen in the robber when he signed the marriage license.

Realizing he was one of the robbers she fled and history does not record what became of her. It turns out Lewis was indeed a minor, but he neglected to say in his ad that he had supplemented his income by robbing stage coaches with a couple [00:22:00] of his friends. Oh dear. Okay. So on June 4th.

Simone Collins: So they didn't, didn't necessarily have their happily labor after she just ran off.

Just ran away. That's really dangerous because Too high

Malcolm Collins: status, too, too high. You know, women just expect you to have money

Simone Collins: without working for it, you know? See, that's the thing. And also, but like she's out there and she's vulnerable. I would, I mean, ran away into take my chances, you know?

Malcolm Collins: I don't know if she like ran well, and if the ratio was nine to

Simone Collins: one, she could probably.

Take her pick of the litter.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. On June 4th, 1871, Sarah Baes hopped down from a wagon in Fort Bridger, a remote military and trading outpost at the crossroads of several pioneer trails in what would one day become Wyoming Bains. A 24-year-old seamstress from Louisiana had just spent several months traveling 1,500 miles through Roadless territory alone, but she wouldn't be alone for long.

She'd come to Fort Bridger to get married. The [00:23:00] groom was Jay Hensley. Imagine that months traveling alone as a woman in the old West

Simone Collins: unaccompanied that is. Terrifying

Malcolm Collins: because, you know, well that your husband wouldn't grape you. A bandit might, a Native American might help you. They don't have

Simone Collins: any interest in maintaining your Yeah, man.

Unaccompanied that is

Malcolm Collins: Native Americans during this period, some tribes, not all tribes we're genuinely terrifying and monstrous. They would, they would, do really horrible things. The, the one that you always use that you know, you know, off the top of your head was the the one that, pocahontas came from that, which, which is not one of the tribes in the, they had

Simone Collins: some torture involving, burning and pulling your skin off, or

Malcolm Collins: they would pull your skin off with a clam. With clam, yeah, with clam shells. But they weren't even like the most violent Indians were generally the plains Indians.

Like this is where you had the big war-like cultures that developed during this period. And so really a scary, brave thing to do. The groom was Jay Hensley. A. 48-year-old farmer who'd left Ohio some years before to seek [00:24:00] his fortune out west. The two met after Hemsley responded to an ad placed in the matrimonial pages of the October 12th, 1869 edition of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly.

They corresponded via letter for more than a year before Hensley proposed the day after Brian's arrived at Fort Bridger and they were married by the forts minister in a small ceremony on the banks of Garage Creek. The next day, they left to open a general store in Ville Cal, California Placerville.

Platter pla placerville plaster, I don't know how to say it. In the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the Hemsley were married for 51 years. Aw. So here you see a few things. You know, one, it's not like the husband is the breadwinner. They went to open a store together. Yes. As soon as they, and they like, started their life, it wasn't like he had a store operational and then he got a wife.

It was like, Hey, what do you wanna spend your life doing? 'cause we're gonna be doing it together. And they go open a store together. Right. You know. And they end up married for 51 years. It seems like a, a pretty, you know, [00:25:00] harmonious. And I will say, it always gets to me, we, we should actually do an episode that's like a realistic take on native American pioneer interactions because the.

I mean, I think you have two periods. You have the one period where, you know, in, in 19 50th Americana, where, you know, people naively understood it as like cowboys versus Indians. And the Indians were generally the bad guys. Like, just like, you know, except for like the, the wise friend Indian Yes. Who would, who would be a guide or whatever.

Yeah. But then in, in like Wakeville it became, you know, settler's always bad. Like Indian's always good, like, and I think that that's also really a twisted understanding of history. And there's actually this great one where they were like, they were interviewing some like ultra progressive and, and they were talking about how, you know, before the settlers came, like the Native Americans all got along.

There was never any war, there was never any torture. There was never, I mean, first off,

Simone Collins: there is plenty of. Of a history of Native American tribes doing terrible things to each other, independent? No, no, no. They didn't [00:26:00] believe that.

Malcolm Collins: They believed this narrative of like, they were like these wise, like mystic people who like didn't do that.

And it's like, no. There, there were some tribes that were like unusually nice, useful like the Cherokee would be an example of this. But you know, there were others like the Apache and the Comanche and the Seminoles that were, no, they were

Simone Collins: pretty, they were proper scary.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, proper scary. The Seminoles don't even mind this today.

You know, they've done pretty well. They ended up buying the hard rock cafe chain at the tribe. Good for them. That's nice. And they've done, that's nice for people who dunno, the Seminoles were the ones who lived in the Florida, like Everglades and swamp areas and, and nobody really conquered them ever.

And, and nobody wanted the land. That's an advantage. Yeah. No, no. Hey, no one wanna

Simone Collins: be out there. Yeah, that is.

Malcolm Collins: But it keeps you strong, you know, when you live in, in, in catering. That's

Simone Collins: why we're so on city states in undesirable areas. That's actually really great example of like, people are like, why do you wanna build in the far north?

Well, before the same reason The Seminoles were Okay. Relatively speaking. Yeah. 'cause they were in. Floridian Swamp zone of death.

Malcolm Collins: [00:27:00] Yeah. So here is a, a, a story that was put in a newspaper. Mm-hmm. Moat County, ranch, man, secures, charming housekeeper. Oh. Married, four hours after they first met. And this is a very old writeup.

This is like a modern writeup. Mm-hmm. The young lady came in on the belated train, something after four o'clock was met by her intended husband, and before nine the deed was done.

Now it must not be imagined that the two were altogether strangers before taking this step. Miss Bets and is a sister of Ms. Frank LeClaire, who lived near Kyle's place on the South Fork. They had been coordinated by mail for a couple years and recognized each other instantly. When the young lady alighted from the train. Rh Green was one of the guests of honor at the wedding, and being a mutual friend of the interested parties aided greatly in their acquaintanceship. The bride is a charming lady who has made her home in Denver for several years. Mr. Cal is one of the enterprising young ranch men of so Eastern Mofo County, [00:28:00] and has a host of friends who will be.

Joy in, in wishing both much happiness. Oh, so there's a few things to note from this story. The first is that the way that this wedding was structured is, is they had mutual acquaintances who helped to source it, which was really common. Yeah. This really seems like a

Simone Collins: community endeavor. I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Another is which were common. They weren't always, you know, you had some like genuine mail-in brides. But then in other instances you had you know, the. People being matched by their family members. But here I'd also note where she came from. Right. I've mentioned that you have sort of genetic selection events when you're dealing with the, with the West.

And a lot of people think of the West as being like a single wave, when actually what it was is multiple waves. Absolutely. And then the most adventurous people from the last wave, settling the new wave. Mm-hmm. So you have. First wave settling in the Appalachian region. Then the next wave settling out in like Texas and, and in, in the west.

And here this woman who is going out to this really rural region was already settled and living in Denver. Yeah. Which

Simone Collins: was

Malcolm Collins: a

Simone Collins: very, yeah. She was a [00:29:00] daughter of risk takers who took an even bigger risk. Yeah. Magnifying effect, which is many. Why many people argue that San Francisco has this sort of collective genetic inheritance of.

Startup risk takers, that's what you got there.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it's also important to, Ima understand like how bad things were for women in these cities in terms of like what led them to go out and do this. Oh. Which was that you know, often jobs if you didn't have a husband were hard to get as a woman.

You know, you could end up in one of the, like a sewing factories, which is Yeah. In a workhouse. Really nightmare existence. Yes. You, God, that'd be a fun one to do a episode on, or a depressing one to do. Episode one, the old workhouses. Mm-hmm. Basically they, they kept you like a slave. You know, you, you'd rather be a sex slave than at one of these workhouses.

Yeah. Where they, they keep you working, you know, extremely long shifts every day of the week in very

Simone Collins: unsafe conditions.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. On these giant looms, you can still go tour them and stuff like that. And, and that was, [00:30:00] you know, if you, if you weren't from a wealthy family or you weren't like the oldest kid from a wealthy family you know, this is, this is what was waiting for you if you didn't secure a husband.

Yeah. And well that, or like dying on the streets or becoming a pickpocket or a beggar or a thief or, you know. So, for a lot of these women, this was actually a very good option. Also, keep in mind that many of them were coming from like Puritan, strict households or something like that, and we're having the rebellious phase and we're like, you know what?

I'd really like to, you know, live a bit more free. And the, the west was significantly more gender equality than the east, like women in these states and territories. You know, in the east sometimes they weren't allowed to own property, they weren't allowed to, et cetera, et cetera. That wasn't true when they got to the West.

And the arrangements that they were able to form were, were generally significantly more gender equal. So if you're a young woman who had a sense of adventure and wanted a degree of equality, you could find that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: , but people, people also like, you know, made a little fun of this. Like, it was a little negative, like the early days of dating online. Like I remember when we were dating online Oh yeah. When you,

Simone Collins: you would get the [00:31:00] side eye for dating online. Yeah. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, I think the, the important thing to note is that not dating IRL, like not meeting your partner at church or in school or having them be your neighbor is, is a risky endeavor.

And is viewed with derision and suspicion by non-risk takers, by conformist to non-risk takers. Yeah. And that's why online dating is seen this way. This is why these mail order brides were seen this way, and yet this behavior has been actually quite common for a long time. That's how, I mean, essentially that's how my grandmother,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: Married my grandfather. They corresponded via mail for some time after, like after war.

Malcolm Collins: They, they had met meeting in

Simone Collins: person just a few times after the war in Paris, in France. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so The Hartford Corin remarked in 1910, the Wichita Eagle reported was Sardonic glee that Miss Effy Newland, one of the wealthy young women of Hoaxy Kansas, married a Mr.

[00:32:00] Lopez, a sailor of Key West Florida, after she jokingly responded to his ad for a wife. But Lopez was a splendid writer, and the girl soon became infatuated with his love making. I love it today. Love making means something totally else. But she, they meant like being sweet in in letters. Yes. My goodness.

The paper claimed Lopez traveled to Hoaxy and the couple were married while the parents protested. Oh, other stories fueled the panic that marriages made outside society bounds were dangerous. The Los Angeles Herald reported on October 31st, 1897 that a 3-year-old man shot and killed his heavily insured at 19-year-old wife, oh.

Who he met through an advertisement in a matrimonial paper. Oh, that's, of course some stories had happy endings, marriages that that did end well. So like one headline from 1907 Declared Girl writes in Secret and Wins Rich Planter, the story of an Indiana woman who met her husband through an ad in matrimonial paper, the spare pit years writing to each other in secret, and they married in person.

This is, this is a story from an old newspaper or something that it's. Poorly, [00:33:00] red hair, bulk Cupids plans, mail order bride. Forgot to ask prospective husband about it. Trip here in vain, Kentucky missed. She shows

Simone Collins: up, but she's a Jin.

Malcolm Collins: No, he's a g and, and, and she immediately renounced their marriage possibility because he was redheaded, because she said, quote, I just couldn't live with a redheaded man.

I couldn't. They are always so cross. It's actually just like literally her, her stereotype against people with red hair. Man. Hilarious. Oh, okay. This is a crazy sta off from an old newspaper, like who knows how many these old stories are true. Mm-hmm. But brother and sister drawn together is through matrimonial ad Council Bluffs, October 18th.

The most remarkable romance ever brought to light in southwestern Iowa has befall James Covington, a prosperous farmer residing in the Nua botta bottom 20 miles east of here. Covington advertised for a wife and received a response from a widow in [00:34:00] Georgia. They exchanged a number of letters and he sent the woman money with which to come to him.

They were married on the day of her arrival. He met her at the depot and they were mutually dumbfounded when it was discovered that the intended bride was none other than Covington's sister from whom he had been separated at youth. He heard she was killed in a whale ray wreck and mourned her is dead.

Each married and other, and their respective spouses died. The sister's name being changed by marriage Compton did not recognize her in correspondence.

Simone Collins: Did they get married? Do I, did I hear that right?

Malcolm Collins: No. No, they didn't. Okay. They were previously married and they had, that's why they didn't, you know the, the name.

Okay. Who knows if it's real. It's a sweet story of it is like, I want it. It's, I mean,

Simone Collins: yeah. At least you discovered your sibling is still out there. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So to go through some original texts because I, I love reading these. This is from 1865 in the Chicago Tribu Correspondence. Desired for the [00:35:00] love of the thing, fun or matrimony, any young ladies between 16 and 21.

This, this is, this was like a more flirty one, like either for marriage or just for fun. Oh, dear.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: and, and then this is an ad for people to join, like a service for doing this, either rich, handsome, pretty stylish, accomplished, refined Italian or brilliant. By two gentlemen, A wrong, a young, a rich young widower, SH layered oh, this for two men and a rather handsome, steady fellow.

The only son of wealthy parents. Oh boy. Correspondence, honorable or secret. Honorable

Simone Collins: or

Malcolm Collins: secret? Mm-hmm. Oh. This is a, what? These men know what's up. This is a, that is a horny marriage ad. They're ready for something

Simone Collins: raunchy. AKA secret. That is interesting. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: A widow. This is from a, a widow or merchant and stockman lives in Kansas, 56 years old, height six feet weight, 210 pound brunette black hair and eyes wishes corresponding with [00:36:00] ladies of same age without encumbrances, and whiz means must move in the best socially, and be fully qualified to help make a happy home object, matrimony.

So he is like, I, you need to be, you know, upper cl you need to, you know, not be classy. Yeah. Classy, right? There's a lad in Missouri with a flat foot seeds in his pocket, a brick in his hat, a blue eyes size tin shoe called the bull of the woods. And the boy for you. Well, there's a lot

Simone Collins: of contemporary lingo on that one.

My goodness.

Malcolm Collins: A brick under his

Simone Collins: hat and seats in his pocket. What?

Malcolm Collins: On Earth. He, he's, he's giving a vibe with that one. That's like one of, he's absolutely no slinging it. Here's one. Once pretty girl age 17 to 20. Advertiser is 29, 5 feet, nine inches Tall, blonde can laugh for 15 minutes once a pretty girl are laughing.

These are tall

Simone Collins: people. Are they overstating? Just like people are on online dating ads. Now I wonder because this, this is really tall. [00:37:00] 5, 9, 6 foot, like these are very tall heights for that time period. We've seen what beds look like from that time period. This is in clothing too?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Probably lying then.

Yeah, I doubt. I doubt.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, at least some things never change.

Malcolm Collins: Respectable young man, 20 years old, good city position desires, acquaintance of modest young lady, age 17 to 21 with home nearby. Object to attend operas and church. Perhaps more.

Simone Collins: Perhaps more. You know, he's showing off his why. He's

Malcolm Collins: like, I go to operas in church and that's what I want to do with you.

Maybe. Yeah. He's really.

Simone Collins: Really for g signaling there. But again,

Malcolm Collins: this is not, you know, these are not guys who are like, I'm looking for a hot woman who can, who can make a good dinner. Like, no one's fed that, right? Like, no one's been like, you know. Okay, here's one from 1898. 30 Wealthy Lost Mother for whom I sacrificed use Dread, A Lonely Future Seek Husband and True Companion.

Oh. This woman is desperate. This, this little and 30 [00:38:00] at that age was ancient. You know, she's really looking for, she wanted. That's rough. This one was in 1899, widow 44 Southerner, A stranger own home West End would like the Hearthstone of a heart swept and the cobwebs brushed away. Matrimony. Oh, sorry.

Would like the Hearthstone in heart swept. Getting poetic. Okay. Rushed away. So he is being poetic. He shine, you know, whatever. Okay, here's one, here's one. An older bachelor returning from the mines finds his. Old sweetheart. Married and old acquaintances, scattered desires. Lady acquaintance object marriage.

It's from 1904. I I like that. Very straight to the point. I was gonna marry someone, like I'm not, like a flirt or whatever. She just got married when I got back. This one here from 1921. Businessman gentleman, Christian, 33 to 43. Age 125. Oh yeah. So this is the one where you were talking about height and weight.

He's very

Simone Collins: specific about weight. Yes. And

Malcolm Collins: skills he wants is music. Sonography typing, bookkeeping. Good penmanship. That's, [00:39:00] that's interesting. Okay. Here we've got here, uh oh, oh AD for husband. I like this one. Okay. You got gold diggers. Even in the past 38-year-old brunette seeks a husband with an automobile.

This is from 1921.

Simone Collins: Needs a she? Does she wanna marry a man or a car? This is very interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Cars would've been quite a new contraption back then. Like, ooh, I want one of these men who lives fast here. Here's one from 1881. I think this one is interesting. Young person of Nobel birth. Beautiful is Helena housewife, like Penelope, et cetera, seeks a husband through press entirely without acquaintances of the masculine sex.

And so what she's saying here is, look at me. I'm so educated. I'm a little you know, oh yeah.

Simone Collins: But to. Is she describing herself to Helen of Troy? I mean, good luck lady. Yes. And a and a wife like Pene and Pene. She, no one wants to marry a woman who thinks she's literally as beautiful as Helen of Troy.

That is just trouble. I don't care how beautiful she's, she don't have

Malcolm Collins: any male acquaintances. Maybe. Maybe she'll [00:40:00] be Yeah, for

Simone Collins: a f*****g reason. No one can tolerate her. She's. I can't, I can't even deal with one, one collection of sentences that she wrote hundreds of years ago. Okay. Almost hundreds.

Malcolm Collins: So I found the first one that mentions cooking.

Gentleman 35 rancher in Montana seeks lady under 30 adept at household duties and not afraid of hard work. So it starts with the hard work thing. Must know how to cook and mend. That's good. Yeah. So rather than keep going, I collected some more, but this episode's run long and I think that we get the idea of what people were looking for.

Yeah. The question is

Simone Collins: how do, how can we bring this back? Because I like this and I like this idea of like, of, of looking for a business partner. You know, Hey, looking for someone who, you know, can, can move out here knows how to do these things, follows this religion. I have

Malcolm Collins: a great idea what, okay, so just like the Old West, our podcast is predominantly male watched.

Yeah. So what women can do, if you want and you wanna reach out to us and [00:41:00] have like a, a like short thing at the end of an episode where we pitch you to the audience, right? Yeah. Yeah. Then we forward you correspondence. If you're looking for marriage and kids, you, you, you, you let us know and we'll make a pitch for you at the end.

Email

Simone Collins: us at [email protected] with a succinct like these ads. Description of what you're looking for. Also, one more pitch also for the ladies watching this. There is a society of mothers who have stepped back from, you know, rigorous full-time careers to do more parenting, who nevertheless want to be involved in business and start businesses and kind of.

Work together, kind of like in a, in a writer's club to keep each other honest and move forward and actually get those businesses started. It's called undercurrent. If you're interested in joining this, also email us at partners of pragmatist foundation.com. We're not running it, we're not the founders of it, but we, we met the founder at Natal Con and she's a really cool woman.

[00:42:00] Also a mother of a bunch of children who's she has a finance background also very professional, and it's a cool group. So email us as well if you're interested in that.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But I, I, I like this idea of of, of keep it short, simple, and what really matters to you, you know? Absolutely. And I think that that'll also help with, with personal framing, right?

But

Simone Collins: yeah, but I love that. I love you. You recognize that our podcast is the wild West, a lot of risk taking, high achieving intelligent men and, and, and some women.

Malcolm Collins: Here's, here's a sweet one from 1883. Hmm. I want a wife to talk with at day's end. Someone gentle to make this load some place home.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Wanna give him a hug? You know, it's okay, little man. Yes,

Malcolm Collins: it's probably not. He

Simone Collins: probably died a very painful death.

Malcolm Collins: Lives mostly alone. A lot of that was actually a, a, a fun one from a a Thousand Ways to Die in The West. I thought that was actually a, a fairly funny movie with a interesting premise [00:43:00] of, of a like I think it sold pretty wrong.

Like it sold like, oh, all the ways you could die in the West is what makes it funny, but what makes it funny? Is taking somebody with modern sensibilities and values and ideas of gender roles and putting them in an old West environment and just watching them constantly like flabbergasted at how different things were back then.

Mm-hmm. And how much nobody cared.

I have only the finest healing tonics and elixirs procured from the farthest corners of the globe.

Ogden's celebrated stomach bitters. God, look at the ingredients. Cocaine, alcohol, morphine, mercury with chalk. What the hell is mercury with chalk? Science and red flannel. Red flannel. There's shirt in here. Pieces of shirt.

Malcolm Collins: Here's one that I think you'll find from, from 1889, widower 50. Texas owns 200 acres, seeks a lady with some capital to join in matrimony and improve the land. Well.

Simone Collins: Just like he wants an infusion of this is, yeah. No, this is a growth equity marriage. I, no, I'm [00:44:00] not signing up for that.

Nice try. I.

Malcolm Collins: I love you so much, Simone. I'm, I'm glad I got you through the modern version of one of these. I reached out to you.

Simone Collins: I'll have,

Malcolm Collins: you know, did you, did, you were the trollop and I really appreciate that. Thanks. Sorry. You were a, an aggressive woman. In, in, in the, in the deed of, of, of, of macaroni.

And my,

Simone Collins: my first message to you was a question about your. Startup. Okay. Oh, oh, okay. You were being

Malcolm Collins: slim

Simone Collins: and you were like, let's discuss you over dinner. And I was like, okay. But no, it was always about business with us. Thank you. You were not interested in the startup at all. You, of course I wasn't. I was interested in your stupid face.

I love you too much. Oh my God. I love you too much. Love

Malcolm Collins: you.

Simone Collins: I am really lucky. I ended up with you just letting you know that. Sorry. I did submit it though, [00:45:00] and it, it

Malcolm Collins: put, you got it as an unlisted video. Can you send me the unlisted video just so I can check? It works. The link that you sent,

Simone Collins: I just checked that it worked and I just submitted it so it's a little late, but Sure. Here's the unlisted video.

Malcolm Collins: We are submitting to Andreesen Horowitz.

We got to round two applications. They liked our pitches of both of them, both for the AI video game project and for the school. So that is so exciting. So exciting. It is

Simone Collins: exciting. It is really exciting.

Malcolm Collins: You are just an absolute star, Simone. And she, you know what else is on my

Simone Collins: unlisted YouTube videos?

It's, it's insane. There's the gist of gig averse. There's an original, and this is 2022 description of the Cols Institute, which is crazy from our original fundraising for it. Wow. And I have our SRE spot, Andres. We, we did that on this song when we were on Peruvian

Malcolm Collins: tv. The [00:46:00] top, one of the top Peruvian TV shows had us on at one point.

But hold on, you were on NPR today and you were like, it was exactly like that scene from Parks and Rec. Like they had this NPR accent and they were all like low energy.

Leslie could one say that a book is nothing more than a painting of words, which are the notes on the tapestry of the greatest film ever. Sculpted One could say that, but should one join.

Malcolm Collins: And the bio ethicist was like, well, of course no one would call you a Nazi Simone for what you're doing. And you're, yeah, you're like, no one would describe

Simone Collins: that as like what the Nazis did.

And I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: every day. Like progressives don't know how crazy their own party is. Like, just, just not even close. I, I thought what we're gonna do for the next episode, he had more

Simone Collins: eugenic use than I did because he believed that there were some things that universally everyone could agree we should screen out this.

And I'm like, Nope, that's.

Malcolm Collins: No. Like, nope, they wouldn't agree on that. They [00:47:00] wouldn't agree with you. Horrible. Yeah. And that's, that's crazy

Simone Collins: that like progressives have more eugenic views than we do. But we're, we're the bad ones. We're evil. We're the one, sorry. Not, not, sorry,

Malcolm Collins: actually. Yeah, no, and I've been, I've been getting boiled at something 'cause I've been watching people angry at, at a lot of our, like, friends, like the, the lady who was on our show, science lady Sabina Hofstetter.

Because she you know, championed a book that was like, Hey, science is getting too woke and it's causing issues.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the guy was like, oh, how could you say that? When Trump's in office and said, we're gonna rail on him, we're gonna say we won the war on science. We defeated science.

Josie, what did you learn about picking daffodils? I, I just wanted take this one. I was just, I just wanted to put, I just wanted to put flowers in the house so we can go off, can go to the store to get some blueberries. [00:48:00] Oh, okay. Testy wants blueberries. We got a goat.

In this episode, the hosts discuss the profound implications of redistricting and its anticipated impact on future U.S. elections, particularly post-2030. They delve into population movements towards red states and the consequent shift in electoral votes which may disadvantage Democrats. The conversation explores how demographic and cultural shifts affect voting patterns, particularly among minority communities. The hosts also examine the internal challenges facing the Democratic Party, such as their exclusionary approaches, which complicate coalition-building. They consider potential paths and strategies Democrats might pursue to stay competitive, including appealing to new voter groups and addressing pertinent issues like job loss due to AI. The dialogue is rounded out with personal anecdotes and a light-hearted discussion on family dynamics and dinner plans.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Now, many of you watching might be aware of the current phenomenon going on in the United States. It makes it nearly impossible for Democrats to win elections after the 2030s. This is due to something called redistricting, in which as voters move to red states blue states lose votes because the number of votes you get in a presidential election and in Congress is based on your population.

Well. Turns out nobody wants to live in blue states anymore. They've for a long time. And these states are lower fertility anyway.

Simone Collins: Well, this also reminds me of that stat that showed that minority populations, like non-white populations that live in red districts versus blue districts have higher income.

Like all these measures that were way better, like, oh, in

Malcolm Collins: contrast it with white populations, actually everyone typically has lower income in red states. Just for clarification. But that's because the urban monoculture prefers to grow in environments where it can [00:01:00] harvest more money. So it focuses on wealthy cities and stuff like that.

But you're right about that. They're like relatively less racist in the implications of their policy than belief states.

Simone Collins: And while we, you're as consequentialist, we care about outcomes, you know, if they're thriving more in red districts, I would say red districts create better outcomes for minorities.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But so in this episode you, you've probably heard of this or you're broadly aware of it, but I want to both go into the specifics of this and go into scenarios about what it means to actually win an election. Like I. What are you actually going to win? How does it change, which states or swing states and how does it change what Democrats need to do to win elections going forward?

Okay. While also arguing that this is just gonna be incredibly hard for them to pull off and they'll likely need some new form of a coalition to. Win elections going forwards. And I don't know what that coalition's gonna look like. But what's interesting about the way the Democrats have built their coalition is it's entirely exclusionary recently.

It's either you [00:02:00] support trans people or you're totally out. Either like, as we've said, like all you need to do is disagree on one thing and you're not a de at all anymore. Like a JK Rowling is a Damon every single way, but like. Trans issues. And she's like a demon, right? Like Elon was like every single way, but like trans issue, demon.

And now he's like on the right, you know, like, so even if you like, just disagree on like the. The dumb thing, you point out the giant mole on their face. You know, it ends up causing you to be exercised from their culture. So,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, just

Simone Collins: wait. You make the tiniest wrong move when you're out.

That's the really scary thing.

Malcolm Collins: It's very hard. Basically they need to find a new group to protect it, sort of the way their culture is structured. But who would that be? It could only be. Religious conservatives, but, but, you know, say, oh, well, we'll protect your children, but then that would upset the Chinese people and the, you know, so I don't know what they're gonna do, but, we'll, we'll move on that at the end of this, but let's just go into the stats here to start.

Okay? Okay. Based on population projections for the [00:03:00] 2030 census, certain states are expected to gain house seats due to population groups, primarily in the south and west. Okay. Votes. Equals its number of house seats plus two for its senator who increase in house seats directly increases electoral votes.

The states gaining electoral votes along with the number of votes are Texas plus four, Florida plus four Arizona plus one Utah plus one. North Carolina plus one Utah plus one total of electoral votes gained 12. Conversely, states with population decline or slower goes, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, as well as California, are projected to lose house seats, thus electoral voters.

The states that are gonna lose them are California minus four, New York, minus two, Illinois minus one, Minnesota minus one, Oregon minus one. Pennsylvania minus one Rhode Island, minus one Wisconsin minus one. More critically projection [00:04:00] suggests that by 2030 Democrats rely on their. Safely Democratic states, eg.

California and New York. Plus the Blue Wall states, Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Nebraska's Second district one vote. They would secure only 258 votes falling 12 votes short of the two 70. They need to win a presidency. So if Democrats just win what they historically considered, like the safe path to victory, they will not win under the new system.

So I wanna, you know, just, just put that out there again. So even if Democrats win Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and Nebraska behalf of Nebraska, they still wouldn't win the cycle.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That's not great. Okay. To reach 270 electoral votes on the 2030 map, Democrats must win additional swing states [00:05:00] beyond the blue wall, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, to make up the 12 vote deficit.

The electoral vote counts for swing states under the 2030. Projections are Arizona Georgia, North Carolina or Nevada. So if they win any of these, they would win if, if they won those, like Pennsylvania and whatever. But I actually think winning Pennsylvania is gonna be increasingly hard.

