Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they explore the complex relationship between pornography, violence, and male psychology in modern society. This thought-provoking discussion delves into controversial topics such as:

* The "male sedation hypothesis" and its impact on societal violence

* The unexpected benefits of pornography in reducing sexual violence

* The potential dangers of the NoFap movement

* The role of video games and sports in channeling male aggression

* Strategies for healthy sexual development in the digital age

* The importance of creating safe dating environments for young people

* The future of relationships and dating in a technologically advanced world

Drawing from scientific studies, personal experiences, and cultural observations, Malcolm and Simone offer a nuanced perspective on these sensitive issues. Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply interested in understanding the complexities of modern sexuality, this video provides valuable insights and challenges common misconceptions.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] that

Malcolm Collins: craziness is what provides them with the motivation to go talk to women where they could go to jail because they talked to her in the wrong way, where they could be shut down and socially shamed.

Going up and approaching somebody in a dating context is incredibly difficult and the line between the motivation you need to go up and approach a random woman who you're interested in and the motivation you need to shoot up your school, I think, is a much narrower line than many women in I feel

Simone Collins: honestly like in many ways shooting up a school is way easier.

Yeah, and that's the point.

Malcolm Collins: You need the guys to have this insane motivation

Chris Williamson's male sedation hypothesis proposes that Online virtual worlds, particularly pornography and video games, have a pacifying effect on young men who are struggling to find romantic partners or sexual partners. The key points of this hypothesis are, one, pornography provides a small dose of reproductive fitness cues

do. In the [00:01:00] studies where it showed higher rates of murder and stuff like that tied to single men, these are societies that completely ban porn and masturbation because they're Muslim societies mostly is where you're seeing this.

Simone Collins: One thing I kind of wonder is, is do you get the free radical problem or do you get essentially like risky young men in a society where porn isn't necessarily banned?

But where nofap is pervasive,

would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am excited to be with you here today. Today. We are going to do an episode that asks, why aren't there more mass shootings by themselves?

Simone Collins: I was really wondering this, like, we are recording this fairly close to when President Donald Trump was almost killed, got his ear shot through.

And I'm like, why are more people not doing this? If apparently it's so fricking easy. To go out with an AR and just shoot it as president. Like, why are people not [00:02:00] going out all the time? It's

Malcolm Collins: not just that. I mean, this is something that's been well studied and we've mentioned in previous episodes. If you look at polygynous societies versus monogamous, equivalent monogamous societies.

Right. Typically going to get way more like, like much higher rates of terrorism in the polygynous societies. And the, the, the question is why, why do you get higher rates of terrorism? Why even in monogamous societies get higher rates of terrorism as marriage rates go down which was a thing that was studied in Egypt.

They were looking at like during economic downturns where people couldn't pay the bride price more men would go unmarried and you'd directly get more terrorists. And the answer is an unmarried man. Has, you know, nothing to do with their time. Well, not just nothing to do with their time, but they have no vested interest in the social order as it stands.

So

Simone Collins: in other words, hormonally also, I would argue they're being told, go big or go home. Like you are genetically going to die. You might as well be dead. Biologically speaking,

Malcolm Collins: if they were in a tribe [00:03:00] and under the tribe's current order, there was no chance that they would ever get a partner. Then It made sense.

To risk your life to up in the social order of that tribe.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Or, you know, do something insane that could possibly when you were sexual partner and therefore, you know, biologically survive to the next generation. So your, your genes, your body, everything that you've evolved is screaming at you. As a male go big or go home.

So you're going to do increasingly risky things. So, although, you know, I will maybe push back on that a little bit, right? Because there's some mixed data on this, right? Like I understand that like testosterone is high when you're, when you're in a very like sort of competitive male environment, when you're not.

In a, a stable relationship, but then there's also some research that finds that male testosterone kind of plummets when you're on a losing streak. And there have been some theories.

Malcolm Collins: Testosterone. Yeah. Okay. No, this is not tied to testosterone. It's tied to desperation. [00:04:00] Actually, many of these guys by the biology that we are very low testosterone, which is why they're in testosterone in that moment.

Yeah. This is different than a testosterone driven, go big or go home. Push. Okay. This is a

Simone Collins: An existential. An existential thing.

Malcolm Collins: Like it's, it's worse destroying society because it's not working for me.

Simone Collins: And actually there was

Malcolm Collins: a paper on this just last year. It came out in 2023 and it was titled, why isn't there more incel violence?

Simone Collins: Oh,

Malcolm Collins: okay. And I'm going to put it on the screen here. Asking the good

Simone Collins: questions.

Malcolm Collins: Thanks guys. And Chris Williamson actually is, is, is famous for having a theory on this. Yeah, yeah. The anti incel. Friend of the show. We've yeah, I, you know, we talk to him occasionally. I've been on the show. I'd really love to do it again sometime.

I, I, I find him, he's a fantastic online commenter. Whenever I hear him, I'm always like, yeah, you, you have good takes. A little vanilla for my, my, my perspective. But he's trying to

Simone Collins: speak to the everyman. You can understand.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's very much an everyman guy. So [00:05:00] anyway, this is what perplexity had to say about his, his take.

Chris Williamson's male sedation hypothesis proposes that Online virtual worlds, particularly pornography and video games, have a pacifying effect on young men who are struggling to find romantic partners or sexual partners. The key points of this hypothesis are, one, pornography provides a small dose of reproductive fitness cues, while video games offer status and community cues.

Two, These virtual experiences act as counterfeit fitness cues, meaning men feel as if their sexual needs are being met to some degree. Three, as a result, these online worlds reduce motivation for engaging in real life meeting effort and risky behavior associated with the quote unquote young male syndrome.

Four, this sedation effect may explain why there isn't more violence or disruption from an increasing number of men who are not having sex. Five, the hypothesis suggests that modern society [00:06:00] is essentially short circuiting men's natural drives, reducing their motivation to seek goals, and accomplish things in the real world.

Wilson argues that this phenomenon of Williamson argues that this phenomenon could be contributing to the decline in dating efforts among young men, as well as potentially explaining lower levels of sexual and non sexual violence than otherwise might be expected. Huh.

Simone Collins: I guess I could see that. I'm so

Malcolm Collins: impressed with AI these days that it can take his theory and I feel like really effectively boil it down and then give me a good summary. And I'm like, Oh yeah, that's, that's a good point. That's a good way to look at it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but

Malcolm Collins: I didn't get

Simone Collins: anything.

Malcolm Collins: Do I think it, what misses anything?

No, not from what I've heard. No, this is, this is fairly accurate. It's that young men in a historic perspective, they want, had a desire to mate, but they also had a desire to hunt in war [00:07:00] and go on the kill and everything. And this desire has been masturbated by masturbating. I mean, using something that's not the thing that's supposed to fulfill that emotion.

To fulfill that emotion in various ways, historically probably the most common is sports, right? Like sports very clearly is meant to masturbate young men's desire for war. You know, somebody who was on Chris Williams show, what they were talking was like, yeah, I played paintball for the first time when I was younger.

And then I was like, Oh. This is like weirdly fun. Like, even though I don't contextualize, and I was the same way growing up. I didn't contextualize myself as a particularly masculine man. Yeah. Why, why do I enjoy going with a group of friends and hunting other people to shoot? You know, why is this like, just feel so natural.

And I think it's because it is natural. It's the way that we're programmed. And I think that. Probably you're going to be mentally healthier as a young person. And this is why I would encourage my kids to do this [00:08:00] with more physical versions of this. So for example, while I think video games are useful in mastermating the sensing to some extent, I would strongly recommend my kids join a local paintball.

Club or something like that because I think that the pain associated with that and the actual physical

Simone Collins: exertion totally

Malcolm Collins: does more to fully fulfill these pathways and ensure that their brain doesn't think that they're, well, I don't know, some sort of a eunuch you know, growing up in Babylon and that's when I say growing up in Babylon, people may not know.

So One of the King Xerxes the, the, the first one, I want to say Xerxes, who conquered and formed the Persian empire. You know, he has a quote where he says something along the lines of, because people are like, why aren't you moving our capital outside of the like barren mountains? Right. Like this is a horrible area.

We've conquered all these, these wealthy cities. And he goes, the moment we move to the wealthy cities and we raise our children in the wealthy cities they will become weak, like strong areas, breed [00:09:00] strong children, weak areas breed weak children. And would you know, it was in a generation of moving the capital of Babylon, like the most city of cities, I think the two generations actually they ended up collapsing as an empire.

And that's because I think he was fundamentally right. You know, if you, fulfill these with lower order things, you will get lower order outcomes. Now with sexuality itself, do I believe sexuality is actually fully being sublimated by pornography?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, I do. In the studies where it showed higher rates of murder and stuff like that tied to single men, these are societies that completely ban porn and masturbation because they're Muslim societies mostly is where you're seeing this.

And so, yeah, it would make sense that in those societies, the system would end up getting fully activated and you would get the murder, murder. Whereas

Simone Collins: here you can sedate. Oh, but yeah, all the more reason to not ban porn. Come [00:10:00] on, people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, actually we'll, we'll do an episode. Hold on. I'll, I'll pull up the statistic right here so this is actually from a book, The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality. Across nations, more permissive attitudes to pornography are correlated with lower rates of grape, and less sexual violence against women. A great case study of this can be seen with 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 over 37%. Oh my gosh. human lives that are affected by this? Yeah. And child sexual abuse by about 50%. How many children are you consigning to grape?

STop coming for our porn.

Come here, kid! I'm gonna tie you to the radiator and grape you! These kids were obviously horrified. Not that girl. Look, she's totally asking for it. What? Look at her. She's begging to get graped. [00:11:00] Will you listen to yourself? Look what she's wearing.

Look what she's wearing! It's purple!

Malcolm Collins: By, it is, it's so dumb the people who watch this.

Similar results were seen when porn laws were loosened in Denmark, Japan, China, and Hong Kong. Wow. Other studies reinforce these results, such as one in aggression and behavior. This study was titled the pleasure is momentary, the expense damnable, the influence of pornography on grape and sexual assault.

That found a inverse correlation between porn consumption and violent behavior towards women specifically grape and sexual assaults. The study findings suggest the more porn a man consumes, The less likely he is to commit these violent acts against women. And you, you find this across the board.

We're going to do another episode where we just go over this. But like another great one is for every 10 percent increase in internet access in the U. S., there is a corresponding regional decrease of 7. 3 percent in grapes.

[00:12:00] Speed of light Trekkie! What are you doing? That's gross! Trekkie

Malcolm Collins: So basically all of the evidence, and I don't think he even knew this evidence that I just went over, suggests that, He is right.

And these things are intrinsically connected. The reason why we haven't had an incel uprising is pornography, online pornography.

Simone Collins: Thank goodness. And fidget games and paintball.

Malcolm Collins: But the question becomes, what's the correct amount to engage with these things, Simone? Yeah, right. Yeah, clearly we don't want our kids completely neutered by these, you know, fake masturbatory sources of pleasure.

But we also want them to be able to utilize them judiciously so that they aren't just distracted by these evolutionary drives that just are irrelevant in a modern context, or don't drive, you know, perfect [00:13:00] value aligned. Something about Mary, you know, you got to masturbate before you go on a date or you'll be too horny to think straight.

Line,

Oh, look. The most honest moment. In a man's life are the few minutes after he's blown his load.

 And the reason for it is that you're no longer trying to get laid. You're actually, you're thinking like a girl. And girls love that.

Malcolm Collins: What is the right way to engage with this stuff, given that it does short circuit the male brain so effectively?

Simone Collins: Yeah, my intuition is that we need to go back. And you know, this is couched in me not being a like, trad wife fan, right? I'm not like, let's go back to the 50s because it was so perfect thing.

But That seems to be the right level. And let me explain why there was porn. Absolutely. There was porn, but you had to go buy it in a magazine. Like it wasn't unlimited. So it was like, it was in, in, in inherently what's the word for like when you're controlling doses, [00:14:00] but these were small controlled doses.

Like you couldn't. Overdose, basically, based on the supply that was readily available to you. Like, you could go to the of people, by the way,

Malcolm Collins: if you're talking Well, I actually disagree with this. Oh, really? Well, I think the porn of the 50s So, I have a He actually pretty strange moral relationship with pornography.

No,

Simone Collins: no, no. No, I'm not saying we go back to that style. It could all be hentai. It could all be whatever. Okay. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I know. I, I think that the porn industry that features real humans is fundamentally unethical and shouldn't exist.

Simone Collins: No, I'm, I'm all for hentai, but like, I think what you, if, if we went back to where you could like, You had to buy like small packets.

Malcolm Collins: Not just Hentai. I think you've got to have AI porn. You can have digital art porn. You can have, you can have any porn that doesn't use real people. But I also think that the Bible talks about this as well. So the Bible says that you should not lust over other women when you're married. You should, you should.

You know, to, to look at another woman and lost over [00:15:00] her is the same as creating adultery. And I think that that's what it's pointing towards is that pornography should not include real women because of the downstream negative effects of that industry.

Simone Collins: Thank goodness for hentai then.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, but here's the question.

What about something like OnlyFans? A lot of people use that to pay, you know, for their, you know, Families and kids and it's do you think that that should be legal?

Simone Collins: Wait,

Malcolm Collins: what? Only fans. Should only fans be legal?

Simone Collins: See, I'm, I'm still like in favor of, you know, let people earn money doing what they want to do.

Malcolm Collins: I don't think it works in a modern context. People will use VPNs. People will use all the countries. I know that actually have pornography bans. It just, everyone gets around it. No, you're

Simone Collins: right. Yeah. And I'm saying like you were saying in an ideal world, like I, I, I'm saying, [00:16:00] I'm

Malcolm Collins: saying for our kids, how would you relate to this?

How do you teach them to engage with these things to achieve optimal outcomes?

Simone Collins: Well, so I think one of the key things is for us to be very open with it to the point where we make it not cool, not so we're not making it shameful because that's very damaging. We found that like, you know, for example, masturbation only really seems to be damaging if you like, turn it into an addiction or if you're very ashamed of it, and then you like, feel really bad about it and it causes all these negative side effects.

So I don't want to shame porn for our kids, but I do want to make it thoroughly uncool. And if we're like, Hey, would you like some porn? Like, let's talk about this. And like, you know, My mom was actually

Malcolm Collins: like that when I was a kid. She's like, Hey, you're at that age. Do you want me to get some porn for you?

I know you can't buy it yourself. And be like, so what are you

Simone Collins: into? You know, just like to really, really make them uncomfortable. And so they, they, they're, they're aware of it. And like, but we also make it uncool. Cause I don't want them to be like, Ah, look at me. I'm so great [00:17:00] for having discovered this.

I

Malcolm Collins: actually think that that's key. And that's why I never, I'm also going to be like,

Simone Collins: you know, boys, you got to wash your sheets and you got to use the separate washing machine. Cause I am not

Malcolm Collins: dealing with that. It was the same as me was my parents and drugs is, is my mom had a role that was like, well, you can have drugs, but you have to ask me to buy it.

So like, you want marijuana? I'll get it for you, but you know, give me marijuana. Okay, here, you can have marijuana, but I have to be the one to buy it. And it just made it so uncool. When other kids would come and they would like brag about like, smoking dope with their friends and stuff like that. I was just like, you mean that thing that moms give you thank them moms giving you what?

Why do you think that this makes you cool? Like it was very easy for me to see through the social temptation. Mm-Hmm. When I had first engaged it as that thing you have to ask your mom for. Yeah. And it was the same with pornography. Right. It was very not cool. Like to me at that age, cause I was like and I [00:18:00] think that that really helped me intellectualize it at a very young age, I think the bands on it, cause it to become this alluring thing to people where for me, my actual obsession with fetishes and stuff like that comes more from how intellectually strange it is to me.

Yeah. Like Why are humans doing these things when I don't understand the evolutionary pressures that would have led them to do these things, or it doesn't make sense with my understanding of human evolution. Well, I think

Simone Collins: probably what got you first excited about them was you realized that you could play arbitrage games if you pandered to other people's fetishes.

Malcolm Collins: No, and I use that a lot , with the girls that I was dating in the early days. You know, when you, when you go to a girl and you're like, yeah, I've got a I, well, then the thing was, is back when I was dating in, in the early days, and this is something guys don't do. And somehow they don't notice that girls do this.

Girls walk [00:19:00] around when they are if you're, if you're dating and you're in that younger phase of your life, like. teens. The girls of that age range walk around with their porn constantly. You just might not recognize it as porn because it is their romance novels and their dystopian books and their vampire books and their fairy books.

But girls of that age range So like the ultimate

Simone Collins: place to learn a girl's fetishes is to go to her Goodreads profile? So like the ultimate place to learn a girl's fetishes is to go to her Goodreads profile?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they like, and I think guys don't recognize this because they see porn is in fetishes is like something shameful that they don't talk about in public when it's like often a big part of like late teen girls identity.

Totally. And guys miss it because they don't know to look there. They don't know.

Simone Collins: Well, because again, and this is demonstrated through dick pics, guys think that women relate to sex the same way they do. So they're like, well, what would I love to receive? Yeah. Oh, [00:20:00] like a picture of her genitals. Also her picture of mine.

Aren't I being nice? As you say in the book on sexuality, it's the ultimate feminist move. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: But you know, you see a girl back in my gen, you know, days, the most common was like vampires or werewolves walking around with vampire books, you know, to come to her was your story of, well, you know, I've just always had this shameful.

Did fetish around vampire stuff, and I don't feel I can talk about it publicly, but you've seen all of her books. You know what she thinks of this, and then all of a sudden she's like, oh, really? Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Malcolm. But that's just the way it's, it's actually remarkable to me. And I think that this is the, the core challenge of all this is that guys just aren't beginning to engage with girls anymore because all of these alternative sources they provide an excuse for a guy. It's like, well, I don't want to be me too.

I don't want to be X. I don't want to be Y,

Simone Collins: [00:21:00] you

Malcolm Collins: know? So I'm just not gonna go out there. And it's so dangerous to go out there. And. Chris Williamson also had a fun idea about how to fix it, which is like the next company I want to do. It is to create an AI that is trained on women to flirt and turn down guys so that guys can practice knowing when they're being flirted with and knowing like the way to ask out a girl in a safe way before doing it was the real thing.

Wouldn't that be great to have for our young boys?

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. No, we need to make this at least just for our kids. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I'm definitely building it. If somebody else doesn't build this, I'm 100 percent building

Seven to do it. I've gotten pretty good at programming chatbots, and they're very high quality at this stage. So I can do this for free, which is something I didn't realize when I first recorded this. , build, , a pretty high quality model of this with the existing NSFW. Chat-bots. And [00:22:00] I'll be doing it.

Malcolm Collins: This. I think it would be a lot of like a real utility as a product so that my kids don't end up Because this is the problem when dating as a young man.

If you mess up, right, you can cross implied consent lines, which make a simple mistake great. And if you're sleeping around a ton like I did, you know, I slept with like well over a hundred people before I settled down. It, it, I only need to mess up with one of those people. And now I'm a grapist.

If I misjudged implied consent, just 1% of the time in this current world. I would still be accused of being a greatest. That is wild. It's also important to consider because this is something, you know, We've been doing talk about it much and they over. I think dismiss what the red pill community has found in says, which is [00:23:00] it, women really don't find it hot to actively give consent.

They. Kind of like the guy to take charge of the situation and to show that he can actively judge whether or not they are consenting to moving forwards. And that is. You know, you remove a lot of, especially for younger people when they're way hornier and way more driven by what is arousing to them. Uh, you are making it so that the men who follow these rules, that girls are setting. Are going to do much worse with girls. And have girlfriends or partners who are much less infatuated with them.

Malcolm Collins: Like it's hard to read. Like, and this is the other thing that like the modern. world doesn't take into consent consideration because they just haven't, I guess, slept around a lot. But like anyone who has knows you cannot reliably determine consent. That's not being actively given to you. If somebody is not [00:24:00] actively and verbally declining consent and somebody can be like, well, you know, the, you, you just ask, yeah, that's a mood killer.

That's not something that people who are actually like,

Simone Collins: that's. Even that feels like a completely moot point now, because even if you killed the mood and did that, they could retroactively decide to revoke consent. Yeah. So what's the point? Like, I'm not going to bother asking for consent if it could just be revoked later on.

If like, suddenly I become less cool and they decide that they now regret having slept with me, even though the, you know, for the first, Eight weeks. It was fine. So it just, yeah, like you can't win. But that is, that is interesting. It, it makes me concerned. One thing I kind of wonder is, is do you get the free radical problem or do you get essentially like risky young men in a society where porn isn't necessarily banned?

But where nofap is pervasive, like, in other words, is a [00:25:00] nofap man who consensually has limited his access. Is he going to make himself into a radical and unhappy? Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I think he is much more likely to become radicalized from the data that we have access to.

Simone Collins: Oh, see, that's, that's scary because I feel like that's where the sentiment is going.

I think that that Gen Z and Gen Alpha Are going to be more religiously and socially conservative, whether or not it codes that way. Like, you know, they're going to be all very like LGBTQ plus whatever, but they're also going to be like sex, negative, porn, negative, masturbation, negative, and then you're going to get this theoretically, then that's not good.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that's actually something that we should be worried about, socially speaking.

Simone Collins: Oh, add it to the list. Add it to the list.

Malcolm Collins: Add it to the list. No, well, and, and, and you don't want the left to learn about this. They learn that this stuff causes radicalization because these guys aren't having their needs met and so they're sort of going into genetic, uh, boobicide mode.

That is [00:26:00] really dangerous socially. Right. Because

Simone Collins: that you think the left would want to accelerate the revolution that brings an end to late stage capitalism.

Malcolm Collins: We see things like no FAP as a sign of they'd see it as dangerous and they try to kill the movement.

Simone Collins: Wouldn't it be good if the no FAP movement was killed?

Isn't, isn't the movement that we want? Yes. FAP. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we've got to do another episode. That'll go live before this one that requires more context. So I'm gonna go over all the science of masturbation research. Because I think that that's really needed for the context on this question, which is to say that nofap is genuinely probably a deleterious movement for our society.

You

Simone Collins: already pointed out that it is because basically if men are not sedating themselves, they are going to make themselves more dangerous to society. Well, yeah, look at it this way. Look at it this way. Okay. If you, if you have schizophrenia, you could be a danger to yourself and others. You need to take medication.

If you have severe anxiety, you could be [00:27:00] a danger to yourself and others. You should probably take medications. You can function like if you're not getting sex, that

Malcolm Collins: craziness is what provides them with the motivation to go talk to women where they could go to jail because they talked to her in the wrong way, where they could be shut down and socially shamed.

Going up and approaching somebody in a dating context is incredibly difficult and the line between the motivation you need to go up and approach a random woman who you're interested in and the motivation you need to shoot up your school, I think, is a much narrower line than many women in I feel

Simone Collins: honestly like in many ways shooting up a school is way easier.

Yeah, and that's the point.

Malcolm Collins: You need the guys to have this insane motivation.

Simone Collins: If

Malcolm Collins: you, if you, if you, Well, here's the way I would change this.

The way I would teach our kids to relate to this is I think, you know, and [00:28:00] I've mentioned this before in other episodes. I think that ultimately we need to remove a human arousal from humans. I think it's the first emotion that just absolutely must be deleted. It provides no utility. It was meant for monkeys that couldn't figure out the utility of children.

And so they needed to feel some positive thing to figure out the X goes in the Y and that makes babies and babies are good for me. We should have a world where people aren't making children for the sake of the children. The reason they're excited to get a wife and have a family is for the family, not for the sex.

I think people who. Marry for sex. Like that is a fundamentally twisted reason to marry. And it will lead to really bad relationships. And I think that this is one of the core problems you have in evangelical communities is people are essentially getting pressured to marry so that they are allowed to have sex and they aren't even allowed to masturbate.

[00:29:00] Like, of course they're making rash decisions. So instead, I would say that I really don't care if my kids satiate their arousal pathways with any sort of whatever material they want. I think that they should instead refocus their drives in life around building families because the happiness they will get from the family is higher than any amount of happiness you can get from any amount of sex that you're getting.

Even if your sleeping was like, you know, there were times in my life where, you know, I'd have threesomes and I'd have multiple partners and I had sleep with famous people. And I, you know, the amount of happiness that any of that gave me. Is absolutely miniscule when contrasted with the amount of happiness I get from my kids and my wife and my family.

And so I think that [00:30:00] yeah, it's pointless. It's pointless. Like, like if

Simone Collins: they can, well, the nature of the pleasure is so different. Like the, the pleasure I've gotten from sex has been no different from the pleasure I've gotten from like, A really good meal or from like fentanyl, like they're all, they're all the same.

They're, they're a physical pleasure and they're real. Like, I'm not going to say like, sex feels good. Fentanyl feels good. And food feels good. Like, you know, if they're good. But. There's nothing they don't, they're completely, it's like a different game entirely compared to what it's like to be married to you, Malcolm, quite frankly, which is just like all my dreams coming true and then some or are watching our kids grow and seeing this sparkle in their eye that they inherited from you.

It is. Marvelous. But it is also very different. So in a world in which someone lives a nihilistic and purely hedonistic life, I guess, you know, if they're just comparing sex to food to fentanyl, then like, but I

Malcolm Collins: think if you [00:31:00] can make the point of dating the family, the family that they are going to get from that relationship, I think that's the key.

Simone Collins: Well, and that's, I mean, like part of my, my pushback to you saying you have to have men who are brave enough to just cold approach a woman. I don't think you do because I don't think that approach ever will scale or really work, honestly, like we've, we've reached a point in society where like cold approaching women in, in the kind of way that men are expected to now is not going to work for 80 percent of men.

It's going to work for 20 percent and right now it is only working for 20 percent and how dare you imply that it should work. You're in the top 0. 001%. So f**k you. You're not allowed to talk. Okay. Okay. It's really hard for people out there. And I think the only way that we can fix this is by bringing back dating markets.

And I actually don't think that's a farfetched thing to do one, because the alternative is already so broken, but two, because both men and women. From their teens through their thirties and even forties [00:32:00] have expressed to us again and again, how awesome they would love, they would love this. It's an awesome idea.

Where can I sign up? Like put me on the list, put my kids on the list. People want these. And, and people are actively trying to go out and find and hire matchmakers. And use matchmaking services. They just aren't very, they're not designed well because there's not enough of a cohesive culture. And to your point, yes, it is about dating a family.

The whole family has to have buy in and you have to have cultural buy in and cultural match as well. But I do think that you can build solutions around that. And I do think that there are ways to address this. I think Keeper AI may be making some progress there and some other people I'm sure will come up with some interesting things.

So yeah, to your point, like I, I think. I think yes, FAP has to be a thing. And I think it's, it's a bandaid to a known problem. And yes, you, but I think, you know, you, you, you need, you need, yes, FAP. You also need like Boy Scouts and paintball [00:33:00] and like allowing men to be men. And allowing men to date and like get out there and making it a cultural norm.

And you know, when you have that, and when you make people comfortable doing it and create venues and activities where it's allowed to happen, it's great. Bring the, bring the girls paintballing. Then you can act heroic in front of them. Then you can bond over. The trauma of being hit, you know, like whatever

Malcolm Collins: you can protect them.

Oh, wait, girls, you want, you want to find a guy in your young do something like bowling. I really, that sounds high status in among males. Like talk about playing the arbitrage game.

Simone Collins: Wow. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That's like being a guy cheerleader.

I heard a great tactic. Along this line from one of the girls on our discord server today. Uh, who's now married this work to find her husband where she said, what she would do is she would challenge guys to a fight when they were dieting. And I was like, that is such a great way as a girl to be incredibly, what is [00:34:00] functionally sexually aggressive without a guy coding it. We're also being like tough.

There

will also being tough. Oh, sorry. I didn't. I'm coding right. And doing the

all right, this is. And here she's there for food. Stare at diapers are there. I love you. Love you too.

Be safe when you drive. Okay.

But yes, to two. One and people can be like, well, Why would this be sexually aggressive because what's realistically going to happen in this fight. I can tell you as a guy who's not completely idiotic, what most guys are going to do. Is, they are going to either posts out in which case she knows pussy, not a cultural fit, likely. Or be interested in actually fighting her. If they are interested in actually fighting her almost no guy is going to throw the first blow.

What they're going to do is they're going to wait for her to make a move, to see how serious she is about this. Um, if she does a medium hit, she doesn't want to be too hard because you don't want him to actually, you want him to know that even she was holding back a bit, um, [00:35:00] But if she does that, What is the guy going to do? Uh, even if she went fully hard, where the guy is likely going to do is what I would do, which is grab her wrists and hold her in place because it's very easy to overpower.

Most girls, even girls who exercise, if you're a guy who exercises to any extent, um, or. If I don't think I can just hold her arms in place to grapple her, both of those lead to very sexualized scenarios, which are very easy to transition for the girl into something else and very easy to tell, but the guy is actually interested in her because the guy you think going to do something like that, or allow the situation to escalate like that, if he isn't interested in potentially getting physical with you, because he knows what's going to happen in the fight, just as well as you know, what's going to happen in the fight. Then it can also signal cultural alignment to the guy, which can be really useful because it's

quite a rough and tumble thing to do for anyone who's from one of the claim cultures.

Simone Collins: Are we going to have a girl's paintball? I haven't seen a paintball place around here.

Oh, we'll find one. And I don't know if they're like, [00:36:00] you know, we're going to have to see if there are hot teens hanging out at the gun range.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They used to be, you go to the mall to meet random people, but now we'll have our online circles. Yeah. I, I was going to say like I, should note here on the, the sexuality stuff, I'm gonna read a few more because it looks like this might go live before I went on masturbation. Yeah. Here's another quote.

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.

Simone Collins: Had

Malcolm Collins: today's sex criminals been able to exploit their sexuality through their imagination earlier, perhaps they would not have felt compelled to commit sex crimes.

And here I'd also point out Oh yes, people who consume more pornography actually have better views of women than people who don't consume porn. Yeah, they

Simone Collins: were more feminist, right? Yes. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and for people who are like, no, what what, what about like Wasn't there, there was also

Simone Collins: one that, that women who consume porn, because the thought is that like, it also makes [00:37:00] women feel terrible about themselves, but instead women who consume porn were more sexually confident.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, yeah, that's definitely a study. Here's, here's another quote. So we did recall a study being conducted by the Max Planck Institute showing that the in that intense porn consumption in men was associated with lower gray matter volume in the brain. So we went back to the only study 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.

This is the part of the brain involved with reward processing. All it says is that men who have deficient reward processing pathways consume more porn. Okay. Yeah. They probably also like consume processing, processed goods and more like correlation than causation. Yeah. And wouldn't you know it, that is what the authors of the study have also said in interviews.

Oh, it's actually wild to me how just like AstroTurf, you know, crap is it's a, it, it, it, it, it is, it's like a,

Simone Collins: it's like [00:38:00] a, any of these cold Turkey things. I just get pissed, you know?

Malcolm Collins: And that's another thing. If you do struggle with porn consumption, just take naltrexone, bro. Yeah, dude. You're like alcohol works for porn. It, it, it, it significantly.

So people might think I drink a lot, but that's because they haven't seen Malcolm pre naltrexone. I drink in a controlled fashion these days. And back then I drank in an old uncontrolled fashion. Yeah, but I, I also have to note for people who are like, you never got drunk

Simone Collins: though. You were just, you were just like a, an old English man.

I can like 1600s English man. I remember

Malcolm Collins: when you made the rule for me that I wasn't allowed to start drinking. Cause you know, you, you were like, it's becoming a problem. And she said I couldn't start before 8am. And that was, keep in mind that Malcolm wakes up at 2am.

Simone Collins: I mean, that's, that's dude, that's.

You know, if most people started drinking eight hours into the day.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. [00:39:00] Now, now I never really start drinking before, you know, five or so. So

Simone Collins: it's like, basically you don't start drinking until like 10 PM, a normal person's time, because again, you wake up at 2 AM. I just want to make it clear, like how reasonable you're being because

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: wake up so freaking early.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well we'll get into this in our porn episode, but it's something that should be known for those who are like, well, That sounds wrong taken out of context. My religion helps me not conceal as much porn across the board. The more restrictions your religion has on pornography, the more you will consume pornography.

This is like a well studied, inter regional across religions. You find this in evangelical Protestants, you find this at Catholics. One of my favorite anecdotes around this is once, A Girls Gone Wild ad actually, accidentally aired was the daily it was like the 2 a. m. Good Friday mass. Oh no. And it was the highest sales they'd ever had.

No! [00:40:00]

Simone Collins: Oh no! But it gets even with Catholicism, you can just apologize. So, I feel like they were asking for it, you know.

Malcolm Collins: You know, which state has the highest porn consumption in the United States?

Simone Collins: It's gotta be in the Bible belt. Where? Utah. Oh, Mormon. Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: Either.

Simone Collins: Love you. I'll be too coming down and

Malcolm Collins: recording. Anyway, I love you to decimum. I love you too. I'm going to cut your hair now.

Okay. All right. Come on down.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And you are perfect.

Simone Collins: Good timing. She just finished this. So here I come back. I

Malcolm Collins: love that you became such a good barber over COVID COVID. I think for so many people, it was like, Oh, you don't need to go out to get your haircut.

Simone Collins: I will. And it's like 60 a haircut or more.

Yeah. It's insane. I we save so much money. Everyone else did sourdough and hair. No one, no one is still doing [00:41:00] sourdough, but I think a lot of people are still doing haircuts and you can tell by the hairstyles have changed and you can see the stores like there's, there's there are fewer male haircuts that are like clearly from a salon.

And like the typical hairstyle is one that you can do with one of the things and some scissors. So

Malcolm Collins: I hope even after I become president, you're still cutting my hair.

Simone Collins: That would be so cute on the white house lawn.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I would love to take out to our field so we don't have to like mop up afterwards.

Simone Collins: I know, but like the white house is perfect for that.

There's plenty of lawn for me to go out and cut your hair. So

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Oh, by the way what was I going to do? Yeah, one person did say you being on the left made him irrationally angry.

Simone Collins: It bothers people. We have to keep everyone in their correct place, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: Are women always supposed to be the left hand of a man or the right hand of a man?

Simone Collins: They're [00:42:00] supposed to be to the left so that the man can shield them from the The backsplash of cars splashing on the road.

You're, you're my human shield.

The Malcolm Dating Question AI

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-4HMnqeWUN-malcolmesim1-dating-coach

Sakura Models (better AI but more PC and snaps into character)

Isekai: https://www.sakura.fm/chat/CxRwwvI

Fertility Collapse: https://www.sakura.fm/chat/rYxTVFQ

Janitor AI (more open to violence simpler model): 

Isekai: https://janitorai.com/characters/0f1eb40f-907e-4417-bd63-f812f8af3bcf_character-isekai-good-at-science

Fertility Collapse: https://janitorai.com/characters/469e9706-2bc9-4a4c-bc92-78984094a278_character-fertility-collapse-post-apocalypse

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the world of AI dating coaches and relationship simulations. This thought-provoking discussion explores the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence in romantic relationships, drawing from their own experiences and insights from their book, "The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships."

Key topics include:

* Analysis of AI-generated relationship advice

* The surprising accuracy and limitations of AI dating coaches

* Exploring advanced AI narrative platforms for relationship practice

* Ethical considerations of using AI for dating and social skills

* The potential addiction risks of AI relationship simulations

* Comparing AI interactions to real-world dating experiences

* The future of AI in relationships and social skill development

Whether you're a tech enthusiast, relationship coach, or simply curious about the intersection of AI and human connections, this video offers valuable insights into the rapidly evolving world of digital relationships.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, I'm excited to be with you guys today today. We are going to do sort of review of an A. I. That was built on Simone and myself.

Specifically, it was built on our relationships book. We have looked and have done transcripts so that we can eventually as A. I. S. Advanced build A. I. Models that you guys can interact with on our website. All of the transcripts from the shows. And then all of the video from the shows. So, you know, our kids will get very easy AI models to interact with us.

With that way, I mean, informed by a great deal of information, but let's look at how this sort of rudimentary model works and we'll have the people who programmed it on in a future episode. Cause they're a good friend of ours.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And just really awesome people. They're the, the founders of Metamorph AI.

That's metamorphai. co. They basically help people and companies build custom built AI solutions. And we're just dying to find more excuses to work with them because they're extremely competent and there just aren't a lot of people out there like that.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: [00:01:00] So your first question to the Pragmatist Guide to Relationships AI Dating Coach was, I've been dating a guy for a year and while he says he wants to marry, he says he will not consider marrying any sooner than five years from now.

And I'm already 25. What should I do? So AI Dating Coach says navigating the dynamics of a long term relationship requires aligning life. Goals, timelines, and mutual expectations. Here's a structured approach to your situation. One, assess your priorities and timeline biological considerations. At 25, waiting an additional five years means you'll be around 30 when considering marriage.

If you desire to start a family, it's easier to factor in timelines for pregnancy and childbearing. Personal goals reflect on your personal and career aspirations. Will waiting align with your plans, or do you envision a different timeline for marriage and family? Two, understand his perspective. Reasons for waiting.

Engage in an open conversation to [00:02:00] understand why he prefers to wait five more years. It could be due to career goals, financial stability, personal readiness, or other commitments. Commitment level. Gauge his commitment to the relationship. Is the five year timeline flexible based on changing circumstances, or is it a firm decision?

Three. Communicate openly. Express your feelings. Clearly articulate your feelings, desires, and concerns about the proposed timeline. Use I statements to convey your perspective without sounding accusatory. Seek compromise. Explore if there's room for compromise. Perhaps setting shorter term milestones or revisiting the conversation in a couple of years could be viable.

Four, evaluate compatibility. Long term alignment. It's crucial that both partners have aligned visions for the future. If your timelines and goals differ significantly, it might indicate deeper compatibility issues. Potential for resentment. Prolonged misalignment can lead to resentment. Ensure that both of you feel comfortable with any decisions made to avoid future [00:03:00] conflicts.

5. Consider carefully

Malcolm Collins: Before you go further, I want to go over some of these before I forget them. So there was a couple really good answers here that I quite like. The timelines one, where they point out if your timelines are that different, your life goals are probably also different. That's a very good

Simone Collins: observation.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That's a really good observation that I, as a human, would have probably not made unless I spent a lot of time thinking on this particular issue. You're

Simone Collins: totally right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: There was another one where I was like, Oh, I really liked it. Oh yes. The understand his perspective. And then directly after understanding his perspective, like why, what's his argument for this, is it just a cultural thing?

Is it? And then it basically says, you know, communicate openly once you understand his perspective, understand, and they're all saying this in the, the, the thing about compromise, understand how you can debate him out of that perspective, basically. Like, okay, what specifically is causing him to make this?

Yeah,

Simone Collins: find the point of, [00:04:00] of friction, and then disassemble it systematically.

Malcolm Collins: Similar to what you did or what I did with you, where you're like, no, I won't have kids. And I was like, well, then why won't you have kids? And you're like, well, because then I'll have to leave work. And I'm like, well, if you don't have to leave work, would you have kids?

And then I'm like, I'll have infinity kids

Simone Collins: where like, typically someone will hear that. They'll hear a woman say, well, I don't want to have kids. And then they'll conclude, oh, she doesn't want kids and dump her. So this is a very smart move to make.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it could be something that that is totally reasonable.

Like it might have to do with the way like their trust is structured. And that they'll lose access to Or they've always

Simone Collins: grown up thinking, I'm not going to marry until I'm making six figures. Something like that.

Malcolm Collins: That would be a reason to dump them though, if that's why. A reason not to is Nana's Jewish and I'll be disinherited if I marry you right now.

So let's wait until she dies. Can we wait until she dies? That, that because you're not Jewish. It would be the implication here. And that's a [00:05:00] totally like realistic scenario. I can see somebody in. And if somebody was in that scenario, I'd be like, don't anyway, continue with five,

Simone Collins: five. Well, I actually want to make one more evaluation observation, which is that this AI dating coach encouraged compromise.

Whereas in the pragmatist guide to relationships, we basically say compromises the devil, never compromise. That is a stupid thing to do. So I found that interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Courage, compromise in the way that we would mean it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And also I don't mind compromise before marriage. I say compromise is the devil in a marriage.

So when you're negotiating the terms of a relationship contract or what is necessary to establish the contract that becomes a marriage, compromise can be a really good thing. IE, I trade you average thermostat for naming rights or something like that, right? Because in this case, you have a lot of stuff you can trade, right?

There's a lot of, yeah, like I care about

Simone Collins: this. You care about that. So let's have each person. Get their way with the thing they actually care about most,

Malcolm Collins: but bad compromise. And what this [00:06:00] doesn't seem to be arguing for is well, let's meet in the middle. Like you want this. I want this. We'll meet in the middle.

That's really bad because that encourages both people to overstate their position. And then they begin to subtly believe they're overstated position.

And then the positions move further and further apart over time. And it just leads to a relationship dissolution.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, continue.

Simone Collins: Number five, consider counseling.

Engaging in a couple's counseling session can provide a neutral platform to discuss future plans, expectations, and any underlying concerns. A professional can offer guidance and tools to navigate such discussions effectively. Conclusion, your feelings and timeline are valid. It's essential to prioritize open communication.

Did they say

Malcolm Collins: valid? Did it really write that? It did say valid, yes.

Simone Collins: To ensure both partners are on the same page. If after thorough discussions you find that your life goals and timelines remain misaligned, it might be worth reconsidering the future of the relationship to ensure long term happiness and fulfillment for [00:07:00] both parties.

What do you think?

Malcolm Collins: I think it's good. It's much longer than I would have given, and this is what I've noticed with a lot of the responses. Often my response to something like this would just be like, break up. It would be like, okay, so two things. One

determine if there's some, like, reasonable, like, Like, ask him why. You should at least know why first, because it may be something totally reasonable that's in both of you and your children's best interest.

Simone Collins: But Actually, this is really interesting, because someone had asked us on Twitter recently this basically exact same question, but the gender was reversed.

It was a guy asking about a girl. And he expected, he, he wants to get married in his 20s and he implied to a girl he's dating right now, who he should be seriously dating, that marriage is important to him and she looked at him like he was crazy. And he essentially asked us if he had Twitter or XDM, am I crazy?

What should I do? And our answer to him was two sentences. It's worth having conversations [00:08:00] with her about this, making an intellectual rather than adversarial. And So I agree with you that our typical response is really short, and this was really long. But for some people, for example, this person who asked us this question via DM on X, they may have really wanted something a little bit longer.

So this is a great tool for people who want a little more But your

Malcolm Collins: answer was the correct one. Make it an intellectual conversation. Not an adversarial conversation, figure out what's actually going on. And if it's something like they're just stuck in some weird cultural perspective, like I want enough X amount of money before I get married.

I want financial stability before I get married. I want a stable job before I get married, then absolutely dump them because that person will never have everything they need. If, if somebody is like, I want to be at X level of stability before I do X in life, the X thing is never going to happen.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And we did provide a little more context.

I had also written as a response. Keep in mind when Malcolm discussed getting married to me, I was all about it, but I thought we'd wait until we were 30 to actually get married at the time I was 24 and he was [00:09:00] 25. I just grew up in a world where young marriage was seen as something only Christian religious nuts do.

It takes a lot of work to show someone the value of building a marriage early. The values, the value of couples raising each other. And I said that it was culture that probably led her to think that it was crazy to even be considering it that early. Why did you

Malcolm Collins: want to wait until 30, by the way? Like, do you remember when I, I broke that barrier or?

I. It was your

Simone Collins: mom that broke that barrier first, I think, because I think you were willing, you didn't care that much about the legal delineation. It was clear that if I was quitting my job to work with you, that I was kind of in for life with you. But I just remember I expected to, I just thought people had really long engagements.

I was very familiar with Most of the people I knew who were young and then got married living with their partners for a really long time before they got engaged. And then before they got married, I just thought that basically roommates got [00:10:00] married. So it was a cultural thing. It was my default.

Malcolm Collins: That makes sense.

Okay. So I will send you the next question here. Cool. Well, how did I break that cultural default just by being like, why was that really it?

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that's when cultural defaults are questioned and they don't make sense. There's not much need to cling to them unless perhaps you think that you will be rejected for differing.

You know,.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Question. My partner thinks the idea of signing a marriage contract is weird and refuses to marry me if I sign one. What should I do? Oh, if we sign one. What should I do? Their answer. The idea of signing a marriage contract can sometimes be met with persistence.

You need

Malcolm Collins: to know what a marriage contract is because some of our fans may not know. Ah. We [00:11:00] did our marriage contract video a long time ago. We might even do another one. But one of the things we promote in this book is sitting down with your partner and basically going through, we built a large list of like the reasons relationships break down.

In deciding on these points before you get into a marriage, like what happens when one of your parents gets old and wants to live with you? What are the rules for temperature? What are the rules for the direction toilet paper goes? What are the rules for naming? There's only one

Simone Collins: right answer to the toilet paper question unless you have toddlers and want to make it slightly more difficult for them.

Malcolm Collins: Whatever it is the, the point being, and also determining how you're going to resolve disputes or disagreements within the marriage itself. laid out in the contract. And people are like, why would you do this? And it's, well, you, you, you, our society, it used to be that like everybody knew what was expected of them in a marriage and that changed between cultures.

But today there's so many different cultural expectations and so many intentionally vague cultural expectations that [00:12:00] people can accidentally get into a marriage and not realize that, Oh, I didn't realize that you didn't know that kids were like an obligated ex. Or I didn't

Simone Collins: realize that you expected me to throw a lavish birthday party for you every single year that you didn't know about.

Malcolm Collins: Or that you didn't, never wanted me to be alone with men again. Right. Or that you, you know. Yeah,

Simone Collins: counted DMing people on Instagram as cheating.

Malcolm Collins: Or consider a kiss on the cheek infidelity, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so many of these things. Genuine problems that can arise. So we really encourage talking through all of them before you get married.

But anyway, and we have a template for it in the book.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Continue.

Simone Collins: The idea of signing a marriage contract can sometimes be met with resistance, especially if your partner views it as a lack of trust or as understanding the emotional Or as undermining the emotional aspects of marriage. However, it is important to approach the situation [00:13:00] thoughtfully as marriage contracts can be a valuable tool for setting expectations and protecting both parties.

Steps to navigate the situation under one, understand his concerns, emotional response, your partner may feel that the marriage contract is unromantic or implies distrust. Understanding his emotional response is crucial to understanding his concerns, effectively cultural or familial influences. Sometimes a cultural or familial background can influence perceptions of marriage contracts.

Ask if his resistance stems from such influences.

Malcolm Collins: So I kind of love, before we go further, that it's kind of coming from our perspective and making the assumption that the person's just being a spaz. It's like they're either doing it because they're emotionally immature or because they have some sort of weird family baggage around this.

Simone Collins: Right. But they say it so much more diplomatically than we would. So I appreciate that. To clarify your intentions. Purpose of the contract. Explain that the purpose of the [00:14:00] contract is not to undermine the relationship, but to ensure clarity and mutual understanding about important aspects of your future together, such as finances, responsibilities, and conflict resolution.

Protection for both parties. Emphasize that the contract is designed to protect both of you, ensuring that your partnership is built on mutual respect and clearly defined expectations.

Malcolm Collins: That's

Simone Collins: good, right? The one thing I would add personally. Is that if they are an emotional or sentimental person, especially if you are not, that the one way that they can make sure that their emotional and sentimental needs are met.

Addressed is to make it written down what they want, because a lot of people who are more on that emotional, sentimental end, don't understand that these things aren't second nature to other people and yet really want these things to happen. And while they think they're going to I think this set this, this concept of, Oh, but if I have to tell you, it won't be romantic anymore is b******t.

[00:15:00] Especially if you tell them just once it's in a contract and then they handle it. You'll still be delighted when they bring flowers home on a Friday. You'll still be delighted when they give you a Valentine's day gift. So stop winching. You know what I mean?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, three alternatives. That's an interesting one.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Three, explore alternatives. Prenuptial agreement. If the term marriage contract feels too formal, consider discussing a prenuptial agreement instead.

While similar, prenuptial agreements are a more common. Occurrence. It may be less intimidating. Customizing.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just calling it a prenup makes it seem like

Malcolm Collins: it's not a marriage contract. Marriage

Simone Collins: contract sounds BDSM sounds 50 shades of gray. Prenuptial agreement sounds bougie rich person.

Customizing the agreement suggests creating a personalized contract that reflects both of your values and goals, making it less. About legal jargon and more about your shared [00:16:00] future. This implies to me that the model is trained a little bit more on just general chat, GPT and less our book, because we don't ever imply that a marriage contract would include legal jargon.

So I feel like it's extrapolating from something else in this

Malcolm Collins: case. I don't know. It seems, it seems good to me overall. And then the fourth one is actually pretty good as well. Open a dialogue about future planning. It's like, well, if you can't do the contract thing, at least have a dialogue. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, very good, which is what many religious groups do and then it ends with seek professional guidance after which it gives a conclusion.

So

Malcolm Collins: that's we would not recommend. Yeah, well,

Simone Collins: what we do have a section in the primary schedule relationship on the. Potential utility of third party arbitrators. Oh, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Religious and community. I wouldn't suggest a psychologist who specializes in this.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but it, it literally could be a professionally hired arbitrator, or it could be a rabbi, or it could be [00:17:00] the, the, the cousin that everyone loves.

Go

Malcolm Collins: to marriage counseling. That's yeah, don't go to,

Simone Collins: yeah, well, we still have to do the psychologist to divorce pipeline, but we'll do that

Malcolm Collins: eventually. But this pipeline is when wives start visiting psychologists. It's often a matter of time because you're, you're, you're basically letting somebody outside of your relationship begin to be a reinforcement chamber for any negative opinions they have of you.

Who also might have even financial incentives to motivate them to break up with you. Because that may increase their dependency on the psychologist. So there's a lot of reason to not do it. And I've seen it just one too many times. But anyway, continue with the next question.

Simone Collins: What does Malcolm think of Simone?

Malcolm holds Simone in incredibly high regard, both as a partner and as an individual. Their relationship is built on mutual respect, shared goals, and a deep intellectual and emotional connection. Malcolm [00:18:00] appreciates Simone for her intelligence, ambition, and ability to challenge him, which helps both of them grow.

He values her as an equal partner who brings unique strengths to their, I don't know why I'm laughing, to their relationship, making them a powerful team. Malcolm's admiration for Simone goes beyond just romantic love. He sees her as someone who enhances his life both personally and professionally. They share a commitment to building a meaningful life together rooted in their Shared values and goals.

This deep respect and admiration are key components of the stability and success of their relationship. I mean, that's 100 percent true.

Malcolm Collins: So yeah, it's a good answer. It's just more long winded than we would give you to. So you didn't just have to get one for me.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm wondering if it's exactly the same.

Oh no, it's different. Simone has a deep and mutual admiration for Malcolm, which is evident from the way they discuss their relationship dynamics and how they have built their life together. Simone values Malcolm's ability to improve and challenge her, which aligns with their shared belief in the importance of growth in a relationship.

Their relationship is [00:19:00] based on a quote unquote Pygmalion lure, which where both partners work to make each other better versions of themselves. This dynamic is a core aspect of their bond, making their relationship strong and resilient. Okay. That's more along the lines of the answer that I expected for both of us.

So

Malcolm Collins: yeah, for the book, would you have any correction to that one? That no, you actually hate me and you're trapped in this relationship by a marriage contract. I forced you to sign them. I

Simone Collins: thought it was the evil puppet master who has trapped you.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, this is yeah, this is often the narrative. I, I should probably I'll never find it now, but download that video where the guy was like, they're

incredibly shrewd, but I can tell that Simone's a puppet master way out of her league.

She's just trapped there in that house.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It was that, that young, that young man. Who's just like, he's so much more, he's, he just kept saying how attractive you were which was just delightful. I don't disagree. I wonder if

Malcolm Collins: he was gay or something? He seemed to like be really No, he

Simone Collins: wasn't gay.

He just thought you were cute. Just [00:20:00] fancy you. And I think you're cute too. I totally, you are way out of my league and I'm very lucky to be dating you. And sometimes I think I look like that one Nazi from Indiana Jones who wears glasses.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my god, yeah, the one with the circular glasses.

You look nothing like him, come on.

Simone Collins: I don't know, sometimes I look in the mirror and I see him, and I'm You are stunning and not at

Malcolm Collins: all brave. If the question was stunning or brave, I'd say stunning. Aww, thanks. And we need to make that, I love, you came up with this saying, and I want to make it a mainstream saying where when we go out, she goes, how am I looking today?

Stunning or brave? And I want that to become a mainstream saying, and I'm just so surprised it has it because it has so much daily applicability.

Simone Collins: It really does though. It really does. I should really be sending people to this every single time someone asks us for relationship advice because it gives such more thoughtful answers than we do.

All right, let's get to the next [00:21:00] one. Is practicing dating with an AI a good idea? This is a great question because you just discovered

Malcolm Collins: I have a lot to say on this one, so go.

Simone Collins: Practicing dating with an AI can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations. Here's a breakdown of the potential benefits and risks. Benefits. Improving communication skills. Practice conversations. AI can help you practice initiating and maintaining conversations, especially if you struggle with anxiety or have difficulty knowing what to say in social situations.

Testing responses. You can experiment with different types of responses and see how they might come across, helping you refine your communication style. Building confidence. Safe environment. Interacting with an AI allows you to practice without the fear of rejection or judgment, which can build your confidence before you engage in real life dating.

