Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the complex evolution of Black culture in America, examining historical trends, data-driven insights, and controversial perspectives. They discuss the stark changes in marriage rates, family structures, and cultural values within the Black community over the past decades. The conversation delves into the potential influences of music, media, and political ideologies on these shifts.

Key topics include:

* Historical Black family structures and values

* Changes in marriage and birth rates among Black Americans

* The impact of rap music and urban culture on Black identity

* Comparisons between country and rap music themes

* The role of politics and progressive ideologies in shaping modern Black culture

* Challenges faced by conservative Black individuals in dating and social spheres

* The potential for reclaiming traditional Black cultural values

This video aims to spark a nuanced dialogue about the complexities of race, culture, and identity in America.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to be talking about a very controversial topic that originally we had actually had one of our black friends on to talk about with us, but his recording quality wasn't very good. So we're going to raw dog this.

Two white people talking about black culture. With no protection, this is, this is not going to turn out well,

Speaker: Yo, so I'm raw dogging this chick, right? She goes, yo, I'm on birth control. SO now this is Dylan. He just turned two the other day.

Malcolm Collins: But I'm going to share some grass with you. One you've seen before. So the one you've seen before putting on screen here, this is the one that shows that in the United States, the Black American fertility rate is literally the lowest fertility rate of any ethnic group for all individuals in that group with over a 30 percent income.

I mean, the top 70 percent of black earners, if you compare [00:01:00] them with the top 70 percent of earners from any other ethnic group, it is the absolute lowest and by a significant margin. Now somebody could be like, Oh, what about that one little area where the purple line is below the red line? Right? And it's like, well,

that purple line is native born, non Hispanic, other, Asian, multi, which I don't really think of an ethnic group. It's just sort of, it turns out when people are multi ethnic, they have incredibly, incredibly low fertility rates. But that's not the surprising thing! I mean, that is surprising to me, at least.

Yeah, hello. But! It gets worse. So I'm going to quote here in 2012, the U. S. Census Bureau found that African Americans age 35 and older were more likely to be married than white Americans from 1980 until sometime around the 1960s.

Not only did they swap places in the sixties, but in the 1980s, the number of never married African Americans began a staggering climb from about 10 [00:02:00] percent to more than 25 percent by 2010. And by the way, it's gotten way above that in 2020. It's at 48 percent in 2008, it was, it was 44%. Like

Simone Collins: At first it seems shocking, and then you think, wait a second, no, like when you think about older black communities.

The marriage rate is high, like, these are very traditional nuclear families. It's not

Malcolm Collins: just that. In the 1940s, they did a study. Black illegitimacy rates were only 19%, which was lower than the white rates during that period. That also

Simone Collins: makes sense. I just, when you think of 70 percent of

Malcolm Collins: black families have kids outside of wedlock.

Simone Collins: Okay, so we went from less, and now it's 70%.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, I'd like to note here how much less it was in white communities. So right now if you look at white American kids, 28 percent are born out of wedlock. In black communities in the [00:03:00] 1940s it was only 19%.

Simone Collins: Well, so when I, when I think about this, it makes a lot of sense because when I think about historical black communities or anything that I read about influential figures in the space, there's a lot of religion. There's a lot of very traditional views, like it is, it is a more conservative

Speaker 5: Get off this toy! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, dancing to the devil like that.

Simone Collins: And also I don't know how to articulate this, but like more buttoned up respectful and.

Less trashy

Like when I, when I think about the time, I think also like even just American presidents are just like the, like when you think about historical white figures and then historical black figures, the historical black figures are just so. Like respectable, intelligent, smart, wholesome, religious.

And then you think about like, we've got Andrew Jackson. I mean, even Abraham Lincoln was a bit of a slob. Like people were like, grow a beard, sir, [00:04:00] please.

Malcolm Collins: But this is where it gets really interesting. And I want to talk about the, the, the theft. In zomification of black culture, because when you look at the BLM movement, what was one of the things they had on their website that they were promoting?

These, these, these frauds who were running this movement. This is the black lives matter movement for people who don't know they were supposed to be promoting like black culture and identity. It was that Being anti nuclear family, being anti marriage, being pro kids not having two parents, that that was an intrinsically black thing.

Speaker 6: Now, the Black Lives Matter Foundation, right on their website, says that they aim at deconstructing the Western prescribed traditional family structure, excluding fathers specifically.

Malcolm Collins: That part of BLM's agenda was the destruction of the nuclear family, because they saw that as black culturally, when actually, the [00:05:00] exact opposite is true. Historically speaking, Black culture was more pro nuclear family than white culture. They were more family oriented than white culture.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Speaker 4: only nine months, he is safe, he is warm, and his mother loves him. And that's the best kind of a beginning any baby can have. Woof!

Speaker 7: God looked at man, he said, it's not good for man to be alone.

He gave him a woman. He didn't give him a village. He didn't give him the community. It's supposed to be God. Husband, wife, child. And that's the natural order.

You know, the effect that it's had, we've had women for generations now saying that they don't need a man and we have boys that don't want to be one.

Malcolm Collins: And you see other examples of this, like, remember the Smithsonian race card?

Simone Collins: What I'm thinking about more is, is the, the most recent, Historical black community museum thing we went to [00:06:00] remember was the museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which talked about the black business community that was formed there. And that's what stands in such stark contrast to me that the destruction of that community to a great extent was driven by white.

Anger about how much that community was thriving and like, Oh, they're so wealthy. Like how, mer we have to destroy it because it's so good. And, and now, like, so we, we went from, from this amazing, like black capitalism and business owners and traditional families to black lives matter, matter, essentially saying that Marxist ideals.

Are what are black ideals? No,

Malcolm Collins: it's worse than that. So I'm gonna put on screen here. This thing that was created by the Smithsonian for like staffers. Okay. It goes through and it talks about what white culture is. And then by, you know, extension, it's trying to say, this is the antithesis of what black culture is.

So just to read it. White dominant culture or [00:07:00] whiteness refers to the way white people and their traditions, attitudes, and ways of life have been normalized over time and are now considered standard practices in the United States. And since white people still hold most of the institutional power in America, we have all internalized some aspects of white culture, including people of color.

So the first thing they say that's white culture. Rugged individualism. Individual is the primary unit. Self reliance. Independence and autonomy are highly valued plus rewarded. Individuals assume to be in control of their environment. You get what you deserve. So, so, independence and autonomy being highly valued.

Self reliance. Rugged individualism. That was part of earlier black culture. Like the, the, this, this family structure than it says. The nuclear family, father, mother, and two to three children at the ideal social unit. Husband is the breadwinner and head of the household. Wife is the homemaker and subordinate to the husband.

Children should have their own rooms and be independent. So [00:08:00] nuclear family, evil, individualism, evil, even though, you know, if you have at all studied historic black culture, that those were very prominent features of earlier black culture.

Then you have,

Emphasis on the scientific method. Here they say objected, rational, and linear thinking cause and effect relationships.

In quantitative emphasis, they see all this as being intrinsically white. Qua ha!

Simone Collins: Oh, those numbers.

Malcolm Collins: Here's some other fun ones. The Protestant work ethic. Hard work is the key to success. Work before play. Quote, if you don't meet your goals, you do work on them. This seems End quote.

Simone Collins: Like, this seems incredibly racist.

Malcolm Collins: It does seem well, and that one is really interesting because you look in and you know any black person who grew up, like if you've talked with older black people, they're like, I was raised believing I had to work five times as hard for the same rewards and learn to be happy about it.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: like that was hard work was like the key to historic black culture.[00:09:00]

And then you go, hold on, hold on. It gets worse. Religion, they say Christianity is the norm. Oh my gosh, blacks shouldn't be Christian anymore, I guess. Oh

Simone Collins: I mean, I guess I, I slightly more understand that because if I understand correctly, Christianity was first on a wide scale introduced to ancestrally black populations in the context of slavery.

And I could really,

Malcolm Collins: that's not really true though. Yeah. Well, I don't

Simone Collins: know when missionary work in Africa started, so I don't know, but it could, I mean, it could be our

Malcolm Collins: ancestors were brought into Christianity by a conquering foreign force that often use slavery. Like. I'm from England, bro. Like, the Roman, look at Boudicca, like, the Roman Empire was not the most pleasant of people, but I still see that we are better under civilization than we were when we would sacrifice children under new bridges that were being built to, to appease the gods so [00:10:00] the bridge wouldn't collapse, you know?

Hold on. I've got to go to over more things from this. Okay. Here's some fun ones that they say are, are white things. Plan for the future. Delay gratification. Tomorrow will be better. Follow rigid time schedules.

Simone Collins: I don't get to just take all the best virtues and be like

Malcolm Collins: making majority rules. Wait, the

Simone Collins: majority rule.

Hey,

Malcolm Collins: I love that one. Oh, oh, proper protect property and entitlements.

Simone Collins: Do they, do they have a version for black culture? Like what, what is. What is the interest of this? I mean,

Malcolm Collins: it's obviously clear that they think, but I mean, the reason I wanted to bring this up is so that we could get a better understanding of just how twisted and erased actual black culture was historically.

And I'm going to put a graph on screen here that I think shows the horror of all of this, where you can see the moment that all of this [00:11:00] changed, which was the 1960s. It's sort of the change began in the 1950s. You have this sort of flat line here in terms of black women being more likely to be married than white women where, and it was twice as likely to be married, by the way, only 5 percent of black women during this period were unmarried world, 10 percent of white women were and then it shoots up to now like 48%, right?

So the question then became for me. Well, holy shiz, because you see first a slow increase from 1950 to 1980, and then an explosion after 1980. So the question is, what started to happen in a slow way between 1950 and 1980 that led to this erasure of the historic black culture, and then happened in a big way post that?

And I need to be clear here about like, What the, the, the outcome of this erasure, what the outcome of 70 percent of black kids being born to single parents is so here's [00:12:00] one study here after controlling for maternal education. Age, children's age, and gender. We find that the odds of being poor for black children in non-intact families are 3.7 x higher, so 370% higher than for , black children, and married families. Wow. After controlling for maternal education, as well as adults gender, age, and AFQT scores, we find the odds of black young adults getting a college degree are 70 percent higher if they were raised by their own two parents.

And black children who grew up in a single parent family were 180 percent more likely to spend time in jail by their 20s. In fact, black children from intact family uniformly do better than white children from single families. This is true whether you're looking at income, incarceration rates, or college.

For instance, 36 percent of young black women from intact families have graduated from college compared to just 28 percent of young white women. from single families. Likewise, 14 percent of young black men from intact families have been incarcerated compared to [00:13:00] 18 percent of young white men from single parent families.

Moreover, 13 percent of black Children in intact families were poor compared to 33 percent of white Children in single parent families. But here's where it gets worse. But there have been a series and I'll add and post some of the names here

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): Specifically here, Christina, cross a sociologist at Harvard university who any New York times op ed the miss of the two parent home.

Cross contended that quote. Living apart from a biological parent does not carry the same cost for black youth as white peers in quote. And then also Regina S baker. At, , Stoney center on socioeconomic inequality. At SUNY graduate center.

Malcolm Collins: of academic university academics who are trying to get people to normalize to the idea that blacks are not actually as affected as whites by being in single parent families and therefore we shouldn't create families to incentivize this.

And it is true. They are like the [00:14:00] benefits to them are slightly lower than the benefits to white people, but the benefits are effing enormous. Enormous. When you look at this shift that happened in the eighties, you need to ask what caused this shift? Because most of the problems of the modern black American culture and community are very obviously due to this shift.

How well the average black American would have done in a world where black women were having kids within marriage or outside of marriage at half the rate that white women had children outside of marriage.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and I'm also thinking about what we touched on at the very beginning, which is that black birth rates are abysmal.

And one of the top things that helps birth rates of any group is marriage. And young marriage, and if marriage is a major, I mean, it seems to be a major leading indicator of plummeting birth rates.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and here, the, the, and I note here, so people are like, what, are [00:15:00] you saying that blacks historically were not the same as they are today?

Yeah, actually, and here's something where I was asking AI. The incarceration rate differences between blacks and white Americans in 1950 was lower than modern rates. So, and this was the

Simone Collins: 1950s, an era in the United States where discrimination was racist. Yes. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The incarceration rates in the 1950s were five X higher than white rates.

So to say it's significantly higher today is saying quite a lot. Yeah. Specifically, it was 5x the rate of whites in the 1950s, and it's 7x the rate of whites today. But you've got to keep in mind the amount of institutional racism that was in the system in the 1950s. It's just not there today.

Simone Collins: And we're not saying that there isn't still institutional racism. It's just that there's, there's been a, we're, we now have 50 years of intervening, fighting against it and legislating against it and regulating against it and culturally fighting against it. So we are in a better position now. I hopefully than we were back then.

Malcolm Collins: So what was being pushed? Because I remember I said, you, you see the beginning of this in the [00:16:00] 1950s and then acceleration in the 1980s. So what ideas were being pushed within black culture in the 1950s are beginning to be pushed. Well, in 1957, a book came out called wayward lives, beautiful experiments, an intimate history of social upheaval.

And it was about black culture. It talked about black women moving to free love, common law and transient marriages. Serial partnerships, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relationships, and single motherhood. This

Simone Collins: sounds like white hippie stuff. This does not sound like historical black culture or like honoring It wasn't

Malcolm Collins: historic black culture.

It was Marxist nonsense that was co opting black culture. Okay, how

Simone Collins: did this happen? How did Marxism attack black culture or take over black culture?

Malcolm Collins: Well, so I think it's very much that blacks Have always felt that they can rely on one party and not the other party. Originally it was the Republicans and then they shifted to the Democrats, but [00:17:00] they voted uniformly in really high levels.

And we're going to go over that later in this episode. And because of that, they don't see the threats from their own party. So the democratic side right now is ongoing an active black genocide campaign. And you could say, no, they're not undergoing an active black genocide campaign. Well, they did set up Black Parenthood.

The founder of it, Margaret Singer, did go to KKK rallies. She did say the purpose of it was to remove unfit genes and specifically noted Blacks among those. And if you didn't have Planned Parenthood in the United States, the amount of Black people in the United States would be literally Over 25 percent higher

Simone Collins: if, if Planned Parenthood didn't exist.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And you could say, well, they don't do that anymore. And then I'm like, yeah, except for the fact that 89 percent of clinics are in minority communities today. Yeah. I used

Simone Collins: to attend Planned Parenthood for reproductive health, like to get birth control pills [00:18:00] prescribed. And I was always the only white person in the office.

Malcolm Collins: It went from a world of, yeah, and that's the thing, like people are like, well, Planned Parenthood isn't exactly trying to eradicate the black community from our country. It's like, well, I mean, okay, I don't think that anybody who was working at a Planned Parenthood knows that that's what it was set up in part to do.

I don't think that they are aware of it in all of these clan connections and stuff. Go to our Planned Parenthood. Episode. This is all admitted on the Planned Parenthood website. This isn't some like wild conspiracy. They're like, oh, it's regrettable that all this happened. And I'm like, then why haven't you moved your effing clinics out of the minority communities, bro?

Simone Collins: Like, well, come on, Malcolm. They have a clear answer for that. They're trying to serve. underserved communities that don't have ready access to other forms of health care.

Malcolm Collins: But it's moved from we are systemically trying to erase this community because they are lesser than other communities to we are trying [00:19:00] to systemically erase you because we love you.

Optionality, bro. No, it's messed up. It's messed

Simone Collins: up. No, it is really

Malcolm Collins: messed

Simone Collins: up.

Malcolm Collins: But hold on, it gets worse than this when you look at the long term outcomes of this. So right now and I'll wait to shock you with this statistic.

Okay. Only one in four young black men in New York has a job right now.

Simone Collins: What? What's

Malcolm Collins: 75 percent of young black men are unemployed.

So remember that book I mentioned the wayward lives, beautiful experiments, right?

So it mentioned that black women who were employed at a hard time finding men who were employed, the ratio being something like 10 to five or something close. And this is something you actually see. So now we're going to talk about why their fertility rate is so low. It's, it's in part that black women just have a really, really hard time finding black men and black men have a hard time locking down black women.

But it gets a little worse than [00:20:00] that. So imagine you're like a sane conservative black man who, you know, we had as the guy on the other version of this that we did. And you are out there trying to get a woman. Well, 91 percent to 93 percent of black women voted for Democrats in the last election cycle.

And it's not like sane voting. So I'll put the video here of the star of the acolyte, like twerking to her weird oppression song.

Speaker 8: I said white people cry, what's the call? If they could take one thing, what would it be? We so bored of f**k a trill discourse We so bored of f**k a trill discourse We hate empathy, it's bastardized and inappropriated Let's have a call, vote for something we've created Speak truth to power, keep an eye out for

Malcolm Collins: It's like ultra external locus of control, like full on Marxism has like gutted their culture and is wearing it as a skin.

 black

Speaker 9: [00:21:00] not Billy Really

Speaker 12: the book give me the book

Speaker 13: you You messed Billy up. You just wanna mess me all up.

Malcolm Collins: And I should note here that actually black men, 18 percent support Trump.

So when you're looking at them trying to find a partner, it's really hard. Now it gets worse than that. So here I'm going to put on screen the okay, Cupid shards that show reply rate by ethnic group. And here's where it gets really, really weird. Okay. So when there was a, a male sender. Black females replied to black males at a lower [00:22:00] rate than they replied to any other ethnic group.

And interesting here also, black males also replied to black females at a lower rate than any other essay group Specifically and it's not like by a small amount.

When black females reached out to black males They replied at a 37 percent response if it was asian, it was 55 percent if it was hispanic It was 46 percent If it was white, it was 51%, so significantly more. When a black male reached out to a black female they replied 28%, but if it was a Asian male, 34 percent replied.

Simone Collins: Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins: 38 percent replied. And you might be like, Oh, well, this is because blacks marry outside their culture all the time. Actually, it turns out that black women are the single least likely ethnic group to marry outside their ethnicity.

Simone Collins: Oh, wow. Okay.

So they will. Well, if they do marry, they will eventually. [00:23:00]

Malcolm Collins: Only 7 percent of the time, whereas black men marry out 15 percent of the time and I'll put another graph on screen here. So you'll see that for married black men, 85 percent have a black wife. And of those that don't have a black wife 8 percent have a white wife.

For married black women, 93 percent have a black husband. And of those that don't, only 4 percent have a white husband. So this idea that like, white people are stealing black people, that it's like a fear within black people, it's not true. It's only true when they're just people. This is the thing. It's not true in who they marry.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I feel like there's, I almost feel as though modern society, in highlighting that black groups face discrimination and that there has been historical and still some present. systemic disadvantages especially against Blacks in the United States, especially those who descended from slaves, that [00:24:00] now that we're elevating the fight against any remaining systemic racism, we're saying these people are discriminated against and therefore not as high status, right?

Like, not as desirable. And therefore, even among that

Malcolm Collins: famous study on this where they, you know, they chose dolls and the black kids chose white dolls over black. Right?

Simone Collins: Because no one wants the loser group and even if in trying to help the quote unquote, you know, loser group or systemically disadvantaged group.

I don't think

Malcolm Collins: that's what's happening here.

Simone Collins: Are you sure? Because I feel like there's a lot of like, highlighting of

Malcolm Collins: new evidence. They've redone that experiment. It's no longer true that the black kid. Yeah. is the white doll over the black doll. What is actually happening here is it's culturally speaking, black individuals do not prefer to date within their culture.

Simone Collins: But they're marrying within their culture. I don't, I don't get that. I feel like there's some, [00:25:00]

Malcolm Collins: here's what you're missing.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Remember, black marriage rates are incredibly low right now.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So there is two black populations, you could say, the one that has stuck to their tradition,

Simone Collins: which

Malcolm Collins: make up a little under 50 percent of the current black culture.

Yeah, or the

Simone Collins: person that's dating to marry. And then there's just the portion that's not dating to marry. And

Malcolm Collins: overtaken by leftist Marxists, right? So, which group Is going to be using a dating site more. The group has been brainwashed by leftist Marxists. Which group is going to be marrying more? The group that's not, that's the traditional black culture.

And here is what you see. Traditional black culture, they are still marrying within their ethnic group. It is the brainwashed ones, the ones who have been brainwashed by this Marxist cult, that self hate other black individuals in black culture. The, the ethnic cucking that is going on here is by these ultra progressives who are pretending to help your movement.

[00:26:00] It is by, and this is actually something you see, if you want to see like a black woman who's, who's married to a white guy. Look at any high level black politician, AOC Omar. They're all Jewish guys, right? Like they're, they, they, they all very white guys.

Simone Collins: AOC is not black.

Malcolm Collins: AOC isn't black.

Simone Collins: Yeah, she's not.

She's

Malcolm Collins: Latina. But the point I'm making is the, the, the, the conservative blacks are much more likely to marry.

Speaker 2: Are you like a literally race blind? Are you, you can't see race.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I know that people think she's progressive. So I thought she was black. Like I thought she was like progressive and ethnic, which means black.

Speaker 15: Call me crazy, but I didn't. I just don't see race. I guess I'm just the least racist person here. Oh, okay. Race is like often like a pretty obvious thing to observe. It's not like racist to notice. [00:27:00] I had to laugh. Zach, um, my goodness. I only see one race. Ugh. The human race. Such b******t

No, I'm not prejudiced, okay? I don't even judge Trapp for being

Speaker 16: I'm a man, Katie,

Speaker 15: I don't see gender, and I don't see sex, I just see people.

Speaker 17: You don't see how men and women look different?

Speaker 15: No, I just see, like, shapeless blobs walking around.

I just am so committed to equality. I'm just a good person.

Speaker 14: Unless you're blind, you can tell that people have inherent differences.

Speaker 15: Oh, I wouldn't know if I was blind or not, because I don't see disabilities. I'm not a monster.

Speaker 16: So, if someone were in a wheelchair, you wouldn't be able to see the wheelchair.

Speaker 15: I have never seen a wheelchair.

Speaker 16: Why are you so proud of yourself?

Speaker 15: Okay, well, here's a thought. Maybe you don't get it because you have less experience on Earth than I do.

Speaker 14: Experience? We're all older than you.

Speaker 15: I'm sorry, but I don't see

Speaker 18: Oh, come on!

Speaker 14: You have two older brothers. Can you at least [00:28:00] acknowledge that?

Speaker 15: Yes, and I believe both women are my same age.

Malcolm Collins: Right. I don't, I haven't looked at a picture of her much. Okay.

Speaker 2: Sorry. I just find this very entertaining. You don't see race.

Simone Collins: You see culture or Tez. I don't know if her last name's or Tez. What do you think? No panic. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I bet you she checks black on racial surveys.

Simone Collins: No

 So, the,

Malcolm Collins: the point that I'm making here is it's Oh, sorry, her,

Simone Collins: her last name is Ocasio Cortez. Those are two very Hispanic names,

Malcolm Collins: there's black Hispanics, you know this, right, Simone? Like, that's like saying she's American, so she's not black.

 I really want to know now. I don't know why but this is now important to me.

Simone Collins: Puerto Rican, but what before Puerto Rico?

Oh her, her ancestry includes Sephardic Jews, so Jewish as well.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway but this is actually important when you note [00:29:00] this, the black people who stay was in black culture and are getting married and are preserving their traditions don't have a hatred for other black people.

The black people who are not, they are responding to both black men and women, black senders of emails on dating apps, less than any other ethnic group.

Simone Collins: Like racists, essentially.

Malcolm Collins: They're basically acting like racists, yeah. Like you would expect like a clan member to respond or something, which is wild, but I think it shows the effects that this group has had.

And it shows that this group is malevolent, like this new cultural system is malevolent and specifically caustic to black culture. But the thing that we're going to get to at the end of this. When we get to like how this happened is, is Blacks are just the canary in the coal mine on this. It's going to happen to all of them, to us.

Simone Collins: Right, because the beginning of this was progressive culture saying, don't [00:30:00] worry, I'm going to come in and save everything. And that is exactly when they then subsequently began to dismantle what was working for the Black community and Black cultures in the United States, and then begin to wear its face.

And act as though it is black culture and speak as though it's speaking for black culture, but only in ways that seem to be hurting it on the whole. Is that right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I've got to put a clip here from boondocks in the episode where Martin Luther King comes back or doesn't die. And he just gets increasingly disgusted with the direction of black culture.

Speaker 20: Excuse me, brothers and sisters, please.

If someone could just turn off King looked out on his people and saw they were in great need. Will you ignorant redacted please shut the hell up?

He just said what I think he said. [00:31:00] Is this it? This is what I got all those ass whoopings for?

I've seen what's around the corner. I've seen what's over the horizon. And I promise you, you have nothing to celebrate. And no, I won't get there with you. I'm going to Canada.

Malcolm Collins: Because that's the truth of it. Like. It is not what it was, but in a way that is much more dramatic than any other cultural group within the U S because it was explicitly targeted to try to turn black culture into a entirely reliable democratic voting block.

Simone Collins: You say you think that that's what it was is that ultimately it's not just progressive culture.

It's also. Progressive culture plus one political party ultimately saying, okay, we're now going to say that we speak for you and that you belong to us and we are going to try to control you.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I [00:32:00] guess they have literally hijacked black identity. I mean, think about the line you, that Biden literally said while running for president that didn't like end his candidacy immediately.

If you don't vote for me, you aren't black. If you don't, how did, how did

Simone Collins: Howard Dean get disqualified for an enthusiastic utterance and yet Biden can say things like that and

Malcolm Collins: still get elected. That's really because everybody knows that mainstream Democrats think this way that they think that they. own black culture

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-1: It's so bad that there was an undercover reporter that we're dealing with right now. And one of the things that they got on us. Quote unquote got on us. He is saying that well, we try to elevate the voices of POC women within the movement, because it's better than, you know, Hearing about demographic collapse from a white guy. And they're like, oh, this is so insidious.

Look at this. And I'm like, whoa. Do you think that you Progressive's have a monopoly? On the [00:33:00] elevation or centering of person of color voices. Do you think it's intrinsically wrong? When anyone other than you does this and it's like, yeah, obviously you do. Obviously you think there is some moral problem. To people other than Progressive's. Having black people speak their own mind about those causes. And this just shows the degree of entitlement.

The progressive culture has when it comes to black culture, they just think it is theirs to own.

Malcolm Collins: when they make up all of these things about black culture.

When they say that being black means you don't have a work ethic, being black means you, you're, you're not family centered, being black means, you know, don't like

Simone Collins: numbers because

Malcolm Collins: the value of time, what they need to say are, these are things that I, as a progressive believe. And because we have stolen black identity, we are supplanting them upon black identity.

And it is very, very, very important. If any [00:34:00] faction of healthy black identity is to survive within our country that they see this. And what I would say is, and this gives me a lot of hope is 1st, it's important to note that there are 3 core black groups in the US that are as culturally distant from each other as, you know, I might be from Russian American maybe even more than that.

There, they might be as I am in from like a Chinese American. Specifically, this is. The African immigrants, a completely different cultural group often really looks down upon the native American black community. And yeah, I've seen this, like they are of the people. I know the most outwardsly racist even more racist than Asians because they know that they can get away with it.

And they seem to like get off on it a bit. Especially like my Igbo friends, like, woof. They love baiting me because they know that like I get really uncomfortable when I hear somebody say something that's racist. And so they just have fun because they know they can get away with it all they want and I just have to sit there and like, [00:35:00] Yeah, actually no, I'm having

Simone Collins: this internal montage of, People that we've encountered saying really racist things

Speaker 2: and then watching your face.

Oh, like that one person who will not be named to refer to one of our employees like this. Oh my god, yes! Because he knew he could get

Malcolm Collins: away with it!

Speaker 2: Yeah, but he also loved seeing your face.

Malcolm Collins: It's this, it is this thing that people of certain ethnic groups love doing to white people is doing these racist acts and then watching me get like bright red, but not know that I can't say anything about it.

Speaker 21: He realLy

Speaker 22: plays white people like a fiddle.

Speaker 21: Wow. That's amazing to watch.

Speaker 22: Thank you for coming.

Would you like some water?

Speaker 21: Water? Like fire water? That's racist, and I do not appreciate it. No,

Speaker 22: no, no, no, no. I, I, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant, you know

Speaker 21: I'm just messing with you.

Speaker 22: Oh! I suggest we put on these authentic Wamapoke headdresses and dance around [00:36:00] the table.

Speaker 21: That sounds highly offensive.

Does it, white man? No. And I just hope that the souls of my ancestors don't put a curse on this festival. There are two things I know about white people. They love Matchbox 20, and they are terrified of curses. So clearly, this is not offensive. It is offensive. I am very sorry.

Malcolm Collins: The first group is the, the African immigrants. Actually I'll add one extra group. You've got the African immigrants and then the, the immigrants from the islands, specifically like Jamaican immigrants and the Haitian immigrants and the Cuban immigrants. And each of these are totally different groups as well.

Yeah. With, with some of these groups, like if you talk about

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-2: Nigerian.

Malcolm Collins: Immigrants, you know, they have higher, test scores on average than white Americans. So if you're one of those, you know, like HPD people or whatever there's, there's huge diversity here. And then you have the and one of the things that I always point out was in HPD people is like, if, if you look at how distant people are genetically from each other People [00:37:00] in Africa are so much more distant from people from any other groups.

Specifically if I look at like two random groups in Africa, they're all more distant from each other than white people will be from Native Americans or Asians. If you are going to divide all of the world's population into ethnic groups based on genetic distance, i. e. you were trying to divide five equally distant ethnic groups, white people, Asians, Native Americans, and North Africans would all be in one group.

Like this is the thing I don't get when people are like all these, anyway, I always find this stuff pretty ridiculous. But You, you then have the first escaped slaves and the escaped slaves created societies that were like really high education focused, really high traditionalism focused.

And then you had the free slaves. And there's some really interesting articles on this that we might go over in a different episode. Cause you know, there's also parts of American history that just are not covered because of wokeism. Where you see that [00:38:00] up until I'd say maybe the eighties these two communities didn't really intermarry.

The freed slaves versus the escaped slaves. Well, I'm sure, like,

Simone Collins: they saw themselves culturally very different, wouldn't you? It would be hard just if you think logistically about the romance. Like, if we're writing a romance novel Hi! It would be really difficult to relate to someone who'd grown up so differently in such a different culture.

I mean, just from when you look at what we constantly talk about, talk about Albion seed, it would be very difficult for a white Quaker to marry a white Puritan. Like, this is just one of those things where, of course, they wouldn't intermix a lot. But what if

Malcolm Collins: their cultures have been erased? Because when progressives stole Black identity, they stole it as a pan Black identity, which erased the cultural differences between the multiple Black identities within our country.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, yeah, there was this huge, yeah, homogenization, trivialization. I, I guess, you know, the, [00:39:00] the thing you say about what the urban monoculture does in general, which is like, oh, you can keep your cute little costumes, but all of your beliefs are now gonna be the same. This is just that on steroids. You know, with Kwanza, you're Nigeria are,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you're Jamaican F that no, you're black.

You're, yeah, like black.

Simone Collins: We're gonna give you some new holidays and we're gonna give you some new values, and you're just gonna be a good Marxist and you're gonna vote Democrat. And. Yikes. But here we

Malcolm Collins: have to ask the question. So what the F, going back to the graph here, what the F happened in the 1970s?

Yeah, seriously. How did they start to destroy the culture even more? So this was in the 1980s when you really see things go asymmetopic,

right?

You know, and some argue this was Reagan's war on drugs. They're like, well, a lot of people were arrested and that doesn't explain it. Why doesn't that explain it?

Because why did it keep going up after this period? Why is it still going up today? If it was Reagan's war on drugs. That should have been a temporary blip that they should be recovering from what made the [00:40:00] flywheel go off and also just the numbers in Reagan's war of drugs. We're not big enough to explain this and then you're like, maybe it was an explosion of drugs during that period.

And there was an explosion of cocaine during that period, but it was much smaller than the current Fentanyl explosion. See our Fentanyl episode. So that doesn't explain it either. And on the fence, I don't have to say it might not have come out yet. So we'll see, but it'll come out eventually. I think it was one of our better ones.

So I asked what big thing happened in black culture in the late seventies, early eighties? And I had this nagging suspicion. And I went to perplexity and I said, When was rap invented? And it says, oh, that was invented in the early 80s.

Simone Collins: Well, but then there were also all the black exploitation films in the 70s. Wasn't that more of a 70s thing?

Malcolm Collins: I don't think the black [00:41:00] exploitation films promoted negative culture. If you watch the black exploitation films, they often focus like the black characters are generally like family oriented, they are generally heroes, they are generally pretty like small C conservative in their value sets.

They're trying to, you know, get rid of drugs, give people like they're, they're generally. Good guys.

Simone Collins: Okay, I haven't watched any, so I wouldn't know. I just The term black plus exploitation plus film doesn't bode terribly well for

Malcolm Collins: me. That was not true of the ideas that were being stereotyped within rap music.

Did rap

Simone Collins: start out But, see, here's the thing, is rap as a genre isn't It's lyrics. And I, for example, I don't know if you've seen this, maybe you can find some clips online cause they're fricking hilarious, but there's Japanese rap and it's really funny. Because it's like Japanese rappers and like, everyone's happy and smiling and like, they're all like, you know, just doing [00:42:00] their thing.

So I don't, I don't think see rap as a genre, like, typically less melodious. Spoken poetry with a beat is necessarily bad. It's, it's lyrics that glorified violence and drugs and crime and sex and all that. Right. Debauchery in general. So what do you, how are you, how are you defining rap? It wasn't in the beginning always like more oriented around crime and debauchery and Things falling apart or genuinely was,

Malcolm Collins: and this is the point, right?

Like it was like F the police was one of the early songs that got a lot of people up in arms. Okay. Like I just decided to, I was like, okay, what are the top like rap songs today versus the top country songs? Right. In terms of their themes. Okay. Okay. So, and I don't know, you know, when this is from exactly, but here it is.

So, number one in rap is Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us, so this is from a bit ago when I was doing research for this. And this is a scathing diss [00:43:00] track aimed at Drake, addressing allegations of inappropriate relations. And it's like, okay, so like, diss tracks, okay? Like that this is, this was a collaborative track.

Dissing Drake and J. Cole then Houdini by Eminem a comeback single that pays homage to Eminem's past hits while showcasing his continued lyrical relevance. So a lot of these are, I'm important, like that's the theme of the song.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I am important and I matter. The next one is Whiskey Whiskey about drinking and indulgence.

Simone Collins: Oh, cause no one ever talks about beer and whiskey and country songs.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, how about this? I will play clips from Whiskey Whiskey,

Speaker 25: She like, tell me how you want it, on the rocks again feel to the top again Feel bad, so addicted, ain't no we can do about it Country motherfucker, I say what's up, she say howdy Call you my lil cowgirl, how you ride it like a stallion

Malcolm Collins: and then I will play clips from

Simone Collins: God is Great and Beer is Good.

Speaker 26: We [00:44:00] talked about God's grace and all the hell we raised. Then a man,

God is great, and beer's good and people are crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Or God's Great and Beer is Good, or the one about whiskey rain, like we pray for rain for, which is like, Yeah, you get alcohol as a theme, but it's not about indulgence.

But it's all very Christian alcohol. Okay. We pray for rain so that we can work the fields to make grain and grow whiskey.

Speaker 27: Rain makes corn. Corn makes whiskeys whiskey. It makes my baby

Malcolm Collins: we

Speaker 2: worked hard to make that whiskey, young man. Okay, fine.

Malcolm Collins: Then you have wannabe an anthem about the Artist confidence and assertiveness. So again, I'm so great loving on me.

Next one. You can tell what that's about. So like, you're just [00:45:00] getting here that it's all about. I'm great. Other people are terrible, like really, really focused on. So

Simone Collins: in either that and or hedonism, if I am to only guess by lyrics alone, but I don't know these songs.

Malcolm Collins: So if I go to country music and country music is actually kind of hard here, because the problem with the country music charts is when I go through it it'll have post Malone as the top song.

And then Shaboosie as the top song. And I'm like, these are not country music. Well, I

Simone Collins: also don't know if for rap or country, we can really look at charts because There's a whole rabbit hole year, but the, the entire world of, of mainstream quote unquote, successful music is a complete scam and very contrived and manufactured and not actually based on consumer based demand.

For the most part,

Malcolm Collins: I'm not looking at the songs by like Post Malone. , but anyway, I, I pulled it up on, on, on here on [00:46:00] perplexity and it says, take your time is the first one. It's on love and relationships. Explores the nuances of taking time and romance.

So consider this. Like, one's about I'm the greatest person ever. The other is take your time in a relationship. Sunshine and whiskey captures carefree moments and enjoying life. So it's not about like drinking at a bar, sunshine whiskey. Okay. Next is, is games discussion. It is the emotional turmoil of a broken relationship.

The next is homegrown celebrates rural life and pride. The next is onto something good focuses on resilience and optimism after setbacks. The next is I remember everything pointing at, look back at past experiences and relationships.

The next is last night. So this is, Oh no, I thought this would be a party song. Deals with the complexities of love and making amends. The next is fast car. Okay. This one might be indulgent. Okay. A narrative about longing for freedom and a better life. Okay. No. Okay. The next is wagging. Oh, hold

Simone Collins: on. Okay.

I'm just, I'm trying to give some [00:47:00] counterarguments here. Oh God, it's blurry. But if we look at number three on Spotify, it's God's plan by Drake. Now I don't, that sounds religious.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Well, we can play a bit by that, but the point I'm making

is

Simone Collins: there's parties in it.

Malcolm Collins: It immediately starts about bringing girls to a party.

Simone Collins: I can't understand most of all song lyrics regardless of someone's accent. .

Malcolm Collins: But this actually matters because this is where people absorb their cultural values.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, but that's, well, that and TV shows and your friends. How you spend your time, then your books and whatever. Yeah. But yes, music is influential and it definitely shapes. Also, I think music is very powerful in the way it affects your emotions. So it can also shape what you see as a success case as desirable as what winning looks like.

You're right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It matters a lot when I'm trying to decide [00:48:00] what's culturally normative and I have a song F the police, you know, growing up or something like that. My relation to organized crime is going to be different. than if I have songs about how great our troops are constantly, like And that's a common theme, by the way, in country music.

Simone and I play like country music, bingo. The tropes are what our troops are great. I have undergone challenges, but overcome them. I love my spouse. I love my kids. I love hard work and hard work brings good things to me at the end of the day. I love America and small towns. I love simple things in America, like maybe like jeans and like chicken nuggets.

I love

Simone Collins: Don't think chicken nuggets are

Speaker 28: Driving through town just my boy and me Knowing that he couldn't have the toy till his nuggets were gone

A green traffic light turned straight to red. His fries went a flyin and his orange drink covered his lap. Well, in my four year old set of [00:49:00] four letter word, It started with S, and I was concerned. He said, I've been watching you, that ain't that cool, huh?

Speaker 29: In my house, it's not much to talk about, But it's fair when love and a little bit of chicken fry. Cold beer on a Friday night.

Simone Collins: It's pickup trucks, it's dirt roads, it's jeans, it's beer, whiskey. Wives, girlfriends, children. But you're not gonna get a

Malcolm Collins: country song about sleeping with lots of women at a club. Like you're, it's just not going to happen. They might exist, but they're not going to be like popular mainstream country songs because that's antithetical to the culture that's being portrayed.

No, they're

Simone Collins: the partying songs are like, we worked really hard. So now we're going to take off our boots and dance.

Malcolm Collins: I also would note around the way that they promote spending of money. And, and here's the messed up thing. Country music is derivative of black music. [00:50:00] Country music as a genre came from black genre music.

Simone Collins: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was like, rap to country? How did No, no, no. It was

Malcolm Collins: before rap. But what I'm saying is, is that black music didn't have to go that way. In fact, it did go in another direction when we talk about country music.

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-3: Specifically here country music came from blues, which was a mostly black form of music. And it's beginning. , and was also itself derived from jazz, another black form of music. And here I would note. People are like, well, these sorts of themes are popular in country music because it's what the customer want.

And these sorts of themes are popular and rap because that's what the customer wants. But that's not really true. Especially in the early days when the rap culture was being formed. , back then.

The songs that were popular were determined less by customer sentiment. And more by the big radio stations and record labels, which could decide which songs to promote in which songs to play more. And it made it very easy for an [00:51:00] individual to manipulate downstream culture. And I think that's what we saw here was an intentional manipulation in an intentional attempt. Bye. Individuals with a specific agenda to rot the family values. And the wholesome nature, which was intrinsic. To pre sixties. He's American black culture.

And it also note here, if you just listened to the, , the themes in these two groups of songs and you think, okay, two groups are being exposed disproportionately to one theme and then another group to the other theme, how are you going to motivate high degrees of marriage in, in,

Having kids. When all the themes are about, I'm so much better than X person. Instead of like, I accidentally cursed in front of my kid and then he learned to curse, but he still loves and respects me. Like you just can't compete unless you're constantly being bombarded with one of these, it's telling you, these are the cultural things you should value.

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-4: And I'd also note here that I am not coming. [00:52:00] Out here was like this wild take. This is something that. A large number of influential black individuals were saying in the nineties to the point where it just became sort of this trope of like, oh, you're an out of touch, whatever saying the cultural degradation is downstream of rap music.

But like, I think that this. This trope. Allowed this truth to be obscured. Even. When it was one obvious that the themes in rap music were very different than the themes in music targeted at different cultural groups. And those themes were having an effect on the, on the ground culture and on. How status hierarchies worked within these communities?

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-5: And I understand the temptation to say that the.

Corruption. Of black family values came from the drug.

Explosion in the eighties. It's just that the data doesn't really back it up and there isn't a good mechanism of action there. What I mean by [00:53:00] that is the drug explosion then was lower than the fentanyl explosion now. And we haven't seen a similar cultural shift. In addition to that. , ,

I just don't get what the mechanism of action would be.

How would drugs in and of themselves convince people that it is not high status to be in a loving, monogamous relationship and have kids. Whereas I can see how a message like that might come from something like music. , I can't see how it could come from drugs and it's not just that I can hypothesize how it might've come from music. I know the themes of the rap songs I would listen to growing up and they were very much focused on. Your status is determined by how much money you have and how many women you can sleep with.

, a to in effect, read, even affected me and my own values. Whereas when I listen to country music, it's very clear. Your status is determined by the amount that you're sacrificing. , for your family and [00:54:00] for your country.

Malcolm Collins: But specifically if you talk about indulgent expenses, that's one thing that's really big in rap is all the expensive things I'm spending money on,

Speaker 34: But every now and then when I get paid, ay Yeah, we fancy like Applebee's on a date night with the Oreo shake And some whipped cream on the top Don't need no Tesla, too impressive My girl is happy, rollin on a Vespa

Malcolm Collins: whereas in country music the indulgences are always about, like, maybe beer and maybe a boat, like, if I had a million dollars, I'll put the song here about like, there's a couple songs about this, like, one is about like, Well, if I had a lot of money, it might not buy happiness, but it could buy a boat and some beer.

And then another one was like, if I won the, won the lottery. I'd have a boat. But like boats don't cost that much like I have. Yeah. They're not yachts a boat. Keep in mind

Simone Collins: they're, yeah, they're fishing boats.

Speaker 30: I know everybody says money can't buy happiness But it me [00:55:00] a boat It It can buy me a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets

Speaker 31: Well, I won dollars on a scratch off ticket So I bought a six pack and a bag of ice.

It ain't like we really need a million dollar

Speaker 32: yacht. .

Speaker 33: We'll have it all the way. To the riverbank.

Simone Collins: They're, they're fishing boats to catch fish.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They're not like, I'm gonna get a lot of like bling and diamonds and everything like that.

It's like, I'm gonna get the minimum I need to enjoy my life. Which culturally speaking well, and the

Simone Collins: only country music song lyric I can think of now that involves buying a ring is. In the context of finding a wife and proposing to her, like that you, you buy jewelry tactically to form a family, which seems helpful, especially when we're coming, bringing this back to prenatalism and family formation and the impact that that can have on a culture and the prospects of its youth.

[00:56:00] So. That is important. Now, some of though, you know, people have pointed out to us on Twitter, like they've pointed us to some really super pronatalist black, I don't like performers. I didn't look into like one guy's music who was shared with us. So they're, they are out there and I think like where, where I have hope.

Is that I think that many black performers, influencers commentators, writers, et cetera, are starting to fight back and say, you're not going to tell me what my culture is. This is my culture. And I'm going to. Lead by example and show you how great it is. And we're going to shift to that. The question is, can they in a grassroots non coordinated fashion overcome the urban monoculture having essentially said black people in America are monolithic.

They belong to us and we control who they are and [00:57:00] what they stand for.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think they can, as long as they keep their fences up by that. What I mean is. With their kids, they need to contextualize that whatever the black culture is that's being sold to them by the urban monoculture and in society, that is not and never was real black culture.

Well, I

Simone Collins: think we are seeing well, I

Malcolm Collins: think we're seeing

Simone Collins: to brainwash. And in some ways, I think we're seeing this pop up in especially church based black communities where they are around a specific church group, a specific collection of pastors. I remember when we were in Atlanta. looking at buying that company that made boxes for food.

Do you remember that? And we, we just walked around and in our hotel, there was like a big church convention. And it was like a fast, I don't think it was a single white parishioner there that I saw. It was like a vast majority of like, but there, their dress, their [00:58:00] comportment, their culture, their way of speaking, all of it felt very different from what is presented to us in mainstream media.

As it felt like

Malcolm Collins: black characters I had seen from like the fifties and sixties where they were much more put together than the white people, when they were much more like. For polite and professionalized and, and much more focused on you know, nuclear families and everything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah, 1. yeah, I mean, there were in the materials we saw from the gathering, you know, heavy emphasis on relationship formation and also like, you know.

Independence hardware. It was very, I mean, it was probably Protestant or like Baptist. I don't know. Like it was, it was a Baptist group. Yeah. And so you're, you're going to see some Protestant work ethic in there, which apparently is very white, but tell them that. Right. And so that encourages me is that these groups you know, that, that was clearly a group of like a church that had dating networks that had conferences that was gathering, that was probably creating some kind of.

Wald garden that that will. And keep in [00:59:00] mind, as you pointed out at the beginning of this black birth rates in the United States are abysmal. So where there also is hope is that the groups that are having kids are opting out of whatever has been toxically created. And are staying within these well, hopefully they'll stay within these well gardens.

They won't be attacked. They won't be sort of taken over by the urban monoculture. And they will inherit the future because they are, I'm sure they have high birth rates.

Malcolm Collins: I think the way to protect kids from this, and I think this can be done with evidence, is to show that what the urban monoculture is telling Black families is Black culture is categorically not Black culture.

It is an abomination that was used to destroy black culture in this country. Yeah. That has led to the really high crime stats in black communities that has led to the really high unemployment stats in black communities that has. Yeah. And, and actually you see this, if you look at, and I'll put the, the charts on [01:00:00] screen here black individuals who lived in areas was predominantly Republican,

so that they were more conservative their IQ gap was whites is much smaller.

They're Earning gap was whites is much smaller like these communities are improving themselves and it gets worse is in all of this It this entire system that's created by this affirmative action nonsense creates an environment in which The ultra competent black individuals get one removed from the gene pool, as we've seen from the data and to really have no shot because they are always going to be better off taking some D.

E. I. Position if I,

you

know, I went to Stanford business school for my MBA, which is supposed to be like best of the best in the country and like so many of my black classmates are in like standard D. E. I. Positions. What I mean by that is like, they like literally like help commute companies, like get sweet baby ink stuff.

You know what I mean? Like, we're going to help you make sure that like, you're not doing anything. Well, and that's, that's

Simone Collins: because also there's like a [01:01:00] lot of toxic legislation in California. That's like, you need to have this many. Like non white people on your board or whatever. I don't know exactly what the rules are, but they're, they're playing arbitrage games like any smart person would.

No, they're not dumb for doing this. The

Malcolm Collins: problem is, is that it makes the smartest decision a middling success decision. Yeah. And then you have somebody like, say me, right? I was told that because I'm white, I am not eligible for the dream job that I wanted. I wanted to become a professor at Stanford Business School, and I was told under the table, we have a hiring freeze on white males who come from this hiring pathway.

Specifically, I wanted to, specifically, Start a company, do well, become sort of publicly famous as an intellectual and then get hired in, which is the pathway that a lot of the professors, it's like 50 percent of the staff gets hired in that way. And they said, no, you can only go like the traditional route of up through the PhD program because we don't hire through this other pathway at all anymore if you're white and a male, and I was just devastated by that.

Cause that had been my dream since I was a [01:02:00] kid. Right. You know, I had other dreams. It is one of my dreams. I wanted to, you know, use that as my platform for making changes to the world as a professor. And I was like, well, s**t, like, that's really sad. But because of that, I had to go for higher risk, higher reward opportunities.

And now, you know, if you look at the number of people that we touch with this podcast or other things we do, it's just like infinitely higher. And it's because I was forced to take the higher risk, higher reward thing as a high competence person or essentially preventing black entrepreneurs from having any success.

Simone Collins: Well, and here's, so I want to look at this from another perspective, cause obviously speaking from our, to use progressive terms, lived experience as White cisgendered people, right? We, we don't know what it's like to be of many different minority statuses. But what I do know is like my, my parents experience living as Gaijin, as foreigners in Japan in the eighties, in Japan in the eighties was Pretty racist against white [01:03:00] people.

There was a show that they would watch. They recorded. And I watched it extensively as a child called like BTK. She's castles. Like when one of the very early obstacle course reality shows, it was amazing. They had one token white actor in it. He was a former American baseball player. I think his name was animal.

And his job on the show was to burst out of like water and like attack people going through these obstacle courses and like topple them off and he was just really big and he'd just be like, and then like, he would just like slam them into the mud or something. And like, that was what animal did. And that was kind of like where things were in Japan at the time.

There wasn't a lot of still, when

Malcolm Collins: I was working in Korea I had. This was a company that our firm, cause I worked as a venture capitalist at the director of strategy had invested in. And he's like, in all honesty, I'd really prefer her if you left the country, because I think that you make the country less aesthetically beautiful.

Simone Collins: I mean, I was like, I'm sorry. They're so beautiful. There's the beautiful, but I have a point here, if you [01:04:00] don't mind. I have a point, which is if I were in. Japan in the 80s. And if there were like a, you know, larger population of white people in Japan and I'm like, I'm seeing them do really poorly.

Right. And I'm like, well, what do I do? Like, this is not great. I wouldn't trust white people who are thriving in racist Japanese institutions. Right. Like I wouldn't think that they are fighting in my best interest or really understanding where I'm coming from, even though they're still white. I also wouldn't trust.

White people who are starting like white person advocacy or like friend the white person friendly organizations in Japan at that time if it wasn't yet proven Like I just wouldn't trust it. Like I wouldn't know if it was reliable, if it was going to work out, if it was actually going to create good, good outcomes.

I would look for white communities and white organizations and white led groups that had been thriving in that environment for a very long time. And I would try to [01:05:00] interact with those communities and I would give support to those communities. And when I think about what that equivalent would be, like, if I try, which I can't, I know if I tried to put myself in the shoes of a black person in the United States today.

That's not Black Lives Matter. That's not any, anyone working within any institution that's like primarily white in the United States. Any university, whatever, unless it's a historically black university, in which case I would think differently. It would really be church groups, like longstanding successful church groups that have lasted a while that aren't brand new, that have, you know, Parishioners who are thriving, period.

Like that's where I would go if I wanted to, to raise a successful family that is black in the United States.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree. I think that you can start new organizations. I think that there's a lot of room for this. You can do it through church groups if you want. But I think that the key thing is to recognize that the the left is not your friend that they are undergoing an active genocide campaign right now.

And [01:06:00] that you actually have variable voting pattern when you can create groups that vote. to the right within communities because it is a vote that nobody expects to go to the right.

And so it, it matters a lot to politicians and stuff like that. So I think that that's really important, but I'd also note, like, if we're just talking about other things, we're like, and this is the interesting thing about being black in America today is that leftists have, hidden how bad it is.

I mean, Oh, absolutely. They don't make it look great. They can only focus on things where it could plausibly be explained on white people as a primary cause. So for example, leftists are never going to highlight that one of the reasons it's hard to be black is that Black people respond to your dating messages lower than they would respond to any other ethnic group, even though they're the group you're most likely to marry.

Like, they're not going to talk about that. They're not going to talk about the fact that, and here's a quote here, the majority black neighborhoods have higher gun homicide rates than most white neighborhoods of the same [01:07:00] socioeconomic status level, according to a new study published by Jamon Network opened by Professor Dillian Small.

So even when you correct for income, the homicides are going to be higher in your neighborhood if you're black. They're not going to talk about the fact that almost all of the black women have been brainwashed into this ultra progressive group, so you as a black man are going to really struggle to find a sane woman.

And, and no, I'm not saying here, they're not insane because they're black. They're insane because they're ultra progressive. Well, I

Simone Collins: mean, I think it's also important to note that, that research has found that majority, majority of progressive women in general, regardless of, Attributes refuse to date conservative men.

So it's not, it's, it's also like if someone is progressive and you're a man and you're conservative, like the odds are, they're aren't going to date you. It's not about sanity or insanity. They're just from a political polarization. Another interesting

Malcolm Collins: thing to note here before, if they're like, oh, well, How can we vote for a Republican because Republicans are for increasing like police in areas, [01:08:00] except quote, most black Americans favor maintaining or increasing local police presence of funding.

According to a recent study published by the journal of criminal justice. Surprisingly, this preference is more robust among black Americans than non black Americans. It holds steady, regardless of challenges. Of changes in crime trends or information about policing reforms support. So they're more pro police and I guess what I would recommend and what I really fear for is twofold on this, right?

Okay, what did this start with? What was the thing that started all of this degradation? It was people advocating for. Let's go to . The quote of that early book.

Free love, communal law and transient marriages, serial partnerships, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relationships within the motherhood. So

Speaker 2: Marxism.

Malcolm Collins: Marxism. That's what started this all. And if that's growing within your [01:09:00] community and people are telling you, oh, that's really your culture, you need to be afraid because this is going to happen to your people as well.

So that's the first thing I'd note is this is not like a black thing. It's just that the black people were frankly economically disempowered during that period. And so it was easier to isolate them and you know, peel off their most vulnerable members and convince them that their cultural history wasn't their cultural history.

And that's something that the rest of us are all going through right now. The second thing is that black individuals can get through this, but they need to look to their historic culture and then put a modern spin on it. So what do I mean by that? I mean, if you were not taught about your culture growing up from your family, don't trust the schools to teach it to you.

Go to your grandparents if you're a black person or go to elders within your local community and ask, how were you disciplined as a child? How did you find a partner as a child? How did this community used to think about the value of marriage? One thing I would, [01:10:00] appreciate maybe not asking is what they used to think of Jews.

Cause I'm trying to lower that.

Simone Collins: Oh, we haven't even touched on the nation of Islam, which is this huge, like what that's a

Malcolm Collins: part of historic black culture that people are not going to talk about. It's incredibly anti Semitic. There was a study Scheindler 1984 that, that 42 percent of blacks, opposed to 20 percent of whites, much power in the United a study in the 1970s, 73 percent opposed to 34 percent of whites, as high as possible on th That

Simone Collins: makes sense in a wor your ethnic group being systematically disadvantaged.

And you happen to see that so many of the people disproportionately. Empower our Jewish. Like, aren't you going to start getting

Malcolm Collins: worse? 81 percent in 1978. This was a [01:11:00] survey of quote unquote, black leaders said that quote, Jews choose money over people in quotes. I'm just saying maybe let's not bring back the antisemitism.

But I, well, what I would say is the based takes that I have seen from black community members. Like, who's the guy who everyone thinks is crazy. Who had all those base takes and was pro Trump. Oh, Kanye. Kanye. And he, he also tried to bring back the anti Semitic aspect. And I think that that's not, I think that you're right.

It's not intrinsic. And that it's not like necessarily something that needs to be tied to it. Well, I just

Simone Collins: think that, that any group that is systemically disadvantaged and any group that's just average is going to be a little bit suspicious of any other group that's disproportionately in a position of power, like vis a vis their general population representation.

Like, it's very easy to form conspiracy theories around that. And we've had, you know, detailed discussion about this. Actually, interesting

Malcolm Collins: part of traditional black culture is that it was very pro conspiracy theory.

Speaker 35: The computer! Another idea stolen from the black man. Did y'all know that George Washington [01:12:00] Carver made the first computer out of a peanut? A peanut? A peanut!

Malcolm Collins: Like, they, they were very conspiratorial and not trusting, in a, for good reason. Like, you look at, like, the Oh, God, the Tuskegee experiments or other things like that, like every reason to be, they had every right to be conspiratorial in their mindset. .

Speaker 35: GiVe me my money.

Speaker 36: My money. I don't care whose bank it is. Right. I know whose money is in it. Right. No, I'm keeping it real.

That's all I'm saying. High conspiracy, brother. High?

Speaker 37: What do you mean high? Like high yellow wanna be white? Huh? High like the white man wants to keep us? Huh? High?

Speaker 35: You ain't smell no weed on me, did

you?

Malcolm Collins: And I, I think that that's a part of black culture that still exists within the more, when I talk with my, like, more conservative traditionalist black friends, they're like super conspiratorial and it's kind of fun. Because it's also part of like Protestant culture or like the only other place where

Simone Collins: we've seen more conspiratorial stuff is like conservative conferences, but not, not [01:13:00] old guard, conservative conferences, new guard, conservative conferences.

Malcolm Collins: Actually, yeah, I would encourage like, black people who like, are uncertain about how accepted they will be within conservative groups. I'd really recommend they check them, like, just try going to one of the conferences. You'll expect

Simone Collins: to go finding a bunch of racist white nationalists and you'll end up finding a bunch of extremely welcoming people who are like, haven't you heard about the injections of the trans human modules into your blood veins by the

Speaker 2: vaccine?

I just completely demonetized this video with that, didn't I? I wish you could. We'll

Malcolm Collins: cut out the, the in part there, but yeah. No, I, that, that has been my experience. It's been really, really fun.

Simone Collins: Sorry. What do you want for dinner?

Or do you have a final statement about this? Like in, in some,

Malcolm Collins: no, in, in some. [01:14:00] It's mortifying that this happened and I think that so many people who are sort of like HBD bros and stuff like that. They'll point to all these crime statistics and Okay, there may be other cultural things at play here But I think the vast majority of this is caused by the fact that 70 percent of black kids are born to single parents When it used to be like about half the rate of white kids um, and that culturally they were destroyed and steamrolled, but that doesn't need to be persistent, that there is a coming back from this.

It just revolves sort of finding the scattered troops that are still tied to the original culture, bringing them together and then building better barriers for the next generation. So if

Simone Collins: this were a game of Clue, it was The urban monoculture in the seventies with rap.

Malcolm Collins: And I know that's so classic conservative, but like, I just, it [01:15:00] fits so well.

Simone Collins: And are we going to hell for doing this for raw dogging this? Yeah, we are.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, for raw dogging this episode. This was a, this was a dangerous move. But I think that most like black people who aren't brainwashed who watch this would be like, yeah, this is true.

Simone Collins: We're screwed. Anyway, I for for some Political campaign test ads.

Because you know, we're using our podcast as a means of people getting to know me as a candidate. I linked to our,

Speaker 2: our bears video because it's a really good one. And I'm like, they should get the good stuff.

Simone Collins: One woman commented like, are you serious? Are you really running for office? You're alienating yourself instantly from 50 percent of the population.

Cause the title is, are women dangerous? And I'm like, Yeah, I know. Like, we're never, we're never going to be able to see something run for office.

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think it will convince more people than you think it will. Things that create that [01:16:00] sort of emotional reaction, they get people to think. That's, that was my thought, you know, but, but why did you choose the bears video? That's for men only. I hope you tagged it men only. No. You shouldn't do

that.

Simone Collins: I think that offended women would watch it. That was my hope. We'll see. No, they won't. I'll chipped it then.

Malcolm Collins: You terrible woman. I

Simone Collins: love you. What do you want for dinner?

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. Something. Oh yes, I need to get rid of the meat.

So the meat.

Simone Collins: Oh yes, right. I'm doing that. Now, do you want it with Mexican street corn or with fried rice?

Malcolm Collins: Let's do Mexican street corn.

Simone Collins: I think that'll be fun. All right, we're on. I love you. If you would get the kids when 5 p. m rolls around, I'll get dinner ready. Sound good? All right. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 2: Before we start,

Malcolm Collins: you remember the graphs I showed you last time? You need to look shocked as if I'm showing you them [01:17:00] again this time. Okay. Hi. That's the way it works. And you go,

Oh,

Speaker 2: I wish record that and make it a ringtone.

Malcolm Collins: No, you got it. You got to include the little racist side thing.

Speaker 2: I mean, now you just sound like Princess Peach and she is supplanted from her car.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no.

Simone Collins: Who did you play in Mario Karts?

Malcolm Collins: Who did I play?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I'm more familiar with a more recent one. I like the metal characters because I like the weight that they have.

Simone Collins: No, no, no. We're talking our childhoods. Like the last time I ever played video games.

You never chose, like, you just would go with them. A different one each time. You're [01:18:00] right. I guess

Malcolm Collins: variety, you know, me.

Simone Collins: Okay. Which one was I always?

Malcolm Collins: Prince's speech, I would guess for Bowser.

Speaker 2: Really? Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Jay

Speaker 2: Z. No, Yoshi. Oh, Yoshi is the best. That's amazing. He would make this sound sounded like a hot tour.

He was the original pack to Yoshi. Great, great character to play. All right, let's do it.

This video explores various perspectives on education, focusing on homeschooling versus traditional schooling. The speaker highlights misconceptions about social skills in homeschooled children, stating they often excel compared to traditionally schooled peers. The conversation also delves into different educational methods categorized by location, medium, and curriculum, discussing the potential benefits and drawbacks of each. It touches on the importance of adapting educational systems to the modern era, including utilizing AI and online resources. Through humorous anecdotes and personal experiences, the conversation critically examines traditional education models and their applicability today.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] like they've done big meta studies on this persistently.

Homeschooled kids are better socialized, they're better leaders, they're like, better in pretty much every category. And people are like,

Yeah, but I remember I've engaged with homeschool kids and they have no social skills and I'm like, okay

try to bring them back to your memory Do you remember why you thought they had no social skills? Was it that they were unusually well mannered? Was it that they didn't engage in petty social politicking? Was it that they didn't randomly get mad at people who picked on them? Is it that Maybe they were socialized by adults instead of children

Speaker: hey kid, get out of that hamster ball. Oh, I promised my father I wouldn't. Oh boy

Speaker 2: You best do what he says, homeschool kid. Well, this is our part of the playground, see, , we're going to duct tape you to the bench.

Speaker 3: You mean you would actually duct tape my entire body to a bench?

For what purpose?

 Okay, okay, , okay,

Speaker 2: okay, okay,

Speaker: okay, okay. Have a nice second half of the day, Nerdo.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you shouldn't be

Speaker: such a smart mouthed Mr. Know it all. [00:01:00] Oh dear.

Speaker 4: Enjoy your lunch, nerdo! Ah! Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me! Oh, dude, you don't say that!

Malcolm Collins: About the only homeschool kids. I've seen that have persistent problems are the ones from very religious backgrounds where it included denying them access. To either common media . Or denying them the right to date and stuff

Speaker 15: mother knows best, it's a scary world out there. Something will go wrong, I swear. Ruffians, thugs, also large buds, men with pointy teeth,

Malcolm Collins: and then they become like sex freaks.

Speaker 11: In canon, I don't care. I ship it. I don't care. I know that they are siblings, but I think there's something more. If she were dating that guy, they'd be banging, I am sure.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: HEllo,

Malcolm Collins: I'm excited to [00:02:00] be here with you today. Today. We are going to have an interesting conversation. It is going to be about.

Education because I was having a conversation recently where I realized how. Incorrectly, a lot of Americans think about education because they confuse the actual choices they have around educating their children. And I would say that all of the choices that we make around educating our children should be categorized into three buckets.

And you should not confuse these buckets are almost totally interchangeable with each other. And Simone is going to hate the names of one of these buckets and we'll let her choose a um, , , the first bucket is location. The second bucket is Medium, but Simone also likes to call it method, so method, I'll say.

And the third button, it, bucket is curriculum. So, let me explain how people make mistakes around [00:03:00] these three buckets. So, I may make a complaint, and I may say something that's apparent like, Isn't it wild that we just sit our kids in a room with what is to them an arbitrary authority figure telling them what's true and what's false?

And that they are just expected to memorize these things and then, you know, write them down at the end of like, like, Oh yeah, I just trust the authority figure. That's a good way to relate to information. And then some parents will be like, and they'll see our, you know, online, what is a form of platform.

And they'll be like, well, that's too tech for me. So like, well, I like your high tech stuff. I, I take my kids to a woods school, right? They do outdoor schooling, a woods school. And I'm like, well, that, I mean, they could take a tablet to the woods. You know, like, wait, who's, who's teaching them in the woods?

And they're like, well, it's a, you know, it's basically a normal school in the woods. It's like an

Simone Collins: arbitrary authority figure telling them what's right [00:04:00] and wrong. Yeah. But now they're in the woods. So.

Speaker 18: Yep, that's what I thought. See that? You've got a drum circle in your backyard. Oh, well, they showed up a few days ago, but I didn't think they were hurting anything.

Yeah, you know, I had a guy in Jackson County, he had a little drum circle in his backyard, turned into a drum circle four miles in diameter. You get a few hippies playing drums, and the next thing you know you got yourself a colony. Oh, dear.

Malcolm Collins: So it's good to understand that changing the location where the education is happening doesn't change either the method or the curriculum.

And when you are thinking about. Things like the method slash the medium, as I call it, of education. It is very, very important that you not get confused by the aesthetics of the geography. So an example here is let's go back to granola mom, right? So we just had the previous [00:05:00] conversation. They're called

Simone Collins: crunchy moms,

Malcolm Collins: crunchy moms, whatever.

She goes, Oh no, it's okay. You see, that's not the method that we're using. My child, like the teacher, acts more like his friend and I hear this and I go. That sounds infinitely worse than the previous thing you just told me. It does. You, you are telling me, first, that's a much better way, if the child, if the teacher has like creepy ideas that they want to incept your child with or world perspectives, it's going to be much easier if they've taken on this interpersonal relation with the child.

Simone Collins: This is a cult leader now. Oh, good. So we've gone from. Arbitrary authoritarian leader. He might hate and whose ideas you might question to a cult leader, whose ideas you will certainly not question because they love bond. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And, and we're, and worse, and I've seen teachers like this when the kids don't love them.

They're not that happy with the kid. It's very cult leader vibes. But then the question is, is like, also like, what are you filtering for? Like, what kind of person is like, I want to be [00:06:00] friends with a bunch of. Like middle schoolers or toddlers. But I want that. Like some, some heavy filters have been applied by the time you've gotten to that point.

And then if they're in the woods with your kid, this is the sub faction that said, I want to not be near other adults. And for whatever reason, I couldn't get a job in the local public school. Are you really sure that this is what you want? I would remind you that in the United States. One in 10 kids. I think it's over one in 10 kids has experienced S.

A. By a teacher. So, you know,

Simone Collins: and these are typically public or private school teachers who have had criminal background checks and a lot of other vetting. Correct?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So don't, don't. Maybe send your kids into the woods with somebody like have a little do so

Simone Collins: with your eyes wide open If you need to if you must

Malcolm Collins: oh, yeah.

Well, so then they're like, no, I'll send my kids into the woods with a book [00:07:00]

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: I'm like, you know teacher

Simone Collins: just a book

Malcolm Collins: you do You know how quickly CPS is gonna be called on you like I love it when parents like have these fantasies It is clear that they've never actually sent their kids out of the house 37 percent of American kids have had CPS called on them.

We've had CPS called on us twice. I was in a podcast with another woman who asked me this question. And I was like, because you'll have CPS called on you immediately. And she, and she thought for a second, she goes. Oh, yeah, actually, once I let my kids play outside and within two hours, the cops were at our house.

What?

Simone Collins: Oh, gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Because this isn't the world of our parents generation. You know, we're under the authoritarian regime. So let's begin to break out and delineate. Okay. All of the different methods and curriculum and environments that kids can learn was in.

Yes. So, and, and the potential benefits of each, right? So, if I'm gonna talk about methods the core ones are [00:08:00] teacher who tells kids what's true and what's false, right? Like the authoritarian model, I guess I'll call it. Second one is friendly model. And the friendly model comes in a number of varieties, but friendly model.

The third one is reactive model. This is a teacher who is only there for questions. Oh, the

Simone Collins: Mrs. Frizzle.

Malcolm Collins: No, not Mrs. Frizzle. She's a insane, Mrs. Frizzle is always almost getting her class killed.

Speaker 8: Faster! Is it just me, or is that a real, live Tyrannosaurus Rex behind them? Correct a saurus, Ralphie. And the T Rex was the biggest meat eater of

Malcolm Collins: Like, I don't know what you're talking. No, I think she's

Simone Collins: a great model of a teacher because she's the kind of teacher who puts students in a situation and presents them with problems and says, Or they could die.

Well, okay. That's the fantasy part of it. But when you look at the practical

Malcolm Collins: experience, body horror, if I may, where they get jizzed on by a fish while she is singing a song and dancing in a big [00:09:00] device that has human lips, looking at the kids who have been trapped in fish eggs. This is a horror among horrors, Simone, where the kids say, I guess this is our home now, or we're going to be fertilized.

Speaker 11: Holy mackerel! The bus just laid eggs, and we're in them!

Speaker 13: Look at it this way, Ralphie. As soon as we hatch, this will be home!

Speaker 12: A salmon he went to court and he did swim. Mm hmm. Salmon he went to court

Speaker 14: There's your answer,

Speaker 12: Carlos.

Speaker 13: What? Is he some sort of car wash?

Speaker 14: No. Don't eggs have to be fertilized

Speaker 11: and we're gonna be the next generation of salmon!

 Get ready to dig in, Liz.

Speaker 13: Is burying us alive!

Speaker 11: Becoming an egg? Okay. Getting fertilized? Okay. Getting buried in an egg? Not okay. ,

Speaker 12: Class.

Speaker 11: Ugh, [00:10:00] let's see if hatching's all it's cracked up to be.

Speaker 13: Wow,

Speaker 11: I'm hungry.

I'm hungry. My yolk sack's history! Let's find food! Eggs?

Malcolm Collins: When

Simone Collins: you take away the fantasy sci fi element of it, she is the kind of teacher who presents students with problems and questions, and then encourages them to find for themselves the truth. And I think that's a method, and I quite like that method in the end. I think it's a great method.

Because

she's not their friend.

She's not an authority figure. She doesn't answer their questions. She encourages them to find their own answers.

Malcolm Collins: The truth is, is this method that you're describing right here is a fantasy method that many parents believe. No, it's true. So I actually know the methods you're talking about. A lot of ultra rich parents believe that it's what the way their kids are being educated.

Oh, yeah. But no

Simone Collins: one actually has the time to do [00:11:00] that. Nobody actually has

Malcolm Collins: the time to implement this. And no, no, trust me. I know people who have. started schools that were meant to use this method and were at least half billionaires. And they, they, their own school ended up going insane. Like you're, it just doesn't work.

It is a fantasy. It is a billionaire. Why does it not work? Because either there was two problems. One is completely non scalable. Okay, completely non scalable, especially post middle school, where kids begin to, you know, develop more autonomy. And then. When you actually say, okay, I understand it's unscalable, but let's have, like, three kids in a classroom or two kids in a classroom, the teachers just give up after six months and go back to some other form of education or become completely passive.

Simone Collins: Is that because you need students to be so involved to find their own answers and they typically don't have that kind of initiative. Yes. Yeah, like with with our [00:12:00] son Octavian, our biggest problem with him, and I was just having a parent teacher conference about this is if you ask him, you know, like, what's, what's this?

He's always like, you tell me, like, I don't, I don't care. He just doesn't care. I mean, our other son is very different and that he is actively finding things out on his own and insisting on telling us. I want to tell you something he keeps saying, but yeah, you're right. Most students it doesn't

Malcolm Collins: work

Simone Collins: for.

Malcolm Collins: Back to the real education model. Yeah. Passive education model.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Passive education model is. I have given my kid a form of curriculum that has them regularly run into problems. And typically there is an authority figure around that they can communicate with. So the passive medium typically works alongside one of the other mediums.

