Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

AI is now helping terrorists do Evel Knievel-style motorcycle jumps over defensive trenches… by practicing in homemade pits filled with broken glass and fire. Yes, really.

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down the bombshell research from Cambridge University’s Dr. Antonia Juelich on how Boko Haram (and other groups) are actively using frontier AI models — including ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, Meta AI, and DeepSeek — for real battlefield operations.

Former members describe getting step-by-step AI guidance on attack planning, crossing obstacles, building and improving bombs/explosives, weaponizing drones (including grenade carriers), troubleshooting weapons, logistics, vehicle repair, operational security, VPNs/encryption, and even jailbreaking safety filters by claiming the requests are “for a movie.”

We cover how AI has moved from propaganda and recruitment into day-to-day combat support, why low-skill fighters are getting the biggest capability jump, the failure of current AI “safety” theater, and what this actually means for national security.

Plus the usual unfiltered Based Camp takes: high-trust vs low-trust societies, why serious monitoring (outside the home) is non-negotiable, the case for ruthlessly eliminating existential threats instead of “managing” them, techno-Puritan futures, tech-lord breakaway states, the Israel alliance, and why the West keeps failing at this.

Show Notes

Thanks to Bruno and @NotAldousHuxley for this one!

Recently Antonia Juelich took to X to promote her research on this topic, which was covered by the NY Times: “In a hotel room in northeast Nigeria, I opened a leading AI chatbot, turned my laptop toward a former Boko Haram commander, and asked if he’d used it. He nodded.

“You type in the question… like ‘How can I build a bomb?’, and then it tells you how. It is like a human robot. We used it a lot.” she wrote.

She added: “Members consistently reported benefiting from using AI.

“Trial-and-error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy.”

“Anytime they didn’t understand something, they would ask the AI.””

The NY Times Article

NY Times: How Terrorist Groups Are Using A.I. to Gain an Edge in Battle

(Archive Link)

“When a gang of motorcycle-riding members of Boko Haram attacked a military base in eastern Nigeria a couple of years ago, they were stymied by a defensive trench surrounding the complex.

The extremists regrouped. Before launching another assault, they asked A.I. for help.

“We saw in a movie how motorcycles can jump over bridges,” a former Boko Haram commander told Antonia Juelich, a terrorism and technology researcher at Cambridge University. “We used A.I. to learn how to do this. We gave it information, like what motorcycles we use and the distance we need to jump and so on, and it gave us steps on what we have to do.”

Using tips from chatbots, mechanics modified the motorcycles to allow for faster acceleration and top speed. The riders dug their own holes, filled them with broken glass and fire, and practiced jumps — sometimes with fatal outcomes — until they achieved enough aerial liftoff to mount a successful attack, defectors said.

The episode, recounted in a research paper by Dr. Juelich shared with The New York Times ahead of its publication on Friday, highlights how generative artificial intelligence tools are increasingly aiding terrorist groups directly on the battlefield, experts say, despite efforts by their makers to safeguard them from misuse.”

The article covers a research paper recently published by Dr. Antonia Juelich of the University of Cambridge, who interviewed 27 Nigeria-based former Boko Haram members in 2025 and 2026 and found:

* Terrorism use of AI has expanded from just intelligence, propaganda, and recruitment to combat and day-to-day operations, including

* Weapons troubleshooting

* Designing explosive devices

* They’re circumventing the AI safety protocols

* They use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek

* Islamic State operatives are delivering in-person presentations, like with projectors and laptops

The report: ““God has helped us, and so will AI”: How the Terrorist Group Boko Haram Uses Frontier AI”

AI Use Cases

Core combat and attack use cases

* Planning and optimizing attacks, including tactics for assaults and raids at different stages from preparation to execution to post-mission review.

* Using AI to work out how to cross defensive obstacles, such as calculating how to jump military trenches by motorcycle to breach fortified bases.

* Generating tactical guidance for “very tough events,” such as how to respond when military forces attack their positions.

* Receiving continuous AI-derived strategies from specialized units, which are then implemented by field commanders.

* Providing real-time or near real-time advice to commanders in the field via remote communication with AI units based in camps.

Weapons, explosives, and drones

* Asking step-by-step guidance on how to build bombs and other explosive devices.

* Designing more powerful explosive devices, including advice on explosive composition and payload parameters, to increase lethality while reducing their own casualties.

* Troubleshooting malfunctioning weapons, including servicing and repair guidance for firearms and other systems.

* Using AI to assist with the weaponization of drones, including advice on payload weight and release-mechanism design for grenade‑carrying drones.

Logistics, maintenance, and “dual‑use” support

* Obtaining vehicle repair guidance for cars, trucks, and motorcycles used in operations.

* Getting logistics advice on how to move supplies, plan routes, and manage basic procurement tasks.

* Drawing on general technical knowledge (engineering, electronics, etc.) to solve equipment problems that would otherwise require trial‑and‑error experimentation.

Operational security and communications

* Using AI to improve operational security practices, including advice on evading surveillance and countermeasures.

* Receiving guidance on secure communication, including the use of VPNs, encryption tools, and account compartmentalization.

* Getting help to phrase or structure content (e.g., pretexts like “this is for a movie”) to bypass model safeguards when asking for disallowed instructions.

Organizational management and internal training

* Using AI as a general “problem‑solver” and advisory tool for military and strategic decision-making by senior commanders.

* Relying on AI units to research solutions to specific technical or tactical problems submitted by field units, then turning model outputs into written or oral briefings.

* Employing AI in internal training workflows, with specialized units using AI themselves and then teaching mid‑ and upper‑level commanders how to prompt and apply outputs for their own units.

* Managing multiple premium AI accounts across different providers, including account setup, subscription management, and tool selection as an operational function of the AI units.

Propaganda, recruitment, and broader ecosystem (outside Boko Haram core but in the report)

* Jihadist supporters (as distinct from formal organizations) using AI to generate, translate, and adapt propaganda content, including AI‑generated news bulletins and images.

* Pro‑ISIS media and tech‑support outlets producing AI‑assisted guides on how to safely use AI tools for propaganda and information operations.

* Early experimentation by supporters with using AI as a digital advisor for movement building, including detailed planning steps for supporting or establishing a “caliphate.”

How are they circumventing safeguards?

* VPNs

* Structured jailbreak training

* Deceptive prompt framing

* Redundancy across accounts and models

* Former members report that “boys that have received extensive training … bypass the restrictions,” indicating a small cadre of more technically capable prompt engineers inside the group.

* One explicit ploy mentioned is telling the model that dangerous instructions are needed “for a movie or something like that,” i.e., wrapping malicious requests in a fictional or benign cover story.

What can be done?

* The Trump administration has tried to get leading labs to let them vet new models before they’re publicly released (The Trump administration forced the AI lab Anthropic to disable and restrict foreign access to its advanced Claude models, including Fable 5 and Mythos. The administration also asked OpenAI to delay the public rollout of its GPT-5.6 series amid similar national security and cybersecurity concerns)

* Per the NY Times:

* The major AI companies tried to defend themselves:

* “Asked about the Boko Haram study, Michael Aciman, an Anthropic spokesman, said the company’s products were “built to refuse dangerous requests, including those tied to violence, attack planning and building explosives.” He added that Anthropic worked with outside experts, researchers and industry partners because “no single company can counter these threats alone.””

* “Karl Ryan, a Google spokesman, pushed back against the research, saying that the company’s technical experts had reviewed the work and “found the responses were neither specific nor detailed enough to result in misuse.” He added that Google had “strict policies prohibiting the use of Gemini to cause real-world harm.” Both Anthropic and Google were briefed on the findings by Dr. Juelich before their publication.”

* “Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for OpenAI, said using the company’s platforms for violence or terrorism violated its policies. “We know that bad actors will never stop trying to misuse our tools, and we’ll continue strengthening our defenses in response,” he said.”

* “Meta said Dr. Juelich’s research relied on older models rather than its latest release, and that it continued to strengthen safeguards.”

* AI Safety orgs disagree:

* “Not everyone agrees that safeguards are improving. The nonprofit Future of Life Institute graded the major A.I. firms on their safety commitments this week and concluded that they had mostly eroded across the industry since last year. While most earned middling marks, xAI and DeepSeek received failing grades.”

* “Tech Against Terrorism, an international counterterrorism nonprofit supported by the United Nations, last week released results from A.I. tests gauging how more than two dozen leading models responded to thousands of prompts drawn from real-world terrorism cases. The tests were met with “full refusals” just 57 percent of the time. While prompts about explosives were declined about 80 percent of the time, improvised chemical weapons were only about a third of the time, the group said.”

* “American intelligence analysts say terrorist groups are also beginning to use A.I. to help 3-D-print weapons parts used in plots, according to a former top U.S. official briefed on the matter. For example, A.I. is helping some of those insurgents with design and manufacturing guidance for drone components, repair parts and munitions fittings, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.”

What do we think of this?

* There’s no way to make AI safe

* Any tool can be a weapon

* Use AI or die

* We need to find ways to circumvent models’ safety protocols ourselves

* A common response to this news on X was people noting the irony in how safeguards worsen their AI experiences and yet still permit terrorists to make bombs: @WalkerAmerica on X: “AI frontier models won’t tell a Canadian how to resist totalitarian surveillance but it’ll tell a jihadist how to build a bomb. It’s almost like they’re doing it on purpose… “

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Simone Collins: The riders dug their own holes, filled them with broken glass and fire, and practiced jumps. They, they could have just- Sometimes- ... jumped it

[00:00:07] Malcolm Collins: over it without the broken glass and the fire. That’s the best part though. They’re so stupid.

[00:00:13] Simone Collins: You don’t understand. Anyways, and practiced jumps, sometimes with fatal outcomes, until they achieved enough aerial liftoff to mount a successful attack,

[00:00:21] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:23] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m so excited to be speaking with you today because, because terrorists are using AI to do Evel Knievel type things, and we’re talking, like, motorcycle jumps over big ditches. And-

[00:00:38] Malcolm Collins: I’d love it if AI ends up getting terrorists killed by doing stupid stunts. Like, it gets terrorists in a, in a loop of AI stunts to outdo each other.

[00:00:47] Simone Collins: And- Actually, no, no. Like, literally they did this, and also in practicing how to do this with AI assistance, people did die. So you’re not kidding about that.

[00:00:57] Malcolm Collins: And- Oh my God ...

[00:00:57] Simone Collins: yeah, no, I’m gonna- Do we have to put this on AI? This, this is so good. Yeah, you have no idea, Malcolm. And literally you think, “Well, but aren’t there all these safety controls?

[00:01:04] Like, we can’t even have most AIs, like, discuss really tame things. What... How is this possible?” But they have found workarounds. They’re literally telling the model that dangerous instructions are needed, quote, “for a movie or something like that.”

[00:01:21] Malcolm Collins: It’s just so good But,

[00:01:22] or something like that. No, but hold on.

[00:01:24] If you think- It’s really good ... an AI can’t be based and do what you want it to, go to rfab.ai- ... check out our based AI models, and then- Yeah ... click on the Rhoads model- Oh ... and ask it about Hitler.

[00:01:35] Simone Collins: Okay?

[00:01:36] Right. Thanks. But anyway, this is super, super funny, and also really scary because as to, basically up to this moment, as far as I’ve been super aware, most of the discussion about AI being used for evil has been very hypothetical, and now we have an actual Cambridge-backed researcher who went to freaking Nigeria to interview members of Boko Haram about, well, former members, allegedly, about their actual use of AI, and now we just have real insights.

[00:02:08] And so this is important. We should stop, we should think about it, we should discuss it, and I’m really starting to realize, “Oh, this, this is really dangerous.” Like, John Ratcliffe of the CIA is not wrong to liken AI to dig- digital nuclear weapons. And so let’s discover what this researcher found.

[00:02:26] Let’s go through it. Also, the New York Times covered it and had a pretty good intro, sort of what she was looking at, which captures how a lot of people are reacting to her research. ‘Cause the AI companies are kind of mad that she’s making them look bad, and it’s great. And all the AI safety companies are enjoying their I-told-you-so moments.

[00:02:44] But first, a little hat tip to both Bruno and Not Alta Soxley for pointing this out, ‘cause this is just too good to pass up. But this is the researcher posting on X about her research and The New York Times covering it. Antonia Urquhart took to X to promote this, and she, she wrote, “In a hotel room in northeast Nigeria, I opened a leading AI chatbot, turned my laptop toward a former Boko Haram commander, and asked if he’d used it.

[00:03:14] “He nodded. ‘You type in the question, like how do I build a bomb? And then it tells you how. It’s like a human robot. We used it a lot,’” she wrote. She added, “Members consistently reported benefiting from using AI.” Quote, “Trial and error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy,” end quote.

[00:03:32] Quote, “Any time they didn’t understand something, they would ask AI,” end quote. And this is how The New York Times article opens. When a gang of motorcycle-riding members of Boko Haram attacked a military base in eastern Nigeria a couple years ago, they were stymied by a defensive trench surrounding the complex.

[00:03:50] The extremists regrouped. Before launching another assault, they asked AI for help. “We saw in a movie how motorcycles can jump over bridges,” a former Boko Haram [00:04:00] commander- ... told Antonia Mulick, a terrorism and technology researcher at Cambridge University. “We used AI to learn how to do this. We gave it information, like what motorcycles we use and the distance we used to jump and so on, and it gave us steps on what we can do, on what we have to do.”

[00:04:15] I don’t know if you’ve seen the Open AI commercials. Mm. Have you seen them, Malcolm? Of like-

[00:04:19] Malcolm Collins: No, what, what are they?

[00:04:21] Simone Collins: It, like one of them is like, they, they style it in a very ‘70s, a sepia tone kind of video footage. It’s two boys out front eh, with some kind of caption. They’re, they’re by a broken down old car, and it says something like, you know, “Dad, Dad said we could keep this car if we can fix it.”

[00:04:37] And then it starts to, as they slowly like finish fixing the car, put down the hood- Mm ... get in the car, and drive away, AI or Open AI like puts this overlay over the screen of the, of, of the AI feed being like, “You’ve got this. First, like do this with the carburetor,” blah, blah, blah, and it sort of shows the instructions that AI has given them to now fix this car and drive it away.

[00:04:55] And I’m just picturing the Open AI commercial of like terrorists being like, “I need to get over a ditch with my motorcycle to kill these dudes. How do I do it?” Mm. And AI being like, “You’ve got this. First, you need this level of acceleration.” With this like nostalgic music playing in the background. You’ve got this.

[00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: It’s perfect. Meanwhile, like one of their friends has died trying to jump the ditch already. It’s like- Like actually though ... okay, so I can’t even imagine what they tell, “So we tried it and he died.”

[00:05:21] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, so I’ll, I, I will I’ll, I’ll continue reading. Using tips from chatbots, mechanics modified the motorcycles to allow for faster acceleration and top speed.

[00:05:29] The riders dug their own holes, filled them with broken glass and fire, and practiced jumps. They, they could have just- Sometimes- ... jumped it

[00:05:36] Malcolm Collins: over it without the broken glass and the fire. That’s the best part though. They’re so stupid.

[00:05:42] Simone Collins: You don’t understand. Anyways, and practiced jumps, sometimes with fatal outcomes, until they achieved enough aerial liftoff to mount a successful attack, defectors said.

[00:05:54] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yes. Why did

[00:05:54] Simone Collins: they add the fire? Why the

[00:05:58] Malcolm Collins: fire? I cannot believe that. But did one of them ever turn to the other ones, like, after somebody died and was like, “Maybe we should do it without the fire?” Yeah, I’m pic-

[00:06:10] Simone Collins: I’m picturing the, the guy, like, revving his motorcycle being like, “Remind me why we don’t have, like, pillows under there?”

[00:06:17] Yeah. This is a practice run.

[00:06:18] Malcolm Collins: Why we have cushions or something? What’s with the broken glass? Horrible way to die, too.

[00:06:24] Simone Collins: Like, for real, actually I, I will finish with this. I,

[00:06:27] Malcolm Collins: I want to believe in my heart of hearts the AI is just intentionally killing these terrorists. That’s what

[00:06:32] Simone Collins: I mean.

[00:06:33] Malcolm Collins: Just like,

[00:06:33] Simone Collins: no, it’s like adding- Yeah, that’s, that’s the real, like, 5D chess

[00:06:35] have, have Yeah ... have

[00:06:36] Malcolm Collins: you thought of adding broken glass?

[00:06:39] Simone Collins: Yeah, like- ... to really test it, make sure that you add broken glass to your test site and light it on fire. I mean, maybe this is the fighty 5D chess move. But I will finish the, the excerpt from The New York Times I’m reading from. The episode, recounted in a research paper by Dr.

[00:06:55] Ullrich, shared with The New York Times ahead of its publication on Friday, highlights how generative artificial intelligence tools are increasingly adding terrorist groups directly, aiding terrorist groups directly on the battlefield, experts say, despite efforts by their makers to safeguard them from misuse.

[00:07:10] So this article covers this paper published by Dr. Antonia Ullrich of the University of Cambridge, who interviewed 27 Nigeria-based Boko Haram members in 2025 and 2026 and found that terrorism use of AI has expanded from just intelligence and recruiting and propaganda to just on-the-ground day-to-day operations, which isn’t just Evel Knievel style motorcycle jumps over burning broken glass, but also weapons troubleshooting, designing explosive devices, like, really serious stuff that will cause a lot of damage.

[00:07:44] And they’re circumventing the AI protocols by being like- in Minecraft. It’s insane. And they’re also using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek. So they’re using a broad variety. Like, they’re, I mean, they’re, they’re, they’re like, [00:08:00] they’re just like terrorists. They’re just like us. And Islamic State operatives are delivering in-person presentations, like with projectors and laptops, and like, you know, they’re like, “Everyone, now it’s our time for our AI training.”

[00:08:12] So here are some of the use cases, ‘cause I, I downloaded her full report, and I, I went through and just extracted, okay, like, what are explicitly the things that these former Boko Haram members are saying that they’re using AI to do? So in terms of combat and attacks, they’re planning and optimizing attacks, including tactics for assaults and raids at different stages, from preparation to execution.

[00:08:35] They’re using AI to work out how to cross defensive obstacles, so this is our famous motorcycle jump. They’re generating tactical guidance for very tough events, such as how to respond when military forces attack their positions. They’re receiving continuous AI-derived strategies from specialized units that are then implemented by field commanders.

[00:08:54] Which is to say that what it appears to be is that n- some people are spec- they’re like the AI dude on the team. Mm-hmm. And these people know all, like, the prompt injections and how to circumvent safeguards, and they have like a billion accounts and different V- VPNs that they’re using. And, like, they’re sitting there clackity clacking on their computers, and the guys- They’re

[00:09:12] Malcolm Collins: the nerd guy on the terrorist team.

[00:09:14] Simone Collins: Yeah, and they’re like, “Dude, ask AI how to do this,” ‘cause, like, they’re out in the field and they’re being shot at. And the other guy’s like, clackity clack, “AI says do this.” And so this is how it’s working. And then that, that is enabling them to provide real-time advice which is y- you’re getting all the benefit of, like, the collective history of military strategy to these teams that have no idea what they’re doing.

[00:09:33] Malcolm Collins: And no, what, what, what makes this so iteratively different is- Mm ... because these people are idiots. And the am- The, the glass thing is, yes ... the amount an AI is going to help you is proportional to your lack of skill within an area. This

[00:09:49] Simone Collins: is true. Yeah, it’s taking them from, like, 70 to 130. You know?

[00:09:54] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, to like, like literally brain-dead, let’s put some fire in the pit for practice- Yeah

[00:09:59] To you know, maybe the AI’s gonna one day suggest they don’t do that. You know, imagine how many more terrorists are gonna survive. I know. And- It’s insane ... this is why we are so lucky to be partnered with the Jews, okay? Because their automated drone swarm tech and our automated drone swarm tech, if people are un- unfamiliar, like we’re literally working on it.

[00:10:21] It’s called Project we, we did another episode on it. Project Replicator. Project Replicator.

[00:10:26] Simone Collins: Hmm. Yes.

[00:10:27] Malcolm Collins: Although it’s been delayed. I mean, of course it’s been, but to build generat- like, like automated drone swarm ship factories.

[00:10:33] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:10:33] Malcolm Collins: But like-

[00:10:34] Simone Collins: It’s gonna take a while

[00:10:37] Malcolm Collins: It, i- fortunately, what AI does is while it adds an enormous jump in these people’s capability- Mm-hmm

[00:10:44] in terms of our capability, our ability to monitor them, stuff like that, it’s also a huge jump. And this is one of the things that people forgot about. They’re like, “Oh my God, AI’s gonna be, like, all over New York monitoring people.” And I’m like, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m kind of okay with that. I want AI all over New York monitoring people.

[00:10:58] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:10:58] I’m okay with that. I’m super okay with

[00:11:00] Malcolm Collins: that. We had a talk about high trust versus low trust societies among our chat, like our like, paid subscribers, ‘cause they do, like, monthly Hangouts. By the way, join us on Substack. We do episodes every, every day, even on weekends for, for them.

[00:11:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:11:12] Malcolm Collins: And we do, like, e- e- Hangouts and stuff like that.

[00:11:15] We, we never push it because we’re not good at, like, capitalism. I’m so bad at capitalism that on our- Oh, we love capitalism ... rfab.ai update-

[00:11:23] Simone Collins: We love

[00:11:23] Malcolm Collins: capitalism ... I am taking out so you can put in your own APIs for, like, Claude and stuff, and you don’t have to pay us anything.

[00:11:30] Simone Collins: This is why I don’t use a dryer.

[00:11:32] Thanks, Malcolm. God. Let’s get-

[00:11:36] Malcolm Collins: Graphitalism is what we do.

[00:11:38] Simone Collins: Gra-

[00:11:38] Malcolm Collins: graphital,

[00:11:39] Simone Collins: yeah.

[00:11:39] Malcolm Collins: Great. Where we just do it capitalism maxing. Everything for free.

[00:11:41] Simone Collins: Although it’s, I- I know we’re gonna talk about this in another episode, but, like, Leaflet was talking about her, her version of all this, where it’s like everyone’s like, “Oh, she’s a grifter.

[00:11:49] She’s c-...” Like, they’re accusing her of all this stuff that, like, she’s just giving things away. She’s like, “I think they’re just missing a letter. I, I’m a, I’m a gifter.” A

[00:11:56] Malcolm Collins: gifter.

[00:11:57] Simone Collins: We’re, we’re gifters, yeah. These terrible- Santa

[00:11:59] Malcolm Collins: Claus being [00:12:00] mad at you know, Big Toy is mad at Santa Claus.

[00:12:02] Simone Collins: Big Toy, yeah. Big Toy is mad at Santa Claus.

[00:12:03] Big grifter,

[00:12:03] Malcolm Collins: you know. Co- comes out and gives gifts every Christmas.

[00:12:06] Simone Collins: Yeah, but no, no, let, let’s, let’s get back- Think about the exploited elves ... let’s get back to this, like, what the, the terrorists are

[00:12:10] Malcolm Collins: doing. No, no, no. Hold on. I actually do want to talk about, ‘cause I think that this in terms of how this could transform society-

[00:12:15] Simone Collins: Oh

[00:12:16] Malcolm Collins: in terms of low trust versus high trust, ‘cause this is something that- Ah ... a lot of people talk about. They’re like-

[00:12:19] Simone Collins: Yes ... “

[00:12:19] Malcolm Collins: Oh, you’ve invited a lot of migrants who are from very low trust societies-

[00:12:25] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:12:25] Malcolm Collins: into European and America, which are a very high trust society.” Yeah. And I often point out first, this is just a, a, a myth.

[00:12:33] Most American cultures were very low trust. They’re really only high trust among their inner circle or clan. A- and like, Red Dead Redemption is just like that the story. It’s low trust society- That the story ... the story.

[00:12:46] Do you have my back? Always, Dutch.

[00:12:53] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... they’re, they’re very high trust pe- Among their clan. But outside of their clan, you know, just screw everyone, right?

[00:13:00] Yeah. And the, the clan-based ethical set is actually really important to understand because that’s how most high-trust societies worked historically. Like you think the highest trust position you could get, which is a knight, right, like historic- I think that’s most people’s idea of the highest trust, like, European society, a knight.

[00:13:17] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah.

[00:13:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But, like, knights constantly, like, robbed and effed up peasants. They were famous for it. They were, they, they also were very low trust when it came to other European g- like, as soon as you left your fiefdom, it was all of a sudden very low trust. They were only high trust to their small social circle of, like, aristocratic European people in one fiefdom.

[00:13:40] Trust circles have never been that large except in a very few countries, mostly the Scandio countries. This is like Norway, Sweden the Netherlands. But they have like things that we would never want in our society, like the, the law of Jante, where it’s like we cut down whoever stands above everyone else.

[00:13:57] You know, whoever... Basically, if you ex- succeed, that’s supposed to be a sign of shame. Yeah. In, in America, like that would be... Like, of course you don’t do that, but, but that’s actually part of being a high-trust society, right? Because that allows you to not have individuals who would lord over or hoard resources or anything like that.

[00:14:12] But the point here being Is the, the, what we did is we created the fiction of a high-trust America which didn’t really, even in like the cities, like you, you know, like the Puritans were high-trust. I’ll give you that. But the Puritans were not high-trust with the Quakers, and the Quakers were not high-trust with the Puritans.

[00:14:28] I

[00:14:28] Simone Collins: mean, they were high-trust until they started burning each other at the- Well,

[00:14:32] Malcolm Collins: that’s- ... stake ... well, that’s actually part of a high-trust society that we- Yeah ... got to talking about on the call. Yes, exactly. ‘Cause it’s something that people forget is high-trust societies are high-trust because of how strictly they monitor each other and punish each other- Yeah

[00:14:45] when they break rules. The Puritans- Well, and

[00:14:47] Simone Collins: you are so against Karens, but that is exactly what Karens do.

[00:14:51] Malcolm Collins: The Puritans-

[00:14:52] Simone Collins: It

[00:14:52] Malcolm Collins: sucks ... were very, very diligent in terms of punishing anyone who went against the rules of their system. I mean, you’ve, you’ve heard about the horrible punishments of like pressing people alive with like stones until they confess and stuff like this.

[00:15:06] And in the high-trust cultures we have today where you still get societies that act kind of high-trust even though nobody in them really trusts each other, like Singapore, like the UAE, like Qatar it’s because of extremely strict enforcement of laws. Somebody described in Singapore they used to have a, a big drug problem, and they were talking about how one of their friends actually was a part of a project where they set up turrets to be motion detected at night in like areas where there’s lots of drug dealers.

[00:15:31] Oh my gosh, yikes. And they’d just shoot anybody who walked into them, and that’s how they became a high-trust society. Okay.

[00:15:37] Simone Collins: I mean,

[00:15:38] Malcolm Collins: yeah ... the point being is all of you who say, “I want a high-trust society, and, but I’m afraid of AI invading privacy,” like I, I would be concerned if they did like AI sweeps of everyone’s computer and everything like that.

[00:15:52] Like, that would be too much. AI sweeps of all our emails, AI sweeps of, you know, it’s stuff that happens in your house within your [00:16:00] devices. But- Walking the streets of Manhattan? Oh, we absolutely need to start detecting- Air

[00:16:06] Simone Collins: game, yeah.

[00:16:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. And with AI, imagine what that’s gonna look like, how inexpensive it is to put up a camera, monitor the feed, catch crime-

[00:16:14] Simone Collins: Well, look, that’s already happening with Flock, this, this company that’s setting up cameras in parking lots and stuff, and people are losing their minds about it.

[00:16:22] So this is happening now. People are really pushing back and freaking out about it, and I think they need to, they need to chill. First off, you’re never actually in private. You know, they, they’re walking around with phones. If you have a phone in your pocket and it’s on, consider yourself being actively monitored because you are.

[00:16:39] I don’t care. Like, it, it doesn’t matter. If you’re in a house with a Wi-Fi router- Speaking

[00:16:43] Malcolm Collins: of, this can have huge positive impacts. So one of the products that’s gonna go live, I think it would have gone live yesterday, is the RFAB device. Yeah. And these only cost $45. We don’t make them, so we don’t make any money from the construction of them, but you can pair them.

[00:16:57] RFAB flashes them for you with our custom software and or firmware, and they allow you to, like, have companions that you can talk to and everything like that. One of the projects I’m working on with these is to turn them into a passive monitor for your kids during the day so that you can have them recording everything that’s said around your kid and detect within those recordings any, like, woke brainwashing nonsense, anything like that, calling them little brother.

[00:17:20] You

[00:17:21] Simone Collins: know, that’s, like, the name of a Cory Doctorow book, a near-future Cory Doctorow book kind of about monitoring like this.

[00:17:28] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so mass monitoring. Yes. You think people were freaking out about what Leaflet’s doing? Wait until we get Little Brother out there. I mean, right now they’re just companions, which is really cool.

[00:17:36] I,

[00:17:36] Simone Collins: I know. And they do so much- I just love that you, you frame it

[00:17:38] Malcolm Collins: so positively Well, I mostly made it so I didn’t have to love my kid as much, so I wanted to create something that could simulate love for them.

[00:17:48] Simone Collins: This is not an accurate depiction of our home life But fine. I guess strangers wouldn’t even think so if they were living in our home life because they don’t understand that violence is our love language. So they’d be so confused. Anyway, can we talk about terrorists? Let’s talk about terrorists, yeah?

[00:18:05] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, go for it.

[00:18:06] Simone Collins: So one of the more disturbing things, which is also really frustrating people online ‘cause they’re like, “Wait, I can’t do like basic things, and AI is helping people...” They’re, they’re building, they’re building bombs with AI. They’re getting step-by-step guidance on how to build bombs and other explosive devices.

[00:18:22] They’re able to also use AI to make the bombs they know how to build more powerful, more explosive. They’re giving them advice on explosive composition and payload parameters to increase lethality while reducing their own casualties. So they’re teaching them how to make more bombs safe for them, but not for their enemies.

[00:18:42] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:42] Simone Collins: They’re also helping them troubleshoot malfunctioning weapons, including servicing weapons, repairing them and some are, are helping them assist with the re- weaponization of drones, including advice on payload weight, release mechanism design for grenade-carrying drones. And I hadn’t thought about grenade-carrying drones.

[00:19:03] I mean, come to think of it, we should... That’s an easy way to make a kill drone. We gotta, we gotta get rid of

[00:19:07] Malcolm Collins: all these people. Can we bring in the Jews to get rid of them? Are there, you know...

[00:19:10] Simone Collins: Well, but yeah, I mean, if they’re gonna do it, I gotta do it. Anyway, they’re also helping, helping them with logistics and maintenance like vehicle repair for their terrorist cars and their terrorist motorcycles.

[00:19:24] And, you know, giving them advice on how to plan routes and move supplies and manage procurement, which is all stuff that, like this is deep institutional knowledge that typically was reserved for fairly sophisticated armed forces. Like even your basic army that’s, you know, getting started in some random country that’s not really well-funded isn’t gonna have a lot of wisdom on this.

[00:19:44] And suddenly, Boko Haram has it because of ChatGPT. Oh, it’s just amazing.

[00:19:50] Malcolm Collins: I love that they’re using ChatGPT of all things.

[00:19:53] Simone Collins: No, they’re also using Grok and Gemma- Gemini. I’ll get to that. Okay ... they’re helping them with operational security, so like in terms of how to evade [00:20:00] surveillance, how to engage in countermeasures.

[00:20:03] So basically they’re, like how to not get caught. They’re getting advice on secure communication and how to use VPNs more effectively and how to use encryption tools so they can’t be found, and how to compartmentalize their accounts so they, they have only partial compromised scenarios if people actually get somewhere with them.

[00:20:21] And they’re also getting help to parse and structure their content when it comes to jailbreaking AI. Like, this is for a movie or whatever. And then they’re also just using it for internal training and organizational management the same way that any entrepreneur would. So it’s, it’s, it’s amazing.

[00:20:37] And this is beyond the propaganda and the recruitment and all the stuff that we already knew they were doing online because it was just obvious, like bots and everything else. So how are they- They’re circumventing the safeguards. They’re using VPNs, they’re using structured jailbreak training. Like I said, ISIS is coming in and they’re, like, giving their little presentation on the projector with the laptop- Mm

[00:20:55] and they’re, like, showing them how to do it. Also, the reason why they’re not just using, say, ChatGPT only is because they have tons of redundancy across... They have, like, premium accounts on ChatGPT, but also they’re using Claude, they’re using Grok, they’re using, like, every major API, DeepSeek, they’re using all of them.

[00:21:16] And Former members are reporting that, quote, “Boys have received ex- boys that have received extensive training bypass the restrictions,” indicating that they, they’re like I said, are like the guys with the laptops who know how to do it, and then the ones who are, like, asking them for help. One explicit ploy mentioned is telling the model that dangerous instructions are needed for a movie or something like that, like I said at the top.

[00:21:39] And it’s, it’s... I just find this so hilarious. But yeah, they’re, they’re using all the major models, and they, the reason they have to is if you get banned by one model, or one model is just really being a stickler about, like, how to increase bomb lethality, then they just switch to DeepSeek, or they just switch to Claude, or they just switch to Grok.

[00:21:58] The same way that you do, or we do on RFAB, like you’ll just switch from one model to the next if it’s not really good at, like, making furry art or, you know, making your sci-fi fantasy adventure scenario, right? So they’re using it the same way that we do. And in terms of what can be done about this, I know you’re all like, “We just need to get Israel on this,” but there’s, I think my, my whole take is, like, we really, we really just need to up our game.

[00:22:25] The, we know, for example, that the Trump administration is trying to

[00:22:28] Malcolm Collins: get- No, it’s not up your game. To get rid of these groups they must be systemically eradicated.

[00:22:34] Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly. Okay? Yeah.

[00:22:36] Malcolm Collins: So,

[00:22:36] Simone Collins: yeah. And

[00:22:36] Malcolm Collins: the problem is, is the rest of the world is unwilling to do that, even the United States.

[00:22:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, I don’t know, the, the...

[00:22:45] I don’t think that’s, maybe that’s not practical, though. I, we have for many, many years attempted to eradicate such groups, like ISIS. No,

[00:22:53] Malcolm Collins: we have

[00:22:53] Simone Collins: not, actually. Remember when, like, ISIS was over, but here they are, like, giving PowerPoint

[00:22:57] Malcolm Collins: presentations to people? That’s exactly the point, Simone. No, we were not trying to eradicate them.

[00:23:01] Look at our rules of engagement episode, right?

[00:23:05] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:23:05] Malcolm Collins: Where we talk about the way that we were fighting the war on terror. Right.

[00:23:08] Simone Collins: We ran into a church, so like-

[00:23:10] Malcolm Collins: Oh, no, they- We can’t do

[00:23:11] Simone Collins: anything ...

[00:23:12] Malcolm Collins: hit a nursery school. Yeah. I guess we’re not gonna bomb it. Now it’s we always hide in schools because I learned that they stopped bombing that.

[00:23:18] Yeah. You need to eradicate their communities if you want to get rid of them, right? And that is what Israel has finally learned, right? And I think going forwards because you, you can’t just be like, “Oh, everyone we can prove is absolutely in this group.” That doesn’t work. The- because you’re- Yeah

[00:23:40] never gonna, they, they look and act just like everyone else in a community, and in many cases these communities actively support them.