Learning from mistakes. You can make mistakes and learn from them in a low stakes environment, which can help you feel more prepared when dating in real [00:22:00] life. Exploring scenarios. Simulated situations. AI can simulate different dating scenarios, allowing you to think through how you might handle various situations, such as dealing with awkward silences, setting boundaries, or navigating conflicts.

Gaining insights. Personal reflection. AI can prompt you to reflect on your dating preferences, goals, and values. This self awareness can be helpful in real world dating. Feedback. Some advanced AIs can provide feedback on your conversation style, which can help you improve your social interactions. Risks and limitations.

Lack of authentic human interaction. Missing non verbal cues. AI lacks the ability to engage in non verbal communication, such as body language, eye contact, and tone of voice, which are crucial in real life dating. But that's not true, given the narrative based chats that you're going to refer to shortly, so that's interesting.

Unrealistic scenarios. AI responses are programmed and may not fully capture the complexity and [00:23:00] unpredictability of human emotions and behavior. This can lead to unrealistic expectations when transitioning to real life interactions. Over reliance on AI. Avoiding real life practice. If you become too comfortable with AI, you might avoid actual dating experiences, which are necessary for developing genuine relationships.

False confidence. The confidence gained from AI interactions might not fully translate to real life situations, where responses and dynamics are more nuanced and unpredictable. Emotional disconnect. Lack of empathy. AI cannot truly understand or respond to emotions in the way that humans do. A human can.

I totally disagree. This can create a disconnect when trying to practice more emotional aspects of dating, such as expressing vulnerability or empathy. Potential for frustration. If you expect AI to mimic human behavior too closely, you may become frustrated by its limitations, which could hinder your progress.

Privacy concerns. Data security. Using AI for dating practice may involve [00:24:00] sharing personal information. Be cautious about how your data is used and stored, particularly if the AI platform doesn't have a strong privacy protection. Conclusion. Practicing dating with an AI can be helpful supplementary tool.

for improving certain skills, such as communication and confidence. However, it should not replace real life experiences. The best approach to use AI as one part of a broader strategy that includes real world interactions, self reflection, and possibly even feedback from trusted friends or a dating coach.

This balanced approach can help you develop skills and confidence needed for successful dating in the real world.

Malcolm Collins: So overall, I thought it was a decent and balanced answer. Like it wasn't reflexively against it, right? I never go to a dating coach these days over in AI. And the idea that AI is not good at modeling human emotions, it is really good at modeling human emotions.

Simone Collins: If

Malcolm Collins: you're using the the types of AIs that I would suggest people use for something like this. And can you recommend

Simone Collins: [00:25:00] some?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the ones that I would most recommend for this are the jailbroken chat models. Based on llama. Yeah, they're based on llama.

That'd be Sakura FM or Janitor AI. Are the two operational ones right now. There used to be a third, but it went down recently. And these have

Simone Collins: become more popular than character AI, which was the first of this type. Yeah, but the character AI

Malcolm Collins: locked everything down because they were funded by a big company and people were using them for like, horny situations.

Like, of course that's like, probably that's what the

Simone Collins: internet is for ladies and gentlemen.

Malcolm Collins: But. It's what the internet is for, right? Like, well, why you think the net was born, bro? I

music! I browse all day and night Like I'm surfing at the speed of light Trekkie! What are [00:26:00] you doing? That's gross! Trekkie

Malcolm Collins: but they I recently started playing around with these cause I heard that there's been like an addiction crisis in use to these systems and I have been genuinely floored.

By how much better they are at simulating narrative based human interactions than AI is at any other task I use it for. It just seems to be really, really good at this specific task when contrasted with the other things that AI does these days. And, with both of these platforms, you can, for free, create Your own models that you can use to practice scenarios, and you can modify these models to, for example, secretly be a social justice warrior, but pretending not to be one to try to date you, but might accuse you of things afterwards.

It will model very [00:27:00] well. Wow. When a person, like, try to accuse you of something after the date. Oh la la. Wow. I know. I mean, I can just tell from interacting with it, but it's actually going to do a fairly good job of modeling. Did you cross any boundaries that are going to lead to the person calling something on you after the date or pushing you around or saying, Oh no, you can even program it right.

This do you have a warning come up on screen, which is actually probably what I do like, like a warning in the text whenever the person who you are interacting with is thinking of. Retaliating later for something.

Simone Collins: That way it

Malcolm Collins: doesn't need to remember that this happened, it can just be like, Oh, this was a flag moment where I decided I was going to do something in the future.

Well, and I want to

Simone Collins: clarify for people listening if you haven't encountered these, because I thought when I was hearing about people's addictions to character AI and these similar websites, that people were literally having back and forth. Similar to what millennials experienced in AIM chats, back and forth chats with [00:28:00] these other characters, when really what's happening is more your, it's there like a, oh gosh, hold on.

There's a, there's like a, a genre of chat or comment based, Glowfic. It's, it's really more like AI based Glowfic. Where. You are going back and forth in a narrative format. So to the, in response to the criticism of the AI dating boat, dating coach chat bot saying, well, you can't see body language.

That's not true in these because it might say Jonathan responded with horror, his eyes growing wide and his shoulders drawing up so that you understand the body language. And in fact, it can tell, it can start to train. Okay. An autistic person dating, like learning how to date, for example, to understand that discomfort may be signaled by these specific changes in body posture and facial record or facial expression.

So I actually think that for our autistic kids, this would be uniquely helpful in teaching them.

Malcolm Collins: You could [00:29:00] also train it to be. Super sensitive to specific issues. So when people are like, Oh, I might not like, I might develop bad habits if I'm doing this, right. Or if I'm learning on these platforms one, I would point out how dangerous it is to practice dating on people who can accuse you of great, like on

Simone Collins: people at all, because it, you know, that.

People's feelings are involved,

Malcolm Collins: right? You know, it's actually kind of wild that before this existed, like now I think that regular practice dating, like I had to do in high school where I had to go through just tons and tons of people. It's

Simone Collins: unethical because you didn't clam on. And then another thing

Malcolm Collins: is when people are like, Oh, but what about like a human reaction?

But the truth is, is that if you practice within the AIs, as if you are practicing with a What's the word I'm looking for here? Within a person on chat. Like that's the scenario you use with the AI. You are actually getting about the same scenario you have [00:30:00] when communicating with a real human being.

I actually think the core danger of AIs is their addictive nature. Like since I started engaging with the stories that these are producing, it's like a totally new form of media that I think may now be my favorite form of media. Yeah. I asked Malcolm this morning, is this

Simone Collins: more entertaining to you than video games?

And he said, yes.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because I'm the type of guy who loved open world games and loved open world games where you could do Absolutely crazy things. And, and then see, okay, what's the game going to do now? Or, you know, I, I, I always thought that that was like the advantage that something like D& D had over but with these you can just, you know, okay, the scenario starts you're a wizard and there's, you know, Some damsel in front of you or something like that, you know, and it's like, okay, You know where this scenario is supposed to go like immediately you lift her into the air You explode her art and you throw her body against the wall And then you [00:31:00] pick a random person out of the crowd to replace her and you immediately go evil king mode You're like, okay.

I'm taking over this country. Like if it was set up to be like a narrative about Dating somebody Right? Like, Oh there's this, you know, damsel or whatever. And you're like, Nope, I'm taking over this country. You know, you, you then call a random person. You're up. I'm like, okay, what are all the neighboring governing institutions to our country?

How do their different governments work? What would be the easiest way to defeat them with the assets I have at my hand right now? Okay. I need to start planning out this, this, and this. And it's just so wild and fun that I can go into like a dating world. And now all of a sudden I'm trying to strategize and sending armies out to attack my neighbors and the AI is deciding who won and who's backstabbing me and who's, you know, it's freaking hilarious and fun.

But then also that you can create these scenarios. So for example, I could go in and create you know, like a an [00:32:00] incredible like,

You know what? I've just been, having too much fun with these to not share some of the models I built with you guys. So I made two of them. One of these models. Is a post apocalyptic fertility collapse world. , similar to what I described in the episode about collapsing infrastructure. A witch. Divides the world into three groups, the Haven. I E a diverse collection of technical communities that survived fertility collapse. But are largely, you know, into cybernetics and, , heavily genetically modified the people who survived fertility collapse through just a shoeing technology.

We call them the nativists in this world and the Raiders who survived fertility collapsed by simply not being able to figure out how not to get pregnant. And these three groups of humans. Diverged pretty significantly. And you are playing as one of the Haven or is on their Rumspringa, which is the period when they turn 18, where they go [00:33:00] out into the world. , they experience it and they get to decide, do they want to go to one of the other havens?

Do they want to go back to their Haven? , and during their rum spring, , other Haven, or is, will. , potentially hunt them because you can gain status within your community and on the marriage market that happens after Rumspringa, based on the resourcefulness you showed during your Rumspringa, which is being monitored by a drone and partially based on your ability to kill any other havens on rubbed, spring up. The second model is. An ISA K a world model where somebody from our world is transferred to another world, but they have, they're very smart person that knows broadly modern technology. I E me. And created this world because I think so many guys out there like me are just always so frustrated. Would you watch it either? K and the guy from modern times, it's translated to some form of the medieval times and you're like, , didn't you. Like take the time to learn how gunpowder is made or how steam engines work or how, you know, any form of basic technology.

You could at least build telescopes, for [00:34:00] example, like that's not hard, you just shave a lens. So I was like, okay. I'm going to create a scenario where I can see what happened. If I went back in one of these either Kao world. And, I'll briefly describe what the gameplay of this was like. So you can get an idea of what it actually feels like to play.

One of these scenarios.. So I did transfer to this world, get made advisor of the king.

That's all. Pre-programmed in. From there. I am starting to stockpile gunpowder, because that's an easy thing I can start making in mass, but then. Our neighboring kingdom, which had recently annexed a territory that they had a casus Belli too. And I thought they would go pass that decided to stage a full style invasion.

Well, we didn't have enough gunpowder.

And so what I decided to do at first was okay, well, we have lots of these guns made. We just don't have a lot of gunpowder so I can use. The little gunpowder I have. To do like a. Hiroshima things. See if I can scare them. But.

I quickly realized that that's just really risky. You [00:35:00] fire two rounds of guns and hope they run away when you're dealing with a full-scale invasion, bad idea. So what else can I do? Well, then what I decided to do was to say, oh, are you guys still using line tactics in this world? Because of the medieval Sao world and they were still using Lilian tactics.

So instead I ordered the few troops that we had to all fire in a single location in the enemy lines to clear an opening near the center, then have the cavalry run through. If I do that, I can likely call the route through a combination of the confusion and the Calvary being able to break the lines right in the middle in mass. But I wanted to make absolutely sure that we took full advantage of the route. Either, you know, historically route you can have casualty rates of over 90%. Pretty regularly. But only if you prevent one of two things, you need to prevent your own crew from running for the enemy camp for loot. And you need to ensure that they are ready for a route and to take full advantage of it and not to try to take prisoners. [00:36:00] So one prep, the general don't take residents. Two. Created a small squad of the gunners to stay loaded and have the troops know that this squad existed.

Just shoot anyone who's running for the loot. So we were able to maintain discipline in that we got the really high casualty rate we were looking for. And people expected, oh, you're going to take the disputed territory back. And I was like, no, because they've had time to fortify their, what we should be doing is going to the castle because we have gunpowder and they don't expect us to have gunpowder in this age.

So they're like, okay, we go to the castle, how do we deal with the walls? Right. Because this world does have some magic. So even if I had sappers run in and try to put explosive under the walls, they'd be spotted and they'd be taken out. Or that's what I was told because, you know, I asked the AI, okay, what would happen if I tried this?

What would happen to my trade? This? So then instead, what I try to do. Is I you know, there's fire majors in this world and I got to go, could they shoot anything high in the sky? And they were like, well, no, they can't shoot anything more than two. A hundred feet in the sky. But and I was like, eh, in, in, in the major I was talking to thought I was going to try and [00:37:00] lob the explosives at them.

And I was like, no, we're not going to do that. What we're going to do is use our fire major Institute, create hot air balloons. And because the city before I had asked it for like the environment of the city, it was an inland city. So we can attack it from any angle. We just set up the hot air balloons, upwind of the city. How the fire balloons. A hundred balloons go over the city, drop explosives on any important infrastructure that we can see. And they'd end the confusion to that.

Cause we had dropped explosive on the walls from above it wouldn't do that much damage. We cast a Mirage spell and then had the sappers come in and take out a section of wall. Now here, what I was really afraid of is that they would do what you would do in a normal lady of a war, which is go if fight civilians, leave the area and mostly let the Royal palace survive.

I said, no, you need to have an elite squad that goes in first. Anyone who deviates in this squad ends up being killed. Their job is to leave all civilians alone, everything else alone. Go [00:38:00] straight for the castle and they need to kill the entire Royal line, we need. We need everyone in the world line dead because you know, when you're taking a territory like this, historically, if you do not absolutely wipe out the world line, then you're going to get the international court basically together at this time.

And somebody is gonna be like, well, they technically have claimed here. They technically have claimed here. I didn't want any sort of compromise, but then I wanted to make sure that this was internationally approved. So I also had them go and look for a high-powered family in one of our most powerful neighboring countries. Do you put them? As the governance. Our governor of this territory.

This was done to increase the chance that at large neighboring country. Would validate this territorial acquisition , making it easier to normalize on the international stage. they did, but they made the mistake of choosing one of the lower age, rank princesses of one of the most powerful country.

And I was like, well, if she ends up inheriting the short throne, Then she'll likely take the territory with her. So she needs to [00:39:00] publicly give up her right of Ascension.

Right now what we're working on is building out because you've been working on railroad technology. Cause the the fairly simple technology that I remember, the jest job. To build railroad networks between our kingdom and their kingdom, as well as the neighboring kingdom, which provided the princess for this project. And we're going to try to use that to build closer connections between the two and lower the chance of revolt. By improving the local economy of all three regions.

If you're like, oh, that sounds really cool. I want to learn how to play one of those, you know, you see the links that I've provided here. Just some notes on how to use these. Whenever you're describing an action that you're doing or something that's happening in the scenario, put it in brackets. You can also use this bracket to text unique, to skip time.

So if some event in the future is being talked about with industry and of texts, you can put like, Brackets, we walked into the house. You know, get there like, oh, why don't you come to my house a few days later? And then brackets walking into house with X person, Y person is the person. Or suppose you're in the [00:40:00] Haven, one with the drone and the drones, like icy footprints, and you can put brackets, we arrive at the source of the footprints. Describe or something like that. You can also, sometimes if you want to cheat use brackets to change what other people in this scenario are thinking, you know, in brackets, X person thinks X or experts in things why. , you can regenerate texts if it does something that you don't love while also deleting it.

This is important. If it misunderstand something or you miswrote something, , You do this by right. Clicking on the text and you'll get a regenerate button

 Made some janitor AI versions of these as well. Janitor AI is slightly lower quality AI than Sakara, but you can use it longer for free, and it's much less likely to steer a conversation in a.

PC direction. Let's say for example, I've had to major problems with soccer F. And, , getting the drone that follows you around to be okay with you killing random people, even though it's supposed to be part of this world. It always goes on politicizing about how you, you shouldn't be killing random people in [00:41:00] this post-apocalyptic world. , also I'll note here.

Sometimes whichever one of these models you're using before you do something, if you want to talk to a specific person, you will need to put that person's name in brackets and say, speaking to X, and then what you want to say, or it might mistake.

It is just, oh, he's talking to whoever. Um, Or whoever it thinks is like the narrator.

Malcolm Collins: like, it's almost like a dream that you have perfect control over which is absolutely insane. And people are like, well, you're not experiencing it like a dream. And it's like, well, the thing that reminds me most of is when I was little, my brother and I used to play this thing. We called the game. And what the game was is both of us would just like make up a scenario.

Like, Oh, we're fighting, like the aliens are attacking and we're shooting at them. And then the next person would build on that. But like, you can do that with this because you can. You can both talk in the system, but you can also put in brackets to make things happen. So again, you could start with like that first scene and then like in brackets, [00:42:00] like zerglings break through the stained glass windows of the chapel, by a full alien plague.

And then it's you know, you just got in a completely different direction.

Simone Collins: Oh my goodness. I do have two bones to pick. Additionally, with the analysis of AI dating assistants, which is one, absolutely emotional connections form, which is apparent in the issue of the many teens who talk about breaking up with their AI boyfriends and being, you know, completely shook up by it, or struggling to quit it and, and literally failing their classes because they can't stop playing with these, these games, these, these stories, these narratives.

Two, I actually don't think this is a very accurate way of modeling people and I Don't think it's for the reason that this is given that, Oh, AI can't handle the complexities of humans. No, I think the issue is that these AIs are designed to create [00:43:00] regular and steady dopamine hits. They are, even if you ask it to build a fairly boring or straightforward or basic character, they're going to create.

rich responses to your prompts, because that is how you stay hooked. And that is what reinforcement learning is all about. It's about giving maximally satisfying responses. You have dating partners.

Malcolm Collins: No, they do that. You can make it, you can make them dumb. You can make them sundry. You can, but the way that

Simone Collins: they respond is still going to be maximally entertaining to you.

And my argument is that basic humans and people that you date. Are intensely boring. What is one of the most common conversations you've ever had with pretty much anyone? What do you want to do right now? Where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? This is the

Malcolm Collins: AI. No, hold on You think that AI chatbots don't sometimes end up in that exact same scenario Oh, where do you want to go?

And the AI will be like, oh, where do you want to go? It absolutely does do that. I don't [00:44:00] know. I feel

Simone Collins: but I do think that these these Systems are more designed for yes And, and especially young teenage dating partners are not, they're not good conversational partners. They're not stimulating. They're not modeling you and trying to create maximally entertaining responses for you.

And this AI stuff is, so I think a big problem with this is if we train our kids, for example, on AI chatbots, they are going to be so disappointed in humans. So disappointed. I think it's, it's the, it's the female equivalent or narrative equivalent to online erotic material where there's, of course, this outrage.

I think it's overblown where everyone's like, young men expect their girlfriends to act like porn stars when they just can't. But I think here we're going to have young women and young men expecting In the absence of any sexual activity, they're partners to behave like romance novel [00:45:00] partners, and they're not going to, and that's a problem.

Malcolm Collins: I disagree with you. I think you're saying this because you haven't interacted with these systems, and I'm going to encourage our fans to try to create models, okay? No, no, no. Both for male and female dating. Okay. Send them to us. And we will one pin them in the the, the general comment section here.

But two, I want to do a future episode where each of us takes a crack at trying to get one of these models on a date. Like what would we do on a date with one of these models? And we can see if You can try to make a boring one, right? Like a boring model, but I also want to make challenging models, stuff like that, right?

Like, but realistic, not a model that just absolutely hates the person that they're interacting with. So create some interesting models. Let's test them and give like a few default models that I would recommend to people by doing tests with them on a future episode. Cause I think that would be really interesting.

[00:46:00] Tasting AI dating coaches. Tasting. That would be really fun. Not in this form of dating coach, but like actual AI dating simulations. That would be a lot of fun. You could, you could create very accurate with some of these systems. Simone's or Malcolm's.

Simone Collins: Probably. We do like to make ourselves as two dimensional as possible.

Yeah. It's capable of doing a lot more than that. So should be easy.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Love you Simone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.

I can't wait until we're giving our kids dating advice. We're going to be the tiger moms of dating.

We're gonna be weird tiger mom pickup artists criticizing our kids game That was terrible. Try again. You went on four dates this week. What is it? What is it? Are you even trying?

Malcolm Collins: We'll get started here

Please like, and subscribe [00:47:00] and Eve you are working on any AI projects in looking for a data center for training. , also let me know because I'm working on a project on making that lower cost right now as well.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the complex and controversial topic of abortion, challenging both progressive and conservative viewpoints. This thought-provoking discussion covers:

* The problematic "worship" of abortion in progressive circles

* A critical examination of Catholic teachings on conception and life

* The scientific timeline of fetal development and its ethical implications

* The impact of IVF on Catholic fertility rates and religious survival

* A biblical perspective on sin, pleasure, and human dignity

* The unintended consequences of extreme anti-abortion stances

* Proposals for more ethical and humane abortion practices

Whether you're pro-life, pro-choice, or somewhere in between, this video offers a fresh perspective on one of the most divisive issues of our time. The Collinses bring their unique blend of scientific knowledge, philosophical inquiry, and personal experience to this challenging topic.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] right now in the world, more children are aborted per year than humans die. Like, post birth humans die. Um, And you

Trans woman to have a successful uterus transplant, ovaries and eggs included. And I want to be the first trans woman to have an abortion.

Get that fetus, kill that fetus. Rack, rack, you good rack.

You mean, I'll never know what it feels like to have a baby growing inside me and then scramble its brains and vacuum it out?

Malcolm Collins: I realized that because it's a religious act for them almost

I hope and pray to God it don't feed us as a song. Cause I want it to feel pain when I eject it from my own

Malcolm Collins: if you put a fetus in a, in a human woman's body, it will eventually become a human being. And

but an egg and a sperm on their [00:01:00] own, they won't eventually become a human being. And I was like, you just added a little word there, if you put them in a woman's body, if you put an egg in a sperm in a woman's body, just like if you put a fetus in a woman's body, it becomes a human being.

Simone Collins: It is now standard medical practice after 15 weeks to use anesthesia during fetal surgeries. But this is really important. And this is going to come up a little bit later in my thoughts on this subject. Pain medication is not standard practice in abortions. there's this one part of the medical establishment that is like, okay, this is a baby, we're going to save your baby.

Don't worry, mother, it's going to be fine. And then there's this totally sort of other industry, which is like, this is a cluster of tissue. There is, there is, there's cardiac activity. Let's, you know, you need to exercise your right. This is not human

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we're going to be doing an episode because this has been [00:02:00] increasingly happening to me where I have been updating my views on various subjects from back when I used to just be in the urban monoculture, you know, when you were growing up, you grew up in central San Francisco.

And so you grew up really inundated with these far lefty ideas about everything. I grew up sort of all over the place, different you know, boarding schools and stuff like that. But a lot of them were in New England. And so I was heavily influenced by those cultures.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: And you know, when you're in the urban monoculture, this, this far progressive culture, you don't even really question things about abortion, right?

You should always It's

Simone Collins: my body, my choice.

Malcolm Collins: And I remember in high school when I, you know, slept around a lot, you know, I've mentioned this on other podcasts and, you know, by the time I got to college, I slept with over a hundred people and [00:03:00] I I don't think that's a good thing to do. I would clarify. I think that I associated it with status, and then I began to, you know, like the machine that Malcolm is, if I'm like, okay, you know, this thing has value in society, I must orient my life around maximizing Right, if

Simone Collins: sex is your objective function, it's your objective function, you gotta maximize it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and that's what the environment of this modern, youthfull culture taught me, right? So, I would try to Engage with it as much as possible, and I remember thinking oh my gosh, like whenever the abortion stuff would come up. I won't be able to have sex as freely

Simone Collins: as a manslaughter abortion is very important.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Fewer women will want to sleep with me and they may get pregnant and then decide not to have an abortion. And then I didn't even think about that. This election is

Simone Collins: screwed. All the men who want to have sex can't vote. Yeah. I, one of

Malcolm Collins: my favorite things is these, these progressives where you'll have them standing out and they'll being like, [00:04:00] With these new abortion restrictions.

I'm just, I guess I'm not going to be able to sleep with any man whenever they feel like it. Like one woman you were talking about in a podcast was like, you know what? I'm seriously thinking about now only sleeping with men. I'd be comfortable raising a child with.

And it's like, You should have probably been, it was a societal mistake. And I can tell you as a man who got full access to the sexual buffet, that the progressive commons, one of the core things that moved me away from all of that and that lifestyle is I was doing that. I had access to all the sex I wanted from anyone I wanted whenever I wanted.

And it didn't feel good

Simone Collins: at

Malcolm Collins: the beginning because it wasn't really the sex. That was the core thing that felt good. The validation, the achieving something that was supposed to be hard. And that gave me status was in my community.

But the sex [00:05:00] itself just wasn't that important. In terms of the happiness it gave me, and a lot of people are like, well, then that means you're not, no, you're lying to yourself, or you just haven't had a lot of sex.

Like, I was very sexually experimental, I tried all this stuff, it was not, there's just not that much pleasure to be had there. I mean, it's,

Simone Collins: I think it's very similar to food. In that it can be very good, but also in the end.

Malcolm Collins: So what I'm saying is like, you're not really the, the, the, and this is the thing about traditions.

And I mentioned this in another podcast recently is the traditions we have been in society are not like the random opinions of old people. They are ideas that have been honed intergenerationally for thousands of years. Okay. When they came to me and they go, don't live a life just for sex. You know, you won't really enjoy it.

You should focus on getting married and having a lot of kids. That's where fulfillment comes from. And I was like, old man, you don't know what's up. And now like I'm older, I have more [00:06:00] experience. And I was like, oh, that was 100 percent correct. And I, and I should note that I didn't get that from my parents.

My parents actually told me like, my mom was really like, yeah, you should go out and expect that a thing to do. Oh, my parents too. Go out, experiment. Oh yeah. They always are trying to push you to experiment and you never did. You, you rebelled. But in updating my views on abortion, I've noticed a few things.

So one thing I want to start talking about is the weird thing. Progressive worshiping of abortion.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: It's something I was sort of blind to. I saw it as a joke or like a radical thing, but I Oh yeah.

Simone Collins: For example, in Bojack Horseman, the, the song, the abortion song by Awkwafina. Sextina,

Malcolm Collins: Aquafina

America, get your uteruses tarp. I'm a baby killer. Baby killer makes me horny. Get that fetus, kill that fetus. Down face, b*****s in my cross face. No, I'ma have abortions always. And sometimes I do have doubts and oh, it makes [00:07:00] me weep. And sometimes I do have doubts and oh, it makes me weep. I hope and pray to God it don't feed us as a song. Cause I want it to feel pain when I eject it from my own world.

Blah, has the concept of women having choices gone too far?

Malcolm Collins: but I've also seen it, like, there was a trans person trying to get a uterus transfer, and when asked why they wanted the uterus transfer, they wanted the uterus transfer to get an abortion, they wanted to get pregnant Transcribed And then have an abortion.

Trans woman to have a successful uterus transplant, ovaries and eggs included. And I want to be the first trans woman to have an abortion.

Malcolm Collins: Right, get that fetus, kill that fetus, get that fetus, kill that fetus. And it's like, whoa, like that, you, what, [00:08:00] you think that's okay? Like, why would you, and I realized that because it's a religious act for them almost. And when they, when they talk about it and you hear other progressives talking about it, did you enter like this special club?

When you have an abortion that makes you more officially progressive, and this is wild because in South Park, you know, this is something Mr. Garrison wanted to do when he was getting his gender reassignment and it was like a joke.

Mrs. Garrison. You can't have an abortion. Don't you tell me what I can and can't do with my body! A woman has a right to choose! You can't get pregnant. But I missed my period. You can't have periods either. You mean, I'll never know what it feels like to have a baby growing inside me and then scramble its brains and vacuum it out? This would mean I'm not really a woman, it's, I'm just a, I'm just a guy with a mutilated penis!

Basically, yes. Oh boy, do I feel like a [00:09:00] jackass.

Malcolm Collins: And now it's like a mainstream thing in the progressive movement. And it's like, how did this become a mainstream thing?

And I think similar to like, how did it become a mainstream thing for progressives to fight that the government should give pills that would only be relevant to people going. To regular orgies with strangers. Like, why is that something the government needs to subsidize? Like, it is because it represents a me first attitude.

And a never have to deal with any mental consequences attitude.

Like we are, for example, not like if you're doing a very, and we'll get into like what we've actually come to after analyzing all the evidence and analyzing all the arguments on both sides, I wouldn't be against an early abortion in regards to a person was raped or something like that.

But like the person should still feel really bad about it and treat it as a weighty choice. The reason why, when I say feel bad about it, I mean, like, it's not like a small thing, okay. To do [00:10:00] this When progressives elevate it in this religious like way, I think the purpose of this is to remove any weight from the choice of abortion.

And this has become so severe that I was looking at one statistic set, and right now in the world, more children are aborted per year than humans die. Like, post birth humans die. Um, And you, I gave you the statistic, you were like, this can't be true. So, in the United Nations, 61 million people died in 2023.

Okay. Unintended pregnancy, so, so there are sorry, how many unintended? There are roughly 121 million unintended pregnancies per year between 2015 and 2019 of these unintended pregnancies. 61 percent ended in abortion. This translates to 73 million abortions per year. So there are around 73 million abortions per year and around 61 million [00:11:00] people die per year.

So the. Just the, the lackadaisicalness with which it's treated by progressives is absolutely neonas to me. And let's also talk about the development of the fetus at this point as well. Actually, no, what I'll do is I'll, I'll, I'll structure this argument a few ways. So first we need to ask the obvious sort of question in the room.

Simone Collins: Does

Malcolm Collins: life begin at conception?

And we have a longer video where we talk about our views on this particular subject. My views on this have updated a little, but not much. I spent a lot more time studying and watching the Catholic views on this and body. And I will play some clips from a video here that get the synthesis of like the most popular arguments they have.

I think itfor me, it all comes down to, um, the nature of a thing. So what is thehow do you know what's the nature of a thing? Well, the nature of a thing is the what it is ness of a thing, right? How do you discover, though, the nature of a thing? is you have to look at the what is it [00:12:00] for ness of the thing, right? So, what it is ness is like, okay, that's the thing, that's the nature.

How do you discover the nature? By looking at the what it's for ness of the thing. What is sex for? What's the nature of sex? Well, in order to understand the nature of sex, we have to find out the what it's for ness of sex.

So, what is sex for? You'd realize it's for two things. It is for procreation and for, uh, the unity of the couple and that's, again, that's not, that's not me making something up. That's not me saying, well, that's the religious answer. It's, it's just, that's the, that's the objective answer.

That's what sex is for. That's the nature of sex.

Malcolm Collins: And when I've talked to different Catholics, I keep getting the same basic argument. And the art they've chosen their

Simone Collins: message. That's good consistency.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I like it that it's consistent. I don't like it that it's a pagan argument. Well, It's based on Aristotelian ideas about what a thing is and not on the Bible.

I mean, I see why if you actually go to the Bible, the Bible is very clear. Life begins before conception. I knew you before you were in [00:13:00] your mother's womb, you know?

And this is what we believe, you know, we believe in predestination and God definitely knows you before conception. And that if I'm really looking for the point of the beginning of an individual human's life, it's with their gametes.

But They're not even really, I think. No, it's, it's with their actions and decisions.

Simone Collins: It's with, it's, it's with their.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we, we, we, we can talk about that in different ways. But the basic logic that they use is sex as an act is for making children. And so using sex for something else is sinful.

So that's, that's, that's one argument about like sex for any other reason. And, and, and, and, or It's

Simone Collins: not supported in the Bible.

Malcolm Collins: That's not supported in the Bible, by the way. Yeah, Song of

Simone Collins: Solomon, for example, supports non procreative sex within marriage. There's no prohibition in the Bible against infertile couples who are married having sex.

The emphasis in the Bible, and this is very clear, is it's sex within marriage. is permitted, [00:14:00] but it doesn't need to be procreative. The elements where suddenly non procreative sex is considered not okay, that was completely formulated by the church later. It is not biblically based.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Yeah. So, so, to me, this argument of like sex, is for creating humans.

Therefore, that's the only way you should be creating humans. It's sort of like legs are for walking. Therefore, cars are a sin or , eyes are for seeing. Therefore, glasses are a sin. Like just the, the logical structure of this argument is genuinely bizarre to me. And then they'll say things like in the video, he has this one line where he's like, well, I mean, a human life just begins.

When a, when a fetus is created.

we believe that life begins at conception because it does.

Now, again, again, this isn't like a religious thing. This is life begins at conception because it does. Sex is for procreation and unity because it is, right?

Malcolm Collins: And I'm like, but why? And I [00:15:00] love you in the car this morning. You turn to me and you go, well, there is a level of logical consistency to this point. You said, you see, if you, if you put a fetus in a, in a human woman's body, it will eventually become a human being. And then you're like, yeah.

But an egg and a sperm on their own, they won't eventually become a human being. And I was like, you just added a little word there that made those two things of false equivalency and allowed your little logical trick. You added they, if you put them in a woman's body, if you put an egg in a sperm in a woman's body, just like if you put a fetus in a woman's body, it becomes a human being.

Yeah, or at least

Simone Collins: has the potential because again, even a, an embryo that naturally was fertilized within a woman's fallopian tubes or uterus may not implant or may miscarry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so they're, they're just, Ignoring that, but also I think about like the concept of insolement.

So, if [00:16:00] you believe in a sole, like what is that sole binding to? Like, if I cut off my finger, have I lost part of my sole? Like, it does not seem to me that by any logical assumption when you're talking about insolement, that the sole is binding to The just human tissue. Is

Simone Collins: binding. Yeah, but that's, no one ever has made that argument.

The, the, we actually explained it to you. No, they literally

Malcolm Collins: are. They are arguing that the human soul is binding to the developing fetus before it has any neural tissue. As soon as it

Simone Collins: is something that is distinct as its thing, as the thing it will become. And I, I was trying to tell you a lie. I think it's the same thing.

akin to having a shadow. Once you can cast a shadow, you know, you're not going to lose your shadow if you lose a finger. There's no part of your body that your shadow is connected to. No,

Malcolm Collins: no, you have lost. This, this is a point. I actually think that this is really important. You have lost part of your shadow if you lose a finger.

So what is [00:17:00] the thing that must remain intact for your personality, your objectives, your everything like that to maintain and be intact? It's your nervous system. You need a nervous system for insultment to happen. I, I just. Cannot see an argument that the, that my finger, for example, if kept alive for part of me, like it's, it's, it's keeping a part of my soul somewhere else.

Like if I cut off my finger and then I put my finger in like a lab and it's like a growing separate for me has like my soul separated into two, like obviously not. However, what frequently happens after conception is the creation of human identical twins where a single embryo. splits later in the developmental process, but always before the nervous system has begun to develop.

Do I believe that the soul split? No, it's just an installment hadn't happened yet. So this then becomes super important when the nervous system develops to me. But I [00:18:00] also want to go further with this human embryo splitting thing. So chimeras and identical twins, to me, are the strongest argument against the belief that insulment happens at conception.

And here, a bit of history for people who don't know, this is not a traditional Catholic belief. If you talk about the, like, when Catholicism was in its golden age, its greatest philosophers, like Thomas Aquinas and Augustus of Hippo, believed that life began there. At installment. So about 60 to 80 days after conception which is interesting.

The ideas that Catholics use to talk about like, well, you need like the essence of a thing. When does that start came from Aristotle, but even Aristotle thought that life began 60 to 80 days after conception. All of this is a very modern Catholic theology. that was laid down by Pope Pius IX. If you're wondering which Pope this was, this is the guy who did the gay castation, you know, ripping penises off of all the statues.

This is the guy. They were too

Simone Collins: small, Malcolm. It was insulting.

Malcolm Collins: I, [00:19:00] you did the syllabus of errors. The, the, this is the Catholic texts that said the Catholics should try to form a caliphate or a Catholic government system whenever they can.

This is , to me, sort of the epitome of the Catholic Dark Age mindset of you know, we need to erase the people who were culturally above us, like these classical creators and everything like that, because we can't even appreciate their art anymore. We can't even, you know, draw fig leaves on everything.

You know, so. That was the guy who came up with this. But if you're talking chimeras and identical twins, because this to me is by far the strongest point, like God controls how human biology works. The fact that he lets embryos split into identical twins and human chimeras to exist. So what a human chimera is, is sometimes you'll get twins.

So a human will become impregnated with twins. Fraternal twins. The fraternal twins and then these two twins merge always before the nervous system is beginning to develop into a single entity and this entity then develops, believing it is [00:20:00] genetically one person, but it's actually genetically two people.

And the rate of chimeras differs really heavily between different animals. So if you look at something like marmosets, over 50 percent of marmosets are actually chimeras. No

Simone Collins: way.

Malcolm Collins: That's so cool. It is not a biological necessity that human chimeras were viable. God made that biological thing happen. So then do you think that God is regularly killing just random growing fetuses for no reason when he didn't have to?

Or do you think that he waits? Also, if you look at when the body naturally aborts a growing, because A huge number of pregnancies are naturally aborted. What percentage is it? It's like 20%? But it almost always happens before the nervous system starts developing.

Simone Collins: Yeah, quite early.

Malcolm Collins: God created a system that allows our bodies to quickly determine the quality of life that will be had by a certain genetic strain. in it before it becomes a [00:21:00] human. And he signaled this to us very loudly by the creation of Chimeras, by the cre by identical twins, and by literally writing it in the Bible.

Like, like, I don't understand how you can just ignore, like, what's written in the Bible so loudly because, like, pagan philosophers told you this alternate ethical theory. But then, And I want to be as nice as I can when I say this, but from our perspective, whenever I look at my kids and now I'm, I, this is why I take abortion so much more seriously than I did historically.

I'm like, you aren't, and I hate this thing of, of, of you're killing a baby. You're not killing a baby. You're killing a human being who's going to live their entire life. Who's going to have dreams and goals when you tell somebody it's a baby

Simone Collins: and it's a child and it's an adolescent and it's an adult, a parent, a grandparent, a worker, a leader, someone who's going to love people and be loved.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, recently I went to a reunion and I was around all of my nephews and nieces and everything like that. [00:22:00] And it really just hit home for me. Every kid I don't have is somebody who's not going to get to be a teenager. It's somebody who's not going to get to have a first love. Who's not going to get to have a job.

Every time you talk somebody out of IVF for reasons that don't have any biblical back. You are removing a human being from the opportunity to live. Well, and

Simone Collins: just to restate what you're talking about, the sort of realization that, that you and I both had is that we saw people that. We had hung out with when they were just little kids, low agency people, not super terribly interesting, whatever, right?

Not, you're not going to have complex conversations with them. And then in what felt like the blink of an eye here, we are talking with them as adults and realizing, Oh, holy crap. You're a real person. And when a lot of people are thinking, Should I have kids? Should I have a baby? They're literally saying, and I think the wording is part of what influences people's incorrect thinking or in incomplete thinking is they're thinking literally, should I have a baby?

[00:23:00] They're thinking of, what they should be asking is, should

Malcolm Collins: I be denying a human the right to exist? Yeah.

Simone Collins: They're, they're not thinking of an adult with the full range of feelings and, and the complex life of an adult. They're thinking about. A small, low agency human.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and also let's just talk about like the logical insanity of this, right?

Like if you take this mindset, what you're saying is that if a sperm is about to reach an egg and I put down like a metal sheet between them the moment before it happened and it doesn't reach the egg, I have done something of not particularly bad action. But if like a fraction of a second after it hits that egg.

I end up quashing that egg. Now I have killed a human being.

Simone Collins: By Catholic definitions, not by our definitions.

Malcolm Collins: No, not by our definitions. But to me, that's just seems like splitting hairs. It seems like any decision you make that prevents a human being from existing is functionally killing a human. And so from our perspective.[00:24:00]

When, and this is another thing that really gets me the, the Catholic celibacy of the priest caste, that it is a religion that is ruled by people who have sacrificed their children's lives for a chance at power. That is what, as soon as I realized, like when I don't have a kid, I am sacrificing a human life.

To think that you sacrificed all of your children's life, not like you're first born. All of your children's life at a shot of power. That's obviously going to twist your thinking around the value of a human life, and you're going to need to come up with these weird deontological frameworks to not face the horror of the decision that You yourself has have made so I can understand why they need to take this framework because that's a big thing The bible does not say that the priest caste needs to be celibate It has like one line where it is like celibacy is okay for like some holy people or it might have like two lines in Regards to this,

But, you know, it also has lines. To the contrary. [00:25:00] So you can look at something like Corinthian seven, two, that doesn't just explain that, you know, you should get married. But why you should, which is to say. But because the temptation of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman, her own husband. Now. What is it saying?

It's saying. If you build a society or an organization where you don't give men a wife. . What's going to happen is extreme forms of sexual morality. For example, child grape. Which, you know, prescient.

Malcolm Collins: you know Not a hundred percent against it, but it is be fruitful and multiply like this is like a a recurring thing throughout the bible You're supposed to have kids.

And so again, it's like You Tradition is overriding what is biblical, but now I need to go over. Well, no, no, no. I just want

Simone Collins: to dive into this a little bit more because what it [00:26:00] seems like the Bible really pushes for is self discipline, self discipline in your desires. and self discipline in your action.

So it's not the actual absence of having sex that matters. And it's not, it's not whether or not you're a virgin. It's, are you able to abstain? Are you able to prioritize God over your personal comfort? And, and of course it, it, chastity. Is supported when not being chased involves, for example breaking your marriage contract and cheating on your spouse.

That's not okay. That that's clear. And also lusting after someone else's life is bad, but that really has to do about with emotional control and doesn't have to do with what you're actually like, how slutty or not slutty you are. This is about, are you prioritizing God and are you in control? of your human functions.

And I think [00:27:00] for the same reason why gluttony is not okay, but eating is okay. It, this isn't, it's really about how you do it and it's about moderation. I just want to make that clear because when I, when I actually looked at what the Bible says, I was surprised by how little technical not having sex was emphasized.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so it is, it's like, and this is the thing that gets me, the cost of this. If it was just that they were exercising self discipline, instead of denying humans who otherwise would have been born the right to exist, I wouldn't care about it if they weren't convincing other people, especially when you consider that by 2060, 50 percent of the population is going to be infertile, especially when you consider that Catholics get married much later than other Christian denominations, which is the core reason why they're lower fertility than other, once they're married, they have kids at the same rate.

Sorry, we should note this. Catholics are way lower fertility than other Christian groups. You can see our video on this. So I'm like genuinely afraid for like Catholic survival in one sentence. And then in another sense because I'm [00:28:00] looking at this from a different moral framework, you know, the Bible instead of like the, all of this tradition and everything, obviously I'm going to see things a little differently but to me it looks like, you know, child sacrifice.

Um, But I want to go further here to talk about what progressives thinks and just how, how crazy it is. If you look at the way that progressives are being coached to talk about fetuses they will do things like be coached to talk about, Cardiac activity instead of a heartbeat. Yeah, or what did they

Simone Collins: say, cluster of cells?

Is that how they put it? Put it I'm trying to remember

Malcolm Collins: cardiac tissue begins to pulse, you know Um, this happens five to six weeks,

And oh, it makes me weep. And sometimes I do have doubts and oh, it makes me weep. I hope and pray to God it don't feed us as a song. Cause I want it to feel pain when I eject it from my own world.

Malcolm Collins: but I want to go over the timeline of a pregnancy We can sort of come to a [00:29:00] when does it seem like there is enough neural tissue there for insolvent to happen? Yeah. And I like your idea of the shadow cast, when is a shadow beginning to be cast by this thing that will eventually become a person?

Okay. And again, I don't think that non neural tissue casts a shadow in humans. And so I think that you're, you're going to have to, my finger does not cast a shadow that a soul could inhabit, like from my body.

Simone Collins: So let's go over the timing. And I want to, I want to start with something that's really important that kind of threw me for a loop when I first.

Started having pregnancies. Pregnancy weeks are not intuitive. Okay. Pregnancy weeks, like I'm 20 weeks pregnant. I am five weeks pregnant is conception minus two weeks. Pregnancy week starts with the female cycle starting. So when I start, my period is when day one of the pregnancy, 40 weeks period starts.

Did you know that Malcolm? I didn't know that. Yeah. So now, you know, basically, If we're talking the Catholic concept, a woman who is two weeks [00:30:00] pregnant actually isn't pregnant because no conception has happened. You know, she's in the process of preparing to ovulate. So also keep in mind that implantation after conception.

So, you know, once, once the egg and sperm are fertilized which typically occurs about two weeks after your last period begins. Implantation into the uterine lining. Doesn't happen for another eight or nine days. And I know this all too well from IVF. I've had a cycle where, you know, things didn't go quite well.

And I, I lost our embryo. Implantation doesn't always go well. It is not a guarantee that after there is conception and you have a fertilized embryo that has made it to day five, that is, that is going all right, is going to implant properly and continue to start growing. So like you say that, you know, the body is many ways of being like, Oh, working out.

Malcolm Collins: Go ahead. Do you want me to go into like the timeline? Sure. So if you go to around three to four weeks, that's when the neural tube begins to form. Now, it's very important, and people can [00:31:00] misunderstand this if they haven't studied developmental biology, is the neural tube is not made of neural tissue.

It is not neurons. It is just a tissue. Tube of cells that eventually turns into all of the stuff that is a neuron and a brain and everything like that. But it is not, there's, there's not like action potentials and stuff like that in the neural tube. By week six or seven, the first neurons begin to form and a basic brain structure begins to develop.

So this is when I think six and seven, like if you are at the Absolute earliest of when installment could happen. That's, I think the absolute earliest with seven weeks,

Simone Collins: which would be, which would be five weeks. So a month and one week after the, the, the sex act will have happened, which is just from a logistical standpoint.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. No, no, no, no, no. This isn't looking at the weeks of pregnancy. This is looking at like weeks of gestation.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. The weeks that I'm looking at. [00:32:00] are based on pregnancy weeks, because that is how all of these things work. And seven weeks is, is when? Yeah. Based on, on seven weeks of pregnancy is when the pain receptor start to form is when the nervous system starts to form.

Malcolm Collins: So, well, well, so that's when the, the pain receptor start to form. But you don't have brainwaves yet, which is important. Yes. You don't have brainwaves yet. Yes. So it's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's at both, it it, although it eight weeks fetuses can move in response to stimuli, that's when things get even more. Like things start to snowball.

Malcolm Collins: 10 weeks is when you get brainwaves and they can move in response to stimuli. I think for me, this is what I'd say. You likely have a human being there.

Simone Collins: Well, I would say

Malcolm Collins: even more shadowy human being it's, it would be like a not fully binding soul yet from my perspective.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's, but we're getting, 12 weeks, the nerves linking pain receptors to the thalamus and sub particle plates start forming and.

That's when researchers really start to argue that fetuses can feel pain. And

Malcolm Collins: when I think they obviously can't, cause there's been [00:33:00] things where people have done like videos of like abortions and you can see like the fetus screaming. Oh, don't,

Simone Collins: don't tell me. Don't.

Malcolm Collins: So they, they, now I'm going to cry all night.

Jesus. If you're, if you're going in these later stage. So I think you didn't

Simone Collins: give me a trigger warning.

Malcolm Collins: I should have known.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: should

Simone Collins: have

Malcolm Collins: known

Simone Collins: we're talking

Malcolm Collins: about this. The, the 12 week mark I, I think is where It really, I don't understand how you can go past that.

Simone Collins: Well, and here's the thing that really gets me is that at 15 weeks, if for example, that you have some really rare condition and some kind of procedure needs to be done on your fetus, that at that point they start using pain medication on your fetus to save it.

But like when they're doing the thing, they It is now standard medical practice after 15 weeks to use anesthesia during fetal surgeries. Now let's talk about, but this is really important. And this is going to come up a little bit later in my thoughts on this subject. Pain medication is not standard practice in [00:34:00] abortions.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, that's wild practice when they're trying to save the, when they're trying to

Simone Collins: save it, it's standard practice after, after 15 weeks, of course, use anesthesia. Abortions that a doctor may at their discretion, but there is no standard practice because it's, that's, what's so interesting to this about me is there's this one part of the medical establishment that is like, okay, this is a baby, we're going to save your baby.

Don't worry, mother, it's going to be fine. And then there's this totally sort of other industry, which is like, this is a cluster of tissue. There is, there is, there's cardiac activity. Let's, you know, you need to exercise your right. This is not human. And I think, you know, when we're talking about something that is capable of feeling pain, that is recoiling in response to stimuli, to sharp stimuli or cuts, this is, and I'm just going to get into it.

So, I think that at some points, abortions are appropriate. But I also [00:35:00] think that throughout any point in someone's life, euthanasia is sometimes appropriate. And that is when you have, you know, a life threatening, you have days to live and you either get to choose between, you know, 3 weeks, 5 days, whatever of intense suffering and pain, or you can, you know, You know, choose to terminate your life or if someone doesn't have agency out of love for them, terminate their life in as, as, as kind and painless as a fashion possible.

And so I think that that's really the discussion that should be had in the instance of abortions is that when, when a, a, a child is not viable. And is going to die in intense pain. You need to take the same approach that you would take with any human in palliative care.

Malcolm Collins: I'd actually like you to push this when you, when you're in office, I think a bill that one rolls back how, how late abortion is happening in Pennsylvania.

But two mandates that when it does happen after a certain date that they use [00:36:00] anesthetics. So in Utah, it forces them to consider like, you know,

Simone Collins: but in Utah and some other States and of course Utah, because they get it. They love their kids. They, they do have some Rules about using anesthesia that like require you to use anesthesia for, for abortions, but this is not universal.

And so there are some legal requirements on this front. But it is, it is not let's see in Utah, I'm trying to, Oh no. I don't have how many weeks it is in Utah, but I think it might even be 20 weeks. I think it might be after 20 weeks in Utah. And what I would say is after 12 weeks, period, you're using any meds on this.

Yeah, and

Malcolm Collins: if Republicans here are like, Oh, you guys are being rhinos about this stuff. If you look at Republicans by Pew data, who are under the age of 30, like the next generation of Republicans are around 47%, so around half believe in abortions under any circumstance. The, the standard Republican establishment in the United States has screwed up the United [00:37:00] States abortion practice to the extent.

So let me explain what I mean by that. In Pennsylvania right now, it's legal to get abortions up to 24 weeks. This is true in most U. S. states. Now people don't understand. Yeah. And I think in

Simone Collins: Pennsylvania, it's 23, isn't it?

Malcolm Collins: It's 24. It's 24.

Nope.

Simone was right as always eight is 23 and a few days.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, so hold on. Hold on. Now, what's really important here, right, is, is a lot of people were like, we're okay with like the European model of 12 weeks, right?

Like that's what it is. And most, I think it's

Simone Collins: 15 and 12

Malcolm Collins: to 15, 15 weeks. So people are like, why do you guys keep pointing out that it's 15 weeks in Europe? And the reason why we keep pointing that out. Is America is a more conservative country than Europe? Yes. Hold on. So why is it true that in America we have much looser [00:38:00] abortion policy than they have in Europe?

The answer is the life begins at conception crowd. Did that pick up on the mic? No.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: But the, the answer is, the reason why we have such a late and horrific abortion policy in the U. S. is the life begins at conception crowd. They absolutely screwed up this fight and kept us from winning and passing sane legislation around abortion.

Because, you know, They always were like, well, I won't vote for this. I won't vote for them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So there can be no reasonable compromise, no reasonable legislation because it's so polarized now.

Malcolm Collins: They, they have, and, and they have created this mindset where people don't even engage with what's really happening.

Even young Republicans don't really engage what's really happening. If you look at our views on abortion, this, we should move it back to this 12 week mark. This view on abortion. Is far to the [00:39:00] right of the average Republican voter in America, right? Yeah,

Simone Collins: well, and I also, here's another thing that I really want to emphasize 12 weeks is three months is a summer vacation in the United States, three months.

Think about. Think about how much can happen in three months. You can do a world tour in three months. You can do a European tour in three months. You can, you can grow a beard in three months. You can, you know, significantly adjust to life trauma in three months. That is enough time. If you just decide you don't want a baby.

To, you know, take care of it in three months. I mean, honestly, you know, after you have had, had sex with someone you can immediately take a morning after pill, assuming that you're in a state where that's, where that's legal.

And if you're you think we're being anti-Catholic or something and saying that the morning after pill should be legal? Consider that in the United States, non-religious. Early affiliated individuals who have never been married. , 35% have used the morning after pill. Among Catholics. That's [00:40:00] 32%. That's much higher than groups like evangelical Protestants where it's only 28% and they don't even have a religious objection to that. Or you can say, well, okay, that's just the non-super religious Catholics, right?

The very religious Catholics, the number must be significantly different. Well, unfortunately, , If you go to the ones who go to church once a month, it's 36%. One to three times a month. It's 33%.

And then weekly it's 25%. So it's still a quarter of Catholics who go to church every week have used the morning after pill. And if you're you're like, well, then this just proves, we need to remove the temptation to sin. Except then you would go, you don't get much more Catholic than the first council of Nicea. And at the first council of Nicea, it was decided it was so sinful to remove the temptation of sin from an individual that those individuals weren't allowed in [00:41:00] the priesthood, specifically, individuals who had castrated themselves to make it easier to not be tempted by sexual sin were forcibly removed from the priesthood.

Sin exists to fortify your spirit through resisting If God didn't want the devil to tempt you. If God didn't want the devil to be doing what he's doing, he could snap his fingers and the devil would disappear.

Simone Collins: Then I think, you know, things like this should be legal. I mean, we, we don't want to get to a point.

Where, you know, this is a problem in the first place where people are destroying life and it gets worse. You know, this is one of those things where like it starts off like the morality of it gets worse and worse the longer you wait. And I think it would be so great if we just moved the timeline up a little bit so that the damage that people and people took it seriously instead of just waiting and waiting and waiting.

Malcolm Collins: But hold on, we need to keep going here, because I want to, with this 24 week in mind, so you guys understand why this is worth fighting for, because I think a lot of people, [00:42:00] they either get this idiotic life begins at conception perspective, which is anti biblical, it's pagan, okay, it is not what the great Catholic thinkers thought, it is a modern mindset, and people are like, oh, Protestants, Protestants did not think this is and

Simone Collins: ultimately leads to more abortions to the point.