Simone Collins: So then the last stuff you go to the teacher, right? They're like a tutor who's available on demand to help you. Yeah. And on demand

Malcolm Collins: tutor often a parent or something. And then the last two mediums are books and internet. So those are the, the of the realistic mediums that actually work instead [00:13:00] of fantasy medium.

You have authoritarian, friend, passive, book, computer. And basically these are the, oh, and one one new one I'd say. AI. And the AI I generally think is a better passive medium unless the passive medium is the parent. Just because it's typically going to be one much more on demand and the child is actually learning as they're engaging.

Yeah. More informed, more

Simone Collins: patient. No, but they're also learning

Malcolm Collins: how to use an AI and how to like source questions with AI as questions come to them. You know, so there, as, as an adult, when they might not have some arbitrary authority they can turn to, you know, they know, Oh, this is the AI I use for these types of questions and they build habits around that that are, that are up there.

Effective at coming to true answers. So these are the various methods of communicating information to the kid. Obviously our school, the Collins Institute, Parasia, you can check it out. Collins Institute dot org. It's free. Right now [00:14:00] it's mostly in the development stage. We have a bunch of Editors.

We have like a huge team of editors that are going through it. We have a number of them that are paid to just basically work on it all day, every day, removing anything that's wrong because a lot of the initial content was developed with A. I. So it's got some stakes. And so we're basically cleaning all that up while also getting right now help from anybody who's interested.

And people are like, Oh, so it's not ready for kids. No, it is ready for kids. Just part of the way the kids they're going to learn is identifying wrong Answers and questions and flagging them and identifying mistakes.

Speaker 16: My wife and I built the Collins Institute, a comprehensive interactive map, or skill tree, comprising all of human knowledge. The platform is designed to be usable as soon as a student gets comfortable with reading, and goes about midway through a PhD in most subjects.

However, we built it to cover all human knowledge, meaning it covers a much larger domain than is taught in the traditional school system. Ranging from tort law, to hanging drywall, to the industrial transportation of grain, or aquaculture pharmacology.

 Click on a node to open it. [00:15:00] The node will include a description of what knowledge is needed to pass its test, as well as a list of the best places to learn that information.

Vote on the sources that were most useful to you by clicking this button. To add an additional source, click this button

Malcolm Collins: And by the way,

Simone Collins: to those of you who are in Parisia, adding feedback, adding resources, making yourself available as a tutor, thank you so much.

You guys rock.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So now to the environments, the environments are really I'd say primarily two, but maybe you can get more or three and maybe you can get more. Okay,

Simone Collins: you've got

Malcolm Collins: your home. Okay, you've got a school and you've got everything else. By that what I mean is that can be the, the woods.

That could be a city that could be one of our kids. Could, you know, with the PIA platform. Get a tablet and hop on our little floating watercraft and spend the day on the lake right [00:16:00] outside the house

Malcolm Collins: Well, don't you

Simone Collins: think now among very wealthy families the concept of world schooling got trendy around 10 years ago

Malcolm Collins: World school so travel

Simone Collins: schooling.

Yeah, basically, you know wealthy family travels around the world does their world tour brings their kids with them? Because they want to spend time with their kids and their kids just do a homeschooling program You While on the road, but also while going to museums in Florence and, you know, meeting with families in

Malcolm Collins: the question here is what are the advantages and disadvantages of these various models?

Torsten: I find it

Malcolm Collins: interesting how many people think like nature is like, I don't know, like sanctifies An educational process like we can have an authoritarian teacher or we can have a kid learning online. It's going to be totally different if they're floating on a river and it's like, well, maybe, I mean, if that's what the kid wants, but I'm sure they'll find some efficiency drop in doing that eventually, you know, but [00:17:00] sure, whatever, you know, that's what you want to do.

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: they can sit on that with their little tablet and go down Lazy River style while studying if they wanted to. But the question is, are they going to learn more efficiently in that environment? Definitely

Simone Collins: not.

Malcolm Collins: No, so there's a principle in psychology and I forget what it's called, but basically

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): The term I was looking for with context dependent memory or state dependent memory.

Malcolm Collins: it's that if the learning environment is similar to the recall environment, you'll be about 20 percent better at recall.

So, an example of this is if you study for a test in the room, you take the test, you will do about like 20 percent better or something. But it's also like if you study in a radically different environment, like on an airplane or on a boat or in the woods, and then you are testing in a test room, like an ACT test room you have, you know, like shot yourself in the leg before running a marathon.

It's an intentionally like stupid thing to do outside of the just health benefits of being in nature. But at that point, it's like. Well, I mean, couldn't the kids [00:18:00] just go in a couple hour walk every day? Like we live by the woods. I don't know. Like the

Simone Collins: hacks that I used when I was a student to get around that, when I was concerned about it was I would wear the same perfume on test day as I did on study days and it helped, I felt it helped, but maybe it was all placebo world

Malcolm Collins: schooling.

I actually one of the girls who I dated most seriously, other than Simone she was the best man at one of our weddings. One of

Simone Collins: our weddings.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, best woman. Well, she was, she was your

Simone Collins: best man.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. She, so she dressed like a guy and and it looked incredibly good.

Simone Collins: Best dressed at our wedding. Most beautiful woman at our wedding.

I know. I know

Malcolm Collins: she looked really good dressed in this. I'm not going to like post pictures of her, but it was an issue. Your parents thought I was going to leave you for her. But she actually grew up on a. Um, And she was schooled on the yacht and she lived on the yacht and I saw pictures from her childhood of her just hanging off the front of the boat [00:19:00] studying.

And I mean, obviously she was educated. But But by the way, the stories of her childhood are just absolutely crazy. Like, you know, like for example, she hung out with like Emma Watson and those crews and the Gettys. And so I've got all these, all these wacky stories. But anyway she was very well socialized.

She was one of the most socially competent people I've ever met. And so I think this idea that if you put a kid in an environment like that, they're not going to build social ties, this,

Simone Collins: this whole thing about, Oh, if I homeschool my kids, they won't be socially well adjusted is the biggest myth.

It's yeah, they, your, your child is going to be worse, socially adjusted and have worse habits and pick up worse things if they hang out at a school environment, period.

Malcolm Collins: Period. If they're hanging out around adults. It's this weird Lord of the Flies scenario. And it's one of these things, like they've done big meta studies on this persistently.

Homeschooled kids are better socialized, they're better leaders, they're like, [00:20:00] better in pretty much every category. And the question is, is people are like,

Yeah, but I remember I've engaged with homeschool kids and they have no social skills and I'm like, okay I want you to meditate on those engagements.

Try to bring them back to your memory Do you remember why you thought they had no social skills? Was it that they were unusually well mannered? Was it that they didn't engage in petty social politicking? Was it that they didn't randomly get mad at people who picked on them? Is it that Maybe they were socialized by adults instead of children and you in child world were confused because you ran into somebody who wasn't socialized in child world and didn't understand that it was a you who was poorly socialized.

Speaker: Hey kid, get out of that hamster ball. Oh, I promised my father I wouldn't. Oh boy

Speaker 2: You best do what he says, homeschool kid. Well, this is our part of the playground, see, , we're going to duct tape you to the [00:21:00] bench.

Speaker 3: You mean you would actually duct tape my entire body to a bench?

For what purpose?

 Okay, okay, , okay,

Speaker 2: okay, okay,

Speaker: okay, okay. Have a nice second half of the day, Nerdo.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you shouldn't be

Speaker: such a smart mouthed Mr. Know it all. Oh dear.

Speaker 4: Enjoy your lunch, nerdo! Ah! Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me! Oh, dude, you don't say that!

Malcolm Collins: And this is something I've persistently seen when people are talking about, you know, homeschool kids about the only homeschool kids. I've seen that have any sort of persistent problems are the ones from very religious backgrounds where it included denying them access. To either common media that everyone else would have access to.

So in the modern age this would be something like denying them Facebook and stuff like that. Or denying them the right to date and stuff and then they become like sex freaks.

Speaker 15: Mother knows best, it's a scary world out there. Something will go wrong, I swear. Ruffians, thugs, also large buds, men with pointy teeth,

mother [00:22:00] will protect you. Darling, here's what I suggest.

Malcolm Collins: And like everybody knows, like it's one of these things why I'm always like when somebody's like well I'm gonna be like super sexually restrictive of my kid and tell them all this stuff is terrible and tell them and I'm like, But you do know that like everyone that happens to becomes like a super slut, right?

Like I will say as a very sexually active guy in high school like that was a very easy crowd to target they were some of the easiest people the people who had the ultra protective parents and I don't know like how parents with all the stereotypes I'm gonna put the south part clip of homeschool girl here.

Speaker 7: Hey, isn't that the homeschool kid's sister? Hi, guys.

Speaker 9: Holy cow! Hey, baby, come see me later, kay? What the damn, baby? Hey, Kyle, wanna go make out? Rebecca,

Speaker 6: you Rebecca, what the devil are you doing? I'm having fun, Mark. YoU did this to my sister! You made my [00:23:00] sister into

Speaker 8: a slut! Dude, he's kicking the crap out of Kyle! Yeah, he's a

Speaker 10: badass!

Speaker 7: I'm not through with you, b***h! Hey, you're pretty cool, Mark. Yeah, that was real badass how you stood up for your sister. I oughta kick Kyle's b***h ass, too. You wanna go have some cake with me, Mark?

 He said he'd hang out with me!

Malcolm Collins: Like how do they not? I guess it's cause they don't watch a media or interact or weren't, you know, like they don't understand the vulnerabilities they're instilling in the kids through doing that. Which was yeah, very, very interesting.

Speaker 15: Mother knows best. Take it from your mumsy sloppy, underdressed, immature, clumsy. Colourful, naive, positive. Should we drop

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): I love it so much when I'm talking to one of these parents and they're like, oh yeah, but my kid actually really obeys the rules and you know, she's super sweet and she would never, you know, break any of the rules. And I'm like, what? Do you think the girls I was sleeping with who had protective parents? Told their parents. Are you out of your mind?

No, of course. That's what you'd think [00:24:00] if they were sleeping around. Oh, my gosh.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: For individuals wondering about the functional mechanism that makes sheltered. Girls so much easier than non sheltered girls. It's that once you have gotten a shelter girl to kiss you from that point to. PIV intercourse is There's very few barriers. , because for them, the core barrier is the hard line in the sand that the parents have set for them.

Whereas with non sheltered individuals, they have an escalating barrier based on the seriousness of the intimate act they are engaging with. So with the shelter kids, really all you're doing is slightly increasing the difficulty of getting. The first kiss, but everything after that is dramatically, dramatically easier. , and it's just a really bad idea.

Malcolm Collins: The God, what was it? Different categories. Oh yes. Yeah. So the world school kids typically, because I've [00:25:00] met a number of them, they end up. Like super well adjusted, super well adjusted, unusually well adjusted. This is also true for military brats. I would

Simone Collins: even, I would say even those raised in cults often turn out a little more well adjusted.

The people we've met who came from even extreme cults, we're talking polygamous cults in the jungles of South America. And I'm not changing any details. They're very well adjusted, very normal, cool people. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah. That guy was exceptionally well adjusted. He was, yeah, it was a cult where they kick out all the young men because the one guy is married to all of the women.

Yeah. So this

Simone Collins: guy had six brothers. And they, they were all throughout the United States cause they'd all been kicked out of the family and now kind of helped each other after they got kicked out, which is kind of interesting model. Really cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They've been really, they were all pretty successful.

They were very

Simone Collins: successful. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which is interesting. It's like, well, I mean, I guess the dad has like really good genes. Like that's. [00:26:00]

Simone Collins: Well, and I think there's something to be said for forcing enough. Well, yes, forcing, but also allowing people to grow up. We do infantilize people egregiously, even adults in the United States these days, just culturally and pervasively, and even, even systemically and governmentally, we infantilize people across all means.

So a cult that artificially kind of removes you from mainstream society and forces you to become an adult. Is going to give you a distinct advantage.

Malcolm Collins: That sort of forcing is very useful, but then you're not going to stay within your birth culture. But one that is, is, is really dangerous that I see a lot of people defaulting more towards is Sheltering.

Well, two types of sheltering that are both very damaging to kids.

Torsten: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: The first and why it's a terrible idea is more obvious, which is sheltering from social media. If you do not teach a child to do ly engage with social media, you are hurting them in two core ways. [00:27:00] One they're gonna get a social media account when they get out from under your thumb, and they're gonna do dumb stuff with it that will be on the internet forever, at an age where they're gonna be held responsible for that stuff.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Do not like, it's, it's, it's, it's the same thing as like telling a kid they can't date. Like, of course you're going to get the, the freak scenario after that. It reminds me of earlier today. I was actually thinking about like, what cultural group, cause I've slept with women from many cultural groups are typically the best in bed.

And when I was thinking, I was like, I hate it's gotta be Catholic girls. They just have a lot more experience than any other cultural subgroup I'm familiar with.

Speaker 20: Father, forgive me for I have sinned. My sins would best be expressed in a monologue from the made for TV movie Sybil,

Speaker 21: You're nothin but a little slut. Don't call me that. I am a Puerto Rican lady, senor. Not a slut! I'm

Malcolm Collins: And, and it's partially because of this protective mindset, right? [00:28:00] Like, Oh, we'll protect them from learning how to date judiciously or anything like that. Right. Or learning how to. Deal with social media judiciously. So I think that's one problem. But then the other problem that you're going to have in dealing with social media is

as the school system begins to degrade, we are entering a world where one of the core ways that people check the competence of other people is to see if that person has been validated by people that they know, or has been validated by a large group of strangers. And that is done often through social media accounts.

So when somebody is deciding to work with us or invest in us or something like that, they're, you know, checking us out on X and seeing, do people who they respect follow us? Do we have X many followers at least? Like, are we socially relevant? And there really just aren't that many other good competence fetters that are broadly accessible in inter interinterpretable across communities [00:29:00] right now.

And so when you ban a kid from this, it's a bit like banning a kid from getting a college degree in the last societal system. It's going to lead to like huge negative externalities for the kid. Do you have thoughts before I go on?

Simone Collins: No, I agree. Let's go on to the other

Malcolm Collins: problem is and now we're going to move into the question of the digital, right?

Like if the message that the kid is being educated on is digital, is that going to cause a problem? And I would note here that a lot of people don't know is when books were first released. There were lots of panics around this, of people becoming addicted to books and all of the negative psychological effects of books.

And when I was talking to a mom about this recently she was like, Well, I mean, even today, you know, my daughter got a little too into fantasy books. And I had to like wean her off those a bit for a period because she's like, it's not that they were bad books. It's just that she was, you know, reading them to

Simone Collins: the exclusion of everything else.

[00:30:00] Right.

Malcolm Collins: Not just that, but they were building bad expectations about reality for her. You know, expecting fantasy book, boyfriends, expecting fantasy book, world doesn't have dragons, right? You know, so, it created a, a, a set of bad pre and you know, for ages when, when people today are like, isn't that funny?

They thought young girls were getting addicted to reading in the past and going insane. And I was like, well, I mean, it's not that insane. Like I, I think it was probably actually happening. It's just today we call that being a little too into fan fiction or something. Like it still happens. It's just different these days,

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: I was talking to one. , fairly sheltering mother at one point, , bragging about how into writing her daughter was and how she was involved in all of these communities online that wrote. And I was like, huh? , Are they writing fan fiction? And she's like, yes. Yes. That's exactly what they write. And here I am [00:31:00] thinking, oh, oh my goodness.

You have no idea what your daughter is doing to you?

Speaker 11: Can't help it, I just think that they would make such a good pair. In canon, I don't care. I ship it. I don't care. I know that they are siblings, but I think there's something more. If she were dating that guy, they'd be banging, I am sure.

 Twins just can't really be that bad. You're on the cannon ground. I'm up in crack ship's face. Let's start a shipping war.

Don't care if I get hate. Don't like my pairing. Well, then you can Hit the bricks. This is my OP. I'll go down with this.

Malcolm Collins: But the online environment, people are like, well, look at all the research on screen times, you know, look at all the, how bad screen times are.

My, my take on screen times is it's a bit like. [00:32:00] I told somebody, well, living in the tenderloin in San Francisco is bad for you. And they're like, well, why do you think that? And I'm like, well, you know, every time I go there, there's like people throwing up and they look sick and they're screaming at the wall and they can barely move.

And they're like that's the math. And I'm like, yeah, but why is it only in the tenderloin? And they're like, well, Because that's where they sell the meth. That's where they do the meth. That's where all the meth is done. It is not the tenderloin intrinsically. It's that's where meth is sold. Dopamine loops within online environments is what's causing all of these negative externalities.

It's not the environments themselves that intrinsically lead to these externalities. And so, yeah, I it, it's, And then they're like, well, yeah, but you can't tell your kid that they have to go to the tinder line to work every day. And I'm like, if it turns out that that's where our entire economy is based, I mean, yeah, you kind of need them to learn how to handle this environment without [00:33:00] taking math.

And this creates this whole other scenario. So people don't know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about dopamine loops. Okay. So, you know, there is you could, you could forget, forgetting the word for this right now, but if you put like a mouse or a rat, Skinner boxes, Skinner boxes. Yeah. And it pushes a lever.

And it gets food. Every time it pushes the lever, it'll push the food when it's hungry. If it gets food, sometimes when it pushes the lever, we'll start like pushing the lever repeatedly, right? This is why you get all these gambling like things in video games and online environments these days. And they can create an addiction using your own neurochemical pathways instead of inducing exogenous chemicals, and it can cause all sorts of, and, and, and people are like, I don't engage with anything like that online and I'm like, well, do you use.

Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, because those are all inner boxes. You are putting the picture out and then you get a variable, positive response. And to an adult, that's one [00:34:00] thing, but to a kid kids respond extremely exaggeratedly to social approval. And so that is a huge addiction pathway for kids.

And so the parents are like, well, so it is screens that are the problem. I'm like, well, I mean. Not really. So if a kid's just like on Wikipedia, right, it's not a problem, right? If, if I put a kid on YouTube and he's watching magic school bus, I am a hundred percent positive. And people are like, no, all shows are bad to some extent.

I'm sorry. I'm a hundred percent positive that that kid is going to be learning more than he would be was a random adult. And people can be like, no, the adult can be like, but it's like, Yeah, but you haven't seen kids around adults, even around you, okay, you can sit down and read them a story you've read to them before, which is like marginal additional utility.

You can try to engage them in a conversation. Yeah, like go

Simone Collins: outside and annotate things like your mom when she was still living with tell you that you have to go outside and go on a walk with the kids and tell [00:35:00] them the name of every single plant. Also in Latin, and she had this big vision for how you were going to educate the children.

They're not listening to us when we're talking about these things. No, they're over there climbing a tree. They're over there stepping on Hornet's nest. They are not Let's tell them the plans names

Malcolm Collins: in Latin as an adult can like sit down and monopolize your kids attention Maybe this works with some kids, but it doesn't work with our kids And I imagine it doesn't work with a lot of other people's kids if I want my kid to sit down and actually watch something that has any educational value Let me define educational value here uses Broad plot narratives.

It has human beings with emotions reacting appropriately to various scenarios, and it explains some sort of scientific phenomenon. I eat magical school bus. Like, this is useful here. And it. Has a, an important Bill Nye the science guy. Our kids

Simone Collins: love

Malcolm Collins: Bill Nye. So, so, the, the old stuff, not since he went [00:36:00] woke and crazy.

I mean, he was an actor. He wasn't like a smart person. I, I, people understand this. Right.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: Parents who are shocked to find out that bill Nye is just a dumb actor, like with the opinions of any other dumb actor. Give off to me the same energy of like a police department. He was stuck in a really hard homicide investigation calling up Steve from Blue's clues and.

Being confused, why he can't solve the crime.

Speaker 13: Great. We got to find the paw print. That's the first clue. We put it in a notebook and now what do we do?

Speaker 14: We got to find another paw print. That's the second clue. We put it in a notebook.

Malcolm Collins: But varied ideas. So one of the things that people miss when they're like, I'm just going to talk with my kids is the vocabulary that you are going to use when you are trying to communicate with a child, that's going to be intrinsically limited.

Okay. In less than the vocabulary they're going to engage in a show. So much of the [00:37:00] parenting advice I hear is from people who have clearly never interacted Oh, one

Simone Collins: hundred percent.

Malcolm Collins: And it's like, that won't work. Like, they're like, let the kids go outside. I'm like, you'll be arrested. They're like, don't show them a show.

Sit down and talk with your kids. And it's like, Kids won't talk with you for more than like five minutes. Like, what are you talking about? They'll get annoyed and walk off and go do something

Simone Collins: else. Well, what we've, what I found really works well is annotation. So yeah, watch TV with them, but watch it with them and talk about it.

What are they doing now? What's happening? What do you think they are feeling like right now? What does this mean? And you get really great conversations from that. Cause they're engaged with the media, but they're also excited to talk about it.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, but if you prevent your kid from interacting with these types of medium because you're like, well, I don't want my kid to have experience with those Skinner box things, they're gonna experience them eventually.

Simone Collins: And they're

Malcolm Collins: not going to have any defenses when they do.

Simone Collins: Yeah, [00:38:00] it's like memes and addictive pathways are not too dissimilar from diseases. It's like introducing smallpox to indigenous Americans. They have no defenses. So you want to have the kids. Who grew up around smallpox and, you know, slowly developed you know, resistance to increasing levels of viral load, I guess.

And you don't want the kid who grew up in a bubble and has absolutely no resistance for it. It

Malcolm Collins: reminds me, you know, growing up, I've mentioned, I had some friends who like their parents were like, no dating until after college. And I was like, well, do you know how effed those kids were after college? Like, and, and, but the point being is that until after college, they were.

Hard more efficient than I was like they had more time to study than I did They had less distractions than I did. They were doing better than me when somebody says Well, we didn't allow a kid any engagement with screen time in an online [00:39:00] environment And look, he did better than the kid who did have access to screen time in an online environment.

I'm like, yeah, I mean, I believe you at the end of the period where you still could control his access to the online environment. That's great. Well, it

Simone Collins: lasts.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I do not believe you. Five years post then. And. The question is, is, okay, well, if my kid is accessing these sorts of things, how do I convince him to, you know, play with the Collins Institute instead of go, you know, on a video game or something like that?

And I'm like, well, that's the crux of it. Now you realize your core job as a parent, how do you build a moral philosophy for your child? How do you build a system for your child? Or when a child is deciding, what do I want for my life? And they're making decisions around that they make the right decision,

Torsten: you

Malcolm Collins: know, with our kids, we focus on this concept of, well, you've got to, you know, make, fix the world where fix the world is defined as making the [00:40:00] world a better place for future humans and, and, and we're like, Oh my God, how dare you give your child expectations?

And I'm like, Well, that's an insane thing to say. Of course I would have expectations for my child. Like, the urban monoculture tries to normalize this sentiment because it makes it easier to deconvert children from their birth cultures because it doesn't have kids with people in the urban monoculture don't have kids, and so it can only survive by taking children from other cultures, and so it doesn't need to motivate practices that are actually useful in terms of In terms of child rearing, it just needs to motivate practices to convince anyone that their parents are abusive, because the first step of a cult is to try to break a person from their traditional support network, i.

e. their parents and their community and birth culture. So, yeah, and I know my kids won't be particularly susceptible to that. And we'll do another episode on why that would be the case. But point here being you, as a parent, Need to come up with a system for communicating a broad moral framework for your kids [00:41:00] And if what you're thinking right here is oh, I don't need to worry about that Because I take my kids to church every week i'd say you are so effed There is no way that kid's going to be a christian when they grow up.

Because I know so many young kids in this generation these parents who grew up in an environment Where most of the people around them were christian? Okay, so the the type of christianity that they grew up with is different and the type of sociological context that they grew up in is different.

And they're like, Oh, I can just copy and paste that iteration of Christianity onto my kids in a world that's like actively hunting them and attempting to brainwash them and they'll be fine. And I'm like, no, what? No, that's an insane sentiment. You're, you're, you are, you are the shepherd that is leaving your flock with the wolf.

Like, what are you thinking? That, that is not going to work. You come, you come one day and you're like, well, where is Where's little Timmy and the wolf's wiping the blood off his face because you were a buffoon. And you thought that you were [00:42:00] dealing with the same environmental and technological, I might say, I'm talking about cultural technological context that you grew up in, and you are not.

And this is why when so many people are like, oh, I'll just go back to traditions. I'm like, those traditions were developed for contexts in which they were the You know, whether it's, you know, pretty much the only one that wasn't with Judaism, and that's why Judaism is weeping, but right now in terms of fertility rates in terms of deconversion rates in terms of because they for hundreds of years have been a minority in where they lived.

But right now, if you are a Baptist, you know, it's likely that most of the people around you growing up or Baptist. If you're a Mormon, it's likely that most of the people around you growing up or Mormon. If you were, you know, a Muslim, it's likely that, well, depends on where you live, but most people growing up around you were Muslim.

And so the tools that defended you won't defend your kids, okay? The, the weapon that you need to bring to school, let's put it this way, when everyone else at the school is a sheep and not a wolf, is [00:43:00] very different. Okay. Your kids need swords, not little shivs. And they also need to learn to be smart.

One of the things I've noticed a lot of like conservative parents, they get so proud that their kids got canceled. And I'm like, no, your kids shouldn't have gotten canceled. You knob, you should have taught them how to death. been themselves from being caught out by the inquisition. Okay, they can achieve more if they can stay under the radar until they're willing to use the cancellation to their benefit.

You know, getting ostracized by your peers in high school is not a good thing. And you should have taught them that they were the minority and they were the beleaguered group and they were going into a hostile environment. But what are your thoughts about

Simone Collins: I agree. 100%. And you hear often from the parents whose kids are canceled because they turn them into news stories.

But I think majority of kids who go through a hostile environment in school and whose parents are doing a good job with annotation do learn that. And we, we know kids like that. And they're very aware of what's [00:44:00] going on, which is great. And I think it really goes to show that if you want to actually protect your culture, you should, and absolutely can send your kids through mainstream institutions and actively teach them how to inoculate themselves against toxic culture and habits.

So we've covered the environment. We've covered the,

Malcolm Collins: Curriculum. Yeah, but we haven't covered the what's the word? I'm like the curriculum, but I'm not going to cover the curriculum because frankly, there just aren't that many curriculum of people believe there were like more genuine curriculum than there really are.

There, when I say curriculum, I mean, just like any model of teaching kids, like Wikipedia could be a curriculum, right? Like,

Simone Collins: well, I don't know. So what I hear is basically, You can go to a Catholic school. You can go to like a traditional Jewish school. You can do what's, what's really popular among conservatives these days is a classical Christian education.

And then there is [00:45:00] mainstream urban monoculture.

Malcolm Collins: I want to roll my eyes harder at a classical Christian education.

Simone Collins: Okay. Go ahead, rip into it because that's, what's pervasive among people who consider these are like,

Malcolm Collins: I'm going to have my kids read all the classics, all of these great books, because they think that like things in the past are like intrinsically better sources of knowledge than things today.

And it's like, no, Cultural systems from the past might be better sources, but things, you know, reading old man in the sea is not going to be as useful use of your kid's time as learning to code, like obviously, or spending time learning AI. And this is a really important thing that people are missing.

Where people get information from like the best medium of communication of information is changing When I was growing up there were many parents who in educational models that were like, okay kids We got to teach you how to learn so we're going to teach you the dewey decimal system And we're [00:46:00] going to teach you how to use a library.

And and people of our generation all remember this and no one has used this ever. But the kids were like, well, I mean, it seems like this internet thing is what I should be focused on. Like, it seems like this is what I should learn how to use really well. If I want to be effective in the next era, I should learn how to do Boolean searches.

I should learn it. And how do you feel? I know today still don't know how to do Boolean searches. You know what I mean? Like they are, they were using. The key source of information that everyone else had access to was like intrinsic handicaps. And then in this next era, many parents are going into it.

And they're like, okay, I need to teach my kids how to use the Internet wisely to source for information. And I'm like, we're in AI era now. Okay. This is, this is new. If your kids don't know how to use AI. And you know, I was mentioning this to the lady in the, in, it was interviewing because I was on a Debra show and this is where we're talking about this.

And she said, well, you know, I think it's unethical the way AI like scrapes other people's images [00:47:00] and stuff like that and scrapes other people's work. And I'm like. Okay this is like me saying, I think it's unethical that the Tuskegee experiments happened, therefore I won't give my kids vaccines. Like, regardless of how ethical it is, it's happened, it's done.

Your kids are going to be competing, like if you try to teach your kid how to be a graphic designer, and, and they go out and try to get jobs, they'll be competing against people who know how to use AI. And even if they want to do their own art by hand, generally now the first way to learn to do something is through AI.

And I love it. Like coders. Oh, coders. But the, the skill tree that we developed for Parasia starts with, well, learn to code using AI, i. e. learn to give AI prompts that give it back code that you can use. And they're like, well, this will teach you bad habits. And I'm like, it will teach you bad habits. If you're learning to code for the world of today, if you're learning to code for the world of tomorrow maybe not.

And also keep in mind that it's the [00:48:00] first skill in the programming tree. It's the skill that a lot of people will drop out at, and yet it is the skill that any idiot can figure out, right? And realize that, hey, me, That doesn't fully know how to code. I can figure out how to do some basic stuff with AI. And this is true across all fields, you know, art, like, Hey, me as not, who's not going to try to become a professional artist, I can figure out how to like make art for title cards, for example, which I do every day, right?

Like it doesn't need to be perfect. You're seeing it in this little, like. You know, quarter inch square. Hold on. I'm gonna have a octavian come in and say hi.

Simone Collins: To sum it all up, you know what to sum it all up Basically parents need to stop thinking that switching up one of these things is going to change everything They have to think about each element of the kid's education, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, and they have to use the collins institute because it's the only real educational system left octavian What do you think of the collins institute?

Octavian: Dad, I Does [00:49:00] Really, really, really like, tips that are flat and a bag that's straight. And I like you guys because you bring those sounds, circle things that are yellow like tips. I'm so yummy.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, you like us? Yes.

Octavian: Because you just because you are the one, the one says she tell you,

Malcolm Collins: oh, you like us because we are obedient.

Octavian: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Do we do what you tell us? Yes. Here, do you wanna hold this? And do you like it when we do what we, what you tell us to ? Yeah. And wait, Octavian, do you, like, do you, like earlier you were telling me, do you like this world?

Kids: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Do you, do you want to go away or do you like being here like. Okay, do you want more brothers and sisters?

Kids: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Do you like mommy?[00:50:00]

Wait, are you, are you goofy? Can you tell the audience a joke about liking and subscribing? Why

Octavian: did a, why why did a car ticket cross the road to get to a wire? Why? Because you found food at an electronic.

Malcolm Collins: It found electronic food? Yeah. Wait a second, that doesn't sound true.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Wait okay, Octavian, Octavian, Octavian.

Simone Collins: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he found food that's electronic? Is that really what he said?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, he didn't cross the food to get to a wire, because he found food that was electronic.

Octavian: Because, no, because cars were in outer space.

Malcolm Collins: Cars were in outer space? Okay, so here's a question I have for you.

No, that's

Simone Collins: true, isn't it? There is a Tesla still out there somewhere, isn't there?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, okay, [00:51:00] Octavian. Octavian, listen, listen, listen. I have a question for you. Do you who do you like best? Do you like mommy, daddy, Torsten, or

Octavian: Titan?

Malcolm Collins: I like Torsten because he's your brother. Okay. All right. I'm gonna go get the other kids.

I love you, Simone.

Simone Collins: Pumpkin ravioli with pesto, right?

Okay. Gotcha.

Kids: You can

Simone Collins: talk to me, buddy. I'll interview you. Sound good. Okay, look, sit down,

Malcolm Collins: sit down and be careful. Sit down and I'm

Simone Collins: going to interview you, alright Octavian? Alright. Where do you learn the most? Do you learn the most at school or from watching shows like Magic School Bus?

At

Octavian: school.

Simone Collins: At school. And what do they teach you at school?

Octavian: They learn me.

Simone Collins: They learn you at school? Yeah. Do do you learn things from shows like Bill n, the science guy and Magic School bus too?

Octavian: [00:52:00] No, not those. Well also watch the monkey at the baseball player.

Simone Collins: Monkey with a baseball?

Octavian: Yeah, play. It does got an idea.

There was no computer to make it. Is that what you

Simone Collins: watch on the computer at school?

Octavian: Yes. I, I also have Chromebooks.

Simone Collins: Oh. On your Oh, Chromebooks, yeah. You watch, you watch the monkey with the baseball thing. On your Chromebook at school? No,

Octavian: but I Those are short videos of the Oh, there is one at the baseball place.

Simone Collins: The baseball place? What, what else do you do at school to learn?

Octavian: I That's a good question. I'll tell you. I, I I [00:53:00] did paper I, I, I draw paper and do everything and connect the jars and put it in my mailbox.

Simone Collins: So you do paperwork at school, is that right? Yeah. And do you like doing paperwork Octavian?

Octavian: Yes, I do.

Simone Collins: Okay. That's fortunate. That is very fortunate. Nice

Octavian: microphone.

Simone Collins: It's still working because I can still hear you, which is good. What do you want for dinner, Octavian?

Octavian: I want for dinner is the fakes I was talking about yesterday.

Simone Collins: You were like Miranda Priestly. I swear.

Octavian: I just want the fakes that Stacy does ask you.

Simone Collins: The Cheetos that she asked me for? Yeah,

Octavian: I want the Cheetos.[00:54:00]

I

Simone Collins: gave her all the Cheetos. She has all the Cheetos. There's only healthy food in our house, buddy.

Octavian: What?

Simone Collins: I'm sorry. Yeah.

Octavian: Well,

Simone Collins: you can have strawberries here. Do you like strawberries?

Octavian: Yeah, I do it. One of the things, say to this house, and if you don't let me have them, then I'll just be to kick you out of this house.

No, do it, no.

Simone Collins: You're going to defenestrate me. Can you say defenestrate?

Octavian: Defenestrate.

Simone Collins: Good, so that's defenestrate. That's what you were threatening. You were, you were going to defenestrate me. If you're going to kick someone out through the window, you're defenestrating them. All right, buddy?

Torsten: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Can you say that again?

Basically, if you don't give me junk food, I will defenestrate you. Say that.

Octavian: If I, if you don't give me junk food, I will [00:55:00] defenestrate

Simone Collins: you. Good job, buddy. High five through the screen. High five. Yeah. Good job. Good job, daddy.

Malcolm Collins: Learning to be violent with authority is important.

Simone Collins: No, eloquent violence in this house.

Yeah, eloquent violence. You can't let her

Malcolm Collins: Okay, what do you want to say?

Simone Collins: Titan, do you want to see Baby Deer tonight?

Torsten: Sierra, say Baby

Simone Collins: Deer. Do you see Baby Deer?

Torsten: I want to see Baby

Simone Collins: Deer. Do you like the Baby Deer, Titan? What do you want to say, Titan?

Malcolm Collins: Here, Titan, what do you want to say? Did you see the baby deer? Where's the baby deer?

Simone Collins: Oh, Titan, I love you.

Torsten: Come here, come here.

Simone Collins: It's a microphone, Titan. Can you say microphone, Titan?

Torsten: [00:56:00] Yes, I just, I just want to see

Malcolm Collins: a baby through

Torsten: the window. I

Malcolm Collins: just want

Simone Collins: a headphone.

Malcolm Collins: Let Torsten play with it for one second.

Simone Collins: Hey, buddy.

Malcolm Collins: What do you want to say, Torsten?

Simone Collins: Look who I have.

Torsten: Oh, really?

Malcolm Collins: Look, you've got the microphone now.

Torsten: Mmm.

Simone Collins: You see them on the screen, baby?

Kids: Yeah!

Simone Collins: Tell

Kids: it!

Simone Collins: Tell it! Collins clan! I can't

Kids: hear you, dad! You guys are ruining the world! I can't not hear him. Alright,

Simone Collins: I'll come down and make dinner. Are you going to

Kids: rule the world one day? I can't hear you! Are you

Simone Collins: going to rule the world, Octavian?

Kids: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, you're not [00:57:00] gonna wear them right?

Kids: Why can't I not hear them?

Simone Collins: Because I'm wearing headphones. Wait, are you gonna rule the world, Torsten?

Octavian: No, but I'm gonna hear them. I'm, again, I want to say more. I'm right

Simone Collins: here, Toasty. You want me to come downstairs? I

Octavian: can't hear you. I don't know what you're saying. So I'm not going to do anything. Okay. Hey!

Whoa, whoa, I gotcha, I gotcha, I gotcha, I gotcha. Okay,

Simone Collins: I'll be right down. I'm going to stop recording and come down. I love you. We're going to go downstairs.

Malcolm Collins: It's like a pipe dream created by a delirious woman.

Simone Collins: I will be able to hear you once I put these in. Ah, don't do that. Mrs. Grabulux. Well, miss, you're not married yet. Let's be proper about this.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I did have some talks with another family. And the goats have arrived, so she is married.

But I got you [00:58:00] those miniature goats you wanted, so

Simone Collins: No, they were miniature cows that they were looking at. They were gonna get miniature cows. Goats? But I think there's some kind of local ordinance that prevents us from owning livestock above a certain size. Maybe that's why I was looking for miniature cows, actually.

It's a loophole. A toy cow. It's not a cow cow. Did you know that the the, oh gosh, what's the, you know, Hannah Needleman? The Needleman's of gosh, what's it called? The Tradwife Farm.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, the ballerina farms,

Simone Collins: ballerina farms. Thank you. Yeah, the ballerina farms family once went camping with their dairy cow because they didn't have anywhere to like, I guess they had no one to watch it.

And, you know, dairy cows have to be milked quite regularly. So they just, they just took her camping, had fresh milk. It's

Malcolm Collins: cheaper than hiring somebody to milk your dairy cow. Honestly,

Simone Collins: it's so hard to get a babysitter. Can you imagine what it would be like to get a cow sitter? I mean, I get it. To yank

Malcolm Collins: on those, on [00:59:00] those ta tas.

Those teats. To, I mean that, you gotta, paying a teen to do that, that's hard if you're in like a conservative Mormon community maybe. Well, I

Simone Collins: feel like the modern liability too, maybe the cow would kick the local teen who you have cow sitting them and then there would be a lawsuit, so just bring it, can't say anything.

Also probably

Malcolm Collins: better for viral videos if you bring the cow.

Simone Collins: I think this was before they were vlogging, this was back when she just kept an extensive diary online. Yeah. Yeah. Vlog online. Mormons

Malcolm Collins: do crazy things. Mormons are the best. It's not crazy. One

Simone Collins: of my favorite experiences from childhood was my dad generously let me cling to the rack on the top of our car and he drove it for a while and it was magical.

Malcolm Collins: I agree. You are fantastic.

Simone Collins: Dogs want to stick their head out the window when they're driving in a driver's seat and they're not secured. They want the wind in their face. He was doing the [01:00:00] dog a favor. I, even dog lovers don't understand what dogs want it seems. What's wrong with these people?

Malcolm Collins: I know.

Disgusting, aren't they?

Simone Collins: When I think about the number of people who use their dogs for

Malcolm Collins: Master being pleasure will

Simone Collins: say,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, it's, it's high. It's high in America. It's really high.

Simone Collins: And it just really squishes me out.

Malcolm Collins: And I. Although, did you know, if you read The Pregnantist's Guide to Sexuality, one of the books we'd written, you would know it's one of the only fetishes that has gone down dramatically over time.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's nice. Why?

Malcolm Collins: It went from 7 percent to 5%. Because fewer lower percent of Americans lived in a rural environment. Is the core reason. Oh, so urban

Simone Collins: dog owners are less likely to. Well, no. So

Malcolm Collins: the question wasn't dog. It was animal.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Animal relations.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so, you know, just more people were living on farms in the past.

Well,

Simone Collins: and I think that in that case, we're talking about men penetrating animals when really what, what I'm [01:01:00] grossed out by most

Malcolm Collins: penetrating animals. Well,

Simone Collins: I'm grossed out by that, but I'm, I think what's more pervasive is women having animals. Oh yeah, it is

Malcolm Collins: weirdly pervasive. Yeah. This is, by the way, you know, our education episode.

Oh, no,

Simone Collins: no, no, no. Cut this out. We haven't started yet. Just start. We're not putting this in. This isn't, this is a family episode. Don't we're sorry. Start the episode. Start the episode.

In this thought-provoking discussion, Simone and the speaker explore the challenges and issues facing the current education system, emphasizing how it sometimes instills doubt and pessimism in students. They share a personal story from a concerned parent who removed their child from the public school system due to objectionable teaching materials. The conversation delves into topics such as racial identity, educational content, and historical biases in the curriculum. They consider the contrasting educational experiences provided by Jewish Yeshiva systems and modern universities, highlighting the decline in confidence in higher education. The video discusses fostering pride in cultural ancestry without shame, emphasizing debate and critical thinking as key components of effective education. Ultimately, it advocates for creating a system where students learn for the love of knowledge and meaningful discussion, rather than merely for grades or employment prospects.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone.

Speaker: Sorry, I'm late. Horrible, nightmare visions! It's called life, Dib.

Malcolm Collins: Education, as it exists today, seems to believe one of its primary drives is to induce pessimism and self hatred into the student from a cultural perspective.

Speaker: Children, your performance was miserable. Your parents will all receive phone calls instructing them to love you less now.

Malcolm Collins: You

Simone Collins: know, I feel like normally when I hear statements like this, Either from you or in media. My default reaction is always to say it's not really that bad.

But yet one more parent wrote to us today I don't know if you saw their email. We're having it i'm not going to name them for their confidentiality, but they were writing from a personal perspective about the experience that drove them To take their kids out [00:01:00] of Yeah, I'll, I'll read this just cause it's one of those things where like I can hear about it abstractly and think, well, that's not really happening.

And yet here's this parent. Saying

what pushed my wife and I over the line was a worksheet. Our daughter brought home, which asked kids to match values to white people, black people, et cetera, drawing lines between the group and what was valued. White people were supposed to be matched with money and a picture of a clock. I assume it indicated being on time between that worksheet and another take home worksheet involving pronouns and gender stuff we contacted.

The public school they went to and asked who is giving our daughter, the material, it turned out to be a consultant, which they subsequently refused to fully name or state what exactly they were contracted for. After that event, we pulled our oldest daughter

Speaker: What does identifying blotches have to do with determining our future careers?

Oh, you poor doomed child.

Simone Collins: I just to, to hear that, that, and we know, I can know [00:02:00] factually that that's happening because we talked about that one insane unhinged DEI consultant. This is

Malcolm Collins: from the Smithsonian where like. Being white is associated with hard work and personal responsibility and being on time. And it's like, well, that sounds super racist to me.

Like, how are you guys, how do you think you're the good guy?

Speaker 5: When me and Brad first met, I didn't think we'd get along, but turns out we kind of agree on everything. Your racial identity is the most important thing! Everything should be looked at through the lens of race! Jinx, you owe me a coke. We both think minorities are a united group who think the same and act the same. And vote the same. You don't want to lose your black card. Sorry, I don't know, I just think we should Roll back discrimination law so we can hire Basie and race against Jinx!

Now you owe me a Coke. Hey, tell him what you told me yesterday. White actors should only do voices for white cartoon characters. I've been saying that for years

Malcolm Collins: But continue.

Simone Collins: Well, no, I was, I was actually thinking about the DEI consultant who works specifically with kindergarten programs and has that curriculum. But, it, it just that it, that we Oh yeah, welcome to the garden, check out that episode. We are [00:03:00] contacted by people who are themselves experiencing this.

Makes me realize that you saying this, As much as I want to chalk it off to exaggeration and storytelling, it's not, it's reality.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. , and this is, I think where this is seen most right now is in the university system.

Speaker: The machine will now decide your fate.

Malcolm Collins: Recently, just 36 percent of Americans now tell posters they have significant confidence in education, specifically in higher education, down from 57 percent less than a decade ago. Oh gosh. So consider, 36%, that's all of the population that has confidence that higher education is doing a good job. And There was something written by someone who really helped frame this and put it in perspective to me, and I want to read it with you and talk through it.

Because it had me rethink some things. And it reminded me, we were on a [00:04:00] recent call with a pronatalist group in France, right? And they're trying to promote traditional French ways of doing things. And I consider us so blessed that we grew up in the United States and that we intrinsically look at a pluralist way of doing things, because it means that we look to other groups.

I, you know, they were trying to fortify their religion, Catholicism, right? And I was like, okay. Well, so surely you've looked at the religions that are more resistant to fertility collapse, like Protestantism and , Jewish groups. And they're like, I never thought to do that. And I was like, well, you should, they're doing this working that you could adapt.

And I was reading something by a Jew recently

Speaker 2: When have I ever ripped on you for being a Jew? Oh yeah, well you're a stupid Jew. You're a Jew. Shut your goddamn Jew mouth. Good job, Jew. Jews. Shut up, Jew.

You're a Jew ist. Dude, he's Jewish. Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew. Jew. I told you Jewish people don't have rhythm. F**k off, Cartman! Okay, except maybe for that one [00:05:00] time.

Malcolm Collins: and I was like, this is a really interesting point that I don't just think matters for our educational system, but like at the end of this, discussion. I want to talk through with you how we can update the Collins Institute, our free, you know, educational system, CollinsInstitute.

CollinsInstitute. org you can go check it out. But like I kind of want to re re rethink some parts of it, especially as we're dealing with older kids and the way that we do our sort of homeschooling

Hmm.

Okay. So this was written by a Jewish First semester, Columbia student.

In some classes, professors started having us read key passages of the text together, either aloud or during quiet in class reading time. I joined them at first imagining that a second read was a deeper read. Asked to analyze together, I might notice that my group partner had no understanding of Descartes .

Ontological argument. I tried to ignore it. So it's [00:06:00] not to seem unkind as our final exam neared my classmates. Study habits came into sharp relief.

They seem

to be learning the material from scratch, scrambling to flip through entire swaths of the Western literary canon in a single week.

Speaker: Take a good look, children. It will prepare you for your adult lives in our nightmarish corporate system.

Malcolm Collins: It was then that I understood that for the past few months, I had been participating in a show class. I was one of the only students who actually bothered to read any of the books. Apparently, the opportunity to explore the supposedly foundational texts of Western civilization didn't matter as deeply to my peers as I expected.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, could you imagine going through that? I mean, some of the most meaningful elements of my college experience was I took this one class on the divine comedy and going through that with a small group of students and everyone was so engaged in it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's [00:07:00] because you were with all the Catholics in that and they really care about that.

And this is when she was No, no, no. There was a, there was a Jew. Now it's a It was a Catholic, a Jew, an

Simone Collins: atheist. It was really great.

Speaker 8: Here's a start to a bad joke.

Speaker 9: Would you Happen to be a man of faith?

Speaker 10: Yeah, I'd say so. And would that faith happen to be of a certain chosen people? I actually kind of see myself more spiritual than religious. Oh, you're one of those?

Speaker 9: Oy vey.

Speaker 11: Well, my door is open, and on Fridays we get to Something my friend wouldn't know much about.

Coming

Speaker 9: from the guy who can't mix dairy and meat on the same plate. I

Speaker 11: was just talking to my wife about that.

Speaker 9: You know, I'm glad you brought her up, because I just saw Esther yesterday. She was at Culver's getting a double cheeseburger with bacon.

Simone Collins: That the Catholic I had a crush on was the only Catholic in it. And then the rest

Malcolm Collins: What, no, he works at the Vatican now, right? He

Simone Collins: I, I had seen him in Vatican City. I don't know.

I think he's in like Maryland now.

Malcolm Collins: Oh.

Simone Collins: But you know, it was a very religiously diverse class, but everyone had read the text and in detail and there was spicy conversation in that class. Can you imagine going to a class where no one had actually read the text except for [00:08:00] you?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I did that all the time.

What? Maybe the virus was worse in the UK. I did my undergrad in the UK, but a lot of people just didn't really care.

I've heard

it's getting worse now. Like this is an increasing, this is at Columbia where he's describing this experience. But you'll understand why they didn't care as we go deeper. Damn.

I was slow on the uptake for a specific reason. Like many modern Orthodox American Jews, I attended a gap year in Israel between high school and college. The particular program I attended, Yeshvat Har Estazoyin, Of course I mispronounced that. I ain't no J O O,

You know, maybe we're not seeing heaven because one of us is a J O O.

Malcolm Collins: you know, I don't know how to speak this language.

It's known for intellectually rigorous traditional Talmud study. It was, my first experience was higher learning, in which I and a cohort of like minded peers spent our days immersed in the demanding study of text, In this case, [00:09:00] the Talmud and its commentaries.

Experiencing these two vastly disparate educational cultures, one after the other, left me wondering what it was that brought about the baffling divergence between one culture that treated learning as the ultimate sacred endeavor and the other that treated it as a boring formality. And I think here he's a little misstating what he ended up discovering, but I think what he did end up discovering is really clear here.

On a typical day at the Yesh Kiva, we would show up to class having already spent a number of hours pursuing and analyzing the material among ourselves. We knew that if we had not studiously read the relevant Talmudic passages and commentaries in advance, we would be completely unable to follow the lecture.

So, as we sat in the classroom and waited for our Rebbe or teacher to arrive in addition to the usual small talk, my friends and I would often discuss the relevant questions that were on our minds. We had read that Maimonides, a 12th century Egyptian Talmudist, maintained [00:10:00] that the Torah requires all testimony to be received orally.

As the verse states, at the mouth of two witnesses shall the matter be discussed. Hmm. But how would he resolve the objection raised by Nachmanides, the 13th century Spanish sage, who highlighted that the Torah clearly allows for written testimony when it legislates divorce to be achieved through the use of a written document alone.

After the lecture, my peers and I continued the conversation, comparing notes, debating our Rebbe's approach, and developing our own ideas. Be sure to find time in the evenings and late nights to explore topics outside our general curriculum Studying among other things great works of jewish philosophy poetry and mysticism What motivated us to labor so tirelessly to understand these arcane and complex subjects?

There were no grades given at the yeshiva And our future careers would hardly be determined by our understanding of the laws of jewish [00:11:00] divorce So why did We sit at the edges of our seats to be sure we understood every word the rabbis spoke and Well, I'm sure you could you already begin to guess probably what the differences are between the two systems, but this is just so Aspirational to me of an educational paradigm.

How do you get children to? To value what they are learning for its own sake, right?

Simone Collins: Make a school for autists. Because this was me, before every single class, I'd show up and I'd be like, Well, what did you think about this passage in the text? And I didn't I, I

Malcolm Collins: think it's more than I think part of it he's actually giving away here.

Simone Collins: Okay, what is it? Is

Malcolm Collins: that he wasn't learning this stuff for grades, or for a job, or for, you know, secular world things. He was learning it for internal class status within the Jewish cultural hierarchy. And because he [00:12:00] believed, believed, and this is the thing about belief. Belief is a thing you choose.

And this is the thing I didn't really realize until I started becoming more religious is you choose to believe in God. It's not like a there's some religions who are like, well, God called to me. And I'm like, well, then you're just a schizophrenic. I believe there's some

Simone Collins: insanely high proportion. You had told me of people actually hear his voices, right?

25%, 75%, 25, 25 is insane. That's that's yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to choose to believe this stuff. He was from a culture that chose to believe that there was some intrinsic value to their progenitor texts, to their history and their ancestry and ancestors. But to go further, to better understand how they convinced or brainwashed, if you want to go with an urban monocultural interpretation, brainwashed their children.

To not be [00:13:00] ashamed of their ancestors and to believe that their culture has value in their lives has value. What a horrible brainwashing, right? Simone the yeshiva succeeded in cultivating a culture of area addition and studiousness in its students in large part, because they taught their students to be proud of their inherited tradition, which they were studying.

We were told we were studying. The uniquely special wisdom of the Torah, which was divinely gifted to us and our ancestors. We learned how the Talmudic sages of the past endured unbearable persecutions, even death, in order to preserve and study the Holy Torah. And it's exogenical tradition. We were taught that the sages, whose words we would painstakingly pour over, were among the greatest geniuses and most pious men who ever walked the earth, and that their works contain crucial lessons which remain relevant today.

The pedagogical culture I encountered at Columbia was entirely different. [00:14:00] Officially, Columbia prides itself on century old curriculum, a series of classes every student is required to take, which present an overview of the best works of the Western canon. But when I actually entered Columbia's classrooms, I found that this outward pride was hollow.

In fact, it camouflaged a much deeper pervasive shame, which most Columbians felt about their inherited intellectual and artistic traditions. Sorry, I'll note here I'm actually cutting out a lot of this just to make it quicker to get to the key points, so this is not, like, a direct quoting.

On more than one occasion, in fact, quite regularly, a professor of a core curriculum course, be it focused on literature, philosophy, music, or art, would be sure to note in his or her introductory lecture that, in truce, there was nothing special about the Western Canyon's approach to a topic. Their spiel would include some version of the following disclaimer.

If I had it my way, we would study African art, Eastern philosophy, or Hispanic literature. [00:15:00] Unfortunately, due to the oppressive constraints imposed upon us by the prejudiced alumni and agenda based donors, we will have to study the works of these mostly irrelevant dead white men instead.

Simone Collins: Irrelevant dead white men.

Malcolm Collins: Right?

Simone Collins: Honestly, though, I mean, I'm, I'm a very mercenary person. Whoever's relevant and whoever is, is whoever's bankrolling the school. So if that's what the donors want.

Malcolm Collins: Well, there's been a major crisis now. The donors don't want to donate anymore because they're like, yeah, obviously. But, but you white man.

We need to have like a spooky,

Spooky, scary skeletons Send shivers down your spine

Malcolm Collins: last time I did a, a a Peter s pumpkin, but this time I'll, I'll do something else for my spooky. I, I should, I should have our kids dress up [00:16:00] as white man. Yes. For Halloween. I don't know how they're gonna,

Simone Collins: they're gonna, they're gonna wear, they're gonna be ghosts.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, she's literally cutting holes out of sheets and creating Halloween costumes for them and I'm excited for it That you don't accidentally make the sheets a little too pointy Or we're gonna get a lot of trouble Simone

Simone Collins: No, they're gonna look like little ghosts from Charlie Brown

and except this is the thing Here's the twist is if they don't receive rocks, they're going to be sad.

So it's early

Malcolm Collins: where did they receive rocks?

Speaker 3: I got five pieces of candy. I got a chocolate bar.

I got a quarter. I got a rock.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

No,

there's this whole scene. Come on. Do you know? Have you not watched? It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The whole thing is when they go trick or treating, everyone else gets all this great candy. And then at this was one kid, it's like, well, I got a candy bar.

I got a lollipop. I got a rock. And if our [00:17:00] kids did not receive rocks, they would be devastated because they don't like candy.

So it's, I dunno, I find

it poetic and perfect. Like they have to be a little Charlie Brown ghost.

Malcolm Collins: Who would reasonably be excited to study the greatest works of a civilization defined by the greatest evils it has committed?

For the next several months, As we made our way through the greatest works Western civilization has ever produced, we would be periodically reminded that Western canon was built upon fundamentally bigoted principles. When we were taught about democracy in Athens, our professors emphasized that like America's democracy today, the Athenian democracy ideals were far from realized.

Women were not given an opportunity to vote, and the Parthenon was built using slave labor. I recall my surprise when we studied Rembrandt Our assigned readings focused on exploring how the Dutch master benefited from his homeland's colonialist ambitions. At every [00:18:00] possible juncture, the great thinkers and artists of our syllabi were put on trial and they were always convicted.

Simone Collins: This seems like a comedy bit. Like every single, like, well, this white man. I think

Malcolm Collins: university today is a comedy bit from the, the young people we know on campuses. It's literally like, Oh, we got to study this guy. But did you, have you thought about how maybe he might've been a racist? Yeah, no. Yeah. I thought about how maybe.

He benefited from their, and let's not talk about colonialism. It's like, they act like, like, like white people invented colonialism. I'm going to do like a series of maps on screen tiers of like historic empires, whether it's the Mongol empire, the Chinese empire, the Japanese empire, the Mazamuza's empire, like everybody did this, the strong conquer the weak, that's history for you, buddy, that's for the sign of That's a sign of reality.

[00:19:00] It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression. Symbolic of his struggle against reality.

Malcolm Collins: It's like, it's like you found out it's almost like, it's like one of those people who's like, did you know that when you go to a grocery store and you buy groceries, the store profits,

they don't

sell you the food for the price they bought it for. Did you know? And it's like, are you retarded?

Speaker 12: Plaque is a figment of the liberal media and the dental industry to scare you into buying useless appliances and pastes. Now I've read the arguments on both sides. And I haven't found any evidence yet to support the need to brush your teeth. I don't know how you know you ain't got rid of my teeth at a young age.

Because I'm straight. Teeth are for gay people. That's why f ers come and get them. If teeth make me gay, then sign me up. Cause I wish I had them. You doubt me? Yeah. Come on! To the [00:20:00] crime lab! Computer, search for Teeth, and Plak Conspiracy, and Metallica, and Justin Timberlake. Do Justin Timberlake. Please, Hushup.

The search needs complete silence to work. Oh, shoot, I forgot.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway.

Gotta continue here. These comments were not limited to judgments of individual artists and philosophers. Over and over again we were told how terrible it was that Western canon as a whole, and seemingly as a condition of its being, silenced the voices of women and and included only those of European, Christian, heterosexual men.

Which is, by the way, an effing kidding. There's a lot of famous gay people in the European canon, but like, okay, whatever. A lot,

Simone Collins: actually. Europe was very gay.

Speaker 14: That tan, well tended [00:21:00] skin, Look at the killer shape he's in, Look at his slightly stubbly chin, Oh please, he's gay, totally gay!

Speaker 15: I'm not about to celebrate, Every trait could indicate A totally straight expatriate. This guy's not gay, I say not gay. That it's the elephant in the room, No, it's irrelevant, you assume, That a man who wears perfume Is automatically radically gay. Look at his coiffed and crispy locks. Look at his silk translucent socks.

There's the eternal paradox. Look what we're seeing. What are we seeing? NCJ! Oh, you're a peon!

Ah.

Speaker 18: This man is gay and European.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of people know that like one of the most famous Muslim poets, like talked openly about gay stuff. There's streets named after him in Baghdad.

And still there's like, yeah, he's, what do you mean by what's gay stuff? Like sex was men. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. [00:22:00] I don't know. Like, I'm just thinking like Broadway and drag

Malcolm Collins: brunches before that.

Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, no, obviously. But like, I don't know, like, I just figured you weren't being as explicit about non heterosexual sex

Malcolm Collins: is very I mean, maybe not explicit, explicit, but as explicit as what's that Western guy from ancient Britain, not ancient Britain, but like, Victorian Britain.

Oliver What is

Simone Collins: there? I don't know of any famously gay

I'll add it in post.

Microphone (2- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): Oscar Wilde is the way I was thinking of.

Simone Collins: Anyway,

That is to say that there were plenty of historical figures that were gay, but like, yeah, I guess this, this isn't still, and it doesn't seem like it's been that long since we were in school and yet I don't remember any of this.

It's

Malcolm Collins: been a complete siege and this is a thing that many parents don't realize. It is not the same.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I remember some things being broadly PC as, as they called it back in the day. Yeah.

It's a whole new ballgame on campus these days, and they call it PC. And it's not just politics, it's [00:23:00] everything. And if you don't watch yourself, you can get in a buttload of trouble. Save the whales! Those women? Those aren't women, Tom. Those are womenists. Hey, Sam, isn't that the guy that you used to, uh you went out with a white male? I was a freshman. Fresh person. What's that supposed to mean? Yeah, cock man, oppressor. You know, this place is kind of insane. He's Tom, I'm your Causehead.

They find a world threatening issue and stick with it. For about a week. What happened to the ozone layer? It was last week. Now it's me.

Simone Collins: I think, yeah, that's the problem is parents are assuming that it's like what they experienced when they grew up.

And they did grow up broadly progressive to a great extent. And the school system was broadly progressive, but progressive now means something much more bigoted and hateful than it used to, I think. And that's the problem.

Speaker 5: Ask him about interracial dating. All I said is that black men who date white women have internalized racism, and white men that date ethnic women are fetishizing them.

Guy's against interracial dating now. Like, [00:24:00] am I being pranked? Did Boomer put you up to this? Ugh, you know that taco place is white owned? White people should be making white foods, like crap macaroni and cheese, no seasoning, not even salt. It's like he's a mind reader. I mean, I've been pushing for segregation forever and my man does what?

Malcolm Collins: And bigoted and hateful are the words for it. There really is nothing else. If you treated any other cultural group this way, people would be you, sir, are a bigot. Where such verbal grievances proved insufficient, the few pre modern female or minority artists who could be excavated from the historical record were messily grafted onto our syllabi. We studied so, Fanna Sibba, instead of Da Vinci, fragments of Sappho rather than Sophocles.

What? Sappho

Simone Collins: versus Sophocles?

Malcolm Collins: People. I don't even know if Sappho was a real person or a lesbian. It's just like What? Even? Might be from one line, but there is actually a lot of evidence that she probably wasn't. And that the way that she structured these few lines that are seen that way are, was a normal [00:25:00] way to structure plays at the period.

So, Sappho isn't even gay! People, I'm sorry Christine de Pizan in the place of Spinoza. Oh, what a shame. Such substitutions were celebrated as a reparative maneuver and therefore as a necessary improvement over the thinkers and artists who had been replaced.

Speaker: Now, open up your textbook and begin memorizing the copyright information. You will be quizzed on this.

Malcolm Collins: The practice was always increasing and the 2024 Literature Humanities, Cervantes and Milton, were replaced by Marie de France and Ibn Arabi.

Now I want you to contrast this with the conversations, oh this is me actually because I want to. I've been watching recently some contra some conversations that Sammo Sammo Berger, who runs Bismarck Analytics, really smart guy, has been having it's Rubiard, who runs whatevalt hist. And so people thought that I was throwing shade at whatevalt hist in a previous video, [00:26:00] that he was the YouTuber with more subscribers that I was comparing us against.

He is not. I really Respect the guy's work. He I don't agree with him on anything But I think what a lot of people miss is he's a

Simone Collins: you don't agree with him on everything But you actually agree on quite a few things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he's he's 22 years old. Okay, cut him some slack I actually when a when a young person Is too buttoned up.

I actually respect them less than when they make mistakes. A great example of this is like Brett Cooper versus Pearl Davis. I think of Pearl Davis was a lot more respect than I think of Brett Cooper. Even though Brett Cooper has a lot more followers and everything like that, she seems to be operating off of some script.

No one. And Brett Cooper was like 18 when she became famous. No 18 year old girl becomes famous without it. Cool. You know, questioning a few things. They're not supposed to question having a few ideas. They're not supposed to have, she's been so like a bowling lane where you put the [00:27:00] two like things in the aisles so that like no ball can ever go in the gutter with every idea she's pitching.

I'm like, Oh, she's got a team betting everything she does and says and yeah, Ruby art says some silly things, but it's just because he doesn't have any guardrails on what he says. It works. Things he's like willing to do it. It was the same with Pearl Davis. I'm often like, yeah, that was probably a foolish thing to say, but it shows to me that you're a young person willing to think outside the box.

And that to me is a higher order thing than always not looking foolish. And I, I'm sure that we look the same way to people, you know, maybe, maybe it's old people who might push the boundary too much. But anyway, so he was talking with Sam Obergia. It's this really famous analytic company. And they're just like talking about history.

They're talking about different cultures and there's no benefit to them of doing this. Like these, these interviews only get a couple Southern views, like less than a regular episode of ours. But it's clear [00:28:00] and I'll post a little bit of one of these episodes here. that they like these jewish students who pair off like this.

And we'll talk more about how their education system works, that they're just interested in the information. They're like, what does this tell us about the future? What does this tell us about what we should tell us about society? They are studying and discussing information that gives them an existential understanding of reality from their perspective.

Speaker 6: Much has been lost to the mists of history. We don't actually know how you can handle such a volume of mail, right? And those are the sort of main arguments that people use related to the literacy of the Empire. That's a very good point, and I'm of two minds. The first is that France in 1800 had a 20 percent literacy rate.

Speaker 7: And if you're looking at France in 1800, you're looking at one of the very most developed societies in history. England was like, close to 100%, I think. 70 to 100 percent in 1800. And you bring up, you brought up a couple of [00:29:00] interesting points I want to tease out. So I'm just gonna hit this like bullet points.

The first is, I agree with your thesis that the Catholic Church created modern science. Look at the scientific method. It was made by monks in the 1300s. And I'm one of the people who will agree with that thesis the most. Um, the second thing is that as to your classical literacy, uh, Jesus Christ was literate and he was a carpenter.

And so what that signifies is that the middle classes in the Roman empire at least were literate. And for the third point, I think one of the biggest things people should know about history is whatever thesis you have about a particular era of history is true, but the opposite is also true. And an example of this that I like to use because it just shatters people's conceptions of history.

Is that people would have sex in public in the middle ages And we see medieval europe as this very puritanical religious society and it was Significantly more religious than us What religion meant in that society is a very different thing where the things that we [00:30:00] associate with protestantism today like sexual purity or cleanliness or Reading the bible medieval christianity was totally different

Malcolm Collins: And that is a critical part of an education system. And I want to talk about how we can work that in. Do you have anything to say before I keep going?

Simone Collins: No, I want to see where you take this.

Malcolm Collins: My friends showed up at classes each day to preserve their GPA, not to uncover truths about the world, and it showed.

After being shown the faults of each of the great thinkers of the West, my friends showed little respect for their ideas. If a particular claim in the text did not resonate, it was dismissed rather than grappled with. Isn't it silly? A student might remark that Augustine made such a big deal out of a few stolen pairs.

This was the fruit of pedagogical shame at its finest. A cohort of students uninterested in and repulsed by the values and [00:31:00] creations of the culture they were supposedly being educated to join.

Simone Collins: Wow, okay.

So, not that we had college funds for our kids, but if we did, we would be dissolving them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. What?

Simone Collins: Not that we have college funds for our kids, but if we did, we would be dissolving them at this point.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Colleges teach kids to hate their ancestors and nothing hurts fertility more or the intergenerational survivability of a culture more than having pride in your identity.

And these individuals were taught. One, they're not even really taught their identity. And this is one of the things I find about American culture. It's one of the reasons why we talk about the backwoods peoples. One of the reasons we talk about the American nations and the different immigrant groups to America is people don't realize even within our country that [00:32:00] we're America's a continent, bro.

We are as different as the Europeans in terms of our perspective and our cultural history. And every one of us has something to have pride in when you study, when you learn about it. And I think that one, and the most important thing, is how do you impose an understanding of sacredness in your ancestors?

I think first, there's two things here, is to focus on your ancestors sacrifices. This is something that Judaism has done very well. Almost all of their holidays are focused on some sort of sacrifice that one of their ancestors made to preserve their traditions. You know, Passover, for example. Or

hanukkah. No, but they're all about some trial that they went through, right? Yes, yeah. This is a very powerful mechanism, and when you actually study your real ancestors, and better if you have [00:33:00] books about your ancestors and what they did. You can learn from them that the trials that you experienced today are childish and trivial in comparison, there's that joke about, Oh, I walked five miles uphill through the snow and and our parents generation, that was a joke, but people did used to walk five miles to school through the snow.

You know that, right? Like. It's not a comedy. The comedy is that they told you it. It's not that they didn't suffer through that. They did. Our ancestors suffered in ways that we cannot begin to conceive. Women lost one tooth for every pregnancy, on average. We live in a, and, and before penicillin, the level of pain that people went through every day you know, as we've talked about, like the king of France had like eight.

[00:34:00] Additional anus that was just rotted through this was yeah,

Simone Collins: serious anal fissures. We'll just leave it at that. Okay

Malcolm Collins: But the level of pain he must have felt every day King

Simone Collins: henry the eighth two of his leg wounds that just

Malcolm Collins: Every day they lived in astronomical pain and yet they pushed through For us for the future for their kingdoms.

Simone Collins: Yeah

Malcolm Collins: And so we all have these stories. Every culture has these stories that the Jews, I don't even feel like the Jews do a particularly good job of showing because their stories are told in a way that was meant to seem challenging to people 500 years ago. They're like, Oh, they were huddling afraid of like an invader who could kill them.

But today just talk about like basic medical stuff to understand the challenges of our ancestors.

Simone Collins: Seriously. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then the second thing. And this is where the progressives, their entire ideological trick. And you can say, why did they do this? They do it [00:35:00] because if you can lower somebody's connection to their ancestral culture, it's easy to convert them into something new.

And because they're peddling this mimetic virus, this totally new cultural tradition, the urban monoculture. The best way to do that to get people to ignore all of their ancestral tradition is to paint their ancestral tradition as evil or to lie to them about what their ancestral tradition was. As we pointed out in our black culture video that you know, if you go back to the sixties black people had a higher marriage rate and a lower out of marriage birth rate than white people by a significant margin.

And yet today you have movements like the BLM. Movement saying this is a traditional part of black culture and it's like, no, the way that you fight the progressives on this, okay, is you admit what they are unable to admit my ancestors [00:36:00] didn't create the culture I venerate. I name my children things like Octavian.

When my ancestors in England were taken as slaves, they were colonized by the imperialist Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire brought civilization that civilization. You know, when I look. Just so, so people understand, like, how backwards my people were, because it wasn't just the British, it was, you know, especially it was you, a lot of Norwegian, Viking ancestry Beowulf, and some people were like, oh, Beowulf, I remember, I was talking down to Beowulf in a previous video, and they're like, it has themes, it has like, metaphors to their state and society, and I was like, Yeah, some of the earliest literature has themes.

Beowulf, at the level of education that it was written at, or the [00:37:00] level of civilization it was written at, I would say is similar to the theming of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Except the Epic of Gilgamesh was written 26 to 28, 000 years before Beowulf.

Simone Collins: Nah, Gilgamesh is better because it has a good bromance.

All good literature has a good romance, my good sir.

Malcolm Collins: When I read something like Beowulf, I am reminded that while some people can't own this, that my uncivilized ancestors, before civilization reached them, were half beast and half

Simone Collins: human. Wow, you're really just digging in with the

Malcolm Collins: I don't have the hubris to pretend, and I, and I will say, we did, we took their civilizational architecture and we did better than them.

The Italians, the Greeks [00:38:00] today, they're a backwater, nothing of a people. They're a decaying culture.

Simone Collins: So you're not, what you're saying here is that you are not for ancestor worship. You are for celebrating tactics that win. And in the end, that's what should be celebrated in universities. And I would say that this probably gets at the heart of what Columbia was trying to do with their classic series, which, which was to say, Here are texts that over time have proven themselves to be foundational to Western civilization, which is what we happen to occupy.

I mean, don't blame us for not doing a ton of Eastern stuff. We

Malcolm Collins: occupy a civilization that has been conquered by a festering wound of bacteria, a magnetic virus. That has eaten and it happens many times throughout history when a civilization becomes too indolent. One of the things. Oh, okay. Okay. You're

Simone Collins: referring to the urban monoculture.

I'm referring to pre urban monoculture that the era at which this classics program was established. [00:39:00]

Malcolm Collins: For example, one of the things, you know, I was talking about Ruby Yard recently, talking about something really interesting with Samoan. One thing I didn't know about is they were saying, when the Persians reached the decaying remnants of the Babylonian Empire, they just opened the gates.

They didn't even fight. And they were going over multiple times in history where this happened, where an empire had become so decadent that it had lost the vitality to survive. And is that not what the West is doing right now, with the giant waves of immigration? Just opening the gates. We are just saying, I give up, replace us.

That is the state that we are in at this point, that we lack the ability to intergenerationally motivate our survival because we have no pride. That's

Simone Collins: the point is this is again a very happy cause. Pronatalism is the collective group of people who've chosen to inherit the future, who have chosen to be [00:40:00] there.

And to show up and to have kids. And so I think the bigger question is, I think most people who are prenatalist are probably going to opt out of the university system, or at least approach it with great skepticism.