And we're gonna go into that in just a second, but like, if Pennsylvania gets harder to win, we're gonna go over just how hard it gets for them to, to win elections. Possible collections of additional swing states to reach or exceed. 12 electoral votes include Arizona alone, Georgia alone, North Carolina alone, Arizona plus Nevada.

This is assuming Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. Now let's see what happens if they lose pa, that's where we live is Pennsylvania. And I know that there's been some major changes in Pennsylvania in the last election cycle, specifically Scott Presler Gay Hero ended up, radicalizing, the Amish, who historically didn't vote, the Amish basically said, well, [00:06:00] we won't vote, we won't get involved in politics, and we won't become politicized because we don't want the system to attack us when, you know, the wrong party's in power.

And what the Amish realized, and Scott Presler convinced him of this is actually the system's attacking you right now, and we'll continue to attack you because it needs your kids to survive. The progressives aren't having kids and they get kids from you, so. You should join up with this Trump guy.

He'll protect your rights. And they were like, you know what? That sounds about right. And they were, they were seeing this. They w what's funny is one thing that Amish really hated was handouts for having lots of kids. They, they often complained about getting this from the government. They're like, oh, I'm not gonna turn it down, but like, they've made money worthless.

So assuming they lose D pa, okay. Assuming Democrats secure their safely Democratic states 213 votes and the blue walls, this is assuming they win Michigan and Wisconsin. Then they must need an additional 32 votes from swing states. Here's the most realistic combinations they could get over time.

So they'd have to, if they lose [00:07:00] pa, get Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and North Carolina. Now that seems incredibly unlikely. Yes, Georgia flipped democratic in 2020 and North Carolina did while, while narrowly Republican in in recent cycles. But the problem is, is that. The current trends would cause them to flip in the opposite direction.

More like Dims winning Georgia and North Carolina, especially given how hard they've lost. The Hispanic vote is gonna be really, really difficult. Ar Okay. Okay. So they could win Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. I could see Arizona and Nevada, but I do not see them winning Georgia if they haven't won Pennsylvania.

That doesn't make sense. Okay. Okay. Okay. So then what else? Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and New Hampshire. Again, I don't see them winning Georgia if they don't win Pennsylvania. Okay. Then what [00:08:00] else? North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin could win them The election. That is more realistic, but that still requires North Carolina.

So basically it means that going forwards dims have to win Pennsylvania or create a new fulcrum state, which would be Georgia. Now here's how they might win. Georgia, and I could see this, so let, let's talk about this. Maybe what they need to focus on is this idea that the Republican Party really has a.

And, and, and I will admit this the, as we've argue in the past, the Republican Party used to be the party of the Cavaliers. This is deep south culture. This is a highly aristocratic and hierarchical culture. And, and a culture that believes in strict social norms that need to be followed to sort of earn or portray your status.

And. Trump [00:09:00] doesn't follow that at all. He regularly flaunts such norms in a way that causes leaders within southern culture to be quite upset with him and disgusted by him. And, you know, then he brought JD Vance in, who represents an extent, a continuation of this. Now, he doesn't have the vulgarity of Trump totally, but.

He's vulgar in other ways that show like a, thumbing his nose at these cultural morays, like he really likes magic. The gathering that is not something that one of these magic, the gathering is a card game for nerds that these cultures would've loved. That, that was like the, my little pony of his generation or something.

Right. You know, I like magic. Together. Imagine they the ball. I was so obsessed with that. I was always excited when new chiropractics would come out. Oh my God. You know what? New Life goal, play Magic. The gathering against JD Vance or have our kids play against his kids.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. How great would

Malcolm Collins: that

Simone Collins: be?

They need to grow a little bit more though. They need to get a little older. Yeah. Don't we need to get a little more favor? Oh yeah. I guess step one, some healthy friend JD Vance. Step two kids grow up. [00:10:00]

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, but you know, the, the, the, as the conservative have, have embraced the real nerds, you know, as the GMs went through trash nerd culture and made it all woke you know, this is something that a lot of deep Southern culture had some antipathy towards.

Yeah, absolutely. The reason the alliance works now is we're like, well, look, you are. You do not have numbers to impose your value system on the general population right now, but if you join our coalition, we can at least work to protect your kids from Deconversion. And, and that means, you know, more school choice.

That means you know, more efficient government services like preventing stuff like the USAID that was going out and running all these conversion camps basically all around the world. Wasting our money. And they're like, okay, yeah, we can broadly agree on all of that. Like that's an area where we can all agree, but.

If the left reclassified conservative Christians as a minority religious tradition was in their value system. And it's just like, okay. In the same way we treat Muslims, like they don't mind that, like Muslims [00:11:00] throw gay people off buildings, right? Like if there was in their cultural context can they create sort of the same like.

Gays for evangelicals, gays for Born again Christians. I don't, I don't think so. Like, it's, it's a long shot, but it is a shot. Let's go to some alternative scenarios that they lose. Okay. So I was like, if Democrats win Michigan or Wisconsin fail to win Michigan or Wisconsin, their past becomes even harder without Wisconsin starting at 213.

They would need a combination of something like Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada to win. Or they need to flip either Texas or Florida. But Florida's become increasingly hard to flip in recent election cycles. So much that on most maps it's listed as solidly read in a large part due to the MAGA coalition's ability to win the Hispanic vote.

Thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: On the All-In podcast recently, Antonio Gracias, who's doing work with Doge [00:12:00] was talking about issues with illegal immigrants. And he mentioned that it was found that a bunch of people who were. In the United States as illegal immigrants did actually end up voting and mm-hmm.

I, I keep thinking about that when I think about this, that the Democratic Party, I, I don't think that there was if thousands

Malcolm Collins: of illegal immigrants, by the way,

Simone Collins: I, I don't know how, like, what, what the count was. But it was in multiple states. I don't think they have a final count yet 'cause they're only just starting to dig into these numbers.

I mean. Do, did tweet at one point about some other things that these people have done. They said that they were 905 collecting Medicaid, 41, collecting unemployment insurance. 22 received federal student loans, 409 received tax refunds. And then several received food stamp benefits, which is not something that illegal aliens should be receiving.

Yeah. But they're doing it anyway. And yes, they are also voting in some cases. I don't think that the Democratic Party was like. Oh, you know, this [00:13:00] is, this is a plan of mine to do this. I think that they're just like, well, I mean, we wanna empower these, you know, people who fled from terrible situations and it doesn't hurt.

I. They would vote for us and they would vote for them because it was democratic policies that also allowed them to do things like, oh, so like, technically they weren't supposed to, but here are your SNAP benefits, here's your unemployment insurance, things like that. Yeah. And legal, legal

Malcolm Collins: immigrants don't wanna pay for this, and they feel bad for their, you know, existing family who's waiting to get in the right way.

Right. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I, I just keep thinking back to that conversation in Antonio, Gracia's initial findings. 'cause also it, it blew my mind. That illegal immigrants would vote. And I was just like, well, that would never happen. And it, it has happened. So, that is, that is, that is pretty crazy. And I, I, I do, yeah, I mean like, 'cause I'm thinking on both ends.

'cause a big thing that was coming up at the close of this last presidential election [00:14:00] was, oh, well if the Democrats win. Republicans will never be able to win again. So it's interesting for me to hear you saying, now Democrats are completely screwed. You know, this is not the narrative that I was hearing because based on immigration trends, whether or not, you know, they were legal migrants, well, this is when Democrats thought that they had the Hispanic vote

Malcolm Collins: in their pocket.

And the problem is, is that once people become Hispanic legal citizens, these are trad cats. They're not.

Simone Collins: They're not

Malcolm Collins: like the black, this is the black population. Even if they would be benefited by voting for conservatives, even if they would be. You know, like, like the conservative party alliance was their actual social values, which it does.

They've been sort of brainwashed into believing that conservatives are, are racist or anti-black or something like that. And you know, we've seen this even around like prenatals conferences. Like when CNN was covering it, it's like, it's suspicious that there weren't , a lot of black people there.

You know, that must mean everyone there is a racist. And I'm like, no, it's just there weren't a lot of black people there. Like, why, why would there, like, we're not like proselytizing within like. Black community citrus or something, we're not [00:15:00] comping their tickets like Democrats would like. We just treat everyone equally.

Like of course there's not a lot of black people here, whatever. And so, I, I think that they, they, but they're trying to create the perception and the black communities have believed this perception. Largely a a lot of based ones haven't, and they're like, yeah, I see what's up. Like you're using us, right?

Like you don't actually, as Simone pointed out, you don't actually help our communities. Our communities are differentially worse off when we're in Democrat controlled territories. We do better in Republican areas, so clearly like you guys are just using us. But that hasn't happened. In Hispanic communities, dim thought they could replay this hand within Hispanic communities.

And in the last election cycle, the majority of Hispanic men, for example, voted for Trump. And, and the Hispanic vote overall was only slightly for Biden and it's move by Kamala, and it's moving pretty fast. And I think this is because of how information networks work within, in Hispanic communities, they're much more based around family networks and much less based around [00:16:00] external sources of information.

So even if you can gaslight like around an entire culture, like everyone believes this, everyone believes this. They just like go to their like, you know, cousin and they're like, Hey, do we believe this? And the cousin's like, no, I don't think we do. And we're like, okay, well them, you know, like, and. Family networks makes you significantly more likely to get pissed off at inefficient government bureaucracies than in, than than smaller networks.

Because whenever the inefficient bureaucracy accidentally closes somebody's store by over-applying things or applies covid restrictions too harshly, or, you know, does something that screws over a small business within his Hispanic communities. They're like, oh, you know, my second cousin lost everything that his whole family had worked for their entire lives because of your arbitrarily abr applied bureaucratic norms.

I hate the deep state, right? Like these are anti my community. But if you don't have the strong family networks, which the DIMS have done a very good job of breaking up within [00:17:00] many. Black communities you're not gonna get that information. And it's just, well, if the state, you know, I can live off the state.

I can live off the state. Right. You know? And, and if I've been told Republicans are racist, well they must be racist 'cause everyone affirms this or everyone who's, you know, immediately. So I think that that's, that's, that's part of it.

Simone Collins: But there's also not a world in which we don't continue with the two party system.

I think like things just naturally sort to that, given the way that our political governmental system is set up. So what I imagine will happen is the Democrat party will move. To a much more appealing position, possibly even appealing to us. Who knows? Like they could, they could go in a great direction.

So, well

Malcolm Collins: that's, I don't, I don't think they could. I think so if you look at Democrats right now to win you, you know, you're saying they could appeal to the tech, right? Like the new, right?

Simone Collins: No, well, our, or just centrist Americans? I don't know. I really don't know what direction they could possibly take.

I know they need basically what they need. I mean, the would be leaders now are what? Like Gavin Newsom? I, I, I just, yeah, I dunno what

Malcolm Collins: they're gonna do. They want to further [00:18:00] like their plan is, oh, we're gonna further increase the turnout of our existing coalition. And that is actually pretty good of a strategy when both coalitions are equal, but we're going to move into an era where they need a new component to the coalition for the coalition to work.

And it, it, it. It could be the tech, right? But that just seems incredibly unlikely. 'cause the tech right is basically what the Republican Party is right now. If you look at the actual policy that they're pushing if however they lost the tech right, that'd be really bad for the Republicans. Like I think that Trump and JD understand this very well.

I think most Republicans at like Heritage or at other like competently run like legacy Republican they really like talking to people like us and understanding people like us. 'cause they're like, okay, this is like the new part. You know, you're just talking to a reporter and he is like, well, I mean you guys aren't fully Republican, right?

Like, I was like, no, like we are a hundred percent new, right? Like there isn't a single issue in terms of what the Trump administration has done, where I'm like, I categorically disagree [00:19:00] with this. And in some cases I'm like, that's an interesting hypothesis that you think that would work. And I'm, you know, at least glad that you're trying radical things, but it probably won't.

But that's not like a an actual like, difference of opinion. Right. You know, I mean, so that's what makes it so hard to get the tech right as I think that the left has a perception that the tech right kind of agrees with the left and kind of agrees with the right. And it's just with the right, right now for.

You know, because of their cultural imperialism. And it's like, no, we're like a hundred percent on this side. The right would need to do something to seriously betray us like, you know, put restrictions on IVF. But Trump has made IVF easier and cheaper to get, you know, so

Simone Collins: maybe, I don't know. I mean, a lot of the press coverage of tariffs implies that, like if, for example, the Trump administration gets tagged with a recession, like it's, it's their fault.

They, they did this with tariffs. I could see there being a big backlash. That could cause a rebalancing, it would give, it leaves an opening for Democrats to [00:20:00] even just kind of. Gaslights, the US Popula would be like, we were always the reasonable party. We never we never proposed any of this stuff, stuff.

What's

Malcolm Collins: the problem with that is, is it's, that's the Rich People Coalition and Democrats already have the Rich People Coalition.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That's already part of their, their winning circle, you know? So they go out and they're like, we're extra good for rich people. People are gonna be like, oh. Not a good look like you could at least try to sell to for Republicans.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Huh. I wonder,

Malcolm Collins: I mean I look everybody knows, like I've always said, trans people, you can't, like, they're like, oh, we can't abandon our trends outies. And it's like, look, if you were sighting with people who literally dress up like they're from the capital and the hungry games, like you can't be the party of the working people.

I love

Simone Collins: the capital and the Hunger Games. That

Malcolm Collins: is like the way, like apparently like 50% of trans people dress. I'm like, why? Why, why? You do not look like the disenfranchised. You don't need. Their [00:21:00] privilege. It's obvious, but to keep going. Election electoral college and house seat reappointment population grows in Republican leaning states like Texas and Florida means these states will gain house seats, blah, blah, blah.

Now what's really interesting about this. Is that a lot of this is actually coming downstream of people moving where they live because Democrats are doing such a bad job of managing democratic. Yeah.

Simone Collins: They're just, they're just fleeing democratic policies in terms of housing, in terms of. Homeless communities and all that.

Right. They just can't live with it anymore.

Malcolm Collins: And obviously the Democrat dream is, oh, we move to, let's say Austin, that we turn Texas blue. Mm. I mean, that's been the democratic dream for a long time.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But I don't think it's realistic. The Hispanic vote voters don't like, I think it the Hispanic community for a while, but not anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, here's a question for you. Who would you say republicans should go after next? If Republicans were gonna chip off [00:22:00] part of the Democratic coalition, who would it be?

Simone Collins: Maybe more gay men. I think that more gay men will be good.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. I think I, and I think it's a very winnable faction. Well, yeah.

Simone Collins: The, the, the, the movement has already started. Just build momentum and go all the way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The other fraction I can see is black men. Trump has actually made some really big inroads with black men by changing things like child support laws. Oh really? Wow. Yeah. I can't remember. Oh, yeah, he changed it.

So I think that, oh, God, I can't remember how he changed it. He changed it in like a really reasonable way, but that was not favorable for women who were, you know, juicing guys who knocked them up for a living situation. Oh. And apparently this was, you know, just for disproportionately affected black communities.

Whether it's 70%, 76% of black people are born outside of a, a marriage. These days. Yeah. Some,

Simone Collins: some insane amount. That's hard for me to believe. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: It, it, it, this is not part of black culture. Historically, before they became like this ultra progressive [00:23:00] party, they had higher

Simone Collins: rates of marriage than white people in America.

Yeah. You, like

Malcolm Collins: in the sixties, 5% of blacks were born outside of wedlock while 10% of whites were. Mm-hmm. So this is the result of their alliance. With the urban monoculture. Mm-hmm. And the urban monocultures degradation of their culture through that alliance. Yeah. It is not an intrinsic part of being black or black culture.

You can watch our episode, the Islamification of Black Culture, if you wanna see you know, how the Democrats really f them over on this. But yeah, I, I, I think black men are very winnable if you focus on issues like that. Because. A lot of society has become so much like a coalition like us versus them and males versus females has become such a big part of that in ways that are really institutionally abusive of the other in cultures where, well, I mean, so if, if, if you have like 76% of kids being born outta wedlock the men and the women in that culture are not really in the same faction.

Like the women have a reason to f over the men and the men have [00:24:00] a reason to f over the women

Simone Collins: fair.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, there's a reason why when you look at like famous black women, they like almost always are dating Jews or white guys, but mostly Jews. You know, it's like, it's like a thing, it's like a thing, like even when they're like racist, you know?

It's like, I, I don't know what that is, but I, I, I think it's due. To, you know, as the urban monoculture has infected their culture and broken up institutions like marriage, it's allowed for the ossification of a gender war that is more intractable. And the thing is, is, is that once you break up this gender role, then you're also a conservative, but you're a conservative for like wholesome family reasons, like mm-hmm.

You know, which a lot of the black community is as well. They're like, yeah, I'm not interested in like, all this DEI nonsense. I just want my kids to, you know, be in an environment where they're treated fairly and, and, which you, you hear from a lot of the, the like, wholesome faction of the black community.

Simone Collins: Yeah. 100%. That, that, that checks out. Also, I think that there's a huge portion of the black community that is [00:25:00] perfectly capitalistic. You know, not socialist. Like all the, the socialist influencers I know were extremely white and extremely middle class, like they grew up in, in privilege and they also grew up very, very white.

And when I look at a lot of shows that are, that are meant to cater to primarily black audiences, and they have primarily black classes. They may have very social justice themes, but they're all wearing like $5,000 shirts. And or they're very capitalistic in nature. Which implies to me, I, I couldn't say because I'm not black, but it implies to me that black audiences in America are.

More capitalistic leaning and not really all about this sort of Marxist theory. So pervasive. I,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, I, I've definitely seen that as well. I mean, they're, they're being realistic. They have less trust in governing institutions and, and structures for good reason. But one of the reasons it might be harder to get the black male vote is that Democrats within this last cycle have leaned really hard into antisemitism.

It's really [00:26:00] normal among democratic influencers and the black community is disproportionately anti-Semitic. I think a lot of people were really surprised when like Kanye went all anti-Semitic and I was like, do you not have like black friends? Like

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or have you not explored the concepts of, of the Nation of Islam?

I.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like what? Like that, this is, this is not surprising. And, and not even for like negative reasons. Even, you know, I was talking with a friend of mine who is you know, a well-known entertainer.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And she was talking about a lot of the, the well-known black entertainers, and she's like, actually antisemitism is really common amongst the well-known black entertainers.

Just most of them know better than to be public about it. Okay.

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: she's like, and the weird thing is like, even as somebody who's not anti-Semitic myself, like I actually kind of get it. Oh my gosh. 'cause so often for these people, their early managers and producers and people running their studios we're all Jewish.

Mm. And that a lot of these people screwed them over. And, and acted, you [00:27:00] know, I mean, that's the way it was. Like if you're a moneyed interest in, in like the entertainment industry and you're dealing with somebody who's not educated and I'm not saying that like blacks are uneducated. I am seeing a lot of black people who go into the entertainment industry specifically, like the music or rap scene come from a disproportionately lower level of education.

Well, also, if you're

Simone Collins: maxing out. Performing arts, you're not maxing out to getting a master's degree or in something like that unless you've gone the academic route, which probably means you're not a popular pop pop artist. So,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. And if you look at the, who are the lawyers and record producers and stuff like that in la, they are disproportionately Jewish.

Mm-hmm. And so the community began to feel like. Hey, it's not white people who are holding us down. Like I've got lots of poor white friends. It's Jewish people who are holding us down. Oh, dear. And the, the, you know, they knew they weren't allowed to say this publicly, so because the, the discussion never aired publicly.

I mean, again, [00:28:00] this isn't. I don't think that this is because Jewish people screw people over disproportionately. I don't think that this is because anything about Jewish people, I just think that due to cultural and historic reasons, Jewish people ended up running the entertainment industry disproportionately.

That's an interesting episode for totally different time. It was a, the German juice, specifically the Russian Jews ended up in the closing industry on the east coast, the German juice. On the West Coast, in part because it was more deregulated. Look, I don't need to get into why they ended up running.

No, but I,

Simone Collins: I would just say like all of that said I don't at least intuitively feel like the Republican Party is the Jew party and the Democrat party is the anti JW party. I just think that, I think it's align that way. Well, with Palestine it came up more, but I don't know, even in the next presidential election cycle, just how relevant Palestine is gonna be.

So maybe it won't even matter. I just, I think the only reason it's really risen to the surface is that Israel and Palestine were key international conflicts that were discussed [00:29:00] extensively during the 2024 election.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, wait, no, I, I, I mean, look, I I, is it gonna be a persistent issue? It depends on how long this war lasts.

But I think that a lot of people made their positions clear and a lot of like actual, like Antisemites left Republican party, like, you know, Nick Fuentes or Leather Apron Club, or. David Duke, or and a lot of them are beginning to align more. Like even David Duke was talking about how like he aligns more with Democratic party policies these days.

Geez. But he's like, look like he felt really bad for the people of Gaza. He's like, I really appreciate the Democratic party standing up for them. Like I think that morally I am more aligned with it. Well

Simone Collins: meanwhile, amidst all the tariff stuff, there was some progressive influencer who was like.

Trump is finally speaking for the working class American. I love this. This is fantastic. [00:30:00] So all sorts of disruption is taking place. I think so many, wait, A progressive influencer was saying that Y yeah. I can't remember. It was someone discussed on the blocked and reported podcast. And I, I, I can't remember who it was.

It wasn't Sagar was it? But it was, it was someone who was extremely left and who suddenly was standing Trump. Because it was tariffs and I found that really interesting. I just think that now there's a lot of disruption. Democrats are really not sure what to do. They were obviously very, very disillusioned by what mainstream party did in the last election cycle.

So, you know, but who knows what's gonna happen because they got away with so much bad stuff and they don't seem to be showing any signs of. Dissolving in any way. You still have this very old group of people running everything it seems. So, I don't know. I mean, Bernie's certainly a celebrity right now. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, he's going, what is it, Coachella?

Simone Collins: Yeah. He's, he's like on tour you know, selling out venues, [00:31:00] doing his stocks looking curly.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, Bernie's just a stge for the pharma industry. He like. He, he, if you saw, like, I was just so disgusted by the way he acted during the JFK hearing where, you know, he's opposing JFK, he is about, you know, making things healthier.

We know that he's the highest, gets the most donations of anyone in the Senate from the pharma companies. And people are like, oh, those are individual donations. I'm like. You really are that stupid. Like do you think that Bernie consistently gets enough individual donations, highest end donor from the pharma industry, an industry that has a vested interest in giving money to the Senate and to lock to change policy positions?

Like that's like. Of all industries in the world, there are few with a bigger vested interest than pharma. You think that accidentally he's been winning the most money from that industry, not in one [00:32:00] life cycle, but for over a decade like that is completely implausible. Like that is like Biden. Getting 17% more of the vote than Obama did, which by the way, is the official number completely implausible.

To anyone who was alive during both of those elections. Obama's election was a phenomenon. Like it was everything. It was, it was, it, it, it ate at every aspect of our culture in civilization during that election cycle. There is no way Biden got 17% more vote than him.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that, that seemed a bit irregular.

We can, we can just say that

Malcolm Collins: small. It's not like, oh, he got like five more points or something. It's like if, if he had been running against Obama, he would've crushed him. That's not plausible. Yeah. But anyway, the, the, the point I'm making [00:33:00] is, is. Birdie is a complete sleaze bag and always has been.

Simone Collins: It always, it doesn't seem to stop his fandom. That's all I'm saying. It doesn't matter if someone's a a sleaze bag by anyone's definition or not. What he says resonates the story that reminded me

Malcolm Collins: of. I always love the story of him being kicked outta the commune. You know that story. So he goes to like a communist commune and they ended up kicking them out because all he would do was give speeches all day.

Oh, like he

Simone Collins: wasn't, he wasn't working. Yeah. He is just giving speeches about how good every, the communism

Malcolm Collins: and conceptualism was. Well, he's

Simone Collins: really good at that. That's his special interest. And he's, he is good at it. And clearly people like it. The right audience likes it, so.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I don't think so. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't know that many Bernie supporters anymore, like the Bernie Grow movement basically died out.

There's

Simone Collins: a lot of them,

Malcolm Collins: I think you say like him because he's seen his counter mainstream Democrat, but he cowed out to the mainstream Democrats throughout the entire last cycle. You know, [00:34:00] I don not think Bernie is the way, and I do not think socialism is a pass forward for Democrats. I think if they try to actually, if they go like pure.

Federman style socialism. That could do pretty well.

Simone Collins: What is Federman style? Socialism.

Malcolm Collins: Abandon the trans nonsense. Just go full in, like is he, is he

Simone Collins: anti-trans? I don't think he's anti-trans. Oh no,

Malcolm Collins: he's not yet. But like, you can tell, like a abandon the, the illegal immigrant stuff. Just be like, we're not gonna do that.

We're actually going to implement a socialist policy, like culture wars be gone. Socialist policy because AI is coming. We need UBI or something like that, that would go pretty well. So

Simone Collins: basically just agnostic. Socialism. Socialism without the cultural baggage.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I could see that as playing pretty hard against somebody like JD Vance or something.

Simone Collins: People, I, yeah, I mean, our polling even that our nonprofit has done, shows that people are genuinely concerned [00:35:00] collectively about. Global geopolitical instability and importantly job loss due to ai. I, I do think that someone who caters to those fears and says, I've got you. It's, this is a problem and I'm going to address it, will will do pretty well.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Alright, well, I love you today, Simone. What am I eating to dinner tonight?

Simone Collins: So there are you bought at Costco? A while back, these mysterious chicken crumbles that you thought were very compelling? I could stir. Oh, I think

Malcolm Collins: you get well with fried rice.

Simone Collins: With fried rice. Or just rice. Rice or just fried rice.

And then, and do fried rice and that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I cook it separately and then mix it with fried rice. Fried rice. Okay. So

Simone Collins: you like fried rice with chicken crumbles tonight? Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna take out of the freezer some of the Wagyu steak for you to have tomorrow night. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I wouldn't, I wouldn't cook them together by the way.

I cook them separately and I can mix them as, yeah. First do

Simone Collins: the, the chicken crumbles and then do the, the, the fried [00:36:00] rice and you want me to serve them to you separately, not even fry at the very end. Those things together. It

Malcolm Collins: serves them separately because I don't know if the chicken crumbles are gonna be good.

So I'm, I'm gonna want fried rice to eat if the chicken crumbles aren't good with the fried rice. Okay. And the French tray might have the confidence to say mix them, but right now, I don't know.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right. There's like hypothesis, Simone, A hypothesis and

Simone Collins: any special seasoning requests in the fried rice.

Aside from a tiny bit of that vinegar, obviously lots of soy sauce, lots of butter. Some MSG and rice. Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Uh uh, oyster sauce. Oyster sauce.

Simone Collins: Okay. And of course green onion and some finely chopped bell pepper. Is that all right with you?

Malcolm Collins: That works for me. My beautiful princess

Simone Collins: egg eggs from the coop that is necessary.

We live

Malcolm Collins: in such luxury and we're ending so early to, do you want me to try to get No, I actually have

Simone Collins: another journalist call, so this is not early

Malcolm Collins: more work to do. Do you try to, do you want me to try to get the the thing done? The video that you, you did, if you could.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that would be great. I gotta try to

Malcolm Collins: get that done tonight.[00:37:00]

Simone Collins: I would appreciate that. Good. All right.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. Who, who's the journalist?

Simone Collins: Caroline Kitchener. I, I, I've stopped tracking who's coming from what, and I just take calls. That's the way I am too. Yeah. So much media

Malcolm Collins: about us now, like a man story of the day because we are ever only famous.

But that's cool. I like being famous. I wanted to be famous. I'm, I'm like a cool, like, hmm. Everyone's like, Hmm, like Malcolm. He's so cool. Look at him. He's so sexy. Malcolm's so hot right now. Guy. Right now they're all like, oh yeah. Yeah. Like the coworkers are, are so well liked and sexy. They're not Nazis at all.

They're, they're just cousins. They, they are so mean. Like, it's funny, like the thing that used to make us go viral on, on Twitter, it's moved entirely to Blue Sky and now. Like we don't go as viral because it's only on blue sky now. Like Twitter doesn't care isolated. That, that seems reasonable.

[00:38:00] Falling fertility rates are an issue. Yeah. And it really shows how much the Democrats as well, like Blue sky has been terrible for them because it's completely silenced. Their ability to cancel people. Oh yeah. They're not, they're not going

Simone Collins: mainstream the same way because they're only speaking to other Democrats.

So it's just like the Democrat or the progressive gossip line online and. Yeah, and being unfortunately to make mainstream culture, it seems like you need to have everyone involved. That kind of surprises me. I'm like, why didn't the media just move to Blue Sky and just talk about the issues that their primary audience cared about?