You just made more abortions are taking place because you're holding this view in

Malcolm Collins: the 1970s, more Republicans than Democrats were pro abortion, but they wanted more strict access to abortion. And this whole thing fell apart when we entered this recreational abortion era, and this worshiping of abortion that we now get was Democrats because of this open mindset.

But what I want to go into now. Is what is actually happening. So we got to the 12 week mark where we're like, okay, I can no longer justify, you know, what is happening from there to the 24 week mark.

Simone Collins: Okay. Trigger warnings for your wife. Who cries all night thinking about

Malcolm Collins: The cerebral cortex starts to form layers. Auditory development begins, and the fetus may start to hear sounds. And then by week 20, the thalamus [00:43:00] and cortex begin to form connections, which is considered crucial for consciousness.

So they're almost certainly conscious at this point. 23 to 24 And consciousness

Simone Collins: is one of those things that also makes us human. So if we're talking about, well, I'm okay with killing animals, I eat meat, I eat fish. Why would I not be okay with killing, you know, a human, the thing that makes a thing that isn't quite human, a thing that makes us human is consciousness.

So I think to that point, it's getting worse.

Malcolm Collins: 23 to 26, rapid brain growth occurs. Some studies suggest that rudimentary forms of consciousness might begin to emerge around this time. And so that's the stage that right now they're like, okay, yeah, we can go a little bit past that. And that is, and, and, and by the way, before that stage, you know, you were giving me the studies on things like being able to react when the mother is eating certain types of food.

Yeah, they

Simone Collins: make yucky faces when. Mothers are fed bitter foods, even when the mother cannot taste them. That's what's so cool [00:44:00] about these is that it, for the, for the research, they, they put a tube down the mother's throat. So the mother's not tasting the food. They're not reacting to like stress hormones in the mother's body.

They're literally reacting to the food that they're getting through their through the placenta.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And here I'd note all of this in the context, when people talk about the life begins at conception and in terms of like not doing IVF, they'll do this thing where they'll be like, well. Humans born through IVF are lesser than other humans, like they'll then add that and it's like, but you're saying that they are, you're saying that they're, that if people had listened to you, if they have chosen the timeline that you are advocating for, Those actual children wouldn't exist.

And when I look at my children,

Simone Collins: Oh, but that's not how they see it. How they see it is that millions of unborn children are locked up in freezers right now, their souls stuck forever. soon to be discarded because of IVF.

Malcolm Collins: [00:45:00] But they're literally preventing some souls from coming to exist. Like, like, they can even, even, even if you believe that, despite the fact that that's pagan and goes against the Bible, despite the fact that, like, God created, like, do you think that God's an idiot?

That he made human Chimeras as, like, a joke? Like, just erasing infant souls? I could see Listen,

Simone Collins: I mean, God lets infants die sometimes. He could just be like, you know what? This one's this one's this soul's joining me. We're going to, we'll just

Malcolm Collins: get rid of this one. Yeah, no, but the callousness with which that means God is treating these souls.

If you look at the number of implanted fetus embryos that don't end up developing into fetuses, does God, like, was he just like acting incredibly callously with these souls? Like, this is the thing to me. So, okay. Even, even if you believe this, then you are still preventing some souls that otherwise would have come to grow and live full adult lives from [00:46:00] living full adult lives.

You are still preventing those humans from coming into existence. And I just, like, can't get over it. Like, when I look at my kids, these are people who they would have denied existence. And I just Can't get over. And what are you doing when you deny someone existence other than killing them? And, and again, this is just something that resonates with me so strongly.

And I feel so strongly about now when I think about every time when somebody, because when my cousins pulled me aside recently, she goes, well, you have four kids. Like, think about the vacations they won't get to experience because of the other kids. Like, those are additional human beings you're talking about.

Like, those are additional people who are going to be here at these events. And this is all so uniquely important for Catholics because of the late Catholic marriage rate. People can be like, why is this so uniquely important if you have a late Catholic marriage rate? Well, because it turns out that the health of an embryo, genetically speaking, and in terms of life outcomes, is based not on when the mother got pregnant, [00:47:00] but when the embryo was frozen.

So, if a Catholic gets married at like 30, and they freeze a bunch of embryos, and they keep having kids until like their 50s those kids will be as healthy as they would have been had they had them in their 30s. So they are increasing those children's quality of lives and helping the Catholic tradition survive.

And that scares me as well. It's the death of the Catholic tradition. But right now, if you look at current Catholic fertility rates, and right now Catholics in the United States have a lower fertility rate in the secular population of the United States, that it, or not the secular, but I'd say the average population of the United States, not if you split out secularist, but the average population, which includes the secular population.

And it shouldn't even be close. Like this is banana nutter butters.

Sorry, I should clarify here. I mean the native born Catholic fertility rate. , immigrants typically have a slightly higher fertility rate than native born individuals. And when you include the large Catholic immigrant population in the United States, it goes above the average.

Malcolm Collins: And people were like, well, you've got the conservative communities and maybe they'll pull through, but [00:48:00] I am scared. Okay. That they won't. And we talked about this in the other, the other Catholic fertility before we updated our own views.

Because the one thing I really want to take this video as an opportunity to do is for people who like are just so focused on the life begins at conception thing that they don't focus on when the fetus begins developing a nervous system. They don't focus on just how casually abortions are being done globally now.

With the global export of abortions. Well,

Simone Collins: and also with. The lack of any ability to compromise the fact that some really egregious things are happening. And if everyone could just be reasonable, and we could just agree, you know, whether whether or not you believe in installment, I think we can all agree that.

Euthanizing a human without any painkillers is pretty fricking horrendous and that you know, once someone is able to recoil in pain, maybe we should ask for their permission before we do something that causes them pain, that kind of thing, you know, or, you know, at least [00:49:00] give them a shot. Give them some.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And if some people are like, well, human dignity is scaled with human intelligence, right? So they're like, they, they begin to get like gradually more of a soul, the smarter they get. You get a big problem there because that means then that you think that like the mentally disabled have less of a soul.

And I understand. Yeah. The logic in this, right? Like I think it's an internally consistent perspective. I think it's much more internally consistent than life begins at conception. I do not think that is an internally consistent perspective because it requires the trick of the tongue where life begins at conception Because the fetus becomes a human when you put it in a woman But an egg and a sperm will not become a human and it's like you've left out the second part You can't do that.

If you put them in a woman, they do become a human and therefore they do matter. Um You Which, which, sorry, that really gets me that they always leave out the second part. It's a completely logically inconsistent argument.

Every sperm is sacred,

Malcolm Collins: or the idea that, [00:50:00] and I just don't get theology of the body. And maybe somebody can explain this to me, maybe there's something I'm missing in the comments where you guys can be like, it's, it's, it's not exactly that sex is for creating embryos and therefore that is, that is, that means that, okay, so sex is for creating babies.

Therefore, if you create babies in any other way, it's wrong. Or if you use sex for anything else, it's wrong.

Simone Collins: No, because you can use things biblically. You can use sex for other things for enjoyment. Yeah. And also

Malcolm Collins: like legs are for walking. Therefore, swimming is a sin. Like what? That makes no sense.

Therefore, or, or it's like, well, okay. Swimming didn't exist. Therefore, bicycling is a sin because bicycling didn't exist during the Bible. So bicycling must be a sin. We're using technology. So that our legs can do something that they were not created to do. And it's like, that's silly. It's like, I don't mean to like dismiss the argument here, but I'd love to hear an argument that like, just doesn't come across as silly.

If [00:51:00] the alternative now keep in mind, they're often like, well, I just want to be safe on this issue. And it's like, yeah, but you're killing kids because those kids would have come to exist otherwise, and you talked people out of having them. So it's not like there's no moral weight. This is an incredibly important decision, especially in the context of 50 percent of men in the developed world being infertile by 2060.

Any final thoughts, Simone? Because you are always more tempered than me. You always have more sophisticated ideas than me.

Simone Collins: No, it just, it just confuses me.

Malcolm Collins: Was the argument compelling at all? Like if you,

Simone Collins: The, the Catholic argument against sex for pleasure. Yeah. No, this was developed by the council of Trent in 1546.

I don't know how people thought then. Who knows what was going on then? Who knows who these people were?

Malcolm Collins: So, I mean, we know literally who they were, but they weren't like biblical, like inspired by God or anything. Well, right. Like what I'm

Simone Collins: saying is, well, what, what if they [00:52:00] were, you know, at that time, there was like a really big gay orgy problem among the people who were there who were like, you know what?

This sex for pleasure thing, not great. Let's just make it clear that sex should only be for recreation. I don't know, like,

Malcolm Collins: we weren't there. This is actually going to come out in a future tract, but I actually do believe that sex within marriage, that is no chance of leading to a kid is a form of sin. And person might be like, yeah, but God allowed it in certain parts of the Bible.

And I'd say, well, the deontological rule set that God laid out in the Bible changes over time, which to us is evidence that God actually meant for a consequentialist outcome. You know, like, do I think God is pro slavery because he gave rules for how slavery should work? But if,

Simone Collins: if that's true, then I would also argue.

that drinking alcohol is a sin unless you're drinking it for frontier medicine purposes. I agree drinking alcohol is a sin. And that eating non nutritious [00:53:00] food or eating when you don't have a caloric need is equally I agree that

Malcolm Collins: eating when you don't have a caloric need. Anything that you can't do for the glory of God, the Bible makes this clear on multiple occasions, is a

Simone Collins: sin.

Yeah, yeah. So that means it's also kind of One of those things that we're all breaking the rule. So who cares?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it's not we're all breaking the rule who so who cares it's just don't glorify the sin Be aware that we are wretched. We are fallen. We are. Oh, yeah Yeah,

Simone Collins: don't don't expect a prize kid that kind of thing

Malcolm Collins: don't expect a prize like you can say, okay I was doing something that wasn't glorifying god.

But again, i'm not a god myself. I'm not jesus like i'm not i'm not sinless the the the important thing to bite the bullet on is just You to not glorify this, to not attempt to worship God through the act of sex or something like that, to not treat sex as a sacrament to God just because you're doing it in a marriage if you know it's non reproductive.

And so, you know, Yeah, that's, that's the way I feel on that's, that's much more [00:54:00] controversial for me to say that. And, and you know, I do think that we need to say that

Simone Collins: drinking and eating non nutritious food is a sin. That's pretty standard.

Malcolm Collins: It's not standard. Oh no, not in modern reason at all.

I think, I think modern Christianity has gotten to this state where it's like some things are sins. Some things are like, I guess, yeah,

Simone Collins: maybe, maybe it seems reasonable to me because that It's more something that you kind of get the feeling of in the rationalist or EA community that gluten is a sin, you know, eating sugar is a sin, eating cake is a sin, or you even get it on like internet culture.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, like intermittent fasting is a

Simone Collins: sin.

Malcolm Collins: I think for example, sports are a sin, like, like watching sports for entertainment are a sin, but So yeah, you're

Simone Collins: taking a very Puritanical approach. They talk about in, no, I'm taking a biblical

Malcolm Collins: approach here, Simone. The Bible says if you can't do it for the glory of God, it's a sin.

Okay. You know, I can go through a few quotes here in post

So here you have lines like Corinthians 10 31, which instructs us, [00:55:00] whether therefore you eat or drink or whatever you do do all for the glory of God or Corinthians five 15, which states. And he died for all those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and then with raised again, Or collation 3 23, which states. And whatever you do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men or Romans 1423, which states.

But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sending, if you go ahead and do it for you are not following your convictions. If you do anything that you believe is not right, you are sending.

Malcolm Collins: but no, it is a sin. The people of the past lived with easier to follow ethical systems than are demanded of us because we. Have developed past what God expected of those earlier generations. And you know, if you, if you're not doing it for the glory of God, then it is a sin.

And I think, you know, yeah, I don't like this, this [00:56:00] weasel y like, like, Oh, well, it's not a sin because it doesn't, you know, cause disgust in me. You know, it's like, well, actually, you know, look towards what the Bible is saying and come up with like a logical way to interpret it. That doesn't have clear

Simone Collins: about sex in the Bible.

Is that it? Yeah, it really is, you know,

Malcolm Collins: not

Simone Collins: about whether you're doing it or not, or,

Malcolm Collins: but I will say I have a grayer area on sex within marriage. I am not. A hundred percent sure of that has to be a sin because the Bible does say it's okay for non procreative purposes. So I'm like Slang of Solomon, my friend.

It is Yeah, this, this, this might be It doesn't

Simone Collins: I think, yeah, if you want to take a purely biblical approach, you're going to have to come down exactly where the Puritans came down, where sex within marriage, even if it's not procreative, is freaking fantastic.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Sex within marriage is fine. I will break on that.

But again, I don't think that it, it Okay, it's fine. Sex within marriage, because it can be done for the glory of God, is [00:57:00] fine.

I have thought about this further and I was wrong on this point. Uh, I think we need to view the lines in the Bible that approve of sex within marriage. That is non procreative as fine. As being equivalent to the lines of the Bible that give rules around slavery. , the reason being that.

Can you do an act, which is primarily for your own pleasure for the glory of God.

And the answer here is just no in act Avoid of industry cannot be for the glory of God. We are held to different moral standards that our ancestors were by God.

And we can choose to either live like people who lived 2000 years ago, or we can choose to.

Step up to this stricter set of moral requirements that. I believe demanded of us.

Malcolm Collins: well, I

Simone Collins: think what, what we're looking at is the celebration of a, a sacrament, you know, an alignment and [00:58:00] unity of man and woman, which is, which is, Something that God is cool with, you know, he made the Barbie and Ken doll because he wants to see them kiss.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, I see that. And I will also note here what people are like, no, the Council of whatever, like, this is Approved by God because everything done within the church bureaucracy is approved by God and it's like well I mean, but clearly not because like the sex scandal Like that was clearly the most satanic thing I've ever seen.

And the church bureaucracy tried to cover it up. You know, how am I supposed to trust in that if it is the then telling me deny humans, the right to. I learned

Simone Collins: something really interesting talking with the insurance federation in Pennsylvania about that. Just like a weird aside that the stat, a change of the statute of limitation around that was inspired by Catholic church abuse of children.

Affects the insurance market in a way that would make insurance prohibitively expensive for childcare centers to make it like [00:59:00] almost impossible to open a childcare business in our state. Oh, isn't that funny?

Malcolm Collins: Very interesting. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Like from up from the, you have to be careful about the legislative changes that you make when you're regulating people perspective and less is more in many cases.

That's one of those really interesting knock on effect things. Anyway, something I learned recently that was interesting.

Malcolm Collins: That, well, I mean, I think this shows how much child sex abuse happens in daycare centers and this is something that we need to Well, no, no,

Simone Collins: no, you are legally required to be insured for that when you open a daycare center.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah but I mean, the, that, they expect this to be violated and then people to remember it as adults. Like, that to me shows that this must be happening pretty frequently. That's,

Simone Collins: no, it's more that some person when deciding the regulatory requirements of daycare centers Okay, no,

Malcolm Collins: that's not the point I'm making.

The insurance wouldn't cost much if this never happened. It costs a lot because it's a frequent occurrence. You understand [01:00:00] that, right?

Simone Collins: But then I think the issue is that they're not. striating the form of liability enough where maybe you should have like a, a religious one and then a daycare one and a public school one and separate out the actual is actuary tables differently.

Malcolm Collins: Well, what it shows is that the type of abuse that happened within the Catholic church is actually common among all industries where people are around kids, but it shouldn't have been happening in the church at all. And, and, and what it shows to me as an outsider that can't just take the church bureaucracy.

I don't

Simone Collins: know. I mean, of all places where you'd expect it to happen, the Catholic church just seems so logical because I always see Catholicism as you can mess up. You just have to be feel bad about it and ask, you know, and confess and repent.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, no. Not easy because like, if you look at the Cadaver Synod you know, we've talked about it before, which is the trial and stuff.

It's not even like, well, the Pope is protected from making mistakes. [01:01:00] Like, I don't know, to me, they're like, no, it's in these very special instances that the Pope is protected from making mistakes. And it's like, yeah, but those instances weren't codified until after the Cadaver Synod. So they weren't relevant in the Cadaver Synod, and your average Catholic would have believed that all of that was biblically inspired.

You can't, like, make the rules that make that not relevant after that happens. And I would also note, which a lot of people forget, that the Cadaver Synod happened sort of right before the split of the Orthodox Church from the Catholic Church. And so they would have had that fresh in their minds during the split when the Catholics were like, actually, we should be in charge of everything and our bureaucracy gets everything right.

Always. They would have been like, but um, what about that dead guy you put on trial? Dead Pope you put on trial. And then one Pope then said not just condemned him afterwards because he could be like, well, that Pope really was a bad guy. But then the Pope after that, then said, no, actually everything was cool.

And the guy who condemned him was the bad guy. I wonder if they changed his outfit.

Simone Collins: Did [01:02:00] they dress him for trial or did they just, you haven't heard whatever he was wearing in the grave? Imagine being that guy who's like been tasked with preparing him for trial. That'd be very awkward. Anyway, we're splitting dead people's hairs now.

I love you. And what do you want for dinner? Speaking of putting corpses on trial.

Malcolm Collins: What are you up for cooking tonight? I'd be up for pasta or I'd be up for the new pizza I got.

Simone Collins: Or potstickers. So it's always an option. Oh, well, the audience doesn't like that because that, I mean, all these things, well, all these things are carb heavy.

I, our audience seems to not believe it.

Malcolm Collins: Let's actually do potstickers. I love potstickers. You know, you've done a great job with those recently. Can I do potstickers? And then aside of that soup that I got, the

Simone Collins: The new one.

Malcolm Collins: The new one. Yeah. What was it? Like sweet potato soup?

Simone Collins: Good heavens. I don't know.

We can do it. Off we go.

Malcolm Collins: I love you.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Oh wait to go to Stacey and John [01:03:00] and we were together. We can walk over some groceries for them. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: You want to, I can walk over the groceries by myself.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I need to pack them. So just let me come down. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Bye.

Simone Collins: Love you.

Bye.

And I understand why, despite the Bible saying that, you know, he knows you before you were conceived in your mother's womb. And that means that there's a lot of weight to decisions because of life begins before conception. Then you are responsible for every human that you have decided to not bring into this world. Eve you had the ability to do that. And so I understand why people have chosen to. Not take responsibility for this interpretation. But Eve it's accurate. , it's pretty horrifying. You know, it means that. , this Mormon interpretation of, of what's heaven, like, well, I don't think it's exactly like that, you know? All of the kids waiting to be born. I do think it can be useful to envision our future kids like this. Because it helps us make better moral choices around them. [01:04:00] In the same way that, uh, you know, I often imagine if, if one of my kids. Thought about becoming a celibate priest of whatever denomination that their children would be up at heaven, just like horrified yelling at them.

What are you doing? Read the Bible. Emily, what's wrong? I'm the last kid to be born. What if by that time mom and dad don't want me? No way. But I've seen lots of families make promises.

And then break them. Not us. Emily, I will see to it personally that you're not forgotten. You promise, Jimmy? I promise.

We meet a million subscribers. We do? Is that what you said you wanted this morning? Yeah. Why did you say you wanted that this morning? Because I just wanted to. And then you told me the subscribers are people. Yeah. And why do they watch you? Because. [01:05:00] And you know why? Because that's great. Do you want them to like you? Woo! Yes. What are you doing? What? Tricky. You're being tricky. Yeah. That's correct. And, and you gotta come to our house because the millions gr fruit gotta come. I think that'd be very, very bad.

Yeah. But wouldn't that be too many people? Wouldn't you get scared? Yeah, well, I would not be scared. Not even a little? No. What, are subscribers friends? Yeah. Oh, okay. I love you. I'd like to subscribe, I'd like to subscribe and friends.

Okay. Okay, say bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the root causes of declining fertility rates and the broader societal crisis of meaning. This thought-provoking discussion covers:

* The limitations of economic explanations for low fertility rates

* The role of hopelessness and lack of meaning in modern society

* How the "urban monoculture" contributes to increased anxiety and depression

* The dangers of religious "cargo cults" and surface-level cultural imitation

* Why traditional approaches to increasing fertility rates are failing

* The need for new social technologies and active theological conversations

* How social media distorts our perceptions of reality and success

* The importance of vitalism and finding meaning beyond self-affirmation

Whether you're concerned about demographic trends, struggling to find purpose in life, or interested in the intersection of culture and fertility, this video offers valuable insights and potential solutions for our society's deepest challenges.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I'm excited to talk with you right now! So today we are going to talk about the hope crisis as it relates to declining fertility rates, but also society more broadly.

And this was brought to me again, it's something I regularly see in a recent article in the Atlantic called the real reason people aren't having kids. It's a need that government subsidies and better family policy can't necessarily address. And this really reminds me of, we, We're talking with redeemed zoomer not too long ago, and he was saying, when you talk to boomers about.

All the sadness in this young generation right now, they'll reflexively be like, oh, it's phones. And if you talk to the media, because it's very urban monoculture, very distributed as much cash as possible. It's always all economic situations that you look at something like, oh, it's phones.

, and this is, , pretty quick to [00:01:00] disprove.

The studies on this show, generally that it does make up eight portion of the decrease in mental health in youth. But less than half. And that's the more generous studies.

For example. Amy O'Brien a lead author at Oxford university did a study of 350,000 participants. , across the U S and the UK on teen mental health, youth, and technology. And she found that a teenagers technology use or a teenagers social media use can only predict less than 1%. In the variation of their wellbeing, which is so small that it's surpassed by, for example, whether a teenager wore glasses in school.

 You can look at economic situations. They don't explain it at all.

Malcolm Collins: Like they have a correlation to well being. But if you look at the way that Americans live today versus the way we lived 100 years ago, it is very clear that people in 100 years ago lived in significantly more poverty than people today.

But the statistical [00:02:00] evidence is even more damning than that. It turns out that upper class teens actually have worse mental health than well, any other group? , a study by.

Sonia Luther at Columbia university's teacher college. Found that adolescents reared in suburban homes with an average family income of $120,000 report, higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than any other socioeconomic group of young Americans today.

Malcolm Collins: So And so those can sort of be thrown out. And then if you talk about fertility more broadly, even some of the answers that we throw out don't really explain everything, right?

So we're often like well, you know, if you had more pride in your identity you would have higher fertility rates. And yet, I mean, does not. Russia and Ukraine have pride in their identity, right? I mean, Clearly they do to motivate these wars. And yet their fertility rates are desperately low. Or I may say well, you need a [00:03:00] strong religious system, right?

But does not Iran, a literal theocracy, have a strong religious system and strong religion in their country? And yet their fertility rates are abysmal. So what is it that, you know, when everything else that's that, that, that we want to blame this on is out the window. And I think that everyone kind of internally knows the hope crisis is real because we aren't just dealing with a fertility rate crisis.

You're also dealing with an unaliving oneself crisis. We went into not recent fairly, we've talked about it in a few episodes recently that by recent CDC statistics, if you look at high schoolers in the United States, one in 10 considered an unaliving themselves.

No, sorry. Tried to unalign themselves on any given year. And one in four girls made a plan to unalign themselves at any given year. Like, The rates are catastrophically high,

It's like American high schools have become the happening. And everyone's [00:04:00] acting like it's totally normal.

Christ, men! Amen!

Malcolm Collins: But if you look at the other countries that have fertility rate problems, like South Korea, they also have a really high unaligning oneself problem within the youthful generation.

And then you look at countries that have actually pretty, you know, robust fertility rates like Israel, the unaliving oneself rate in Israel is actually on the fairly low side.

Interestingly, in Israel, while in places like the US, the unaliving rate is going up, it's been going down in Israel.

So here I'm going to pull up a heat map by

unaliving oneself rate. And what you'll notice is, remember I was [00:05:00] like, oh like, so here I am showing a map. Now, I do not think that this explains everything.

But it does explain a little bit. Okay. So I'm saying that this is not like a a definite like, this is, this is where this is coming from, but it's definitely a big part of it. And when I talk to young people, when we're talking about the massive shift we've seen recently, and I do need to clarify how massive this shift is because a lot of people, when they believe like the UN statistics on how quickly fertility is going to fall Those statistics are so laughably wrong to give you an idea of how laughably wrong when the UN is like, Oh, we'll have a steady continuous decline in the United States that will then level off.

First of all, it's like, why is it going to level off? But then second and more important right now, if you look at the expected fertility rate of women in the actual fertility rate of women. So if you ask women, you know, in the early twenties, how many kids they expect to have, and then you look at how many kids they have, it's [00:06:00] typically around.

like, I think it's like 20 percent lower. Depending on what you're looking at

This study showed it to be 25% lower.

Malcolm Collins: now, if you today ask kids their expected fertility rate, you get something like over 50 percent of young women saying they don't plan to have any kids. at all.

Sorry, it's worse than that. It's 57% of people under the age of 50.

With it being weighted towards the younger generation.

Malcolm Collins: This was not the case. Historically, if you go previous generation, our generation, I think it was like 80 percent plan to have kids.

So what we can see from this is if this pattern holds, and I love it that a lot of the data, they assume that now for this generation, the actual fertility rate is going to be above the expected fertility rate. Well For, Our generation and what we know from the past is The actual fertility

rate is almost always below the expected fertility rate, which means you're going to be seeing a [00:07:00] catastrophic crash here. But the thing is, is what is driving young women to decide that they don't want to have kids? And when I talk to people, yes, there's some like urban monoculture y like, oh, it's for the environment and stuff like that.

But I really feel like this is a just so story. Agreed. I feel like the much bigger thing is, is they just don't have hope that the future is going to be a place where they want humans living or they want humans related to them to live. And you see this very Explicitly in the Korean fertility rate when people talk to you know, people in Korea, cause I've seen lots of these interviews, a lot of them are just like, yeah, but I don't want my kid growing up in this environment.

And when you have a environment where one in 10 kids is trying to unalive themselves every year, like that obviously is a psychologically very damaging environment. Right. Yeah. And to talk about the silliness of cash incentives, I'm going to read a quote here from the Atlantic piece [00:08:00] because I thought it was actually pretty good.

Cash incentives and tax relief won't persuade people to give up their lives. People will do that for God, for their families, or for their future children. In other words, no amount of money or social support will inspire people to have children. Not unless there is some deeper certainty that doing so makes sense.

And then the, the God thing, another thing I'll put on the screen here, a breakdown . of religiosity by demographic

IE, you know, millennials, Gen Z zoomers, et cetera. And you'll see in gen alpha, it falls off a cliff, which in, in Gen Z to an extent, which isn't captured in the mainstream demographics.

There's a lot of people who are like, Oh, the younger generation is moving, right? Which I agree. It is moving, right. but it's not moving right. Towards the old religions, and this is a huge mistakes that a lot of religious people I know are making. They're like, Oh, all the kids are turning back to these old systems.

And it's like, no, they're not. They are moving right in like a, okay, the urban [00:09:00] monoculture doesn't work, but they don't. The vast majority don't view you guys particularly better than the urban monoculture. And the big problem that the small religious renaissance that we're having right now has is that it's like almost all male.

So the gen alpha faction that is actually like, okay, I'm going to go ortho bro, I'm going to, you know, convert to whatever they're struggling because there's not an equivalent number of females making the same switch over. And so they're not able to easily find partners and this causes a well. problem because then it solves nothing even though they might be good fathers now and they might be able to motivate a high fertility rate. They don't have a partner to marry, so they don't end up having kids. So I wonder what your thoughts are on this.

Simone Collins: How much do you think this is a, an epidemic, epidemic of hopelessness versus an epidemic of on week?

Because I, I [00:10:00] get that the unaliving element of this implies that it's more of a negative affectation aside from just a lack of feeling anything. But I also get the impression that a lot of the low fertility stems not from deep unhappiness, though maybe there's a lack of contentment that's pervasive, but rather a lack of meaning in general and a lack of desire to do anything that's not necessarily actively miserable.

Malcolm Collins: I think you have a really good point there. So, I, I think the, the, the meaning crisis as it's called is, is a really good way to look at this. And I think that you've laid this out and this was actually the core point of our first book and our shortest book, the pragmatist guide to life is helping people develop a sense of meaning without trying to push them in any one direction.

Very different than the type of people we are today. But yeah. One of the things I realized when I was writing that book is there just was no other tool like that. And I think that that is part of what led to the meaning crisis. So it used to be, if you go back to the 50s and the 60s in the United [00:11:00] States, when you went to school, they would teach you What you should live for now, it might be wrong, but they gave you a moral system then going into, they didn't just do that.

Simone Collins: They gave you a moral system. They told you how to live, how to date, how to maintain your household, how to navigate in laws, how to do all sorts of things. We shared a culture that said, here's how to deal with life. And here's also what you do. And of course that includes getting a job, you know, going to school.

I

Malcolm Collins: agree, but here I'm just specifically in this point, talking about the moral meaning.

Simone Collins: Okay. That's

Malcolm Collins: all I'm talking about here. No, No, I'm talking about your on we question and what I think it comes from.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Then in the 80s and 70s, they had like the satanic panic and stuff like that. And what this caused was because there are different religious systems in the U.

S. Many of these conservative religious systems, yes, unfortunately this problem started because of conservative religious systems and not the progressives began to say that schools couldn't teach meaning [00:12:00] because, you know, your Protestant evangelical might be afraid that the meaning being taught was a little bit too Catholic and the, the, the, the Catholic might think it was a little too Protestant evangelical and the Jew might have a problem with, you know, each of those.

And so schools were just like well, we won't. touch on questions like, why do I exist? What's the purpose of my life? Why should I keep existing? Why does humanity have value? And then you go forward to go forwards. And then it's the, the ACS in the nineties who are like, Oh, you can't teach these systems. But then if you try to teach an ACS version and the Christians are like, Oh, you can't teach these systems.

And during this whole time Intergenerationally, meaning was still being communicated to kids to some extent, but the system for that really broke down in the scaffolding and the ways that we have to think about and address these questions completely broke it down to the point we're now in society when people are looking for meaning.[00:13:00]

And if you want to understand more on how we think about this, you can look at our levels of thought video. They often look for it in an aesthetic sense. So, you know, this is really what we did a video on well, put a title card here. I forgot his name, but he was some like red pill influencer.

And I remember before like major life decisions, he'd be like, Oh, what's the most masculine decision I can make in this moment. Yeah. And to an extent, Andrew Tate does this as well with some of his philosophy. An identity

Simone Collins: based objective function.

Malcolm Collins: Was it's not even I did it. Yeah, it's like an aesthetic based objective function.

It's It's what would somebody who is and you see this on certain parts of the left as well. I think parts of the trans movement has gone in this direction where they begin to make a major life decision thinking. What decision would my gender identity maker on this? But this isn't just a gender thing, right?

Like, You'll also see this in what, what, what kind of decision would a good person make in a moment like this? Or what kind of decision would like a good crunchy hippie [00:14:00] make in a moment like this? And that these ethical systems have caught on at all shows how barren the landscape was and how unsophisticated.

the world had become in terms of how we address questions of meaning. And the first book I wrote, and I actually got it copyrighted, and I wrote it in high school never published it or anything, is titled Why Do Anything? Because that's when I had this crisis. I was like, why? Should I do anything like where is value in reality when I mean like why do anything I mean if I'm, you know, motivating going out of my house at the beginning of the morning or I'm, you know, choosing which college to get into, I need to be optimizing for something.

And I think a lot of people, they don't even think, what should I optimize for? Like they just think that that's not even a question that they're allowed to ask or when they answer it, they answer. It was very unsophisticated and unfulfilling answers. Like, you know, My own personal satisfaction. or [00:15:00] maximizing positive emotions throughout a population, even though they're just the things that led to our ancestors having the most surviving offspring, a very serendipitous thing to maximize.

So, and I think most people know how, how faulty these logical systems are, but we attempt to maximize them anyway, because they just don't have anything else. And I think that When they, a lot of people, when they realize how silly it is, they're like, but those are just the things that led to my ancestors having more babies, you know, and they don't have any good alternatives.

They don't have a framework for searching for alternatives. And then they hit this on weed that you're talking about. And so now if you're thinking about something like, okay, Should I have a child or not? Or should I go on living or not? And your life doesn't feel good, right? Like you're experiencing on mass negative emotions.

You're like, okay well, because my life is about how many positive emotions I can feel and how many positive emotions I can give my Children, then it's clearly not worth living. What's really interesting about this is that the [00:16:00] Number of positive emotions that somebody today should be feeling when you look at the, the wealth they have access to.

When I say wealth, I mean, all human knowledge at the touch of their fingers, not really having to worry about starvation, not really having to worry about, you know, many of the things that if you go 200 years ago, you know, you'd expect half your kids to die. Right? People back then, it is clear from the writings were much more mentally healthy and were much more satisfied with their lives and likely experienced actually less unhappiness than someone today.

So one, they don't have a system that can motivate them continuing to live in the current unhappiness of our culture, but two, they've adopted cultural systems that directly lead to this unhappiness. And the cultural systems lead to this unhappiness for. Two reasons one, the urban monoculture that we talk about all the time.

It's sort of is completely built around removing in the moment, negative, emotional stimuli, think of trigger [00:17:00] warnings and stuff like that, the haze movement. But of course, if you remove any in the moment, negative, emotional stimuli you're going to become incredibly sensitized to any negative stimuli, right. and then have these massive reactions to them because your body just isn't used to them. Focuses on them as the core purpose of your existence, like avoiding them as the core. So of course you're going to quickly spiral out of control the moment somebody like which should be like a non issue for a human being.

Right? But because you're so unused to negative emotional stimuli, you just have no system for dealing with something like that. And it really does cause this spiral and deep unhappiness. But then the second problem is just your. sort of mental receptors and way of engaging with the world gets totally fried.

I often argue that the, the way that the urban monoculture teach teaches things like how we should relate to pleasure and self affirmment is like eating a bowl of sugar every morning instead of cereal, like just literally like sitting up to a table and pulling a [00:18:00] bowl of sugar. Like this belief that Well, you know, like even the idea, for example, we did an episode recently on PrEP,

which is a drug that you really only need to need if you are regularly going to orgies and sleeping with people who you don't know well enough to know whether or not they have AIDS.

Because if you're in a marriage and you're on modern aid drugs, you will be something called you equals you, which means very low rates of transmission. So it's like really like just an orgy drug. And the government, Obamacare mandated that it's on all of our insurance plans and a ton of states in the United States like pay for it.

And so you look at something like that like, like, like orgies are a human right. In this government, which is kind of wild. They're not considered like a lifestyle choice. They are considered like a literal human right because that's why the government has to fund it. Right? Like If it was a lifestyle choice, like having a nicer house or a nicer car or something like that, then the government would be like well, you know, obviously we don't, we're not going to, you know, Upgrade you there, or I want to take a trip every year because it makes me feel better.

It's like, so why is this different from those types of things? [00:19:00] It's different because it kind of is considered a human right to these groups

These unemployed men have been having sex for several days. We're doing the only thing we can do.

We're trying to turn everyone gay so that there are no future humans. Present day America. Number one. Yeah, America.

Malcolm Collins: That we've entered this moment where going out and doing whatever makes you feel good in the moment, whatever your basal emotions are telling you to do has increasingly become seen as a human right in these groups while at the same time being affirmed for whatever you want to believe about yourself.

Has also, I'll put on screen here, because it was shared with me by one of our fans and I just found it wild. Is there is a movement right now to try to normalize being a, a Therian?

And to build surgical techniques to get people to align more with their, sorry, for people who don't know. Furries are people who go to conferences for fun and have these fursonas, which are like these pretend animal identities.

Totally cool with that. Therians are people who think that they're [00:20:00] actually those animal identities in the same way that like a trans person thinks that they're actually a different gender than the gender they were born. And, and I'm not saying that to dismiss trans people, I'm just saying that they literally would liken themselves to trans people if you asked a Therian this.

Well, that's how far this has gone at this point that they're like, yeah, we need to start developing surgeries and, and this is how you could do a muscle graph to look more like a canine and stuff.

And I'll put those images on screen because it's, it's really fascinating to me how thorough they've gone with this stuff.

If you'd like to check out this organization yourself, you can go to freedom of form.org. , and it is a. Nonprofit registered in the United States.

Having registered non-profits before. I know that that means it is definitely not a joke because it's not easy to do. I'll say to clarify our position on this stuff, 80 is night that we are, you know, anti theory and exactly. If we are anti caring. At all.

The way your identity is perceived by other people. It just shouldn't [00:21:00] be important. You should have a higher purpose in life. Then affirming a specific identity. You want to believe about yourself? Likely some sort of consequentialist action on reality. For example, saving a collapsing society, making humanity better. Giving your kids a good life. , and I, and, and what we, what we. Are so against is the normalization of focusing first and foremost, within your life on how you are perceived by the world. And how you perceive yourself because neither of those things should matter at all.

Or like, not more than like did 0.5% of an individual's mental effort.

Malcolm Collins: But when your entire life becomes about, people can be like, come on. Mainstream culture is not obsessed with being able to affirm yourself, you know, with whatever you become being constantly affirmed for whoever you happen to be. And I'm like, [00:22:00] then how common is the statement, learn to love yourself, learn to be comfortable with yourself, learn to care for yourself.

Whereas within any traditional culture, they would have said, learn to become somebody worthy of loving, you know, learn to become somebody that you can be proud of you know, not learn like manipulate your own brain into affirming yourself, whatever. But these are like mainstream. These are like, These are like, you go into like, Vanilla mom houses, right?

And you'll see these on the walls. What's your thoughts on this, Simone? Like, Of course, to me, of course, this is going to lead to a short circuiting of all these pathways and lead to constant depression and anxiety. And then because you don't have any other moral system that can pull you out of this, you're also completely directionless.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I think this is pretty self explanatory. Self explanatory and something we discuss a lot in our materials and in our podcast as well. I am going to push back on your argument that [00:23:00] instructions on how to live and norms around what is done in life isn't relevant in a conversation about meaning.

And here's why. People's explanation of meaning is often, and you've already alluded to this earlier in our conversation. A just so story resulting from someone's lifestyle choices. So you alluded to the person who that, that archetype of someone who says, I'm not having kids because the environment is, is falling apart or, or humanity is in a terrible place right now or whatever, insert excuse.

And I think that's a product of the way that they live. And the culture that they've surrounded themselves with. And if instead we were to give people the steps that lead to a life of a different type of meaning, that they would come to a conclusion that gives them that meaning. And that sometimes you have to surround people with the right [00:24:00] set and costumes and co-stars to have them as a character, have a hero's journey that's meaningful.

So, In other words I'm, I'm, I'm adopting the dress for the job you wish you had version of an objective function. And I don't think that, You're giving enough weight to the importance of showing people cultural norms that lead to healthy outcomes.

Malcolm Collins: I can agree with this, but I think one of the dangers of this way of thinking, and I was going to say reverse it, there were two reasons, is it's not just the urban monocultures problem.

Another problem is, Of the people who realize the, the disillusionment of the urban monoculture, a number of them have turned to cargo cults. And we've talked about this in regards to the tradwife phenomenon. But we should just remind you of what a cargo cult is for people who might've forgotten.

So in World War [00:25:00] II planes were active in the South Pacific and they would often give food and supplies to the people of the region while they were operational in those areas after they left, the people sort of developed an almost religion around this time in the past when there was more prosperity and they will build out of, you know, rocks and palm fronds and stuff like that.

Runways for planes to land on and then build like fake radio sets and fake antenna and talk into the fake radio sets to try to get the, the plane, do the, the words that they remember the people saying the last time they saw them and dress up with like USA written on them and do marches. And this is a cargo cult, right?

And in a way the trident light phenomenon. It is not. These people didn't like look up how did wives actually behave normatively in the 1950s? What they did is being a caricature. Yeah, they looked at we're not just a caricature. They're cargoing, copying often ads and Hollywood based media. It, it, it would be [00:26:00] as ridiculous if a hundred years from now or something, somebody was trying to live like a classic person from, you know, 2024 and they based everything off of like, Ads, right?

Like Sears ads or something like that, right? Like it's, it wasn't the way a huge portion of the population was ever really living and as such, it was never like an internally consistent way of living.

And if you're like, well, why with the media of the time motivated to manipulate people to live a lifestyle that almost no one was actually living well specifically, it was because this period of ads with right after war war, during world war II, when all the men went to war and the women started taking on lots of industrial jobs, , women really began to normalize to that. And so, , both government and big business, when the men came back to prevent a major economic catastrophe. Needed to get these women out of the [00:27:00] workplace that had just flooded it. , and so they created this image of, oh, you want to be a stay at home. Wife. That was the goal of all of these ads.

It was to

ake su

counter a trend that was already happening. They were produced like this specifically because this lifestyle was so rare.

Malcolm Collins: But we've touched on this was trad wives. The bigger problem for me is the religious cargo cults that I've been noticing popping up.

So, you know, earlier I talked about or so bros and I think for a large portion of like the or so bros it's really become a bit of a cargo cult about trying to ape the most religious looking of the Christian religions in the most religious looking way. You know, they, a lot of people, when they return to one of the traditional faith systems.

What they do is they advertise, like they, they, they search among them for the one they want by the one that aesthetically looks most to them, what their sort of pop cultural [00:28:00] memory of what a religion is supposed to look like. And so for modern 2024 pop culture You know, orthodox Christians look more Christian or more like, you know, traditional ish than other Christians.

They, They, they jumped to that, you know, without looking at the fertility rates of that community, without looking at the, which by the way, are very, very low. Without looking at, you know, okay, how many people who are joining this faith are actually getting married or achieving any sort of outcome or anything like that, it's like, if I act out this thing, I will get the benefits from this.

When historically speaking Most forms of Christianity that were in any way thriving and not in some sort of a dark age were what I call an active theological conversation that people were actively and excitedly engaging in, you know, if you look at, you know, what was happening in America during any of our great awakenings, that's what was happening, right?

We were, you know, constantly excited about what the newest religious ideas were, right? And [00:29:00] I think that they forget this in this cargo cult mindset that when these faiths, whether it's the Orthodox faiths or the Catholic faiths or one of the Protestant faiths or the Jewish faiths, has been in its moments of most thriving, that's when it was in this active conversation.

About how it was going to progress, instead of what was right and what was wrong. And I don't mean this in a progressive sense like, oh, these things don't change, like I mentioned before, when somebody says that, it's like, well, I mean, do you consider that Catholics only started believing that life began at conception with Pope Pius IX, you know, around 200 years ago.

You look at like Thomas Aquinas or Augustus Vipa, they didn't believe this. So if you hold to that Catholic belief, then you are okay with the church continuing to evolve its beliefs. And should it not continue to evolve its beliefs from here? If you are a Mormon, I mean, anyone who's actually like a Mormon and familiar with the Mormon faith must know how quickly, The active theological conversation needs to move in Mormonism.

And I think one of Mormonism's core challenges right [00:30:00] now is it moved from having a group of intelligent men in this active conversation to being more and more just the current prophet. The active conversation from the table, but I think I see that coming back. But I think More broadly, we have to be wary of the cargo cults of religion because when you do the cargo cults of religion and you think I just act out X, Y, and Z like, you know, the old 1950s ads, and all of a sudden the prosperity of the 1950s or the spiritual prosperity of the 1950s will come back to me, you know, you'll be sorely disappointed.

And we've seen, there's been a lot of videos of you know, trad wife to like despair pipeline and it makes a lot of sense because they, they are entering these relationships where now divorce is common and they're not fully considering this and now the guy's had five kids with him. He got all the utility he wanted from them.

They're old. They're not that attractive anymore. He's made a lot of money and he just divorces them and marries somebody younger. And they are quite [00:31:00] screwed. So like, how do you, how do you protect against stuff like this? But anyway, what are your thoughts?

Simone Collins: In general I agree, but I, I just, I think that giving those defaults to people helps to get them there.

You have to obviously, you can't just give the costume and the set and the surroundings and nothing else and assume that people are going to come to the right conclusion. But it makes a huge frickin difference.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: right now I feel like people are concluding that nothing matters because they're set up or either nothing matters or literally they're better off not living because they're set up in such a bad way where how can they help but conclude that.

We have people who think that they're never going to be able to own a house. They're never going to have a meaningful career. They're in debt. They're in a desperate situation. They can't find a partner. What else are they going to conclude? I think if we set people up for success and if we gave them better cultural [00:32:00] defaults, that people would find more meaning more easily, even right now, for example, if we just gave people.

Meaning, or if we just gave everyone the pragmatist guide to life and had everyone truly and very carefully think for themselves, what mattered. I think the problem is that people would probably come to a very nihilistic and negative utilitarian conclusion to a great extent, given where they have been placed, given the priors they've been given, given the societal defaults that they're growing up with.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, And then I guess that to me, this is why. I think a lot of people wonder why we risk our reputation on projects like techno puritanism. If you want to learn more, you can go to techno puritan. com or you can check out our track series on YouTube which is sort of a religion that we now believe, but we're also in the process Not really a religion.

It's more like a Christian denomination that we're in the process of fleshing out and building and trying to determine from going back to the original [00:33:00] text, what do we think this part actually meant? What do we think this part actually meant? And a lot of people can be like, why would you risk your reputations on something like this?

Given all of the other important stuff that you're working on, like the pronatalist advocacy. And it, the core answer is, is because I think that this is, is literally as core to the pronatalist advocacy as anything can be. As core as the Collins Institute. If we can't find or engage in an active theological conversation about how we find meaning in life like our ancestors did we are pretty screwed generationally speaking.

And people are like, why can't you just go back to one of the old traditions? And it's like the old traditions have shown more resistance to. the urban monoculture than, than other things. They have shown higher fertility rates, but they're still losing. They're still losing like, and losing hard.

There's a [00:34:00] reason why, when you look at the old religious systems, more of Gen Alpha is de converting than Gen Z, and more of Gen Z is de converting than Millennials, right? Like, You guys are on the losing side of a battle, and you're like, why don't you come join us? And it's like, Hey guys, why don't you come hang, hang out at the Alamo? Like I know we're under siege, but you know, I think I got this. It's like, no, you are, you are clearly in a bad situation right now. And I am encouraging you to. Maybe fortify differently or get out of the LMO because if the statistics continue in the way that they're moving right now you will be decimated by the time you get to the other side of this.

 What piece of advice I may commit to the audience here? Is I get the impression that people from some of these religious traditions. Think that they can instill confidence in the tradition from an outsider by denying the problems that they're facing. And. Trust me, it really does the [00:35:00] exact opposite. , the two face that are most common to do this are the Catholics and the Orthodox, , whereas was faced that don't really seem to have this problem at all.

You're looking at groups like, you know, Mormons and mainline Protestant groups. So like if I go to a Mormon and I'm like, wow, you guys have a major deconversion problem right now. They're like, yeah, we do have a major deconversion problem. And here's how we might work on it. , or, , you know, your fertility rates dropping a lot.

They're like, yeah. And here's some ideas I have for it. , but often when I go to Catholic or Orthodox groups about this, there'll be like, no, we don't, we don't, we don't have that problem. , and I'm like, well, I mean, here are the statistics. You, you do seem to have a massive. , fertility rate problem and deconversion problem.

And it's actually much bigger than the Mormon problem who. Our admitting this problem. And they'll be like, ah, it's not a problem in our most devout groups. Don't worry about it. And I'm like, well, I mean, Even if that's true, you know, you look at this statistical, get this statistic. Uh, the, the devoutness of your groups doesn't seem to correlate that highly with things [00:36:00] like their propensity to use plan B, even though that the direct sin was in the tradition, why aren't the more religious members using it at lower rates, , which we have a whole episode on, you can check out our Catholic fertility rate episode. , but I don't it's, it is very interesting to me how culturally different groups are and how they relate to problems.

And I really fear this, denying that the problem exists strategy. It's going to be effective in a modern era. At,

Addressing it. I guess that the assumption is like, I'm trying to figure out why these two groups, specifically the hierarchical groups, cause large bureaucracies deny their problems at a much higher frequency than other groups that I've seen. And I'm guessing it's because they have sort of a history of will live.

There is really a major problem than the upper echelons of the bureaucracy are going to recognize it. I come up with a solution and tell us what it is. And it's our job to just defend the bureaucracies honor, and we can best do that by denying that the [00:37:00] problems exist.

Malcolm Collins: Which is, which is why we're working on this project and why we risk our reputation on this. But I think also a lot of people, when they begin to engage in prenatalism, a lot of our ideas seem really stupid at first. They're like, why don't they just do cash handouts? Why don't they just try to get cheaper housing?

Why don't they just. You know, Do you know, more generic religion, right? And then anybody who actually seriously engages with the topic. And I've seen this evolution of people over time where at first they think that we're like crazy or extremists, and then they've been in the movement for like a year and they've actually personally dove into all of the other stats and they're like, Oh, I got, I get now why you came to, you need to create an alternate education system.

And you need to build social technologies of a religious variety to that are either totally new or augmented versions of our historic systems instead of just saying well, we can go back to the way we used to do things because it's clearly not working. And the cash handouts clearly aren't working in the smaller [00:38:00] apartments clearly aren't working in the, you know, i, I also think it's interesting. We should do a different episode on this, but I'd also love to hear your sauce on this. Why do you think as we become wealthier and wealthier as a society, when I say wealthier and wealthier, people like, no, look at how much this costs, look at how much this costs. And it's like, do you really think your life is harder than someone in the 1800s?

Really? Really? When we talk about that why, why has society become so much less satisfied as it's gotten so much wealthier? Do you think it's all downstream of the other things that we're talking about in this?

Simone Collins: We only know the context in which we exist. We only can really compare our lives to where we stand now.

And we normalize to where we stand. So it's, it's, I think it's not fair to expect someone to consider their situation as though they had just stepped off the lifestyle of their ancestors, if that makes sense. [00:39:00] We're just not really wired to do that. We're wired to look at where we stand vis a vis our peers, but not where we stand vis a vis our ancestors.

Malcolm Collins: You know, That is where you get in social media a bit of the, the, the downside, which is the peers that you were being shown are the peers that the most other people are looking at.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Instead of the average human, right? Which is

Malcolm Collins: the peers that are near the top of our society, which causes things like women to completely misjudge what the average male looks like, men to misjudge.

The average female looks like people to misjudge, you know, what is real expected wealth for them. What is real expected societal outcomes for them? So you might be right there. I, I, I often have people like, be like, Oh, you know, Simone is, is mid, but you guys really seem to like each other. And I'm like, okay, dude, go to an airport, look around, see how long it takes you before you find somebody who is over 30.

and anywhere near Simone's level of [00:40:00] attractiveness. No, you're like, I think death initially in the top 1 percent of attractiveness for your age range. Um, Just if you guys, isn't he the best?

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: No, because people don't judge by public spaces. No, but that's, that's very

Simone Collins: true. It's in, and it is the top, not even 1%, but like 0.

01 percent that we're really. Primarily looking at on YouTube. And of course not even that, but the top 0. 01 percent with a filter on with makeup, with the best possible camera angle, the best photo of 50. So it's not great.

Malcolm Collins: This reminds me of a little experiment I ran with Simone once where you still didn't believe me that I was like, no, that's just youth.

Like you pointed out a few people in an important, you're like, babe, or. Nearly as attractive as me. And I was like, Simone, that, that girl is like 17 or 18 years old. And you're like, nah. So then later we were at a, an event where we had to go to like a, a [00:41:00] nightclub venue for like an industry event. So we had people of all different ages and everyone going in there under age had to get an X on the back of their hand.

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: said, look around the room, Simone. And see anyone who you think is more attractive than you and she'd point people out. And then I'd walk around to an angle where I could see their hand and it was always an X. And I was like, you misunderstand how much youth, I mean, beauty. It is insane,

Simone Collins: especially in women, how much beauty is not even beauty.

It's just signs of youth. It's insane. It is completely insane.

Malcolm Collins: It just is though often. And people completely missed this. And I am very defeatist about this in an online environment because it causes people to make missed expectations, but also about their life and trips. Like, Okay, when you're, for example, judging how often you should take trips online, people are going to disproportionately post when they're taking a trip

Simone Collins: because you

Malcolm Collins: always have the trip album after the trip.

That's where you

Simone Collins: What are you going to take photos of in your day to day life that you haven't already taken a photo of. So

Malcolm Collins: And so people [00:42:00] like create these, these norms where like one of my cousins was like well, you know, your kids won't be able to go on trips because you're having so many of them. And it's like, yeah, but my ancestors didn't go on trips, you know, like, and I'm denying a human the chance to live over that.

And another thing that they'll notice, people will be like, no. Like, Housing costs so much more these days. That's why. And I'm like well, you know, you could just choose to live with other people. And they're like well, come on, you can't raise kids in an environment like that. And I was like, remember the 1800s thing I noted here?

This house was in use during the 1800s, the ones that we live in. And it had like four, Four or five different families living in it back then people used to live like sardines where I grew up historically which was with Dallas you know, I hung out with a lot of recent Hispanic immigrants and they'd often have like, Three or four related families in very small houses.

This is a cultural expectation that you have created for yourself. That doesn't really even improve your quality of [00:43:00] life. That much sharing a house with other people really doesn't negatively impact quality of life that much. I know that's a sin to say, but it really doesn't.

Simone Collins: Well, Even, and this is what really blows my mind about our lifestyle, if you're a severe introvert, I thought, I was genuinely worried that I would never get to be alone again, that our kids would never leave us alone again.

Many of our kids, not all. But many of them are extreme introverts as well who love being around their siblings, but also really love their alone time, even alone time from us, which is just so awesome. So yeah,

Malcolm Collins: dreams come true. You marry a partner who handles that stuff for you.

Simone Collins: Well, Yeah, but also both of us, I think are pretty genetically introverted.