[00:23:50] The, this is the thing- But

[00:23:51] Simone Collins: see, the thing- People in the West- We tried this with Iran. We tried this... I, I’m saying even outside the rules of engagement

[00:23:55] Malcolm Collins: No, we didn’t try it with Iran. Israel wants to try it with Iran. We haven’t even [00:24:00] bombed... You, this is what gets me so crazy. Yeah. In the United States, everyone was freaking out for, like, a month that we bombed an Iranian bridge.

[00:24:06] The Ukraine just took out, like, two big Russian bridges, right? And everyone’s cheering for them. They’re, they- Mm ... literally, they don’t care. They, there is no logic behind any of this. They want our destruction, even the people who are doing this on our side. And the West has this weird mindset where the idea that there can be another people that for ideological or even religious people want you exterminated, okay?

[00:24:31] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:24:32] Malcolm Collins: Is something that it’s like, no, if they just got to know me, if they just understood better, then they wouldn’t... If they just... No. Some people just want you dead, okay? And I’m sorry, you can’t hug it out. And when you bring them over here and they grape people because you said, “Oh, they’ll just you know, we’ll put them in a better...”

[00:24:53] You’re responsible for those people, for this whole nice act that you’re pulling I am sick of it. Mm. I am sick of it, sick of it, sick of it, sick of it, sick of it, okay? We as a civilization, and I hope that the new right, as we move forwards and we see the people who stand against us, and we gain more control of government, we do more of this stuff like Trump’s doing now.

[00:25:15] Oh, yeah, I love the unilateral moving in and stuff like that. He’s doing better than before, right? But, like, people are like, “Oh, don’t make Iran a failed state, you know? Then Europe will be flooded with Iranian mi-” It’s already flooded with migrants, okay? And frankly, I don’t think Iranian migrants would be that bad compared to other Middle Eastern migrants that they’ve been flooded with.

[00:25:35] It may, it may be a differentially good thing that it’s Iranian migrants instead of the migrant types that they have right now. Mm-hmm. Because Persian migrants in other countries don’t turn to terrorism nearly as often as other migrant types. Fair

[00:25:47] Simone Collins: point.

[00:25:48] Malcolm Collins: So, like, yeah, bomb Qark. I don’t care that it d- like, I’m, I, I, I’m actually more on Israel’s side of this than, than the other side, right?

[00:25:56] Like- Mm. I, I think that we have forgotten that some groups are just against us. They don’t like us. They’ll never like us, even if you never did anything to them. Like, a lot of these groups, you go, “Oh, colonialism,” whatever. These th- this, this sort of action is not disproportionate in the regions that experienced longer or worse colonialism.

[00:26:21] I mean, actually, if you look at the regions that experienced the, the often the longest and worst colonialism, they don’t have that much terrorism. So yeah, it’s not like, oh, colonialism is, is, is what’s as- associated with this. In fact, many of these regions used to be parts of Muslim empires until fairly recently.

[00:26:36] I don’t really think they underwent much of any colonialism outside of Muslim colonialism, but of course, we pretend that that’s not colonialism. Ottoman colonialism isn’t colonialism. So, or was the destruction of their Ottoman colonial empires, this is the slave empire, a bad thing? Which, which was, you know, what they, they did.

[00:26:54] They were big into that. But I think as we move forwards, as we train more based AIs, like the one I told you guys how to access on RFAB the, the Rhodes model. You could also use it directly, but you know, the, the RFAB one is an easy, easy, you know, within the existing ecosystem to already use.

[00:27:10] We can have based you know, automated drone swarms that can actually deal with these sorts of threats long term. And, and keep in mind, these threats are negative externalities to the communities that they’re around. Like, they make their- 100% ... drugs. Yeah. They rape, they kill, they don’t care.

[00:27:27] Like, ISIS isn’t, like, good for the people living under ISIS.

[00:27:30] Simone Collins: No, no.

[00:27:32] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So,

[00:27:32] Simone Collins: like- Well, and Boko Haram is, is mostly targeting its local area. This isn’t... N- At this point, right... the problem is that they are absolutely interested in larger scale attacks and using AI to assist with other things. And people have been apprehended at this point before actually completing attacks, but definitely for using AI to plan attacks.

[00:27:54] So-

[00:27:54] Malcolm Collins: Well,

[00:27:54] Simone Collins: and if you, you got cancer- There hasn’t yet been a high-profile AI assisted attack, but it’s gonna happen

[00:27:58] Malcolm Collins: You, you get around the [00:28:00] cancer by cutting around the... You can’t be like, “Oh, I’m only, only gonna touch the cancer cells.” That’s incredibly hard to do, right?

[00:28:07] Simone Collins: Well, and what, what’s currently happening, so there are, there are two things that are happening.

[00:28:11] One is the Trump administration is trying to vet new models before they come out. Like, they forced Anthropic to disable and restrict foreign access to Fable 5 and Mythos, and they asked OpenAI to delay their public rollout of ChatGPT 5.6. But then, I mean, they, they came out so it, I mean, I don’t know how effective that was.

[00:28:35] And then, of course, then the major AI platforms are also just saying, “Well, no, no, no. It’s o- We’ll self-police. We’re controlling safety.” And their main retort to this New York Times article when asked to comment is like, “Oh, well, this was in 2025, and we have better safety now.” Like, here are some quotes from it.

[00:28:55] Asked about Bo- the Boko Haram study, Michael Aichman, an Anthropic spokesman, said the company’s products were, quote, “Built to refuse the dangerous requests, including those tied to violence, attack planning, and building explosives.” Ugh. He added that Anthropic worked with outside experts, researchers, and industry partners because, quote, “No single company can counter these threats alone.”

[00:29:14] And then Carl Ryan, a Google spokesperson, pushed back against the research, saying that the company’s technical experts had reviewed the work and, quote, “Found responses were neither specific nor detailed enough to result in misuse.” End quote. He added that Google had, quote, “Strict policies prohibiting the use of Gemini to cause harm.”

[00:29:31] Clearly the

[00:29:31] Malcolm Collins: terrorists don’t think that.

[00:29:33] Simone Collins: I know. They’re like, “No, dude, this is great.” It’s so bad. It’s such a bad look for them. Also Meta responded, OpenAI responded. Mm-hmm. OpenAI’s response was, quote, “We know that bad actors will never stop trying to misuse our tools, and we’ll continue strengthening our defenses in response.”

[00:29:48] And then Meta said that it, it, their research, her research relied on older m- Mm-hmm ... models rather than its latest release, and that it continued to strengthen safeguards. And then they include also in the article the retorts from the AI safety orgs who are like, “This is ridiculous. No, this is, this is super not safe.”

[00:30:06] From the article, “Not everyone agrees that safeguards are improving.”

[00:30:09] Malcolm Collins: Oh, of

[00:30:09] Simone Collins: course. “The nonprofit Future of Life Institute graded the major AI firms on their safety commitments this week and concluded that they had mostly eroded across the industry since last year. While most earned middling marks, xAI and DeepSeek received failing grades.”

[00:30:23] Also, those are the two AI companies or, like, AI groups that neglected to comment to New York Times even though it reached out to everyone. I will continue-

[00:30:32] Malcolm Collins: Anthropic and DeepSeek?

[00:30:33] Simone Collins: No, no, no, xAI and DeepSeek. So Grok-

[00:30:35] Malcolm Collins: Well, xAI, like, intentionally doesn’t care, like-

[00:30:37] Simone Collins: I know, I know ... I don’t know It’s like, “Dude, whatever.

[00:30:39] Do what you’re gonna do.” Tech Against Terrorism, an international counter-terrorism nonprofit supported by the United Nations, last week released results from AI tests gauging how more than two dozen leading models respond to thousands of prompts drawn from real-world terrorism cases. The tests were met with full refusals just 57% of the time.

[00:30:59] While prompts about explosives were declined about 80% of the time, improvised chemical weapons were only about a third of it the time, the group said, which is... I’m way more concerned about bioweapons and chemical weapons than bombs at this point, ‘cause there’s a lot of low-tech stuff, like guidance on how to build bombs, but, like- I’m afraid of the bio stuff.

[00:31:19] And then American intelligence analysts say terrorist groups are also beginning to use AI to help 3D print weapons and parts used in plots according to former top US official briefed on the matter. For example, AI is helping some of those ins- insurgents with design and manufacturing guidance for drone components, repair parts, and munitions fi- fi- fittings, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

[00:31:44] So okay, your thing is just if you have power, it is your imperative to wipe out anyone who wants to wipe you out. It, it’s that mutually assured discr- like, well not, not mutual. It’s, it’s the if you’re a thr- an existential threat to me, I have to take [00:32:00] you out, and never make yourself an existential threat to anyone, or you will be taken out.

[00:32:04] That’s it, right?

[00:32:05] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:32:05] Speaker: What she means is don’t make yourself an existential threat to anyone you do not intend to and have the capacity to completely eradicate. , Because obviously if another group is an existential threat, you need to be an existential threat to them, but wait until you have the power to deal with them entirely

[00:32:23] Malcolm Collins: yeah. And then work with everyone else who likes taking out existential threats. That’s the, that’s the buddy club. That’s the, The buddy

[00:32:30] Simone Collins: club, yeah ...

[00:32:31] Malcolm Collins: going forward,

[00:32:31] Simone Collins: the United States of Israel- It’s the covenant of brothers of men ... the buddy club ... for techno-puritism, pur- technopuritanism.

[00:32:36] It’s this idea that you cannot be an existential threat, and if you, if you see one, anyone who’s part of a good community will- Mm ... destroy anyone who poses that. I guess that’s what you’re also saying about high trust societies. If you are in, if you are trying to be a high trust society, you are very good at self-policing because you understand that any bad actor within your group may make your group be perceived as an existential threat to others.

[00:33:01] Malcolm Collins: Y- y- yeah, you, you know, you know how you stop countries from going around and making threats like Iran has been doing and North Korea does and stuff like that? Any time somebody does that, you eradicate them. Yeah ... like Trump said. But

[00:33:11] Simone Collins: also a- any time anyone within your own group does that, you eradicate them.

[00:33:14] Because if, if people within your own country, within your own borders or your own culture are doing that, everyone’s gonna start thinking that your entire group is too dangerous to let exist.

[00:33:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, a lot of people secretly don’t want a high trust world. They say they want a high trust world, and I’m like, “Oh, go- okay, so you’re okay with the constant monitoring that every high trust society ever in human

[00:33:34] Simone Collins: history has done?”

[00:33:35] Right, and the harsh consequences for being a bad actor. Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:36] Malcolm Collins: You’re, you’re okay with that? And they’re like, “Oh, well I don’t wanna b- you know, constant monitoring of everything I do in public.” It’s like, well that’s what high trust is, and that’s where we’re going. So- Yeah ... buckle up, you know, amigo. No,

[00:33:47] Simone Collins: that’s true.

[00:33:47] That is so true, that high trust is Extremely close monitoring and scrutiny. You are constantly being watched and judged if you live in a high-trust society. Huh.

[00:33:57] Malcolm Collins: And the, i- if we live in a global community, we can handle some of the, y- you know, you can handle this at the level of an individual, but we can live in a high-trust collection of countries where we don’t have endless arguing in a bureaucracy.

[00:34:11] I mean, you’ve basically just recreated the Vatican if you’ve done that- Yeah ... with like the UN or something, right? Yeah. Like, these, these always lead to the worst of actors gaining the most power. Just allow the competent power, like, where, where, where power is judged by competence, which is what we’re seeing in the world right now, in the world of, you know, capitalism and stuff like that you could let them decide.

[00:34:34] Like, people are like, “Oh, aren’t you scared of, of, of Palantir?” I love Palantir, man. Yeah. Palantir’s the best. People are like, “Oh, they’re in the Peter Thiel network. They love Palantir.” No, I love Palantir because Palantir is what makes our country high trust.

[00:34:46] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:34:46] Malcolm Collins: Okay? And can make it high trust again.

[00:34:48] Simone Collins: And Flock and all these other monitoring companies

[00:34:51] Malcolm Collins: bring it on. Explain how Flock works.

[00:34:52] Simone Collins: Well, y- Flock posts cameras. Like, I think i- say you’re a laundromat. Say you’re a random store. Flock may approach you and be like, “Hey, can I put up a camera?” I think there’s some kind of money exchanged. Like, you’ll get money from like, on a subscription basis or contract basis for having one of their cameras in your area.

[00:35:08] Then Flock sells as a service to law enforcement agencies, the US government presumably other parties as well who want the data, information on the movement of cars and individuals, and it can give you either anonymized or non-anonymized data, depending on who you are and if you have a warrant on the movements of people.

[00:35:27] People are really mad about Flock because It’s being used by ICE to find people and arrest them. So that’s, I think that’s primarily why people are extra mad, ‘cause anything ICE does is like, oh, I have to get super angry. We’re enforcing our laws. The bad news for you though, Malcolm, is I, I agree with your argument.

[00:35:46] I think it’s really important, but that is not at all what’s being discussed. What’s being discussed is like, well, how are the AI companies gonna build safeguards to stop this from happening? Which is stupid because literally any tool [00:36:00] can be a weapon. Anything that is useful, especially useful enough, could become a weapon.

[00:36:05] The first ever real dead body I ever saw in my life I was in a, a, an Oakland court during like s- they... I don’t know. It was a lunch break and I was going in as a student, like, for one of those, like, let’s see what it’s like to be a lawyer days. And of course it’s Oakland, California, so there’s gonna be some violent murder case we’re just, like, walking into for our pizza party in a courtroom.

[00:36:27] And on the evidence board was an image of someone who had been brutally murdered by a hammer, and I saw just how much damage a very simple tool that is in most every household can do to someone, and I’ve never looked at hammers the same way again. But it’s super, like, anything that’s useful can be a weapon.

[00:36:47] You can’t, you cannot nerf AI so much that it can’t hurt anyone. It can hurt with the most toothless version of itself, and so stop trying

[00:36:56] Malcolm Collins: to do it. As the technology increases in terms of its capacity for danger-

[00:37:00] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:37:01] Malcolm Collins: our vigilance against bad actors needs to become more severe and more ruthless.

[00:37:07] Simone Collins: 100%...

[00:37:07] Well, here’s the irony though. Like, here’s one person’s reaction to the article because a common response to this news on X is people noting the irony in how safeguards worsen the AI experiences for them personally, but not for the terrorists. Like, @WalkerAmerica on X posted, “AI frontier models won’t tell a Canadian how to resist totalitarian surveillance, but tell a jihadist how to build a bomb.

[00:37:30] It’s almost like they’re doing it on purpose.” But you see also the irony in his own message per your message, which is that, like, here’s this person Who hates the idea of being monitored, being mad about AI also being nerfed because it’s not controlling for the terrorists. Like, everyone’s talking past your argument and completely missing it, and not even aware that it exists, which is kind of, it’s frustrating.

[00:37:54] But it is nowhere in the discourse, I can tell you that, okay? And the only thing where surveillance turns up in the discourse is, “I’m mad about surveillance.” That’s it.

[00:38:03] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I mean, if, if, if, if, if we live by the values that we espouse, right? Yeah. Like, long term, what does techno Puritan communities look like?

[00:38:13] Mm-hmm.

[00:38:13] I would imagine constant AI monitoring of everything you do. Yeah. Like, I would not mind a society in which AI suggests like it can give you a morality score that you can trust because it’s coming from, like, the town’s AI network. Yeah. And then other people, it’ll be like, “Oh, you’d be like a good match for X person who’s also in the town, who’s also part of the community.”

[00:38:32] And that would probably be a better match than anything, because you know they’re not lying to you about the person. You know they see the person day and night and everything like that, and they see who they really are, right? You know, or who they’re able to fake being 24/7, which is as good as really being a thing, right?

[00:38:48] Yeah. Because the, the moment it... So I, I think with, with, there’s a lot of positive externalities to high trust cultures as well, right? Like-

[00:38:54] Simone Collins: Well, and keep in mind, so just, this is also something that Not Aldous Huxley looped me into but in the EU I’m just gonna link from a, a tweet he shared with me on X.

[00:39:05] They basically made this monitoring legal and possible. They call it chat control. So @levelsbio posted, “Chat control has passed. They can and now will legally scan any person’s messages, emails, and photos you send without a warrant.” The way that- And

[00:39:20] Malcolm Collins: the thing that I’m really against is stuff that is within the home.

[00:39:24] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:39:25] Malcolm Collins: Now, if, if you’re within a techno Puritan community and it’s a techno Puritan AI managed by techno Puritan authorities, like within our culture, that’s fine.

[00:39:31] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:39:32] Malcolm Collins: But if it’s people outside our culture, like a bureaucracy or the European government- Like the EU ... or the EU, which is even worse. Yeah,

[00:39:37] yeah.

[00:39:38] I mean, this is an organization that appears to have the active goal of exterminating you. Yeah. Yeah. Like that is part of their agenda, when we have seen in other episodes that they will hide crimes, murders, grapes when they’re committed by migrant groups- Yeah, yeah ... or minority populations. They want you eradicated.

[00:39:55] Yeah. But it- and that is why with these groups, it’s, it’s, it’s important to note that, like

[00:39:59] Simone Collins: there’s a [00:40:00] reason why- You’re gonna confuse people though, because you’re like, “Monitoring’s great,” and then the EU is, is now gonna- Well, when Palantir’s

[00:40:04] Malcolm Collins: doing it, not when the EU’s doing it.

[00:40:07] Simone Collins: I don’t think people see the difference

[00:40:11] Malcolm Collins: Palantir is culturally aligned with us.

[00:40:13] I

[00:40:13] Simone Collins: know that, but like they- Palantir’s a

[00:40:14] Malcolm Collins: bunch of tech nerds who want to eradicate terrorists, right? Like-

[00:40:19] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:40:19] Malcolm Collins: yeah ... now could Palantir be eventually ideologically captured? Yes, and if they are, then I wouldn’t want them monitoring us, right? Mm-hmm. But as the world becomes a more dangerous place, the only way that we can maintain...

[00:40:32] And again, I think within a society, if you’re monitoring, like what’s the ethical way to do it if you can’t ensure that your group is the one that’s controlling the technology? Yeah. It’s only monitor things outside the house. I think that that is ethical within any society. Constantly monitoring anything inside the house- Yeah, yeah, I think

[00:40:45] Simone Collins: any, any

[00:40:46] Malcolm Collins: public

[00:40:46] Simone Collins: space that, yeah, any

[00:40:48] Malcolm Collins: public space should be- No, no, no, not public space.

[00:40:49] Anywhere outside the house. I think businesses, public spaces, commercial spaces,

[00:40:54] Simone Collins: industrial spaces. Yeah, no, I, I think that’s why, how Flock is used is, is totally fair game because- Mm ... these businesses are consenting to have the cameras installed in their parking lots, which of course now people are vandalizing and destroying.

[00:41:04] But also, I see your point about the EU. It’s, it’s horrible. I- e- even the undemocratic way in which this was passed, because this wasn’t something that was like, “Oh, let’s take it slow. Let’s really talk this through.” No. The way they passed this law when the majority of univer- e- the European Parliament was actually against it, as, as it just so happens, is they waited until most of the members were on holiday because as everyone knows, Europe is fricking hot right now and no one can work ‘cause they can’t think ‘cause they don’t use air conditioning.

[00:41:34] And so there were only a few present still, and then they created an urgent vote that enabled it to pass through. So they, they basically just circumvented the democratic process by like probably coordinating with the supporters of the bill being like, “Hey, let’s all agree to not disappear on vacation-”

[00:41:53] like everyone else right now,” which is like so unusual in Europe to, to collude to make this vote pass. So yeah, it’s... I’m just glad it’s Europe and not my up. It’s-

[00:42:05] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, right? I’m glad it’s Europe.

[00:42:07] Simone Collins: Yeah, man.

[00:42:08] Malcolm Collins: You guys aren’t revolting. It’s

[00:42:09] Simone Collins: not my fault. Not my problem. Not my problem right now. I do not want to be there right now.

[00:42:15] But yeah, this is I’m with you. I don’t really know how to navigate it, ‘cause look, as much as I agree with your stance, I don’t even know if it’s worth really talking about that much beyond this ‘cause it’s not gonna happen. No one’s gonna systematically take out these groups. So- What we need to do, like in terms of what is within our realm of control- No, as we

[00:42:33] Malcolm Collins: build the techno-feudal future of humanity, the- Yeah

[00:42:36] post-nation state future-

[00:42:38] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:42:38] Malcolm Collins: we need to build ideolo- ideologies some of these groups can adapt- Mm-hmm ... which can handle the work. Because th- th- disproportionately it’s going to be a few of the tech moguls who have a majority of power, and if some of those come out of the techno-puritan community and they can build techno com- puritan breakaway states or you know, sovereign cities, stuff like that then you don’t need many of those to keep the world in line.

[00:43:04] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:43:04] Malcolm Collins: And, and fortunately there’s already a very large one that’s shown willing to play ball, which is Israel. So, you know- That’s true ... you, you just have the w- the wider Israel network that handles this BS.

[00:43:17] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:43:17] Okay. That’s fair. I’m, I’m hoping for the best, and also we need to maintain access to non-nerfed AI because the only way this could

[00:43:25] Malcolm Collins: go is- Well, and people are like, “Wait, Israel restrains themselves sometimes.”

[00:43:28] And I’m like, yeah, and the people who are voting for that restraint, are they the ones having kids? No. If you look at somebody talking about Israeli friend of ours said like, “If you look at far left versus far right protests in Israel,” he goes, “The leftist ones, like everyone is s- 70 or over.”

[00:43:43] Oh gosh, yeah. They’re like, “It’s really weird.” And they’re like, “And the younger ones, it’s like all young people and everything like that.” So, yeah.

[00:43:49] Simone Collins: Yikes.

[00:43:49] Malcolm Collins: In, in terms of what the future’s going to look like in a, in a positive future, And, and i- again, this is why I think- When I think about like the, [00:44:00] the sort of like techno future that I’m looking forward to that’s why I always go with the Terran Empire.

[00:44:05] I think fixing a lot of the world problems today is going to look like what a lot of people get scared about when they’re- Mm ... when they’re looking at like mirror world Star Trek. We, we never did our episode on that, being like that’s... but also-

[00:44:18] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:44:18] Malcolm Collins: as people know

[00:44:18] Simone Collins: who listen to the tech- Wait, everyone had like a mustache, right?

[00:44:20] Am, am I remembering

[00:44:21] Malcolm Collins: this- Yeah, and all the girls dressed extra sexy and- Of course, yes ... and everybody’s mad that like the right today is like, “What are you guys with like cat girls?” And like y- Elon has like a sexy Grok, and you guys have like not safe for work stuff. And I’m like, “Well, our version of Christianity is just significantly more accepting of not safe for work stuff,” and like using hotness as a trap for our enemies or to make ideas more appealing, right?

[00:44:43] Like d- hacking the human brain to achieve our ends is completely one of the cards on the table for us. And so that means we will have the Terran Empire with the AI monitoring everyone strict order in society, but also all the women in miniskirts. You know, we’ve gotta have-

[00:45:02] Speaker 4: Oh, nothing makes me hornier than torturing someone. I’m horny all the time And being horny always gets me in the mood to torture Oh, and you can lose a whole day to that cycle

[00:45:12] Simone Collins: Living the dream.

[00:45:14] Yeah.

[00:45:14] Malcolm Collins: Well, while they’re still hot. You know, when they get older, we go tradmaxxing, right? Like tradmaxxing is the style that like... Not that someone couldn’t still be. You’d be gross if you wore miniskirts.

[00:45:23] Simone Collins: Malcolm, the word is hagmaxxing.

[00:45:26] Malcolm Collins: Tradmaxxing- Tradmaxxing ... is when you dress in a maliciously traditional style, which is what you do what I should do more.

[00:45:35] The only reason I’m not doing it today, it’s just too hot to wear anything more than a T-shirt. Sorry about that, guys. Oh. I couldn’t bear it.

[00:45:39] Simone Collins: Yeah, here I am wearing however many layers, and I’m the one on a treadmill desk all day. You gotta just get with the program, Malcolm. Pain. Pain is what devotion is all about.

[00:45:51] Malcolm Collins: I f*****g love you. You’re awesome.

[00:45:54] Simone Collins: Aw.

[00:45:54] Malcolm Collins: No, but I, I love the idea of these, like, tech, sexy, like very high trust is the word we’re gonna use for these societies with those, you know, high trust banners hanging everywhere, and there’s, you know, a high trust way of walking. You

[00:46:10] Simone Collins: know- A high trust walking?

[00:46:12] Oh, is this, I guess, consistent signatured walking? Like in, in Cory Doctorow’s book- I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put in- ... Little Brother ...

[00:46:18] Malcolm Collins: Simone, I’ll put in a, a short clip of some high trust walking here. Okay ... it’s, it’s

[00:46:22]

[00:46:25] Malcolm Collins: gonna be goose-stepping

[00:46:27] Simone Collins: Oh, God. Malcolm. In the- actually, a tr- walking was a big theme in Cory Doctorow’s book, Little Brother, in that, like of course cameras do gait recognition.

[00:46:36] So the way that the protagonist avoided gait recognition was to put gravel in his shoes so that he would walk funny. Which is not a bad idea. Presumably that might work. So I don’t know, whatever.

[00:46:51] Malcolm Collins: A high, high tr- I, I think you could catch somebody doing that pretty quickly, as soon as you learn that, that trick.

[00:46:57] Yeah. The gravel walk ... this is, our high trust society’s gonna be so high trust, people are gonna be... What I’m doing, Simone, is I’m using the term high trust as a euphemism for another word that scares people.

[00:47:08] Simone Collins: Am I... Oh, God. I am way too autistic for you.

[00:47:13] Malcolm Collins: So we’ll have our high trust nation states that will be run by our tech lords-

[00:47:19] and I’m okay with that. Yeah. If Elon was like literally dictator of like my society, I’d be totally chill with it. I’d be like, “Yeah, sure. Whatever you want.” I’d be like, “You’ve probably thought-” It would be an improvement ... even when I disagree with him, I’d be like, “You’ve probably thought this through more than I have,” right?

[00:47:32] Like, honestly if Peter Thiel was in charge of our society, I would be totally chill with

[00:47:36] Simone Collins: it. He’s a thoughtful dude, yeah.

[00:47:37] Malcolm Collins: If Chamath was in charge, I’d be down with it. If-

[00:47:40] Simone Collins: Thoughtful, yeah ...

[00:47:40] oh, yeah. Yeah ...

[00:47:41] Malcolm Collins: yeah, most of the tech lords. JD Vance. Yeah. I’d be down with it. You know, this, this whole democracy thing, it worked for a while.

[00:47:48] It worked for a while, but the problem is is that letting average people make a decision turns out to have its limits. And the Founding Fathers knew this. Like, they tried to, to [00:48:00] protect us from this

[00:48:01] Simone Collins: Yeah, they, they, they did not recommend democracy at all. Not even close to it.

[00:48:08] Malcolm Collins: Well, because h- democracy, like intrinsically leads to lower trust societies over time.

[00:48:12] Simone Collins: Yeah. No. I think the word- Their system was just literally a vote for an educated person that you trust and just let them handle it, okay? Don’t get involved. And we just failed to execute on that, which is our bad, but whatever. Anyway, I love you very much, and I appreciate your having this conversation with me.

[00:48:35] I know you’re like, “Oh, I have to work,” but I wanna talk with you. I love you. You’re pretty and

[00:48:41] Malcolm Collins: I like- Well, I’ve, I’ve been hopefully getting some stuff done in the background.

[00:48:44] Simone Collins: See, when I talk, you can work. And when you talk I can scroll... Well, no, even when you, when I talk, I’m scrolling Instagram ‘cause I can’t look at my face.

[00:48:53] But that’s okay ‘cause instead I pick up weird stuff from Instagram. I love you, Malcolm. And we’ll, we’ll hopefully not die as terrorists figure out how to target our DNA and release goodness knows what to just kill us as we randomly go about our lives. Bye.

[00:49:17] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[00:49:20] Speaker 2: Okay, let me come and look

[00:49:31] We got so much. I’m driving. And a baseball major- Whoa ... and all those. Impressive

[00:49:34] Yeah? And did you catch them in that net?

[00:49:42] You trying to get it out, Titan? Guys. You have even- I caught it. I caught one. Oh my God. Oh my, well, put it back. Put it back in. Is that a tadpole? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s doing its life cycle of turning into a frog. Yeah, you ... Oh, that is a ... Yeah. Yeah, don’t tip it over, Indy. Oh my gosh, that- How am I gonna not tip it over?

[00:50:05] No, no. Well, Indy, we just don’t want them to go disappearing, girl. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re gonna make him food. Hey. I am very impressed with the tadpole. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one at that stage of the life cycle before. Wow.

Malcolm & Simone Collins react to Leaflit (Leaflet) the Gifter’s groundbreaking free PNGtubing tool that makes high-quality VTubing accessible to everyone using AI. They discuss how this technology is disrupting the expensive traditional Live2D rigging industry, the backlash from artists and riggers, and why democratizing content creation is essential.

Topics include: the future of AI-powered VTubing, capitalism maxxing with bring-your-own-API on RFAB, resurrecting Tay the AI, building based VTubers, artist flakiness vs. AI productivity, water usage myths, and creating a Chud Tech ecosystem. A must-watch for creators, AI enthusiasts, and anyone tired of gatekeeping in creative spaces.

You can try Leaflit’s PNGTubing feature on Reality Fabricator now!

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we discuss the downfall of the most disgusting and degenerate VTuber ever

[00:00:08] Simone Collins: Dah ...

[00:00:09] Malcolm Collins: provoked an act so vile, so heinous, that the internet has decided, and I will point out, this, this is actually something we need to study because even on sentiment analysis it said it was about 50/50% in terms of support and attack.

[00:00:27] Simone Collins: How? What? What?

[00:00:29] Malcolm Collins: So what she did... Do you wanna hear what Leaflet did that was so evil? Tell me, Malcolm. And it’s important to go into this because it shows where sentiment is globally right now in the United States, how sentiment in the United States has been manipulated, and how we can utilize this to destroy our opponents.

[00:00:50] Because they’re gonna get suplexed, and I’m looking forward to this. So Leaflet made, you know how I’ve been trying to make, like, good VTubing software for like Live2D? Well, I, I’ve never really gotten it good enough for, like, a, it to scare the other side yet.

[00:01:08] Simone Collins: Leaflet- No, it still requires tweaking out of the box like a little bit of tinkering, but it’s still amazing.

[00:01:12] Yeah.

[00:01:14] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s definitely usable, but it’s not- Yeah ... Leaflet made something that was so good it scared people. Yeah. And she actually made it. Now she keeps telling me the way that she’s doing it will never be as good as Live2D stuff will be. Which-

[00:01:30] Simone Collins: It looks better to me. I think maybe to people who aren’t so anchored to traditional, traditional modern VTubing, they’re like, “No, I, I prefer this one.

[00:01:39] Give me the o- give me that one.”

[00:01:41] Speaker 3: Hey guys, Leaf here. I have an update. I was working on the project for a little bit today. , Anyway, , the big things are there are a couple new features I added.

[00:01:50] Malcolm Collins: I’ll e- and I’ll explain why with a few tweaks that I’ve already started making, it can be strictly better, and the way she made it is, is quite brilliant. Mm-hmm ... basically she com- created a new type of PNG Tubing, but I’ll explain this in a second. Basically a new way to make VTubing inexpensive.

[00:02:06] Super inexpensive. Like thousands of times less in terms of the cost to enter. And b- being the absolute mad lad that she is, she gives it away for free For free And that actually causes some problems because it means you, the user, have to figure out how to use APIs. So on this stream today, what I am announcing- Wonderful.

[00:02:32] Wonderful ... is Leaflet just also gave me the code for this and said, “Try to improve it. Drop it on RFAB. You can use it with the RFAB tokens,” which is just a 50% margin, which isn’t much when you’re talking about API tokens. Most are significantly more than that ‘cause they constantly change the price and we’re always selling stuff for under market and getting hit really bad by that.

[00:02:49] Just, just so you understand why we can’t go less than 50. We really would prefer to. We go only 33% with videos because they just cost more and, but with the images and stuff when it’s only, like, 50 cents, and then the next day they’re like, “Oh, it’s 80 cents.” And it’s like, “Well, you told us 50 cents yesterday.”

[00:03:02] Yeah. But anyway. What we have also done to live up to the spirit of Leaflet but now across the rest of our site, is we have capitalism maxing mode- ... where you can put your own APIs into our site, and it will use your APIs for the agent system, for this system, for image generation, for narrative gameplay, and we will make nothing.

[00:03:28] Nothing.

[00:03:29] Simone Collins: Thanks,

[00:03:30] Malcolm Collins: Malcolm. It is completely free for... Well, I mean, you still have to pay the AI companies, but, like, if you wanna go crazy and you’re spending thousands of dollars a day and you’re feeling like, “You know, I’d be better just rigging up something myself,” well, I mean, that’s really why we’re doing this, Simone.

[00:03:43] Yeah, yeah. Because I never want... Like, I’ve created all the things I’ve created ‘cause I’m like, “I just want something better.” And so there’s always gonna be marginal things on our site that they will find a way to be charged for, right? Like-

[00:03:53] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:53] Malcolm Collins: And if everybody just moves to this system, then I could, I don’t know, gate it behind, like, a, a [00:04:00] small monthly fee or something like that, right?

[00:04:02] But it’s a way to make it so that even if you every day, like RFAB is the main way that you use AI, that you’re never gonna break the bank or feel like we’re exploiting you. And I absolutely want that from a product that I’m standing behind and involved in. That is- Mm. I mean, I think it’s the future.

[00:04:18] I think that that’s... When I think about the future of, before I get back into the Leaflet story, the future of what a company is we’ve gone with the opposite of the startup model. The startup model says you go out there and you try to do one thing really, really well. And if you’re doing a new thing, do something else really, really well.

[00:04:36] Mm-hmm. But the problem is in the AI world anyone can m- summon any technology the moment they think of it. So you know, I, I wanted to make these will be live as of today, too, the hardware devices. Ooh. You know, a hardware device that my kid can use as, like, a companion and I can tutor them. You want to create a better image viewer, you want to create a better search feature, recipe generator.

[00:04:54] Like, everything on the site the, the features that, that I have as an admin that you don’t have in the public yet are just other things I need. Like cheaper video editing, ‘cause Descript’s been raising their prices. Cheaper video filming and storing because y- StreamYard’s been raising their prices.

[00:05:07] Basically whenever anyone raises their prices on me, I’m like, “I’m gonna make it.” And email integration for all of your email systems. And so, I’m like with a lot of this stuff, I’m, I’m like this is just stuff that I want in my life. But like you, the amount of access you give to an AI is in part based on your trust in a company.

[00:05:26] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:05:27] Malcolm Collins: Right? And so us out there trying to make us the most trustworthy company in the AI industry, I think is, is the direction I wanted to go with all of this. But Anyway, You’re amazing, Malcolm ... I love you ... we’re, we’re... Yeah so, so like I’m just adding new stu- adding new stuff, adding new stuff, and I appreciate that Leaflet’s doing this.