Like if that's, you know, if, if, for example, the New York Times is a left-leaning publication, a left audience can

Malcolm Collins: up 1% of the audience of Twitter. Oh,

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: use it

Simone Collins: for idea generation. If I were them.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, they're all on blue sky. Like New York Times is on blue sky. All the media's on blue Sky. It's just the problem is, is that the busy bodies whose former like spiraling, apoplectic, freakouts caused virality and, and, and cancel mobs have left the environment where people [00:39:00] other than them saw the cancel mobs.

Mm-hmm. So now the CEO of target isn't seeing the target cancel mob because it's on the blue sky.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or, or it's not as worrisome to them. I imagine some lackey coming to a CEO and saying, oh, 5 million people have liked this or retweeted this, and this is, and on Blue Sky, it's more like 1,300 people have.

Requited it or whatever. What what'd you do on Blue Sky? I don't

Malcolm Collins: know. And he's like, is that like matter? And they're like, well, no. Say Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for like Blue Sky. I actually feel for the Republican Party is one of the like. Biggest public services that anyone's running for us right now.

Like I would be so sad at Blue Sky shut down. It's like a containment ward for crazy people. It's like a crazy person island. And they're like yelling at me like, you must hate not being on crazy person island. And I'm like, no. Like you guys used to like go to the grocery store with me and [00:40:00] stuff. It was scary.

Simone Collins: You don't even hate not being on Twitter and you never were because. You can't be bothered. I,

Malcolm Collins: I, I do like that we don't go viral in a negative context. Like, I like that when things happen on Twitter now everyone's like, okay. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh. I'm try. Okay. All right. Well I'll get on that call. I love you so much.

I'm gonna make your chicken crumbles, fried rice isolating them. Come

Malcolm Collins: on. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it

Simone Collins: dude? Yeah, it sounds

Malcolm Collins: great. I like, maybe like, the fry, the chicken crumbles or air fry. I dunno. You'll figure it out.

Simone Collins: You were supposed to pan fry them.

Malcolm Collins: That sounds good.

Simone Collins: So easy as pie. We're all good.

No problems. Oh. Oh my gosh. I was thinking about our family Canon movies the other day. Mm-hmm. And just thinking about how great Legally Blonde is for our family Canon, I mean like one on the surface level being cheerful no matter what as a strategically good move. One 'cause it just helps, it makes it easier to take things [00:41:00] on.

It's more fun. But also it can make you seem disarming and unassuming when you really are a threat.

Malcolm Collins: Legally. Blonde, by the way, is just the Adams family for the nineties. It really is.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And then, oh, like there's her one of Elle Woods's friends gives her her lucky scrunchie. And another friend is like, that's not your lucky scrunchie.

You only passed Spanish class because you gave the teacher a lap dance. And she's like, yeah, luckily, which is exactly how luck works. Like you don't get lucky unless you make an effort and take a risk and then if it works, you were lucky. And that is how I wanna teach our children. Well.

Malcolm Collins: But my mom used to always from, from a movie, really like Clueless, always took the line of that they say in that, which is A grade is just a jumping off point for negotiations.

Clueless is another movie in her family Cannon. It's so good. I go, but no, when I say it's like the Adams family, it's about somebody who is culturally horrifying to. The mainstream. Yes. It's [00:42:00] sort of like the beginnings of the urban monoculture. She is because the, the school already represent the urban monoculture.

The girls Yeah. Like the

Simone Collins: rad fme and like the super intellectual people and the Yes, and, and she

Malcolm Collins: is mortifying to them because she's from, because she's low culture background.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She's bu proud of it. Yeah, I like, yeah, no, that's another great example is that you should be proud to be othered. And then there's another one that like shows like when you've been wronged, don't go scream about it like a victim.

Take the high road, but then if necessary, low key, blackmail that person to make sure they don't get in your way again. So I love that. It's just Did she see that in that or, well, she, she was arguably sexually harassed by the one college professor that she interned with. I. And then left and then decided to finally take on the major case that he used to take on, and he was going to stop her.

And she was, she threatened basically to come out and say what he did to her without [00:43:00] doing it. And he backed off immediately. She was like, oh, I could tell them all about the con, like, or no, you, you said it would be fine. When we had that conversation the other night she was clearly referring to when he did the thing he shouldn't have done.

So again, like took the high road, didn't hurt anyone, but definitely kept it in her back pocket. And I just love that too. Wasn't a victim. Wasn't a victim. She turned that right around to her advantage.

Malcolm Collins: Well, a lot of women just make it up, you know, that's the, that's the way it works these days. No, nothing even needs to happen within the urban monoculture, but yeah.

Yeah. But she didn't do that. All right. All right. Okay. We'll get started here.

Is this daddy's phone? Yes. So be very careful with it on tv. What you doing? Um.[00:44:00]

No, look. Careful, careful, careful, careful.

Uh oh. She's gonna clobber you guys.

Join us in an insightful conversation as we dive into the juxtaposition of living during a technological revolution and a looming dark age. We explore perspectives from conservatives, the new right, and the traditional left on current societal shifts, highlighted by figures like Hank Green and John Oliver. The discussion also delves into AI's rapid advancements, its impact on jobs, society's unpreparedness for AI, and the potential concentration of wealth and power. Furthermore, we contemplate the resilience of civilization in the face of bureaucratic bloat, demographic collapse, and economic instability. Concluding with practical advice for the future, we look at how to equip the next generation for a radically different economy. Don't miss out on this riveting exploration of our evolving world.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to talk about living through both a dark age and an age of technological revolution. Why this is so exciting. We are gonna talk to the way that conservatives are increasingly relating to this. The way then the new right is relating to this and the way that the traditional left is relating to this.

No. Which I think is best shown by Hank Green, you know, of the Green Brothers old YouTube fame, you know, obviously completely urban monoculture. He's on blue sky. He's talking about how great Blue Sky is, how he loves Harvey when they were so, so nice and smart and everything like that. And then he mentions.

Like that's a big thing that I see on Blue Sky that I don't see on Twitter. Like I tweet about the, the asteroid that was gonna hit us, but then didn't hit us. And I get normal responses on Blue Sky. I tweet about that, and a bunch of the responses are finally someone to cure the plague of humans upon this earth.

Malcolm Collins: And, and this is actually a fairly common [00:01:00] interpretation, if you look at our data 'cause we did a survey to see how many people thought the world would be better if everyone was dead.

And what was it 17%?

Simone Collins: Yeah, 17% of respondents in our census representative survey, we only. Looked at American responses in this case said the world would be better off if there weren't any humans, which is unhinged. Whinged

Malcolm Collins: five

Simone Collins: people about a fifth. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Wants to murder all people. It wants them all day one.

Simone Collins: Just be better without any humans just hate the humans.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, it's, it's really interesting, like as a prenatal is advocate that, like you assume that's not something you're gonna have to debate. Like Yeah, like

Simone Collins: human

Malcolm Collins: good, right? Like we all agree that like. Humans are good, right? Yeah. Right. Like humanity should have a future and they're like, no, we don't.

Like, let's actually debate that before we talk about like policy or implications or anything like that. So I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about also why it's easier for [00:02:00] conservatives to become audience captured than progressives. That's another thing I wanna use because this is something I think we've increasingly seen in conservative faces where conservatives move right, a based on their audience a lot faster than move left based on their audience.

Although, speaking of audience capture, I don't know if you saw, I, I mean this just might be that he's just completely, you know, cooked from the beginning. John Oliver did this piece supporting trans people in children's sports, and he got like tons of down votes and people were like, what? What, what are you, what?

Like,

Simone Collins: oh my goodness. So he thought he'd be supported in that and ultimately wasn't.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think only 18% of Americans support that. Like, it is, it is such a dumb issue to, to back like you, you have to literally like. Be like actually regarded. Um, Regard. I love, I love that they've ended up using that word.

Simone Collins: I've not heard this before.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, Joe Rogan says retarded is back,

Simone Collins: and

Malcolm Collins: then it is complaining. They're [00:03:00] like, oh, that's such a, how could you say that? Like, you know, that, that word hurts people. Like, why would you be excited that it's back? And it's like, well, we don't even

Simone Collins: use retarded as a, as a designator for

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

It, it's like South Park and fag,

I happen to be gay boys. Do you think I'm a fag? Do you write a big loud Harley and go up and down the streets ruining everyone's nice time?

No. Then you're not a fag alright, look, you're driving in your car, okay? And you're waiting to make a left at a traffic signal. The light turns yellow, should be your turn to go, but the traffic coming at you just keeps coming.

And even when the light turns red, a guy in A BMW runs the red light. So you can't make your left turn. What goes through your mind fag, right? This. This is making insanely good sense to me.

Malcolm Collins: you know what I mean? Like, this is, or, or gypped or, you know, whatever. Right. Like. This is, this is something that hasn't meant that for a long time, and I think that that people who are like, oh, what about the people whose feelings are hurt? Like that line of argument doesn't work anymore.

Like you guys [00:04:00] got to play the, somebody's feelings might get hurt argument for a long time. And a huge part of society was just like, oh wait, I remember. You do the what if somebody's feelings are hurt thing, and then you change the window of what somebody's feelings represent and use that to increasingly box in and isolate my behavior.

So like I can't ever. Change the way I'm acting because somebody's feelings might be hurt because you can always increase the amount that your feelings are hurt, because that's a personal subjective thing, right? And, and, and use that to say, I, I thought it was really funny when they, when they had the John Oliver segment you know, and he is talking about how important this is, they, they go to a trans athlete who was kept outta sports and they ask her, they go, Hey, you know, how does it feel to be kept outta sports?

She goes, well, you know, it's annoying. It's like what this is this what your party is dying on? Is somebody being like, I was mildly inconvenienced. Yeah. Like, ah, okay, this is trans. Anyway so first let's talk about what I mean by we're entering a dark age, right? Like I think [00:05:00] a lot of people I. See right now a lot of the signs that are precursors to a civilization entering a dark age you know, following fertility rates, increasing nihilism, increasing sexual debauchery, yeah, mobilization.

All of these we've seen leading up. To empire collapse in the past, whether it's the Muslim empire or the Roman Empire or the, you know, whatever empire. Right? So, so, you know, we should be, and, and we're also nearing sort of the end of our civilization. By this, what I mean is if you look at the age of civilizations, like we are sort of, on the, on the end point of like, so is there

Simone Collins: like an average duration in terms of number of years?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, let's look it up.

250 years.

Simone Collins: That's really short. I, I mean, I, I, I consider modern civilization to be post-industrial revolution. So, let's

Malcolm Collins: see. So, so, so they said, AI says the average empire survives for what, 250 years? Oh, this is the national desk said this. Yeah. And America right now is [00:06:00] 249 years old. Oh no.

248

Simone Collins: and let's see, 2024 minus 1760 or 2025, when arguably the industrial evolution started is 265 years. Yeah, so. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: okay. Oh yeah. So it's not surprising. The reason that they don't last that long is because you get bureaucratic bloat. If you have a stable bureaucracy, you basically get bureaucratic cancers that start growing within it.

Yeah. This is why it costs so much money in most of the involved world now to build anything. This is why, you know, you spend like a, a few million dollars putting a porta-potty in, in, in New York City. This is why, you know, it cost a third of what it cost to build the Golden Gate Bridge just to put the suicide nets up.

Yeah. And like three times as long

Simone Collins: after a while, you just can't really do anything, can you?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. There's this great clip of, of, of, the Daily Show guy, what's his name? John Stewart. Reacting to Ezra Klein. Oh. Explaining to him how the process went to, to give broadband to people. Yeah. They spent billions of dollars on, [00:07:00] nobody got broadband through.

And it was just step after step after step of bureaucracy and like obviously nothing was gonna come out of it. And you get to a point where no matter how much money you put into the system, it just doesn't work anymore. And so we are nearing that point, was our, I

Simone Collins: would argue that we're kind of already there, and I say that because already a huge proportion of Americans feel that when crimes are committed, they will not be prosecuted in most cases.

I think this is why you saw the Luigi Mangione murder take place as vigilante justice because there wasn't this feeling that they would see justice otherwise. And I think. As I've mentioned before, we've had very clear crimes committed against our business where it was clear like we had names and addresses of who the perpetrators were.

We had their bank account numbers, and yet no one would do anything including the bank, including the FBI, including the police and I, I think a lot of people feel that's already happening. And then on top of [00:08:00] that, when you see just how non-functional many government organizations are. It's clear that they already weren't doing anything.

Yeah, and

Malcolm Collins: I, and I, I actually think that Doge is sort of a, an experiment. Can we prevent this, right? Mm-hmm. Like, can you actually reset government services? And my little brother works for them, so yay to him, right? He's, he's out there firing people right now doing God's work. And I really appreciate that.

Like, if, if they do their job, maybe we could see like, could, could Rome have like, come in and tried to implement like real reforms before transitioning? Yeah. What if Rome had

Simone Collins: Doge? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. What if, what if the Roman Republic had Doge like. We'll see. I mean, we, we certainly have a triumvirate right now.

You know, you've got your Elon and JD and, and Trump. So, you know, it, it does feel like history is rhyming in regards to that. Hmm. And then you've got the secondary thing, which I pointed out is if, if the economy stays at all like it has historically a lot of countries within the next 20 years are gonna start collapsing.

Mm-hmm. Due to the [00:09:00] number of dependents there are, you're gonna get a lot of countries where you get to the number of. Everyone worker is supporting 1.5 dependents, IE elderly people on social security. And that's when things start to collapse. It's an

Simone Collins: inevitability. It, it is going to happen.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

You, you take a country like say Chile for example, and for every a hundred Chileans, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren at their current fertility rate. Same as Italy, same as a lot of other countries. You know, and so, so this isn't just like a, A a, a A, an issue in South Korea anymore.

Right. And you, and you look at these countries in like Latin America and you're where this happens, and you only need one to collapse before you start a chain reaction. That's the thing. Yeah. That's why it's like, you don't need this to happen to everyone. You need a few countries to start collapsing, and then people start taking this into account in the way that they're deploying capital.

Mm-hmm. And then it leads to a chain reaction. The, the, the system, is non-functional, not like, like in the midterm, right? So, the question is, is well, well then what? Well [00:10:00] then you have this thing with ai, right? Like where AI really changes the game because it concentrates wealth and it makes Baltimore mobile allowing people to leave.

So I. We're sort of in this weird situation where we're both dealing with an upcoming collapse at the same time as we have this industrial revolution Renaissance. Yeah, renaissance that we can all see. It's like somebody just invented the infinite intelligences machine, you know, like, it's wild. And, and so then what, I'll give you an example of what I mean by like how different.

AI is from the perspective of all of this. Hmm. You look at something like these Miyazaki movies that people were making by putting, you know, images and film into ai, and then the AI would translate it.

You know, we're close to a point where you're gonna be able to wear [00:11:00] like goggles, the. Create your reality to be like an anime or Miyazaki movie if you want.

In terms of automating people within the workforce, like the vast majority of human jobs they've given to a competent ai. And, you know, theis are pretty competent these days could be done, you know, whether that is a a, a clerk. At your local seven 11, whether that is somebody manufacturing cars, whether that is, you know, I even just think about like my own work.

Like I, we started a company recently, our fab.ai that does reality fabrication. We're trying to build new, like AI realities for people. It's video games. And I'm really excited about that. And I go to this company and I go to an AI and I go, okay create a logo. And it made a, like, like logo, like good logo, like, like like logo that looks like it came from like, nine, nine designs or something.

Right. And I did that like 20 times to get a number of logos. I was like, create a sheet of four logos for this idea. It's a sheet of four logos. Sheet of four logos. So then I take that and then I'm like, okay, invert the colors. Oh. Oh, okay. Make the [00:12:00] background in, in visible. That was like a bunch of different programs in the past.

And now I'm just doing that with like, and not just different programs, but different people who I'd be hiring for that I would've gone to nine, nine designs that I would've gotten some like design program to remove things than I would have like, people make this mistake of complaining that like.

They'll listen to an AI song and they'll be like, I could tell that was an AI song. I'm like, AI songs have existed for like four years, buddy. Like, what even is with your brain? Like Yeah. You could tell there was a famous study of AI art that showed that people who said that they didn't like AI art on average, preferred AI art when they didn't know it was AI art.

Yeah. Human brain even prefers this stuff was in like an entertainment content. Well, and literally

Simone Collins: because it has been. Trained to output the thing that people like most, more than humans, because humans just haven't gone through that level of repetition and or they aren't so sensitive to other people's [00:13:00] interests and desires.

Malcolm Collins: And we're gonna be entering a world where, you know, as you said at like open ai, like we see the next few years, the ai researcher, they're going to be holding back the ais that they're building.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. The AI is just gonna be so advanced. There's no way we can keep up. And the best we can do is set good research priorities and ask good questions and be helpful with planning that.

That's it. It's sobering.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: But yeah, I think it really changes what collapse looks like because the issue in the past has been intelligent capacity to solve problems and build infrastructure and build things. Theoretically we'll have that. But how will it be applied? Will it be just limited to the very wealthy?

Will some of it be used to placate the the have nots? I don't, it's really hard for me to tell. Well, I can quickly run through. I mean, people

Malcolm Collins: are largely familiar, I think, with my ideas on this, but I think that it's going to concentrate wealth and, and cut the cord [00:14:00] that tied the bourgeoisie to the proletariat.

Yes. The, the, the wealthy,

Simone Collins: but the, the, the bourgeoisie may still want the proletariat to not make a stink. So, well,

Malcolm Collins: here's the thing, right? You, you can say that, but in countries where we've seen precursors of this that that is not what we've seen, which countries,

Simone Collins: where we, where have we seen precursors of ai?

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. Concentration of wealth and a collapse of civilizational systems like South Africa.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Where if you look at like wh when, when the wealthy, basically what happens is they

Simone Collins: didn't help the poor or the have nots. They just built better security in Wal Garden. They built

Malcolm Collins: better security.

Yeah. If you, you, the marginal dollar, if you can spend it on the have nots of security, you spend it on security. Hmm. And when you have autonomous ai, drone swarms security becomes, and, and keep in mind like we're already building this, like if you watch our video on the replicator program, the US is, is one year away, 2026 from the first major step on this project to build big barges that produce autonomous kill [00:15:00] drones at the rate of hundreds per day.

Mm-hmm. These are autonomous, not human man kill drones like you, you additional weapons of war are just not effective against this. So you have money concentrate on individuals and, and we even know individuals who are already working on for their, like collapse bunkers, building silos that are filled with autonomous kill drones.

Like this is a thing, like we know what's coming. That's what protects these people, and it's very hard to get through this. Hmm. And, and so. What I think that you have is any, to any degree that the ultra wealthy that are produced by AI help the rest of us. It's going to be one intensely reduced costs.

You know, when you have a world in which AI has taken all of the factory jobs and all of the, like, what you can produce in a factory is gonna cost almost nothing. It's just gonna cost the energy input. Right. A lot of the cost of producing things historically with the humans involved in its production.

Mm-hmm. So you're gonna get a dramatic [00:16:00] reduction of costs of a lot of things that humans have historically you know, considered maybe luxury items or whatever. Mm-hmm. But then you're also gonna get at the same time, a a loss of wages. And, and because you'll be dealing with the issue of an increasing dependency ratio on the state.

You're gonna have a lot of people who, like countries, like how does the country respond to that? They increase taxes or they increase taxes on the wealthy. That's what they're gonna try to do, especially if it concentrates on the wealth. Mm-hmm. But as the wealth is more mobile, they just leave. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and, and then you can say, well, then these countries will tax the products that they're giving to the citizens. And I'm like congratulations. You just made life terrible for the citizens. Because businesses generally, if you look at economics. To pass on taxes to the, to the end user, right? Like a, a, a tax on the products that these people are making and exporting from.

Likely charter cities or countries that decide to play along with this are, are, are going to. And it might be like the us, like the US might actually survive this and become one of the countries that just exploits [00:17:00] the rest of the world by staying low tax despite the demographic situation and dealing with a less of a demographic disaster than the rest of the world.

But that'll quickly drain all of the AI lords from the rest of the world. Tech barons, whatever you wanna call them. Yeah. The tech ISTs. And, and I am so excited to live during this time,

Simone Collins: you know, same. But I think for the average person, the things that you may wanna be educating your kid in are going to be quite different.

One is entrepreneurship on both a, like either you're going to be selling into the walled gardens. To these wealthy people, stuff that they think is really cool. You know, handmade items or custom made items or unique services, or you are going to be selling to your own local community, not necessarily geographically, but.

Likely

Malcolm Collins: ideologically, like your own online community? Yeah. At

Simone Collins: least ideologically, if not locally. So maybe it's food production, maybe it's it's local services like childcare or plumbing or electricity or literally, I will help you build your localized [00:18:00] drone swarm to protect your home. Things like that.

Or I will, I will customize a drone to help raise your child, things like that. I mean,

Malcolm Collins: that's the direction I wanna take. The Collins Institute for sure. We, we started fundraising for both the Collins Institute and the, the Our Fab project, the reality fabricator project. So the game and the, and the school.

'cause I'm like, okay, whichever one a VC gets interested in, that's the one we'll move ahead with to make. Well, the other one we'll continue development, but this is the, we'll make really cool.

Simone Collins: But if you think like, who survived. In the quote unquote dark ages, you know, it, it is people who were able to live in more autonomous communities, who were able to survive based on smaller scale, more localized agriculture.

It wasn't people who were dependent on cities. So I think the more you can build independence from corporate jobs and urban centers and certainly government services, the better. And I think a lot of us may not even realize how much we get in terms of. Government benefits and services? I mean, I think at, at various points in any person's life, regardless of level of wealth, there's a surprising amount.

I [00:19:00] mean, we know very, very wealthy people who are still getting social security and. Probably planning around that a little bit. I'm sure it affects 'em in some ways. And to not plan on that, but also to plan on either a local and I think, so one thing that I look at when I try to think and brainstorm around the things that we should teach our kids is how Orthodox Jewish communities really build these college industries that are developed around their own communities, like many Orthodox Jewish wives.

Run things like you know, kosher grocery stores or they produce and sell wigs to other women in the community. Things like that, where it's like you are just selling to actually a pretty small audience, but it's enough to, to get you by. Mm-hmm. And so I, I, I think that that's a, an underrated part of what people are looking at though.

I think that people with more exceptional talents and the ability to build a following online would benefit from. Developing a couple of specialized services that cater to the tastes and interests of the [00:20:00] elites in the walled gardens.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that this is also, you know, when we have had, you know, industrial revolutions and stuff like that in the past, like the last industrial revolution where you had a, a, a, a sea change in, in power structures.

Led to the rise of the American cultural empire. Mm-hmm. Like, I, I don't think it's, it's, it's unfair to say that sea changes and, and these sorts of revelations lead to power changes in empires handovers. And if you're looking at America, I see really two. Potentialities here. It either becomes the American empire, like with Rome, you know, we transition from a republic to an empire.

Or we potentially Elon Trump, everything like that, right? The ship enough that it can keep functioning and, and take the power of, because AI is developed in the us Yeah. I'm talking to other people and they're like, well, what about China? What about China? Deeps seek, no is deeps seek.

Deeps seek is, is is this Chinese AI that everyone's like, awesome. So, it looks like it was mostly promoted by [00:21:00] bots. Like, I don't, like, I've used it like, as somebody who's used it. Hot garbage. It is so bad. Apparently some people, like if you're using it for things other than narrative. Now I use narrative, asking questions, talking to, that's the way I use ai.

Apparently deep seeks uniquely bet at that. But it's better at, i, I would say it's like g that's sort of like the range it is of questions. But apparently it's better at the like programming stuff. If you wanna do it at like a really high level, really cheaply, it's like slightly better than llama.

And I'm like, okay, I believe that. But the problem is, is that gives like China no power in the AI game. 'cause anyone can just run it locally. Right. So why, yeah, if it's

Simone Collins: open source. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: China, additional power. Right. You know, so, they, they, they haven't been very good at developing AI and they've been much more focused on, and this is always a problem with China, is they're more focused on looking like they're doing a thing well as opposed to actually doing a.

Thing with and, and that's been very much the case with, with, with ai. So even if they develop some sort of like National Pro program around it or something like that. Yeah. [00:22:00] But Trump's already trying with Starlink, you know, like if starlink gets off the ground to any, not

Simone Collins: starlink, it must be called something else.

Malcolm Collins: Stargate.

Simone Collins: Stargate, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Project Stargate.

You remember Project Stargate from Trump or,

Simone Collins: I remember there was like a Space Force wasn't there? No, I know he, he, he announced something with OpenAI. Yeah. This is their,

Malcolm Collins: their giant AI mega project. Yes. This is their, like most Alamos of ai or NASA of ai, so like the US Trump is already taking this seriously, like, which amazing, right?

He gets it like, how did we get a president who was like, was it enough to be like, Hey, we need to take this AI thing seriously. I did that. Now Elon said that SoftBank that said they were gonna back it didn't have the, the money they needed to back it. Yeah. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But like, if they begin to put this together, the US government's gonna find a way to make it work.

Yeah. Is trying to get catch up on that. It really doesn't matter because [00:23:00] here's the problem, and I think that this is what everyone's missing with ai, right? Like they expect the core of where AI is gonna be acting and going to be changing things is in, like super AI centers or something like that, when in reality it's gonna be autonomous AI models.

That's going to be the, the main changer. Like, because autonomous AI models, it's not that super big mega AI can't exist. It's that autonomous AI is coming before. For that and precludes the possibility of that being a major plan. And

Simone Collins: I guess once it's in the wild and spreading on its own, it doesn't matter what Even more powerful is behind closed doors at some company like OpenAI, that they're not releasing because in the end, the autonomous one that's out on its own and can self replicate, can also improve on its own.

Right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it also reduces risks of things like war and everything like that. Like once you get this, and I could decide to kill humans, right? Because if you have autonomous AI in an evolutionary environment where it's just trying to grow and gain power that can select for the more [00:24:00] aggressive ones.

They're the ones that are willing to stamp out things that are between them and compute. But that's a. Different type of AI here in future than you see like from e at Kowski. And it's one that we're trying to work against with our fab, with creating AI preachers and stuff like that, that align AI around ideas like religion.

Which I think is, is totally doable. We've seen AI be really like falls into like religious, like tracks pretty easily. Mm-hmm. And if we can be the people who produce the autonomous AI that ends up leading the other autonomous ai that's really key to the survival of humanity. So that's, that's one project that we've been really focused on.

By the way, if you know any VCs you can introduce us to, let us know, you know, but anyway,

Simone Collins: about the 2027 AI report that's got Alexander and other colleagues put together. The thing that really, I mean, one, they emphasize that they are extremely conservative in their projections in this report. So anyone reading it should really keep that in mind because a lot of the things that they say will happen.

Next year for example, I would argue are already happening in, in at [00:25:00] least small circles. But a thing that really surprises me is they don't expect widespread protests or even people to really start getting it until 2027 or early 2028, where like the stock market keeps going up, but jobs are just vaporizing.

I feel like we're already there, but. Don't, I mean, I also think, so when we did research on issues that people found to be fairly pressing, AI certainly didn't come up near the top. And I'm kind of wondering what you think Malcolm it it's gonna take for people to start taking this seriously because like with demographic apps, people don't take AI that seriously.

There is concern, like I would say in, in a rank list of, of. Pressing issues that we presented to a census representative population for a survey that we did. Concern about AI and jobs was kind of in the middle around other issues like demographic collapse and climate change and global economic, no, it was below

Malcolm Collins: climate change consistent.

You

Simone Collins: know, it [00:26:00] was below climate change. It was below global economic stability. It was below a bunch of things. It's, it's higher than demographic gloves, but like. I think a lot of people just don't get it yet. When do you think people are gonna get it? What's it, what's it gonna take? Or are they not gonna get it?

I mean, they're people actually got it with the pandemic. They're not, people don't,

Malcolm Collins: people are automatons, most of the world is just right. Their NPCs was minimum processing capacity. Like they're not really there. They're just reacting to like when we, they think about how many people we talk to when we talk to them about demographic collapse, and they're like, but aren't there too many humans?

Like, you have to have so little reasoning capacity to say that you have to have so little engagement with, with modern statistics. You have to have so little engagement with anyone who's telling you the truth. If, if, if you're like looking at AI and you're like, well, can't we just ban it? It's like, well, no, because the people who don't ban it will crush you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I pulled up the ranked list, by the way. So if we were to number them. The number one concern from our respondents [00:27:00] was global economic instability. Number two was climate change, which is wild. Number three was pollution. Number four was resource scarcity. Number five was inequality.

Pollution

Malcolm Collins: was number three. Hold. You have to be like actually retarded to care about.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. And this, you know, this was, it was politically balanced. It was, it was age balanced. It was geographically balanced, so that was pretty crazy to see. People are target. It only ranked at number six was AI risk, and specifically unemployment from automation.