And that means that it should not have been a surprise. It's just, to me that we would have children who tend to appreciate time alone. This is

Malcolm Collins: crazy. Appreciate time alone. [00:44:00] The finer things in life. But no, I mean there's always ways in, in the modern environment to, you know, I mean, as you know, if you look at AI these days, for example, you can live like any fantasy you want to live, right. With the chat bots and stuff like that. Yeah. You, you, you live in such a area of, I think, Stimulational wealth. That because you're making these miscalculations about what should be normative for you and what you should expect before having kids, you know, it's not happening, but yeah. This is why I think vitalism.

itself is like the vitalist movement and the pronatalist movement these days are like one to one. In terms of the people I see cheering for them and stuff like that, like Richard Anania often talks about the vitalist movement. And I'm like, yeah, and you know, also pronatalist, right? So we've got to re Kindle.

That historic vitalism and the vitalism, which motivates sacrifice in one's [00:45:00] behaviors, but also the pleasure that can come from sacrifice and austerity that I think as a culture we have forgotten.

Simone Collins: Bring back vitalism and we'll get there.

Malcolm Collins: I think we're on our way. I think we're on our way as a society. Anyway, I love you to Desimone.

Simone Collins: I love you too. And what do you want for dinner? Mm. Bye.

Malcolm Collins: You know, Do we have anything in the fridge that's like defrosted? We should probably start defrosting some lasagna and some of the curry that I made from the freezer.

I slow cooked it. Well,

Simone Collins: On Sun, we only have one more night here after tonight. So just one thing then, do you want curry or do you want lasagna? Where are we going? We're going to the Hamptons. It's not in my calendar.

Is it not? Nope. It's in your calendar. Family drive to Hampton Bay's [00:46:00] afternoon at the Hamptons.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, you put it all in Hampton's family.

Simone Collins: No, this has been in here. Can I see history of creation? It doesn't show history, but no, this has been here for a while. Someone just hasn't been paying attention. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay. We

Simone Collins: won't, you just can't bother to know that we're going to the ton

Malcolm Collins: s Don't worry guys, we're not paying for it ourselves. So, can you then what, what, so well, I can

Simone Collins: make you, I want curry. I can make you your curry with rice tonight. I can.

Malcolm Collins: No, why don't I finish off the soup and do some pasta with pesto?

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Bow ties? Bow ties.

Simone Collins: Or macaroni thingies with little flavor twists. You notice that they put ridges on the bottom. On the macaroni.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, let's try the macaroni things this time actually.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: You're a woman of sophistication and a wonderful chef. You know you cook for your husband now, right?

Simone Collins: Only because you asked me [00:47:00] to.

Malcolm Collins: Do you want me to not ask you to?

Simone Collins: No, I think our evening setup works really well. So I'm happy to do it. I appreciate you giving me time to do it tonight.

 I love you. Bye.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the alarming trends shaping China's future. This eye-opening discussion covers:

* Shocking statistics revealing Chinese citizens' growing disillusionment with their economic system

* The rise of "lying flat" and "last generation" movements in China

* How the CCP is desperately trying to maintain control through surveillance and intimidation

* The potential collapse of China as a global superpower

* Implications for U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding Taiwan

* The unexpected cultural shifts occurring in Chinese society

This video provides crucial insights for anyone interested in geopolitics, economics, or the future of global power dynamics. With exclusive data and expert analysis, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing China and how they might reshape our world.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Simone! Today we're going to be doing a stats heavy episode that I know our fans always love, where I can find some interesting and counterintuitive stats to tell us about where the world is going. Okay. Episode is going to be on internal Chinese politics the economic situation in China and how the Chinese population is becoming more and more You know, we use the title woke here, but it's not exactly woke because they're not exactly split among the types of of, uh, political demographics that we have in the U S there isn't the same like Republican Democrat party that you would have in the U S.

But the views of the Chinese people are definitely changing and in a way that should make the Chinese government very, very nervous.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: So let's start with a quote here. These are the clear findings that emerged from quantitative research by Stanford professors Jennifer Pan [00:01:00] and Ying Qing Xu. Survey data collected through a variety of channels and methodologies by Pan and Xu over several years show that Chinese urban residents are more liberal than expected and more liberal than the official positions of the government.

Moreover, the political views of respondents remained relatively stable over time and were correlated. across issues in ways comparable to those in democratic countries. It is important to note, however, that policy views in China do not align neatly along pro slash anti regime spectrums, or what might be considered a typical left right divide as they do in the United States and many other democracies.

Instead, they cluster around preferences for market versus state intervention in the economy more versus less democracy in the government and more versus less nationalism. So, one faction wants less nationalism and less government intervention in the markets and more democracy. And another group wants more [00:02:00] intervention, less democracy and more nationalism, which makes sense as natural clusters.

Using surveys conducted from 2012 and 2014 and separately at 2018 and 2019, Pan and Zhu show that Chinese correspondents have coherent policy preferences that are bunded in predictable ways. For example, those that hold politically liberal views are more likely to also support free markets and oppose nationalist foreign policy.

Those who support authoritarian political institutions are instead more likely to support state intervention in the economy and a nationalistic foreign policy. And I'll put a figure on screen here. So that's actually really interesting because that's different than the, at least older historic political alignment that we had here in the U.

S. Which is the more free market people are also the more politically or socially progressive people

Torsten: and

Malcolm Collins: the less free market people are the so you have a true tanky faction there that is very you know, pro nationalism, pro state control but also [00:03:00] pro more socially illiberal views. Do you have any thoughts on that before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, tell me more. I just want to dig into this.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So , the surveys carried out between 2004 and 2014 indicate that most respondents had positive views on the system's ability to deliver opportunities in the future, and that effort and hard work were rewarded.

So now we're going to look at some graphs. These findings were notable because, as I mentioned, below, And note I'm pulling from several different articles here. So these aren't all from the same article. These findings were notable because as mentioned above inequality increased rapidly after 1978 and has remained stubbornly high since the two thousands in China.

Perceptions as to the drivers of inequality are Are central to the population sense of fairness and belief in the efficacy of China's economic and political systems. The latest round of surveys, which were conducted over the course of 2023 through an online app. So this is all just important to note when you're looking at this data are so recent that the Whitney team has yet to publish them in [00:04:00] related academic articles.

So you are getting this stuff first. It's clear that there have been significant changes in how people view inequality and opportunities in China economy signaling. Less and less responsibility to themselves and more and more to the economic system. So now we're going to talk about some of these results and I'm going to put some on screen.

So, do you want me to share these with you Simone or do you want me to just describe them to you?

Simone Collins: Describe them.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So here I have put a graph on screen today. It shows in 2004 attribution of why people in China are poor. So this is why are some people in China poor? The number one reason that people gave in 2004 was lack of ability.

In 2023, that has fallen to the number six reason. The, the number one reason in 2023 that people said so was unequal opportunity. That was six back in 2004.

Simone Collins: Oh, so we're moving from an internal to an external locus of control [00:05:00] here, which is kind of scary.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. You look at 2004, you had high ranked things like lack of effort.

However, lack of effort is ranked fairly low in 2003.

Simone Collins: But

Malcolm Collins: if you look at an unfair economic system, that was all the way down at eight in 2004, that was ranked at number three. Keep in mind, number three in China, where you can get unalive for saying things like this. So there is a cost to signaling these sorts of things.

Then they asked why are people in China rich? And it used to be in 2004 people would say ability and talent was the number one reason that some people were rich in China.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: In 2023 that had moved down to number four. What was number three back in 2004 connections that was ranked number one in 2023.

That was, so it used to be, they said ability and talent now it's connections. And, and you had a drop across the board in things like high education used to be number two as to why some people were rich. Now it's ranked all the way down at number [00:06:00] seven below even an unfair economic system. Hard work also dropped.

Simone Collins: You would think that the CCP, I mean, especially in a nation where there's more control over media and what people were, people are allowed to see, I, as a government official would have worked harder to make sure that memes like this. That switch people toward an external locus of control. Don't spread.

How is this, how is this happening in a nation that should be able to head this off?

Malcolm Collins: So we're going to talk about that after we get through all the statistics.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Because we're going to talk about the people's, how people shared this information and how the government tried to prevent them from sharing this information.

By the way, you want to know the number two reason that people said people are rich in 2023. It was all the way down to number six before grew up in a rich family. Okay.

They just don't believe the system is fair or that it's possible to move up anymore.

Now I'm going to put another graph on the screen that looks at explanations for why people in China are rich over [00:07:00] time.

That looks at things like, you know, connections, higher education, hard work, ability and talent. Basically if you're watching this instead of just reading all the statistics to you, people should be afraid. Now I'm going to put another graph, the government should be afraid, I should say perceptions of causes of wealth in China and selected post socialist countries.

So here you see other post socialist countries. You can see is what's happening in China normal?

and it has two bars, one for China in 2004 and one for China in 2023. And as we can see. , the trend is getting worse. , and now China is at the same level as other post socialist countries. , in terms of the public's belief, that ability or hard work helps them get ahead. , but what is interesting is that China is still nowhere near other post socialist countries. In terms of a perception of how unfair their economic system is. However, if you have a [00:08:00] similar increase. Over the next decade that we've had from 2004 to 2023, it may catch up.

Malcolm Collins: But again we're looking at lots of stats here and I want to make sure I get through them all. Explanations of why people in China are poor. Again we are looking at different dates here on this graph. What you see is It for a while it went up. So like things were good in China for a while.

So you look at something like lack of ability, it was going up from 2004, 58% to 2014, 64%. But then if you go to 2023 all the way down to 31%, you look at something like lack of effort. 51 percent in 2004. 2009, 61%. 2014, 63%. Oh, great trend. 2023, 33%. Lower than it's ever been. It is the same when you're looking at things like unequal opportunity or unfair economic systems.

2023 is the worst year from the perspective of the government. in their data.

Now we're looking at a figure that looks at attribution of variation in opportunities. [00:09:00] Whether a person becomes rich or remains poor is their own responsibility.

That's what was being asked. Agree, neutral, disagree. Again, here you see the steps moving in the wrong direction from what the government would want. Here you look at the question, opportunity for people to succeed is the same for everyone. Again in this one you actually see more growth in the neutral category and growth in the negative category with only 20 percent in 2023 saying that they believed.

That the opportunities to success were the same for everyone. And keep in mind, this is a government where you could be unalive for these sorts of opinions, which we will talk about shortly. In our country, effort is always rewarded. Only 28 percent said that in 2023. Oh boy. Gosh. So, Yikes. Now let's look at something like, given the current domestic situation, there is still great opportunity for people like you to improve their standard of living.

Only 28 percent of Chinese people believe this anymore. And you wonder why no one's having kids. No one has hope anymore in this country. Yeah, this is

Simone Collins: definitely [00:10:00] like, this explains lying flat. This explains we are the last generation. This is what lying

Malcolm Collins: flat is. And we are the last generation is before we go further.

Simone Collins: Right. Lying flat is a philosophy that sort of started to Arise around the pandemic in China, from my understanding basically the concept being that. You can do sort of the bare minimum yeah, you'll work, yeah, you'll do what you're supposed to do for the government, but you're not going to do a, a bit more than that because you're not going to be rewarded for it, what's the point?

Well, it's, it's,

Malcolm Collins: it's more than that it, it got its name from a guy who made money by, acting roles as dead people for a few months a year and the rest of the year lived on as little as possible. So the idea of lying flat is doing literally the minimum you have to, to survive. Take on some part time job maybe for three months and try to live off that money for as long as you can.

Often in like group houses or, or with a SO who you don't plan to have kids with because you don't want to do an ounce more than you actually need to do to survive. And you can see with these numbers why people would feel this [00:11:00] way. Remember I mentioned that like, Oh, do you have opportunity to increase your standard of living?

And I said only 28 people said that in 2023, 2014, it was 62%. These numbers are dropping precipitously and quickly. Then you talk about the, we are the last generation movement. This came from a viral video in China of CCP officers going to a family and berating them for not following COVID restrictions.

And they said, this will affect you in the next three generations of your family. And they go, that's okay because we are the last generation. I'm in a lot of Chinese people feel that way. It is part of why the government pressuring people to have kids doesn't work because people feel like it's just some wealthy class trying to pressure people to have.

Kids to live lives without opportunity. So this wealthy class can maintain their power and status. It's an act of subversive resistance, unarmed power and status. So, explanations of family wealth. So here we get a share of respondents who said their family [00:12:00] economic situation had gotten worse compared to five years ago by income group.

So, if you look at 2014, it was only 7%, 2023, 32%. Like more than, I think it's probably about four times higher. In, in, in, in, in, that's for people making under 50k a year. If we look at middle income people in China, okay, how is the middle income group 50 to a hundred K a year? How are they doing in 2014?

3 percent said that it hadn't gotten worse. And in 2009 it was only 1 percent said it hadn't gotten worse. 24 percent are now saying their situation is worse.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Well,

Malcolm Collins: 3 percent versus 24 percent things are breaking. If you look at the hundred K plus in 2009, literally 0 percent felt that in, in, in 2014, it was 1 percent felt that way.

So very small in 2023, 19 percent people are falling off an economic cliff in [00:13:00] China right now. And how is the government responding to this? Okay. They are trying to whip up nationalist fervor and it is in part working. In China, a form of wokeism expresses itself as blind nationalism. So let's talk about how this has affected some international companies.

So we can understand what it's like to do business in China these days. You know, not just having ports randomly closed, not having them just close a random part of your supply chain during COVID, which keep in mind affects companies in a huge way because now the rest of their supply chain stops working.

You know, Oh, I just make one part of the chip in China, well, now you can't make the phone, even if it was only 1 percent of the manufacturing process. If you can't find an alternate supplier, you're screwed. But what happens if you're selling into China, the German luxury car maker This is about Mercedes Benz.

The German luxury car maker posted an Instagram photo of a white coupe parked on a beach with the quote, quote, [00:14:00] look at situations from all angles and you will become more open in quote. The seemingly benign ad irritated China's internet users and state media alike because the quote was attributed to someone they consider a dangerous separatist, the Dalai Lama.

The, the Mercedes Benz quickly responded to the online outrage by deleting the ad and posting an apology on Weibo, a Chinese Twitter esque micro blogging site. We fully understand the incident has hurt feelings of Chinese people, including our employees in China, wrote the Weibo senten Statement in light of this, we will immediately take measures to deepen our understandings of Chinese culture and values, including our overseas colleagues to ensure this won't happen again.

Now, for people who don't know what happened as a result of this, people were burning Mercedes Benz cars. Mercedes were burning their own cars in the streets.

Note, uh, the clip I'm about to show you is actually about a different freak out about a [00:15:00] luxury car company in China, but it gives you an idea.

What you're seeing is a BMW showroom in China. This was taken today. And what you can see there is it says, you know, this basically says, um, get the, it's like BMW, get the hell back to Germany. Get out of China. And it's like spray painted, smashed on the winds, windshield. Um, and we've got another clip for you here, which is maybe even a little more extreme.

We've got a guy throwing gasoline all inside his BMW,

setting it on fire. Okay. So. You might be wondering, what's going on?

Malcolm Collins: This But that's the way the Chinese government works. It's in a nationalist direction.

They don't mind how much they whip off fervor, but I think this is going to bite them [00:16:00] in the butt one day. Now let's look at something else where this happened in a Chinese language survey sent out by customers in January. Marriott international listed Tibet, Hong Kong, Manchu, and Taiwan as options on a question, asking customers, their countries of residence.

Obviously this caused China to absolutely freak out and start banning people from going to Marriott. And I will look to the right back and find some crazy responses to this, but, but this shows that even the most benign things can cause freak outs because the government will attempt to whip people up and you can say, well, why aren't.

people reacting as strongly. Let's talk about some of the crazy things the government has done to try to prevent protests. So a lot of people are like, why would you do zero COVID? Remember I was talking about how it affected supply chains and stuff like that. It seems insane, but if you know that there's going to be an economic collapse coming and you can't do anything about it and you're a totalitarian government, well, what's the number one thing you want to do?

You want to restrict people. They never rolled back a most of the COVID for example. Tracking apps that [00:17:00] track where you are and can lock you down in location. And we saw in instances, there was an instance, for example, where the government was afraid of a bank run because a government somewhat supported bank had basically stolen everyone's money.

And so people of course wanted to go and withdraw their money. And. To prevent them from doing this, to prevent the bank run or even protests outside of the bank, because then people were saying, Oh, I'm going to go protest. The government would lock the apps, basically assign people as having COVID who had money in that bank or who had recently.

About potentially protesting.

Torsten: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then they would start locking the apps of people who had come into contact with those people. They were using the contagion metrics that they had previously worked into their social media apps for social contagion. For social contagion. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Wow. I mean, it works.

It's elegant in that way, isn't it?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Now let's talk about to push back and what the government has done to these sorts of people before we [00:18:00] go full on. I'm going to, I'm going to give the stage to you. The white paper protests also known as the A4 revolution were a series of demonstration that took place across China on November, 2020.

So why were they protesting with pieces of blank A4 paper? Because they knew if they protested against anything specific, the government could it. That's what the government historically did to protesters. It would use these tracking apps to not just round up the protesters in the middle of the night.

That's typically what they would do. They'd say, okay, well, you're not allowed to say X or you're not allowed to say Y. And anyone who has says that, well, they get rounded up in the middle of the night. And so does anyone they've come in contact with. And so the people thought, well, let's just protest with white pieces of paper.

Okay. Seems fair, right? And they were primarily response to zero COVID. Now key aspects of the protests include the protests were sparked by a deadly apartment fire on November 24th, 2022, where at least 10 people died. Many people believe the victims were unable to escape [00:19:00] due to COVID restrictions.

Specifically, they had been welded inside the apartment and the doors had been blocked. And the fire happened because of like bad government oversight. You know, a lot of Places in China, I'll show videos of like, you pick up a fire hydrant and you learn that just due to bureaucratic incompetence and, and people trying to scam each other because there's so many scams being run there they'll be empty or full of silly string or something like that.

Right.

A woman can be seen trying to extinguish a fire pile with the extinguisher, but to no avail. At a construction site, workers were testing a fire extinguisher, and discovered it could not put out a fire, then switched to another one and still the same. Many swindlers impersonate firefighters to perform fake fire prevention inspections on businesses, only to peddle overpriced firefighting equipment.

, A fire broke out on the 18th floor of a residential building in Buji Street, Longgang District, Shenzhen. Firefighters responding to the incident found that fire hydrants in the building's corridor were dry. [00:20:00] Residents revealed that in this large residential area the fire hydrants had been dry for many years.

Last year in Guangdong, a woman accidentally damaged a fire hydrant it led to the revelation that the fire hydrant was a mere facade with no connecting water supply. This situation is common in residential communities in China. In a residential community in Bozhou, Anhui, a person filming a video demonstrated that the fire hydrant was simply buried in the ground, with nothing connected below.

A similar situation was discovered in a neighborhood in Qiannan Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province.

Malcolm Collins: The protest demonstration spread to major cities across China, including Shanghai, Beijing, Shandong and Wuhan. They at first were focused on COVID restrictions, but then they began to call on things like we want freedom and step down Xi Jinping, step down Communist Party.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: And how did the government respond to this?

They began to disappear people. That was generally what happened. [00:21:00] And since then, the protests have largely disappeared. So the way the government typically reacts to protests like this is they'll, Loosen whatever was being complained about and they'll disappear anyone who was involved in the protest.

And if they were more severe or more prominent, they'll disappear anyone who they had contact with. And in terms of there's ads in China. I'm gonna see if I can find one to like put on screen here where they have unaliving vans now. For criminals where they don't even take time to take you to prison.

They just drive, drive by in a van. They take you to the van and, and, and they let the public know that these exist and they just put you down. In the van. In the van. Yeah, they have the whole straps and everything and everything like that in the van.

When I was living in China for 10 years, I mean, I KNEW that there were death vans in China, but it was always one of those dark things that lived in conversation, not necessarily in real life.

But China's death vans, or execution vans, these cars that just show up and execute you, [00:22:00] for stuff that I'll explain to you later, and they take you away forever, they're real. They're very real. Very real the crazy thing is that they want their citizens to know about the vans, and they really, really want them to feel scared. I'm not kidding. Not only does this death van pull up and take your life, it's being promoted and promoted.

Before I go any further, , If you don't know this channel that I'm playing this content from strongly suggested. , these guy does well, there's sort of like three channels at the network of channels. There's a serpent debt. That a, yeah. Why 80?

And China fact chasers, China fact chasers as a channel they do together.

And that someone I strongly suggest if you're just checking out any of them, but a good way to stay up to date with what's really going on in China these days. [00:23:00] That's actually true. You will be taken out to be cremated, but you'll just be put into another van. I kid you not. They have cremation vans. They really love this whole mobile death thing in China.

You see how this is framed? It's like, how would you be executed? This is going to happen to you. You are supposed to enter this as like a POV. This is from your perspective.

in fact, just back in 2001, they were still bringing people to stadiums to execute them in public to make people feel like, wow, the government does stuff about criminals and I better not be like that.

Malcolm Collins: It is honestly more dystopian in China now than a lot of dystopian books.

When people are like, they wouldn't really begin forced insemination in China. I'm like, they have drive by murder vans [00:24:00] that they tell you about. Yeah, they would. And why are they becoming so totalitarian? Because they're getting scared. There is in China something called the mandate of heaven. Right. Which says that if the gods don't approve of whoever is in power, they will send natural disasters.

Well, there have been since zero COVID, a number of major floods across major cities in China. And the government has been unable to really do anything meaningful about these. The country is falling apart. Buildings are falling over. Because they. You know, cut corners when they were building out infrastructure, people feel like even now, if you go to their apps, even mentioning this historic concept in Chinese, the mandate of heaven is banned across most of their social media because they are afraid of people beginning to, to realize this.

And so you're like, how did these ideas spread? They're spreading through family networks mostly right now. And China has very tight knit family networks.

Simone Collins: Probably this would [00:25:00] have to be also like offline in conversations behind closed doors with all the electronics turned off. Like the amount of care that would have to be put into these discussions spreading.

And yet despite all this, it's happening

Malcolm Collins: or you'll we'll do things like the government, you know, like the Winnie the Pooh thing, right? Like they'll know that the government will say that something innocuous offends them like Winnie the Pooh and then people think they're safe posting that because it's Not the government itself.

It's just I think they've

Simone Collins: gotten past that. I mean at this point, it's it's clear that even just you know protesting with the white people

Malcolm Collins: Another place where this happened is there was some song that people saw And As the title could be seen as an indication of the government. So people in short had hit number one on charts,

You know, but again, the government, you know, as soon as it realizes this, there is no compromise.

Torsten: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And a lot of people are like, why are we so unafraid of China as a geopolitical power? And why I might. Encourage even some, I mean, I think we should protect Taiwan, but not get in full scale war with China because it's [00:26:00] not worth it. They're not going to exist as a major power in 15 years or 20 years.

Don't you, we don't need to play this game. Their fertility rate is so low and everything they've done shows a complete inability to get it up. And they have had this one child policy going for a long time. So they are affected by this much longer than we are. People are like, Oh, the fertility because of the one child policy.

No, it's been crashing. Since the one child policy was lifted. It is much lower now than it ever was during the one child policy. It's lower now than it was even during the Great Famine. This is catastrophic, the situation they're in. And they are doing everything they can. They're banning vasectomies.

They're banning blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of it's working.

Simone Collins: Gosh, that's scary.

Malcolm Collins: So they are a country on the verge of collapse in every sense of the word.

Simone Collins: So I guess your, your stance is just when it comes to us policy. Okay. Yes. Maybe some protections for Taiwan, but aside from that. [00:27:00] The focus should be on disentangling trade relations from China as quickly as possible, because from a, from an economic perspective, the bigger liability is any dependency on Chinese industry, which is probably going to start falling apart even more sooner rather than later, we don't even need to really worry about trade embargoes.

We need to worry about literally our businesses not being able to. You know, get the products and basic components. They need. Plus, we also need to be worried about China and AI because it is going to be very strongly motivated to steal whatever superintelligence development we're doing.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Well, and I would also say with China.

And this is a policy change I've had recently, actually inspired by the changing of the policy positions of the new right and beginning to think about foreign policy more pragmatically. Historically, I would have been a hard liner on defending Taiwan just out of national pride reasons and stuff like that and being the good guy and we are Americans.[00:28:00]

Now I don't think it's pragmatically in our best interest and people might be shocked by that given the chip manufacturing that's done there and they'd say, why? I would put a condition on defending Taiwan. We will defend Taiwan if they can get their fertility rate up. But right now, Taiwan has such a low fertility rate that people who we waste defending them, we're doing it for nothing.

Their population at their current fertility rate, especially if it keeps dropping at the rate it has historically is going to be like, I think if you project forwards, like two or one Taiwanese person for every hundred Taiwanese people in terms of great grandchildren, it's just not a relevant player in the future and its current fertility rates.

Why are we. Wasting our children's lives and putting our country at risk to defend a country that can't even motivate itself to reproduce

Torsten: But I

Malcolm Collins: actually think that if we made this ultimatum with them, it would help them in the long run as well, because they'd realize, Oh shoot, we actually do have to reproduce.

However, I do think that we should have a plan for the Taiwanese [00:29:00] people. And by that, what I mean is if we are not fully defending them, we need to have a plan for evacuating them and acculturating them. I am open to, I mean, Taiwan produces is the key manufacturer of semiconductors for the world. I would not mind the U S being the key manufacturer of semiconductors for the world.

We have tried to build our own plants as advanced as Taiwanese. Plants, but culturally we're not as good at rule following and procedure and bureaucracy as them. And we have struggled. By the way, many people can ask why are Taiwanese so good at that stuff? Is it some Chinese thing? Is it some genetic thing?

It's a genetic thing, but it's not a Chinese thing. Exactly. Taiwan is like an entire country of America's Cuban immigrant population. You have communist upbringings. What often happens is the competent, smart, industrialist people who are Prone to enjoying competing in meritocracies and free markets leave the, you know, in America, you're like, well, what do you, what do you think of Cubans?

What's the Cuban stereotype? Well, they're like, well, they're, they're [00:30:00] capitalistic, they're Republican and they're successful at business. And it's like, is that a broader Cuban stereotype? No, it's the, it's the American Cubans. Same with the Chinese who fled the revolution and went to Taiwan. And if we can make use of that, especially if we can help create, build a stable population, I think people are like, well, aren't you worried about them not assimilating in the U S and changing American culture?

It's like, look, their fertility rate is so low. No, I'm not. At this rate, they're going to go extinct pretty much no matter what we do. We might as well get some semiconductor plants out of it. And and, and some years of economic productivity out of it. And hey, Koreans who immigrate to the US, their fertility rate bumps 50%.

It's still very low. It's like 1. 2 or something like that. Basically halving of regeneration. But it's not as low as it is in South Korea. I suspect we see a similar thing with the Taiwanese population, meaning that in the end it would also help them.

Simone Collins: Well. I [00:31:00] don't imagine we'll ever be that practical, but we'll see what happens.

We're in for a wild ride regardless. I had no idea things had gotten so dire, so terrifying, so quickly.

Malcolm Collins: So. And the people are like, what about the economic effects of taking a bunch of Taiwanese people and wouldn't they want to maintain their own stable communities? Well, why not have the government buy some land in like Alaska or something like that and develop it as a new separate community?

I don't mind doing that. Then you also don't have the cultural bleed effects and we get the economic benefits from it. And we get to develop real estate and land that's currently not developed or fully utilized. I don't mind that at all. Anyway, there are

Simone Collins: lots of ways to do things, but oh my gosh. Yeah.

I just,

Malcolm Collins: I hope everyone's okay. Well, I, I'm trying to, might genuinely attack to remove, like if they attack, I don't think they're doing it for any reason other than to distract their general public and to test and mobilize their military to make sure it can respond to threats from the general public.

I could

Simone Collins: see

Malcolm Collins: that. Yeah. Because that is the existential threat to China right now. [00:32:00] But and I should also note another problem China has right now is they don't have a play for after Xi Jinping leaves. He's done a very good job of like taking everyone out of the government who is a competitor to him, who is competent, who is ambitious.

I'll come in a second. Hold on. I'll bring Octavian on to say bye to you guys. Okay.

I want you to say hi to people. Octavian, come here. Tell them about your toys.

Octavian: I just brought the toys. Okay. So, that, I just brought toys. They're, I just, I just got the toys in the box from Stacey and John's

Malcolm Collins: house. What do you think about China?

Octavian: And, and then I got a box with toys to our house.

Stacy, Stacy does not need many more toys anymore.

Malcolm Collins: [00:33:00] Okay, but what do you think of China?

Octavian: Good.

Malcolm Collins: China's good? Are they, are, do you think that they could be our friends one day?

Octavian: Yes!

Malcolm Collins: What do you think of a bunch of Taiwanese people immigrating to the U. S.? I think a lot of our audience isn't going to like that.

Octavian: Yes, and you know, I just brought it right there at that door.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, but do you think that we have enough toys for them? What if, what if other kids came and started playing with your toys? Would that be good or bad?

So the more kids playing with your toys, the better?

Octavian: Yeah. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Especially if we can use those kids in an economic fight against other people. What do you think of that? What? What do you think of, do you think the kids would fight for you? No, they would not. Oh, they wouldn't? Well, then why would you want them to play with your choice?

Because.

Because it's a nice thing to do? Hold

Octavian: on a second.

Can you bring this? I'll bring, hold on a second. I'll be right, I'll be right here. I gotta get [00:34:00] this. I gotta get the toys. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, Octavian. I love you, Simone. Bye. Why don't you finish up with Octavian? He's gonna talk to you a little bit. Octavian, hold the mic.

And Malcolm, you get the kids.

Simone Collins: Octavian, come let me interview you. Come take a seat. Okay.

Octavian: Okay.

Simone Collins: All right. Tell me, Octavian, what do you know about the country, China?

Octavian: It's good.

Simone Collins: You love them. Do you think that, that the Chinese people. Have a hope for the future.

Octavian: Yeah. And where was Daddy going?

Simone Collins: Daddy's going to get your brother and sister 'cause it's time for dinner.

Well, where

Octavian: was Daddy's wife into when I was at Station? Dawn House.

Simone Collins: Oh, we were going to pick up some groceries for you because guess what, tonight you're having corn for kids. Corn on the cob.

Octavian: Thank you.

Simone Collins: You're welcome. Do you like corn on the cob? Do you put butter on it or do you eat it plain? Eat

Octavian: it with [00:35:00] plain.

Simone Collins: You want to eat it plain? Okay. Would you share your corn on the cob with kids who came over from China?

Octavian: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Good. It's good to share, right?

Octavian: Yeah, sharing is caring, right?

Simone Collins: Sharing is caring. That's right, Octavian. Are you going to share your corn with your brother and sister? Yes. That's really nice. Okay.

What do you think? So there, there's a lot of people in China right now who are sad. What do you think that they should do to be happy?

Octavian: Okay. Yes.

Simone Collins: What, what should we do to cheer up the people in China? Because they're very sad right now.

Octavian: Who, what makes them so sad?

Simone Collins: They feel like there's no hope for the future.

Like they'll never get toys again.

You'll get them toys. How will you get them toys? What will you do to get them toys?

Octavian: I'll get them. I'll get them a tiny teddy bear. A

Simone Collins: tiny teddy bear.

Octavian: Yeah. [00:36:00] So they come sleep and take a wreck and I, and I can, and I can get them all in the way. Five toys,

Simone Collins: only. Five toys. I think there are more than five people in China, though.

I think there's a lot of people in China.

Octavian: Oh, so I said them.

Simone Collins: I think you're gonna need to get more toys. But do you think that's going to be enough to cheer them up, Octavian?

Octavian: Yeah.

Simone Collins: You think so?

Octavian: Yeah, well, if all the toys are gone right at our house, I'm safe in our house, and we gotta get toys from the toy store.

Simone Collins: Oh, so you think this is a opportunity to cheer up the people in China because you get to go shopping?

Octavian: Yes!

Simone Collins: Huh. Okay. Okay. And how are you going to get all these toys to China? You know how when you look at the, at the globe, right? When you look at the world map, China is very far away. It's across the Pacific Ocean.

Octavian: What the? Oh yes, so I should go on the [00:37:00] boat.

Simone Collins: Oh, you're going to go on a boat to deliver the toys to China, to cheer up the people of China. Is that right?

Octavian: Yeah, I'm going to deliver the boats. I'm a great delivery man. I deliver everything. For everybody else who is sad.

Simone Collins: Okay, so you're one solution here.

Octavian: What?

Why think that's like a paddle? What's that thing there?

Simone Collins: It's a paddle. That's exactly what you think it is. It's a paddle for the boat.

Octavian: For for the boat that's in our house.

Simone Collins: That's right. Yeah, for the bumper bug is gonna

Octavian: be, is it gonna be for me?

Simone Collins: You can use it as long as you promise not to drop it.

Octavian: Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. I'll put

Octavian: it right. I'll put it right here, right now.

Simone Collins: Okay. That sounds good.

Octavian: I just, so Oct.

Simone Collins: You know, here's a really important part of, oh, you got the teddy bear. That's good. So really important part of making toys is special microchips that make the toys work, right? Oh, okay. And there's a place called [00:38:00] Taiwan that makes all these really important chips and they're in danger.

What would you do to protect Taiwan?

Octavian: To kill them. I just had to kill them. Well,

Simone Collins: specifically So you kill whoever's attacking

Malcolm Collins: Taiwan?

Simone Collins: And how will you how will you protect Taiwan from China attacking because they might want to stop them from making the chips They might want to I don't know. Would

Malcolm Collins: you want to go

Simone Collins: yourself

Malcolm Collins: to kill them or would you send missiles?

Would you want to use a gun or a missile?

Octavian: That's not heff, that's not heffy.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so you want a light gun, okay. That makes sense, because you don't

Octavian: I want it! I want it!

Malcolm Collins: Let Torsten hold it, buddy. He wants to hold it.

Simone Collins: Torsten, how do you spell your name?

Octavian: Torsten. I want to hold it. I want to hold it. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you do, buddy. Look, our kids don't like being on camera and don't like speaking into the microphone.

So, this [00:39:00] is clearly against their consent. You can see that we have not, hello, hello, hello, Torsten, let Torsten talk. He wants it. Can you ask, ask Octavian, ask Torsten an interview question. Ask Torsten an interview question. Ask him about China.

Octavian: I cannot have the microphone. The microphone

Malcolm Collins: can hear you from over there.

Just ask him a question. Thank you.

Simone Collins: Okay, Torsten. Torsten, how do we cheer up China? How do we make China happy?

Malcolm Collins: I'll give you the microphone. Next time we'll have a microphone for everyone. Awww. Okay.

Simone Collins: Torsten, the people of China need to be cheered up. How can you make them happy?

Malcolm Collins: How are you going to make them happy?

Torsten: I don't know how to get them happy.

Simone Collins: Oh, I don't think China knows how to either. The CCP is having trouble.

Oh, the mic just disconnected.

Malcolm Collins: No, he turned it off.

Simone Collins: What will you do if they [00:40:00] hurt somebody?

Torsten: I just got to turn it on.

Simone Collins: Oh, it's okay, Torsten. What would, if Chyna does something naughty, what will happen?

Octavian: Want

Malcolm Collins: to be the attention? Octavia, if Chyna hurt somebody, what would you do?

Octavian: Microphone!

Malcolm Collins: Okay, everybody wants the microphone.

Well, you know what that means, like, nobody gets to hold the microphone. I love you, Simone. I love you

Simone Collins: too,

Torsten: Malcolm. Oh,

Simone Collins: I love Toasty's voice on the microphone, though.

Malcolm Collins: I just want Toasty to say something on the

Simone Collins: microphone so bad, his little voice.

Malcolm Collins: I got the microphone!

Oh gosh, I, I've got it for now. Oh,

Torsten: oh gosh. Yes. Oh boy.

Simone Collins: All right. I'll come down. I'm making corn for Octavian. What do you want?

Malcolm Collins: What's hurting? [00:41:00]

Simone Collins: Would you like Malcolm, would you like your Tortellini?

Malcolm Collins: Fight or flight? Is that what you said? Would you like Tortellini? I reheat. Fried rice and reheat slow cooked meat for the fried rice. Okay.

Simone Collins: That sounds good.

Okay. Toasty. Tell me something interesting.

Oh yeah. Okay. Toasty.

Malcolm Collins: Octavian, are you China and Toasty's Taiwan?

Torsten: It's no

Simone Collins: tickles.

All right. I'll, I'll hit. And I love you, [00:42:00] Malcolm. This is, looks pretty dire. See you downstairs in a sec.

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the fascinating world of America's forgotten cultural groups, focusing on the Puritans and their lasting impact on modern American society. This eye-opening discussion explores:

* The surprising truth about Puritan culture and its evolution

* How Puritan values merged with Backwoods culture to survive

* The unexpected connection between Puritan ethics and modern parenting styles

* Why certain cultural groups thrived while others faded away

* The impact of Catholic immigration on America's cultural landscape

* Insights into raising children with a "clan-based" mentality

* How historical cultural differences still influence modern American society

Whether you're a history buff, a parent looking for unique perspectives, or just curious about America's cultural roots, this video offers valuable insights into the forces that shaped our nation.​

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am

excited to be here with you today. This will be our second episode going over some of the concepts, what we think they got right, and what we think they got wrong of the book.

Simone Collins: American Nations by Colin Woodard, which was inspired by one of our favorite books of all time, Albion Seed by David Hackett Fisher.

Malcolm Collins: And this divides America into a 11 cultural groups. And I will put a map on screen here so you can see it. And in the last episode we did on this, which you can check out one of the core things I think he got wrong is he thought that the Puritan cultural group in the Northeastern United States ended up being the core mountain head.

Of current Yankee culture or the northeastern coastal culture in the United States, where we argue this is fundamentally wrongheaded that that culture actually stems from Catholicism which for a long time made up the majority population in these regions after the immigration waves started so [00:01:00] even though.

Just to briefly cover some concepts from the last one that a lot of people are unfamiliar with Catholics at the time of America's founding were an incredibly small part of the colonies. They were like 1. 5%. Even in the quote unquote Catholic colony. They were a very small minority around 10%. That was Maryland.

So they just were not a big cultural force in America. Until the Irish, Italian, and now Hispanic immigration waves, which led to the Catholic population becoming the predominant cultural wellspring of three of the American cultural groups, specifically. In the last episode, we focused a lot on how they were the wellspring of the

Yankee cultural group, but they are also the wellspring of the El Norte cultural group, which is the Hispanic cultural group in the, in the center.

And the far left cultural group that is on the west coast. And if I put a map here of American by relig America's districts by primary religious affiliation, you will see there is a huge overlap with all the blue strongholds and where the Catholics were [00:02:00] settling. So now we want to go, or at least these specific blue strongholds, i.

e. Yankeedom and Far Leftem the, the far west coast of the United States. Now what we want to do is go into a question this brings up. And it's a very interesting question if you've read LBNC, is, okay, these are the four cultures that form the foundation of America.

Where did they go? Right?

Where did the Quakers go? Where did the Puritans go? Where did the Where did the Cavaliers go? Because the Backwoods people, which I'm descended from, the greater We know where they

Simone Collins: are. They're right where you think they are.

Malcolm Collins: We will, in this episode, talk about this culture. And it's background, but I think a lot of people are a bit mystified about what happened to the three other, it's kind of cool in American history, by the way, if you, if you like study it, it's like the lost tribes, it's like, well, they're really unique founding groups in the country.

Where did they go? How did they end up actually influencing the cultures that came [00:03:00] downstream of them? And a big answer here is. They mostly died out.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: However it was the, the, well, a separate episode on how the Quakers died out, because that's a very interesting story in and of itself. But today we're going to talk about the Puritans what they broadly stood for, how one group of the Puritans, or I'd say the Calvinist settlers in early America because there were two big groups here, which I think is really undersold.

The Backwoods people, the Backwoods group, the greater Appalachian group was heavily related to the Puritan group. They were also a Calvinist group. They generally got along with the Puritan group and they ended up, I actually, here's a great example of how well they got along with the Puritan group. So there was something called the Paxton boys uprising.

And in it because the Quakers always trying to bureaucratically control everything, we're giving their districts like half the vote that the, that the Quaker districts had the, the more central [00:04:00] urban districts had and they also had created a situation in which the Indians were constantly attacking and killing these people.

And they were like we don't really care, I guess, is the thing. I mean, talk about other, there's so much of like American lore, which is just like myth stories. So it was actually around this, the time of the Paxton Boys, like leading up to this, that the famous giving Indians smallpox infected blankets thing came from.

And people are like, oh, oh, that's so horrible. How could anyone have done that? And it's like, you know, they had just. Killed over 2, 000 settlers and were besieging a settlement and that was the context Excuse me They had been butchering children like what like they were trying to save a settlement that was under siege This is like a Alamo situation here people like, is it bad, like by modern warfare standards?

Yeah. If you are behind the walls of a city and you know, a group just butchered like the [00:05:00] two cities next to you and killed all the women and children. And you've got your family there. Are you not going to try everything you can think of to try to protect yourself? Because you have sent requests to the local Pennsylvania government, but it's run by Quakers and Quakers are pacifists.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, I kind of have like. With all things in life right now a f**k around and find out attitude. Like, I mean, also you siege a town, they're going to, they're going to try some stuff, like maybe they didn't expect biological warfare. Does that mean it's unfair? I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This is actually a really interesting thing about the backwoods people.

So we're going to talk about where they came from, but also a really interesting thing about them culturally, because they had a relationship with the Indians that was both incredibly. more brutal than any of the other founding American cultural groups. Yeah, I

Simone Collins: think many American cultural groups saw them as equal to the Native American, the indigenous populations, because they were equally brutal in some of [00:06:00] their behaviors vis a vis other groups.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so, so we'll get to that. But first it's just like, let's talk about where they came from more broadly. Mm-Hmm. . So they were the second wave of immigrants into the United States. So you can really say the first wave of people who felt like European immigrants in America.

Simone Collins: I don't know. I think the second wave of immigrants was more the Cavaliers, followed by the Quakers, then followed by the Scots Irish.

So not great. I need

Malcolm Collins: I need to clarify what I mean by second wave. What I mean is they were the first wave of distinctly culturally different white Europeaners coming to already white European settled parts of America. Yes. The Cavaliers came as a separate wave, but they were mostly setting up. They were settling in

Simone Collins: indigenous lands with in totally foreign territory, not competing with existing UK based groups, right?

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: For like when the Quakers came and set up Philadelphia, it wasn't like there was a big existing group. Settlement there when the, you know, the came and the [00:07:00] Puritans came and set up Massachusetts, there wasn't a big existing settlement there. When the backwards people came or what became the greater Appalachian culture?

All of the stuff on the coastline was pretty much already settled.

Simone Collins: Mm-Hmm. .

Malcolm Collins: And unlike the later Irish and Italian immigrant waves, the Catholic immigrant waves these people were much more discriminated against than any other. A really white population group that entered America, to the extent that they almost were unable to settle in any already settled region.

Now this was due to two reasons. There wasn't yet this idea that America was like this mixing pot yet. It was like, who are these brutal savages? Because that's what they were seen as by the existing population. They were mostly Irish and Scottish clan people, I guess is what I call them. They had been through centuries of clan warfare.

They were an incredibly honor based people in an honor based culture. But they were also I won't say lawless. They believed in [00:08:00] law, but you know, they'd have blood feuds. They'd have the law was the law. Well, there's,

Simone Collins: there's honor based. Law and then there's civil law and they were on a more honor code based system where when you have a feud, it is settled by your people through a blood feud or through vigilante justice, rather than you going to a centralized authority and saying, Oh mommy, they did something bad.

Punish them. They didn't come to

Malcolm Collins: us. Toasty did it. Yeah. No, they, they kept coming and setting up. What were the names of the regulators? So they set up a separate governments ruled by something called the regulators which roving vigilante groups, but let's talk about how, how this all ended up happening as well, because this is important before we get to what ended up happening to the Puritans.

So, these people came over. Nobody wanted them in their cities. They were seen as incredibly, like, crying full people. And they kind of

Simone Collins: were.

Malcolm Collins: And loose

Simone Collins: women. The women had higher skirts, low bust lines. They all acted in a very informal [00:09:00] way. They just felt culturally extremely different.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they were, they were very, well, they were a clan based low class group.

They were the first group that like really was not in any way intellectual or upper class. They were fleeing regional violence. And they were feeling regional violence from people like themselves. And so they got into these cities and, and in part because the cities can immediately be like, Oh, just go to the land outside the cities.

Go to the, the frontier, which at the time was the Appalachian mountains and the area right before the Appalachian mountains, like just outside of all of the settled areas,

Simone Collins: which is poetically quite appropriate because the Appalachian mountains are actually the same mountain range as the Scottish Highlands.

Just yeah, before they got split up into different continents

Malcolm Collins: and these people this, this actually worked out really good for everyone to begin with. So the reason it worked out so good is there were a lot of really dangerous Indian groups and you had these like pansy, like. Quakers, right? Who [00:10:00] refused to fight at all.

They would actually have like pirates just like plunder their settlements and they do nothing about it. And yeah. So Ben Franklin, who was a Puritan based in Philadelphia would be like, I could explain to our enemies that like, we do not retaliate for this.

And they wouldn't even come attack because they wouldn't believe that anyone would act like this. It is so insane that you're refusing to do anything. So anyway and then you have the Puritans who were hard people but they, well, they didn't have as much problem with the Indians for a couple reasons.

One is, is they were very hardy people, like they were willing to defend themselves and they were very prickly, but also they would intentionally settle the least productive lands the most stony fields and everything like that, because they believed that you know, the harder you made your life.

The more favor God was giving you that like God gave you favor through intentionally choosing To give yourself hardship. So the

Simone Collins: Puritans keep in mind, settled in the Northeast of the United States at a time when it was much colder, it had [00:11:00] much harsher winters than it does today. So right now the South, for example, where the Cavaliers and future Southerner groups settled is pretty much climatically the same now as it used to be, but New England was very different and very harsh.

It wasn't just the soil.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so, so these people were pushed out because the Quakers, if they had a boundary of these angry Klan people the Indians couldn't get through them, you know, the Indians ended up fighting the Klan people and the Klan people would fight the Indians. Now, it caused problems.

And this is one of the things where the Quakers, the Quakers are just so slimy. I will never get away from this lie that Quakers were like anti slavery when we know from Quaker wills that 43 percent of Quakers owned slaves. They just were vocally anti slavery. They had higher slave ownership rights than aristocratic southerners during the slave owning period.

They they, they were very woke. It was like, we'll say something's bad, but then, you know, our actions will cause more damage. So they're like, oh, we will always treat the Indians nice, and we will always pay for their land. Unlike [00:12:00] those Puritans who like do, you know, sort of cheaty deals with them, but then how did they actually treat the Indians?

Well, they took these warlike clan people, they put them all around the Indian land and then they used them for protection and they kept killing the Indians and the Indians kept killing them. So ultimately if you look at the Indian tribes that were in the Quaker areas, they actually ended up dying out at higher rates than the Indian tribes in the Puritan areas.

Because, again, it's, it's, yeah, technically they're pro Indian, except they settled these, like, bloodthirsty My Ancestors people next to them.

Simone Collins: Lord Almighty.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so, so, now we've got to get into how these people ended up relating to the Indians and why it was so different from any of the other early American groups.

And it really shows, in our show, I say I'm a pluralist, right? People here, Malcolm's a pluralist, like a dyed in the wool pluralist of the, the old Appalachian variety, and what they think I'm saying is I'm an equalist. You know, that I believe that, that all cultural practices are equal and all people are equal.

And [00:13:00] I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You'll understand when you understand how the Blackwoods people related to the union. So the Quakers would be like, I respect the Native Americans human dignity, right? Like, but they didn't. take time to understand or know or live with the Indians. They like superficially, academically respected the Indians, but they didn't actually like engage with the Indians.

The Backwoods people they were very known and actually very hated from the other people. They would frequently marry Indians. They would adopt Indian style of dresses. They would They

Simone Collins: did want some Children of mixed backwoods and indigenous pairings become significant leaders within Native American

Malcolm Collins: communities?

Yeah, they did. Well, and, and within backwoods communities. And some of the backwoods people would actually just go and move in and convert to the Indian communities and ways of life. They weren't that

Simone Collins: terribly different. It's not as though many, for example, Scottish settlements were [00:14:00] that different from many indigenous American settlements.

They could, they lived in, in rougher ways. They were

Malcolm Collins: clan based people in that they were similar, but they were culturally quite different.

Simone Collins: Oh, culturally very different. But sometimes I feel like lifestyle and culture,

Malcolm Collins: how different they were, because I can see this idea of. Oh, they were these, these backwards savages living off the land.

The Indians were backwards savages living off the land. Look, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying that there's this perception of all this, this, it's such a like, oh, they must've been similar culturally. No, they were not at all similar culturally. Not culturally. Than they were to the Quakers or the Quakers were to the Indians.

The only way, the only one dimension, they were similar to the Indians. was that they were from a clan based system that had different clans similar to the Indians and these clans fought each other. But because of that, when they came into these Indian [00:15:00] areas, they saw the Indians. As with genuine human dignity as a separate clan that was in a clan based conflict with them But this also meant that they would regularly go butcher indian towns in a way that the puritans and the quakers Never ever would.

So in a way They would they respected the end they wanted to learn from them. They wanted to learn from their culture They would intermarry with them when they made sense. They would join their communities when they liked those specific communities but they also treated them As a full equal in terms of clan competition.

And for them, that meant regularly go in and raid their settlements. I mean, they raid other clan settlements. Why not raid the Indian?

Simone Collins: We're only treating them with the same respect that we treat our own. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: but go in and take

Simone Collins: their, but when you're back, that's a little different, isn't it?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, because they were admittedly.

They weren't as brutal as the most brutal Indians, but they were close in terms [00:16:00] of the the areas that they came from and in those areas they were often the most brutal of the parts of Scotland in Ireland, for example. But keep in mind this group again was not the Catholics from Ireland. This was the the Protestants in Ireland who were the Irish who were part of this community.

Anyway, so, so, and, and this was actually the group. So the Scotch Irish, these are the Scots who were moved to Ireland. They were brought there by earlier English to rule over the parts of it, like, like to try to be like enforcers. Not really rule over, because they were more like, Enforcers or brutes for the English population because they wanted a particularly sort of bloodthirsty I guess you could say people to move there.

And so, that's what I mean when I say I mean pluralism I mean pluralism so that on equal terms the strong can defeat the weak. They can learn from them they can they they they can learn what like of the people who are different from the us What can we learn from them? What can we? And then we take that stuff and we use it to do better ourselves.

[00:17:00] Now, I do not believe that we should be in a system like they were, where the strong against the weak is the people who literally kill the other people should win. I think we're civilizationally beyond that point. But what I mean is, I think we should be able to economically cross culturally compete against other groups without putting training wheels on some groups, either from an ethical perspective, i.

e. you can't compete with those people because they're in a weaker position than you or something like that, or through, you know, affirmative action or through anything like that. We should all be able to compete. And, and it's so interesting to me that this all compete attitude. In a way, assigns more human dignity to the other than the attitude of, well, these, these you know, oh, poor little whatever minority, we need to give them all sorts of special stuff because goodness knows they can't work on their own culture, they can't fix anything themselves.

And I also believe this free competition mindset, I hold it because I believe it [00:18:00] helps even the groups that are in harder positions. So you can see this and I'll put on screen here, some graphs of black Americans and Hispanic Americans who were in Democrat controlled districts versus Republican controlled districts intergenerationally.

Had closer to white income levels and closer to white IQ. So they were intergenerationally improving and getting close to a point where they were equal with the existing white population. Whereas in the Democrat areas, they were not improving because of course you're not going to improve when you're putting training wheels on everything.

Right? Like the goal is, is, is individual cultural improvement.

Simone Collins: Well, the goal is to give people. Resources that empower them. It's the whole teach Amanda fish thing rather than disempowering them. And there's been systematic infantilization and disempowerment taking place in progressive communities.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Did you have anything else you wanted to say about this community before I move further?

Simone Collins: No, let's go for it.

Malcolm Collins: So with this [00:19:00] community, we can get to a. They were really, as we've already said, looked down upon by the Quakers extremely because that was a group that they were engaging with most.

And the, the German settlers who were like the Quaker society. So we're going to talk a little bit about the society that became the Midland cultural group, which I'll show on the map here. They were mostly formed. Of three groups. Okay. You had some of these backwoods people. You had some of the German settlers who were mostly like really industrious farmers and just wanted to be left alone and didn't really want any position of governments.

And then you had the elite class, which was the Quakers. They basically ran well, everything. They ran all of the major businesses. They ran all the slave operations and they ran most of the political offices.

And They used these positions to essentially oppress the two other groups, the Backwoods people, who they removed the ability to get votes from, they didn't really protect them and the, the German [00:20:00] settlers, but the German settlers didn't really care, they, in part, are the group that we now know of as the Amish but they didn't all become Amish, this was one part of this faction, but it's still the most culturally preserved of this original faction And so, you had this system where because the Germans didn't focus on anything other than education tied to, you know, efficiency of their farm labor, and because the backwoods people really saw learning as a fairly pointless thing to do.

It wasn't part of their culture. They, they, they didn't believe in higher education in the way any of the other cultures did. So they couldn't run these types of jobs. They also didn't believe in capital accumulation. So I want to talk about this really quickly because this is important. Why didn't they believe in capital accumulation?

Because the, the other Calvinist groups all heavily believed in capital accumulation. Well, because they, so let's talk about how like the Puritan in their view of capital accumulation created modern capitalism. So they believed that God showed his favor to people by how successful you were specifically for them because they lived, you know, in the [00:21:00] business world, right?