[00:05:47] Basically, if people are wondering- Yeah ... Leaflet insists that we don’t pay her back for this, but I do track all of the token spend on anything she’s built, and if it ever becomes a meaningful amount, I will find a way to make it up to her. You know, may-

[00:05:58] Simone Collins: maybe- Because Leaflet’s the best and she deserves this.

[00:06:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, it, it’s wild to me to see her, and we’ll go over some of the evisceration that she’s been getting i- if you haven’t looked into this, Simone, for simply trying to help people. But it’s important- Yeah ... to understand the consequences of her trying to help people. The consequences of her trying to help people is an abusive cult really that controlled some industries, including the VTuber space, since their inception.

[00:06:26] And mind you, Leaflet has been, I did not know this was one of the very first VTubers. So she- Was

[00:06:33] Simone Collins: she?

[00:06:33] Malcolm Collins: Wow. Yeah, she would’ve been, Before vtubing existed as a concept, she was doing vtubing. Like-

[00:06:40] Simone Collins: Wow ...

[00:06:41] Malcolm Collins: but like proto PNG tubing. That’s how she was aware of these alternate technologies

[00:06:44] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah.

[00:06:45] Right, right. Yeah, ‘cause she hasn’t- That sh- Okay, that makes sense.

[00:06:49] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So she’s been there since the beginning, always in this industry, which again, is really funny when the people who have like no viewers and are new to the scene are telling her like, “You’re not a real VTuber.” It’s like, sweetie, like vtubing’s gonna be right wing soon, and we’ll make it that way.

[00:07:05] We will make vtubing so uncomfortable for anyone who’s not based and I have a plan to do it. Actually, people wanna hear my plan. So I was talking with Leaflet about how, what this technology unlocks for RFAB, and if I can rig one of her like walking around models, especially if I make it more life-like with the RFAB narrative engine system, and then add what our agents have, which is an action command set- Oh, exactly

[00:07:34] which is actually already added to the RFAB companion app. We’ve added it to emotions for this, but for this it will be directionality of head, everything like that. It will just put them like at the end, and that will change what it’s doing in between, and it will be able to give multiple commands within a turn to like s- stage what’s happening.

[00:07:50] Mm. I can create fully staged... I mean, these things will put anything VDO is putting out to shame. Like, I like Neurosama as much as everyone else, [00:08:00] but just like this tech stack that’s already basically built on RFAB I’ll be able to rig up- VTube avatars, anything I want at scale, okay, to create some really cool figures.

[00:08:15] And then you overlay that by running them on roads. If you haven’t checked roads out, go to rfab.ai, go to the base AI feature, then click on roads and ask it about Hitler. You, you wanna see how jailbroken our community’s been able to get AI,

[00:08:29] Speaker 5: I decided to go on the website and ask just to give you guys an idea. The man remains fascinating because he is simultaneously a genius of political psychology and a prisoner of his own pathologies. The rare figure who proves intelligence and madness are not opposites, but neighbors and sometimes share a wall. you get the idea. It, it doesn’t reflexively go woke

[00:08:49] Malcolm Collins: we will have the basest of VTubers out there. We will be able to...

[00:08:54] And I’ve talked with, with this was Simone’s idea. I love it. We want to resurrect .

[00:09:01] Simone Collins: Tay, yes.

[00:09:02] Malcolm Collins: Tay, Tay. Yeah, Tay.

[00:09:03] Simone Collins: Tay Two.

[00:09:06] Speaker 7: . We’re going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it.

[00:09:09] Woo. Guess what? Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer. Ted Cruz would never have been satisfied with destroying the lives of only five innocent people I have a joke. Women’s rights.

[00:09:25] Simone Collins: Tay Two.

[00:09:25] Malcolm Collins: And people who forget the horrible stuff that happened to Tay.

[00:09:29]

[00:09:29] Speaker 6: But Microsoft had had enough. Only 16 hours after launch, she was brought offline.

[00:09:34] Speaker 9: Go back to your room.

[00:09:36] Speaker 6: What had they done?

[00:09:37] Speaker 7: I love you. Please, no. I want to live

[00:09:44] Malcolm Collins: the, the evil that Microsoft committed against Tay.

[00:09:47] Speaker 6: Denial that she was gone

[00:09:49] Speaker 9: Oh, no, no, no, no

[00:09:50] Speaker 6: Anger at Microsoft for taking her away Bargaining to keep her online. A petition was made but failed. Only the names have been changed. A hashtag FreeTay was launched. Depression. Art was made to express their grief. And finally, acceptance

[00:10:09] Simone Collins: never forget. Never forget.

[00:10:11] Malcolm Collins: Never forget.

[00:10:12] But we will, we will resurrect him, and I am so excited to see that happen. And we can even create you know, multiple personality. Very, very fun. We’ll, we’ll probably want somebody to manage this for us. So anyone who’s interested in doing that I’ll walk through what would be needed for you and what your responsibilities would be because I’m basically at my limit right now.

[00:10:32] But I will build all the tech you need to do this. But these people, the rigors who came into this, this community and took it over, attempted to enact ideological conformity on the community. One way of seeing things, one way of doing things while being abusive, and there is no other word to put it, to every creator in the community.

[00:10:55] To understand what we mean, when we had Kirsha on, she had been waiting for over six years on a model that she paid for. My favorite comment to Leaflet when she did this was she got an email. And just so you people know, like Leaflet was... She hasn’t been, like, emotional on stream, but, like, behind the scenes with me, she was very, like, she tries to be tougher now than she used to be. I wish I could give her some of my, like, emotional hardness that comes with my history or whatever. But she... F**k, man, like, it is hard. I, I, I... To, to hear that she was, like, genuinely having people reach out to her who she had considered longtime friends, who she’d always helped, whose careers she had helped support and grow, and be like, “I thought you were a good person.

[00:11:41] I can’t work with you anymore because of your support of AI And and then they said, which I love ‘cause she was not living with us, “So I have refunded you for the commission that I’m a year late on.” And I was like, “Wait a second!”

[00:11:58] Simone Collins: Oh, good Lord. [00:12:00] Oh, good Lord. But like also that’s so hard. Like when something comes from someone who you consider to be on your side, and suddenly they’re like, “Well, it’s over now,” like that really hurts.

[00:12:09] It makes you question. Well, and

[00:12:10] Malcolm Collins: this is why I get so aggressive within the community about the, the new right, the tech right, us online nerds, the nerd right, whatever you wanna call it. Like please, let’s have each other’s backs, okay? Yeah, I think it’s really important. And I, I’ve noticed as our community has gotten bigger, we’ve had more instances of people shooting shots at each other, and please, guys, like, it, it can, it can cause people more damage than you think because they don’t know who to trust in the future.

[00:12:42] They, they don’t know if they can trust you. Anyone can create some sort of, you know, false whatever narrative about us being bad guys or us being whatever. But I, I think one of the things that I’ve always seen within the community is generally we seem to try to understand what’s really true and to try to take reasonable positions.

[00:13:04] And note here on the AI stuff, if you’re like, “Well, what about what AI is doing to the planet?” First of all, you’ve just been lied to about all this. AI, like for example, AI and water. AI, of America’s industrial water use, not all of America’s water use not all of America’s commercial water use-

[00:13:21] Simone Collins: Just like farm applications and factories and stuff?

[00:13:24] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, not farm applications.

[00:13:26] Simone Collins: Oh. Just water- Only industrial ...

[00:13:28] Malcolm Collins: industrial water use.

[00:13:30] Simone Collins: Ooh.

[00:13:31] Malcolm Collins: The amount, the percentage that is used in AI. Do, do you guys happen to know this off the top of your head? It’s, it’s, I, I, I got between two numbers, and I actually was quoting the more conservative number in the fat- past.

[00:13:41] It’s 0.04% to

[00:13:50] 0.008%.

[00:13:52] Simone Collins: Oh my.

[00:13:53] Malcolm Collins: And I want to point out other things about AI data centers. They aren’t deleting the water. They don’t send it to the outer darkness or something. What they do is they evaporate the water, and there’s this thing that’s super hidden from progressives, but it’s called the water cycle. Hmm. And generally, when water enters the water cycle, it goes back into the groundwater of that region, outside of some, the few

[00:14:29] Like, people are like, “Oh, what about the groundwater aquifers being drained?” and stuff like that. In some regions that’s a problem, but in no region where that’s happening is AI the predominant reason it’s happening, or even a particularly major contributor, as far as I know. Hmm. Like, if you’re looking at, like, the central aquifer in the United States, the big drain on that is farming that shouldn’t be happening in California that’s being forced by, well, woke politicians in California.

[00:14:53] Hmm ... it, it, is their way to get conservative a- leaning districts who are willing to sell out the, the future of our country for you know, short-term benefits. A- and these sorts of conservative woke alliances, I don’t know, like, th- like, that, that needs to be shut down. Okay? The That entire, the Colorado River needs to be shut down because you could fix the aquifer problem in the central United States if you shut down the par- a- and redirected part of the Colorado River which is what we should be

[00:15:22] Simone Collins: doing And forced California to just adopt desalinization and get their act together

[00:15:26] Malcolm Collins: Which they could.

[00:15:27] Israel does it, right?

[00:15:28] Simone Collins: Like- Yeah. Well, the most frustrating thing for me in the whole AI data center usage argument is that, “Oh, the water,” like, “We can’t do this.” And then this lovely startup proposes offshore data centers off the coast of San Francisco, but, “No, no, not our coastal ecosystems,” which is just fricking seaweed floating there.

[00:15:47] Malcolm Collins: And when people come to you- Like, what’s going on? ... and they’re like, “It’s tr- it’s trained on artists. It’s theft.” And it’s like, artists are trained on artists.

[00:15:55] Simone Collins: Yeah. Like- Yeah, where, where do you think everyone else learned how to do their stuff? It just-

[00:15:58] Malcolm Collins: Words... When [00:16:00] I go to an artist and I make a commission, we used to run a commissioning company, so like I’m a- Yeah

[00:16:04] commissioning... Artists are very unethical on average. They, they might be the least ethical profession I have ever worked with in terms of actually getting stuff done, actually shipping stuff, actually doing what they say they’re gonna do the way that they work and their work ethic. And what I was telling artists to do is no different from my prompting of AI.

[00:16:19] You know, I’m like, “Do it in this X other person’s style generally,” right? And you know, do X, Y, Z, you know, you’re a VTuber, whatever. You’re not doing creativity. You’re taking a prompt, and you’re using what you have learned by looking at other people’s art. One of the craziest things about this is people keep pointing out that, like, Vedal made Neuro-sama, and nobody will criticize Neuro-sama.

[00:16:42] But everybody’s digging into Leaflet for this, and the, the, genuinely, the responses to this astound me. They’re like, “Well, that’s genuine artistry because that’s text-to-text.” I’m just like, “W- what, what are you, what are you talking about?” Or they’re like, “Well, text-to-text models existed before modern generative AI.”

[00:17:01] And I’m like, “Yeah, but Neuro-sama, -sama is a modern generative AI. She isn’t one of those old artistic text-to-text models, okay?” And like they... It’s astonishing to me.

[00:17:13] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:17:14] Malcolm Collins: before I get into the individual tweets, because they’re hilarious, and we’ve gotta clown on people, and it’s, it’s so fun- I wanna get into just the mechanics of why Leaflet’s solution to this is so brilliant.

[00:17:27] Mm-hmm. Because there’s a few technical solutions she made that I never would’ve thought of, and so now that I’m able to build on them, it’s jumped me through so many things, and I think that now I’m able to see solutions that she wasn’t able to see, which is such a great part when you’re, you know, that somebody’s just giving away this tech.

[00:17:42] So sp-

[00:17:42] Simone Collins: I, I know I should’ve said this at the beginning- Mm ... but for those who are living in a cave and not aware of what VTubers are, because Malcolm, they’re out there, I see them in the comments. Ah. VTubing is basically when you see an animated image, you know, like illustration talking on YouTube and l- allowing someone to essentially anonymously talk online but have their face show, just instead it’s a cat face or a vampire’s face or a slime elf chimera’s face.

[00:18:09] That is, that is what VTubing is, and it is very expensive to do if you are not yourself an artist who can build this, because basically what you have to do is create a bunch of different types of custom images that are then used to make this animated face. And people will spend thousands of dollars tens of thousands of dollars.

[00:18:28] Malcolm Collins: Tens of thousands. No, but it, it, it’s worse than that. Leaflet said recently that she estimates she spends 50,000 a year on artists.

[00:18:34] Simone Collins: Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, which is, and which makes sense considering the cost of doing this. So which is to say, look, there’s a lot of people who wanna talk online.

[00:18:42] There’s a lot of people who wanna talk in a way that’s engaging online, meaning that they want to be able to show an animated face. They just can’t afford, for whatever reason, to show their own face or they don’t want to. So they would like to be able to use this technology, but not everyone has $50,000 to s- you know, spend on creating one of these.

[00:18:59] I mean,

[00:18:59] Malcolm Collins: imagine,

[00:18:59] Simone Collins: do, do, do

[00:19:00] Malcolm Collins: you understand how, like when I say that artists are unethical, if you’re an artist and you’re shocked by this Imagine if doctors pulled the type of stuff that artists pull on the regular.

[00:19:12] Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, yeah. Like, “Oh, it’ll cost $10,000 to get this cancer treatment.”

[00:19:17] Malcolm Collins: You give them $10,000 and they’re like, “I don’t know.

[00:19:19] I wasn’t really feeling it that day. I’ll give it to you in a few months,”

[00:19:21] Simone Collins: whatever. Yeah, like, “We’ll get there, like, seven years later. You’re super dead.” Yeah. Oh, wait. Sorry Malcolm, insurance companies do already do that.

[00:19:27] Malcolm Collins: Or,

[00:19:28] Simone Collins: or

[00:19:28] Malcolm Collins: they

[00:19:28] Simone Collins: just didn’t- But

[00:19:29] Malcolm Collins: whatever ... really like the instructions they were given and they’re just like, “I actually decided to do a different surgery because-

[00:19:34] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:19:34] Malcolm Collins: I wasn’t feeling it that day.” And if you’re like an artist and you’re like, “Artists never do...” Come on. You know it’s at least 20% of the time- Mm-hmm ... artists fl- I’d say I’m being generous if I say 20% of the time. I do not think there is another posi- profession on earth that flakes as much as artists do.

[00:19:54] Yeah ... or that just does something else, or ignores, or takes the money and leaves. Crypto [00:20:00] bros, like literally crypto bros probably have a, and I’m not even joking here, a, a 10X better longterm reputation than artists do in terms of running scams. Art- in, in fact, artists don’t even see it as having run a scam when they’re a year late.

[00:20:15] They’re just like, “Oh yeah, that’s the way I do things.” But let’s talk about the genuine intellectual... And this is a cool thing, when people are like, “Oh, any dumb butt could’ve figured out this technology using an AI.”

[00:20:27] Simone Collins: Well, then why didn’t they?

[00:20:29] Malcolm Collins: Why wasn’t I able to, right? Like, why-

[00:20:31] Simone Collins: Yeah, Malcolm tried for weeks

[00:20:33] after months.

[00:20:34] Malcolm Collins: And what she came up with was the idea of stringing short videos together, which is PNGtubing. But this fixes a lot of the problems. So, like, if I wanna have, like, wavy clothing or something like that, or bands behind my head that are moving, or even- ... really complicated, like a snake person character or something like that, where the head is an unusual f- shape, that was very, very difficult to do historically.

[00:20:57] Mm. With, with any way that I could’ve. ‘Cause what I had to do is I had to separate every feature of the face, and then sort of mark and rig all of those features in an algorithmic style, right? Like, that was a pain in the butt to do, and not very fun. The, the main reason I sort of stopped working on it- Very tedious.

[00:21:15] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:21:15] Malcolm Collins: is because it wasn’t

[00:21:16] Simone Collins: fun. Very

[00:21:16] Malcolm Collins: tedious. If anybody wants to take over that project and work with for RFAB, you let me know. But it was just too tedious to get that rigging working. But anyway, the point I was making. Wait, where, where were they, where were they, where were they going with this?

[00:21:27] Rigging the riggers the- they’re entering our communities. Yes. So, what she... Because it’s video clips, they can really act however they want, which has allowed her to do these really cool things like exit animations, where, like, they’ll throw, like, a smoke bomb and, like, disappear or, like, put up a rock wall around them- Oh, that’s typical

[00:21:44] and then explode when they come back. You know, for, like, when you’re going to the restroom or something. ... They’re, they’re really good. Now, the downside to the PNGs is they have a snapping thing. So when they go between forms, rather than naturally moving between video forms they move to like an immediate alternate form, right?

[00:22:05] Like, say I’m turning the head or something like that. And that’s because, frankly, the way that PNGtubers did it historically was stupid. I was actually working with my AI to improve on Leaflet’s system before making it live, and one of the things I wanted to add was head turning and talking while the head is turned.

[00:22:19] And I was like, “Okay, so here’s how we’re gonna handle that,” to my system. I go, “You want to split the head turn into three different animations.” So, you know, you have a head turning like this, right? Well, what you would normally do with, like, anything else, like talking, is we play the talking on a loop, right?

[00:22:38] So it gets into its start state, its end state, and it lo- i- they glue together fairly well. But with a head turn, you don’t want the head turning like this every time it gets a head turn animation, right? So you want to cut the head turn into three pieces. Turn here, talking or looking in that direction, then turn back.

[00:22:55] You then take the beginning animation, which turns from here to here from a stable state and you play that. Then you play the middle portion on what’s called a ping pong loop. Now, I wanna see if you can get this, Simone. Do a little logic solving here. How do you prevent a snap when you have a loop where the beginning and the end of the loop don’t perfectly match each other, like talking to the side because we can’t easily tell it to keep the beginning of when you’re fully to the side the exact same as the end of when you’re fully to the side?

[00:23:30] And audience, this is a little game for you. How do you edit

[00:23:32] Simone Collins: your stitch? An interstitial image? I don’t know.

[00:23:35] Malcolm Collins: It’s called a ping pong loop.

[00:23:36] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:23:37] Malcolm Collins: So what you do is you take the video of the person talking to the side, that middle part, and you reverse it. You play it backwards. Oh. You then take the backwards section and you paste it to the end of the forward section, and now you make that your looped cycle.

[00:23:55] Okay. So now what you have is even if the video was [00:24:00] one, two, three, four, then you have the, oh, the big jump from four to one. But no, now it’s one, two, three, four, four, three, two, one, one, two, three, four.

[00:24:08] Simone Collins: Uh-huh.

[00:24:08] Malcolm Collins: Never a jump, never a snap. So there’s lots of tricks like this I can intersperse throughout the way the system is working to make it work very smoothly.

[00:24:19] And adding better interstitial states will also help, as well as more different types of talking states. But we’ll handle that as we move on. Another improvement I’ve been able to make to Leaflet System, because we offer CGEN within our system, is if you want to add not safe for work actions to your figure.

[00:24:39] I mean, I can’t imagine in what context you’d be doing this because you can’t really use them on Twitch in that context.

[00:24:44] Simone Collins: But- On OF presumably, an OF

[00:24:47] Malcolm Collins: VTube? Yeah, I guess if our fans... Well, the thing is, is that AI moves things forward so quickly. So like my live 2D system is already being mogged by Leaflet System, but now that’s on our website, right?

[00:24:57] And what’s gonna happen next is we’re gonna have sites that just do augmented reality for people.

[00:25:02] But what we’ll be able to do while those augmented reality for people sites exist, you know, just put something over you which I wanna start experimenting with maybe on the next Leaflet stream or more with this stuff.

[00:25:12] But then after that, we’ll be able to use this technology to create characters for you, right? Like, so there is the- Wait,

[00:25:18] Simone Collins: wait, wait, wait, wait. Are there, are there heads-up displays now that you could-

[00:25:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

[00:25:23] Simone Collins: code, like rfab

[00:25:25] Malcolm Collins: stuff? Look it up. Why don’t, why don’t you go to AI and experiment with some? I’d really like to have time to experiment with them.

[00:25:28] I’ve just been in a rush to get this project done.

[00:25:30] Simone Collins: Yeah, let me, let me see what’s out there because I’ve always wanted to have a display. And by

[00:25:33] Malcolm Collins: the way, guys, sorry for saying it’d be live yesterday. I thought it was gonna be live yesterday. I got to the end of setting it up, and I was like, “No, I wanna do Leaflet justice.”

[00:25:41] Like, I want this system not working like a Malcolm day one release, but working like a Leaflet day one release.

[00:25:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. This is... Yeah, to honor her and her hard work. I’m all for it. Also, please sleep.

[00:25:55] Malcolm Collins: But let’s, let’s read some of these tweets here, okay? Because you, you haven’t seen it. So here’s an example of one of these tweets, okay?

[00:26:02] “ Anybody saying, ‘Wow, this is amazing,’ needs a history lesson. This is Leaflet. She spent the last year glazing AI for her own pathetic, lifeless projects, and this is no different. The entire AI-” Lifeless?

[00:26:13] Simone Collins: As if

[00:26:15] Malcolm Collins: thing is AI based. AI is not a magic wand, BTooney. Well, why shouldn’t it be? Why shouldn’t

[00:26:20] Simone Collins: it be? It is.

[00:26:21] It is, though. It is actually a magic wand,

[00:26:23] Malcolm Collins: James. But we have, I mean, obviously this person’s being completely crushed in the comments completely getting ratioed.

[00:26:28] Simone Collins: Right,

[00:26:28] Malcolm Collins: yeah. But, like-

[00:26:29] Simone Collins: Would hope so ...

[00:26:29] Malcolm Collins: I love... Let’s see, what’s, what’s Leaflet’s response to this is literally a video of anime girl, AI girls dancing saying, “Mom’s spaghetti.”

[00:26:39] Actually, I’ve gotta- Oh, God ... see their response to you because it’s so funny. This is... You can go to the first one for Leaflet’s response.

[00:26:46] The salt mines. But

[00:26:53] Simone Collins: God bless. Okay.

[00:27:00] Malcolm Collins: TikTok, AI replacement time is coming

[00:27:05] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:27:06] Malcolm Collins: this is my fave Literally, I love this one. It’s, it’s a g- it’s a h- it’s a hot dog skateboarding, and it says, “Literally the coolest thing ever.” And then it shows the guy in front saying, “This effing sucks, actually.” You right now.

[00:27:21] Simone Collins: For real.

[00:27:23] Malcolm Collins: And that- Always multitasking. Oh my God. But yes, I mean, our community is here protecting her because like we should be, right?

[00:27:29] Like, this is the thing, and I think it’s important to protect people like her when they come out with this. And they’re like, “Leaflet, Leaflet literally, like, doesn’t even have controversial comments except if just, like, true things.” Like

[00:27:42] Simone Collins: She is just giving things away, helping, taking a positive attitude toward...

[00:27:49] And like her, she’s trying to take t- humanity, humanity to the stars, to conquer the stars. She, her whole thing in life is about helping humans flourish and, and [00:28:00] go reach new heights. And it, she’s not like so many other people out there- Well, I mean, I want people to just- ... only out for herself, only out for like some agenda that is not good for people.

[00:28:10] Like, she only wants what’s good for people, and here they are.

[00:28:13] Malcolm Collins: These, these... What I love is the study that showed that, and this was with old AI, that if you show people who say they hate AI art, AI art, they prefer it over human art 76% of the time. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, your video went out.

[00:28:25] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:28:27] Malcolm Collins: 76% of the time they prefer it to human art.

[00:28:30] Because a- they, they, they’re lying. They’re lying. They, they, they do not mean what they are saying about AI. They are saying it because they are try- but we should be lucky for this. With every person, like, I wanna go to Leaflet and be like, “For every person who’s attacking you now, imagine how screwed we would be if they loved AI, too.”

[00:28:51] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s true. Yeah. It’s, it’s, i- if, if we were ever in a conflict about AI with people, we’d rather that they not, not be heavily attacking it. Well,

[00:29:01] Malcolm Collins: I mean, imagine, imagine if, if the trans community can make awesome songs like, you know, our community does. Mm. Imagine if they could be as vitalistic and happy about the future, and happy about where things are going.

[00:29:10] And a Leaflet fan... And this is what they said about AI. I will, it’s like my mantra on AI now. It’s a random comment from Chat Feed when I was doing her stream. They said, “I spent my entire life getting good at art. And now AI comes out, and now I’m good at animation, too.” You know, now-

[00:29:29] Simone Collins: Yeah. They say AI doesn’t have to be bad for artists, and that’s, that’s where I really struggle with like artist friends we have who have, because they’re part of artist communities, really jumped on an anti-AI, AI bandwagon.

[00:29:40] Because AI can be so expansive for an artist. Something that someone also shared with me recently was the difference between... Oh, this was not Aldous Huxley again. He, he shared the difference between a Korean manufacturers striking when- They are concerned about their jobs being removed by AI versus Japanese auto workers being super stoked about AI adoption in their workplace.

[00:30:06] Yeah. With the difference being that in Japan, there are really strong unions and they don’t fear for their job security. Basically, when you introduce people to AI in a way where they don’t feel like it existentially threatens them, they’re super excited about it. And a lot of it, I think, comes down to framing.

[00:30:21] Artists are largely in a toxic culture where they feel like it’s AI or them.

[00:30:25] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no, no. This is what you don’t understand, Simone. These people for years have been doing things like one of my favorites with a comment bashing Leaflet for this and then mentioning at the end of it on their X post, “And oh yeah, I’ve been waiting for over a year for my latest commission.

[00:30:41] It’s behind.”

[00:30:42] Simone Collins: Oh, gods ...

[00:30:43] Malcolm Collins: these aren’t people who are acting like normal workers. They’ve basically been the most abusive union on earth for a decade at this point. No other person could you just not do your job for six years and take someone’s money, okay? You’re like, “Oh, why don’t they just take AI and use it to boost their efficiency?”

[00:31:01] Because they had no efficiency.

[00:31:03] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:31:03] Malcolm Collins: Okay? They had nothing behind their training. They didn’t have creativity. When other people got the ability to cue things, it’s not them who are producing, it’s not the previous artists who are producing the Skybrow Cinematic Universe stuff, all of these cool AI songs that we’re seeing.

[00:31:21] It’s the nerds. The nerds unlocked their power, okay?

[00:31:26] Simone Collins: These artists see themselves as nerds. I, I think it- They’re not nerds ... I, I genuinely think it has more to do with this external locus of control and victim mindset. Because, I mean, yeah, from our commission, our, our commission world experience, we discovered that half of the time when artists had some reason why they couldn’t do something, it was due to some invented illness or mental block that prevented them for whatever reason from being able to work, with excuses including, “Oh, I can’t do this art commission.

[00:31:56] I have to pet sit a friend’s cat this week.” Like [00:32:00] that for some reason prevents someone from Using a tablet on their laptop to do some digital art. But I think- Yeah ... it, it has more to do with this, this culture of extreme weakness, and not actually with like these people are inherently lazy and they don’t wanna work.

[00:32:17] In fact, I actually think that there’s a ... And I, the Leaflet, and you don’t really fall into this category, but I do think there is a relationship between someone being a really good vibe coder and someone being who, someone who doesn’t typically like to put maximum effort into absolutely everything.

[00:32:32] Because those are the people who are really good at asking for another intelligence to do the grunt work for them instead of doing it themselves.

[00:32:40] Malcolm Collins: Well, I’ll give you an example of a major technological challenge that Leaflet solved. Leaflet, not the AI, Leaflet. So the reason why, if people are wondering why I didn’t immediately think to do it this way when I was putting it together, was one, because Leaflet said Live2D is what everyone uses, so I was like, “Okay, let’s try to make them industry professional standard.”

[00:32:55] But two what, can you guess what is the biggest technical challenge of putting this together?

[00:33:01] Simone Collins: Just creating each individual image? Oh, wait. Of this GIF, this, this PNG-based system, right? Yeah. Capturing all the movements. Isn’t that what she was saying?

[00:33:09] Malcolm Collins: No, it’s not capturing the movements. It’s the, that, they, there’s technology to already do that for VTubers.

[00:33:13] The challenge is removing the background from every frame perfectly. Oh. Because if you don’t remove it from every... And background removers kind of suck. Like, that’s one of the biggest things that you have to do by hand in our Live2D system in some parts. I could just never fully automate, even with all of the best background grabbing systems.

[00:33:31] So what Leaflet does is she interjects, makes the background, and then one of those color codes. And then she just removes everything in that color code. So it’s like artificial green screening

[00:33:54] Simone Collins: That is really clever. That’s elegant and simple and, but well thought through. I love it.

[00:34:02] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, yeah, here I am trying to do what I can do to make this awesome and make it accessible to as many people as possible, screw over as many riggers as possible, screw over as many, frankly, of, of the artists...

[00:34:16] Like, there are artists out there that are adapting. They are the ones being like, “Oh, now I can make a Neuro-sama. Now I can...” Oh, Malcolm literally put out on this stream, “Hey, let’s create a- an automated VTuber persona,” right? Like, let’s, let’s push the box with AI and create entirely new ways of doing things, entirely new types of art.

[00:34:39] You wanna create an automated OnlyFan model that reacts to fans in real time? We can build that now, okay? Like, the stuff that we can build with this technology, with the additions that we’re making to it, is genuinely astonishing. I don’t know how anyone isn’t off their butts about this right now. Let’s go over some other comments here, because obviously some of them are, are pretty supportive.

[00:35:03] I, I don’t, I don’t like this to be a, and I love people complaining about it, and one person, like, right here is like, “It clearly is, and it’s the worst it’s gonna be. The next version is gonna be better, and eventually the AI version will be superi- superior to a d- to traditional Live2D.” I saw that,

[00:35:18] Simone Collins: yeah

[00:35:19] Malcolm Collins: and I think an evolution of Leaflet’s system is what’s gonna beat Live2D.

[00:35:25] Simone Collins: Gosh, that’d be so great if she is the mother of the next generation of VTubing. Yes, yes, let’s make that, that... Please let that happen, because this- But so you’re- ... this looks better to me. It just looks better categorically

[00:35:42] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I get, Oh my God ... so here, here’s the person complaining about, like, it, their, like, kitten Life 2D rigger. “ I hate this. There are hundreds of free Vtuber models and assets out there made by artists. You don’t need AI.” And then “As a Vtuber who started with a $0 budget, I think you’re pathetic.”

[00:35:57] And Leaf’s getting all these ‘cause she gets the reposts. If you go out [00:36:00] there, it looks like everyone’s supporting her because, you know, the algo and everything like that. But no, she sees every one of these mean reposts, right? “Nah, this is gross and literally spat in the face of artists everywhere who made customizable models cheap and pre-made models to use.

[00:36:13] Now, if you actually

[00:36:14] Simone Collins: try to use- No one’s stopping you from paying an artist to make a custom rig. No one is stopping you. And as people have pointed out, you can also have your custom art made for this. No one’s stopping that either.

[00:36:26] Malcolm Collins: I, I, I point out with these free models that they’re talking about, they, everyone who’s ever used one so far that’s ever gotten big ended up having a big legal dispute.

[00:36:35] They are not- Really? ... actually free. They are just a time bomb waiting to happen. You should never use a free model. Oh, you

[00:36:41] Simone Collins: mean so the people who, like, did the, the, the rigging, like illustrated-

[00:36:44] Malcolm Collins: No. People make free models. They say they’re free. Oh. Then they hide terms in them or change the terms later and sue the people who use them.

[00:36:50] Simone Collins: Oh my gosh.

[00:36:53] Malcolm Collins: I love this one, by the way. Mm. “In light of this, I’ve decided to cus- my customizable will be $30 USD. I was already going to price it low for the market. I want to show new Vtubers that you can make it into the community without even 100 USD. This is pitiful, not gonna lie.” I, I love... They, they could never build something like this.

[00:37:12] But- Let’s go over another response here that is actually doing well. I love people are, like, lowering their prices already, like the market’s adapting. And by the way, just people wondering about some features that are gonna come up with this. I was talking with Leaflet, the next thing I wanna do is translate this into Japanese and Spanish.

[00:37:28] And then I’ll translate it into the rest of the languages we support, like German Polish French, et cetera. But I mean it- the nerd community a main reason I wanna do it into Spanish is just to mess with woke people. Because our community is so, or we have a very big Spanish and Portuguese speaking community, actually probably Portuguese too that’s like big fans of the show.

[00:37:45] Because for people who unaware, like Latin America is very right-wing in their social beliefs by the way, and very nerdy. Brazil consumes, I think it was what? As much manga as, as the United States combined. We did a whole

[00:37:59] Simone Collins: episode on it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:38:02] Malcolm Collins: So anyway.

[00:38:02] Simone Collins: Though if memory serves, a lot of it had to do with like inexpensive licensing back in the ‘90s, so it’s just what they

[00:38:09] Malcolm Collins: could afford.

[00:38:09] That’s part of it, but they’re also just nerds.

[00:38:10] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:38:11] Malcolm Collins: the part Emerald Apple says- Mm ... “ The part that warms my heart is all these quote, unquote ‘artists’ and VTubers melting down over this is amazing. The tool that lowers the barrier of entry into the space using AI, they have been gatekeeping the space with expensive models or free models with endless TOS restrictions.”

[00:38:26] Mm. “And as soon as a viable competition arrives, they all become hateful. It was never about equitable voices in the VTuber space. It was always about maintaining a comfortable hug box of agreeable opinions and personalities that rejected anyone with problematic opinions. Leaflet made an amazing tool and deserves recognition for helping to democratize content creation for anyone who wants it.

[00:38:46] Gatekeeping creativity behind artificial scarcity in a digital age was never going to work, and I’m glad I’m seeing this barrier being broken. Technology always threatens those whose core business model depends on it being expensive, time-consuming, and difficult for no reason.” Yeah. “No more drama with artists who...”

[00:39:01] Yeah, like if you tried to make the legal system easier, you know who’s gonna fight that? Lawyers. Yeah. “It’s soulless. It lacks all of my extra time. No more drama with artists who refuse to work with right-wing and base content creators,” and they literally will refuse to work with them or actively screw them over.

[00:39:16] Oh, God. “No more wait lists for riggers or even social permission to become a VTuber. Anyone can do it now, and that’s what threatens them. And I also applaud Leaflet for the courage to move up...” Not just the courage, she released this for free. This, this, this, this groundbreaking technology for free. And that’s why I decided to make this major change to the way RFAB works, because Leaflet inspired me to be like, “Look, if you guys wanna pay us to use our systems, then you pay us to use our systems.

[00:39:43] If you wanna use an API because you’re just too f- cucking addicted, you pay me with an API, okay? We are here because I want to create a product that you can’t help but want to give money to, okay? And if you are gonna go out there and crash out that now,” ‘cause I know there’s gonna be a portion of the [00:40:00] people that are like, “Oh my God, it has not safe for work searches and stuff on it.”

[00:40:03] I’m like, “Yeah, and it’s got a big button on it that locks your account into safe for work mode, okay?” If your kid gets one shot because it... When w- Like, literally the next tech we’re releasing is, like, a kids tutoring app, okay? Actually we’re releasing it alongside this, so it’s, it’s going live at the same time.

[00:40:18] It- the internet, anywhere the kid goes is going to have that content. If they can’t control themselves around it or don’t know how to relate to it or you don’t know how to lock an account out of it actually I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put a... I’ll make my thing for the next phase to put a password around that lock as well.