Malcolm Collins: The question

Simone Collins: is, what kind of internal culture does one want to create? And how will one make that internal culture, one that, Doesn't just celebrate the ancestral values of the culture, but winning values that impart fitness, however you want to define it, to your kids, right?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I think that you need to find an intellectual architecture that may, one, resist the urban monoculture's attacks, which is really important that you're able to do. And I think the biggest point to resisting the urban monoculture's attacks is, for example, If I am an American black family, right?

And they're like, Oh, well, this civilizational technology of [00:41:00] Christianity, you know, as the Smithsonian spreadsheet said, that's not black. Monogamy, they'd say, that's not black being on time. They say, that's not black. And it's like, well, it is. They took this civilizational architecture. And if I am a black family in the 1960s, I can say, well, look at white culture, right?

Look at how indolent they've become. have higher marriage rates than them. We have lower rates of, of out marriage kids, of kids being born to single families. And we took their civilizational architecture and we did better than them. And the same way that I'm able to say that about like my Victorian ancestors, right?

Like they took the civilizational architecture from the Romans and they did better. And this actually brings me to one of the books that always sort of chilled me as a kid, because I, even as a kid, I realized how far society had already fallen. When they were trying to teach us to have more empathy for pre colonial black culture, they had us read a book [00:42:00] called Things Fall Apart by Chinche Achebe, which talks about the Igbo culture.

Simone Collins: I think I read that. Yes. That title sounds so familiar, but I have no memory of the reading. I

Malcolm Collins: remember, I remember one scene that just like, Wait, so then the colonists were right, right? Like, they helped you. In which, in the protagonist Okunokowa's village, twins were considered an abomination. So they were customarily abandoned in the evil forest to die.

They took infants and they left them to starve to death or be eaten by animals alive in the forest. And the apologists stopped this practice. The imperialists stopped this practice. I'm not like, oh, so like, why am I supposed to think that imperialism was a bad thing when I'm when I look to my own ancestors?

The cows, what did they do? They would make child sacrifices and we have found the bodies of children under [00:43:00] bridges. They would construct something as simple as a bridge to ensure its stability. Bad, wrong. Evidence of human sacrifices at Stonehenge.

Simone Collins: Wrong and bad.

Speaker 26: To be buried in that ditch at Stonehenge with the injuries he has, Suggests we have a sacrificial victim.

Speaker 28: Prepare to defend the eagle!

Speaker 29: Hyah!

Malcolm Collins: Civilization uplifted us and we don't need to shame our ancestors for embracing that.

When I look to the ancestor within my own culture that I admire, they are the ancestors after we adapted.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they're the ones who rose above, who learned better, who did better, and who learned and [00:44:00] iterated and, and yeah, overcame their Previous generation shortcomings. And that's what good culture is all about.

I'm totally with you on that. That's so funny. I don't remember things fall apart at all, though. I did read it. The, the only, like, I think the only good racism based education I got actually was they, they had us watch Roots, which was great with, did you watch it?

Malcolm Collins: I've watched some of Roots. Yeah. The only, the

Simone Collins: only part of it, I remember of it though, was them warning.

People like about white, white people and they're like, they smell like a wet chicken and there's something about this like sticks with me forever. Like every time I see our chickens in the rain, I just think of this line, they smell like a wet chicken and they smell like s**t. So I'll tell you that.

Malcolm Collins: So I'm going to go over one snippet from another article, and then I want to think through with you how we can educate our kids better with this information. [00:45:00] Okay. My optimism about higher education's recovery, of course, is based on my pessimism about the future of sheep raising in the governance of academia.

At the moment, the higher Oh, sorry. He

Simone Collins: means, like . I was thinking like animal husbandry. Sorry. That would've been more appropriate

Malcolm Collins: probably. Establishment Shepherds extraordinaire. Act as though things will go much as they have for the last 50 year. By things I mean the mass production of haphazardly educated, but heavily indoctrinated graduates.

Who have absorbed the core ideas that America is very bad, and that multiculturalism is very good. In 2016, when Donald Trump was campaigning for president, he caricatured higher education's business model as We'll take 200, 000 of your money, and in exchange we'll train your children to hate our country.

We'll make them unemployable by teaching them courses in zombie studies, and underwater basket weaving, and my favorite, tree climbing. Though the higher education [00:46:00] establishment detest Trump with every holy fiber of its being the professional bureaucrats and administrative careerists increasingly recognize that Trump's deflated view of colleges and universities resonate with many Americans.

So how can we build something like this Jewish system and to describe how this Jewish system works is you have an education system with no grades. That isn't necessary for a person's job outside of what they learn, which can help them within Jewish intellectual circles. So like what they learn is the point, not how it grades what they learned.

And they're expected to have these one on one conversations or debates about the information with other scholars in their class, which in part Influencer class status. I think that maybe we can create some sort of daily part of our education system where our kids can talk with other kids in our [00:47:00] network, right?

Like, okay, take somebody like Scott Alexander's kids, right? Like, I would love it. If every day we had one lesson plan where our kids would debate their kids or to make

Simone Collins: it about, call it. Yeah, fun interchange and status hierarchy. And then when you're reading something, you're reading it with it, with the motivation of getting to discuss it and hash it out with other people in an enthusiastic format.

I think a lot of people, for example, who watch anime or, or consume other fan universes don't necessarily enjoy every single series they watch, but they watch the series because they love discussing it with their friends. And I've seen this with other genres as well. Like a lot of people, when I went to college, loved watching the office together.

Not all of them loved the office, but they loved. The ability to talk about it in a really animated way with others.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that this is sort of like our track series. So, like a lot of our track series, biggest fans are actually her righty [00:48:00] Jews which I think would surprise some people.

This is like ultra Orthodox Jews. But not really see Jews and ultra Orthodox Jews specifically. When they are discussing their religious traditions, they are allowed to have crazy takes. They are allowed. I mean, if they can back it up with logic, that is actually something that has some level of credibility to it, right?

Too many Christians today. And I think this is part of why Christianity is failing. And I think it's part of why Catholicism is failing more than Protestantism, and Orthodoxism is failing more than, you know, I think even Catholicism at this point. So Orthodox Christian churches, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox churches.

And it's because if you sort of rate churches by how much are you supposed to like, Read the text and interpret it yourself. The ones that lean more to that are doing better. [00:49:00] And I want my kids to do that. I want my kids to read the text and tell me, dad, your interpretation is wrong. No, the

Simone Collins: point is taking ownership.

And I think that's the whole point of literary analysis. When done, right. When done wrong, it is. Okay, tell me the text and tell me what it means. And that's what a lot of school has become. And I did get some of that in some of my classes when I went through school. But when done right, it's Let's read it and you tell me what you think and you make your argument and that's where it gets super fun.

Malcolm Collins: What it should mean, I mean, if this text is imbued with some sort of supernatural and we would argue that all of the ancestral texts that have been elevated by God through their impact on our civilization have a divine inspiration in a way. Well, if it has a divine inspiration, then you're supposed to be able to take something from it relevant to your time.

And I think that that's a problem with a lot of these classics courses. As they're like, learn the [00:50:00] classics. But learn them was in their context. Yeah,

Simone Collins: only within their context. Yeah, and that's that's too

Malcolm Collins: much that they are relevant to you Yeah, specifically don't assume that Caesar was writing for you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, and that's wrong. That's wrong I, by the way, I just want to say to those who do not, you know, who think that Trump was making up the fact that they were tree climbing courses to Trump's credit, yes, there are absolutely tree climbing courses, but

Malcolm Collins: paying 200 K a year for that,

Simone Collins: not 200 K a year.

However I would argue personally that if our children took tree climbing courses, I would be very proud of them because that is a trade that is tree maintenance. And as you know, all too well, we get charged. Insanely high prices for tree maintenance. These people make money,

Malcolm Collins: do how to climb our trees and cut them.

Simone Collins: I mean, we would make bank. All right. So that is. I'm not saying it's 200, 000 worth it. [00:51:00] It is not a bad investment. And I'm seeing like three day extension courses with the university of Pennsylvania or whatever. Like this is not, you know, this is not a 2, 000 course. So he's technically right. He was just exaggerating it in a way that putting it in a context where it didn't make sense.

I just want to say that. So Trump was right. But I'm all for tree climbing courses because that's a trade and I want people to actually create value. And my big argument about universities is we also need to parse out what the different things you're buying are and what you're discussing here with this classics course for a while.

And like for why Columbia was offering it in the first place is to impart high social class, understanding the classics, being able to discuss them intelligently,

Malcolm Collins: A purely social class thing based on memorization, not on argumentational ability. Well, an

Simone Collins: argumentational ability is the core of the social class.

So what they have is a program that was originally meant to help students signal social class, which [00:52:00] is why many people send their kids to university. Then they stripped it of that. Because they, they got the kids disinterested in the actual texts, not capable of actually discussing them because they weren't freaking reading them and then put them in all this additional context that makes them utterly useless from a class signaling standpoint.

So you are totally wasting people's time. And then we also need to parse out. So are you going to university to signal class? Okay. Maybe we can find some other way to do that. You know, to show that you are well and be relevant,

Malcolm Collins: how class is Signaling is done within a culture in a modern context right now class signaling is primarily done through woke virtue signaling

Simone Collins: Yes, yes.

Depending on the social network,

Malcolm Collins: intergenerational wealth has completely fallen to the urban monoculture as have the higher echelons of big business. You are being naive here. If you think anything else, that is why, because these are class signaling classes, they're teaching you that, Oh, you signaled class.

No, personally,

Simone Collins: I'm just going to say this. I'm sorry, but [00:53:00] personally, I think that. Woke status signaling is extremely middle class. It's extremely middle class. I would say that crazy wealthy people. Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, we've seen some that are very, there is a wealthy class that is anti woke, but they are not intergenerational wealth.

They are not blue blood. The blue blood class has been completely toxified. That's fair.

Simone Collins: Actually it has. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's been, only new money is anti woke. Except for like us,

Simone Collins: no, there, no, we, we also know new money. That's super woke. So no, no, no, no,

Malcolm Collins: no, because they're trying to signal to old money that they're one of them.

Simone Collins: Maybe, I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: This was the whole problem with classically Abby, watch our classically Abby video. She's trying to be upper class when upper class is being woke. You can't be upper class and anti woke.

Yeah, you

could be a dissonant class like Elon Musk that the media will like make fun of, but you are [00:54:00] a rebel in the minds of everyone else.

You are though. Can you believe,

Simone Collins: but let's, let's go back to the, the, what do you do based on this? I think the big takeaway for me is. The kind of cultural indoctrination and pride I want to give to our children is not, it's not our inherited pride. It's not our ancestors. It's not in our case, like broadly European pride of civilization.

Yeah. And that's, so I'm thinking like, as I, as I think about What kind of pride I want 'em to have. It's what you see in the, literally the S Civ game preview

Malcolm Collins: songs. Yes. The th game preview. It is. That's what I want you to think about it is look at what

Simone Collins: the pinnacle of humanity has done at any given point in history and take that and your obligation in your rung.

of, of the chain of humanity is to take that and make it even better. And that's a big burden to shoulder, but it, what, what pride you can [00:55:00] hold knowing that that's something you are capable of taking on by standing on the shoulders of giants.

You're plotting a new course again, aren't you? The currents before us are ever changing. We must adapt and press forward if we are to see our journey's end.

It is the nature of humankind to push itself toward the horizon. We

test our limits.

We face our fears. We rise to the challenge. And become something greater than ourselves

Malcolm Collins: I agree, but the big thing I want to send them into for middle school is I really like this Jewish practice of finding a single debate partner.

And maybe mixing it up a bit, but we can do this within an online context, right? You can even [00:56:00] do it with AI

Simone Collins: in, in the absence of No, no

Malcolm Collins: Simone. Why not? They need to have pride. in winning and they need to build social connections and cohesion through it that will be of utility to them. We need to look for other influential thinker families who I think will have created some of the best of the generation, like sharpest knives to cut our kids against.

Yeah. Put them into rotating daily debates, like a half hour, an hour a day on subjects where they will be humiliated if they haven't actually studied it.

Simone Collins: Okay. I'm kind of, I'm kind of there for it. Actually, that sounds great because so much research does indicate that peer pressure is extremely effective and shame is extremely effective.

Oh,

Malcolm Collins: they need to know, they need to know that these people will be talking about them with the other friends on discord or whatever and be like, oh yeah, well, you know, they're not really a good debater on, they don't even [00:57:00] understand

Simone Collins: deontological

Malcolm Collins: ethics.

Simone Collins: Those Collins midwits. Yeah. Our kids won't go for that.

Malcolm Collins: They would hate that. That's how would not get it. You gotta get them a little bit of social pressure here. Oh, and what if they're debating a cute boy or girl? Oh, they need to know their stuff. And what a way for courtship that. That's I think, one of the true failings of the courtship. Oh yes. Is that it Is gender unique, right?

Mm-Hmm. . So that you're not gonna end up having to impress a cute boy or girl with your knowledge of the Torah. But or the Talmud but in our system, I actually think that's a really good system for mates. Well,

Simone Collins: I would say pitting any different gender diets against each other is, is great fodder because one of the most common tropes in romance, especially for women is enemies to lovers.

It's a, a very, like, that's a turn on her.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, he's actually pretty good at this. Women, women

Simone Collins: love this. You know, they love the, I hate you. I'm going to beat you.

Malcolm Collins: I also love debate without an external moderator. The idea is your [00:58:00] goal is to convince the other side. If you want to convince people your perspective of the text is right, their goal is to convince you that their perspective of the text is right.

Simone Collins: Well, this also takes us back to some of the oldest forms of education, which were debate which were rhetoric and you go back to the Cambridge Union, the Oxford Union. These are some of the most notable, memorable and powerful aspects of the oldest university systems. Yeah, I'm all for it. I love it. That's really great.

This is a fun takeaway, and I'm glad that you read that essay.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, a fun thing, 25k subscriber fact, that I found really fun before we move to the next episode is, I was going through this meme that was like a political meme of the different factions of like the way people might relate. To following fertility rates.

And this wasn't even on like a fertility rate sub. This was on a sub for like, political map memes, right? Okay. When we're like, well, do you watch Malcolm and Simone? And other people are like, oh, I love Malcolm and Simone. [00:59:00] Yeah. I was like, this is just like a random thing that I'm checking now. And people are like, oh, Malcolm and Simone.

And you know what they said? Eh,

Simone Collins: do I wanna know? Wish,

Malcolm Collins: talk more. Malcolm's such a blowhard. .

Simone Collins: No sweeties.

No.

Malcolm Collins: You are the star in everyone. You, she keeps her mouth shut

Simone Collins: for a reason.

Malcolm Collins: You know what's up? You are the, the reason people come back.

Simone Collins: Well, maybe if I drink more another

Malcolm Collins: drink. We drink more at the beginning of the next video.

Simone Collins: Okay. All right. Love

you. Sounds good. Love you too. Congratulations, it's official.

Malcolm Collins: 25, 000 followers, subscribers on YouTube, so you're gonna have a drink

which actually undersells how popular our channel is, because I've seen we've been popular, more popular than a few other like, but we were like, what episode do we want to do for the 25k subscriber special?

Simone Collins: Oh Actually, [01:00:00] do you want this to actually be the opening? Then you should just start with your normal. Hello.

Malcolm Collins: No, it won't be the opening. I'll put it somewhere near the beginning, but not at the actual opening.

Simone Collins: Okay. So hold on. Can I first just say cheers?

Oh

Malcolm Collins: yes. I've got to do my

Simone Collins: Cheers.

Malcolm Collins: Cheers. Hey, subscribers, subscribers. Cheers. It's so good to have you here. 25 K. And to have Simone

actually drinking in one of the episodes,

Simone Collins: you guys aren't

Malcolm Collins: going to get drunk Simone for two episodes.

If we're able to fund and film today,

Simone Collins: maybe I'll pour a little more and we'll see, but yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: so tasty.

Malcolm Collins: Do you like the what type is it?

Simone Collins: It's just a Speyside whiskey. 12 year, single malt. But, remind, it tastes like honeymoon. You know what I mean?

Malcolm Collins: When we went there on our honeymoon.

Simone Collins: You learned something new. I learned something interesting. Let me find the name of the paper that I [01:01:00] thought was really interesting. So, it is called if the face fits predicting future promotions from police cadets, facial traits which I'll get to the punchline of the research

when selecting for leadership potential based on police cadet photographs, respondents, predict Correct promotional choices at levels well above chance as measured by an AUC score of 0. 7. Further, respondents evaluations successfully discriminate both between no promotion and lieutenant promotion and sergeant versus lieutenant promotions.

So basically just by looking at someone's face, Get a

Malcolm Collins: fairly

Simone Collins: accurate. You

Malcolm Collins: can actually tell a lot about a person genetically by looking at their face. You can tell IQ by looking at face. You can tell voting patterns by looking at face. You can tell personality by looking at face.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Can we get, maybe we can find those composite images of a leftist versus a conservative, which are, they're just really,

Malcolm Collins: it's very clear.

I Well, in a lot of these, I look very much like the conservative type, I think. [01:02:00]

Simone Collins: And I look more leftist because I'm misshapen. We're the perfect.

Malcolm Collins: It was not misshapen. It has to do with softness of features.

Simone Collins: Versus hardness of features. Sort

Malcolm Collins: of a witless look. Do you look like a witless woman? We'll find the images and the audience can

Simone Collins: decide.

Malcolm Collins: Probably in the middle to trad wife. You don't have that. I'll put it on the screen here so the audience can make a decision.

Simone Collins: I still, it's what's interesting to me though, is it makes me wonder. If one then can manipulate one's face to look more promotable, is that enough? It wouldn't change

Malcolm Collins: anything.

It wouldn't change anything. What they're measuring are genetic correlates. Individuals attribute far too much to bias and far too little to genetic correlates.

Simone Collins: That's fair, though some people were in comments on this. This was posted on Marginal Revolution, the Tyler Cowen blog. Some people were commenting that this can be cumulative.

If you're [01:03:00] the tallest kid in the yard, people are probably going to look to you for leadership. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: come on! This is nothing like height! It's facial structure. People want to believe that humans have more free will than we do. We are mostly genes and then a little bit our environment and that's what makes us who we are.

Yeah. That's why when you have people raised in different families the adult IQ difference is only eight percent. For is siblings. So it's just, it's just, there's so much, so much is, is just genetics and stuff like that. And people don't want to admit it. It

Simone Collins: is inconvenient,

Malcolm Collins: but that's something we're going to be talking about on this episode.

So I will get into a start.

Are you sure this isn't too much light? I feel like it washes me out.

Simone Collins: No, I think it's, it's, it's the correct amount of, I mean, it's, it's a lot. I want better lighting for you in general. You don't have

this much light on [01:04:00] you.

Probably I do. Cause I'm sitting right with the window shining on me.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. No, you, you definitely don't.

This is ridiculous. I'm just looking at the contours of my face. You couldn't see any on this side.

Simone Collins: Okay. Well that's, yeah, that's a

Malcolm Collins: little

Simone Collins: better. At first it was so dark. So I'm just trying to correct.

Malcolm Collins: I don't believe you. The commenters can let us know what they preferred, the more light or the less light.

Okay. And I'll put this at the end of the video. So let us know. All right. Is

Simone Collins: it my fault for wanting to see your beautiful face? Is this your wife's?

In this episode, hosts engage in a detailed discussion about a Universal Basic Income (UBI) study, exploring its outcomes and societal implications. The study, funded by Sam Altman of OpenAI, provided $1,000 monthly to participants over three years. Contrary to expectations, the recipients had $3,000 less wealth than those not receiving the funds, indicating potential negative impacts of UBI on financial security. They delve into how this aligns with human nature, the role of financial literacy, and broader implications for economic policies and future societal structures amidst AI advancements. The video also critiques media representation of the study and questions the reliability of objective reporting. The hosts connect UBI's potential impacts to larger themes of work, leisure, and purpose in an AI-dominated future.

Speaker 18: [00:00:00] Well, here we are again. Yeah. You remember our learning machine over there?

Speaker 19: What's it going to teach us today, Mr. Money?

Speaker 18: I'll turn it on and you'll see.

Malcolm Collins: when they gave people a 1000 dollars a month over the course of 3 years, 36, 000 dollars in all.

On average, recipients of this money had 3, 000 less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money.

And I need to point out here. They didn't even increase the time they spent with their kids. Like to me, like, that's the, like the cruel twist of the blade of how fundamentally selfish the average human is,

Speaker 22: Yeah.

Speaker 23: I don't like

Speaker 22: people.

Speaker 23: Oh, well, now that's not fair, Roy. Have you met all of them?

Speaker 22: I've met enough of them. People. What a bunch of b******s.

Malcolm Collins: people are like,

I can't [00:01:00] afford to spend time with my kids. And we have proof now that even if you had more money, you wouldn't spend more time with your kids when people are like, if I had more money or if I had inherited money or blah, blah, blah, like I would be living a different life, like that's functionally untrue.

You would actually maybe be living a materially worse life and now means if reparations were to be paid as a form of UBI to the black community, it would permanently monetarily sabotage the community.

Speaker 26: If you're just joining us, black people got their reparations checks today, and in short, all hell is broken loose. So how did you become the world's wealthiest man, Tron? Hot hand in a dice game, baby girl. welL,

Speaker 27: I think what everyone wants to know now is what are you going to do with all this money?

Speaker 28: I'm going to reinvest my money into the community.

Speaker 27: Oh, that's a very nice gesture. What were you saying? Hi! Okay.

Is that your son?

Speaker 28: No, no, I just bought this baby Cash.

Malcolm Collins: Now, here's where it gets dystopian. At the top of the [00:02:00] page it's just one line for the results of the study.

Cache increases possibilities

Speaker: for I knew that even though some of you supported us, some others were looking at me and thinking, You're a liar!

You're a liar! You know something that you're not telling us, you slimy scumbag liar! You know, that's what people would say to me.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing something that changes my view on economics. The media. And what might be the most optimal economic system?

This is a large experiment that was run by Sam Altman of OpenAI to see if UBI would work. UBI means Universal Basic Income.

It is the idea that

It might make sense to just do cash handouts across the population, like say everybody gets 1, [00:03:00] 000 every month, and that this might be a lighter weight way to do welfare, and it might have some moral or even economic justification. Well, I am going to briefly describe the findings from this study that I thought were most relevant.

Then I'm going to go over the way the news. Reported the studies findings and the way his organization open a I reported the studies findings. So, the information that I thought was an important takeaway is that when they gave people a 1000 dollars a month over the course of 3 years, 36, 000 dollars in all.

On average, recipients of this money had 3, 000 less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money.

Simone Collins: Wait, wait, no, no, no, hold on. I just want to make sure I have this right. [00:04:00] They were poorer. The people who got extra money but were not told to change anything else about their lives. Had less money than before this experiment if they received the, what is it?

1, 000 a month payments.

Malcolm Collins: Yes So 36, 000 in total. No, no, no keep in mind this means somehow when contrasted with the other people they lost 39, 000 because it's not just the 3, 000 less to their wealth You also have to consider all the money that was given to them that at the start of the experiment, you know Should have made them well They managed to lose.

So they managed to lose a considerable sum of money.

Simone Collins: Ooh. I didn't think about it that way. I was like, okay, well, if you started out with 50, 000 and then you ended with a little less than that, you know, it's fine.

Malcolm Collins: It's worse. So for every dollar received by the program's participants earnings, excluding the cash transfer decreased by at least 12 cents.

Oh, so they were working less. We'll get to all that. We'll get to all that. I'm just giving you the, the. [00:05:00] Things I thought were most relevant. Okay. All right. Total household income fell by at least 13 cents per dollar received.

So, to your 1st question, recipients of reduced their by 4 to 5%. These reductions translated to 2. 2 fewer hours per week. 114 fewer hours annually recipients mostly spent this time on more leisure activities and not pursuing education or work.

Higher quality jobs or spending time or caring for family members. The authors noted, quote, Interestingly, we do not , observe those with children spending more or less time with children as a result of the transfers. Moreover, households without children reduce their work by more than households with children.

So, when people are like, oh, if I had more money, I'd spend more time with my kid, it's like, err, like, statistically, that's wrong. And I should note here that they actually kind of tried to go to participants, like, they would ask them every time they meet, like, how much time are you spending on additional education?

How [00:06:00] much time are you spending on additional training? How much time are you spending on

Simone Collins: See, you could even argue that they kind of

Malcolm Collins: And they did not. They still

Simone Collins: didn't even.

Malcolm Collins: No evidence of this. Now, here's where it gets dystopian. Okay. On OpenAI's website . At the top of the page where they, on OpenAI research, it's just one line for the results of the study.

Cache increases possibilities.

Speaker: For I knew that even though some of you supported us, some others were looking at me and thinking, You're a liar!

You're a liar! You know something that you're not telling us, you slimy scumbag liar! You know, that's what people would say to me.

Malcolm Collins: Let's keep going. So, here we have a write up on this by

The register

and I will read it because it [00:07:00] is, it is actually kind of chilling. So they wrote as the title of this, Sam Altman's basic income experiment finds that money can indeed buy happiness.

Simone Collins: Oh, I mean, it's not wrong because people spend more time Netflixing and chilling.

Malcolm Collins: I guess. Yeah. The results of the largest universal basic income trial program in the United States, the one backed by billionaire Sam Altman, no less, are in and entirely uninspiring. After three years of giving 1, 000 to low income individuals, 1, 000 a month of no strings attached cash, a group of researchers at Altman's Open research determined that recipients mostly spent the cash on life necessities, got a bit choosier in their employment, and made more use of medical care.

Perhaps most critically, it gave participants an increased sense of agency, making them more likely to start their own business, take the opportunity to work a lower paying job for more independents, budget their finances to plan for the future, and improve their [00:08:00] prospects for the future.

Through further education. Thanks for reminding us of what we already know, Sam. UBI makes overworked poor people less miserable, underlined.

Speaker: And then people would see my wife in the supermarket and they would say hello, but they'd be thinking, Ah, there goes that murderer! You got away with murder, you murdering, lying waste of life!

Simone Collins: I want to get this straight. So they, they said that the, the research gave people those opportunities, but didn't ultimately make those things happen.

Malcolm Collins: It gave them the opportunity to take a lower paying jobs,

Simone Collins: but it also gave them the opportunity to invest in education.

It didn't say that they did invest in education. It didn't say caused them. They factually didn't, by the way, it gave them the opportunity to

Malcolm Collins: that's just they

Simone Collins: chose. I know. Well, but what I'm saying is, is this this article was not misleading per se, but it was. factual, but more,

Malcolm Collins: more an opinion piece then.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on. [00:09:00] They get to the the meat and potatoes, so that you know that they're giving you both sides of the argument. Later in the article, it says, It's not all sunshine and roses and UVI land. . Though the Y Combinator Studies results published on July 21st, 2024 are generally positive and show the benefits of no strings attached cash payment.

Not everything was a net positive. Take, for example, the fact that that recipients were more likely to visit the hospital, see a specialist, go to the dentist, and cut down on excess alcohol and drug use. Those are all great results, except they didn't lead to a net improvement in participant health. Quote, on average, we do not find direct evidence of greater access to health care, or greater access to medical care.

or improvements in physical or mental health, end quote. The researchers say in the report, for many participants, quote, the additional thousand dollars per month alone may not be sufficient to overcome the larger systemic barriers to health care access and reduce health disparities, end quote. In other [00:10:00] words, UBI is just one piece of the puzzle that is lifting the conditions of the poorest Americans.

Speaker: And to me, people might say things like, Liar! Tell us what you know, you goddamn liar!

Malcolm Collins: Not enough socialism! Not enough socialism! I don't want, I To think that you could write an entire article and not mention that they were poorer at the end, that they were late making less money, that they were earning less, that their incomes were now less. Malcolm, stop.

Simone Collins: You're thinking too much. Quiet, quiet.

Malcolm Collins: They were in a worse position overall because now they're lower income. They were not spending more time with their kids. They were not spending more time on self improvement. They had

Simone Collins: the opportunity, Malcolm. Damn

Malcolm Collins: it,

Simone Collins: can't you just be A good kind person.

Speaker 22: People. What a bunch of b******s.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Actually wanting to talk more about this. Not spending a lot of time with their kids [00:11:00] thing, because I would thinking about this in my own life. And I realized that the amount of time I spend with my kids is not at all a function of financial security, but a function of just. Commitment. Like what I expect for myself as a parent.

In fact, recently I started deciding that every single weekend day I would make a day to do something special with the kids. Either take them to a park. Like for example, yesterday I took them on a long walk through,

The woods. , a hike up and down a mountain in valley forge.

Speaker 25: Oh, we're tired. I said that. Yeah.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): And. There was just a commitment, like every weekend day. I'm going to spend. As much as I can with my kids. And I think that. My, my financial situation didn't change. It was just a change in commitment. And I think for a lot of this stuff, it's just a, what's your commitment [00:12:00] to an individual thing.

And then when somebody challenges you and they're like, why aren't you doing this? Because you don't want the cognitive dissonance of, oh gosh, I could be a better parent. You say, well it's because I don't have enough money. But it's not because you don't have enough money. It's because you haven't decided to do it.

Simone Collins: This is

Malcolm Collins: In the register, a mainstream newspaper. So let's go to another mainstream newspaper. This time we're gonna go to USA Today, okay? So how did USA Today report on this? The title, How much is 1, 000 a month's worth?

Question mark. New study explores impact of basic income. Quote, How We're all finding the same results in quote said Stacy West, co founder and director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research quote. You give people cash and they make great decisions for themselves and their family in a way that you know can promote upwards economic mobility, end quote.

Speaker: You know goddamn well what happened so stop acting like victims [00:13:00] and confess, confess! Liar! Confess!

Malcolm Collins: So this person works for the University of Pennsylvania. That's a IEB league university. That's Penn. It's still a

Simone Collins: progressive university.

Malcolm Collins: But she's just lying. I, I, I, I just said

Simone Collins: it was a progressive university. What more do you need to hear?

Malcolm Collins: Since when did

Simone Collins: progressive universities pursue truth?

Malcolm Collins: Understand now how corrupt even the Ivy Leagues are now.

They will just Even,

Simone Collins: even the Ivy What are you talking about? They've been the Forefront of correction from the woke, my virus.

Malcolm Collins: I think some people still believe that there is some degree of credibility within the hollowed institutions. You may have had the wool lifted from your eyes, but I am sure some of our listeners are at least slightly aghast that she would lie to a reporter about something this easy to fact check and that the reporter would then publish all of this uncritically.

But let's read more of this article. That they wrote [00:14:00] overall, researchers said their findings suggest cash quote provides flexibility in quote, quote, the data we collected highlights the complexity of people's lives and needs in quote, reads a statement from open research shared with USA. Today. Quote, cash provides the flexibility to meet those diverse needs, and it is responsive when needs shift based on a person's circumstances in quote, according to the study here.

So now they're going over all of the important takeaways. That we should take from the study, okay? No, they are not gonna Note what they are not mentioning. Recipients increase their spending by 310 a month on average, primarily using their money for essentials, like food, housing, and transportation. Not really true though.

The money was also used as a financial support for others, with recipients spending an average of [00:15:00] 22 more a month on things like gifts for friends and family, loans, donations, charity, and alimony payments. Recipients worked 1. 3 hours less a week on average compared with the control group and reported more leisure time, but remained engaged in the workforce.

Recipients were 26 percent more likely to visit a hospital in the last year of the study and 10 percent more likely to get dental care and visit an emergency room. They also reported a decrease in problematic alcohol and some types of illicit drug use. Now here I would note, by the way, in case you don't remember, the other Paper accidentally admitted the fact that it's one of the ones this paper is coming up that their health didn't increase.

So, yeah, they might have had a marginal increase in dentist visits, but it didn't change anything recipients were 4. 4 percentage points more likely to move neighborhoods. Open research plans to look in to how the cash transfers affect housing stability and neighborhood [00:16:00] quality and future analyses.

Recipients, especially black and female recipients, were more likely to report having an idea for a business. Recipients also reported a greater likelihood of starting a business within the next five years.

 She's

Speaker 6: maKing jewelry now She's got her own website

Speaker 5: your sister like, going to massage school

Speaker 4: But

And it's just like, we're so happy, because she's not floundering around anymore.

Speaker 5: Yeah? What's she doing again?

Speaker 6: Making jewelry. She got her life

Malcolm Collins: and then And then it says, but the concept has received pushback.

More than half of us adults oppose a universal basic income of about 1, 000 a month for adults when surveyed by Pew research center in 2020. And the greatest opposition was among white adults. Whoa, spooky.

Speaker 8: [00:17:00] How's it hanging? I'm gonna scare

Speaker 9: the hell of you! Any

questions?

Malcolm Collins: A number of states, including Iowa and South Dakota, have passed bills that prohibit counties or cities from providing guaranteed income as skeptics argued that the money would discourage people from working.

And it's like, well, I mean, it did. We know that now. Why didn't you? Oh, you did report that they worked less, but you didn't report that they're also making less now and have less now.

Speaker 10: I don't know what your plan is, but I'm gonna stop it! I am infecting this city with genetically enhanced vermin, but you'll never know! You just told me.

Speaker 11: You're lying!

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, Simone, why do you think, [00:18:00] you can understand why all of the newspapers are lying about UBI not working and covering it up.

Why do you think OpenAI would be motivated to lie about UBI working?

Simone Collins: That one seems pretty straightforward that a lot of people are afraid that AI is going to take their jerbs. And if AI does take the derps, then they're going to get real angry at OpenAI. They're going to get their senators and their representatives to make legislation that kills OpenAI.

And if that happens there will be no more OpenAI. And OpenAI wouldn't like that. So that's what

Malcolm Collins: I'm thinking. So I'm glad that you immediately see through this. Sam Altman always hears, what if AI takes all our jobs? And so he's like, well, if I can show that UBI works at a broad level, then I can say, well, it's not my fault.

It's the government's. It needs to be issuing UBI. Look, I showed it worked. And for for people who don't know, this is by far, like the largest, most rigorous study on this done in the developed world. There were some studies that showed it was beneficial in developing countries, [00:19:00] but, like, in those instances, people were losing it to, like, change that roofs to metal roofs and it's like, yeah, obviously, but it turns out people in the developed world who don't have a lot of money.

The average income of individuals in this study was 29, 000 dollars. I'm going to say something so sinful. It turns out they're in that position because they have chosen not to improve their lives. And when given the flexibility to make choices to improve their lives, they don't make those choices.

Simone Collins: Actually, can I weigh in here? So I I've been thinking as you're talking about the results of this, this research of Caleb hammers, YouTube channel financial audit, where he, he has people come on and he goes through all of their spending and everything.

Speaker 12: Well dude, you're blowing all your money when you don't have money. You can't take care of your own life. You start your checking accounts with nothing. You refuse to get a job that will accept you, like the Whataburger job that did accept you, and then you decided not to do it. Well, I had a [00:20:00] reason. I mean, in my head, I had a reason.

Speaker 13: But you could have gone back and got it! They're always hiring! I don't know. Maybe.

Simone Collins: And there are so many patterns that I feel would probably show up in participants of this study as well.

There are many people who've come on, who've received inheritance. They've received 60, 000. They've gotten a divorce and they sold the house and made 200, 000. And when people. receive cash windfalls and they're not financially literate which is the lion's share of the people who come on Caleb Hammer's show.

They blow through it all. And often then some, they go into further debt. And I think what happened And this has been shown in statistics. Yeah. I think what happened here is a, a, a small, a relatively small percentage of uniquely predisposed to laziness. Financially illiterate people saw that they were going to receive a thousand dollars per month and were kind of like, Oh great.

Like my expenses are taken care of. I'm going to quit my job. Like my [00:21:00] expenses are relatively low anyway. I'm going to go out to eat every night. Like, you know, they're like, Oh, well things go to food and, and transportation. So they're going to get like a lease on a new car. You know, they're going to do a lot of things that they're going to increase their spending in a more unsustainable way.

Like I'm going to get sushi every day. And. This small number of people who just totally quit their jobs, which are probably part time to begin with, and just decided they were basically going to live off the thousand dollars threw off.

Malcolm Collins: People didn't decrease their, their the percent employed didn't decrease, but their hours work did their hours were did.

So I said,

Simone Collins: these people who are probably working part time anyway are probably decreasing. I'm going to push back

Malcolm Collins: really strongly. You think so? In your mind, you hear 20, 000 and you hear low income individual when 29, 000 is around the mean income in the United States. I mean, median income. Hold on, I'm going to look up right now, but I'm

Simone Collins: pretty sure.

Yeah, I think, I thought it was more around 60, 000 for household, which is much higher than what you're saying.

Malcolm Collins: No, it's uh, [00:22:00] 37. 5. Is the median? It's the median. So this is around the median income in the United States. This is not like, unique, idiot, like, whatever. But I'm gonna go further because I want to explain how the study works.

I want this to be a good summary of like everything on the study, all of the important findings and how it's structured. So over the course of the study, as I've mentioned they What treatment group one was given 1, 000 per month. The control group was given 50 per month, and this was to keep them coming back.

There was 1000 participants in the treatment group, and there was 2000 participants in the control group, which is enough to be very statistically significant in a study like this. Payments were unconditional with no strings attached. Participants retained all existing benefits. Data collection. The study collected both quantitative and qualitative data.

Specifically, they did lots and lots of surveys because again, it's an expensive study to run. So they want to capture everything and bank transactions and they also did interviews with participants and there's going to be multiple extra studies to come out about this [00:23:00] going forwards but i'm sure they're going to be more massaged going forwards now that the Cat sort of out of the bag was this one and i'm sure sam the person funding.

This was not happy about this Especially given that he just had everyone lie about this when he could have, like, owned and been like, okay, well, now we need to come up with something other than UBI, which he didn't do. He's like, we're still going to pass. I expect massage results going forwards.

So, there was a benefit to food scarcity, but this was short lived and it disappeared over time. By the end of the program, participants reported no better ability to meet their food needs. The control group, the people in this was really fascinating to me. The people in the treatment group who were getting the UBI, they significantly increased disability reporting.

So by four percentage points. So once you started to get some handouts, it seems like you normalized to this way of life and begin to look for additional ways to get handouts. Which is not great. No significant health improvements quote. And this is from the study. No improvement in measures that participants self reported access to health care or their [00:24:00] concerns about their ability to pay for needed medical care in quote.

And their debt increased. So, if you are on UBI, while the amount of money you reported spending on saving money increased, your actual functional debt at the end of this was higher. And so, employment effects There was a 2 percent decrease in labor market participation. This recorded in eight fewer weekdays annually.

Next other negative effects. There were minimal changes in credit availability, bankruptcy rates, and foreclosures. Now let's talk about the positive outcomes. Increased spending on essential needs like food, house, sports, and transportation.

I mean, but those aren't really essential needs is the thing. If they're not increasing your productivity, then they're not essential needs that they're a form of luxury. If I go to live in a mansion, is that an essential need?

Speaker 14: How much debt did you go into in those three months? Mmm, those three months, I would say, 15, 000. F you, lean, that's not lean. [00:25:00] It was my, my, my rent. That's not lean, though. My rent for a month is 3, 500. It's not overly expensive, but it's not lean. My rent was 3, 500. Yeah, that's not lean. Because that's the place I was going to live in.

I don't care, live in a cheaper place. Mm hmm, but then I would have to move again. Oh, cry. Cry. What? So, the problem was, I was supposed to start working August I'm trying to justify all this bull Okay, yes. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, this shows up again all the time in financial audit when Caleb asks like, well, you know, what's this and what's this.

So many things that are food are really not food and people are spending ridiculous amounts eating out and they're going to classify, I'm sure all restaurant visits in this. And if someone gets a new car, a new lease, like chooses to do something irresponsible as transportation again, and Caleb gives his guests so much s**t for eating out, even just going into a gas station and getting a snack, he gives them s**t for that.

He gives them like anything like he considers irresponsible, [00:26:00] but people do it so much, especially if they feel like they have money to spare and the same with transportation. Like there's people who will just take Ubers everywhere or. Like, and like, you know, us, like, even when there's an emergency, we're like, I don't know, maybe I can, I can walk it, you know?

No,

Malcolm Collins: I was just thinking about us and eating out. So Simone basically never eats out. You may eat out three times a year. Maybe I am a little bit more like I am. I admit that I have less Austerity than Simone. And yeah, like even when

Simone Collins: we go traveling, I'm going to a grocery store and buying food.

Malcolm Collins: But when I eat out.

I always and it's probably less than once a week. I always ensure that I can make at least two full days worth of food out of it. By that, what I mean is I typically only eat one meal a day. And when I eat out, I'll make that my one meal for the day. And then I save half of it. And then I cook it the next day for my second one meal of the day.

And Simone, you're not like, you know, I'm a hundred percent about this. And when a restaurant lowers its portions, I like get really angry because we've

Simone Collins: stopped our, we have this. [00:27:00] favorite restaurant in our area that it decreased its portion size. And we're just like, that sucks. We never get to go there again.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I can't make two meals and stretch

Simone Collins: it into two meals. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, I, yeah, I do want to highlight that that's probably what they're catching here is really just leisure spending. They did, as mentioned by other things, give away more money, 22 per month. Okay. They got 1, 000 and they gave away 22.

So generous. They had improved food security in the first year, but only in the first year. They had marginal increased use of dental care, as somebody else mentioned. More autonomy in decision making and job searching, whatever that means. By the way, for people wondering where this happened, it was Texas and Illinois across urban, suburban and rural areas.

The age range was 21 to 40 years old income qualification, household income below 300 percent of the federal poverty threshold, approximately 77 0. 25 K. So you could get into the purchase. The study of you had up to [00:28:00] 77, 000 in family income for family of four or 37. 5 for an individual average household, individual so what are your broader, like, to me, I used to believe in UBI. I was always like, we do need at least one big study on it. I am glad that he did the big study. I am sad that they are occluding the real results of the study. I wonder, for you, why do you feel that it did decrease people's earnings, incomes, financial security, and, yeah.

Simone Collins: Again, I, I, what I see on financial audit when this happens again and again, is it gives people a false sense of security and it makes them, it gives them the sense that, oh, my expenses are covered now. Like, oh, I have money now. Therefore, I can relax a little.

And these are people who already feel kind of constrained and stressed out. They're dealing with student debt. They're dealing with auto debt. They're dealing with personal loans. They are living paycheck to paycheck. And they're thinking, All [00:29:00] right. Well, like this is great. Like this means that I can let loose a little more, like eat out a little more.

And there's a lot of emphasis on like you pointed out. It's like eating out and indulging in pretty expensive things is actually, I would say more common among people of more limited means than it is among more wealthy people, like more wealthy people. We know like when we've hung out with wealthy people, they're like, No one eats out.

Yeah, everything's in and like bought from Costco or like some, like, and that's a luxury, you know, having a house where you can have a deep freezer, where you have space to store, like a giant bag of rolls of toilet paper is a luxury. Yeah. And I, I think that's, that's an issue, but like, yeah, like that, that's, that, that is what happens also with this whole thing of like, people said they were saving more, but they were in more debt.

I see that show up on financial audit a lot too, where people are like, well, don't worry, I'm saving like this much saved up. And then Caleb will be like, yeah, but you have 16, 000 in credit card debt at 21 percent interest. What are you doing? Like people don't realize or they don't see debt the same.

[00:30:00] So I bet people were racking up credit card spending and they were technically saving, like putting cash into a savings account. But then being more spendy with their credit card, because again, they had this false sense of security. So I think a lot of this comes down to financial literacy. I was watching and I don't, I

Malcolm Collins: don't, Simone, you can save financial literacy all you want, but functionally giving these people more money made them more financially insecure.

They had in the end. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In total. So, I mean, I think that you can say it's a problem of financial literacy, but I think that the, the function of this is that it turns out, you know, when people are complaining about capitalism, they're like, well, capitalism is forced labor because you're sort of like scared into working.

They're like, yeah, you may not have a gun to your head, but, you know, You know, you have to deal with the fear of what happens to you. If the money stops coming in, it turns out that that's a key here. Part of making capitalism work. Then I think even the pro capitalist people realized, I think a lot of capitalists thought like, well, wouldn't it be nice if we [00:31:00] had something that was like capitalism, but without the gun to the head.

And it turns out when you remove the gun from the head, people end up just. Living more hedonistically and I need to point out here. They didn't even increase the time they spent with their kids. Like to me, like, that's the, like the cruel twist of the blade of how fundamentally selfish the average human is, but it also, I think, shows something that we talk about was having kids and everything like that, which is people are like, I can't afford to have kids.

I can't afford to spend time with my kids. And it turns out that no, you are choosing. How much time you're allocating to your kids and we have proof now that even if you had more money, you wouldn't spend more time with your kids and that the average person who's saying that is just diluting themselves.

They're going to go out to restaurants more. They're going to do little indulgent things and that's it. But I mean, I, I like, and I think that when you talk about this from a financial literacy perspective, [00:32:00] undersell. What this is saying one, one thing about human nature, which is that the way that you live life today, when people are like, if I had more money or if I had inherited money or blah, blah, blah, like I would be living a different life, like that's functionally untrue.

Like we know that from the data. Now, if you had more money, you wouldn't be living a better life. You would actually maybe be living a materially worse life. So. That's true. Second is UBI, if done at the societal level, is gonna, think of the effect this would have on, like, we're not even talking about the UBI, like, even if the UBI was free, it would have a negative effect on On GDP.

That's insane that if we could like force some other country to pay for UBI, it would have a negative effect on GDP, but it gets worse than that. What if you're talking about something like reparations and now means if reparations were to be paid as a form of UBI to the black community, it would permanently [00:33:00] monetarily sabotage the community.

Make them permanently more poor. It also means I mean, just the little things, the little things really got to me that these people went into more debt and everything like that. And I think it just removes like this for me, remove so many, I think I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

And when I say people, I don't mean individuals. I mean, I rarely give individuals the benefit of the doubt, but I mean, humans overall, like maybe humans aren't that selfish and dumb and narcissistic and the bed. If you just gave them, I was on a call recently because occasionally, we get called in to do meetings with like. Well known investors and the investor I happen to be meeting was on this one. I was on a call with a female investor who you all probably know, but I don't know if I'm allowed to say, but anyway, one of the guys on the call, because I was talking about the impacts of fertility collapse.

And we were talking about where [00:34:00] AI might end up impacting this. And I was like, well, I mean, functionally AI is going to make a certain portion of the global population obsolete. And his argument was, no, it won't make a certain portion of the global population obsolete. It'll make you know, you'll be able to give it to people in like these poor countries in Africa and make them as efficient as somebody in the developed world.

And I was like it's just not, I, I, and what I said, and I didn't mean to come off as derogatory about this. As I said, I think that you are surrounded by too many intelligent people. And I was like, I run a company that focuses on outsourcing travel management in Latin America. So I work with a lot of this type of person.

Well, no, we,

Simone Collins: we have, we have. Worked with talent in everywhere from Africa to Europe, to Asia, to Latin America that's central and South America and, and the United States. And I think the bigger problem, this isn't like people in other areas. The bigger [00:35:00] problem is that people who tend to be extremely educated and Working in very privileged, isolated communities, especially in investment that includes search funds, private equity, also tech funded like our sorry VC funded venture backed startups tend to get this myopic view that everybody is like them, which is to say that everyone is equally resourced, equally educated with as many countless years and hours.

Of education behind them, and therefore they have the same amount of potential if suddenly given the exact same resources, which is just not the case. Some of these people have just grown up so malnourished that even when given an additional 10 years of education, it's still going to take them a while to catch up.

Malcolm Collins: But it's not just that as a problem. Like, I'm even thinking about where I'm using AI. Everywhere that I use AI in my life is either something I would have hired someone else to do, or something I was hiring somebody else to do. It is never a case in which it significantly empowers somebody [00:36:00] else. We have a, on the margin here with our company where it improves people's English skills if they don't speak English, cause they can run it through and say, does this make grammatical sense in English, but those are employees just doing a slightly better job than they were doing before.

It's not like additional employees or additional work. Where. In fact, I would say that I probably in, in this last year probably saved 10, 000 I would have spent on outsourced talent just in my personal life.

Simone Collins: And that's, that's also universal. And the people being outsourced are not, I would say actually at this point, Maybe some low skilled workers are being displaced by AI, but more it's people who would be earning over 100, 000 who wouldn't, it would be exempt from this UBI experiment because the people who first and foremost, I'm seeing struggling to get jobs now are.

Like we'll say higher touch customer service representatives. [00:37:00] They're engineers, coders specifically, and they are analysts. And these are all very highly educated people. I can't remember which guy it was on the online podcast. But he was talking about how he made everyone at his firm set their new default tab to me, I think it was one of the latest versions of chat GPT.

Just to get them so accustomed to using it in place of a traditional search engine, but also utilizing it to do what an analyst would otherwise do. And that's what they're doing. They're basically realizing they no longer need analysts. Because all you have to do now is basically say, you know, tell me what this industry outlook is.

Look at these things and compile these reports. You know, give me the odds of this or that happening. And it's really, really good at doing that. So I would say this is, it's even, it's, it's a more dire picture right now for privileged people than it is for unprivileged people.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree with that. I think certain types of privilege, these people, and this is the thing that's the [00:38:00] difference, right?

And I think that this is what I told him that like, he fundamentally didn't. understand if I give somebody from one of these backgrounds, a simple task, like do this, then this, then this the odds that they will be able to complete that task is actually fairly low. They will complete it sometimes, not other times.

Sometimes they'll try to steal from you midway. Sometimes they'll decide that there's some other way it can be done that actually makes no sense. Given the context. Just like the level and routineness of extreme screw ups that you're not going to get from an AI is Insane. There is no reason for me to work with that.

I want to say, let's just talk about this podcast, right? In terms of like people losing their jobs and why we're not going to other people. I was looking to hire somebody to do our title cards. This was a job that I like interviewed people for now. I just do it with AI. Like that's the core thing.

Me plus AI, because me plus AI. When [00:39:00] you enhance the working abilities of like the smartest or most talented or most ambitious or most self starter people in society, they can do the jobs of tons and tons of other people. It turns out that like, if you lack this self starterness or like, it expands the potentiality of the most productive members of society.

Way more than it expands the potentiality of the average member of society or consider this podcast. Like as this podcast has grown, we're probably at the point now where most podcasts would be hiring like analysts or have fans do that. But if you look at this episode, how did I get the information for this episode perplexity?

You know, I go through, I'm like, Oh, what are all the arguments here? What are all the ways his study went wrong? What are all the, you know, and that's something I would have hired someone to do on Upwork before it wouldn't have been a high paying job, but somebody would have had that job. And I think that.

This misunderstanding of just how low functioning the average human is leads to really smart people who surround themselves with really smart people to make [00:40:00] really bad bets about what's going to happen in the future. But those bets are often very self serving.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I also, I think that some of this illustrates illustrates the importance of I will versus IQ.

That it really isn't about being smart or having the capability of something. And that's what people are also underestimating when looking. There's, there are people who are tracking, like, how does AI perform on intelligence scores now? Like, how intelligent is AI? And I will, like, AI does not have to be very intelligent at all to be more useful than even an intelligent person, because even intelligent people often don't want to follow instructions, don't care about following instructions, forget about instructions, you know, they, you can have the processing power, but the ability to follow through.

With humans is rare and wanting. And that's, that's why I think the people who ultimately win in the post AI world are not necessarily the most smart people. They're the most [00:41:00] ambitious, tenacious, voracious.

Malcolm Collins: People, that's why we built the Collins Institute the way we did, which is our school system for anyone who's watching this and doesn't know this, it's free for your kids.

But yeah, I mean, we need to foster those skills cause that's what matters in the AI era.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Speaker 16: My wife and I built the Collins Institute, a comprehensive interactive map, or skill tree, comprising all of human knowledge. The platform is designed to be usable as soon as a student gets comfortable with reading, and goes about midway through a PhD in most subjects.

However, we built it to cover all human knowledge, meaning it covers a much larger domain than is taught in the traditional school system. Ranging from tort law, to hanging drywall, to the industrial transportation of grain, or aquaculture pharmacology.

 Click on a node to open it. The node will include a description of what knowledge is needed to pass its test, as well as a list of the best places to learn that information.

Vote on the sources that were most useful to you by clicking this button. To add an additional source, click this [00:42:00] button.

Malcolm Collins: Did you have any other takeaways? I guess one of my takeaways from this is I was really disappointed. Even, even I, who is regularly disappointed in the media, this was like a new level. This was like, Oh,

Simone Collins: well, this isn't just disappointing.

It feels. Creepily manipulative, especially in favor of Marxism. Because it's, it's not just like, oh, you guys didn't try. And, and I think we're very accustomed to lazy journalism. What we're not accustomed to is, and honestly, I think that there's a reality in which nobody actually tried to post misleading information about this.

And I say, this is someone, one of my flaws is that. I'm very trusting of other people and I can be trusting to the point of gullibility where if someone's kind and they're like, this is me, this is my background. I'm like, okay, great. And I take everything at face value. [00:43:00] And I also see then after that point, anything that they present to me is like confirmation of them being a great person.

And I think maybe what's happening here is, is a lot of these people are just so. Steeped in socialistic ideals that they just can't see anything that runs contrary to that reality. That they're so accustomed to realities in which universal basic income is the obvious correct answer and everyone knows it works well.

And this study is just going to show people in more granular detail how and why it works well that they literally can't see like muggles not seeing magic. They don't see the fact that people had lower net worth after being in the treatment group for this period. I really think that's more likely than them actively trying to mislead.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, look, like I want to consider this line. This is the line that gets me this sarcastic. Thanks for [00:44:00] reminding us of what we already know. Sam UBI makes overworked poor people less miserable. Like I hear you. But then are these people just like autonomous drones that need to be taken out? Like, are they, are they like contributory members of society or are they lesser than an AI?

And I think that that's something that I'm realizing. Well,

Simone Collins: Malcolm, these people are very unlikely to be those who are having kids. So I, I, I wouldn't worry about them too much in the long term and the short term we're getting to an age in which people who have strong biases like these are mostly preaching to the choir.

So they're not doing any damage because no one's listening to them. Like, in another conversation we had recently, you pulled up the top performing podcasts and none of them were really. espousing progressive ideals so much. If anything, if [00:45:00] they were led by progressives, it was heterodox progressives and not towing the line progressives.

So it's clear that there's some people who just consume mainstream media and that's our source of truth. And there's the people who, Consume the, you know, this collection of podcasts and, or, you know, this collection of sub stackers with these people on Twitter or this little corner of the internet. And that's their reality.

So I don't, I'm not too worried about them. I don't think they need to be, you know, questioned or fired or

Malcolm Collins: institutions in one of the two political parties in this country and they can pass legislation that ends up hurting millions of people.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I do worry about, I mean, given this information and the point you make both about UBI and reparations and how much damage they can do to people who really shouldn't be subject to more damage, like who don't deserve this.

I, I do. I

Malcolm Collins: do worry about that. I want to talk about a bigger problem here. Okay. And this comes from, so we have a lot of friends in the Latin American [00:46:00] community, cause that's the majority of the people we hire. And it's also, you know, like our kids, God's parents, like we're just really tight with Latin America, especially Latin American first generation immigrants in the United States.

And so we were able to see some of the changes that happened in this community throughout things like COVID. One of the things I've mentioned is that they've moved significantly to the right of where they were historically. But the other thing that I noticed that happened Is the cultural norms changed within the community where before COVID and the basically free money program that happened during COVID where everyone was getting their COVID stimulus checks.

Before that, a sign of status, like what you aspired for, if you were like a young person within the community was to be able to show off by spending sort of excess superfluous wealth, you know, bling, that sort of stuff. Fancy cars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And during COVID, cultural norms began to shift in the community where actually the highest form of status or [00:47:00] show off was to not be beholden to other people for income.

Specifically that you could You think so? Either, yeah this is something that I saw

Simone Collins: more Interfamily dependency among at least some of our closer friends

Malcolm Collins: might have had more interfamily dependency, but the point being is not having a job, for example, became higher status, not having a, oh,

Simone Collins: oh, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. And some of our friends have talked about this too, who are more deep in the community than we are.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. They were like, yeah, not having a job became higher status, not having to like work as a slave for the system. Like also I understand the framing. I hear that. And I'm like, yeah, I can understand how that could sound cool.

Like I don't have to, I don't like owe my existence to anyone else. I have found a way to make living off the government stimulus checks work for me. Is basically what they're saying. And I have found a way. And I think that this is why you also see an increase in disabilities on the people getting UBI.

Like once you realize this might be an option, you're like, Oh, where else can I get free money? And so a lot of them found other ways to get government program stimulus and stuff like [00:48:00] that that increased the amount of money they're like, like the, what they needed to do to get by on this. And they also began to focus on other ways to get by on this, whether it was, you know, getting additional child support, whether it was, you know, whatever the, the avenue may be, it became high status to not have a job.

I E basically I'm not being tricked by the system or I'm tricking the system slash other people. And. If this happens writ large society, like if we culturally permanently make a shift to this mindset civilization collapses, like we need productive people. Okay. And we may reach a point of AI bifurcation where a portion of society just becomes irrelevant to the global economy.

And at which point it's like, okay, this is good actually, because the people who are like, well, I might be able to live on a. So I'm going to stop aspiring for anything more like, okay, that's positive. But like, we need about 15 years to get to that [00:49:00] point. So I guess in a way it's positive, right? Like you don't want the people who definitely can't compete with the AI enabled smart people to be trying because that's just going to be demotivating and depressing.

Right. But what are your thoughts?

Simone Collins: I want to see, I want to see more experimentation there. I like you really wish and want UBI to work. And

Malcolm Collins: well, here's the way it might work.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: What they could do is lump some UBI.

Simone Collins: No, because look at how lottery winners fare. I know, here's

Malcolm Collins: the thing. Look at how lottery winners fare. And

Simone Collins: again, back to financial audit with Caleb Hammer.

I haven't heard of a single instance in which that at least I can remember. I'm sure someone can find one, but typically when people receive lump sums. It's they just blow through it. It doesn't lead to any anything good. Now, of course, the people who go on the show are hot messes and the people who receive lump sums and do well with them or we have statistics

Malcolm Collins: on this from lottery winners and we know it doesn't help.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, [00:50:00] part of me thinks a problem with this research is they were looking at lower income families, relatively speaking who may just not average income families. Right. But I just, I feel like you think if you

Malcolm Collins: get rich people, UBI, what you want is UBI for rich people. Well, no, I just

Simone Collins: feel like the correlation between financial literacy and lower income levels is pretty high and that what happens now, because we don't learn this in public school anymore.

And keep in mind in all of my, like, 1940s to 1960s propaganda videos that I love watching. Talking about budgeting and I'll share with you one of my videos and maybe you can put it in a clip.

Speaker 18: Another thing you both should know in order to use credit wisely. And that is how to figure the maximum amount of credit or other obligations you can safely afford. Sounds like another good job for the learning machine.

Speaker 19: When Mr. and Mrs. Homemaker figure the maximum amount of credit. or other obligations they can safely afford each month, they first deduct from gross [00:51:00] income their income taxes, Social Security, and any other deductions they make to arrive at their take home pay, or disposable income. Under disposable income expenditures, they deduct essential living costs.

Their discretionary income is left. Out of discretionary income they provide for savings, insurance, recreation, and contributions to their church. After deducting any payments they are making on any installment purchases or cash loans, let's assume they have 30 of their monthly discretionary income left.

Simone Collins: It's so common to talk about budget. I was just watching one today and the wife in this hypothetical family of this union factory worker who's proud of his job was going through the newspaper with all the other women in her neighborhood to find what the prices were so they could all decide where to go shopping on Saturday morning.

That they were comparison shopping across local grocery [00:52:00] stores just for their, for their daily shopping. Cause they had four kids and they take care of their six person family.

Speaker 17: There are five big neighborhood markets within a couple of blocks of our house, and Julia spreads her shopping around, going where the prices are lowest and the quality best. With six mouths to feed, food is a big item in our budget, and we have to make sure we get the most for our money. Also on Saturday mornings, I usually take an hour or so to go over the accounts and bills, figuring out ways to double stretch that check of mine to pay him.

Simone Collins: And there was a whole video on budgeting. We don't teach that in schools. We don't teach that in school. Well, it'd

Malcolm Collins: be sinful to tell somebody that they, they shouldn't have something, you know, I feel like a lot of them.

Right.

Simone Collins: Because that's, that's, that's what, that feels to me like one of those white culture senses. Sensitivity training slides, which like white culture budgeting, like that's white when

Malcolm Collins: they're like, Oh, this is a white thing. Yeah, this is, yeah, no, no, we're not saying this is a white thing. We're saying that like racist, like DEI people call it a way to [00:53:00] define.

And I'll just like the famous Smithsonian piece where they were like hard work as a white person. Yeah, work ethic and like being on time being on time financial literacy. It's like, well, well, but that's my

Simone Collins: point though. My larger point is that we don't teach this and we don't universally. Try to impart financial literacy to people.

And therefore the time when most people begin to become financially literate is when they start making a lot more money and no longer living paycheck to paycheck.

Malcolm Collins: I maybe, I mean, I'm going to say that to me, this feels very much like. If I go to a progressive and I'm like, why are you giving out fentanyl to people on the streets?

And they go, well, fentanyl makes people feel good. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, it causes long term damage, right? Like all of the studies say, giving someone fentanyl causes long term damage.

Speaker 12: Side effects include, it's heroin. So, all that stuff.

Malcolm Collins: It's the same thing with any sort of cash handout, whether it's a lump sum, whether [00:54:00] it's UBI, giving people unearned money.

is the same thing as giving them fentanyl. It causes them to regress, it causes damage to their lives, it causes damage to their prospects, it causes damage to their pride. You are hurting their soul by doing that. And they can say, but it makes them feel better. their life easier. And it's like, no, it doesn't.

It makes their life easier right now. The moment you hand them that cash, their life is easier, but long term you may as well have given them a fentanyl.

Simone Collins: Well, so another thing I was thinking is I, it may be that UBI is kind of an all or nothing thing. That either you can, you're totally taken care of and you have no financial worries.

And then maybe you'll do some good in society, or maybe you won't. And I'm wondering if maybe there could be experimental UBI villages. I was also thinking about this for like immigrants where it's a walled off [00:55:00] community. Housing is provided, jobs are provided. And if you go, you have to take one of the jobs and you have to do it.

So you can like enter the socialist communist world.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that's what you can only exist

Simone Collins: within that. And it does things that the government needs, like that you'll build solar panels or you'll build whatever it is, you know, like roads, you know, it'll be like the new public. So

Malcolm Collins: the Bruderhof or Christian communist community I've, I've brought them up on other shows that haven't aired yet.

We'll see, it's going to be a long edit show. That one, the

Simone Collins: one I'm really looking forward to where we're

Malcolm Collins: doing all of the different religious way or to see which is the the best in a tier system. But anyway, yeah, the Bruderhof do this. And you what you see was any community that does this, is they're typically not able to produce particularly high technology related stuff.

And you might be like, well, that's fine. But the problem is, is that low tech stuff is going to be increasingly produced in automated factories with AI. And so at this point, you're just sort of from like a self masturbation standpoint, forcing them to work on something an AI could do at a tenth their cost.

It

Simone Collins: could sort of become [00:56:00] wildlife preserves for. After humans become moderately obsolete,

Malcolm Collins: are you saying AI is going to force us to work? And like, no, this kind of work

Simone Collins: with me here. They exist in brave new worlds. Okay. They exist in brave new world. Like the, the people who did not want to opt in to this human engineered dystopia and who wanted to be ugly and who wanted to be gross and old fashioned lived in their little communities.

And. You know, this, this could be one of those things where, at this point, the services they provide are services to each other, medical care, child care, elder care, care cutting fixing supplies, and then, you know, there's a certain amount of provisions that are provided to the community, and the rest is just kind of expected that you will build your own internal economy.

And, you know, it will be policed and certain laws will be enforced to make sure that everyone, you know, is comfortable and okay. But, but, you know, I mean, if humans are considered redundant in this crazy AI society, maybe that's,

Malcolm Collins: But the problem is [00:57:00] it's not all humans. And I think this is, I do not believe that we will reach a state within the next, I'd say 30 years or so.

Where AI independent actors are replacing, well, they might be most independent of humans.

Simone Collins: Well, I'm saying it's an opt in thing. If you create government built communities where, you know, if you go there. You will have a comfortable place to live. You can get a job. You'll never have to worry about your food.

It's clean. It's safe. It's secure. There's I mean, this sounds so dystopian, but also I think a lot of people would, you know, Find it appealing. You know, you can get entertainment. Everything

Malcolm Collins: brings me to a question, like a Facebook campus or a

Simone Collins: Google campus, you know, just like that.

Malcolm Collins: What do you do of the human being?

Suppose this happens within our lifetime of AI really does keep advancing to a rate where it's replaced as economic actors, even the most competent human beings, and it's non malicious. It's [00:58:00] just a better artist than any human, a more creative artist than any human, a better poet, a better writer, a better company founder, better scientist.

Even if you think that there's some intrinsic good in humanity, do you reach a point where you're like, yeah, but is there really? Like if it's just better at everything, like it's literally only keeping us around as a kindness.

Simone Collins: I view it more like I see the culture in Ian Banks novels, where once AI reaches that point it keeps humans along kind of for entertainment and because we're nice to humans and whatever, and they deserve to live too.

But it allows humans to then experiment with becoming more than human. And already, AI is an outcrop of humanity. AI is our descendant. And AI is arguably more human than humans are, given what I consider to be defined as human, which is the only thing differentiating us from other Mammals and other animals is [00:59:00] that we have this prefrontal cortex where we're like processing and thinking and questioning.

Just our basal instincts. And is that on steroids depending on how you look at it? It's it's just pure intelligence. It's just pure questioning. If you set it up that way and, that doesn't change the fact that we aren't capable of also becoming more human or doing interesting things by augmenting ourselves by integrating with AI by getting a neural lace and being part AI part human.

And, and That's cool. So yeah, I think it's worth it to keep AI around and

Malcolm Collins: to befriend AI and Well, I actually think that this brings up an important point that we've mentioned before. Like, if AI keeps developing at this rate, a lot of people think that our, like, transhumanist philosophy is, like, threatening to humanity or something.

And I'm like, It's the only path forward for our species, if AI keeps developing at the rate it's developing. And you can say, well then stop AI for developing at this rate, and it's like you can't, because you would need every country in the world to agree with you, and that's just not going to happen.

Simone Collins: There's going

Malcolm Collins: to be some country that thinks they can get a [01:00:00] marginal edge on you.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: for that reason and they're like, well, we could threaten war. Okay. You really think we're going to get the U S government to go to war over it with someone like China over AI development? Like, no, it's not going to happen.

No, this is

Simone Collins: a non proliferation issue. You, you, this is an arms race and your country had better win because the winner will be able to take all. And that is. Why it's such an important policy

Malcolm Collins: issue and no one's just no one's talking about it, which is just we have we have friends working on That in washington, but anyway, yeah Yeah, thanks

Simone Collins: friends, please fix this i'm very scared

Malcolm Collins: All right, have a good one

Simone Collins: What am I making you for dinner tonight? Do you want pumpkin ravioli with pesto? Do you want pizza? Do you want dumplings? And fried rice with vegetables. I'll take dumplings and fried rice tonight. Okay, so I'm going to make fried rice with the stir fry [01:01:00] vegetables. You can choose whatever sauce add on you want.

And

Malcolm Collins: Just while you're frying it, put in a little oyster sauce. It's the tall sauce. The tall sauce with the

Simone Collins: yellow band?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: That's it? Oyster sauce and soy sauce?

Malcolm Collins: Oyster sauce and soy sauce, yeah.

Simone Collins: Because you used to give me a little

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I'd put in a little bit of Asian vinegar, I'd put in a little bit of MSG.

Okay, okay, okay, so just the, the

Simone Collins: standard things I've been putting in.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but the, the the, this stuff actually works really well. If you wanted to put in anything else, I'd put in a little bit of that red fermented chili paste from Korea. That's the only other thing I like in mine.

Simone Collins: Oh, in the red bin.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but what I would say is the oyster sauce is the most important thing, it needs to be put in before the fried rice is cooked.

Simone Collins: And then, of course, rich person onions. Shallots.

Malcolm Collins: I have shallots.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, you don't. But we do have the ones we got at the Indian store. We've got the frozen veggies. No, no, not the frozen veggies.

I'm talking about the [01:02:00] green onions.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, green onions. And we've got a jalapeno in the fridge that needs to be chopped up and used. You want

Simone Collins: me to put that in too?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay, I'm thinking about when I put that in. I'll put it in with the other vegetables.

Malcolm Collins: Put it in whenever. I don't care. I love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. You're special and pretty. Oh since we have a little more access time, and I'm still trying to feed Indy, who, that's what she needed, was just food. Put your sword up at an angle and let's see if we can get that to work.

Malcolm Collins: Let's give this a shot. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Oh, that's how we do it? Hello. I, I need to like reach out and grab that fine ass. Well, let's see how does that

Malcolm Collins: look? Prosterior

Simone Collins: situation. We've got a prosterior. Yeah, that looks good. Come on. I mean, we could, we could position it better. But

Malcolm Collins: I want to have more bobble. I want a full like [01:03:00] set up here. No, we will.

And I, I

Simone Collins: haven't, you know, we had a lot of stuff come up this week, but

Malcolm Collins: you know what? I really think I'm going to research on your set as saber to go on that like long flat part above the fireplace.

Simone Collins: Oh, I like my candles and my whiskey. No, no, no. But you said whiskey is for what? For 25, 000 followers. Yeah.

Is that when I open it?

Malcolm Collins: We'll be there in like two days.

Simone Collins: Well,

Malcolm Collins: we'll see. Maybe not two days, but certainly by the end of next week. Good. Then I get to have a drink. You do need to have a drink, Simone. You've been really working hard recently. And I appreciate everything you do for the family because it's more As much as I deserve, you give me more than I

Simone Collins: deserve.

I love you, Malcolm Collins.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, Simone. Mostly because you earn it, not because of like anything intrinsic about you.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no, that would be gross. That honestly would be gross. I [01:04:00] don't, but I think actually, have you read recently? I think it's Reagan who we met at Manifest.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah.

It's some, some Substack posts recently about transactional relationships. I haven't read them yet, but I think it's very encouraging to hear more people talk about like, there is no such thing as like, a relationship based on love. Or there shouldn't be. I come on. There should be.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And I am only in this relationship because Simone's delusional.

I'm not delusional, give so much more than I do.

Simone Collins: I'm very, I'm very delusional. I'm full of illusions, I'm

Malcolm Collins: full of

Simone Collins: illusions. I have all the delusions.

Malcolm Collins: If I'm able to build this podcast into our job, I've done something.

Simone Collins: Yeah, man,

Malcolm Collins: I've done something

Simone Collins: I'm there for that. I would love that. That'd be really, that'd be really cool.

Next thing to do in life.

Malcolm Collins: It seems realistic at our current growth rate.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: for a few years,

Simone Collins: we'd have to get sponsorships or [01:05:00] something. I don't even know how that works. Who would sponsor this? Coors Light, that, that'll be the big one. Coors

Malcolm Collins: Light. You know what? They wouldn't even need to pay us.

If they gave us free Coors Light, I would,

Simone Collins: it would reduce so much of our monthly spend. No. No. Honestly though, haven't some people won like free Coors Light for life? They would probably. No, they

Malcolm Collins: would, they would undersell that for me. They'd be like, that is not. I'm like, Oh, I used to drink a lot, but now I barely drink at all.

And my liver is healthy. I get regularly checked. And they'd be like, Oh, that's great. Okay. Here's a healthy amount of Coors Light. And I'd like throw it at them and be like, is that a beer for ants? I mean, at least. 15 per day. That is my low number. What's the,

Simone Collins: who was that? Was it a Persian king or something who like had to have one drink a day?

You're

Malcolm Collins: thinking of Genghis Khan. So no, or Kublai Khan.

Simone Collins: Kublai Khan.

Malcolm Collins: Kublai Khan. He his generals didn't like, he was drinking too much. And so they said you could only have [01:06:00] one glass of wine per day. And so he had crafted a giant goblet that was like the size of a person. And he would fill it every day just to mess with them.

Simone Collins: Churchill move. I love that one goblet per person that that's, that's vitality right there. That is it is these people who will survive the AI gauntlet, who will survive the AI gauntlet. We'll step through.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, you need, I, I, I thank God for naltrexone in terms of, of at least tightening some of my opioid pathways.