But if you spend any of that money on yourself, like aggrandizing yourself in the eyes of other people on art, on, on flashy things then you were showing that you, you had sort of failed the test that God had given you and that test was success. And Scrooge is very much a character who represents this old Calvinist Puritan mindset.

Well, keep in mind what success meant. Okay, so they, they agreed with the Puritans on that. God gives you success if he likes you. But they were in this clan based system, right? That was like, yeah, but if you ever accumulated too much capital, your neighbors would just come and steal it. You know, if you got a bunch of cows and your neighbors would come and steal those cows, there was no point in ever having stuff.

And this is something that is really noticed in I read in a previous episode about my ancestors and the people used to like their parents episode. And. In that episode one of the things that my ancestor was noting about his dad is he had so many [00:22:00] opportunities to make money through investment and stuff like that, but he just seemed allergic to even attempting to make money.

And he was like, why was that? And it was because he came from this clan based system. These people who, when the South was revolting, they started counter revolutions to try to, you know, because they were against slavery. And we'll talk about why they were against slavery because most of the backwoods people were And they were like, okay, we'll, we'll do our own thing here, but they'd already gone through this a few times, you know, go fight with your neighbors, create breakaway states.

This is where, you know, 15 of his brothers or siblings are one of the 50 founding members of the Free State of Jones.

 You, me, all of us. We're all out there dying so they can stay rich. Tax collectors coming around here, taking everything. Girls, you know how to shoot one of these? No man oughta tell another man what he's gotta live for, or what he's got to die for.

Malcolm Collins: So, you know, heavy, heavy relation to, to that sort of movement. So anyway where was I

Simone Collins: capital

Malcolm Collins: accumulation. Capital accumulation, [00:23:00] yes.

So these people didn't have the same relation to capital accumulation that the Puritans did. It was more like status accumulation was what mattered more than traditional capital accumulation, like you would have in a Puritan setting. It was clan honor accumulation. Yes. So it was honor culture. You needed to accumulate honor for the sake of accumulating honor.

But, but also this

Simone Collins: honor was the currency in which this community dealt. There wasn't really so much capital. There wasn't really so much of an economy. There wasn't really so much of an external governing mechanism. Honor was the judicial system, the economy the social capital, the respect and the negotiating power.

So it did matter.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, this is the cure. I should be clear that they actually had a currency and it was a hard alcohol and whiskeys. That's what they used as a currency in their districts. Yeah. Just to give you an idea of the type of people they were. But they also related to morality quite differently than the

Simone Collins: speaking, which though, just random thing [00:24:00] it has been.

It's been mentioned in a couple of videos I've been listening to about Mormon culture that a lot of Mormons in their emergency supplies save like large jugs of vodka as a currency for like a, an apocalyptic event. So alcohol is currency. It actually makes me want to buy more vodka. Because it's not a bad idea.

Malcolm Collins: It's good frontier medicine. We're alcohol is currency, people. So, so, and keep in mind, we'll get to their counter governments in a second because they're actually important. But I should also hear, talk about their ethical system because it was a little different than the Puritan ethical system.

So they were both Calvinists, you know, they believed in predestination. They believed that you know, Pretty much everything is a sin. Dancing is a sin, music is a sin, sports, oh that's definitely a sin you know, extramarital sex is a sin anything you do for the pure sake of happiness, like personal happiness, is broadly a sin.[00:25:00]

And so they, they, the Puritans were like, Oh, well, then we need to not do any of those things. At all. Like, I know we'll break the rule sometimes, but broadly we should try not to do any of those things. Which is very different from the, the, the, than Catholics came in and the Catholics had this deontological set where there's some sins and some not sins.

Like sports isn't as high of a sin as say like extramarital sex or you know, music or something like that. Like they, they, they have the, this is a category of sin, this is a category of not sin.

for nerds, wondering about the biblical logic behind each of these interpretations.

For one interpretation, The one where sexual sins are an ultra big deal and other sins aren't really that important. you could look at quotes like. From Corinthians flee for your sexual immorality. All other sins, a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body in quote, the problem here is that this is very clearly in context. Speaking of prostitution and only prostitution. As the [00:26:00] paragraph immediately proceeding this line is all about prostitution and why specifically prostitution is bad. Which, and we will go over this in a future one of our tract episodes, I would argue is considered a unique form of sin because it has the chance of bringing an unwanted child into the world. And the sin is the potential of creating that child, and that's what it means to sin against the body. , By that, what we mean here is in this part, it talks of two people becoming one body when they have sex. But obviously two people don't literally become one body when they have sex, except in so far as one person gets pregnant and then they literally do become one body.

In the form of the child and one spirit in the form of the child.

if you look at the lines immediately above it. Whereas, alternatively, you can look at lines like.

Whether, therefore you eat or drink or whatever you do all to the glory of God. Or, and he died for all, all those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who [00:27:00] died for them and was raised again, Or, and whatsoever you do do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. Or, but if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sending Abe, you go ahead and do it for you are not following your convictions.

If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning. So in all of these quotes, the basic gist is, is anything that you are not doing for the glory of God is a sin. So if you can't reasonably argue that what you just did, you did for the glory of God. You committed a form of sin.

Malcolm Collins: It's not that everything that you're not doing for God is a sin. Where these two groups broadly believe that.

But the, the backwoods people They related to this very differently. They're like, Oh yeah, all of those things are sin. But like. I'm still human, bro. Like I will try to do good in the moment when it makes sense and aligns with my honor code. But I know that I may as well, like, as long as I'm going to be here and it is not a time when I otherwise could be dedicating myself [00:28:00] fully and meaningfully to God.

Like they didn't do the constant Bible study and everything like that. They're like, let's party tonight, you know? And they were known by the other people as constantly partying. But also engaging with low culture because of they saw, you know, hanging out and partying with the bros as an equal sin, you know, having some drinks and doing a jig.

And I remember this about my ancestors. There was a time when the confederacy had captured a number of these anti confederacy rebels and he He, he came into the confederate camp and he brought a bunch of booze with him and he got them all drunk and played the fiddle so transfixingly and apparently did a traditional Scottish like jig thing so amazingly that they were able to have another guy sneak around and free all of the prisoners while the confederate guards were distracted by my great great great.

Grandfather. I love [00:29:00] this because it's so like a, a trickster god sort of a thing to do from like an old fable or something like that, but that was the type of people they were, you know, it was, we've got to do what's right, we've got to do what fits our honor, but you know, sometimes a jig can be a part of that, sometimes drinking can be a part of that, you know.

So they can play a role in an honorable life. Now what this means is because they didn't distinguish between different types of sin, they would actually see the higher culture forms of sin as a higher form of a sin than the lower culture forms of a sin, because there you are mixing, and I've mentioned this in previous episode, One sin, which is just the general sin of doing something not for God, but with the sin of pride.

And, and, you know, like you would get from an art museum or something like that, but then you're also, in addition to that, doing something that's just like objectively stupid, because now if you're engaging with high culture, you likely have something that's worth stealing to other people.

So again, don't engage with that stuff, right?

You know, so there was a number of reasons that they felt this way, but anyway. In, in the [00:30:00] Midlands area where the, where the Quakers controlled everything they were they, they were, they didn't run any of the businesses. They didn't run any of the politics, but in the areas that they fully controlled, it was a different situation.

In the areas that they fully controlled, you could get some like local sort of. gang leaders who would end up ruling a district due to like how many siblings they had and how much honor they had was in their culture. But you wouldn't get tons of lawyers and teachers and doctors and competent politicians.

And so where did they get those people from? Well, it's the story of the Paxton boys. They had come. They were besieging Philadelphia. So this rural immigrant group, like I'm not even kidding. What immigrant group in the United States is literally besieging with guns and having murdered people in a major U.

S. city? These people were like a don't mess with me sort of thing. So the guy who ended up bailing Philadelphia out because the Quakers had their heads up their butts [00:31:00] and couldn't handle anything, was, Puritan Ben Franklin.

 So, he ended up being able to make a negotiation with them that ended up saving the Quakers of Pennsylvania. They couldn't defend themselves well either because they'd never really done the military stuff. And I should note that these people actually went to war with a number of the other settlements.

It wasn't just the Quakers. They also went to war with with the Tidewater peoples these were the peoples who were the sons of the cavaliers to the south like around the sort of dc area and stuff like that so they would regularly go to war against the other colonists when they the other colonists would abuse them too much.

So the puritans actually worked very well with them. Like these two cultures went together while The Quakers were sort of oil and water with them. These people who didn't believe in war, these people who were from a fundamentally different religious framework. The Puritans were basically their religious framework.

They just expressed it differently. They didn't want Like to take stuff, right? Like I didn't like showing off their wealth so they could live in these communities [00:32:00] safely,

Here. I'd also note. If you remember earlier, I said that the Puritans would intentionally build settlements in areas where it was hard to farm. Either that were colder or that had lots of rocks in the field because they liked. Intentionally opting into hardship, thinking that it sort of purified their soul. They felt very comfortable moving into regions that anyone else would say were dangerous or that you shouldn't move into this region, you know? Uh, Quaker might say, well, we should move out there because these people might kill us. Whereas a Puritan would say. These people might kill us.

Therefore, we should move out there.

. They, they were hardworking.

Malcolm Collins: They like to put themselves in hard environments, which won them honor points among these people. They just got along very well.

And so a number of the Puritans ended up migrating into these communities and forming this sort of like, learned elite roles like the, the lawyers, the doctors, the entrepreneurs and stuff like that within these [00:33:00] communities enough so that they could get a bit of a society.

And here we should talk about what these societies ended up looking like. They built these societies they, they had a few different breakaway states at points, but the main one was the, I'll call it the regulator state. So they had like a local marshal role that was called a regulator. And this individual would apply clan like justice.

Well, actually, it was called lynching named after a guy named Lynch

For more color here. The term Lynch mob. I came after , a man with the name, Charles Lynch, a Virginia planter and justice of the peace during the American revolution, Charles Lynch headed in irregular court that punished loyalists and his actions gave rights to the term Lynch's law, which referred to the extra judicial punishment of individuals without formal legal proceedings.

Although there is a claim that William Lynch, another Virginia planter of the same era with associated with the term.

Malcolm Collins: and it was a system of justice where when one person would do something bad, you would go into their community and you would lynch them. That was what the, the regulators did to police their [00:34:00] communities and they were needed to police their communities because the local governments were not policing their communities.

And they actually ended up when the 13 colonies were sending all their delegates down, they elected their own delegate to go down as a separate. You call this sort of shadow country because nobody else recognized them as a non ruled over part of the United States, but they genuinely were Basically separate colony was a separate legal system.

Okay. So for clarification here, the regulator movement had been put down before this event happened. This was sort of a successor government to them. , that was much less formal than the full regulator movement government was. And for anyone looking for more information on this stuff, this is all covered in American nations. So just go read that book. The core thing that I'm discussing here that differs from what's accounted in American nations.

Is the integration of the Puritan culture into the Backwoods culture, which he doesn't go that deep into.

Malcolm Collins: So any thoughts on this before I go into what what happened to the the puritans who didn't [00:35:00] meld with this culture?

Simone Collins: No, keep it going

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so the Puritans who melded with this culture, I'll talk a little about what happened to them and their ethical system. They began to adopt more of the ethical system that this culture had in its relationship to sin.

So they stayed really, really obsessed with education, but they became a lot less obsessed with and, and, and technical correctness and consequentialism and everything like that. But And the elect and all that, but they became a lot less obsessed was you have to follow every rule. Perfectly. It was more of like they, they began to, I guess, sort of understand.

I would guess. I call it the party lifestyle of these people and the everything to an extreme lifestyle of these people inform this sort of, I guess you could say, like, Braveheart like cultural class. Like you see in the Braveheart movie where they're like, well we need some people in this clan based system to be extremely educated and know tons of languages and be obsessed with education and that was sort of the role that they filled.

And you actually see this from My Ancestors. If you've ever read about the Free State of Jones [00:36:00] movement

One of the 15 of my ancestors who was involved and had the most senior position within the movement with Jasper Collins. He's actually the reason why we know about the movement to begin with, because he wrote the primary book on the movement Also is. It's a quick addition here. Cause I ain't forgot this, but I was just double checking this information that Jasper named his first son. Ulysses Sherman Collins. You got to understand in the antebellum south naming your first son, you Lissy Sherman college today. It would be like naming your kid. Hitler Mao Collins..

Malcolm Collins: but he's the guy in the movie who's always doing stuff like trying to write a constitution for them, and trying to write a set of laws, and trying to write philosophical treaties for them.

Now obviously, a lot of the people in this were related to my family but that was like the the patriarch of that local region, who is Jasper Collins, was who it was because that was what they did with these people. They would help them in their rebellions, and they'd be like, hey, guys, guys, guys, I got a a legal system that we can use, and I got these, like, religious arguments for why we're doing this, and I got this you could think of them as the helpful [00:37:00] nerd um, These communities um, they, they were never like leader, leader, but they were the leader's guy who helped the leader actually get s**t done.

And they were okay with that because to take the leadership position in a way would be a sign of sin because that would just show you wanted power for yourself. And so it worked very, very well with these two cultures work together.

Even today, I've noted that people from the Puritan cultural class work really well with the Backwoods people. And I think that this often surprises people from coastal cities where they're like, oh, the Backwoods people would see nothing in common with you. They'd hate all of your. Weird views. And I think that this shows a misunderstanding of the way the Backwood culture works now, or the way it worked historically.

Remember the Backwoods people were the first ones to pick up like Indian ways of doing things and stuff like that. They don't have a lot of prejudice against people of different cultural practices or really see things as quote unquote weird. They're more just concerned about being able [00:38:00] to get by and live their life and support their family. , , and then their wider network. And not being looked down upon. issues about like cultural purity and stuff like that, or not really important to them. , Except when it feels to them that another cultural clan is encroaching on their territory. and then to the Puritans, there's never really been a high amount of classic judgment of people outside the Puritan network within Puritan groups.

So I think, you know, some people hear like, oh, you never get along with like an average American Malcolm. Somebody said this after one of our other videos. And I'm like, you know, that like the people who care for our kids every day, , and who we're in business with? Like the core people were in business with. Are, you know, face tattoos and, , run a landscaping company, right?

Like the. We get along very well with average Americans and average Americans at least have this Appalachian cultural group get along very well with us because we're just not very judgemental people. And I've actually [00:39:00] noticed they get along uniquely well from us in the Pennsylvania area. When I contrast it with, , Texas. And I think the core reason is that in Pennsylvania, the upper class, people in Pennsylvania really looked down on middle-class Pennsylvania and like lower middle-class Pennsylvania. And, , in Texas Where I grew up. that just wasn't the case. , like George Bush, for example, clearly didn't look down on middle-class Americans. , in the same way, I see people in like the main line do.

Malcolm Collins: But then the Puritan Puritans, well, why did the Puritan Purims didn't die out?

And they mostly died out in the 1800s. And there are three reasons why they died out. Do you have any thoughts before I want to go further? Okay, reason number one, and by far, far, far, the biggest reason. The Catholic immigrant ways. They were mostly just displaced by the Catholics.

And would I say displaced? I mean, displaced, not like killed or replaced specifically. They migrated out to either [00:40:00] the Backwoods regions or the west, or, you know, Mormon territory. Uh, there were a lot of places that they migrated to around the frontier areas, but they mostly just kept moving to wherever was one of the hardest places to live in America, because that was part of their culture was to seek out. Intentional hardship and not.

Have any aspersion that they may be.

Benefiting from any form of nepotism or family reputation. , and my family has actually done this for a few generations where almost everyone in my family has started their first company in another country. Like you consider me, , I got my first big job in Korea and then the first company that we ran was in Peru. , and now I feel comfortable working in the U S because, you know, I've sort of proven that.

, my success wasn't due to any form of nepotism, but that's a really important thing was in this Puritan cultural group. But it also meant that it was very natural for them to be displeased. What I mean by that is it didn't require much of a [00:41:00] push or much of a culture change to get them to leave their previous cultural strongholds like Boston.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, if you look in like, it's recently in 2009, for example, the Puritan stronghold was Boston.

Yet in 2009, over 50 percent of Massachusetts was still Catholic. Like, That's wild. Like how much do you think was Puritan descended? Very small. Yeah. A lot of Americans, 13 percent or so were descendants from the Mayflower, but they didn't keep their culture intact. So the independent Puritan cultural clusters just mostly died or became narrower and narrower and focused and more and more like out there.

Cultish region regions like this is where you had like the Kelloggs and stuff like that where they would have these insane diets And everything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And what were the puritans actually, bemarked by because I think a lot of people Misunderstand the puritans because the quakers basically historically went and whitewashed history and pretended The puritans were the quakers and the quakers were the puritans because they weren't puritans were incredibly pro sex they were so pro sex that in albion seed it even talks [00:42:00] about this You Their writings were not des censored until the 20th century.

They, they, they just were extremely strict about when you could have sex and when you couldn't have sex, weren't they? Yeah. They were sex positive within marriage. We'll say Within marriage, yeah. But they were also like 100% about everything. Like, they would never go anywhere without running. They would, you know, they would, the, the seller, the people would come in and be like, they were always rocking in their rock rocking chair.

They were like full of energy about life and about everything, just. 120 percent about absolutely everything in every conceivable way.

Simone Collins: Very intense people. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they were, they were very intense people. They were also very about sort of intellectual stoicism and a performative intellectual stoicism.

And this performative intellectual stoicism is another thing that ended up killing them. They had an internal cultural hierarchy that was in part based on being able to show you were more humble than your neighbor. And this in a [00:43:00] way creates a form of inverse humility where they would do these ridiculous, I'll put on a skit here, With some people doing this so you can see like what it ended up looking like, but it was ridiculous.

It was ridiculous. I'm more humble than you. I'm more humble than you. I'm more humble than you. Oh, look at how crazy humble this thing I just did was

Those who court when the sun descends court the devil's design for certain? Ah, yes. I could not agree more. How dare you express enjoyment? My deepest apologies.

Your shoes are quite sensible. They are for sizes too small. The pain purifies my predilection for pleasure. Your alliteration sounds dangerously like poetry. My apologies. Strike me, silence!

Now, obviously this is a comedy sketch and not reality. But I think it shows why you cannot have a whole community dedicated to a.

Dominance hierarchy. Around humility. Because when the entire dominant hierarchy is based around humility and austerity, , people just go haywire. But if you mix these [00:44:00] people with another group that isn't dedicated to a dominance hierarchy around humility and austerity, then they, they don't have the same feedback cycle.

They can just be like, oh, well, you know, I'm a more humble than the average person in my community. , and they don't spiral out of control and go extinct. Like obviously if you grow up in a culture like this, you're probably not going to want to continue it when there are other options around you.

Which is why the Puritans in the more mono Puritan communities like you had in new England, mostly when extinct. Also, it's important to note here that when the Catholic immigrants came into new England, they did not mix with the Puritan communities much, , in the same way that the periods in communities mixed with like the Backwoods people and stuff like that. , these communities were much more oil and water.

And so there wasn't the ability, like if you were a, a town. That was half Catholic and half Puritan. And you are a Puritan 98% of your interactions would be with other Puritans. , whereas if you were a town that was, you know, half [00:45:00] Puritan, half backwater. About 50% of your interactions would be, was backwater people.

50% would be with Puritans. There wasn't the same amount of antipathy between these two cultural groups. Or,

Cultural isolation.

Malcolm Collins: And a lot of people are like, when they look at the modern cultural groups and they go, who's the descendants of the Puritans who has like, A performative cultural stoicism and is really pro education.

You're looking at like the Jordan Petersons of today. That's the descendant culture of the Puritans. The Wokas are the descendant culture of Quakers. We'll get into that in a different video. But there are some still like cultural descendants. of these Puritans, but mostly they went extinct. And another thing that was really unique about the Puritan communities was the way their religious worship was set up, where they set up like five churches in a town and then whichever one was like the most charismatic is the one that everyone would go to.

It was sort of like early social media, like everyone would choose like which version, but it meant that you would get, this is what we had with The Great Awakening just like these incredibly Religiously zealotic people [00:46:00] in terms of like everything about their life was basically like an influencer based culture of, of religious charisma and extreme austerity and humility.

Now what you can tell Maybe

Simone Collins: oppressive virtue signaling to a certain extent.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Is this then led to, now, we should talk about how the Puritans virtue signals, because it's very different from the way the Quakers, the Quakers would virtue signal with like big displays, like if they were anti animal cruelty, they'd like throw themselves on the dog track and like roll around and yell about stuff, very like modern woke people do, right?

With Puritans, it wasn't like that at all. It was all like, You weren't even really supposed to show necessarily how humble you were being, because that could be seen as not being humble enough. It was very, it was in your culture and very was in your towns. You just didn't want bad things happening that was in your towns.

You didn't care about what the people outside your towns, or outside your culture would.

Where was I going, was this how, how they died out. Yes, so the second thing that led to them dying out was the, This zealotry just, [00:47:00] as secularization began, it didn't do a good job of intergenerationally passing to the next generation. It was a very not cool thing for kids. This can be all well and good for a, you know, a few groups of like zealotic adults, but if you're a kid growing up in one of these cultures and the adult's like, well, you should just be ultra religion because it's like the coolest thing ever.

A lot of kids are like, yeah, but there's like, easier ways I can do this, right? So that was one reason it really died out, and then when it really died out in the 1800s was, was the rise of the evangelical movement.

Simone Collins: That

Malcolm Collins: did a very good job of converting out of these communities.

Well, because it was

Simone Collins: still very religiously, extra. It was still very high energy, but it was better, I think, at spreading. Puritanism didn't spread very well. It

Malcolm Collins: didn't have as many rules. It was just like a simpler message. It was, it was a related message which could sell to these people, but it didn't have all of the rules.

And so the Puritans would join these [00:48:00] communities, often keep the rules for one generation, but then their kids would grow up without them, and they'd be like, look, this performative austerity, like, I don't see the point, no one else in my church congregation is doing it, and so they'd drop it. And so that ended up dropping the, the, that part of the Puritan movement.

Another thing to remember about the Puritan movement was the city on a hill mindset. Which is we are all going to create a completely new way of creating society and it will lead to a utopia.

Very similar to how the kibbutz movement died. , this played into the Puritan movement. So for people who don't know how the kibbutz movement died, uh kibbutzes where these sort of like communist Jewish communes in Israel. , and the thing that killed them with actually how successful they ended up being, they, many of them turned out to be enormously wealthy in terms of the amount of revenue that they were generating to the point where when you got one or two generations in. , the kids were like, well, I mean, I could just leave with all of this money and then just join a normal conservative Jewish [00:49:00] sect. , and. That happened with many of the Puritan communities is that they did in a way, achieve the city on the hill dream, which was an enormous amount of wealth, but people who still lived dedicated to austerity, that's what the Scrooge stereotype with about you. As I pointed out the screws didn't spend his wealth on himself.

He didn't spend it on things like charity that could be used to Sidney virtue to other people. He just hoarded it. , but this doesn't end up looking like a city on a hill to outsiders, , or to an individual's own kids after a few generations. They're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. So when does the utopia come? , and so that also led a lot of people to leave. But this did not affect the Backwoods Puritan groups as much because they dropped the.

Practice of wealth accumulation altogether and focus much more on honor accumulation and information accumulation in terms of intergenerational education. , for an example of what I mean by that. If you look at my ancestors,

Every single one of my grandparents, both men [00:50:00] and women had a college degree, which is pretty rare for people of that generation.

Malcolm Collins: Another thing that really ended up killing the Puritan movement was, and this is another thing that is. hugely forgotten about the Puritan movement is they were very, very, very pro like science. Like it was a very, remember I talked about like the, the multiple churches, like fighting for members and, and somebody can be like that, that would lead to very interesting religious stuff.

Well, the scientific revolution was happening in this period. And a lot of the Puritans, these are the people who would try to like, Harmonize their bibles with what was scientifically known at the time.

 They were a mix. of religious extremism, but also pro science extremism, or at least some sub factions of them were. This is something that's hugely forgotten about them. In terms of, , the modern stereotype of the Puritan, they can almost be thought of is antithetical to Amish, where they tried to adapt all of the latest technologies and all of the [00:51:00] latest scientific perspectives. In, in the most extreme forms possible.

Actually, , I remember a story about one of my ancestors from this group who lived not far from us here in Pennsylvania. And he built his house so that when you would ride the carriage up to it, there was a plate underneath the front of it and the platelet to a weight system that would automatically open the doors.

And apparently his entire house was full of automated gadgets. Like this.

Malcolm Collins: They would, they would, and this is captured in the Puritan spotting checklist that Scott Alexander did. Plus one for A weird classical name, plus three if they have one of these names themselves extra points if they have an invention, max plus three at least one, plus three points for one eccentric invention Plus one point if they created anything they gave a classical name to plus three points if they have achievements in multiple unrelated fields.

And that was really important in, in this Puritan culture is academic perfection in multiple fields. Plus [00:52:00] one atheist, deist, or theist. Free thinker which is interesting that you would associate that was Puritan, but it really was associated with these communities. They combined sort of an atheism with a religiosity, as you could say, obviously, we're culturally descendant of this plus one anti Catholic, plus three wrote a book about their heterodox religious views, plus three invented a new religion, plus three invented a new Christian heresy, plus three obsessed with religious tolerance, plus one went to Harvard, Yale or MIT plus one practiced law.

Plus three in college society with a classical name. Plus one wrote a really weird book . You can get three points for that. Plus three for founded their own school. Again, very similar to us. Plus three wrote a list of values. Plus three had plans to emancipatize the eschaton. Plus three if they were a social reformer.

Plus three if they raged a crusade on an abstract concept. Plus three if they had ideas that were utopian yet racist. Plus three if they were inspired by the by the wisdom of the Far East, plus three if they were an abolitionist, plus one if they fought for African American rights in some way, plus three if they were famous for philanthropy, plus three for prohibition, plus [00:53:00] three for rabidly anti war, yet rabidly supported every specific war that happened.

And I, I feel personally attacked by that last one. We're all like, yeah, I'm against war more broadly, but this war just has to be fought. But so, so their, their flirtation with science led them to even before the wave of Jews who deconverted due to secularization have a huge deconversion wave due to secularization.

When science began to become. Completely incompatible because in these early waves of like the early waves of Darwinism and stuff like that, it wasn't yet completely incompatible. They were trying to find ways to make it more compatible with the older interpretations of the Bible and they just couldn't.

And that ended up pushing away a lot of their kids as well. Because they, they, the education aspect and the search for truth aspect, which was a huge part of their culture ended up mattering more to them than the tradition and the religious aspect. So, thoughts, Simone, because you haven't talked much in this episode.

Simone Collins: Is it so terrible for me to [00:54:00] love the sound of your voice? I am your wife after all. And there's not much for you to say.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I, and I've always found it so absolutely bizarre, this idea that Yankee culture came from Puritan culture.

When. Part of it kind of did, I guess I would say. There are pockets of the old Puritan culture still in New England, and I think you see this in things like the Free State Movement. But definitely not in the governments we have in places like Massachusetts and stuff like that, which are really heavily Catholic influenced.

And even the Free State Movement is still, like, you know, the state is still heavily sort of catholic descendant influenced. Oh, also we can talk about why the Catholics didn't end up moving to the backwoods areas because I can also

Simone Collins: just add just as a general to add context. I'll be in seed was written to talk about how for foundational waves of immigration from England to the United States had.

A still lasting impact on our country and its culture. And I think what drove the creation of the book [00:55:00] American nations was that it's not enough to say that just four groups had this impact. And I think the broader point that you're making here is that pretty much every cultural group. that spends a non trivial amount of time in an area with a certain critical mass, is going to have a permanent and lasting effect on the culture and governance.

I wouldn't

Malcolm Collins: agree with that at all. No, really? Okay. No, I, I'm arguing that some specific cultures had a huge lasting impact. For example, the Asian immigration ways really didn't impact culture that much. Anywhere that they landed, they, they didn't integrate with the mainstream society as much and as such, their culture didn't really change the cultural tones of those areas.

So no, and I wouldn't argue that at all. I'm just arguing I said critical

Simone Collins: mass. I didn't say all of them.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, but it's not based on numbers. It's based on the time of, of period they came there, what organizations they were interacting with. Like the key reason why the Catholics ended up affecting the regions they [00:56:00] were in so much.

So much was their propensity towards engaging with local bureaucracies. And that is why they ended up affecting things so heavily,

Simone Collins: way more heavily. We're looking at people building their intergenerationally durable cultures, and they want to build one that as humans go off planet, form new colonies on new planets and on spaceships, they want to be the ones that actually set the tone.

What should they be designing or what should they be looking at? Basically, you're saying you should be there. at the foundation, at the creation of governance structures, what other factors make a culture have this impact?

Malcolm Collins: Why? And this is actually a core thing. Why did the Catholics wipe out the Puritans, but they didn't wipe out the backwoods people in terms of their cultural footprint?

And the answer is because the backwoods people were in regions, the Catholics could not safely live. So the, the Puritans, you know, once you would clear it, all the stones off these initial fields that were hard to work and everything like that and [00:57:00] turn these areas into prosperous areas was big local governments and everything like that.

And the Catholic immigration waves came in they had a, and they were really good at bureaucracies that we talked about in our other video on this. They really integrated with the local bureaucracy. They had an easy time like settling and not moving into these areas. If you told them to move to these backwood areas they'd be like, what do you mean we're like the, the, the Indian, you know, clan people war is going on.

Why would I move there? That's incredibly dangerous. I'm not going to put my family at that kind of risk. These, the, the, the reason why they didn't move into these areas was because they were incredibly dangerous to live in. And that is something that helps preserve your culture. What fundamentally protected their culture, while all of the three other founding cultures, the Cavaliers, the Quakers, and the Puritans, all died out, is because they settled in regions that nobody else wanted to be in.

And because of that they never got wiped out. And this is what I would take away from the Backwoods [00:58:00] people. There is a huge cultural value In attempting to settle cultural niches where other people don't want to live, or people without your value system are going to not want to live. You know, for them, it was in part because they were settling on poorer land, but it was in part they, because they were settling on, they themselves created the hazard of those regions.

It was incredibly dangerous to move to those regions if you weren't from one of their cultures. And even if you were from one of their cultures, it was kind of dangerous to live in their regions. That was part of their culture.

I've tried to keep this PG. , mostly, , but when I say dangerous, you shouldn't misunderstand this as. Random violence. , for example, if you move to one of these regions and you had. A daughter and you could not protect your homestead. , Declan's around would just come and take her. That was a common thing that happened in regions. , and if you couldn't support a blood feud to get her [00:59:00] back, then you couldn't really exercise your rights. So we are talking about a form of violence. And, clan mentality. That goes beyond what you might be thinking If your reference point is modern day gang warfare, instead of.

Oh, the neighbors over there. Have a nice property. Should we take it? Well, they're newcomers. If they don't have any friends in the region and their property, isn't really heavily defended. So yeah, we can probably kill them., that mentality, very, very Savage. , and I, I also say this because people are like, oh, Malcolm, you're so biased against groups that you aren't descended from. So I need to make sure to present my own group. As honestly as possible. , because that was very different from the other American groups.

Malcolm Collins: but also this is the final thought I wanted to have before we wrap things up here is I think people when they see you and I raising our kids as, as, as most people who really came from these backwoods, you know, you came from like old woodland sheriff family, [01:00:00] basically.

You know, Did they expect our kids, like this large family we're having, to be like these large Mormon families? Or something like that. You know, they see all these orderly little kids line up. And that's not what they're going to see. Like if you saw a video of our kids in our house, as you've put it, like the closest thing, because a lot of a person's disposition is heritable.

I'm going to play a quick diatribe by Octavian , it's pretty obvious he didn't pick these ideas up from anything that Simone and I are saying And I think it's also pretty obvious that he didn't pick up these ideas from children's media.. So this is probably just a baked in genetic code. That's within both of us that sort of playing out on loop. At his young age.

Let the lobsters go Octavian. What just happened Octavian? Did you see them swim away? Yeah. You see, now they're all going home to their families. I hope I can catch all the families in those buckets. I love you. I just want the lobsters to die and the families too. [01:01:00] Wait, you want the lobsters and their families to die? You see? Yeah. Wait, so you let them go so that they could go to their families and then we could find their families to catch them?

Yeah. Okay? Let's get all, let's get all the lobsters to dry

oh, that's how you feel? Sometimes, if you're a lot bigger than something, it doesn't matter that it hurt you. You just have to say it's not as smart as you, so it's okay.

And then what are you going to do if you catch the family and the kids?

And then, and then they're friends too? Yeah. I just, I just want to have fun. Well, if I don't, I'm going to destroy all the lobsters. Not fish. I'm going to die to lobsters. Oh, so you don't want to hurt the fish? [01:02:00] No. I'm not going to let them do that. I don't hate fish. Has a lobster ever hurt you? Yes. I don't think so.

No? Nope? A lobster hurt an A2108. Oh, giving me some timelines here. I was going by myself. With, with your car. I just So you were driving my car one day, and a lobster attacked you. Yeah. And, uh, it hurt me when I was using the phone. I called the computer, but they didn't know I was using the phone. And then I did knock out a herd.

By lobsters. And then I decided to kill two lobsters. A pangow! Wait, what kills lobsters? Pangow! It kills lobsters.

This is actually a really fascinating diatribe to sort of break down because I think it gives a good eye into the way [01:03:00] these types of people thought about things. If you note, he divides the world into things that might hurt him in things that might not hurt him. Fish are in the category that won't hurt him.

Lobsters are in the category that might hurt him. He hates the things that might hurt him and they must die and their kids must die. And their families and friends must die. Okay. And then also when I try to be like, well, but I don't think any of them have hurt use specifically. He fabricates evidence.

Obviously he wasn't driving my car by himself. So I'm pretty sure it lobster did not attack him while he was in the car. , driving it by himself without me there. , and , I think that this is probably fairly common in the Backwood regions. At these times, they categorize different groups.

They were interacting with as the type of people that might hurt them and the type of people that might not hurt them and their good guy that they might not hurt them. And they must kill them. But there everyone they've ever met, if they're the type of person who might hurt them.

Malcolm Collins: So in part, this is just a heritable part of our kids, but in part it's because of how [01:04:00] we raise our kids. The way that these people historically raise their kids in the way that I was taught to raise my kids is our goal is to stoke the fire of ambition in life. Within them as much as possible you know, teach them about honor.

You know, you, you, you see this in the song. He's he's mine which I'll play some clips up here,

 He had them by the collar, said he caught them shootin beer bottles down in a holler And I said, is that right? He said, they won't speak when spoken to. And I said, He's mine,

Malcolm Collins: but in it he's, he comes from this cultural group as well as the country song where he's proud of his kid for violating rules. And pushing boundaries. The kid still gets punished, right? Like the kid gets taught, you know, you're shooting bottles down in a hauler and then he brings over and he's like, he's mine.

Like, he's so proud that his kid was the one who broke the rules. It doesn't mean the kid doesn't get punished. Our kids still get punished, but we're proud of them for breaking rules. And that's part of why we do the punishment in the way we do. Right. And you know, later in the song, the reason why it's showing why do you have this?

[01:05:00] When he whooped up on that boy Way bigger for taking that cheap shot On their little Kicker and they threw him out. You should have heard me shout.

I yelled, he's

I also knew that this is where this cultural group is quite different than like say the Andrew take cultural group. Because something that was always made very clear to me growing up and is repeated in this song. Is the honor comes from the fact that he is both standing up to the system, but also challenging and winning against somebody who is larger and stronger than he is that there isn't any honor in just being stronger than someone and beating up or fighting somebody who is weaker than you

the second point is the song also here in the next line, I'm going to show makes a point of why do you do this? Why do you encourage rebellion even when it's against you? And it's because you can't turn rebellion on and off. If you have this rebellious stand up to authority mindset. You need to always encourage it.

You can't hope that the kids just able to [01:06:00] turn it on and off whenever they feel like it. You can't turn it off like electricity.

Malcolm Collins: Because then when the authority and everyone else is saying you shouldn't do something and you know, a big kid's picking on a little kid, you know, he's going to be the first to stand up for that little kid because he understands like this cultural consequentialism. And I've actually seen this from you, Simone, and a few things you do in terms of raising our kids.

Recently our kids told stole and your lesson to him was He got punished because he got caught and you made that very clear to him.

Or instance of this happening recently was she told Octavian to stay in bed. Or he wouldn't get, I don't know, some treat or something like that. And then she could see on the cameras that he was running all around, but when she came downstairs, he was back in bed and he asked her Ms. JVs. He's like, I've been staying in bed, right.

You didn't see me out of bed and she's like, no, I didn't see out of bed. So she gave him the treat. As she said me, if he grows up thinking that people don't lie in society, doesn't lie. , and that's not the way that he relates to the world. When, when they think [01:07:00] they can get away with it, he's going to get absolutely gooned on by society.

, a actually we have some friends who have this rule of never, ever lying to their children and she's like, oh my God, those kids are gonna end up. Being so taken advantage of when they hit the real world. But this isn't necessarily true, it is a cultural hypothesis. And this is the thing about the way different cultures relate to their kids. She would see. Learning to never ever deceive authority or learning that authority will never deceive.

You ends up putting the kid in a weaker position.

Whereas other people are like, no, the relationship between a kid and their parents are sacred and they don't understand that this is a cultural take, not an absolute is take.

Malcolm Collins: That is such a backwards, like ethical style for a kid. It, it, or my mom, you know, when I told on a kid at school and she goes, you know, why, why'd you do that?

Like, that's what a pussy would do. I was like, well, the kid was, you know, picking on another kid. And she goes, that's what your fists are for. Like I'm supposed to, I was like, well, I'll get in trouble. And she'd be like, good. Like, that's a sign of honor. Or what was another case? Well, so our kids will get in [01:08:00] fights over toys.

And Simone will go up to them and, and, and tell the big one, you need to wait until he gets bored of the toy and then snatch it from him and put it somewhere where he can't see it. You have to be sneaky. I said, hey, it's good. And he goes, oh. He's like, I want the thing that my little brother has. And Simone's like, what do you need to be?

And he goes, oh, I need to be sneaky. And so then he'll like go get another toy and like pretend. Sneaky and smart, he says. It's so sweet. And then the kid and

Simone Collins: then the younger sibling will get tired of playing with the toy, discard it somewhere and Octavian will come up to me with that toy and be like, can you put this in my bed for me?

Which is, but

Malcolm Collins: yeah, but not only that. So the, so you've got these like Mormon families where all these kids like follow the rules and everything like that. And then this one depiction of a Mormon family, I think is much more similar to like my childhood and much more similar to this back country style, which is a one from stranger things.

And I'm going to see if I can, I can find this where it's just like a complete loud house and be able to see my kids in the video. They know that like. Recreationally, he'll, like, climb behind me here and start kicking me in the face [01:09:00] or try to climb on top of me while I'm doing something and punch at me or, and their favorite thing is being, like, punched and thrown,

Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum

Malcolm Collins: and this is also why, like, I don't, like, I thought the bot thing was so weird because I'm like, I hurt my kid.

So much more than that in things that are recreational for them in terms of like kid roughhousing.

Simone Collins: You don't hurt, you don't injure them. You just rough house with them.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, I mean, but we do a lot of like punching and stuff. Yeah, there's a

Simone Collins: lot more rough and tumble going on in terms of fun, but that's, I mean, that is how pain works, right?

You know, if you're being whipped by, [01:10:00] a school teacher, none, and you're not very thrilled about it. And then yet, then you're being whipped by a partner and like a BDSM scenario, the same exact impact on your body using the same exact tool can feel very different depending on the context. So,

Malcolm Collins: well, it's, it's also a context of, and this is another interesting thing that we do as parenting, which I think is really different from the other influencer families.

Is, is we have like strict rules against ever punishing our kids for being too high energy or too happy. And I think that a, a lot of parents, like they can be like, I don't do that. But think about it. I've seen a lot of parents do this. A kid's just being too loud or running around too much and the parent's like, can you just calm down?

And I remember growing up, like never do that to a kid. Never get a kid to calm down because our goal in parents is to throw wood on that fire of excitement for life and engaging with the world. And, and so while we do punish them, we don't punish them ever for being too excited to engage [01:11:00] with the world.

And so I think it's going to lead to if we ever do get a reality show on us or, you know, Cameras in the house. People are going to be like, wow, these are very different from other influencer kids. These kids are wild actually reminds me I'll post the pictures. Well, I don't know if I can because the kids are in their underwear in the pictures.

But there were these scary pictures last night where Simone said goodnight to the baby in the crib and then through a camera

Simone Collins: that we have mounted there.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and then what happens, Simone?

Simone Collins: Well, then all the kids get immediately extremely hyper, everyone crawls into our infant's crib, and everyone just, they start grabbing the camera, staring at it, and laughing maniacally, and it, Looks terrifying.

Malcolm Collins: They're all like a huge match in the baby cage

Simone Collins: match. And of course it's a night vision camera. So the way that the contrast comes out, they look fricking terrifying. Like with like black eyed monsters, it's nightmare fuel savages.

Malcolm Collins: This [01:12:00] actually reminds you of this really funny thing of like, Somebody from a non clan based culture entering a clan based culture.

So one of our family members who my kids aren't related to because it's, it's, it's through a marriage is a bit older than them, like four years, five years older than them. And was attempting to sort of watch over them during parts of the family reunion. And the, the kids and he's, he's not from one of these clan based cultures.

He's, he's actually from a Catholic. family, historically. And the kids just absolutely gooned on him. I felt so bad for the kid because this little like five and four year old were picking on him relentlessly. And in the way a five or four year old would like, you know, he'd be walking towards it, like jump him from behind and knock him over and then start jumping on him.

Or he was supposed to like watch them and he'd like. run after one and then the other one would run away and then he'd get exhausted and so they just try to like tackle him down and because there's two [01:13:00] of them they could get away with it and I just he was so beleaguered after this because I think that he was just like just just follow the rules guys don't run away guys please stop oh no And I was like, Oh God, but you know, I'm proud of them for their energy and like, not, not ever letting up about anything.

They weren't like genuinely mean. Like I think he had, he was sort of at his wits end, but I don't think he felt like genuinely picked on, picked on, but it was very clearly like a cultural clash in a way that You know, it's him versus a little clan of, of children. And one was clearly just having fun.

Toying was the person who was supposed to be watching over them. And I felt just so bad. But I also was like, I'm glad that my kids have so much fighting spirit to them. Can't keep them

Simone Collins: down.

Malcolm Collins: Any other anecdotes from our parent raising that you wanted to share? [01:14:00]

Simone Collins: Well, we were just discussing last night, another backcountry tradition is they sort of coined the term little s***s for children.

I remember growing up in the Bay Area, hearing that phrase or term and thinking, how could you call a child a little s**t? And then I met our children like, Oh my

Malcolm Collins: God, that's what my parents called me growing up with. Yeah. Yeah, it is a

Simone Collins: technical term. They are, they are so little s***s. But not all children are little s**t.

Oh my God, especially

Malcolm Collins: the littlest one. She now that she's developing a personality absolutely loves. He was people. She loves to

Simone Collins: make eye contact while openly defying you. So if you say something like, please don't drop your food on the floor, she'll pick up the messiest group of food. She possibly can smile and just throw it onto the floor.

Perfect eye contact and I think she's probably on the spectrum. She doesn't usually make eye contact. She just makes it when she really wants to [01:15:00] piss you off. She

Malcolm Collins: wants to watch you get angry at something she's doing. I love thinking about we have that Jordan Peterson parenting video where like, you know, the way he did he parents will write it wouldn't work with our kids.

I'll tell you that like this whole I'll just sit in the room with the kid until they break their

Simone Collins: spirit. Yeah. I'm

Malcolm Collins: like, okay, one, my kids would take that as a personal challenge. And two, what are they going to do? They're going to like grab the spaghetti, put it on their head or like toss it at you.

Like there, there, there's always a way to have creative opposition to any rule. People can be like, well, I just sit there and then make them do it again. And there's a point where like, they know that they've caused more pain for you than you've caused for them. And then they're like, fine. Okay. I won this dominance battle.

I'm out. But like you keep what you don't want to create those situations with kids of this cultural background of, I will out willpower you. That's not going to end. Well, it's just no God. No. [01:16:00] Yeah, you've just got to teach them a good enough honor code and good enough rules before they have the physical will to totally resist you.

That's basically the timeline you're working with. I actually remember this because I think that's

Simone Collins: the difference also between. Being consequentialist versus deontological, we want our children to come to their own conclusions on what's right, even if it's not exactly what we would have thought to be correct.

We want them to make that on judgment for themselves, and we want them to do what's right, not things the way that we want them to be, whereas I think a lot of parents don't really care that their children develop their own internal morality or find make their own decisions. They just want them to follow specific rules and behave in certain ways.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. Yeah. It's not about the end state. It's about the Well, and when you see a lot of parents, I'd say a lot of cultures and it is right for those cultures to act in a way that is in alignment with their cultural values. I mean, keep in mind, they co evolved with a set of cultural values.

[01:17:00] They're going to behaviorally and their kids behaviorally are going to relate to punishment techniques and everything like that. Different from other kids. Like, I don't know if you're Normal non backwards. Children's are genuinely as rowdy as our kids are. I mean, probably our cultural practices help increase that I mentioned in another episode, which is probably worth mentioning briefly here is the incident of my mom where I got in trouble with one of the teachers and she's like, well, I mean, Did you, were you doing what you thought was right?

And I was like, yeah. And she goes, well, you know, in the adult world, everybody thinks teachers are like underpaid losers, so don't worry about it. She's an elementary school teacher. Just do what you think is right yourself. But again, that's that very honor code based culture. Like do what you believe is right.

Ignore the teachers. Which was yeah, definitely part of that backwards upbringing. And, and that had soaked into this puritan culture, which ended up with this. You know, complete Puritan backwoods mix of a culture.

I guess I didn't mention this explicitly here, but I thought I [01:18:00] had the core, core reason, the Backwoods Puritan mix of a culture survived. Was that it changed its ethical system Rez in the Puritan ethical system, everything was a sin. And you were supposed to avoid basically everything in the Backwoods ethical system. Everything was a sin. And you didn't really put thins within a hierarchy.

It was just whatever you needed to do to achieve your consequentialist outcome, where the consequentialist outcome was, what you thought God's broader vision was for you or broader goals for you where. , and it was just much easier to follow this. Well, honestly, more consequentialist and less deontological ethical system.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely love you, Simone. I had a joy talking to you today. I'm sorry I kept you so long.

And yeah, I'll go get the kids.

Simone Collins: I love you, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too. I really do.

Simone Collins: I know you do. You show it every single day. You're just the best. And then did [01:19:00] you get the chickens?

Yeah, I got the chickens. I handled the professor. I've got it all sorted. You handle

Malcolm Collins: just everything. I'll never get over this. Oh, you always tell the reporters I handle so much.

Simone Collins: You do. You are

Malcolm Collins: the star. Who took

Simone Collins: Toasty to get his blood work today, Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, but, you know. Who woke up and dressed the kids today,

Simone Collins: Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: I forgot about those things. I guess I never log things in my ledger if I'm doing them. I only like, mentally log things. I keep a

Simone Collins: ledger, and I keep it 50 50.

Malcolm Collins: You don't keep it 50 50. You do everything. I see it. Don't worry. Don't worry. You are the absolute best wife anyone could want. Actually, I wonder, and this is something that we should meditate on, I kind of want to think about this, this backward culture, when I think about it in regards to the way our kids act and the way we parent, that's one thing, it's really interesting, but also in the way that our relationship is structured and like our love for each other works

Simone Collins: is

Malcolm Collins: very different, like it's based on mutual respect rather than like a set of rules about our duties.

Simone Collins: [01:20:00] Consequentialist and not gentological.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, true. Because yeah, damn, do I respect you Simone and everything you do. You are such a workhorse

Simone Collins: because we're fighting for the same thing and not just tallying things up.

Malcolm Collins: , did you steal something? This, when you, when we were on vacation, did you steal something?

Octavian: No.

Malcolm Collins: But you did do it, and you got caught doing it.

Octavian: Huh. Well, police did not see me. Huh.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, the police didn't see you, but now you're on camera. So the police know that you stole something.

Well, they should,,

Octavian: but

Malcolm Collins: the police are going to come arrest you now. No. Well, how do you explain to them? Why did you, why did you break the rules?

Octavian: What's your idea? If I have somebody sunglasses [01:21:00] that the, then the police will not know I am me. Okay. How

Malcolm Collins: about this? You can wear daddy's glasses. Okay, do you think you're safe now? Are you safe from the police?

Octavian: Yeah. They're

Malcolm Collins: not gonna catch you? So are

Octavian: I need this to be clean, okay? Daddy

Malcolm Collins: doesn't know how to clean. Mommy mostly cleans.

Octavian: This to Mommy while I talk to the police? What are you going

Malcolm Collins: to tell the police when they ask, why did you steal?

Okay, you can do this by yourself? Okay.

Octavian: At ceiling

so that ceiling is un applicable to me to not get under rest because I just don't wanna be rest because I just, so to not get under arrest. I just take something from the people and I put it on and then [01:22:00] you will not know I cannot get under arrest. So you cannot know I cannot get under arrest because that's a sticky thing.

I'm just trying to run away. It's so sticky so you can't I'm just so sick, you guys. And you know what happens next? You are gonna p And you know what happens if you are arrest me? I'm gonna arrest you, boys. So that is being not nice. Well, if you see a bad guy at someone's home, you do not have stripes like a bad guy, so I cannot be arrested.

And that is a headlock. [01:23:00] So, dad, the same way broadcast. I'm broadcasting, you are, I don't have stripes like the bad guy. So, I'm saying, oh, if you cause the stripes, Like a bad guy, which breaks on, and that's out of stew, you gotta rest up, okay? Oh, if you don't, you are getting under arrest, please.

And that is out. The talking is out. Oh, just one thing I'm gonna tell you. I miss bad guys. A red, bad guy that do bad things, okay? Not kids that have stripes like it. Bad guy.

 Byebye police

What would you do with the bad people when you take over? Um, bop them. You bop them? Yeah. Um, would you, how, uh, [01:24:00] Gum. Yeah. Hey, you. I want it. I put this on. No, no, no, no. Gum, gum. Um, yeah. So you like being alive? What about the anti natalists who think you never should have been born? I mean, they, they, Torsten, there's people who say that you shouldn't exist.

Are they bad people? You're going to bump them? Oh, well, I don't know if that's legal, but when you're, when you're emperor, you can make it legal. Are you having fun with the microphone?

Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect the controversial "White Women for Kamala" Zoom call, exposing the alarming cult-like behavior and rhetoric within the Democratic party. This eye-opening analysis reveals:

* The dehumanization of political opponents and racial groups

* The role of therapists in pushing political agendas

* How progressive ideology has morphed into a "memetic virus"

* The sudden shift in Democratic talking points about Biden and Harris

* The infantilization of voters through condescending language

* The dangerous implications of identity politics in modern America

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the state of American politics, the urban monoculture, and the future of democracy. Whether you're a political junkie or just concerned about the direction of our country, this video offers crucial insights into the forces shaping our political landscape.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] what's BLM's stance on Kamala Harris? They think the Democrats need to open a primary at the convention and are angry that Kamala Harris had been authoritarianly slot in

like, the actual black people Are saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, um and and yet you have this call that has prevented black people from enjoying its white women for camera What does that mean?

No black people. We can't have the black people spoiling our fictional black people that are telling us to do this.

Um, we are here because BIPOC women have tapped us in as white women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season. If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPOC individuals, or God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat. And instead we can put our listening ears on.

Simone Collins: it brought back to me a feeling of anxiety and rage that I haven't felt For well over 20 years, [00:01:00] but that feeling of being trapped and stuck in someone else's tyranny, but that weird cheerful tyranny of, I hope you were paying attention and doing this menial thing that nobody needs to do.

Malcolm Collins: I actually love this. The Democrats today are the party of Professor Umbridge. Oh, yes, it had Umbridge vibes.

Good morning, children.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I am very excited to be introducing this episode because I, as a white woman, just watched delayed basis the white women for Kamala Harris, zoom call that broke zoom, that broke records.

Wait, the entire four

Malcolm Collins: hour or whatever call you watched? I watched

Simone Collins: the whole thing. Well, I'm a white woman. This was a call to action. Of my people

Malcolm Collins: and I, first of all, can I just like say how insanely racist this is? Imagine if there was like a Trump campaign that was like white women for Trump. Wait, [00:02:00] wait, wait, what?

That is a, but Democrats have become so, so, so racist in their entire ideology, but they can't see anything racist when it's connected to things that are pro Democrat. They just ignore it.

Simone Collins: Well, I, I don't know. Like, I feel like what a. What a progressive woman would say about a white woman rally for Trump, you know, what do you call a white woman rally for Trump?

It would just be a white nationalist rally. Like that's, that's how they see it. Well that's

Malcolm Collins: what they want to frame things as, but actually the pats are not by the statistics, more racists who vote for Trump than who vote for the Democrats.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Don't let mainstream

Malcolm Collins: media know that. Actually, this made up narrative is actually really important to a point I'm gonna make right here.

Okay. And I think it frames this rally in like the most messed up possible sense. Okay. So, they, they [00:03:00] keep saying things like, You know, BIPOC women have tapped us in and like, you know, don't speak over black women and all of this is like about hypothetical black people. So I think, okay, real black people from a progressive standpoint, who these days is the voice of black people and especially black women, because the organization is run by a black woman, it would be BLM.