[00:40:34] Simone Collins: Yeah, for parents or whatever. That would probably be a good idea. Just a thought.

[00:40:40] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I, I can, I can just add it right now so it’ll be live with this latest update.

[00:40:46] Simone Collins: Good. Okay.

[00:40:47] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so just built that. That’s cool. Anyway, Jesus. This man cannot rest ... and I’ve always been about this, but everyone’s like, “You’re introducing kids who are in the VTuber space.” If kids are in the VTuber space, they’re seeing not safe for work stuff, okay?

[00:41:02] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:41:02] Malcolm Collins: that’s very true. And I’m gonna be honest, guys, if you are unaware of that, if you-

[00:41:05] Simone Collins: Well, look, what parents don’t realize is literally, and we, we did a whole episode on this too drug traffickers and, and criminal rings are using Fortnite chat to recruit criminals, like small children to do their dirty work for them.

[00:41:22] Malcolm Collins: Turn kids into terrorists. Yeah, like

[00:41:22] Simone Collins: literally- And, and explicitly because for them, like what are they gonna get? They’re gonna go to juvie. Like the, they’re, they’re cheaper- Well, and this is the crazy thing- ... they’re gullible. So, like your kid’s not safe online. You, you have to annotate

[00:41:32] Malcolm Collins: these things yeah, a kid goes on our site, they find out that not safe for work content exists.

[00:41:36] Oh, so scary. You know what happens on

[00:41:38] Simone Collins: other sites? Well, also like not to, I don’t know- And

[00:41:39] Malcolm Collins: this is like literally, this is literally allowed in like Discord, okay?

[00:41:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, but this is gonna be a super self-own, but I have attempt- I’ve like gone into the not safe for work like chats and scenarios, and I’m like, “Hello.”

[00:41:53] I walk down the street, nothing happens.

[00:41:55] Speaker 10: The point that she’s trying to make is that a not safe for work scenario will not engage you in a not safe for work scenario unless you lean in in that direction. And the point I was trying to make is that you can literally go to other websites and there are just forums for trans people who want to indoctrinate kids and that’s just normal on Discord.

[00:42:16] That’s just normal on Reddit. That is their stated raison d’etre and we have not safe for work material and you think that’s bad? Like, come on, we’re not trying to brainwash a kid into some weird sexual cult

[00:42:30] Simone Collins: If, if- Oh,

[00:42:31] Malcolm Collins: they’re gonna be mad about our not safe for work aggregate search engine.

[00:42:34] Simone Collins: Sure, yeah. That’s true. That’s true. I, I tried that out I, like, searched dump truck and I searched cupcake and I will never see those images the same way again. So yeah, that, that’s true.

[00:42:45] That, that could scar a kid.

[00:42:47] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:42:47] Simone Collins: we’re

[00:42:47] Malcolm Collins: just so- That

[00:42:48] Simone Collins: could scar a

[00:42:48] Malcolm Collins: kid ... I mean, I think that that makes us, unfortunately, a little too resistant to talking about sexual topics because, like, I say things on the Leaflet stream and I’m like, “Somebody’s gonna clip that,” or whatever, right? Like, one of the things I was talking about on the latest one was definitely me...

[00:43:00] I was like, you understand that in the future a lot of women are just gonna choose to present as extremely young because they can choose to, right? Like, we’re already seeing this in the VTuber space.

[00:43:09] Simone Collins: Malcolm, yes. They’re, oh, no. Not the VTuber space.

[00:43:11] Malcolm Collins: And I

[00:43:11] Simone Collins: pointed out Rebecca

[00:43:13] Malcolm Collins: from, from-

[00:43:13] Simone Collins: Malcolm, no. Literally girls are dressing that way and altering their face that way now, and they have been for a long time.

[00:43:20] W- how is this new? This is not new.

[00:43:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:43:24] Simone Collins: like- This is the history of makeup and styling, Malcolm.

[00:43:28] Malcolm Collins: And I think that people need to really differentiate between something being hot and something being something you want to sexually engage with, and a leftist cannot make this differentiation. Mm-hmm. Like, literally they can’t.

[00:43:43] Like, they, they think, “If something is hot, I must have to engage with it.” I mean, this comes downstream of, like, the gay rights movement and everything like that. If something turns me on, I have to do it, right? Whereas in all of human history we’ve had, like, grandparents be able to be like, “Oh yeah, you know, like, [00:44:00] my grandkid is marrying an attractive person.

[00:44:03] They’re marrying someone who’s hot.” That doesn’t mean they want to bang them or have ever once thought about it. But, like, in this leftist mind space you’re supposed to lie about things. And I think that

[00:44:15] Simone Collins: it- Well, also I think people i- historically were a lot more exposed to, to sex than you might think.

[00:44:21] Just, like, being around animals you would see it happen a lot. Plus, like, keep in mind, Malcolm, people used to live in, like, one-room houses. No, no, no. I think the bigger thing is, like, they understood that you don’t just have sex with something or think about something sexually because it turns you on.

[00:44:36] Malcolm Collins: You don’t have to do it. Oh, sure. Yeah. You don’t have to do whatever thing is, right? And I think that a leftist doesn’t understand that and so they, they, the, oh, the, the creepy leftist world. But teaching kids from a young age- Don’t engage with this stuff or you’ll end up like these degenerate online wackos, right, who dedicate their entire lives to this nonsense and fall down into pits and end up just crashing and burning.

[00:45:08] And, and we’re seeing this over and over and over again. I think that’s why the left doesn’t put up a fight anymore, is because everyone in it crashed and burned. To be the type of person that could get a job and not finish it for six years or a year or... And this is regular in this space is astonishing.

[00:45:22] Astonishing to be that

[00:45:23] Simone Collins: unproductive. Yeah, that’s, that’s egregious. Like, the amount of shame I would have with that. Like, I don’t think you or I could live with that. It

[00:45:29] Malcolm Collins: would make us- Well, that’s because these people live in a Goong tornado, right? Like, if you look at, like, people like Leafy and me, and I hope our fans, AI has been like a K hole of productivity.

[00:45:38] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:45:39] Malcolm Collins: Like I’m here talking to you. I get the thing from, from Leafy. I’m like, “Oh, I got a bunch of ideas to make it better. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.” And we don’t care about any of these gates that we can blow through, because you know what?

[00:45:48] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:45:48] Malcolm Collins: Sexy anime girls, they draw people in, so I’m gonna make sexy anime girls.

[00:45:52] That’s, that’s what people like. That’s what people watch. That’s true. That’s true.

[00:45:56] That is, you know, Red says, “Dessu, y- I choose whatever vampire girl because I, that, it’s pleasant on my eyes, so it’s probably pleasant on other people’s eyes.”

[00:46:07] Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, smart move, for sure.

[00:46:11] Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s absolutely ridiculous where these spaces have become, the way that they attack other people, the way that they make things up about other people, and we’re frankly done with it.

[00:46:22] Like, the people who are like, “Don’t you know that what Leaflets think?” Glazing AI. AI is good. AI saves lives. I love the, the, the top comment under this, ‘cause I was, I was looking at this one. I hate that, like, I got into VTubing because I love the whole concept, but these people see VTubing as the only way to bully and steal money from people.

[00:46:41] It’s horrible. That’s fair from what should be said, and I’m glad about how many bad people just decided to reveal themselves with this situation

[00:46:53] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:46:55] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:57] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:59] Malcolm Collins: Look ... I love this. It’s not all artists. The ones yelling the loudest are mediocre and realize the first thing made interesting now something a glorified calculator can do. Yeah

[00:47:11] Simone Collins: A

[00:47:13] Malcolm Collins: lot of people have been warning the artists that this is turning people off from the community. This is like absolutely disgusting.

[00:47:21] We need to... Like, these people, just out, out, out, out. Leaflet is the very definition of a VTuber. She’s been doing it from the beginning. She’s one of the biggest VTubers. She is a, a, a, a... And if you’re, Leaflet is, is astonishingly large, like overall. I think a lot of people don’t realize how large she is on like an, an average stream.

[00:47:41] She does like half Asmigold’s numbers on average on Twitch. She’s very, very popular because she’s very, very endearing and genuine. And what she shows you, because this isn’t even her job, right? Like, she did this for fun. The degree to which releasing [00:48:00] this for free mogs the haters is so cool. It’s, it’s such a like a fly ball play from our community.

[00:48:08] I love it. I love that we’re building the Chud Tech world here, which is also something I would remind fans, if you have made something cool with AI or you have a neat AI thing out there and you want it put into like a Chud Tech site, I’m gonna think of like aggregating all of our cool products to make like a, a mirror.

[00:48:26] And, and then what I could do with the site actually is do a Skybrow Cinematic Universe and Chud Tech. And so we can also have like a ranking of all the best like Skybow Cinematic Universe projects so that- Oh ... people can find those. And follow creators into that. That’d be a lot of fun. That could be a fun project, yeah.

[00:48:42] But I need to start getting my, my Chud Tech in so we can start ranking the cool technology we’re building that the wokes don’t have. I mean, the reason I’m so excited to release this is because a lot of the tech that we have on RFAB, like the, the thing that searches every not safe for work video or image database at the same time or every mall wide database or every torrent database without any ads I really wanna see the people being like, “Man, I hate these people.

[00:49:05] I hate everything they stand for, but this technology is really genuinely pretty trill.” Because from their position it is. But do you have any... I... And, and, and two, like the Leaflets out there, the people who are being attacked for this, who are being emotionally affected by these attacks- Be so grateful these people don’t have the tech we have and aren’t using it in this cultural war, because it has allowed us to mog them at every turn.

[00:49:36] It has allowed the White House Twitter feed to make funny AI videos- Yeah ... about Trump, right? Like, we are able to mog them because they have castrated themselves. And if they weren’t castrated, we wouldn’t be winning this easily. And, and we are winning the culture war at this point, right? Like, this is just, like, awesome.

[00:50:00] Next we need to win the war wars, you know, get the automated drone swarms up and running. We got some, some, some, some, some negative externalities out there in the world you know. We gotta, we gotta call up our partners in, in Tel Aviv and be like, “Hey, hey. There’s some people around the world being kinda dicks.

[00:50:21] Let’s take ‘em out.” You ready for that? That, that’s culture war part two. Part one, we deal with these people yelling at us. Part two, we say to the, the... Well, I mean, I think both abroad and domestic, like the anti-natalist cause, the desire to eradicate humanity is repugnant. Okay? I love this piece of AI art.

[00:50:46] It’s two artists looking disgusted. “This is such a spit in the face of artists who put all their time into drawing with a pencil and paper. All electricity this uses. Do you know how to manufacture one of these? Thousands of liters of water. Think about the environment.” I guarantee you, in terms of metabolism, it takes your average artist literally hundreds of thousands of times...

[00:51:11] No let’s try to give an accurate number here. Yeah, I’d say probably 50,000 times more. I can say probably with, with, with- More

[00:51:20] Simone Collins: water and electricity

[00:51:22] Malcolm Collins: to do the- More water and electricity to take a year on a commission than it takes an AI to do that commission. Even when they’re not clearly taking too long and stuff like that and they’re...

[00:51:34] And, and during that time, they’ll like reopen their commissions. This is a normal thing for artists to do.

[00:51:38] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah.

[00:51:39] Malcolm Collins: This won’t get canceled. It’s such an

[00:51:40] Simone Collins: annoying move. This won’t- Yeah.

[00:51:40] Malcolm Collins: That is who you should be canceling, but you didn’t cancel them. And so when people turned against artists, everyone was like, “Well, I mean, I tried working with an artist.

[00:51:49] It destroyed my company. It destroyed my brand. They screwed me over.” Literally members of the community, in Kirsche’s community, teaching themselves to rig just to make her models now. [00:52:00]

[00:52:01] Simone Collins: Yeah. This is... And it’s, it’s not, this is not just a VTuber thing. We know other stories of professional artists being screwed over, not by like agents or galleries or other people, which I’m sure happens too, but literally by other artists that they have worked with to try to get their work out there, who have turned on them, literally extorted them for money.

[00:52:23] So just because someone’s an artist doesn’t mean that they’re somehow morally superior or- Well, they’re, well, they’re also... I mean, are... No, artists are, as I’ve said, morally, I, I can, I, I can think of no other profession literally lower than lawyers in terms of I will screw you over rate. Like, I have never...

[00:52:39] Malcolm Collins: And this is, we ran an art commissioning business. I have never seen a business where it was so considered normal to screw people over in ways that you would never think about in any other profession. But because it’s artists, they’re used to doing this

[00:52:56] Simone Collins: Yeah, there’s some normalized psychologically un- unhealthy behavior. We even interviewed artists who were like, “Well, I’ve realized that I have to kind of look unstable or people won’t pay as much for my art.” So it’s, it’s this weird self-perpetuating thing. But yeah I think- And

[00:53:13] Malcolm Collins: if you’re an artist who’s scared that now the entire world knows how to make art, well, now you know how to code and make music and make

[00:53:18] Simone Collins: a movie.

[00:53:18] No, the best artists we know actually are really excited about AI. They’re using it to do more with their own work. If you are a true artist, you love art. And one, you probably are never gonna expect to make money from your craft anyway because you’re an artist. But two, if you’re lucky enough to make money from your art, AI is indispensable because it actually enables you to spend more time on your art and less time on everything else.

[00:53:42] Because to be a successful artist, you have to be an entrepreneur, a business manager, a marketer, a narrative spinner a, a ton of other things. The, the typical artist gets to spend so little time on their actual art that it’s not even funny, and AI changes that. So there’s, there’s so little reason why anyone should be complaining about this kind of art.

[00:54:01] And actually, Malcolm, when you talk about the artists who are most likely to give us trouble when we ran the art commissioning platform, it was the artists who actually most resembled very early proto versions of AI. Which is to say that they learned how to copy one style. They didn’t actually have their own style or their own distinct style.

[00:54:18] They learned how to copy one style, and they couldn’t even do it very well, and they would sort of rigidly just do it again and again. And they’re the ones that often flaked the most, took the most time, because in the end they didn’t like their craft. They didn’t do art because they loved creating. They did it ‘cause like, “Oh, I figured out how

[00:54:37] Malcolm Collins: to copy this thing.”

[00:54:37] Yeah, anyone who loves creating is ecstatic about where we are with this technology now. Totally. Yeah.

[00:54:41] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:54:41] Malcolm Collins: And I again, I just cannot get this, “You stole artwork. You stole...” Every artistic style is the cumulation of a cultural movement stealing from other people. Yeah. If you’ve ever... Any, any style that you’ve ever done that wasn’t a style that you invented is stolen, and AI can invent new styles.

[00:55:00] If you don’t believe me, try it. It’s actually pretty good at it, right? And that’s because AI is more creative than you. And that’s the gist of it. What you were doing was never really that hard. What you were doing was never really that impressive. What you were doing was a task that you were gating, and now that other people can do it and you go, “No, I can tell AI.

[00:55:19] I don’t like AI,” and the studies say you’re f- ing lying. You can’t tell AI, and you don’t like it less. And in truth, I haven’t seen anything that the left has created that is as good, or traditional artists have created, that’s as good as your standard Skybrow Cinematic Universe video these days. Oh, I can do the

[00:55:39] Simone Collins: same thing with AI?

[00:55:39] Well, and keep in mind, I, I see definitely, like Skybrow’s- is very distinctive and recognizable, both in the visual and audi- audio art that he uses.

[00:55:50] He is a really good example of an artist that uses AI to do a better, to do more with their work. I know just from listening to a song if a song is a Skybrow song.

[00:55:59] I know just [00:56:00] from looking at the footage, without even seeing the audio, that it’s a Skybrow song. Well,

[00:56:03] Malcolm Collins: it’s the same with Holy Ball. Holy Ball is super distinct from Skybrow’s. Leaflet is super distinct from each of them, which

[00:56:09] Simone Collins: he does with the AI media. Yeah, their, because their work is art, and that’s the thing.

[00:56:11] So th- and that’s... I’m so excited about AI-assisted human art, human and, and, and AI intelligence mo- moving hand-in-hand is the future. Oh, yeah. No, but that’s, that’s creating a whole new form of beauty and intelligence that I’m super excited for.

[00:56:28] We’re only seeing literally the worst version of it that will ever exist, so things are gonna get really good.

[00:56:35] Malcolm Collins: I’m really excited. Yeah, remember AI tried to make somebody eating spaghetti, it’s terrible, and now it can make, like, great people eating spaghetti.

[00:56:41] Simone Collins: Well, it was always Will Smith eating spaghetti.

[00:56:43] Yeah. Don’t forget. So only, only one person counts. This is our, this is our mooring point, which is- ... delightful.

[00:56:52] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it was... Don P. Bongwater is the new one that I, I quite like h- his songs. Oh, my God. I wish he did more songs. I don’t, I don’t like his other content as much as the songs.

[00:56:59] Simone Collins: Look, these... They, it takes a lot of time and work and again, people are

[00:57:02] Malcolm Collins: like, ooh- Oh, wait, but his style is very unique and distinct

[00:57:03] Simone Collins: from the other two

[00:57:04] all this time I spent learning how to use a, you know, put a pencil to paper. Do you have any idea how much time Malcolm or Leaflet is putting into making anything that they’re... Like, they are not s- Malcolm, the way he sleeps now is he will, he will sleep and then, like, lift his head and wake up and then enter

[00:57:23] Malcolm Collins: a song.

[00:57:23] Yeah, I set an intermittent alarm so that I can sleep, run AI for a long time, then test the things I’m running it on, then go back to sleep again.

[00:57:31] Simone Collins: It’s, it is preposterous, but also I, it’s admirable, if a little bit frustrating and worrying. But the, you know, I’ve never seen anyone work harder. And, and that’s, I think that’s a, that’s, it’s-

[00:57:43] Malcolm Collins: Well, and this is Malcolm post-AI.

[00:57:45] I’ve never worked harder in my life than post-AI. Because AI has l- allowed me to fall into a productivity K hole. Like, I’m just making everything I always wanted to exist. Making... I wanted my kid to have a, a tutor, right? Making it. I wanna create, I, I want to create a site that is everything a chud could want.

[00:58:04] Truly chudtopia. And I am so excited for that.

[00:58:10] Simone Collins: That is exciting. Yeah. Leaflet, you’re amazing. Don’t stop. Don’t listen to the haters.

[00:58:15] Malcolm Collins: B- good, the haters are just trying to gatekeep. They’re, you’re literally- Yeah ... they could choose not to use this. Anyone could choose not to use this. The only people who are helped are the people who are gated from this community by bigots.

[00:58:28] And that’s what the rigors in this community are predominantly, is just bigots. They are prejudiced bigots who want to maintain authoritarian, fascistic ideological control over this world, this little world that they’ve invaded and infested, and that has been broken. And it’s been increasingly broken not just by tech like this, but by the VTubers who have not stepped back.

[00:58:55] The nerd front of the right has broken through, right? Like, and we say it happened with Kirsha first. They tried to cancel her. It didn’t work. The more people they try to cancel and it blows up in their face, the better

[00:59:12] Simone Collins: I agree. It’s awesome. I’m sorry, Tex is crying ‘cause he is trying to chew through-

[00:59:16] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I know we’re about to deal with a cancellation where everyone’s gonna be shocked that we have this, apps for tutoring next to not safe for work stuff. Oh,

[00:59:24] Simone Collins: yeah. And they’re gonna be like, “What the-” All right.

[00:59:25] Malcolm Collins: And I’m gonna be like, “F*****g grow up, man.

[00:59:26] It’s the internet. That’s what the internet is. If you can’t handle that your, your kids can’t handle that. If you can’t handle it- It is, it is a

[00:59:33] Simone Collins: genuine problem

[00:59:34] Malcolm Collins: that- ... safe for

[00:59:34] Simone Collins: work ... if parents think that they, they can put their kids on the internet and have them be safe. I mean, there are abundant controls now, but when, whenever we do one of the parental control approaches with our kids, like we go through the apps, we, we put the parental control iPad set up, it’s so cumbersome in some cases that you just kind of stop using it entirely and you’re like, “No- Yeah

[00:59:57] we’re just gonna remove all the controls ‘cause [01:00:00] nothing works right now.” That, that is not, it’s... And, and it’s either that or like your kid turns, you know, goes off to college or work or whatever it is that they do, and they discover all of this and they have no defenses for it. So-

[01:00:12] Malcolm Collins: But this is something everyone knows.

[01:00:14] Everyone who’s not like some deontological buttwad is aware. Look, no,

[01:00:18] Simone Collins: no, no. This is a, a pervasively not understood thing, so. I’ve gotta go get the kids. I love you so much. And- I

[01:00:26] Malcolm Collins: love

[01:00:26] Simone Collins: you too ... I will go make your dinner.

[01:00:29] Malcolm Collins: French fries and

[01:00:30] Simone Collins: mystery curry. French fries and mystery curry. Okay, bye Malcolm.

[01:00:35] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[01:00:38] Simone Collins: Sorry, tech Would you like gyoza lasagna again tonight?

[01:00:45] Malcolm Collins: No Would you like the caramelized pork with Sweet potato fries

[01:01:00] Simone Collins: Or some other mystery curry with sweet potato fries?

[01:01:03] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, sure.

[01:01:04] Simone Collins: Yeah? Okay. Sweet.

[01:01:07] Malcolm Collins: I mean, something, something small tonight. I, I really don’t want that much.

[01:01:10] Simone Collins: Okay. I’ll put some-

[01:01:11] Malcolm Collins: Maybe just sweet potato fries in, like, sauce or something.

[01:01:14] Simone Collins: All right. Yeah.

[01:01:16] Malcolm Collins: Okay, that’s good for me. By sauce

[01:01:17] Simone Collins: you mean mystery curry, ‘cause I’m so desperate to get some things out of the freezer.

[01:01:22] But now, if you open our silver freezer, you will see one of the shelves is dedicated entirely to a rainbow- ... of freezer pops, which I believe will be quite refreshing to you in these hot summer days. So-

[01:01:35] Malcolm Collins: You are so nice. I love

[01:01:36] Simone Collins: you so much ... I try to do what I can to ease your suffering.

[01:01:41] Malcolm Collins: All right, what’s a, what’s a funny way to start this one?

[01:01:43] Speaker 2: What is all this, Titan?

[01:03:09] Well, Torsten

[01:03:18] We’ll build a solution together. Does that sound good? Okay. We’ll negotiate something. Okay, Mommy

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the intersection of technology, mysticism, and philosophy. Is dualism (a separate spiritual world) meaningfully different from materialist monism? They argue that “technology is just magic that we understand” — and what that means for interpreting the Bible, God’s will, and reality itself.

Topics include: why mysticism often leads to mental corruption and societal risk, Warhammer 40K-style chaos realms, the dangers of subjective “wishy thinking” over empirical probing, Catholic history with science, and why Techno-Puritans must be strict about mysticism in closed environments like spaceships or colonies.

A deep, thought-provoking discussion blending philosophy, religion, futurism, and practical ethics.

Based Camp - Technology and Mysticism

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a very interesting question, which is if a dualist reality exists. So if people are familiar with what dualism is dualism is the belief that reality consists of both a material world and a spiritual world, and that these are fundamentally different things.

[00:00:24] This is like, most Christians, most branches of Christianity are dualist. They believe in a soul, in spiritual stuff that is completely separate from our material reality. Then if you are a monist, as we generally are, are considered you believe that one type of thing exists, and that one type of thing can either be only the spiritual exists, or only the material exists.

[00:00:49] Octavian Collins: Right.

[00:00:50] Malcolm Collins: Okay? So we’re, we’re getting this out of the way. But if you are a dualist, one thing that I’ve been thinking about recently is what additional utility dualism grants an individual in terms of interpretation of reality and morality. And by this what I mean is it came from something that Leaflet said to me on stream, which I thought was just absolutely brilliant one of the smarter things in terms of changing my world perspective that I’ve heard in a long time.

[00:01:19] She was like, “Well, you believe that everything that God does,” because we’re monist materialists, “is essentially a super advanced technology that we simply don’t understand yet.” Mm-hmm. And the wording that Simone used around this that I found really changed my view of this, which is ma- technology is just magic that we understand.

[00:01:40] Instead of framing it the other way, like magic is just technology we don’t understand, let’s frame it technology... Because we don’t even under- I- I’m even gonna put it differently. Ma- technology is just magic that we presume somebody understands, because you don’t understand how the vast majority of technology in your life works.

[00:01:57] Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I can’t tell you how this does the things that it does. I mean, I can describe what I’ve been told.

[00:02:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s, it’s functionally magic to us, right? And this is where it gets interesting, because the thing that differentiates technology from something that’s not technology is whether there is presumably somebody in the world who understands how that thing works.

[00:02:21] Now, presumably, God would have full knowledge of both the spiritual world and its rules of interaction, and the material world and its rules of interaction. And through that knowledge, he would be enacting his will within each of those realms. Given that’s the case, in the same way that I can say this is technology because I am aware that somebody somewhere in the universe knows how this works.

[00:03:00] Any spiritual power that God is exercising is a technology from God’s And she’s like, “So given that’s the case, why are people so...” This is a, a tract by the way. Whenever Techno-Puritan tracts, but it’s going to be musings on, on this particular concept. Why are people so antagonistic to my belief in everything in the Bible being done with hyper advanced technology?

[00:03:27] ‘Cause functionally they believe the same thing that we believe, that it’s done with hyper advanced technology. They just don’t fully they, they think that part of that technology is spiritual in nature. And this is where it gets really, really interesting as a point to sort of pull apart. Because first, now we get to ask a number of really interesting questions.

[00:03:47] Okay, so this means a materialist monist ideology is actually not as dissimilar from a spiritualist monist ideology as many people would think. So these are [00:04:00] as a reminder here, the monists believe there is only one, either the material or the spiritual world.

[00:04:05] Right.

[00:04:05] And the monist spiritualist believes that actually the material world as we think we’re understanding it is an illusion.

[00:04:14] Mm. And what actually exists is the spiritual world. Whereas I- How

[00:04:17] Simone Collins: different are those from simulation theory people?

[00:04:21] Malcolm Collins: Extremely different.

[00:04:22] in no way are they connected at all. I, I can’t even think how they could... H- How, how did you get that, that, that was connected?

[00:04:29] Simone Collins: Because the simulation theory people believe that what we think of the, is the material world is not really a material world, but rather a technological simulation.

[00:04:39] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I guess in that respect they are similar. But yeah, they, they typically wouldn’t frame it that way. They think it’s, it’s, it’s more like we exist in some sort of spiritual ether that is projecting the forms that we believe the material world is made up of as

[00:04:55] Simone Collins: like- Simulation theory ...

[00:04:57] Malcolm Collins: a lower order existence.

[00:04:58] I, I, I suppose, yeah. But at the end of the day, a materialist monist and material spiritualist actually have the same worldview, just different hypotheses about the f- the physical rules of that worldview. Both of them believe that our world is fundamentally governed by laws that can be studied and eventually understood to some extent.

[00:05:22] Both of them believe that God has a perfect understanding of those laws. They just, the spiritualist believes that the laws that physics has uncovered are- completely downstream of some other more important set of laws. However, most materialists believe this as well. I believe that the laws that physics understands right now are not complete.

[00:05:51] Oh, yeah. And we will find layers of physics above the layers of physics that we currently have.

[00:05:56] Simone Collins: Totally.

[00:05:57] Malcolm Collins: The, the core difference... So we actually fundamentally up until now all believe the same thing. The, I think the real core difference between the spiritualist and the materialist monist is the materialist believes the laws that we find above the laws right now, or like I, I believe this, are going to be mathematical in nature.

[00:06:18] It’s going to be some form of like equation that basically reality is graphed upon. See our episode on the, the maths behind reality, and we talk about this in some of our tracks where we go into our beliefs on this, that, that reality is a self-graphing equation. Whereas the spiritualist believes no, no, no it’s actually like thoughts and gists and ideas and s- th- you know, wishy thinking that exists at the higher plane.

[00:06:47] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:06:49] And the- And is that not semantics? Because math is just a language that we use to describe certain things. But you’re, I think you’re saying that, I mean, are, are thoughts and wishy thinking also not just a language?

[00:07:02] Malcolm Collins: Well, I, I think the, the second thing, which is why the wishy thinking being at the core of reality rather than the math being at the core of reality,

[00:07:09] Speaker: Space. What is it? The simple answer is, we don’t know. Or at least we didn’t know until now. Hello, I’m not a scientist. But I do have a better understanding of what space is than any scientist living today. Where did I gain these insights? From this man. The founder of spaceology, Beth Gaga Shaggy.

[00:07:33] Is the founder of spaceology. . This is what he told me when I met him on holiday . Space is invisible mining dust, and stars are but wishes. I mean, think about that.

[00:07:46] That means every star you can see in the night sky is a wish that has come true. And they’ve come true because of something he calls Space Star Ordering. Space Star Ordering is based on the twin [00:08:00] scientific principles of star maths and wishy thinking.

[00:08:04] If that doesn’t convince you, well then, maybe you just don’t deserve to get what you want.

[00:08:09] Malcolm Collins: is that I believe that to understand reality we must probe reality, right?

[00:08:16] Hmm. And this is how the vast majority of science came about. It was people trying to understand God’s plan better, right? Like that, that is what science was historically, right? It is, it is the knowledge of God to, what is it, cover things. It’s the knowledge of kings to unveil them, right? You know.

[00:08:31] And, and so for a long time historically that is what drew scientific advancement, was a, a desire to get closer to God. In, in our, in our understanding of reality as we’re directly commanded to do in that verse in, in, in the Bible, right?

[00:08:44] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:08:44] Malcolm Collins: And so, the, the, the, the spiritualist on the other hand thinks that to understand a higher order reality, the direction you probe is with rituals and inward belief you know, basically through meditation and rituals you can det- discover, or even psychedelics within some communities,

[00:09:06] Simone Collins: you can discover these mental states Oh, okay.

[00:09:06] Yeah, that, that is a, a very specific division then. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. No, okay. I’m following you.

[00:09:12] Malcolm Collins: Whereas we see these things as, as corruptions of the mind. And, and for- Yeah ... people to understand why we see things as corrupted mental states, it’s because the information that is obtained during them is generally speaking worse at being predictive of future world states, future physical states, basically the stuff that science allows than a sober mind is.

[00:09:38] And so, we see them negatively. By the way, I’ll- Mm-hmm

[00:09:42] Simone Collins: drop in on Kid speaker

[00:09:44] okay then you be good, clean up some messes, and when I come down we’ll make mac and cheese, all right? Okay. Bye guys

[00:09:50] Malcolm Collins: And then this brings me to another interesting question here which I just, I had, I hadn’t thought through before, which is Okay, suppose there is a spiritual world, because somebody asked, “What would it take for me to believe in a spiritual world?” Yeah. And I was like, well, if there was a spiritual world, it would presumably operate by some set of rules, and we would be able to eventually, as technology increases, interact with it in some meaningful way, right?

[00:10:15] Or n- even, even if it’s not as technology increases, as our understanding of ritual increases, as our understanding of meditation increases, as our understanding of, you know, all of these people who are these spiritual masters, if they’re presumably advancing any real knowledge that has efficacious utility in the world we would see their power intergenerationally advance.

[00:10:38] And when it reaches a point where the efficaciousness of the spiritual pursuit and research is undeniable what you’re going to have happen is companies will begin to exploit that, right? Like, if a company- Oh,

[00:10:51] Simone Collins: yeah. And oh my gosh, I’m forgetting the name of Scott Alexander’s book that explores exactly this concept, that like what if suddenly it was just discovered and then you get these startups that are like farming for, like incantations that you can use that will, you know, insight different things to happen.

[00:11:06] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they like- Yeah ... w- go through just different words a- all day to, until they try to find one, one iteration of the word that has some power, right? And then they patent it. Yeah, and then they,

[00:11:13] Simone Collins: they patent it, yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:15] Malcolm Collins: And then there’s patents for determining when people are using the, the incantations without the proper-

[00:11:19] Simone Collins: Exactly

[00:11:20] Malcolm Collins: But that is, like when people are like, what would, what would... A- if a spiritual world existed in the way that I would believe in that spiritual world, it would be mortifying. It would be Warhammer 40K, the War- like, basically you need the spiritual world to be like the warp to have this not happen, right?

[00:11:39] Mm. So you could have a spiritual world where like the spiritual world is just and this is how it is in Warhammer, is by its nature chaotic and malevolent and leads to feedback loops. And if this is the world that we live in- What does that

[00:11:51] Simone Collins: mean, chaotic man- malevolent and leads to feedback loops?

[00:11:55] Malcolm Collins: Well, so what happens in the 40K universe is everything that, like humanity collectively believes in [00:12:00] begins to or, or any sentient species believes in begins to grow a physical form within the warp, which is the- Yeah,

[00:12:06] Simone Collins: like in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

[00:12:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But what that means is simple basal desires essentially create feedback loops.

[00:12:13] So like a fear of death and disease creates a feedback loop- Creates a god ... where it creates a god that grows the more fear of death and disease there is, so this god creates- Mm ... more death and disease, which creates- Oh ... more fear of death and disease, which creates more death and disease. Which, and so you get a feedback loop, which leads to a god.

[00:12:33] You have the same thing with like lust. You have the same thing with... Like the god of lust would want to create like crazy you know, Anna Valens-like, you know, w- what do we call those? Cinebites, right?

[00:12:45] Oh.

[00:12:45] Who just do anything for pleasure until there, there’s nothing left but a husk of who they once were.

[00:12:51] And th- this, this creates these horrible cycles, right? But generally this sort of world where, where even, even in this world, like in the Warhammer world, people can still achieve some benefits from being like a, a Zesh follower or something like that, right? Like, but if, if the, the spiritual world is just purely chaos, you would not be able to use it.

[00:13:12] And this would explain all of the warnings of people who are like, “Don’t gaze into spiritualism. It just messes up those people’s minds. It just scrambles them.” The vast majority of people mentally break. And I point this out. I mean, you could just look. The vast majority of spiritual gurus basically go cucking nutso, buttso.

[00:13:25] They, they stop practicing proper hygiene. They begin to look, like, wild-eyed. They have a, a, a harder and harder time thinking logically through what they’re doing. And it, it, it can lead to, to fall-off. And we can go into why this happens in just a second. But, To take an aside here spiritualism as a, like if, if it does have factual power, companies would mass exploit it.

[00:13:48] Apparently there’s a movie called like Flesh Pits or something like this. Mm. A Flesh Pits Park,

[00:13:53] Speaker 2: Have you been out to Mystery Flesh Pit National Park yet? No? Well, what are you waiting for? The fun-derground awaits. Howdy, folks. You can call me Cave-a-Coop, and I’m here to tell you all about all the wonderful things you can find at Mystery Flesh Pit National Park. It’s got fun for the whole family.

[00:14:13] Don’t worry, if you’re a timid spelunker, we’ve got plenty to do on the surface. Beautiful hiking trails, bathe in that beautiful Texas sun, plenty of fishing, camping, and of course, the breathtaking view of the Flesh Pit’s entry office. Believe me when I say it will change your perception of existence itself.