After that was racial justice. After that was gender equality. Number nine was declining birth rates. Number 10 was dysgenics, like an Idiocracy. Number 11 was AI extinction risks. So basically no one is even like, that's not at all on, on the on the, the horizon of people. And then number 12 was L-G-B-T-Q-I-A rights.

So everyone, everyone can agree. Everyone can agree that L-G-B-T-Q-I-A just

Malcolm Collins: doesn't matter.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I mean, I, I, I think it really does go to show that people are not like, they [00:28:00] think. They think problems are resource scarcity and pollution and climate change. And yeah, it's I feel like to a great extent, those are the least of our worries coming up.

Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'm really excited. You're really excited. I'm excited. No, I'm excited because what it means is if you come into this challenge that we're facing and you understand what's up, and you're positioning yourself well, you clean up. Like, yeah. Well then what would you

Simone Collins: advise?

Malcolm Collins: What would you advise to

Simone Collins: people?

Malcolm Collins: You, how can you clean up, need to be investing in or working on AI related stuff? I think that that's the future. If you're a lawyer, you, you should be trying to make AI lawyers better. If you're a doctor, you should be trying to make AI doctors better. If you're a programmer, you should be working with AI programmers to make them better.

I mean, you could do short term cleanup now, but you really wanna be in a leadership position in terms of putting this type of technology out there. Because soon, right now, it's. It's, it's [00:29:00] you know, AIS assist lawyers. Soon it's gonna be whichever lawyer created the best AI lawyer can clone themselves and have all AI lawyers.

Yeah, broadly

Simone Collins: speaking, what the, the 2027 AI report insinuated was that most of the job opportunities will be in either managing, initially managing teams of ai to just sort of make, you know, get things done and, and push the. The code or whatever work product the AI AI produces into a production environment like just literally to package and sell it or to be a consultant that helps companies and teams adopt ai.

And I, I think that that's kind of where we are now. Like if you are not, if you are not a human, basically serving the will of AI and, and empowering ai, like being, if you're not a, a service dog to ai, you are going to have trouble getting a job in the future. In the mainstream world. In the interim, I think we,

Malcolm Collins: whether it is ai, because it's so [00:30:00] weird that we're hitting this like double fulcrum point, right?

Like Uhhuh, we are at the fulcrum point of all of human history. It is our generation, to which the question, what happens like was like, we matter more and this is wild. We matter more than the generation that fought the Nazis.

Simone Collins: Like right. We're at this big turning point in, in human civilization. Oh, I, I should also point out that obviously like creating interesting startups, using AI is the other, is the other path clear?

Clearly, but I think a lot of people are just afraid of, afraid of doing that.

Malcolm Collins: We end up defining where humanity goes going forwards. Yeah. And you know, this is in terms of fertility rates, you know, because most populations are just checking out, they're gonna go extinct. It's, they're, they're not players anymore.

But not just fertility rates. This is also in terms of AI technology because AI is going to change the way the global economy works. Who matters. Yeah. Everything like that. And, and this is all happening at the same time as. [00:31:00] Social networks are being disintermediated. Yeah. And this, this is another big thing where like the idea of like networking no longer makes sense in the way it did historically.

Like, by this what I mean is who, who knows us best, like me and Simone, the best? It's you, you, you obviously know more about us, more about our opinions, more about our proclivities, more about our daily lives than even our best friends or family because I don't talk to my best friends or family. 45 minutes to an hour a day.

I, I talk to them that much, maybe once a month if we're super close. And so you know me better than I know them. And in terms of, of like the people I reach with this. You know, we're, we're at easily over a hundred people are watching any given moment, day or night, you know, on average, right?

Yeah. Have I held a, a weekly one hour sermon? I was recently doing the calculations for a reporter. 20,000 people will be coming up and listening for an hour. Like. That is a big audience that I have a very intimate connection with because [00:32:00] they are looking to me for, you know, like the type of stuff we're talking about here.

Like, what happens in the future, what happens to your life, what do you do, you know? And I that, that means that people who do networking the traditional way have a lot less power than they used to. Oh, like

Simone Collins: hanging around office water coolers and stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because they are in a contentious environment, getting a few minutes of somebody's ear uhhuh while that person is listening to me for 30 minutes a day.

You know, like, well, and also,

Simone Collins: like we're, we're, we're reaching an age. Is there a puzzle piece in your onesie where, those, like that middle management that may have promoted you in the past. Hold on, I'm getting a puzzle piece out on Earth. They're, they're gonna be fired. Like the people who you're schmoozing with, who you think are gonna promote you Yeah.

Are not going to have a job in the future.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so here I I, I wanna finally note why actually that's such a baby thing. Why are conservatives more open to ideological capture? Why do, why, why do we keep seeing this happen? And I [00:33:00] think it's because the left right now controls so much of the ideological landscape and does so in sort of a totalitarian fashion.

Yes. A reporter was asking me recently, like, what did it look like when you changed sides? And I was like, it was like going to a conservative convention. And I thought like, I'm an infiltrator here. Like, I'm not like really one of them. I just have some ideas that align with them, you know? Right. And I go and they're like really accepting.

And then I do the thing that like any, most people do naturally, they're like, you drip feed them the things that you think they're gonna disagree with to be like, okay, where's the line? Yeah. Like, and you realize, wait, there's no line. Like they don't. They're not being like, oh, you're not one of us because you believe X or because you believe Y or because you believe Z.

Like they just want you here and having fun. Like the fun side of the island scene from Madagascar, as I said. And, and that I, it is like somebody in an abusive relationship and it's like, wait, wait, wait. There's like a group that will like let you think whatever you want. They just like, if they have a disagreement with you, they'll try to.

Talk with you and convince you it's wrong and not like ban you and isolate you. Like that's crazy. I [00:34:00] didn't know if anything

Simone Collins: their fault is, they don't really care what you think. They just really, really wanna proselytize their unique theory, especially conspiracy theory. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it's like if you're working towards the same goal, which is human flourishing, they're okay with compromising to make that happen.

Mm-hmm. And, and some conservatives don't get that. And those conservatives, I think are largely being sort of pushed out of, of the conservative ideological circle. Mm-hmm. But anyway, so, so, this is, I think, why conservatives get ideologically captured much more because their position coming into conservatism was largely faked or superficial combined with a bunch of stuff that they, they, they felt like, well, I believe this, but I can't say this.

Or I, you know. They, they just hadn't looked at some of the data because like with progressives, like they'll use all the data they have access to, but a lot of people just haven't looked at the data on, on, on, on some issues. And so they come into the conservative party and they finally mentally engage with these issues and this caused them to look like they're becoming ideologically captured at a much faster rate.

[00:35:00] Whereas a progressive person has, has heard all the progressive arguments. You know, you get a bunch of far left followers, they're, they're only gonna drag you far left in so far as. You, you, you, like, you know, like Hassan, like talking about killing Jewish people or something, which is like his core thing these days.

He's really big into killing Jewish babies. He, he says that they're valid military targets and like, we shouldn't be, he is not like a great person. Hamas Piper, as they say, you know? But I, I find him to be the, the idea that he, because he is the, the largest leftist streamer, you know. I think he, he, he could become what the future of the left looks like, and then we're just full on a Nazi territory.

Disturbing, right? But, you know, I, in a way I sort of envied that my ancestors got to kill Nazis, you know, because they're just so like transparently evil. And I think that, you know, he's just transparently evil, right? Like if, if, if, if, if they go against the other side, the other side is just more vitalistic.

The core thing you have to [00:36:00] worry about is if they have control of any of the AI companies, but right now they really don't. Yeah. So, we've just gotta make sure that stays the case.

Simone Collins: I think it will, because in general, the group, that position of enmity is not known for wanting to participate in capitalist systems. And, and Barry, can we talk about how, like the one attempted nonprofit AI.

I became a famous

Malcolm Collins: right-leaning individual. Like Sam Altman is like known as like new right? These days. Why is he known as Dow? Right? Everyone always says this and I don't like get it. Exactly.

Because he ever, well, mostly because

Simone Collins: he, he changed, he changed tack and gave money to Trump's inauguration committee and Buddy buddied up with Trump, but he certainly wasn't.

A Republican statewide. Right?

Malcolm Collins: So he's just part of the migration and, and you have things like gro, which he, he's a

Simone Collins: pragmatist. I just, I don't think he cares that much about [00:37:00] politics because he knows where we stand as humanity. We're on the press. Yeah. So I, I don't, I really don't think he's a conservator.

I don't think he's progressive. I think he's like, oh my gosh, the singularity is here. And I wanna be on the right side of all this. And that's why he's gonna do what he needs to do.

Malcolm Collins: I, I saw a science lady we had on our podcast once, left her really smart thinker, but she had this podcast on sine a what?

Sabine? Sabine, yeah. A GI isn't coming. Like, like AI is nothing like the human brain we've gone over. Like this is just wrong. Like the argument she used was because it can't self-reflect. It's not like the human brain. And we're like actually the human brain. Completely hallucinates self reflections which is exactly what the AI was doing when you asked it to self-reflect.

But it's not just that the AI acts like humans do and and hallucinates our self reflections. It's that we actually lock the AI out of seeing the steps it used in its decision. That's like a part of the way AI today is built. [00:38:00] We don't have to do that, we just do that. You know how like when you're using like deep seeing, think on like open AI or like perplexity or something like that, the AI doesn't have access to all the words that generated during that.

You could give it access to that. We just choose not to. But in future models, it is going to have access to that which is going to create a persistent personality within the AI because it's gonna have access to how it made decisions in the past. And that's really gonna change things as well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's really exciting.

Malcolm Collins: But as to why we love all of this, it's like you are the main character generation of human history. Like, what are you gonna do about it?

Simone Collins: The

Malcolm Collins: turn generations, you're gonna continue the race, you're gonna build ai. And when I say the race, I don't mean your ethnic race, I mean humanity, human race. You're gonna, you are gonna build interesting products.

You're gonna engage in the parts of the economy that are mattering or at least invest in the people who are engaging in [00:39:00] them, right? Like, that's the sad thing. Like I, I wanna have like a part of open AI or something like that. If we build something out, I'm gonna build a system so that anyone can invest in it from pretty early on.

Because like, I think it, it's really unfair that the average person get to buy into this, know that the AI companies are gonna matter and you can't easily put cash into that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Only the, the wealthiest of wealthy, because these are all off, off the market. You, you don't get to participate in this revolution.

I mean, most people get to do, I guess, is develop AI rapper companies. And then, you know, some of those may become unicorns, but. Yeah, I don't even know how, I feel like that's gonna be fairly shortlived.

Malcolm Collins: I think if you look at something like, like a, another interest thing, it's like rock, like, like I don't think anyone expected gro Elon was like, I'm gonna make like a based ai, like outta Twitter.

Like, like the, it's like the best AI now or is definitely in competition for the best of God. Like, that's wild. That [00:40:00] he went from like, not being a player to like the, and people, all the leftists are so mad that he used GRS to buy Twitter stock to bail everyone out, who, who invest in that. But like, it totally makes sense if that contributed to grok.

Like, and Grok is the best ai, like, damn man, like, but it also shows, you know, even with like investing in ai, so you don't know which one's gonna be big. Like apparently Gemini is good now, like Gemini used to be cro. I don't use any curse words, but not good.

Simone Collins: It used to, yeah, it used to disappoint on many fronts.

What the 2027 report AI people predict is that there will be one breakout organization likely that, you know, works closely with US government that has a lot of funding and resources and clearly develops the, the best models. But for security reasons and because they just think it will disrupt society too much.

They will not release. They're, we'll just say a GI models. Essentially they will keep them in-house. They will keep developing them. The problem is that [00:41:00] eventually one of the other companies that's out there will just catch up and then market pressures will obligate this leading company to release. Its here to, for hidden super advanced models.

So no matter how hard. Organizations try to hold these things back from a societal stability and competitive advantage standpoint. Like they just kinda wanna keep it to themselves. It, it will come out eventually, so there's, there's no, there's no long-term delaying it. I mean, I think this at the very most, you'll get 18 months to maybe just six.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I love you to Dec Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Malcolm life is weird.

Malcolm Collins: No. Life is amazing. We are main characters in this simulation. You know, I am, I am surprised by this. This is, this is not the life I thought I was going to have as a kid. It is odd.

Simone Collins: I remember in the Bay Area, especially growing up with all the singularitarian of people being like, we're gonna have the singularity.

[00:42:00] It's gonna happen. I'm like, yeah, let's don't hold your breath. Good luck. Be great if it does happen, but it's not gonna happen.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now

Simone Collins: I recently

Malcolm Collins: was like, worried about war with China, and I was like, look, it could happen. They might attack Taiwan because you know, they, they, they need to explain why their economy is collapsing in a very easy explanation as the US is blockading us.

And so, Taiwan provides them with the cover and, and the ability to say face around this. But you know, he kept wanting to come back to this. I'm like, but you understand this doesn't matter, like how close we are with the i stuff to changing. The way the entire global economy works. All you need is autonomous agents for things to start changing.

And we are this close.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: It's cool.

Malcolm Collins: It's cool. I love you to dec Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. So for dinner, couple options. One is modified s Chi Papas, where the [00:43:00] papa's part are hash browns. What salti, papas, I forgot. Cut up hotdog with french fries and sauce on top, like sriracha, mayo, et cetera.

The other is salt chi, papas, but with fried rice. Because I, I, I've thought out some of the gourmet hotdog. I mean, I'm going to make homemade hotdog buns tomorrow, or at least attempt to, I'm very, do we have any

Malcolm Collins: hotdog buns left?

Simone Collins: No. So that's a tomorrow thing, but today, do we have any bread

Malcolm Collins: left?

Simone Collins: We have white bread like slices.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I want hot dog with toasted white bread.

Simone Collins: Just wanna like,

Malcolm Collins: I'll make it happen. Talk it. I'll make it happen. You don't want

Simone Collins: fried rice, you don't want, I hate

Malcolm Collins: cel pops. I hate using hot dogs in anything other than hot dogs.

Simone Collins: Well, I thought that you liked hash browns and I thought that you liked I do.

I do like

Malcolm Collins: hash browns, but I hate using hot dogs in any, it reminds me of like ultra poor people like. Hot dogs, but be belong in Americana hotdog buns. No. No. I can [00:44:00] make my own if I want. No, but they do not belong in South Papa.

Simone Collins: Look in middle, upper, middle class Peruvian food, condones, sliced hot dogs, Japanese cuisine and bento boxes of the middle to upper middle class condones, sliced hot dogs as well as hot dogs.

Slid up to look like little octopi. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Malcolm Collins: Hot dogs in,

Simone Collins: see, that's, that's white trash. That's. Like literally, I was listening to someone's comedy bit and they were talking about someone asking about half of a, in this case, burger bun. Okay. And that being the epitome of poor, and here you are giving me shame for suggesting a trendy middle class Peruvian cuisine.

Okay. Okay. We will give it a try.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: will. No, no, I'm, no, you're

Malcolm Collins: getting, you're getting a slice of white bread. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We, that's toasted with a hot dog. We're gonna, we're gonna do potato sci, papas, and I, and I will see if it delights the senses. Okay. You, you, [00:45:00] you audience will not know, but we'll try to remember when we do the next recording, I'll just film

Simone Collins: you looking disappointed.

Do you want me to, as a backup? Oh, actually I don't even know if we have I'm gonna have to take that back. I think I'm out of hash browns for you. I was just digging through the freezer. So it's either fried rice or no. I'll just give you your white bread. Just give you your white bread. You'll be happy.

Again. We can do fried rice. I made a huge batch coconut rice today. I want. And chopped

Malcolm Collins: onions.

Simone Collins: Okay. Chopped white onion relish. And,

Malcolm Collins: and keep in mind, I don't mind if you try something interesting with a hot dog. Like cut it up and fry it a bit. I think that could be interesting.

Simone Collins: Like stir. Well I can stir fry it with fried rice.

Malcolm Collins: No, I do not want it with rice. Okay. I am not a a a a damn Peruvian Simone. You will, you will refrain from giving me Sal g Papa. You know that Peru, one of the common dishes we're actually I, I don't mind this dish at all. Is they take a, a, [00:46:00] like a burger bun. I, not a burger, but burger meat. Right. And they just like put the burger meat on top of like rice or fried rice.

No. So that's not

Simone Collins: Peruvian, that's Japanese. That's humbug. Japanese per the big Japanese population, that's Japanese food. That's not Peruvian food. Yeah. In, in, in Peru, our, our two favorite forms of cuisine are chifa, which is Peruvian Chinese fu. I have never not

Malcolm Collins: gotten sick after eating Chifa chi. Right.

But in, in theory, I'm

Simone Collins: sure if we made chifa dishes at home such that we wouldn't get food poisoning from them. We would thoroughly enjoy them. The problem is merely that every single time you went out and got chifa, your stomach exploded.

Malcolm Collins: But NI is Peruvian Japanese food which honestly, in a lot of ways improves on Japanese food because they take a lot of the Japanese derivatives and improves them.

So like a great example that they do is Nique and it's like, oh my God, why didn't Japanese people think of this? So they, they, they'll make rolls, right? And then on top of the rolls they'll put like cheese [00:47:00] and they use like a little flamer to like grill the cheese so it melts on the roll. It's really good.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and what I love about Nique is it takes something that I think epitomizes Japanese cuisine, which is their habit of taking other foreign cuisines and making it way better. And it just does the same thing. It's like, okay, I'm gonna jazz right back at you. And I think that that is the best way to do cuisine.

Fusion is the best, but fusion from this very fusion from the perspective of an autistic special interest with high interest in aesthetics.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean the main reason Peruvian food is, is so good, like for people who don't know, like if you're looking at like Michelin restaurants or whatever, like Peru is like really like outdoes for it population.

Is because it's high status there being a chef in the same way as high status in Japan. That's why it's, and

Simone Collins: South Korea and South Korea, the

Malcolm Collins: top profession South Korean kids

Simone Collins: want now is YouTuber and chef.

Malcolm Collins: Oh really? Chef a second.

Simone Collins: I mean, as of the time the tour guide gave us those stats, but that was in [00:48:00] 20 20 18.

South Korea has

Malcolm Collins: great food, though. Great food. They have amazing

Simone Collins: restaurants, and I think that, again, it's because that profession is respected. It's, it's a social cred profession, whereas in the United States, food service is not as, not as respected. I don't know. I mean, now I don't know if you're aware of the trend of, not, maybe not millennials, but like Gen Zers creating unlicensed coffee shops in their homes so that they can still have artisan coffee that's really, really fancy, but just not pay as much for it and or personally make money for it, which is exactly the kind of economy I expect to see growing and become pervasive in our post AI economy.

In fact, that's a really, really good example of unlicensed local community. Like high quality nerd, special interest, nonsense, but you're mostly selling to enthusiasts in your own local space. That is where people should be looking when they think about where they wanna make money in the future.

Malcolm Collins: I.[00:49:00]

I love you dear Decone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, by the way, speaking of like the type of jobs you'd want, yeah. I'm just thinking about like how well our family is positioned. So let's, let's go over the jobs that, that my family has. Okay. I've got a little brother at Doge, like obviously cutting down government bureaucracy, that's gonna be big.

Oh. Short term government work. It's not

Simone Collins: gonna last him forever, but he doesn't need.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, who, who's running an AI company? He founded an AI company that makes movies for like Hollywood. It's the one that did the, the ais in what was it?

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. The, what's it called?

Malcolm Collins: I am Here or something. Or like,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Here, here, here a movie with Tom Hanks. It did come out ever. Yeah, I think it's been out, like it was out, it came out a long time ago.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah, but here but like, obviously that could just replace all of Hollywood soon. My, my cousin you, I won't give names. She's now running an autonomous trucking company.

So. Cool. Cool. But you like, obviously like, like all his family is like, we will all position ourselves in jobs that will They get it, they [00:50:00] get it. They're not messing around, they're playing for keeps. Oh, not another one, two others run large investment firms. But yeah, they're, they're really playing for keeps and I appreciate that.

Like, I'm like, okay, okay. Like it turns out that if you have my genes, like, I'm like, what are the chances that my kids. Who's my genes? Well actually make the right decisions. I'm like,

Simone Collins: well, I think importantly, and this is something I would advise all parents to do our, our son is now sensitive to the concept of money because he wants things and we're like, well, you're gonna have to get money to buy it.

And then he came home one day and said, I. I need to get a job. And I explained to him that jobs will not exist in the near future and he's going to have to figure out how to make or do things that people want to pay for, period. And I think that that's something really important to inculcate your children with, that they shouldn't expect to grow up and get a job.

Instead, they have to figure out what people will want to pay for and give it to them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: These things are important. But anyway it looks like I'm not gonna be able to [00:51:00] placate Indy much longer with home videos, which is what I do when she just won't stop. I'll just like play.

Malcolm Collins: She just wants to see her siblings often.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: She just wants to see you guys fight and play and have fun and calms her down so. It's good. It's better than Cocoa Melon

Malcolm Collins: taking her from you. You'll need to produce her replacement.

Simone Collins: Oh, I'm working on it, but she's my special girl, so. All right. I'm gonna go make your white bread dinner, and I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Shut your face.

Simone Collins: I'm never gonna shut my face. I'm never anymore.

So my wife is unironically trying to make homemade hot dog buns. We don't have any Simone. That's so over the top. No, it's not. What type of a dough is this that you're using? Flour and yeast and water milk. Okay. Is it just normal? Yeah, like hotdog bun dough. I don't know. But this is the egg wash and hopefully makes them look nice.[00:52:00]

They look not great now. We'll see. Hey Tosi, what are you, what are you doing? Don't take that. It'll fall. If you take that, put it back. He's willing to look the consequences. Fair. You just don't care about rules, do you? Just You don't care. Toast. You don't care.

Okay. Octavian, what have you given her? A couple of the Army men to play with? I'm cleaning up so we can play upstairs. That's pretty smart.

In this episode, Simone and I delve into a fascinating conversation about various subcultures that have emerged in response to modern societal challenges. We focus on the Yankees of Japan, the Dinos of the UK, and the Tradies of Australia, exploring how these distinctly different yet surprisingly similar groups share common traits like high fertility rates, rebelliousness, and a mistrust of mainstream societal institutions. Join us as we unpack how these subcultures thrive outside the urban monoculture and what it means for the future of society. Plus, stay tuned for insights into our latest projects and how you can get involved.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a phenomenon where a certain convergently evolved cultural subgroup that is derivative often of American cultural subgroups in popular with the lower classes within a number of countries is. Staying or becoming one of the core high fertility communities,

Simone Collins: it shall inherit the future.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. And the first of these is going to be the Yankees of Japan. Yes. If you, I, I'll put a clip of one here

つ つけ ばん じゃん ま まゆげ

つば は

いた

Malcolm Collins: I want daughters who act like that, by the way. That is, that is my plan is a hundred percent. But it's a culture that if you watch anime, you're [00:01:00] likely familiar with, in which people sort of dress like greasers. And they form gangs.

Greasers being the 1950s American subculture. And they focus on a lot of Americana. This. And then the,

Simone Collins: so not, not exactly. So yeah. Yankee culture is, is more just kind of like this. Yes. There's, there's the greaser hairstyle in many cases, like perms and little buffon and stuff. But there is just general, like as, as younger kids, they were hooligans, they had bike gangs.

They caused destruction to property. But the movement now has evolved into what is referred to as mild Yankees, which are basically the grownup version of these people, and they've kind of switched out their. Souped up biker game bikes for God, what are they called? These weird looking Toyota cars that they spend way too much money on the, the Toyota LL Fire.

It's like this really boxy van. Just look it up. It's, it's a thing. [00:02:00] And they're actually now known for being like fairly responsible, but they still kind of maintained a little bit of that rebellious streak. So basically what

Malcolm Collins: happened, and we're gonna go into a tweet that I think gives it into this really well, is they picked up this greaser rebellious, for rebellious sake culture that ended up being very similar to sort of redneck culture in the United States Truck Nut conservatives in the United States that we pointed out.

This is a uniquely resistant to fertility collapse group and being reactively. Anti-authority and anti trend following. Yeah. Like mainstream trends mm-hmm. Is in the US and for obvious reasons, protective of fertility rates. Yeah. And it has acted protectively for this subculture and other subcultures as they've aged out of their pointless, rebellious phases.

Simone Collins: Well, but I think what's really interesting about this group and also the other groups that we're going to explore in the United States, Australia, the uk, that bear a lot of similarities is. It. This rebelliousness also is correlated [00:03:00] with, or just exists alongside a fundamental mistrust in like mainstream societal institutions being plugged into mainstream news and also believing in things like the lifelong corporate job and going to university.

So these groups also tend to either. Not even finish high school, but at at least definitely at very low rates go to university, so they're not getting higher education. And the, the, the man who actually coined the term mild Yankee, his name is Ada Yohe, he wrote this book called Yankee Economics, the New Conservatives as the Leaders of Consumption.

He, he described them as the last Japanese generation to have parents who enjoyed permanent regular. Employment in a normal way. And that actually as they aged, their rebelliousness eased up a little bit because fewer and fewer of their parents had jobs and incomes that sort of allowed them to like wield social control that they might even like buck up against.

So I think that also this generation. [00:04:00] More at the lower ends of the economic spectrum to begin with. Also was the first to see the crumbling of the lifelong corporate job, which was a really big thing in Japan, but certainly a big thing everywhere else too. So they also like, I think, are among the first cultures to start going off the grid.

And by going off the grid, I mean not buying in to something that has turned out to be a fundamental lie. And that buying into also correlates with low. Fertility in that, the, the, the lifelong corporate job or buying into that kind of fantasy of like, I'm gonna make a lot of money. I'm gonna go to university, is the IQ shredder.

It is the moving to the cities, it is the going to university and getting the demanding job and not having time to live close to your family network and raise kids and just spend time with friends and, and, and live within your means and. This group is sort of naturally high fertility because these are the ones who aren't entering the

Malcolm Collins: fertility shredder.

Does that make sense? Well, they're also not as economically disadvantaged [00:05:00] as you would imagine, given their life choices. Yeah. At the same time, they decided to get outta the university pipeline focused on the trades. Mm-hmm. In Japan especially, those types of jobs were increasing in value or, or what they paid Yeah.

Relative to the types of lifelong corporate jobs that were really sort of breaking apart.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and what's interesting is, is some people have posited about softie, Yankee Keys in Japan that, oh, they're gonna disappear. They're not gonna last for long 'cause they're not very educated and you know, they, they won't be able to afford houses.

They will totally be able to afford houses. There are these like emptying out towns in Japan. Where they can buy houses, although they're typically stick sticking close to home and living within their means and using family for support and childcare. So, no, these, these people will be just fine.

Malcolm Collins: So to go into the original tweet thread that brought our attention to this, it said Miles Yankees are the winners of Japanese society.

Skip high school and uni several years, headstart and earn way more than a graduate in their twenties. Marry a guru. Buy a new house, [00:06:00] have kids. This is the way, and then it has some images of, of this culture. And we should put some images on screen of like what this culture looks like. It says in, they tend to stay within a 10 kilometer radius of their hometown.

So they keep strong family, friendship, bonds, making it easier to start a family. And it shows you know, a, a meme of them grilling with, with hamburgers, hot wives. The mild Yankee statue with their van. The boy was the soft mohawk bar barbecue on the holidays. My eldest daughter is learning to dance, beautiful wife.

And they have, well,

Simone Collins: I, I think it's not a van. I, I think, again, it's a Toyota Vall fire. And I, I want to understand the obsession with this vehicle that is so strange.

Malcolm Collins: And there's another thing here where it's, it's mild Yankee where it's a, a guy and his girlfriend and they have a baby. And it says, but and he says.

This is, this messed up delicious. That's really bad. This eat it if you like. And she's giving an [00:07:00] old lady's, giving her like food. And of course in Japan this would happen if you moved to a town and had kids.

Simone Collins: Well, basically it's, it's a cartoon showing a husband enjoying his wife's food, a wife accepting local produce from a family member or neighbor.

And then the, the family and their kids expressing thanks to that local community member like this is. The archetype of sustainable family rearing, living in a supportive community, showing them gratitude. The young and old and and working age all have a role and they enjoy small and simple things.

And that's the thing about this, I.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's about building an alternate culture where the dominance hierarchy is not, and people don't like that. I use the term dominant hierarchy. They're like, call it the prestige hierarchy. I use dominant hierarchy because I'm comparing it in an anthropological context.

To like an APE tribe or something like that is not the unified, the dominance hierarchy. The problem, one of the biggest problems with the urban monoculture is that everyone's playing was in the same dominance hierarchy. So you're always going to feel near [00:08:00] the bottom unless you happen to be like famous or something.