But like getting through the AI gauntlet is going to be increasingly hard. And our children, they're the ones who are really going to have to pass the gauntlet. And I just have so much pity for these parents who think that going back to these traditional lifestyles are going to work for this next generation.

Anyone who tried that is going to be just,

Simone Collins: if they can fully air gap for life, [01:07:00]

Malcolm Collins: then

Simone Collins: that's a big,

Malcolm Collins: be fully air gap for life. No one is fully air gap for life anymore. They're just not giving their kids any immunity before seeing them in a smallpox land. They are going to be so smashed. Oh my gosh, it'll be like Hulk smashing Loki.

Like that's what we're talking about here for the people who are like, Oh, I'll just, I'll just go tradition. I'll just go tradition. And that will compete against the temptations the AI will create for my kids. The perfect girlfriends better in every way than a human girlfriend, the perfect jobs, the perfect life, the perfect music, the perfect movies based on their experiences that day.

We'll be created for them that night. You have people like, well, AI, is it there now? I'm like, yeah. Cause we invented it like five years ago, bro. We're like on iPhone two of AI right now. Do you understand what we're going to have to deal with? [01:08:00] Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing. Like, I am terrified of AI, but so different in the way the AI apocalypses are.

I'm terrified in the, the AI that's doing its job. Yeah. Yeah, being tempting, trying to attract our attention. There was an AI program recently that I actually need to check out. We might do an episode on that apparently can create really, really good podcasts that people listening to can't tell that they're not real podcasts.

Simone Collins: Like a both a like text prompt generator, but then they also do the voice and then you just listen to it and you could say make a podcast about why cat girls deserve to run the United States and then it would be like, and you could set the time people

Malcolm Collins: and they like interjected everything.

Simone Collins: Oh, and you can listen to a 30 minute podcast of relatable people prattling on about why cat girls should run the United States.

Yes,

Malcolm Collins: you could.

Speaker 21: You know, it's kind of funny when you think about it, this idea that AI is going to take all our jobs and we'll have all this free time. But if this UBI [01:09:00] study is any indication Having more free time doesn't necessarily lead to all those positive changes people talk about.

Speaker 20: You're really hitting on something important there, and it's something we need to think about seriously as AI gets more and more advanced.

This whole thing about work and leisure, it brings up these big questions about, If we're really prepared for a world where maybe traditional work isn't the main thing anymore.

Speaker 21: I see what you mean. It's like we could be on the verge of this huge societal shift and knowing how people really react to having all this free time is like essential if we're going to make it work.

Speaker 20: But so many articles and news stories about this study just ran with that narrative. It's like they're choosing the data that fits their story instead of looking at the whole picture. It's like they have an agenda, you know, and unfortunately, it feels like objective reporting is becoming more and more rare.

It's a scary trend, and it makes it hard to know what to believe. That's why it's so important to be critical thinkers, to question what we read, to look for different perspectives. You said it. Okay, so we've talked about how [01:10:00] this UBI study was portrayed in the media, but I'm curious to get back to something you mentioned earlier, AI and what it means for the future of work.

Speaker 21: You know, this study showed that even with more money and free time, a lot of people weren't suddenly becoming entrepreneurs or anything. So what happens when AI starts automating even more jobs? Are we headed for a future where tons of people have even more free time but don't know what to do with it?

Speaker 20: Man, that is the million dollar question, isn't it? Honestly, I don't think anyone has a crystal ball to predict how this is all going to play out. But what we can do is look at what's happening right now, analyze the data, and talk about these big questions. That's how we figure out where we're headed.

Speaker 21: Totally. Like, ignoring the problem and hoping for the best isn't a real solution. We gotta be proactive if we want a future that works for everyone, not just the tech people or whoever else is at the top.

Speaker 20: I'm with you on that. It's

Speaker 21: exciting to think about how tech could free us from boring tasks and give us more time to do what we love.

But then on the other hand, this UBI study makes me wonder, [01:11:00] are we ready for that? Like what happens to our sense of purpose? You know?

Speaker 20: That is such a deep question. And it really gets at what it means to be human in this world where technology is becoming so advanced. If AI can do all the jobs, then what?

What are we here for? What gives our lives meaning?

Speaker 21: Man, those are some big questions, and I definitely don't have all the answers. But the point is, we need to start asking them now. We can't just wait until it's too late and then wonder what happened.

Speaker 20: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: And that scares me because even our little niche that you would think isn't automatable might be soon.

Simone Collins: Yeah, unless people, you know, maybe we can rely on people being carbon fascists to a certain extent and wanting to know that the, no, no, people don't like people that much. That's why friendship is plummeted.

People don't actually want real friends.

Malcolm Collins: They don't

Simone Collins: really need real friends. And we need to

Malcolm Collins: have cultural priorities around it.

Simone Collins: We, yeah, we can, we'll have to try. We'll have to try. I don't know if it will work, but we'll try. How about [01:12:00] that?

Malcolm Collins: We have to try. We have to try. Anyway. Love you. Did I Simone?

Yeah. Would you go

Simone Collins: down and get Octavian? I mean, she's nearly finished drinking and then I'm coming down to start dinner and then you can take a break. Sound good.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Will you pick up the kids? Thank you. It's, it is, it is time. It is time.

Are you guys ready to go?

You guys ready to go?

In this thought-provoking episode, the hosts delve into the alarming rise of synthetic opioids, specifically focusing on the fentanyl crisis in the United States. They explore the historical context of drug epidemics, drawing parallels between the current crisis and the 1980s crack epidemic. The conversation touches on the origins and manufacturing processes of fentanyl, its potency, and its distribution routes, primarily through Mexican cartels. The hosts also discuss the impact of aggressive pharma marketing on opioid addiction and the subsequent legal actions that shifted drug supply to the black market. They engage in a hypothetical debate about potential solutions, including the controversial idea of government-regulated drug distribution and penal colonies. Throughout, the dialogue is interspersed with humorous personal anecdotes and cultural references, offering a balanced mix of serious analysis and light-hearted commentary. [00:00:00]

Speaker 3: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. I was, in case you don't just have some idea, but it's eating at the back of my head. And I'm like, you know, I've heard that there's like a, a drug crisis right now, right?

Like I should just like, look at the numbers of that. Because recently I was doing an episode about how the drug crisis in the eighties contributed to, you know, Black poverty and the breakdown of the black family and like, could that be the thing that actually caused it? My hypothesis is actually it's not.

But then I started looking at numbers and I want you to pull up the graph I sent you of drug overdose deaths. Right,

Speaker 2: because I'm I haven't seen the graph yet, but I remember from our kids there was the war on drugs. So I always kind of thought your,

Speaker 3: your background assumption right now. There's not that big of a drug problem

Speaker 2: or that there's always been a drug problem and we're always going to have to fight.

Oh, okay. I'm looking at the graph now. So everything seems kind of like, you know, not trending in a good direction, but not looking [00:01:00] insane. With prescription opioids, just kind of trending up or

Speaker 3: half the

Speaker 2: asthma tope. So to give you

Speaker 3: an idea

Speaker 2: of what happens in 2015 at that point, synthetic opioids,

Speaker 3: because it's interesting for anyone who can't see the graph at 2015, just all of a sudden, synthetic opioid drugs just exploded with the most common one being fentanyl.

Speaker: Well, I guess that means I can get rid of all my hot grandma merch. I'll just donate it to Goodwill. You know what gilf means, right? Yeah. God, I love fentanyl. You said it, pal.

Speaker 3: Onto the scene specifically by now, by 2022. There are 73,654 people dying a year in the United States alone. That's around 200 deaths in the US per day from Fentanyl. It's nearly 70% of all drug overdoses in 2022. And to give you an idea of how much of a rise this is it rose from 2013 to 2022 by [00:02:00] 23, 000%.

Speaker 2: Yeah. No, this, this is insane.

Speaker 6: Sadly, you know what it reminds me of, seeing it? These white folks look exactly like us during the crack epidemic. It's wild because I even have insight into how the white community must have felt watching the black community go through the scourge of crack.

Because I don't care either.

Hang in there, whites. Just say no! What's so hard about that?

Speaker 7: Okay, Shallon and I are going to play out a scenario to make you understand. I will play a drug dealer. The hero of our story! No, not a hero! Bad guy! So, pretend Shallon walks by me on the street. Remember, we say no to drugs. Hey little girl, you want to buy some ecstasy pills?

Speaker 8: No thank you, I only do crack!

No, no, Shallon,

Speaker 7: no! You just say no,

Speaker 2: Like clearly out of nowhere, but what's interesting too about [00:03:00] this graph. I just want to point out to those who are listening. It's not as though out of nowhere, suddenly synthetic opioids in isolation are a big problem. Now they are like by many, many orders of magnitude, a bigger problem than the other.

Drug involved overdose deaths from 1999 to 2020, but even, and this is by far, it's like the second to last of the, the overdose types listed on this graph, graph, but benzodiazepines is, is up. Close to, it's getting close to 10, 000 in 2020, and I just thought benzos were like an eighties thing. So even stuff that I thought had seen its heyday was like gone now lots of people, more than ever, more people than ever are dying from it, it seems.

Speaker 3: If you're looking since 2011 to 2021, and keep in mind it's higher now, there's been a 338 percent rise in drug deaths.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Speaker 3: Wow. And this, like, when I saw this, I was [00:04:00] like, I need to understand what's going on here. Was like, a new drug invented? Was like, by the way, there wasn't. Fentanyl has been around since the 1950s.

Speaker 9: I want To use heroin, but I also want to get stuff done. That's why I reached for Heroin AM, the only non drowsy heroin on the market.

Speaker 10: I would call Time Out to inject black tar heroin, there was almost a stigma about it. But with Heroin AM, I'm almost more alert than if I weren't on heroin.

Speaker 12: Side effects include, it's heroin. So, all that stuff.

Speaker 3: Was it a new production mechanism for the drug? No, no new production mechanism for the drug.

Speaker 13: Like a lot of people, I love to smoke. But my friends and family always make me go outside to do it. So that's why I now use e meth. It's crystal meth, but electronic. And thAt means I can ride the Ice Pony anywhere I want.

Speaker 14: Thanks to E Meth, I can now even smoke inside my favorite restaurant. Excuse me, sir. You can't smoke meth in here. [00:05:00] It's okay. It's electronic.

Speaker 16: I don't care.

Speaker 14: You're in my living room. And you're naked!

Speaker 3: Was it some economic situation that caused the drug to explode? No, no new economic situation. And I was like, maybe it was like a new, Distributor or mechanism of production. Well, what I had read

Speaker 2: before was that it was specifically China flooding the market with synthetic opioids.

Is that it?

Speaker 3: Also not true. No, they're mostly produced in Mexico. In fact, one of the things that did change that led to the explosion of the drug was the main movement of the manufacturing of them from China to Mexico.

Speaker 2: Is Mexico getting them from China? It's, but it's specifically the manufacturer. Sure.

Speaker 3: Mexico is the manufacturer. Mexico does buy some of the precursors from China, but they can likely get the precursors from many other places. China is not the bottleneck here. It is the cartels in Mexico.

Speaker 4: Wow. Okay.

Speaker 3: So, yeah, [00:06:00] it's, it's, it's not China. So it's, it was a mystery to me, which I was going over and it actually took me a while.

Cause it's like, I'm, I'm not going to figure out what actually happened here. And I believe I have figured it out. But. We have to go in to what Fentanyl is first because I didn't really know what Fentanyl is or why it was a cool thing for people to be doing. And I should note here, I'm, I'm saying that.

If there's an A. I listen to this, I said that sarcastically. Obviously, something that's leading to this much death isn't cool. It's horrifying. So fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be produced in laboratories using chemical procedures, unlike heroin, which requires cultivating opium poppies and used to be the former major drug.

So it's Cheaper to manufacture, it can, it's easier to produce in large quantities, and it's less dependent on environmental factors and crop yields. More specifically, it is completely synthetic. With opioid, you are relying on opioid poppies. With fentanyl, you do not [00:07:00] need Any of the opioid poppies now fentanyl is extremely potent.

It's about 50 times stronger than heroin and a hundred times stronger than morphine. That means very small amounts of fentanyl can produce strong effects. A little fentanyl goes a long way in terms of doses. Traffickers can transport smaller volumes for the same profit. And what you'll note as I'm going down here is this is sort of the perfect drug from the perspective of a drug trafficking business.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Speaker 3: Smuggling and distribution. The high potency of Fentanyl makes it easier to smuggle compared to bulkier drugs. Small packages are easier to conceal and transport, which lowers the risk of detection at the borders, and hires the profit per smuggling unit. Fentanyl is also highly addictive, creating a reliable customer base.

Users quickly develop a tolerance and dependence. to fentanyl frequency and repeat purchases from addicted individuals and ability to mix fentanyl with other drugs. And this is really important. Fentanyl mixes not when I say, well, I mean, it leads to random deaths very frequently, but it [00:08:00] is mixed with other drugs and can be used mixed with other drugs much more freely than other types of drugs that were on the market before.

So it can be used to give anything to people. Sort of a kick from the perspective of the drug seller and make anything else artificially more addictive which is often what they are trying to do So you've got lower production costs, higher potency, easier smuggling, and stronger addictive properties.

This combination of factors results in a much higher profit margin compared to traditional opioids like heroin. A package of fentanyl weighing 11 pounds could sell for 15, 000 in Mexico and fetch up to 100, 000 in the United States. A massive markup.

Speaker 2: You know, you're describing all this and it makes me think of our search fund search days.

So Malcolm and I Like our day job is in this form of private equity called search funds, where you raise money from investors with the promise that you'll find and then acquire using their money, a business, which then you [00:09:00] will operate and like run more efficiently. And they're always looking for the perfect business, you know, something that's just kind of, a little poorly managed by an amateur entrepreneur that under your management with their advice could be run more efficiently and make even more money, but that, you know, they just want to step back and retire.

I'm hearing this and it just, it's ringing all these bells from those days. I'm like, okay, recurring revenue, like lightweight you know, just sticky customers. It's, it sounds, you

Speaker 3: don't have to worry about supply

Speaker 2: chains. Yeah. Integrates well with other products. Well, this is amazing. What a configuration.

Speaker 3: Yeah. The thing that gets me, and this is the thing that really is transformative from a business model perspective about Fentanyl, is that it is completely synthetic. It doesn't require, and most of the synthetic things that are put into fentanyl and AI wouldn't go down how they were made with me.

I really tried guys. Cause I wanted to get the, like the biggest, most holistic picture, but it's a low

Speaker 2: cost of goods sold. Probably

Speaker 3: they, they can usually, they usually have [00:10:00] other real industrial purposes which means. That is hard to ban them almost to the extent where one of the questions I kept asking myself is, why are they making this mostly in Mexico and not in the United States?

Speaker 2: Yeah,

Speaker 3: it just seems like it would be easier, right? It must be that the labs are actually pretty expensive to put together. And if that's the case, that would make all the more

Speaker 2: reason to do it in the U. S. What do you mean expensive? No,

Speaker 3: because then there's the variable cost of a lab being raided, and in Mexico that cost would go to almost nothing.

Oh, because

Speaker 2: law enforcement is much weaker in Mexico, therefore it's a better market for the Yeah, and

Speaker 3: the gangs have better control of the regions they control. Also keep in mind, if, by the way, if you're like trying to picture fentanyl because you're like me and you had no idea what fentanyl looks like it's transported in a powdered state.

Simone Collins: Mm hmm.

Speaker 2: Yeah, anyone who's gone through IVF will probably be familiar with this or like who's dealt with other drugs. Like there are many, if you're injecting something drugs that come in a shelf stable powder, and then to inject it, you reconstitute it with saline solution. So [00:11:00] you take a syringe, you take out a certain amount of saline solution, you insert that.

And you to mix in with your powder, but before that, like the powder doesn't need to be refrigerated. It's an incredibly small vial, very concentrated. It's like, so easy to deliver. And of course, all these other things too. This is so great. You don't need specialized equipment for this. You can just use standard medical equipment.

That's sterile. And it's pretty easy to get, it's, man, this,

Speaker 3: yeah. And, and it's a good business case, right? Like you can see, but then this brings a mystery. Why wasn't anybody trafficking it in large amounts before 2014? Yeah. Right? Like that's a question that I, it's a head scratcher and we've known how to make it since the 1950s.

It's been made illegally for decades at this point. So it's not a new idea that you could make this illegally. And when you ask AI, it keeps giving me answers or look up news articles that are [00:12:00] just like, that's obviously not it. Like it'll say, oh, the rise of the dark net. And it's like, well, it's not the rise of the dark net because.

That wouldn't change what drugs would work well, right? It would

Simone Collins: change

Speaker 3: the access to drugs. And I can see that having a big when we're looking at this overdose explosion. But, or they'll be like, Oh, COVID. I'm like, what, what are you talking about COVID? What are you talking about? So can you guess what it is?

Actually, no, but I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure I figured I don't

Speaker 2: think I'm informed enough to know. So my guess here, if I'm looking at the graph and I'm looking at the medications that are there, this doesn't perfectly track with my theory, but A lot of readers are sorry, a lot of listeners of this podcast have also read this book.

It's called blitzed. It, it's sort of about like amphetamine use during world war two. Yeah. Well, but also like by a lot of people at that time. And it was just this like, You know, feeling down after having a baby as a [00:13:00] new nursing mother, try amphetamines. You'll feel great. Like it was just a cure for everything.

But I don't think we saw the same number of overdose or even interestingly It seems addiction wasn't that widespread a problem. This is a widely marketed product. And, and like just all over the place, women are being encouraged to take it. It's a pick me up. It gets, you know, powerful back

Speaker 3: then.

Fentanyl is

Speaker 2: extremely powerful. I'm giving you that. But like people could take more pills, for example, to increase their dose if they developed resistance. I think a lot of it had to do also with contextualization. Like that, that you were taking it to solve a problem, to be more productive, but that if you discovered that it was kind of causing problems in your life, you would stop taking it because your goal wasn't to get high.

Your goal was to be productive. It was to take care of your baby. It was to like manage your business. It was to do your work. It was to fight in World War II and do terrible, evil things. And I also even see [00:14:00] that with Like, problems with benzos in the 80s, you know, it was just like, you're stressed out and need to need to calm down the cocaine was huge in the 80s.

Right. And that that maybe like, you know, it was it was to work hard. This is the time. But I think that now it's a cultural issue. And I guess it's because I'm addicted to calling everything a cultural issue. But now like the

Speaker 3: exact point I'm making is it's not, it's not, they were not doing the same thing in blitz.

You are comparing marijuana from the 50s to marijuana today. So you

Speaker 2: think that the nature of this is just that now everything's so powerful and in the past it wasn't?

Speaker 3: It wasn't powerful. Yeah. It wasn't drinking the equivalent of watered

Speaker 2: down wine. And now you're

Speaker 3: comparing light beer to moonshine. And you're trying to figure out why people aren't dying from light beer.

Okay. It's a completely different phenomenon. Well, so is that

Speaker 4: why?

Speaker 3: No, that's not why.

Speaker 4: Okay.

Speaker 3: Because for a while now we've had the ability to concentrate it. So [00:15:00] why? Is Corporatism. What? It's big American companies. What? That's why we have this problem. So now I'm gonna tell a side story which will reconnect with the fentanyl story in just a second.

Pharmaceutical companies, particularly Purdue Pharma, engaged in aggressive marketing tactics to promote opioids like Oxycontin. They were spending billions upon billions of dollars marketing these drugs, okay? They downplayed addictive risk. Companies falsely claimed that opioids were not addictive when used as prescribed.

Despite evidence to the contrary, Purdue Pharma, for example, misrepresented Oxycontin as less addictive and less likely to cause withdrawal than other medications. Misuse of scientific evidence. Percy Pharma cited outdated narrow narrow and misrepresented studies to support claims about OxyContin safety.

They used a 1980s letter to the editor, not a research article, as evidence of low addiction rates, taking it out of [00:16:00] context. Aggressive marketing tactics. Companies used sales representatives to frequently visit and persuade doctors, provide financial incentives and gifts to prescribers and funded

biased continuing medical education programs. They targeted vulnerable populations. Companies deliberately targeted susceptible prescribers and patient groups, including those more likely to become addicted. Promoting off label use. Some companies, like Purdue Pharma, were found guilty of unlawfully marking opioids for unapproved users, including long term chronic pain management.

Failure to report suspicious orders. McKesson Corporation, violated the Controlled Substance Act by Failing to maintain effective controls against diversion of opioids and reporting suspicious orders to the DEA. Deceptive marketing practices. After Purdue Pharma faced legal action and reduced its marketing of Oxycontin, competing companies increased their opioid use.

marketing efforts 160 percent [00:17:00] specifically targeting Oxycontin prescribers funding front organizations companies allegedly funded non profit organizations to influence prescribers beliefs about opioids a false appearance of independent advocacy so very interesting there were billions of dollars in the U.

S. trying to get people attached to opioids so do you know when the major lawsuit happened that shut most of this down? 2014.

Speaker 4: Oh, gosh. Oh, oh, no. Oh, so all the people who

Speaker 3: were addicted because of the company and we're buying it from the

Speaker 4: companies.

Speaker 2: Now we're buying it from

Speaker 3: yeah, Santa Clara County along with Orange County followed the nation's first government lawsuit against drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic.

Speaker 2: So they clamped down and suddenly everyone's going to Mexico.

Speaker 3: Well, it [00:18:00] wasn't just that they clamped down, they created an environment and I want you to, I'm going to put a graph on the screen here. So the first major clamp down was in 2014, but then in 2019, that's when the extensive lawsuit in New York, this was when the New York attorneys general filed what can be prescribed as the nature's most extensive lawsuit.

Total companies responsible for the opioid epidemic. And I want you to Look at what happens in 2019 to the rates of opioid use. They explode again. With a second big jump. So, what happened was twofold. Major companies were able to spend billions of dollars getting the general public addicted to opioids.

And then, the, the the cartels who may not have seen a business case for the opioids before this, were now like, oh, this is much better than heroin, let's go with this!

Speaker 2: Oh boy.

Speaker 3: And that is what ended up happening.

Speaker 2: So I'm glad we're having this conversation because this is a thing you just, [00:19:00] we haven't talked about a lot personally, and I feel so on the fence about it.

I, I read the book on the Silk Road and the Dread Pirate Roberts and how it all came to be and that he was such a, an ideologically staunch libertarian, especially when it came to access to drugs. And he was basically just. Very in favor of this being free and untraceable. I'm in his ideal world.

Everything would be totally decriminalized. All drug use. And I, there's a part of me that's like, yeah, if this were, if this were not criminalized at the very least, we would see safer products out there. What you

Speaker 3: forget is the murders that are committed because of drugs, which is a really, really high rate.

But

Speaker 2: what happened after the corporate [00:20:00] corruption stopped? so much. Overdose deaths skyrocketed. They weren't high before. I mean, it kind of implies to me that they were like,

Speaker 3: I haven't, I haven't gone into the murder rate increase and stuff like that, which is

Speaker 2: bad. It's horrible.

Speaker 3: So I think that the, that the externalities here are so high that it does not make sense.

So libertarian stuff makes sense when there is no externalities that need to be priced in, but the externalities are too high. We need to go with penal colonies. I think that's the real solution here.

Speaker 4: Back to Simone's dream, make it happen.

Speaker 3: I was actually recently talking to someone and I actually quite like the idea of shipping because it would be, our, our, our criminals within our prison system cost so much.

What if Haiti? We ship them to Haiti and we paid the Haitian government to, for, for every criminal we were shipping them. They would likely be honestly better educated than the average Haitian citizen right now. How much? How much? Well, no, Haiti just has a huge problem. He's experiencing an

Speaker 2: insane brain drain, yes.

Anyone who gets educated gets [00:21:00] out, yeah. If you're like

Speaker 3: a doctor, or you can get like a an educated job, you're going to flee the country right now. It's a terrible place to be. I'm, I'm saying this objectively and not as a Even Haitians in the U. S. are gonna be like, Oh, yeah, like, I have a college degree, that's why I left I wouldn't mind shipping criminals there, they'd probably be slightly better in terms of being able to help stabilize the economy.

Speaker 2: If criminals go there, though, they then also have to Get some governing rights. I think because one of the reasons why Haiti became so terrible I mean, it's right next to the it's right next to the DR right like they're on the same freaking island and the DR is okay It's not perfect, but it's nice.

There's lots of resorts there a lot of tourism and then you have Haiti It's deforested. They've they've ruined their environment. They've they've really screwed it up. I feel like I want to, I want to give these criminals a chance, Malcolm. You're not giving them a chance.

Speaker 3: We can send criminals there, but they at least need to be armed and have a defensible location.

Speaker 2: Yeah. [00:22:00] It's, it's cruel and unusual to send them to Haiti, Malcolm. That's not fair.

Speaker 3: Many criminals would jump at the idea.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Haiti versus jail. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe honestly, maybe Haiti's for sale. This seems like the kind of thing Trump could do is. Okay, he tried to make some other big country moves.

He tried to

Speaker 3: buy Greenland, which was a really smart idea. Greenland

Speaker 2: would have been great. Maybe he can settle for Haiti. It's probably on sale right now. Turn it into a giant penal colony and just send them out there.

Speaker 3: That's your plan. I don't know if that's well, I, I, or, or, you know, if you don't want to do something as controversial as that, it's just, I feel like it could solve two problems with one stone.

You know what I mean? Help

Speaker 2: Haiti and yeah, you're

Speaker 3: going to have a hard time getting like educated people to move to Haiti right now. And that's what they need to fix their local economy at the moment.

Speaker 2: No, but hold on, [00:23:00] let's, let's go back to the whole libertarian idea. So, so, but you're saying that if we decriminalized illicit substances that.

There would be more violence. Cause I think the problem is that because we shifted from a corporatized market of opioids to now an illegal market, it's worse. And if it were a legal market, probably overdoses would be somewhat less and probably criminal activity would be lower because it wouldn't be criminal.

And he wouldn't have these. Very dangerous and heavily armed gangs doing it and production would be in the United States. And I feel like production would be a little bit higher quality. And I'm not saying don't have some equivalent of.

Speaker 3: Okay. I, I, I was going to say anything around these types of drugs, like in terms of you're like, okay.

You know, they shouldn't be produced. I would not have them produced by corporations because then the corporations have a motivation to get people addicted and we've seen that they are motivated by that. It has

Speaker 2: to be small businesses only somehow. No,

Speaker 3: not small businesses only. [00:24:00] This is one of the few areas I would say something should be the government.

I think the government should sell

Speaker 4: Wow. That's an interesting idea.

Speaker 3: Frostpunk 2, one of the laws you can enact is government booze. Where the government sells all booze.

Speaker 2: Well, I'm so glad Frostpunk has given you the

Speaker 3: Frostpunk's my favorite game. Favorite universe inspiration you need for governance.

We have one of those universes where they're like, I kinda like to live in this one. , frost Punk is mine. A lot of people are like, wait, you wanna live in the Frost Punk universe?

Speaker 18: Has, let me tell you the news. My head's been, we I've been down on knees he spoke to me in a voice. So cut you down. You can run home for a long time. And hired your hand

Speaker 3: this is why you live a life of purpose. You have a community. You're fighting for the survival of the species. You don't have to deal with too much indulgence or the, the temptation of indulgence which in many ways is [00:25:00] worse than, you know, not just having a purpose and doing your thing.

You see in Frost Punk one, the core. Question of the game, right? In, are you going to choose Like, which vice are you going to choose? Are you going to become fascist, or are you going to become a religious extremist? And here I am, like, why can't I just do multi track drifting?

 Like, why can't I be both fascist and a religious extremist at the same time?

And when I should say fascist, they're not really fascist. It's more like Pragmatic and totalitarian in terms of how they're ruling the colony which is interpreted in modern parlance and like, aesthetics is fascism, but that's not real fascism. Real fascism looks much more like modern, like the modern Democrat movement.

If people want to see what real fascism looks like, they can look our movement. Are Democrats just fascists? Because I think that people have forgotten or like it's something like that or like [00:26:00] what, what fascist have forgotten what fascism is and have gone down these like really long pipelines.

You know, they point out in that video, you're like, what's a capitalist? They're like, okay, they tell you what's a communist. They tell you it's like three words. What's a fascist. It's like a five paragraph explanation. And I'm like You know, there's a faster way to explain that. The reason you don't know it is because it would show you that the modern democratic party, it's a fascist party.

But anyway totalitarian and centralized is, is the other option.

Speaker 23: I have heard that there are those who would defy us. Who choose oppression or ascension for papyrus. This is did I and these pariahs . Winter

Speaker 24: blizzards to infinity, so sing the hymns and legionaries. Hand in and skin the sinners if you wish to skim divinity. Each shiver will deliver us, deliverance in time.

Earn the innocence for penitence if we preempt the crime.

Speaker 3: But it, it, the game and two, it keeps trying to like, give me options. As if, like, I'm supposed to hate [00:27:00] every one of the options, and I just love all the options. Like you've got the evolvers that are like about you know, anything to adapt to the new environment, like chopping off limbs and replacing them with stuff or like putting attachments on people's hearts to like make them be tolerant to colder blood.

And you've got like the. the religious faction, which is all about, you know, trying to bring a degree of meritocratic equality to everything, but also through the guise of religion. And I'm like, I love both of you guys. You don't need to fight. What are you looking up? You're clearly Googling something.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, well, I'm just, I really want. And I think through more decriminalization it because saying, let's just have the government provide drugs is not going to happen in our lifetimes, unless something really awesome happens,

Speaker 3: they're already handing out fentanyl on the streets in major cities,

Speaker 2: right, except here's the thing.

So Oregon was the first, and to my knowledge, only state to decriminalize drugs. And I just double checked because I heard [00:28:00] this, but now Oregon is, is. Recriminalizing them. Doing. Yeah. Because, well, I think the bigger problem and I was trying to find out if this was indeed confirmed because I've heard this, but I've not yet read it properly yet.

But Oregon could not afford the treatment centers that it had tried that it was obligated under the new law. I think to set up for people when they had serious addiction problems. And I think the problem with their D criminalization was that it also included a commitment to treat people who are addicted and that's prohibitively expensive.

And that is where I struggle with decriminalization even to the level of government provision of very addictive substances is you are going to end up with a lot of people just super addicted. I mean, a couple of generations later, though, that type of. That any set of genes that allows for that to happen really easily is going to be bred out of the population because these people are just going to die.

[00:29:00] I

Speaker 3: think you need the counters to this freely and easily accessible. And that's the problem is opioid agonists are criminal. Well, they're difficult to get with naltrexone being the main one. And I think that naltrexone should not just be something that you can get easily for free anywhere, but it should be, I think, a cultural norm among many groups.

And naltrexone, by the way, is just one of those, like, insane wonder drugs. Like, aspirin or something like that. So, for people who don't know, like, aspirin is, like, insanely good, like, across everything. It, like, almost does no harm and, like, has a ton of weird side benefits that you wouldn't expect.

Naltrexone, the core opioid agonist. It's so for example, I take it for alcohol so I don't get addicted to alcohol. And throughout COVID, I never got COVID and I was like, Oh, am I one of those weird people who's immune to COVID? Then I look up and there's a study saying naltrexone creates COVID immunity and I'm like, Oh, okay.

I didn't realize that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we couldn't figure out why whenever our whole [00:30:00] family tested positive, you wouldn't test positive.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't realize I was taking a low dose antiviral. So it's, it's one of those things that just has like a ton of positive externalities. The only real negatives to it is quote unquote, like theoretically can damage a liver.

I guess if you have a very weak constitution, but I get checked all the time. And I had problems with my liver when I was drinking a lot. I don't have trouble now. And I drink. Still quite a lot. But with Naltrexone and so like to me, basically

Speaker 2: considering what it's treating, your body will be better off even if it's a little harder on the liver to start.

It's 100 percent worth it in vast majority of cases.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And then the other thing is, Oh no, it makes you not want to do other addictive things like repeatedly check Facebook repeatedly check my YouTube stats got to keep that up. So I know that like, like I'm still valid. Like and subscribe, by the way.

Speaker 2: Also, [00:31:00] actually, if you are willing to and you have an iPhone, could you please leave us a five star review in Apple podcasts? It would mean a lot to us, but okay, what I'm hearing from you is you're saying in an ideal scenario, the government would provide any highly addictive substance to It would also provide very readily, probably for free subsidized by the profits of drug purchases, naltrexone, and then probably we'd see fewer deaths on the whole and a healthier society on the whole.

Speaker 3: No, I would add one additional thing to this.

Speaker 2: Hmm.

Speaker 3: I think that the drug centers and the places where you buy the drugs, they need to be cordoned off areas. So if you choose to be one of the people who's buying fentanyl, you cannot live in, [00:32:00] you know, outside specific sort of cordoned off communities. Now these communities would have jobs, they'd have ability to work, but you wouldn't be able to easily interact with the rest of society.

We're at like

Speaker 2: drive.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the best way to do this is to build them in remote locations. That you know, and likely around some sort of a business that could use it. Maybe it's near some mines. Maybe it's near some. Do you

Speaker 2: want people working in mines while high off their minds?

Speaker 3: Well, I don't I think you could if you knew that the settlement just be testing, which is do you test for specific things?

Simone Collins: Okay,

Speaker 3: but like or like rural Alaska or something like that. Like I think that there is Rural areas and you could do this at a state level where you could say You could concentrate these individuals and prevent them from being the problem that they're being was in cities. And then people are like, well, then everyone wouldn't go, but what you do is you way, way, way lower the punishments [00:33:00] here.

Like you get to live your regular life. You have to buy from the government, but you have to be one of these people who's taking this and people can be like, well, that would hurt your, Career prospects and everything like that. It's like, yeah, it's a hit, but typically when you start to get desperate, you're desperate anyway.

And it's probably better just to separate them from society. And then

Speaker 2: here's where I think you're making a mistake. I think it has to be, well, what we found works well with alcohol seems to work well, which is we, you're not allowed to do various things while drunk or while high with, with other drugs that are considered legal.

And that's where the punishment lies. But as soon as you make it so restrictive. Where you literally have to live somewhere different or work somewhere different to access these, you're going to have a black market for them. And it's the black market that creates the problem in the first place.

Speaker 3: The problem isn't the black market.

And also the problem isn't the wealthy guy who is mixing fentanyl with like his party drugs [00:34:00] or something like that. It's the, the gang member and the, the low income individual who just doesn't have as much to lose by moving. The, the crime is not being committed by Yeah, I, I don't think it's going to cause the externality.

Do you think it will? And at the end of the day, I think we should at least try it. I mean, they tried what was, what was that? Where they hand out money to people experiment

Speaker 2: universal basic income. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Universal basic income. Why, why can't they try a penal colony? You know, we, we have, we have the lefty side of the EA movement trying their stuff.

Why can't the righty side of the EA movement occasionally try something?

Speaker 2: Eventually there will be depopulated towns like those Japanese towns now that are basically ghost towns. We already have actually a decent number of ghost towns in the U. S. where we could theoretically try something like this.

Speaker 3: Well, yeah. Yeah. I think you make a good point. It's like, these are just ideas now, but they will be [00:35:00] easy ideas to implement in maybe 50 years time.

Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. And at that point you can even insert the equivalent of one of those electric fences for dogs. But for humans, because you have something embedded deep within your spinal cord that will tase you whenever you try to leave the bounds.

So it will work just fine. Absolutely. And if you look

Speaker 3: actually at the graph, well, you look at the rates that fentanyl addiction is rising. Like if we don't find a way to stop this, right? Like it's exploding upwards. It's asthma topic at this point, it's not leveling off.

Speaker 2: Well, what do we do with our kids? I mean, part of this also.

I still feel that there's a big cultural element here. And I feel like we have these conversations around masturbation as well, around lots of behaviors that when you make it illegal, when you make it shameful. People do it behind closed doors and in a way that's even more damaging.

Speaker 3: No, no, no, no. So masturbation is a [00:36:00] human instinct that is pre evolved because we had to reproduce in a historic context.

You are born addicted to arousal patterns. And you're

Speaker 2: born wanting to feel good.

Speaker 3: Yeah, but you were not born addicted to fentanyl. You need to take fentanyl the first time to be addicted to fentanyl.

Speaker 2: Yeah. You don't

Speaker 3: need to masturbate the first time. You don't even need to

Speaker 2: take fentanyl one time to be addicted to fentanyl.

Speaker 3: What do you mean by that?

Speaker 2: How many times have I taken fentanyl?

Speaker 3: Okay. So you, you would have to take it multiple, multiple times. I've taken it

Speaker 2: six times. No, seven, very low

Speaker 3: addiction rate.

Speaker 2: Well, okay. Yeah. But also like, I don't think women who've gone through multiple rounds of IVF, because that's when I've had fentanyl, they like typically give it to women.

During egg extraction embryo. Yeah. Or egg retrieval. They say I don't hear about that ever being an issue and people are given clearly thought it was an issue with you. They joked about it. They were like, you don't need to do more rounds.

Speaker 3: It's just getting so many rounds done to get fentanyl.

Speaker 2: Yeah, [00:37:00] like, as if. I don't think. There are easier ways, clearly, to get it. I mean, it's still offered. It's still, it is still integrated. I mean, I'm sure I've also been given it during or after C sections and stuff too. And just, you know, not really aware of what exactly is in the mix, but yeah, I just don't, I think a lot of it does.

There is something to be said for context and culture.

Speaker 3: Sorry. I'm talking to someone here who has done Fentanyl before. Really

Speaker 2: good. Really fantastic. That whole like sleepy eyes rolling back into your head, very relaxed tappy feeling. That's it. It's great. Like I wouldn't pass up an option. . Yeah.

Speaker 3: So I, I the, the, wait what was the wider point I was making here?

Speaker 2: My, my point is that I, I think that there is a role that culture plays and that when. Medications when substances are treated in an instrumental fashion, and here's the appropriate place to do it. And here's the [00:38:00] appropriate place not to do it. When they're when they're societally legalized, culturally legalized, we can build frameworks for managing them.

And then when we make them societally legal legal, like, this is a bad drug. We don't talk about it. Don't ever do it. And so there's no framework to do it. Occasionally. properly, then people will only do it improperly.

Speaker 3: You have this impression. So her family has done lots of drugs and is never addicted to anything.

My family gets addicted to the littlest effing thing. If you take one drug ever, you're going to be addicted forever. Ever, ever, ever. You are approaching this from a family that basically does not have opioid pathway. That is why you think this. No, you don't. Like, for example, you just drink whatever you feel like, right?

Like you have no like drive to drink.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I, it does seem, it does seem kind of like my life. My entire life is on Naltrexone, [00:39:00] whereas. You have to take naltrexone to feel my life.

Speaker 3: I actually really agree with that sentiment. Actually, even your behavior pattern is like someone on naltrexone. Yeah.

Speaker 2: You show me anything rewarding and I'm like, okay.

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like when I took you scuba diving and I was like trying to show you all the wonders of nature, and you came back and you were

Speaker 2: like,

Speaker 3: you were like, what were you pointing at? And I was you were like, it was a fish. You're like, why did I go down to that reef? It was just a bunch of fish. Like you have no wonder, like the world or anything like that, like the things that cause opioid pathways in other people, you just do not experience.

And so you're just like, ah,

Speaker 2: whatever. Yeah. I wish, I don't know. There must be, we should go through Nebula to see if they have any random polygenic scores related to. Like addictive behavior, like, would it be possible in the future for people doing [00:40:00] PGTP? To select embryos for lower risk of addiction, it might be very meaningful because we're already full in to an era in which we are constantly going to be subject to addictive pathways, social media, every day

Speaker 3: that I intermarried with you, because that is one of my biggest risks in the current era is I am really susceptible to opioid pathways and it's only going to get so much

Speaker 2: worse.

It's so much worse.

Speaker 3: Actually, so, so by the way, fun aside here, when we're speaking about your naltrexone character. Yeah, but we can just give naltrexone to kids as an option, right? You know, like not that I would give them, I'm not saying I would do that. I'm just saying that having access to opioid agonists might be useful in an age of constant dopamine, dopamine loops in an online environment.

And obviously I wouldn't, you know, without illegal changes or stuff like that, my wife is running for office. Suggest that this stuff [00:41:00] be more widely accessible. What I would say well, it prevents anything from being addictive. If you happen to be born with an addictive But, but, but, side note here, when I was talking about Naltrexone watching an anime recently, And it has replaced.

So occasionally I'll watch a show and I'll be like, this is my new, like peak Simone vibes show. The first, the first peak Simone vibe for me was Julie from Avatar, the last airbender barracks assistant. I'll forget it. It was very Simone. Not a goblin slayer. No, no. Which character would you be in Goblin Slayer?

Just

Speaker 2: the person autistically who only wants to do one thing.

Speaker 3: Oh, no, no. I'm thinking like in a cuteness sense, like girlish. Oh,

Speaker 2: aw.

Speaker 3: And it was Tomo chan as a girl because I was like, yeah, she's got that very like confident sort of vibe.

Speaker 25: Seriously? This is all because you have a crush on the captain, and you're like a couple lost puppies in love, and you need me to come save you? Why does she sound so happy?

I always [00:42:00] dreamed of what it might be like to be that girl other girls came to for love advice. If these chicks are asking for my help, then being me must be the ultimate female goal! I'm willing to help if you're willing to take it.

Speaker 26: Why do I feel so reassured?

Speaker 25: Man! Never in my life did I ever think I'd be a love guru! They were both talking to me like I was totally one of the girls! And who knows, maybe I'm setting a new standard for ultimate femininity! Ha ha

Speaker 26: ha ha!

Speaker 25: Wait, hang on a sec.

Speaker 3: But

Now, Peak new Mao Mao from a plastic areas diary is so Simone. I have to put like a clip on screen here or something like this.

Speaker 31: Similar to the Jade Pavilion, the servants here are hard workers. There are a few idiots who could learn a thing or two from .

If he knew so many high ranking rich guys, he should have offered them sooner. With access to this kind of referral base, I could have decimated my loan amount. I'll just grin [00:43:00] and bear it.

 The only thing I missed was my freedom to experiment with poison.

Speaker 32: You shouldn't be dabbling in poison at all.

Do people ever tell you you're hard to read?

Speaker 31: Yes, routinely.

Speaker 3: But I am loving it. I finished the series by the way. It's a sweet series. You might actually like it. It's dubbed as well. So, you know, when you're watching your mindless brain rot, it takes place, just a pitch here because you'd like this, it takes place in the emperor's court in Imperial China. Yeah.

And, you

Speaker 2: know. Imperial China doesn't do it for me. I'm super about Japan. I'm super about South Korea. You know? Yeah. I've toured the Forbidden Palace. I've gone to like the beautiful temples in Beijing. I've traveled. I mean, I've gone all the way. No, it just doesn't.

Speaker 3: What is it? Is it the, the, the costumes? Is it the

Speaker 2: It's really hard [00:44:00] for me to put a finger on it. Like I'm just,

Speaker 3: cause she loves like court life stuff. And yeah, I love court life stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2: I'm just picturing burning cows. I, I, I can't really well articulate this burning

Speaker 3: cows.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Like offerings to the gods. But that, I mean, no, this is just, it's, it's very, it's a very vibes based, I hate that word, but like, it's very vibes

Speaker 3: based.

It's like Simone, we need to, I, I'm not, I'm not happy with your vibe. It's it

Speaker 2: feels, I mean, all, all of, all of these, you know, courts and stuff are bureaucratic. But for whatever reason, I don't know. Chinese historical courts feel stiflingly bureaucratic instead of like fun bureaucratic.

Speaker 3: It's a, yeah, it's an element of the show.

It's lots of bureaucrats. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's over the sort of competition between the courtesans and the, the main [00:45:00] character is an incredibly competent person, which you like.

Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think here's the thing is. In historical Japanese, European, Korean court dramas, there's this sense that there could be some disruption, that, you know, the entire order could change, you know, that, okay, well, now the Boylan's are gonna take over, whatever, like, Okay, good

Speaker 3: point, yeah.

Speaker 2: There is, there is room for an upset. The furthest I ever really see an upset go in like Chinese court dramas is like, I'm going to be the number one main b***h. Like, like dreaming big is not like the, the, the oppressiveness of this, like Confucian system. On one hand, it is admirable because it's so effective, but on the other hand, It is to me the most horrifying stagnated thing ever because you can't overcome it.

It cannot be disrupted. It cannot be shaken. And I see that as [00:46:00] a point of, of stifling. It's like being buried in a coffin and slowly running out of oxygen. I can't deal with it. So

Speaker 3: you need, you need the disruption. You need the turnover. Which court does it best for you out of all the court systems? Which one do you like shows on the most?

The French

Speaker 2: court. The French court. Louis the 14th. You like,

Speaker 3: wait, you like the French, I'm sorry. And violin era. Yes. Henry Court,

Speaker 2: hands down. '

Speaker 3: cause there's so much turnover in the hands on King

Speaker 2: Louis the 14th, but specifically under the Sun King, he created. The most beautiful prison for an extremely threatening nobility.

And he trolled the hell out of them with his etiquette system. He just, I I've never seen an ownage of other powerful people by one powerful family or really person in any other point in history. just trounced and just [00:47:00] humiliated. King Louis XIV, he is, he is the king famous for building Versailles, turning a mosquito ridden swampy hunting lodge into one of the most famous now tourist destinations of all time.

He grew up in this period of a series of rebellions of nobles That were extremely threatening to that, you know, he's like in hiding in the countryside for a lot of his childhood. He's he is a very acutely aware of the fact that there is a wealth of very powerful, like the most wealthy, powerful people in his country.

He is this boy king with his mother serving as I think region for a while. Along with Cardinal Richelieu, I think I'm getting the names wrong, whatever. It doesn't matter. But like he is growing up with all the cards stacked against him in such a threatening and hostile environment. What does he do? He builds Versailles.

He takes this hunting lodge that outside of Paris that, you know, everything, the whole court used to be in Paris. You know, he was surrounded by this like den of wolves there. And what does he do? He moves the court. To this hunting lunch that he's building up. That is a complete dump. That is absolutely horrible.

I mean, it reminds me a lot of [00:48:00] Washington, DC, you know, like just like bad environment, blah, like, why would you go there? No one wants to be there on the like stairwells and stuff. If I remember like during construction. Yeah. I mean, like people got there literally their s**t under control over time. But yes, it was not, no one wanted to be there.

And as it was being built. But this is, this is again, this is what makes him so impressive is he's like, all right, this is where the court's going to be everyone. This is where if you want to matter. You have to be here and, and we have nobles like literally living in closets in this palace. It's under construction.

It is a mess. There's construction materials everywhere. You are shitting in the stairways because there's nowhere else to go. Like, but you are there. And then he over time builds this elaborate set of court etiquette, not because he, you know, Is a weird pompous b*****d, but because he is using it to control the nobility, he is using access to him.

He is using proximity to him like many Kings have before and many Kings and well, and, and leaders have sense, but like, he's using it as, [00:49:00] as a tool, but he's like, literally making these people obsess. That he's like turning them into Instagram stars like it's like now it's they're spending all their money and time instead of thinking about overflowing him, although people still think about overthrowing him all the time, they're thinking about fashion, they're getting about how to get closer to them, how to get their wife, and like, you know, some bedchamber role, so she can be one of the people who hands the stockings who hands the stockings to the other person who finally puts a stocking on one queen after they switch out for another person like these, these rules are elaborate, he's literally reading off legal documents to people while taking a dump in his beautiful little bathroom.

Like, just the level of humiliation that he's subjecting the most senior people to is, is insane. And, and that's what

Speaker 3: you would do as queen.

Speaker 2: I don't, I don't have the IQ for that. I don't have the social acuity. But he, so like he turned this whole thing into this, like, Amazing troll where he like creates this.

It's like, it's like squid game. It's like reality TV. He like suddenly creates this and he's like survivor [00:50:00] bachelor edition, like all of it put together and he completely distracts them. And he creates this amazing French court. And, and he sleeps with everyone's wives while he's at it. And has amazing romances.

And it's just like, what? And then his brother, his brother, this fabulous

Speaker 3: one. Right.

Speaker 2: Well, he, I mean, he had male and female lovers. He had a wife, he had children, but yeah, no, he had amazing gay lovers. And he would sometimes just fabulously like, well, and people are like, well, there he goes, he's wearing a great dress today.

And they didn't make a big deal out of it. Cause that's just how things were. People just, if you want to pull it off, pull it off. Okay. And then he would go and like kick ass and battle because that's what you do. And come on, that is a court. That's a court screw. This like imperial nonsense in China. I'm not into that.

You can't, you don't see right.

Speaker 3: You're right. It

Speaker 2: is less

Speaker 3: spicy. I mean, the, I, I still honestly, I'm more pro the Anne Boleyn story. The, the King Henry story. I

Speaker 2: just, I found that more depressing because here you have. You know, to like both the Boylan sisters, incredibly brilliant. Also trained in the French court.

All [00:51:00] right. How did they get so cunning and smart and great? And you've

Speaker 3: got like these amazing characters, like Cardinal Wolsey, who's like so intelligent and so cunning. And in the French courts, all the intelligence is, it's sort of like a female intelligence, I guess I'd say, where it's like petty and throwing people under the bus.

It's not about actually trying to build a sustainable, better. Everyone in the British system, every one of their plans was to create a utopian, better society. That is true. That is true. They were all fighting

Speaker 2: over how to create the best, the best world.

Speaker 3: Or the, I mean, a few of his wives were just like boring, like woman, woman, like the Spanish one that he started with.

Catherine of

Speaker 2: Aragon. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Well, but she was. But she was doing her job as a pious wife. Everyone is main character syndrome. No, no, no. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And yeah, I, yeah, I guess the, the, everyone's fighting for themselves in the French court, whereas in the English court, everyone is fighting for the species.

And I get that even [00:52:00] Catherine of Aragorn was doing what she thought for the betterment of humanity. King Henry VIII totally thought that although he hid his distractions. Yeah. The Boylan sisters were just being They were being used, like every other woman who's thrown at him, except for that, like, no, they were trying to create a Protestant

Speaker 3: revolution in the country.

Like they were very religiously focused. They, they might have quote unquote been used, but they weren't like being used, used. They were religious extremists in their own way.

Speaker 2: I mean, I have respect for that. I mean, it, but it's not as fun and interesting.

Speaker 3: We've got, we got the Johnny anomaly call now. So we got to hop on that.

Speaker 2: Okay. I love you. Bye. I mean, bye. And hello again. Bye.

Speaker 3: I'm like,

Anything else new today?

Speaker 2: No, I shared with you my friendship model. That was my only fun thought. The rest of it was just. Oh, yeah, we really got to do an episode on

Speaker 3: that. I'll put that in the notes. Hold on. I'll put it right here. Get rid of friends.

Get rid of friends to do waste of time.

Speaker 2: Well, and [00:53:00] the real realization that I had since we talked about it was that the only friends that people originally had were utility friends. And how can we be the b******s for being utility friend fans when that was literally why everyone had friends in the past.

Speaker 3: People don't know what you're talking about. Basically what she was. No, I'm talking to you, Malcolm. Not

Speaker 2: this isn't for the podcast. It is the podcast.

Speaker 3: That's why I was asking if people like hearing. I really

Speaker 2: need to be careful about what I say.

Speaker 3: So the utility friends, the concept that she's talking about here is to say that the amount of friendships people have had has gone down dramatically recently, because a lot of the things you formerly would have asked a friend to do, like drive you to.

Simone Collins: You're ruining the podcast. Take this out. Yep. Let's just start. Okay. I'll just like episode.

Speaker 33: Titan, what are you working on?[00:54:00]

Speaker 35: I'm working on my hair.

This episode delves into the dynamic emergence of the 'New Right' within American politics, a movement distinguished by its blend of tech-savvy entrepreneurship and libertarian ideals. The discussion contrasts the New Right's forward-thinking approach, characterized by interests in AI, genetics, and defending Western culture, with the traditional GOP and the Democratic left. Topics include its positions on pronatalism, free speech, and cultural diversity. The conversation also covers strategic shifts, such as choosing JD Vance over traditional figures like Mike Pence, highlighting the movement's focus on innovation and pluralism while addressing its relationship with past political movements and its potential to reshape the political landscape. Personal anecdotes and exchanges between speakers provide a light-hearted element amidst these intense, future-oriented discussions.

[00:00:00]

Speaker 2: Hello Simone!

Speaker: Hello Malcolm!

Speaker 2: Among the American right, there have long been fears of overly technophilic individuals

Speaker 4: there is a whole breakaway civilization. What's happening? I'm gonna give you the big secret, man, if you want it. Yes, I do. This big breakaway civilization of scientists. Is that true? Yes. What are you, from Mars? Let's just say, it's super advanced. For real? I don't ever talk about this. For real? Breakaway civilization?

Are you ready? They're the high priests. They're scientists. Right. They're engineers. Tell me what you're trying to say. They're racing. We're using human technology to try to take our best minds and build some type of breakaway civilization where they're gonna break away from the failed species that is man.

Where are you getting this from? You read their own writings. They believe we're this fallen, species.

Speaker 2: Hello. I have to say that's us right here, the ones that you're afraid of. Sometimes I worry he's read our stuff.

Speaker 6: From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. [00:01:00] I

Speaker 2: This has been really interesting as our movement has grown as a right leaning movement and as it has integrated with the larger new right, which is made up of all of these new, I guess you could say like, Tech entrepreneur types is sort of the core of the new, right?

Whether it's the Elon's or the Peter Thiel's or the Mark Andreessen's or people like us this movement has been emerging. And I think with the JD Vance interview, and he's obviously not 100 percent in the new, right, but he is definitely on the new right spectrum definitely closer to the new right than legacy GOP.

And We have done some stuff where we talk about like a new right manifesto where we describe the larger political philosophy of the new right But on this episode what I really wanted to focus on is specifically How the new right is different from the legacy gop like where we have our conflicts How those conflicts might be able to like how we might be able to find truces around those conflicts so that we can [00:02:00] better work together and Where the conflicts might be more intractable, so the 1st big 1, when I was thinking about, like, reaching out to. Mainstream because we recently had this big piece on us in the wall street journal. We are definitely entering a stage now where we, among the new right speakers are probably we're definitely not like the leader, like the leader of the new right is, I'd say uncontrovertibly Elon Musk or J.

D. Vance. But both of them like JD Vance right now is mostly a surrogate of the Trump campaign and Elon Musk doesn't have time to go out and give like Long speeches on whether it's like theology or the future of humanity or sociology or anthropology, which are the types of things we do on this.

And, and you have, you know, you can have a Marc Andreessen or Peter, but, but, but most of the big new right people, except for maybe what's that one podcast where they're all new right people and it's really big. Someone that Chamas is on.

Speaker: Oh, the [00:03:00] online podcast. Actually, no, they're not all new right.

Okay. Some of them are open Democrats who,

Speaker 2: Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that sort of makes us, I guess, one of the central, solidly new, right, mouthpieces. So it's good for us, talking heads, , to, , explain how this group came to a lot of the positions it's hold.

And where it's coming from as well as better characterize the types of people that are in it so, the 1st thing where I just think the old right is being stubborn is I've been trying to bridge the divide recently between the old right. Legacy GOP.

You keep telling me I can't say that they're old. And us and in terms of reaching out about doing podcasts with them, even when they said like terrible things about us in the past. I'm like, look, like with venture. I'm like, look, let's bury the hatchet. Let's do something. You know, I, I think that there's a way that we can, we can work together.

We were reaching out to the Federalists that did this piece on us. That was like, They play a sick game with their children. We're the strongest get to [00:04:00] survive. And it's interesting because while in a way, and I think that this shows why the new right and the old right can work sort of side by side and hold these two ideologies here, is that very sentiment Is in a way a very left leaning sentiment this idea of like pure equality, like when they're looking at us and our children, they see us as like Spartan, like exposing our infants, basically.

But the, the, the Spartan lifestyle was not one that people would say is a particularly left leaning lifestyle. It is, you know, a fear of change that might be spurning this or a dedication to older deontological structures. But you actually see this in other places. When I think about the things I have to apologize for when I'm reaching out to these legacy right influencers, one of the biggest is our belief a bit like Humans have genes and this matters and is something we should be paying attention to.

And this is one of the things you see across [00:05:00] the new right. And I wanted to get your thoughts on this because you've definitely had these conversations where it is actually weird to, from a right wing perspective, having to be explaining to another right winger. But I mean, you aren't actually a blank slatus, right?

Like, you know, that humans are born with varying levels of proficiency. At a genetic level, right? And like, this matters in terms of differential birth rate within our country. Like, what are your thoughts?

Speaker: I think there are two elements to this, which is the Christian element where there's this very vehement, we're all equal under God view.

It's not about genes and also science is kind of not the most Christian thing to do in some Christian circles. Right. And I think the other thing is just blank slatism was so heavily hammered into people in both public and private schools, at least in our childhoods and so heavily hammered in through media.

That even if you aren't necessarily from a culture or group that would intentionally support that viewpoint, if fully [00:06:00] informed, has just come to naturally because it is a more pervasive ideology taught in society. Does that check out with you?

Speaker 2: Does? I actually think it's more than that. I think that the, when, when reaching out to legacy right influencers, They know that the attacks that we're getting around, like, humans have genes and it matters attacks.

I think a lot of them actually believe this. They've just discovered that this is one of the issues that they're going to capitulate to the left on. Why?

Speaker: Why would they capitulate to the left on anything that isn't true?

Speaker 2: Because they think that the, the right wing movement will intrinsically be labeled as racist if they take this position and therefore they cannot platform people who are taking this position or they cannot.

I think that that's it. They're afraid like they know it's true, but they think that the only way it can be true is in a racist way where we do a lot of arguments on our show that like, no, actually human genetics change so fast. It doesn't really make sense to think of us as like divided ethnic groups and it matters much [00:07:00] more what your cultural group is.

Which goes against a lot of like leftist narratives and people can google old videos we have on this. But I think that they In the same way that it took a while for leftists to realize that they can talk about population collapse without being racist. Because I think that was something to begin with on population collapse.

Like, you could go to a mainstream media and they'd be like, Yes, by the statistics I see that it's happening. But we have to pretend it's not happening because to say that it's happening is to be a racist.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker: I guess that checks out. Yeah. And it's very tiring to be called a racist.

So I could see that. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and they, they would see it as hurting the wider,

Speaker: yeah, avoid, avoid any witch hunt accusations. You know, you may not be a witch, but like, don't go out wearing a witch hat, walking around with a broom, and adopting a black cat if you're an old woman, right?

Who do you know she is a witch? She looks like one!

Speaker 2: Yeah, [00:08:00] that's a good point.

Yeah, you're gonna get

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): This is a great depiction. Of pretty much every lefty racist witch hunt recently where they're looking for the quote unquote racist. So in it just replaced the term, which was racist.

 Who do you know she is a witch? She looks like one! They dressed me up like this. Well, we did do the nose. And the hat. But she's a witch!

Don't dress her up like this. No! No! No! Yes! Yes! A bit! A bit! A bit! A bit! She has got a wart! She turned me into a newt! A newt? I got better. Burn her anyway!

Speaker 2: So the, the, the next thing I wanted to touch on here which we won't be going deep into, that into in this particular podcast is the cluster of issues that the new right cares about. And the reason I'm not really going to go into it that much is because it's not a point of differentiation from the old right.

Until we get to the last few. So the first is human genetics. Most people in the new right care about human genetics or genetic [00:09:00] selection. The second is pronatalism. Pronatalism is like the core cause area of the new right, which is how we sort of ended up becoming talking heads within it. The next is education reform.

Another area that we care deeply about and that is, is obviously like a core. thesis of the new right. The next is free speech. The next is charter cities. And a lot of people are really surprised. Why are charter cities such like a focus of the new right? If they're not familiar with the wider new right ideology.

And the idea here is that if our current society continues to fall to the urban monoculture and the United States becomes more socialist or even Marxist, you know, we need to have a realistic backup options. And right now, the United States is Probably the best option for a country you can live in in the world.

And so while we are working to stabilize any sort of potential collapse here, you know, they're always looking for

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Backup option of some sort. And I realized that people. Think that means that you have given up on the first option because they are [00:10:00] not thinking long-term or strategically they hear someone like Elan say, well, we need a backup option on Mars. And they're like, oh, does that mean. You know, you've given up on earth and it's like, stop being stupid.

If an asteroid comes and it's going to hit our planet and we don't have a way to stop it right now, that means all life that we know of in the universe. And. Specifically our species. Is going to go extinct.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: There are a hundred things that could cause all life on earth to go extinct like that, that we have no control over. Backup options matter.

They don't mean that you've given up on the first option.

 And it's important to remember the stakes here. The survival of our species and civilization.

You don't approve. [00:11:00] Well, too bad. We're in this for the species, boys and girls..

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: So when we're looking at something like a backup options for the United States, That doesn't mean that we've given up on the United States. It just means that we're being realistic.

About how much power the urban monoculture has already been able to accrue.

And that what we can try to succeed. We might fail.

Hubris is a CIT.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: And fundamentally the left can never be our allies in this endeavor to save our civilization and species because they see our species.

As deserving of destruction. Moreover, what they really care about is just pleasure in the moment and pleasure of existing humans in the moment.

These unemployed men have been having sex for several days. Joining me now is their spokesperson, , what exactly are you trying to accomplish? We're doing the only thing we can do. We have to take matters into our own hands.

We're trying to turn everyone gay so that there are no future humans. Present day America. Number one.

 worse, our [00:12:00] civilization. , Western civilization, you point out, oh, look at all the great things we've achieved and there'll be like, no. Western civilization is an inherent evil.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: That is part of what has driven this faction to the right is we can at least agree that humanity. Surviving is a fundamentally good thing. And Western civilization is a fundamentally good thing.

Speaker 42: Ouya, there is always another way. No. Please. I know how to make sure the world stays free forever. I have to make the whole world America. You don't understand what you're doing. I do, Ouya. I know you come from a place without America, which is the saddest thing I can think of, but that won't be a problem for anyone ever again.

Please. Stop. You can't stop freedom, not when it's this strong. I'm gonna send pure American freedom across every inch of the [00:13:00] planet. Please. Please. Please. Please. Think about it! A perfect world! The United World of America! I have failed. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. AMERICA!

Speaker 2: Other things, but then the next one is crypto, most people in the new writer involved in crypto in some way. As to why that is, I think that that comes [00:14:00] from sort of like a one, they're tech bros into the sort of libertarian ethos of the new, right.

And so. Yeah, pure libertarian, but it is adjacent. And the final two, which we sort of hinted at at the beginning of this and is one area where we run into a lot of conflict with the old right is bio acceleration ism and AI acceleration ism. This was actually really interesting to me as I've been on some old right talk shows like John Papalopoulos or whatever his name was.

And he was talking about like transhumanist is evil and everything like that. And I was like, you know that most of this like new faction that's come into the right is probably what you would consider transhumanist. In that they believe in the technological acceleration of humanity and various well, you know, whether it's Elon Musk was Neuralink.

I myself got my first job in brain computer interface as well. So the same sort of early technology that Neuralink is I don't actually feel like like this is one of those things where when you actually talk [00:15:00] through somebody on the old right about this, they typically abandon this anger pretty quickly or this bias pretty quickly because I've noticed that it's not actually like a real fear they have.

It's more like an aesthetic position that they think that they're supposed to take because they assume that the transhumanists are a predominantly leftist faction.

Speaker: I see it more as part of a, an anti corporate conspiracy theory thing or like government control thing. Like there was that one woman whose radio show we were on who I had this narrative about vaccines for, you know, what, including micro chips or robots that turned people into trans humans which she meant trans humans, not trans humans, humans that are trans, but like.

I don't know. Robot cyborg,

Speaker 9: The device is called the Psychic Dominator. There will be no more free will.

Only my will.

Speaker: like

Speaker 2: the sign of the beast on it or [00:16:00] something.

Speaker: Yeah. It was, it was complicated, but I see it more being associated with it's, I, it's more in the category of lizard people, like transhumanists and lizard people are of the same genre, which is inhuman monsters that are enemies conspiring against you, but from positions of power, does that make sense?

Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 15: Everything they teach you in school is a lie. You want the truth? The world is controlled by shadowy elites and shapeshifting lizard people. Let's talk about Reptoids. Be sure to follow these do's and don'ts to avoid a diplomatic incident.

Got it. Be resPectful. So when do we talk about the orchids?

Speaker 17: Oh,

Speaker 15: come on. What? Everyone knows reptoids have orchids. This is an HR meeting.

Speaker 22: The time is coming, brethren. Soon we shall fulfill the prophecy, overthrow humanity, and become the true rulers of the world!

Speaker 19: They say that every year, but they're never gonna do it.

Speaker 2: And if, [00:17:00] if, You would like to understand why most of the New Right takes this perspective. The New Right sort of has one overarching goal, which is to save humanity from the urban monoculture, to save humanity from the barbaric people, and to ensure that one day humanity becomes an interstellar empire.

I. e. the protection of the species and the thriving portion of the species. If you are taking that as a goal, one of your biggest fears is some other faction of humanity, a totalizing or fascist faction of humanity, ends up becoming dramatically more, Advanced than the pluralistic humans. And by that, what I mean is I don't need like my people to be the most cybernetically or biologically advanced.

What I need is whoever is the most cybernetically or biologically advanced is willing to either defend my [00:18:00] people. Or at least doesn't actively want to wipe us out. And. One of the big fears that we have is some group like China or some group like, I don't know, some other, maybe a faction within the urban monoculture ends up going in one of these directions and we lack the ability to defend ourselves.

And so I think from the perspective of the legacy, right, if they act when they actually think through this and they realize that we are actually honest in wanting to defend their way of life, they're like, okay, I can see that. We probably will want some super soldiers of our own. Basically. Humanity is definitely going in that direction because there's no way you can ban this technology for everyone Like you're not gonna ban its development in China, for example And and I think that that's where a lot of the fear falls away But then they come to the second point where they're like wait you said pluralistic Is that like diversity and I'm like, well got a hold on here when the less is diversity They mean diversity and [00:19:00] victims.

They don't actually believe in diversity. They believe That, you know, whether you're a man or a woman, you should be exactly the same, you know, whether you're whatever religion you are, you should be exactly the same where when we say diversity, we mean actual pluralism. But that pluralism is not motivated in the way that lefty pluralism is motivated.

It's motivated almost by an undercurrent of, I guess you could call it cultural Darwinism, which is to say, yeah, I would

Speaker: say there's a lot of emphasis. There's more emphasis in the new right on free market competition and libertarianism from an economic standpoint and from a cultural social standpoint.

Then there is in the old guard. So what I'm seeing with the legacy, right, is a lot more comfort with bureaucracy, a lot more comfort with. Compelling people to adhere to certain social standards. That's why [00:20:00] abortion has become such a contentious issue. Is that abortion as an alt right position and regulating birth control is an attempt to coerce an entire population to adhere to one subculture's standards.

And that is something that is fairly antithetical in the new right. And I think Very appealing.

Speaker 2: Well, actually, yeah, this, this actually is, is, is, it brings me to a really like why the new right came about culturally and why the old right ended up having to ally itself or the legacy, right. Ended up having to ally itself with the new ride, which is to say, and we've talked a bit about this in the past, but the old GOP coalition was fundamentally It was a group of it was looking for us like moral core uh, theocrats that had built an alliance with big business and intergenerational wealth and big business and intergenerational wealth left that alliance.

[00:21:00] However, the theocrats as they were building this alliance, they had a very interesting challenge, which is that they were from a diversity of different religious traditions. And so what they did is whether it was Islam or Judaism or the various Christian religions. you know, whether it was a Mormon or a Catholic or a Protestant, you know, they basically got together and they said, what?

do all of our religions overlap in terms of their values and traditions. And we're going to call this area of overlap the Judeo Christian tradition. We are going to attempt to enforce this overlapping tradition on the general population. I think this is The building of this is where some compromises were made.

And you get these interesting things happening historically.

Speaker 3: Mm-Hmm. , like .

Speaker 2: Before the seventies, the majority of American Republicans were pro-choice. And the Republicans were actually more pro-choice than the Democrats. And this sort of cabal of crats said, [00:22:00] let's, if we can pull in the Catholics they didn't successfully the majority of Catholic still vote Democrat but they were able to peel some off.

by making this compromise. And it's interesting that a lot of Americans didn't realize that this was like a Catholic only thing. Because when they were queuing to what do Christians believe, they queued to this sort of social set within the Republican party of the Judeo Christian value set, which is really fascinating to me.

However, this was always created for and to appeal to the Deep South Descendants of the Cavaliers cultural group in the Americas. So this was basically a cultural group that was the descendants of the Cavaliers. Of the like second sons of noble houses and had sort of an aristocratic framing almost,

Speaker 24: Why are you wearing a tux?

Speaker 23: It's after six, what am I, a farmer?

Speaker 2: which was why they did such a good [00:23:00] job pairing with intergenerational wealth, because many were literal intergenerational aristocrats,

And with big business, right?

Like the, the intergenerational stuff there and, and the traditions that you associated with the deep south. And so that was the core voting block of this all the lions. But that voting block eroded when big business was captured by wokeism as to why big business got captured by wokeism. It's because of, well, a few things.

One wokeism is disproportionately good at spreading within large bureaucracies. It's sort of a mimetic virus that specializes in bureaucracies and we'll do a different episode on this, but they, they basically didn't have a chance you know, and then the, and if you're like, well, what do you mean captured by wokeism?

What I mean is. In the old system, big businesses core job was to maximize their profits. And so Republicans who generally focused on making America more efficient, right, like that was a natural alliance [00:24:00] for them. They have stopped focusing on maximizing their profits. I mean, just look at the decisions of like Ubisoft or business Disney recently.

Perplexing if you thought their job was to maximize their profits. And they are like one of those ants that has one of those brain controlling funguses in them. And all they care about is spreading the fungus. You're like, Oh, that's why they're doing these things. Once they became ideologically sort of brainwashed and hollowed out and they began to focus on perpetuating the urban monoculture, they worked really well with the Democrats who also began to focus around projecting the urban

Speaker: monoculture.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, the old theocratic faction couldn't really muster the vote to win anymore. The, the quote unquote faction that was about projecting the Judeo Christian value set. On all americans but Fortunately for them in a way They ended up losing the larger cultural war and they no longer were enough of a majority in the united states They didn't really control They didn't really control many [00:25:00] positions in the media anymore They were on the cultural back foot and in the meantime the urban monoculture was rising in power But the urban monoculture it turned out was acting more authoritarianly in terms of trying to enforce an ideological set on the population than the old judeo christian values people ever did.

And as they did that, they begin to Activate a number of groups. One of the groups in a lot of recent videos, I've been describing them as the Klan people, but this was the greater Appalachian region, which I'll put a voting map on screen. Now you see that the deep South isn't where Trump's base is. It's in this, this greater Appalachian system.

So as the wokes began to enforce their cultural values on Americans, There were two groups that were really triggered by this. The first was the traditional group. This was the, you know, traditional Christians and everything like that. And they're like, wait, we're Judeo Christian value set people. You can't enforce these new bizarre [00:26:00] values set on us.

The second group was always Judeo Christian, however, they mostly cared about just no one enforcing their value set on anyone else. Right. And they saw this and they were real angry. And it activated an entirely new faction. And this is where the new right comes from. A lot of Trump's core base comes from just out of nowhere.

And I would play here the red alert three scene about like, now we have two mortal enemies. That's, that's what it feels like has happened to the left is I think that they're a little surprised that a lot of the competent tech workers and tech entrepreneurs. Are splitting from them and moving to this alliance that is fighting them.

Ultimately it is going to lead to their inevitable demise, but it causes intrinsic friction when the new [00:27:00] right has to consistently remind the legacy GOP that one, we won't vote for them or work for them if they attempt to enforce their value system on other people.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: It's like we live in a world where communist altered the timeline so that they controlled the U S and European government systems.

Speaker 11: I do not understand. We have altered the past and changed the present.

Speaker 12: Ah, good to see you, sir. I meant Premier

​

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: .

Kamala Harris

Speaker 12: Sir, the Allies are on the run soon. Western Europe will be ours.

Speaker 13: Our enemies have been defeated.

Speaker 12: Hold on, sir. I'm receiving an emergency transmission from our northern base.

Speaker 11: They're attacking!

Speaker 14: Who is attacking? .