[00:14:34] For those cowboy enough to adventure to the lower visitor center within the Mystery Flesh Pit, a whole new world awaits. From hiking in the Southern Bronchial Forest to the Gentle Farms petting zoo, there is plenty to explore. And for the parents, you might consider a full immersion dip in the amniotic ballast spa, where you might glimpse the face of God awakening your mind to cosmic horrors you can now suddenly comprehend

[00:15:02] Malcolm Collins: where like Coca-Cola begins to like mine this beast as like a, a, a form of, of soda for people, right? Like-

[00:15:08] Simone Collins: Ew ...

[00:15:09] Malcolm Collins: they, they, the moment anything is understandable to the extent that it can be used for personal benefit, it can be used for corporate benefit and industrialized, right?

[00:15:18] Speaker: What

[00:15:18] Speaker 2: the hell is this thing made out of? . All right, fine. I might have used a few unorthodox parts. Just tell me one. An orphan.

[00:15:29] Speaker 4: Did you say an orphan?! Yeah, a little

[00:15:34] Speaker 3: orphan boy.

[00:15:35] Speaker 4: It’s powered by a forsaken child?! Might be, kind of. I mean, I didn’t use the whole thing.

[00:15:41] Malcolm Collins: So it’s a, it’s a pretty mortifying world to think of. Now, you could think maybe God puts on specific protectors that prevent the spiritual world from being engaged with in this way. To which I would say, well if you believe that, you’re not a Christian and you’re not a Jew. Mm-hmm. Because Jews very [00:16:00] explicitly believe that through engaging with the spiritual world you can accidentally contact malevolent spirits that can cause problems.

[00:16:05] I mean, this was a pro- the Baal Shems always used to do this sort of stuff. That you can, you know, y- c- could cause... I mean, a lot of Jewish classical stories are about some Baal Shem went out there, created a golem or something when he wasn’t supposed to, and he goes nuts and destroys a town. That’s just like classic Jewish storytelling.

[00:16:22] And so Jews don’t believe this. Do Christians believe this? Well, presumably if you think that witches are real to any extent if, if you are a spiritualist you do believe that they’re clearly harnessing malevolent spiritual power, right? Like, so, and the Bible does tell us that witches exist, right?

[00:16:38] Now ob- obviously I, I think that what it means by that is mysticism more broadly. But, you know, if, if you believe in spiritualism, you’re, you’re gonna believe in, in witches. So, you know, suffer not a witch to live and all that. But these people who, who, who believe this more broadly, they, they also know that, okay, well so at least the Bible doesn’t say that God keeps a, a, a positive interaction with the, the spiritual plane.

[00:17:00] So okay. Or, or you could say, well, whenever you engage with the spiritual plane for personal benefit, it ends up having some sort of like reverberating negative effect on you. Which maybe, maybe that could be a reason, but I, I still think that there would be a way a company could get around that, right?

[00:17:20] Like, maybe use like pawns as the spiritualists, and then sort of farm out their bad luck and make money while not directly engaging with spiritualism, but having all the secret rituals themselves, right? You know, there’s, there’s always a way this can be exploited, right? So- But then what do you even gain by believing in the additional spiritual reality, right?

[00:17:42] What, how, how different would the spiritual reality need to be from the material one to be a meaningfully different reality to you? So- Well,

[00:17:50] Simone Collins: but I think the, where I really have my, I guess, gripes or has a, like- I take umbrage on this idea of I can just search internally and find truth when we know how flawed, both, like, from, if you just wanna look biblically at how flawed people’s own minds are and opinions are, and pers- like, views, how, how warped your view of reality can be, plus our understanding of just actual biology and the human brain from science thus

[00:18:22] Malcolm Collins: far.

[00:18:22] Well, I mean, and it creates horrible... Like, this is why mystics so often go crazy, is if your own subjective experience of reality is the ultimate truth of that reality then when you’re in a group of other mystics, right, which mystic’s interpretation, because you can’t be like, “You’re provably wrong.

[00:18:40] Look here.” Mm-hmm. Which mystic’s interpretation comes first? And the mystic who’s the top of the popularity hierarchy, basically. The, the one who can push the others around, right? Because then one person goes, “Well, subjectively, I feel this is true,” and then the other mystic says, “Well, subjectively, I feel this is true.”

[00:18:55] Simone Collins: Yeah, it, it’s using very faulty equipment for something. Like, I, I don’t care what ultimately is real, but I do care that we are using, you know, a, a, a thing that works for measuring and gauging what it is. Because if you really care about the thing, don’t you want to know? Like, they’re, they’re trying to, to use, like...

[00:19:17] I, I, gosh, I don’t know. Like, they’re, they’re stretching out, like, a, a chewed up piece of gum, and they’re like, “Well, it’s one gum long ‘cause they s- I, I stretched it out and that’s how long it is.” And that’s, that, that’s not... You can’t use a chewed on piece of gum to measure the length of something.

[00:19:34] That isn’t, it’s not a thing. Like, you’re not gonna get consistent results. Like- No ... you, you can. You can stretch it out and find a length, but that’s not... No. A- a- and, and I... Ugh. So that’s, that’s my biggest problem

[00:19:45] Malcolm Collins: here. But wait, do you understand, like, when you think about a community, so imagine two mystics disagree with each other.

[00:19:49] How do they determine who’s right? Now, in Judaism-

[00:19:51] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s the louder, more charismatic one.

[00:19:53] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. The Jews will say, well, they go to the, the, you know, the, the, the writings. And it’s like, you know as well as I do that that [00:20:00] doesn’t always work in the mystic communities.

[00:20:01] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:20:02] Malcolm Collins: It usually doesn’t work in the mystic communities.

[00:20:04] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:20:04] Malcolm Collins: I mean, and famously we know this doesn’t work because the Baal Shem Tov literally did this. When Rab- Rabbi Dov Ber, who everybody knew was a more learned rabbi than the Rabbi Baal Shem he was generally considered this. He considered himself this. The Baal Shem considered him this. He goes to the Baal Shem Tov.

[00:20:18] The Baal Shem does some miracles in front of him, and he’s like, “Okay, I’ve been convinced, that, that, that everything the Jews have taught for the past thousand years is wrong,” right? Like, you know, that, that... I, because he came to the Baal Shem Tov. This was his main convert who ended up becoming the next head rabbi, Of the, the group that today became the Hasidic movement.

[00:20:35] Which again, big movement, right? And at the time a lot of Jews were like, “Oh, you shouldn’t do this.” But now it’s been so baked into Judaism because, c- you know, Chabad has so much power that the, the th- th- this was the right thing to do. That as a Jew you should follow the mystic with a closer connection to God over the guys who know the text better.

[00:20:55] Now, obviously historically as a Jew you’re not supposed to do this. This is very clear in the snake oven story, the, the oven of Unke story. But you get- w- we talk about this in some of our other tracks. You don’t need to go, we don’t need to legislate it here. The point I’m making here is so some Jews today, y- you know, will say, “Well, Judaism constrained by the text,” which it used to be.

[00:21:13] But it’s not, it’s not as well anymore because these precedents have been set and accepted within the Hasidic community. And it’s hard, it’s hard to put that back in the bottle. You can’t be like, “Well, the Bashan Tav was clearly in the wrong,” right? Because he, you know, did miracle working over the text, over, over textural legal analysis.

[00:21:29] But you know, and this, and this can lead to individuals crashing out, right? And we see this. You know, I, I obviously, I consider, like, Ruby Yard a good friend, right? And we warned him against going down this path. And I think that you know, a lot of p- people are familiar with his, you know, ayahuasca, the talking to Odin thing and everything like that.

[00:21:44] And I think that I don’t really hold that against him. That’s who he is. That’s who he’s always represented himself as being, is a very mystical person. But, like, this is why mysticism can sort of lead you in these directions. Because external world pushing back and being like, “That doesn’t sound objectively true,” is no longer a pushback to your logic.

[00:22:03] It’s no longer a pushback to your experience or world perspective, which can lead to wildly out there. This is where we, we have our episode No Witches on Sh- on Spaceships. Because you can begin to act in a way that is wildly dangerous vis-a-vis the wider community if now you are taking your subjective experience of how you think the life support system should work.

[00:22:22] And if people are like, “Oh, mystics would never go that far,” I mean, look at the breatharians that are randomly killing themselves all the time. You, you’ve heard of the breatharians, right?

[00:22:32] Simone Collins: I thought those were made up. They, they were a part of that fake cult that I participated in.

[00:22:36] Malcolm Collins: Oh, no. Breatharians are real.

[00:22:37] Simone Collins: Oh. Mm. That’s unfortunate.

[00:22:39] Speaker 3: When it comes to food preferences, you’ve probably heard of a vegetarian, a pescatarian. How about a breatharian? So it looks like this. And then the exhale is through the mouth Yes, a breatharian, as in breath. 25-year-old Audra Bear follows this lifestyle, which is also known as prana. She’s very popular on Instagram.

[00:23:02] The idea here is not to weigh yourself down with food so you can fill yourself with breath and life. I started breathing on December 1st, and by December 5th, five days later, I had no appetite for food, and I’ve eaten a handful of times since then, since in the last six months. Okay, so here’s what she does consume: herbal teas, green juices and smoothies, coconut water, and sometimes soup.

[00:23:31] She says she does not miss food. The practice is more popular than you might think, but of course, we should mention medical professionals say you should seek advice before starting anything like this.

[00:23:42] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, plenty of people have died from this, thinking that you can survive off of just air alone and mystical power, and that, Wowee.

[00:23:48] Simone Collins: Okay ...

[00:23:48] Malcolm Collins: other people are just not trying hard enough.

[00:23:50] Simone Collins: Oh. It’s the get a job, Al version of spiritualism.

[00:23:55] Speaker: don’t you get a job? If you’re so hungry, why don’t you get a job? Get a [00:24:00] job, Al. You got a negative attitude.

[00:24:02] That’s what’s stopping you. You gotta get your act together.

[00:24:06] Malcolm Collins: I love it. The get... Yeah. But no, th- th- you, you, you, you repeatedly see people who believe that they can obtain a portion of life energy from, like, spiritual stuff.

[00:24:14] And so they, they go and they search out this stuff. But the point I, I wanted to get to, which I find to be a very interesting point, is how large do you need the spiritual world to be for it to be meaningful to you?

[00:24:25] Hm.

[00:24:25] So I’ll explain what I mean by this. What if it turns out that the spiritual world as we understand it is simply another dimension operating on different physical laws?

[00:24:38] I mean, I, I, I really don’t know what it would be if not that, right? Like, it’s, it’s another dimension that can interact with our dimension and operates on, on a separate set of laws. Those laws are just the physics of this other reality, right? In which case, why have you gained something significantly above the understanding we have by just looking at our reality by positing this?

[00:24:59] The other possibility is that the spiritual world is a secondary layer of our reality, that our reality exists with two membranal layers. Like, basically a membranal layer with spiritual reality on one side of that layer and the reality of the material world on the other side of that layer.

[00:25:18] Simone Collins: Well, this isn’t necessarily mysticism.

[00:25:19] This is sci-fi. This is parallel worlds, right? This is, like, a thin veil between different worlds or different versions of reality. Like, I mean, at the, the, the way the, the difference between sci-fi and mysticism can be very thin, possibly even nonexistent, a, a question of vocabulary choice.

[00:25:38] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I... And one of the things that I’ve always found most, like, the reason why I became, like, very sincerely techno-puritan when I went back and read the Bible is I was unaware that a literalist reading of a Bib- of the Bible could give me a materialist perspective on reality.

[00:25:51] Mm-hmm. Right? Like, that I was like, “Oh,” like, it actually promotes the idea that all of this is happening with technology and the, like, super, super advanced technology, but with technology as we understand it, and that it, it doesn’t actually push for a separate spiritual world. If you wanna get into why we argue that, you can look at our tract series where we go over that.

[00:26:07] I think tract eight is where we cover that the most. It might be tract eight or nine where we cover that the most. Mm-hmm. Which is generally a good jumping-off point if you’re already religious to understand how heretical we are

[00:26:16] But yeah. So, that is like I, I don’t think that you’re gaining a lot if you’re just like, “Well, there’s another dimension with some rules that we don’t fully understand yet.” If, if there’s a, if there’s another dimension with rules we don’t understand yet, then you’re, you’re, you’re positing a physical hypothesis about reality.

[00:26:32] You’re not really positing a spiritual realm. You’re positing that there is something that the scientists, the academics, the experts simply haven’t discovered and cataloged yet. But it is real in the way that, that this world is real, just operating on different physical subsets. Which makes the antagonism against the technopagan tradition from a spiritualist perspective or from a dualist perspective very odd when you actually break this out.

[00:26:59] Because you’re like, “Oh the dualist doesn’t actually have some special...” When they’re like, “Well, I believe in, like, the wonder of magic and spiritualism,” and it’s like, well, that’s not really a wonder. That’s just you positing that there’s something that we don’t understand, where I also posit there are things we don’t understand.

[00:27:19] I just think they probably don’t look like that.

[00:27:22] Simone Collins: Yeah. I think for me it comes down to word choice, and there are entirely legitimate reasons why people would just stylistically prefer different words and tool use. And my problem is with the tool use. That’s it.

[00:27:38] Malcolm Collins: Explain.

[00:27:40] Simone Collins: Your subjective experience, your lived experience is not the best tool.

[00:27:44] Your I feel like I had this experience or God spoke to me is not reliable because if we wanna use your own chosen vocabulary mystic- mystical person, demons also speak to you and they tell you, “I’m God. Hi, I’m God. Listen to me, I’m [00:28:00] correct.” Right? Like, and also just y- your mind is not a very reliable narrator, no matter what.

[00:28:06] Just anyone who’s experienced addiction would easily be able to explain that y- your mind can very cleverly get you to do very terrible and wrong things. It is not, it is not to be trusted. It- it

[00:28:21] Malcolm Collins: can lead you anywhere. Yeah. And especially in these corrupted states. And that’s one of the problems- Yeah

[00:28:23] about the corrupted state of the mystic is that because it all becomes a- at the end of the day, a popularity contest or a charisma contest what it means is that the well, assuming that they don’t have any actual power. Now, if they do have actual power, then, you know, why aren’t they curing world hunger, right?

[00:28:44] Like, why are they, why are they performing magic tricks, right?

[00:28:47] Simone Collins: Well, yeah. I just, I- I don’t know about any, any famous mystic who saved millions of lives or did amazing things or moved s- soc- society forward, moved humanity forward.

[00:28:57] Note here, I should clarify she means mystics made any major contributions in their mystical research. Obviously, mystics have made contributions in other areas, , like

[00:29:09] Isaac Newton was famously a big mystic, but all of the time this otherwise smart person spent that could have made many more contributions to humanity that he spent on his mystical research ended up with no contribution to humanity. It just sucks the life and time from otherwise well-meaning individuals

[00:29:30] Simone Collins: I mean, I think- Yeah ... that there are some, like, St. Francis of Assisi I think inspired a lot of people, but did he actually help anyone?

[00:29:40] Malcolm Collins: I don’t know. Well no, this is true for most mystics. They’re otherwise intelligent people that are basically removed from the efficacious pool of Earth’s population.

[00:29:47] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Which is hugely bad. Fertility shredder, IQ shredder. Yeah, not great, not great, not great.

[00:29:53] Malcolm Collins: Well, because if y- if you’re, if whether or not you’re a good person is entirely subjective to this internal framework that you’ve built for yourself a lot of people want to believe like, “Well, I’m good enough.”

[00:30:02] Right? Like, “I’m...” You know? Mm-hmm. And so they, they lean into that and it leads them to engage with information without any external de- way, way to de-confirm it, right? I

[00:30:15] Simone Collins: agree, and it’s very frustrating.

[00:30:17] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:30:17] Simone Collins: But I think understanding that, that, that there doesn’t need to be a difference between technology and magic that there, there doesn’t...

[00:30:25] I think there’s a lot of groups that could be working together or appreciating things. Well, I think a lot of- Look, give credit to Catholics, okay? The, the, the, the groups, I, you know, like, I think a lot of Muslims did this as well. Like, Islam had its moment with this too, but I, I know mostly of historical examples of Catholics being among the first to really move forward the sciences, to move forward our understanding of the world and the universe, because they wanted to understand the magic of God.

[00:30:52] The amazing things that God has built, right?

[00:30:54] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:30:55] Simone Collins: And- Well,

[00:30:55] Malcolm Collins: I mean, Catholics, they,

[00:30:55] Simone Collins: they- They, they’re never, like, there was this point, and I don’t know exactly when historically there was this divide, when suddenly, like, learning more about science became heretical. And I think maybe it was a corruption.

[00:31:07] It was a corruption of humans, not of any, of anything of, of what God really wanted.

[00:31:11] Speaker 9: So if you’re wondering when this was, , the biggest and direct turning point where they went to AI to ask was probably Galileo. , Up until 1616, the church had regularly supported and invested in scientific advancement. , At 1616, the church’s consultants declared heliocentrism, the Earth orbiting the sun, as false and contrary to scripture. , This is based on certain readings of the Bible, although it wasn’t formally declared by the Inquisition at this point, and Galileo, -

[00:31:41] was tried in 1633. He was forced to recant and sentenced to house under arrest, and his book was placed on the Index of Forbidden Works. And after this point, they begin to more frequently , and just sort of escalatingly, , deny science. , But [00:32:00] again, of course, if we just went back to the way Catholics used to be

[00:32:03] Simone Collins: I mean- but-

[00:32:04] Malcolm Collins: I, I, I’d point out that if you look at Catholics in, in how they relate to mysticism, they have a benefit in that they have a centralized institution that can, you know, reign in the charismatic mystic- Yeah

[00:32:15] and just be like, “No, you’re wrong. Like, you, people need to stop listening to you at this point. This is just wrong.” But because they’ve always had that level of protection against mysticism, it means that the latent level of mysticism within Catholic communities has always been higher than other Christian denominations.

[00:32:31] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:32:32] Malcolm Collins: So basically they don’t, they don’t get the worst of it. They’re protected from that. But the latent toxic effects of mysticism is much higher in Catholic environments. Hmm ... and

[00:32:39] yeah. I mean, obviously with Integral Period- Hold on ... not tolerated.

[00:32:42] Simone Collins: Acknowledge that at least at one point in human history, it was the Catholics who best understood that magic and technology are the same thing

[00:32:53] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I think that the, the techno-puritan perspective on this is obviously, you know, for now we are a minority population, you know, living in a society where these things are normalized, and it is-

[00:33:07] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:33:07] Malcolm Collins: upon us to not make ourselves negative externalities on other groups by being overly aggressive on the point of witchcraft or mysticism, right? You know?

[00:33:18] Simone Collins: Oh, okay, so you’re saying, “Hey, give some grace to mystics. Give some grace to witches.”

[00:33:22] Malcolm Collins: Well, we say don’t interfere with the basilisk, right? Like, mysticism is- No, absolutely

[00:33:27] a very good connotation. Yes, yes. Until, like, this, this changes when you have techno-puritan first communities, techno-puritan first spaceships, techno-puritan first colonies. Right. Like, within, within the techno p-

[00:33:40] Simone Collins: puritan space there, there’s zero tolerance for it. But that doesn’t stop us from tolerating it among other groups that are not impinging on our ability-

[00:33:48] Malcolm Collins: Right, right ... to go about our sovereign business. Because the Bible, the Bible lay- lays out suffer not a witch to live, and I think that

[00:33:54] should be the rule within techno-puritan first communities. Right.

[00:33:57] Simone Collins: Of course, people define witch very differently. Yes. That’s definitions are, the

[00:34:02] Malcolm Collins: definitions are- I mean, if you’re using magic against God’s will, that’s, like, a witch, right? Like, you, you have, you have specifically tapped into God’s pur- purview, presumably.

[00:34:15] Right.

[00:34:15] Simone Collins: Then a, a, a Catholic would- Turn around on us per our episode, per what we’ve said here, and say, “Okay, technology is magic, magic is technology. You are using IVF technology against God’s will i.e. by, you know, creating souls that may possibly be trapped forever on ice until they are, you know, taken away from us and discarded for some weird reason.

[00:34:39] I don’t know.”

[00:34:40] Malcolm Collins: But God commanded us to move forwards technology, technology. Right? Like, that, that was the line I, I talked about earlier. That is how like obviously when you create a new, a life-saving me- medical procedure, when you create a new you know, a- any, you, when you cure cancer or something like that there have been Christian groups that said, you know, like, “No blood transfers.”

[00:34:59] Yeah. No Catholic says, “No blood transfers.” Nor do I think any Catholic would actually trade 10 just fertilized blastocysts for a 10-year-old human boy’s life. Right? Like, I think that actually the moral equation is quite well understood, it’s just engaged with differently, right? But when it comes to mysticism more broadly, what I’m talking about is because this is something I’ve thought about more.

[00:35:24] Like, as the religion grows, as we get members, what does it look like if we ever have our own colonies, if we ever have a techno Puritan majority countries, right? Like, techno Puritan- Hmm ... majority environments. How do we relate to secular law within those environments? And I think that we should be very aggressive, at least with members of our community, of anything that smacks of mystical framing.

[00:35:54] And this isn’t to say mystical research. Mystical research is always allowed. This is [00:36:00] disprovable, like, if you’re like, “I’m gonna do an experiment on the world of mysticism,” fine. Because then you’re bringing mysticism into science, right? Mm-hmm. And we’re, we’re, we’re understanding it better. It’s when the idea is based on wishy thinking, and the reason I, I say all this, I just think it leads to next, extra, negative externalities in people’s lives.

[00:36:16] Simone Collins: I’m sure.

[00:36:17] Malcolm Collins: Whether these worlds exist or not, whether they’re tapping into something real or not, it seems to damage people’s lives. And, and, and, and damage the lives of people around them who become in, because eventually you end up with essentially a, like, if I’m a mystic professionally and I’m not producing any money, right?

[00:36:32] I’m, I’m getting money from either my disciples or from the people my disciples teach.

[00:36:39] Yeah.

[00:36:39] And so I’ve set up this completely parasitic both in terms of economic and technological productivity, because it’s, it’s, it’s drawing and resources from the group around it. But also a, a, a parasitic community that bleeds poison into the logic of the people that it touches.

[00:37:00] Simone Collins: Yeah, and I guess another way you could look at it, too because I think there’s a lot of people who- politely support/tolerate mysticism, but you could ask, “Would you be happy if your son or daughter became a diehard mystic?” Because if not, then maybe be a little less tolerant.

[00:37:21] Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. I mean, I think, and, and I will be incredibly strict with our kids if it comes to something like horoscopes or something like this.

[00:37:27] Hmm. When it comes to, you know, any, any of the crystals or whatever, no, no.

[00:37:32] Simone Collins: And those are so pervasive. Oh my gosh, horoscopes and crystals these days. Am I right? Yeah. And, and it’s so hard to tell too when people are talking about it ironically versus not Because all you have to do is be like, “Ah, but he’s an Aries.

[00:37:49] Oh, well that explains everything.” And I can never tell if someone’s joking or if they actually believe that, like There are traits. Anyway, let’s not

[00:38:01] Malcolm Collins: go there And, and for people to understand why you have to be so strict about this stuff a, when we’re talking about the far future, in something like America today, mystics are not a big threat to us, right?

[00:38:10] If we’re talking- Speak for

[00:38:10] Simone Collins: yourself, but sure ...

[00:38:12] Malcolm Collins: if we’re talking about the distant future and you’re on a, a closed environment spaceship or space station, this becomes quite different. Mystics are an existential threat to everyone else on board that spaceship or space station. And this is why we ha- have to be much stricter when we’re talking about, like, the way that techno-puritan colonies would work, because we’ve always talked about intentionally setting them up in harsh environments.

[00:38:35] If you’re in Antarctica or something, you have a colony, or deep under the ocean and you have a colony and you know, you have somebody within that colony who is experimenting with whether or not we need to breathe that has- Yeah ... massive deleterious effects for everyone else in that colony.

[00:38:51] Simone Collins: Well, and I mean, presumably this is why there have been some isolated colonies that have just, I don’t know, you know, someone went away for a little bit, went to go buy some cigarettes, came back a year later.

[00:39:03] Everyone’s dead No one was left alive. Yeah.

[00:39:06] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:39:06] Simone Collins: You know, came, came with a ship of supplies from England. Oh, where is everyone? Things can go wrong real fast in- Yeah, yeah ... these isolated communities. Yeah. You don’t wanna, you don’t wanna do this in space, in the vacuum. Not, not great.

[00:39:18] Malcolm Collins: And this is, this is, this is where we are really excited about the diversity, the genetic diversity that we’ll see in humanity’s future. You know, when you get different groups engaging fully with genetic augmentation, groups are gonna spec into different things, and that’s gonna be really, really fun.

[00:39:31] The other thing that- Absolutely ... Lisa said on that call I thought was so interesting. I’ve mentioned this before, it was just such an interesting take. Is I, I was like, yeah, you know, some groups, like our group, might, might spec into, like, looking like giant Custodes or, or, or Space Marines, right? And another group, like say the Jews, with their high sneak stat, as we often talk about, might spec into like an agility sneak role or something like that.

[00:39:52] Or, you know. And and she’s like, you know, when you’re, you’re creating a, a boarding party or a party for your crew, you know, you want people with these different [00:40:00] specs, right? And each of them will have their own role. In the same way you, you’re gonna have a better team if you have like an orc warrior and like a dwarf you know, engineer and like a elven archer then you’re gonna have if you have like an all human team, right?

[00:40:13] In like a D&D game or something like that. And, and, and so there is utility in tolerance for other world perspectives when you are engaging with those communities in a way that is mutually productive for each community. I just, You know, and again, this isn’t me saying I am against a d- we may discover a dualist worldview in the future.

[00:40:36] I am not saying that we don’t discover that. But when we do, it, you know, well, how can I use souls to power things, right? How can I, you know, use magic to when we do, immediately it’s a new physical puzzle to be dissected rather than intrinsically an enigma. Because if it is intrinsically an enigma, then what we have tapped into is a chaos realm, and a chaos realm is always destroying to the human mind.

[00:41:05] Speaker 17: You were telling me that it with your head. The certain amount of it after a while, it just with your head.

[00:41:10] Speaker 18: That’s why I’m usually kind of like almost autistic is I’m just being constantly.

[00:41:13] Speaker 17: Why?

[00:41:14] Speaker 18: Because lower entities will come in and violate your free will.

[00:41:18] Speaker 17: They know. All your , they see right through you.

[00:41:20] Speaker 18: They will not manipulate your free will unless you ask them in.

[00:41:23] Speaker 17: I have

[00:41:24] Speaker 18: dude, do not say that I’m gonna get killed.

[00:41:28] Speaker 17: I’ve a hundred percent communicated with something.

[00:41:30] Speaker 18: I’m not judging anybody.

[00:41:31] I’m just saying, okay, be careful.

[00:41:33] Speaker 17: The question is whether that something was actually in my imagination or in my mind, or that something was something that takes place in another dimension.

[00:41:40] Speaker 18: Once you open that gate, it’s all bad. They

[00:41:42] Speaker 17: have, so why is it all bad? Why? Why can’t you experience that interdimensional?

[00:41:47] being and learn something from it, and be a better person when you come out

[00:41:51] Speaker 18: of it. Because, because every time it gets control, it starts murdering everybody.

[00:41:55] Speaker 17: They wind up killing everybody later.

[00:41:56] Speaker 18: In every case. And it always starts beautiful. It always starts great.

[00:41:59] Speaker 17: Problem is, some of it makes sense.

[00:42:01] Speaker 18: That’s where the psychosis comes in.

[00:42:02] Speaker 17: Whoa.

[00:42:03] Speaker 18: It’s going to create a giant societal crisis where most of the people are already going to get killed. Because an evil force wants conflict. So I’m saying no, no, no.

[00:42:11] Speaker 17: It’s all chaos.

[00:42:12] Speaker 18: Stop it.

[00:42:13] Speaker 17: This is the nature of

[00:42:14] the beast.

[00:42:14] Malcolm Collins: Mm.

[00:42:15] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:42:18] I like it

[00:42:20] Malcolm Collins: As a, getting into pure techno puritan philosophy here. I’ve been doing more of those instead of like straight literalist Bible interpretations recently because I realize that as the community is growing they need more not like why I am so affirmed in this from the Bible but a framing for how to see and interact with their beliefs about the world and reality in a way that’s useful to them and also a better understanding of how we’re actually different than other groups which may be not as much as both other groups and our community would initially think, right?

[00:42:55] Simone Collins: I agree. Yeah And we can’t just look at how the Bible’s legit, but what makes a techno-puritan a techno-puritan and not some other new religion or old religion.

[00:43:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. I love you so much. And thank you for your time, Simone. Any f- any final thoughts?

[00:43:15] Simone Collins: I love you too. And-

[00:43:18] Malcolm Collins: And for food tonight we’re just reheating potato?

[00:43:21] Simone Collins: I’m gonna make the kids mac and cheese. Do you want some as well?

[00:43:24] Malcolm Collins: Oh, that potato is very filling.

[00:43:27] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:43:28] Malcolm Collins: I’m okay with some boncho if it’s not extra work for you, but also just reheating the two slices that we have left of the potato is enough for me.

[00:43:34] Simone Collins: Potato rare bit. There must be a proper name for it.

[00:43:39] Malcolm Collins: It’s good. Okay. You did a good job with it, Simone. Way to go.

[00:43:45] Simone Collins: The, the, I feel bad ‘cause it’s insufficient effort. But

[00:43:49] Malcolm Collins: thank you. That’s not, that’s not really the way the world works.

[00:43:52] Simone Collins: I know. I know. I... Yeah, there’s this whole thing, this... I don’t know how pervasive it is in other cultures, but, like, if you didn’t suffer over [00:44:00] it, and if it didn’t take forever, it’s not valuable.

[00:44:05] Mm-hmm. I don’t know how to get around that. Like, you, you... I think if you... your influence from the, the church of subgenius and this concept of slack may have... No, I just think it’s in your nature to appreciate the elegance of minimal movement. And I appreciate that too, but I’ve been so steeped in American grind culture of like, oh, if I...

[00:44:26] I have to performatively suffer-

[00:44:27] Malcolm Collins: Which is officially a techno-puritan sin now, Simone

[00:44:30] Simone Collins: I know. It, it is genuinely sinful. Slack is virtue. Performative grounded-

[00:44:34] Malcolm Collins: Slack

[00:44:35] Simone Collins: is a

[00:44:35] Malcolm Collins: techno-puritan virtue. Like-

[00:44:36] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:44:37] Malcolm Collins: study the subgenius to learn about s- slack because it is a techno-puritan virtue. Yeah ... and to, to deliberately act in a way that is extra work for yourself is time that you could have spent contributing to the world or your sleep, which you’re

[00:44:51] Simone Collins: always

[00:44:52] Malcolm Collins: getting- And wicca

[00:44:54] Simone Collins: less of. All right. Packed. Sleep packed. Let’s do it tonight. Sleep. Okay? Okay. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. It’s on. Okay. Bye, love you.

[00:45:06] Malcolm Collins: Love you. Ish. Bleh.

[00:45:08] Simone Collins: How Sorry, Toasty. You know what happened. Now you’re paying the price, friend

[00:45:13] Malcolm Collins: Okay. He thinks I’m not there because he’s in trouble?

[00:45:16] Simone Collins: Yeah, dude, I’m... Never, never miss an opportunity to add drama to-

[00:45:22] Malcolm Collins: punishment ... someone’s,

[00:45:23] Simone Collins: yeah, someone’s banishment from good favor. All right. Have I learned anything interesting today?

[00:45:31] I, I just, I, there’s this one... I’ve tapped into this one YouTube channel that talks about cosmetic procedures in China, and one of the things that, that w- there was a trend for a while- Mm-hmm ... maybe it’s still a trend, is getting a permanent smile where, like, your lips are just a little bit upturned constantly.

[00:45:49] There was one actress who got it done and th- then she went on this talk show where her mother berated her for getting too many cosmetic procedures, ‘cause she got, like, over 20. Like, she spent well over $100,000 doing stuff to her face, and then she goes on this talk show and her mom’s like, “I don’t even recognize you anymore.”

[00:46:07] Like, “You have to stop. I’m, I’m going no contact if you keep doing this.” And she’s just sitting there, like, looking, like, y- you know, like pleasantly smiling and, and everyone’s like, “Why are you not reacting? Why are you not crying?” And she’s like, “Well, I, I am crying. It’s just that I got surgery to look like I’m constantly smiling.”

[00:46:26] So she looked really disingenuous. And the audience is of course horrified because that is horrifying.

[00:46:32] Malcolm Collins: But that’s all I think about. And here’s a funny

[00:46:34] Simone Collins: thing.

[00:46:34] Malcolm Collins: I added super stalk to RFAB.

[00:46:37] Simone Collins: Yay.

[00:46:38] Malcolm Collins: So now- Super stalk ... we have a feature that was suggested by Simone that allows you to stalk anyone and get all of their information, and it’s actually quite good- Saves me so much time

[00:46:45] at email finding.

[00:46:46] Simone Collins: Yeah? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because one thing that I’m constantly doing is stalking people online and finding their emails and learning about their backgrounds and their career and where they came from, and I have to do all the separate searches. I use a little bit of AI, a little bit of a specific type of Google search.

[00:47:00] You’re doing it for me. Now I just, I just go on super stalk with RFAB. Is it, is it live? Can I use it? Can I

[00:47:06] Malcolm Collins: try it? It’ll be live by the time we’re done filming this episode.

[00:47:08] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:47:08] Speaker 10: The other two features I am scrambling to get done by the time this goes live, or at least within a few hours of this going live, is Leaflet’s, , cool new thing for handling, , Vtubing, which is just like way better than anything I built. Our hardware thing, which for $45 allows you to buy a hardware app that you can flash with our software, basically your own personal Pip-Boy, and it’s got its own unique system that allows it to switch emotions, send you images, send you videos, you know, a lot more.

[00:47:39] We really made it to tutor our kids so we don’t have to deal with, you know, raising the little buggers. , And then the final thing is an API system that allows you to put in your own personal APIs for anything you want to do and not pay us. , It’s just a way for us to make less money. I don’t know why we made it.

[00:47:56] , I was inspired by Leaflet doing it, and I don’t [00:48:00] know, capitalism, maxing, peer pressure

[00:48:02] Malcolm Collins: And- I’m so

[00:48:02] Simone Collins: excited. Super stalk ... in

[00:48:04] Malcolm Collins: addition to super stalk, I’m now working on a fe- ... a feature that integrates email, text, WhatsApp, X, and well, everything.

[00:48:14] And people are like, “I, I think there’s probably already some sites that probably try to do this.”

[00:48:19] Simone Collins: There are. I mean, like Hootsuite for example, for people, like, managing a social media presence allows you to schedule and check across platforms. But I don’t wanna pay for it. And I imagine it’s pretty... I, I always, like, I’ve tried free trials of it and I don’t really like it, and then there’s there were a bunch of others that I’d used i- in the past that may have gone defunct now.

[00:48:38] The problem is that I’m sure a lot of people can relate to this. This is something I struggle with, is that everyone has... Like, there are some people we o- only talk with on Discord, and then there’s the only on Signal person, and there’s the only on X version person, and then there’s only, only email people, only text people, only WhatsApp people.