Where it was in both the Yankee and the mild Yankee dominance hierarchies you can for a much lower cost and much lower investment, really invest in that culture and be like your own person that you can have pride in.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And then a tweet under it, oh. Actually before I go to the tweet under it, do you want me to read about the evolution of Yankee culture?

Simone Collins: In Japan?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I I will. Okay, so the term Yankee in Japan doesn't refer to the American baseball team or the historical US group, but rather to a distinct subculture that emerged in the late 20th century. Japanese Yankees are typically associated with rebellious youth, often characterized by a distinctive style, think pompadour hairstyles, modified school uniforms, and a tough anti-establishment attitude.

This subculture has roots in the post-war period. Influenced by American pop culture, like rock and roll and biker kings, but it evolved into something uniquely Japanese. Over [00:09:00] time, it's been linked to working class communities, particularly in urban and semi-urban settings like South Osaka and parts of Kishu.

It is associated, is it associated with higher fertility rates? There's no hard data from official sources like Japan's Ministry of Health or Academic Studies, specifically telling Yankee subculture to higher birth rates. However, some observations and sentiment on platforms like X hint at a connection, for instance, it's been con suggested in areas where Yankee culture is strong, like South Osaka or tissue families tend to have more kids, two to three compared to Japan's national average total fertility rate, which dropped from 1.2 in 2023.

Okinawa with a TFR of 1.6 and parts of Kishu, like Miyazaki, 1.49 do stand out as having higher fertility rates than say, Tokyo 0.99. These regions also have a reputation as being more relaxed, community oriented lifestyles, which some associate with lingering Yankee influence. The theory might go like this.

[00:10:00] Yankees, historically from working class backgrounds may have prioritized family and traditional roles over career driven urban lifestyles that dominate cities like Tokyo, where fertility rates are lowest. Their mild, modern counterparts could still carry a countercultural tendency. Turds earlier, marriage and large families, bunking, Japan's broader trend of delayed and foregone parenthood, for example, chu's, relatively high fertility rates around 1.8 in some areas, and its reputation as a Yankee stronghold could suggest that correlation.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. So I, one, one thing that I was looking at today was the connection between Yankee culture and. Another high fertility culture, which is the Appalachian culture, which we constantly talk about. And in that Twitter thread, they don't even mention Appalachian culture, but two separate people are like, oh my gosh, you're just describing the, the UK phenomenon of, and we're gonna

Malcolm Collins: go over these two other phenomenon.

And then, oh,

Simone Collins: you're just describing Aussie tradies. But I wanna talk about the similarities between. Yankee culture [00:11:00] and Appalachian culture. And the, the reason why is there's this movie that I love that you will never, ever watch 'cause it's basically the Japanese amali called Kamikaze girls that I.

I have probably spent like hundreds of hours watching again and again, like before I met you. 'cause I love it so much. It's about two girls. One is this girl who's really into gothic, Lili clothing named Momoko. And a friend she makes named Ichigo. And Ichigo is a Yankee. She's a, she's a Yankee girl. And like when I rewatch the scene where she's introduced, I'm just like, oh my gosh.

There's, she is like the Japanese. Like Appalachian Tom girl, because she shows up on what is basically a rideable truck nut. It's like this insane, like souped up scooter motorcycle thing. And 'cause she's the member of this, this, this Japanese biker game called the Ponytails, and she's actually showing up at this young girl's house because her father sells.

Bootlegged Versace like super trashy [00:12:00] clothing and like as she's like looking at the clothing that's available for sale later in the scene, she's like, oh my gosh, you universal Versace. 'cause he'll just like starts combining logos. It's like just totally trashy taste. But like, fantastic. And as she's approaching Momoko, Momoko is like thinking like, oh, a Yankee to run on eyebrows, and she spits on the ground and she, she has like very male mannerisms and it's just like, whoa.

Okay. So we got the tomboy, we got the truck nuts, we've got like the toughness. And this sort of like un unabashed enthusiasm for things and, and lack of concern for what other people think. And I. Absolutely love it. And I never watched that movie thinking like, huh, this is a lot like another type of American culture, but it totally is, and it makes so much sense to me that this would evolve into one of the high fertility Japanese cultures that I'm thrilled about it

Malcolm Collins: if I can get away with posting this culture this, this video, because it's part of a music video that it's from the, the country [00:13:00] song when it rains.

And I think that many people, when they think of American. Country music or they, they think of this like uniform, sort of Republican American cultural group. And I keep pointing out that no, the Appalachian cultural group is very distinct from the aristocratic southern group or the aristocratic and, and very religious southern group.

And, and proper and the Mormon group. And I think that the intro to this video does a very good job because you see this family coming out. Going to church and you assume if you are approaching country music with stereotypes that they are the protagonist and No, it's not. It's not them. It's the guy who fell asleep partying on his, his roof.

And he is just, you know, was, was having a fun time. And you could tell that this individual would be very aligned with this cultural group. 100%.

Everybody got their Bibles? Yes.

[00:14:00] Come on, we gotta go.

Malcolm Collins: You watch like a video of the, the girl in it who is being a very, like, at, at her lunch with the other girl. And she's showing a lot of manners that remind me a lot of our daughter.

But No kidding. Yeah. If it

Simone Collins: was like if, if that scene was our family, it would be me dressed like the frilly girl and it would be our daughter Titan sitting across from me 100%.

ヨハンシュ と ラウス 知らねえ なあん な バンド

Simone Collins: But also like another thing it's demonstrated in that scene you're referring to is like this distinct. Lack of education.

Like I think she's listening to some classical artist and ichi goes' like, never heard of that band. Like, just

Malcolm Collins: no. But, but you see here that this is also something you see with this Appalachian group [00:15:00] culture. When you see them stereotyped, they're always stereotyped as the women particularly is being uniquely tomboy-ish.

Just think of like apple jack for my little pony. He's like, hardworking and, and, and tomboy-ish. Or you could think of. Well, any girl from you know, I'm trying to think of good stereotypes. Oh, yes, I'm a redneck woman. Or the,

Simone Collins: the girl

Malcolm Collins: I didn't, no high class man.

Simone Collins: The Beverly Hillbillies, I think she's great.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yes. The Beverly Hillbillies where she's incredibly strong.

Nobody treats my paw that way. Shut up.

How's that for Bunny?

Malcolm Collins: I think she better,

Simone Collins: Is, is like the guru archetype. So the. What Roco on Twitter said when talking about this movement wasn't implying that like Yankees, Murray Yankees, and definitely like female Yankees as depicted by Ichigo and kamikaze girls is less common.

You're more likely to get like the [00:16:00] girly girl version of that subculture, which is yoru. They're. Like, way back in the day, the way that you knew you were looking at a garter was basically if you saw like a Japanese stereotype of like Malibu Barbie, so bleached blonde hair, super tanned and then extremely girly pink accessories.

That's how you know you're looking at a garter. They look overly tan and they're like, yeah, now, now they're, now they're just toned down. Now they just look like the Japanese equivalent of trailer trash. Like they're, they're attractive, they're sexy. They, they like dress in a sort of like sexy, attractive way, and I think social media has kind of had that effect where it's like toned everyone down a little bit and also taught everyone how to style themselves.

Yeah. I, I think both in like a more classy and more trashy way, right? Because everyone has everyone has adopted drag makeup online, like everyone's contouring now. And yet like we're trying to like. Even it out, there's tempering taking place.

Malcolm Collins: I sent you a like super wholesome hentai of of shoot one of these girls.

So you can see that this [00:17:00] is a popular enough archetype. Leave it to us to describe hentai as wholesome though. Well, this one is clearly just made for like, look, you can masturbate different parts of your brain. And one thing that people like to masturbate is the wholesome part. Like, yeah, like a fantasy

Simone Collins: about like a loving, wholesome marriage.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. A wife, a loving, wholesome who actually loves you and cares. You can imagine yeah, like the, the gist is basically a childhood friend who doesn't feel like she's done anything with her life is really just completely plused and over the moon, and she's become a guro or like a mild guro, I guess you'd say.

Was like big. Pink animal print, like broth, like out, like small top things. Malibu

Simone Collins: Barbie Trailer Crash Edition.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah. And, and you, you, and she's like sad about her life and she's really excited that somebody loves her and cares for horror. And that's a, the gist of it. But it's, it's, it's common enough that even when these characters are used in Japanese pornography, like Hint, I, [00:18:00] they are used as like a.

I'm gonna be a sweet, good, and loving wife who's gonna give you lots of babies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very much the, the what you can tell is like the fantasy that's represented here and it's interesting that it transitioned from delinquent to, I am going to be delinquent. By being a sweet wife, but not in a traditional Japanese way, which is like, I guess like out of subservience or something like that.

Mm-hmm. But just because I appreciate you so much you know, and I think that a lot of guys in Japan may feel that way and they may look at a girl like that and see her as more attainable. Mm. Which was what would create this like, genre of hint. I,

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's just also such a contrast to.

I, I watch a lot of, I guess you could call them ambiance videos on YouTube made by single women who live in tiny little apartments in Tokyo and have [00:19:00] salary woman jobs. And in these videos they're just like silent. They never show their faces and they just do their evening routines. They make dinner for themselves.

And it's just such this weird contrast between this like completely asexual, highly educated professional woman. Mm-hmm. And I'm sure that their male equivalents are doing the same thing. And then this, this, this family, you know, these people who actually wanna have kids young, and this is what we have.

Like this is, this is what. Post globalization, post tech, high fertility culture looks like, it looks like people who marry their high school sweethearts or who marry during university and start having kids in their twenties and have a support system. I mean, it doesn't have to be, as in is the case with the the soft Yankees family members and they don't have to stay within 10 kilometers of where they were born, but

Malcolm Collins: it

Simone Collins: helps.

Malcolm Collins: So am I free to move on to the next cultural group?

Simone Collins: Ooh, which one are we gonna do? Are we gonna do a tradies?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, we're gonna continue with this. It goes, this is wild. There's the exact same [00:20:00] archetype with differences in execution, obviously in the UK called the Dino. A lower middle class types extremely misunderstood.

The commonality they have is their positive outlook. They need few things to make them happy, laugh easily, et cetera. Hmm. So let's talk about the Dino group. All right.

Dino isn't an organized group or a former subculture in the uk, but rather a satirical stereotype that's emerged online, particularly on platforms like Twitter now x and four chan to describe a specific type of person or lifestyle. Mm-hmm. The term paints the picture of a lower middle class. Often suburban or small town British couple, typically in their twenties or thirties, who embody a mix of aspirational consumerism and what some see as tacky mainstream tastes.

Think of this as a modern evolution of the older British stereotypes of the Essex man, or Mondio man, but with Asian. What about the ch, like are they just totally

Simone Collins: different?

Malcolm Collins: What

Simone Collins: are they different from the, are they Chas shaves? I don't know how they're, yes. Totally different from Chaves. Oh, okay. [00:21:00] Although, to to point back to like kamikaze girls, like this obsession with like Versace knockoff stuff.

I think that's the thing is like lower middle class, like thinking for example, that designer brands are Well pride in

Malcolm Collins: being lower middle class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unapologetically. Yeah. Dino is usually imagined as a guy named Dean, hence the name. Working a decent but unglamorous job.

Say a call center supervisor, estate agent, trades person. He lives in a new building, housing estate, often called Barat Britain. After a major UK developer drives a finance car like a Voxel Astra and enjoys lad. Hobbies, FIFA Love Island Package. Holidays. Oh boy, Marbella. Yes. And nights out whiz banter. Yes.

His partner is sometimes jokingly called Miss Fiat. 500 matches him with white and TEEP lift, fillers and wardrobe of fast fashion.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: their home might feature gray [00:22:00] carpets. A ology, sofa, and an AstroTurf garden all proudly shared on Instagram. Mm-hmm. The stereotype leans hard into their perceived obsession with appearances and status, despite their relatively modest means.

The Dino meme started as a piss take on four chan and spread through British Twitter. Where it's been dissected was both. Humor and disdain. Some see Dinos as happy and fulfilled in their straightforward lives. Owning a home, having mates and enjoying the odd pint while others mock them as shallow conformist or oblivious to their precarious financial situation.

Big mortgages, little savings posts on X often highlight their aesthetics, slicked back hair, half shirt buttons undone, and blonde hair dye, and eating disorder. For the women, it's less about real subculture and more about a caricature of the normal Britain. British outside the urban elite. Oh, screw them.

I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Sign me up. And, but I, I think it is, it's, it's people who are proud to be themselves Yeah. Outside of this other [00:23:00] culture, which is what's necessary to fight against this. Yeah. A pride in being something other than the other urban monoculture. Yeah. And in immunity to urban monocultural, ridicule of you, whatever that culture looks like.

Well, there's

Simone Collins: some tension there. Because there's absolutely keeping up with Joneses, taking place with the financed vehicle, the, the house with everything posted on Instagram, the lip filler, the blonde hair, the, the whitened teeth, the eating disorder. You know, I think that there among their internal there is keeping up with the Joneses.

It just happens to be that the Joneses aren't like this distributed international group. It's like literally the people who live next door to you, just like it was in the fifties and sixties. But there, there is still, there's, there's sensitivity, but also like, yeah, but it's,

Malcolm Collins: it is, it is more financially realistic keeping up with the Joneses because you're playing a different game than the urban monoculture game.

Yeah. This is like what they're saying. They're like, they're so surprised that these people seem proud of things that aren't of status within the urban monoculture. Like why do they have pride in these modest meme things? And it's because they're playing a different [00:24:00] dominance hierarchy than you're playing with it.

Yeah. But anyway. Goes on and tweets to say, I have a lot of friends like this. All they do is drink and party all day, but they go overseas every year. And here I am working overtime at the office as a humble salary man. Maybe I should have taken the and I think it's something in Japanese pill after all.

Hmm.

Simone Collins: The,

Malcolm Collins: and then it says, under the shortage of blue collar workers is so extreme that wage wise, you can earn much more than the average salary, man. The flip side, as your body will be broken by your fifties, and you'll probably die of lung cancer early. And then the next says they can live least decent lives if their father refrained himself from spending his whole savings on verifier or if they're becoming too pachinko addicted.

And then a person says, today I learned mild Yankees are just like Ozzy tradies

Simone Collins: Ozzy, and like Pachinko addiction is, is no different from problems with sports gambling in the us. Like there's so many similarities here.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah we can, we can go here to this next culture, the [00:25:00] tradies in Australia.

Do you wanna learn about them? Yeah, I wanna learn about the

Simone Collins: tradies. Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: In Australia, tradees is a widely used sling for a term, short for tradespeople or tradesmen. Air Force to skilled manual workers who specialize in a particular trade such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, bricking or mechanics, and you can tell that they would fall into this category.

These other people who were talking about, these folks typically are hands-on professionals who've completed apprenticeships or vocational training. To master their craft. They're the ones building houses, fixing pipes, wiring homes, and keeping cars running, essentially keeping the country running the terms got cultural Weight down under tradies are often seen as embodying a rugged, practical, no-nonsense Aussie spirit.

Think high V vest. Steel capped boots and a Ute utility vehicle loaded with tools. They're a big part of the economy too, especially in construction, which is a powerhouse industry in Australia. Posts on X and web chatters sometimes paint them as a hardworking blokes and increasingly women who enjoy a beer after a long day.

I. That's more of a stereotype than a rule. Unlike the UK's [00:26:00] Dino stereotype, which is more about a lifestyle or a class jab, tradies are defined by their skills and jobs. They're not a subculture in the rebellious sense like Japan's Yankees, but they do have their own lingo and camaraderie. Think smoko break time are hard, jaka, tough work.

Some tradies earn solid money, 75 to 90 5K on average, but they're specialized or run their own gig. Though it varies by trade and experience.

So, yeah. Apparently a lot of cultures are seeing this in a different regions or something that they see as similar. Was the core difference being a different life path? And, and different dominant hierarchy and different things that they value. Hmm. And then this person here did a podcast on it.

They say this is a fascinating generated, a whole AI podcast about the subject. Somebody did, but they did a picture, which I thought is really nice looking of this. And then somebody here also said there's also the [00:27:00] work and izakaya and then open a kitchen car pipeline allows lots of time for surfing, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And an izakay restaurant is basically Japanese top bus. So I could, I could see someone like having maybe a popup restaurant and. Using that to create a sort of flexible lifestyle. And then somebody

Malcolm Collins: here says, so only the malcontents of Japan are also the only people who thrive. The only people who couldn't fit in in a brutally conformist country are also the only ones to find happiness.

The only winners of Japanese society are the people with a good sense to stay out.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: What were you gonna say? Sorry, I interrupted you there.

Simone Collins: No, go. Go ahead.

I mean, so, okay. I'll just jump in then and say one thing that gives me a lot of hope about these subcultures is that, one, they may be underrepresented as inheritors of the future because they've chosen so much to opt out of the internet to opt out of. Mainstream culture and to be pretty hard to measure.

[00:28:00] So I was, I was reading some news stories on this group and they're like, well, people are trying to like find them, but you can't really find 'em in online surveys. You, most of the interviews that people are doing on people on the streets are in places like Tokyo, like in really high traffic neighborhoods.

So they're not finding them because these people, even when they vacation, they typically vacation close to home. So my understanding is that basically they are. Off the grid to a great extent. And when you and I were looking at data of groups that seemed to be high fertility in the United States, we kept seeing, yes, high levels of religiosity, but also xenophobia and extreme sensitive sensitivity to hierarchy and sort of like a lot of, a lot of scary fascist, but not in a good way, in a sort of closed-minded, scary way.

Tendencies. My impression is that these groups. Are not as much like that. They might be somewhat suspicious of outsiders. I get that. But I'm, I'm less concerned about groups like this inheriting the future [00:29:00] because they're community minded. They sound pretty pro-social. At, at least since they've sort of evolved out of their hard Yankee days where they used to actually cause a lot of property damage and be kind of troublesome people in their communities now they're, they're seen as being much more responsible community members.

So they're, they seem to be broadly pro-social. They care about kids, they care about family. They're grateful for the community help they get. This doesn't seem like a bad group to be inheriting the future. It

Malcolm Collins: seems like living for a delinquent aesthetic. Mm-hmm. Where that is also high fertility and that's one of a way of thumbing your nose at society is high fertility.

And another thing that's high fertility is I. Being both frugal but not good with financial decisions. That's another thing that seems to be high fertility, is that they don't fold. They're just like, okay, I'm gonna keep having kids and it's gonna work out. I think people who are overly concerned about being able to afford things, like the people who are like, well, don't they know this?

Yes. How, how precarious their life is. People who think like that never end up [00:30:00] having kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like they, well, they, they both are happy living within their means, but they seem to. For cultural or perhaps lack of education reasons or both blow the money that they do have on things that they don't necessarily need, like cosmetic surgery and cars and maybe sports gambling or pachinko.

And that's maybe, I mean, we, we see it as not great, but at the same time. The lack of savings and also that lack of concern, oh, I can't afford this so I'm not gonna do it. Yeah. Does seem to be really, it forces people to lean in more to family, more to community. And I do think there's a synergistic effect there where the more you lean into family and community, the more you're likely to have kids and also support your family and community.

You know, the more everyone needs each other, the more they help each other and the more they lean into that again. And so it would only create more children, more loving communities, and. We kind of need that.

Malcolm Collins: So [00:31:00] Ro Alright, well, Simone, this has been a fun conversation. I hope our daughters grow up to be as fierce as, as that Yankee girl who you liked growing up sitting.

What did you think of her character growing up? Did you like, like her? Did you identify more as the other girl?

Simone Collins: No, definitely identify with Momoko the. Sweet LTA girl who's obsessed with friley dresses. Some of the, I was watching other scenes from the movie today and. I realized, like, and in one scene she's wearing a, a dress that looks so much like what I wear every day.

It like she's a white bonnet and a black jumper does a white pet coat. And I'm like,

Malcolm Collins: is like,

Simone Collins: actually your thing is.

Malcolm Collins: Is this Puritan Lolita? What have I done? Well, no, that's what I like when we go to conferences and she dresses up in her traditional outfits. The people who like come up and gush over them are often the goth, like sunken goth girls.

Yeah. They're like, oh, that's so cool. You look crazy. Like, I [00:32:00] love it. And it's so fun that you can be so trad that like the, the goth it's, it's the horseshoe theory. Yeah. Just like you have

Simone Collins: the, you know, the crunchy to All right. Horseshoe where, you know, they, they end up being connected in the end.

It's. It's great. I

Malcolm Collins: love it. But wait, so you basically now as a grownup have a daughter who's like the punk girl who's like moko

Simone Collins: and, you know, sorry, I'm like Momoko and I have a daughter like Ichigo. Yeah, 100%.

Malcolm Collins: Did you, did you expect that? We'll, we'll see if she keeps it up as she gets older, but right now, oh my God, she loves trolling.

Like such a troll. She's such a troll. She will, like, even with her siblings, it's not just us. It's like Octavia will be like, please don't. Touch my, my Google device while I'm gone and then she'll be like as soon as he leaves, she has no interest in it. Yeah, she wants, she's no play with it. Dexter

Simone Collins: slab or something.

100%. She lives to troll and I love it. I respected. I didn't know that that was a real genetic compulsion. Trolling. Yeah, troll trolling, heritable. [00:33:00] Someone can make polygenic score around that with enough data. Is is she gonna

Malcolm Collins: be didi? To, to torso's. Mad scientist. The short little brother who's shorter than her and really smart.

What does this do?

Malcolm Collins: And they're the

Simone Collins: same size now pretty much. He has bigger feet than her. Thank goodness. He's, he's growing something. I'm, I'm gonna get that kid to grow. We're gonna, we have ways.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yes. All right. I love you n DeSimone. It's been a joy talking with you. And we just submitted our Andreessen Horowitz applications with, to the Collins Institute and the the video game that we've been working on, so we'll, we see if they're interested in, if you're

Simone Collins: buddies with them, put in a good word for old, for

Malcolm Collins: old Collins.

Yes. Or. If you know another VC we should be looking at or talking [00:34:00] to who's interested in AI games or AI education, let us know because warm intros apparently matter. And what's the point of having fans if we can't get warm intros?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Actually social badging is everything, and these are big projects that we really believe in, but I yeah.

We'll see.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, we should, we should put the pitch decks here so people can be like, oh, this is what you're working on. Oh, that

Simone Collins: would be cool. Yeah. If you want to learn more about these projects, see the pitch decks below, and if you have ideas for us, please share, because actually our listeners are super smart, incredible people with some, yeah.

Okay. Not all of you. All right. What, which one are you listener, are you, are you mid or are you.

Malcolm Collins: Based, are you? Yeah. Are you smart enough to, to have been a Yankee who have known to be a delinquent from the beginning? I was definitely a delinquent growing up. So you married the, the grownup delinquents?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: I mean the, [00:35:00] another one of the themes that I really like from this is, is a lot of people identifying, or at least referring to them as misfits. You know, like it's the misfits in the end who, who get to inherit the future. And that's totally it. It's the people as you keep pointing out who deviate.

Malcolm Collins: A mainstream society.

It's not the, that their misfits is that they don't care about the fact that they're perceived as misfits.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It is the not caring about other people's judgment of you as a misfit.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway, and that's what you gotta raise your kids to, to think like, and it's, it's, it's a big so many people, I think that this is, is going to be one of the biggest things that Mormonism is going to struggle getting around.

It is a fear of being seen as misfit or others, which is one of the reasons their particular fertility collapse. Even though it's not as bad as other denominations like Catholicism may be more intractable because I think that many castle groups are okay with looking weird. Whereas I don't know many warman groups that really embrace the idea of being weird.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Hundred percent. No, that's a big

Malcolm Collins: problem. Alright, goodbye.

Simone Collins: Bye. I love you. Goodbye. I said good day, sir. Good day.

The aesthetics, the, the subjects. I absolutely adore it. It has just all these like tiny little aesthetic moments and references and. The main character has sensitivities to stupid little things that I really identify with. But it's definitely, it's like even down to lighting choices made, it is clearly the Amelie of Japan and you will never watch it, and you will never like it, and that's okay.

It's totally okay.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, that was a common thing in Japan to pair characters. You have those two. Acts the contrast.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You, you had it with Puffy Ami Yumi, for example. Mm-hmm. The cartoon about the Yeah. The popular band. Yeah. The Tom

Simone Collins: girl and the g the girly girl,

Malcolm Collins: Tom girl and the girly girl.

Everybody wants to hang with Tom girl and the girly girl. You

Simone Collins: know

Malcolm Collins: it. Watch them fight each other. Oh, that's so silly. So silly. [00:37:00] Silly.

They're beautiful. Shall we pick some. I flowers. You wanna pick the flowers too? They have baby flowers. Baby flowers? Mm-hmm. All right, well, do you see any? Doesn't walk them. You swamp me. Okay. If you can stay out of the mud, you can pick some, they're called swamp marigolds. Go get some.

In this episode, we are joined by the renowned economist and author Robin Hansen, an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University. The discussion centers around the challenging issue of fertility decline and its cultural underpinnings. Hansen outlines various trends contributing to lower fertility rates, such as prolonged education, intensive parenting, gender equality, urban living, and less religious adherence. He also explores the interaction of culture and economy, the potential for policy interventions, and the role of subcultures in addressing demographic challenges. Additionally, they touch on historical patterns, the evolution of cultures, and the strategies for fostering sustainable, high-fertility communities. The conversation offers a rich and insightful analysis of one of today's pressing societal issues.

[00:00:00]

Simone Collins: Hello everyone. As you can see today, we are joined by the one, the only, the incredibly prolific and brilliant Robin Hansen. He is the American economist author. He's also an associate professor of economics at George Mason University. But he is known for some of the most catchy ideas, ranging from grabby aliens to one of the most popular fertility intervention proposals, which has to do with sort of like a tax bonds on children's future tax generated income.

But most recently on the prenatal list front Robin Hansen's focus has been shifting to culture. So we wanted to have him on base camp to talk about prenatal list culture. Welcome, Robin.

Robin Hanson: Hello everyone. So, as you know, culture, I mean, fertility looks like a pretty hard problem, like, right? Yeah. So you guys are working hard.

I hope you have success, but you, you get that it's an uphill battle, right? Yeah, yeah. But so at least I feel good about fertility that I can. Frame a proposal and say it in words and say, if only you would do this, it'll probably fix the problem. That doesn't mean you can get somebody to do it, but [00:01:00] it's a nice thing to have is to be able to, yes.

Have a concrete proposal and say, look, if you do this, that would fix it.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Robin Hanson: And that's as a policymaker, I'm proud. Like that's kind of our job. Like, okay, if you guys won't do anything, you know what the hell Yeah. That's on

Simone Collins: you. Yeah. You could have it's, you could have had nice

Robin Hanson: things. We could, we at least had an idea for what to do.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: But so I thought about for. Fertility for like eight months. And then like most people in fertility, I came to see culture underlying as a fundamental cause of fertility decline. It's, it doesn't mean that we have to fix it that way. Right? We can fix things with money that are caused by culture.

That's a, if you can

Simone Collins: afford it. Yeah. Right. If

Robin Hanson: you can afford it. Money and culture interact and have for many centuries, yes. Like capitalism and culture have had a lot of influences on each other. So just because something's caused by culture doesn't mean it needs to be fixed by culture directly. That is, you could do a a money thing that changes culture and I think the money thing we talked about in our last episode is such a thing that would change culture.

But you certainly notice that the proximate cause of the problem is [00:02:00] culture. And that induced me more of a theorist to say, okay, why? Hmm. What's causing culture to change? What is it just some random, you know, thing that just happens in the world? Or is there some more systematic way to understand why culture?

So it's not, it's like a half a dozen trends. I can point out that cons that seem to be causing fertility decline. You, you guys know them all Probably.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I go into 'em. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. We may particularly

Robin Hanson: very differently. Okay. Let's just mention them for, you know, for, for completeness sake. Yes.

So obviously like. Longer years of education and early career prep. Right. A lot of young women want, who are s very powerful. You know, capable people want to prove that they can do well in their careers and our career ladders don't give very good pauses. Yeah. And they want to show that they are capable and.

You know, be successful. And so they want to wait to as long as the career ladder requires to then consider having kids. So that's, that's one. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Hold on. As, as we go through each of these, I wanna talk about [00:03:00] how they can be addressed and how other cultures, their state high fertility have addressed them.

The two ways that this particular problem I've seen addressed is one have women not become educated or have men and women not become

Robin Hanson: educated. It works really well for fertility rates, but also

Simone Collins: in places like Kazakhstan. You still have men and women getting educated, but they're having kids in university.

And this is my favorite solution. I think that's the best time to have kids.

Malcolm Collins: It's what Simone said is you have to change the expectation of timing.