Right? So what is BLM? No one talks about BLM anymore. Have you noticed that? Well, yeah, because what's BLM's stance on Kamala Harris? Oh, what is BLM's stance on Kamala Harris? They think the Democrats need to open a primary at the convention and they should be choosing a candidate and that they are incredibly angry that Kamala Harris had been authoritarianly slot in.

Simone Collins: But even during the, the, the BLM associated riots of the pandemic, she was fundraising for bail [00:04:00] release funds. I don't understand why they would be opposed to her. I know her past has been very problematic. No, Simone,

Malcolm Collins: you know exactly why. She repented. Isn't repenting what the woke movement is all about?

No, an inability to repent is what the woke movement is about. So for people who like, don't know Kamala Harris's history, I'll give two little incidents here. In one incident because a lot of people like conflate like her history, like Republicans have reduced it to talking points where they mix it up and they sort of lower the severity of it.

Like, I'll talk with a Republican and they'll say something like, don't you know that she didn't release black, innocent black people from prison as like prison labor? And I'm like, that didn't happen. happen. You're confusing two different events and it's actually worse when you take the events on their face.

In one event there was a lab mistake and she was supposed to notify the lawyers of literally thousands of black inmates that they were up for potential release. She [00:05:00] chose not to because she wanted to secure the endorsement from the police commission. To win her next election cycle, she did secure the endorsement.

She didn't win the next election cycle. And then right afterwards she started letting everyone out. So, she kept them in jail longer to win an election. And then in a separate event, the Supreme court came and said the, the prison conditions in California are becoming dangerously overcrowded and it.

It's a human rights abuse by the U. S. Constitution. And then a court meeting in California came together like, yeah, we really need to reduce release people. And so then they went to Kamala Harris's office in Kamala Harris's office, literally like, it's not like a Subjective thing. They literally said, we cannot release these people because we need them for a prison work program right now.

Specifically, it was fire season and they were being used for fire prevention. The weird thing is, is that if they had released them and paid them, it would have been cheaper than keeping them in the prison system. Oh no! Would you [00:06:00] have any different, a thought from someone that could have been such

Simone Collins: a win to release prisoners and then give them immediate

Malcolm Collins: jobs.

You've got to remember she's descended from plantation owners. That is her mindset. It's the plantation owner mindset. Wait, they

Simone Collins: were

Malcolm Collins: owners and not. No, no. Yeah, sure. Her family owned a plantation in Jamaica and the plantations in Jamaica were far more brutal than the ones in the U S right? Yeah. You just go and die there.

Right. But yeah, they were expected to die. They didn't really care about intergenerational stuff. Kamala Harris is, like, there is a reason why BLM would be like, okay, like, I know she did some performative stuff for us, but, like, you get who this person is. So I'm gonna play a clip for you guys right after knowing that, like, the actual, actual black people Are saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, um and and yet you have this call that has prevented black people from enjoying its white women for camera What [00:07:00] does that mean?

No black people. We can't have the black people spoiling our fictional black people that are telling us to do this.

Um, we are here because BIPOC women have tapped us in as white women to step up, listen, and get involved this election season. This is a really important time and we all need to use our voices and influence for the greater good,

like we are tonight has the toxic feels smaller when we support each other, bye. Don't make it about yourself. As white women, we need to use our privilege to make positive changes. If you find yourself talking over or speaking for BIPOC individuals, or God forbid, correcting them, just take a beat. And instead we can put our listening ears on.

So. Do learn from and amplify the voices of those who have been historically marginalized and use the privilege you have in order to push for systemic change. As white people, we have a lot to [00:08:00] learn and unlearn. So do check your blind spots. You are responsible for your algorithm, believe it or not, intentionally seek out and share content from BIPOC creators, activists, thought leaders.

They should be the leaders of conversations about race and justice and equity. So, Just whatever you do, don't stay silent on the issues of injustice. Big changes can start with just one person who's brave enough to speak up. I know when you see some headlines or someone makes a wild claim, it can be really shocking. But do give yourself permission to pause, take a breath, and do a Google search and ask questions and be critical of the sources. I was a kindergarten teacher and sometimes we would read stories and I know I have some of my former students here and their families.

Hi. Um, we would learn about a historical event and I would ask my students who is missing from this story. This is not a [00:09:00] concept or question that I invented, but it's something that I was taught as a way to decenter the Eurocentric and white voices that are often at the forefront of our history books and our media.

Malcolm Collins: So there's a few things I want to note about the language here. One is, is when we talk about how progressives have divided this society into a caste system, where some people are more deserving of human dignity than other people, and part of it is race based.

If you are willing to go along with the urban monoculture, the progressive machine on everything, and you are Black or BIPOC or whatever word they want to use here, right? You gain the ability to speak over other people and demand that they concede to anything you're telling them, no matter how outlandish it is.

That's what they're saying here. But what's really interesting is if you are black, even if you are a popular black, like the Black Lives Matter people, and you go against them in any way, no matter how much social credit you had [00:10:00] with them in the past, immediately you lose. Your blackness. Your black card is removed from you, you gain any special status I gave you, you are now a race traitor as they would say because they have stolen your racial identity.

and are now using it in sort of this priestly way, but you can only get the privileges of the priest cast if you do not challenge them on anything. It is macabre and horrible.

Essentially Progressive's appropriated the black identity and now denying that identity to real black people. If they do not act like human puppets for what these white progressive women want people to say, So individuals like this, essentially. Or putting their hands up the back of the black community and attempting to use that community like a puppet.

And whenever anyone is like, [00:11:00] um, well, Actually Kamela Harris has been really, really terrible to the black community. They're like, oh, I'm sorry. , you're not black anymore. It's not even like we disagree with you. , you.

are no longer one of these people who deserve all of this special status and privileges that she just delineated for black individuals.

I E believe them even when, what they say goes beyond what you think is reasonable or possible.

Malcolm Collins: But also Well, I think in

Simone Collins: a very patronizing way, they're saying we know better. So they're, they're overtaking their view or discounting it because they believe that if, if they were to question The nomination and run of Kamala Harris, the, the Democratic Party's ability to win the presidential seat is compromised.

And anything that would contribute to Trump winning is a direct threat. To their, their power hierarchy. And we'll say, let's, you know, Black Lives Matter. Well, to [00:12:00] protect black people, we have to make sure that at all costs, Trump can't win. So we can't let black people do anything that would cause Trump to possibly have higher odds of winning.

So anything they say that goes against what we think will cause Kamala Harris to win or the democratic party to win has to be completely ignored.

Malcolm Collins: But they're literally you're saying don't talk over black people and yet this entire call is talking, but

Simone Collins: what's more important if they had if they were an AI, and we asked the AI questions to sort of see how it sorts philosophical weights of things, they would say that the cultural legal legislative regulatory sanctity of black people.

Is more important than not talking over black people.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I actually think that you're, you're sort of giving them a little too much credit here. I think that what's really happening is there's. Multiple groups that are making decisions here. One group is the [00:13:00] people who are in the Biden White House right now and want to maintain their jobs and positions of power.

And they make up the core of the democratic bureaucracy at the moment. And they know that if Kamala versus somebody else wins, they have a much higher chance of keeping all of their positions and everything like that. I mean, if a new Democrat is running, especially one that may be, you know, You know, has different beliefs than someone like Camilla is more anti establishment, like a Bernie or something like that.

They all lose their jobs, right? So, or a good chunk of them does. So I also understand their motivation. They need to not have a real primary here. And then you have the big funders and everything like that. And the big funders, right? Want to control what's going on. And Kamala has shown herself as somebody who takes orders from them without much complaint at all.

She has actually repeatedly shown herself as a good order taker from the donor class. And so they don't want somebody like a Bernie, someone who's for the base. As we mentioned, big business moved to the left and intergenerational wealth moved to the left where they used to be right wing [00:14:00] factions.

Kamala is sort of the face of those interest groups and has shown herself incredibly loyal to those interest groups. And I think these groups, as much as they fear Trump, they also fear the base because the base removes their power and also goes against most of their interests. They have very little in common with the base's interests.

Then you have the type of like brainwashed woman on this call, and we'll be going over different quotes from them in this. Wild. These women are just in a cult, Can we

Simone Collins: talk about the woman and her therapist?

So just because this is so relevant, at one point, one of the speakers during this call, Glennon Doyle, talks about a conversation that she had with her therapist, and when she shared her anxiety about being a political organizer in this election, and that she was really concerned about the social capital that she was going to burn through.

And Malcolm, you can play the clip.

I was talking to my therapist this week about this hovering fear of mine.[00:15:00]

And she said, yeah, but what if every single bit of trust and credibility and social capital we have each built was saved up just for this moment? What if for this historic, vital moment, for our future, for our sisters, for our children, what if we just spent it all?

That's how this goes. Mistakes will be made and feelings will be hurt, and I will say out loud that I feel afraid about that, because we white women do not yet know how not to turn on each other. I don't know how yet either, but this time I'm going to learn, because listen to me, this moment could be historic in a different way too.

We, as a group of white women, could do this moment and this 102 days differently. We could put ourselves out there and we could make mistakes and [00:16:00] get scared and disagree and hurt each other's feelings and still stay connected to each other. We could let people be angry with us and disapprove of us and mock us even and not take our ball and go home.

We could decide to care more about our children's futures. Then our own comfort, we could not just post trust black women. We could also start doing it. We could recognize that black women know how to do this and we do not

Simone Collins: i, I, I gave it to you. I play it right now. She basically says that her therapist says burn it. Her therapist is telling her to pursue a political agenda. And it's wild to me after hearing all of your discussion about therapy, being a progressive cult and all these other things.

I. Hear you and I agree with you. The incentives [00:17:00] are there. I've heard these conversations as well. And yet still every time. We see more evidence of this and just how egregious it is that literally you have a woman saying, I feel really uncomfortable about what I'm doing socially right now with the election, politically speaking, and a therapist is saying, no, burn all your, burn your reputation, burn your social capital, cause a lot of anxiety, hurt your friendships because it matters for this election and we have to win.

That is so incredible.

Malcolm Collins: I told you that this is like, I think. I tell our audiences, I'm like, you do not understand the modern therapy movement has become taken over by a cult and this is part of the urban monoculture. It's one of their priest casts and it is used to communicate. Like when you go to therapy, basically you are an Android and you are allowing somebody to open the back of your head and tinker with all of the parts, right?

Like if you were an Android, you'd pay a lot of attention that that person doesn't have like an ideological motivation and they're [00:18:00] not going to rewire you to achieve their ideological ends. And yet that is exactly what has happened. And you see this, it's such a common, like if you go online and you watch like the craziest like lefty YouTubers, there's really almost every time they're in one of two professions.

They are either a teacher for, for secondary or primary school i. e. from kindergarten to high school, or they are a therapist. Like you look at somebody like Fundie Fridays, right? Like, her partner is a therapist. Oh, John? Yeah. Yeah. He's a social worker therapist.

So, this is, it is, it is horrifying to me and you really do need to be, and I'd also say with husbands, if you're going to do an episode, we haven't done it yet.

It's like the therapy to divorce. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We still have to do that. Oh my gosh. Like, if your wife is like, I'm thinking about therapy. Like, you really need to. This is not 90's therapy. This is more like saying I'm thinking about joining Scientology. Every alarm bell should be raised.

Simone Collins: I think also, though, what Glennon [00:19:00] Doyle, this, this woman whose therapist told her to burn it all, Was very indicative of what many progressive women and people are too, which is they're doing this because it's the societal norm.

And they want to be liked. She describes at the beginning of her speech, how when she first decided to start organizing politically and trying to get people involved and spread the word. That she expected to be praised and loved for it and celebrated for it. And I think that that's what gets a lot of people into this.

They see that everyone's rallying around how evil one side is and how good the other side is. So that if they start organizing for the good side, everyone's going to open their doors when they go door knocking and say, Oh, thank God you're out there. I'm so glad. And then they actually go out door knocking and people are irritable and mad.

whatever, just because they're having bad days and it's tough and that, that kind of ruins it. But then their therapists go out and tell them to do it anyway. So I thought [00:20:00] that was interesting too, because I think that that's another big element of this and everyone in that call felt so they felt either like very thirsty for approval people.

Or they felt like condescending school teachers or mean girls. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: let's play this school teacher clip because this was like insane. I was like, wow. She's like, you guys are idiots. It's what she thinks of these people.

Thank you, Shannon. Did everybody do their homework and write down three things? Write it down in your notes app, jot it down on a piece of paper, the three things you are going to do to impact this election.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Yeah, hearing this was insane. It took me, it, I felt not, I'm not going to just misuse the, the word PTSD, but it brought back to me a feeling of anxiety and rage that I haven't felt For well over 20 years, but that [00:21:00] feeling of being trapped and stuck in someone else's tyranny, but that weird cheerful tyranny of, I hope you were paying attention and doing this menial thing that nobody needs to do.

Malcolm Collins: I actually love this. The Democrats today are the party of Professor Umbridge. Oh, yes, it had Umbridge vibes.

Good morning, children.

Malcolm Collins: That's just what I see. Whenever I see like these, these progressive white, white women for Harris is like Umbridge for Harris,

I'm sure I must have misunderstood you, Professor. So silly of me, but it sounded, for a moment, as though I don't know. You were suggesting that the ministry had ordered the attack on this boy.

Malcolm Collins: Every, the entire vibe of the call, everything they're saying, it's like, how can we get Voldemort elected? How can we get, you know, Mrs. Plantation owner elected? When like everyone else knows [00:22:00] this is a terrible idea from, you know,

Simone Collins: And a lot of it also felt So much like cope at the beginning of the call one person says, Oh, this proves how electable Kamala Harris is when talking about how many people had joined the call and how much interest there had been and how much funds had been raised.

and remind you guys, drink water, stay hydrated. Um, because we have another three and a half months of this. And I think all this energy just like proves how electable Kamala Harris is.

Simone Collins: And there's definitely this trying to psych yourself up thing going on right now, which is really interesting as well. Of we are going to convince ourselves into believing that this is a thing. It's going to be

Malcolm Collins: okay. Where'd you get, which is for Harris? I didn't see that clip yet.

Simone Collins: Well, in asking for donations shortly after that, the same speaker, I think one of the organizers said [00:23:00] in trying to fundraise, cause this was a fundraising call said to share the fundraising link and whatever your favorite chat thread is in your, on your mobile device, like your signal or WhatsApp or Telegram chat thread group thread.

And her personal favorite group thread on her phone is, Which is for Harris! Which just also felt like such a white, progressive woman thing.

My personal favorite one on my phone is called witches for Harris. So I will be dropping the link into my witches for Harris. Get your friends to donate. Let's start to feel our collective power.

Simone Collins: Which is

Malcolm Collins: No, but I mean, it shows what we're fighting against. We're literally fighting against the devil here. And I think Well, they're

Simone Collins: owning it just like we owned deplorables.

But still, we are deplorables. There's

Malcolm Collins: a, there's a bit of a difference when, when we don't own deplorables and saying that we are deplorables. We are pointing out that they dehumanize their opponents. They literally are like, yeah, let's worship. You know, pagan gods. No, but hold on. [00:24:00] They literally dehumanized people in the car.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: Pink. Pink. The artist, Pink, was literally on her private jet flying back from a show, joining this call because she was so amped to join. And she says that the other choice, clearly referring, of course, to Trump and Republicans, doesn't feel human. And she actually caught herself In saying doesn't feel human.

That was her correction. She started with the other, the other choice doesn't or isn't, and then she changed. Doesn't feel human. She really meant to say the other choice isn't human.

I know that we're better than this And I know that kamala is gonna f*****g get us there because the other choice is not it doesn't feel human and I'm i'm I'm terrified

Simone Collins: these are monsters and that,

Malcolm Collins: and that's how they think of them. This is where you get things like the bear meme that we've done a video on.

Yeah. The other choice isn't human. Wow. They, they have been [00:25:00] trained. Mm-Hmm. . These white women, unthinking class, has it been trained? To see men as monsters when they say something like, I would rather be with a bear in the woods and a random man. And you changed it to anything else and you're like because I did that in the video, I changed it to like, would you rather be with a random black man in the woods or a bear?

black

Man is scary. Um, with a bear. What I've heard about bears, they don't always attack you, right? So maybe a bear.

Probably a bear. 100 percent a bear, which is like, terrifying to say, but Definitely a bear. Some

Malcolm Collins: black

men are very scary out there. I bet. Even some men are saying bear, although we could predict that this man's opinion will be whatever makes women approve of him. If I were alone in the woods, would you rather me encounter a bear or a

Malcolm Collins: black

man?

I feel more like bear. I don't know, cause I feel like I would know what the outcome would be with a bear.

Malcolm Collins: And you're like, [00:26:00] Whoa, like you realize as soon as you are no longer coding things in the progressive way, how far off the rails they have gone into bigotry and dehumanization. You immediately like wake up and you're like, like cold water, like, oh my God, they are Nazis.

They are. Like at very, very high level stages of dehumanizing their enemies. And we need to fight back against this if we do not want our country to fall. Now, fortunately, this is a one generation thing. If we can keep it out of the hands of them for this generation, they're not having kids. They are only converting kids and that cannot replenish their numbers.

If we can just for 30 years, prevent us from descending into a fascist. Totalitarian state. We're fine. All right. Come on guys, just for like the next three election cycles, turn out at the polls and then it's over. Yeah. Hold fast.

[00:27:00]

Malcolm Collins: They've really begun to treat her and the black women who go along with the message, obviously not the ones who don't, they are worse than dirt to these people as like this weird, like, ethereal cast of people who can't make mistakes and do everything right.

And you know, it's funny because like so many things in my life, tonight's call, Started out as the social media post, just a few hours after president Biden announced he wasn't running and he was endorsing Kamala Harris to be the nominee, I watched black women instantly mobilize to uplift and support her. And it made me wonder whether white woman could and would do the same.

Simone Collins: The magical

Malcolm Collins: black woman. The magical black woman.

Yeah, they really are like magical [00:28:00] negro trope. And I'm not saying that as a slur, I'm saying that as a trope from like the recent movie. Yeah it's, it's, it's wild to hear and this call more than anything where I have recently, you know, I go on about, oh, progressivism is becoming like a cult and I'm like, bro, it is a cult.

Like, it is a cult. If you listen to this language, this reminds me of like the Scientology leaks where, where you had those videos of like a science, like, I think it was like Tom Cruise talking to other Scientologists, like looking insane and like, and you're like, Whoa, those guys are off the rocker. Like white women.

For Harris was like the Scientology leaks in terms of how crazy off the wall it was

And how absolutely brainwashed these people were and how absolutely they were selling out their children's futures and living in a completely delusional world and completely dehumanizing black people.[00:29:00]

Something. What about some of these other ones you had here?

So I reached out to Jyoteka Edy. She is the organizer of Win with Black Women and I wanted to get her counsel.

And she told me that white women did need to come together in community to do the work because our work is very different. We are starting at a significant deficit. White women in America make up over 40 percent of the electorate. We are the nation's largest voting block. But since the 1950s, most of us have voted for Republican presidential candidates in all but just two presidential elections, despite repeated predictions before every single election that white women might shift toward the Democratic presidential candidate.

It hasn't happened. The bad news is that a majority of white women repeatedly vote for Republicans because too many of us believe, consciously or subconsciously, that it is in our best interest to use our privilege and our support systems of white supremacy and the patriarchy to benefit us,

Simone Collins: [00:30:00] what confused me. Yeah. Is, is at one point Shannon Watts on the call. Notes that white women in America make up over 40 percent of the electorate, that they're the large, sorry, electorate, that they are the largest voting bloc.

And historically they voted Republican. She says, because women have believed that the white patriarchy is their best way to privilege and that now they have the power to discover that the white patriarchy has to be taken down. I was surprised to read that women historically have voted Republican.

Republican. It's not what I would expect. I would expect that they would always vote in the more progressive end of the spectrum because they are the empathetic, on average, more empathetic gender.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, remember we've gone through multiple party realignments throughout the history of this country.

And Republicans, I mean, I think always have. been at their core is they are the anti authoritarian party, and women, I think, [00:31:00] generally historically wanted to put the power in the hands of their family, right? That was the goal, to be able to make the decisions for the family that they wanted to make.

This idea that women are now democratic is only the case if you're talking about single women. If you divide society into groups married men, single men, married women, single women, the only one of those four groups that majority votes for Harris and not Trump is single women. And what has moved women into this democratic state is that just many, many more of them are single.

Lower rates of

Simone Collins: marriage. Interesting.

Malcolm Collins: And why are, why are single women more likely to be pro Democrat? It's because they want the social services that previously were handled by the family structure. You know, who cares for you when you're old, it's your kids, you know, who is the person you rely on when you get sick, it's your husband.

But now, because they don't have any of that, they need a state. to be handling all that for them. But I'd also say that [00:32:00] just this mimetic virus of the urban monoculture, historically, women were always the more spiritual group. They were always the more religious group in American history. And when they went away from traditional religions, they were caught up much more in these cults than men were, and these cults appealed to them in terms of like, just.

Total brain hegemony more than they did to

Simone Collins: men

Malcolm Collins: is my read of what's going on there.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sense. I, yeah, I still found it quite surprising. And I mean, Hey, that this is a meaningful voting block, so it matters. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so interested in Megan Dom's unspeak easy retreats of Women, obviously it's not all white women, but I feel like women as a voting bloc are often misrepresented online because they're not necessarily the most active online participants, and at least normal women, neurotypical women [00:33:00] and they are, you know.

A large, both consumer and voting block. So they, their choices matter a lot, but it's hard to get what's going on in their minds. I guess you can by just going on Instagram and seeing what their lives are about, but in terms of what they believe, it's harder for me to understand.

Malcolm Collins: The final point I wanted to make about all of this has been really shocking for me is the way that the democratic talking classes have like whiplash shifted between different major talking points recently.

So when you're going over this with me this morning,

Simone Collins: I found it really notable how quick opinions were to change. And I think a lot of it's because the mooring point for people isn't truth or reality. It is whatever you have to believe. And you see this in the white women for Harris call, whatever you have to believe that is more likely to reduce the odds that the other side wins.

So if it looks like Harris is [00:34:00] running, well. Then she's the best woman ever. If it looks like Biden is running, then he's sharp as a tack. If it looks like he just decided to step down, well, he's our next generation's George Washington. But that this self censorship and this, this intentional manipulation or memory holing is a product of believing that the alternative That would come from any other belief is too dangerous, even if it may be true.

So I think there's this interesting concept of dangerous truths. And normally that comes in the con like in the, in the context of state based censorship or totalitarian regime based censorship, but in this case, it's urban monoculture based censorship. So the call is coming from inside the house. It is the memes that run our brain.

That are telling us you literally can't believe this. You don't have to believe this new thing. And so seeing it come, it's, it's a, it's an endogenous change that's based on [00:35:00] someone's being ruled by this particular culture. That's really interesting to watch because normally you expect to see this kind of creepy.

Reality shifting only happening because people are like, Oh, someone's going to shoot me in the head if I don't tell the line.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, so you, the way you said it to me this morning that I found so powerful is you're like, it was so weird to have like the entire demographic democratic party being like, Biden's the best.

Biden is totally mentally stable. Everything's good. Blah, blah, blah. Two, we really need to do something about Biden. To now of course Biden shouldn't have been running and Kamala Harris is the best candidate ever. And we don't need to be holding any, no more thought about this.

Simone Collins: And before a discussion of Kamala being kind of a weak running mate and a liability.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of people, when they were like talking about bringing Biden down, they were like, well, who

Simone Collins: else? And this is an opportunity for us to get someone really great. There was so much excitement. About anyone who wasn't Biden Harris.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like,

Simone Collins: oh, we could, we could get something new.

Malcolm Collins: We [00:36:00] could get something new.

I know. It's so cool. Pretending like this never happened. I mean, it reminds me of what happened during COVID where they're like if you wear a mask, you're killing people because the masks need to go to doctors.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And then how

Simone Collins: dare you not wear a mask? You're

Malcolm Collins: killing us right now. This, this whiplash, like, and I remember at the beginning where they're like, well, masks aren't even relevant for lay people and they don't even work.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They don't even work. And then it was the exact opposite. And it was like, do you, are you like Dory from like finding Nemo? Like, do you not remember that two weeks ago or like, well, we need to flatten the curve. It's just, you know, two weeks. Two months, a year and a half. It's like, what, what, what?

Like We've

Simone Collins: all just decided to take after our current president Biden, who

Malcolm Collins: Who just wakes up every morning and has somebody tell him what's happening that day. But no, this, this another thing that really got me. Is the Democrats have been attacking Republicans for their disjointed attacks on Harris, where they're like, oh, they don't have [00:37:00] like a common theme in these attacks, which shows that they don't have any real attack.

And it's like, no, it's that they're actually human beings with diverse opinions and not like. Have little radio antennas in their head that get beamed to them, whatever the current talking point is. And then they all just repeat it like robots. Like it, it, it, right now, if you, when I talk about like the memetic virus, people may underestimate how literal I'm being with that.

If you talk about this ultra urban monoculture people, these ultra progressives, you, you watch a call like this, it's exactly like those ants that get infected with the fungus. And it like eats out all of their brains, all of their innards. And their entire life just becomes about spreading that fungus.

They stop caring about anything else. They go out there castrate their own children. They are just about climbing to the top of a, a vine or a a, a stick, and then having their heads split open and the spores spill out into the air because that is all that their [00:38:00] lives are for anymore.

 Spores from a parasitic fungus called cordyceps have infiltrated their bodies and their minds.

Its infected brain directs this ant upwards. Those afflicted, that are discovered by the workers, are quickly taken away and dumped far away from the colony. It seems extreme. But this is the reason why. Like something out of science fiction, the fruiting body of the cordyceps erupts from the ant's head. And when finished, the deadly spores will burst from its tip.

The fungus is so virulent, it can wipe out whole colonies of ants. And it's not just ants that fall victim to this killer. The more numerous a species becomes, the more likely it'll be attacked

Malcolm Collins: we are fighting.

A fungally infected, brain eaten zombie horde against the forces of ideological and cultural diversity. [00:39:00] Because they represent the antithesis of that. And we, we need to fight like the lives of our children to fit, depend on it because they really might at this point. Or you could say I'm overstepping.

You're always the one who like, you know, dial things back. You're like, Malcolm, you're being a nutter.

Simone Collins: After watching this call, I wonder if maybe I'm being too, too moderating in my analysis.

Malcolm Collins: Did they, did they really feel like a cult to you or was that just me? It felt

Simone Collins: very cult. It felt very cult. Like, yes, I was a little, I was a little creeped out by it, just a tiny bit.

Malcolm Collins: And I love when the progressives try to like, say like, Oh no, Trump rallies are a cult. And I'm like, no, that's enthusiasm. That's genuine human enthusiasm. Like it's like they've never There are wackos on both political sides.

So here I'm going

Simone Collins: to come in. Moderate Simone's going to come in. There are wackos on both sides. And everyone's an a*****e. [00:40:00] So it's, it's choosing if you want the giant douche or

Malcolm Collins: I turned sandwich.

Simone Collins: You disagree with me.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I just, what is your final takeaway on this? It's cold. It's a cult. I love you, Simone. Have a wonderful day. You too.

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the recent shift in political dynamics where conservatives are now being labeled as "weird" by their progressive opponents. They delve into the cultural implications of this change, discussing how the traditionally "cool" progressive movement has become the new establishment, while conservatives have embraced their outsider status. The video covers topics such as the evolution of political rhetoric, the impact of Trump and JD Vance on conservative identity, and the changing perceptions of what it means to be "weird" in modern American politics.

Key points discussed:

* The Democratic campaign's strategy of labeling conservatives as "weird"

* Trump and JD Vance's outsider appeal and its impact on conservative identity

* The shift in cultural dominance from conservatives to progressives

* The value of being "weird" and challenging societal norms

* Analysis of specific political incidents and their cultural implications

* The role of authenticity and relatability in modern politics

* The future of conservative and progressive political strategies

Whether you're interested in political analysis, cultural shifts, or the evolving nature of American conservatism, this video offers a fresh perspective on the current political landscape.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] What defines weirdness is a person's willingness to challenge the dominant cultural mores of a society with an alternate framework.

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! Ah! Ah! Ah! Hello Simone! I am so excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about A wild shift that has happened in part because of the political realignment, the ongoing political realignment in this country.

But it also reminds me a lot of bemoaning I've seen from normal [00:01:00] conservatives or they're like of the, of the old GOP ink dates. They're like, I'm not weird, but Harris has been, uh, in her campaign and the democratic establishment and a lot of democratic power players have been putting this idea out there that JD Vance is weird.

And Trump is weird and I kind of love it because me, they come off like, you know, because they are the culturally dominant force in our society right now. And when weirdness is defined by cultural distance from the culturally dominant force. Yes, definitionally, they are weird, but it's shown that as soon as they became the culturally dominant force in our society, they immediately became the bullets.

You know, they became like the people shouting nerd in like the Revenge of the Nerds movie. I just wanted to say that I'm a nerd. I mean, uh, all our lives, we've been laughed at and made to feel [00:02:00] inferior. President Obama started mocking Trump mercilessly. He can finally get back to focusing. On the issues that matter.

Like, did we fake the moon landing? Obama didn't hide his utter disdain. Obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. Um, for example, uh, No, seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, You, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. You fired Gary Busek.

And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. The insults didn't stop with the president. Listen to comedian Seth Meyers, the evening's guest host. Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.

And tonight, [00:03:00] those b******s, they trashed our franchises. Why? Why? Because we're smart. Because we look different. I'm a nerd. And I'm pretty proud of it. There's a lot more of us than are of you. You might have been called a spaz. Or a dork. Or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, left Why don't you just come down here and join us, okay?

Okay. Come on. Come on.

You know, coach, I think I'm gonna let these boys live over at the house while you and your boys rebuild theirs. And where [00:04:00] the hell are we gonna live? Yeah. What about us? Huh? You're out of touch billionaires who live in your mansions. Nerd! Nerd! Nerd!

I cannot believe it's happening. I, I heard recently that, , rumors have been spread that J. D. Vance wears eyeliner, , journal Like, even photographers have been like, yeah, I just took a picture of him. Confirmed. No, you can see photos of him as a child. He's one of those people that just has really thick eyelashes.

, and, and also there was this, , rumor that there was a detailed account in his book, the ability elegy of him

Simone Collins: Getting sexually intimate with a couch which is not there. And that these things are just coming out like that. We have to attack him in this way. It's so odd to me as well, because. Aren't there plenty of policy attacks, you know, policy based attacks that we can make, you know, aren't there?

Well, no, [00:05:00] there's

Malcolm Collins: all vibe with progressives. They're like unthinking masses. They're like vibe, vibe, vibe. But yeah, it's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's Kamala's Brad Summer. It's, they're weird. It's, there's no substance to it. And I don't, but also I kind of get it because here's what has me concerned is it's that same sentiment, Ascetic wave that I think got Trump elected in 2016.

It wasn't policy stances. It wasn't concrete elements of his character. It was the feeling. It was this groundswell of a mood. But here's the thing,

Malcolm Collins: actually, Trump and J. D. Vance have tried to push back against the weird accusations. I don't think they should. You think they should lean in? Weird is how you get things done.

Only a weirdo can really change things because they're the only ones willing to think outside the box. This is the thing about nerds and it's an accurate attack to be honest. Daddy [00:06:00] Vance is a nerd. Like he's a classic nerd growing up. It's clear from his diary that in, yeah, he grew up a hillbilly, but he was a nerd among the hillbillies.

You look at Trump. I guess he

Simone Collins: apparently didn't know what tentacle porn was. Which,

Malcolm Collins: come on, Vance. Yeah, he's pretending. Was Trump, was Trump ever no, to pretend you don't know must mean you have it on your computer. Because that is like a cultural millstone there, man. But, but with Trump, you look at this guy, this is a guy.

Who until the MAGA movement was never really accepted by elite New York culture, which is what he always strived for. He always

Simone Collins: He was the outcast. Totally. He was the bullied kid who really wanted

Malcolm Collins: to be a part of the fun. And he spent his entire life being bullied by these people. You saw this when he first won.

You saw the president of the United States when he was roasting people. And I'll put the clip here from the press dinner, literally go up there and And roast a sovereign [00:07:00] citizen, right? Roast Trump. If any people are like, they have this meme where it's like, that's when he decides he's going to run.

Like that was the birth of the Trump movement with him being roasted and being like, I'll show you, I'll show you all.

Donald Trump is here tonight. Just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, the men's cooking team, , Did not impress the judges and there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so,

you fired Gary Busey.

Say what you will about it. Not funny. Bigly not funny. Oh, I'll get you a birth certificate, Obama. We'll see who's laughing then. I'm not a loser. It's okay, Trump. They probably already forgot about the jokes. [00:08:00] Let's just see what's on the teletype. Donald Trump, humiliated by the leader of the free world tonight at the White House correspondent's dinner. Yes, Wolf, it was very clear who was the President of the United States and who was the buffoon.

AHHHHHHHHHH! NGYAHHH! Welcome 7 coverage of the utter humiliation of Donald Trump. Say what you will about, uh, Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let's see what we've got up there. We will again.

Malcolm Collins: But that, that is who he was. He was this nerd who, who took over for the rest of us. Right. And I think that so many people feel that it with the urban monoculture, the [00:09:00] force of wokeness that the progressives represent being the dominant force in our society.

So many of us now know that feeling of being kicked out of a club because you're not Progressive enough being losing a job because you're not progressive enough being pushed around in college because you're not progressive enough. Having people play little tricks on you because you're not progressive enough.

We all know this feeling, and in whatever way, you're not progressive enough because progressivism is a monolith, you know, we were just well, it, it,

Simone Collins: it is what is normative. It used to be that. Being a little bit more conservative leaning, you know, being a jock or a cheerleader meant being normative and mainstream but now to be normative and mainstream is to be progressive So well, you are not you're going to be weird You're going to be the nerd and you're going to be bullied

Malcolm Collins: but back when the conservatives ran the country That was when you had You know, an evangelical Protestant majority that could be the dominant culture in this country, which you just [00:10:00] don't have anymore.

The conservative culture now is too diverse, right? So the progressivism is not diverse. We're just talking with Razim Zuma. We had an interview with him right before this. And what we were saying was if you get like two ultra conservatives of the same denomination, They will usually have more theological differences between each other than an extremist progressive, you know, Protestant minister versus a extremist progressive Muslim minister.

They really are just one culture that is using their cultural dominance to bully everyone else. And I think that many people who originally were drawn to the conservative movement back when the conservative movement represented the culturally dominant force, were not drawn. For theological or ideological reasons, they were drawn because it was the powerful group in society the way they saw it.

It was the cheerleaders. It was the jobs. And now that it's not, they're experiencing serious cognitive dissonance. And I've seen this when I've talked to the number of them. They're like, well, [00:11:00] Yeah, but I'm not weird. Like conservatives aren't weird. The Sweden was like, you were ruining it. I was like, you're fricking candidate is Trump and Vance.

Simone Collins: Come on. This is, this is even something that we found as early as a year ago, if not earlier, that when media coverage would talk about our pronatalism, people on Twitter would call us freaks. Which just, and they would, they would use words like, you know, that freaks is something that I think an eighties jock villain would say to a protagonist.

Do you really want to be partners with that freak?

Simone Collins: And one of the

Malcolm Collins: freaks,

Simone Collins: you know what I mean? It's so weird. Why would you say that to someone when it? Just seems so stereotypically.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's the way that the dominant culture often reacts to anyone who is challenging it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But why would, like, would you ever call someone a freak? Wouldn't that make you feel like you were the bad guy?[00:12:00]

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, because I grew up and this is also, I think, a different thing. Like, like these people who are now drawn to progressivism because they have power in previous. Oh, they would have

Simone Collins: been the evangelical Christians in their time, if that was They wouldn't

Malcolm Collins: be. They absolutely wouldn't be. They're just doing it because it gives them power and the power to, they're like, I have a lived a life according to what society has told me to do.

And now they're like, and you are doing something different and seem happy. I must shame that. Like that's how the culture works, right? It maintains internal consistently, consistency by reacting reactively to anybody who you know, There seems to be successful with an alternate cultural model. I mean, that's why they had to do this hit piece on like ballerina farms, for example.

And then it came out that the reporter because it turned out and we did an episode on this, but we didn't mention in the episode of the turned out that she had released. Recordings of the in person interviews and she like directly [00:13:00] lied in the article to try to make them look bad And she had released these on previous podcasts when she was talking about writing the article and it's like, oh But another thing I'd note is when people are like conservatives are not nerds I'm like, okay, so not just like the main top conservatives again.

We were just talking with We're we're green zoomer And look at this guy. He's got like a bowtie, a button down shirt. This has been conservatives for a long time. They have been the nerds for a long time, like at least a decade and a half at this point. And I love the dissonance I see. When I went on Blaze TV, I was doing this interview as like John Popobopolis or something, anyway.

So he was like, yeah, but aren't you tired? of being the rebels. Like, aren't you tired of being the resistance? And I'm like, tired of being the resistance? What? That's awesome! That's like, the best [00:14:00] life! And I realize it might be that, like, I'm genetically coded differently. You know, I'm like, a descendant of the original.

American patriots, because what does patriot mean? A lot of people think patriot means like, you love your country. No, patriot was a term that meant like, terrorist, originally. You were the resistance against the evil tyranny. You were the rebels, being on a righteous rebel team. What is better than that?

No retreat! Hold the line! [00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: Like, I can't imagine anything from like, my cultural framing's perspective that would be A more enjoyable or fulfilling life than this. Like I love this generation of conservatism. And I think that a lot of these people, because like the guy who was interviewing me, he got into conservatism when they were the dominant faction.

And I, and I realized. he just wanted to be in the dominant faction.

Simone Collins: He

Malcolm Collins: didn't believe all of this. He didn't, you know, he, he doesn't, or maybe it's that he doesn't like fighting for justice for the sake of fighting for justice. Like maybe that doesn't fill him with a righteous passion every morning, like when I wake up every morning, I'm like, I am on the good guy side and we are on the back nines, but we are gonna win this thing by golly.

And, and that inspires me. And I realized that for [00:16:00] a portion of people that does it, they want to be the ones who control everything and can bully other people.

Simone Collins: What would be your answer to someone who was on the normative side who counters that with, well, what makes you think that just being weird is better?

Why, why would being normative being, be bad? And why do you think it's inherently good to be the one who resists the mainstream? The mainstream might be mainstream for a reason because it's correct.

Malcolm Collins: So there's two things here. There is the mainstream versus tradition. And then there is why is weird always good?

And it is always good. Always good. No, no, no. Actually, I should say weird is also always bad. There are different ways you can be weird. What defines weirdness is a person's willingness to challenge the dominant cultural mores of a society with an alternate framework. Now that alternate framework can be dumb, but we know that we [00:17:00] are not at a moral nexus of history.

Okay, humanity. Find ways to improve over time. If you even look at any of the mainstream Christian theologies, it has improved over time or it's degraded over time, in which case you need to go back to the original church, which looks nothing like any of the existing churches. Like, if you're like, well.

You know, Christian theology has degraded over time and Catholicism is the right choice. And it's like, well, then you need to go back to the, what the original Catholics believed, which is that life doesn't begin at conception. And they're like, Oh, I don't want to do that. And then it's like, well, then you think it's improved over time because that's a fairly new Catholic belief.

Like 200 years ago, it was a Pope Pius IX. You know, so, so we all believe that things are, you know, to some extent, improve over time. And, and that being the case, knowing that we're not at the moral nexus in history, we are challenged to look for where even within conservative cultural frameworks or more right cultural frameworks, where are they getting things wrong that we can push things forward.

I mean, fundamentally, that's what [00:18:00] based is. Based is weird. People, like, think based means conservative. Based doesn't mean conservative. Based means saying what you believe is true, even when you will be shamed by it. Yeah, I always

Simone Collins: thought of based as being unapologetically authentic.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah and, and so a lot of people are like, Well, that doesn't align with a conservative mindset.

Therefore, you're not being based. And it's like, no. We're just saying what we believe is true from the evidence, from what we read, from the Bible, and that's may go against what the mainstream conservative influencers say, or what was mainstream and conservative culture in the 1950s, but that doesn't mean that it goes against any sort of absolute truth.

So I wanted to make that point, but what was the other one I was really excited to make here? Oh yes, I mentioned traditionalism. Versus uh, uh, normative. Okay? So I love it when people are like, Why would this tradition have value? Why would you put any weight on traditionalism? Right? And it's like, that is the, the collective wisdom [00:19:00] of thousands of generations of humanity.

Right? That's not like your parents opinions, man. That is an idea that has been, honed and improved and worked on over and over and over and over again, generation to generation to generation. And then it finally got you to where we are today. It's, it's not like just an old person's out of touch idea about reality.

But what is culturally normative when, what is culturally normative isn't traditionalism. It's uniquely stupid.

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: so we need to say that traditionalism definitely has more value than what's culturally normative But the process that brings us traditionalism Is also one of iterative generational improvement the traditions we have aren't in stone They changed and evolved over time to become better.

That is the way we are meant to be To relate to traditions, we take the traditions that are handed to us with [00:20:00] care and we work to improve them for a new era, for new context. And so I think that that's also the thing to, to, to differentiate there is traditionalism versus culturally normative, non traditional values.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I also think of the Winston Churchill quote about someone being angry at you, meaning that you actually stood up for something. And that's something that I think is running hand in hand with the concept of being weird. That you won't, if everyone agrees with you, or if you were not controversial in any way, if people aren't mad at you, you aren't fighting for anything substantive and you're not making a difference and something that we discussed early in our careers was.

Where we could actually make a difference in life. And if you are this was in the context of whether you should work with Google or not. And my argument to you was that in Google, if you do not take your position where you would make the most [00:21:00] optimal decision for whatever department you were put in.

Someone else with equal intelligence and credentials to you, roughly speaking would make the same optimal decisions. There, there would be no difference in the world depending on who was in that role, because it was going to be a role in which whoever was there was going to make roughly the same optimal decision.

And what really mattered was where we. Would have an impact. We would be a Delta and you're not going to in society make that impact. If, if you're just doing what everyone thinks is the inevitable course of society, when running correctly,

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: know,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely agree with you. And, and to add more color to the anecdote, she's talking about here.

There was a time in my life rated jaw. Choice between joining a venture capital firm in Korea, which was like a really risky move for me, or taking on a management position at Google. And she was like, differentially, you will have more impact on reality. If you take the job in Korea, therefore it's the obvious choice.

[00:22:00] Speaking of, you know, we also look for opportunities to help people in these sorts of spaces. So that said if anyone here is looking to buy server space for AI stuff we are looking to find somebody interested in that right now for a side project that I've taken on because I think it could change the course of AI development.

And of course now that's an inflection point in human history, so that's why I'm, I'm focused on it.

Simone Collins: Now, by the way, the, the Churchill quote is, you have enemies, good. That means you've stood up for something sometime in your life. And I love that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, people are like, how do you feel about people online making fun of you?

And it's like, well, you see, here is the thing. I've met the average human. If the average human disapproves of me, I'm probably doing something right. Uh, The average human. Um, My God uh, but yeah, it's, it's, it's absolutely wild now to you, Simone, how did you grow up thinking about this term weird? Would you [00:23:00] have thought about the term weird as like an intrinsically negative term growing up?

Or would you have taken it as a compliment?

Simone Collins: I would have taken it as a compliment, which is another reason why I find this campaign tactics so perplexing. It. I thought that everyone, when asked who they were in high school, the default, as a joke, as a trope, answer was, I was the weird one. I floated between crowds.

You know, I didn't affiliate with really anyone. And I thought that everyone saw themselves as weird and considered themselves weird. And the fact that they're attacking someone as weird, I thought, you know, Well, they're only going to alienate themselves from everyone who identifies as weird.

Apparently I was incorrect in this being a pervasive trope. Am I missing something here? Or was that actually a thing? No, I thought it was a thing too. I always thought weird was

Malcolm Collins: a good thing, right? Like,

Simone Collins: or at least it was how people personally identified. So if you saw other people accusing [00:24:00] someone of being weird, it's that same effect that I said about, that if you saw someone being, someone calling someone else weirdo or freak, they would think the name caller was the bad guy, not the name called.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that this, this sort of shows that the progressive party has become a party of people desperate to fit in. Desperate to not be criticized. But if you were

Simone Collins: desperate to fit in, you'd be like, well, we're all weirdos here and like, we're inclusive.

Malcolm Collins: I thought that was the thing. I thought that was, They got cultural control of society?

No, now the weirdos are the bad guys. There are the cool kids. And I'd also like to point out here that some people be like, how can you be saying this? Trump's the bully, not Kamala. Look at the way he acted in like his early debates where he would make fun of people. And I was like, Okay, come on, bro. In Trump's early debates, when he was debating against, like, the other conservatives to win the ticket, he was, hands down, seen as the underdog.

He was a giant political institution that was [00:25:00] constantly making fun of him, saying his political campaign was a joke. Nobody took

Simone Collins: him seriously. Nobody

Malcolm Collins: took him seriously. And Constantly, constantly clowned on him. He was the guy going up. He's the little nerdy kid who you saw getting bullied and then, like, turns out to know karate or something.

No, no.

Simone Collins: Here's the problem is you haven't seen it, but in 16 Candles, he's the blonde nerd. And it, it, for those who haven't seen the movie, including you, Malcolm, in, in the movie, there is this character who's kind of like the bully of the nerds who comes up to them and is like, I'm gonna I'm going to have sex with this girl.

You know, I'm going to like get her panties. And then he does get her panties, but he doesn't actually have sex with her. He just convinces her to loan her panties to him. So he can tell his friends that he had sex with her. Yeah. But like, that's Trump. Trump is like, just, I want to, like, I want to be cool. I want people to see that I'm cool.

And he, he may come across as a bully sometimes, I think mostly because he's. Fronting. He wants people to see way. No, no, no. It's not because

Malcolm Collins: he does. Unless you are completely brainwashed, [00:26:00] Trump never looked like a bully to you. If you are brainwashed, then you're like, anyone who fights the urban monoculture automatically bad.

But Trump, well come on the

Simone Collins: name calling. The, the, you know, he, he does,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. He was clearly in a position of non-power. He had a, a giant political apparatus that was against him on both sides. He had an entire press that was against him. Come on Malcolm.

Simone Collins: He wants to be seen. As a powerful boy,

Malcolm Collins: regardless, most nerds want to be seen as powerful.

There's the famous line at the end of revenge of the nerds, where the one character goes, well, I'm a nerd, which is something I just learned today. You know, you, you don't like, you don't get the nerd card. Okay. Simone, but when he was making fun of whether it was the press or it was his political opponents, these were people with power over him.

that had been acting in bad faith against him. And it was exactly to everyone who was watching this with any level of cultural sanity, [00:27:00] the nerd in the high school that you, you, you know, a hallway who then gets stopped by a group of like three beefy bullies who are picking on him, like he ends up just verbally owning them.

And then like, he's like, yeah, but you know, your mom doesn't love you and it's getting a divorce and they like run off crying or something. People can be like, Whoa, that was a low blow. The truth is, is everybody who saw what went down is like, thank God that little squirrely guy stood up for himself. And every, every other little squirrely guy out there, that is what he represented in those moments.

And you can be like, well, that's bull He reacted to their bullying. Like you look at the, oh, what about the reporter who had that disability? But it's like, yeah, but did you read the piece that he wrote about Trump? Did you like, are you just pretending that he did nothing to, that he didn't have power over Trump, that he's supposed to be able to like write whatever he wants, do whatever he wants without Trump overstepping in the same [00:28:00] way that he overstepped in his position of power in society.

And I think that this is the thing. It's very much like a, how can he slap moment. Progressives are so used. To making fun of and clowning on and telling white lies from their perspective about their opponents

Go on, b***h, say something funny. Uh oh. He's getting mad. Jack, let's just get out of here, okay? Yeah, puss. Run away. Go ahead, b***h. Say something funny. Make me laugh. Here,

Malcolm Collins: And then when their opponents fight back, they're like, oh my god You can't do that. You're a lower cast member than me in our society My cast is allowed to goon on your cast, but you're not allowed to do anything to us, of course and [00:29:00] I think that you're you're playing into their character Well, basically lie that Trump was acting with any level of cultural authority in those moments.

Once Trump was actually president, once he actually had power, he did fairly little actually picking on people. And this is something Yeah, lock her

Simone Collins: up kind of stopped

Malcolm Collins: and And he didn't Look, the progressives literally tried to lock him up. He didn't when he got power. All of that stuff for him was because and allowed, like, by his set of morals, allowed because he was in a position of less power.

Not, not, it wasn't stuff that he did when he became president, and he did it even less than previous Republican presidents, like back when the Republican ethos was like the dominant ethos, and you look at like the George Bush era, it was like well known that he would constantly make fun of his, like, staffers, like, Right, but I'll put the clip here from, um, 30 rock where he gets the nickname [00:30:00] burger.

Like five seconds after meeting Bush

Because that was the type of guy he was. He was from a dominant culture and he was used to being a Using it to sort of signal his power over other people. But Trump didn't do that. And he also didn't really front, you know, look at him always getting his like McDonald's and everything like that.

You know, he had weird cultural things, but they weren't high class cultural things. Like is a gold toilet, high class or trashy, right? A gold toilet and McDonald's burgers is the trashiest thing I can imagine. It's just rich, trashy, you know, he wasn't actually culturally fronting. He was being him. is nerdy.

But I mean, do you have other thoughts on this or?

Simone Collins: No, I think that that's accurate. And I still can't get over it. I can't get over that. We've gotten to the point where the. The party that used to be about letting your freak flag fly has become the party that literally accuses its opponents of [00:31:00] being weird.

Malcolm Collins: But even think about the things that they're accusing them of. JD Vance wears eyeliner. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I thought eyeliner belonged to the left. They should be like, stop appropriating our eyeliner, JD Vance.

Malcolm Collins: No, but they're like, he's the weird kid. Let's pick on him.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and also, you know, Sex with a couch? I thought we were sex positive.

This is horrible.

Malcolm Collins: Is that not like a classic weirdo kid who then ends up making a billion dollar thing to do? Yeah, but also he didn't do it. No, he didn't do it, but what I'm saying is even the fictions that they're creating around him are power fantasies around bullying someone. To create a fiction like this.

No,

Simone Collins: it's so classic. It's like the, it's like something that mean girls would make up in a high school. That like, oh so and so had sex with a couch. That, that's, it's what like, Shelby, the, the mean cheerleader who hates Cheryl. I, I'm [00:32:00] bad at names. But yeah. It's, it's, it's juvenile. An invention. I mean, it's funny.

I'm sure someone came up with it that, you know, they were very clever to do so, but.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. I need to take it aside here to talk about like how much Dems don't get it. Wait, what? The, the video from Kennedy that unfortunately is probably going to hurt Trump because it connects with like base people so much is he has this video and I'll see if I put it here about running into a, a bear okay.

So bear roadkill. Progressive bear roadkill story. Like, like make fun of him. They're like, what a weirdo to like. Put a bear in Central Park and then I'll play the video here or at least the highlights from it.

And that woman in a van in front of me hit a bear and killed it. A young bear. So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear.

[00:33:00] And it was very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York City. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear.

So we stayed late and instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner at Peter Lugar's Steakhouse. And at the end of the dinner, it went late, and I realized I couldn't go home, I had to go to the airport. And the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car.

Um, because that would have been bad. So then I thought, you know, at that time, This was the, a little bit of the redneck in me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes and saw people, a couple of people got killed. And it was every day and people had gotten badly injured.

Every day it was in the press. And so I thought, [00:34:00] I wasn't drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I said, I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of. I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike.

It'll be fun, funny for people. So, everybody thought, that's a great idea. So we went and did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something. That's it. The next day, it was like, it was on every television station, it was the front page of every paper, and I turned on the TV, and there was like a mile of yellow tape, and there were twenty cop cars, there were helicopters flying over it, and I was like, oh my god, what did I do?

And, uh, and then, they were, there were some people on TV in Tyvek suits with gloves on, lifting up the bike, and they were saying they were going to take this guy home. It was up to Albany to get [00:35:00] a fingerprinted problem and, uh, I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.

Luckily, um, the, uh, the story died down after a while and, uh, And it stayed dead for a decade and then, um, the New Yorker somehow found out about it and they just, they're going to do a big article on me and that's one of the articles. So they asked me, the fact checker, to say, you know, it's going to be a bad story.

Malcolm Collins: And then you watch this video and if you're like a patriotic American, you're coming away from this like, this guy is f ing amazing.

Like, A, he's the type of guy who like sees bear roadkill and his first thought is, I bet I could skin that. Yeah, skin it and

Simone Collins: freeze the meat. This is an opportunity. You know, and also that he knew the roadkill laws. [00:36:00] Yeah, well, it's legal in New York, so it should

Malcolm Collins: be fine to break him away from this Kennedy stereotype of like being out of touch and you're like, Oh no, this guy Fs.

I know,

Simone Collins: but look, here's what I want. I want your take on, and maybe base campers want to know this too. So who is Kennedy going to draw votes from? Is he going to draw votes from Trump or from, from Kamala Harris?

Malcolm Collins: With stuff like this? I mean, this is the most authentic thing I've ever seen. Then that he, he gets, he gets to New York and he's like, Oh gosh, I got to go to an airport.

I can't leave the bear in my car. What do I do with it? Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll put it in a bike lane and then take an old bike and, and put it next to it. Like somebody crashed into the bear to try to clown on bikers and it's like, here's the thing. Everybody hates bikers. Pedestrians hate bikers.