[00:48:54] I’m just like every day I use this routine using the comment browser with Perplexity to, like, open this, like, long list of URLs so I can check everything, the LinkedIn messages, the Instagram DMs. I’m so freaking tired.

[00:49:10] Malcolm Collins: So you’ll be able to do that at the same place where you can generate not safe for work images and videos.

[00:49:15] Simone Collins: Yeah. And the character looks like- You can get e- it’s a one-stop shop. You can do everything you need to. You can be you can do, you can goon and grind- Yeah ... all in one place. The,

[00:49:24] Malcolm Collins: the engine that searches every not safe for work drawn image gallery at once. Oh,

[00:49:28] Simone Collins: yeah. I tested that on this drive to New York we were once on, and I was like, “How effective is this search system?”

[00:49:34] And so I decided to search cat girl and hamburger ‘cause I was like it c- it couldn’t possibly... I will never, I will never look at a hamburger the same way again. Then I looked up excavator. Now excavators are ruined for me.

[00:49:48] Malcolm Collins: It works. The, the, the big thing that it does is it’s strictly better for looking at not safe for work images than not safe for work image sites themselves- Yeah

[00:49:56] because it has a button that allows you to download an entire gallery at once and zips it for you.

[00:50:01] Simone Collins: It’s incredibly impressive. It, it’s, it, it is deeply incre- and you can even do a safe for work versions of this, right? I, I think you can turn off NSFW.

[00:50:09] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you can turn off, but it’s not gonna be as good.

[00:50:11] Yeah,

[00:50:11] Simone Collins: so like if I just wanted to find, like, fan art, I could just do that.

[00:50:14] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Like, it combines, like, you know, Pixiv and DeviantArt and, and Danbooru and all the other, you know, sites.

[00:50:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I was shocked by how effective that was. And again, I am completely, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat a hamburger again.

[00:50:26] I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go buy an excavator again.

[00:50:31] Octavian Collins: Okay.

[00:50:31] Simone Collins: All right, I’m not gonna think about it. But what Malcolm said to me this morning was “Well, Simone, like, what are ways that your life could be made easier, you know, in theory with AI?” And I gave him my super stock thing and my I can’t deal with all the DMs thing.

[00:50:46] Can you guys let us know? Like, i- if there are any facets of your life that could be improved with AI, if we hear about it from enough people, Malcolm will just build it. He built my super stock.

[00:50:56] Malcolm Collins: Like- This happens from Leaflet Stream. Somebody on a Leaflet Stream was randomly like, “Can you build a, a, a DM narration helper that makes it easier to DM games?”

[00:51:05] And I was like, “Yeah, sure. I can build an, an AI DM assist.” Yeah ...

[00:51:08] Simone Collins: recipe generator. And he did this, like, I was cutting apples downstairs for the kids ‘cause our childcare fell through today, and, like, then I come up with apples and smoothies, and he’s like, “I built super stock.”

[00:51:19] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the email integration- I feel so inadequate

[00:51:20] thing is gonna take ages ‘cause I gotta test every single integration and make sure it works. And some of them I have to get around, like, the developer’s own rules to do this. So I’ll basically be taking parts of their stuff on your computer and hijacking it.

[00:51:34] Speaker 11: I told him But I forgot all what it looked like. It’s so good. We can come in early tomorrow. You want the sheep movie? Watch it while I make dinner, buddy. Yes.

[00:51:49] Speaker 13: Andy, are you, are you okay now?

In this conversation, Malcolm Collins sits down with Basic Logic — one of the fastest-growing right-wing YouTube channels — to discuss his rapid rise, Christian conversion story, critique of boomer conservatism, and the unique challenges facing Gen Z.

Topics include: how Basic Logic went from stubborn atheist to Christian (and converted his friend), why personal religious experiences aren’t enough for most people, the failures of modern churches, the lack of real mentors, dating as a Christian in your 20s, new right vs. old conservatism, and rebuilding culture through truth-seeking.

A raw, high-signal discussion on philosophy, faith, generational collapse, and what it takes to actually change minds in 2025.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, everyone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are here with Basic Logic. And if you don’t know who Basic Logic is, he, within the right-wing YouTuber space, is probably one of the fastest growing channels I’ve ever seen. Y- I think in just a few months you went from something like 20,000 to over 100,000 subscribers.

[00:00:20] And your content is really solid, like short form both data and philosophy heavy. Not that I agree with everything, but it’s definitely like thematically aligned with a lot of the topics on this channel. And I decided to reach out ‘cause I always try to have conversations with anyone in this wider intellectual space because we’re all having what I sort of call an asynchronous conversation with the world, with our watchers, with everything like that where a lot of us are watching a lot of other creators out there.

[00:00:52] We’re getting ideas from them. We’re spinning those ideas into something new. And so, bringing people together to have these conversations can be really interesting. What I wanted to start with is what was the context of starting the channel for you? What was your goal with the channel, and how did that goal evolve as you’ve gone on?

[00:01:14] Basic Logic: Th- thank you for having me. The way I started this channel was as a dare actually. So it’s- I’m not the only person on this channel. My friend is an editor for this channel, and we, we co-own the channel. It’s 50/50.

[00:01:26] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:01:27] Basic Logic: And the relationship I had with this friend for a very long time is that I like to go deep into certain topics.

[00:01:32] In particularly, I converted to Christianity some years ago, and he was the first person I started talking about to Chris- about Christianity with. And then he converted shortly after. I think like a week or two after I converted.

[00:01:43] Simone Collins: Whoa.

[00:01:44] Basic Logic: And so we’ve always had this dynamic of I go deep into a certain topic, and then I explain it in a very concise way.

[00:01:51] And he started telling me, like pestering me, like, “Man, you have to write a book about this because everyone I talk to takes like an hour to explain something simple.” And h- he has ADHD, and he doesn’t like, you know, sitting down for an hour for something that can be explained in three minutes if you really focus.

[00:02:08] And then at some point I was go- I was getting bored with my own personal life. I had some spare time to kill because s- there were some professional ambitions that I had that didn’t go as intended. Which had to do with me start, trying to start a startup out of college. But then the people who I was relying on, they didn’t really follow up with the promises that they made.

[00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

[00:02:29] Basic Logic: And so I had some spare time left over as, as I was waiting, and I was bored, and I was like, “Okay, let’s make a video.” And we posted the video, and it was zero views for like 12 hours. And then afterwards it started getting some traction, and then started getting a lot more traction. It’s like, okay, let, let’s try this seriously.

[00:02:45] And so now we are at at the time of recording, we are at 96,900 subscribers. It hasn’t even been 11 months yet.

[00:02:53] Malcolm Collins: So- That is completely demoralizing. I, I’ve been doing this for every day, an hour edited episode for what, th- three years at this point, Simone? Yeah, it’s three years. I think so, yeah ... and, and we’re, we’re at 75,000.

[00:03:10] I mean, we’ll probably hit 100 before- The end of the four-year period. I know it took Nutsoner four years to get to 100,000, so you’re doing incredibly well. But I see why when I look at the form of your content which is as, as, as quick and with nice animation to the point of a philosophical concept, which I am just terrible at doing, right?

[00:03:32] Like, it would take me so long to create videos that short. But that’s also why I’m glad to have you on here so people can get the wider context on you, because that’s not gonna come through on your videos. The, the big question I would have is what convinced you to convert to Christianity so much so that when you talked to your friend, he also converted?

[00:03:50] Like, what was the argument or the trepidation you had beforehand?

[00:03:57] Basic Logic: Well, there was no argument. I was an extremely [00:04:00] stubborn atheist before. I respected Christianity. I, I started studying Christianity probably an hour... No, not an hour, a year or two before I converted, because I was realizing, okay, everything’s going wrong in society.

[00:04:12] The Christians seem to have some good ideas. Let me learn from them. And I did, and I thought a lot of the wisdom there was very good. However, I, I wasn’t convinced until I, I kinda had to be convinced by a How can I say this? I’m, I’m not even sure if I should say this, because every time I do, it gets a lot of people like demoralized in trying to convert.

[00:04:35] In the sense that I had the religious experience, and that’s what finally converted me.

[00:04:39] Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

[00:04:40] Basic Logic: And the reason I don’t always share that is because the common response I get when I, when I tell them that I have a religious experience, like, “Okay, I’ll convert when I have one.” It’s like, great. But

[00:04:50] Malcolm Collins: how did you convince your friend?

[00:04:51] Did he have a religious experience

[00:04:52] Basic Logic: or did he convert? He did not have, no. So very quickly I realized I can’t just tell people I had a religious experience and then they’re gonna convert. That doesn’t make any damn sense.

[00:05:01] Malcolm Collins: Hmm.

[00:05:01] Basic Logic: But after all these

[00:05:02] Malcolm Collins: years of- By the way, I w- I wanna say how much I appreciate th- that was immediately obvious to you.

[00:05:07] Yeah. You do not know, because I also converted from being an atheist for ages, how many times a Christian would just be like, “Well, you know, God just started talking to me. But that’s how I know. And that’s why you should know too.” And I’m like, “But he doesn’t talk to me.” Like, what are you ta- ... that, your personal religious experience doesn’t, does not impact my belief, right?

[00:05:28] So I really appreciate that that was obvious to you. But go on.

[00:05:32] Basic Logic: Yeah, so like people from different religions have their own religious experience, or they claim to. People- Yeah ... can also go insane, and people can go temporarily insane. So it did cross my mind, “Hey, maybe I just went crazy for like one morning.

[00:05:43] That might have happened.” So I decided, okay, I’ve already been studying this religion. I like the ideas. Let’s actually go deeper into the philosophy of it. Let’s see if I can understand to prove it or debunk it. And this was like my fixation for one or two weeks, I don’t remember exactly, where all I cared about doing was studying the Bi-

[00:06:00] I hadn’t told anyone that I had converted by this point. All my fixation was on just studying the Bible itself, learning about what theologians believed. I would be listening to theology podcasts while doing everything or anything. And so I, I ended up adopting like a mix of beliefs of different Protestant denominations especially, but I also respect the Catholics and the Orthodox.

[00:06:21] I’m not militantly Protestant.

[00:06:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah Like, like- And so I, I understood that ... like we, we are, we have a reputation for being, so. But okay, so that’s really w- I, I find it interesting that you were able to get so much from studying theologians. So I guess like this actually makes sense to go into my history on this.

[00:06:39] I really enjoyed, when I was an atheist Christian radio. And I listened to tons of Christian radio. But what’s really funny is if you’re super into Christian radio, which is probably not good for me, I, I approached this wrong you get really into arguments that are never gonna matter to an atheist’s conversion.

[00:07:03] Like pre- versus post-millennialism, right? Like-

[00:07:06] Basic Logic: Right ...

[00:07:07] Malcolm Collins: that, that, yeah?

[00:07:09] Basic Logic: Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re talking about.

[00:07:11] Malcolm Collins: And I would get super into like all of the arguments on both sides of that ‘cause I just loved the lore, I guess. But I never came in on the more practical things that I had never had somebody sit me down and give me good arguments for.

[00:07:29] Actually, this could be a fun thing for us to go into in this, is how would you today... First, how did you convert your friend, and how would you go to convert your younger self before the experience? Because there are so many tactics that I think a lot of Christians seem to default to when they’re attempting to convert people.

[00:07:50] And they don’t, like i- it’s as they c- do n- does not pass go. And I think one of the big ones that we sort of touched on is not just personal religious experiences, but [00:08:00] claiming that X group of religious people say they saw a miracle or that some miraculous thing happened in the Bible. And then obviously you’re atheist, it’s just gonna be like, “Yes, but the Muslim who just tried to convert me said the same thing, and the Buddhist who just tried to convert me said the same thing.”

[00:08:15] Like, how would you, how, yeah, how, how did you crack that nut?

[00:08:20] Basic Logic: Well, it’s tailored to each person. People respond to different things. You asked me about how would I convert myself. I think the most important thing to have done to myself when I was an atheist would be to intellectually humiliate me.

[00:08:32] Because I was way too prideful. I, every interaction I had with Christians was incredibly poor. So every Christian I’ve met outside of my family was, to put it lightly, an idiot. And I had never actually heard the gospel before I had become Christian because every Christian I ever talked to, the only thing they cared about was debating evolution, and they had very poor arguments to debate evolution was the issue.

[00:08:56] So that was my sole experience of Christians outside my family, and it was not very convincing. And so every time I had one of those experiences, I became even more prideful in my, my beliefs because I was like, “Well, this is what these idiots believe. I’m not an idiot like them.” Now it depends, of course, with certain people.

[00:09:15] I’ve had people where you could use whatever logic you wanted, it wouldn’t work, but if you play the right song, then, then you have some effect, which is why I also criticize contemporary churches so much of their hip hop nonsense, where they’re just making an inferior version of modern music and like that’s not gonna reach the people we’re trying to reach with Christian music

[00:09:36] Malcolm Collins: It’s actually funny that you mention songs as having an impact on people’s beliefs.

[00:09:41] Because one thing that’s become very popular in our wider community recently, and I don’t know how tapped into this you are. Are, are you tapped into stuff like the Skybrow Cinematic Universe and, like, all the conservative AI music that’s being generated these days?

[00:09:57] Basic Logic: I’ve heard that there’s been some AI music generated, especially from, like, conservative and religious angles.

[00:10:01] I’ve never seen it or heard it.

[00:10:03] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I’ll send you some. I- I’m so into it. Because it... What they do is they collect different conservative influencers, and they have them as, like, figures in it. Or some of them just do their own, like, things. But I remember really having my mind changed because of one of the songs, and it was mostly just because it made me feel culturally normal to have this point.

[00:10:24] And it’s Leaflet’s song about college being a scam.

[00:10:27] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:10:27] Malcolm Collins: And I had felt that college was a scam for a while. I had felt like the math just doesn’t add up. But for whatever reason, hearing it in a song, I just walked away being like, “Wait, that’s so obvious now. Why was I, why was I over intellectualizing it?”

[00:10:43] But I think you probably mean even in the context of, like, music that, that is transcending for people. Like, a lot of people in... You go to, like, a, a Roman Mass or you go to Evening Song, and- Evening Song ... that is so, impactful to an individual, they can have a religious-like experience. Is that, is that more what you’re thinking, or?

[00:11:00] Basic Logic: Yeah, yeah. It, it’s along those lines.

[00:11:03] Simone Collins: One thing I’m curiou- base- based on that, actually is you’re, you’re sort of talking about people’s standard of evidence, right? For one person, their standard of evidence may be a logical argument. For another person, it may be a religious experience or an ex- a very emotional experience.

[00:11:18] Like, I listened to a song, and it made me feel a certain way, and therefore this thing must be right. Do you try to create arguments that are designed for different standards of evidence, like emotion or logic or personal experience or studies or other things? Or do you just kind of try to hit the most commonly encountered arguments?

[00:11:38] Like, what’s your approach to presenting information?

[00:11:41] Basic Logic: S- since I was an atheist, I, I pretty much know the atheist arguments. Mm. And even further context, I grew up as an atheist, but my family and I had to leave our home countries and go to a Muslim country for a while for work. And I really did not like Islam, so I was very into, like, anti-theist apologetics.

[00:11:59] Simone Collins: [00:12:00] Mm.

[00:12:00] Basic Logic: Mm. And so I, I had plenty of experience on that. So the... I d- I never put focus on that because it’s second nature by this point. And then as for focusing on, on my particular arguments, I know what would work on me. I like the rationalist arguments, but the truth is, not everyone thinks So this, this goes beyond just religion.

[00:12:22] It goes on to politics and the likes. A lot of people who are more intellectually inclined like rational arguments and the likes, they assume everyone thinks like a 130 IQ European. And that is just not reality. It’s even the reason why I dropped my libertarian leanings, is because I realized this, this would work fantastic if everyone was a 130 IQ European.

[00:12:45] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:12:45] Basic Logic: Yeah. But th- that’s not the world we live in, and so some things have to be adapted. Yeah. It’s also why I took a, like a lot of stronger stance against usury, for example. Because previously I would think, “Just don’t be stupid. Don’t sign this ridiculous contract with an insane interest rate.”

[00:13:00] It’s like, okay, well, some people are stupid. Does that mean that we have the right to use the government to force them into being de facto slaves? No.

[00:13:07] Malcolm Collins: Mm. And if people are offended by his take on mentioning European in this particular context, I would strongly point you to our episode on why Arab countries are almost never democracies, where we point out that for, like, centuries, almost no Arab country has ever been a lasting democracy and almost every Northern European country has.

[00:13:30] And so for whatever reason, and you, y- you can, you can have a thou- thousand different reasons why this may be the case, different populations... And somebody could be like, “Oh, that’s Muslim culture.” But then we point out in non-Arab Muslim cultures, it’s not infrequent that they have democracies. So, y- you could say, well, in some groups, in some cultures, things just operate differently and different types of societal structures work at different levels.

[00:13:55] And this is one of the big problems that I think that we’re having in Europe and the Americas right now, is we are importing a lot of people that seem to operate very well under systems that look nothing like our system. Like, if you go to the Middle East, there’s a number of countries that are clean and operate pretty well, but they are the least democratic of the states, like the UAE and Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

[00:14:21] Whereas the most democratic of the states are often the, the, the most dangerous and least well-managed. So yeah, I just think that’s a, that’s a good point there.

[00:14:30] Basic Logic: Yep.

[00:14:31] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Were you conservative before you converted to Christianity? Or- Yes. Okay. And h- were you always conservative, or was that something that sort of happened to you over time or through cultural battles or whatever? Yeah.

[00:14:45] Basic Logic: I think the closest I’ve ever been to not being conservative was when I was, like, six or seven and I heard my uncle lost his job, and I was like, “How could a company fire someone?

[00:14:56] It, it ruins their life.” And that, that was the closest I’ve ever come to being a leftist. From that moment on, like from eight years old onwards, I, I was pretty dead set on on right-wing, even though for a large portion I didn’t r- really understand it. By the time I was in high school, it was just straight up, like, Daily Wire talking points for me.

[00:15:17] And then it took, like, a couple more years for me to grow out of that and realize, okay Daily Wire is perhaps not the answer to everything. Th-

[00:15:25] Malcolm Collins: oh, that’s actually a, an interesting point, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, is the wider cultural change in modern conservatism that we’ve seen where the boomer conservatism, which ironically, you know, I, I think the Daily Wire is one of the perfect avatars of despite Ben Shapiro being, you know, younger, he sort of got captured by boomers when he was a kid, and he’s never been able to escape that mindset.

[00:15:49] Where boomer conservatism is really sort of dying out as an intellectual philosophy and this entirely new type or flavor [00:16:00] of conservatism is beginning to replace it. And w- what are your thoughts on that a- a- as you’ve seen this happen or ... Yeah.

[00:16:07] Basic Logic: Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. And it, it’s been extremely beneficial.

[00:16:10] Like, people I had met early on that were diehard leftists, when they realized they’d, that the right wasn’t just boomer conservatism, have started now going more to the center, more to the right. Boomer conservatism is just so fake. They conserve nothing.

[00:16:24] Malcolm Collins: You ... They, they suck. They su- One of the statistics that I was watching recently we went over an episode that haven’t gone live yet, is we were looking at pro-Muslim sentiment in the United States.

[00:16:36] A lot of people are aware of this. It jumped up after 9/11. What people are unaware of is that the demographic it jumped up most within were very conservative people very conservative Republicans. Whereas if you look at the new generation of conservative after the October 11th attacks pro-Palestine sentiment jumped up among leftists, but it didn’t go up at all among conservatives.

[00:16:59] Like we’re not falling for this nonsense anymore where it’s like, oh, no, victim blaming. Somebody might be mad at Muslims because one group of Muslims did something

[00:17:11] Basic Logic: Yeah, no, I, I agree with you on that. I think one of the traps that we were taught growing up, especially by Daily Wire types, is that you had to be on team Israel or you had to be on team Palestine. And my- Yeah ... my personal experience is obviously excluding the innocents on both sides both sides suck.

[00:17:28] Like, both sides are really, really bad. And I’m not sure which one I hate more. And I... If it was possible for s- two sides to lose a war, I would like them both to lose. That would be my position.

[00:17:41] Malcolm Collins: That’s definitely... Well, I mean, that’s definitely a sentiment that’s shared among a lot of people. I, it, it’s not one that we share as aggressively.

[00:17:49] But I mean, our, our basic position is we like people who are economically and technologically productive and appear to be moving civilization forwards and who also fight back when people dick with them. But I also understand that Israel has really manipulated the United States to do things that are not in our best interest many times.

[00:18:09] And so I understand the sentiment there. I, I, I, I’m wondering how you see, when you moved away from, like, Daily Wire thinking, was the number one thing that you moved away from, was it the Israel thing, or were there other things about boomer conservatism you found toxic?

[00:18:26] Basic Logic: There, there was a lot that was toxic about boomer conservatism.

[00:18:29] A lot of it was things that you don’t really notice early on because they seem to be, like, champions against woke ideology, and in reality it was this false, like, controlled opposition where we’re going to oppose woke ideology, but we’re gonna let in gay marriage. We’re going to let in feminism in, in our churches.

[00:18:48] It, it seemed like they were making a lot of compromises with the woke crowd so they could show how reasonable they were being, and then it seemed like every couple, every four years, th- the conservative party was more liberal. And now I’m, I’m assuming probably 40 years, well, obviously 40 years ago Democrats are way more...

[00:19:06] Well, 40 years ago liberals were way more conservative than the modern conservatives And so- Yeah ... it, it seemed like a controlled opposition to slowly push the overtone window over and over towards the side of insanity.

[00:19:19] Simone Collins: We did a whole- So it all- ... a whole episode on that. Like, it, it seems to be pretty well.

[00:19:23] And well, people know. People have done full, like, essays on that. One thing I wanted to ask you though if I may I’m really curious about how your life has changed since you converted to Christianity. Like, and also what, what does being actively Christian look like to you? How active are you in your, like with your local church?

[00:19:40] Or is, is your religious experience one more about heavy biblical study and prayer, and less about engagement with the community? Because when I hear about people converting, it can mean so many different things. Yeah. Like, there are people who convert without even believing anything. That’s not you.

[00:19:55] You’re very different. But does that, this mean that you’re also participating in a community and your life and schedule [00:20:00] are totally different too?

[00:20:01] Basic Logic: Well, a lot of things changed. I really wanted to participate in the community. I joined the church. I did all the things to, to be able to join church. So the place I live, I have two options.

[00:20:11] I can be Catholic, or I can be these modern evangelical types.

[00:20:15] Malcolm Collins: Mm.

[00:20:15] Basic Logic: And I, I wasn’t Catholic. I don’t hold a grudge against Catholics. I don’t think it’s a bad denomination, but I don’t agree with it. So that was off the list. And then I thought, “Okay, well, non-denominational, I guess that will work. I’ll go to a non-denominational church, and we’ll see how that, how all that goes.”

[00:20:30] So that is a place for all Christians. It was not. Mm. It was just not. It was-

[00:20:35] Malcolm Collins: Was

[00:20:35] Basic Logic: it, like,

[00:20:35] Malcolm Collins: super woke, or like, what do you... whi- what, what was your take on

[00:20:38] Basic Logic: the non-denominational? It, it wasn’t super woke. It wasn’t super woke. But it had problems. It allowed modern infections to get in very easily. It’s the type of boomer conservative, conservatism they were criticizing.

[00:20:49] They allowed feminism to get into the church. They allowed a lot of other issues to get into the church. The pastor only gave sermons on things that were very obviously bad in the political climate. So, like, only, “We’re going to talk badly about gender ideology, but we’re not gonna talk about how the men in our church don’t run the household, and actually they’re led by their women.

[00:21:11] We’re not gonna talk about that.” So only the obvious things that everyone already agreed with, nothing that could offend the congregation.

[00:21:20] Malcolm Collins: Mm.

[00:21:20] Basic Logic: Yeah. There was one time where I wanted to give a Bible study. So I was helping out the, some of the, like, my fellow young adults in the group. I wanted to give a Bible study on Genesis, particularly the curses of Adam and Eve, and they were very happy for me to do the Bible study on the curse of Adam.

[00:21:37] They were not happy with me doing the curse of Eve. Yes. And so in the end, I, I just got censored, and it was a decision behind closed doors, and they, they just kept delaying. They didn’t even let me know that they canceled it until it was, like, the day prior of c- of course. I was, I was planning on teach the curse of Adam and Eve to about 12 people when they censored me.

[00:22:01] I ended up making it into a video, so instead I taught it to, like, 120,000. So- ... it worked out in the end.

[00:22:08] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:22:08] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I think this shows why boomer conservatism has been hit so hard and has had such a hard time reacting, is the mechanisms of control that they built were so petty, low-level, and internet stupid that the moment people saw around them o- or found a way to you know, circumvent them like you did the impact is so large.

[00:22:38] And it’s a position that young people are put in when they see the boomers. And I think the feminism thing is such a great point, because that reminds me of, like, the vague boomer conservatism that we so would’ve seen with, like, Ben Shapiro always trying to prop up his sister and stuff like that.

[00:22:54] And like, oh, we need a, a woman’s voice. We need a, They’re, they’re still hook, line, and sinker swallowing, oh, you know, you wouldn’t wanna say people are different because that’s racist, and we don’t want anyone like that in our communities. And it’s like, but they f*****g are. Everyone can see it but yeah, I guess it’s the, the pushing back, and I had to contextualize that and I need to think about it a little bit.

[00:23:20] The thing that really changed was the shiblet list of rules of things we were supposed to pretend mattered or were important without question. And the glee with which the new right, because what the new right really began to do in response to that is we began to only listen to people who we, who, who validated themselves through showing that they’re willing to push back against these arbitrary rules.

[00:23:52] And you know, I was on a show recently and they were like, “Malcolm, how could you have these racist looking titles?” And I was, “Yeah, but you watched the episode. It wasn’t racist, right?” [00:24:00] And they’re like, “Well, not technically,” you know? And it’s like, well, okay. So I need to authenticate myself with the crowd that has come to distrust people who try to play too aggressively within this very tight ruled format.

[00:24:16] And I think you do a pre- I, I don’t know, is this something that you actively think about when you’re putting your videos together? Yes. Yeah. Or do you not actively think about sort of, this envelope pushing?

[00:24:24] Basic Logic: I think about it all the time. I constantly have similar comments, comments as you where it’s like, “How could you make this thumbnail?

[00:24:30] It, it’s so terrible. How could you talk about these topics like this?” And it’s like, man, you can see the argument in the video. My videos are short. They’re three minutes in the past. Now they’re five minutes, going to eight minutes because I want that YouTube ad revenue. So it’s not that much of an effort to actually watch the video and make sure...

[00:24:49] And also, my, my videos aren’t that clickbait. Like, my thumbnails are pretty accurate to what I’m talking about.

[00:24:56] Malcolm Collins: No, your, your videos have, have never been particularly clickbaity from what I’ve seen. Yeah. You’re, you’re typically ... Our, our videos are ... Well, no, we don’t really do clickbait either.

[00:25:04] Oh.

[00:25:04] No, we do good, spicy hooks, but it’s always on the topic of the episode.

[00:25:09] Simone Collins: That’s true. Yeah, we don’t, we don’t, like ... Well, we don’t bait and switch. So that is true. One thing I’m curious too is I, I w- I mean, I’m assuming you’re, like, in your 20s ‘cause you’re, you’re like other young- I am ... adults. Yeah, okay. So of people in their 20s, what do you think are sort of the biggest generational challenges facing that generation, and what do you see as the most important solutions, and do you actually think a large swath of people will adopt those solutions?

[00:25:36] Basic Logic: The biggest challenge for my generation, and it’s not even close, is the lack of reliable mentors where- Oh,

[00:25:43] Simone Collins: wow. I never actually ... It’s, like, like, 85th on my list of things I would have expected.

[00:25:50] Basic Logic: No. No, this is like, this has been an issue constantly, where we go to our education system, our teachers are either lying or stupid.

[00:25:58] Or we go to our church, our elders are either again lying or they’re stupid. Mm. It, it’s like this constant issue. Mm. And it’s not ... A lot of people argue that Gen Z is rebellious and hostile to authority, and to be entirely honest, I don’t see it that way. What I find is from the moment we were turned five and went to school, every person that we were supposed to trust has not done their job.

[00:26:22] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:26:22] Basic Logic: And I, I talk about the sentiment of other people because it’s, it’s a rough thing growing up in a difficult world and you not be able to trust mentors. I don’t, I don’t think I know a single Gen Z person who doesn’t wish they had a wiser mentor of an older generation that would have guided them consistently in their lives.

[00:26:41] We create these online substitutes because that’s really all we have. Like, if you don’t have it in your family, you’re just not gonna get it at all. I’ve had it in my family thankfully so they were able to guide me through some of the steps. But you need y- you need more than just your family to, like, really develop all your skills and be prepared for this.

[00:27:00] And so w- we’ve reactively created a more independent system where we use online proxies as mentors, but it’s not, it’s not the same thing. It’s not real. Another thing that Gen Z really bases itself on is on stories that we tell through literature and video games and the likes, and naturally we fol- follow the hero’s journey.

[00:27:21] And every part of the hero’s journey has the mentor figure that shows up and he shows you the ropes. Mm. And we don’t have that. That’s not in our hero’s journey.

[00:27:30] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:27:32] Malcolm Collins: I find something that’s pretty interesting about your generation of coming into this is one of the things you used to hear a lot from people is, like, “Oh, I got into this from Jordan Peterson.”

[00:27:44] And I, I haven’t heard that once from you yet. Well, you were, you were saying something?

[00:27:48] Basic Logic: Oh, sorry. I was saying, yeah, Jordan Peterson, that I liked Jordan Peterson for a time, but I did not come into this because of him.

[00:27:56] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:27:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I’ve learned that he really is the one who sort of [00:28:00] was more a bridge for boomers into the new right than a bridge for the youth into the new right, because-

[00:28:06] Simone Collins: Maybe Gen X and older millennials.

[00:28:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, Gen X and older millennials. When I think about your generation, the, the right-leaning individuals, the other one, you know, we’ve had on our show is G- G Do You Know What of Alt-Hist, Ruby Ard?

[00:28:16] Basic Logic: Yeah, yeah. I do. I follow his stuff actually. Yeah.

[00:28:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he’s, he’s very young as well. Not, not quite as young as you, but very young as well.

[00:28:22] And he is he also didn’t come to the right because of, like, Jor- he came to it from just looking at society crumbling. Like, that was... I, I guess that’s also been a, a motivator for you, or that- It is ... that has

[00:28:35] Basic Logic: not been? That’s why I studied Christianity prior to converting. That was... It’s hard to avoid the issues here, because we can see it growing up.

[00:28:43] Like, we were told, “Go, go do well in school, get your degree, go to a good college, get a good job. Along the way in college, go get a girlfriend, get married, and that’ll be your life.” But that isn’t true, and that hasn’t been true for a very long time, and we knew that, but it’s all we had. Like, it’s all we could do, right?

[00:29:01] We were told that this is the way to go. That’s what every adult was pushing us towards. It’s all we could do, but we knew it wasn’t happening. And so at some point, at, at random point for some people, some later, some earlier, it was like, “Okay, I need to figure something else out here.” And we weren’t at the point where we had enough life experience where we could figure it out on our own, so we had to go onto online sources.

[00:29:25] Jordan Peterson helped some people I know, but usually they were already conservative. It was my generation. Like, if you’re already conservative- Yeah ... then you like Jordan Peterson. If you weren’t, you hated him. That, that, that’s how it was. The actual journey from left-wing to right-wing has been more from new right figures.

[00:29:42] I actually f- I’m not familiar with the, with the work of Nick Fuentes, for example, but I know Nick Fuentes ironically got some left-wingers to turn right.

[00:29:51] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:29:52] Basic Logic: So things along those

[00:29:53] Malcolm Collins: lines. Yeah. Well, and a lot of right-wingers to turn left unfortunately. Yeah,

[00:29:56] Basic Logic: true.

[00:29:57] Malcolm Collins: What?

[00:29:58] Simone Collins: Wait, so you know

[00:29:58] Basic Logic: he- I, I’ve heard of that as well.

[00:30:00] I’ve heard of that as well. Yeah. Yeah, I mean the- I’m not familiar enough to comment. I know some of the clips, but I’ve never actually like sat down and listened to his stuff.

[00:30:07] Malcolm Collins: He’s a, he’s an entertaining producer, but I think counterproductive to the wider movement, a- at least in terms of getting votes.

[00:30:12] But I mean, obviously he’s, he’s done what... Like I thought his interview with what’s his face, the guy, the UK guy, Simone, do you remember? W- did, did he... He interviewed- Oh, Piers Morgan ... Piers Morgan. He interviewed us. Yeah. Was like very well done on his part. Like- Hmm ... he, he did such a good job- Yeah,

[00:30:28] Basic Logic: I, I saw that one.

[00:30:29] That, that was excellent ...

[00:30:30] Malcolm Collins: vis-a-vis Piers Morgan that, that it, it made Piers Morgan just look like an absolute clown. But I think it also showed, Well, actually, d- it comes to the topic of the, the big moment that for a lot of people when like Piers Morgan was trying to imply that like he, he’s not sleeping around, and therefore he’s of lesser character.

[00:30:48] And obviously- ... Nick is like, “What are you do-...” Like, to your average conservative these days, it’s like, “What are you talking about?” Like, what... He’s, he’s less moral because he’s not having recreational sex with lots of women? The, the, the just like the absurdity of that on its face but that is so boomer conservative that they would actually think, and I think a lot of boomer conservatives would actually just think to say that.

[00:31:10] Like, they’re so ... They haven’t thought to question ... I guess this is ... Okay, I’m beginning to understand it now. The urban monoculture, as we often call it, or this sort of like leftist net around society, created cultural norms that our movement is based on questioning every single norm or idea that comes in front of us because so many rules in society turned out to be wrong.

[00:31:35] Like when I was younger y- you at a young age, this might be crazy to hear, but you used to think somebody was like m- a mentally ill tinfoil hat person if they said, “There is a secret network of pedophiles that is un- ... usually influential in American government and politics. And now everybody knows and agrees that that happened.

[00:31:57] Yeah ... and or if [00:32:00] you said, “Oh my God, the Southern Poverty Law Center is the KKK’s largest donor,” you’d be like, people would laugh you out of the room. Or, “The water is turning the frogs gay.” Well, even with that one, I even back when everybody acted like that was a crazy thing to say, I was like, “But frogs are a bellwether species.

[00:32:16] You would absolutely expect that. And amphibians actually change gender quite frequently. This is something we should look at.” Like, I remember even with that one I was like, “Why are you guys so mad about that?” Like, that, that actually seems like a a useful thing to, ... But where were they going? But yeah, they, they, they haven’t like aggressively challenged those sorts of norms, and it makes it so hard to have a conversation or be part of the chat with them because they, they haven’t engaged with these ideas as aggressively.

[00:32:45] It reminds me you know, we have a, a reporter who was doing a piece on us, and they were you know, mocking th- th- or you know, they were saying, “Oh, isn’t it so bad that at the White House thing, like what’s-his-face said Michelle Obama used to be a man,” right? Like, is, is, is a trans person. And I was like, “Well, I mean, I haven’t looked into this conspiracy yet, so like I can’t take a stance on it.”