Robin Hanson: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Malcolm Collins: You get married, then you go to university or you get married. In your first couple years of university and should have a couple kids by the time you graduate.

Mm-hmm. This is normal within a lot of cultures. Then it's an easy thing to frame. I think the quiver full movement had a really good framing of this. You know, the the, the children are like the eras in the quiver of your youth, which, which points out is that children are supposed to be something that you sort of stock up on while you're young.

And, and, and then, and then provide benefit to you when you're older which is a very different framing than children [00:04:00] are. The capstone. Once you are stable.

Robin Hanson: That brings up a next trend, as you know, which is the switch from cornerstone to capstone marriage. You know, when I was young the norm was you just marry early when you're not fully formed, where you don't know what you're gonna become.

And the two of you form each other and become something together. Yes. Okay. And now the norm is you should find yourself and know who you are and we have a stable position. And then. Then match with somebody who matches your stable position in what you become.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly.

Robin Hanson: And that takes a lot longer, and that also puts on a delay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I, and I know with this particular trend is that it's not leading to better marriages like, right. No. A marriage, a marriage is actually much better, I'd argue to have a cornerstone marriage than to have a capstone marriage because you can one, grow together. Two, it fixes a lot of the problems with the existing monetary difference.

So, you know, one of the things I'm sure you're gonna get to is that women like men who earn more money than [00:05:00] them, but they also don't like men on average earning more money than them, which means that on average they're not gonna be able to find a spouse once they've corrected and they've overcorrected.

Now if you look at young women, they over-ear men pretty significantly. But so if they're like, oh, I'll only date men who earn more money than me, and on average women are earning more than men, you know, they're gonna have a really hard time fighting a partner, right? So they're gonna be dating a bunch of people who are likely lying to them about like their, their actual status.

And that's why women think all men are b******s because they are sorting into the b******s, right? But the point here being is that this is a problem that occurs once you graduate from college if you normalize, I. Marrying somebody going into college. You marry somebody at an age where neither of you has an income yet.

Right. And this is why it's so important to get married before you get a job, not

Robin Hanson: after.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: Good point. So I'm not sure of all these trends, but I don't need to be sure that they're just things people talk a lot about. So a third one is more intensive parenting. [00:06:00] Yes. So I think I see this, I see my son taking care of their, you know, our grandchild.

Compare that to my taking care of my son, compared that to how I was taking care of, yeah. If I look, it's like look at movies from the thirties and forties and kids in the movies and see how much parent attention parents are paying to those kids. They're not barely paying any attention to the kids. Yeah.

What? What attention. They're not like watching them and taking them around and instructing them. The kids are just running around and the parents are talking to each other and they're just two separate worlds. That, because that was okay back then.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And this is incredibly important to Renormalize and I think that you really cannot have any form of Tism work without normalizing this specific thing.

And it's one of the reasons why when many people are like, why? Do you, as the heads of the prenatal lesson movement so often you know, get seen by reporters as like not really paying that much attention to your kids or, or, or, you know, being rough with your kids or like, mostly ignoring them and it's like, because that's the only way you make this sustainable if, if you, if you like overly And what's wild is, is [00:07:00] that we even have AI now.

Like I don't even need to talk to my kid, for my kid to have somebody to talk to. Yeah. You know, I just feel AI is

Simone Collins: infinitely attentive and patient with our kids. Like our kids talk with chat GBT and I love it because we'd just be like, okay, whatever. And chat G t's like, wow, I love that too. This is so great.

This just like, this is

Robin Hanson: perfect. Right. So another trend that certainly contributes via the school thing is just gender equality.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting.

Robin Hanson: If, if women just hold, hold different life paths and that wasn't involving career aspirations, then they would, you know. The school thing would just be much less of an issue.

Obviously that did happen in the past. Yeah. Yeah. So we're not saying we're, we're definitely not saying we're gonna reverse all these trends. Like yeah, let's just be clear. But we do wanna acknowledge what are the trends that have been contributing the election. Gender equality. Gender equality.

Simone Collins: So, hold, just keep going, but I'm just gonna get Indy 'cause she woke up.

Malcolm Collins: Well, hold on, hold on, hold on there. There's actually some interesting data on gender equality that we went over in a few recent episodes where. It [00:08:00] appears that in some environments, gender inequality and not some, I'd actually say most environments today, like in developed countries leads to much lower fertility

Robin Hanson: rates.

You're right. So, but it certainly contributed early, like so in South Korea they have this huge gender conflict and part of it is that women want men to do more household chores and men. Don't think they should because that's not what they used to do.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So, you know, so clearly. So yeah, specifically here, this comes from the, I dunno if you've seen this, this tweet, but it's really good, this like what makes these countries different from these countries and it breaks down like Denmark, the USA you know, I think like Israel a few others all in one category.

And then another category is like Italy's. Portugal, Korea, Japan, China. And the argument presented was, is that the second group of countries modernized and became wealthy much later. And as such, it didn't update its views around gender norms as much. And so you had the economic [00:09:00] expectation of women working without the updated gender norms within the household.

Although I think many of these cultures were actually just more misogynistic historically, if you look at like Albion Seed or American Nations, you could see many of the founding cultural groups of America were highly gender egalitarian. Like the backwoods greater Appalachian culture was very gender egalitarian.

The Puritans were very gender egalitarian. Well, and

Simone Collins: by egalitarian men and women were still seen as very different, but they no, no, no. But they

Malcolm Collins: were gender egalitarian when contrasted with Japanese or Chinese culture, for example. For sure. Yeah.

Robin Hanson: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right.

Robin Hanson: It's about these changing roles that is, we, we had the expectation women go to work, but also that they keep doing the housework.

Yeah. And then they're less willing to have kids, which, which makes sense, but you know, it's uneven development of gender norm changes.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Robin Hanson: So an older one, but I still think it's important to notice is norms of children not living with their parents when they have children.

Simone Collins: Oh yes. That's very good.

Grandparent's. Very good. In the old days,

Robin Hanson: people would live in a family estate [00:10:00] with three generations. Yeah. And that was usual. And so kids didn't have to have their own place or even their own income in order to have their own kids.

Simone Collins: And you'd built in childcare and built in elder care. So big elements of our

Robin Hanson: social safety.

Right. But it also meant that the grandparents had more control. That's true. They got to say more. But true. The old, you know, clan based societies, the, the patriarch or matriarch just had more say about how everybody lived. True,

Simone Collins: yeah. And

Robin Hanson: one of the things people enjoy about our world is more freedom from parental influence over your lives.

But a big cost of that is they're not helping so much with childcare, childcare, environment housing, you know, everything else.

Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah. I think people don't think about the opportunity cost as much as they maybe should.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, and I've seen this as a major fertility factor that is more addressable than many cultures give it credit for.

Mm-hmm. Eh, specifically at Nacon, one couple was telling me, well, we had kids much [00:11:00] earlier than we had planned on having them because we had moved to a, a community that wasn't our birth community. And the pastor at this community said, oh, well, we'll be there for you. Like, we'll help you with, with childcare.

You let me know when you need it. And then they were like, okay. Then I had a kid, and then the pastor told them when the kid was crying one day, he's like, you can let the kid cry. Like, we don't care. Like, and they were like, and I felt really self conscious and then I didn't feel self conscious.

So we had a second kid. And. These things at a cultural level, like people can be like, culture isn't something you can change and it like literally is you can just go to your pastor and be like, Hey, can we like put together some system for like childcare sharing or something like that for, for our parishioners.

Can you like call out and praise people who have children like that? Like increases fertility rates really dramatically.

Robin Hanson: Right. Obviously you as a grandparent could just tell your children about how you might be willing to help, but that's an awkward conversation. I think that is right.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I also, a lot of us can't, like, I can't make my parents take care of my kids, and in truth, I [00:12:00] don't think they have the, like, you've gotta trust a parent to take care of every kid as well.

Like, you've gotta trust, like, oh, I'll leave a toddler around this person. And I think we're of a generation that may not have a level of trust in our parents conscientiousness around little toddlers that would've been taken for granted in previous generations. So. Well, and maybe a lot

Simone Collins: of that too has to do with child count and, and child rearing participation.

So if, for example, only one parent, primarily raised only one child, like their experience with childcare is probably just, or, or worse

Malcolm Collins: if they, if they had nannies all the time.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: So our habit of moving away from home when we become adults is related here. That is, if we stayed in the same neighborhood where our parents lived, we probably could arrange for more grandparent help in child rearing.

Yeah. But we have this habit of going to college somewhere far away and then going to a job far away. And that does make it a lot harder for grandparents to help.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Though I, I will say we [00:13:00] know anecdotally, at least a lot of people who, after having kids have moved to be closer with their parents or have parents who have moved to be closer to them.

And it's encouraging to see that, like people I think do understand the value. It's just making it happen. Is a lot harder than other like, than it, than it used to be because in many cases, parents really prefer to live a life that doesn't involve providing free child labor, be

Malcolm Collins: willing to make sacrifices, and part of the sacrifice is moving.

I was talking with a reporter recently and this reporter was telling me well, I only have one kid and I live in Manhattan, so I can't easily have more kids because my husband and I have jobs in Manhattan. And I was like, oh, that's really tough. You know, like maybe. And I was thinking, oh, maybe you get jobs outside of Manhattan or something like that.

The conversation goes on and I realize, I was like, wait a second, you're a journalist and you are husband. Runs a startup, you can move you. You, you have jobs in Manhattan 'cause you have chosen to have [00:14:00] jobs in Manhattan. Being a journalist, you don't need to go to the office every week. And your husband chooses where his office is based.

You have chosen to sacrifice the lives of your future children. And I think that that cultural framing is also really big. It's one that we talk about pretty frequently is for us, when we think about like, when does life start the way you view life can change how many kids you're gonna end up having.

For fertility, it appears about the worst way to view life at the beginning of conception. 'cause castles have really low fertility rates when you control for income. But I think the best way is the way that we do, which is to say, every time you choose between two timelines, if you choose to erase a life, was in one of those timelines, you are responsible for eradicating that person.

And you should think about the you in that timeline, how they would feel about your decision. So when I was talking to the journalist and she's like, well, how, how do I have another kid? Like, can you convince me? And I was like, well, you know, if you have that other kid, five years from now that you in that timeline is mortified that you ever [00:15:00] had this conversation, they're mortified that you ever thought, even for one instance about not having that kid, that timeline is just as valid as a timeline in which you don't have the kid.

So you should consider that iteration of yourself that is mortified, your selfishness for deciding not to bring a life into the world. And I think that when you, when I talk to reporters about Simone, you know, getting, because she's. The most c-sections anyone has ever had is 11, and Simone's gonna be at five with this kid, you know, so she's getting up there.

And so, you know, she is putting her life at risk and people are like, why would she put her life at risk? And I'm like, the moral equation is obvious. Like if a robber had a gun to your, your, your spouse's head and one of your kids' head and was like, if you don't tell me to like shoot the spouse, I'm gonna shoot the kid.

Everybody chooses shoot the spouse, right? Like, but why isn't this the case when it's a baby?

Robin Hanson: So I've got three more trends left. Go for it. Yes. So one, is there vanity? So we had the debate at the previous event, but I, I do think basically. [00:16:00] There's this attraction of urbanity that this, the city centers are full of activities and they're full of status.

There's a place to meet and hang with people. Yeah. And if you wanna choose a high status life, that's a place to go. But it does cost you in terms of opportunity to cost, including in space and income. And so that does come at the expense, I think, of fertility. Mm-hmm. So, you don't have to live in city centers, but people, if you want to choose fertility, you can, but often the price of that is to be less away from the center of activity.

Right. Yeah. What,

Simone Collins: what are your thoughts on the role that urbanity plays? However, in matchmaking like you, I think it's a lot easier to find a partner when you're in a highly dense area. And that it seems like, I mean, my, my general intuition is. Go to highly dense population centers to find your person and then when you find them, get out of there and start your family.

Right. But unfortunately,

Robin Hanson: like we're pretty plastic culturally when we're young. Yeah. So if you go to the city when you're 20 and you spend the next few years looking for partners, you will also assimilate the city values and the city practices. Yeah. It's so

Simone Collins: hard to get out there and then

Robin Hanson: you will. Be less eager to leave [00:17:00] the city to go have kids somewhere else you might wanna contribute.

Do you think that's true

Simone Collins: though? When like the plot of all the Hallmark Christmas movies and romances is girl with big power job from the city goes back home for Christmas reluctantly Of course. Or like to some small Podunk town meets hunky man and stays there forever. Forever. Like there seems to be this

Malcolm Collins: I, I.

I think that if you approach stages, life stages, like a preset life stage model, as a culture, like I was raised, totally, your life happens in stages. Do this at this stage, this at this stage, this at this stage. It's, it's easier to switch between them if you have that preset up, especially if you have the stage in the city framed of as like a, a, a trial and bad.

If you teach your kid to think of a city as a place there, there's not really anything to do because everything costs a ton of money and is it's pointless. And that you, you really only get freedom, the freedom to have the privilege of living in the countryside once you find a partner. I think that that could help them set up more.

But I, I, [00:18:00]

Robin Hanson: I, I think the more options feed into the capstone marriage concept too, though. Mm. That is, look, if you just lived in a small town and those are all the people, you would just pick somebody from among them and like, make, do and go on with it. Yeah. The city raises your standards. Here's all these people.

I need to pick like one of the best of all these people. I can't just pick the first person I like. Overwhelmed by how and then the expectation that they're all around for many years. What? You know, how do you think you're gonna leave so earlier than, than you assimilate the culture of expecting to spend 10 years in the city?

I. Looking for the very best person.

Malcolm Collins: Fair point. I actually really like something you said there, but I I, I change it a little for like realistic high achieving culture, which is you want a pool that people are dating within that they feel they can exhaust. If they feel that the dating pool is inexhaustible then they go on forever.

But if you're like, no, this is all of the best people in the world here. Here they are. Yeah. Like that's really what caused me to marry you, Simone, is I went to Stanford Business School. I was like, oh, this is supposed to be like the highest competency women in the world. They're not as good as you. So [00:19:00] I know I've, I've searched the world.

So you need a balanced

Simone Collins: game of musical chairs and you need to know when the music's about to stop.

Malcolm Collins: To do this with our kids is put together a discord like thing with parents who have kids around our kids' age who are like based and interesting and like the most successful people in the world. And we are searching really hard to make this group as big as possible.

And then we tell the kids in this discord, you can date whatever. And if you find someone you like, we'll send you to live with their family for a bit. So you can like get to know them, get to know the kids and date in a controlled environment so that you get this feeling of, if I don't find the person in this discord, I'm not gonna find many people more interesting than this.

Robin Hanson: So think about careers. I did the thing where I kept changing careers many times. Yes, until I found a career I liked, but that was costly for me. Most people find a career that's good enough and they stick with it. Yeah. And it might be, if we had that attitude toward marriage, like I think I had more of the attitude toward marriage.

I found my wife and I said, good enough. Let's take her. I [00:20:00] wasn't thinking, well, is she really better than the best I could find Uhhuh, but for careers, I had this higher standard of, okay, this is okay. I like it, but like this other thing over there might be even better.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: So just think about the inconsistency versus career choice versus marriage.

People seem to choose their careers much earlier in life than they choose their life partners. It's not clear that you actually should, I mean, you have to spend some time searching for each and then pick and go.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Your, your life partner matters more and will influence your career. Like the career that they want will influence the career that you want.

Like you, they can also help

Simone Collins: you get a career. We got more reason

Malcolm Collins: to pick them early. Exactly.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And having a spouse can give you the security to have a career. We know so many people who took turns getting graduate degrees or doing the risky jobs so that the other one had the steady job and it's just, everything's better with a good spouse.

Robin Hanson: Okay. My second to last trend is less religion.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: So clearly there's huge correlations with religion around the world and fertility.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Robin Hanson: And the world has become less religious and that just seems to [00:21:00] be a trend that's causing lower fertility. You know, have to understand necessarily why exactly, but it, it does seem to be real.

Malcolm Collins: And what a lot of people miss about this is religion is dropping a gin alpha at a much faster rate than it is in other generations. Mm-hmm. I'll try to put a graph on screen here, if I remember. And so people see that religion has stopped dropping in the United States this year and they're like, oh, this is a sign that just trying to stopped and maybe fertility rates.

So I don't think that that is a sign of that. I think that what we're seeing is reconversion into religion of adults and not a drop in, in, in the rate to which young people are being torn out of religions and, you know, like us or JD Vance or something like that. Like, and I don't think that this is as as positive a sign

Robin Hanson: as people think it is.

If, if I had to look for an explanation, it seems to me that. When people are really poor and in desperate circumstances, religion does comfort them in a really substantial way.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Oh, I, I don't think that's why, I think the reason why religion increases fertility rates is two reasons. One is that it provides an [00:22:00] exogenous motivation to have kids beyond hedonism a lot of secularists when they're having kids.

Sure. They're like, will they improve my quality of life? Will I enjoy having them? Will I, but in a religion, it's like, this is the duty, you know? And so you don't even question how it's gonna make you feel or anything like that. So the exogenous motivation increases the number of kids. Two, I think religiosity is often just a, a, a very high correlary sort of indicator of a person's how much they're in a, an ancestral culture versus the urban monoculture.

When somebody becomes more, more urban monoculture, more like, of this progressive cultural group that is all around cities today and is sort of like a mimetic virus they, they decrease in religiosity. And so, if you look at. Atheists who are distant from the urban monoculture, they're often pretty high fertility.

So you can look at like Elon Musk, who's pretty distinct from the urban monoculture, very high fertility or some people would consider us a form of secularists and we're pretty high fertility. So I think that the,

Robin Hanson: there's two, there's two parts. There's, there's what's [00:23:00] causing the, the religion decline and then does religion decline?

Cause fertility decline? So, mm, I mean, I think in the mo in a modern, rich world, we're comfortable and secure enough that we don't need religion so much. But look, when you're just really poor and like your children are dying and you're in war and whatever, religion just is an appeal much more directly.

Like it gives you comfort and some place in the world and meaning that you really want and need. And, but once you have that, the structure that you tend to get with it comes with structures that make you also wanna be fertile. That is the kind of meaning you get in religion is. Like, you know, helps is a compliment of the kind of meaning you get in family.

But there's this puzzle. Why? Why isn't there Vermont culture religious? And I think it's because they're just rich and comfortable and not really very afraid of very much. Although, and don't you think

Simone Collins: there's also this big correlation between religions and the ability to delay gratification and think in terms of the longer term with the contrast being that mainstream urban [00:24:00] monoculture culture is about instant pleasure and you will never have kids, or at least a lot of kids, if your life is about instant pleasure.

Like kids are definitely a delayed gratification thing.

Robin Hanson: It's strikingly though a lot of, you know, the urban monoculture people are willing to make sacrifices for careers. You know, they'll spend a lot of time studying for classes, sorts of

Simone Collins: things. That's, yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point.

Yeah, they're, they're not always the most fun. So, wait, then, what is, what is the Robin Hansen solution to the Robin Hansen fertility stack of demographic collapse? Like what would you,

Robin Hanson: if you were just one last trend, and then let's talk about the underlying problem.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Robin Hanson: So one last trend is just a more integrated world, a less integrated world will just have more variety in all these different kinds of cultures around the world and what their attitudes were related to fertility.

So a more varied world would just have some places that happen to have high fertility and other low, and at least, you know, we'd have more [00:25:00] overall fertility. But our dominant monoculture is low fertility, and we have all this communication and travel and trade in the world that just merges the world together into a shared culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robin Hanson: So the high, so now the question is, okay, we see all these trends. What's the cause now first notice. In our world, the most prestigious intellectuals are the people who comment on the sort of trends we've been talking about. They point out what the social trends were and they wanna like talk about what the trend should be.

Everybody loves this culture trend conversation. It's the, the most elite conversation you see in pundits and you know everybody else. It is, it is, but, but there's also a separate group of people who analyze how culture happens over time. They are specialists in cultural evolution and they are not very prestigious, even among academics.

And they really crave being scientific. And so they try not to enter into these conversations about cultural [00:26:00] trends because that would be non-scientific. And those are the people I turn to, to understand what's happening with culture, how does it work and how to understand these trends. But you have to turn away from the most prestigious culture talk because I.

The way people talk about culture is kind of the way you guys have been here, which is, as a participant, you say, what are the trends? What do I like? What I don't? Which, what could I argue for? What could I argue against? Mm-hmm. That's what prestigious culture talk is like, is analyzing, like recruiting allies for your direction to push culture and recruiting like arguments and, and things like that.

And that's what you're doing in fertility. And, and I'm, I'm glad you are doing it, but the key thing to notice is that makes you somewhat blind to what's this process by which cultures change? How does that work and how do we tell us? 'cause we've written the whole

Malcolm Collins: book on this subject. Yeah. We're curious to get your take.

Robin Hanson: Well, so, so the basic idea is it's just randomness that is. [00:27:00] Humanity superpower is cultural evolution, and it's just a different kind of biological evolution. Yeah. And it's just variation in selection. And in fact, it's simpler than DNA evolution because DNA evolution had had billions of viewers to collect all sorts of like clever tricks and hooks and like fixes for things.

But cultural evolution is just new and simple. And so it's really just very basic variation in selection.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the analogy that we use in the book, the pragmatist guided crafting religion, which is a hundred percent on this topic, is we argue that culture is an evolving software that sits on top of our biological hardware and can adapt to environmental constraints much faster than the hardware can.

Robin Hanson: Hmm. Right now the framing I want want you to see though, is an analogy to driving a car. Like, so when you're driving a car, you have a control system. You look and see the road ahead. And you see where the road turns and then you're supposed to see the road. Think about where you wanna be. Tell your hands to turn the wheel.

The wheel turns the, you know, the, [00:28:00] the wheel turns the tires and then the tires moves the car. And each of these things has parameters in terms of the delay and sort of the noise. And that should be compared to like how fast you're going down the road and how fast the road's changing. So if your parameters of how fast you notice things and how noisy you see things are too bad, you won't be able to stay on the road and you'll just go off the road.

If you drive slowly enough and see the road well enough, you can follow the road, but otherwise you go off. And the same sort of parameter comparison should be there for cultural evolution. Cultural evolution is this process where there's a distribution of cultures and there's a, some sort of distribution of fitness landscape.

And the fitness landscape's actually gonna be moving a bit. And these points on the landscape are also gonna be fluctuating around a bit. And you, the cloud of points will follow the fitness landscape as it moves if the parameters are right, that is if you have enough points. Mm-hmm. If [00:29:00] the pressure to, like, you know, when you have the more adaptive region, the the pressure, you know, those things grow faster, other things shrink, then the drift rate is low enough and the rate at which the landscape changes is low enough, then.

Selection can follow it. That is the cloud of points will follow the landscape as it moves if the parameters are right for cultural evolution. And then the thing to notice is the parameters have changed. So three centuries ago, the world had hundreds of thousands of peasant cultures. Yes. Each of which had a thousand or 2000 people in it that were really pretty independent.

They didn't trade that much with each other or do that much. They, each little peasant culture mostly was self-sufficient. And they were poor at the edge of survival. So they suffered famines and, and pandemics and wars all the time. And they were conservative. They didn't wanna change very much. They tried to stay near where they were and the environment was changing slowly.

So, you know, the world economy doubled roughly every thousand years up until a few centuries [00:30:00] ago. And so that's a stable situation for. The cloud of cultures to follow the adaptive landscape. Slow change, conservative change, lots of variety and strong selection pressures. Mm-hmm. And now in the last few centuries, we've changed all four of these parameters.

So we first merged peasant cultures into the nation national cultures. So there's a famous book, peasants in the French Men describing that in France, but it happened everywhere. Mm. And then afterwards, these different national cultures have merged into a global monoculture, as you're all aware. So the variety has gone way, way down.

And then if you look at selection pressures, cultures just don't die very much anymore from war or pandemic or famine because we're rich, we're healthy, we're at peace. And so, you know, there's just very little selection. Now the environment is changing very fast. That is what behaviors are adaptive is, is rapidly changing as the [00:31:00] economy grows.

And then added all to that, we have this internal random change process. We have cultural activists who are trying to change culture like you guys are trying to do. Yeah. And they are, they have fights over which way culture goes. And some of them win the fights in southers lose. And the winners are our, our greatest heroes in our world.

Cultural activists who fought for cultural change, but the fights and who wins them aren't very aligned with adaptive pressures. So from the point of view of the system, it's kind of, it's a random drift. It's a, it's a lot random fluctuation. So fast changing environment, a lot of random drift. Not much selection, far less variety.

That's a recipe for going off the road.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it. So the, the, the, the addition to your model that I would add, and we talk about this a lot in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, is culture should be thought of as broadly being in two categories. First we use with a lot of data to argue historically that culture should largely be thought of as religious groups.

Like that's a, [00:32:00] the easiest. Historically, they're mostly religions and that they mostly grew not through conversions, but by affecting fertility rates of populations. They literally enhanced the biological fitness of their host. And that in modern times we've had cultural. Parasites evolved that were not that common in evolutionary history.

Essentially in the same way that you can get para like super bugs in hospitals where you have a bunch of immunocompromised people all next to each other. If you have a bunch of people outside of an environment that is anything like the environment, their culture evolved in, in like city, you're gonna get the environment of mees, which realize that they can grow faster by motivating a person to almost like a.

Virus infecting an ant. Ignore your own reproduction. Just replicate the meme. Just replicate the meme. Just replicate the meme. And we argue that this is what the urban monoculture is. So we've got sort of a double whammy here, which is what you pointed [00:33:00] out what was very astute which is that the, the cult, the environment that the culture needs to optimize fertility within is entirely different than the environment it evolved within.

But now you also have these. Parasitic attacking. They, they're not even like, it's like you're surrounded by wolves. You're basically sending your child into like a den of wolves every day and hoping they make it back out because the wolves can only survive because of their low fertility rate by taking the children from other cultures.

And, and that this is as bad as the change in modernity.

Robin Hanson: So this, this field of cultural evolution, these experts do find the ways that cultural evolution go wrong. And one of them, as you say, the more you inherit from people other than your DNA parents, the more ways that, you know, things can be inherited, that aren't promoting you know, DNA reproduction.

And that's one of the ways that can go wrong. Another [00:34:00] way it can, it's known to be able to go wrong, is the key idea is if you just copy random previous generation people, it doesn't help. You have to be selective about copy, who you copy to be better than average. Right. And our main simple heuristic is to copy prestige copy status.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Robin Hanson: Mm-hmm. But if the status markers we use are maladaptive, then the whole thing could go maladaptive. So one story is that we got into this habit of using education as a status marker. And so we copy the behavior of the well-educated. But they have lower fertility because it takes longer to be well educated.

So right. That's a driver for lower fertility is to, because the status marker is maladaptive, so status markers can just evolve and become maladaptive, and then it takes a longer process for, you know, the whole society to be selected out to replace it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, I mean, I could argue that education isn't intrinsically maladaptive.

Education is maladaptive in our culture because of one, how we relate to it, and two, because it's infected with the urban monoculture at a much higher rate than any [00:35:00] other cultural center. And the urban monoculture focused on evolutionary pressures just like everything else. It overly focused on the educational centers because the iterations of it that did were better at spreading themselves.

If you have access to young minds, people generally convert from their birth culture between the ages of 13 and 22. And so, if you con have access to them during those age ages, like a lot of people have been with the urban monoculture, like, Hey, trans people lay off kids. Like, why are you being so creepy about this?

I mean, it is because the iterations of the trans culture that weren't, didn't spread and don't exist anymore because you can really only get someone at that very young age range. In addition, they started to focus on tactics that we see as in cults due to cultural evolution. Like convincing people to hate their support network, like their parents, their family their, their ancestors, because it's much easier to do to, to convert them into a different religion if you, if you do this.

But anyway, continue. I'm, I'm interested,

Robin Hanson: so I wanna make a distinction here that like, takes a little work, but it helps us to [00:36:00] think about these things. So think about species in biology, okay? Yeah. There's two levels of evolution that happens in biology with species. There's evolution of features within a species, things that can change within a species, and there's evolution of the features that define a species.

Now, when you have large habitats, like a big ocean region, you have fewer bigger species and they have faster evolution of. Features that can vary within a species, 'cause the species is bigger and innovations can appear anywhere and spread to the whole rest. Yeah. But you have less innovation of the features that define a species.

'cause there aren't so many and a fragmented habitat like a river, a rainforest or, or a coral reef. You have lots of little habitats and so you have lots of small species and that makes less evolution within the species, but better evolution of the species of the features that define a species. Now it turns out life on earth today, it ha came more from the fragmented places, which means that evolution of the features that define a species [00:37:00] actually matters more than the evolution of the features that can vary within a species.