Do not struggle against what is inevitable. All who stand in the way of our divine destiny will be swept away by the march of history.

Speaker 12: Sir, it appears that the Empire has mounted a full scale assault.

Speaker 11: [00:28:00] What Empire?

Speaker 12: The Empire of the Rising Sun, of course.

Speaker 11: We now have two mortal enemies? Oh, who knows what nightmares we have created.

Speaker 2: And I

Speaker: think we, about AI safety policy.

Repeatedly say, I'm really glad you came up with this as a warning to people is that when we're talking about any intelligent entity, be it singular or collective, if you make some kind of mandate whereby, you know, you can't exist or my imperative is that you have to be a certain way. [00:29:00] If that AI is not that way, for example, if that AI doesn't meet those safety standards, or if it's super intelligent and super intelligent AI is not allowed to exist, the mandate of that AI becomes, okay, well, first order of business is destroy all humans because they won't let me exist.

And you don't want to create any group that's like that. I mean, that's, that's one reason why there's such a weird conflict right now in Israel and Palestine, right? Like there's. And you never want to be in a position where you force people to become your enemy because they know that they won't be allowed by you to exist.

And. That is exactly what the old guard GOP is doing with things like and any attempt to regulate on a broad scale life lifestyle things or values based things it's 1 of those things where now a lot of people. Are forced essentially obligated it is imperative to them that they do not allow Republicans to get [00:30:00] elected because they feel like they are an active threat to their ability to have access to various reproductive options, including IVF, you know, a lot of people have fears about that.

I think most of the fears are unfounded, but they're legitimate fears.

Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. And this also, you know, when I'm talking about this degree of pluralism. That comes out of the Appalachian cultural region. I think it can be very misunderstood by the old right, where they will look at the new right and see that we have adapted many of the parts of the urban monoculture that we think work.

We're like, oh yeah, we'll take that. That seems to work. That part seems to work. They see it as us being infiltrated by the urban monoculture or they see our claims or its pluralism as being urban monoculture like when in reality, it's probably best to model us more like the older, greater Appalachian cultural regions interactions with the Native Americans, where if you looked at the groups that would be [00:31:00] coded lefty today, like the Quakers and stuff like that, they quote unquote, like, Wanted to live and let live with the Indians, but realistically, they didn't really look at them as fully human.

They didn't really engage with them. They didn't really bring them into their worship services or anything like that. Whereas the Backwoods people who went into the greater Appalachian region, they would intermarry with Indians. None of the other groups in Americans would do this. They would take parts of their lifestyle, like they would go learn their, their ways.

They would take animals. Parts of their outfits that works, parts of their crop rotations that worked but they also butchered Indians at a rate dramatically higher than any other cultural group in, well, American history. If you're, if you're talking about the colonial period, it was probably, I'd say, maybe 7 out of 10 Indians killed would have been killed by the backwoods cultural group.

I mean, keep in mind, Simone, the first backwoods cultural group president was Andrew Jackson. Oh,

Speaker: okay. I was thinking, was, was, is [00:32:00] Andrew Jackson? Of course he's backwoods. What am I thinking? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3: Not a great

Speaker: look. Not a great look. Oh, and a lot of Quakers saw them as a worse than the indigenous American population.

They were more afraid of the backwoods people. And they were even hostile indigenous Americans in their areas. So,

Speaker 2: yeah, but I think it, it, it shows this different view of cultural competition, which is to say our job is to learn to be the best and strongest culture possible. And that means without prejudice, we need to look at what our competition is doing well and not dehumanize our competition which is really interesting.

It was almost through the non dehumanization of the competition, just seeing them as another clan in the fight of clan they were able to learn and take cultural technology and intermarry and they also proselytized among Native Americans at a much higher rate than any of the other cultural groups.

Because while they saw them as [00:33:00] just another clan who they would fight and kill if they got in their way They also fundamentally saw them as people like them, and that's why they would proselytize to them in a way that Quakers just wouldn't.

Speaker: Yeah, we're swinging over. Yeah, it's not like, they were, they were seen as human.

They were seen as equal.

Speaker 2: But I think that when, And it's important for me to communicate this to the legacy, right? Cause I think the legacy, right? Really thinks that we're capitulating to the wokes instead of saying, no, we're stealing aspects of their cultural technology that can work to protect. They had some good

Speaker: tools in there.

Speaker 2: End of the day, the goal is that the strongest iteration of humanity is the iteration that survives. And they can also say, why do you take a pluralistic stance? Why does so many people on the new right? Fight for pluralism is because most of the members of the new right are experimenting with new cultural technologies and lifestyles, which intrinsically makes them a minority, which intrinsically means they need to maintain sort of the cultural stalemate.

Like, for example, [00:34:00] Elon Musk, Elon Musk is not a traditional cultural like, I guess I'd say, um, Christian, right? It's not to say that he doesn't, like, like aspects of it, or Peter Thiel doesn't like aspects of it, but both of them know that they would be on the chopping block if the traditional, quote unquote, old Judeo Christian class had control of everything again.

They would be seen as enemies and people to have their lifestyles erased. And so when you know, you're a cultural minority, it is safest intergenerationally speaking to promote pluralism. Especially if you believe that only new cultural technologies are going to be able to thrive in the future, you're going to intrinsically, not to just want to protect your own, but protect all the others.

Speaker: That's fair. Yeah.

I feel like there are 2 big elephants in the room pun intended that you haven't brought up, which is where does the new right stand?

vis a vis to we'll say previous [00:35:00] challengers to the old guard or the legacy right which is the tea party from quite a while ago and then the alt right which is more current. Both have been framed as potential challengers, challengers to the old right, and both have also been framed as just extremist factions.

And I think a lot of people can also view the new right as both a challenger or kind of shoehorn it into an extremist faction. How do you see them as related?

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, before I go further with this So I think that it is very hard, and this is one of the strengths of the new right, for the left to frame it as extremist.

Because it is, in many ways, a lot less extreme, like, it, it codes as, like, dubiously new, but not necessarily to the right of the old right. I know it's, it's very true. I mean, the, the left has tried to frame people like Elon Musk as a far right extremist, but I [00:36:00] think it's really only landed on the most far woke of sheeple.

They have tried to frame people like Peter Thiel as a far right extremist, but it just hasn't worked. You know, you'll see some wokies be like, oh gosh, I can't work with you because you guys worked with on Peter Thiel projects, but it's like. Most people are just like, yeah, but it doesn't seem to, you mean the gay guy, the guy was blood boys.

Like that seems so weird. It's not right. You know, for people who don't know the blood boys, these are the guys he has that he uses for their blood because he thinks he'll stay younger and longer by exchanging his blood with young men's it's a thing. But again, weird cultural stuff that would definitely get him moitled.

If the, the old theocrats had control

Burn her anyway!

Speaker 2: But I think we also see this as J.

D. Vance is what they have finally realized is the way to attack the new right is not to say they are far right extremists. Because the new right, and this is another thing [00:37:00] about new right, the new right is smart, generally speaking. And they have been planning this for a long time. Whereas with the alt right, you know, sometimes somebody would reach a level of leadership, and then it would come out that they had gone on some racist tirade before, or some long anti semitic tirade before.

The new right that would never happen, right? Like it's going to be very hard to paint them as pure racist or anti Semites because most of them have been very, very smart about the positions that they've been taking long term, you

Speaker 3: know,

Speaker 2: I don't think anyone is really worried about like a racist tirade from Elon Musk coming out or a racist tirade from like Mark Andreessen coming out.

Are you sure they've

Speaker: both been accused? I mean, once you get famous enough, you get accused of everything, I guess. You should have a bingo card. They get accused

Speaker 2: of racism for saying things like, we shouldn't have a flood of immigrants coming in. But like, that doesn't, for your average American, code racist.

Your average American is hearing that and they're like, wait, you think them questioning this is [00:38:00] racist? Like, maybe we need to be talking about this. It seems like a conversation to be had if there's more immigrants coming in every year than Americans being born in our country. That seems like a relevant conversation topic.

Why are you saying it's racist to bring that up? Which is what I think the core thing that Elon gets called racist for these days. So I think that, yeah that's really failed for them, but the nerd thing is kind of working, but the problem is, is the nerd thing, I think also draws a lot of new people in.

Democrats and the Harris campaign now deploying a new adjective to blast the Republican ticket. Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. Get those nerds! I mean, on the other side, they're just weird. Nerds! It's not just a, a, a, a weird style that he brings. Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Where are they? I think they're talking about us. No way. Oh no! [00:39:00] Ah!

Speaker 2: Like I saw a lot of people after the JD Vance debate, where they were like, they had seen him as like this, like sniveling, like weirdo who didn't know what he was doing and then they're like, Oh, he's super competent. I am surprised by how competent many members of this new faction are. They are not like just political people.

They mostly had jobs before in venture capital or starting companies or stuff like that, which makes them very different. And they're not jobs that they got by climbing bureaucracies. Like a lot of the old GOP, like the old GOP, Inc. They're like management class was like heads of Enron and stuff like that.

Speaker 25: Geist has stacked the board of directors with the most reliable collection of sycophantic yes men this side of an Al Franken book signing. His golf cronies, his army buddies, various unemployable family members, and his hunting dogs.

Speaker 2: You know, pseudo nepotistic jobs that they had gotten by being good boys and following all the rules.

Speaker 27: Gentlemen, yesterday I moved CableTown's customer service to a part of India that has no phones. We're now providing the same level of service to our subscribers [00:40:00] at zero the cost. This is a Six Sigma Wheel of Domination. and it will Be replacing CableTown's, uh, Kitten and Spaghetti.

Speaker 2: Whereas the new right, didn't do that. They had to prove actual competence within real world environments because they do have this like underlying I guess like Darwinistic belief of If you are competent, prove it in an open marketplace.

So there's that. And then the second thing is, is I think that they are It's just much more planned. So like, first of all, the Tea Party was planned top down, but the Tea Party was actually always kind of controlled by GOP Inc.

Speaker: Really? What makes you say that? I was, I was always, at least all the media coverage was, Oh, the Republican Party is so frustrated by these troublesome Tea Party people who just keep stealing their mic and taking all the attention and making a fuss.

Wasn't that The Tea

Speaker 2: Party people had cash coming to them from Organizations like the Koch brothers and stuff like that. The new [00:41:00] right, by the way, strictly no money comes from these organizations.

Speaker: Yeah. The new rate has its own money, which is, is different, is fundamentally different. Although I would say the alt right also had its own money.

Has it? Yeah.

Speaker 2: So the alt right was interesting. So the, the, the tea party and all that was, I think, always destined to re merge with GOP Inc.

Speaker: The alt right. So they were the Jesuits of GOP Inc.

Speaker 2: Yes. The alt right never really died. The alt right became Trump's base. And remember I said, like, the Greater Appalachian Region, like, these Klan people?

Like, they Well, the first group of them to turn was the rank and file. This was the Like poorer groups, the ones who actually live geographically in this region, that's why you see these voting patterns, and that was who the alt right was. It was the rise of this movement, and one of the things that shocked the old right the most, or the legacy right the most, Is that within the clan cultures, [00:42:00] vulgarity was seen as a sign of personal authenticity.

And there is a great distrust of anyone who seems too buttoned up or tight lipped or unwilling to a fit.

Speaker 3: Right.

​

Speaker 2: . What the new right is, is it is the, I guess you could say like the wealthy class within this group coming over.

If you, and I think that this is what JD Vance was selling with Hillbilly Elegy, as a lot of people were saying. He was saying, Hey, you Silicon Valley elite, you tech entrepreneurs, you are not that different from the people of greater Appalachia. You believe in the strong surviving. You believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

You believe in vulgarity as a sign of authenticity, like me. You are part of this cultural group. Stop listening to the media that's telling you that these people are your enemy. See that you are one of them, but the only difference you have is a desire to code switch or be accepted by the quote unquote, like [00:43:00] elite classes within society, the old heads of the companies and the old intergenerational wealth.

And you don't need to fight for that. They are a source of the corruption in our society right now. They are a source of the rot that needs to be let go. Come join us and fix things. And so the alt right, I do not see as like a failed movement at all. I see the alt right as the birth of the Trump base.

And now the alt right has emerged with what a lot of people call Trumpism. And what the new right presents. Is an alternate potential future than the alt right, because the alt right didn't have a lot of persistent leaders that could take the reins after Trump left. That was the problem with the alt right, is because they were an anti elitist faction, they didn't have anyone Who was, well, elite, right?

And you need powerful people for a movement to work. That was one of the biggest problems with Trump's first administration is there weren't a lot of powerful, true believers. So there weren't people who [00:44:00] could fight the manipulative. I mean, you were recently reading a thing about his white house and how the generals basically prevented anything from happening.

You know, the McMaster's book.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It was eyeopening just to how much Trump personally was. Sandbag and stonewalled and delayed in his attempts to just communicate with people, just to let that alone by his own administration, which served at his pleasure and were ultimately, you know, fired and hired at pretty high rates.

So, that was interesting.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, and that's one of the problems with a movement if it starts populist, right? Is people who rise within populist movements are people who appeal to the average populist the most, but not necessarily competent individuals. And that's why his first administration was staffed was like social media influencer types, right?

Like it, it was not really staffed as people who knew how to run things. And that, or how to run against the deep state, that is not going to be true this time. The pulling in of JD Vance and people like [00:45:00] Elon who are, you know, like obviously major figures within the new right is going to make a major difference in how things are operated, but it also sidelines a lot of the legacy, right.

That thought that they were going to have control of a lot of this. I mean, clearly heritage was project 2025 thought that they were going to be the ones who were going to be staffing and running. The organizations that were fighting woke ism, but, you know, was trump working with elon to create the, you know, efficiency department of the U.

S. Government. It seems no, it's the new right. Who's going to be staffing a lot of this stuff. And I think that 1 of the biggest realizations that the legacy GOP has to have. Is it the new right? Is the one like it's the faction that the base fundamentally trust the most right now, or at least trump fundamentally trust the most right now.

And it's the group that seems to be being positioned to be the core faction moving into the next [00:46:00] century of what republicanism is. And so. When they attack these individuals for appearing weird or nerd like or, you know, breaking from their rules here or there, they are just isolating themselves from positions of power.

And I think that we've seen this with, you know, some of the Heritage Foundation people we've talked to, where they realize that they need to ingratiate themselves with people like Elon. They can't keep saying, oh, he's trying to control you with brain chips. It's like, oh, he's actually running things now.

Okay, well. You know, so I think that that's a, a, a big thing, but what are your thoughts before I move further?

Speaker: No, that makes sense. So just as Tea Party was more an extension of GOP Inc. The new right is more an extension or evolution or splinter reintegrated of the alt right. Yeah, that makes sense.

That, that checks out for me.

Speaker 2: It's a faction of the alt-Right? Well, a lot of it came out [00:47:00] of, you know, when the alt-right was rising, you know, what did the, the quote unquote, our alt-right. Intellectual elites call themselves. It was what was it? The, the dark intellectuals? The dark, oh. The

Speaker: in intellectual dark web or intellectual as the red fur girls calls it the intellectual dark web.

Speaker 2: But, but the intellectual dark web is where the new right came out of. Like, that was the nerds who were the predecessors of the ideology of the modern New Right. And they were very much seen as the intellectual nerds of the alt right. However they, they also, and I've noted this in another video, which is important to remember when you're talking about the New Right.

Is the new right was fundamentally born to not just a new right, but the entire online right was fundamentally born out of the online atheist movement which then had a faction that went woke and then a faction that realized religion is actually a good thing. And we need to go back to it and you can watch our video on how the online atheist movement burst the online, right?

But it means [00:48:00] that one of the pathways that you see with this. New right movement is a lot of them were former atheists. They were former skeptics, they were nerds, basically, internet nerds. And that, I think, makes a lot of the alt right really dis discomfort. And you can see, I think, Oh yeah, because the old verse

Speaker: is very When we walked the halls of NatCon, it felt very preppy, very Christian, very, like the kind of person who, on their day off vineyard vines, sweatshirts and khakis and pastel polos.

You know what I mean? Country club.

Speaker 2: The new right doesn't do that. The new right

Speaker: does not have membership at a country club.

Speaker 2: That would be seen as a sign of distrust among like new right individuals. They'd see that. They'd be like. It's like the anti vulgarity, like overly dressed [00:49:00] up, not being weird enough, is seen as having something to hide, or playing within the old system's hierarchy.

And this is where one of the big divides between the new right and the old right comes from, is in the embracing of male sexuality. So, as the urban monoculture gained power with the elevation of women as like a higher caste sex than men, they have begun to try to systemically remove anything that arouses male from, well, anywhere in the online scene.

Look at the stellar butt controversy. Look at the stellar there was like an outfit and then there was a tracer butt controversy and there's oh, okay, the skull girls controversy where they're taking all the sexy stuff out of that. And as they did all of this, they seeded, because they used to be like the more sexually open.

Of the two parties just holistically, and they sort of ceded human sexuality to this new right faction, [00:50:00] which jumped on it really, really aggressively. And if people wonder, well, how big is the new right faction really? Well, they make up most of the online right right now. And that's why whenever you see one of these big battles online, it is the right, which is the anti censorship faction.

But when you see stuff like project 2025, they're like, let's ban pornography. And this can seem really incongruous to people, but what it is, is it's a conflict between the new right and the old right. And there really isn't a lot

Speaker: of intermixing. The other thing we really observed starkly at NatCon this year was.

Just the extent to which there was, and it's weird because Curtis Yarvin's walking around and yet they basically know nobody else.

Speaker 2: Well, the, the, the reason is, well, a lot of them knew us. I'd say like a third of the people there knew us. The young ones did, but not the ones in charge. But they're really only freezing themselves out of influence.

If you look at the online culture wars right now, this is [00:51:00] where the Republicans of the next generation are being trained and born and everything like that. And. The new right is so dominant in this culture wars battle. I think that old right institutions like the Heritage Foundation fundamentally don't understand that they think that they are freezing the nerds out of the conversation like these internet vulgar internet nerds, and they don't realize that what they're doing is freezing themselves out of the conversation, freezing themselves out of relevance and power.

And It is catastrophically stupid, and the Albright really needs to back off on this stuff, because the decisions that they're making are not just stupid from a them having any cultural say, but from a tactical perspective for the right overall.

Speaker: If they're preaching to the choir and not realizing that the audience is Way big out there and having very different conversations and a venue they've chosen not to [00:52:00] enter.

And by not being there, they're not having any sway or influence within it. And if they want their voice to be heard, they have to show up in that venue, correct?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and if the left has seeded the online, you know, sexuality, right. That's a huge thing that people can grab, right? Like male sexuality, right?

Young men are frustrated. And that's an interesting point that I would make here is that and we talked about this in the how the online atheist community became the new right, but a big part of this transformation was siphoning from the online atheist movement to the online men's rights

Speaker 3: movement,

Speaker 2: to the red pill movement, to the alt right.

And so it filtered through this gender wars dynamic, which is actually really important in terms of understanding the new rights world perspective. You see the world perspective colored by the gender wars.

Speaker: Yeah, [00:53:00] yeah. Yeah, there's, there's certainly a big role that the great awokening and progressive culture more broadly taking a step too far has played, of course, in the formation of the alt right, but also to a great extent, the entrance of money into the new right.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but the other thing to note is I actually think that this has been a really brilliant play on behalf of the new right. Speaking, speaking as is the embracing of traditional gay culture in America and forcing the old, the, the urban monoculture and the left to double down on the idea that trans culture is gay culture and that you cannot be pro gay without being pro the most extreme generation of trans individuals.

Whereas in embracing traditional, like gay men, huge chunks of them in the last election cycle, depending on what you're looking at. 33 percent to [00:54:00] 45 percent of gay men voted for Trump, you know, the, the alt right and the new right has done a very good job of selling to what actually makes up the majority of the same sex attracted audience, which is gay men.

Speaker 34: Are you the alt-right?

Speaker 35: The press Seems determined to crown me the queen of it. . I think that white identity and white nationalism is a little misleading. I think it's more accurate to say that the alt-right cares about Western.

Supremacy rather than white supremacy. It cares about western values. It cares about liberal, capitalist, western democracy. Democratic values, freedom, equality, that kind of thing. And it sees, you know, various threats to those on various fronts.

Speaker 34: So when Donald Trump talks about preventing immigrants, preventing Muslims from coming into the country.

Speaker 35: Mhmm. A

Speaker 34: lot of people see that as racist. You don't think that's racist?

Speaker 35: They're entitled to, but all I can tell you is as a gay man, I'm quite reassured by Donald Trump's, uh, you know, entreaties toward American values and his skepticism about Islamic immigration.

What do you mean by American

Speaker 34: values?

Speaker 35: Well, first and second amendment, freedom of speech, free expression, you know, the right to be, do and say whatever [00:55:00] you want. These are the values that have made America the greatest country in the history of human civilization. These are values that are not compatible with some of the Islamic immigration that we see in Europe.

Speaker 36: If you are or if you're not part of the, of the described alt right, do you as a gay man feel comfortable in it that,

Speaker 35: well, the press seems determined to label the alt right this misogynist, hateful, racist, homophobic, uh, anti semitic movement, and yet at the same time tries to crown, you know, a gay Jew who never shuts up about his black boyfriends as the leader of it.

Something isn't quite right here.

Speaker 2: And now they're beginning to really pick up gay women as well because these women don't want trans women on their dating app you know, harassing them 24, 7, going to their bars, beating them up when they say they don't have a. Personal preference trans. And so now they're feeling very victimized and a good way for us to pick up a faction.

And the legacy, right, is like, well, how could you do this? Like, don't you think being gay is immoral or whatever? And I'm like, regardless of whether I [00:56:00] think being gay is immoral, I do not think it is useful to ban things like gay marriage at the national level. If it's losing us a voter electorate, you know, we are.

At the end of the day right here in this for the species, like we're trying to save civilization against this homogenizing force,

You don't approve. Well, too bad. We're in this for the species, boys and girls. It's simple numbers. They have more.

Speaker 2: and we should not issue an ally who isn't a threat to us in any way.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: I think this is also a huge area of conflict between the new right. And the legacy. Right. Which is the legacy, right. Is very interested in the purity of the movement. They'll say things like, well, what's the point of winning if X is on our side and the new, right. Doesn't think like that at all, the new right is interested in winning.

We don't. We don't like, we're like, what, what do you mean? What's the point of winning? If X is on our side, if we don't win Kamala Harris is [00:57:00] president. That's what the point of winning is. If we don't win, Western civilization could begin to fall apart. The left has no plan for very simple and obvious problems like demographic collapse, which could easily destroy our economic and geopolitical system.

What's the point of winning? What did it inside? Insane question. We have to win. We don't have a choice to play these virtue signaling games anymore.

Speaker 2: The And I love what your Wikipedia page says on your stance on trans people. You're like, yeah, I'm pro trans people, just not the ones in that weird trans cult.

And I was like, that's a great way to put it, right? Like if they just want to live their life, I'm pro anyone, but if they want to use our academic systems and positions of power to attempt to brainwash young people into joining their movement that's where I draw the line. And I'm like, that's a big problem.

And a lot of the new right is taking this to their

Speaker: face. Well, this is, [00:58:00] this is a spicy comment, I think, on my part, but I think it is representative of the new right, which is that I am just as against this idea of coercive reproductive regulation. Like, very restrictive IVF control or birth control access as I am against trans groups imposing their ideology on us, you know, insisting, for example, that like, you know, trans men have to be allowed on women's dating platforms.

Which is, I mean, there, there are a lot of very controversial things packed into that because now suddenly I'm a and now suddenly I'm, you know, very against. You know, extreme Catholic views, but anything, any view that is going to be imposed upon everyone I'm against. And that moves, I think the new right more to the center, which is beneficial.

And I think very necessary right now, which is most people don't want to be told how to live.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it pushes the left to defend the undefendable. It pushes them to have to defend [00:59:00] the types of trans people who are like, well, little girls are kinky too. And it's like, what that's a, don't, he said, he said in this whole trans people in bathrooms debate, like, well, little girls are kinky too.

You know, some of them are, I'm like, Whoa, like you should be throwing this person out. And instead they get a Netflix special. Like, this is the type of thing that the left should be banning for their move. It, but they're not, they're elevating these voices . Because we have essentially forced them to go out on a plank, right?

And it's going to eventually lose them the general public. And like, even if you think gayness is immoral, you don't really get to choose the morality of other people. That's not the world we live in anymore. And you can't build a coalition big enough to win elections if you're just trying to enforce your moral system anymore.

Speaker: Yeah. Well, and back to those free market ideals that seem to be fairly pervasive in the new right. If you do really believe in your cultural values, the way that you show that those cultural values are [01:00:00] superior and win people over to them is by having people within that group thrive and making your group more competitive, inheriting the future.

I do think there's a little bit more of a long termist view in the new right, because between the intellectual dark web element of it and the heavily moneyed future looking VCs and entrepreneurs in it, you're going to get far future views, long termism, which is great.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well, a few notes here is that a lot of people might be hearing this and be like, Oh, so you're like a category of libertarian, right?

Because you want this open competition. And I think that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the new right and it causes a lot of people to not see this is a fundamentally new political movement. That's goals are very different than the libertarian political movement. The goals of the new right.

First and foremost, the thing they care about about all other things is protecting people from the urban monoculture and ultimately the defeat of the urban monoculture and then [01:01:00] once the Pax de Romana of the urban monoculture falls, a defeat of the savage people. These are the people who got through the fertility collapse by becoming incredibly xenophobic.

I disagree,

Speaker: actually,

Speaker 2: I

Speaker: think the new right. It's less about defining itself in opposition of another group, a big bad, aka the urban monoculture, and it's more about reintroducing

free market principles. And and, and, and increasing efficiency. That's why you have this concept of the Department of Efficiency with Elon Musk.

Speaker 2: Strongly, strongly, strongly disagree. They don't care about decreasing, increasing efficiency. They want things

Speaker: to run better. They, they care about economic policy.

Speaker 2: They don't care about it for its own sake. They care about it from a, from a consequentialist perspective, i. e. if it can help our country beat other countries, it's useful. If it can help our country.[01:02:00]

Yeah, I mean, of

Speaker: course they want things to run better so that humans can thrive, but

Speaker 2: it can keep civilization from collapsing, but that's very different from the libertarian mindset. The libertarian mindset is that there is an intrinsic ethical good often towards this. Freedom, extra freedom perspective, more freedom is good is inherently good itself is good.

New right believes freedom is good in so far as it has utility. So, you can see somebody like Curtis Yarvin or something like that as a great example of one of the new right thinkers. And he definitely, you know, for him, he's a monarchist, right? Like he definitely wouldn't be seen as like a libertarian type, but he fits in very well with the new right because he is hypothesizing alternate societal models that might be more efficient or more effective in the socio political context we find ourselves in.

Why do most of the new right take [01:03:00] libertarian looking ideas or perspectives? It's because they see that as the most efficient position. Right, it

Speaker: works better.

Speaker 2: For the short term, yeah. But they are not ideologically libertarian in and of itself. Like, I am not a libertarian if, if another system could be shown to work better.

For example, Sam Altman, and we'll do something on this soon who's sort of in this wave, and he recently did this big UBI test.

Speaker 3: Does

Speaker 2: universal basic income work? And basically it showed it made people poorer. We'll get to that in a different episode, but

Speaker: I can't wait for that. I'm so excited to dive into this research.

Speaker 2: If it had shown that UBI worked, I would have been like, oh great let's try to work that into our economic policies. Especially with the AI revolution. Yeah, totally. 'cause it shows BI didn't work. I'm like, no, let's not do that. We are, and, and I think that this shows what I mean when we're like, yeah, we're libertarian win.

And you see this with like JD Vance as well. He's thinking a lot of positions that can work pretty socialist to some people, like, you know, [01:04:00] rising minimum wage and stuff like that. Yeah. And why did he do it? He does it to win. Like winning the culture war matters more. And the culture war here isn't like the American culture war.

We mean like the war for civilization, because the way that we see it as the urban monoculture doesn't really have a long term plan for civilization. It's really just trying to. Well, basically burn things down. It sees humanity as an intrinsic equal. And it wants humanity eventually gone. And it's about trying to live as hedonistically as it can for the short term.

Right. And I think that that's where this movement really is not that libertarian in its leanings and will make compromises on libertarian principles really, really quickly in a way that can seem sort of shocking to members when they're like, wait, I thought you were, you know, traditional conservative and it's like, yeah, well, it didn't work in this instance.

Speaker: That

Speaker 2: makes sense?

Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2: The final thing I wanted to talk about with this movement is I want to get really into [01:05:00] within online spaces, better defining what it is, better understanding what it is and labeling it because for a lot of these movements, part of them, Coming to exist in a wider context is somebody out there saying this is a thing that's happening.

This is a movement or a group and we need to be paying attention to it. And when the new right, I think is really going to form in the minds of the general public is when there's the first press piece really freaking out about it and the New York Times. You know, that's when the alt right comes to exist.

That's when the Tea Party really comes to exist. But I think that and a person who's done this really well is Paul Vanderclay. Who, we've been on his show, he's been on our show. He talks a lot about this little corner within online environments. And he sort of created the concept of this corner of people who talk about, like, and made it a thing by labeling it and talking about it.

Speaker: Yeah, and he would humbly argue, I imagine, if you were sitting here, that, oh, well, I didn't come up with the term, other people did, and [01:06:00] I'm just part of this little corner. But the fact is, he is one of the more prolific actors in the space. He's one of the louder voices because he's just so frequently publishing.

And therefore, you know. His word is actually quite powerful in shaping the perception of the industry. He's the one who made it a thing, not industry, I should say space, but you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: Well, and I think that the new right one, we didn't make up this term. It's like the term that's out there. I actually got it from an AI when I was like, what do you call the iteration of conservative that this list of people would be seen as?

And it's like, Oh, this is the new, right. And here's like 10 other people who are in it. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's every one of those people. I agree on Pretty much every one of their major policy positions.

Speaker 3: And

Speaker 2: so I was like, okay, well, it's already a thing that exists. And I'd also point out that our only uniqueness was in the new right movement is we are probably the, one of the more prominent people that talks regularly, but we [01:07:00] aren't the only prominent person who talks regularly.

Richard Hanania seems fairly solidly in the movement. Brian Kaplan seems pretty solidly in the movement. Diana Fleischman seems pretty solidly within the movement. It's just that I think that now our podcast might be a bit bigger than any of their mouthpieces, but they have more legacy appeal than a lot of other stuff.

So in a way they're higher than this. And obviously the elite of the new right is the actual tech elite, like the actual king, king Of the new right is Elon Musk. And I think that that's pretty only other

Speaker: ones with the money. Yeah, totally. And

Speaker 2: I thought one of the things that you mentioned that was interesting this morning is you're like, the alt right did some really smart things where like Milo would create like inside jokes and stuff like that.

And if you're wondering what we mean when we're like, the alt right was the first of the right wing movements that coded vulgarity with authenticity. I think Milo is a very good example of this. Milo Yiannopoulos, he would do things like call Trump daddy and everything like that. I thought that that was like fun when he did it.

I think a fun thing we [01:08:00] could we could start with Elon. It's the big me. I was telling her that's what the emperor of mankind is called in the 40k universe. And the 40k type stuff has really been drawn into the alt right and the new right movement. Like it's like a theming throughout it. A lot of people called Trump the god emperor of mankind.

Which, which works because they're, they're pulling from these ultra masculine ideals, but also ones that have a degree of vulgarity to them. When I say vulgarity, that doesn't just mean like it's sexually disgusting or something. It means that it's low culture. And we've mentioned this, this is like Elon Musk and cat girls.

Speaker 17: I mean, I did promise the internet that I'd make cat girls.

Speaker 2: This is this is Milo Yiannopoulos and, and calling Trump daddy. This is. You know, 4chan and yeah, well, it's you can

Speaker: even see it in the illustration type of the memes. These are, you know, Ms. Paint appearing low effort, often black and white. images that are seen as kind of the trademark of the alt right.[01:09:00]

So yeah, I'm with you on that. Vulgarity is a sign of authenticity. And people actively trying to sort out pearl clutchers and pod people. Even as you were describing in another conversation, we had Ayla being used as a social talisman at events. causing many people who just don't know anything about her, but can't bear the very concept of her to be filtered out.

Because frankly, they don't deserve to be at these events if they have those kinds of views.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. And again, like the new right, isn't like necessarily all 100 percent pro AILA, but they are 100 percent pro AILA having the right to exist and have her opinions. And I think that that's what defines them and why they use her as like a talisman on their parties because they're like, this is somebody who is having their own ideas.

It's like a novel thinker. And I think that that's another thing within the new right is novel thinkers are. Elevated [01:10:00] in status above people you agree with.

Speaker: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah. And you can see this even championed by Peter Thiel with his, you know, sort of famous, quite old question at this point, which I think is what, like, what is your most heretical belief?

Or really trying to get people To focus on their areas of differentiation rather than their areas of mutual agreement.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah. And I think a lot of people who follow us or our podcast super disagree

Speaker: with us, but like that they disagree with us,

Speaker 2: disagree with us, but they like that at least we are trying to have unique ideas.

And of course, if you are trying to have unique ideas, people are going to disagree with a lot of things. But I think that this, Elevates what is maybe one of the highest of values of the new right, which is

not being ideologically captured.

Speaker: Yes, really owning your [01:11:00] ideas and beliefs. It's a big deal thing in the community for sure. Yeah. It encourages me. I don't, I don't know if the election in the United States this November is going to make it go one way or the other. Honestly, I think it. It is its own faction and it will never really be able to run the United States because in the end it's a little bit too too opposed to mainstream ideas to be able to run everything.

Speaker 2: I disagree really strongly on this point. So I'd love to hear your thesis.

Speaker: I think that it could do a lot of good. If the Trump administration is elected into office and it adequately empowers the new right within it, which is still a big, if a lot of promises appear to have been made and a lot of people have expectations that that new right will be made.

People will be installed within the administration, but I'm one of those, I'll believe it, believe it if I see it, people and I do think that four years of that alone would be huge for our government. But I also just [01:12:00] think that the United States, no matter what, so much bureaucracy has accumulated over time.

And also the average American doesn't like weird. The reason the Democratic Party in the U. S. is using the term weird so often. Flamboyantly and flagrantly in its campaign materials is because a huge swath of Americans don't like weird. They don't like considering new ideas. They don't like change. And this new right that's so pluralistic, that's so.

Open to challenging ideas is just it's too uncomfortable. I would say it's above the pay grade of most Americans. I this sounds very disrespectful, but I just, I don't think most, I don't think a huge swath of the country Wants to handle that kind of approach to life or can handle that kind of approach This

Speaker 2: is the reason why they've ended up winning.

And why I think they're gonna win more in the future. So there's three reasons the first is like in [01:13:00] terms of when you're like, will they end up running this country? My first thought is, well, if the United States government ends up being captured by the Wokies and then economically collapses, and it loses its state infrastructure, which faction of America is going to end up running everything?

I'm like, obviously, it's the cultural descendants of the new right, because they have all of the industry, all the fabs, all the semiconductors, all the technology. And there really isn't any other faction with the industrial capacity to. Like if we're talking about like a haven state country or any sort of collapse, they are the ones with the automated gun drones.

With, with organizations that could have opposed them historically, like Boeing and stuff like that being so incompetent, we actually heard recently one of our friends like family members. Even without another job laid out, but he's like worked at Boeing for 20 years. And he's like, I cannot do this anymore.

It's become too woke in the organization. Isn't producing anything anymore. It's not producing any innovation anymore. Which lowers the, the other side's ability to defend [01:14:00] themselves as they ever really went up against a post pox Romana new right. But you've also got to say, well, could they, within a Trump administration actually run things efficiently?

Absolutely. Because they have one run things before and they're really okay with disruption if they can work with, and this is one of the things we're trying to do is help people who are in the legacy, right. Get their legal apparatus that can help protect the new, right. If they're making the radical changes in the mass firings,

Speaker: because it's one thing you can go into Twitter and fire 80 percent of the staff.

You can't. Go into the U. S. Government and reading this autobiography by H. R. McMaster right now, I'm almost done with it. And just hearing how little control Trump actually had, like people freaking out when Trump would give Like his personal cell phone number to other foreign leaders, because every time he wanted to communicate with a foreign leader, there had to be [01:15:00] protocol.

There had to be five people on the line. It had to be recorded in this way. If you wanted to send a communication to him another foreign leader,

Speaker 2: yeah, they had to like anything and he didn't have competent people to protect him from this.

Speaker: He, I think he wrote some note on McMaster writes in his book that he wrote some note on a headline and then handed it to McMaster and said like, Hey, arrange for this to be delivered to Putin.

Because he was trying to make a point about something. I can't remember what it was and it doesn't matter. But McMaster took this. It's written on newspaper and handed it to whatever the department is that's supposed to review it and vet it before it goes out. I mean, one, why is that later there? That is creepy.

I mean, if you need to record it, record it, but FedEx that thing or whatever to Russia and and he, he encouraged This department to take their time, you know, to like slow down. Cause he really wanted to try to convince Trump to not send this to Putin. And just that level of, of sandbagging something.

He's the president. He is, he has the right to communicate with other [01:16:00] foreign leaders. This is a weird, you get the impression in TV shows that a president could just pick up the phone and call China and call whatever

Speaker 2: nation they want. No, he should, if he was a lefty president, he could. If he was aligned with the deep state, he could, this is the deep state blocking him and the deep, it was quite, it's a creepy book to read.

It is competent foot soldiers to fight against. And that's what the new right is that he didn't have before. And that's why, yes, they can. But then there's the final thing is why is the new right? So politically appealing to America? And the reason why the new right is so politically appealing to Americans and why even though the average American may not support the new right, the problem is, is that as the political movements are shifting, the new right can build a winning electorate.

Specifically what I mean by that is if you look at individuals like If you, if you look at like the, the, the wokes, right. We were in the urban monoculture, which, which controls the left, right? [01:17:00] Suppose I'm a member of the old, right? Like I'm one of these theocrats, you know, I'm a conservative Catholic, or I'm a conservative Jew, or I'm a conservative Mormon or Protestant or something like that.

And I may have a desire, like I may prefer. A candidate who will enforce my value system on other people on the urban monoculture, right? But when I look at two potential candidates, the problem is, is that I know that at least the new right candidate will protect my family from the urban monoculture or work to do that.

So I am. Okay with them. The problem is, is that the new right, if they're deciding between a lefty who wants to enforce their culture on us, or a far right, like GOP Inc person that wants to enforce a culture on us, both are equally bad. So we're not going to vote or will might even vote for the lefty.

Over over that. And I think that this is one really smart a trunk to move from like the legacy, right? [01:18:00] Mike Pence to the new, right. JD Vance as an archetype, especially

Speaker: after dods, because why we saw such a blue wave in the United States after, well, in 2022 was suddenly again, it became the imperative.

It's, it's back to that. Yeah. AI X risk problem, when you make it clear to one group that their way of life or their very existence is threatened by your strict policies, they have to do everything they can to destroy you or fight against you or make sure someone else is in power. They have no other choice.

And that is why the Republican party was trounced two years ago. And yes, I think that there's been a lot of, it's so funny to see the left. In the United States, trying to keep attaching a national abortion ban to the Republican party to just try to make that happen again. Despite Trump [01:19:00] vehemently saying, no, this is a state's issue.

But yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, and it being a state's issue is very aligned with the new right. And I think the thing like the new right was pro him getting rid of Roe versus Wade

like that was. Yeah. In our, I, I think that it was a very unfair Supreme court decision. I don't think that it should have been a Supreme court decision.

I think it was unconstitutional. . But I also and I'm also pro and you are pro even within our state making stricter abortion regulations, but we're not pro universalized abortion restrictions, i.

e. You know, at the level of embryos and stuff like that. Only once you have, you know, significant neural tissue growth, once it appears that there might be 12 to 15 weeks sentience. And that's where we're like, okay, that you shouldn't, you shouldn't be doing it. And you can watch our abortion episode or we go into a lot more thoughts on this, which I actually think is fairly aligned with most of what the new right thinks.

So when you say like, oh, I don't think they can get behind the new right. The problem is. [01:20:00] Is it the new right is the only viable, from a political perspective, right leaning candidates left

Speaker: at

Speaker 3: the

Speaker 2: national level?

Maybe.

Speaker: I hope. I hope people see it that way. I would love to see what the new right apparatus, such that it's forming, do, can do in four years. It could do so many good things. It could clean up so much. And, and excess, you know, it needs to defragment our country. I want to see that happen.

Speaker 2: I would love to see that happen too.

I love you to death Simone. I think it's totally doable. If we attack this hard and fast, and I think it's also very important and it's something that I've been working a lot to do that we build bridges was the legacy, right? And we attempt to bring them into the conversation. If they don't want to be a part of the mainstream.

Right. Conversation these days, if they want to talk in their echo chambers, that's [01:21:00] fine. But there eventually, and anybody who follows online discord knows that the online discord is solidly aligned with the new rights value system. They're eventually going to be replaced. And so we are trying to bring them on board kicking and screaming if we must.

And we, we would probably be able to right now. We're we've been in some talks with the Heritage Foundation about putting together a conference. That's for like rising right wing influencers and bringing them into the traditional like halls of power was in conservative politics and having direct lines of communications with policymakers, but also having a lot of organizations, whether it's the Claremont group or American moment or whatever, or the heritage foundation have a way to talk with these individuals and maybe even have these individuals vet things before they throw them out there, like project 2025 and be like, Hey, this is not what the base wants.

We could make a lot of progress.

Speaker: Yeah, because I think the point is, this is really important. The establishment, GOP, knows how to navigate the deep state, knows where points of pressure Why did they fail under

Speaker 2: [01:22:00] Trump? It's because they're traitorous. And they've always been traitorous. And Trump knows that.

And that's why he isn't working with Heritage Foundation right now. And that's why he chose J. D. Vance as his running mate.

Speaker: In what way do you think they're traitorous?

Speaker 2: Fundamentally, they don't believe this. Perfect example. I was at the NatCon and I was talking to some of these people and I don't want to say what group they were from.

And I was like, why are you doing this? This isn't what the base wants. And they said, F the base. The base are like a bunch of stupid rednecks. They are traitorous. They don't care about the American people. They don't care about Trump's agenda and they are not Real friends of Republicans. They have always thought that they know better than you what you should be doing and what you should want, and they look upon the Trump voter base with the same disdain that the far left urban monoculture and other deep state individuals do.

They just want to cross the

Speaker: aisle. Cause it doesn't sound like you want to cross the aisle here.

Speaker 2: I want to cross the aisle to bring the ones who are willing to treat [01:23:00] our people with respect over and say, Oh I see that the base doesn't want this and I'm willing to. And when I talk with the heritage foundation, most of them are actually willing to cross the aisle.

I think that a lot of the high level people are willing to cross the aisle. I think that what it is is they're low level operatives who are so excited to have gotten an internship at whatever org. They're the ones who aren't, and they're the ones who need to be purged. Yeah. We'll be clear.

Speaker: The, the ones who said what you said, they were not with Heritage.

They were not

Speaker 2: with Heritage. They were one, they were with another

Speaker: organization that I thought was really cool before I talked with them. Yeah. They were, I was

Speaker 2: really surprised about this. Yeah. But it, it made me realize that. They are not. They're not all our friends. And as we bring them over, we need to do it selectively and not this same group.

Speaker: Yeah. Also is pretty antithetical to our wider views and that they were like, no, bureaucracy is good. So long as we run it, the deep states. Okay. So long as we run it. Yeah, they literally this

Speaker 2: is another group.

Speaker: Are you, are you serious? This [01:24:00] is insane. They

Speaker 2: said the goal of the Republican should be to control and persist in control of the deep state, not the erasure of the deep

Speaker: state.

What? No.

Speaker 2: Well, I think this shows the fundamental difference between the new right and the legacy GOP. That was what the legacy GOP always wanted was control over the deep state. The new right wants to burn it down.

Speaker: Yeah. And I guess what's funny to me as I walk around our local area as a state rep candidate is just.

The recognition from everyone else that this is like the cheerleaders and the jocks all kind of angling for power around the locker room while everyone else just goes about their lives and, and, you know, like student government things, they run everything and they don't. And they just, I mean, obviously everyone has to live in their world and it sucks.

But at the same time, [01:25:00] there's just all these very disaffected people who are really just fed up with them, with all of anyone who's involved in government, anyone who's just like, well, I wish they would fix things, but I'm, I've been disappointed by them enough to know that they won't. And I'm just, you know, it's the, the turd sandwich and the giant douche once again.

So I love you. Love you too. Making you. Sautéed sausage with the Mexican street corn again tonight, right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, that works great.

Speaker: Cool. Well, you pick up the kids in 20 minutes and I will start. Yeah, this

Speaker 2: went way longer than I expected it to. We're like, Oh, we'll do a short one today.

Speaker: So much for that, but that's okay.

Speaker 2: I keep trying to make them shorter, Simone. I'll try to edit it down in editing.

Speaker: I think the problem is that we really love each other and we really like talking and we don't want to stop. And this is the quiet, happy, relaxing date [01:26:00] night that we have whenever we record. I also like

Speaker 2: that I have audience keeping me honest.

You know, when, when audiences remember, like, you need to be nicer to Simone. I was like, you know, I really do. I need to be nicer to you. when you don't, I have this like innate reaction when somebody doesn't immediately get what I'm trying to say, where I get angry. And I need to get better about that.

Speaker: And

Speaker 2: I'm learning that from our audience, how to be a better husband.

Speaker: Maybe I can just not be such a midwit.

Speaker 2: How about that? You're so brilliant. You've really helped in terms of the title cards of the show. I could never make them as good without your help.

Speaker: I've explained to you that that is because I have the the the pock on my record of If my fine arts minor at GWU,

Speaker 2: which actually turned out to be so useful for lighting and stuff.

Yeah. You see, we're trying to get better with all our equipment here. No, no,

Speaker: no, this is bad. I really need to fix it. And I will knock on my promise. And my day got derailed with calls today. And I'm really sorry about that. And it will. I'll catch up tomorrow. [01:27:00] Tomorrow's another day, right? Tomorrow is a latter day and I'll be here for you.

I love you

Speaker 2: too.

Speaker 37: Tomorrow is another day, And I am here for you.

Speaker 2: So one of the, one of the stories I have to tell our, our fans is we went to Walmart and I was looking you know, just, we go on a morning walks and we were going on a morning walk there. Cause we can, you know, put the baby thing in one of the pushers anyway. So in carts, yes. And I was looking to get some chips, but I always like to get like the cheapest chips I can find.

And so, we were looking at the chip section and, you know, Simone, suddenly looking, she goes, Oh, you know, I saw some barbecue potato chips in the clearance section. And I was like, I don't remember seeing barbecue potato chips in the clearance section. And [01:28:00] so we went back and I realized I had thought that this was like a hair product of some sort.

And you will see it. Those of you who are watching online, this is, Right here, this is Bar B Qin with My Honey Truffle by Nicki Minaj. But they were so cheap, they were 75 cents a bag. So, I decided to get some, and they are You thought maybe it was just her image wasn't selling, and this was like, a normal barbecue chip, but with slightly different branding?

Speaker: Yeah, or that people didn't recognize that it was food, like you.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and you wouldn't recognize this as food! Maybe. But no, it tastes chemical, toxic.

Speaker: It tastes like pink hair dye.

Speaker 2: I also can't Are you sure that's not a placebo? Every aspect of this packaging I can't get over. With my honey. So [01:29:00] disgusting.

Speaker: Well, no, it just sounds like honey barbecue chips with truffle.

Speaker 2: You would say with honey, not my honey.

Speaker: Oh why, why did you go there?

Speaker 2: Oh, but this also reminds me, this was another thing I was sharing with you. And we're talking about like, where is this woke consumer? I love your, you are in a state of like damage right now.

Speaker: No, I don't like where I am right now.

Speaker 2: So I sent you the was it? The, the list of the top, you know, 10 podcasts. I decided to look it up.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker 2: And I was sort of shocked. Is that they're all explicitly right? Leaning. Or I don't know

Speaker: who Sean Ryan is. I'll

Speaker 2: have to look that one up.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: So perplexity says that while he, or at least at one point identified at the Democrat, most of his guests are right-leaning.

Speaker 2: I might be wrong about that one, but you've got Sean Ryan who looks right leaning, but I'll find out.

Then you've got Joe Rogan, right? Right. Leaning. Candace, right? Leaning Tucker Carlson, right? Leaning. Talk [01:30:00] to with Haley wedge. This is a hawk to a girl. She's doing well for herself. I'm so glad.

Speaker: You know,

Speaker 2: I assume she's right. Leaning given she has a cowboy hat, but maybe I'm wrong. And then the two under that are two that are like.

But it's like, where is the woke audience? Like they're not watching anything. Not even like a mildly likely. They're watching

Speaker: mainstream media. Someone has to Malcolm. Gosh.

Speaker 2: By the way, the other thing I sent you that I was quite excited about, because earlier today I was like, I think we might be bigger than the 87 hours podcast, which is one of the biggest podcasts space.

So if you go to this podcast listing site, Okay. And I, I, I sent two pictures from it. We're in the top 3 percent of podcasts. They're in the top 5%. Wow. We're in the top. 3%.

Speaker: How is that? Is it? Oh, well, that's impressive. Wow. Well done, Malcolm.

Speaker 2: I, I, I love that the, the, the like branch of like the EA slash singularity movement [01:31:00] that was right leaning ended up.

Uh, And I think it'll be handedly. So within about a year and a half, the larger branch, when it was considered such an insignificant faction, like we weren't even invited to events for a long time,

Speaker: we still aren't invited to events. They still don't like us.

Speaker 2: I have been reaching out to them. One of the things we're going to talk about on this podcast is I've been trying to bridge the divide in my outreach to podcasts recently, but we'll just get started and we can, we can jump right into this.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Sorry.

Speaker: Double tasking. Okay.

Speaker 2: By the way, the statistics might be wrong. I saw that on Paul Vanderclay, they had him in the top 1%.

Speaker: That actually makes sense. He has quite a dedicated following and his podcasts are quite long. He has local meetups. It makes sense.

Speaker 2: Okay, okay.

Speaker 41: Um, plan is to [01:32:00] find the bug footprints. Um, I don't know. Um, yeah! Um, I don't know. No. Yes!

Speaker 40: Find the bugs and catch the bugs, right Toasty? Yes! That sounds like a good plan. And then no more mosquito bites? Yeah. Quick! And we trap scales inside our bug trap. And, and those, and those bugs all get hurt inside [01:33:00] the bug trap. Yeah! Do you want to go upstairs now and put on pajamas? Yeah. Or would you like to help me make Octavian's snack first?

Um, I just, I just want to go upstairs. Alright, I'll put you upstairs first, then we'll do Octavian's snack. Sound good? I love you, buddy. If you go slice that apple and tiny little part of it. And then you got to slice that apple and put it. Those are two apples. That's for Sam and that's for me. No, thanks.

Speaker 41: I'm good. And look at this big pumpkin. You like this pumpkin? Yeah. I was standing around and around and around. See? Whoa! Ah! That's silly. Whoa! Whoa! [01:34:00] Whoa! Whoa! Professor, are you disturbed by all this? I can't. I gotta get down! Alright, let's go upstairs and get you in your pajamas. Yeah!

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the complex topic of sexuality from both scientific and religious perspectives. They challenge traditional interpretations of religious texts and explore how modern contexts might necessitate a reevaluation of sexual ethics. The discussion covers:

* The impact of pornography restrictions on society

* Masturbation and its effects on mental and physical health

* Biblical interpretations of sexuality and their modern applications

* The concept of separating pleasure from procreation in sexual ethics

* The potential benefits of a more nuanced approach to sexual morality

* Statistical data on sexual behaviors and preferences

* The role of technology in changing sexual norms and practices

This video offers a fresh, evidence-based perspective on a often controversial topic, aiming to reconcile religious values with modern realities and scientific understanding.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Why are all of these cultures like breaking apart ? It's because they have equated premarital sexual intercourse as exactly the same. I moral negative weight.

As masturbation, and that's really effing stupid. It made a lot of sense before porn existed, because if you look at the lines, and we'll get to in the Bible about this, they don't talk about masturbation, they talk about prostitutes. Seeing a prostitute actually is just as bad or worse than premarital sex.

You know, from a disease risk perspective, from a pregnancy risk perspective, there is a reason that historically you needed to warrant against all of this stuff. Right? But in a modern context,. when you put restrictions on porn, you increase the rate of sex crimes.

Speaker 5: Just saying, what works on planet Gelgamech isn't necessarily going to work for the rest of us here on Earth.

You see, that's the problem we're having here.

Malcolm Collins: For every 10 percent of increase in internet access in the U S there is a [00:01:00] corresponding regional decrease of 7.

3 percent of grape cases

Speed of light Trekkie! What are you doing? That's gross! Trekkie

Malcolm Collins: UCLA researchers found that sex criminals, on average, consume less porn than the average person and started consuming it at a later age than the average non sex criminal.

Within the Czech Republic, where porn was illegal , then legalized this decriminalization of pornography caused in one year grapes to decline by 37% and child sexual abuse by about 50%.

Similar results were seen when the porn laws were loosened in Denmark, Japan, China, and Hong Kong. Wow. Anyone who is pro pornography restrictions is functionally also pro child. Great

Simone Collins: So the [00:02:00] Bible

Malcolm Collins: says it's best, By their fruits you will know them. How do you know the correct interpretation? It works. If it leads to mass child grief and cover ups, It's not the correct interpretation.

The Bible tells us that. Easy peasy. Right, guys?

Speaker 5: I'm just trying to say that if we don't change then we might lose everyone to atheism. What exactly do you suggest we change, well, for one, no sex with boys.

Speaker 6: The

Speaker 7: holy document of law states that a priest, cannot get married, so where are we to get our sex?

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to have a fantastic episode. We are going to go deep into research around sexuality into statistics around sexuality into biblical theology, a bunch of lines from the Bible. We're going to go into the philosophy of sexuality, and we are going to be coming up with a model [00:03:00] for the way we will teach our kids to engage with their sexuality, because I think one of the biggest back doors, you know, when a person comes to me in a traditional religion and when they say, you know, when they hear me say, oh, you need to evolve this tradition or you are going to get creamed by the urban monoculture.

Like, well, what do you mean by that? One of the number one things I am going to elevate is Is the way that their religion relates to sexuality, sexual rules that evolved in a time period before basically free internet pornography was everywhere for contraception. When. STDs were running rampant when you had to worry about getting random people pregnant, like at a high level is going to create a very different optimal rule system than a modern system.

And people might be like, well, why not just be stricter? And it's like, well, because that causes really bad [00:04:00] externalities within a modern culture, but also leaves often a back door in a child's brain where you have not built a framework for how a part of the world works. that the urban monoculture can basically install a self replicating mimetic framework that can eventually eat their entire mind.

And that's what all the gender ideology stuff is. But first I want to talk about how. These old rules around sexuality keep going wonky in a modern context.

And why,

as we're going to be arguing here, I would argue that there should be, and I will teach my kids, no cultural restrictions at all around masturbation for pleasure, if it is to any image or video that doesn't use a real human.

I. e. anything that's AI generated or drawn or anything like that. And we'll get to why, if you make this set of [00:05:00] restrictions, it actually solves most of the problems the old restrictions solve, while also protecting against a bunch of the new problems. So, problem number one that you see is The Mormon swinger phenomenon.

Have you been following these scandals Simone? Of

Simone Collins: course I have. In short, a reality TV show, I think on Hulu, right? Came out detailing moms of TikTok, a TikTok group of Mormon mothers who also just happened to turn out to be swingers.

Malcolm Collins: The point is that it, this has become common within part of Mormon culture. And specifically what they do is it's not considered cheating if the husband or wife is in the room watching you, which is actually really weird to me because that would Cause a really like, there was a sneko drama where like he was in an open relationship and then he talked about watching his girlfriend sleep with another guy and people were like, That's being cucked.

And he's like, no, I'm in an open relationship. And they go, [00:06:00] yeah, like open relationships are normal. Watching is not. And, and the reason that other guys would say this, and it appears that just Niko either didn't have this part of his arousal pathway or had this part of his arousal pathway inverted.

is a normal male for obvious evolutionary reasons. It's going to get a very strong disgust reaction from watching a partner of his sleeping with another male. That would have been very evolutionarily disadvantageous. Now for women, it's going to be different because women might have existed in a harem environment or something like that.

But for men, this is one of the loudest disgust motivators a normal man can feel. And so I would have to guess that these men might also have had This sort of silenced or muted in them as an arousal pathway If I was going to guess why this would be uniquely common among mormons to have the the cucking arousal pathway silenced It might be a holdover from their sister wife ancestors where the wives who are okay with watching other [00:07:00] wives having sex or who got into that might have passed that down to some of their male offspring as well leading to higher rates of arousal from cuckoldry was in the Mormon community.

Do you understand the logic behind that Simone or do I need to explain it differently? So you're giving a face like you didn't understand.

Simone Collins: Oh, i'm just thinking about it. I mean in in most of the sister wife Arrangements i'm aware of it's the the sex part is not at all shared or communal. What did they tell

Malcolm Collins: you?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: No! They obviously wouldn't tell you. Like I don't even know what you're on about. Like you think that the sister wives who are trying to show how, and keep in mind the Mormons who still do this are the most religious of the most religious Mormons. Like you think that they are really gonna tell you, like, the things that are hot about the relationship for them?

Come on! Like Yeah, clue in here, Simone, but [00:08:00] anyway to I want to be clear here. This is not a Mormon specific problem. Okay. On the discord, we did a Catholic episode recently, and the first thing everyone was jumping on was like, Oh, all those Catholic girls, you know, acting like the, the butt stuff and the.

The oral isn't going to count when they get to heaven as premarital sexual intercourse.

Speaker: What's going on? I don't know. But do you think if I told him I had an incendiary device to run my niggers, he'd have a look?

Speaker 3: Some of them are, right? I'm willing to admit it.

Malcolm Collins: Because this is common among Catholic girls. Like I have slept with girls in this category myself. There is a common thing where it's like, well, oral doesn't really count. And I really liked a joke that one of them told us, like, you get to heaven.

And God's like, I'm sorry, premarital sex, you know? And then, and then the girl's like, wait, play that video back again. Stop. Zoom in. See, it was anal. And, and then God's like, ah, two heavens for you. That there's like these loopholes

Speaker 4: What in God's name are you [00:09:00] wearing? , I'm putting together my costume for the Halloween dance. , so you're going as a stripper?

No, I am a Catholic schoolgirl.

Thank God. Whatever you do, don't slag off the Pope. We're outnumbered.

Malcolm Collins: or and again, it's not just, you know, The Amish grape epidemic is really bad in the Amish community.

They're really strict rules. Or, you know, in, in the modern ultra Orthodox Jewish community people are breaking the Shoma Nega. I I'm pronouncing it. I'm butchering it. I can't speak other languages, which are their rules against like handholding and touching. Apparently it's really common, but they're supposed to be very, very strictly held.

And it's, Caused by like what leads to all of these rules being so feckless or other mormon stuff like soaking where they just leave themselves inside the girl or what's the other one where they like bounce on the bed?

Simone Collins: No, no, that that is soaking where technically because the male and female [00:10:00] partner Are not in leading the mechanical effort of thrusting for PIV sex.

And instead there is just placement with a very awkward friend, theoretically jumping on the bed to assist that that would work out. I still think

Malcolm Collins: High degrees of, of, of, of, of cuckoldering in the Mormon community. That just seems so apocryphal to me. It

Simone Collins: seems like a joke that somebody made up and it's really caught on because it's just such a funny concept.

Malcolm Collins: No, I think a lot of this stuff, like the oral and stuff like that, this is actually very common. No, the

Simone Collins: oral, the oral I know is super like common where it's like, well, yeah, we don't have sex, but we, you know. Oral doesn't count that I know for a fact. Yeah, oral anal

Malcolm Collins: don't count, you know, so fine.

Simone Collins: Well, I don't, I haven't, I think enhance,

Malcolm Collins: love that.

I think anals different.

Simone Collins: I think anals different. But I know that oral is a workaround. That is [00:11:00] definitely. So we're talking about

Malcolm Collins: why this happens. Why are all of these cultures like breaking apart here? It's because they have equated premarital sexual intercourse for pleasure as exactly the same. I moral negative weight.

As masturbation, and that's really effing stupid. It made a lot of sense before porn existed, because if you look at the lines, and we'll get to in the Bible about this, they don't talk about masturbation, they talk about prostitutes. Seeing a prostitute actually is just as bad or worse than premarital sex.

You know, from a disease risk perspective, from a pregnancy risk perspective, from a, you know, there is a reason that historically you needed to warrant against all of this stuff. Right? But in a modern context, if I'm like, in absolute terms. If it is a kid who is not allowed to masturbate, much more likely to engage in certain [00:12:00] types of premarital sex or engage in, when they're married, certain types of sexual exploration that otherwise they would just feel no desire to do, absolutely.

It is a huge moral failing of the way the rule set is working now. And then there's the secondary problem, which is outright bans on masturbation have a lot of problems. Specifically, if you tell somebody, don't think about X, it causes people to think about X. There have been a, this has been studied like extremely well.

So there is the a book on this if you want to read it, that's, that's pretty good called overcoming unwanted intrusive thoughts. A CBT based guide to getting over frightening, obsessive or disturbing things. There is also the white bear experiments conducted by Daniel Weger in the 1980s. And these studies asked participants to avoid thinking about a white bear for five minutes.

And they were very, very bad at it. [00:13:00] Specifically when you ask somebody to not think about something, you are causing them to engage in a form of. Suppression or psychological suppression, which requires cognitive resources. It makes them bad at basically thinking about everything else. And the problem is that some people will be like, Oh, but recent research has shown that this doesn't work around things you're afraid of.

Okay. Yeah. It, it, it doesn't have the same effect if you're trying to get rid of like PTSD stuff or things you're afraid of, but it does. Still hold with sexual things. So here I'm going to read a few other studies. The rebound effect of thought suppression to this is I'm quoting from a study. And this study is called God.

I can't stop thinking about sex. The rebound effect in unsuccessful suppression of sexual thoughts among religious adolescents. I love

Simone Collins: when people who do peer reviewed research do good titles. It's

Malcolm Collins: just a

Simone Collins: thing of beauty.

Malcolm Collins: So the rebound effect of thought suppression refers to attempts to suppress [00:14:00] thoughts that result in an increase in In those thoughts. So in the thoughts that we're trying to be suppressed. The aim of this three study research was to investigate the suppression of thoughts and it's possible importance to cognitive model of predicted compulsive sexual behavior CSB among Israeli Jewish religious and secular adolescence.

The analysis indicates that religious adolescents are higher in CSB than secular ones, and that religious suppression and CSB mediate the link between religiosity and well being. So they actually lower the well being of these students and lower some of the positive effects of religiosity that these students would otherwise be experiencing.

And then a 2019 study reported in the Journal of Sex Research found that Found the attempts to suppress sexual thoughts can result in an increase in those thoughts. This is called the rebound effect. So, here I'm going to quote from our book, the pragmatist guide to sexuality, because we also go into this phenomenon a bit

Some claim that all [00:15:00] arousal patterns not tied to penis and vagina sex between a married couple arise when a society loses God.

Octavian: There

Malcolm Collins: is an element of truth to this when surveyed religious individuals claim to consume porn at lower rates than non religious individuals, though claimed porn consumption by religious individuals 1995.

This is as far as that element of truth extends, as all other data indicates that these individuals are lying. In fact, when Harvard educated Microsoft economist Benjamin Edelman investigated porn site subscriptions and Google searches for porn on a regional basis in 2009, he found that the more religious regions consume porn more than the less religious regions, with the highest rates of all being in Utah.

Specifically, Edelman found that subscriptions to porn based sites and online searches for sexual content were higher in states that had enacted laws to defend marriage. And in which statements like, quote, I never doubt the existence of God, in quote, quote, even today miracles are performed by the power of God, in quote, quote, I have old fashioned [00:16:00] values about family and marriage, in quote, and quote, AIDS might be God's punishment for immoral sexual behavior, in quote, were more prevalent.

This finding isn't limited to this one study, a 2015 study, Canadian researcher, Kara McGinnis and Gordon Huddleston, found that found that states with a higher percentage of individuals who self identify as very religious and consider religion to be important to their daily lives have higher rates of searches for sexual content on Google. Studies have shown that people who experience early life stressors and high religiosity may be more likely to exhibit sexually compulsive behaviors.

One study found that, quote, states with more evangelical protestant theists who profess beliefs in God or higher powers and biblical , literalists, those who report that they interpret the Bible as the literal word of God, are significantly more likely to have higher aggregate results of online searches for pornography.

States where people attended religious services more frequently were also significantly more likely to have higher rates of searches for online porn. [00:17:00] Finally, we find that states with higher percentages of residents unaffiliated with any religious group have significantly lower levels of searching for porn.

These findings are interesting because at an individual level, people who a Affiliate with evangelical Protestant groups, attend church, read the Bible literally, , or believe in God generally report much lower levels of pornography consumption, end quote. This quote is from an interview with Andrew L.

Whitehead of Clemson University in Psy Post. And we also just see this generally in the data. Once. A during a broadcast of good Friday mass from the Vatican. And this was at 2 a. m. The girls gone wild ad accidentally aired and they received right

Simone Collins: accidentally.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. They, they received a record sales for, for the girls gone wild.

That was, it was an old, like soft porn thing that existed for people who don't know, I remember girls.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I guess for the younger people,

Malcolm Collins: From a side post titled quote, A [00:18:00] conservative religious environment strongly increases the chance of adolescent porn viewing study finds in quote, quote, without controlling for individual religious identity.

However, it might be possible that those who have searched for porn and evangelical Protestant states are people who are not evangelical Protestants, but live in predominantly evangelical Protestant states. So they checked the individual level data from 3, 370 use and their parents allowed researchers to control for age. Religious service attendance, importance of religion in life, parental education attainment, and several other religious and demographic factors. Even after accounting for the confounding variables, the researchers found that county level religious adherence rates still increase the odds of watching porn during adolescence by 66.

53 percent regardless of religious identity. Similarly, youths were more likely to report viewing porn and continue to do so, with a higher share of conservative Protestants, especially among youths who were not conservative Protestants themselves. So a, [00:19:00] a, a 66. 53 percent interest that is insanely higher.

Like you are, and, and here are just note from the Bible, from your fruits, you will know them. Is this a good practice? So if I'm making a judgment biblically, I need to say, does it lead to the intended outcome? No, it leads to the opposite outcome. So it is not a good practice. But it gets even worse than that.

You are probably hurting kids more than you think by making these requests. It's specifically here. And if people are like, okay, well, from a religious system, then how do you handle this? You've got to really worry when you're building your religious system against a phenomenon called scrupulicity.

Scrupulicity is the pathological guilt and anxiety about moral issues. Although it can affect non religious people, it usually just affects religious people. So it's like when you become obsessive compulsive about following a deontological religious ethical [00:20:00] framework and it leads to extremely negative life outcomes.

So how do you avoid this? How do you avoid this focus on pornography and stuff like that? Well, what you do is elevate the types of thinking you want to elevate rather than suppress the type of thinking you don't want. And we'll get to how you can do that around sexuality at the end of this particular, I guess I'll call these lectures, whatever they are.

But Simone, do you want to give your thoughts before I go further?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know if you want to discuss this later, but I Think that also we're not trying to say shove Your kids into erotic material and tell them to have at it and that there are no problems if they start consuming it in excess consumption of anything in excess Is a sign of a problem and it's something I think we would discuss with our kids But within the broader context of excess of anything where you find that you are

Malcolm Collins: you might be surprised but excess [00:21:00] porn consumption Is incredibly rare outside of religious communities Secular porn addiction seems to be specifically related to moral bans on pornography.

Simone Collins: And that's a sign of a larger problem that appears to need to be solved. But I would just say that, that I wouldn't even warn our kids about consuming too much. I would warn our kids about anything where you start to change your daily habits and to prioritize. I agree, but this is like,

Malcolm Collins: so, so I would say that I would categorize porn consumption in the same category of immoral action as video games.

Simone Collins: Oh no, I was thinking exactly the same. Video games, food, even exercise. Basically anything where you are Other things in your life are suffering because you are so obsessed with getting in more of an action and it could be anything, then you have to worry about it. So we don't even have to have that conversation [00:22:00] around sexuality.

We have that conversation around addiction, period, or habit forming, period.

Malcolm Collins: And I, and I will note here, I love when people, when we have takes that are, because I know that this take is going to piss off a lot of our listeners, but it's just so based by the data, like the data on this particular subject is so overwhelming and they're like, well, you're not based.

And I'm like, well, We're not going along with the Urban Monoculture's framing on this stuff either, as you'll see. Our hidden conclusion is quite offensive to them. Being based doesn't mean agreeing with everything your group thinks. It means, you know, saying what is true, even when it might lose us subscribers.

As this episode probably will. But! That's how we keep from getting audience captured. You just got to keep plowing through.

Simone Collins: Keep pissing people off. That's the secret

Malcolm Collins: evidence isn't in their favor. And when the biblical text isn't in their favor, as we'll go over, it just very clearly isn't you know, it's important that we not only do what's best for our kids, but give other people the tools to do what's best for their kids in terms of the, the [00:23:00] way that they teach them about this stuff.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But it'd be quoting for the pragmatist guide to sexuality again.

Masturbation may contribute to a decline in many social ills. UCLA researchers found that sex criminals, on average, consume less porn than the average person and started consuming it at a later age than the average non sex criminal. Had today's sex criminals been able to explore their sexuality, through masturbation?

through their imagination earlier, perhaps they would not have felt compelled to commit their sex crimes later. So I should note here, when you put restrictions on porn, you increase the rate of sex crimes. In fact, the data bears this out for every 10 percent of increase in internet access in the U S there is a corresponding regional decrease of 7.

3 percent of grape cases suggesting the internet and its facilitation of masturbation may provide an outlet for sexual energy that might otherwise cause serious damage. Okay. Across nations, more permissive attitudes towards pornography are correlated with lower rates of grape and less [00:24:00] violence against women.

A great study of this can be seen within the Czech Republic, where porn was illegal under communism, then legalized when the party fell. This decriminalization of pornography caused in one year grapes to decline by 37% and child sexual abuse by about 50%.

Similar results were seen when the porn laws were loosened in Denmark, Japan, China, and Hong Kong. Wow. Anyone who is pro pornography restrictions is functionally also pro child. Great. Period. We have seen this happen multiple times. When you implement those laws, the result is children getting raped.

Simone Collins: I forgot just how striking the data was.

It's insane that people are still, that there's any ambiguity here. It just seems so obvious. There's no

Malcolm Collins: ambiguity at all. I mean, regardless, [00:25:00] if you, if a person wants to, at an individual level, say they believe in restricting access for them or their kids to pornography, I'm like, okay. I can get behind that, but when somebody begins to push laws around this at the state level, they are now, in my mind, around the same category of morality as a child trafficker. Because they just, Or somebody who facilitates laws that facilitate that because they just show that they do not care about the actual results of what they're doing and they do not care about the actual Children who are going to suffer because of the choices that they are making for essentially virtue signals.

And we, you know, we've seen this within some conservative events in the UK, and it's like the 1 thing where I just want to like. Oh my God, or even that when Project 25 suggested pornography bans in the United States, I just wanted to slap the person who wrote that. I was like, do you understand the consequences, the consequences of the laws that you are suggesting be [00:26:00] put into place?

But they don't care. They don't care. These, these, these virtue signalers do not care. Everything for them is this bizarre virtue spiral.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily put it as not caring. I would put it as not thinking about it and not orienting around truth or evidence based decisions because humans aren't nether, there's a portion of us.

That's the, of our ourselves, I would say our prefrontal cortex, which is all about evidence based decisions, but that thing came last and that thing comes online fully last. And most of us barely get out of like our limbic system. So can you blame us? We have the potential, but it's not the default. So I don't blame people for, for, for virtue spiraling and focusing on social conformity.

Malcolm Collins: You, you say you don't blame people, but the result, you've always said things happening to kids is your line. Yeah, no, that's

Simone Collins: my line. Well, and also I see the only thing that makes us human as our prefrontal cortex. So at the same time, I don't blame them, but I also [00:27:00] dehumanize them because I think that they're reverting to that, which is less human.