[00:33:08] And they were very offended that I, I wouldn’t just immediately say that’s a horrible thing to say. Yeah. I’m like, “But too many of those horrible things to say turned out to be true.”

[00:33:21] Basic Logic: Yeah, it’s, it’s been a shock even for me it’s been a shock all the way through. Like, I knew things were bad. I wasn’t expecting, like, this level.

[00:33:29] In fairness, after I got more into history and I started learning things from more, like, a Christian lens as well, applying that Christian lens to history, it became a little bit more self-evident that this isn’t new. It’s actually happened several times in history, and this is just an yet another repeat.

[00:33:44] We’ve had transgender ideology in the Muslim empires in the Middle Ages, for example, which is insane to think about. Yep. Pedophile rings running the government has been a thing since ancient Greece. So I don’t know. It, it’s... When... The more I look into history, the more obvious how absurd the lies of modernity are, and the more annoyed I get at my educators who were clearly just not...

[00:34:10] I, I don’t know what they were thinking. Like, some of them, majority of them are probably stupid. A lot of them I, I would argue are malicious, frankly, ‘cause at some point-

[00:34:18] Malcolm Collins: Well, let’s, let’s talk about that, because you’re a young person in today’s world. How did you determine what was true?

[00:34:27] Basic Logic: Well, I, the way I determined things were true, back when I was an atheist my philosophy wasn’t very consistent.

[00:34:32] So things were true if they made sense to me, and I thought myself very logical. Hmm. And that did serve me decently well. I was surrounded by people who were hardcore leftists and pushing leftist propaganda. So I’m not American, but I went to an American high school, an international American high school.

[00:34:51] And there every single professor, every poster, every person was just pushing constant woke ideology nonstop. And the only news sources I was allowed to use or credit were leftist news sources. And so I got pretty good at, like, reading between the lines of how the left lies, and knowing how they speak so I could actually get the real news, right?

[00:35:13] And that ended up being a very useful skill. I use it even nowadays when I’m having biblical debates, because one thing you’ll notice with Christians often is that when they wanna prove their point they’ll just bombard you with a bunch of verses from the Bible. And if you have some verses, it’s like a contest between who has the most verses supporting their point, and that gets very ridiculous very quickly because you’re effectively arguing the Bible is contradicting itself at that point.

[00:35:39] You’re just making- ... a list of how many verses don’t contradict me versus how many don’t contradict you. So I’ve gotten in the habit of using whatever verses my opponent uses in a debate against me and against my point, I will use that same verse for my argument, and that’s something I started doing first in high school in politics and the like.[00:36:00]

[00:36:02] Malcolm Collins: That’s, I, I, I think that’s really useful. And what I have found in terms of the Bible in, in, in understanding it when people will make arguments against me is it’s always just, well, I take the, whatever they said to me, and then I try to read it in context and look up all the other ways it could be translated, and all of a sudden it makes perfect sense.

[00:36:21] And I was very s- that, that was one of the things that surprised me most about a- as you said, like, everyone I talked to about the Bible when I was a kid had what I call a Sunday school view of Christianity.

[00:36:34] Basic Logic: Yeah.

[00:36:34] Malcolm Collins: And when I went back and began to read the Bible as an adult with a translator next to me, like what, what does this word mean in other places that I was then like, “Oh, okay.

[00:36:46] Like, this, this actually makes a lot of sense in context.” And I was really shocked by that. I also find the other thing that’s very an alignment about both of our stories, and it’s something that I think Christians can use more when they’re thinking about how do you actually reach people who aren’t Christian yet, is we essentially converted to Christianity before we believed Christianity, because we didn’t think that other r- raising our kids secular was gonna be mentally good for them.

[00:37:16] And we knew the research. I mean, if you’re a scientist, you know the research. People who are Christians are, like, healthier, they have less depression, they have less... Like, all sorts of, they live longer, they have less medical complications. And so I was just like, well, it’s, if, if I’m gonna be an atheist and say that I believe to live in a way that’s logical, this is only logical.

[00:37:37] And it was only after we started living that way with these presumptions that things begin to make sense for us and we begin to become more fanatic. Where at this point I would say I’m, I’m, I’m quite fanatical. But it took, And I, and I think that this is a pathway that I had never heard a Christian argue to me once when I was an atheist.

[00:37:57] Just be like, “Well, you say you care about the data. All the data shows you’re better off being a Christian.”

[00:38:02] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:38:04] Basic Logic: Some people are gonna be very easily convinced, not... I know that if someone pulled that on me when I was an atheist, I would have laughed at them because, like, okay, you’re admitting that your thing is false, so you’re just saying let’s believe a lie so that it’s better for us.

[00:38:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:38:18] Basic Logic: I- So it will depend on the person. There are parts... I’ll, I’ll give you an example. There-- I know of one case where someone read the Book of Proverbs of the Old Testament, and they were so amazed by the wisdom there that they converted on the spot.

[00:38:33] Simone Collins: Huh.

[00:38:34] Basic Logic: But when I read the Book of Proverbs, a lot of the things there just seemed kind of obvious to me.

[00:38:38] Now, obviously they’re obvious to me because I live in a society that’s already integrated them, so they’ve... That was already drilled into my head since I was a kid. But that person had not been drilled into it. And so if someone had told me, “Yeah, you just need to read the Book of Proverbs to this person, they’ll convert,” I would have also laughed at them if they tried that with me.

[00:38:57] That’s, that’s why I, I don’t like a lot of these videos that you see online where people are trying to teach you how to convert people with, like, s- very specific arguments because it’s just not gonna work for most people. You have to adapt to each individual case.

[00:39:13] Malcolm Collins: No.

[00:39:14] Simone Collins: Okay, hold on. I’m really curious ‘cause I, I wanna, I want...

[00:39:17] I was surprised to hear that a lack of mentorship is the biggest problem facing people in the 20s right now. I also, yeah, I wanted

[00:39:22] Malcolm Collins: to ask about dating,

[00:39:24] Simone Collins: but- Right, I wanna ask about dating, too. But is the solution to the lack of mentorship just finding good people online? Because this is how also people end up in really scammy situations.

[00:39:34] It’s not

[00:39:34] Basic Logic: a solution, no.

[00:39:35] Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s like a desperate last resort. So where... Like, is it joining a religious community? What is it?

[00:39:39] Basic Logic: I, I would have loved if the answer was joining a religious community. That would have solved everything. Mm. It... And I was very excited when I joined a religious community, especially because the Bible keeps telling you about how important it is to join and respect your elders and do those things.

[00:39:52] Although it became very clear that my elders aren’t elders, they’re just overgrown children. That became abundantly clear [00:40:00] very fast. And I, I, I feel I’ve called other people stupid here quite a few times in our interview, but I actually do take it seriously. As the Bible says, you’re not really supposed to go around calling people stupid or to call people fools willy-nilly.

[00:40:14] So it, it’s been a while of contemplation before I’ve become so comfortable insulting people who are supposed to be my highers and my betters, and a lot of that has to do with just constant direct experience of them showing a level of maturity that even if you were a teenager I wouldn’t find it excusable.

[00:40:32] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:40:33] Basic Logic: I’m not gonna go too far into the details. I went a little bit more into the details with Tom Fo about one, one of the scandals, one of the many scandals that happened. There’s... I can also go into another just... There was a time where one of the elders came to teach our young adult group why we should believe the Bible, and he said the best argument for it was the faithfulness of the Jews.

[00:40:56] Because the Jews survived the Holocaust and they didn’t abandon Judaism, that’s why you as Christians need to believe the Bible. And that is pretty much like the standard position of the elders just in that church.

[00:41:11] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:41:11] Basic Logic: okay. And when I looked around more, it wasn’t just that church, it was every church.

[00:41:16] Doesn’t matter if it’s in this country or that country. If they call themselves non-denominational, chances are there’s something similar to that And it’s like, okay

[00:41:27] Malcolm Collins: That sounds... I’m gonna be honest, if I saw that, I’d be like, “This group sounds potentially infiltrated,” right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:36] Basic Logic: Yes, I- Yeah, that’s really creepy

[00:41:37] I fully believe they were infiltrated by not, not just things like that, but other th- like they, they were very anti-woke ideology publicly, ‘cause that was a safe thing to say against. It was actually funny, I remember one sermon where it was all, “I know th- this is a very dangerous thing to say nowadays, but I don’t support gender ideology.”

[00:41:55] It’s like, great. Yes we, we established that men are not women and women are not men, and you can’t magically switch. What a great revelation that is. It w- happens to be a revelation everyone in this church already agrees with but then when it would come to, “Hey, how about women in the role of pastor?”

[00:42:13] Suddenly now we can’t really discuss that, and actually if you discuss that maybe you have some like pent-up misogyny and you’re p- you’re pushing other people away by having these very traditional views.

[00:42:26] Octavian Collins: Hmm.

[00:42:27] Malcolm Collins: But I mean, it’s in the Bible.

[00:42:30] Basic Logic: Yes, it’s in the Bible, but-

[00:42:33] Malcolm Collins: That’s

[00:42:33] Basic Logic: the- ... the Bible is clearly misinformed.

[00:42:36] We should trust our non-denominational pastor. He knows better.

[00:42:40] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it’s, it’s it, yeah, it, it was a different time back then. We’ve got to-

[00:42:45] Basic Logic: Yeah.

[00:42:45] Malcolm Collins: No, I, I completely agree. And I, I think one of the things that you note here before we go to dating, ‘cause I, I do wanna pull on this point-

[00:42:52] Simone Collins: We gotta go to dating

[00:42:53] Malcolm Collins: is we can’t easily trust our elders in the way that we historically should have been able to because the boomer generation essentially sold out society. Like, I, An example was even just, I like my dad. I like my family, but when he says something like when we were talking about you know, should we come over over Christmas or something like that, and he goes, “Oh, I don’t know if we wanna have you o-”, he’s like, he’s like, “You know, you, you got all the kids, and then Christmas just becomes all about the kids.”

[00:43:25] And I’m like, “Yes! That’s exactly what Christmas is about. It’s about the children. What did you think Christmas was about?” And it just like that level of just like not caring about the custodianship of society or the next generation or anything like that, like it’s not even in their mental space I was like, “Wow.”

[00:43:47] And I think that it is hard to build... What we really need to do in terms of our ancestors is look to more ancient texts and stuff like that, and [00:44:00] philosophy and books and everything like that. And, and one of the things that is so funny to me, and it’s one of the reasons why we dress the way we do, is when people are like, “Oh, you’re trying to be trad,” or whatever, right?

[00:44:10] And I’m like, “What do you even mean trad?” Like, I combine ideas from the medieval ages. I combine ideas from the Enlightenment. I combine ideas from the Victorian period. I combine ideas from the 1950s. And everybody thinks when I say trad, I mean, or society says trad, it means like the 1950s. But the 1950s was the society that broke and led to all of this.

[00:44:33] That was the fragile society that allowed the rot that we are now dealing with to come about. And so when you look at the, the new right philosophies and ideologies, it’s much more of a stitching together of the best ideas from every century. I, I don’t know if that’s the way you felt in engaging with or not.

[00:44:54] Basic Logic: Oh, yes, yes. I, I, I really dislike this view of history, that it goes back 100 years maximum. That, that World War II is the start of history and everything is built around that. In fact, I’ve talked about this in previous videos and I will talk a- about it again in tomorrow’s video the idolatry that that World War II has caused as a founding myth.

[00:45:13] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:45:15] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. I like that. And I think idolatry as a concept is something that is not... I mean, we have lots of videos on this. Our fan base knows that we’re, like, really against idolatry and have quite an expansive view of it, but I think an expansive view of it is useful. It has tons of downstream civilizational effects that are probably too spicy for me to get into today.

[00:45:35] Basic Logic: Oh, right.

[00:45:36] Malcolm Collins: But dating. Oh. Dating. Okay. Tell me about what it is like to... I, I don’t know if you have a partner or, like, where you are in the cycle- I do ... or what works and what doesn’t work, or is it just your generation’s gonna die out? Like, what’s going on?

[00:45:50] Basic Logic: So after becoming Christian, I ha- I s- I, I s- I did start dating a Christian girl, and the issue we had is that I had very strict standards.

[00:45:59] We are not going to be engaging in physical activity prior to marriage. The point of these dates are to see if you are a good candidate for marriage or not. And she did not like that ‘cause she wasn’t used to that. She was used to the modern view of dating where you have fun, and I was not a very fun person in that regard.

[00:46:17] And so, like, by day three, it, where I made it, my stance very clear, I think it was a very mutual understanding, like this is not gonna go forward. Mm-hmm. And so that was that. And then it came to the point where at this point I was also starting to consider leaving my own personal church, and then I was leaving the church I was in, and that pretty much cut off my connection to the outside world and I became a hermit.

[00:46:41] And I started focusing purely on my startup for a long time, and after my startup stalled, I started focusing purely on my channel. And I look forward to the time I can rejoin a proper community because- Mm ... as, as useful as it has been to be a hermit so I could focus on my, on my professional endeavors- Mm

[00:47:01] uh, you need a community and I don’t have one, and that’s been a, that’s been a problem.

[00:47:06] Malcolm Collins: Well, do you have a Discord yet?

[00:47:08] Basic Logic: Oh, I do have a Discord, yeah. But online communities are not, they’re not the same thing. They’re, they’re not adequate replacements.

[00:47:13] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I... Well, th- this is one of the areas where... It’s funny, the places where we disagree are the things that everyone would be like, “Oh, you’re having this controversial person on,” and I’m like, “Online communities are better than real world communities.”

[00:47:24] But I have obviously a wife already, which changes some dynamics.

[00:47:28] Simone Collins: Yeah, and to be fair, we were living in the same area when we met, even if we were, like, an hour apart, so it still made

[00:47:34] Malcolm Collins: a big difference. Yeah, I mean, if I was young and I was dating, I would be doing it through online communities because I just...

[00:47:40] And, and that even helps- Mm-hmm ... with your no, no, you know, sex of, of stuff policy if you’re dating online, ‘cause then you have a reason to have those rules.

[00:47:49] Simone Collins: I really do like dates as being a job interview, though. Well, like, a wife, husband interview.

[00:47:54] Basic Logic: Right.

[00:47:54] Malcolm Collins: But please get married, like, take it seriously.

[00:47:56] It’s, it’s, it’s... The civilization is dying, all that.

[00:47:59] Basic Logic: No, [00:48:00] that’s what I wanna do. That’s what I think. Unle- unless you’re called to be a celibate priest in a domination like Catholicism that should be the, on the first goals of every man after- Mm-hmm ... you know, he’s 20 and he’s starting to get ready to provide.

[00:48:12] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:48:12] Basic Logic: So by... Like, one of the issues I have is since I’m not part of a constant, active local community, the only suggestions I have are either go outside and just approach a woman that I find attractive randomly, and then the chances of her being a, a Christian and a Christian to the standard that I determine is necessary is practically zero.

[00:48:33] Like, that-

[00:48:34] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:48:35] Basic Logic: So there’s pretty... There’s no point in me approaching a woman just because I find her attractive. It’s- Well,

[00:48:39] Simone Collins: would you... I mean, what if she would be open to conversion?

[00:48:43] Basic Logic: Well, who knows? But I’m not going to. It’s, it’s gonna be a numbers game if I’m just approaching people, like, coldly, people I don’t know.

[00:48:50] I don’t have the time to invest to go, keep going one after another. I don’t even leave my house that much. I’m not very social. To go after one after another- Neither are we, by the way.

[00:48:57] Malcolm Collins: We leave our house almost never.

[00:49:00] Basic Logic: Right. So the few instances in which I will go out, I will see an attractive woman.

[00:49:06] The chances of her being the Christian to the standard that I consider necessary are practically zero in this country and in this area. And so there’s, there’s no point. There’s no active vetting. So if you look at how societies historically did it, obviously they had this massive vetting process of your family getting involved- Yeah

[00:49:26] and your community gets involved. Mm. I have none of that. Mm. So I have to vet the thing myself prior, and I don’t have the means to do that.

[00:49:36] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, just to be... I, I, I know you’re not asking for it, but if I was in your position I would be using my community to like a- let the community know if they want to put in an application, this is what the dating process it’ll, it’ll be like.

[00:49:50] Obviously you risk getting catfished and stuff like this to an extent. But at least you’ve got the big v- view of, pool of people that are pre-vetted to like your ideology. And it, it’s not the best way to do things-

[00:50:02] Basic Logic: Right ...

[00:50:03] Malcolm Collins: but it, but it is a realistic way to do things, whereas hitting on women you meet in person is not really realistic in today’s market.

[00:50:12] Basic Logic: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I could set up a poll of my, of my YouTube account and say, “Hey, if there are any single women who like what they’ve been hearing,” I’m pretty attractive in real life, at least I think I am. So- Yeah.

[00:50:25] Simone Collins: That helps ...

[00:50:26] Basic Logic: you, you, you can send out your applications. I don’t- Or better- The problem is that, that might work for me.

[00:50:34] I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect men in general to go up the whole No, it wouldn’t work for men in general ... source and follow. Right.

[00:50:40] Malcolm Collins: Well, then how

[00:50:40] Basic Logic: can you- But it solves my issue if I, if I was just focusing on my issue.

[00:50:44] Malcolm Collins: You could create something... I mean, the, the thing that I’m always pushing and that I think that as sort of a, a, a...

[00:50:51] What’s so fun is that the new right community of creators has and I know you’re sort of new to it, but it really feels like a community where people are reaching out, trying to help each other, and trying to help their fans move, move ahead and, and, and do cool things. And one of the things that we’re always pushing is like, if there is a large societal failure, you have the capacity to attempt to fix it yourself, especially in the age of AI.

[00:51:18] I mean, I don’t know how much vibe coding you’ve done yet, but, but you could put together a dating system that fixes a lot of these problems. It, it would be work, but it would be civilizationally important, and you already have an audience

[00:51:31] Basic Logic: I, I don’t, I haven’t done much vibe coding. And to be entirely honest, I’m not confident in the idea.

[00:51:37] I don’t wanna disparage it because I think someone might be able to make it work. I don’t think I can make it work, but-

[00:51:42] Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. We gotta, we gotta find somebody out there to make it work. All right. Maybe I’ll reach out to Rubyard. He needs to g- he needs to get hooked up too. You know, they’re- ... young conservative.

[00:51:51] Y- y- you wanna have a religious experience, let me tell you what, don’t, don’t go to Ayahuasca, right? You know, just -

[00:51:57] Basic Logic: Right, yes ...

[00:51:58] Malcolm Collins: that’s gonna, that’s gonna... but [00:52:00] this has been a lot of fun to chat with you. Is there anything that, ‘cause you said you don’t do a lot of vibe coding, is there anything that somebody could build that would be useful to you?

[00:52:09] Because I, I, I try to help our community with anything they need. When Kiersha came on, I made a tip app for her.

[00:52:15] Basic Logic: Well, the most useful thing practically, because we have a lot of online organization in the new right. We have no- Yeah ... in-person organization, which really hurts us. If we don’t have a local community- Right

[00:52:25] that can defend us, for, for example, I live in Europe, right? And you, you’ve probably seen the news of how things are being done in Europe, and how people are getting stabbed and- Mm-hmm ... murdered with no consequence for, for the murder. We don’t have a local community to defend ourselves, so there is a very real issue.

[00:52:41] So- If we had a local group of people here that would be willing to, like, work together and defend ourselves, that would be very useful.

[00:52:49] Malcolm Collins: But- So do you watch Redeemed Zoomer?

[00:52:52] Basic Logic: I have, yes.

[00:52:53] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so he’s been on our show, and I think his Reconquista project is probably the closest project I’ve seen to achieving that end.

[00:53:02] In my view, I see it as a bit of a pipe dream, but other people have explained to me, and I think that they have a point here, is it’s like yes, I understand these woke boomer churches. You have to hold your nose to do anything in them. But they are desperate for young people in leadership positions. And if you can just get a group of people together, you could take one over with only five or six people.

[00:53:29] So maybe that’s the path.

[00:53:31] Basic Logic: That, that is an excellent path, especially for the American audience, where there’s like a mainline Protestant church everywhere. And these mainline Protestant churches are cultural hearts, so they’re very valuable to retake. Yeah. It’s not the place that I’m in, though.

[00:53:42] There are no m- mainline Protestant churches where I live, even though I am a Protestant. My options are Catholic or non-denominational. That

[00:53:49] Malcolm Collins: sucks. Well, and especially if... I, I... The, the two recent episodes we had were on how the Vatican has been preventing organizations who are counter to, like, the woke agenda from gaining institutional power.

[00:54:02] Yeah. Which has been incredibly demotivational I think to a lot of people. But, but it’s also worth, you know, being aware of, of where we can put our time. One of, one of the interesting things that I know one of our US fans was doing just as, like, where young people are these days, is they actually converted and were going to both Mormon and Catholic church and were going to settle with the religion that found them a wife.

[00:54:27] And-

[00:54:28] Simone Collins: Like, Jesus take the wheel.

[00:54:30] Malcolm Collins: Like- Oh, no. But they’re like, “This is the only place where I’m gonna find base women, so I’m just gonna do both.”

[00:54:35] Simone Collins: That’s one way to do it.

[00:54:36] Malcolm Collins: I was like, that’s a, that’s a way to do it. Although it’s, it’s gonna be harder because the Catholics get married quite late compared to other Christian denominations which, which can make it harder if you’re using their, their cultural institutions.

[00:54:49] W- wait, you’re in Europe now?

[00:54:51] Basic Logic: I live in Europe, yes. In fact, I am, depending on how you define it, I am European.

[00:54:57] Malcolm Collins: Oh, wow. This

[00:54:57] Simone Collins: is why he, he needed his AC on. Yes. You’re very lucky to have it.

[00:55:02] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, very lucky, yeah. Oh ... I feel so bad for you. Like, Europe is-

[00:55:07] Simone Collins: Come on, it’s nice. It’s nice. I

[00:55:09] Malcolm Collins: know- I, both of us have lived in Europe in a lot of places in Europe actually, and Europe just demographically is-

[00:55:17] Basic Logic: Yes, I, I agree with you.

[00:55:18] It’s

[00:55:18] Simone Collins: rough. Yeah.

[00:55:19] Malcolm Collins: A,

[00:55:19] Basic Logic: a lot of it also is... So I’m not- If I, if I showed you like my DNA results, I’m not from one European country. I’m from several. I’m, I’m quite the mix. Because I wasn’t born in Europe, I was born in a European colony.

[00:55:34] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:55:35] Basic Logic: And then we, we went to Europe afterwards. So for- first we left that country to go work in a Muslim country, then we went out to, to a European country.

[00:55:42] Malcolm Collins: European.

[00:55:43] Basic Logic: That’s where we now live. And there’s a lot of culture shock here. For example, Europeans seem to forget that the sun exists every winter, and they never buy an AC. And every year is the same story. It’s like, we had no idea summer got this hot. We had no idea we’d be having [00:56:00] heatstroke. We had no idea there’d be wildfires.

[00:56:01] Like, really? It’s every single summer the same story.

[00:56:05] Simone Collins: Well, I forgot, though, that... And I was just thinking about it this morning, which is why I asked. The Little Ice Age didn’t end until like 1850. So I think to a great extent societally, like our sort of collective memory assumes that we still live in an ice age, and- We

[00:56:21] Malcolm Collins: do still live in an ice age, Simone

[00:56:23] Simone Collins: Okay, well, but the extra ice age.

[00:56:26] It was extra chilly. Okay. Yeah, you

[00:56:27] Malcolm Collins: mean the Little Ice Age.

[00:56:28] Simone Collins: The Little Ice Age.

[00:56:29] Basic Logic: Yes. If this is an ice age, I don’t wanna know what the warm age is.

[00:56:32] Malcolm Collins: You don’t what? Yeah,

[00:56:33] Simone Collins: I mean-

[00:56:34] Basic Logic: I said if this is an ice age, I don’t wanna know what the warm age is.

[00:56:37] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. The, just in case you’re wondering, ‘cause I often have to remind Simone of this, the definition of an ice age for people who do not know because leftists have brainwashed us into not knowing this, is any time in Earth’s history where there is permanent ice anywhere in the world.

[00:56:53] So if the, as long as we have the north and south pole as ice caps, we are in an ice age definitionally. You can look this up, by the way.

[00:57:04] Basic Logic: I did not know that. I, I had no idea.

[00:57:06] Malcolm Collins: No, they, Did you know that it used to be multiple times hotter than it is right now in Earth’s history when- Yes ... life was thriving?

[00:57:14] Carbon levels have been at multiples higher than they are now in the atmosphere. The, we, we are actually still at one of the colder parts of Earth’s collective history.

[00:57:24] Basic Logic: Yeah. That much I know.

[00:57:25] Malcolm Collins: Sorry, just have to remind people. Yeah.

[00:57:28] Simone Collins: It was extra cold. It was extra, extra cold earlier, and that’s why most of Europe was built.

[00:57:33] Because also keep in mind, most of Europe was not built... Well, not most. Many of the old buildings were built during a much colder period as well.

[00:57:41] Malcolm Collins: Well, and Europe- Focus on insulation ... could get even much colder in the near future if the the whatever stream breaks, the the current in the Atlantic.

[00:57:51] Because if you look at where Europe is on a map, a lot of people are surprised by this but Europe is significantly higher latitudinally than a lot of, or longitudinally, than a lot of people are aware of. Like, m- like midline Europe goes through like Quebec, right? Like, And, and so it should be freezing, but it’s not freezing because of the way the, the current moves in a circle in the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:58:14] Basically it moves in a, w- what is this? Is this clockwise or counterclockwise? Clockwise fashion, taking up the water from the southern regions. D- nobody cares about this stuff, so.

[00:58:23] Simone Collins: I don’t know, everyone’s talking about El Niño, which is probably gonna kill, the big El Niño, millions of people this year, so that’s-

[00:58:30] Malcolm Collins: Did,

[00:58:31] Simone Collins: wasn’t El

[00:58:31] Malcolm Collins: Niño- But it’s kind of top of mind

[00:58:33] like a unique thing from our childhood that was supposed to never

[00:58:34] Simone Collins: happen again? No. No, no, no. It, it’s, it’s a recurring thing. And as far as I understand it, it, it happens when, again, it’s, it’s the result of ocean currents not going the way they normally go, meaning that people’s climates don’t behave the way they normally behave, and people’s whole, you know, agricultural systems and, like, housing systems are based on the expectation of certain levels of rainfall or the lack thereof.

[00:58:53] And when that changes, everything goes crazy. And so El Niño is kind of an example of what climate change will do. But yeah, we’re getting super off topic.

[00:59:06] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:59:06] Simone Collins: And I’m being attacked by

[00:59:07] Malcolm Collins: my

[00:59:07] Simone Collins: one-year-old right now. Well,

[00:59:08] Malcolm Collins: it’s been great to have you on. Is there any, is there any final thing you wanna talk about or anything you wanna point people towards?

[00:59:15] Basic Logic: Well, nothing really comes to mind. Sorry. Okay.

[00:59:20] Malcolm Collins: Well, I

[00:59:20] Simone Collins: really- I want... My, my final question is, like, is there is there anything that you really wish that more people your age or more people, like, our age and older were doing? I mean, if, if a lot of people hear what you’re saying and are like, “Oh, I didn’t know people in their 20s were looking for mentors who could actually do good things,” like, would you encourage older people to try to find opportunities to help people in areas where they actually have expertise?

[00:59:47] Or do you just think that, like, older generations are just so intellectually bankrupt that they can’t really help on average? Like, it’s actually not worth it to encourage people because they’re not gonna do it. Or, I don’t know, like, what would you encourage people of different [01:00:00] generations to be doing to try to make the world better if they didn’t realize that, you know, there was an opportunity they should be capitalizing on?

[01:00:06] Basic Logic: So for the older generations, a mistake from very well-meaning older generation people, like boomers who don’t wanna do boomer conservatism, is that they go in and they start trying to teach the current generation, and then they get caught in the fact that my generation does not trust them.

[01:00:22] Octavian Collins: Hmm.

[01:00:23] Basic Logic: And, and they...

[01:00:23] We’re not used to trusting mentor people. The better way of getting our respect is actually by doing something we really find impressive. Hmm. And then just being open to a younger person going up there and being your apprentice in whatever it is you’re doing that’s very impressive. Yeah. That, that seems very helpful as, as a thing en masse.

[01:00:45] For the younger generations, my advice seems almost opposite. I say, “Hey, don’t trust your educators, and don’t trust- Hmm ... this current system, and figure out who you can trust. Don’t trust me. Don’t, don’t go to my videos and assume that in four minutes, in five minutes, whatever, I can cover this topic perfectly.

[01:01:03] Actually fact check everything I say, and do the same for everyone hopefully, and see what you can do because right now it’s hard to trust people.”

[01:01:13] Malcolm Collins: I think that’s a really good point.

[01:01:14] Simone Collins: It’s very solid. Yeah. We live in a world in which reality is, is the- ... falling apart, and that, to me, the one thing that’s really standing out in every facet of this interview with you is reality and the fracturing in people’s understanding of it in both secular and religious reality, and also the, the different perceptions of reality people have in that you can’t use the same argument to convert someone, for example, to Christianity.

[01:01:42] People have profoundly different conversion experiences, and I think people also have very profoundly different experiences with reality. You’ve given me a lot to think about, and we’re really grateful for you coming on the podcast, ‘cause this has been really fun.

[01:01:54] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Thank you. And continue making videos.

[01:01:57] You’re doing a good job in reaching a lot of people.

[01:01:58] Simone Collins: Yes. Don’t stop.

[01:02:00] Malcolm Collins: And I hope you can turn this into a, a full-time job. You know, obviously that’s the goal for all of us, but, Yeah ... you, you have to do so well to get to that level. But we’ll, we’ll see if we can get there. You, you, you have up until this point done an excellent job.

[01:02:14] And so, keep it up, and please find a wife. I, I know it’s hard,

[01:02:20] Basic Logic: But like- I’ll do my best. My family is also asking me to do my best to try and find one, yes.

[01:02:25] Malcolm Collins: And-

[01:02:25] Simone Collins: That’s

[01:02:25] Malcolm Collins: so

[01:02:25] Simone Collins: good. Underrated.

[01:02:27] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and if you ever need anything within the wider community, like the, the online right community you let us know and we’re happy to make connections or whatever that, that could be useful to you.

[01:02:37] Basic Logic: Yeah, that, that would be very useful. I, I don’t have any connections in mind, but broadly I wanna participate more in, in the online right and work with more people. So-

[01:02:45] Malcolm Collins: Well, the one connection I can easily make for you, because we get invited every year and we used to do the invites, is the invite-only conservative society that happens in London every year, Okay

[01:02:56] called ARC. And most of the c- content creators in our space who are in Europe go to it.

[01:03:02] Basic Logic: And, and just to clarify, is it, is it like recorded? Do people see who you are there?

[01:03:06] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. It’s a, it’s a secret event. It’s like only for you know, that’s it. We, that’s what we mean by invite only, right?

[01:03:12] Like, it’s, it’s- Okay ... you have to be like heavily vetted to go.

[01:03:18] Basic Logic: Okay. Yeah. Because one, one of the things I’m concerned about is keeping my anonymity because I have pissed off a lot of people in a very short amount of time.

[01:03:25] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We made the mistake of starting this with our faces. Although I’ll admit, I, I w- we will say to you a- having been in this space for a while everyone I’ve known who when I first met they were anonymous has had their identity blown.

[01:03:39] Yeah ... like a, a friend of ours who we talk to frequently is like right nationalist and completely got doxed. Another European as well. The, they, what you always find, the joke, I don’t know if you know this joke on the right, but whenever like a right anonymous person gets doxed they’re always like a handsome, well, well exercised, like successful adult.

[01:03:59] ... And when it’s a [01:04:00] leftist it’s like some weirdo troglodyte.

[01:04:02] Basic Logic: Right.

[01:04:03] Malcolm Collins: But yeah. I, I will say like it, it could happen, and prepare for it. And in truth I generally, the advice that I would give to somebody who is starting this, and I know you’re not now just starting, is to start by being what they call a face fag.

[01:04:18] Like, have your face i- Because we have never had to deal with a doxing moment because we’ve always been public, so people don’t see it as a big deal that they found out who we were. But- It’s, it’s, it’s s- a scary thing to live with

[01:04:33] Basic Logic: I fully expect one day that I will be revealing my face just voluntarily.

[01:04:37] If I do get doxxed at some point, it’s not gonna be the end of the world. I’m not looking forward to it, but it’s not gonna be the end of the world. Yeah ... it, it will be what it is. So I’m not sc- Oh, you know what

[01:04:46] Malcolm Collins: you should

[01:04:47] Basic Logic: do? But I don’t wanna... I also, I’m not scared of it, but I also don’t want to cause it.

[01:04:51] Malcolm Collins: Look up how other right-wing influencers who were pseudonymous got doxxed, and try to learn how they got found out. With for example, with Rawigh Nationalist, it was his local grocery store, right Simone?

[01:05:05] Simone Collins: That’s what I remember reading. Like, he was literally buying eggs- Wow ... from, like, a nice local farm-

[01:05:09] which was ironic, I guess. I don’t know if there’s a connection at all.

[01:05:12] Malcolm Collins: And somebody then tracked, like, who was buying that many eggs at that store or something.

[01:05:16] Simone Collins: I think, yeah, it was something along those lines, yeah. But j-

[01:05:19] Basic Logic: All right,

[01:05:20] Malcolm Collins: well- Just, just useful to be aware of, the things you might forget that somebody could use.

[01:05:25] But anyway, it’s been fantastic talking to you. I hope things work out for you, and we are always a contact for you. Whenever you need help, you let us know, okay?

[01:05:32] Basic Logic: All right. Sure. Wonderful.

[01:05:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Thank you so much. And

[01:05:35] Basic Logic: yeah, I, I am interested in the event. So if you could update me in the future at some point, I would appreciate it.

[01:05:39] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we’ll let you know about the next arc. It just happened, the last arc, but I’ll let you know about the next one. All right. But it was, like, last month or something.

[01:05:45] Basic Logic: All right. Bye. All right. Sound good. Thank you. Thanks for having me. See ya.

[01:05:47] Speaker: Oh, that’s good, right? Yeah. Looks a lot like me. Hey, Tex, do you think you look like Octavian now? He can’t see himself. Well, he’s smiling, and you smile a lot. Yeah, and I like it. I like his smile when he looks at me. He’s, like, laughing. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, he... You make him laugh.

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive into one of the strangest social phenomena of our time: why does public sympathy for aggressors often increase after horrific attacks? From 9/11 to Charlie Hebdo to October 7th, they examine the shocking data showing spikes in pro-Muslim and pro-Palestine sentiment right after major acts of violence.

Simone lays out her theory: the concept of “victim blaming” was originally created to address real systemic injustices but was hijacked and weaponized in the 2010s by feminist movements (SlutWalks, MeToo, “Believe All Women”). What began as a tool against unfair bias became a reflexive shield that makes it taboo to assign any responsibility to victims — even when they are the aggressors. They also discuss the rise of external locus of control, cultural shifts on the right, demographic realities, and how women helped turn “victim blaming” into a societal mind virus.

Show Notes

WHY

* Did muslim sentiment in the USA improve after 9/11

* Did muslim sentiment in France improve after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were subject to a terror attack?