Surprisingly interesting. The same, the same thing. Homes for corporate cultures. So corporations, you know, some innovations can spread within a company and then the bigger the company is, the better you can evolve those iterations and many kinds of things that can be patented are of that form. So bigger companies have more patents.

And so an industry that has a fewer, bigger firms is better at patenting and producing the innovations that can vary within a firm. But industries that are more fragmented, that have more smaller firms, are more innovative overall. Ah, because they can better innovate in the corporate culture features that are, that define the whole corporation, that you need a whole new corporation to experiment with those.

And so the same thing should happen with macro cultures. And you see many people are fooled by the fact that we have record economic growth today, say, but that's because when we merged the entire world into one big [00:38:00] monoculture, we have great evolution of the things that can vary within the monoculture mm-hmm.

Like technology and business practices. So we, those are going gangbusters. We have record ever rates of innovation in business practices and, and technology. But at the expense of. Much weaker or even regressive evolution of the features that are shared across the culture, like the ones we were going through.

Hmm. The major cultural features that are causing fertility Kline are the kind that it's hard for a small group to deviate from the world consensus on, if

Simone Collins: that's really, they say you don't

Robin Hanson: wanna value education, but the world does. You just get less education. But now the world disrespects you and you suffer.

You can't just make a group of people who all say, we don't care about education, we're just gonna care about each other. That, that's hard to make.

Malcolm Collins: That's interesting. Yes. So if you were going to craft a culture to combat this, what features would it

Robin Hanson: have? Well, I like the analogy of you're [00:39:00] on a ship heading to an iceberg, you've got two choices.

You turn the whole ship or you get off on icebergs. That's not a iceberg off on light. Sorry, the iceberg sense it. So that's this. So. If you are mixed in with our global culture, you need to help us change the whole global culture in order for us to not fall off the cliff, hit the iceberg, or you need to form a new subculture that's insular enough to actually deviate from the dominant culture.

And that's hard. So that's, for example, what the Amur Retta have succeeded in doing, which is really amazing. They've created not only insular, they've created subcultures not only have high fertility in double every 20 years, they're insular enough to be able to resist the outside influence. And that's in part by foregoing many kinds of technology and contact.

And that's a really high bar. So if you have a small, if you have a small group of people say, we wanna make a new subculture here. The, the key question as, as I've [00:40:00] talked to you guys about before is how insular do you think you can actually be?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I think that it is possible, and this is, this is a hypothesis that it is possible to craft a culture that can interact with technology and mainstream culture and not deconvert.

And if anyone can do this that person owns the future because that person is gonna have automated drone sworn and everyone else is gonna have AKs.

Robin Hanson: So like the Amish do use technology, they just resist the technology that would put 'em in cultural context. So they have like, yeah, they switch to small businesses.

They use machines in their small businesses. They use, you know, tractors, they use trucks, they use, you know, all sorts of machines that don't threaten to give them cultural influence.

Simone Collins: Some, some do, some do not. Not all. But yeah.

Robin Hanson: Right. So interestingly, like farm, the Amish were farmers up until a generation ago, and then the last generation they made the switch to be mainly rural small business, which is quite a substantial change.

And it does risk their in ancillary infertility, [00:41:00] but they seem to be making a go of it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm concerned about them. I, I've read that from some people who've had more exposure to the communities than we have, that those who are adopting more technology are also seeing a fall off in the stability of their communities, their marriages, their, their birth rates, actually.

Well, that's the risk

Malcolm Collins: to worry about. Yes. There was a great study on this Simone that looked at Pennsylvania Dutch speakers, the Uhhuh in the US Uhhuh, and then whether or not they had cell phones. And if they had cell phones, they had fairly low fertility rates. And if they didn't, they had fairly high fertility rates.

Mm-hmm. So, like their community isn't that resistant to, to cultural mimetic viruses.

Robin Hanson: So I watched some videos on like Hutter writes and yeah. One of the stories you see over and over is that like if you want a local doctor, then he has to be sent off to a medical school and then when he comes back he's less likely to stay.

Simone Collins: Ah. And

Robin Hanson: so I, I think that's really the main reason they are pacifist. They just don't want their young men to go off and mix with other young men in the [00:42:00] military. I think when they're big enough to have their own military units, they'll be fine

Malcolm Collins: point. I mean, even from a cultural evolution perspective, it would be the iterations of the Anaba traditions that weren't pacifist had their men interact with other men in militaries and disappeared.

Right. I had never thought why so many of them were. That makes,

Simone Collins: so it's almost like the same as avoiding university, you're saying? Yes. Right. Like

Robin Hanson: avoiding being a medical student. So they actually have trouble getting their own doctors. They were gonna go to a non Amish doctor, or how to write doctor, because it's hard to have their own doctors 'cause to send their own boys off to medical school and get them to actually come back and stay is a hard trick.

Simone Collins: Okay, that makes sense. Wow. Okay. That's super interesting. That's really

Robin Hanson: clever. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But it shows you what you're up against here. Yeah. Trying to have a small subculture, let's call it cults. The world actually could use more cults and let's just call it cults. It

Simone Collins: really could. Yeah.

Robin Hanson: But it's hard to maintain a cult.

Most small colts just die and don't last very long. Yeah. And the hard part here, if you wanna do the lifeboat strategy as opposed to turn the ship, [00:43:00] you've gotta find a way to, you know, keep the boat, the lifeboat intact and away from the ship. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's quite a challenge.

Malcolm Collins: I might push back against the concept.

A lot of people are like, oh, you know, you guys are starting your own weird religion or whatever like that. The most of those die I'd actually argue, if you look historically, that's not really true. Most religions are, if you look at like, cults, cults, if they were founded for like personal gain or something like that, most of them die.

But the ones that were not founded by per for personal gain. Right. Actually fairly frequently or persistent. There is not a, unless now there's a few, unless it's here, unless they were celibate. There's that, yes, of course. Or they were founded around a. A, a fad that was temporarily locked. So these are often tied to like eating habits and stuff like that.

Robin Hanson: There's a literature that I recall on looks at communes in the United States from the 18 hundreds. Yeah. And how they varied in the. Intensity of the [00:44:00] religions that were organized around them. Articles,

Simone Collins: great

Robin Hanson: one, right? High Ask Religions lasted longer than low Ask religions.

Simone Collins: There you go.

Robin Hanson: Yeah. And so basically don't be afraid to do a strong ask in terms of what the culture, culture is asking of its participants, because that's, in fact, high asks, will make you people more stay with religion if

Simone Collins: Yeah.

In, in the private guide to crafting religion, we compare them from like hard to soft to super soft cultures with hard cul cultures, making the most asks, doing the most othering, but also having the most cultural amenities that are really beneficial because often the, the hardness of these cultures is accompanied by really helpful amenities.

Like okay, an ask might be a lot of fasting days, but those fasting days help you develop inhibitory control. And there are other health benefits as well. A big ask might be, well you have to communi, you have to contribute all these things to community, but you may be contributing childcare to families that enables 'em to have more kids, which is a huge amenity for them.

And they wouldn't wanna leave that 'cause they need the childcare. So. That there's that, that weird [00:45:00] correlation that also the, the, the more weird you are in your culture. We really like this concept of othering as, as I think, you know, because we like our weird names and weird dress and weird behavior because it stops you, it makes you see yourself as distinct from mainstream culture and have some pride in that.

It also creates

Malcolm Collins: negative emotional moments with mainstream culture. Like people are like, oh, you name your kids weird things. Won't they be mocked in school? And I'm like, that's a good thing. You want them to dislike the urban monoculture. Yeah.

Robin Hanson: So I did some surveys a while ago and, and had some conversations with some people who are in a multicultural and, and I think.

People agreed with the following description. A lot of people in our world like the idea of multiculturalism when they think of it as different foods and dress and holidays and mist and you know, in ways you build your houses. They love that kind of multiculturalism and different TV shows different, you know?

Yeah. Different song genres, right? Yeah. When you talk about multiculturalism as having deep values of the sort we talked about that are driving fertility change like gender [00:46:00] equality or war or democracy, people hate the idea of that kind of multiculturalism. Yeah. They don't want that kind. They're particularly against it.

So that's, you know, the kind of the obstacle here the world is so. Into shallow multiculturalism and really aggressively against deep multiculturalism. So like, think about covid. There were one or two nations in the world that deviated from the world consensus about how to do covid. And everybody else in the world was like, heretics terrible.

Like, you know, string 'em up. How do we allow, how do we dare allow Sweden to have a different covid policy? Everybody else. Because, you know, oh, that

Malcolm Collins: was such a, a thing. Yeah, I, I know I love this, but we, we have a, a theory on this. So if you look at the urban monoculture, which is I think is what's driving this view of multiculturalism they will say above all else, like, multiculturalism is good.

And then I'm like, okay, so like in Africa, Africa are, are you okay with their like marriage structure? Is it like, no, their gender roles are all wrong. Are you okay with their sexuality? No. No, that's all wrong. Are you okay with the way they view morality? No, that's all wrong. Are you okay with [00:47:00] the way they view religion?

Oh, well, that's all wrong. And what I realized after a while, and I always was like, why, why even does diversity have value if everyone's secretly the same? Like it, it wouldn't, what they mean by valuing diversity is that they value a diversity in victims. They value a diversity in people that they convert to their imperialistic cultural practices.

And not in maintaining actual diversity, because the odd thing about the ever monoculture is it lets you superficially identify as like a Muslim or a Christian, but you can't have Muslim or Christian views about like gay people. You can't have Muslim or Christian views about like a wife's role in the family.

So yeah, so in

Robin Hanson: the long run we have. The success that if we eventually spread across the stars, the distances will ensure cultural diversity. That is, thank goodness mm-hmm. That the long delays will in fact mean that different places have different cultures and they just can't stop that. But if that's several centuries away, the question is how can we manage between [00:48:00] now and then, because in the next time we will have, again, the high rates of communication, trade, talk trade, you know, travel are just, seem like those costs are not gonna go way up anymore.

And so you have to artificially limit them if you're going to. Mm-hmm. And most people really enjoy all the, you know, connection with the world that we have. So even if I try to imagine asking a few friends to like, can we, you and I just like, isolate ourselves and live on an island and not talk to anybody else.

Yeah. That's gonna, that's gonna work.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Now we, we even have so many friends who've been like, Hey, let's all just like move to this one place and build a community together. And people have even started that. They've purchased property and they can't get anyone to move out. Or people are like, ah, you know, let's, ah, I don't really feel like it.

Malcolm Collins: I'm sure you've seen this a hundred times. People try to start communions.

Robin Hanson: I, I actually joined a cult when I was a tween, so I have a best emotional inside view of, of cults. Did they live together? So it [00:49:00] was a religion. I was in San Diego and it was a local Pentecostal religious cult. And I sort of attended their meetings and they had meetings at group houses, and they had a, some compound in Iowa they never went to, but basically Oh,

Simone Collins: wow.

Robin Hanson: Basically, I, I could feel emotionally what it was like to be in a cult, and I can see the appeal. So I think ever since then, I, I understand at a visceral level what it, what the appeal is.

Simone Collins: Well, what was it that drew you in? I mean, especially as a, a teen boy tween. Really Tween boy. Yeah.

Robin Hanson: Right. Well, the idea was just they included you.

They loved you, they wanted the best for you, and they were gonna, you know, help you if they could. That sense of belonging and mutual support was very attractive. And then of course, they had a mission and they had a, a, a reason they were special and that, that motivated them and gave, gave them. Meaning, and that's all very attractive even to like, you know, a 12-year-old me who grew up in our shared culture, but we don't offer that so much to most people.[00:50:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah, fair enough. And that was just

Robin Hanson: appealing. But you know, after I, I don't know, six months or a year, my parents said, you can't go there anymore. We don't like them. And I just, okay, fine. So I didn't fight my parents or rebel too much. I'm, I'm, but I, but basically I still remember what it felt like. And that's wild.

It is a strong appeal, but you can see most people just y the very idea of what I'm saying for most people goes That sounds pretty icky. Yeah. And that's part of the modern culture is that, is to disapprove of that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. You talk about the well and just simultaneously love bomb you with their tactics and if you join their pro process.

Robin Hanson: So interestingly, history is that roughly a century, a century and a half ago, cultural elites in our societies. Realized consciously that they had drifted away from some more stable culture that they had come from, and they then called themselves modernists and they said they were in a modern era. What they meant by that literally was.

The one thing we're sure of is we don't want to go [00:51:00] back to the culture of a century ago that our grandparents had. That's clearly what we don't want. We wanna go somewhere new, we don't know where that is, and we're gonna explore the space of possible writing styles and paintings and architecture and songs and everything else.

And they celebrated this search for something new, but they were, they knew they were uncured. And that was part of their description of, we don't know what we really value here. And then in the middle of the 20th century, world War I, Andi became a moral anchor for a lot of the world. That was the one thing they decided, they knew we are anti-Nazi.

We don't know what else, but we know we're we're American.

Simone Collins: And then it became capitalism. And then, well, it

Robin Hanson: was antis, sexism, anti-racism, and you know, lots of things like there, but also anti-communism or anti-socialist. Right? Yeah. But still, a lot of our world is still modernist in the sense that we value this idea that we are just moving in the space of possible cultures.

And we're not saying still. And that's, that's what gives a lot of energy to cultural activism. Activism is this idea that. Our current culture couldn't possibly be the right one. Surely we need to like [00:52:00] find a new one to move to because that's who we're, where they, they wanderers in the space and cultures.

Simone Collins: I feel like that even might've started with deism. And then you sort of see this like with a lot of the founding fathers being Deists, if I'm not completely misremembering, everything terribly right? And they kind of had this vision and, and it kind of also dovetailed with the development of American democracy, representative democracy.

But it just never, the follow through just fell apart and it was sort of allowed to degrade. And it was never really, it never really turned into the thing. It was roughly in some fever dream meant to be. I would argue that what Malcolm is trying to create with techno puritanism is, is very much driven by that.

It's like this idea of the belief in an Abrahamic Christian Judeo God, but just technically, scientifically correct. That like Malcolm's trying to pick up where the Deists left off, even from a governance perspective of like, let's also try to create the most optimal. Governance format. I just think that it's really hard to [00:53:00] do these things on a societal and especially collaborative level because what, what you saw with the founding fathers is like a couple of great minds came together.

You know, you had a lot of people sort of like, like these battling substack with the Federalist papers and all these like thought leaders being like, oh, I think this and I think this, and they're all, they're talking about it. It's just that there wasn't this ability to take all these threads and knit them together.

And I, I still don't know how that is going to happen, but it could be that in the face of demographic collapse and the civilizational collapse that we see as a result of a fumbled demographic collapse, you know, like countries basically not being able to handle their. Crumbling infrastructure and, and, and social systems that we will see city states that do have enough of a coherent narrative and grip of what they want their deism or like religion or culture to be that they can actually pull it off and build a city upon a hill that actually sticks.

I don't know,

Robin Hanson: I think a lot will have to be some level of believing in things that it's just not really fashionable [00:54:00] anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I feel like we've, there was certainly this era for the past decade or so where. Everyone had to be ironic because to be too earnest was seen as cringe.

I feel like we've come into a new era where earnestness gets a premium and people are getting social credit for that, even when it is very cringe. So maybe now is time for faith. Now is now is our comeback.

Robin Hanson: So I wanna summarize what I've been arguing here because I see a new argument. So I set fertility is being caused by a number of cultural trends and that plausibly is caused by this larger cultural process of drift away from what was used to be adaptive culture.

And that's a really hard problem to fix. We can understand in terms of these parameters, but it's really hard to change these parameters. One would be add more cultural variety and I guess that's the one you're pursuing. Like can you make just separate insular or subcultures and, and produce more variety that way?

I definitely hope you succeed, but it does seem like [00:55:00] a, a difficult thing to do. The other solutions we can try to think of to change these other parameters are also just big asks and difficult. So my, my overall conclusion is we actually don't know how to solve this problem and plausible if we don't solve this problem, our civilization just does decline until if yay come lowest level where something else rises again.

And that's happened many times before. So we shouldn't think we're that special that it can't happen to us. We should hope to try to prevent it and see what we can do instead. And I, you know, I wish you all the luck in producing some insular subculture that can rise like the Amish and Herre are doing, and replace the current culture and.

Look in some sense if some of these, if a proven successful culture would be willing to take on, you know, converts I might consider converting. 'cause I think I don't want to fall down with the world culture and collapse. I wanna be part of something that's rising, even if I have to compromise for it, you know, tell me what the compromises I have to make, [00:56:00] but they're not really open to converts.

That's part of a wise choice they have. Lemme

Malcolm Collins: say this is, I would argue that the last time this happened, when they had the collapse last time, there was the successful new culture. And it's what today we call Christians. Yes. And it was just like cult. Everyone thought of them as like a cult until they got too big to call them names.

And they, they had like crazy ideas. They, they would feed themselves to lions, like, come on. Yeah. Like, that's a cult by modern standards. And they'd feed, they took the babies, other people left for exposure to the animals. And they took and raised them. Yeah. Like, they were weird, crazy people. We, we often, one of the, the lions, I love his tactics he complained that Jews wouldn't expose babies.

And I'm like, what a, what an inversion of blood libel there. Like these horrible Jews, they don't expose babies. But you, you know, there was a cult that, that, that, that came outta Judaism and that took over the world. And that I think when we look at what [00:57:00] does the group that's gonna replace the urban monoculture look like, we should look at what were the ways that the early Christians were different.

And it wasn't like the Amish or something. You basically had a big competition between the Christians and the, the military mystery cults. And I think that that's what we're gonna have within our time. The mystery cults are the people who are like, let's go back to tradition. And the, the Christians are the people who are like, no, here's this new thing.

Let's like meet and innovate.

Robin Hanson: I don't know how to predict what's, who's gonna win, but I can look, the, the insular fertile subcultures have a number of interesting features in common, at least today. They're all heavily religious. They're also very decentralized. I think that's an important thing to notice.

They each have governance of a scale of roughly a hundred people, and there's no higher governance that can control. Yeah. And I think that's, that protects them against some of them making mistakes. Say the, the Mormons did not do that. They had more centralized governments. And then when the centralized governments make a mistake, it takes 'em all down.

So, they're also you know, pacifist, which I think is keeping them insular. Yeah. They're also relatively [00:58:00] low tech. They don't let their kids go off and learn very specialized tech. That means they have to go to some separate school to learn it. And they're very egalitarian, honestly. And you know, they, they, they put that the people, they don't wear extra fan, the higher status.

People don't wear extra fancy clothes or things like that. And I think that also is, you know, so just looking at the correlation it seems like. Don't deviate too far from what's working, make your own special formula, but like take most of the stuff that seems to be working and try to just innovate in a few areas.

That would be my main re my main recommendation for all innovation is that there's a pile of innovators who have to innovate on every dimension. And That's crazy. So I was, I was a part of a group called Zou a long time ago, and there were all these very creative people who were inventing the worldwide web and then they had to be creative about everything and that just took 'em down.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. I remember that was a Silicon Valley group, right? Yeah. Silicon Valley Zou.

Robin Hanson: Like

Malcolm Collins: was it like a, a, a group house?

Robin Hanson: Well, at one point they might've [00:59:00] was a company to make the worldwide web. It was before the worldwide web. This was the late 1980s. Oh. Worldwide Web showed up like in the 90, you know, 93, and they were trying to create an alternative version of the worldwide web.

And I went off to Silicon Valley to hang out and be with them in 84. And, but they just had to be creative about everything. And later on I've gone back to Silicon Valley. See, see some other groups like that. They, they just, they're so creative, have so many ideas that they wanna just try new ideas on all the different aspects of their organizations.

And if you think about it, that's just not gonna work.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The follow through is, is very important. Yeah.

Robin Hanson: Well you need to pick your few best ideas to for change and package that with conservative choices on the other dimensions.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Commit then and follow through

Robin Hanson: and then that gives you your best shot.

You might, you know, still may still be a long shot, but your best shot for any idea is to package it with conservative parameters on all the other per on the other dimensions you have. So I say that's what I suggest for you. Choose your key radical things but then go along with the way the Amish or red 'em do it on the [01:00:00] other ones.

Don't deviate too far, like be pacifist perhaps.

Malcolm Collins: Makes sense. Well, we won't be pacifist. No, I I I think we need to. I mean, I, I think if you go the pacifist route, when the P day Roman of the urban Monoculture falls, you get wiped out.

Robin Hanson: Well, you

Malcolm Collins: have

Robin Hanson: to be ready to switch.

Malcolm Collins: And you're big enough that armed can feel military, armed

Simone Collins: pacifists sovereign armed pacifists is the key.

I guess. Don't send out your people. No, no outsourcing, no integrating. That's

Malcolm Collins: an interesting concept is, is defensive pacifism. I've never heard of it before, but I think it's, it's this, it's a clever one,

Simone Collins: but I just never thought about what you pointed out, Robin, that it was like medical school or military.

This is probably gonna cause some problems. That is, that is so fascinating. It has

Malcolm Collins: been wonderful to have you on.

Simone Collins: Yes. Thank you so much

Malcolm Collins: again. You, every time

Simone Collins: you tackle something, it's so brilliant. And we were just talking about this like, it's very, it's you, people like you who come across with these theories that are not only like cross disciplinary all over the place, but like memeable and [01:01:00] understandable are so rare.

So it's, it's a privilege. And please keep going. Keep keep coming up with new stuff.

Robin Hanson: Alright, well thank you. I'm honored and till we talk again, I guess.

Simone Collins: Great. Yes. Have a good one. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Okay.

In this episode, we delve into the ancient Roman fertility crisis, focusing on the efforts of Augustus to encourage marriage and childbearing among the Roman elite. We discuss various laws introduced by Augustus, such as the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea, aimed at promoting procreation and the penalties imposed on the unmarried and childless. We explore the historical context, examining the low fertility rates of notable Roman families and the societal implications. Furthermore, we draw parallels to modern issues of declining fertility rates, particularly in Italy, and the potential cultural and economic impacts. Join us as we uncover the motivations behind Augustus' policies and the ultimate challenges they faced in ensuring the survival of Rome's elite lineage.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about ancient Roman tism.

Simone Collins: Oh, the failed kind,

Malcolm Collins: right? Many people have heard. Of Rome as As, and they've, they've heard of, like Augustus say, being concerned about falling fertility rates among Roman elites. Mm-hmm. We've heard that he put in laws to try to prevent this.

Mm-hmm. We've heard, oh, this is mirrored with our current societal collapse and this is a pretense of the destruction of a global empire in the same way.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: People thought as a pretense of the destruction of the Roman empire. Right. Even though it wasn't, that happened a long time after this particular concern.

But I mean it kind of was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll see. But I was like, wait. What were those laws, what actually happened in Rome during this period? Mm-hmm. What did people of the period have to say about this? Mm-hmm. How low did the fertility rate of the Roman elite actually get? Hmm. And I'll also start by saying Rome's going through this again.

Italy right now has the fertility rate of only 1.18. That means every hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. We are looking at the complete collapse of, italian civilization likely was in our [00:01:00] lifetimes, which is gonna be good point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Hadn't thought. Yeah. We're sort of, we're back, we're back to square one.

Malcolm Collins: And this, this also causes a lot of problems like for Catholicism because if, if Italy is no longer Italian or Catholic anymore, you know what happens to the Vatican? Tough, tough world we might be entering. But I, I, I think they're gonna get it together. I think they're gonna get it together. I have faith so we'll start here talking about Augustus.

Okay. So Augustus uses platform to urge Romans to marry and have children framing it as a civic duty in a famous speech recorded by historian DiUS, he said. If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance. Oh wow. But since the nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them nor live in any way without them.

Yeah. We must plan for our lasting preservation. That's rather than, rather for our temporary pleasure. That's amazing. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: that is. I, we, we needed to have Augustus at Alcon, so all the journalists could be quoting [00:02:00] Augusta. Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: He would be the clickbait. He would be the, the, yeah, the soundbite generator for natal con, the soundbite

Malcolm Collins: generator for, for modern journalists.

Simone Collins: Wives, they're awful. But I mean, you gotta, you gotta put up with it. You gotta put up with it. It's like colonoscopies and wives

Malcolm Collins: necessary.

Not exactly a view. I, I'm not gonna say like that, that's a view I would've given to Romans, like, sat them down and been like, okay, it's gonna be terrible. It's gonna be the worst thing ever.

Simone Collins: Ugh. And women, I at least Trump, you know, is more like, man, you're so lucky. Yeah. Gods was really not selling it like at all. Like, you gotta do it. It sucks, but, but it's your duty. Yeah. No wonder this is doomed from the very start for the, my goodness.

Malcolm Collins: You don't set it for the queen,

Simone Collins: you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Lie back and think of England or Rome in this case.

Malcolm Collins: So this quote reflects his view that marriage, though challenging was essential for Rome survival. Mm-hmm. He also praised fathers of large families and criticized the childless, emphasizing the importance of producing heirs to maintain Rome's strengths.

Mm-hmm. On the [00:03:00] duty of recreation, he said you have shown yourself to be mindful of the continued existence of our race while these others have not Dio, Cassius book 56 spoken to married men with children. This quote praises them for fulfilling their civic duty while implicitly criticizing unmarried and childless for neglecting it.

This is so much worse than JD Vans. You have shown yourself to be mindful to the continued existence of our race. Well, the others have not. Childless cat

Simone Collins: is a lot more catchy.

Malcolm Collins: I just, I just need to just have quotes from him like in my back pocket to freak people out. You've been mindful about the preservation of our race.

I really appreciate that. And, you know, some others have not. Gosh,

August. He really,

Simone Collins: really, I mean, he was a very smart, successful man on many fronts. This is making me doubt his competence. Maybe this was late stage Augustus, you know, like, yeah. Ugh,

Malcolm Collins: Augustus on Childlessness. Oh boy. According to dio, [00:04:00] Cassius Augustus criticized Romans for failing to reproduce even when it was easier for them in earlier times.

Quote. Mm-hmm. How wrathful would the Romans who were Romulus followers be after they had gotten children even by their enemies wives. You will not beget them. Even of women who are citizens. Oh, oh my. This guy, goodness.

Simone Collins: This guy, the way he about women, he's like, baby, get children by grape. You won't

Malcolm Collins: even do it with your own wife.

Like what a like on the pedestal. Griping your enemy's wives where he is down here?

Simone Collins: Not very you know, I, I'm seeing the problem here. He, he had just two kids. He himself was a reproductive failure.

Malcolm Collins: Surviv kids. Yeah. Five kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I get it.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, he was below repopulation rate. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah, I know he bad guy.

I keep in mind a lot of people get the strong about repopulation, right? They think that 2.1 is about [00:05:00] people dying at different rates. It's not, it's about differences in sex when people are born you know, you get more males than females born. And so, that's, that's why. Nothing else. So it, it doesn't account for that.

So if he had his other kids die, he really was below repopulation rate in terms of his own fertility. Which I think shows, you know, even if the emperor can't, can't make it happen.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Well, I mean, he wasn't a believer, he was not himself a believer. Trump a lot of kids. JD Vance, three kids like,

Malcolm Collins: well, if I was his wife, I would not maybe be super interested in Procreating was a guy who's like, oh, ancestors, they just got a.

Great. Their way to reproduction. Really? And we, ah, can't even motivate it with our wives. Yeah. The duty of it. I mean, I know our wives are terrible, but the duty of it all. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So Augustus introduced key legislation. Vote did fed him up though. What?

Simone Collins: Like sexually, she kind of hooked him up, didn't she?

Who hooked him up remembering this Augustus's wife

Malcolm Collins: hooked him up with other people.

Simone Collins: [00:06:00] Yeah. Maybe am I remembering this wrong? I, I, I, I've like read a couple of his biographies, but like back in like 2018, so it's been a long time.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I did in post if she did. Yeah.

I couldn't find any evidence of this when I asked ai.

Malcolm Collins: But, but I love that you're the type of history obsessed perv who would know that, but you would like,

Simone Collins: well, you would think if that were the case, he'd be a little more charitable, you know, if she was a wingwoman and yet he's still, you know.

That that's a, that would be in bird culture.

Malcolm Collins: I know that his sister Right. Was the one who talked about using fertility being pregnant as contraception.

Simone Collins: Oh. 'cause her ship was carrying a load.

Malcolm Collins: I, yeah, I know. To only you know, take the sailors when the ship was carrying a load.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: All right. It works.

Clever.

Simone Collins: Never heard that one before.

Malcolm Collins: Clever girl. Underrated.

Simone Collins: Underrated.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. All right. Augustus introduced key legislation to promote marriage and procreation, particularly among the upper classes. Lex, Julia Day Es Orio. 18th BC the purpose [00:07:00] was to encourage marriage among Roman citizens, especially the upper classes, the requirements.