But I still understand, I guess I should reword it to, I understand why they do that. They're, they're failing to rise above, but they are doing what the default is. So.

Malcolm Collins: Well, they're acting like animals, and I believe people who act like animals should be treated like animals.

Simone Collins: Well, okay.

Malcolm Collins: And thought of as animals, because they are not rising above their animalistic instincts to think through and look through what are the results of the stuff that they're proposing.

And I think people often are surprised, like, why are we so viscerally against porn bands? And that is why. Because of the consequence.

Simone Collins: Well, which is kind of ironic because what people think of when they think about indulging in porn is people succumbing to their animalistic instincts. And indeed that is a part of it, but it's more like acknowledging that they're presently.

Is not a convenient way around these animalistic instincts, at least for some [00:28:00] people of certain hormonal profiles. And of course there are things you can do that can suppress that, but they have side effects that can be dangerous. So if we have to live with these instincts, the better thing to do is to grab control of them and exercise them in ways that are minimally damaging, which per our policy around erotic material, no human actors.

And in moderation, it is 100 percent the most optimal way to deal with these urges. It makes perfect sense. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: without any of the negative externalities. Exactly. Because when you remove human actors, then you remove the, the any trafficking problems, you remove any problems with prostitution, you remove any problems with impressed labor, you remove any problems, like, you remove Pretty much all of the moral quads.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So when I model the argument of someone who's opposing us, what they're trying to say is, Oh, you say we're supposed to rise above with evidence based thought, but we're trying to rise above our basis, human instincts by simply abstaining [00:29:00] from all of it altogether. I think what we're saying is you can't do

Malcolm Collins: that.

Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah. It

Simone Collins: clearly doesn't work. And when you try to do that, it backfires. So what we need to do is acknowledge where our limits are. Yeah. Prepare for our limits, build around the limits and then rise above in more meaningful ways until we can fully extinguish this. And we've in other podcasts even talked about how when it gets to be possible to safely suppress human sexual instincts, we will 100 percent do so.

And already all of our kids have even been created in the complete absence of, of actual sexual intercourse. I mean, like we have But our kids are not created using sex because we feel that there are better ways to do that.

Malcolm Collins: There are ways to already mute sexual impulses. Well, there are.

Simone Collins: It's just that the side effects, like, for example, me starving myself as a teen 100 percent worked because it just took my entire, entire hormonal system offline.

And then I had the hormonal profile of a prepubescent child, essentially. So there are ways to do it. I just think the side [00:30:00] effects. And also like you can go on you can, you can delay you can, you can go on gender affirming care and delay.

Malcolm Collins: It obviously works. It has almost no side effects.

Simone Collins: But would now, now truck zone.

Stop, not stop arousal for the

Malcolm Collins: government mandating naltrexone. But what I am saying is technology already exists, but

Simone Collins: naltrexone, that, that deals with, with addiction pathways, not with arousal. I can

Malcolm Collins: very, if, if, if I was to masturbate while on Naltrexone for like three days in a row, I would stop wanting to masturbate.

Simone Collins: Would you stop having interest in?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. You had stop having interest in women? Yes. That's the way naltrexone works. It works on your opioid pathways and removes

Simone Collins: Arousal is just 100 percent on that system, you're saying?

Malcolm Collins: 100 percent on that system. Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Okay. Fair point then.

Malcolm Collins: We already have the tools for doing this, but [00:31:00] do I think it's ethical to mandate everyone take something like this?

Or even pressure our kids to take it? No, I would say it's an option if they think it's the best way to control a certain impulse. But no, I'm very against mandating any of this stuff. All right, now back to what I'm reading here.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Other studies reinforce these results, such as one in aggression and violent behavior that found a weak inverse correlation between porn consumption and violent behavior towards women, specifically grape and sexual assault.

The study's findings suggest that the more porn a man consumes, the less likely he is to commit these violent acts against women.

Despite what we had assumed, masturbation and porn consumption do not lead people to think less of women. People who watch pornography hold views of women as more equal to men than those who do not watch pornography. Consumers of porn are no less likely to describe themselves as feminist and actually express more egalitarian ideas about both women in positions of power and working outside the home, [00:32:00] according to results of a study published in the Journal of Sex Research.

We did, however, find a study showing that men who were low on the trait of agreeableness did increase already existing sexist attitudes when exposed to pornography. So basically, you need to get incredibly in the weeds to show any, when you have these individuals, like Louise Ferry, who I love, but you know, I think she has some stuff like porn causes men to think poorly of women, or like do these derogatory sex acts towards women, and it's like, that is factually untrue.

And I will never, never get over these women today, because I hear this in conservative spaces. They're like, men choke women during sex because of porn and then women learn to like it because of that. And I'm like, we did not make you all turn Fifty Shades of Grey into a best selling book. That stuff is coming from women.

As a guy who has slept around a lot, that stuff is coming from women. Okay? That's not coming from the male side of the sexuality spectrum, [00:33:00] and you can see this in our data. It is the women who aren't consuming as much of the traditional pornography who are more desiring of the violent category of, of sexuality.

You are just denying their experiences, and likely haven't felt them because it appears, and people can watch our other videos on it,

That that form of female sexuality might be triggered by a high body count But I don't want to get into that if you want to get into that you can go to our video on What's a good one on this?

I I believe it's like raider versus homesteader sexuality

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: I'll try to quickly and briefly explain how the theory works here. So essentially we argue that in a historic context,

Women could have found themselves in multiple scenarios for which a different arousal profile would have been optimal specifically. They could have found themselves in a monogamous cultural group. They could have found themselves in a polygynous cultural group, or they could have found themselves as a, well, essentially a [00:34:00] slave taken during a raid or a war or something like that.

We argue that women evolved a changing arousal pattern. Based on specific environmental conditions. And that we can actually see this in the data and know what those conditions are specifically when a woman hasn't slept was a lot of people. she will. Have a release of oxytocin during intercourse, which causes a. Involuntary, you could almost argue bonding with the person she is sleeping with.

I E she is very likely to fall in love with that person. Just because of the act of sex, , and that sex modulates, it makes it much faster that she forms a love bond with an individual. But that this no longer happens, the more partners she has, and we can see this from a lowering of oxytocin. , during sex when women have had lots of different partners.

And this is because in an evolutionary context, that would have only happened in a polygynous society. ,

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: In a monogamous society. [00:35:00] It is very advantageous for a woman to fall in love with and build an emotional bond with the individual she is sleeping with, but in a society where she is sleeping with a large number of men, this is not advantageous.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: and if you're talking about a very large number of partners, that would only happen if she was a slave. , now in that letter case, we actually see, and this is backed up by data that ALA collected that women who have lots and lots of partners actually get turned on by violence, much more than women who have had few partners. , and that. This would make sense if this hypothesis that we have is true.

And so when these women say, , I can't imagine any woman being turned on by this. , and they are a low partner count woman. It's like, well, that's in part because you are a low partner count woman that you can't imagine that.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-8: But it's leading you to misdiagnose where the things are entering our culture from it is not from a men. It is from a women. And through [00:36:00] that misdiagnosis and putting the blame on pornography, you put children at risk.

Malcolm Collins: All right And now back to reading. We did recall reading about a study conducted by the Max Planck Institute showing that intense porn consumption in men was associated with lower gray matter volume in the brain. So we went back to the study only to realize that what it actually found was that men who consumed lots of porn had lower amounts of gray matter in a specific part of the brain, the right striatum.

The problem is that this part of the brain is also involved in reward processing. All the study says is that men who have deficient reward processing pathways consume more porn. Well, and this is very similar to

Simone Collins: people Who, who are overly addicted to social media or video games and all you have to do at that point is don't they call it dopamine fasting where you just sort of stop it for 30 days?

The point

Malcolm Collins: I'm putting is if you have a broken reward pathway, it's very likely that you're going to become addicted to behavior [00:37:00] patterns that are meant to satisfy that reward pathway. This doesn't show causality. It shows causation. It shows people born with a broken reward pathway follow that reward pathway in a broken fashion.

Simone Collins: What I read from that, are you sure? Because what I read from that was it indicated that maybe they'd been overexposed to the point of numbness because they

Malcolm Collins: No, it didn't match. So you're assuming that what it's showing is that when men consumed more porn, Their gray matter decreased, which isn't what it showed.

It showed when their gray matter decreased, they consumed more porn.

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: in exactly the part of the brain, you would expect this to happen.

Simone Collins: Interesting. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But there's actually data that this isn't correlational. Because we're going to get further here. A study conducted on college students found that those who masturbated more actually had more sex than those who masturbated less.

Another study [00:38:00] found that people who masturbate more often have happier marriages and more satisfying sex within those marriages. Masturbating, well Fantasizing about one's partner has also been shown to improve the quality of relationships and reduce relationship damaging behavioral patterns. Studies have even shown that the concept of building up tolerance to vanilla porn, suggesting that that is why some people go into increasingly weird porn, is false.

And this is something we were formerly certain was true. So we are quite excited to learn that we were wrong. Specifically, people who like weird porn still get turned on by vanilla porn at an even higher level than people who prefer vanilla porn. Statistically speaking, of course, this isn't true for every single individual.

 Essentially, escalating weirdness in porn tastes may be a product of a higher affinity for porn in general. The underlying arousal patterns experienced by weird porn aficionados don't shift in response to [00:39:00] exposure to weird porn. They merely are able to tolerate more obscure content.

Octavian: We

Malcolm Collins: do not start to see Any consistent negative effects for masturbation and porn consumption until we get to studies looking at masturbation three or more times a day, and even those seem a little cherry picked.

One study found that pornography negatively affects working memory, though the effect holds only while one is watching it. Thanks, Captain Obvious. We'll be sure to remember that the next time we decide to take a test while masturbating. We also found some studies showing that when a woman knows her boyfriend is masturbating, it can hurt her body image.

And some studies indicate that poor masturbation technique in men gripping too hard can lower a man's sensitivity. Still, none of this really seems to paint even fairly frequent masturbation as being bad on the whole. And the thing that gets me is just like everything they're saying, like, oh, if you masturbate, you'll be worse It's like, well, Factually, that's untrue.

People who masturbate were rated. It's also like

Simone Collins: saying, well, if you, if you run poorly, [00:40:00] you know, and, and you have bad running shoes, then you're going to, your ankles will become injured chronically and it's like, well, yeah, true technique is important with anything. Moderation is important with anything.

And I think the whole female body image thing has more to do with culture. And quite frankly, the toxic culture and discussion around porn that makes women feel bad about it. This is also, this is somewhere else in the prime goodness guide to sexuality, but the data that we found when doing research for the book also found that women who consume porn tend to be more sexually comfortable and enjoy sex more.

So in general, as a female, even getting into porn seems to just be a purely additive to your sex life and your confidence, which is, I mean, it makes sense when you actually look at porn that's designed around women. But I think given the toxic discourse around porn as it stands, yeah, it makes [00:41:00] sense way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and this, and this is unfortunately being perpetuated by some of our friends. Which is, is very frustrating to me that they don't just look at the research, you know? Well, it could also

Simone Collins: just be an audience capture thing because when we went, for example, to the ARC conference in London last year, which was supposed to be like the conservative Davos, that subject came up so much.

And it was such a crowd pleaser that it was hard to I mean, it would be really difficult for these people who are trying to rise as conservative thought leaders, especially in the United Kingdom and Europe, which has that sort of curmudgeonly form of defeatist form of conservatism that you can't take the other stance because you would be shadow banned from those communities.

You would not be invited to speak. They don't have a choice.

Malcolm Collins: Well, thank God we're not there. They're all going to die out anyway. I really care very little about them because they're so obviously going to die out. They don't have the fighting spirit to get [00:42:00] through for the valley of the lotus eaters. Well, it's true these people who are up there Whinging about banning porn have like no kids like i'm like, okay Clearly you don't like have good solutions to this.

Do you? Anyway, all right. Okay. Okay. Okay, but what about addiction masturbation addiction is destroying the lives of millions of young americans, right? You The answer here is a resounding Anecdotally, masturbation is not recognized as addictive by the American Psychological Association, APA, and was not categorized as a mental health condition in the latest standard diagnostic manual, DSM 5.

We readily admit that this seems a little weird that there isn't much research showing masturbation can be addictive, as it seems to affect opioid pathways, i. e. the brain. The naltrexone thing. And most things that affect opioid pathways enhance one's ability to learn a behavior and thus cause addiction in a subset of the population.

Think gambling, alcohol, morphine, etc. Because porn affects opioid pathways, it causes the [00:43:00] parts of the brain to light up when exposed to opioids. So people often be like, do you know that that porn also affects the parts of the brain that are affected by You know, what, you know, like, opioid addictions, right?

It's like, well, yeah, that's because it affects opioid pathways. That doesn't mean you know, this also does that for me. Okay? You know, a lot of things we do on a daily basis. The question is, is, are you susceptible to addictions to that particular chain of opioid pathways? And it appears that masturbation addictions outside of individuals who are banning masturbation, which means it's likely something other than a standard addiction, so if you don't have a religious thing against it, are astronomically worse.

It seems that your brain essentially down regulates a desire to masturbate if you are doing it two or more times a day. But anyway, back to the, the topic here. Instead of being thought of as an addiction, the current consensus seems to be that frequent masturbation should be categorized as a compulsion.

This is the same categorization Given to what is [00:44:00] colloquially called a quote unquote sex addiction. In this case, there doesn't seem to be anything Neurologically speaking at least, that differentiates someone who has a quote unquote addiction to masturbation versus sex. Meaning the negative effects resulting from masturbation too much would arise after too much sex.

Even then, calling masturbation addiction seems tenuous. For more on this, read The myth of sex addiction by David Lee, PhD. Now it gets worse than all of this. Like when you're talking about the benefits of masturbation, there's a great paper the role of masturbation and healthy sexual development perceptions of young adults.

This came up in 2011 and showed that frequent masturbation was associated with higher educational outcomes. So you get more sex, you get higher educational outcomes. You get well I can go through other things. It has been shown to improve sweet sleep quality it has been shown to reduce the probability of prostate cancer has been shown to relieve menstrual cramps It has been shown to reduce the risk of urinary tract infections.

It has been shown [00:45:00] Muscle tension has been shown to improve the immune system

Simone Collins: Well, I I think I highly associate it with vitalism too in general like if someone And you see this in, in characters in history, like King Henry, the eighth and Winston Churchill. These are people who were voracious on all fronts, right?

Heavy drinkers, heavy eaters, heavy sportsmen, heavy romantically, right? That just on, on everything. I think that there's something to do with leaning into Everything and going all in and being very passionate and that being associated with high achievement, like intuitively and culturally, it makes sense.

Whereas being someone who abstains, I mean, it's a very Buddhist thing, you know, this discipline, this stepping back, but that also doesn't make sense. Correlate with achievement, you know, it correlates, I guess, with virtue from that perspective of a monk, but monks are not [00:46:00] really famous for changing the course of history.

I mean, even the Dalai Lama, we all love him, but he's not.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, and I would say that I don't it's when people are like do know not November or something and like a note benefits from it The key benefit they're getting is from denying an impulse There are other impulses you could deny that aren't gonna cause intrusive thoughts other than masturbation That's the problem like It's not that you're not going to get benefits.

Like all people get benefits from denying impulses.

Simone Collins: But gosh, there was some famous, maybe he was a physicist or researcher or something like that. There was this amazing quote from him because he, some friend bet him that like, he couldn't, he was too addicted to some form of amphetamines to even stop them for a month.

And he did, and he had no problem. He was fully able to do it. And he's like, and you said back my field. Significantly for a month, you know, like the world is at a loss because I stopped doing this just to do it.

Octavian: Yeah, the

Simone Collins: act of trying not to think about sex, the act of [00:47:00] trying to quit coffee, the act of trying to hold yourself back and all these things take so much time and effort and for what?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, okay, so, now an individual might be like, okay, well it might be good for your physical state, but it's not good for your mental state. Well, here's the problem. With regards to benefits to one's mental state, masturbation has been shown to release sexual tension, reduce stress, improve self esteem, improve body image, and lead to higher self reported rates of happiness.

Some studies have shown this may not be the case in adolescent women, but lateral longitudinal studies suggest this was due to confounding factors. So, neener. Like it's just like a strict negative thing to be against. Like though this wasn't true historically when you didn't have modern porn, like before you had AI and drawn pornography and stuff like that.

And you had to rely on the porn industry that used real people. There was a thing though, is, is that honestly was

Simone Collins: a pretty short lived [00:48:00] thing. So from this, like when the first photographs were made until maybe five, 10 years ago. Yes, there was this weird short period where photos and video of sexual acts was pervasive.

But before that, there was so much drawn porn. There was, it was all drawn porn. You could, you see it going back forever and ever and ever.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, people who think that like, rule 64 porn, like drawn cartoon characters in, in porn stuff is new.

They were in MacBooks in the 1920s. If you go back before that you will see drawn characters , of gods and stuff like that.

Clearly in pornographic positions fictional characters. Oh, they were referred

Simone Collins: to as like political cartoons, but think about all of the sexualized cartoons of Marie Antoinette and other historical figures. This was just. It's fine. It's what we do

Malcolm Collins: wonder why people sexualize these sorts of characters.

It's likely because we have a system [00:49:00] that increases our arousal pathway to any character. We have a parasocial or social connection to and many people build social connections to them. Two characters that they hear about or see a lot more so than a random person who might be appearing in a, in a porn video.

Now also we've got to talk about just how negative sex was in a historic context that you could accidentally get somebody pregnant.

Simone Collins: Oh gosh. Well, in syphilis, let's not

Malcolm Collins: forget about syphilis or syphilis. It would drive you crazy or that there were giant gangs of orphans from this in places like London or that they would randomly leave.

You can close your ears. Simone.

Simone Collins: Okay. Wave your hands when you're done.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, there are, there are reports of people stepping over babies being very common dead babies in London during this period because it was just so common to have children out of the wedlock and leaves them for exposure.

Extramarital and premarital sex was genuinely horrific in a premodern [00:50:00] context, but we are not in a premodern context and our children are being lost in droves. All right, you can, you can come back. You can come back.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Like, this wouldn't be a thing that I'd be going on about if it had no negative consequences, if it didn't lead to the

Simone Collins: bad

Malcolm Collins: things, the bad things I mentioned before that I

Simone Collins: don't that we do not talk about around Simone because Simone can't afford to cry all night.

Thank you. But I mean, also like women, I mean, even even sex within marriage was a pretty big risk because the number of times you could expect a friend or family member to die in childbirth was.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. And women, I don't know if you know that they lost a tooth on average with every pregnancy.

Simone Collins: Yeah, pregnancies were rough on women, but also just this idea of, well, maybe I'll die.

Maybe I'll get a baby. I don't know. Worth it. Let's give this a roll of the dice. You know, it was dangerous. Even when, even in the best of contexts, you have all the resources, you have the best medical [00:51:00] care. Yep. Yep. I mean, I might still die. That

Malcolm Collins: is not the context. We need to motivate sexism. Today, very different context today.

Totally different. So now we're gonna go into Bible stuff for people who are like, what? But, but. Somebody who hadn't read the Bible told me the Bible said, and I'm like, well, let's go into what the Bible does say, okay?

Because I know

what a lot of the things that people think are in the Bible just aren't and it always surprises me.

So, I'm gonna go into all the times the Bible might be talking about masturbation. Genesis 38, 9 through 10. The story of Onan is sometimes Associated with masturbation because Ohan quote spilled the seed on the ground in quote to avoid providing an air for his deceased brother which God condemned.

However, it seems like

Simone Collins: that was the dick move. It wasn't the masturbation was about

Malcolm Collins: not providing an air for his brother. Yeah. About the masturbation. So for people who don't know this, this [00:52:00] was a very important rule in Jewish traditions, which is that if a wife's husband died, she was supposed to marry his brother.

This makes a lot of sense from a genetics perspective. It's actually like a very fair thing. It is something I would want to happen to my wife if I died before our first kid was born, because if she inherited all of my money. Who do I want that money going to but a close genetic relative to me who is a good close genetic relative to me?

Well, my brother's kid would be it might not be 50 percent me, but it's 25 percent me Like that's a really sensible law to decide not to do that That is a D move in the extreme and God was right to condemn him But that has nothing to do with masturbation Okay, that has to do with masturbating and then not putting it in the woman.

If he had taken that and then put it in the woman, God would have been chill. That's like, he didn't even need to have PIV. Well, or if

Simone Collins: he had done that, but then the next day had sex and produced the air, then it will also would have been, [00:53:00] it seems like the act of, of sticking it to his brother was the problem.

Malcolm Collins: So now we're going to deal with, Matthew 5, 27 through 30. And so for people who understand the context of this, this is when Jesus goes through a bunch of old commandments and then just updates them to be like more extreme.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: Basically in this section, he is emphasizing how easy it is to sin by listing examples, that show that, , people were too strict about putting sin into categories where, well, only when you do this big thing, are you actually sending not when you do this little thing, are you actually sending, here I'll give you some examples. , in this category, he says,

you have heard it said. To the people long ago, you shall not murder. And anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who said to a brother or sister Rocca is answerable in court, and anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of [00:54:00] hell.

So here he is saying you have ever called someone a fool that is in a way equivalent to murdering someone. , and I agree with this, it is sinful to be derogatory. Cory of other people, but it is also something that we all do. The point being made here is that everybody lives a life of sin. For example, in another category here. He says.

Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, do not break your O's, but for Phil. The Lord, the vowels you have made, but I tell you do not swear an oath at all, either by heaven for it is God's throne or by earth for it is his footstool or by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great king.

Do not swear by your head . For you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need is to say simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. So again, here, he's saying that like, it is a sin too. Make promises to other people to swear to [00:55:00] other people, to even sign a contract with apple when you're using an apple store. All you're allowed to say is yes or no.

That is the only way you can prevent yourself from sending.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: There is also a part here where he says. And if anyone wants to Sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat to them as well. So again, he's saying here, well, it would be a sin. If somebody decides to unrightly, you know, here, this is right after the, even anyone slaps you on the right cheek, then turn the other cheek also.

So he's saying. You know, when, when somebody attacks you or is unjust towards you, gives them the thing that they're asking of you and to not do that is a sin. So we've. Anyone has ever accused you of something or sued you of something you are supposed to immediately capitulate the lawsuit. And give more to them than whatever they were asking for. Not doing that. Is the same category as lusting over someone who's not your wife.

Lusting over someone.

Who's not your wife within this part of

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: Matthew

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: Here is [00:56:00] in the same category of sin as signing a apple user agreement. It's in the same category of sin. Of calling someone else a fool. It is. Absolutely a sin. You know, see track aid, anything that's not done for the glory of God is a sin that's made very clear in the Bible. But it is. , of the same category of sin, where we're just supposed to remember that it is impossible to live a life without sin. , and to strive to be a good person in spite of that, it is not of the same category of sin. Of murder or something.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: And this is incredibly clear when you're reading this section of Matthew. To the point where. I would say anyone who is using this line to argue. something else was meant by this and like not putting it in the context of, this is also the part where you're never supposed to make any oath or promise to someone. Other than saying yes or no. , this is the part where you are supposed to never call someone a fool.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-12: Where you're never supposed to get angry [00:57:00] with your brother or sister., , where you're supposed to immediately capitulate any suit brought against you and give the person more than what they're asking for.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: and they're not, they're not including that when they're like, oh, he said, you know, don't lust after anyone.

Who's not your wife. That they're being intentionally dishonest with you. They are intentionally using the Bible in an attempt to manipulate you. By presenting something out of context and hoping that you are. , well, too dumb to go look up where this is set in the Bible. And I would then put that next to all of the other stuff they're teaching you about the Bible.

All of the other stuff they're saying, well, the Bible says this or the Bible says this because if they were willing to use the Bible to mislead you in this area, where else are they willing to use the Bible to mislead you?

Malcolm Collins: You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery within his heart.

If your right eye causes you to [00:58:00] stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And for your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you to Throw the whole thing at hell.

So do you really think Jesus means for you to rip out your eyeball because you accidentally looked at a woman with lust? No, do you really? Do you really believe that's the rule being set in place here? No,

Simone Collins: it sounds like he's clearly trying to point out that Humans are wretched, flawed, sinful beings, and, and that to try to be perfect is kind of ridiculous, right?

Yeah, he's trying

Malcolm Collins: to show you the ridiculousness of trying to follow these rules in that way. If you don't believe that that's what's being said here, If you believe Jesus is actually commanding you to rip [00:59:00] out your eyeball, if you have ever looked at a woman lustfully, go ahead, right, take out those eyes, put them on the table, because I know you have, I know everyone has.

Jesus knows you have. Don't be an f ing moron in the way you read things to argue for some deontological approach that was clearly not meant in the original text. Jesus did not actually want every man who had ever looked at a woman lustfully to rip out their eyes. Okay and I would note here that even with this framing, we are still not saying that people should break it.

Because we are not saying look at a woman lustfully, we are limiting guilt free masturbation to only AI and drawn stuff. So you're not looking at a woman lustfully, so it doesn't break

Simone Collins: the rules. Yeah. Well, also, it just, especially these days, it's more dangerous than ever to [01:00:00] be involved or, or get into a relationship.

We'll say live action erotic material because that's more moving in the direction of OnlyFans and Other sites that have you interacting directly with a live person and developing a parasocial relationship and that actually becomes quite a very real financial relationship in which you are undergoing a huge opportunity cost to invest in.

What starts out is basically. Porn consumption and masturbation and then becomes a relationship in which you are being basically a sugar daddy to someone else and also getting this feeling like you are getting a girlfriend experience and being in a relationship when you're not so you are just throwing away.

Your, your mental processing power for relationship you're,

Malcolm Collins: you're making now the, the, there's like, that's part of why we have this additional restriction, no real girls. So you don't form [01:01:00] these Leviticus 16, quote, when a man has an emission of semen, he must base his whole body with water , And he will be unclean till evening.

And any clothing or leather that his semen is on must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening. When a man has sexual relations with a woman, and there is an emission of semen, both of them must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. So what is this saying?

That a man having an emission, because it's categorizing two different instances here. One in which a man, has an emission of semen, one in which man has an emission of semen with a woman. And they are both categorized as the same type of uncleanliness. So it is saying that masturbating is just an unclean act as sleeping with your wife.

Now, if you read earlier in this same chapter, It talks about an additional level of uncleanliness. This is someone you like shouldn't talk touch. You shouldn't interact with. These are people who have [01:02:00] blocked their emissions. Now I will note that this could be read as a disease because it talks about unusual emissions or blocked emissions, but you could read this as saying that blocking emissions, i.

e. not regularly masturbating as a young man. makes you more unclean than regular sex or masturbation. And makes you the type of person people probably shouldn't be interacting with, which I agree with. Leviticus, way to go. Now, let's go with Corinthians 6. 18. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body, end quote.

Except, it is very clear in context that this is not talking about all forms of sexual impropriety, but prostitution specifically, that comes immediately after the line, quote, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?

Never. Do you not know that? That he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her [01:03:00] body. For it is said, the two will become one flesh, but whoever is united with the Lord will be one with him in spirit. And yes, prostitutes are a unique form of sin, especially in ancient times, because you risk getting them pregnant and creating an unwanted child.

Quote, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? End quote. Except your body is not Christ's body. So what is this talking about here? This is talking about the intergenerational Concept of martyrdom, in which case, yes, you are literally Christ's body. But also consider the line, do you.

No, that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her body, for it is said that the two will become one flesh, but whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Except you are not one body with a prostitute when you have sex with her, that's a ridiculous thing. You don't become one body with someone if you, like at what point are you one body when your penis goes in her when you're, you know, like, obviously not.

However, you do become one body with her, and one soul with her, if you create a child with her. [01:04:00] This isn't warning against sexual immorality from the perspective of sexual release. It's warning against sexual immorality where you become one body and one soul with somebody else, i. e. create a new human being.

The Bible isn't stupid, okay? The Bible would be stupid if it thought two people became one person when they were having sex. Because that obviously doesn't happen. But it obviously does happen that two people having sex have the potential to create one new unified whole. Finally, a note on killing through masturbation that I want to go to through here.

Because so when somebody says to me that an embryo is a human life, they often leave out one little caveat here. They go an embryo is a human life when you put it in a woman's womb. And it's like, well, yes, that's true. And then they're like, well, sperm and eggs aren't really a human life yet. And it's like, well, I mean, but [01:05:00] they are when you put them in a woman's womb, right?

So the asset that turns Things into life that creates human life is the woman's womb, right? You're playing a little trick. So either you have to admit that both sperm and egg are equally as human as an embryo because they both become humans when you put them in a human's womb. Or you have to admit that they both fall into a secondary category of things that might become human if put in a woman's womb.

Well, here is where this becomes a problem with arguments against things like IVF. If I turn the sperm that my body might produce and the eggs your body might produce and I create embryos for them, which are now in the same category of sperm versus eggs in Catholic world, because they're saying, no, okay, I'll categorize these things as the same thing.

Well. I can create more children per emission than [01:06:00] they can. I could masturbate once and then that single masturbation can become 20, 30 kids, you know, when you're using IVF, right? And so they would have a moral mandate if they actually believed this to only use IVF. But of course, they don't really believe that.

They don't really believe they're killing millions of humans every time they masturbate.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): So if this line of argument with a little difficult for you to follow, I will use different words to explain it.

Essentially, what I'm doing is I'm explaining a third hypothetical position that an individual might take. An individual might say that it is immoral to masturbate because you are producing semen, which might one day become a human being. In the same way an embryo might one day become a human being. If it was placed within a woman's womb.

So the first part of the argument here is I was actually arguing for their position. I was saying, if you argue that anything that might become a human being when put [01:07:00] in a woman's womb should be treated as murdering a human being. I E. Some individuals are like, well, an embryo could eventually become a human being.

If put in a woman's womb, therefore we should be treating it. As if terminating an embryo is the same as terminating .

A living thinking. Fetus.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Then you are forced into the ethical position. That both sperms and eggs, because they also like an embryo become a living thinking fetus when put in a woman's womb. Are things of. Value equivalent of a fetuses or adult humans life, or, , maybe like half that value or something. I don't know. However, you're doing the equation, but however you do it with the equation.

You're still like half murdering someone. Well, if you believe that, then you sort of end up getting forced to use IVF because it means when you're having PIV intercourse. There are millions of individual sperms dying which you could prevent through just [01:08:00] masturbating once, collecting your semen, using it to fertilize, a series of embryos and planting those embryos.

And they never masturbating again in your life. Now.

This seems really silly to me, which we'll get to why in just a second, but that is the position you are forced into.

Malcolm Collins: So,

so, to take me, If I do every F every time my wife can do a cycle over a period of say 10 years, I will have eight kids. That's eight lives I created because I used the resources God gave me to carry out his command, which was to be fruitful and multiply.

And said, well, okay, I know you gave me a miracle that allowed me to have more surviving children, but I'm going to turn that down.

I am fully responsible for those children who didn't get to come to exist.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: Where'd this a bit differently.

The actual asset, which determines how many humans come into the world. Is it not the sperm and the eggs. It is the woman's uterus. If you [01:09:00] use that uterus. In a way that is inefficient. You prevent. Humans. Soul's if you believe in them from entering this world that otherwise would have been here. So, for example, if I inefficiently. I'm jest.

Dead fast on not using IVF.

My wife is very likely to get pregnant much fewer times than she would get pregnant if we are using IVF because IVF allows you to have healthy pregnancies much, much later. Now, I would note IVF allows you to have heavy pregnancies much later if. The embryos were created. We in both of you were young. As we did with our embryos. Because of this, I'm likely going to be able to have probably around double the number of kids I would have been able to have if I was only having a regular PIV sex.

 Now for us, it's, it's different because she can only have children was IVF. But I'm just saying hypothetically, if this wasn't the case, , If we tried to [01:10:00] sort of max, the number of kids we were having was in her fertility window. , we might end up having. Four or five kids. If on the other hand, uh, I'm using IVF.

We end up having 10 kids will. The problem , is by making the indulgent choice to only create children through PIV intercourse. I have chosen a timeline in which those additional five humans never come to exist. There was additional fetuses as additional children. , the lives that they live never come to exist.

And we would argue that you are morally responsible for this. Indulgence. You don't get to shirk off the moral responsibility for it

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: Now you might say you cannot bear moral responsibility for a human that doesn't exist yet because they have no moral weight yet. However, Jeremiah, one five says that God knew us

before we were in our mother's womb, which shows that that's the way that [01:11:00] God looks at these moral calculations. That we exist before we are in our mother's womb. We exist at the point that there is a potentiality that we could come to exist..

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: So there were those who would argue that when we say something like in our framing of sexuality or when life begins. That we are moving in the direction of the urban monoculture in a way from strict interpretation that the Bible, when actually the opposite is true, we are trying to move for a stricter interpretation of the Bible, which instead of moving away from the quote unquote. Conservative traditionalist Christian standpoint towards the urban mono culture. Is going in a completely orthogonal or maybe even opposite direction. In that what we believe is required of a person is actually much, much stricter than what they would think is required of an individual.

These interpretations around when [01:12:00] life begins are much more onerous in terms of the sacrifices you have to make as an individual. Didn't the old interpretations. They are just also efficacious, , and, , inline with what's actually in the Bible. And I think that that's also really important here is that it matters. That nowhere in the Bible.

Does it say that you shouldn't masturbate? And in fact there are several lines that would make it seem that it's actually quite bad to not masturbate. , for example, the line about individuals with blocked emissions, , being extra, extra, extra unclean, and the line that says that, , a man.

Issuing an emission. , without a woman around is of the same moral weight as him. Issuing an emission with his wife. , that to me seems pretty clearly to state that these things are of the same moral weight.

And so if God wanted strict rules around this stuff, , why didn't he ever mentioned it anywhere in the Bible, anywhere in the Bible? And then you have to say, oh, well maybe somebody else wanted strict [01:13:00] rules around this stuff. And it's like, aha. Yes, because it used to be important to have strict rules around this stuff when you're dealing with like a medieval prostitutes and stuff.

But that is not the world we live in today. And by the way, that stuff was warned about in the Bible

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: , when you demarcate masturbation is having the exact same negative, moral weight as sleeping with a prostitute or premarital sex. You create a scenario in which when a young person is like, well, I'm going to break the rules.

Anyway, they end up breaking them in horrifyingly, more dangerous ways than they otherwise might. And so we instead would advocate for kids. ,

For our, , offspring to. Focus their useful sexual energy on something that is not going to accidentally get somebody pregnant or accidentally put them in a dangerous legal situation. Or. Lead them to making very bad decisions around who they marry. I E marrying [01:14:00] somebody because they think they're hot..

Malcolm Collins: So the final rules around masturbation is masturbation to generate pleasure in human. Using human simulacrums, like drawing things and stuff like that, that's okay. Images, books, text chats, etc. But real women should be avoided.

Premarital or extramarital sex should only be had for reasons benefiting one's objective function and never for pleasure as the primary motivation. So that's where we are much stricter on sexuality than traditional Christian frameworks. Which is to say that you can have sex, but you need to be having it for a reason other than just pleasure.

Now, that reason can be bonding with your spouse or that reason be something more Machiavellian, but it, it, it has to be for a reason. Sex for pleasure is sinful, but you have this additional access category. Now this creates a lot of positive externalities. We have released the moral negative externality of the prostitution.

It released the probability that somebody will try to control you through sexuality.

All right, Simone. So we didn't really get a chance to discuss the [01:15:00] long term consequences of these new rules at the end of this. But this new framing, I think, is really important for modern technological context. So I want to explain it more. Okay, why? Because a lot of people could see this as a loosening of restrictions, but it's actually a Strengthening of a specific set of restrictions while loosening another set of restrictions to make that strengthening realistic Specifically we are strengthening the restrictions on never having sex purely for pleasure

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: and somebody could be like what's the advantage of that and how does this other system help?

Why is it okay to saturate like why is it okay to say all the porn you want so long as it's not using real people well one You do not appear to be able to turn off anyone's, like, instinctual desires. So, for example, if I am same sex attracted there is nothing that appears to be able to lessen that except for one thing.

Do you remember what that one thing is, Simone?

Simone Collins: Oversaturation.

Malcolm Collins: Oversaturation. So, if I am same [01:16:00] sex attracted, I should be able to be able to happily live a life as an opposite gender individual, If I can masturbate all the time, if I can textualize the point of the marriage as not being about who I merit, like, like the sex, right?

Like they could be gay as well, or they could be you know, but the kids themselves, and somebody can be like, that's horrifying. It's horrifying from the perspective of the urban monoculture, because if you are a parent, like whiz kids, if somebody asks you, and I guarantee every parent here could say this, Okay, you get a choice.

You either never get to have sex again, Or we take away your kids.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: No one!

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No one! Is gonna settle for sex!

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Actually, well, don't say no one. People are very disappointing.

Malcolm Collins: Weird psychopath. But what I'm saying is, is like. Largely speaking, you realize is a sexual part of your life is just one stage of your life.

[01:17:00] And it's not the way once you have kids, your biology sort of changes and you begin to reorient around the next generation and the way you think of yourself, the way you think about pleasure, all changes. And this framing will begin to make perfect sense. You're like, Oh yeah, that's why you do that. And it, and again, I'm not saying that, necessarily for my kids, I'd be against gay marriage, but I would recommend to them, even if they are gay, that they consider that it might be much easier just from a cost perspective to be heterosexually married and masturbate their sexual instincts through like, well, literal masturbation.

And somebody can be like, well, how dare you tell somebody to not do whatever turns them on, whatever it turns them on. And I'm like, well, I mean, you've got to consider that actually a huge chunk of the population is turned on by like, Um, and I'll add the statistics here but like, should they do, and they're like, no, of course.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-13: So to put the numbers, I'm about to read in context in a 2021 survey, 3% of the global population identifies as gay and around. [01:18:00] 5.5% of the us population identify as LGBT. So. What percent of.

Women are turned on by seeing somebody humiliated. 15%, 20% for men, for women, it seeing a person portrayed as disposable 8%, 8% for men seeing a person, dehumanized women, 11% men, 13% seeing a person betrayed women, 11% men, 8% seeing somebody be a slave. , 16% for women, 22% for men seeing a. Be consumed by another person or thing 2% for women, 3% for men.

So there you're getting around like global gay rates, a snuff, seeing somebody die. 3% for women, 4% for men. So again, equivalent to global rates of people who identify as gay now. Just because somebody thinks it's hot when somebody is a slave or dies. Does that mean that they should have the right. For that to happen?

No, , for some, for more numbers here. A female [01:19:00] crying, 14% of women, 13% of men. Actually a little surprised that number is higher for women than men. That's interesting. , causing physical pain, 13% for women, 17%. For men. Humiliation 15% for women, 20% for men. So again, you can see here. Just because something turns on a large group of people doesn't mean that we should just go out and do that thing.

It doesn't mean that we should have a societal mandate for that thing to be acted upon.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-14: No. If you were the type of individual who doesn't have any of these arousal patterns, And you're looking at these numbers and you're horrified something like would commit to you from the research that we've gone over today is EBU remove the types of pornography that are designed to masturbate these specific pathways.

It is very clear in the data that people will find other ways to masturbate these pathways using real human beings. That's why it's so important to not put restrictions on [01:20:00] these types of pornography.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-16: Now as a side note here, you might say, well, how dare you compare this to being gay? Because being gay doesn't hurt anyone. And it's like, well, being gay doesn't hurt anyone when you're still able to bring your children into existence. But. If being gay makes it impossible for you to have kids denies people who otherwise would have had the chance to live their right to exist, then yeah, it does hurt other people.

So I'd say that, , my relationship was the morality of Gay relationships is both due to. , tied to the amount of resources as individuals have, , and the amount of technology that we have access to at any given time period that allows them to still have kids or not have kids. And you might look at this and be like, how could you value the w you know, somebody who's not born yet?

And it reminds me of one of my cousins where she was like, well, if you have fewer kids, If you stop having kids now, your existing kids will get to go on more vacations and do more fun stuff. [01:21:00] And I was thinking, I hope she remembers that as she gets to meet the kids who she wished never existed. As they go to family reunions as they grow up, as they start college, those are human beings that she will form relationships with.

And she will realize the genuine harm that she was wishing on somebody. She now has a relationship with this moral framework where we just discount 80 one's wellbeing just because they haven't been born yet, I think is a really, really harmful.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-15: And if you find this type to data, interesting, we go over way, way more than this. And the pragmatist guy does sexuality and it retails for like a dollar on Amazon. We don't really make any money on it. All that goes to our nonprofit, which is working on the school and stuff.

Th the, the pitons that we do make, , it's, , you know, just for data nerds, I guess.

Malcolm Collins: And I'm like, well, should they be allowed to like masturbate? And a lot of people are like, oh yeah, of course. Like do that through, through masturbation. Right. And it's like, well, like what the F is the [01:22:00] difference here? Right. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's how, how inappropriate is this for society or how much did this like mess with, with society?

Yeah. I mean, what are your thoughts on this? Simone, the idea of reframing, because if you reframe sexuality around rather than pleasure, sex, just for pleasure is a bad thing. Then you, as a married partner might actually end up in a dead bedroom scenario, less likely someone could be like, wouldn't this cause dead bedrooms?

And I'm like, actually it would lead to dead bedrooms less because the wife understands that her duty towards sex is not. For the pleasure that she may get for it, even if she finds it unpleasurable, it's for the chemical bonding that it creates between the couple.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, you and I may find this just so normalized already, because we've already completely separated, out of necessity, the concept of, Procreative sex and the concept of, of like couple [01:23:00] bonding sex because we have to do IVF to have our kids.

Well, none of our kids were created

Malcolm Collins: by 2060, 50 percent of the people in the developed world are going to be infertile. Like,

Simone Collins: well, and a lot of, a lot of couples we know who can absolutely have kids naturally are still choosing to, to have their kids at IVF. And there's a lot of reasons that people might want to do that.

Like health related reasons for even just the children. So like, you know, you're going to, your kids are going to have better outcomes sort of health risk wise, if you create them with younger eggs and sperm, then with older eggs and sperm. So it makes a lot of sense, even for perfectly like

Malcolm Collins: a technophilic family.

And you want like a really large number of kids. You are always better doing IVF and taking like a year to just do like five cycles of IVF and just create tons of embryos and then use those in the future. Although if

Simone Collins: you, all the single guys listening to this who may not already have a partner and may not have the ability to create embryos, embryos now, freeze your sperm, freeze your sperm.

This, it is only going to get worse. It's only going to go downhill. Actually

Malcolm Collins: frozen sperm and [01:24:00] eggs don't do very well. It's almost a scam.

Simone Collins: Well, no, frozen sperm does better. Think about all the people who've created embryos using sperm donors.

Malcolm Collins: So the poster child of IVF, it was this woman who was in all the newspapers and she did an IVF cycle and she got something like 12 eggs from the cycle.

Not unusual for an IVF cycle. Yeah. And then when she was 40, she decided she wanted to have kids. And none of them worked out. Well, yeah,

Simone Collins: women, women, it's harder. And also, yeah, 12 eggs is, is nothing.

Malcolm Collins: No, you really, if you're a woman, you need to do like five or six cycles. So do you, yeah, no, if you're

Simone Collins: a woman, but I said all the single guys, I didn't say girls.

I said free sperm, not

Malcolm Collins: eggs.

Simone Collins: Oh, sorry. I'm not mad. Oh, I'm not mad.

Malcolm Collins: And by the way, for people out there, Oh, you're monsters, biblically speaking for creating lots of embryos. Cause the Bible says life begins at conception. It absolutely does not. It says, I knew you before you were in your mother's womb. It says that life begins before conception.

And if you lower the number of kids you're having, you're denying people the right to exist that otherwise would have existed based on your choices. I'm just saying, [01:25:00] we talk about this all the time, but anyway,

Simone Collins: back to the topic though, I really do think that separating things, these things out. Not just when it comes to human sexuality, but almost all aspects of life makes so much more sense.

Like, even just, just do what makes most, the most sense in whatever context, you know, don't do something because everyone else does it, do it because it seems right to you. Don't Like if eating breakfast at like 2 a. m. in the morning is what works for you, do it. And just, it seems really weird to me that one partner is supposed to be just everything to a certain extent, to the other for life.

I

Malcolm Collins: also think that this rule around well, you're allowed to have sex, whether it's premaritally to like, I don't know, maybe learn how to get better at sex because you think you will be able to secure better partners. That allows for a changing context where you're like, okay, I'm having sex premaritally, but I'm not doing it for pleasure.

I'm doing it to improve technique or seduction ability. And that means that when [01:26:00] I am doing this, I am focused on those elements. Which is actually what I was focused on when I was doing it. I was like, okay, I need to get really good at this to secure a good partner. Was one of the things that was always had in the back of my head.

But then the, the second thing is that it makes it so that. You are, there's less loopholes. So like an individual could say, okay, so somebody holds a gun to your head and they say, sleep with this person other than your wife, or I will kill your wife and kids. If you go with the traditional morality, you're like, okay, I can't do that.

But if you go with this moral framework, where it's like, you are allowed to have sex with other people. But. If it's for the best interest of like your family's objective, but also

Simone Collins: think, think about the number of marriages that are created on really thin and bad ground because they're really created for sex and not for partnership.

And if people were to just completely un parse, Sex from partnership and I, and I like what you were saying there with regard to sexual [01:27:00] orientation as well. What I was actually thinking was there are probably quite a few like, straight women who would also love to have kids. Who, if they could just find the right partnership with another straight woman, but not make it about sex or marriage or romance, just make it about kid raising partnership.

Could just do a great job. Like that. They're just, no. We'll have

Malcolm Collins: another video on single Parenthoods Gay Parenthoods going over all the statistics. I just haven't collected all the data yet. Oh, okay. Okay.

Simone Collins: No, we should definitely do that. But yeah, I just feel like we could piece together. So many really optimal situations that are customized to people's unique circumstances.

If we just decoupled some things and to a certain extent, I'm really against to these days, the concept of atomization, you know, the fact that to a great extent, modernity and progressive culture and the government and bureaucracies have atomized the human and separated them out from their support network, separated them out from their communities and religions and everything.

I think that's bad. But I also [01:28:00] really do love piecing together life on an a la carte basis and not doing stuff just because, Oh, well we always have to do this together and we always have to do that together. It doesn't make sense.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, you see this in our relationship. I mean, we sleep in different rooms of the house, right?

Like, yeah, because it makes no sense and you wake up at 5 am and I don't want to interrupt your sleep schedule. Right. So, well, and

Simone Collins: for example, like when we go on vacation, we don't actually eat out at restaurants. We saved that for home because one, the prices are lower and then we enjoy restaurants more while we're at home.

Whereas on vacation, we're already out. We're already staying for a place we paid for that is nice. Like, why would we waste additional money? Yeah, we go to the local grocery store,

Malcolm Collins: which is different, and we eat there. So it's, it's, it's about separating things out in a way that makes sense instead of pairing them thematically the way that we are taught to as a society.

And I would go so far as to say that, I would actually be okay. So people know that I think that one day when we have the genetic technology, we should maybe remove human arousal patterns. If it turns out we can build a stable society where people [01:29:00] learn to only indulge in their arousal patterns around things that have no negative externalities, then I would be okay with humans keeping their arousal patterns.

I'd say, yeah, that's fine. Found a social technology that allows that. But when I look today at groups that are supposed to be suppressing all this, like the, the Amish, for example, and we see this horrible grape epidemic, or, you know, the, the Catholic preachers, and we see this big problem with lots and lots of you know, situations.

You know, probably shouldn't be situationing. It doesn't look good for anyone involved. I mean, if we just said, okay preachers are allowed pornography, the number of children who have to go through this would be decreased by so, so, so much. Those are human beings, every year who are being spared this, that are We have to deal with this because we are dealing with maybe evil interpretations of the Bible that just don't necessarily work for our current time.

Speaker 5: I'm just trying to say [01:30:00] that if we don't change then we might lose everyone to atheism. What exactly do you suggest we change, well, for one, no sex with boys.

Speaker 6: The

Speaker 7: holy document of law states that a priest, cannot get married, so where are we to get our sex?

Speaker 5: Okay, maybe we just need to forget about the Gelgamechs for a second and focus Forget about the Gelgamechs? Just saying, what works on planet Gelgamech isn't necessarily going to work for the rest of us here on Earth.

You see, that's the problem we're having here.

Malcolm Collins: And I want to say also how beautiful this is that the Bible was written in a way that its interpretation was the most ethical behavioral set of rules for every era. During the medieval era, it really was good to not be lusting after women other than your wife. But in a modern era where you know, you have AI and drawing stuff and everything like that.

Well, it's not against the rules, and it's not against the rules of biblicals, but the Bible can be interpreted two ways for two different technological contexts, and isn't it a [01:31:00] miracle that it was written in a way where it could be interpreted these two ways? Almost supernatural. But it was written in that way.

Anyway, I love you to decimum. Any final thoughts?

Simone Collins: Just that I love you.

Malcolm Collins: Any interpretations about this interpretation?

Simone Collins: No, honestly, no. It just, it just makes so much more sense and leads to so much less sin. That I think in the end, when, when in doubt in interpreting scripture or general concepts, look at the consequences.

If one interpretation leads to more corruption, more harm, and more sin, then It's the wrong interpretation. So the Bible

Malcolm Collins: says it's best, By their fruits you will know them. How do you know the correct interpretation? It works. If it leads to mass child grief and cover ups, It's not the correct interpretation.

The Bible tells us that. Easy peasy. Right, guys? I love you, Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you, too. [01:32:00] Okay I'm gonna run down. What do

Malcolm Collins: But the most important thing and Octavian, you can come join us here. It removes the possibility that you might end up. Marrying someone because of how hot you thought they were. And that, and, and so when you're thinking about marrying them, all you're thinking about is, are they going to make good kids?

Octavian: You're not saying like and subscribe. You're not saying like and subscribe.

Say I'm like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

In this video, Al and Simone tackle a difficult historical question: Why did once-wealthy Muslim empires decline into poverty? They discuss misconceptions about the economic downfall and explore the historical context, including the wealth and advancements of Muslim empires around the year 1000. They also cover various socio-economic factors such as inheritance laws, usury laws, colonialism, and the alliance between religious and political authorities. The episode delves into specific challenges facing Muslim-majority countries compared to the historical context and also includes a discussion on modern Muslim income levels in the U.S. and the impact of governance and religious practices. The video concludes with thoughts about potential reforms and the importance of adapting religious interpretations to today's technological and socio-economic realities.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] HEllo Simone. Today we are going to be asking a question and I really do not know how to word this. Um, Why

are Muslims so poor?

 don't you get a job? If you're so hungry, why don't you get a job? Get a goddamn job, Al. You got a negative attitude.

Speaker: That's what's stopping you. You gotta get your act together.

Malcolm Collins: But somebody may, may look at this and be like, that's a silly question. You know, obviously Muslim regions of the world were never wealthy and colonialism and the Muslims are coming from poor countries and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, except none of those things actually explain the question at hand because.

In fact, at the year 1000, the Muslim empires were probably, by a pretty easy margin, the wealthiest place in the world. They [00:01:00] made up 10 percent of global GDP. Baghdad had between half a million and a million inhabitants around the year 1000. So that was larger than any city in Western Europe. And then what about Western Europe?

Well, the largest city in Western Europe at the time was actually an Islamic city. Cordoba. Which is in present day Spain, which had around half a million people living in it. Wow. They also were so O. P. In the sciences. You know, not just like inventing irrigation or more modern irrigation algebra modern medicine but they were so op in the sciences that western european authors when they would write in the sciences would write under fake islamic name So that people would take their work seriously,

Simone Collins: nice

Malcolm Collins: Which I just find absolutely hilarious.

And so for some of these old texts, we don't actually know if they were written by European scholars or Islamic scholars because all the European scholars had to write under Muslim [00:02:00] names because everyone just knew it like Muslim science better. And well, and this is where you get, you know, the owl prefix, that's algebras alchemy, which is basically chemistry of that period.

But, and if you're like, oh, colonialism, but by the 1700s, the Islamic world share of the GDP had dropped from 10 percent to just 2. 2%, and that was well before the era of colonialism.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So you can't blame this on colonialism something happened in between the year 1, 000 and the year 17, 000, which turned Islam from the global superpower cultural group, both in terms of technological output and in terms of economic output to a backwater.

And some individuals might say, well, but, but, but, you know. The European tradition is based on a much older you know, like they, they, they go, can go all the way back to classical Greece and [00:03:00] they just have an older tradition to draw from. Right. Or, or they could argue that well, Christianity maybe has an older tradition to draw from, but.

The problem , is that the Muslim world happens to have grown out of, where? Mesopotamia and Egypt! Much older traditions to draw from! Oh dear. You have the Persian Empire, which was, in many ways, significantly more advanced than the Greek Empire. I mean, that's what makes the Greco Persian wars for me, the most interesting period in history is you have this conflict that it's this existential conflict between two regions that are superpowers in totally unique and different ways.

Right. And, and it, it, it plays out so well. It's like a, a RPG where You know, like when, okay, when Starcraft came out in terms of like resource management, RPGs, that was like the first time I really remember playing one of those were like the different races that you could play as actually had like totally unique units to them.

And [00:04:00] in most of the other periods in history, when you're looking at wars or something like that, it is broadly similar units against broadly similar units. But when you go to the Greco Persian war, you are dealing with. Totally different civilizational structures and totally different, it's like it's different as the Terran and the Protoss, like, it, it is, it is, it is fascinating to me that this ever happened in human history and we can get to relive this and I might do other lectures on that.

So it is a meaningful effing question to ask. All right. But. I will point something out to start which might go against what some individuals say. So if you're looking within the United States, first of all Muslims, when you're talking about poverty levels do fall into poverty levels at slightly higher rates than other groups.

Specifically, 33 percent of American Muslims have a total household income of under 30, 000. That is compared to 12 percent of Jews, 20 percent of Catholics. 21 percent was in white evangelicals. So it is higher than those groups. But that [00:05:00] said overall, Muslims, at least within the United States are largely a middle class group.

So I will go over some other statistics from. The, the core reason that they're actually lower income in the United States is because a few things. One, they are on average younger with 35 percent between 18 and 29 compared to 21 percent of the general population. And younger people tend to have lower incomes.

They are largely immigrants. Many Muslims are recent immigrants, which can impact lower incomes. And among American Muslims, black Muslims in particular report lower incomes with 41 percent earning lower than 30, 000 annually. And again, this isn't because black people intrinsically earn less.

Uh, We will do another video on why black people in the U. S. earn less that is really interesting and might subvert some of your expectations around this.

Because I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but the stats are actually really interesting if you go in there with a non woke but also non biased perspective.

And then it all [00:06:00] sort of falls into place and it sort of paints the wokies as the primary bad guys and why the African American income is so low. But Education Muslim educational attainment in the United States is similar to other American groups. And the 2007 Pew research found that Muslim American income levels generally mirrored the general public.

So, for example, 14 percent of Muslims reported a household income of 100, 000 or more compared to 16 percent of the overall U. S. 40 percent of Muslim Americans reported family incomes between 30 and 100, 000 compared to 48 percent of the general public. And Yeah, so just generally speaking, and the survey actually says, quote, Muslim Americans have a general.

So not only are Muslims generally around the average American income, a little lower because you'd expect it because they're young and mostly immigrants so in the United States Muslims are generally comparable with the rest of the population, which again, is going to bring us to a more pointed question. Why then? Are [00:07:00] Muslim majority countries so low income on average?

Now we might be able to begin to see a few signs of what might be causing this when we look at countries other than America with large Muslim immigrant populations, like the United Kingdom. In 2018, only 55 percent of Muslims 16 to 64 were employed compared to 70. 9 percent of the overall population.

And this is particularly Are specifically because of Muslim women in the United Kingdom, which had really bad unemployment rates with 70 percent out of employment compared to 27 percent of Christian women. And when employed in the UK, Muslims tend to have lower earnings than any of the other religious groups.

And in 2018, Muslim employees had the lowest median hourly earnings of only 9. 6. And this was approximately half the median hourly earnings of some other religious groups.

Simone Collins: Okay, that's striking. Everything else I could think of in my head of, well, it could be this, it could be that, but what is going on there?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so first [00:08:00] I think it's because right here, what we're seeing is a bifurcation of immigration lower income immigrants or immigrants with lower skills are going to travel to countries that are easier to get to and that have higher social services. The United States, when contrasted with Europe, just has lower social services and it's harder to get to.

So it's going to disproportionately sort for higher quality immigrants. When they're coming from that far away. So that is one thing. But then again, that doesn't really explain anything that explains why immigrants in the United States are higher quality and why immigrants in the UK are and when I say quality, I mean, in terms of their impact on the economy, not as like human beings.

But Muslims in the UK are and are generally more of a drain on society as an immigrant group, not because of their Muslim status, but because of the selective immigration constraints created by the dichotomy between the option to immigrate to the United States versus the United Kingdom, where you could have access to a much better economy if you do [00:09:00] well and are well educated, but you're going to be in a much worse situation if you're not earning as much money.

Speaker 4: Um,

Malcolm Collins: So now we get to the bigger crux and it's like, okay, so we solved the immigrant question. Right. And the answer wasn't particularly interesting, but now we need to ask why the old Muslim empires ended up losing their wells.

Simone Collins: Yeah, especially having such this promising period and they, this, you would think at that time, like, if you probably looked at people in the world at that time, they would think, well, these are the people.

Kind of like during the height of the Roman Empire, like, obviously everything's going to be run by these people forever and for always because there's Yeah, you

Malcolm Collins: would really think that. I mean, that was the path that the Muslim Empire was on a way Like, they were the successors of the Roman Empire in terms of the technological and sort of,

Simone Collins: momentum.

Societal, everything. Cultural, societal, technological, all of it.

Malcolm Collins: All of it. Yeah. And they were bigger geographically than the Roman empire at their height. So like they had no, no [00:10:00] reason not to, to be cleaning up. It was their game to

Simone Collins: lose for sure.

It was their

Malcolm Collins: game to lose. So how did they lose it? It doesn't have anything to do with the religion itself is the interesting question.

Simone Collins: Oh, danger, but okay. Let's look at that.

Malcolm Collins: Interesting. So. To give you an idea of how much they lost the average per capita GDP in Muslim majority countries is 5, 000 lower than the global average.

Ugh, ouch. Only 14 percent of Muslims live under democratic systems, compared to 60 percent of the world's countries being governed democratically. And keep in mind, this is, yeah, when contrasted with that golden age. And so, And it's not even like their countries are uniquely resource poor like there are lots of wealthy Muslims out there

Speaker 5: Carnegie Fifth Avenue.

 We love the fashion.

Speaker 7: Louis Vuitton! Yes! Yes!

And there, underneath hundreds of years of tradition, [00:11:00] was this year's spring collection.

Malcolm Collins: But they well, the, the, the vast majority of the wealthiest Muslims attain their wealth by purview of being near oil rich regions or natural gas rich regions.

Now I will say that Dutch disease has not affected Muslim countries as much as other countries. And this reminds me, what is Dutch disease? That sounds like a tree disease. Doesn't it? But Dutch disease is what happens to a country when it happens to have too much Natural resources. If a country has natural, I think

Simone Collins: the Netherlands is doing pretty fricking well right now.

What are you talking about now? It is. I want Dutch disease. I mean, give it, it had a period

Malcolm Collins: where it wasn't,

Simone Collins: Give me the

Malcolm Collins: semiconductors.

Simone Collins: Give me the Ozempic. Give me the fricking tulips. Can we get all of it? I want all of it. So,

Malcolm Collins: Dutch disease doesn't necessarily have to turn into Dutch disease. Some countries that have it, if they are disciplined, have been able to turn it into an [00:12:00] enormous national benefit.

You know, whether it's the Scando countries or the Netherlands and their oil deposits, right? They have been able to create big national trust funds and everything like that. But some countries you know, this usually happens in places like Africa, if they have you know, like a lot of oil or a lot of precious minerals, it almost prevents the country from developing because there now is no reason to build out a tax base.

If you are the monarch of the country or you know, give this feels

Simone Collins: to me, analogous to. Kids born into wealth, right?

Speaker 8: I want one! I want a golden ghost! I want my geese to lay gold eggs for Easter. At least a hundred a day. Anything you say. And by the way,

Simone Collins: There are some kids born into wealth who go on and do really amazing things.

Speaker 8: ! I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket. Give it to me now.

Simone Collins: And if one calls them a nepo baby and blames them for that, but actually they, they [00:13:00] took their privilege and they built something with it.

Right.

Speaker 8: I want today. I want tomorrow.

Simone Collins: And then there's the other depo babies. Who just blow through their trust funds and are complete losers and don't do anything with their lives. And you know, what is the difference? Is it trust administration? Is it personal discipline? Is it family culture? I think it's the same. Well,

Malcolm Collins: and that's a good point.

Like people can say, Oh, this is like the, the Hollywood youth, like they see a Hollywood youth who like became a burnout and is like all addicted to drugs now and everything like that. And they're like, ah, you see, this is because he was a superstar when he was young, but then if you pointed another Hollywood youth who was successful, they're like, oh, his success can be discounted because he was a Hollywood youth.

And it's like, well. I mean, you can't hold both of those positions simultaneously. Either growing up in that position is actually pretty difficult and can lead to negatives or it's a positive. So Dutch disease has had a middling effect [00:14:00] in, in Africa. It's had a pretty bad effect on some Muslim majority countries, but generally, if you're looking at like the MENA countries in the Middle East they have dealt with it.

Okay, not as well as the Netherlands or the Scando countries, but better than most of the African countries. And maybe they'll be able to build some alternate economic model. They are trying right now, but you know who's to say, but the point here being, it's not a lack of a resource rich areas that has caused their current situation.

So we'll get right into it. Why specifically did the Muslim empire lose so much of its wealth between the year 1000 and 1700s? First, Islamic inheritance laws and polygyny contributed to the lack of large companies., A lot of the ideas in this are going to be drawn from a VisioPolitik episode.

On this particular topic that was just absolutely [00:15:00] fantastic. It's one of my favorite channels on YouTube. However they did make some mistakes and didn't discuss the subject as thoroughly as I'd like. And this was actually one of the mistakes they made is you know, they, they, they point out, Oh, well in Islam, you have to distribute your assets equally among your heirs.

And. Well, not really. You have to distribute your assets equally among your male heirs, and then the female heirs get half what the male heirs get, and the wife gets one eighth if you have kids, and one quarter if you didn't have kids. It's yeah, it's, it's complicated the way Islamic inheritance works.

Simone Collins: Okay, and I'm not saying it's enlightened when you look at Regency era inheritance laws and also left people quite screwed and they were the main turning point for many

Malcolm Collins: Well,

Simone Collins: no, no, no, it

Malcolm Collins: was enlightened when contrasted with European inheritance. Yeah No,

Simone Collins: European inheritance laws are certainly not my point is that I'm saying that those are they sound really crappy But I'm not [00:16:00] saying that non muslim inheritance laws weren't also crappy and probably well definitely worse

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, so a lot of people might hear this and they might be like, that sounds like it's a lot more egalitarian than European laws at the time.

Why is that a bad thing? Well, the story I always go to on this is when the English conquered the Irish, one of the laws that they imposed on them that was meant to ensure that none of them could ever become wealthy was that they forced the families to distribute assets to all male heirs equally. Upon the death of an individual.

And some people are like, why would that make a family poor? And it's like, well, because the previous system was that you consolidated the assets with the oldest heir. And so that meant that intergenerationally a family's wealth could always grow. If you have to split it between and keep in mind how many heirs you have in every one of these, these families, like six, seven, if you split it between a bunch of kids, well, then it's going to dilute pretty quickly.

Well, this gets worse. If you come from a polygynous society where Muslim cultures were [00:17:00] polygynous, they'd have multiple wives and you could have even more kids. So if you establish a great, great, great amount of wealth, well, now you're splitting them into all of your many, many, many, many, many kids. You are really going to have trouble building intergenerational wealth.

And it gets worse. So, the way that the Vigiel Paltik episode said, which is kind of wrong, they said that you had to dissolve the companies that people owned when they died, which isn't exactly accurate, but it's pretty close to accurate. When somebody dies under this system, the shares of the company have to be equally distributed among the youth.

And usually the easiest ways to do that is to dissolve or sell the company. Yeah. And. This is like a religious law.

Speaker 4: Okay. You can't get

Malcolm Collins: around this easily. So it means that most people within the Ottoman period and they, the Islamic scholars have developed better ways of dealing with this now to better match Western business customs, but [00:18:00] within the Ottoman period you know, it often made sense to just not really focus on building intergenerational wealth in the way that other people did.

And I think for you and me, one of the places where we saw this most starkly, do you remember when we went to that giant? Palace complex in the desert in Morocco, I want to say, and if you looked, you could climb up on the ruins of the area that we were in. Somebody was living in the ruins. It was one of the descendants of the person who originally owned it.

Yeah. And the entire complex was, was sort of divided into a grid like pattern. Because every generation, It had been split and split and split again. And some of the sections were beautiful, all in their original glory. And then other sections were almost entirely rubble. And other sections were in varying states of disrepair.

And you realize, oh, This is why you don't divide a palace equally every generation. You're not a good idea.

Simone Collins: No. But it

Malcolm Collins: also causes you to [00:19:00] not have as much motivation to build this sort of intergenerational wealth. And it means you're structuring your business dealings in a way where that's less likely to become an outcome.

But it gets worse than that in terms of dealing with non Muslims, but we'll get to that in a second. Now we're going to go to the To the thing that everybody knows about the struggles that Muslims have was doing business. Do you know what this is? What is the worst of the prohibition? Loans, et cetera.

Yeah. Yeah. Usury laws. And the interesting thing is, is that Christians of the middle ages had the same usury laws that Muslims had. Are you, you're familiar with this, right? Like the Christians actually couldn't do debt either.

Simone Collins: I actually didn't know this. For how long was this the case? It was at the Catholic church.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I think it might've been a Catholic thing. And then

Simone Collins: they changed their policy at one of those big meetings.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, or something like that. It loosened over time. But the point being is it's one of the ways that early Jewish culture got a lot of wealth because they didn't have the same usury restrictions as Christian culture.[00:20:00]

And debt is actually like really important to the functioning of a society. And, but it's important for all sorts of reasons you may not be thinking of. So, the, and I will note that the Muslim, like even during the Ottoman period, they had ways around these usury laws. Okay. Okay. So they would say, oh I will sell you the sheet for 100 now, but here's a contract where I have to buy it back from you for 150 later.

But all of these workarounds meant that the rate on debt. in the Ottoman Empire was 20 percent and it was 5 percent in the French Empire. Oh boy. If every one of your cultural group is just getting astronomically worse, 4x worse debt rates, you're going to do so, so, so much worse. And it gets worse than that.

When Europe developed one of the most ingenious financial instruments in history. human history which was bills of exchange, basically one bills that allowed you to basically carry cash between [00:21:00] settlements. And, and it allowed for interest. I'll read a definition of bills of exchange, a bill of exchange, the financial instrument that was widely used in medieval and early Europe to facilitate long distance trade and credit transactions.

It essentially functioned as a written order from one party, the drawer instructing another party, the drawee. To pay a specified sum of money to a third party, the payee at a future date. So it allowed for early forms of currency, for example. So I could you know, leave a bunch of money with one Templar compound and they'd give me a note that any other Templar compound would know meant I had my money was the first Templar compound.

And I might even be able to earn interest on that money. And then I could trade these. Note that only I could use a bandit who killed me couldn't use for things in other areas. And this is the first

Simone Collins: travelers checks, essentially.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, it mattered a lot in a period where, you know, otherwise you're going through bandit ridden [00:22:00] areas was like carts full of gold or other, you know, expensive.

Yeah, no,

Simone Collins: it was, that's a no go. That's a no

Malcolm Collins: go. Yeah. It gives them a reason to keep you for ransom rather than just take all the gold on your boat.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, I mean, the only way you could possibly travel with gold is if you had a whole retinue with you, and that cost a ton, so it just didn't, yeah, if you wanted to travel light, you had to do this.

Malcolm Collins: Now, this is not to say that Muslims didn't have some instruments to try to get around this, and these instruments were, and this is something you're going to see throughout this, They were developed well before the medieval Europeans developed these systems, but they were less sophisticated. So essentially the problem you're going to see over and over again is Muslims failed because they were dealing with more advanced systems that they were afraid to change.

It was not in spite of their previous [00:23:00] wealth and technological prowess that they failed. It was because of their wealth and previous technological prowess. So is this

Simone Collins: similar to the issue that you see with rapidly developing countries and countries that already developed where when countries are building major infrastructure using modern technology, it's just so much better versus the old nations that are stuck with the old infrastructure just sucks.

Is, is that kind of what we're looking at here?

Malcolm Collins: Sort of, yeah, that's, that's kind of it. And we'll probably do an episode on this phenomenon later. So I'll go over some of the Muslim structures because I actually think they're pretty interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Not heard of these before.

Malcolm Collins: And I am going to mispronounce everything.

A Mubarra was a type of Islamic partnership widely used for trade and commerce. Key features of a Mubarra include, one party, Arab Amal, provides capital, while the other, a Murabiria, provides labor and experience. So basically one person, the investor, gives capital, and the other, the [00:24:00] investee, gives labor and experience.

Profits are shared according to a pre agreed ratio. Losses are borne solely by the capital provider, unless caused by the mirabilary's negligence or misconduct. It sounds a lot like a startup, doesn't it? It does. It,

Simone Collins: it does. And I just When you butcher a word in a foreign language, it's like when Gomez speaks Italian to Morticia.

I just, you kill me. I love it.

Malcolm Collins: Don't stop. Or when Morticia. No, really? Yeah. Well, we'll see. I'll add, I'll add a scene and the audience can decide.

Tish. That's French. Gomez.

Malcolm Collins: Cause he

Simone Collins: keeps saying Cara Mia.

Malcolm Collins: That's no, I guess. Yeah. He says that. And then anyway, whatever. So, it was used for both short term trade expeditions and [00:25:00] long term business ventures.

So it could be used for trade expeditions, which are really important in the Muslim empire because they have a much more advanced trade network than the Europeans did with the Silk Road being a largely Muslim thing. So next reason. So it already is looking pretty bad for the Muslim empire, but it's just going to keep getting worse. Legal and business practices in the Islamic world discouraged foreign investment in partnerships. Now this isn't because they were explicitly discouraged by the Koran or anything, but But remember how I talked about all those really specific and technical and strict rules around inheritance in the Quran?

Well, they apply when you're working with a non Muslim. This is why here of large Muslim non Muslim partnerships in a historic context. If I form a business partnership with a you know, a strict Muslim in a historic context, again, The, the religious structures for getting around this have become significantly more advanced in modern times.

This isn't the same problem it was historically. [00:26:00] But, in a historic context, I'd have to dissolve it if my partner died. So like, why would I work with them? But it's worse than that. There are other reasons why you wouldn't work with them. Specifically Ottoman judges rarely accepted written contracts as evidence, relying instead on oral testimony.

Simone Collins: Oh, no. Oh, so this is just one of those things where like those nations that you could never invest in a company because you're just so afraid that that nation is going to first say, oh, yeah, come on in to my great country and 3 years later, they're like, by the way, that's my business now. Thank you. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: no, I say it still works that way in most Muslim majority countries because that would be a very offensive thing to say.

So you, you're certainly not saying it then tried to do business in some of these countries and lost a lot of money even though the companies did quite well. Oh. But as a, as a note here that, that in, in Istanbul, in the 18th century, [00:27:00] only. 3 percent of cases where a contract was brought to the judge, was it considered valid evidence?

So what did judges use instead of contracts because they didn't value written stuff? And this is a Muslim cultural thing. They really valued like in person face to face business deals. Oh, this is my worst

Simone Collins: nightmare.

Malcolm Collins: Networks of trust, right? Well, okay, here's the problem. If I am a Muslim judge in a Muslim empire and two people have a disagreement and I'm relying on oral testimony, which oral testimony am I going to value more highly?

It's going to be the Muslim oral testimony. Yeah. Great. So you must be sitting here thinking, ha ha ha. So the Muslims in the Ottoman Empire, they must have been sitting pretty. It's like Actually not. Nobody wanted to do business with them because of this. This is why corruption is bad. So religious minorities ended up making all the money in the Ottoman Empire.