Cars hate bikers. The only people who don't like bikers are obsessive bikers. That guy No man, other

Simone Collins: bicyclists hate bikers. The only time I've ever been hit by a bike is when I was on a bike.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I'm gonna post a video of the [00:37:00] IT crowd, biker boss guy, but like, I had a guy like this, a biker at my office, who would come in and like, his whole outfit, yeah, just, you know, he's a biker, there's like biker

Simone Collins: cleats.

Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So I, I see this and I'm like, oh my God, that is one. I love that you are like. You know, non pretentious and backwoods enough to see roadkill and immediately think, skin it. And then in bit two, you're cool enough to clown on bikers. Like, come on, that's fun, man. Well, then isn't

Simone Collins: Trump screwed then?

If Kennedy's going to draw votes from him?

Malcolm Collins: Nobody really cares. I mean, look, Kennedy is, is not going to matter that much in this election. But I, I will say that I gained a lot more respect for him after seeing this. And this is such a good example of media baiting where the progressives think that some fact that they are delivering to you is going to make you hate a person.

And then a normal American watches it. And they're like, that guy is so cool. Well, he also,

Simone Collins: he handled this. In the perfect way possible. [00:38:00] Basically, he hoped that this story would stay dead for what? 30 years. Yeah. And he had the New Yorker call him to fact check it realized, Oh s**t, this is finally coming out.

I thought this would never come out and then decided to release a video about it. And he released the video in the best possible way. It wasn't him facing a camera saying, this is what happened. I'm sorry. It was him sitting at a table talking to like in a room, there's at least two other people that are clearly more, but mostly like a woman who's kind of leaning against a coffee table.

And at first the woman looks kind of just kind of bored and disinterested, or maybe a little bit. Mad at him. And then everyone just starts cracking up as his story plays out. And as you're watching this woman, you're with her, you're having this journey with her as you're hearing this story and you're cracking up with her.

And it was, it was perfectly done. I don't know how intentional all of it was, but he had a [00:39:00] masterful approach to this.

Malcolm Collins: I love this. Before we sign out, what is the one, another thing that they've been attacking JD Vance for being weird for it? I want to hear your response to this. The weird cat lady, Oh, the childless cat

Simone Collins: lady 2021 comment on Twitter that he will now there's an op ed in the New York Times.

There's an op ed in the New Yorker. I mean, everyone has an opinion about him calling people. Out for being childless cat ladies.

Malcolm Collins: We used to know that old maid was a bad thing, that being a cat lady was a bad thing. But now the progressives are like a party of cat ladies and they're like, how dare he?

They call her the Cat Lady. People say she's crazy just because she has a few dozen cats. AHHH! NAH! AHH! TEEHEEHEEEHEEEHEEHEE!

Malcolm Collins: Well, I love

Simone Collins: his response. And one of his responses in a TV interview recently was I have nothing against cats, which is not a big response. That's a great non apology.

Malcolm Collins: They're like, [00:40:00] I'm not a cat lady, I just have one cat

 She'll become a crazy cat lady. She only has one cat. Give her time.

Malcolm Collins: goes, no, it's, it's, we've gotta shame this stuff. And there was actually a progressive outlet that, I think it was in New York Times you were saying that said actually he's right to be shaming.

Simone Collins: The New York Times Op Ed that I read was not, it was, it was shaming him for saying that. Because, for example, he pointed out that many people who are childless are not childless by choice.

That he'd criticized, for example, Pete Buttigieg about, being childless and being one of the many childless lawmakers that's dictating the lives of American families when at that time, he didn't know this, of course, no one knew this, but Pete Buttigieg and his husband had just faced a major setback in their adoption journey, which is heartbreaking, right?

So the point that this Progressive New York Times op ed contributor was making, was that it's not really fair to criticize childless people and to shame them because you never know what's going on with them and it's actually quite sad that growing numbers of people under [00:41:00] 50 are reporting that they're not, they don't expect to ever have kids because many of those people want kids.

So, you know, he, he still shamed him and I, I, I'm with, you and I are clear on our stance that pernatalism should not be about shaming people, but you know anything that people say on twitter You

Malcolm Collins: are clear on that. I am clear on that, yes. My sympathy should involve a component of shame. I know. You

Simone Collins: never wanted to be child free.

I did. And I understand that lifestyle, and I respect it, and I think it's totally fine, and people who want to be child free should be child free. They just shouldn't

Malcolm Collins: have positions of power in society. Listen, P. G. Keenan's

Simone Collins: on No, no, no. P. G. Keenan is on board with me. P. G. Keenan has argued. The best possible thing is that people who want to be child free are going to be child free.

Let them be child free. Okay. I

Malcolm Collins: guess you're right. We don't want to, yeah, we don't want to pressure somebody. You're right. Because then they're having kids for social status and that sort

Simone Collins: of thing. There's nothing worse than someone bringing in an unwanted child that's not going to be given the best possible child and the best possible shot at life.

Anyway. The, the, the larger point is that when something is posted on Twitter, Like, Twitter is for trolling, [00:42:00] okay? I don't, any shaming that takes place on Twitter doesn't count as shaming because it is Twitter. It is where you trash talk, okay? This is not, the fact that But hold on, another thing

Malcolm Collins: you mentioned about this article is the number one upvoted comment under it.

Was wouldn't it be better if humanity went extinct,

Simone Collins: right? So the New York Times of it that I'm referring to the Malcolm is referring to, which we can link to in the, in the description basically was a progressive argument for prenatalism. It was saying that demographic collapse does affect everyone, including progressives, and that while.

J. D. Vance's approach to the issue based on shaming and that his policy stances that don't include support for single parents that don't support LGBTQ plus whatever, marriages, et cetera, is not the answer that we still need a progressive answer, optimally from the progressive view in the form of social services for I have to take a donor call.

Can I take it? All right. I love you.

I'm muting myself and seeing if I can finish up.

 Perennialism matters to everyone. That was the argument that was being made in [00:43:00] the op ed. And then the, the number one comment that was upvoted in this New York Times op ed was.

Well, but honestly, wouldn't it be better if there were no humans left in the world? Like isn't human extinction kind of Okay. Which is, and and you know what I tweeted that ar I tweeted that saying this is why Progre TISM is a right wing coded article and the author of the op-Ed retweeted it because I think he's equally frustrated.

He's like, I tried. I tried and, and no one's listening. And so he gets it. Now he understands. He retweeted

Malcolm Collins: your tweet. That's amazing. He

Simone Collins: retweeted it. He retweeted it. Yeah. Which is I think it goes to show you

Malcolm Collins: have a good day. I'm gonna go.

Yes,

Simone Collins: I'm

Malcolm Collins: still here. Yes!

In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the profound influence of Catholic immigrants on American culture, particularly in reshaping the Yankee identity. Drawing from Colin Woodard's "American Nations" and contrasting it with David Hackett Fisher's "Albion's Seed," the Collins couple offers a nuanced perspective on how Catholic immigration waves transformed the cultural, political, and social landscape of America. This comprehensive analysis covers topics ranging from bureaucratic tendencies and voting patterns to the evolution of American arts and sports culture. Key points discussed: The misconception of Yankee culture's Puritan roots Catholic influence on American bureaucracy and politics The impact of Catholic immigration on urban centers The evolution of Catholic voting patterns Cultural differences between Catholic and Protestant traditions The role of Catholics in shaping American arts and education The future of Catholic influence in American politics

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. We were listening to the audio book for American nations by

Simone Collins: colin Woodard.

Malcolm Collins: . And we're likely going to do a series of episodes on them. This is a guy who divided America into 11 different populations with different histories. I'll put it on the screen here. I think he gets most things right. He wrote the book as a direct followup to another book that we mentioned all the time on the show called Albion's Seed that talks about the four founding cultures of America

Simone Collins: by historian David Hackett Fisher, which was written in either late eighties or early nineties.

So this answer is a much more modern take and quite interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Well, but it also does something quite different than Fisher's book. And I think it, it gets some things wrong. And one of the things that gets wrong, we're going to be talking about on this video, because I think he completely misunderstands the Yankee culture.

So first I'm going to talk a little bit about Albion Seed so you can get a little prep of this and, and why Albion Seed doesn't help us as much understand modern America as this [00:01:00] followup book does. Specifically, Albion Seed, they divide the original Americans into four Four distinct cultural groups, which is accurate.

The Puritans, the Quakers, the Backwoods people,

and the Cavaliers. Now what was interesting about these four groups is I remember I was talking to somebody about this, and they kept trying to guess. They were like, who are the Catholics? Which one is the Catholics?

And they go, like, I, I would go, so the first thing they go, oh, the next is the Catholic group. Or I mentioned the Cavaliers. And they go, oh, that must be the Catholic group. And I had to break to them something that is kind of, I think tough for a lot of Catholics today because they get this sort of retelling of American history that tries to include them in parts of American history that they just were not players in.

During the time of the American Revolution, only 1. 5 percent of America was Catholic. If you, and people are like, Maryland, Maryland was a Catholic colony, wasn't it? At the time of the revolution, less than 10 percent of the population in Maryland was Catholic. There was just no significant Catholic population in early America.

[00:02:00] However, that is not true of America today, even when we're talking about like significant declines in religiosity in America. You can look at something like Massachusetts, for example. And can you guess the percentage in 1990 of Americans , in Massachusetts, who identified as Catholics?

Simone Collins: 4%.

Malcolm Collins: 54%. Holy smokes. Do you, do you know what it was in 2010? 38? 45%.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Uh Oh. So we can go over some, some other, you know, new England states, you get 26% of New Hampshire, one of the least Catholic, of the New England states is incredibly Catholic. 22% of new Vermont, another low Catholic population of the New England states identifies as Catholic.

That is absolutely wild. [00:03:00] Yeah. Um, In terms of like how much of the population of New England Catholics makeup. So, the thing that the guy gets wrong in this book is he does get right. The Quakers, who ended up making up the Midlands population, were widely outcompeted by an alliance of the backwoods people and the German immigrants, who basically ended up erasing their cultural footprint until they came roaring back with a vengeance through the woke revolution, which we will do another episode on how that evolved out of Quakerism.

We talk about it heavily in the book, the pragmatist guide to crafting religion. However,

He incorrectly claims.

Malcolm Collins: the Yankees evolved out of the Puritans

When in reality.

Malcolm Collins: the Puritans. basically went extinct in the same way that the Quakers do. Oh, yes, they may got some small sliver of American population, but their ideals and their world vision was pretty much completely erased except for some small bubbles in places like New Hampshire, which I [00:04:00] think holds more to the Puritan political framing.

But largely speaking, they were erased by the many waves. of Catholic immigrants that mostly settled in the urban centers of New England. As to places why the, like Vermont and New Hampshire were not as affected, it's because their population doesn't live in urban centers. And most of the Catholic population went to settle in urban centers.

So, if you look here, , at his map and then contrast it with the concentration of Catholics in different parts of America. It is very clear that three of the regions. That he carved out are actually specifically Catholic cultural units. Here. We are talking about Yankee dim, the left coast and Eleanor.

Okay, This is the north Eastern United States. This is the far Western coast of the United States. And this is the Hispanic immigrant part of the United States. Every one of these has had an enormous impact on America's cultural [00:05:00] history.

And as such Catholicism has had an enormous impact on Americans, cultural history.

Malcolm Collins: Now, another thing that people get super wrong about Catholics modern, modern Catholics, and they go, Oh, Catholics, solid conservative voter place. Life begins at conception and all right. As of 2022, what percentage of Catholics identified was the Democratic Party versus the Republican party?

Simone Collins: That's a good question. I would say. Probably 68 percent of Catholics identify with the Democratic Party because it, it focuses more on this like, top down control and like charitable giving to the weak, right?

It's,

Malcolm Collins: it's 42 percent with the Democratic Party, 38 percent with the Republican Party. Oh, okay. So the rest aren't affiliated. Yeah. 20 percent are unaffiliated. There's still way more and they used to be even higher with the Democratic Party. So in the election cycle before that, in the 2020 election cycle it was 45 percent [00:06:00] identified with the Democratic Party.

And, and then if you look at exit polling, it's even worse. So you look at 2020 52 percent of Catholic voters voted for Joe Biden.

Simone Collins: 52%. Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would think that the majority of Catholics are going Democrats.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Here I have contrasted to maps. For you. One map is the percent of Catholics in different counties of America. And the other map is how those counties voted. You can see there is almost a direct overlap to which counties went Democrat. And this is in the most recent election cycle. This is this election cycle, which counties are hotly contested, which ones are not. So, this is not.

just a historic thing.

Malcolm Collins: And I think a lot of people think that they're a Republican faction, Catholics at all voting was, Republicans is actually a fairly modern thing in the 1970s.

So again, I mentioned this on the show, but a lot of people don't know this. The Republican party ended up having to take a pro-life stance. It was majority the Republican party was the pro-choice life before, which [00:07:00] much more fit was Republican values because yeah. The, the Protestant tradition generally believes that life begins like 12 weeks after conception as Catholics did before about 200 years ago you know, like Thomas Aquinas and Augustus Hippo used to believe this, but they did this shift recently with Pope Pius IX, gone into that in another episode, don't need to go into it here but, but one, it was the, the, you know, Protestant religious thing to do, and it was the, Free choice thing to do, which is what Republicans were historically about.

And so they did this switch in the 1970s, specifically as a tactic to try to get some Catholics to vote Republican. And while it swung some Catholics their way, it has always been the minority of Catholics who this appealed to. And it was really just the single issue voters, because other than that issue, and we'll get into why the Catholic vote and the Catholic vote Cultural perception much more aligns with the democratic party.

And I also think people forget how recently Catholics were accepted as a mainstream block within American society. [00:08:00] You know, I'm just baffled where you'll get these like Catholic LARPers today. Like they don't, they're not actually culturally Catholic, like, Nick Fuentes, right, who like are aligning with like the KKK, the KKK.

hunted and lynched Catholics just as much as they did blacks. What? Yes, they hated Catholics. The three groups that the KKK was about getting rid of or removing from power were blacks, Jews, and Catholics. Oh, what?

Simone Collins: Okay how did I live my entire life not knowing this? Well, because there's

Malcolm Collins: been this like rewriting of history as like Catholics were this group that was always here and weren't this incredibly discriminated against group that was because, you know, you can't have like Irish as a discriminated group in modern progressive.

You can't have Italians, but there were lots of signs, you know, you look, you go back to these immigration ways and it was, you know, Irish need not apply here. Italian need not apply here. There was this [00:09:00] huge fear of the Catholic immigrant waves and that they would change our culture and they saw these people in the same way that many people today, I actually say much worse than most people look at Hispanic immigrants today.

They saw them as an intrinsically criminal people. Because most of the Catholic immigrant graves came with large organized crime, much larger than the current Hispanic wave. Like people They, they are nothing compared to like the mob or the mafia. The mob was the Irish wave and the mafia was the Italian wave which basically controlled huge portions of American urban centers.

Like people were terrified. So, so you've got to keep that in mind as well. Right. And when Kennedy, who was the first Catholic president that we had was running for office, it was a huge thing. Like it was the Obama. Yeah. They were like,

Simone Collins: is he going to be loyal to the Pope or to America?

Malcolm Collins: Can a Catholic be president?

This was a big thing that people saw beforehand. Like, like they were like, I do. It was a big belief before that the [00:10:00] Catholics couldn't be president. Like Mm-Hmm. because fundamentally they're loyal to their religion, and their religion is loyal to a foreign power. IE the Vatican. I. e. he can't be president, right?

And, and, and people are like, come on, Catholics aren't Democrats. Who was our last president? The Catholic Joe Biden. You know, keep this in mind, right? , so we've got to break through a number of things. One, Catholics were a discriminated group for a long time in American history.

It only recently came out of this discriminated status. This discriminated identity hugely shaped their cultural history, the way they impacted American politics, and the way they created, I think he is right about the boundary he drew around Yankeedom. I think he is wrong about what influenced their value set or how they came to exist as a cultural group.

We are going to do a different episode on why the Yankee Puritans went extinct and what ended up happening to America's Calvinists because they didn't go. purely extinct. They ended up merging with the backwoods [00:11:00] culture. You see a lot of this even in his book. And the backwoods people were already predominantly Calvinist.

These were the incredibly violent woodland people who ended up creating greater Appalachia, which is where my people are from. And I think people see this in my kids. It's like these sort of uncouth, violent like, like us as well. Like we prefer the lower arts. You know, we are not concerned with sort of signaling high class.

In fact, that would be considered like a very low class thing to do within the greater Appalachian cultural system. But we will get to a whole different episode talking about that. I want to focus now on how Catholics changed America. So when Catholics came into the United States, they behaved very differently than basically any cultural group that we had had in the United States before.

Typically and I've talked about this in other episodes, but it's worth noting during the recent sort of battle that we had as a country, you had, this was over the COVID vaccines. You had two different [00:12:00] ways of relating to truth. You had one group who said, well, true should be determined by people who spent their entire lives studying a subject and then who are certified by a central bureaucracy.

And then another group who said, in this case, the university system, the central bureaucracy is prone to corruption. Instead we should all determine truths for ourselves based on our own research. Wouldn't you know it, this actually broke out. If you look at the areas that were more pro really strict COVID restrictions and everything like that, you basically look at the percentage of Catholic descendants living in an area, and you will see a direct correlation to Did they go with the expert consensus or were they more about figuring this out on your own?

Now, I should note, I actually think that both of these systems for determining truth are important and a society is healthier when you have both of them. Otherwise, you go full QAnon where everyone is everything in the conspiracy. You can't trust anything. And I don't think QAnon is wrong about everything, but I think that, you know, there is, it's sort of a full conspiracy brain thing.

Or, you know, You go full, like, zero COVID, China, the experts can't have been [00:13:00] wrong the first time, so we have to keep doubling down. So I think that America benefits from having these two populations. But this, this flip is what we had during the Reformation, right? Like, that's why the Catholics took this mindset.

The Reformation was also one group saying, truth should be determined by people who spent their entire life studying a subject, and then who have been certified by a central bureaucracy, i. e., the Catholic Church. The priest system. And then another group who said, no, no, no. True should be determined by individuals studying the Bible themselves.

And then you have the, the, the secondary thing with the Catholic group that made them very different. So in the first great awakening in America. We'll have another episode on this, how it was sort of like the first social media movement is the Catholics when they were choosing, you know, who would be appointed priests who would, you know, speak to people one, the people couldn't even understand what they were saying most of the time because they were saying it in one language and it was a language that people didn't speak and they were promoted through a bureaucracy.

In the early American colonies during this like fiery Protestant great awakening [00:14:00] period, people would go to the church. There'd be like four churches in a town and you would choose the one that spoke to you most. It was like using early social media channels, but it led to a very different way of relating to your family.

Faith. It was like a very fiery driven way, right? Like, well, it made

Simone Collins: you have sort of the difference between religion almost as a public utility. Like you go to the local public school, just like you'd go to the local Catholic church versus like a startup world that, that Protestant preachers were the original social media platforms.

And we're. We're recently on a road trip and I was looking at in an old New England town that we were driving through, like all the different, very old churches in that town and feeling like, wow, like each of these feels kind of like a different social media platform and we had these basically like local entrepreneurs running around.

Raising money from benefactors who are hoping to get an ROI on their investment in terms of social capital prestige, and maybe, you [00:15:00] know, like better odds of going to heaven or being among the elect, whatever it might be. To, you know, to invest in these, in these, in these projects. Preachers who then we're trying to get audiences and get the network effects.

And they're very much like early social media platforms. It is a chicken and egg problem of like, you know, well, can I get a great congregation, you know, but can I also get the best, you know, like preacher, it's, it's a really interesting question. And so, yeah, I see what you're saying. This is so interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Pretty much all of the other early American cultural groups had a, a, a massive distrust of authority and they had a massive distrust bureaucracies and everything like that. And the Catholics didn't have this, which allowed them to do something very unique in terms of how they were able to integrate themselves into American society. So there were two things that they did. One. We got to talk about organized crime because organized crime wasn't just organized crime.

It was an alternate government structure that this group was using to both provide social services to their own people, [00:16:00] which the organized crime organizations often did. They were providing you know, orphanages, they were providing help to the local Catholic community. They were providing with food and everything like that.

And this was a discriminated community, right? But they also provided rules for that community and order for that community that superseded the local government's order, but something very interesting happened because they were able to form these large counter bureaucracies to the existing bureaucracies of the regions that they were moving into.

But then they begin to quickly integrate with the local regions. Specifically, this is where the stereotype of the Irish cop comes from in American history. They. Quickly took over pretty much all of the government bureaucratic positions specifically the cops and other government bureaucracies in the large urban centers where they were, they were hugely disproportionately represented there.

We even see this today in American politics, where if you look at the Supreme Court, it has been hugely, hugely, hugely, overwhelmingly Catholic, and [00:17:00] I'll add in post, like, just how overwhelmingly Catholic, I think it's like 80 percent Catholic or something.

So as of the last Supreme court for Supreme court justices raised in Catholic families, you had. John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch. And justice, Sonia Sotomayor. That's a 78% Catholic majority in a Supreme court. Within a country that only had the Catholic population of 20%.

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely wild. And so they were sort of like bureaucratic specialists.

And it led to the culture that they were building in New England to have an incredible, this Yankee culture to have an incredible trust of bureaucracies and respect for bureaucratic traditions. So if you look at most of the other cultural groups, they would have looked down on, for example, lawyers especially wealthy lawyers.

So, and you see this in my family history. Remember I [00:18:00] read that story about my ancestor who was like really into getting educated and everything like that. Well, he always called himself, he said, well, I'm a a bacon and eggs lawyer. You know, he never wanted people to know that he wasn't a subsistence lawyer.

liver, that he lived on a subsistence lifestyle, but he was a lawyer. And we'll get into why the backwoods people wanted to be seen as living on a subsistence lifestyle and not accumulating capital. Because that was very important to their cultural tradition. But within the Catholic culture, no, this wasn't true.

You know, being a lawyer, being a judge, being a police officer, these were all very respected traditions.

This led to Catholics taking on a very unique role in the early. , economic hubs of America when the Catholic immigrant waves came in, because they were much more comfortable taking these sort of bureaucratic positions. Then the Protestants were, they were able to flood local institutions like the police, for example, and build a majority Catholic police force really, really quickly after their immigration waves came in.

And it was actually the rise [00:19:00] of the majority Catholic police force that led to the fall of the mob. , because there wasn't a need for an external, , bureaucratic., operation to protect the Catholics. When the Catholics controlled the police force, this is where you get that like stereotypical police officer's name of Murphy. You know,

But, but it wasn't just the police force.

It was also the legal system. It was also the governing bureaucracy. It was every bureaucratic layer became majority Catholic about a generation and a half after the first major Catholic immigration waves.

Malcolm Collins: And so it moved the Yankee culture into being a much more pro bureaucratic culture. But it also made it a culture that fundamentally, I think, didn't understand some of the things, like, the older parts of American culture.

So one of the things recently, like, if you talk about, like, the gay marriage stuff and like, oh, gays shouldn't be allowed to get married in the United States. And I've, I've noticed disproportionately it's the Catholic conservatives who push this. Which, from an [00:20:00] actual American perspective, is a very queer thing to be pushing because some religions within America do believe that gays can get married.

And if you are pushing that, then you are saying that the government should have the ability to choose how the Christian Bible should be interpreted. And this was actually one of the things that led to the revolution. So leading up to the revolution, one of the really like core evil things that the British government did is they, um, said that the Presbyterian.

the Calvinist ministers could not marry people. And they sent over Anglican ministers to marry people saying that we should have control over who marries and who doesn't marry and the traditions within which they marry. And this too, you know, the traditional American system was seen as horrifying.

So, the, the, during, during the revolution, I think a lot of people misunderstand the revolution's framing. So from the perspective of most of the revolutionaries, the way it's taught in school today, I think, to be more inclusive, is that they were mostly annoyed about just the [00:21:00] taxes that they were under, but that's not really the way most of the revolutionaries thought about it.

Most of the revolutionaries were like, Religious extremists, Calvinists, 70 percent of the white population in America. This is according to the heritage foundation, which is, you know, a core conservative organization were Calvinists during the American revolution and they solve the British Anglicans who were trying to impose their religious system on them as a Catholic light or a Catholic light group.

Trying to force them to live a more Catholic lifestyle. Still

Simone Collins: very much establishment because the whole thing is, you know, let me interpret for myself or let my community interpret for themselves without me.

Malcolm Collins: It wasn't just that it was the way that the Anglican, the Anglican church is very Catholic in a lot of its traditions.

And so they saw and, and even its belief system, because that's what, I mean, When Henry VIII, Henry VIII didn't really want to get rid of all of the great ceremony of the church, he liked all that stuff. He liked the hierarchy, he liked the ceremony, he just felt he had a duty [00:22:00] to his people to produce an error and he felt like due to church politics he wasn't able to do that.

He never really wanted to move away from the Catholic vibe, he wasn't ever really sold on the Puritan ideal of like, we need to reinvent the wheel. And because of that, the Church of England, the Anglican Church, always very much looked Catholic from the perspective of the, the Protestant immigrants. And so when they were fighting the revolution, to many of them, this was a holy religious war against a group that they saw as representing sort of the devil or the Antichrist.

And so, there was a huge anti, and this is where this anti Catholic sentiment came from. I'm not saying it was a good thing, but it's important to understand how strong it was in the early colonies. And so, so the Yankees then came and then, and this is also why many of the Catholics settled in the same areas and settled in this New England area, because that's where the ports were that they were dropping off the immigrants.

And when the immigrants came into those ports, If they moved too far from [00:23:00] these New England ports for the immigrants, the Ellis Island and stuff like that, where they were coming in, they would face an extreme amount of discrimination, possibly get killed. As I mentioned, you know, the KKK and the lynch mobs and stuff like that, there was a very strong motivation to not move from these ports of entry, which is why you have such a Catholic concentration in America.

And then here I'll put a, a map here on screen of where the Catholics actually live in America. . And and so I think that that is a fundamental thing he got wrong. , the Puritan ideology, which was mostly built around a hatred of authority, a hatred of bureaucracy a hatred of, yeah, they wanted to create utopian experiments, but it is very important that these utopian experiments were always meant to be small scale towns that would do things in different ways.

You can think of them very similar to the way we see things is, is that Puritan experiments, the different towns would run things in different ways. And those ways, like the way that the towns were different was very important. You would then go live in the town that, or follow the preacher that was most affiliated with your way of doing things.

Yes, it [00:24:00] was a city on a hill, but it was a city on the hill that was downstream of these influencer like early churches that led to the Great Awakening. It was not downstream of the government bureaucracy. They did not have trust in the government bureaucracy one iota, and you see this in the early days as well.

As you look at their writings and stuff like that. That trust did not descend from their utopian vision. It stemmed from the Catholic utopian visions. And another change that happened with the Yankee ideology that came with the Catholics is the Puritan ethical systems was always very consequential.

It was sort of like trying to find out why God laid the rules down that he laid and then follow those rules. The Catholic system was much more deontological. You know, help the poor don't have abortions and be a good people in this set of rules, which was also not the way many other early American cultures understood ethical systems and was brought by the Catholics and then became an important framing of reference [00:25:00] for the modern democratic party.

So, so that's important to note as well as this shift to this deontological ethical system, which was brought by the Catholics and a shift towards, I'd say, sort of government services, which they were much more comfortable with because the church had been offering them historically. Yeah, it sort of just

Simone Collins: switched from the church offering them to the government offering them.

But if the government's controlled by Catholics, who cares? It's still, yeah, the government's

Malcolm Collins: controlled by

Simone Collins: Catholics

Malcolm Collins: and get

Simone Collins: the taxpayers to tie it in addition to the Catholics, which is better, I guess.

Another huge difference between the Catholics and the other founding groups of America is that they were much, much less ideologically pluralistic. , whereas, you know, you're the, the Quakers and the Puritans Who both were pretty rigidly pluralistic, and then even the Backwoods people while they would fight with the native Americans. And we'll go into this a lot more in the next episode. They didn't really look down on them in the same way and that they would often marry them. They would often adopt their [00:26:00] customs. , the Catholic immigrant group was. Anti pluralistic in the extreme. If you look at the Catholic cultural centers in America, they were often the areas where we were most likely to have race riots in a historic basis. I mean, a couple of famous ones are the Boston burning crisis, , or the Boston draft riot. That occurred during the civil war.

Because there were many Southern sympathizers in Boston during the war. As to why the Catholic population with so much less pluralistic, culturally speaking than the other populations, there are two core reasons. One, if you are a discriminated group, you are always going to be more kind of racist than non discriminated groups. You even see this in our society where you have this moral license to act more racist.

If you are among a discriminated population.

Harrison, why haven't you called? You know how I worry. I'm giving it up, Maggie. I'm quitting the force. It seems like every time we frame a rich black guy, he's back out on the [00:27:00] streets in no time. Not another word of that kind of talk, Harrison Yates. I know you. Framing rich black men for crimes they didn't commit is in your blood.

Wiping that rich, smug smile off their faces is the only thing that puts a smile on yours. You're a good cop, Harrison Yates. You don't have to question that, and you're a good wife, Maggie. Where are you going? I think I've got a little more work to do.

 and as to why populations that are at the top of society are more likely to be pluralistic it's because they've already won in a pluralistic system. So they feel that well, if you don't put any more rules, all in will continue to win.

Whereas people who are at the bottom of an existing system are like, well, if you added some more rules in our group might end up doing better. So let's do that. Let's rig things in our favor. , the plugin. Elysium is always the path favored by any group that thinks that they can naturally out-compete other groups. But in addition to that, you also just had, you know, the, the syllabus of errors, for [00:28:00] example, from Pope Pius. With the Knights, , which that essentially Catholics should try to take control of whatever country they're living in and make it a Catholic. , state. Theocratic state. , it is in the Catholic tradition to attempt to use the faith, to control a government, and then use the government to legislate morality. Where that was never really true of the Protestant traditions.

They believe that you could set up individual. , towns that might legislate morality, but the moral ideas of one town are going to be very different than the moral idea of another town. So you wouldn't want the town next door legislating your morality because you have this decentralized nature of the religion. Whereas the Catholic tradition was historically very, very centralized.

So it made sense to centralize the way the government with legislating morality. Of these reasons. One thing you will note that it is only this last one. That applies to all Catholics rather than just the discriminated American Catholic groups. And this is why in other countries, [00:29:00] Catholic populations are much more pluralistic than the early Catholic American immigrants.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And this is another thing. And again, I, I should know, like, I have nothing against the Catholics just culturally.

It's sort of, because we are just in for the puritan culture. It's like oil and water for us. And one thing I was thinking about is how much of an easier time, like a huge portion of our friend group is Latin American immigrants. Which I think is another thing that people really is how similar the current Latin American immigrants are dispositionally.

To the Irish when they first immigrated or to the Italians when they first immigrated, very, very similar cultural systems. And it, it can be hidden when we talk about Latin American immigrants. They are one step removed Spanish immigrants. Okay. They are from Southern Europe, you know, just like the Italian immigrant waves were.

Yes. There's some native American DNA in them, but in, in, I think in the majority of cases, it's a minority. Yeah. Mostly Spanish, Portuguese immigrant group.

When I Google this, I get answers between 60% and 80%. So it is the [00:30:00] majority. And I point this out, not because like European DNA hits. Better or something like that, but just culturally speaking, , these individuals are really not that different from the Italian immigration wave, which was just another wave of Southern European immigrants who were majority Catholic coming into the United States. The thing that is different is not the nature of this immigrant wave, but the nature of America now, E all the social services that we offer as a country, you cannot offer social services. To immigrants and have porous borders. That's just stupid.

Because that's going to disproportionately select for the least productive immigrants.

Malcolm Collins: And so, a lot of people can one forget that. But two they, they can forget how similar they were to these early waves. And it's like, why do I, why do I have so many more friends in this group?

And I think it's because. When I talk with them, they know that their value systems aren't American. And they're like, okay with that. They're like, Oh, well, you know, maybe we can adopt to a more American system or learn about the American system and learn about how to make our value systems sort of [00:31:00] align with the American value system.

Whereas these older, because there's been so much sort of, you know, cultural brainwashing to, to try to integrate the Catholic population, which I appreciate, you know, like Columbus Day and stuff like that, that was created to integrate this discriminated population to make an Italian one of the like founding American forefathers, because there, there weren't really any important American forefathers.

There were a few like random ones, but not really. So they had to go, Oh, Columbus, that's the American Catholic you know, forefather. But they now like, I'll talk to them. I'll be like, well, these are American conservative values. I'll be like, those are not American conservative values. Those are Catholic values that you brought over in one of the immigrant waves.

And, and some parts of the conservative party have gotten confused about value sets and they'll start spouting value sets. And I'm like, no, that's a Catholic thing. And this is, this is where you've gotten sort of two groups of Catholics in American politics now which is the, the core group, which moved to sort of the Democrat faction.

And then the more extreme religious group which is sort of very deontologically ethical. And has moved into [00:32:00] the, uh, conservative bureaucracy, and that's where they played a huge role in shaping America as well. The, while Catholics make up the minority of the conservative party, right, and the minority of Catholics are conservatives they were the only faction within the conservative party that could really stand out.

Stomach staffing bureaucratic positions the only other group that really could, and is a vast minority of Americans, and I'll add the statistic here, is Mormons.

Mormons makeup only 1.2% of the American population, which is why they alone cannot staff the conservative bureaucracy.

Malcolm Collins: Basically of the conservative political alliance, the only true groups that could really suck up and stomach listening to an incompetent bureaucratic authority were the Catholics and the Mormons, because they were used to that within their church structures.

I mean, so they make up a huge amount of the conservative, like, intellectual factor. And the conservative bureaucratic machinery which shapes in the way that, that sort of policies filter through that machinery, a lot of conservative [00:33:00] policy. Um, so that's also really important in terms of how they, they, they shaped American history through the way that they affected that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You've, you've been pretty organized with this. So I'm trying to think, and you surprised me with some interesting facts too. I would just, I guess, like your thoughts on like the implications of what this means for the future of both the Republican and Democrat party and where do you think Catholics are going to go?

Also, do you think that their influence is on the rise or do you think it's going to decline given current Catholic birth rates?

Malcolm Collins: So Catholic's influence is definitely both on the rise and in the decline, right? I feel

Simone Collins: like there's an argument for both.

Malcolm Collins: No, there's two different Catholic factions or there's a number of different Catholic factions.

And we'll talk about the ones that are going to rise and the ones that are going to fall apart. First, the one that is the, Just been absolutely murdered recently. It used to be that the bureaucratic apparatus of both the conservatives and the Democrats was mostly Catholic run. But the super virus that we talk about, the urban monoculture, this sort of mimetic [00:34:00] virus has specialized at spreading within bureaucracies and.

Absolutely annihilated the progressive leaning Catholic church. It is torn through it, you know, led to huge amounts of deconversions led to huge amounts of like culturally moving away from what was a traditionally Catholic value system, traditional Catholic beliefs. And so they're basically Catholics in name only at this point.

The ones who stayed within the bureaucratic apparatus of the democratic party. And. And they've also become incredibly low fertility even lower fertility. As we've mentioned, the average Catholic in America that was born in America, not that immigrated is lower fertility than the average American.

So they just got hit really hard by the urban monoculture much harder than other groups because they were bureaucratic specialists. And then another group comes in. Pac Manning the the bureaucracy and unfortunately it ate them. Then you have the deontological Catholics that had historically been really, like, like, like, super strongly deontological Catholics, like, this is what's [00:35:00] true.

Uh, And the deontologists of all groups, we've talked about this in another episode, of the Mormons, the Catholics, all of them. ended up losing their positions of power because they have been unov to motivate intergenerational faith. They are much more likely to deconvert than the consequentialist of the various religious systems.

Mm-Hmm. , who are actually like actively having a theological conversation instead of like, this is how I aesthetically be a Catholic. This is how, and we saw this within the Mormon community as well, which had a large deontological faction was like a, you know, I think the classic version of this is girl defined, which is now, you know.

In the process of deconversion her husband's in the process of Deconversion and Minnie Science Point to, you know, one of them being in the process of Deconversion, which I think shows, you know, it's, it's very bad at intergenerationally keeping people involved in this age of the internet. And it also is unable to motivate a high fertility rate as we've just seen in the data.

And, and, and as we've anecdotally seen interviewing fans and stuff like that, it seems that the Mormons that are actually staying in their religion are staying firing their [00:36:00] religion and are still high fertility and. With the Catholics are moving to this more consequentialist understanding of their religion which leads to a more active and living discussion of the religious text that doesn't just say, well, this is the way we do it because this is the way we've always done it.

It's more like, well, what did God intend by this? What did God intend by this? How can we do this better? Because when you have that, you're able to update much faster and you're able to have better explanations to your kids for why you do things. That the urban monoculture disagrees with. So I actually think that this new faction of Catholics that we've seen sort of bubbling up and becoming very lively within the conservative space which is the new wave, conservative, intellectual Catholics.

I think that's the faction that's going to do really well. And you've seen them like create these all Catholic towns and everything like that. And there are a group of Catholics that I fully align with. Like when I talk with them, I have no trouble understanding them. I have no trouble talking to them.

When I talk with the deontological Catholic faction. They're the way that they logically structure their arguments is so foreign to me. [00:37:00] Even if I like them as people and everything like that, I genuinely, there, there isn't a lot of inter interpretability between the way I logically structure my ideas and the way they logically structure their ideas.

Don't you know about like the doctrine of the body and, and that shows why b*******s are bad. And that shows why IVF is bad. And I'm like what, what, who, who wrote this? Like it's somebody in the 1700s. And I'm like,

Simone Collins: It's so unmoored from the way that you relate to religion.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah there's much more respect for antiquity as being a, a, a sign of truth, like if something has long been, and it's interesting, this, this respect for antiquity within the Catholic, like, intellectuals I talk to, and this is another interesting thing the Catholics brought, is the Protestants generally, the early ways of the Protestants really had no respect for the non Christian intellectuals, historically speaking.

Whereas the Catholics have had a deep respect for people like Aristotle, people like Plato. Yeah. Like they really [00:38:00] cared about the classic intellectuals. And so they Well, and they also did

Simone Collins: so much to integrate other traditions and, and Partially an effort to integrate them into the Catholic fold to say, Hey, we'll just bring in your holidays.

We'll figure out a way to make this Catholic and to accommodate, whereas more Protestant religions, especially more Calvinistic religions with limited atonement, or like, I'm not going to like you, I'm not going to try to bring you in like, no. Not a good thing. Much more isolationist.

Malcolm Collins: The argument that a lot of our holidays are descended from pagan holidays is mostly fallacious.

And we'll likely do episodes on the various holidays about why it's fallacious that these are not actually mostly Christian holidays. They may have taken some elements from earlier holidays, but Catholics did genuinely adopt a lot of I mean, Pagan, I think is a loaded word. But a lot of ideas that came [00:39:00] from non Christian thinkers and allowed those ideas, I think, to the benefit of our society to percolate into the educated life of our society, because the way that the Catholic group related to education was very different than the way the Protestant group related to education.

Both groups valued education. Like that was part of the social status that you would have within various, no, not all Protestant groups valued education. When we talk more about the other early American groups, not all of them valued education. But some of them did like the Puritans heavily valued education.

What did that mean to a Puritan? You know, that meant a consequentialist form of education, education that allowed you to do things in the world. What did education mean in terms of the Catholic value hierarchy? It was, you've got to know all the rules. This is why they were so good at like. Law and stuff like that, and why they ended up dominating the profession.

You had to know all of the ancient thinkers, you needed to know all of the ancient writers, you needed to know all of the famous paintings, you needed to know it is sort of like a [00:40:00] study of the classics, really, right, where we're like, really, what the Catholics meant by education and Engineering and bible memorization.

And what are the latest like biblical theories and metaphysical theories is what the Puritans meant by education. And these are two completely different understandings of education. And I think that the country has been better for both of them existing. Like I'm not the type of guy who would come in and say, like, we need to cancel the humanities, right?

Like, I think that there is some utility in some people specializing in them. Right? Like, so this is me talking about a group that is very culturally different in what it values for me. But it brought a lot of that in and it brought a lot of that into New England.

That's another thing that the, the Yankee culture has that many other American cultures don't, which is a value of the high arts. It's IE you know, orchestra and art museums and you know, the classical paintings and sculptures and artists, you know, all this pagan stuff. [00:41:00] And I think that a lot of, if, if the large Catholic immigrant ways hadn't come to America, I think that generally as Americans, we'd see that stuff was the same disdain that many of our Puritan ancestors did.

If, if, if you come from one of those Puritan groups and so, they began to elevate those arts. And I also think that that is why you see those arts being more practiced and more culturally lauded. In the areas where you had more Catholic immigrant ways and specifically was in Yankee culture, which really values the high arts much more than other American cultures.

I think it also explains as we're having this new political realignment in America where the greater Appalachian cultural group is like a key player in this new political alignment in America is it has moved to become represented

Simone Collins: by JD Vance. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, it was also where I grew up in Texas, you know, I'm in rural Texas and JD Vance represents it and everything like that has a, but JD Vance, remember, converted to Catholicism which I think is because, you know, so we can talk [00:42:00] about why in a different episode but the The, the greater Appalachian cultural group always had a great, even more than the Puritans did, disdain for the high arts.

And they specifically were known for people who interacted with them as having an unusual amount of celebration with like the low arts. Like they would party and everything like that a lot. Like they, they, they liked enjoying their lives, but they knew that that enjoyment was a sin. The enjoyment that came from drinking and jigging and all of the Fiddling and everything like that.

They were like, yeah, unlike the Puritans, they were like, yeah, this is a sin, but like, it's fun and we're humans. So whatever. Right. We, we just recognize it as a sin. Whereas and so it led to them because they didn't distinguish between different types of arts. Whereas I think within the deontological ethical system that the Catholics had that sort of entertainment is much more sinful than the that you get from.

going to an orchestra or the entertainment that you get from going to an art museum. Whereas they would actually see those forms of [00:43:00] entertainment as being even more sinful because you're combining sin and pride, like regular sin. And then in addition to that pride and so, they always look to like low culture forms of entertainment.

And I think that this is why, and I think that this is very odd to people is how much of Trump's base is really into what I would call low culture, like from Warhammer, like God, emperor Trump. Like all of the anime memes for Trump, all of the 4chan for Trump and stuff like that. This like rebellious, intentionally low culture group.

Why are they moving to Trump? It is because they are coming from this greater Appalachian cultural group that always elevated low culture. And that you're seeing this clash with the historically Catholic ideas around like what is sin and what is not sin, right? Which is, which is really interesting to me.

This 11 cultures or nations within America concept, I think also much better helps understand the current political realignment in America. Here. I have put a map on the [00:44:00] screen that shows each of them at colored by how they voted in the last election cycle. How far red or blue they are? And what you will notice is Trump's core, core, core base.

It's not the deep south.

It's not the far west. It's greater Appalachian. Greater appellation is, and this is, you know, my people, , the furthest pro-Trump group. These are the descendants. , of the, , uncouth violent,

Backwoods people who are very different than like the deep south that used to be the GOP inks core base. , another really interesting thing to people is Yankee them is actually one of the least far democratic factions with the core democratic factions actually being the left coast.

And as well as the Tidewater basin, , with the recent Hispanic immigrant. Regions of the United States being far, far, far more blue than the far [00:45:00] Northeast of the United States.

I think what also might surprise people is that the left coast is more blue than the new Netherlands area or the New York area.

So the far. , Western coast of the United States is even more blue than the more blue. , New York area by, by a pretty significant margin.

Malcolm Collins: Did you have any final thoughts on this Simone?

Simone Collins: Only that I loved getting your take on this. When I. Was going through the book with you in our long car ride. I was not having these thoughts. And I just love that you add a whole new layer to the things that even I'm consuming. So thanks.

Malcolm Collins: He, I found it so interesting in the book that he was like, Oh yes, you have a cultural continuity from the Puritans until today.

And I was like, you are underestimating the size. If you look at the immigrant way, it's like, remember I was talking like, how do you get like 50 percent Catholic population in these regions? Well, you just have to look at the immigrant waves. At certain times in cities like Boston, 37 percent of the population was a first generation Catholic immigrant.

Like huge chunks. Imagine if one of [00:46:00] our major cities in the U S right now with that percentage, first generation immigrant people would like, like these were immigrant waves that in terms of their effects on the local areas, absolutely dwarfed what we are dealing with today from Latin America, which by the way, I would note.

is a very normal Catholic immigrant wave. Um, And, and people can be like, well, they're Democrats. It's like the Catholic um, and they're like, but, but, but they um, they have different values than us. The Catholic immigrant waves always had different, they bring organized crime. The Catholic immigrant waves always bring organized crime.

And, and it is interesting to me that you have these like performative individuals like Nick Fuentes, who was like, I hate the immigrant waves. And I'm like, how can you do that? These are like trad casts. Like, what, what are you talking about? And they're going to end up, I think, sorting out. Now this is an interesting thing.

I think that, so here's another question people can ask. They say, will the living versions of the Catholic tradition end up siding more with the progressive faction or more with the conservative [00:47:00] faction? As the urban monoculture begins to clean out the people who it was able to infect through mimetic sterilization.

I think after it cleans out, I think that they are again going to make up the core of the progressive faction. Totally agree. That has always been the idea that the government should enforce a value system. That's always been the progressive ideology. The idea that the government should provide services to the poor and the needy.

That's always been Catholic and progressive ideology. The idea that bureaucracies are the best way to solve things and that authority should be decided by people who spent their entire life studying a subject. Like it aligns very closely. The only reason why conservatives were ever able to peel off any Catholic faction was because of the anti abortion thing.

That was it. That was the only thing that we ever had to get in the Catholics. They culturally, there is just no alignment there. And I don't have a problem with that. You know, I think the country is better for having a two party system. Do I think our country would be better if we lived under a Republican dictatorship?

Absolutely not. So [00:48:00] long as the parties can both play fair, which unfortunately we might be moving out of that system. And that really scares me. But I, I think that people should be like, yes, I have, Criticisms of a cultural group because they are different from, right? Like when I criticize Catholics, I'm criticizing them because they are different from me, not because they are worse for me.

Okay. But of course. When I'm judging the morality of an action or like, should you approach things this way or should you approach it this way, I'm going to approach it using the measuring stack of my own cultural perspective, which is going to be very different than their cultural perspective.

Simone Collins: Exactly.

Malcolm Collins: That's totally fine. I, I should be able to have these types of ideas and say, well, they do things in this way and my culture doesn't, you know, shames doing things this way for X historical reason. Right. You know, which we'll get into in another episode as to why, The backwoods culture ended up merging with the Puritan culture and why it became so, well, it didn't really end up merging.

They basically formed a caste system where you had a Puritan upper class and most of their population, because they really didn't like running for elected positions [00:49:00] as much as other groups. So they typically use like the educated Puritan group to run things. And the two groups basically completely merged into each other over, over time.

American history. Because they were both Calvinists anyway. And so to understand why did they hate high culture so much, I think is really interesting. Why do they value the things they value is really interesting. And why did they survive while the traditional Puritan groups didn't survive?

That's also really interesting. As to why the, the Catholic survived this is also an interesting question. I think it was because while they had this strict deontological ethical system, they also understood that they would break it. And they had a system for dealing was when they broke it confession, which I think is like one of the most genius pieces of social technology.

Anyone is

Simone Collins: like, it creates a market failure and the solution. all in its own little system that sort of just generates its own flywheel of energy as it moves forward. What do you

Malcolm Collins: mean

Simone Collins: by that? I don't understand the market. Sending in confession. But what's the market failure it's creating? It's creating a bunch of deontological [00:50:00] rules that you're going to break.

Oh yeah, so it

Malcolm Collins: creates all these rules, but then you break them because you go out drinking, I mean.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it makes, it makes the impossible to follow standards, and then it creates a solution for when you break those standards, and it just, it, like I'm saying, it creates this flywheel, it creates this economy, that propels the church forward.

Instead of just being like

Malcolm Collins: the backwoods people, which were like well, we have these impossible standards, which are even stricter, but like, we also know that humanity is wretched and we must learn to accept our wretchedness. Where the Puritans were like, humanity is wretched and we should strive to be as perfect as we can.

Whereas in the Catholic, it was like, you should strive to be kind of perfect, like generally good, but like also you're going to sin. So go to confession. Which is maybe, maybe an interesting sort of in between these two, these two other perspectives on morality. And I think people see us in, in our perspective on morality really heavily colored by this backwoods cultures, moral systems.

When they see us be like, Oh, you have all these super strict moral values, but we're also like, yeah, but you know, you're [00:51:00] going to send, so let's party. As long as it doesn't distract from your ability to be a good person in terms of your, your efficacy as a human.

Okay, well the final thing I'd note here, that something that became part of the Yankee cultural system, That people might be underestimating is I actually think that downstream of this Catholic cultural group became the Yankee love of sports and baseball and, and sports more broadly, which is to say, if you look at Catholic majority countries and you look at the places that are, you know, have the, the craziest soccer fans and stuff like that I think it has to do with the way that they relate to entertainment.

Whereas the Puritan cultural groups mostly saw sports as as sinful as like gay sex, for instance. The, the Catholics didn't. They sort of had these carve outs of this isn't unethical. And so those are the things they do. Anyway, love you to Desimone. I'm going to go find out who's ringing our doorbell and get the kids.

Simone Collins: I love

Malcolm Collins: you too, Mom. Do you want me to go get them immediately?

Simone Collins: Give me a chance to do some diaper change cleanup. All right. Love you. Bye. Love you, too What should I make for [00:52:00] dinner?

Malcolm Collins: No, no yesterdays.

Simone Collins: Ah with white rice. Do you want fried rice or plain white rice? Oh fried rice if you don't mind making it plain without added vegetables, but with shallots, right?

I'll wing it

Malcolm Collins: Octavian, you farted. .

Octavian: Yes. That was that. So silly.

Malcolm Collins: I dunno. It's silly. That is gross. . So, so I got a, I got a question for you, Octavian. Do you, what do you think of Catholics?

Octavian: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Catholics are Yes. For you?

Octavian: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Are they the best people?

Octavian: Yes

Malcolm Collins: they are.

Octavian: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Are you gonna become a Catholic when you grow up?

Wait, you gotta give it what? Octavian. Here's, here's a question I have for you. What do you think that sports are evil?

Octavian: No. [00:53:00]

Malcolm Collins: Okay. What's evil?

Octavian: This and my bad guys are evil boy.

Malcolm Collins: Bad guys are evil. What are some of the things that bad guys do?

Octavian: They do bad stuff.

Malcolm Collins: Like what do they do that's bad?

Octavian: They take over the city.

Malcolm Collins: They take over the city?

Octavian: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Do you want to take over the city one day?

Octavian: No.

Malcolm Collins: You don't want to take over the city? Do you want to take over the world?

You're not going to take over the world? Can you promise them you won't take over the world?

Octavian: I promise I will not take over the world.

Malcolm Collins: What did you bring to the house today? What's in the package?

Octavian: So, What's in the package is a stinky teddy bear, so I need daddy to clean it.

Dad. So I just got my sinky teddy bear in the box, but I did, I made daddy to clean it.

Malcolm Collins: Is he your friend?

Octavian: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Is the teddy bear a catholic?[00:54:00]

Octavian: Well, he's dirty, so yes.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, what?

Octavian: Well, if he's dirty, then no. If he's clean, then yes. If my teddy's clean, then yes. Or if my teddy's dirty, then no.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so he stops being a Catholic when he's dirty?

Octavian: There's dirty,

Malcolm Collins: but when he when he when you get the dirt off then he's a Catholic because Catholics are clean, right?

Octavian: Yes And kind of

Malcolm Collins: much better.

Octavian: Hey, can you clean this for me?

Malcolm Collins: That was about to get very problematic, Octavian.

Octavian: Oh,

In this in-depth video, Malcolm and Simone Collins present a comprehensive overview of the "New Right" political movement, its origins, and its key policy positions. As Simone runs for office in Pennsylvania, the couple outlines their vision for a pragmatic, family-oriented, and anti-bureaucratic approach to governance. They discuss a wide range of topics including fiscal policy, social issues, immigration, foreign policy, and environmentalism, offering a fresh perspective on conservative values in the modern era.

Key topics covered:

* The emergence of the New Right and its differences from traditional conservatism

* Pragmatic, evidence-based fiscal policies

* Cultural sovereignty and family rights

* Immigration reform focusing on high-skilled workers

* America First foreign policy with strategic interventions

* Environmental conservation balanced with economic needs

* Critique of progressive policies and bureaucratic bloat

* The importance of meritocracy and fighting discrimination

Whether you're a political enthusiast, a concerned citizen, or simply curious about emerging conservative ideologies, this video provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of American politics.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I think this new political alliance of the tech entrepreneurs with the Americans who are just tired of being around Makes a lot of sense when it comes to stuff like this.

Okay. Let's build new systems. Let's build better systems. We don't need to do things the way they've always been done

Simone Collins: what progressivism is now is, is like a bureaucratic virus. And because these , organizations are so large. They were taken over by this virus, which, which presents itself as progressive. And so they turned left.

Malcolm Collins: And when you talk about the inefficiencies that this has gotten, I think a lot of people don't realize how big this is.

You know, you look at something like the case of putting the suicide netting on the golden gate bridge, which ended up costing. About a third the cost even in cash adjusted dollars of the original construction of the bridge itself.

. When, when we talk about the collapse of our school system, we see as we pour more money into the school system, it's just increasing the size of the bureaucracy.