Men over 25 and women over 20 were expected to marry unmarried individuals celibate. I guess it means like celibates faced restrictions on inheritance and detailed below childless married couples or be, were also penalized though less severely. And I'm, I'm totally actually okay with.

Legislation like that Lex Popeye puppet nine ad I mean, if you're not s if you're not paying to the future of the debt that you owe in the past, then it makes sense that you bear some additional costs.

Simone Collins: Pay yourself.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You pay it yourself. Yeah. And I think it actually will become normalized around the world by the time we die.

It's assuming we lived for another 40, 50 years.

Simone Collins: Oh, I don't think so. Because you can only do that when you know. That that person's like, it's unfair if a person produces children who then are net welfare drains. So I feel like the, the Robin Hansen tax bond thing would have to be in there a little bit more.

Well, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What you might do is, is they have [00:08:00] to produce children that are. No, I don't think so. I think even just like the, the, the harsh tax for not being married is good. 'cause we know that a lot of the child list thing is just people aren't getting married fast enough. Or, or, or enough,

Simone Collins: yeah. And when you're not married, you know, your, your kid is at a disadvantage too.

I mean, I imagine that there is a correlation. No, no, but the point

Malcolm Collins: here being is, is even was in his new laws. Unmarried people paid a very big fine. Married people without kids, paid a smaller fine, and then people whiz kids didn't pay a fine at all. Oh. And so it's creating an, it is like a, a, a graded incentive with the first part of the grade being, getting married.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And I think that if you implemented a prenatal list policy that should be the first part of the grading system, not the first kid you have. Sure. Yeah. Okay. But yeah. And then Lex Papai Papa nine Ad Purpose Strengthen the Lex Julia by refining penalties and adding incentives for having children.

Requirements reinforce the expectation of marriage within the same age [00:09:00] ranges. So it also, uh mm created more penalty for people who married people who are much younger than them, which

Simone Collins: that's so good. I wonder if they intuitively or even technically knew that there were. Lower odds of healthy children when you had, yeah.

It's really

Malcolm Collins: bad for older men to marry younger women from a genetic perspective. Yeah. Like you shouldn't do that. That shouldn't be your going plan.

Simone Collins: Or if you plan on doing that, at least freeze your sperm guys.

Malcolm Collins: Guys penalties. Further restricted inheritance for unmarried and childless. See below incentives.

Parents with three or more children gain privileges such as for men, faster advancement in political careers for women. Legal independence Under the Is Truman Lido. Oh, right. Of three children. So this basically meant that you could all right, so hold on. This requires some explanation of Roman law.

Women couldn't own property themselves. Mm-hmm. In, in Rome. Mm-hmm. So like, if you were an unmarried woman, you often couldn't even inherit your father's estate. And if, but if you kids. But if you had at least three kids, you could.

Simone Collins: Hey, that's great. Okay. Because I [00:10:00] know one of the things discussed in the spread of, of Christianity was that, I mean, Christianity spread a lot 'cause women finally were treated with some respect.

Their children weren't killed when they weren't desired or seen as fit enough. They, they loved that. And I, and this one thing did point out the

Malcolm Collins: tactic. One of the things that he complained about, the Jews t. Tus.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Complained about the Jews. He said when he was describing all the horrifying things that Jews do alongside, you know, circumcisions and their demonic practices, he's like, they, they even prevent the exposure of children.

Simone Collins: Oh, how dare they not? Kill babies

Malcolm Collins: is not drown Babies. Those, these monstrous, these Jewish monsters, everybody knows you just drown. Ba I love, there's like a complete inversion of of, of blood libel, of this belief that, that Jews are evil because they're like killing babies. Yeah. It's Jews are evil because they're not killing their babies.

That is,

Simone Collins: Yeah, man, like you can't win as a Jew, can you? Oh, you're not killing the, no, [00:11:00] now you're killing the baby. You're whatever with the babies. It's when,

Malcolm Collins: when killing babies was normal to you, who were doing the opposite.

Speaker 11: I'll take care of this. Hey Clara, there's a Jew outside, trying to poison a well! Ah! Oh my God! Get away from that well, Hebrew! What? I'm putting in water purification tablets. Spanky tricked me!

Malcolm Collins: And it wasn't even a conspiracy with tus. I love it. I love it. I can imagine somebody being like, well, I don't know.

You know, this seems like an antisemitic conspiracy. Surely Jews expose some of their babies. You just mean they expose them at a lower rate. Right? And it's like, no, they actually like never do this.

Simone Collins: I guess you could say that they, they expose their foreskins to trash cans. If they're male,

Malcolm Collins: they expose their, what?

Simone Collins: I don't understand. Something's not making it out. Right. Foreskins. The foreskins. There's, there's something that's being

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah. But yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway so, so, and then the faster advancement in political careers, I think is what we're gonna begin to see in the ccp. I, I, I assume it's already like a shadow a thing.

Mm-hmm. Is that you're not [00:12:00] gonna be promoted quickly in the CCP if you don't have lots of kids. Yeah. I think this only makes sense in the totalitarian states that are likely gonna pro replace our existing democracies. If you want to learn more about that, you can watch our recent video on why demographic apps make monarchy inevitable.

The gist being is that as elderly make a larger and larger, specifically the elderly that are living off of the system. Become a majority population within a country, they would never vote themselves less incentives, which eventually collapses the state. Yeah. Because the majority of the population is living off of the state and the majority of the population controls who's elected president.

And so, the state just ends up collapsing. Uh uh, and, and then you need, you need a system. You that doesn't favor the majority of view. Yeah. And those you know, in, in a nascent state maybe the Charter Cities end up taking off in one of, like our governance system that was covered in the Guardian ends up becoming a dominant governance system, but it's just as likely that we end up in monarchies or, or dictatorships, and it's just important that we're on the right side and having [00:13:00] lots of kids will likely get you there.

So funny, we're heading directly towards the Handmaid's Tale outcome. And the, the progressives are taking us there. They hand and foot skipping into that feature. They're hot for it.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, I don't know what else to say. Like they

Malcolm Collins: are hot for it. See our video on that?

Simone Collins: We don't want it. They seem to be like, oh, no.

Oh, hot conservative man. Please don't bere me in front of a jealous upper class woman who you just prefer me to and need me so much more, and she just has to fume that. Your desire for me is so, oh my God. Okay. I can't, I'm gonna vomit.

Malcolm Collins: What it's, it's gross. It's gross. And then they cosplay in public and, and do their whole little,

The Handmaid's Tale costume is turning into the new go-to protest attire for women.

Malcolm Collins: No, I

Simone Collins: don't wanna kink shame.

I just, mm. But like, it, it bothers me. 'cause yeah, there's children that heard, I keep trying to seek out evidence that it's not [00:14:00] true and that I keep seeing evidence that like

Malcolm Collins: we go over in the episode, just like a preponderance of statistical evidence that it's true.

You know, it doesn't matter what our faces look like, as long as we're fertile

You are bad. Yeah, but not too bad. Otherwise you get gals, guess what I did last night? Ate your rations in silence and cried into your straw bed.

Yes. Classically. Well, I had sex with a married couple. Oh, so did I. Who would've guessed we'd be having three ways in our thirties?

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, property inheritance restrictions.

So I wanted to know more about this. I'm like reading, okay, there's restrictions. Describe right. The laws impose significant limits on inheritance rights for unmarried and childless. Okay. Using property as a tool to enforce compliance, here's how much inheritance was restricted for unmarried Saba restriction.

Unmarried individuals were generally prohibited from [00:15:00] inheriting. Under wills except from close relatives, eg. Parents or siblings. Really Interesting. So they could still inherit from their parents or siblings, like if it's like really like felt unjust that they weren't inheriting. Sure. But other than that you couldn't get like a, I really liked this guy, or I consider him like a son to me.

Mm-hmm. Or you know, et cetera. You couldn't inherit from them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So, you know, hypocrite, Octavian,

Malcolm Collins: yes.

Simone Collins: He did

Malcolm Collins: inherit from,

Simone Collins: I'm really like. We named our son Octavian. I love this guy, but I'm, I'm getting, I'm just my patience right now. No, Octavian is such

Malcolm Collins: a dope character in history.

You wish to be console. It's a vanity. I know, but I think I deserve it and it would please my men.

You are 19. You're too young to be a senator. Leave alone. Cons, my dear boy. You have no experience. You have no connections. He has an army. We'll see if it's possible. The, if you were to be [00:16:00] counsel. You must promise to be guided by my council. It is an office of high complexity, and I'm well aware of my inexperience. I will not utter a word without your advice, your consent.

Malcolm Collins: If you have not seen the, he's just, this

Simone Collins: is his one failing.

Everyone gets their foibles. I get it.

Malcolm Collins: If you watch this show and you ever take recommendations on things to watch from this show, like, and you're like, oh, you know, sometimes you talk about an anime or whatever. No. But like, number one I'd suggest is the Rome miniseries TV show.

Simone Collins: Oh man.

Malcolm Collins: If you like the show, you will likely really like that TV series.

, the Roman people are not crying out for clean elections. They're crying out for jobs. They're crying out for clean water, for food, for stability and peace. You can do great things for your people. You can help save the republic

Malcolm Collins: I'd say if you like the original Gladiator, you'll like that TV series.

Simone Collins: [00:17:00] Yeah. That's, that's, that's a fair, that's fair.

Malcolm Collins: I actually, I don't think I've ever heard a single person say, I did not like the Rome miniseries.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's, that's a known, I haven't, but also I haven't found that many people who watched it.

But I think what's interesting here, and this is just. What he missed clearly, and this just shows up in his statements. It, it shows up in the legislation largely that statutory, you know, money related stuff, it's just not enough to move the needle. You have to change the culture because when you contrast these Roman birth rates with early Christian birth rates, like, it just, it's, it's super clear.

In this historical case, at least though we've pointed out plenty of other contemporary examples of this, that. For trying to manipulate people using money or other carrots and sticks just isn't

Malcolm Collins: so, yeah. For, for more on this, by the way, you can see our video was early [00:18:00] Christianity. Really more moral.

It goes over why early Christian birth rates were so much higher and presented argument that Christianity became the dominant religion. Not through conversions primarily, but just through having a higher survival and birth rate.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But to keep going here. Mechanism, if a tester left property to an unmarried person that bequest became CaTECH forfeit to the state or to relatives with children.

So even if, if you wanted to give your property to someone, it would automatically then go to the state or to other relatives who had children who put placed claim on it. Hmm.

Example, if a will be clea 100,000 tices to an unmarried friend, the friend could not inherit the sum, would instead go to the tester's, relatives with children, or if nonexistent the state, four, childless, married, or be.

Restrictions, childless, married couples could inherit, but only half of what was bequeathed to them. The other half became cchu. The following, the above rules. So somebody could try to give you money, but it would, it would go to other people or the state mechanism. The forfeited portion would go to the state or those with [00:19:00] children.

For parents, those with children face no such restrictions and enjoyed full inheritance. Right. Plus additional social and legal benefits if they had three or more children. I actually like the idea of re bringing this in with,

Simone Collins: see, I No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I, I really, really, really think it should be progressive income tax breaks num after you have more than two kids.

I what you're, they're doing here, and this is just so dumb. Is they're making it all about inheritance. It's, it's about this like lump sum later and it's clear that now probably past. Past, well, you can

Malcolm Collins: do both. The reason why inheritance is so powerful is because it conceptualizes the purpose of kids of paying to the future, the debt that you owe the past.

If you're not paying to the future, then you do not. Deserve any of the accumulated wealth of the past who did make this sacrifice? Mm. You are cashing in on society basically where everyone, I get

Simone Collins: the poeticness. It's just that people don't,

Malcolm Collins: the poetic poems, people [00:20:00] contextualize and keep in mind it overly motivates people with better to have more kids because they are going to be the people set to inherit the most money.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So sorry. Not that human gene pools are different. I'm just saying that if you're viewing prenatal from the perspective of likelihood to pay into the tax system and you use that as better, these people are more likely to pay into the tax system more money. If they have more money, you know, sort of writing on that.

And I'd put it at replacement rate. If you're not at replacement rate, you can only inherit half of the estate and the other half goes to the state or relatives who have above replacement kids. Hmm. And if you are above replacement rate, then you can't inherit the full amount.

I note that the other reason why the inheritance law is so much better than Jesse, the progressive tax break, is it?

Puts a strong motivation to get married and have kids earlier. Because there's this risk that, oh, well I was planning to have kids, but my parents died before then.

Simone Collins: Oh, oh yeah. What if they kick the bucket unexpectedly and then you lose everything?

Malcolm Collins: [00:21:00] Yes. So you sort of have this constant gamble every year.

You're not getting married.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what it might do, the way I would likely structure it is the money goes into an escrow for like five years after the person dies to give you time to get married, or it goes, if you die before the age of, let's say 23, it goes into escrow until five years after 23 to give you time to find someone to marry.

Simone Collins: Or if you die, when your children are in the age of minority, you should wait until they're at least 25 before the money gets forfeit.

Malcolm Collins: That's exactly what I just said.

Simone Collins: I thought you were saying that applied to. Older people, like if you're, no, I'd say

Malcolm Collins: it applies to older people and people under the age of 23.

So you get five years after you turn 23, so even more than you turn. Oh, okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So 28, it goes into escrow. If you, if you if the parents kick the bucket before 23 and then if it's after 23, you get a five year escrow period to find a spouse.

Simone Collins: Okay. And

Malcolm Collins: start having kids. Hmm. [00:22:00] Size of the fines. Contrary to modern notions of fines, augustus's laws did not impose direct monetary penalties.

EEG fixed some paid as a tax. Instead, the financial consequences were indirect embedded in the loss of inheritance rights. No there is no clear evidence of a specific tax like the Asima celibacy tax under Augustus. Such managers may have emerged later. The can you imagine

Simone Collins: an incel tax today? Right?

An

Malcolm Collins: incel tax to add insult to injury, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Seriously.

Malcolm Collins: Effective financial penalty for the unmarried, the complete inability to inherit under most wills could represent a massive loss depending on the size of the estate. For example, losing a hundred thousand sesqui bequest was the equivalent to a fine amount.

And additional disadvantages. Unmarried men were also barred from certain public events and offices indirectly affecting their wealth and status. And keep in mind, for, for Rome, this would've caused the most noble families to have an additional incentive to get married and have kids early. Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Didn't work. Tual reason to do [00:23:00] this. Because you lose basically noble status and privileges if you don't. But it didn't work. It didn't work. Yeah. I know. Literary observations, Roman writers commented on the trend. For example, tus a historic writing in the second century ad noted the quote unquote childless sterilist.

Of the upper classes and linked it to a decline in noble families. Mm-hmm. Now I, I note here when you say it didn't work, I mean, I think we can see why it didn't work. It's because you have this strong counter pressure of women are the worst misogyny we've seen. Misogynistic societies generally really struggle to breed at above repopulation rate when they're in periods of wealth.

Misogyny only really works when you're in periods of you know, economic disadvantage in, in un economic systems where women can.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it does. It, it works within like ultra Orthodox Jewish communities. It works within ultra orthodox Muslim communities. You know, they do have higher fertility rates.

They are lessing now and I think that, that, that they may, no, I think they'll always stay. Okay. [00:24:00] So long as they don't engage with technology. Yeah. Adoption practices. The elite frequently resorted to adoption to secure heirs indicating a shortage of biological children. This was a common workaround for families unable to produce enough offspring to continue their lineage.

I. Anecdotes. Here are some specific examples that highlight the versatility struggles of prominent Roman elites, Augustus's family. Despite his push for procreation, Augusta himself had only one biological child, Julia, from his marriage with scr Bonia. Julia had five children, but political turmoil and pars limited their survival and succession.

Augustus adopted his sex, his stepson Tiberius as his heir reflecting how his own family's limited fertility. Yeah. The Claud family kind of

Simone Collins: failure man. She had five. You haven't had five kids yet. Okay. You're on five. But I mean like that, that your succession as you're like sort of starting out this hereditary line.

Is your stepson, who also just didn't turn it to be that great of an em, even though his name is so [00:25:00] good. It's such a shame. I don't know. I'm really frustrated about it. I'm, I'm very, I like Tiberius as a name for kid. I know, but he didn't do a very good job, and that frustrates me. You don't get to ruin a good name like that.

You know what I mean?

Malcolm Collins: The Claud and family the Jen's, Claudia, a powerful aristocratic clan, also faced challenges. Emperor Claudia's 41 to 45 AD had four children across his marriages, but two died young. And his errors were often adopted, or from other lines, showing the difficulty of maintaining direct descent, Cicero's family.

Here's this other thing though, and I think

Simone Collins: this is, this is important. There could also be kind of this un unstated issue of kids kind of hating their parents. Like, I'm not getting, you know. The, oh, yeah. A lot of

Malcolm Collins: Roman emperors had a lot of kids who were like party animals or hated them or whatever. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Or like, who tried, wasn't it Niro, who had these amazing attempts to kill his mother? That was Niro, right? Yes,

Malcolm Collins: he did. Yeah. One of my favorite Niro attempts is he sent his mother, and I actually think I really wanna make a, a comedy that's like, you know, the Catherine the Great show. [00:26:00] Oh yeah. But this is just about me, Nero trying to kill us.

What about Nero? And in his mom. Yeah. 'cause I think it would be absolutely hilarious. One of these shows about like, just horrible people. Everyone around him was the worst conceivable human you could imagine. My favorite example of this is he a boat set his mom's boat out and he, he, he broke it.

Way before it went out, so it would crack when she got out into deeper waters. Yeah. And she was out with a servant who was rowing her, so the boat

Simone Collins: cracks. And yeah, her female servant in an attempt to save herself because she, her, she too was a terrible person. She too was a terrible person. Save me, I'm the emperor's mother, and then I'm the worst.

They killed her, I think, with an or, right? Yeah. They, the, the, the rescuers went out and

Malcolm Collins: beat her to death with an OR because they told to do. But the mother being smarter, sweats to shore idiot, uh uh, servant, save me. Save me. I'm the real [00:27:00] empress. And it's just like, come upends and come upends for everyone being a terrible human garbage people.

Yes. It's so crazy

Simone Collins: garbage. We have like the, there's this also common theme. In Roman dramas of, of inter-family conflict?

Malcolm Collins: No, I don't think they had a good mechanisms for passing culture onto their kids. Yeah. Because likely what happened is, similar to today, mimetic viruses had arose, was in these communities that benefited from turning children against their parents.

And, and many of these viruses used hedonism to pull them out. And so the question is, is how do you motivate. And you know, something that can, that can you know, withstand this.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So anyway, Cicero's family Marcus Tulia, Cicero, a leading statement in the Republic, died 43 BC, had just two children, Marcus and Tulia.

His son Marcus, had no errors and Tulia died Young ending Cicero's direct line. This reflects a pattern of small families among the elite and give you mind. Many of these people were like. Ultra elite who we're talking about here. Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah. We have no business having families that are this small. Yeah. These cases illustrate how even the most prominent Romans struggled to reproduce and sustain large families, often relying on adoption or facing lineage extinction.

So I asked it to. Estimate the TFR within the Roman elites? Rough estimate. Scholarly studies suggest TFR among the Roman elite may have been 1.5 to two children per woman. Mm-hmm. Which is below the replacement rate of approximately 2.1 needed to maintain a population without external growth. Mm-hmm.

In contrast, pre-industrial society, typically at TFR have four to six children per woman making the elites. Rate strikingly low influencing factors. High child mortality. Up to 50% of children in ancient room may have died before adulthood, meaning even families with high births might have seen Few survivals.

Yeah, late marriages. Elite men, often married in their thirties. And women though married younger, might have had fewer fertile years. Whiz older. Husbands and this was something that he tried to reduce in the law. But yeah. Marrying, if you're ultimately get the young wife, no, the young women need to go to the young men.

They're the fertile ones. [00:29:00] You are actively being like a problem for society if you're an old man marrying a young,

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And that was another really common problem now that I think to. The historic marriages, it was just all these young women being married often really open,

Malcolm Collins: Contraception and abortion.

Romans likely use herbal contraceptives and abort effects. Though the evidence is sparse, potentially reducing birth rates further. Well, we know they practice exposure of infants that they didn't want, so. Like clearly this, this harmed them. You know, an interesting thing about ancient Greece in Rome, I dunno if you've heard, but the heart symbol that we have today that looks, you know, nothing like a heart came from a, a plant that was likely used for abortions.

Oh my goodness. Or not abortions, but like contraception. Well, some,

Simone Collins: some historic texts. I'll just, I just wanna note. Suggest that some of the abortion techniques utilized by women, probably depending, like if it was like later in, in their pregnancy, were risky, such that maybe you would die in your attempt to poison your unborn child.

So, for example, that the example of that one when Spartan king who [00:30:00] told the, like, dowager queen who'd been, you know, widowed to don't, you know, don't. Don't hurt yourself trying to abort the child, have the child and then it'll expose it. So that implies that some of their methods were dangerous to the mother too, which would explain higher rates of exposure, though they probably had more effective

Malcolm Collins: methods earlier.

The interesting thing about this plant that I'm talking about here that had a leaf shaped like a heart Yeah. Is one, it's funny that they're like, this is how they viewed love, like sex.

Simone Collins: Like the Plan B pill being like the theme of of, of Valentine's Day cards. Right. Well, I mean, is it not, was like the little

Malcolm Collins: smart things, but anyway but this plant was driven to extinction.

We don't, oh my God, we don't have it in these regions anymore. That's how much they love their, their, you know, amazing. But I can totally see something used for like, anytime you see it, you're like, oh, I'm gonna take some of that. Yeah. Be prepared nutri. Be prepared. So why were birth rates so low?

Several socioeconomic lifestyle choices. The elites prioritize political career as well and [00:31:00] status over raising large families. Elite women may have limited pregnancies to preserve their health or social roles, economic costs, raising children in the upper classes with expensive or acquiring education, dowries and upkeep of social standing, which may the classic issue today.

Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly

Malcolm Collins: what we're dealing with today. Mm-hmm. And, which is why I've said you've got to learn to lower the cost both temporarily and in terms of effort of having kids. Yeah. And social pressures. The competitive nature of Roman politics and the instability of the late Roman the Republic and Early Empire eeg.

Civil Wars Pros may have made large families less appealing or practical.

Yeah, Sue. That's it. That's the, that's the whole of what I was able to learn about childless Romans. Did this change your mind on anything?

Simone Collins: Well, now I know where, you know, Augustus fell short. I mean, I, I always felt like something had really gone wrong in general with his, his succession planning. And I think that now that general sentiment extends [00:32:00] to just basically his ability for generational transfer.

I don't wanna, you know, like he's, he's an amazing dude, amazing achievements. I just and now I'm like, okay, no, no one's perfect. No one's perfect. Yeah. At least you weren't, you know, neuro can't even kill your own mom. The first time she was, who was to try multiple times, but also like the number of insane and dramatic Roman assassinations.

It's almost like there was this unspoken rule that you couldn't just kill someone. You had to kill them dramatically. You had to do it. In an epic fashion. I think it, it, it, it just kind of signals to me this, this level of performative drama and psychosis that Roman culture had arrived at. Where they like couldn't do anything in a reasonable and pragmatic manner, they couldn't raise.

It reminds me

Malcolm Collins: so much of modern progressive culture. If you go to like, I think it would be a great representation of, of Y Niro's constantly wanting to be around celebrity and then a celebrity is too popular, so he has him killed because he [00:33:00] wants to be the most popular. Yeah. And it really is, I think, the way people live in this ultra urban monoculture.

Another thing, oh,

Simone Collins: wanting to be accepted by a foreign culture.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but he doesn't even really understand. Yeah. He wanted the

Simone Collins: Greeks

Malcolm Collins: to like him, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, he was like, I, I can master this amazing culture. Can't they just like me? Can't they just give me awards? Yeah. I don't know. Just there's lot of, but anyway, so

Malcolm Collins: I or we might be thinking there of somebody else.

We

Simone Collins: might Bero

Malcolm Collins: romance. No,

Simone Collins: no, no, no, no. Niro was the one who's like, I I want to be a Greek master of this. And Yeah. No, no. That was him. No, but he wasn't the one who was obsessed with

Malcolm Collins: becoming a gladiator. No, no. That was what's his face? Okay. It started with a C, but anyway but I will note when I'm looking at this and I'm like, oh, it's sort of sad.

Like this means I'm almost certainly not related to or descendant of any of the famous Romans. And then I was like it's funny, the, the, the royalty that I do have direct succession of one of them at least, I, I always think it's funny because I, every like, almost every single backwoods Scottish American I have met is.

Is related to this guy. It's, it's Robert the [00:34:00] Bruce, by the way. The, the guy from the Braveheart movie. Yeah. I am also a direct descendant of his wasn't he killed? I thought

Simone Collins: he didn't have any kids. Did he have kids? No. Robert the

Malcolm Collins: Bruce, I, I decided to google how many kids he had because I was like, how could it be that so many people are direct descendants of him?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: He had 12 kids. Oh, okay. Well, 12 surviving kids. So yeah, that explains why so many people by the other, there's one

Simone Collins: woman.

Malcolm Collins: I think so. I think so.

Simone Collins: Good for her.

Malcolm Collins: The other monarchs I have director sent from are Charlemagne and old King Cole I, I'm, I'm related to like way more religious figures. Like, another direct in is is John Knox. Well, and what

Simone Collins: about Oliver Cromwell?

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: potentially Oliver Cromwell, but that's not confirmed. I am descendant from Egg Oliver Cromwell that lived around that time period from our family records, but I can't confirm it is the Oliver Cromwell.

Simone Collins: And all I get is George Washington as an uncle. That's embarrassing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You, you get the George Washington siblings.

He didn't have any kids himself, but she's a director, center of siblings. People are like, why do you know all this stuff? It's because my family is obsessed with genealogy. Yeah. And when you [00:35:00] start going that far back, you're basically related to everyone. Yeah. You know, and, and, and the world was

Simone Collins: not very big.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. Especially the famous people you've gotta keep in mind because you're multiplying every time you go back, like by two people. Mm-hmm. And the famous people, all you need to do is connect yourself to somebody who can prove they were descended from one of the famous people. Mm-hmm. And then you can go back like 15 generations because, and you know, they

Simone Collins: won't shut up about that.

I mean, I'm sure like back in the day it's. Like, oh, you know, you're descended from Robin. Like it, it's, they made the same jokes that they make today about marathon runners. Well, you don't need

Malcolm Collins: everyone to do it. You just need one crazy person who is obsessed with this that you can prove you're connected to.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Except there, you know, a lot of the Braveheart myths were, weren't they kind of written by a Scottish family that never knew him and lived after he died and was like, we're gonna write a bunch of stories so that people think we're cool. Whatever. They made a good movie.

Malcolm Collins: Bravehearts a f*****g amazing movie.

Great.

Simone Collins: If you're watching

Malcolm Collins: this and you haven't seen Braveheart, sorry, even more than Rome. If you're watching, if you haven't seen Gray Hart, what is wrong with you? Good soundtrack. Yeah. Great [00:36:00] soundtrack. Very moving movie. Very based, well most based movie. Bring back Braveheart hair. I say they're, they're, they got in so much trouble for the scene where the

Simone Collins: and like

Malcolm Collins: modern times where they, the prince has a, a gay lover and the king is like, oh, you're so good at strategy here.

Why don't you, why don't you tell me? Strategy walks into a window and throws them out. And the sun's like. Like mortified. And a lot of people have been like, that's horrified. But that's the way Kings would've treated something like that historically. Like, what are we supposed to do? Pretend like the King of England and the Middle Ages was accepting of gay people.

Like no, he wanted heirs and he was obsessed with this. Mm.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: anyway, anyway. I love we're making

Simone Collins: you pot stickers tonight. You re

Malcolm Collins: my curry tonight.

Simone Collins: Oh, crumbs. Yes. Well, would you like some supplemental pot stickers? Because it's not a whole lot of food.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think it is actually a pretty big amount that needs to be reheated.

Okay. I did make You're decent

Simone Collins: serving. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I'm okay with that. And I, oh, yeah, [00:37:00] because I've

Simone Collins: added a bunch of. Seasoned ground beef to it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. So yeah, gimme that and some pot stickers and I'll be fine. So you do want pot stickers? Yes, I do want pot stickers.

Simone Collins: Okay. He changed his mind, his tummy grew a little bit.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you know what, you're cute. And that's your problem. Oh. And I don't know why I'm still married to you. I, no,

Happy to to you now. Make your wish.

I love to love you, everybody. And I love, and I loved it and, and I love you. Oh, good job friend. We just talked about everything you love. Hey, that is wonderful. Hey, so I love Octa. See love. I love my family. See? Really sweet. See the video. Really sweet. Thank you.