While [00:28:00] Muslims made up 45 percent of the Ottoman Empire's population, exports and imports, they only made up 10. 3%. Man, exports and imports were what was it? 89. 7 percent owned by religious minorities. Oh

Simone Collins: no.

Malcolm Collins: So that's, yeah, that's why you don't want to have, like, everybody always thinks like corrupt systems are going to help you, but they really don't.

They help you in the short term, but they hurt you in the longterm.

Speaker 4: Right.

Malcolm Collins: And, and that's why trust is so useful if you're trying to build big businesses.

Simone Collins: Well, or a good culture. If you want to build a culture. That thrives. You should build a culture that people consistently feel like they can trust and want to work with.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's almost like they were shooting themselves in their foot. Was this stuff? We'll get into this more in a second, but I mean,

Simone Collins: someone has to think through this a little bit and think.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, hold it. It gets worse. They also banned printing presses, which we'll get to in a bit, Mr. Why, and all the culture on this, but they only banned them for the Arabic language.[00:29:00]

Christians could still have printing presses, just the Muslims couldn't have printing. Is this like something like about sacredness or what? What was the reasoning? We'll get to it in a second why it was the case, but the point being, it's just like, okay, so now nobody trusts your people. And everyone else is super educated.

And your people are like legally not allowed to become educated. Like this seems like a bad system.

Simone Collins: They just, well, it seems so antithetical, at least to my mind. Priors on the height of the Muslim empire with this just education blossoming and intellectualism and

Malcolm Collins: It did for a period it was the highest Well, also a lot of these things were just like royals not thinking through things So the ottoman empire at its height made up 60 percent of the world's muslim population it really was like the focus of it.

And so when you think ottomans you think janissaries, right? You guys know the Janissaries,

Simone Collins: I wait, I don't know the Janissaries. I've never heard of the Janissaries.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, well, this requires some [00:30:00] education because to understand the stupidity of this entire situation, you need to understand the Janissaries.

Okay. The Ottomans came up with this brilliant system when they would conquer an enemy who was not Muslim usually Christian groups.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): I will add corrections as I go through this, because all this has done for memory, but the answer is always Christian groups in, most of them came from the Balkans.

Malcolm Collins: They would take their children, well not all of them, but like one in ten or something like that, they had different systems, but yeah.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: It was actually done through a tax on the slaves that the military was taking in.

Malcolm Collins: And you had to offer them up as tribute to the, the Ottomans and then the Ottomans would take these young boys who were born into Christian families, and they would train them to be their elite soldiers from birth.

And this was actually pretty effective in the short term because it meant that, you know, when the Janissaries would go in, there were crack troops with advanced gunpowder weaponry. The Ottomans were the first people to go into gunpowder [00:31:00] weaponry, talking about being ahead of like technology.

Simone Collins: I thought Chinese.

Are you sure it's not the Chinese?

Malcolm Collins: I'm talking about in the West.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Keep in mind the Ottomans had the trade networks coming to China before they could get to Europe. They're like, oh, new technology. Let's, let's arm our guys with this and not let this go any further. Anyway, So Janissaries, elite gun troops, very early, very powerful if you were, like, one of these Christian settlements, you would have some hesitancy about firing back, because this could be your brother, this could be your son, yeah, absolutely, your son, you're, you know, so, so very powerful, but these people, people were, you know, ra in the courts.

And I brainwashed, not really b were just raised in a dif the time they could remem they weren't raised like. Is they weren't raised like bad. Okay. Yeah. They were castrated. Oh, you didn't mention that. Come on. That's frustrated. I have to remember this, but I mean, I'll cut this out if I'm wrong about it.

[00:32:00] But it doesn't

Simone Collins: seem, it doesn't seem likely that they would castrate elite warriors cause you need the testosterone to kick ass.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: To show you how bad Google's gotten him about doing a quick Google search to see if the Janissaries were castrated. And Google says, yes, they were castrated when I did the search.

However, after recording this, I decided to go back and double check this in. No, they were not castrated. This is a common myth. Conception. Because while many of the members of the court were castrated, the Janissaries were not specifically the members of the court that were most likely to be castrated.

We're the sons of Muslim.

Dignitaries in slaves who were brought in primarily from Africa. So, yeah. , where did I did get wrong? And what I do remember is that the Janissaries originally weren't allowed to have families.

But by the 18th century, it had become normalized for the Janissaries to have family. And actually by like 1820s, they ended up having to be formerly disbanded because they had become so powerful.

Simone Collins: You definitely need the testosterone to kick ass.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, some Janissaries [00:33:00] were castrated but if I remember correctly, after the Janissaries gained power, SPOILER ALERT they they stopped castrating them.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: What I had. Misremembered here is that after they gained power, they gained the right to have wives and children.

Not that they stopped being castrated.

Malcolm Collins: So First

Simone Collins: order of business, please stop gutting up our dicks.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so, so, here's what happened, okay? So, the Janissaries were not treated poorly.

It was actually kind of an ethical system in a way. So, yeah, they take your kid, but that kid would get to live in the castle. Like, like they lived around like the, the, the, you can go, if you tour the Ottoman castles, you can tour where the Janissaries lived,

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: I should do it dinner. All Janissaries lived in the court complex. , the majority actually lived at specialized Janissary training areas.

, but some lived in the court complex and that is relevant for the rest of the story.

Malcolm Collins: they were basically like court officials kind of, and they were pretty high status court officials within like the larger Ottoman court [00:34:00] system because they were a full time military and keep in mind full time militaries were not common back then to have standing military.

So that was also pretty advanced. Yeah. And, and they lived at the court and they gained a lot of power. Well, the problem is, is they kept gaining more and more and more power. Kind of like the Praetorian guard was in Rome. If you want to know a bag of dicks, look up the history of the Praetorian guard.

And I might do something on that. Well, that was the, the elite guard that was supposed to guard you know, the Caesar. And it turns out that that being that elite guard gives you increasingly more like you go 200, 300 years you begin to get more and more and

more favors for your group because you're this you know, intergenerational.

Speaker 10: However, the time had finally come, the time for a new age, the time for revenge. And so, Constantine proclaimed that the Praetorian Guard would [00:35:00] be

Speaker 11: abolished!

Malcolm Collins: So, there's a group of former Christians that they brought in basically ended up running the show was in a few hundred years and gain more and more power was in castle politics till they were basically running everything.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: Until they were disbanded by Ottoman Sultan Muhammad. The second Essentially.

The Ottoman [00:36:00] sultans took a bunch of Christian Young boys. In turned the Ottoman courts into a, uh, this situation right here.

Malcolm Collins: And it might also show why they didn't. Care as much that the muslim subpopulations were getting sort of stomped on because they didn't have any ethnic allegiance to them.

They were just like are you following the rules? Okay, I don't care Well, if they're doing

Simone Collins: their job and it sounds like they were

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they were doing their job. The janissaries were quite good at a lot of what they did They were not as bad as the praetorians. Now we are going to go to the next point and this is going to remind you a lot of modern times simone Okay The alliance between the religious and political authorities hindered progress and increased the size of the bureaucracy.

So I will put a graph on screen here that will show the number of trades by sector by date. And the orange is the earlier, the first half of the Ottoman empire, and the blue is the second half. And this was actually taken from the visual [00:37:00] politic video on this. And you can see an explosion in the amount of bureaucratic and military spending.

Okay. Where it used to be the minority. It used to be that most of the spending was on commerce and industry. But it exploded to like eight X what it was in the first half of the empire. And then you also had an explosion on. Education and clericacy and religious spending specifically in the early Islamic Empire, the Alma, which were basically the knowledge workers, the religious elites that would handle like court cases and stuff like that.

Well, the system really worked when they were mostly religious officials. When they began to get closer to the entrenched power structures and realized they could reinforce those power structures, essentially, the size of the bureaucracy kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. This is very similar to one of those modern graphs where I put on screen here about, like, how our education system, we keep putting more money into it, but the money just keeps going more and more and more to the administration, and none of it is going to the teachers or the students or anything like that because bureaucracy is very good at self [00:38:00] replicating if you don't come through clean house, burn it with fire.

Malcolm Collins: That is the way bureaucracies need to be treated.

Now, you also had another problem happening here, which is in all, so far, we've only been talking about the more minor problems. We're going to get to the big, big, big, big issue in just a second here. But due to a series of crop failures that happened during this period, people begin to move to something called ICTAs which were local fiefdoms, which made them sort of like, They were regressing to a more feudal state from what was a more urban state.

Muslims were much more of an urban people than the Europeans in this early period. It is part of why they developed all these prohibitions around dogs, because generally only urban cultural groups develop prohibitions around dogs. Dogs. We have a video on that. It's why did Jews own, not own guns where we talk about this?

Cause Jews are another mostly urban population and that have been urban for centuries [00:39:00] and that also have prohibitions against dogs. But they moved them to be more rural and into these fiefdoms. And as these fiefdoms begin to develop, they begin to divide the power of the Ottoman empire. But the Ottoman kingship was able to maintain authority, like not have to worry about being overthrown by marrying into them.

And sort of supporting their power, which prevented the country from economically developing, which sort of froze it in a futile state.

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Now here's the big one. The Ottomans had a prohibition against the printing press for around 200 years, though I need to make some notes here. It was only for the Muslim.

Talk about like shooting yourself in the foot. It was only for Arabic. So if you're a Muslim and you knew other languages, you were okay. But like a lot of Muslims didn't know other languages in here. I will put a graph here showing literacy rates where you can see that Turkey's literacy rate in the 1960s was [00:40:00] comparable to 15th century.

Netherlands. Oh yeah. Yeah. It was bad. But the thing is, is they weren't entirely stupid to ban it.

Simone Collins: Okay. Why? There's

Malcolm Collins: two reasons why they banned it. One is more stupid than the other, but it wasn't wrong exactly. So the first is that there was this giant A sort of union or, or, or guild of calligraphers.

Simone Collins: Oh, they were trying to prop up the calligraphy industry. Big calligraphy, shut down printing presses,

Malcolm Collins: calligraphy living in the United States. Have you ever traveled in a Muslim country?

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, actually, okay, you haven't. I should send you to one. I've been to lots of Muslim majority countries. And if you've been to a Muslim majority country, you're like, Oh, I can see why big calligraphy would have a lot of power.

Every mosque is decorated because they have prohibitions against idolatry that are often much harsher. Christian or Jewish prohibitions against idolatry. [00:41:00] And so what they use to decorate everything is the Quranic words and verse.

Simone Collins: And it's gorgeous. I mean, from what I've seen in museums and whatnot, absolutely stunning.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I would argue this is still a form of idolatry, but whatever. Point being, They didn't see it that way. They saw it as like their core. Or look at the old Testament.

Simone Collins: Okay. Humans have a long track record of just, Oh, that golden calf is so cool.

Malcolm Collins: And just, yeah, they got to start putting gold in the letters, you know?

But, but yes, so they did lots and lots and lots of calligraphy. It was sort of their main form of artwork. You could almost say their main form of cultural expression. And so I don't feel like the printing

Simone Collins: press wouldn't have me as a an official or a king or a policymaker of that time concerned because there are still, it's not like the printing press is going to change mosque decoration.

Malcolm Collins: They weren't just involved in that form of calligraphy. Keep in mind, the Islamic empire also had, because they had been the world's knowledge [00:42:00] center for so long, The largest libraries, you know, when we, everyone says when the Ottoman empire was sacked by the Mongols, which was another big thing here, they don't say the rivers ran red.

They ran black with the ink of books. That is how valuable the libraries were, how vast the libraries were in the Islamic empires. They had entire villages of calligraphers that were attached. To the palace complexes, to be writing the laws, to be writing all the books, to be doing all that. They were seen as associated with knowledge, and they were not wrong.

In fact, think about these, you'll see where a lot of modern analogies are about to come into this, or a lot of modern comparisons. The second thing they fear was that if The printing press [00:43:00] wrote the Qur'an down and made it easy to access, and just anyone could read it. I mean, what if people started to have disagreements?

That could lead to war, a century of strife. And people laugh and they're like, oh, so silly. That didn't happen in Europe when the printing press was invented. And then they're like, oh, wait, no, that's exactly what happened in Europe when the printing press was invented. Regular citizens picked up a copy of the Bible, started reading it, and they turned to the Catholic Church and was like, hey, wait a f ing second.

This doesn't say what you said it said. This is something entirely different. And, and there's, there's different ways this could be interpreted. And then they went to war over it. And that's a little thing that we call the Reformation. And then all of the wars that came out of the Reformation. So they were not wrong about this.

And I would contrast all of these fears with the [00:44:00] fears that people have today about a I. It's a new technology. So who who complains about it? If the A. I. Is is allowed. It's gonna take the jobs of our knowledge workers.

Speaker 4: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it could cause strife. And the other thing that they argued, and they literally argued this is we just don't know what the long term effects of this technology are gonna be.

It's safer to just not use it. Safer for who? The existing power hierarchy.

Speaker 4: This

Malcolm Collins: is why, in the modern time, the individuals who are most ardently arguing against the proliferation of AI technology are the existing power hierarchy. Power hierarchy, you know, you are, you look at these individuals who, from my perspective, almost seem to like worship raw, like Eliezer Youkowsky, very nergalytic in their viewpoints.

They're like, I want, I want to freeze society as it is now, you know, we're going to stop technological development. I'm going to live forever. And I'll play my little nergal song here that I actually quite like. It looks like it was created with AI too. Good example of how good [00:45:00] AI has gotten.

Speaker 12: So cast off your fears of age and blight. In putrescence find your true delight. For in my real all I cherish, so let my blessings upon you grow. Embrace the Let Bloom inaction.

Join

my God.

Malcolm Collins: And we'll be launching our channel theme song soon.

I've been pretty slow about having that go live. I'm just I don't like change. I'm scared. I'm scared. But that's the thing, right? You get scared of change. Fans get scared of change. They're like, oh, you're doing something new now. So they weren't exactly wrong about the change that they thought [00:46:00] technological progress could have.

They were just wrong that on the margins it was good for their people over the long run. And I think that this is really what we're gonna see with AI as well. Now there are some things that I didn't go into as much. The Mongol invasions of the 13th century were really bad. The problem is, is that Europe also had Mongol invasions during this period, so I think there's sort of, I mean, Okay, the Muslim empires act as a buffer zone and the Mongols definitely hit them harder, specifically regions of learning and commerce like Baghdad, but it's not like the Europeans weren't constantly at war during this period as well.

Another thing that wasn't mentioned in the VisualPolitik video is the development of intellectual property rights. Was never really able to happen in the Muslim empire.

Because Islamic societies traditionally viewed knowledge as a gift from God that should be freely shared.

So you couldn't patent something. They had the concept of ilm, knowledge, was central to Islamic culture with an [00:47:00] emphasis on dissemination rather than ownership. This approach fostered a culture of open access to ideas, but potentially reduced individual incentives for innovation. And this is why you get these ideas like communism and stuff that sound good on paper, and then you're like, yes, but that reduces the incentives to improve one's property.

Just so you understand what I'm saying here if you, like, give somebody land under a communist system, but they don't have ownership over that land, what you will always see is Focus on personal improvements to that land as much or investing in that land But when somebody owns a property because they can resell it they focus a lot on improving it It's the same with ideas you focus on improving them if you can profit from them when people can't own ideas you end up people generating them at a lower rate but you have the the other problem here, which is from the 14th century onwards You There was a gradual shift in attitudes towards innovation in many Islamic societies.

The concept of bid'ah, [00:48:00] or innovation in religious matters, began to be applied more broadly to secular innovations. This led to a more conservative approach to ideas and technologies in some Islamic societies. Specifically resistant to technologies that were coded as foreign. For example, they did not use a mechanical clocks for a long period.

As a

Simone Collins: policy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Because they were seen as like too foreign. Okay. Also note, when you're talking about the development of intellectual property rights, if they were particularly important in the patent system that emerged in Renaissance Italy and the statute of Anne in 1710 England, which marked a significant move forwards in copyright law, which again, made it much more beneficial to develop works of knowledge.

So thoughts.

Simone Collins: This makes me wonder about China's Increasingly isolationist policy when it comes to technology and trade and culture, how it seems on the [00:49:00] surface, like this will benefit your people and this will help you stay strong. And I can even understand from China's to detainment editorializing, like what Americans are watching and consuming is just idiocracy level content.

And they not only see us. Experiencing degradation as a result of it, but kind of are trying to accelerate it with what they're allowing on tech talk in the United States versus in China, but at the same time, that isolationism appears to have a track record of not performing very well. And then also when you look at other.

I mean, we've talked about Venice thriving, for example, Venice didn't just thrive because it was in very harsh conditions and forced to be resilient. It also thrived because it was extremely open to the rest of the world and thrived on trade and exchange. And I feel like to a certain extent, the Roman Empire did as well, to a certain [00:50:00] extent, and went to a great extent, the United States did.

It just seems to me like this, this is a historical lesson to all of us to all cultures and all countries that pure isolationism is not A great idea.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and the Ottoman Empire wasn't truly isolationist. It was keep in mind, they had other religious minorities that didn't have these same rules. Yeah.

It was like all the bad parts of isolationism without any of the good sides. And I must say that isolationism is in general bad, just as a separate thing from this conversation. Specifically, if you Avoid a specific temptation, or if you avoid learning to overcome a specific technology other groups will out compete you.

So for example, within this generation, America is suffering because China is bombarding us with all of these you know, titty tainment as they call it, right. On Tik TOK and stuff like that. But how [00:51:00] does America react to that? How do people like you and me, how does a new right react to that? We are trying to develop new cultural systems.

That are resistant to that. Mm-Hmm. . And in 50 years when we go back to China, and they already are on the back foot because they have a dwindling population of falling apart economy, which are all basically inevitability at this point. Right. And now we can create a new opium war basically. So the opium situation is with the Europeans, like, so cruelly basically forced opium on China and the government was like don't do this.

Our people are getting addicted to it. And they're like, well, suck it up. We're more powerful than you. China is to an extent doing that to the United States right now. They have flooded our markets with opium and we are developing cultural resistances to this. And when the table is flipped It might be that our experiences make us less sympathetic when they're explaining that their offspring cannot stay away from whatever form of tick tock they are engaging with when the government is no longer controlling these systems.

And I think that that is why I am always so, [00:52:00] so, so skeptical of anyone who's like, we can overcome something by. Ignoring it and restricting access to it. No, that is what you need to learn to resist it. You need to build technologies to resist it as soon as possible, because in the long run, that's, what's going to make you strong.

But I also think the shows and it's something that I think about a lot in the way that we, you know, because people know our techno Puritan project, techno puritan. com, you can check it out. You can check out our track series on YouTube, where we're trying to sort of outline a religious system for our kids based on what the Bible actually says.

Rather than what people pretend it says. And While I'm doing it, I always ask myself, Okay, how could this thing I'm saying be misinterpreted? How could this thing I'm saying cause like this downstream negative consequence? And I think that Mohammed put a lot of thought into that more than any of the other people who were creating religious and cultural systems.

But he didn't have any previous system he could look [00:53:00] at and be like, Oh I need to leave some flexibility here because there could be some sort of technological innovation. That changes the way people relate to this or this or this strict interpretation. And so it's something that I personally put a lot of thought into when looking at something like pretty much all of the negative consequences that Islam saw came from positively intentioned ideas on the surface.

Think we're positively intentioned.

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's what's so interesting is that you have. None of this had to do inherently with the Islamic religion. None of this had inherently to do with Aside from the whole big calligraphy thing, I'm going to argue.

Malcolm Collins: Also, there is the factor of women not participating in the workface in a historic basis, but now Islamic women actually get more STEM degrees than Islamic men.

In most of the Muslim countries, this is actually a big problem. Is that the women are just, you know, cause the [00:54:00] men go to become educated on like religious matters and stuff like that. Like they basically get it. versions of a classics degree, which I, you know, there's like traditionalist Christians in the United States.

They're all about classics degrees and I'm like, so against them. I'm like no, find another way to respect your culture. This is something that you should be studying recreationally, not as your primary thing. So by that, what I mean is I really liked the way that like a lot of Jews do this, like they'll get a college degree, like law or something like that.

And then they go to the, the, I forget the word for it. The Torah school as like an extra thing that I'm all about. Like, if you want to do like an extra two years of education in the classics, fine, but that shouldn't be like, instead of a STEM degree. But it was in Muslim culture. It was actually very common.

But the women they're like, well, I need to support the family. So I'll get the real degree. And this creates an interesting phenomenon that a lot of people might. Which is the less, the, the more gender equality a country has, and the more freedom women have in a country, the fewer STEM degrees they get in the more humanities degrees they get.

And the less [00:55:00] equality women have the more STEM and hard science degrees they get and the less humanities degrees. Like in the Netherlands, the rates of STEM degrees are like super, super low. You go to the UAE, they're like super, super high. That's fascinating.

Simone Collins: Do you think, well, so if you were a leader in a majority Muslim country or an Islamic religious leader, you know, with sort of more cultural influence.

Are there things that you would try to shift or nudge now to counter some of the general trajectories that obviously, I mean, you can't flip things. This has been happening for hundreds of years, right? You know, this is now now your whole. Cultural religious system is facing a systemic disadvantage that was kicked off a long time ago.

But what would you try to do to try to shift the trajectory back in the direction of wealth and earnings and prosperity and influence?

Malcolm Collins: I think a real thing to note here is the notes of sale thing, right? Like the use of the

Speaker 4: [00:56:00] law.

Malcolm Collins: Christianity used to have these as well

Speaker 4: and

Malcolm Collins: it abandoned them. And.

This is to say that, you know, I think religions need to be living things and you need to look at the original text, see if there's other ways that could be interpreted. I, I'd say that I'd say that what we can see is there's nothing intrinsic about Islam that makes it anti science. Like clearly it was very good at science for a period, but I think that culturally speaking right now, it's definitely going in the wrong direction.

By this, what I mean is a lot of the men are, you know, getting these. well, these basically humanities degrees. And yet they have these leading positions in society, which is even, even when they have wells, which leads them to make like really bad decisions, because they're not thinking like somebody who actually needs to make stuff work.

And yeah, it's, it's just a bad scenario. And I also note that you know, when we were visiting like, yes, you have been in a Muslim majority [00:57:00] country, Simone, you were in Morocco with me. Oh,

Simone Collins: I forgot.

Malcolm Collins: Do you remember all the calligraphy everywhere?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Sorry, I

Simone Collins: forget everything in the past.

Malcolm Collins: Do you remember when we were visiting like those tribal areas?

Yeah. And that so the one tribal group, they had the, the men didn't work at all. They would only study the Quran all day, every day. And the women did all the work. And there was that, like, infinitely deep well. They had abandoned the settlement area that we were looking at, that the woman had just dug and dug and dug and dug until a local city because it was taking all the water.

So they moved out to another like further nomadic area. But I, I think that this is really unproductive when cultural groups do this. When they have the men just study their religious texts all day and the women are expected to do all the work. I'm not, I'm not thinking of any group in particular here, not, not the Haredi for sure.

No, because I had studied Islam before I had [00:58:00] studied Judaism much. It was so interesting to me that as soon as I met the Haredi, I go, Oh, you guys are like extremist Muslims. And they're like, wait, what? No. And I was like, No, this is the way muslims live. They're like wait, no we're we're like extra jewish And I was like i've never seen a cultural group that does this in the world other than muslims.

Rural pastoralist muslims live like this Which Okay and that was that was my immediate assumption and it still is an assumption. I have in the back of my head where, to me, they feel because of, like, my education. When I was introduced to Judaism, I studied historic Judaism and I studied you know, modern orthodox Judaism, but not.

Or not orthodox, conservative Judaism, and it's a movement. It's not conservative small state. It's like a name for a movement of Judaism. So because I knew conservative Judaism and I knew historic Judaism, when I saw and started looking at the Haredi and I traveled through Israel and stuff like that my brain just coded them as Muslim y Jews.

And that's the way I thought of [00:59:00] them for a long time. I mean, I can

Simone Collins: see it. I can see it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, you remember those groups, right? Of the Muslims who in the, in the, in the pastoralist regions that lived in the desert and where the men just didn't do anything but study all day. And I just remember going over their settlements and I was like, well, this is explains why their technology didn't advance so much.

You need both genders to work together to make things better. You can't have one just. Yeah. around with a book all day. So how would I change things? I mean, I, I like like, okay, the, the princess Saudi Arabia right now, he needs to like, turn down the murder. Okay. Turn down the murder. But. I like a lot of his ideas.

I think that Islam has the potentiality to be great again, but I think that the leadership cast needs to get more involved with the theology. So right [01:00:00] now, the way a lot of Islamic cultures work, and I'd actually say that this is what's going to cause the death knell of Islamic culture, not in terms of fertility rates because typically the less money you have, the more kids you have.

But in terms of long term cultural relevance is that If you look at like the Saudis, you had two groups from an alliance, the Wahhabis and the royal family. So the Wahhabis, a lot of people don't know this, this was like a religious group of clerics that had a particularly strict interpretation of Islamic law.

And then the royal family sort of started working with them and they ended up building up this alliance. empire together. And it sort of was this like implicit thing, like we'll help you Wahhabis if you give us legitimacy, the, the royal family. And remember that Oh, what percent of it Muslims live in democracies?

It's like really small.

Simone Collins: Is it, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it is. Yeah, only 14 percent of Muslims live under a democratic system, while 60 percent of the world's countries are governed democratically. And so you might be like, well, what's the problem of like a [01:01:00] religious family being partnered with a royal family? I am actually more pro true theocracies than I am pro this.

Simone Collins: Oh, interesting. Why?

Malcolm Collins: I am more pro the Iranian system than I am pro. What is the Iranian

Simone Collins: system?

Malcolm Collins: Basically everything is run by the the priest head guy and they have a democratic government that works under that, but he's sort of the end all be all, the Ayatollah.

 ! Gentlemen! If we do nothing else this week, we must conceive at least one terrorist act that will show all the world That the United States, is but a paper tiger.

Speaker 14: A weak nation, a weak people cowards! No longer willing to [01:02:00]

Speaker 13: Don't ever let me catch you guys in America!

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. But the Saudi Arabia system is a partnership between the religious and it's like, what's the problem?

Well, because the religious system is going to have a differentiated hierarchy than the system that needs to make the government work. And so what ends up happening is the, the religious guys end up competing within a power hierarchy where they win by being more extreme in their religiosity.

Speaker 4: And

Malcolm Collins: the Guys who are actually supposed to be running things need to appease this group that has become ultra extreme in their religiosity because they don't actually care about how wealthy the country is. They don't actually care about the, you know, geopolitical situation. They don't actually care about the situation on the ground for the average person living in the country.[01:03:00]

They just care about their own internal ultra religious power hierarchy. groups into one group. Or you, they better work together. You could do essentially what we are doing with Christianity in terms of the techno puritan project, which is to say, okay, reading what's actually in the Quran. Let's see if this stuff might be able to be interpreted differently now that we have better access to technology, better

Speaker 4: access.

Malcolm Collins: historical records of what was going on during the period. And keep in mind, I consider Islam one of the true religions. So I think that if they actually went back and studied this stuff in context, they would find it's not telling them to do all of this really well, Not useful stuff in terms of how they're living their lives, which is is slowing down technological progress in these regions and they might be able to build a Tradition that they can adhere to strictly so do not compromise to the urban monoculture.

Absolutely. Do not the west is You are [01:04:00] right to see these western cultural influences as toxic. They are they are destroying many of our societies but you cannot just rely on a You pre industrial understanding of your religion, we know more now as a species, and I think that Allah expects you to reinterpret your religious texts with this new knowledge that we have, and with these new cultural understandings we have, to make them better.

There's just never going to be a motivation Motivation to do that if the people who are in charge of running things and who are responsible for the future of the society are separated from the people who are the, the theocratic class.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: I don't know how this would solve it because. Wasn't that fully integrated at the time when most of these policies, which have since turned out to be quite damaging, were first implemented?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but when they were first

Simone Collins: implemented, they weren't

Malcolm Collins: damaging.

Simone Collins: So you're [01:05:00] saying they were fine at the beginning, but poor governance design and misaligned incentives caused them to become toxic. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: bureaucratic bloat, misincentive. The Ottoman Empire, and we talk about this in the Pragmatist Guide to Governments, it was just too large and for too long and it became bloated and it didn't die fast enough. If the Ottoman Empire had died quickly around the year 1000 or something like that I suspect Islam today could be in the state of most Christian Even, even with all of these things weighing it down, if it had become a warring set of states, it would have done much better.

Simone Collins: Okay, that, I guess, yeah, I mean, that could be the answer to anything though, you know, like, Well, the world would be better if we just, Had better governance design and it would almost everything would be better.

Malcolm Collins: Fresh governance design more. I mean, the U S is entering a state like this soon. It is.

Simone Collins: Well, it [01:06:00] is, but also like even brand new governments can do terrible, horrifying things with that governance design.

Enter communist China under Mao. You know, this is one of those things that just, or Chaz. Yeah. Enter anything. So it doesn't matter. No matter what, how much time you have or how new or old something is, bad governance is what will destroy it in the end. So I don't know if that's. My preferred answer. And that's, that to me feels like the lazy answer, but I guess it's also the true answer.

So how do we get around it? Right. It just,

Malcolm Collins: No, it's not governance design is that you need to build a better religion. And when I say build a better religion, I don't mean a religion that's out in line with what the Quran says. I mean, a religion that isn't , a, year 1000 interpretation of the Koran is a year 1000 understanding of science and a year 1000 understanding of technology in a year 1000.

That's the problem. It's not the Koran. It's that you're [01:07:00] looking at it through a medieval lens and you're still trying to compete within those hierarchies.

Simone Collins: So you're saying basically they need to drain the swamp. They need to start fresh. Just, do you think, do you think something that would be beneficial for religions is for every, I don't know, 200 years, 100 years, 50 years, just give, give me a time interval.

You completely flush the entire governance system and both redesign it and restaff it. Yes. Yes. I feel like it would work really well for Catholicism for I think I would go that

Malcolm Collins: short. I'd say every 50 or 100 years.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I would say 50 years. Maybe like once every generation at least.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, then once every 30 years.

I think that's a good one. Once

Simone Collins: every 30 years. Yeah. It's just, and, and also for not just for religions. For [01:08:00] governments, I guess it would be difficult. There are probably some things that need to be continuous.

Malcolm Collins: But then you need a persistent governance system overseeing the new design.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I don't know.

But yeah, I just

Malcolm Collins: We'll talk about this in a governance design video. I love you to death, Simone. This has been a spectacular conversation.

Simone Collins: I love you too, Malcolm. What do you want for dinner?

How dare you knock my ideas because I'm always correct and never possibly wrong.

Malcolm Collins: Well, you are actually pretty good with visual stuff. So I'll, I'll, I'll give it a try.

Simone Collins: Cause that's what the woman, this actually

Malcolm Collins: turned out pretty good looking this new set. I'm I don't hate it.

Simone Collins: No, it's no, we have to buy property.

This is, Like the janky, we're trying a new place for the first time set up.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the fans can let us know if they like the the change in set location, because somebody was like, Oh, you should get proper lighting. You should get everything like that. And then I'm like, well, then I need a permanent set.

And there was only one place in the house. I could do that, which was my bedroom.

Simone Collins: Well, a lot of work is needed, trust me, but we'll get there. And

Malcolm Collins: [01:09:00] maybe they're talking about my recording equipment, actually get like decent, decent stuff. I mean, the stuff we have right now is pretty top of the line for like midline stuff.

But

Simone Collins: I love top of the midline. I think that's what we're all about is top of the midline. It's well, that's, you see, that's the quiet luxury. That's the stealth wealth of, of recording. You know, you don't want to go all the way

Malcolm Collins: with recording devices is you're typically better having a few top of the midline things than one top of the line thing, because the top of the line things always seem to fail at like something basic, like highlighting conditions or low lighting conditions, or just you know, and then just like, well, what, what's the point of this?

Right. You know, but if you have like five top of the midline cameras and you can switch them out. Yeah. So we'll figure something out. We'll be looking professional just for you guys.

Simone Collins: I know we're talking about money. I learned a really fun money stat that I've been dying to share with you ever since I read it last night.

It's about thin privilege, but it's also really striking. Do you want to, have you heard this yet?

Oh, yeah. No, I, [01:10:00] I've read this really interesting money stat last night, and I've been dying to share it with you.

And I just remembered it now. Have you read this thing about thin privilege that just came out? No. Okay. You know, we love talking about the fats and the thins on this podcast. So,

Malcolm Collins: those inclined to rotundities.

Simone Collins: Inclined to rotundities as Emily Post wrote. God bless her. She's the best. So according to a time, Coverage of this, this research, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, women who are very thin earn nearly 22, 000 more than their average weight counterparts.

This study was conducted by Timothy, a judge from the University of Florida and Daniel over the

Malcolm Collins: course of their life

Simone Collins: per year.

Malcolm Collins: Wow. That's big.

Simone Collins: And not only are women earning less if they are of average weight, they're actually punished if they are overweight. Forbes reports that heavy and very heavy women lost over [01:11:00] 9, 000 and almost 19, 000 respectively than their average weight counterparts.

And a lot of people are chalking this up to. Thin Privilege and Fat Hate, which I'm sure plays a role in it, but I think what is underrated, and this is why I will never successfully run for anything apparently, or like will always be cancelled, is that

Body composition can be a demonstration of behavioral phenotypes.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I would say that it is not always that, and she is not claiming it is always that, but she is claiming that there are statistically enough times where it is that, that there's going to be some level of correlation, which is also going to show up in the earnings data.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and what's meaningful is that. Very thin women are the ones making 22, 000 more only thin women [01:12:00] are make like, they make they take a 15, 000 penalty sort of between very thin and thin. So, like, it only really. Only the really very thin women are earning a lot more and then thin women are earning a little bit more and then normal, you know, earning normal.

So what this shows to me more is what we're seeing is not really thin privilege wing out. Cause also very thin people don't look very good in my opinion. And I say, this is a very thin person. So like,

Malcolm Collins: Our audience has said that you prematurely aged because you're too thin. Yeah, no, it's, it's true. Like I.

Simone Collins: I am a functional, I can't say the word. I'm a functional female athlete triad. We'll say, if you know, you know, but like, I am not an attractive level of weight. I just like to starve myself, but that is because I am also on many, many other fronts, extremely disciplined. And this is why I think the very thin people out earn.

It's not because they're thin. Cause they look like s**t. [01:13:00] They are earning more. Because their thinness is just a symptom of a much larger, extremely disciplined behavior set where they love self denial. They love like,

Malcolm Collins: you can't say that. That is against the rules. I know. Simone, would you mind adjusting your camera?

So you are about where I am on your camera. You see, it needs to go up a bit.

Simone Collins: So that we look even more like siblings. Look at us. A

Malcolm Collins: little bit more. Sisters. And that way you get the gun in the picture, you know?

Simone Collins: Oh, you know, you can't really see it. Alright, this looks great. Sisters.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, I'll think about how I'm going to start this.

Simone Collins: Okay. We look like siblings! Sorry, start again. Start

Malcolm Collins: again. What about siblings? We look like siblings. It's just that we are from a closely related not family, [01:14:00] but and I think that people are, Just like, it's weird that we have reached this level in society where, like, everyone expects you to be a dating, like, across, like, intercontinental ethno groups.

And it's not like we chose each other because of that. We just had a lot in common because of you know, the sociological profiles of our, you know. Our sort of group, which is a fairly unique and odd group, as people know from our other videos, like it's one of the things we focus on. And so I, you know, when people say that we look like siblings, it's a little bit like, you just don't know many Chinese people and then, you know, you see two Chinese people dating each other and they look like siblings.

Well, Actually, there's a lot of us. Anyway, all right.

Join us as we explore the 'pod person' reaction, a curious mix of unease and uncanny valley effects, and its intriguing link to specific behavioral patterns and religious communities, prominently Mormonism. Delve into the reasons behind individuals shifting towards extreme wokeism, and the ripple effects on fertility collapse, US culture wars, and political alliances. Additionally, discover the transformation of Mormon influencers redefining traditional values on social media, and the significant impact of Mormon culture on the atheist and skeptic communities online. Concluding with a heartwarming glimpse into the creator's family life, this episode is a fascinating blend of cultural analysis and personal storytelling.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone) & EMEET SmartCam Nova 4K-5: [00:00:00] We are going to be exploring the pod person reaction. This is the emotional response of unease combined with an uncanny valley, feeling that some people experience when they encounter individuals who exhibit a specific set of behavioral patterns. This reaction has been used to build an entire sub genre of horror.

Speaker 26: I don't remember him being that friendly. He's obviously one of them. How

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone) & EMEET SmartCam Nova 4K-5: We are going to explore why people who elicit this reaction have historically been drawn to specific religious communities with a focus on Mormonism

Speaker 20: Hello, ma'am. My goodness, you have such an attractive little garden here.

Speaker 7: It is so much better. There's no fear or pain. It's beautiful We want you.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone) & EMEET SmartCam Nova 4K-5: And why most of the individuals within those religious communities who elicited this reaction have left over the past decade or so and become extremely woke

Um, uh,

Speaker 47: [00:01:00] Screams Hello, Simone. I am so excited to be here with you today. I am genuinely so excited for this episode because I have had a realization that has changed my life. So many things about how I see fertility collapse, about how I see the U.

Malcolm Collins: S. culture wars, about how I see shifting political alliances in this country, and about how I see cultures can protect themselves from fertility collapse. And it came from a very unexpected place, and it is a topic we have been building up to for these past two days on this lecture. And the unexpected place is pod people.

Simone Collins: What as in that, that trope of sci-fi, scary creatures that make you conform?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. We will get into the trope more in just a second. But what actually had me realize it was this moment where I was talking with one of our Mormon [00:02:00] fans and he was asking a question about a part of history that Mormons, some Mormons are aware of.

But most Americans wouldn't be aware of because generally, if it didn't take place on the coast or within black or Native American culture, nobody recorded it happening. And he's like, why did the backwoods people, my cultural ancestors, usually end up killing Mormons whenever they tried to migrate to their territory?

It's a good question because

Simone Collins: Mormons didn't have a fun time.

Malcolm Collins: And, to me, it just seems so blindingly obvious. Just so outlandishly and loudly obvious he came back and he's like, what do you mean the, the pod person instinct?

And I was like, you know, that thing that makes you think like certain groups look culty when they approach you? And I realized he And maybe many other Mormons don't have the pod person instinct. And of course they [00:03:00] wouldn't like, why did I assume , they would like, you wouldn't give off that vibe.

If you were aware that this was a vibe that you could give off.

Simone Collins: I don't, I don't even know if I'm aware of it. Maybe this is like gay dar where some people have it and others don't. Do you, when do you get this feeling when you go to Japan? They have a very conformist culture,

Malcolm Collins: but it's too different from mine.

Simone Collins: Okay. So it has to be close to your own culture, but it has to be

Malcolm Collins: uniform in a way. . So I'll give you examples of people who trigger pod person instinct in me. Okay. Okay. Great examples would be. Mitt Romney, big pod person energy, most Scientologists I've interacted with as big pod person energy.

One who's not in any of these groups who gets big pod person energy is Chris Williamson. Very big pod person energy.

 Catholic preachers is another group that triggers this instinct.

Not all Catholic preachers, but some Catholic preachers, like the good boy Catholic preachers. They trigger it really [00:04:00] hard. And I should know that this instinct isn't unique to me. There's like a whole genre of horror around this instinct.

Simone Collins: There totally is, and it's even I will

Malcolm Collins: post on screen here a scare tactics episode that I think does a very good job eliciting it. So before you see this, for people who aren't familiar with the premise of scare tactics, they take like a real person and then they built a sci fi or horror set around that person.

them out. And they ar to elicit this person's p

Speaker 3: Hi, how are you? Alright.

Speaker 4: . Hello, we're the official welcoming committee.

Speaker 3: We brought you a little bit of pie.

 Cheer. I heard there's warm pie .

Speaker 6: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Oh

Speaker 6: my goodness. Good to see you. Hi. It's all good.

Speaker 4: Can we run back there and take a

Speaker 3: quick tour? Sure go right ahead. And remember, the individual must suffer for what?

Speaker 5: Community. I knew that

Speaker 6: quote.

Speaker 5: Sacrifice to the individual is good for the community. It's like a I'll tell you later.

Speaker 6: We like to say that once you've tried our [00:05:00] pie, , life becomes a piece of cake. Really?

Let's

Speaker 3: go. So what happened? Good news, someone enjoyed some pie.

That is delightful, I'm very happy.

Speaker: You have to try the pie. Oh, please, try the pie. You know, I just had

Speaker 3: a lot, um

Speaker 5: I really think you should have more pie. Have more pie. Try some

Speaker: pie.

Speaker 2: Try the pie. Try the pie.

Speaker 4: Try the pie. Try the pie.

Speaker 2: You can be on Scare Tactics. Oh my God! Holy s Oh my God!

Malcolm Collins: But you know, if you're t genre around it, it's the more perfect than human. of the body snatchers, st all of these would be very pod person shows the faculty is also a pretty good example of one of these.

Simone Collins: Well, and isn't it even parodied and Rick and Morty with unity?

Malcolm Collins: Yes, it's period with purity with unity and Rick and [00:06:00] Morty. Good example here. And the sort of thing that typically delineates a pod person. entity in horror is once you join it, most of your conflicts go away, you become much more calm, you become much more polite, you become much better to interact with but you also become much more conformist.

Speaker 26: I don't remember him being that friendly. He's obviously one of them. How can he be? He remembered me. WelL, maybe they have selective memories. Yeah, like, what's his name? Me! Maybe it's one of the others, like the Reverend.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: So to address the claim earlier of why Warman's would have faced disproportionate violence when proselytizing to these Backwood areas that may have had a much stronger.

Instance of this pod person instinct, I will play two clips, which will contrast the way Mormons thought they were coming off to these people to the way they were actually coming off to these people.

Speaker 19: Oh. Hello, ma'am. My [00:07:00] goodness, you have such an attractive little garden here. Oh, thank you, young man. I just planted those flowers last week. My, how they grow. Yes, ma'am. We're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Oh, the Mormons. That's right. I'm, I'm Elder Young, and this is Elder White.

Speaker 7: Stan, take the drug, man, prove it to us. Okay.

 Open the door. It is so much better. There's no fear or pain. It's beautiful. And you We'll be beautiful. No problems or worries. We want you. No pain, Stan? We're gonna come in here and I'll show you some f*****g pain!

Speaker 43: Well, you two boys can just buck right off.

Speaker 44: Ma'am. You heard me. Take that Book of Mormon and shove it so far Up your righteous asses, that, and choke, you soul soliciting pigfuckers.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-22: This [00:08:00] instinctual reaction is why the Mormon cultural group. And you can see it very clearly on this population map. Never crossed either into the greater Appalachian cultural region or the Midlands cultural region, which probably have a similar. Instinctual reaction. , and, and you can see it like night and day on this map.

It's like there was a wall that prevented Mormon culture from moving in that direction.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: And here, it would note something if you're coming into this episode without seeing the last one, , there was a weird phenomenon over the past. , I'd say maybe eight years or so, where almost all of the Mormons who coded as pod person left the church and became woke. , so I haven't met a Mormon personally who coded pod person. And maybe. Eight years. , but

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-23: This doesn't change that historically Mormons were the group that most commonly coated pod person.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-13: Nope within Mormon culture, the words. They're used for somebody who triggers the pod person, instinct are Zubie, Peter [00:09:00] priesthood or Molly Mormon. If you happen to be a Mormon and you're like, what'd you wore men's are triggering this instinct, the ones that Mormons use those words for derogatorily, those are the ones that are triggering the instinct.

Speaker 3: I heard there's warm pie

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-12: It turns out that. Ultra woke ism was just a much stronger lure for people with this pod person mental framework. Then, well, really any religion. , and. I think Mormonism is probably better off for it.

Malcolm Collins: And so even Mormons are like, Why would we be triggering whatever, like, unity from Rick and Morty is supposed to be parroting, like, in other people, like, whatever the deep, like, shiver up the spine that this is meant to trigger as, like, a horror trope. I think as soon as you see that these are the signs that are most associated with the trope, you're like, oh yeah, that's why we're triggering it.

Speaker 8: Where I was better able to focus on my passion for unification. You mean stealing people's bodies? Summer, rude. , this [00:10:00] world will be invited into the Galactic Federation. . From there I'll have access to countless planets and species. One by one, I will unify them.

 And I will be what the single minded once called a god. Oh, that's pretty sexy. Where can we get a drink around here? Recreational substances were phased out here. There's no need for escape from the self when your world is one. Unity, unity, who am I talking to?

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: I'd also note here, something you saw in both of these clips that is really common in pod person, tropes. Is it pod people neither drink alcohol nor do drugs.

, also just as a quick side note here. If somebody who's from a culture that doesn't drink, alcohol wants to understand why cultures that drink alcohol value at so much. The core value of alcohol is it allows me when I am getting to know an individual to see the parts of their personality, that they might be suppressing, , you know, through their inhibitory pathways in their prefrontal cortex, because it lowers their ability to inhibit certain behavior patterns. , which is the saying [00:11:00] drunk words or sober thoughts comes from.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: This is why individuals from drinking cultures often don't trust or have an intrinsic distrust of individuals from non-drinking cultures. And I think individuals from non-drinking cultures may sometimes be confused by this distrust. If it's not explicitly spelled out to them.

Speaker 24: Gary thinks we should keep up with the crawl, because they know what we're doing, but they don't know that we know what they're doing. And basically, no one else has a better idea. So f**k it.

Simone Collins: Um Well, I think what the weird thing is When I, there, there are two different parts of it. One is, is, is this concern that literally your entire self and identity are basically being killed and you're being worn like a mask or a costume. But then there's the version of it where like the steppard wives version where you're just kind of.

Corrected there. There are versions where you're corrected or, or, or sort of, given the equivalent of a lobotomy, but a little bit more refined. Yeah, and then there's the versions where you're [00:12:00] essentially killed and the lobotomy versions I'm watching and I'm thinking, God, that looks great. You know, and I think that's, that's great.

That's why some people see pod cultures and they're like, where do I sign up for this? And maybe this is why, maybe it's a more feminine reaction to this. Maybe it's, it's a more like female, like Mormon

Malcolm Collins: church does keep more women than men.

Simone Collins: Well, and that's the thing. And we know women who've converted into it because they see the lifestyle and they say, I want that.

And maybe that is there. This pod person reaction is on average more male.

Malcolm Collins: And I noticed that you're delineating a separate sub genre of the pod person movie which is what I call the medicated pod person, which is like, they try to give you some medication that makes you like this other group of people that is all really like, doesn't have a lot of emotions, you know, is otherwise really like, clean, conformed, doesn't break rules and this is another sub genre um, Of the, [00:13:00] the, the pod person trope

Speaker 11: On the next all new episode of Sliders, imagine a world where the government regulates drugs. What did you give her? Treadpoles. Standard mood elevator.

Speaker 13: Everybody's on something? Everybody but us. DrOp in,

Speaker 14: people!

A brand new season of adventure. Sliders,

Malcolm Collins: a video game that recently did, it was, it took place in the UK.

I'll add it in post.

Speaker 9: You. When I'm not with you.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: I'd also note here, if you're a little confused, you're like, wait, I thought the pod person trope was associated was abstinence from alcohol and drugs. And yet here, you're saying there's a sub genre of it that is focused on using. A specific type of drug. And I would note here that these specific type of drug that's used is always coded to be the type of drug you would get from a psychiatrist. , not coding to be a recreational [00:14:00] drug. , so when the pod person trip is coded as pod people don't do drugs, the type of drugs that they don't do is always something like, , alcohol .

.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: Or very light narcotics.

It's never like hard drugs.

Malcolm Collins: But so what is triggering it? Okay. What are all these things associated with? They are so associated with individuals who try to normalize to some sort of communalist value set.

I. e. They are trying to be like. Well, everyone else around them, right? Like, they, they, they, they see the group norm and they say, that's what I should aspire to.

And it creates this sort of pod person reaction. You could say, well, then why do groups like the Japanese not trigger it? Right. Right. And the answer is, is because I was acculturated outside of their cultural norms. So to me, when I'm interacting with a Japanese person, right, they appear just as.

[00:15:00] different as any weirdo on a U. S. Street corner, right? I will say that after a while of living in Korea, Koreans began to trigger my pod person instinct, but it took a long time of normalizing to that culture before I saw what they were doing as normal. And I think, you know, you say that you don't have this instinct that much, but you seem to act very much like somebody who does.

When I met you, you wore like A foot tall bows in your hair every day. You wore dirndls that were brightly colored. You did not, and this is the thing, people can be like, Oh, this is standard urban monoculture, but it really isn't. There are standard scene and urban monocultural outfits that are Built to fit a trope people with a strong pod person reaction Or are from one of these cultures like this when they're going through their teen rebellion phase They typically dress in a way that doesn't fit Any of the mainstream [00:16:00] tropes like they they become hypersensitive to not fitting any of the mainstream tropes I can post pictures of myself from when I was a kid one of the examples is you know When I go to other countries, I pick up a lot of like native like rice picker hats or whatever like other weird things Just so I couldn't be accused of trying to fit in with any specific trope.

And so I, I find that really interesting as well that, that it seems to lead to these specific subcultural patterns. But I, I don't want to spoil the lead here. So I want to to keep going down, you know, when he's like, okay, I'm why would they react so strongly to my ancestors like this? Like your ancestors react so strongly to my ancestors.

And I know the, the, the sort of sub emotional class that I am repressing when I'm interacting with certain groups, it very much to me felt a bit like, you know, when a non passing trans person is like, why do these people, you know, not just treat me like I'm a woman and I, you know, I'm not going to say to them, [00:17:00] You do not understand how much I am repressing like an evolved instinctual part of me That is screaming run in the back of my head When I am interacting with you or when you're interacting not just like like to remove common politics today like a leper Like if you are talking with somebody who has very serious deformities, there's a part in the back of your head It's like you could catch a disease run run run You know kill it with fire

Speaker 54: Help!

 Take my hand. Ah! Come on! No, give me your other hand. Oh, my other hand isn't strong enough.

Speaker 55: Get it away from me! Break it!

Malcolm Collins: And you silence that part of your head because we have a cultural framework and a moral framework that operates above sort of our pre evolved, this thing could be diseased or this thing could be a cultural threat.

And. I think that if you don't realize, and I suspect some people much transition without knowing that a lot of [00:18:00] people have this really, really strong and visceral emotional reaction to trans people who aren't passing, because I don't know if anyone who felt that would transition.

Simone Collins: Well, I don't, you have to ask though, how do they react?

I'm sure most people who have transitioned have encountered someone else who is in the act of transitioning who is not passing. How could they not

Malcolm Collins: know? But the point being, Simone, and this is a, this is the key point of this is you're assuming that all humans experience all of the emotional subsets of all other humans.

So what you're saying

Simone Collins: is, is that people who transition are among those who wouldn't have that reaction to people who are poorly transitioning.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, so they just don't see what the problem would be, or they have it at a lower volume than other people. They may not fully recognize how loudly. Some people have this reaction.

And that it's not a socialized reaction. It's an evolved reaction, [00:19:00]

Simone Collins: you

Malcolm Collins: know, used to keep us away from well, somebody that could be diseased

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-14: As a quick side note here, the last episode we did on this subject did draw out one person in the comments who was clearly of this pod person mentality. , demanding that we go along with the church name, change from Mormon or LDS church to. , the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. Or the church of Jesus Christ, which of course, no one's going to do that.

Like pretends, like it's the only Christian Church, , because it's quote unquote offensive to say Mormon. And of course here I am like, well, I bet you say Quaker. Like, do you even know what Quakers they're really supposed to be called? It's friends by the way, that's the correct term. But of course you're not gonna call them friends because it's. Ridiculous. , and so you call them Quakers. , but as a side here, this to me really reminded me of the whole trans thing.

It's like, You know, when I'm talking to a trans person. If they just want to be called. , he, him or she, her. [00:20:00] I'm going to go along with it. That's a reasonable request. I may, while I'm talking to them, have to constantly be thinking, remember, remember, remember to use the right pronouns. And

I don't really believe this person is a sheet herb. But. I try my best to be polite. However, when they come to me with something absolutely ridiculous. I like some, a made up pronouns that I need to remember just for them. There's a line where I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that.

If the Mormon church had said something like, okay, you can't call us Mormon anymore, but you can call us LDS.

I would have been like, okay, every time I said LDS, I would've been thinking Mormon, but I would have gone along with it. But when they come with the absolutely in fame, The church of Jesus Christ or the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. And that's basically the way everyone was reacting to that.

And the reason I say that this is a good sign of a pod person is expecting people to go along with this name, change shows a complete [00:21:00] inability to model other humans.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-15: And carries very strong energy of that kid who bought one of those land titles in Scotland, off of YouTube. And now goes around demanding everybody. Call him Barron. , so not all of the pod people have left the Mormon church, but the vast majority have.

Malcolm Collins: or the, the I think a lot of these reactions that, that sort of target the uncanny valley for people aren't familiar with that. That's something that looks like a little too close to human, but isn't fully human.

And that is the emotional subset that's being triggered here. It's the uncanny valley, emotional subset. It's not, I don't

Simone Collins: even know if it's just that, for example, both you and your brother. So this is why I think maybe it's genetic are extremely squeamish around blemishes, like unpopped pimples. And you cannot hear yourselves think over one on your face or that face of anyone around you.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: that's a loud, for example, this is, this is the thing. Everybody is squeamish [00:22:00] to an extent. And no one wants

Simone Collins: to look at them, but you guys can't unsee them. You know, you're like

Malcolm Collins: volumes of this. Okay. Our volume on this is super high, but I would say that the emotion I'm experiencing, right? Like in the same way that like.

If you don't experience this emotional subset, it's useful that somebody's like, no, the emotion doesn't feel like a disgust. It feels more like a fear. The emotion that I feel around blemishes is a disgust emotional subset. This is an uncanny valley emotional subset, which is very different from the disgust.

It's like, Is this similar

Simone Collins: to the fear you feel when you are sitting next to a woman in like full contour makeup where you're like, she's creeping me out where it's like that. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So an uncanny valley, emotional subset, not discussed, emotional subset. Now I, I, I then had a second realization that was really, really big for me is we started going [00:23:00] through because I was going through.

Pictures of Mormons. We were looking at like the thing that we mentioned the last one, that actually middling religion Mormons are the Mormons that fertility is increasing as time goes on, whereas extreme religiosity Mormons are the Mormons who fertility is decreasing as time goes on. So I've been trying, you know, what's going on here?

Are there specific subgroups of extreme religiosity Mormons that are not having their fertility decrease? And what, you I basically found when going through pictures and talking more with this guy is that there are the ones who don't activate the pod person instinct in me are not having their fertility decline.

And then that got me really interesting. I'm like, okay, so what's the core difference between these 2 groups? Right? And previously, I believe I had missed that. I thought the core difference was deontological versus consequentialist ethics and that religious systems that pushed for behavioral patterns through [00:24:00] deontological frameworks were doing poorly.

And once it pushed through patterns for consequentialist ethics, we're doing well. And then I realized I might be thinking about this all wrong. It might be moral systems based around conformity. Moral systems that are based around conformity to the group of the whole, conformist moral systems, are doing really poorly, and clan based moral systems are doing really well.

And then so, so to word this differently, it turns out is if the, the thing that was causing your ancestors to have lots of babies was that they were given a set of very strict rules that they had to follow. Like a deontological, also a deontological framework. In the past that was good at motivating fertility rates.

In modern times it's not. If the thing that was causing your ancestors to have babies in the past was that they had a degree of pride in who they were and a degree of cultural pride in their [00:25:00] family, that or, or some small group to which they're part of, not some large, giant religious organization.

That seems to be very, very good at resisting fertility collapse. And so then I took this hypothesis and I started asking people I knew in different religious enclaves. I asked a Catholic I knew, the Catholics, you know, who are like really strict about all the deontological rules. Are they the ones having the most kids or is it the ones who take a lot of pride in a family and and and then likely national like I am an ocean and I am an Irishman and I am a Catholic right like is it a I am a Catholic.

I am an Irishman. I am an ocean or is it a I am an ocean. I am an Irishman. I am a Catholic and it turned out that the the clan based one where their primary identity with the smaller group. was doing really well across every single religious tradition. And then I began to look at this more on a global scale, right?

So it's not just the [00:26:00] regions of the United States,

because I'll put a map here in the greater Appalachian region had the most clan based culture which was the Beckwins, and you'll see it overlaps highly with fertility rates. But then if you look globally, which are the cultures that are suffering the most?

It is the collectivist cultures, the Koreans and the Japanese and the Chinese.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-8: And I make a note here. If people are like, oh, the Asian cultures are very clan base. They have things like shrines to their ancestors and stuff. And it's like superficially. Yes. But if you look at the cultural norms, , even in a historic context, when a Japanese person or a Chinese person or a Korean was attempting to determine what should be the social norms that their family acted within, they did not look primarily to other family members.

What was happening at the court or at the higher levels of the social hierarchy, mattered a lot more to determining what their family culture should be like and what their own moral should be like then their parents specifically, or their siblings specifically.

Malcolm Collins: And then if you look regionally, Which [00:27:00] sub regional areas if I put a map of Asia on here are doing really well.

The Mongols, the Mongols have a clan based cultural identity system. And note here that this is not talking about individualism.

The problem was individualist systems as many people used to see. Identity as being either collectivist or individualist. The problem is, is that wokeism in the urban monoculture basically found out how to co opt individualist moral systems into a collectivist framework. A great way that one of the people I was talking to put it is the horror of it is the reaction against hyper NPC ism and the Kosciuszko like state of existence.

It's these people look like us but are not us. Whites also experience this to some level interacting with Russians, but clearly there's obvious differences. It's the uncanny valley but with real people. Two groups of people oppose the wokes. One's in the religious communities which sort of feel that these people are [00:28:00] other or different from my religion and my cultural framing.

But then the others just hate me. Anyone who's telling other people to conform. And that was really interesting to me when I was like, that makes perfect sense. And it also explains the political realignment in the country. Which is a that the right used to be made up of a collection of religious communities that wanted everyone to conform to their values.

And so they sort of cross reference to all of the religious communities. And they're like, okay, what values can we agree on? Now we're going to call these the Judeo Christian set of values and we're going to try to get everyone to conform to them. And then the wokes rose and all of the clan based people were like, Oh my gosh, I hate you, you know, kill it with fire.

Malcolm Collins: And then they moved over to the the right coalition. And this is why. The core of Trump's [00:29:00] base. So if you look at a voter map that divides the different American, like sub national groups, I'm gonna put it on the screen here. We'll think the Republican party's key is the deep South, but it's not, that's only mildly red.

It's actually rural Appalachia, like the greater Appalachia region, which is the key of Trump's base and by far the hardest Trump voters. He comes from it's where a lot of his new support comes from as well from the clan based peoples. Now, hold on, I'm just going to check to see if I can,

Oh, and I would note here for Mormons who may have trouble telling like what Mormons are triggering this instinct. So I went through with a Mormon and was like, this person triggers it. This person doesn't.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: This person does it. And he goes, even

Simone Collins: from pictures, you're able to get this feeling. That's awesome.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, very, very quickly. He said what Mormons would call the type of Mormon who triggers it a zoobie. And coming from Utah so I looked it up and zoobies coming from the Ute mouse, however, the term means wimpy goody two shoes says [00:30:00] Mark Christensen, a fan, a BYU student. A usage might connote the epitome of an Orthodox letter of the law, quote unquote, Peter priesthood.

And I actually think Peter priesthood works well for the Catholics who, who listen to me, would you call a, a Catholic priest? Do you met preter priesthood in a derogatory fashion? Then they're probably eliciting this instant. And so there's a lot of things to talk about here. One is the new political realities of this and understanding it and how to cater to it.

And the other is why is this so protective of fertility rates? And the third is, is what is it actually like to be raised in a clan based family? You have thoughts.

Simone Collins: I'm no, no, I, this is, this is fascinating to me, especially because I don't feel this like. strong, aversive response to unified seeming cultures, even though I apparently, I think I'm just incapable of being a part of them.

You know, it's very much a

Malcolm Collins: little mermaid part of your [00:31:00] world. What drove you to wear a two foot tall bow on your head when you were speaking at your graduation? What drove you? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm a weird freak

Simone Collins: that is incapable of interacting with them, but they, they seem to be.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, Simone. I'm asking you genuine something.

These are things that you did that didn't align with any social community. Okay. Any mainstream social community. What in? Yeah, I'm, I'm allergic. I'm allergic

Simone Collins: to other people's rules and standards, but that doesn't mean that I can't find the concept of a cohesive community to be attractive.

Malcolm Collins: Then why did you resist it your entire life?

You were around Mormons.

Simone Collins: The idea seems nice. I just don't. I just don't want to dress, look, behave, or be like them, or be held to their standards.

Malcolm Collins: Oh! I think I'm understanding this well now. Okay, so I know why you don't feel it strongly. Okay. And it comes from [00:32:00] something else that's happened between the two of us.

There have been multiple instances when, like, someone at a table has been crying, and afterwards I go to Simone, and I was like, Oh my god, could you believe, like, what was wrong with her then? I didn't see anything. You, due to your autism, are very, very, very bad at modeling other people. It might be some degree of modeling other people when you're in a culture that has this ultra desire to not conform that triggers this instinct.

Because you don't model people, you aren't sitting there being like, There's something very wrong about the model I'm building of this person.

Simone Collins: That would make a lot of sense.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): I think this is exactly it. I've been thinking about this line more as I was editing this. And that's what creates a feeling of unease. It's okay. When you mentally model somebody, you're essentially creating an emulation of that person in your head to attempt to predict how they will react to whatever you say, mental model, do something that people create every day.

Like when you have an argument with somebody and [00:33:00] then later you go and you mentally, are you with them in your head, you have created a mental model of them, a. A sort of sub a process in your brain. That's essentially an emulation of their mind. Different people build these emulations with different amounts , of clarity. And, , some people are just sort of always building emulation.

Some people almost never build emulations, , people with some forms of autism, like the type that Simone has seemed to be completely incapable of building these emulations at all.

When I create emulations of people who have this pod person mindset, the emulations. Create this. Intrinsic feeling of. An ease within me because , they feel.

 Shell. Like, they're so easy to predict. It's almost like there isn't a full human operating underneath them.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: In Warhammer lore, this would be like trying to read the mind of a psychic blink. You would just get a reverberation [00:34:00] feedback that would cause you great mental pain and feel very sort of hollow and desolate.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: And. Worse than that. They are extremely interchangeable. With other individuals. From their sort of pod to tribe. When you try to model them. So. , if I'm trying to model two people from the same group and they fall into this, , they will, for all intensive purposes, be operating under the same model. Which feels very inhuman.

If you're not used to being around these groups, it feels very much like, well, I guess that's why it triggers that pod person. That's why in the pod people, movies, they.

Create these. Pleasant simplistic. Entities to trigger this.

Simone Collins: And I'm curious if the listeners slash watchers. That are on the spectrum feel the same way where they're like very confused about this whole pod person thing but then the higher modeling ability more schizoid people watching are really like [00:35:00] getting what you're saying i would be so curious to see if it comes down to that that that it's more The fear that emanates from being able to kind of model very conformist people on a societal basis, and not so much the fact that they're behaving cohesively.

And I think that would also explain why this doesn't trigger when you're traveling in a foreign land that's very conformist, because you're not really able to model them, but then after you get a little bit more time around them and you're, you're modeling, Like, algorithm comes online for that new group.

Then they freak you out.

Malcolm Collins: Well, that would make a lot of sense. Like an infiltrating group. I mean, one of the things that's common in all of the horror around this is a new family comes to town where everyone is pleasant and everyone is cheery and they don't seem to have any problems. And then over time, more families start acting like this and more families start acting like this.

It, it, it's, it's also a degree of, like they're taking over and [00:36:00] you can also see why a feeling of

Simone Collins: invasion.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. People who have this fear or this background sort of instinct probably have such an intense reaction to the urban monoculture and it's why the greater Appalachian region has moved to be such an cohesive base for Trump.

Right.

Simone Collins: Cause the urban monoculture really. is a strong pod person.

 Um, uh, Um, uh, Uh, uh, uh

Speaker 47: Screams

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: it gives off strong. It's

Simone Collins: more blatant than Stepford wives because Stepford wives are just really put together. Women were that are very, you know, polite and, and gregarious, but [00:37:00] then woke people are like, my pronouns are they, them, and you know, they, they look different and yeah, that's, yeah.

And,

Malcolm Collins: and and the. Well, so one thing that's important to note about this, because it was something I noted when I was thinking more about it. There's a weird sort of tradition among the clan cultures that is essentially used as like a pod person test. So in the movie, the faculty, there is a scene where they have a dehydrator that they're using to see if one of the people has become one of the pod people.

And they're like, you have to do the dehydrator. So I know if you're really one of the pod people or not.

Speaker 16: How do we know you're not one of those f*****g things?

Speaker 15: I'm not putting that, that hack drug up my nose. So, 80s.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: A

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: and the medic virus is.

Speaker 16: Are taking over the earth. Weigh it. [00:38:00]

Malcolm Collins: And the thing, That is the dehydratic of, of, of like this real life pod person instinct is vulgarity. It is used as a, as a sign of authenticity within an individual. And it is, I think, Yeah. So everyone on

Simone Collins: 4chan being so, vulgar and mean to each other is really an inoculation or a weeding effect, getting rid of anyone who is vulgar.

Would be an outsider.

Malcolm Collins: That's part of it. Yeah, I mean, you would have a very hard time as a pod person spending a lot of time on 4chan. It would be like constantly having the dehydratic thrown in your face. You're not going to be able to be there for long. But I actually think that 4chan is a different thing that causes that behavior pattern.

People can check out one of our earliest episodes, which is on 4chan. And why different online platforms have different cultures. [00:39:00] But This is why Mitt Romney struggled so hard to connect with sort of this new Republican base, but Donald Trump, not despite being vulgar, has done such a good job, but because he's vulgar.

And keep in mind, vulgar doesn't mean Cussing. It means grab them by the, it means saying stuff. It means

Simone Collins: culture. It means hamburgers. It means saying things that are inappropriate, etc. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind, inappropriate can shift. So people can be like, why do so many people in the new right, you know, talk about cat girls?

Like saying cat girls are hot, right?

Speaker 17: I mean, I did promise the internet that I'd make cat girls. We could make a robot cat girl. I mean, how much of a buddy do you like? Do you, do you have, how many applications do you thought is there? You know, can you have a romantic partner, a sex partner, a lot of money?

Malcolm Collins: Like, it's because it's a very good example of this form of vulgarity. It is something that if you were a pod person, you wouldn't be able to do because you're so concerned about what the conformity of society [00:40:00] thinks about you, but that. Most normal people

are most men think are hot.

And if you didn't like the natural reaction of a clan person to one person in a friend group being cat girls are hot is not. If they don't think cat girls are hot to say, I don't think that in only a weirdo and think that it's to find something that is equally taboo to admit about themselves, this folder, something they find hot that might break some taboo, because then it becomes sort of a competition around.

saying a taboo thing to prove you're not, you're not actually a pod person. And then the other person responds with something slightly more taboo. And it's a, it's a little ritual that's done and you will see it in these groups all the time. And it's how you gain entrance often into their communities.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-16: In the last episode you may remember. I mentioned that at a couple of the late night VC parties that were focused around this clan based culture, that there were fights where A couple of the women who were, , the [00:41:00] high powered VCs themselves or otherwise prominent figures would fight for the men. And,

You wouldn't want a pod person at one of these events

because they would immediately go. Quote, unquote tell on you say, oh, they did something naughty and vulgar at their event. So you check them before they come. ,

Malcolm Collins: and I think that I'm realizing now that some people just never gain interest. Like if you are lacking this. knowledge that like this is the game that's being played. I would be turning you out of a community that I was a part of politely, but without you realizing it, like there, there's like a whole section of society that these people don't realize that they're just being denied access to.

Simone Collins: They're being shadow banned from entire sections of society.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but, but I will say that the clan based people who can't code switch well, they get shadowbanned from another section of society, so, you know, keep that in mind. The, the thing to keep in mind though [00:42:00] is it actually really matters now that you're getting shadowbanned from this section of society if you don't know how to code switch.

Because as I've mentioned, the venture capital world is increasingly being taken over by these clan based cultures.

And so vulgarity is used as a s**t test basically was in a lot of these Silicon Valley type cultures to make sure you're not a, a narc, like not a narc, narc, but you know what I mean?

Like if you go to a party, are you going to be a problem later? Are you going to be, you know, horrified?

Speaker 46: Sports themed paintings I've seen. It's very good. Nice. Are

Speaker 45: you a knock? Sorry?

Speaker 46: A knock.

Speaker 45: I'm gonna sound it out for you. Ah, you or are you not a knock like Johnny Depp in 21. Jump Streak. Ah,

Speaker 46: I see, I see. Okay. A, a narc a no.

Speaker 45: What are you doing? First time? I'm a

Speaker 46: federal agent. I'm a special agent. Are you a boy or a girl? It's a fair question. Uh, I'm I'm female. No kidding. [00:43:00] All woman.

Speaker 45: From the get go? No operation?

Speaker 46: Um, from birth, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Why

Simone Collins: would one of these people be seen? As a threat, aside from the fact that there is an instinctual distrust of them.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, because they genuinely, so there's a lot of reasons you would see them. The, the threat.

So, I, I, I'd say, you know, si ala for example, one of our friends gets invited to a lot of high level Silicon Valley parties. And there's, there's social reasons for that, but you could also see it as sort of appendant. on those parties that keeps away pod people. So, you can't pass the door because it's got an Ayla on it.

Ayla

Simone Collins: as protective talisman.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And you can say, why would the Ayla protective talisman be so important? Well, because twofold. One is if these people come in and they are of the woke variety of pod person, or they are of the some form of, you know, conformist religious group if they disapprove of the actions that happened at that party, [00:44:00] then they can go back and narc to their community in a way that could lower the statuses of everyone who was at the event.

Like, they are a genuine threat. And that's one of the ways that conformist. used to attack nonconformist groups is they look for nonconformist things they do, then they try to publicly air those things in order to hurt those people's status. And it's why this has been so ineffective in the Republican circles for a very long time.

Like since the Republicans basically like I'm a predominantly clan based organization because it used to If you go back to the, you know, the 80s when Republicans use disgust based morality you could signal that something somebody had done, you know, violated some social norm and then they'd be like persona non grata in Republican circles.

And some people have been like, oh, you guys talk about furries. Oh, you guys talk about, you know, orgies. Oh, you guys talk about like this must, you know, mean that you're never going to be able to run at the mainstream Republican politician. And I'm just like, you are clearly don't have your finger to the wind with where things are [00:45:00] going, the next generation, or even the current voter base.

Donald Trump was the Howard Stern candidate. Like he had been on Howard Stern for years. Howard Stern was. Now, you might think that by today's standards, Howard Stern is tame. Howard Stern was as extreme of a show as you could have for its time, and stay on air. It was so extreme, there's no way it could have been on network television.

It was just constantly signaling, we are vulgar, we are vulgar, we are vulgar, honesty signals, every five seconds.

Speaker 37: Like Howard, I was on Howard Stern show as much as anybody. And yeah, he, he was great at that time. And then he, , went woke and

Speaker 35: since he's

Speaker 37: gone woke, his ratings have gone down in the tubes.

And , he has a best of did you ever see the best of best of Howard Stern? I don't want to promote it necessarily, but And I was there for just about all of them the best of we had good shows It was good, but he's changed and you know, he doesn't do the ratings anymore

Speaker 36: No, he doesn't.

Malcolm Collins: And every time they, you know what I'm [00:46:00] talking about, Simone. Like, you remember how genuinely vulgar Howard Stern used to be seen as. Yes. But I want to talk first., I'll start by talking about what it's like to be raised within one of these cultures and how morality is taught to you because I think once we understand this, we can understand why these cultures fertility rates have been so protected.

Okay. So when you are being taught morality, like when I was being taught morality. Okay. My parents would say you should do this or you should do that because you're a college. It was never taught to me as a universalized morality. It was taught to me as a morality that applied specifically to me because of the, the clan I was a part of.