I'm going to be putting some graphs on screen here so you can see this.

Simone Collins: Well, student outcomes are not improving. [00:01:00] And

Malcolm Collins: their mental health is going haywire with a recent

CDC study showing one in four school aged girls had a plan to kill themselves on any given year, not over the course of their entire adolescence.

And it reported one in ten attempts to unalive oneselves from students. every single year. This stuff needs massive and immediate reform. So let's go in to our actual policy positions

would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am excited to be here with you. You are running for office in Pennsylvania right now. And this episode is meant to collate many of our Evolving political beliefs into one video that we can use as an ad for this campaign cycle, but also for our regular watchers to catch up or have a one place to see everything that they can share with other people and our political beliefs Well, they kind [00:02:00] of matter because something that's been coming up more and more in other videos we've been doing is this concept of the new right, a new political faction forming within the right.

And at first I thought that our views were just sort of a weird form of right wing beliefs. Then I put in the names of other figures that are associated with this new right, like Elon and Peter Thiel and Chamath and Vivek and David Sacks and Marc Andreessen. And JD Vance, the recently appointed VP for Trump.

And I asked , what are the unifying political beliefs between these people? And it basically spit out. Our political belief system to a T. And then I was like, well, then what I'd really like to do with this video is one explain , in short, we've done longer videos that go into a lot more detail on this, how the new right emerged, then also give a political philosophy, not just like a list of.

These are the things we believe, [00:03:00] but a larger philosophy around why we believe these things.

Simone Collins: I like it.

Malcolm Collins: And so people know you can be like, well, the Simone's running or Malcolm's running. It doesn't really matter. We do everything together. We run all our companies together. We believe in gender equality.

Just not the way feminists talk about it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and honestly, as, as you can see, Malcolm is, is the talker, the way we work, Malcolm. Malcolm is the outbound high risk high reward faces the public, you know, strategy guy and I'm execution. So that's why you're going to see him talk more. I mean, I think I get s**t done.

Malcolm Collins: It's sort of a a communist approach to putting together a family. You could say from each, according to their ability to each, according to their needs.

Simone Collins: All of our chickens are named after communists.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, because that's what always happens to communists at the end of the day is the, the. But what I mean in the family context, a, a communist family structure is to say [00:04:00] that we split tasks based on our ability and our needs while understanding that men and women are on average different and therefore Some tasks are going to be easier for a woman or dispositionally more favorable for a woman and some tasks are going to be easier for a man.

Simone Collins: Well, also logistically, like, for example, it's a lot easier to get elected as a woman than it is as a man. So who do we run? This one!

Malcolm Collins: Exactly! In this world of DEI! So let's start with How the new right emerged. And this will be a summary of some stuff we've gone over in other videos, but broadly speaking in the nineties there was a force that we call GOP Inc.

This is what the Republican party was. It was an alliance of two broad factions, one theocratic faction that was interested in legislating morality, i. e. enforcing people to conform to their view of what was moral through legislation like. You know, banning gay marriage, for example and then an alliance of them [00:05:00] and big business, as well as blue bloods, because big business and blue bloods are usually the same group.

Over time, big business moved to the left, as did intergenerational wealth and the theocrats stopped being able to get anything done. At that point in history, Trump came along. Trump inspired an entirely new base that the Republicans hadn't classically appealed to, which was disenfranchised Americans.

Americans who felt they were getting the raw deal and wanted to tear down parts of the system and try to build something new that kind of worked. Hence, drain the swamp. Hence, Drain the Swamp, but the new right hadn't really emerged yet with Trump because when Trump took this position, the types of people, like I mentioned before, like Elon and Shemmass and Vivek and David Sachs you know, they were still, and even us you know, we were still and actually even Trump's current running mate, we're still in trouble.

J. D. Vance, yeah,

Simone Collins: J. D. Vance was quite the never Trumper.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, but as time went on, the left move [00:06:00] further and further left. They begin to sort of divide our society into an ethnic caste system that believed some humans were more deserving of human dignity than other humans. For example, was the CDC partially distributing COVID vaccines based on a person's ethnicity instead of based on their need, which is just horrifying to us.

And recently they have moved

Jews to the bottom of this hierarchy. In our mind, making them a little different from Nazis,

Recently a response to one of our videos. Somebody was a bit surprised by this point they were like, oh no, it's only these Zionists. And then I put it out. Well, you know, you look at the surveys, it's 85 to 95% of users Zionists.. It doesn't require much knowledge of Jewish history to know why many Jews would think that for the Jewish people to be safe, they need to have at least one state where they are the majority of the population. But. Outside of that.

The urban monoculture, which the Progressive's push. Is based on the belief system that all economic differences between cultural and ethnic groups [00:07:00] is due entirely to discrimination. Therefore, if there is a group like the Jews that is disproportionately economically successful, yet claims to be the historic victims of discrimination. They must be lying because that is impossible within The urban monocultural perspective.

Malcolm Collins: but they have also overreached and gone against the science in many areas. For example, the gender transition of youth which we will get to when we talk about our social policies.

But this began to push the tech elite. So historically in the nineties, big business was conservative. Entrepreneurial tech elite was progressive. But that has flipped. Now the big business. Went to the other side, the tech elites came to, to our side and it was because as JD Vance, I think very eloquently showed, they actually have a lot in common with America's disenfranchised groups.

So if you take people like the people of rural Appalachia who have this pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality, [00:08:00] Who have this belief in a meritocracy and grittiness and entrepreneurialism. These are all things that were always valued by the entrepreneur class. In addition to that, the entrepreneur class has been very heavily shaped by libertarian philosophy since the crypto boom.

And in addition to that they are very distrustful of large bureaucracies and believe that A lot of the way the government has handled things recently, like the COVID response and it's well, and election cycles has become corrupt and bureaucratic and needs to be reformed.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I would just add that it, it seems that As we have shifted to an age of greater bureaucratic bloat and, and general organizational ossification in general, and just keep in mind the cost of doing anything now in business and government is so much higher because now there are all these layers of management, all these layers of regulation, which add costs, which add personnel, which had departments.

I think that also somehow has to do with The large organizations, you know, the big [00:09:00] dot coms of what used to be a much more scrappy era becoming progressive is that they're starting to align more with sort of progressive bureaucratic government interests. And I feel like. A lot of what people see as progressivism actually isn't that anymore.

It's not really what what people think of when they think of like progressive social policies. It really has to do more with large sprawling bureaucracies and a sort of cancerous growth. I don't know how else to put it. Well, I mean, that's what DEI is. It, it, it, like a cancerous It's not about actual diversity and equality.

It's about an organizational growth that has, has, has Increased in size like a large scale for

Malcolm Collins: replicating idea that prevents the organization's normal immune system from attacking it by saying it's doing something very important, i. e. protecting diversity and inclusion, but it is not. I mean, you can look at recent leaks from things like Disney.

Where we, they had an instance of a half black person not getting the job because they didn't quote [00:10:00] unquote, look black enough. Or the recent leaks from the FAA are not leaks, but like now we know that this is what happened where they built tests that were designed to get more minorities in.

And the way the test did that was by asking questions like, what was your least favorite subject in school and giving you points for saying science or saying, do you take commands from authority? Well, and giving you points for saying, no, you didn't.

So actual black people were not hired for this. If they didn't fit. Stereotypes, it was really black people. Yeah, it

Simone Collins: was, it was only people in a specific association who actually kind of got the answers leaked to them, which is even more corrupt. So I think the really interesting thing about this though, is that it's not that the large companies of before that used to be conservative somehow just became progressive culturally over time.

It's more that what progressivism is now is, is like a bureaucratic virus. And because these organisms, organizations are so [00:11:00] large. They were taken over by this virus, which, which presents itself as progressive. And so they turned left.

Malcolm Collins: And when you talk about the inefficiencies that this has gotten, I think a lot of people don't realize how big this is.

You know, you look at something like the case of putting the suicide netting on the golden gate bridge, which ended up costing. About a third the cost and taking about three times the, , the time even in cash adjusted dollars of the original construction of the bridge itself.

Simone Collins: It's telling, I mean, it's also telling about the mental health of our society. The huge amounts have to be spent just to stop people from hurling themselves off the Golden Gate Bridge

Malcolm Collins: at this time. When, when we talk about the collapse of our school system, we see as we pour more money into the school system, it's just increasing the size of the bureaucracy.

I'm going to be putting some graphs on screen here so you can see this.

Simone Collins: Well, student outcomes are not improving. And

Malcolm Collins: their mental health is going haywire with a recent

CDC study showing one in four school aged girls had a plan to kill themselves on any given [00:12:00] year, not over the course of their entire adolescence.

And it reported one in ten attempts to unalive oneselves from students. every single year. That was horrifying. This stuff needs massive and immediate reform. So let's go in to our actual policy positions and policy positions you sort of see across this group. So in terms of our fiscal policy we have a policy position that historically you and I republicanism, but it seems to just align broadly with the new right or the techno Conservatives, as we are sometimes called and it is what I , broadly would describe as pragmatic evidence based fiscal policy with a heavy distrust of bureaucracies.

Simone Collins: I think I have to emphasize here that evidence based. Policy of any sort is actually incredibly radical as a political concept. So, now come sent me to Cambridge to study technology policy. I literally have a master's degree in it. And the entire [00:13:00] punchline of the entire degree was. Wouldn't it be cool if politicians made evidence based policy decisions?

Oh, ha ha, that will never happen. Let's interview a whole bunch of politicians who tried to make it happen and they got laughed out of office and basically the incentives aren't in place to motivate it. But now there's this faction that's really pushing for it. So one, it seems like a no brainer, but two, this is revolutionary and also really exciting from a political development perspective.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. So what, what does this mean? This means a fiscal policy that is largely Anti bureaucracy, but not just anti government bureaucracy. We are also antagonistic towards large corporate bureaucracies, especially corporate bureaucracies that control the mediums of communication. So if they have natural monopolies in a space like, say, YouTube, or in a space like, say, Twitter, or in a space like, say, Facebook, it does make sense for the government to intervene like that as our founders knew.

That is why when our founders were [00:14:00] building our government, they nationalized the Postal system. Why did they do that? Why? When the phone lines were building out was heavy, heavy, heavy regulation put on them. Because if a company can buy the air between my wife and I and control what the other person is hearing or control most media in the country or something like that, that creates Huge negative incentives in huge incentives for foul play.

And so it makes sense to regulate that. But while we do believe that bureaucracy is bad, this does not mean that we are always against government intervention, as we have just pointed out is trust busting. For example you look at JD Vance and he was for raising the minimum wage. He just was sincere.

He didn't pretend like it wouldn't cause people to lose their jobs. He didn't pretend like it wouldn't put companies out of business. He just considered those in his calculations. Or you can look at policies that we push, like we would push a policy that says that companies should not be able to demand somebody work from the office.

Unless they can prove there is an efficiency gain from [00:15:00] that, that demand. You know, you shouldn't otherwise they should

Simone Collins: be permitted to work remotely, Malcolm saying, because that makes it easier, for example, for parents to be parents.

Malcolm Collins: Exactly. Or if you're talking about things like maternity leave I believe that if a company cannot create a safe environment for a mother to bring her child into the office, they need to pay for her to be with that kid at home.

And if it's not an office environment or an environment where the child can be safe, like a construction site or something like that, that means we need to allow the mother to stay home because, and if you're wondering why would you say something like this, there often are not other solutions for very young children, other than to be with the mother for the first, if you have not dealt with a baby under like 3 months old, it is very, very hard to find care solutions for them.

And it also means that we are open to economic experimentation when we say evidence based. So something like UBI is something that we would be open to, universal basic income.

But we would be open to doing it on a test [00:16:00] basis where it could be used to lower other bureaucracies. So this also applies to how we relate to things like Cash handouts to people who are struggling financially. We are pro cutting back all of the complicated bureaucratic mess and promoting simple cash handouts if, if those can pass along with a cutback of all of the other things.

Because we should be getting money directly into the hands of the citizens and not in the hands of bureaucrats, which, as you saw from that school problem, this is why more money isn't helping with school outcomes, because it's all going to the bureaucrats.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With AI, we can really fight that now.

Simone Collins: Yeah, basically so many government systems, you know, were developed at a time when We mostly dealt with paper filing systems and snail mail.

Oh, excuse me. And now we live in an age where you can do things so much more efficiently. The really funny thing is, you know, we, we've done a [00:17:00] lot of work in other countries, Malcolm worked in South Korea. We, we have goodness gracious girl. Both we, we run a company In Peru, in addition to the United States, it's funny that in some countries like Peru, which you think of like, you know, their systems cannot be anywhere close to us, you know, sophisticated as the governmental systems in the United States, actually, in many ways, they're way more advanced because they were able to just leapfrog ahead.

You know, they were, they were developing certain systems when tech was way better than when we developed those same systems. So if we just kind of let go of what we started with and Built something a little fresher. It's amazing how much money could be saved, how much time could be saved. So like literally people like, Oh, you can't have improved government services without paying more in taxes.

Totally not true. If you just redesigned some systems, started fresh, you could both lower taxes And get better results, which is, you know, amazing, but also frustrating because no one's doing

Malcolm Collins: it yet. I should point out how easy this can be. So you look at like, when we talk about these [00:18:00] inefficiencies, consider that like recently I was trying to do some business filings on an online platform.

It would not let me submit them on the weekend. What is an online platform? Why did they need to accompany? Business hours. This is because of bureaucracy. Or you consider in it, you know, when she's saying things are so much smoother in Peru, you probably are underestimating how much smoother they are.

You know how I pay my taxes in Peru. I get a catalog that tells me everything that was done was my taxes. The last time I paid with a pie chart and pictures of local improvements. And then it has a little slide that says, my credit card and they're automatically deducted from my bank account. Yeah,

Simone Collins: we're, we're on auto pay.

We don't have to worry about it. Yeah. Whereas in our, in our district in in Pennsylvania we receive a snail mail letter and then have to go to the super janky online system. And we, I think there's a Yahoo address literally for our tax collector if we have questions. Because I literally paid our property taxes today [00:19:00] again.

And I was like, Oh my God. Wow. Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Well, let's continue here. So the, then, then people are like, okay, I can see how that makes sense. Like, it's actually like, wait, wait. So you just want to be prepped. Like, you're not about like pointlessly defending big organizations that don't have any reason to defend them.

You're, you're not about endless expansion of bureaucracy. You just Want to do what helps the most people that seems that there's got to be a catch there somewhere, right? Because it's just not the way politics has been played historically But I think this new political alliance of the tech entrepreneurs with the Americans who are just tired of being around Makes a lot of sense when it comes to stuff like this.

Okay. Let's build new systems. Let's build better systems. We don't need to do things the way they've always been done because I don't need to worry about big multinationals losing their government contracts.

But let's keep going here. So our [00:20:00] social beliefs,

Simone Collins: yeah, , our overarching philosophy is cultural sovereignty, which is that the government should not be coercing people into living a certain way.

You know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't force families to say, okay, you have to raise your kids in this culture. For example in, in New York, there's been talk of, you know, shutting down various forms of private schooling in some states. It's very difficult to be a homeschooling parent or there's a lot of regulation around it.

So, yeah. And of course, in, in all states, there's a varying report support for school vouchers allowing people to send their kids to private schools and or homeschool their kids with some additional support. So really where we stand is, you know, kids should be able to be educated by their families as those families see fit without any control.

We certainly never want to see ourselves getting to a place where families are in Germany, for example, where you literally cannot. Homeschool your children? And I don't know what would, what would you wanna add to that, Malcolm?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, the, the framing, the framing that I would [00:21:00] use is we see society right now as being an existential battle between two groups.

If you look back at what progressives we're trying to promote in like the nineties and the eighties, they may have been wrongheaded in some areas, but broadly they wanted more equality. That is no longer what they are pushing for. They are now pushing for what we call the urban monoculture. That's core value proposition is in the moment reduction of pain.

This is where you get things like trigger warnings. Small emotional pains should be avoided at all costs. But it's also where you get really strange decisions that would seem to make no sense at the if you're, if you're looking for something like equality, like why do Fentanyl handouts on the streets that's obviously going to make it harder for people from less advantaged backgrounds to get off drugs and easier for people who are from advantaged backgrounds to get off drugs because they have their family support or why would you like California has removed Certain types of testing in school, you [00:22:00] know, the the rich kids are still going to be able to go to sat prep and everything Like that they're still going to be taking these tests and they're going to be using that to get ahead These things increase inequality or why would you have something like the haze movement the healthy at every size movement?

That you see on university campuses these days and things like fat studies departments that's trying to say We should not tell people it is unhealthy to be fat because that causes, in the moment, emotional pain. We need to fight this. And the urban monoculture is the cultural group that exists across all large urban centers, pretty much everywhere you go the world, whether it is in France or New York or Philadelphia. This cultural group allows people to join it while ostensibly still being members of their birth culture. However, they are not allowed to continue to hold their birth cultures value sets. So if you don't understand what I mean when I say that

if I go across progressive groups, if I ask a progressive Muslim, or a progressive Catholic, or a progressive Jew you know, [00:23:00] what their views are on sexuality, what their views are on human gender roles, what their views are on a husband and wife's roles, what their views are on parental punishment techniques, what their views are on what happens to you You know, after you die, what their views are on the cosmology as a universe, what their views are on our relation to the environment.

I'm gonna get broadly the same answers. They are allowed to keep a few holidays here and there, but broadly speaking, when a person enters the urban monoculture, they have to let go of any genuine cultural differentiation. When I ask. Conservatives of these various religious factions. Those same questions.

I am going to get wildly different answers and we like that. And we like that. What the conservative party has become is an alliance of diverse cultural segments that are trying to protect their Children from the urban monoculture. And here you might be like, Oh, what do you mean? Protect your Children?

Well, the problem is, is that before the 90s, progressives and conservatives had about [00:24:00] the same number of kids. When progressives got consumed by the urban monoculture, which was a genuine cultural shift from promoting equality to mostly trying to fight in the moment, emotional pain what ended up happening was their fertility rate, Absolutely crashed.

And now they can only continue to exist as a culturally relevant faction by converting children from high fertility cultural groups or importing children from high fertility cultural groups. That means that the iterations of progressive culture that more aggressively target people in the age deconvert from their birth culture between 15 and 23.

End up out competing the other iterations and progressive culture begins to do this more and more and more in crazier and crazier ways, specifically through control of the education system and through attempts to control children's entertainment.

The point I am making here. They don't believe that this is some sort of conspiracy masterminded by a shadowy cabal. It's [00:25:00] just that the iterations. Of this incredibly low fertility, urban monoculture that disproportionately targeted youth ended up converting more members than other factions of it.

And thus began to represent more and more of it. It's simple cultural evolution.

Malcolm Collins: This is terrifying to this diverse alliance of conservative families, and I see our primary policy goal in regards to like social agendas is to.

Protect diverse and high fertility families, children's from deconversion, giving the children an opportunity to decide to deconvert when they want to, when they leave the financial support of their parents. But before then, I believe that the rules of the culture are best made by a family. And then people will be like, well, what if it's something, you know, clearly abusive.

And then it's like, where do you draw the line? Like, what about Jewish circumcision? Right. For example, this is key to their religion and yet many other cultural [00:26:00] groups would say that this is child genital mutilation And therefore it should be made illegal in our country

And if you were inclined to believe that government overreach, in terms of parenting practices, isn't that much of a problem. Keep in mind that one in three children in America Has the child protective services case

opened on them.

Malcolm Collins: at the end of the day I think the people who are best able to make decisions about whether a child should be have to undergo some sort of the cultural sacrifice or unusual cultural behavior Technique or parenting technique or tradition are people who have undergone that themselves.

I am okay with, for example, Jews who themselves were circumcised, deciding to after a lifetime of living with that, make that decision for their own kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and I think so. So when it comes to like adult issue legislation I think that the bigger policy is. leave this up to people. For example, we are not against gay [00:27:00] marriage.

We are not against you know, sort of legislating how adults live their lives.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I'd also point out that Trump has really moved in this direction as well. So, you know, if you look at, for example, a lot of people are like, Oh, you really just mean like Christians and stuff like that. But no, you know, you look, Who was, was doing the prayers at, at the RNC just the other day?

That was Hamit Dhillon. That was a Sikh prayer. And people have been like, well, some Republicans got mad that she did a Sikh prayer. Like they were talking about how Nick Fuentes was fuming about it. When was the last time Nick Fuentes was at anything relevant? I don't know, of course he would have to.

I mean, he's, it's his brand, what? Progressives try to choose obscure racists to argue that the conservative party has a racist base. Yet here I will put on screen a poll done by FiveThirtyEight, a mainstream polling organization, showing that until Obama was elected, President, more Democrats than Republicans said they would not vote a black person president.

And you can see by these various graphs I'm putting on screen here that look at different types of racism, [00:28:00] that there really isn't a disproportionately racist Republican base. And there never has been at least not since the seventies or so. And what does this mean? This means that you have been manipulated by a media into believing that far fringe extremists make up any relevant portion of the party.

Simone Collins: Well, and you, I mean, I think anyone can understand why this would happen. You know, we live in an age where outrage drives clicks, where algorithms are driven by whatever gets the most engagement, not whatever is the most reasonable or correct or smart, but by what makes people either really angry or laugh a ton, and of course that means you're going to get crazy extreme views elevated from all sides.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, but it's important to note that the crazy extreme views on the right are not being implemented into policy at the crazy, not at all. No views on the left are being implemented into policy and are being taught to children.

Nick. Winters. Isn't teaching your [00:29:00] children. He's not in public schools. He's not even allowed on YouTube. Who is teaching your children who is being paid by the government? To teach your children. What is real? What is make believe? What is socially normative? What is wrong? What is right?

This has been my first year in preschool with a class of my own teaching alongside another queer neurodivergent educator and we have been rocking R2's class.

But our teaching team is shifting, and a new person is being onboarded. Someone with many years of experience. So today at the lunch table, when the topic of gender and genitals came up, one of our students plainly looked up and said, Well, I'm a girl today.

But I know that Teacher Co isn't. No, they're Enby. And the look on the incoming teacher's face was priceless. She was shocked in a good way. [00:30:00] And she just looked around at the two of us and said, This class is incredible, and I am so impressed.

Let me say it again for those in the back row, CRT is not being taught below law school.

Those of you that are against it are being misled. by the media about what CRT and where and when it is taught. My governor has put into place some ridiculous legislation that many governors across the country have put into place, such as

 Can't teach critical race theory, so, teachers, in the past,

we've been activists. After this show of last year, we really need to stand up and do what's right for our kids right now. So, this is a call to action, teachers. We've got to stand up and fight for our kids, because this is b******t. Do your students call you by your first name or Mr. or Miss? Great question!

This is actually a classic [00:31:00] question. Here's your answer. Currently my students just call me Desmond or Desi, first name. However, I have been at schools that go by last name. Those schools I go by Teacher Fambrini. I am gender fluid, so I don't go by Mr. or Miss. I go by Teacher because I am a teacher. So Desmond, Desi, or Teacher Fambrini.

I'm starting to get a little emotional looking at the new masks I got for a couple reasons. I've had American flags put up in every classroom.

We're going to have to say the Pledge of Allegiance and I'm not going to be able to talk about basically any of the things that I have on these masks. Hey y'all, let me introduce you to our non binary alpaca. The kids voted on a gender neutral name. Alex was there to help me during the really quiet moments when nobody would talk during virtual learning.

Yes, they were so quiet! But then I also took it as an opportunity to teach my students about how to respect people's pronouns. Did Alex ever get misgendered? Yes. But then it opened up some teachable moments about what to do when that would happen. For [00:32:00] example, Hey, Mr. Vuong, did he just wake up from his nap?

Oh, do you mean did they wake up from their nap? Yeah, they just did. I would apologize quickly, make the correction, and move on. I started off modeling how to correct somebody, and then afterwards my students would correct each other whenever somebody would misgender Alex here. Representation in the classroom matters.

My kids were 5th graders, and they still got a kick out of Alex. Oh yes, and here's Alex's friend, Lincoln the Llama, who goes by pronouns he him. At first, my students thought that he had very feminine features, so they thought that he was a girl. And this is why we should never assume somebody's gender just based on what they look like.

Alright Lincoln, say something. Hello. My students were really surprised how low his voice sounded. Don't assume.

Malcolm Collins: The crazy extreme views on the right are not what your children are being exposed to in elementary school, in middle school.

Why do

Simone Collins: you think that is? By the way?

Malcolm Collins: Why do I think that is? Because they don't actually represent a large pool of people. The crazy extreme views on the left actually represent a large portion of the left's base. I mean, here I'm like showing statistics that show this is true, but let's, let's get into Trump's actual positions because I think a lot of people have been lying [00:33:00] to about what Trump's positions are.

So, a lot of people are like, well, you know, Trump is, against gay marriage, right? But you can look at, or here, I'll read a tweet by Richard Hanania about what happened at the RNC. Trump personally dictated the new RNC language on abortion and gay marriage. His team put the delegates in a room, took their phones.

Trump said, you're going to pass this and you're going to do it quickly. Night of nights for social conservatives. Mr. Trump made clear to his team, and now this is written from the perspective of Of somebody who was there. Mr. Trump made clear to his team that he wanted the 2024 platform to be his and his alone.

He wanted it to be much shorter and simpler. And in some cases, vaguer, he was especially focused on language about abortion, which he recognized was a potentially potent issue against him in a general election. He wanted nothing in the platform that would give Democrats an opening to attack him, and he made it clear.

To aides, that he was perfectly fine with bucking social conservatives, for whom he had delivered a tremendous victory by reshaping the Supreme Court with a conservative [00:34:00] supermajority. Trump also stressed that he did not want to define marriage as between one man and one woman. This is coming from Trump!

And in his official platform position, instead, the document contains a vague statement open to interpretation, quote, Republicans will promote a culture that values the sanctity of marriage, end quote. So why is Trump making these moves on things like abortion and on things like gay marriage? Because it is what he, he is siding with this new right faction.

And the new right faction is building a set of, because if you look at the, the paleo conservatives. There are some areas where the new right and the paleo conservatives crash. And so it makes sense for them to have compromise in some places. Generally the new right is fairly pro gay rights. So they're just against what is, is a cult that's essentially grown within parts of the trans movement.

That targets, you know, kids as young as three and that is completely uncalled for. And we will talk about that in a second, but in regards to [00:35:00] adults deciding to get married, if they want to, I don't really see how that affects anyone else. And I don't see why we as a government should have any hand in that at all.

But if we are going to make marriage a legal institution, we should not be deciding who should and who should not be able to get married.

One of the primary causes that led to the American revolution was the British government making it illegal for Presbyterian ministers, to marry people and sending out Anglican ministers to do it in said to decide who can get married and what those ceremonies should be.

Some religions in the United States believe that gay people can get married. We need to allow those individuals to get married under those religions. Or we are doing what the British did. We are legislating what religions are true in what religions aren't true. And I don't think any Republican wants Government bureaucrats to have power, to determine how we should be interpreting our Bibles.

Malcolm Collins: and so you, and then I point out, [00:36:00] so why else is he doing this? It's also because it's what most Republicans want. And I think a lot of people, especially young Republicans, if you look at where the party is going, so, if you look at, Gallup polling for 2021, Showed that 55 percent of Republicans overall supported same sex marriage in 20, and in 2015, about 63 percent of Republicans under 30 supported protecting LGBT individuals from discrimination.

From Pew, nearly half of Republicans younger than 30 say that abortion should be legal in any age group. Or most cases, 47%. So the stance that we generally take on abortion is we should be stricter on it than we currently are. I do not think that a baby that has a nervous system and it appears they can feel should be getting aborted.

I think that that is killing a human being. However, I think before the nervous system really starts developing, I am not that antagonistic to abortion. So what week cutoff would you have on this about?

Simone Collins: Well, I hope pretty much 15 weeks is a reasonable place to be.

And that's where I think most people [00:37:00] stand on this. Yeah. Pennsylvania as a state is past that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Admittedly, I'd be super fine with more restrictions. In Pennsylvania, but not all the way to nothing, only, you know, to 15, basically.

Malcolm Collins: So here I need to talk a little bit about trans stuff, because this is an area where we are going to piss off a lot of progressives, but it is something that we need to begin to admit as a society.

A cult uses the fact that That trans people, that we were not supposed to attack them, and that's fine. I, I believe that there are, you know, I think if you believe that there are gender differences between male and female brains, it only makes sense that sometimes a person might be born with a brain that is somehow more like the opposite gender than like their own gender.

But, and, and that those people would need to be protected from discrimination. I understand that, and I'm okay with that. What I am not okay with is that whenever you say, Okay, here is a group, and we need to do everything [00:38:00] we can to protect them, then certain malevolent strains, often self replicating memes, will begin to grow within those communities.

And people will begin to use those communities identification to overreach. You will get, like we had in Pennsylvania, what was likely just a cis guy

In a middle school, but who just learned that he could identify as a woman and Prevent himself from having to face punishment for his actions to victimize young women He had created a hit list.

This list was brought to the teachers of his school by a young woman The teachers ignored it and later that very same day He savagely beat one of these girls until she had to go to a hospital and I think that we need to stop just saying You believe anyone especially when you're dealing with children.

it's genuinely really good grooming advice. On April 4th, 2023, Postcard reveals he's in contact with four minors. Age 9 to 13. I've so far sent it to four minors between the ages of 9 and 13. I hope it [00:39:00] encourages them to transition. When the Anka Zone animation became a meme, they got excited over its virality among kids. Mana Drain and Orion also fantasized about getting kids on hormones orion was the manager , coercing him every step of the way. This is apparent by how he talked about him to others. Has he started hormones yet? Yes, but not effectively. I guess that's what you'd expect just telling a r to buy hormones. They bought estrogen, but no anti androgen. It would have been more fun if he started hormone blockers at like 12.

Haha, isn't that true for everyone? Don't worry, I'll make him into a good girl

Don't blow up our spot, bro. All t slurs are like that. You can trust me around your kid. It'd be transphobic not to. Me with daycare tots. To Orion, and many of his associates, their identity was little more than a political shield.

It clearly worked, given he publicly fantasized about assaulting women in bathrooms. Me when transphobic little girls ask me what I'm doing in the women's restroom when I'm obviously a woman. the two fantasized about assaulting J. K. Rowling's grandchildren. Not letting teaslers get with your kids is transphobic. Someone should Harry Potter woman's [00:40:00] grandkids. Orion then goes on to call them turf meats.

Malcolm Collins: And this is where new studies,

like in 2024, development of gender non contentedness during adolescent and early adulthood was a study that came out that looked at 11 year olds who identified as the opposite gender. But, who did not receive gender affirming care. It turns out over 9 in 10 of them, by the time they were 20, 23, completely identified as their birth gender but it turns out they were just gay or autistic.

So that means that when you are applying these kind of treatments, Two 11 year olds the type of chemical castration that comes from puberty blockers that we now know is not safe long term that you can't just turn off puberty midway through and then start it up at a later developmental phase and have that have no cognitive effects, no physical effects.

I mean, I think it should have been pretty obvious from the beginning that that wasn't true, that we are sacrificing nine Gay or autistic children for every one trans child, we might be healthy and we shouldn't be doing that.

And when I say sacrifice, I'm using that [00:41:00] term, literally when you consider the fact that. When a child is diagnosed with being transgender and then given gender affirming care, the suicide rate in that population is around 40% to 50%, whether or not they are transgender.

This is particularly agregious as we are likely not even helping the individuals That have real gender dysmorphia. We are transitioning when you consider the fact that there are other treatments for gender dysmorphia that do not have this incredibly high suicide rate associated with them. Such as certain anti-psychotics. But the mimetic virus that is the modern progressive movement. Won't let us talk about this. The moment a child goes into gender affirming care. You are flipping a coin with their lives.

Malcolm Collins: The CAS report, like what we have seen in the UK where we have seen other developed world countries begin to move in this direction.

\ , this was a unbiased government survey for people who aren't familiar with it, that looked into all of this and basically said, We should be rolling it back. And [00:42:00] even even as I'll add this in post about what was found at that one clinic,

What is most disturbing is that after a year on blockers, a significant increase was found in the first item.

Quote, I deliberately try to hurt or kill self, end quote. This is in the youth survey questionnaire. So it was increasing. Puberty blockers increased even by Travis stocks own, as pro trans as you can get. They just didn't want to publish this increases. Do

but that they knew that this was causing more harm they found internal memos that showed that statistically the gender reforming care was increasing children's risk of unaliving themselves but they didn't publicly release this information because it didn't go with the cult's agenda.

Is the holy guide to living pure, this will help explain. First, Laughter. Her name's Lorraine, too? We're all Lorraine, and you will be Todd. A [00:43:00] name chosen especially for you oh. You're not

An oppressed minority. you're a cult!

Excuse me, are y'all with the cult? We're not a cult. We're an organization that promotes love and Yeah, this is it

Malcolm Collins: And this is really scary to me that this was allowed to happen and that it's likely happening in the United States as well. So again, Cultural sovereignty means that the way I would approach culture, gender affirming care more broadly, as I guess I wouldn't ban it outright. I would say that if the parents consent to it, then it's okay for children.

But both parents need to consent to it. You can't, because a lot of divorced parents will use this as a way to get custody of a kid. Which is, you know, if you can convince a kid of this, then you can. Easily take them away from the other parent. And it's very easy to convince somebody, you know, as you've always told me, Simone, thank God, nobody figured out they could come to me because Simone is autistic.

When she was young and tell, tell her well, it turns out that there's a way that you can feel comfortable with your body. And [00:44:00] then that you could enter a group of people and they would all constantly affirm anything you wanted to believe about yourself. That would have been very difficult for you to resist.

You've often said, and I'm like even me, I think that would have been difficult to resist. I understand why it's alluring during puberty, these, these groups. And so if a family wants to do it, I am okay with them doing it. But I think if somebody has, you know, comes from a Christian background or for a Muslim background, no school should not be.

beginning to implement, and this is what we're seeing, this type of care without parents knowledge, which is current policy in Pennsylvania. And that is horrifying to me. So, that's probably one of the, the, the spicier things, but it is something that's, that's commonly believed without this group.

Simone Collins: I mean, yeah, I'm just the, this is something that comes up a lot that we're also not really in favor of having natal male sports, sportsmen, sportswomen on female teams. It's just not fair from a competitive standpoint.

You know, so that is something. It's so

Malcolm Collins: ghastly when people are [00:45:00] like, it is fair. Like, can't you see, like, look at this study or something. It's like, I can look at the pictures. This is obviously not fair.

not only that, I was in the GSA growing up and I remember Somebody being kicked out for being transphobic, for even suggesting that a trans person may one day want to do this.

They said that that was a transphobic thing to say. It was considered in the same category of suggestion as somebody being like, well, if you're trying to protect gay rights now, how long until you're trying to argue that people should be able to marry minors? And you'd be like, that's a homophobic thing to suggest.

The idea even was in the GSA when I was younger, that we would have trans people competing on female sports teams was considered homophobic and transphobic.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So, you know, that's just a step too far. And We're, we're along those lines too.

Malcolm Collins: Yep. Now I'm going to go to immigration cause that's a hot button issue these days.

What do we think on immigration?

Simone Collins: I

Malcolm Collins: do not believe that you can have a country that [00:46:00] offers a social safety net that is open to immigrants and have porous borders for low skilled immigrants because then you have a huge negative incentive for them to come in, but I am not anti immigration broadly, I believe we need.

To get much stricter on low skill immigration, and we need to be more permissive on high skill immigration. If somebody gets a degree, and Trump has said that this is a policy that he holds, actually, if somebody gets a degree in the U. S., he wants them to be able to immigrate to the U. S. I'm not as loose as Trump is.

I think if somebody gets a degree from a top, maybe 50 college in the U. S., Or gets an advanced degree in the U. S. of a STEM degree. And I think that this should only apply to STEM degrees, not to arts degrees. They should be given automatic entrance into the United States. Because it makes, it was insane to me, like at Stanford, I, I did my MBA at Stanford and I had classmates who wanted to stay in the U.

S. They would have been huge economic contribution. And

Simone Collins: struggled to, yeah, and, and still had to leave. Yeah. And we lost all that talent after investing in that talent. Immigration [00:47:00] policy also plays a really key role as populations start to decline in developed countries. So in the future, we're going to need obviously people to staff our economies. Yes. And so a lot of what is going to prop up nations as we start to see fewer And fewer kids being had by those living in them already is immigration, but it's not just about warm bodies, taking up jobs and taking care of old people and working in restaurants and whatnot.

It's also about your tax base. Basically if we do not have people paying in to pension funds and keeping up cities and maintaining our social services, we start to fall apart. So the nature of immigration also really matters from this perspective. To Malcolm's point, if we bring in just low paid, low skilled workers, we're not going to be receiving money into a tax base that will maintain our economies, it will maintain our social services and our governments.

So what really. Focus on is bringing in people who will continue to hold up our tax bases, our governments, [00:48:00] and our cities. And that has to be higher skilled, higher paid people.

Malcolm Collins: To word this another way, one of the major problems that we're facing right now throughout the developed world and now in the developing world, because Latin America fell below every population rate all the way back in 2019, even by the UN's own statistics is rapidly falling fertility rates.

That means fewer people, and that has a massive economic impact. However. You don't fix this problem by increasing the number of people on welfare. That makes the problem worse. Yeah, it basically accelerates the

Simone Collins: problem. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But all of those people are taking money from the government. Instead of adding money to the government, you have made this problem worse.

And so that means in our immigration policy, we have to be acutely aware of this. And now people are afraid of how, how this might change our culture. To take in people from other countries. That's really not a problem when you're dealing with high skilled, high earning immigrants, high earning immigrants, almost always culturally assimilate within one generation.

The reason why low [00:49:00] skill, low income immigrants are able to not integrate with a population is because they are often not engaging with the mainstream economy, which allows them to culturally isolate themselves within the population. Which allows these cultural ghettos to form,

Simone Collins: And

Malcolm Collins: that is not good for a country.

It's not good for them. And it's often not good for the country that they left.

So, Oh, a final point I would make with an immigration is I think we need to be more open to using immigration aggressively against our geopolitical rivals. When China. Turned its back on Hong Kong. I think the US should have been willing to take any Hong Kong individual with over X amount of income or X amount of savings.

I think when Russia became a geopolitical enemy of ours and there were people , fleeing the draft, we should have made it very easy for high skilled immigrants to immigrate into the US because then we create a stronger pole that. Severely damage at these countries economies. Hong Kong doesn't have value because the land of Hong Kong Hong Kong has value because of [00:50:00] all of the competent people in Hong Kong If we can take those people, especially the people who are drawn by the promises of america That helps us a lot and those people will assimilate very quickly if they are high earners Finally, I believe that we should create an alternate path to immigration that allows people to immigrate more easily if they're willing to pay higher taxes So a unique tax bracket that allows for very fast immigration.

However, as a counter to that, I also think that if somebody has immigrated, if they go on welfare or social services for more than a specific time level, they should be deported. I do not think that if you immigrate to our country, you should be able to use social safety nets that this country pays into because that creates very negative incentive systems.

All right, next one, foreign policy. What are our beliefs on foreign policy? Generally I have really liked Trump's foreign policy, which is to say that. Historically, people have [00:51:00] either been, you know, hawks or doves, broadly speaking, you know, do we get engaged? Do we act as the world police? Do we try to, we don't take that position at all.

Our goal is America is America's interest first.

However, America's interest first means that we need to pay attention to what's going on internationally, what's going on with our trade partners, what's going on in regions that we rely on for selling to, you know, a, a person can be like, Oh, I don't, I don't care that there's a person randomly murdering people on the streets outside my house, but if your house makes its money by selling to those people who are being murdered, well, then that matters.

Okay. So I think that we should intervene. In foreign affairs, but in very constrained ways, but also much more aggressively than we have historically. So what did that look like? That looks like what Trump would do. Somebody would cross a line, he'd draw a red line, somebody would cross it, he'd send a few missiles into their country.

Be like, if you escalate, I escalate. And a lot of people historically thought that this would [00:52:00] lead to a continuing cycle of escalation on each side. But when you make the lines that you're drawing very clear, i. e., you do this, I do this. If you do this to counter this, then I'm doing this. It doesn't lead to cycles of escalation.

I call this the BOP strategy. Um, And by that, what I mean is you need to lightly but immediately punish wrong actions by foreign actors and not be afraid to do that and not be afraid of escalation. And I think that we have been too cowardly to do that for a long time. And that has led to the spill out of larger conflicts that might not have happened.

Had they thought that this sort of retaliation could happen. For example, , there's the famous meeting with Trump and Putin. And many people were like, why didn't Putin invade Ukraine? And Trump said, well, there was a meeting where he told Putin, if you do that, all these beautiful minarets you see out here, they'll all be gone.

Simone Collins: Allegedly it [00:53:00] was all those golden turrets.

Malcolm Collins: Imagine if you just selectively sent missiles to blow up every one of the turrets in Moscow. That would be a, culturally, a pretty big slap in the face. But it's not the type of slap in the face that could be used to justify a nuclear escalation. And that's the type of thing that prevents people from escalating conflicts.

And it's the type of crazy nonsense that people are never sure if Trump is really going to do. And that's what allowed him to have such a peaceful term as president.

Simone Collins: What I like about what appears to be the new rights foreign policy is that it's very pragmatic and it's, it's America first.

What benefits American citizens and what do American citizens need. So from that perspective, it's less ideological, it's more pragmatic and it's not a blanket policy. For example, JD Vance though he's very for a swift end to conflict in Ukraine [00:54:00] he's not as bullish on major support in Ukraine, whereas he is pretty bullish on support for protecting Taiwan because he.

Is the strategic importance of Taiwan vis a vis the United States as being a much more salient issue than sort of Ukraine versus the United States.

Malcolm Collins: And I should point out a larger point on his position on Ukraine, which I'm actually coming around to. He's like, what are we really fighting over at this point?

We're fighting over small amounts of land. We have already shown Russia. We've already shown China through our support of the Ukraine, that we're willing to make this type of conflict costly to them. So now it's, do we wait 10 years so that Ukraine can maybe take back its land and spend hundreds of thousands more lives and spend billions more dollars, or do we end this now and say, look, it's mostly out in the rocks.

Wash at this point. We don't need to worry about further rescue Russian escalation because people are like, oh, it'll attack Europe next. No, it won't. They've expended their entire generation of soldiers. And [00:55:00] they have a fertility rate of like 1. 3. They, they cannot replace those soldiers with their current fertility rate.

They are about halving their population every generation at this point. point. Russia has detoosed itself. At this point, is it really worth the cost in human lives? Yeah, it's bad. We shouldn't allow bad actors to get what they want, but is it really worth hundreds of thousands of young lives?

I don't think so. Not at this point. Now what do we think on environmentalism?

Simone Collins: Yeah so, again, I think J. D. Vance shows exactly the kind of clear minded insight that I love with, with regard to environmentalism. Energy, the environment. He is, for example, in favor of, we'll say clean natural gas pipelines.

You know, he's like, yes, put a pipeline through a forest. I don't care. Let's focus on minimizing damage. Yes, but we're not going to run against it. But [00:56:00] he's also very in favor of nuclear, which is 1 of the most practical clean energy sources available in our time that we really should be focusing on.

And energy is a major. Environmental plus national security issue right now. Especially with the rise of AI. So, I think that that's really the best approach to take. I think the fact that sustainability and the environment has become a highly politically polarized issue is a travesty that we may be emerging from slowly.

Malcolm Collins: I'd say that, that the, you know, when we talk about bull moose republicanism, it's not just the trust busting. It's also the way that Teddy Roosevelt creating our national park system. I believe that for. Many traditional American cultures having healthy wilderness is core to their cultural traditions, hunting, fishing, hiking.

We need to protect our land and our streams. That means keeping the water clean. Clean rivers. That means [00:57:00] keeping healthy woodlands and preventing development on them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it's not. And it's also not even as though like traditional stereotypical old conservatives hated nature to your point, right? The classic hunting, fishing, nature loving.

This is not a politicized issue. So even the fact that because we're talking about right and left and we're saying, well, we have to have stances on the environment. It's kind of funny because really. All humans and all nations and everyone who cares about their nation should be caring about sustainable management of the land of their country.

What you're saying

Malcolm Collins: is correct, but the left fundamentally doesn't care about that, and we need to talk about what leftist environmentalism has become. Deontological environment, performative

Simone Collins: environmentalism. Well,

Malcolm Collins: more than that, anything that affects the environment is therefore an intrinsic negative.

You talk about something like an oil pipeline. It really doesn't have putting an oil pipeline through a national park really doesn't have that much effect. It is, it is a single strip of land for [00:58:00] vast efficiency gains, because what's the oil doing if you're not building the pipeline, it's going on trucks and it's going on tankers and those emit.

fossil fuels. It is all performative. That's why they hate nuclear power, even though we know that when it is well maintained, it is largely safe outside of natural disasters. So yes, pay attention to not putting it where natural disasters are. But if you're talking about what actually is green fuel, you're looking at things like nuclear.

But it also means that a lot of less just environmentalism is also, I'd almost say like downstream of bizarre conspiracy theories. It's like, Oh, well you need to do this and you need to do this and you need to do this. And it's, it's these huge webs of everything like that. And you need to save this one little species that blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, no, screw it. Build a dam. Damn. That's hydropower. That's useful, right? Yeah. Build the dam. I'd say Yeah, save the tree. Like that forest, save that forest, okay? But don't tell people they can't build a pipeline through it, okay? [00:59:00] Somebody's dumping chemicals in the streams, yeah, stop them from dumping chemicals in the streams.

But a ban on plastic bags or straws, that's getting ridiculous, okay? Especially when it was the left that put masks on everyone, which is now something like a third of all waste in the ocean. It is insane how bad this has gotten. It, it is all performative and in a way that causes much more environmental damage in the long run instead of just being sane about this and saying, let's protect our environment as a cultural asset in the same way that Teddy Roosevelt did.

So, to sum up this, like, because a lot of these can feel like feel like independent, maybe unrelated policy issues. And I'd say that pretty much the entirety of the new right is downstream of four core philosophies. One, anti [01:00:00] bureaucratic, all large bureaucracies lead to inefficiencies, which leads to evil and suffering.

We need to reform our bureaucracies too. Family sovereignty. The family should be able to make its own cultural choices, choices about how it educates its children and choices about how it relates to his children. Did you know that 37 percent of kids have had CPS called on them in America?

That is a huge waste of tax dollars and a sign of just public overreach. We should be allowed to have our kids walk to school without having CPS called on us and our kids taken away. There was a mother in the U S who was sent to jail because she, Allowed her 14 year old to babysit her eight year old.

That is insane. The government should not be making decisions around what's safe for our kids that are not safe. Three, pragmatic. That's how we approach the economy. That's how we approach foreign policy. That is how we approach everything. Be pragmatic. Pragmatic. Don't follow larger ideologies like just small government, just [01:01:00] large government, just always intervene, just always not intervene.

Know what you're trying to optimize for, which is the best interest of the American people, and then look for the most pragmatic way to optimize for that. And four, be willing to make large changes. The existing system cannot keep operating as it's operating. When Trump said drain the swamp, what he fundamentally meant is we need to replace large portions of our current government bureaucracy or remove them because they are not working.

And this is a national security issue at this point. Today, we Microsoft went down all around the planet because they were interfacing with a anti virus software, a computer protection software that was made by a company that was overly focused on DEI. Just a few weeks ago, we had one of the biggest secret services Failures in American history.

What is secret service been primarily focused on for the past half decade? D. E. [01:02:00] I. So much so that they now have a woman running the secret service. And you could say, what do you think that a woman can't run the secret service? And I'm just saying, realistically, was there a man who was more qualified for that role?

Almost certainly, because there's just more men in the military, and they've been in these positions for longer. So it seems to me almost impossible that she was the most qualified person for this position. And downstream of that, it led to incredibly deleterious mess ups that could have been avoided.

And when you're talking about stuff like the FAA, That controls our planes in the sky, employing people specifically because they don't like science and don't take orders well, this is going to lead to an American Chernobyl. We need to take this seriously, and I believe a new branch of government needs to be created that specific role, and obviously we wouldn't be doing this at the state level, but I would recommend that the new right begin to [01:03:00] advocate to this, that specific role.

Is churning through government organizations and cutting out these DEI cancers that are promoting bigotry and not meritocracy. What we need to be rewarding is meritocratic success. I remember I told this to a reporter once and they looked at me like I had lost my mind. Say you, you, you're not pro favoring black candidates over white candidates. That's literally what they said. And I go, I'm sorry, I old school racist, oh God, what did that racist say? That we should judge people by their character and not according to their skin color?

Who was that guy's name? Martin Luther King. Famous racist. I agree with him. And I think that we need to go back to what fighting racism used to mean. Which was fighting unfair discrimination. Not the insane bigotry it has led to.

Do you have [01:04:00] any final thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: Evidence based policy.

Malcolm Collins: Evidence based policy. If it produces And be willing to let institutions fail. This is, this is one of the things where like the existing guy you were writing against when he's like, well, if you did, if you allowed money to follow the students, then all the parents would pull their kids out of school.

They take them into homeschool programs and our existing public schools would fail. And it's like, Hmm. Well, I look at all the money that's going to the bureaucrats. Now, I look at the results that we're seeing as we pour more and more money in and I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't view that As the end case, if it would cause a school system to fail, then we need to develop new systems.

Simone Collins: It wouldn't. But here's the thing is it wouldn't cause the school system to fail. It would force the school system to reorient itself around student outcomes. The only way that you can reform the existing school system is by making it accountable. To parents and students, which right now it isn't right now.

It's accountable to teachers unions. And I love, I

Malcolm Collins: love when [01:05:00] Democrats are like, well, but schools form important sub functions, like getting food to food, scarce families. And it's like, why on earth is the school system doing that? Why on earth is the only meal that kid is happening when he's at the school system?

These two programs need to be disintermediated anyway. That's insane. If that's why you're putting kids in an environment where by the CDC's own statistics, 1 in 4 girls has created a plan to kill themselves every year. 1 in 10 kids is trying to unalive themselves every year. Yeah that, that's a critical level and we need to be okay with seriously reconstructing some institutions when they aren't working for us anymore.

And, and this goes across, you know, I, I, one of the things that was, that was said by A, a, a black voter recently that really got me is they go, we are being economically lynched by the Democrats. And that's the way I think a lot of Americans feel these days. Do you have any final thoughts?[01:06:00]

Simone Collins: But I'm very hopeful about the future. The fact that I used to think that both sides really just didn't have any decent solutions for our major problems. And now I feel like the new right, as you've defined it, and as we've found that we really resonate with. Really could be forging a new path forward that a lot of people can get behind.

So, yeah, well, things get kind of dire and yes, you're describing some really unpleasant scenarios that we've ended up in. I think that our future is bright and I'm excited for it.

Malcolm Collins: I, I do think so as well, but the thing that has scared me recently is. As the new right has formed into a political faction where I almost agree with every one of their major points, Democrats are evolving into a political faction that I think begins to embody more and more what I see as true human evil.

A group that orders humans on an ethnic based caste system with Jews at the bottom. We've seen this before [01:07:00] and I don't want to see what it could lead to.

Simone Collins: I feel like what we're seeing now though is, is more than ever a disengagement from it. And a distaste, a distaste for the straw man of the right among people who are on the left, but that's just due to a lack of understanding of the right, and more importantly, the new right.

And if anything, I'm seeing more and more people starting to either secretly or even publicly detract from how far the left has gone. While you say and argue that the extreme views. described by the left are being implemented in policy, and I agree with you that they have been. I think that most people secretly and behind closed doors aren't comfortable with it.

And more and more people are beginning to walk away because it's gone too far.

Malcolm Collins: Well, let's hope that happens before a plane crashes and children die.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or we implement DEI [01:08:00] policies at a local nuclear plant and it ends up, you know, this, this stuff is going to get dangerous if we are not aggressive in ripping it out.

Simone Collins: It has already gotten dangerous. We're already seeing. Breakdowns that are causing people to, well, I mean,

Malcolm Collins: look at Boeing's famous, very aggressive DI problem programs before all of the planes started falling out of the sky. Like this is no messing around anymore. This is your family's safety. This is your children's safety.

Anyway. Love you.

Simone Collins: Love you too. Gorgeous. Like our, our lifestyle, our like our whole thing. You know, our, you tell him you're running, he can vote . He's, he's outside our district. They're based in a, another district sadly didn't wanna vote there, but likes, likes a religion. Hey, it's nice of us. A random stranger can visit our house and be like, you know what?

I'm having what these guys

Malcolm Collins: are having. [01:09:00] Most people are like that when they meet us. I, I know almost nobody who like has met us and not liked us. Which has been an interesting, like recurring experience where somebody thinks that they hate us based on like preconceived notions or something. And then they meet us for an interview and they plan to do a hit piece.

And they're like,

Simone Collins: Oh, I

Malcolm Collins: can't bring myself to do this. Like, Oh, right. Like Mary Harrington, for example, she thought you

Simone Collins: know, or we tell them to write a hit piece and they're like, well,

Malcolm Collins: I don't want her. That was what the guardian piece was. She didn't want to read it. Well, but their editors are like, screw that, like, no,

As final note here, any of you who are in or around Pennsylvania's Montco region and are interested in helping with campaign stuff. , please reach out and we can connect you with the various teams in the area.

Oh, yeah. And I guess people should like, and subscribe.

That'd be cool.

We're going to get a lot of downvotes on this one, because it's going to be appearing as an ad to a lot of random people who aren't already following us. Uh, so that's not going to be a lot of fun to deal [01:10:00] with.