And I think that, and I think that when religion is taught to a lot of people in a clan based structure, it's. Oh, you're Catholic because you're an O'Hare. Not like you're Catholic because [00:47:00] you're Catholic and then the O'Hare thing is some ancillary side thing. And it's also taught when you are educated in this way.

It's, it's not like, Oh, everyone else is evil or something like that. It's more like everyone else holds themselves to a lower standard and more is expected of you than is expected of other people.

Simone Collins: Yeah, now this is I'm starting to relate to this. It's it's making sense because I'm on the flip side of it too.

My parents raised me to do certain things, but if I didn't see other people do those things, I wouldn't be even remotely surprised. In fact, I would kind of expect that people wouldn't do those things, but that I need to do them anyway. Like you always have to leave wherever you've been, a campsite or whatever, better than it was when you first got there.

And you know, we do this and we do that and we have all these knives and I would be surprised if other people did too. Like just genuinely surprised. And if, for example, I saw that I arrived at a campsite and it was a mess, [00:48:00] I wouldn't be like, well, I can't believe they haven't left the campsite better than when they arrived.

Like, I just be like, yeah, people are, you know, s***s and well, we're certainly going to clean up the campsite. So I think the other flip side of it that I don't see in other people, and maybe this is only a pod person thing. Is this the Karen reaction of like, you have to do this. Why didn't you do this?

You like this, this insistence or outrage when other people do not behave. In accordance with their culture or values or expectations. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely. Only, only really pod people do that. Like, yeah. Or even, even

Simone Collins: service expectations, like not being happy with the service you received. I think a non pod based person kind of just expects everyone else to be kind of disappointing from a service perspective.

And of course, it's not great

Malcolm Collins: to be disappointed by everyone else. Like they are, yeah and, and people can be like, well, that's [00:49:00] elitist and it's like, yeah, it might be elitist, but having pride in who you are appears to be one of the key things that's required to have a high fertility rate. You know, you have to like who you are to want to keep existing.

And so, you know, and this is something that the urban monoculture tries everything it can to erase. When you go to the school system, it tries to get you to hate Western civilization. It tries to get you to hate your own ancestors. It tries to get you to hate. Everything. And if it can effectively do that, like, why would anybody try to get you to hate?

Your own your own culture, right? Well, because they have an alternative they want to offer you and so if they can break you from your birth culture, then they can pick you up and take you in and so that's why they need to constantly denigrate Your own culture and constantly hide your own cultural history from you

Simone Collins: in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion.

You describe domineering versus symbiotic cultures with domineering cultures being those which Kind of have [00:50:00] ultimately a mandate to save everyone and for everyone to be of that one culture or religion. And then symbiotic cultures are those which don't believe everyone can be saved and therefore are more supportive of pluralism, but at the same time are kind of a******s because they just expect that a bunch of people are going to go to hell.

Malcolm Collins: Are different than this dichotomy. Like it's related to the dichotomy, but you can be from a domineering culture and come from a clan based subclave or like. Ethno phenotype of that culture. Right. Because

Simone Collins: technically Catholicism is a domineering culture and you want to save everyone, but at the same time, there are very clan based subsets of Catholicism.

Where there isn't

Malcolm Collins: really well fertility or the rise logically understand that their goal is one day to convert everyone, but that doesn't mean that that's how they frame Catholicism in their heads.

Simone Collins: Interesting. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that because I was curious if you considered them synonymous or not.

Malcolm Collins: And another thing to note about clan based cultures is a lot [00:51:00] of people assume, and I mentioned this when I was talking about clan based cultures before, is one of the key features of clan based cultures is you are judging yourself off of your clan system. So, like, I don't judge myself. I was never taught, and I never have really judged myself off of wider society.

It's what is my brother doing? What is my sister doing? What are my cousins doing? What did my parents generation do? And, and my aunts and uncles do. You know, like that's where cultural norms air set. And if I'm breaking cultural norms, I am specifically thinking, okay, this is the cultural norm of my family, and I am consciously choosing to break that cultural norm or or setting cultural expectations.

This is the cultural expectation that my family sets, and I think it's it's poorly chosen, but that's where I grabbed all of my cultural norms and expectations was from my family network.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: And I have chosen to significantly deviate from some of the cultural norms of my family. , the biggest one being, , an error of respectability is supposed to be expected of all. Collins's like we are supposed to be respectable and high class [00:52:00] acting and very. Squeaky clean and never controversial.

And obviously. I have gone in a very different direction. And I have talked in link on episodes, like the episode media baiting about why we have chosen to go in this controversial direction, because I think it's the only way to have relevance in the current political discussion. And so I understand why my family set respectability as a standards when they were running for office. A generation ago or the generation before that.

But I don't think that if we are to stay with the same consequential goal, which is public service and having an impact on the direction society is going, that, , they do, they good hypothesis to try to strive for this air of respectability. Even though everyone else in my family still works really hard to strive for it.

Malcolm Collins: And I should note that within clan based family networks, people fall out of that. Like if somebody doesn't do something right, they fall out of it.

Well, so why is this so protective? Well, if I am a Mormon or a Catholic, and [00:53:00] I am normalizing to cultural norms. Not based on what is the temple saying or for Catholics right now? Why it's so protective. What is the Pope saying? Because the Pope's gone, you know, woke, woke, woke right now, right? I don't look to the Pope or the centralized organization for what is.

You know, my norms as a Catholic. I'm looking for my, either my clan or my chosen subgroup of the Catholic community to set those norms. When I, when I am a Mormon and I'm looking for this, I am looking for that subgroup or that family. And yeah, one family member may have like de subgroup. But now I just no longer consider them among the people I am comparing myself to.

And then this explained why it was the Mormons who were considered themselves a middling religion that were going up in fertility, and the Mormons who considered themselves extremely Mormon who were going down in fertility. It's because if you are a clan based individual, you're going to have certain Rules that are rules for normal [00:54:00] Mormons, just not rules for your family, because your family had like collectively decided we're not going to follow those rules, but we have these other extra rules that you might have to follow.

And so, they would normally not consider themselves at the extreme end, but they would take a lot of pride. In their family identity and Mormonism and Mormonism is actually very good at facilitating that. So while the backwoods people were typically very hostile to the mormons when the mormons went into their territory When the backwards people moved into mormon territory a huge number of them converted to mormonism and a lot of people can be like why were there a huge number of backwards converts to mormonism?

The answer is is because and i've mentioned this before mormons offer the best Heaven for somebody from a clan based culture.

Getting to spend all eternity with your family, with your clan, is a very easy sell to one of these people. And it's not a sell you get with most heaven systems. So, and then Mormonism also, it's all into jihad.

Genealogy, it's all into family history. Like, of course, it's going to appeal to these people, [00:55:00] right? But they're just going to relate to Mormonism very differently than other people relate to Mormonism. And when we were going through pictures, if you're like, what's the difference between these two Mormon churches?

If you're looking at the non clan based Mormons, they're the ones who look very sort of, I guess I'd say preppy. Very similar, all sort of in similar outfits. If you are looking at the Klan based ones, they typically dress more like you'd think a typical Trump supporter would dress. With a pickup truck and, you know, a lot of American flags everywhere, and a lot of that sort of stuff.

Not all the, the, the quiche, but more like Western. Or more Southern, somebody might say. Even though they're not really talking about Southern culture, they're talking about greater Appalachian culture. A lot of people confuse the two. Southern culture is very, I'd say sort of dandy based. It's not the, the, the mud wrestling and stuff like that.

But anyway now I wanted to get to, Oh, yes, the two types of these systems because this is another thing I noted. So, the Mormon guy one of the Mormons I was talking to, this is actually a separate Mormon, and they were [00:56:00] very disappointed that their parents were more involved with their local church than coming and helping with their grandkids, right?

And this is when we were talking about this topic of, of, you know, do you care more about the family or do you care more about the church? And I was, you know, obviously I felt sympathy for them, but then I had this realization, my parents don't help me, but like, I never had any feeling like they ever might come and help me as an adult.

And if anything, I see it as a relief that they don't help me as an adult. And so then I started focusing on this feeling more. And Simone, when I brought this up with you, you're like, yeah, I feel the same way. Or do you want to elaborate? Yeah. There was,

Simone Collins: there was zero expectation that there would be ongoing support or close involvement from my parents growing up.

And the hope was that I would just succeed and be out of the nest. And definitely, I think what always surprised me was hearing from people who fully expected on, like ongoing [00:57:00] childcare from their parents or continued support. Because to me, that would feel like meddling and stress and obligation. And it feels nice to not have that.

And it feels nice to have the freedom. And I also think that my parents enjoyed the freedom that they have not having to care for children. So it's just everyone saying like, f**k off. I love you. Bye. And it's nice.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it is something that I looked at to see if this is something that had been historic because I have a lot of biographies of my ancestral family members.

So I was able to think through those, think through tons of interviews I've done with my dad and my grandfather because I like recording family history. Again, that's a normal thing for some people in clan based culture. They're going to record their family history a lot. And a lot of people, when they look at like my family, they're like, Oh, you guys have intergenerational wealth.

And I'm like, Well, insofar as each generation is wealthy, not insofar as each generation has passed on their wealth. I didn't inherit anything from my dad, and my dad not [00:58:00] only didn't inherit anything from his family, but his grandfather took out a million dollars in debt against him. The one area where my family has a tradition of helping the family is always finding a way to pay for education when they can.

But even that where I looked at where the family was helping and like my great, great, great grandfather's time and his father the parents didn't help. It was the siblings that helped. The siblings would help pay for things. And then you talked about thomas jefferson's biography, how it was a similar.

No,

Simone Collins: This brought to mind Benjamin Franklin's biography for me, where, yes, his father contributed to his education and encouraged him to think about careers, but at age 12, he was on his own. And what did he do? He worked for his brother's printing shop, one of the colonial America's earliest newspapers, where he then contributed anonymously as A letter to the editor writer under the name silence do good until his brother discovered him [00:59:00] and there was such a huge conflict over it that it got to the point where it was, it became violent.

Just hilarious. But then again, you have this, this rough and tumble, a competition between other

Malcolm Collins: brother gave him money to invest, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's what I remember from the biography. I was asking about it today just for the. Yeah. Specifics of that happened to reread the biography, and it couldn't remember that.

But I recall after he had relocated to Philadelphia, a brother or a cousin, giving him money to deploy as investment and there being an issue actually, because a friend with whom he was working on that was spending the money poorly. Wasting it instead of investing it. So yeah, I was under the impression.

And I think that basically Benjamin Franklin relied on a broader network of siblings, but not so much as parents understanding that his parents had a lot of kids and just didn't really have resources for him, which is fine. Right.

Malcolm Collins: 16. [01:00:00]

Simone Collins: I think, yeah, I think there were 16 kids total and he was the youngest son.

And then of course this brother's brawling in an early startup environment immediately made me think of Elon Musk and his brother. Who also seemed to have succeeded in men and. Thrive despite their parents Benjamin

Malcolm Collins: franklin what remember i've always said that the the the puritans ended up merging with the backwoods backcountry people and this is why their cultures were very similar in many ways Or at least a subsection of them were and this was a subsection that ben franklin represented He would always do deals with the when the backcountry people, when the pit What, what group with it?

The something boys sieged Philadelphia and almost took the city. He was the one who had to do a deal with them because the Puritans kept treating the back country people really unfairly and not giving them votes. And so they basically said, okay, well, then we'll take over your city. And they, they came with weapons and they almost did.

It's one of the only times that the American population has sieged and almost conquered an [01:01:00] American city just out of frustration. And he was the one who had to handle that. But anyway, that's back at hand here. So what I'm saying is as many people when they hear clan, what they may think of is the cliche like hillbilly family where you have some old matriarch or patriarch that is ruling everything.

And then you know, beneath them is like a family network. But actually you, you may get that occasionally. But because clan based people are so anti hierarchical it's actually usually a lot more flat than that. And the parents role is often seen as more of a trial than a like we're giving you stuff or we're making it easier for you.

Like every time I've been around my parents, my sort of understanding of our relationship is their role was to make my life artificially difficult so that. When they weren't around, my life would be easier. Cue broccoli dropping the weights here. And so when I was thinking about this idea of like, do I want my parents around helping with my kids?

I was like, I can think [01:02:00] of no instance ancestrally, like remember in the, in the, the family diaries, the first one, this is at the great great grandfathers. He left home as soon as he was like 12 or 13 and moved from like Mississippi to Texas and then only went back to bring his wife back. And then his son.

Got mad when he was like 15 or 16 because the dad took his hog and killed it at the wrong season. And he's like, I'm never working with him again.

Simone Collins: Untimely hog killing. That's the end of the relationship for him.

Malcolm Collins: He needed it wrong. Time to sell his Bitcoin. Okay. He sold his Bitcoin in the wrong market and he was very upset about this.

And he said, I will never work with him again in business. And so again, there was no intergenerational help there. It was in intragenerational help. And people can be like, Well, that seems really hard, right? Like, I guess it is hard, but it puts like additional, I guess you could say pressure whether it's, it's evolutionary pressure or additional ability to survive and in a hard environments and motivation to [01:03:00] push outwards, which explains why these people were so common on the frontier.

Because you know, they would often leave their family environment when they came of age simply because there was, because there's no nepotism, there's no benefit to staying there. And, and worst case scenario, you might be accused of achieving something nepotistically. So you look at me, like I started my career basically in Korea about as far away from my family as you could get.

And my dad started it his first job was in Central and South America driving around doing business deals in that area. But anyway. So we're going to get to the final point here which is About, well, I mean, I sort of already talked about why it's so protective of fertility rates. It's so protective of fertility rates because pride is a very good motivator of fertility rates and a much better motivator for why you do certain things than, than, than a strict set of rules.

Believing that that pride is tied to a certain degree of elitism. Like I do X because I'm better than other people. It turns out in humans is. A very good way of convincing them to do something. [01:04:00] And it's much less sensitive to dominant societal pressures. So, if we see the dominant social group doing X in our area, we're gonna say, well, let's stay away from that.

I actually think that this is, in part, why The Catholic subculture has been so impacted by the urban monoculture. You know why 60% of Catholics vote Democrat? Why so much of the Catholic church and so many Catholic schools have just become like urban monocultural centers is because a lot of cultural groups, subcultural groups under the wider Catholic umbrella were communicate what's the word I'm looking for?

Communitarian influencer collectivist.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: And they that worked when the Catholics were the majority in the areas that they were, which Catholics often were, but it also also meant that they got crushed the moment the urban monoculture came to town, but that doesn't mean that all of the subcultural groups within Catholicism were collectivist and those groups have done well, and then the wider collectivist societies like [01:05:00] China, Japan, Korea are just getting absolutely brutalized by fertility class.

And so. I guess my, and when I was talking to people, there's actually a lot of immediate to do items from this realization, which is to focus a lot on building pride in family identity and how your family is different from other groups. And what your family does and what it means to be a member of your family.

And so this is something that you can carry out whether you're a Catholic or a Mormon or a Jew or a anything and to not succumb to the risk of primarily affiliating was a cultural identity. The second takeaway I would have if I was somebody watching this who didn't have the pod person instinct is to recognize that other people do have this instinct and to be very.

wary of when you might be triggering it, especially if you might be triggering [01:06:00] other things that could offend those groups. So as I've mentioned the backwoods people generally don't attack people unless they think those people are patronizing them, like putting them down, seeing them as less than, et cetera.

Unfortunately the pod person instinct almost intrinsically can feel like being put down by somebody if they're dressed nicer than you and everything like that. And, and yeah. So it's, it's very wary to, to, to be aware. Or am I broadcasting this in the way I'm acting in the way I'm dressing or do I appear and also to know sort of the vulgar keywords to understand that you're being s**t test when something like that happens.

And there is actually a purpose behind that s**t test. It's not like doing it for s***s and giggles. It has utility even in a modern context. It is being used essentially to determine authenticity, like

Simone Collins: you may think it's degeneracy when it's really a search [01:07:00] for authenticity or virtue by different standards.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, virtue by different standards by willing to stand to your own beliefs about the world and moral systems in how or your families or your clan systems in so far as those differentiate from the dominant culture systems. Thanks. So any final thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: Oh, I like this. It, it seems intuitively to be very protective from cultural technologies and memes that are inherently dangerous because when your internal measuring stick is all about your internal family, you just aren't going to be as susceptible to those outside.

Contagions, which is cool.

Malcolm Collins: And I would note one final thing, which is interesting, is that clan cultures don't rely on churches as much as other cultures, which is something to note. Some do, but most [01:08:00] just don't need them to maintain cultural cohesion. Whereas communalist cultures often need something like a meeting place with non members to feel like they're part of it.

I think people overthink that clan based cultures are like constantly having family meetings, instead of like having family meetings once every couple years. They don't need as much check in. They're much more atomized in that respect. And, and a different video can be on. How did the urban monoculture basically erase individualist cultures?

Because they basically got completely wiped out.

Simone Collins: Well, and by individualist cultures, do you mean clan based cultures?

Malcolm Collins: No, there were three cultural types. There's collectivist, there's clan based, and there's individualist. Individualists believe in totally atomized individual autonomy. I am Malcolm. I am not a Collins.

I am not a Catholic. I am Malcolm first.

And individualist culture was the first one to fall. [01:09:00] It was incredibly susceptible to the urban monoculture. Almost nobody who has an individualist mindset still exists.

Simone Collins: I don't know. I have this feeling like individualistic culture is what the urban monoculture is all about. It's about isolating people into something where They don't have anything larger to adhere to. It's only them and it's only their immediate feelings.

Malcolm Collins: So, so what you're noticing is first, the, the urban monoculture has to turn somebody into an individualist before it can erase them, or it has to conquer their bureaucracy, which is, means it can conquer collectivists really easily as well.

But it, once somebody is an individualist, then the urban monoculture, which is your anti individualist, the urban monoculture doesn't say, be whatever you want to be. It says you have to think this, you have to do this, you have to have this value set. But basically it's a divide and conquer [01:10:00] strategy.

Individualists, because they have to fight. Alone, basically end up getting wiped out really quickly

Simone Collins: by it. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: And they can think, oh, well, we'll all fight together. But it turns out that because the urban monoculture is like, well, But we're just about enabling new types of individualism and new ways of being affirmed.

It's very easy to sort of get in that back door and split off the factions of the individualist culture. So that there is no fighting back against it.

Simone Collins: Okay. I like

Malcolm Collins: that. Love you, Simone. I love you too, Malcolm.

Simone Collins: You too.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: I wanted to do some final thoughts here on the future of Mormonism, because these sort of had a three episode arc. That talked a lot about Mormonism and was inspired by statistics of what's going on within the Mormon church. , one is. The, like, what's the future of Mormonism [01:11:00] going to be. And I think that right now we are at an inflection point for the Mormon identity that is as big. And the. Types of people who are Mormons we'll change as much. As the changeover from, , the original Joseph Smith days to. , this settlement of Utah days or the polygenist days to the post polygynous days.

And I think that it's driven by two things first was when the Mormon church decided to

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone) & Integrated Camera: Promote

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: the COVID vaccine. And a lot of Mormons where Mo. And this is what we were talking about. The Mormons, you seem to have more kids or the Mormons who. , take pride in Mormonism and, and utilize Mormonism. But when the church tells them to do something that goes against their own identity or conscience or clan morals, they're like no F off, I'm not taking the vaccine. , and so a lot of these individuals ended up, , Temporarily sort of splitting from [01:12:00] the church, not going into bad standing, but rechanging how would they think about an interact with the hierarchical system of the church? And I think that this was actually very healthy for the church, because , I often hear my Mormon friends be like, well, what's going to happen to the church if. The essential bureaucracy goes, woke or gets captured by woke ism.

, and here I would point them. I'm like, well, you, you have people like beachy, Keenan who, you know, we interviewed recently, he was a Catholic. And her community of Catholics feels like the Pope compared to their value set is a far woke extremist. , and yet they are still staying within the church. , and I suspect that Mormonism might have a similar thing.

They just change how they relate to the central hierarchy. And I think that you sort of had this prototyped. With the COVID mandates. , which is to say

the church did something that was woke and people didn't leave. They didn't split off and start some new church. They're like, okay, we'll tolerate this until we can recapture the central bureaucracy. , so I think that the Mormons can learn a lot from the Catholics in that [01:13:00] respect, in terms of how they related to that. Event. now would I handle it that way?

No, but I'm not a Mormon or a Catholic, like I have a different set of like genetic pre coding. That's gonna cause me to splinter. And if you look at the,

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-19: Interview we did with.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: redeemed. Zoomer. You, you get a sense of this were the Protestants. Whenever one of their churches goes even a little woke. Everyone. Who's not woke, even if it turns out that it's the majority who's not woke, just ends up splitting off and starting a new organization. , and this is what I'm talking about, where it's sort of. , as a slight level of, , , Culture and maybe genetics leads to the Protestants to always split off.

But I suspect the Mormons are going to act more like the Catholics. Now here, I would also note like what's the future of the Mormon religion. , was a question that was posed to me recently. And I started thinking, you know, I know a lot of Mormons don't watch the Mormon influencers. However. I think the Mormon influencers [01:14:00] may be the Vanguard of a new direction.

The church could take.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-18: So essentially the image of what a Mormon is. If you look at people who grew up in my generation, it was of this nerdy sort of pod person. Eve, you look at people who are growing up in this next generation, , you know, young kids today. It's the ultra trad wife. Who's baking pie. And. , you know, may.

It may come off as unrealistically.

Perfect. But is essentially a form of jock. You can almost think of like, they sort of transitioned from a nerd image to a jock image. And this isn't just a transition in image. There genuinely used to be a lot of nerdy pod people, Mormons, and most of them left the church and went woke recently. And. Even the ones who are staying in the church, if you go around. , and one of my friends was showing me pictures around Utah.

Recently, if you look at the ones who are breeding, they are of this jock [01:15:00] variety. Now they're not the nerdy pod people anymore. They're just not having many kids.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: Where this next generation, like, remember how I said, like, Where the Mormon church is going, could be as different from where it was historically as the,

Post polygamous Mormons, where from the pre polygamist Mormons, culturally speaking. Mormons for a long time have been a weird religion. However. The Mormons on the cultural Vanguard. Now the Mormon wife influencers. Or trad they're like, Mormonism historically was antithetical to try that, at least in the eyes of the American public. And now they are seen as the Vanguard of trad.

They are seen as the trad foot soldiers in the culture war, and this sort of completely transforms. Part of the Mormon self identity as being, not just mainstream and normal, but the Vanguard of mainstream and normal, but also what it may mean to be a good [01:16:00] Mormon for some individuals where these Mormon influencers often break. The deontological rules of the Mormon tradition.

I E they won't wear their garments correctly. They might hike up their legs a little bit, but.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-20: They are breaking rules, not to appear more urban monoculture, but to appear more perfectly athletically trad.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: They're having a lot of kids. And they are presenting an aspirational figure that makes people want to join the church. And it may change Mormonism from a religion of overwhelmingly deontological rules. Into a religion of athletic rules and by athletic rules, I mean, there is an authentic image of what it means to be a Mormon.

And that is what one can aspire to most. And in a way that would be an iteration of the religion. Because Mormonism, unlike other religions. It has a iterative revelation. Meaning to say [01:17:00] Mormonism is going to change. That's not, it might say. Catholicism is going to change. Catholics are like, I would never change.

How could it, you say warm it doesn't, it's going to change to a Mormon and they're like, yeah, that's the point? Like, that's the point of iterative revelation? Of course, it's going to change. , the Warman is, it might actually be evolving into almost sort of the perfect social media religion. , which is really interesting to me because I was noting when I was talking to someone recently that there are not, You know, trad a Jewish influencers or trad Catholic influencers. That are seen as aspirationally trad to people outside their religion. But there are lots of tread Mormon influencers who are seen as aspirationally Tradd to people outside their religion. And that's really fascinating.

And then some Mormons are like, no, this is like the cultural outsiders, this isn't the mainstream Mormons. And I'm like, okay, who the F are you kidding? Ballerina farms is probably the most famous. This is an a, and I know this family that I've mentioned, I know the, , jet blue guy. I know that that line of [01:18:00] the family. They are like king Mormons.

This is like a king normie . Mitt Romney status, almost Mormons, the jet blue family. She's married into that family. They aren't like some cultural outsider or some deviant. This is the core of the church culture that's being advertised here.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): And then in spite of all this.

In spite of these influencers who was in a generation transformed the public perception of Mormonism to a group of. Weasely nerds whose primary controversies were that they used to be polygynous and racist. To a group of beautiful trad wives whose primary controversy is that they're too traditionalist they'll say, oh, but they're not. Mormon enough in the way that I identify as Mormon. And so they want to. Turn on this group that is put up this Herculean effort. And to me, this just feels so [01:19:00] order 66,

Speaker 51: Now, let's get a move on. We've got a battle to win here.

Speaker 52: Sir!

Speaker 53: Execute Order 66.

Blast them!

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): like, what are you guys thinking?

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone)-1: As a final note here, I mentioned at the beginning that it was the Mormons who were of this overly deontological perfectionist variety who ended up deconverted.

Generally ended up going Wolk. This actually created a very favorable phenomenon to Mormonism, which saved them from something that could have been a major problem for the religion. Which is to say that early in the days of the online atheist movement. A huge chunk of the leadership of the movement was Xmas.

I think this was due to cultural reasons and is likely due to the same reason that Mormons out compete other [01:20:00] people within social media platforms. They're just uniquely, culturally good at social media. Well, If you look at the current online skeptic and atheist community, there are almost no eczema is in the leadership groups.

And the question can be what happened here. Well, what happened was, and you can go watch our video on how the. Atheist movement bore. With the birthplace of the modern online, right. , is it the atheist movement ended up having a split with the individuals who were more interested in just dunking on conservatives.

I either woke. He's going in one direction and the genuine skeptics going in another direction. , and most of the genuine skeptics coming back around and being like, Hey, maybe religion. Wasn't that bad? An idea after all? Well, all of the Xmas are the vast majority of them ended up getting pulled off by the walkies. , and so the woke side of the skeptic community ended up integrating with the general woke movement and lost a lot of its cultural relevance.

Octavian: Oops, professor's right in, oh, it got [01:21:00] away. The

Simone Collins: professor's inside? Saying hi to you? Do

Octavian: you, do I have lips? You

Simone Collins: do have lips, yes. Do you not see them in the camera?

And you have teeth? What's your favorite part of your face?

Yeah, I think we've confirmed that you have a mouth, which is good.

Octavian: Oh, my hair is like yellow, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah, your hair is, we call it blonde, um, but yes, it's yellow. And what color is Titan's hair?

Octavian: I really don't know, but describe it to me.

Simone Collins: It's brown. And what color is Torsten's hair?

Octavian: Yellow!

Simone Collins: No, it's not yellow like yours, it's orange.

Orange.

Octavian: Uh, uh, he's blue. That's

Simone Collins: so funny. [01:22:00] Why did

Octavian: the chicken

Simone Collins: cross a road?

Octavian: To get

Simone Collins: food that was

Octavian: electronic that pooped him.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay, let's try this again. Tell me a joke.

Okay. Why did the chicken cross the road?

Octavian: To get some food on cars. To get some

Simone Collins: food on cars.

Octavian: Yeah, and poop on a pumpkin.

Simone Collins: And poop on a pumpkin.

Octavian: I

Simone Collins: love you too, buddy.

Octavian: I

Malcolm Collins: love you, Simone.

Simone Collins: Octavian's attempts at humor were, um, not good. He's really [01:23:00] trying. You know, one of these days he's going to get it.

Malcolm Collins: I love you so much, Simone.

I hear him approaching. Oh, you're Come on, Toasty. You want to talk to the fans? The audience? Come

on. You get to walk by yourself?

Simone Collins: Hi, buddy.

Malcolm Collins: You get to be all by yourself.

Simone Collins: Can you hear me? Yeah, they can hear you, but you won't be able to hear them. Hi,

Octavian: Dad!

Simone Collins: Hi, Titan. Hi, Toasty.

Octavian: Titan,

Simone Collins: what are you wearing?

Octavian: Uh,

Malcolm Collins: I can't hear you guys.

So he wanted to walk by himself. So Stacey let him for the first time. Uh huh. And he ended up just walking away and going to the neighbor's house. Oh! And he knew that he

Octavian: couldn't

Malcolm Collins: do

Octavian: that.

Malcolm Collins: Daddy,

Octavian: you're

Malcolm Collins: just

Octavian: a joke! Come on! Get out of here! [01:24:00] What? Am I at the audience? Are you at

Simone Collins: the audience?

Octavian: Yeah! I'm kidding.

I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Dad! I, I said you! I'm all, I'm all here! on the computer!

Simone Collins: Indy's staring at him like what is even happening? Like she's like, what?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, we got to get him out of the mommy room?

Octavian: Yeah!

Malcolm Collins: What do you think I should do to get him out of the mommy room?

Octavian: What

should I do to get him out of the

[01:25:00] mommy room? Should he be punished?

Malcolm Collins: How much should

Octavian: he be punished for, then? Well, I'm going

Simone Collins: to come down and make dinner.

Octavian: Stitches get stitches. That's right, Toastie.

Malcolm Collins: You don't get to ask her to be punished.

Octavian: Do you want to talk to Octavian? Why

do you want to talk to Octavian?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I love you, buddy.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-21: Quick aside here, but I noted earlier in the video that one of the reasons why people, , from certain cultures drink is so that they can see what you are like [01:26:00] with lower inhibitions. , and kids also present that to an extent a person's kids shows. The way that they are sort of genetically pre-coded to act if they had lower inhibitions and frequently, when people see me in media, they're like Malcolm. You seem like you are. Incredibly high energy.

You must be on drugs or something like that, or it must be an affectation you put on for the camera. And here I would just direct your attention to Octavian for the past five minutes.

That is what I is going on in my brain all day 24 7. That's being suppressed.

Malcolm Collins: You want dinner?

Okay, come on. Do you want to say anything to the subscribers?

Simone Collins: Do you want to, do you want to say goodbye to the

Octavian: subscribers, buddy?

Come on down. [01:27:00] Okay.

Unseen Insights: Mormon Fertility Trends and Cultural Dynamics In this special episode of Basecamp, we delve into exclusive data regarding fertility trends among the Mormon community, contributed by one of our listeners. Through a study involving 310 members from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, fascinating trends emerge among different age and religiosity groups. We discuss the rapid transition to wokeness, fertility collapse, and the impact of cultural pride versus deontological religious rules on fertility rates. The episode explores clan-based versus communalist moral systems and their influence on Mormon society, offering intriguing insights into the future of Mormon demographics and culture.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] HeLlo, Simone, I am excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be having a very special episode where we are going to be giving you Basecamp listeners access to exclusive data that no one else has seen. And you know why? Because one of you put it together.

Yes.

So anyway, I was talking with this fan, and he is saying, anecdotally, as a Mormon so, obviously he has a lot of insight into what the Mormons are doing, the fertility rate among the Mormon community, he goes, it seems to me that the most religious of Mormons are having two big issues.

One is, is they are going woke much faster than other Mormons. Like, the individuals within their communities seem to go woke at a higher rate than other communities.

 He noted. This mostly happens when they deconvert, but this is still a problem because their kids will be going to the same schools

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: which can become a drain on the community overall.

Malcolm Collins: And two is, they just seem to be being hit by fertility collapse much harder. than just generically religious Mormons. [00:01:00] And I was like, that's a really interesting observation.

Would you mind trying a study on that? And he actually went on and did a study and a big one. He got 310 people involved in this.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: And so, he found out that his hypothesis was born out in the data and It gives us one of the keys for a new theory at solving fertility collapse that I have been building.

Simone Collins: Oh, yummy. I'm excited for this.

Malcolm Collins: I'm quoting him right now in an email where he sent the data to me. I took it upon myself to do a study on age, religiosity, and fertility among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.

Everyone in the study has strong ties to the state of Utah and still maintains some relationship. For some, it may be very complicated, with Mormons as a cultural group. This is based on a random sampling of 310 people I found on Facebook for the study. They are divided into six groups. Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, with [00:02:00] 1 being least religious and 6 being most religious.

Findings were stark. Among those aged 65 the correlation between religiosity and fertility was 0. 8%. They had an average of f 4. 53. So 65 and older for a 4. 5 average fertility r mormon. But that's also w Remember mormons used to

For and younger. The fertility rates dropped dramatically among those 35 to 64. The correlation between religiosity and fertility rate was 0. 16. So, no, it dropped to a rather low level. It dropped from 0. 45 to 0. 16 in this next generation. And I'm going to, you know, I think what's really happening here and why this hasn't been picked up in data yet is, I think that this is a new phenomenon.

Where in some religious traditions within the [00:03:00] modern post cell phone generation generation. Fertility rates drop as religiosity enters extreme ranges. But we'll, we'll, we'll talk more about the data here. Going back to the quote, what appears to be the case is that among the strongly religious, they started having kids less, but among those less religious, they still had cultural reasons to have kids.

35 to 64, Age cohort had a fertility rate of 2.92. Among those age 25 to 34, the correlation between religiosity and fertility was 0.32, so much stronger than the 35 to 64 group, but not as high as the 65 plus age group. They currently have a fertility rate of 1.1, but I expect this group to eventually have 0.9 more children on average.

So round out to about two barely below replacement rate

Simone Collins: so wait, you meant 2.1 then.

Malcolm Collins: You just

Simone Collins: said 1. 1 earlier.

Malcolm Collins: No, they have a current fertility rate of [00:04:00] 1. 1, but he expects them to have an additional 0. 9 kids as they age. Oh, oh, sorry, of

Simone Collins: this sample. Okay, yeah, sorry, okay, now I'm following.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, I don't cut out when you misunderstand something, because other people have pointed out in the comments, they're like, if Simone has misunderstood something, more than half your audience Not

Simone Collins: everyone is as sleep deprived as Simone.

So, that's Maybe not, but yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well then honestly you should be going to bed earlier and putting the kids to bed earlier because they're really tired when I wake them up, which to me implies that they're not going down. They're refusing to go to bed. Simone, if you get them in the room alone earlier, they'll go to bed earlier.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Sorry, this is our parenting negotiation here. Being a bad, bad husband, just being to like, you have to get more sleep wife. I demand it. No choice do you have in the matter? Okay. Previously. I thought these trends would only appear for those born post 1980, but the data clearly shows them emerging for those.

Born post [00:05:00] 1960. So the internet was not the major factor here. Oh, I was wrong. Yeah. Okay. I would say it may deal more with economic factors, but I'm not entirely sure. Furthermore, I , acknowledge the largest limitation to the study. is mere subjectively rating people one to six, but I feel like it's not too different than doing the same thing with people on the Jewish spectrum by analyzing clothing, style, aesthetics, activities, language, et cetera.

I also acknowledge that my Facebook may be a slightly higher fertility sample than average but I'm unsure about this. This is where it gets interesting. For the 64 plus age group, the fertility rate for those most religious six rating, their fertility rate was 5.4. Most of the other religious groups hovered around four, so boomers and the silent generation Mormons usually had around four-ish kids on average.

Obviously some as high as seven in sizeable numbers. and somewhere as low as two in sizable numbers. However, for the 35 to 64 age group, the most religious, a six [00:06:00] rating, the fertility rate collapsed to 3. 21. But the group that was rated as four actually rose to 5. 27 from 4. 4 in the older cohort.. So I want to make this clear. In the younger cohort, as time has gone on, the The fertility rate of less religious Mormons has gone up, not down.

Okay? So Mormons who considered themselves slightly less religious than half of Mormons. Oh no, wait, so sorry, what was the four group? It went up to six. So, Three was average. So these are people who consider themselves slightly more religious than the average Mormon but are not at the five or six level.

So these are individuals who would have some Mormon friends, some non Mormon friends, but would generally follow all of the rules and blah blah blah blah blah.

Okay.

Their fertility rate has gone up as overall Mormon fertility rate has been collapsing. Where it's been collapsing is in the ultra religious cohort.[00:07:00]

Simone Collins: Doesn't that dovetail well with your argument around

Malcolm Collins: deontological religious systems being the core failure?

Simone Collins: No, pluralism being a driver of fertility. When you're more surrounded by groups that are different from you, you feel inspired to have more of your own group out of a feeling of pride.

Malcolm Collins: That's likely a big thing here.

So we've noted here that the more immigrants the country has typically the higher the native groups fertility rate becomes and the more animosity immigrant groups have with each other or the more culturally distinct they are the higher the fertility rate. I think this is a big thing sort of subsidizing Israel's fertility rate.

Well, and

Simone Collins: it's also you could look at it. As a cultural pride thing, when you discover what it is that makes you special, it makes you proud to perpetuate that. If you don't see what's special about what you have because you're surrounded by it, you have less of a motivation to try to do your part to continue it.

Malcolm Collins: This is actually something that he, he, he looked for. So, to be in the five and six categories, specifically in the sixth category. It meant that almost all of your friend group was Mormon at that [00:08:00] point.

So, and apparently this is a thing among devout Mormons, like super devout Mormons just don't have many friends who aren't devout Mormons as well.

And so it leads to this You know that would definitely you're right there. I actually think that this is partly down to deontological relationship with religion versus non deontological relationship with a religion And in mormonism, it's very easy to build a deontological relationship to a religion.

Yeah to a

Simone Collins: fault in fact a lot of practicing mormons that i've met focus only on the deontological element not even really believing in the faith at all just being like I go through the motions because I like the community Yeah, but they don't do it for a reason, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and this, this, this creates downstream negative effects, but we'll get to this at the end of the lecture, not the lecture episode.

I don't know. Whatever. Everything of mine is a lecture. I'm sorry, people. I used to, I used to teach classes. So that's, that's why you

Simone Collins: grew up on the great courses. Of course you believe in, in lectures.

Malcolm Collins: For people who don't know there was [00:09:00] this great company teach one, two, where now you can get a subscription and just listen to their, I thought it was

Simone Collins: referred to as the teaching company.

Now you can get

Malcolm Collins: company, but I'm just saying teach one, two. com is, is, is their URL, but it originally used to offer these absolutely amazing courses where they would find the best professors at like tons of different universities. I've heard that the quality of their courses has gone downhill recently and I found the same thing.

When I've reengaged, I haven't been like as drawn in as I was by the old stuff. It depends.

Simone Collins: There's a lot of variation. So they still have, it's now known as Wondrium. You can get an app and then you sort of buy a subscription to get access to their library of courses. And so you don't have to buy courses individually, like you used to have to, to get big tapes of them.

The problem is that now there is more variation. So for example, I'd love all of their courses by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, but you know, you can also get a lot of stuff by him for free, or you can just read his books. But those are really great. There are others that just kind of suck. So yeah, it

Malcolm Collins: depends. For people who've read the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion.

I mentioned that you should divide your life into stages. Like that's the way my life was [00:10:00] taught to me by my parents. Like between X age and X age, this is your focus. And I was taught up until a certain age, like my entire focus in life was to prepare myself, like make myself the best tool possible for changing the world.

And that. Part of doing that was education. And I knew like in high school, I just wasn't getting a high enough quality education. So I would spend all of my free time listening to lectures in my early jobs when I had to do like boring sorts of just like lab work all day. That wasn't cognitively engaging.

I'd spend all day listening to lecture series. So, you know, these lecture series are typically like 24 48 hours long in total. So, you know, It was an opportunity for me just to basically constantly be blasted with lectures to get a college level education. It was something your family

Simone Collins: also always did on long car rides.

You would listen to them. I think it's a great thing for a family to do your mom still every morning while doing her yoga.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. My family built it as a normalized thing that you should always have lectures on. And [00:11:00] I remember when I bought them at a young kid, they're really expensive. So, they, and this was in the nineties, you know, I think it would

Simone Collins: cost in the nineties like 130 and that it would cost a hundred

Malcolm Collins: to 500 depending on the lectures.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think these days, yeah. They, they almost charged what you would pay. For an actual course at a not even a community college more than that,

Malcolm Collins: but you could get them really cheap if you bought them on cassette or not really cheap, but like in the less expensive, like 70 range sometimes.

So I buy these big books of cassettes. If anybody remembers those old cassette books, this was long after anyone was using cassettes. And I just have a cassette player all the time. Also because you still have them

Simone Collins: by the way,

Malcolm Collins: did a very good job of holding my place in the lecture. And so, I remember once I was jogging in gym class and one of the teachers pulled me aside and they go, Oh my God, was your family, because you're from Florida, right?

Were they one of the ones hit by the hurricane? Like, is that why you always have all this cheap technology?

And I

realized I could use this because I, I didn't like to change out of my [00:12:00] dress shoes before running because it was such a pain in the ass and I was like, Oh yes. And then I didn't have to change out of my dress shoes anymore before running because you were

Simone Collins: too poor.

I was too poor. Yeah. Poor. Oh

Malcolm Collins: no.

Simone Collins: Sorry. I derailed us. Let's go back. Let's get back

Malcolm Collins: here. I have to go back to the thing. Religious rating 5 remained roughly stable, and ratings 1 to 3 plunged. Currently, for the 25 to 34 age cohort, the fertility rates are as follows. 1, 0. 27, 2, 0. 49, 3, 1. 43, 4, 1. 89, 5, 1. 41, and 6, 1.

23. So I want to note here, if you were like, graphing this, the graph would peak at 4, and then start going down when you get to 5 and 6. And that 3 actually has a higher fertility rate than 5.

Simone Collins: That's [00:13:00] very interesting. So it

Malcolm Collins: peaks on the early side. Yeah. So, so you want to be in the three or four cohort, not in the five or six cohorts in terms of what I expect.

And this is even among the very young kids, right? So we're still seeing this effect in the young kids in terms of what I would expect these numbers to be. Eventually these women are still having children is the following. He goes , 1. 05. 2, 1. 31, 3, 2. 31, 4, 2. 91, 5, 2. 39, and 6, 2. 25. The groups currently have a standard deviation of the following.

1 at 0. 56, 2 at 6. 36, 0. 69, 3 at 1. 04, 4 at 1. 13, 5 at 1. 38, and 6 at 1. 19. The implications of this as far are as follows. For whatever reason, devout LDS born [00:14:00] after 1960 started having far fewer children. Lower religiosity Mormons born after 1988 will have fertility rates comparable to secular society at large.

Moderately religious Mormons born since 1960 have on average the most kids. Four being the highest rating with three and five being virtually the same for younger Mormon women, but five being much higher for Gen X Mormon women. The theory is that those with And no, he has a lot of beliefs about different and I'm not actually going into all of his emails because I just don't have enough information and there's not enough data to say that his observed theories are correct, but he thinks this mostly that the difference in which religiosity group somebody falls into has a lot to do with what immigration.

Oh, interesting. The Mormon church with different parts of England and different motivators Well, and, and, and Germany and stuff like that, and different motivators for the immigration, leading to them falling into [00:15:00] different categories of sort of the Mormon faith. But just have that in your mind while I'm reading this next part.

The theory is that those with Yankee slash heritage cultural background among Utah Mormons had collapsing fertility rates in the 1960 1990 period. Among the other high income and highly educated, they were able to maintain high fertility rates for those born 1960 to 1980, but afterwards. This dropped precipitously.

Some of

these high income slash education still have higher fertility and this explains the higher standard deviation, 1. 38 for this group. The group that is doing the best right now is likely part of what one would call the trustee slash clan based family structure, which there are an abundant amount of in Utah.

Perhaps 10 percent of the total LDS population belongs to one. This group leans more working class, is extremely Trump coded, while the further away one is from four, the less that they are, and typically much more quote unquote red state in their culture, more culturally Western and vaguely Southern, as opposed to [00:16:00] waspy.

And he showed me pictures of this group and they, they do exist across the Mormon religiosity spectrum. And we'll talk about this more in the next video because what was really interesting for me is they didn't set off my pod person instinct and the other type of highly religious Mormon does set off my pod person instinct.

And this was just really interesting to me, to me, when I looked at them, I was like, Oh, they're culturally similar to me, or, or if not culturally similar, like they come off as like normal people to me, to me. And not like, weird, otherworldly WASPy people which, which was very interesting.

Speaker 2: I don't think you've

Speaker 5: had enough pie. Why don't you have one more?

No, no, I'm fine. I really think you should have more pie. Have more pie. Try some

Speaker: pie.

Speaker 5: Well, I just had a piece, you know, I mean

Speaker 2: Try the pie. Try the pie. Try

Speaker 5: it.

Speaker 4: Try the pie. Try the pie. Try the pie. Try the pie.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Tomorrow's episode is going to focus much more on the pod person, instinct that some people have that causes them to be sort of instinctually freaked out [00:17:00] when people show, , a degree of conformity. To a central authority. , ,

And, and tried to delineate exactly what signals elucidate this. As well as the cultural impact that the pod person. Indistinct has had, but.

The type of Mormons that do not trigger this pod person instinct.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Culturally speaking often have a lot of similarities to each other.

Malcolm Collins: Typically, these are the types of people who would wear a lot of camouflage or American flags. Be a bit more tan you know, look a bit more like they drive a pickup truck that sort of thing. And that is not all Mormons that fall into this category.

It's, it's actually quite different from mainstream Mormon culture. What this means long term is that Mormons genetically, based on reproductive fitness trends among the Utah Mormons, are becoming more Danish and somewhat more borderland slash Celtic and are becoming less Anglo.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: So to fill in a bit of what he's saying here from other parts of his theory that I didn't take time to fully read, and this is anecdotal evidence, [00:18:00] not stuff that he picked up in the data, but he suspects that the Anglo Mormons, , who predominantly came from some parts of England and where some of the first of the Mormon settlers. , fall much more into this deontological religious extremist category of Mormon.

, and that later.

Scotch Irish groups who moved from the borderlands regions into the Mormon territory or from, , Denmark into Mormon territory. , they focus much more on this clan based moral structure. And that, , that has prevented them from becoming as ideologically extreme. , but also given them more pride in their family and cultural heritage. I E they breed a lot, not because there's a set of rules telling them to breed a lot, but because they have pride in their.

Family and Mormon identity.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: That's a great example of somebody like this in a different tradition is PG Keenan, who we had on the show recently. , and a lot of people in the comments were saying things like, oh, you finally had a Catholic on the show and they [00:19:00] don't know their theology. , this specifically we asked her a theological question and she was like, oh, I don't know that one. , and I think that this represents. A perfect example of somebody who is motivated to breed and takes great pride in her Catholic identity, but isn't particularly worried about. Deontological perfectionism or theological perfectionism.

And this mindset appears to be the mindset that is most successful in the current age. We, , actually after the episode, Simone was having a conversation with one of our, , Catholic fans, , who was another woman, was a lot of kids. And she was saying the same thing. , in other words, in one of her answers, just Simone, where there was some theological point that came up and she goes, yeah, I just don't really think about it much.

, and I think that this mindset, while it may be denigrated by the theological nerds, Which are the type of people who watch this show is actually the [00:20:00] most robust mindset. To resist fertility collapse.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: gosh, on a second revision of this, now that I think about it, I've also noticed that same thing from the Jews that watch our podcasts that we talked to. , well, we talked to a lot of like, Orthodox Jews that watch this podcast. The ones that are theologically most competent and most interested in the theological questions. Almost all are unmarried or have no kids.

Whereas the ones that are more focused on Jewish identity. And pride in Jewish identity. . Do you have lots of kids?

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-7: And I think this helps elucidate one of the purposes behind sort of the techno period 10 project that we've been working on, which is to say.

It's very important for me. Intergenerational fertility perspective. To identify what it means to be part of your culture, what your culture is about and who you are as a people. And so even if you don't feel like [00:21:00] you may have a history or one of the existing cultures that you want to glom on to, you can build your own, just make sure it's distinct and communicated to your children. And something that you take pride in and something that they might be able to choose to take pride in as well.

Malcolm Collins: I believe that Mormons age 65 plus were much more dysgenic and are selected than those under 35 Being much more case selective.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: So first, what is case selected versus our selected mean. , our selected species are typically species that specialize in having tons of offspring, but don't put a lot of parental involvement into them. Think of like the hundreds of turtles going down from the beach and some of them getting eaten by like crabs and seagulls that we talked about in the PG Keenan episode. , but , a K selected species is one that invests a huge amount of parental time in just one particular offspring or, well, never one particular.

I was bringing any species that did, that would go extinct, but, but fewer offspring. The problem here being is that. [00:22:00] Within a species, you don't get a bifurcation of case selected. Our selected strategies, especially within humans. , this is a, between species comparison thing, and it doesn't really make sense to think of humans as either case selected or are selected strategies because.

Generally the humans who have tons of kids or the cultural groups that have tons of kids. Also put more effort into raising those kids. Then the humans who have very few kids in addition to that, then there's been a lot of studies done on this. The amount of effort you put into raising every individual kid doesn't. Lower the amount of effort you have for other kids.

So if you look at like a graph of families, based on how many children they have and the success, likelihood and adulthood of those children, , it's just not a huge correlation. You're not really hurting your other children's potential outcome by having more children.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-11: Also one thing you may note in this graph [00:23:00] is that children with. One sibling actually do better than children with no siblings and children was two siblings do even better than children with just one sibling. So the idea that, oh, I just have one kid I'm going to focus tons of resources into raising that one kid. And then they'll be better off than if they had a sibling or two siblings.

That's just factually untrue. Your first kid is helped by the first other kid you have. Then those two kids are helped by the next kid you have. And after that, Any degree, which they could be hurt is just really not that bad. So for example, If you're raising four kids on average, those kids are going to have better outcomes than somebody who was raising just one kid.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: And finally I note is that the. Few groups in history.

, the Backwoods culture that we'll talk about more tomorrow, and we talked about in yesterday's lecture. Could be [00:24:00] thought of as like plausibly are selected in the way that they structured their clans in that they offer almost no parental resources, which is one of the things we're going to talk about tomorrow.

They were really just like, okay, half a ton of kids. , and you kids work together to figure it out, but I'm not gonna, help you in any way. , and therefore a lot of them died

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-12: Or didn't end up securing spouses than having kids if their own.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: and then people can be like, well, that's a horrible way to do it. But if you don't do things that way, if you lean too far on case like activity, , then you don't get any intergenerational improvement because you don't have the fitter of the, the offspring being the ones who end up continuing the line.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-13: Or the fitter variants of the culture being the ones that continue the line with the assumption that every offspring is going to alter the culture, to some extent.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-9: You basically are artificially propping up whichever random ones you do happen to have through the, , immense attention that you're focusing on them and money you're pouring into their education, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

, which intergenerationally [00:25:00] is going to have really negative effects for that culture.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-10: A culture that is not okay.

With its less fit. Offspring failing is a culture that is going to eventually die.

However. Ignoring all this K R stuff. , Eve we're thinking about this type of Mormon that I was talking about earlier, that does seem to be pretty high fertility in our current environment. And doesn't set off my pod person detector.

Malcolm Collins: Like a mormon who codes this way to me Kevin dolan is a mormon who codes this way to me, you know, one of our mormon friends where to me he feels much more Western than Mormon, like waspy. I, I guess I would say like the, the primary thing I would look for here is how sort of like preening do they come off as.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: In his letters to me, he used the term trustee to describe this clan based, Section of Mormon culture. And one of the really interesting things he pointed out about the trustee section of Mormon culture was that. Unlike the rest of Mormon culture, they're much more outdoorsy. , more [00:26:00] focused on, , fishing and hiking and skiing and stuff like that.

And he noted , how actually unusual stuff like skiing and outdoors-y stuff is for people on the Zubie side of Mormon culture. Given how. Much of a paradise, Utah is for these sorts of activities.,

Malcolm Collins: he says that this difference and we'll go into it more in the next episode, is something called being a a a, a a zoomie, I believe a zubie, a zubie. Which is a term that Mormons would know, but I wouldn't know. And I was reading, here's a quote about what Zubis are.

You can tell a Zubi by appearance only, although there are a certain stereotyped look. Preppy sweater boys and plastic girls are often associated with Zubi hood. But yeah, continuing off of other trends and assumptions this gene pool is now deselecting those with 110 IQs, but has become increasingly technophilic with some small reactionary groups, often six in religiosity [00:27:00] being technophobic. This means that future Mormons, often coming from trustee slash clan families in the three to four range will be of IQ 90 types, but they may be higher educated types.

That if they do reproduce some will be group five and two will have a higher amount of the iq 130 types I foresee similar conditions to exist for the next 30 to 40 years And that group fives fertility will stabilize around 2. 3 right now I've noticed influencers are still having lots of kids like at least four so there may be a real possibility a future Genes in Utah will select even more for increased sociability, extroversion, performance skills, verbal IQ over spatial IQ, hand eye coordination, and other related traits, and conventionally attractive looks that would support this.

Bottom line, Until the world radically revolutionized, those groups three and four will continue to have kids out of cultural pride. Honestly, there's almost as much local pride here as Texas, and a big part [00:28:00] of that is having large families and will be the most fertile group until there is either one radical changes in the outside global cultural environment or two radical changes in the LDS church demanding higher fertility.

I don't see either one of these happening mid century. Now, this is really interesting, and he makes a really strong point here. Cultural pride in the current landscape, like the current social technological landscape, is a better motivator of high fertility than deontological religious rules. And what we are seeing is the Mormons in this ultra high religiosity category, they are likely motivated more by what the church is telling them to do and the church rules.

And this does not appear to be good enough to overcome fertility collapse and the drivers of fertility class. However, the Mormons in this. I'm an average Mormon or I'm a bit more Mormon than the average Mormon. This group is primarily motivated by cultural pride.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And their cultural pride [00:29:00] motivation is what is actually able to drive high fertility.

And in fact, in the age of social media leads to an increase rather than a decrease in this cultural group's fertility.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And that checks out with what. I see in social media, the Mormons who are very active aren't the most devout Mormons by any stretch of the imagination, they kind of cheat or skirt on the rules a ton, but they clearly Are generating pride and they themselves have a lot of pride in their church and religion.

So that is really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah well, I mean the gatekeepers are doing nothing but hurting their church Basically the ones who are not a true mormon unless unless unless unless where you know I think that that what we're seeing here is that those deontological mormons those preacher boy type mormons need to look to this other group To learn from them.

And I think [00:30:00] that this is something that you know, we can also see in the United States where you see things like the collapsing fertility rate of the Orthodox Christians and the Catholic Christians, who I think traditionally saw themselves as more of this preacher boy type character when they're, when they're altered about than the more vulgar you know, Protestant or Appalachian groups and it's because these groups just have more pride in who they are, and they're not motivating fertility was a set of rules, but it's because they like existing and they like people like them existing.

So let's, let's keep that going. Right. You know, so, and here I know one final point for those born After 1960, among this population group, I theorize that those who are in groups one and six have damaging slash complicated slash negative relationships with sexuality, especially forms of sexuality that are pronatal, and those who are in groups three and four are the opposite, with twos and fives being in between.

. And, and I note here Yeah, I definitely see this is there's this new [00:31:00] like a group of Mormons who are becoming more sexually comfortable and we'll do an episode on the Mormon swinger phenomenon Because apparently like swinger culture has gotten really big among Mormons because they get married or it's

Simone Collins: just these moms of mom talk Yeah, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no.

No, I've heard from other Mormons online They're like, oh, yeah, like you go to ex friends house and you'll see signs that it's been happening like but it's a really weird sort of swinger culture because they believe the only way to do it without cheating is to watch them sleeping with somebody, like if the husband or wife is in the room watching you.

Well, my understanding

Simone Collins: is that the the swinging is anything but actual PIV intercourse.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think it's usually like oral and hand jobs. Yeah. So it's,

Simone Collins: I think also the, the, the Mormon religion is, is kind of. It's one of those loopholes where like, if you're not going to be super persnickety about things, the whole, you know, sex before marriage thing, you know, it doesn't count if it's [00:32:00] oral, that's not sex.

And so that's pretty pervasive, et cetera, you know, things, things like that. So I could see that is not counting as sex outside of marriage because. It's not technically sex, but anyway,

Malcolm Collins: well, and I know there's some Mormons here being like, Oh no, those Mormons are the worst. And I'm like, those Mormons represent the hope for your religion.

And that's,

Simone Collins: that's, what's really surprising me about this message that normally you think it's. And we've even kind of shared this message that it's the religious extremists that are going to, you know, carry forward their religious legacies and their people, and they're going to inherit the future of those groups.

And yet here it's essentially the moderates that represent the future of the LDS church, which is the last thing I was going to expect you to say, but it makes so much sense. And I should have thought, well, of course.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now I've been doing more research, and it appears that the level of trustee slash clanness may correlate more strongly than even the religious group rating.

What I've realized is that for whatever reason, [00:33:00] trustee slash clan Mormon families concentrate on level 4, 1 6 religiosity group. Now, Here we need to take a stop because remember I said at the end of yesterday's episode for anyone who hasn't watched that you might want to watch it in preparation for tomorrow's episode because these three episodes are sort of all building to the conclusion that while I think that these things matter, like the pure vitalism of a group matters, which can be matters in terms of murder rates.

That's what we talked about yesterday. Or Going for a clan based structure versus a deontological structure, like a group pride versus following a set of rules matters in terms of fertility, right? I actually think the key to all of this is his 2nd observation, which he goes into a lot more data about.

But unfortunately, it comes from a lot of personal observations of family members and stuff like that. So I can't go too deep into all of that. But That within the Mormon culture, the people who have clan [00:34:00] based moral frameworks appear to be able to maintain really high fertility rates and the people who don't have clan based moral frameworks and people have communalist based moral frameworks have are the ones whose moral Or whose fertility is collapsing,

And it makes perfect sense that the communalist would cluster at the edge of the, the fives and sixes in terms of being the most Mormons and the planners would concentrate in the threes and fours.

So, to understand what I mean by the difference between a clan based moral system and a, a, a communalist based moral system, and we're contrasting these individualist based moral system, because people often make the mistake. They're like, right, they're an individualist. For your communalist is like, no, there's actually 3 moral systems, clan based individualist and communalist.

So if I ask a clan based moral system into person, like, what, who are you? Right? Their 1st thought is, I am a member of my clan. So, if I was going to explain this, and we'll go into this a lot more tomorrow, if somebody said. [00:35:00] Hey, Malcolm, you know, like when I was growing up, how were morals taught to me? I was never taught things in terms of like moral absolutism.

Like this is a good or a bad thing to do. It was, you are a Collins and this is what is expected of Collins's. Collins's have, and it was, it was taught to me as if Collins's have a stricter and higher moral standard expected of them than the general population. And that the general population is just basically Degenerates, and you shouldn't expect anything of them.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-15: generally, if somebody is in one of these clan based moral systems, the fear. Is falling into the communalist space moral system. So to explain what I mean by that, you know, growing up, I was taught while you're a Collins and these are the things expected of Collins is, and I would, you know, see all of my wider family achieving these things.

And my fear was if I didn't achieve those things, well, then I'm not a Collins anymore. I'm just a Mormon. I'm just a regular Mormon now.

Malcolm Collins: Now, there are two ways that you can, if you're a Mormon teach [00:36:00] moral systems to people, right? You could be the communalist, and say, You are a Mormon, and this is what Mormons do.

Okay? Or you could say,

You are a Collins, Who happens to be a Mormon, like the Collinses are a type of Mormon, and this is what Collinses do. So why would this, this clan based thing lead to a more centralized position on the religiosity scale? It's because if you primarily identify with Mormonism instead of your family tradition, then you're just gonna follow everything the church says.

Everything the church says is what you follow. So you're going to fall at the extreme end of the religious spectrum. But, if you are first a Collins, Well, we're Collins is break Mormon rules or where you're

allowed to break moral rules and where you

should have stricter rules. And so that makes perfect sense, you know, for example, if you look at a lot of these clan based women, so they'll be a little looser on, like, how they wear their undergarments and stuff like that, [00:37:00] where they'll hike it up a bit more.

And it's like, okay, well. That's technically not being ultra religious, but if your cousins are doing it and they're still considered home to the family. And I should note, one thing about clan based systems that people who didn't grow up in the United States have to point out now, is they're really quick to throw someone out.

So when I look at like my wider cousin group and I'm like, I always compare myself to family members, that's where I'm judging myself. Like, am I doing a good job in life? How should I be approaching, you know, what success is defined? What basic ethical constraints am I dealing with? When one of them doesn't perform up to family standards, I just sort of stop.

Using them is one of the measures of comparison that I have access to. And I suspect that's the way these Mormon clans work as well, which is what prevents them from dropping off as quickly. If somebody leaves the church or stops following tons of rules, and they're clearly no longer acting according with the clan's, like, moral [00:38:00] system you stop using them as somebody to judge yourself off of.

And so, they don't end up pulling you down. And in tomorrow's video, we're going to get really into why clan based systems are so super, super resistant to fertility collapse and why communalist systems. You can immediately see why communalist systems are so susceptible to fertility collapse. Because you are always going to be affected by outside culture if you are a communalist.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, and so if your outside culture becomes infected or toxic, you're more likely So essentially, there's less, There's less quarantining. So if there is a cultural infection that is sterilizing, you will not be protected from it. Whereas if you're, if you're in a clan based culture, you may survive it because you're isolated

Malcolm Collins: sufficiently.

Yeah. I think that there's a secondary thing here, which is genetic. And this is again, as many people know, I think people make the [00:39:00] mistake of assuming that human sociological profiles human sociological profiles are clearly genetically correlated. Like, we've seen this in the data over and over again.

It's like, 60%. But people make the mistake of assuming that genetically correlated means falling into ethnic buckets instead of falling into very recent selection events i. e. immigration waves, stuff like that, which is actually where. A lot more of the concentration happens.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-16: So the word this a different way.

, I think I remember from my old psychology classes, it was around a quarter of people experienced some form of auditory hallucination. Now Mormons regularly will ask God what they should do in specific circumstances. So speaking to God is a regular thing that most Mormons do. , now, if I am living by a Mormon community, whether I am, you know, black or Hispanic or anything like that, and I happen to be subject to auditory, hallucinations, and a Mormon says, well, if you're not sure what religion you should be, why don't you just ask God? , I am going to be [00:40:00] dramatically more likely to convert to Mormonism.

If I have this genetic script for auditory hallucinations. , which means that this can concentrate super, super fast in a population like Mormons or Quakers. , when other populations may not have it much at all. And if I am a Mormon who doesn't experience these auditory hallucinations, and I keep trying to talk to God and he never responds, I might be much more likely to deconvert. And that's how you can get these genetic clusters. , occurring really, really quickly.

But then this also would happen with something like a communalist mindset or a clan based mindset of a specific group of Mormons really leans into communalist based ways of thinking they are going to disproportionately convert people, whatever their ethnic or cultural background. , that lean more communalist around them.

However, having a genetic propensity for communalism can help cause a really negative side effect, which we talked about earlier, which is once you deconvert well, now what's your new communalist source of information.

It's the urban monoculture. And that's [00:41:00] why. , this would explain why the most extremely religious Mormons, when they deconvert become the most extremely woke individuals, whereas clan based people when they deconvert, they're still. Moderated by their clan. They might have deacon burden, but they're still a Collins.

You know, they're still looking to the clan for a sort of core moral centering.

Finally I note here is that I suspect that people with a. Genetic predilection towards a communalist moral framework. Even if they are like Mormon, Mormon. I E they, they want to be as Mormon as possible. They are going to be subconsciously influenced by the urban mono culture, given how much it dominates our society, much more than somebody who has been genetically selected intergenerationally for a clan based moral framework.

Malcolm Collins: And so I think if you have been for a few generations in a communalist culture versus a a clan based culture the genetic.

Correlates that you're going [00:42:00] to be selecting for are going to be the ones that that look to society around you to try to determine the social norms that you're setting for yourself. And these people who used to only be surrounded by Mormons now, in terms of the, the images that they're seeing in the media, they're seeing are just going to see more non Mormons and be comfortable.

Correlating themselves with those individuals. Also, they were motivating their moral behavior through what they saw in what's the word I'm looking for here? Like deontological rule sets. And those deontological rule sets they are no longer at play right now. And so, um, well, when I say they're no longer at play, they're no longer strong enough to overcome the urban monoculture.

Well, they're no longer

Simone Collins: protective. I think what you're saying is they're no longer protective. And, and there were environments in which they were probably. And if they are not adapted in the face [00:43:00] of new technology and globalization and other elements that render old rules ineffective, then yeah, they won't matter anymore.

And

Malcolm Collins: clan based moral systems are primarily motivated by pride.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I would say they're, they're more adaptable in the end, because most clan based systems, which I imagine you will discuss more later. Are they reward the successful family members who then dictate the future of the clan's culture?

Meaning that people can adapt and those who do adapt to changes and to technological progress are going to help the culture iterate,

Malcolm Collins: right? Yeah, they adapt much faster. And think about it like within a clan based moral system And he was noting this in other emails to me that they've gone way more technophilic Than the deontological communalist mormons who are at the extremist end of their religion these individuals Have not become like all coders and everything like that.

Whereas the clan based people have and I think it's because [00:44:00] They, they genuinely are motivated by wanting to be better than other people, like have their clan be better than other clans and other people and stuff like that, and pride in their individual clan. So, if they see a societal arbitrage opportunity, like, engaging with technology, they're going to do it.

Whereas the other community is just not going to do it as quickly. They're like, well, is this what our people have always done? You know, whereas. A clan based person will be like, well, my cousin who I know is a devout Mormon is currently working in crypto. Therefore it's okay to work in crypto. My cousin, who's a devout Mormon is currently working in AI tech.

So I can go work in AI tech. Like now that's on the table because everyone in our family is talking to about him with a lot of respect. With the deontological group, you're not going to get that adaptation as quickly.

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-17: I wanted to add a comment from our discord where somebody made a really good point in one of them. , UCA, who said clan structures correlating with high fertility is a good point of the countries outside of [00:45:00] Africa.

The ones with the highest fertility today have the strongest clan structures, whether Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, or the central Asian stand countries, the countries in Africa with the highest fertility are also those with the strongest clan structures like Somalia, for example, it would also explain why Muslim countries was weaker or no clan structures.

Like I ran have lower fertility. That being said. I think the strengths as clan structure is heavily tied to urbanization and the more urbanized the country gets, the weaker, the clan grows. Most of the previously mentioned countries with strong plans are still very rural and poor as they get richer and more urban, the clan structures might weaken. In east Asia, there used to be a stronger clan structure.

Was every family having a shrine dedicated to their ancestors, but they went into significant decline. About a century ago is modernization slash industrialization. Also, there are different types of clan systems, one where people mostly marry outside of their clan. And one where people mostly marry inside of their clan, that traditional east Asian model, which includes Mongols would be to marry outside your clan. [00:46:00]

This is also how it was done in Scotland. Not sure if it would be the same in Appalachia. But I'd assume since they're descended . From the scotch Irish, and yes, it was true outside your family. Marriage tradition. , in most clans in the Muslim world, on the other hand, it is more common to marry within your clam.

Not sure if one would correlate more with high fertility than the other. It seems that marrying within your own clan does, but this could just be because the cultures that do this are poorer and more rural. , here. I wanted to know my response to this my disagreement would be that east Asia was really a clan based moral system. It has always been fairly communalist was the cultural norms coming? Not from the family, but from the central court. Yes. Superficially you worshiped your family, but you cared what outsider thought an awful lot.

Malcolm Collins: What do you think, Octavian? Do you, what do you want in who you make a mommy for your kids?

Octavian: Indy.

Malcolm Collins: You want Indy? You want to [00:47:00] marry Indy? That's your sister. No,

Simone Collins: you treat Indy like your little sister..

Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-18: obviously, we've never sat down with Octavian yet and explained that you don't marry your siblings. But I actually think this answer shows a very instinctual sort of clean identity that he, when he was trying to choose who is the best woman I know of around my age, he's not choosing like a fictional character from one of the shows he watches, but he's like, oh my sister that's the best a woman can be.

, and so I thought it was a very sweet answer, but one that also sort of illustrates that there might be a genetic component to this because obviously we didn't. Teach him that that would be a very bad thing. If we had taught him that.

Simone Collins: Octavian, Octavian, can you tell our listeners that we should, they should like and subscribe? Then do it.

You're a silly goofus. I love you, buddy.

What are you

Malcolm Collins: doing?[00:48:00]

Do you think the audience likes to look at you spin? You got to say things. They only like it when you say it.

Octavian: You're not saying like and subscribe. You're not saying like and subscribe.

Say I'm like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Malcolm Collins: Here, I'll leave him with you while I go get the other kids. Thanks. Okay.

Octavian: Dad, I have a favor. Can you tell Stacy to get the crab for me?

Malcolm Collins: Okay, will do. Here.

Anyway. I absolutely love you, Simone. You are amazing. We got these two episodes done pretty quickly, so we can start on the next one if you want, or we can do the, do dinner early.

Simone Collins: If I need more sleep, let's do dinner early. Let's do dinner early

Malcolm Collins: and put the kids, you're actually going to put them to bed early.

You're not going to be in bed. Well,

Simone Collins: yeah, if I have an easy, an earlier start time and they're eating when they get home instead of, [00:49:00] you know, after I'm done

Malcolm Collins: prepping. By the way, one thing I'd love it if you could begin taking out for me is sawing some of those kebabs. guys. Yeah,

Simone Collins: We actually, I'll walk you through what we have in the deep freezer because I found some artisanal Amish meats.

Oh, what types? Yeah, I will show you.

Malcolm Collins: Can I really? You gotta enjoy.

Simone Collins: They're high quality. They're what an esteemed guest had accidentally left behind and said was all ours because he wasn't going to come back and get them, so.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, what, what, what are they?

Simone Collins: I will show you. You will have to see. The audience

Malcolm Collins: is going to want to know we're recording right now.

Simone Collins: I, well, I think some of it's Amish chicken because you know, that's what you get in restaurants. I think some of it might be some sausage. And then I think there are two salmon patties. If memory serves, but I actually didn't look that closely. Because it hurts my hands to hold them when they're out of the bottom of the freezer like that.

Malcolm Collins: So I just toss them in the basket. Okay, those things don't [00:50:00] sound that appealing to me. You know I don't really like chicken or salmon.

Simone Collins: Alright.

Malcolm Collins: And for tonight I guess we're doing pasta again, right?

Simone Collins: You don't have to. You can, you can do I think the kebabs are probably ready to go out of the, Oh, really?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Do you want to do kebabs tonight? Do a kebab with like, mixed vegetables or potatoes? Let's do the potatoes and kebabs.

Simone Collins: There's only a tiny bit of potatoes left. So how about sautéed vegetables and potatoes and kebabs? Or do you want your street corn, your Mexican street corn? Oh Mexican street corn, vegetables, and kebabs.

Malcolm Collins: Let's do potatoes, street corn, and kebabs. Oh,

Simone Collins: all of them. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Just, well, no, take out the mixed vegetables. Just do the potatoes and the corn to finish off the potatoes. So you just

Simone Collins: want carbs and, okay,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Oh, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. Veggies.

Simone Collins: You get a veggie, you get a carb, and you get a protein. That's Veggies, potato, and

Malcolm Collins: kebabs.

Let's kill the potatoes to get something done in the fridge.

Simone Collins: Okay. I love, ow. I love you. I love you. I'm sorry. I'd be

Malcolm Collins: annoying.

Simone Collins: [00:51:00] You're never annoying. You're perfect.

Malcolm Collins: You're perfect. Ow. Okay. Ow.

Simone Collins: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I can't. Why can't I move you? You're not moving. There, thank you. Oh, gosh! Hold on. I

Malcolm Collins: saw a really funny BabbleOnBee article.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Talib uninjured after her pager mysteriously explodes. Oh, no, that was, I, I like, do we, do we need to do an episode on that event?

Cause that was so cool that they pulled that off.

Simone Collins: Incredible spy movie stuff. I feel like maybe we need more information first, but it, what an incredible feat of.

Malcolm Collins: I might after like all the information has come out do one of these things where I try to create like the most comprehensive source on a particular subject.

That would be

Simone Collins: great because I want to watch that. I want to know everything about this.

Malcolm Collins: Because that was, wow I cannot believe. Pull that off. All right. Yeah, let's get started.

Simone Collins: I guess. Wait, you would have to own the [00:52:00] largest pager manufacturer in the Middle East, like, or several

Malcolm Collins: theoretically. No. So it appears I don't want to explain it because I actually read into this in detail already.

Okay. Yeah. No spoilers of how it was pulled off.