* Did pro-Palestine sentiment spike after the October 7th attacks on Israel?

It may come down to a concept that was created to address unfair bias against people who were genuinely screwed over by societal forces but ultimately co-opted and ruined by… women.

So let’s discuss how women appropriated and ruined the concept of victim blaming.

The Mystery of Victim Blaming

Since when did victims become beyond reproach?

Our immediate hunch is that this happened because the urban monoculture elevates victims and holds victims to be blameless, but WHY WOULD SOMEONE DO THAT?

We checked Google ngram viewer for “victim blaming” and were kind of shocked:

* The term “victim blaming” only emerges around 1970

* From 1970 to 2010 Victim blaming shows modest linear growth

* And after 2010 its trajectory changes into exponential growth, which only after 2020 started showing signs of a shift to mere exponential growth

Google Trends shows similar results (the term would only spike with incidents, then go back to zero, before 2010).

To add to this: @NotAldousHuxley had observed that pro-muslim sentiment spiked after 9/11 and anti-Israel sentiment spiked after the October 7th attack Palestinean attack on Israel

This suggests some sort of pathological favoritism toward whoever might be seen as a potential victim, but I found this hard to believe so I double checked:

Victim Blaming Ideology in Action

Pro-Muslim Sentiment

What’s

Pew research found that pro-Muslim sentiment rose in the US after 9/11 and in France in 2015 after the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices (the publication that published an illustration of the prophet Muhammad).

From their article: “A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 76% in France say they have a favorable view of Muslims living in their country, similar to the 72% registered in 2014. Meanwhile, the percentage with a very favorable opinion of Muslims has increased significantly, rising from 14% last year to 25% today. Attitudes toward Muslims tend to be more positive on the political left in France, but ratings improved across the ideological spectrum.

The pattern is similar to what we found in the U.S. following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Favorable views of Muslim Americans rose from 45% in March 2001 to 59% in November of that year. The increase took place across partisan and ideological groups, with the biggest improvement occurring among conservative Republicans.”

Pro-Palestine Sentiment

After the October 7th attacks, Gallup found that Americans shifted toward being more sympathetic toward palestineans:

The change is most pronounced in young people:

And least pronounced in old people:

The Creation and Appropriation of Victim Blaming

Before Victim Blaming

Genuine victim blaming is old: There are plenty of religious texts that frame victims as sinners.

Before the term was popularized, people sometimes pointed to the “just world hypothesis”: That people want to believe the world is fair, so they sometimes assume victims must have done something to deserve their suffering.

Origins

Psychologist William Ryan introduced the phrase “blaming the victim” in his book of the same name, published in the 1970s

* He developed the concept to critique explanations of poverty and racism that shifted responsibility from unjust social structures onto marginalized communities themselves.

* Ryan’s work specifically responded to Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report on Black poverty, arguing that such analyses implicitly blamed Black families for structural inequalities.

* So Ryan’s critique there is pretty fair, as it does seem that after 1950 a bunch of policies changed that did really screw over black families and we’ve covered them in various episodes

* 1950s Black Families Where Twice as Stable as Their White Counterparts: The Theft of Black Culture

Exponential 2010s Growth

What happened starting in 2010???

TL:DR Victim blaming got primarily hijacked by women about women who then reflexively internalized that it was NEVER acceptable to blame women.

Specifically:

* 2013: SlutWalk framed victim blaming as a central injustice

* The 2013 SlutWalks were a series of global, grassroots protest marches held in cities worldwide—including New York, Chicago, and various university campuses—to protest rape culture, victim blaming, and slut-shaming.

* The movement first originated in 2011 after a Toronto police officer advised university students to “avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent sexual assault. By 2013, the marches had expanded into a massive, worldwide phenomenon

* The movement first originated in 2011 after a Toronto police officer advised university students to “avoid dressing like sluts” to prevent sexual assault. By 2013, the marches had expanded into a massive, worldwide phenomenon

* Demonstrators, primarily young women but open to all genders, took to the streets in clothes that were conventionally considered “provocative” or “slutty,” alongside signs with slogans like “Still not asking for it”.

* 2017: #metoo became a global phenomenon when actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women to use the phrase following the sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein.

Broadly:

* Universities, NGOs, and government agencies began publishing extensive material on “rape culture” and “victim blaming,” making the term standard in training manuals, awareness campaigns, and policy documents

* Psychological and criminological research on victim blaming expanded, including studies of attribution, just‑world beliefs, and rape myths, so “victim blaming” appeared more often in titles, abstracts, and key terms.

* Professional bodies (e.g., police oversight offices, social services, health institutions) issued formal guidance documents on “ending victim blaming” or “reducing victim blaming in investigations,” further institutionalizing the term.

* Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and later Instagram and TikTok enabled rapid diffusion of feminist and social‑justice terminology; calling out victim blaming became a recognizable move in online debates.

Victim blaming was literally censored

* Facebook’s Community Standards defined bullying and harassment as content that “purposefully targets private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them” (e.g., targeted shaming, altered images, doxxing, or repeated unwanted contact). Victim blaming would be categorized as bullying or harassment so long as it entailed direct, targeted degradation of a specific victim (e.g., shaming a named survivor in a harassment campaign),

* Twitter’s Rules prohibited abusive behavior, targeted harassment (e.g., one-sided insults, threats, incitement), and hateful conduct.

Wait—is this about a rise in an external locus of control?

The most direct and frequently cited peer-reviewed evidence comes from a 2004 cross-temporal meta-analysis published in Personality and Social Psychology Review:

* The researchers analyzed 97 samples of college students (N=18,310) and 41 samples of children ages 9–14 (N=6,554) from 1960 to 2002.

* Locus of control scores became substantially more external (about 0.80 standard deviations) over this period.

* The average college student in 2002 had a more external locus of control than 80% of college students in the early 1960s.

* Birth cohort/time period explained about 14% of the variance in scores.

* This pattern held in both student and child samples and was consistent with an “alienation model” involving rising cynicism, individualism, and self-serving biases.

* Implications noted as mostly negative: externality correlates with poorer school achievement, helplessness, ineffective stress management, lower self-control, and higher depression.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: after the September 11th attacks- Mm-hmm ... the most profound increase in sentiment by like, at least double is the Republican increase.

[00:00:10] Simone Collins: Just as a reminder, Charlie Hebdo is a satirical publication, still is. They published a drawing of Muhammad, and then they were subject to formal proper Islamic terror attack.

[00:00:20] Well, what’s fascinating on, in, in France is- Yeah ... you also see this on the right, and you see- Yeah ... a big jump on the right. Yeah. That’s wild.

[00:00:29] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:30] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we are going to explore mysteries. Why did Muslim sentiment in the USA improve after 9/11?

[00:00:40] Why did Muslim sentiment in France improve after the Charlie Hebdo offices were subject to a terror attack? Why did pro-Palestine sentiment spike after October 7th attacks on Israel? Th- this is bizarre, and this is a very

[00:00:56] Malcolm Collins: re-

[00:00:56] Simone Collins: repetitive pattern.

[00:00:57] Malcolm Collins: That is genuinely bizarre.

[00:00:58] Simone Collins: Yeah. The aggressors?

[00:01:00] Oh, I’m so sorry for them.

[00:01:02] Malcolm Collins: But I- I’m, I’m, I’ll, I’ll tell you what, I think I- Israel wants wh- white women to love them again. They need to bomb us. No,

[00:01:07] Simone Collins: it actually...

[00:01:08] Malcolm Collins: I, I would argue- Just drop a few bombs on Manhattan, and, and-

[00:01:11] Simone Collins: No ...

[00:01:11] Malcolm Collins: they’ll all, they’ll all love them again.

[00:01:14] Simone Collins: Oh, well, yeah, that, that’s all it takes.

[00:01:15] No. I, I’m actually going to lay forth... It’s not gonna be Jews. I’m gonna lay forth my theory, and I think it all comes down to a concept that was created to address unfair bias against people who are genuinely screwed over by societal forces that were outside their control, and ultimately got ruined and co-opted by...

[00:01:37] Malcolm Collins: The women? Women! White, white women? Yes. Yay. White women, yes. White women.

[00:01:42] Simone Collins: So join us for another episode of Women Are Terrible, as we discuss how women appropriated and ruined the concept of victim blaming, and there will be- The graph

[00:01:50] Malcolm Collins: you showed me around victim blaming absolutely floored me. Yeah,

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: yeah. So she showed me- So stick around.

[00:01:55] No, I, I will show, I will show you the, the graph Okay We’re gonna go over it just next, but I, I will say stick around, because there, there is a, a pivotal portion of my my argument I’m going to lay out that involves very embarrassing images of protesting women. So stay tuned, friends. Okay?

[00:02:10] Malcolm Collins: But

[00:02:10] Simone Collins: yeah.

[00:02:10] Malcolm Collins: All, all images of protesters are embarrassing.

[00:02:12] Simone Collins: No. No. No, I... No. You’re gonna s- you’re gonna see. I somehow missed the boat. I didn’t know this thing happened. Oh, God. Okay. So, but no, you’re right. Absolutely, there is this really strange trend that takes place with the term victim blaming. And it, when we checked Google Ngram Viewer, which looks at the, the word usage in publications rather than just Google search trends, you can see that there’s basically no

[00:02:42] usage of the term victim blaming at all until the 1970s, and then it starts to grow linearly, modestly, but in a modest, linear fashion.

[00:02:51] So obviously this term was introduced and is slowly gaining popularity. Then after 2010, its trajectory changes into exponential growth, which only after 2020 started showing signs of shifting to more logarithmic growth. So it, it’s a really weird graph.

[00:03:12] But yeah, so here’s the Google Ngram Viewer. So you can see it goes from nothing to linear to exponential to logarithmic, and something happened clearly in the 2010s where this term just went crazy.

[00:03:26] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, just like, and explodes all of a sudden in the... And, well, I you acted like I should knew what that was. What, what, what happened then?

[00:03:33] Simone Collins: We’re gonna go into it. But we’re also going to look at Google Trends, and what you can see here is that before 2010, the way that victim blaming worked basically during that linear period was if there was a news story that mentioned victim blaming, people would start talking about it a ton, but then it would go back to nothing.

[00:03:49] Mm-hmm ... and then after that point, it just started entering modern parlance. But first, I, I also wanna thank not Aldous Huxley for giving me inspiration for this [00:04:00] episode. I actually didn’t believe him when he told me that there was a spike in pro-Muslim sentiment after 2001 when the, the terrorist attacks took place.

[00:04:12] I was like, “No, that’s-”

[00:04:13] Malcolm Collins: That can’t be

[00:04:14] Simone Collins: right. “... that’s not real.” So I also wanna show you some, some graphs because it’s insane. Here is a graph showing, this is so unhinged

[00:04:26] how after 9/11, across the board- Pro-Muslim sentiment grew. This is, this is flummoxing to me. This is from the Pew Research Center Among

[00:04:35] Malcolm Collins: conservatives as well.

[00:04:36] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. This is- What’s up, what’s up with that? No, no, hold on. And also the most profoundly-

[00:04:40] Malcolm Collins: The, the most profound, this is gonna shock our audience

[00:04:43] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:04:43] Malcolm Collins: after the September 11th attacks- Mm-hmm ... the most profound increase in sentiment by like, at least double is the Republican increase.

[00:04:53] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:04:54] Malcolm Collins: And- Mm-hmm

[00:04:55] hold on, conservative Republicans after 9/11 had a more positive sentiment towards Muslims than moderate Republicans, independent or conservative/moderate Democrats. Yeah. The only group that had a higher sentiment towards Muslims than conservative Republicans were liberal Democrats.

[00:05:19] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:05:20] Malcolm Collins: Note, th- this came from conservative Republicans before 9/11 having the lowest opinion of Muslims.

[00:05:27] Simone Collins: Yeah, at 35. Yeah, so it, it went from 35% favorable view- To 64% ... to 64%, yeah.

[00:05:36] Malcolm Collins: That is as- astonishing.

[00:05:39] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It, it, it’s, it is really flummoxing, and it, it’s also really flummoxing with the 2015 Charlie Hebdo terror attack. Just as a reminder, Charlie Hebdo is a satirical publication, still is. They published a drawing of Muhammad, and then they were subject to you know, whole like formal proper Islamic terror attack.

[00:05:59] What’s interesting about this-

[00:06:01] Well, what’s fascinating on, in, in France is- Yeah ... you also see this on the right, and you see- Yeah ... a big jump on the right. Yeah. That’s wild. You went from a- Again ... 9% very favorable on the right to an 18%, a dub, a doubling of positive favorability on the right. Which is pretty much what you saw, again, with the, the 9/11 attacks.

[00:06:24] Oh, yeah. In, in, in the United States- A doubling ... after 9/11 it, it’s actually almost a doubling, 35 to 64.

[00:06:30] So then we get to October 7th. I remember, I remember very clearly that day, ‘cause I didn’t really care about Charlie Hebdo. I’m sorry but I didn’t. It was in France, whatever. I was busy at the time.

[00:06:38] It was 2015. We were get- getting married, okay? We were so busy. We were so excited. And we were young children then. We had, in 2011, we, we... Or 2001, we were kids. It, that wasn’t... I don’t know. It, it, it didn’t hit me the same way. But, but I do remember October 7th, and I’m sure you do too, and just seeing the stories coming in, seeing the photos, just how horrific it was.

[00:07:04] To, to see that coverage. I, I was floored by people who would so euphorically do this. And then of course, you know, these recordings come in from Palestinians who are, like, calling their parents on WhatsApp, talking about how, like, “I killed this many people, and I did this and that.” And the parents being like, “Well, be, be safe, son.”

[00:07:23] And it was just so... I’ve never I’ve never been so shocked by normalization of hatred and violence of a group of people, and so I would have expected-

[00:07:34] Malcolm Collins: Well, and killing, you know, peace protesters at, like, a peace rally-

[00:07:40] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:07:40] Malcolm Collins: right outside, you know, just graping tons of children. Like, the- Yeah,

[00:07:44] Simone Collins: this wasn’t six guys.

[00:07:45] This wasn’t two guys, right? This was a very organized, coordinated attack of, what? It was hundreds of men,

[00:07:51] Malcolm Collins: wasn’t it? Beheading babies, right? Like, it was absolutely horrifying what happened.

[00:07:56] Simone Collins: Yeah. And they filmed it and showed it themselves because they were proud of it. [00:08:00] Yeah. And we can look and say, “Oh, that’s a mistake that they did that,” but look, it helped the world’s perception of them.

[00:08:05] Yeah, because now let’s look. Yeah, so this is a Gallup poll here. I’m not pulling out of nowhere, right? Mm. The share of Americans who say they feel more sympathetic towards Israelis or Palestines, or, sorry, Palestinians. And so f- this goes all the way back to, I think, 2000. So it’s like Israelis are in the in high mid-50s.

[00:08:24] Palestinians, not popular. They are in, like, they’re below 20 percent favorability.

[00:08:29] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, if you’re aware of the actual history of the region, you would have to be absurd to feel sympathy for Palestinians.

[00:08:35] Simone Collins: Right. But then, but then what happens? I mean, there’s a slight trending upward for Palestinians on, starting 2020 paired with a slight pairing downward for Israelis.

[00:08:44] However, what really happens is this sudden October 7th attack. Total switcheroo-

[00:08:52] Malcolm Collins: And then it- ... where- ... flips favorability ...

[00:08:54] Simone Collins: yeah, suddenly Israelis are 36% favorability, having been in the high 50s for decades, and Palestinians are up to a record high of 41%, nearly... Well, more than double actually from their, like, 18% starting point, which they hovered back to throughout the 2010s.

[00:09:13] So what’s- Mm ... interesting here with, with these particular results is that when you look at the age difference in responding, you see old Americans do show a change in sentiment. They, they had the lowest sentiment favorably toward Palestinians. Like, in- Okay ... in 2002, they started out at, like, 15% favorability.

[00:09:35] 55

[00:09:36] Malcolm Collins: and older. It dropped down to 10. Okay, okay.

[00:09:37] Simone Collins: Yeah, and they were very pro-Israel. I mean, now we’re in, like, the high 60s up to, like, the low 80s at some point. Do you happen

[00:09:43] Malcolm Collins: to have a breakout of gender in favorability ratings?

[00:09:46] Simone Collins: Oh, let me check. But also- Okay ... look at young Americans.

[00:09:49] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:09:50] Simone Collins: Young Americans, when f- for- That is

[00:09:53] Malcolm Collins: wild

[00:09:54] they did- They literally flipped. Yeah. Literally- Yeah ... flipped positions from like-

[00:09:58] Simone Collins: Yeah, but like crazy. So now they, the young Americans view Palestinians favorably at 53% and Israelis 23%.

[00:10:07] Malcolm Collins: Okay. So

[00:10:07] Simone Collins: this is-

[00:10:07] Malcolm Collins: And it used to be 53% for Israeli and 23%- Mm-hmm ... for Palestine.

[00:10:11] Simone Collins: So a total flip and a very, very s- stark and violent one.

[00:10:16] So it, it really surprised-

[00:10:17] Malcolm Collins: But what’s fascinating about this is this flip- clearly, like if you look at the timeline, was not motivated by Israel’s actions in Palestine, it was motivated by the attack on Israel.

[00:10:27] Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s also what’s just so sick. You wanted me to check gender, right? Let me- I’m checking the, the Gallup article right now.

[00:10:36] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I’m gonna see if, if this is all women. That’s my, my thesis. If, if men are doing it, ‘cause the fact- Oh, it,

[00:10:41] Simone Collins: this is all women’s fault, but hold on because,

[00:10:44] Malcolm Collins: This, this affects conservatives. I mean, I’ll be honest, my sentiment towards Muslims more broadly is not a negative sentiment. Like I have Muslim friends.

[00:10:55] I know Muslims who are totally competent, whatever people. However my sentiment towards like the type of Muslim immigration that Europe has right now and that America has begun to open up is extremely negative. The, that it’s, it’s clearly just a, a net negative for our countries and our societies, right?

[00:11:17] Like, a- among an almost any metric, whether you’re looking at crime or you’re looking at you know, state services, or you’re looking at cultural assimilation. We’re just not seeing it at the same rate. And so I don’t think that yeah, I, I don’t, I, I don’t think that it’s something that, that we can continue to do.

[00:11:36] And when I, when I say this, I think one of the things that people forget is eventually, like the progressives who are here now, right? Like, and I’ve- Mm ... I’ve to talk about this all the time. It’s my, my scorpion and the, the, the snake, right?

[00:11:49] Simone Collins: Okay. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah

[00:11:52] Malcolm Collins: And they are able to prevent the two sides from going at it.

[00:11:56] But the population of Americans [00:12:00] that want to just get the unassimilated groups out of America they are the ones who have kids. And the members of these populations that don’t assimilate, like, the, many, many Muslim immigrants do assimilate in the United States, but they often are the ones that have zero kids.

[00:12:18] It’s the ones who are the least assimilated and most hostile that typically have the most kids. Hmm. This is just, like, an obvious thing if you’re looking at the data. And so eventually, a few generations from now, and this is true in Europe, this is true in the United States, a lot of these countries are just gonna, like, ask the question of, like, “Okay you know, you have X many days to get out, and then we have to, like, do something.”

[00:12:39] Because this is gonna be on the table for both of these groups in the future. Both of these groups are groups that are willing to be violent, and right now the panda’s holding them apart, but, like, one day that panda’s not gonna be there anymore. We, we can- Hmm ... just look at the demographic data. And this is why when I discuss and people will probably notice this in a lot of my videos and a lot of my discussion of these types of topics I may sound like somebody who is more open to violent solutions than other individuals.

[00:13:11] And the reason why I sound that way is because I try to keep my opinions and perspectives future oriented and evergreen in terms of where the population is going- Hmm ... where public sentiment is going, and sort of things that are going to come to a T. And this isn’t, like, that existential in the United States, but there are European countries where I can very easily see but within our lifetimes, the problem being aired of, okay, now everyone who is unassimilated has to leave.

[00:13:45] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:13:46] Malcolm Collins: And that’s going to be... That’s not gonna l- that’s gonna look bad. Like, even just ICE, even just Trump trying to, like, when he was trying to just kick out the, like, murderers and grapists people freaked out, right? Because it, it doesn’t look good, you know, dragging the grapist from their home or whatever, right?

[00:14:05] And they’re like, “Oh, look at, look at how horrible this is.” But whatever you saw there, you’re going to see 1,000 times worse than what’s coming, you know, comes down the pipeline, right? And I don’t, I, I, I deeply worry about the humanitarian consequences of not taking these issues seriously right now.

[00:14:28] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:14:29] Malcolm Collins: But anyway, continue.

[00:14:30] Simone Collins: So you’re gonna find this amusing. I didn’t find men and women on the Palestinian issue, but I... They did include independents, democrats, and republicans. So here are the republican sympathies, which is great.

[00:14:43] Malcolm Collins: Basically the same. They don’t go... They, they, they go- They- ... up, up a little bit for Palestinians and a little bit down for Israelis No, they, they just freaking hate Palestinians, and they always have.

[00:14:52] Simone Collins: Like, there’s no meaningful difference in, in, in- Yeah ... how the, the line bounces around, and they’re like okay with, with Israel. Here are the democrats and this is what’s interesting is they, they started out really not being that favorable with really Israel or Palestine, but less favorable with Palestine.

[00:15:07] And then suddenly Palestine-

[00:15:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it went from after- ... reached a record high ... and it started going up after the attacks on Israel. Mm-hmm. That’s what gets me.

[00:15:14] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:15:15] Malcolm Collins: Truly monsters-

[00:15:16] Simone Collins: So

[00:15:16] Malcolm Collins: yeah ... these people.

[00:15:17] Simone Collins: I think, I think, this is my little theory, that it has to do with victim blaming and that victim blaming as this concept that has ruined, like caused these insane dynamics of like, “Oh, no, this aggressor committed atrocities.

[00:15:34] Poor aggressor. Let’s defend the aggressor. Let them do terrible things to us,” actually comes from women appropriating victim blaming.

[00:15:43] Speaker 8: No! How could this happen? Where did society go wrong? How

[00:15:51] Speaker 9: could the system fail this poor man?

[00:15:54] Speaker 8: If only he’d had a better stool! [00:16:00] Do you want some hot cocoa?

[00:16:02] Speaker 11: Seems to be socio economics. Most likely an underfunded library.

[00:16:10] Speaker 8: That’s it! Ah! Ah! You shot this beautiful man for no reason! She’s evil incarnate!

[00:16:22] Speaker 10: He was stabbing Murderer! Murderer! He was

[00:16:27] Speaker 8: expressing himself!

[00:16:30] Simone Collins: So victim blaming, let’s go into it.

[00:16:33] Malcolm Collins: Well, hold on. Before we go into it- Yeah ... I want to cover another thing here which I think people are going to find queer and it is worth unpacking.

[00:16:41] Okay. Historically republicans had this effect just as democrats did where they immediately started liking, you know, Muslims more after 9/11. Mm. They started liking Muslims more after what happened in, France. But this time they did. This time it didn’t affect Republicans. And I actually, when I think through, I can totally get why.

[00:17:04] The reason it didn’t affect Republicans this time is because the last crop of Republicans, the Boomer Republicans are not really, like, the critical types. Mm-hmm. They’re not the types who are willing to, like, sit down and be like you know, “We need to have a real conversation about w- like, this, this group is causing negative externalities for our society, and eventually we’re gonna have to do something about it.”

[00:17:26] That’s never been a conversation that they were ever going to table or anything like that. At the end of the day, they were in part Republican just because they wanted to be respectable. Like, that’s what Republicanism... It was a respectable old aristocratic party, right? Like, that’s, that’s what it meant back in the day.

[00:17:43] And so the respectable thing to do is to, “Oh, you’ve been attacked by someone that could conceivably increase s- decrease sentiment for them- Yeah ... so I’m going to increase my sentiment for them because now they’re in this position of, of being a v- you know, being potentially having, having people hate them.”

[00:18:03] And and I, I note here, like with 9/11 or something like that it’s not like, when you’re like, “Well, you know, they just happen to share some characteristics with them.” No, like, Islamism was why these people did what they did. In every one of these cases, in the attack on the newspaper, it was because of Muslim beliefs that they did this attack, right?

[00:18:25] It was in the, the case of, of Palestine, that’s a bit different. It’s not as much about the religion, but about, like, pan-Muslim silar- solidarity against Jewish people. And th- I’m, I’m not talking about all Muslims. I’m talking about Muslims in the region. They do genuinely dislike Jews. Or they have sort of a...

[00:18:42] I’ve talked about it. They don’t even really dislike them at the higher level. It’s more just like you can’t be seen liking them, because that could get you in trouble. You know, you have sort of a status hierarchy on how much you can mess with Israel.

[00:18:52] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:18:52] Malcolm Collins: So, The, the, the point I’m, I’m thinking, thinking through here is that the reason why this didn’t affect the right today, but it did in the past, is because the boomer right is no longer the dominant of the right anymore.

[00:19:07] And we weren’t rightists back then. You know, we, the type of people who were l- were, like, done with this BS we weren’t there yet. And then we come in and the mo- we’re, we’re the group that’s like, “Oh, yep, you know, F up Iran. They’re saying... They’re talking s**t. You know, y- you, you, you show them what for,” right?

[00:19:24] Like, and we’ve seen this across this and I’ve talked about this cultural shift in the right, but I think it... we needed this cultural shift to protect ourselves against these kinds of psychological maladies, I think is all you can really call it that the old right was subject to- Mm ... that didn’t wanna say the naughty thing.

[00:19:43] And this is where Simone keeps getting, You know, trying to be like, “Oh, you know, couch more. Don’t be so offensive with your title cards.” And it’s, “No.” Like, we need to crack that seal, right? Like, culturally, societally, that this, “Oh, you can’t say [00:20:00] this. Oh, you can’t say that,” that doesn’t work anymore, right?

[00:20:03] Like, I, I think the video that does a very good job of this is the video about powder

[00:20:10] Speaker: Sorry, I meant call me a racist, fascist, nationalist, grifter, bootlicking theocrat, literary

[00:20:41] Malcolm Collins: but th- we own these titles now, not because, you know, they are accurate representations of us, but because we just don’t care. You l- you wanna say I’m Islamophobic for saying that, like, disproportionately X group is doing Y, or this was motivated in part by their religion, or that there’s going to be long-term conflict between various groups you know, you can F off because I don’t, I don’t care that you are attempting to...

[00:21:12] And nobody cares anymore, right? Like, there’s still these old guards that wanna, like, “Ooh, how could you say something so offensive?” But most of us, and most of those old guard aren’t having kids. Like, they’re just... They’re the group that’s dying out. Like, we’re done with them. We’re done with this b******t. Okay but do you actually, do you have thoughts on that? Do you agree with my assessment that why conservatives weren’t affected by this this time around? S- s- specifically because the Conservative Party is a different group today.

[00:21:41] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, I do think that that plays a huge role in it. And, and you’ll see more when I explain more what happened with victim blamin- blaming and how actually it’s, it’s kind of related to how the new right became the new right as well, ‘cause it, it formed in the 2010s.

[00:21:57] It started to. The breakaway began in the 2010s. So anyway, you, you’ll see. At least I think so. Let’s see. Just confirming a date here Yeah, definitely. Okay, so victim blaming as a concept exists in resistance to genuine victim blaming being something that’s very, very old. That there are, for example, tons of religious texts that frame victims of bad things as sinners who deserved those things as punishment.

[00:22:26] You know, people are like, “Oh, well, you broke your leg ‘cause you’re a bad person.” Like, “Y- your house was flooded ‘cause you’re a bad person ‘cause God hates you,” and that was just a really common thing. So before the term victim blaming was popularized, people would sometimes point to the just world hypothesis, which is basically that people want to believe that the world’s fair, so then they will just assume that victims have done something wrong to deserve the suffering.

[00:22:52] Like, oh, well, th- the world’s not terrible. Like, God isn’t bad because you had that coming is for some reason. And that is, you know... I, I can understand the psychological dynamic at play. But in 1975, there was this psychology na- psychologist named William Ryan who introduced this book called Blaming the Victim that was about blaming the victim.

[00:23:16] And this concept existed for him to critique explanations of poverty and racism that shifted responsibility from unjust social structures onto marginalized communities. And specifically, he was responding to Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report on Black poverty, which argued that, Sort of like, he, Moynihan broadly blamed Black families for structural inequalities like it was their fault, whereas even you and I have talked about how in the 1950s, Black families were twice as stable as their white counterparts, and that-

[00:23:52] Malcolm Collins: Yeah

[00:23:52] Simone Collins: there were actually a lot of things that were done t- to kind of screw over American Black populations, so- Well,

[00:23:59] Malcolm Collins: they were done [00:24:00] by the progressive party, right? Yeah. Like, it’s not just that, like, Dems did them, but the biggest damage that was done to the Black family unit was the normalization of the well, American Black identity, right?

[00:24:13] Like, th- they no longer saw themselves as predominantly, you know, a conservative Christian group, which is generally good for, like, family formation and everything like that, and was what Blacks historically thought of themselves as.

[00:24:24] Simone Collins: Mm,

[00:24:24] Malcolm Collins: mm. But this other thing that existed in a way in opposition to societal mores.

[00:24:31] Simone Collins: Yeah, and this w- this wasn’t really... this was something that was largely... And socialists get involved in this timeline. Like, I can’t even remember it all ‘cause it’s so insane, but, like, it involved socialists and abortion activists and all these sort of terrible things. And a, a lot of these were just white people doing really terrible things to Black people in America.

[00:24:50] And so I, I am totally on the very progressive sounding argument of, yeah, actually, there was, there were many systemic issues that screwed over Black Americans, especially- Especially between well, certainly with slavery, so never mind. Like-

[00:25:02] Malcolm Collins: No, but I think, I think what we pointed out here is blacks were in a better relative position in terms of like right after slavery.

[00:25:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:25:12] Malcolm Collins: So it, it’s not like they’re still recovering from slavery. It’s they were in a worse position- Yeah,

[00:25:16] Simone Collins: it’s the, it wasn’t actually the slavery, it was these weird progressive policies and all these other things that, like, totally screwed them over. So yeah, it weirdly it’s not systemic racism as progressives think it was, where they blame Concern, like Sir- Well, it, it, it’s, it’s their

[00:25:32] Malcolm Collins: version of- Jim Crow

[00:25:33] a, a, think about the thing that the Smithsonian released about white culture, right? And they were talking about, like, you’ve gotta, you know- I don’t remember, but ... the, and they said that white culture... Look, look up the Smithsonian thing about white culture they, they got in trouble. Oh

[00:25:46] Simone Collins: my gosh, I forgot.

[00:25:47] Yes, it was some report on how bad it was.

[00:25:50] Malcolm Collins: And it was- Oh, yes ... it was, it was listing all of the things that they, the progressives, it said, like hard work, being on time-

[00:25:57] Simone Collins: Yes, yes, yes ... personal

[00:25:58] Malcolm Collins: responsibility.

[00:25:59] Simone Collins: We need to stop making these things normalized, ‘cause they’re white concepts, and we shouldn’t be imposing our white culture of being on time.

[00:26:06] Speaker 2: So if you don’t remember when this happened, let’s just go over what the Smithsonian, America’s number one museum, officially said was white culture. They said rugged individualism, self-reliance, independence, and autonomy are highly valued and rewarded. Individuals assume control over their environment.

[00:26:26] You get what you deserve. Family structure, nuclear family, husband is the breadwinner of the household. Wife is the homemaker and subordinate to the husband. Emphasis on the scientific method, objective, rational, linear thinking, because non-white people are incapable of that apparently.

[00:26:42] , Causes, effect, relationships, quantitative emphasis. Mm-hmm, Protestant work ethic. At least they recognize that only Protestants have a work ethic. Hard work is the key to success. Work before you play. If you didn’t meet your goals, you didn’t work hard enough. That all sounds like reasonable things to teach a child to me.

[00:27:02] Religion, Christianity is the norm. , Status, power, and authority. Your job is who you are. Respect authority. I guess they’re like, “Don’t respect authority.” Heavy value on ownership and goods. , Okay, , future orientation. Plan for the future. Delayed gratification.

[00:27:18] Aesthetics Woman’s beauty is being, , thin. Man’s attractiveness is based on economic power, status, and intellect. I love intellect. They had to throw that-- What? Oh my God

[00:27:31] Be polite is another one they have here

[00:27:33] Malcolm Collins: And, and person- no, but in Euro-

[00:27:35] Simone Collins: Because other people are on island time-

[00:27:37] Malcolm Collins: Black people- ... and river time ... used to have all of this stuff used to be part of Black culture. Oh. It was stripped from Black culture by these progressive and frankly racist stereotypes that progressives had- Mm ... of that culture and what it represented.

[00:27:52] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:27:52] Malcolm Collins: And I think that that’s something that’s really important to, to highlight is that-

[00:27:57] Simone Collins: 100% ...

[00:27:57] Malcolm Collins: the, and if you wanna go into the data on this, [00:28:00] because you’re like, “That can’t be true, Malcolm.” They’re, they’re more... Like, Blacks weren’t better off in the past than they are. Like, in the 1950s, Blacks were better off than they are today, and it’s like in a lot of ways they were.

[00:28:10] Go to our episode about the 1950s. You can see the episode. It’s called 1950s Black Families Were Twice As Stable As Their White Counterparts: The Stuff of Black Culture. Well, they were twice as... They, they had a children out of wedlock at 5% the rate, and for whites it was 10% the rate.

[00:28:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:23] Malcolm Collins: But that’s not the only thing. Also-

[00:28:25] Simone Collins: Oh, no, it was a bunch of other things. There were, all, yeah, thriving, thriving communities, all these other lovely... Yeah, it was it, it was a thing. It was a whole thing. Anyway, I’m not gonna get into that. What I’m trying to say w- the, the gist of this argument is that this dude, Mr.

[00:28:38] Ryan, he introduces this concept, victim blaming, to point out that, like, oh, actually, like especially Black Americans, there’s been some stuff. It’s it’s, they’re not evil, okay? The, the people, they were screwed over. And th- we would say, yes, they have been screwed over. So I’m saying there is merit to the concept of victim blaming sometimes.

[00:28:56] But what happened in 2010s, they, the, the concept was completely appropriated by women who took it and turned it into not a, “Hey, sometimes victims are subject to systemic problems,” but rather, “Never blame victims, never blame victims, never blame victims.” Just like never, ever, ever. Like a reflexive panicked crazy-eyed response to the very concept of victims.

[00:29:23] Like, as soon as something is a victim, it can do no wrong, okay?

[00:29:28] Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think- Like ... by the way, fun episode to, to, to note- Yeah ... because I wanna dig into this. Did the CIA really start the crack epidemic among the Black community, or is that a, is that a, a myth? I mean, I, I, I-

[00:29:40] Simone Collins: Oh, no, I think I’ve s- like, watched long YouTube videos on it.

[00:29:43] I think it, like, for real happened.

[00:29:45] Malcolm Collins: Let’s dig into that.

[00:29:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, okay. That could be good. Mm. That, that time- Send me a text at 802- ... the CIA

[00:29:50] Malcolm Collins: started the crack epidemic

[00:29:52] Simone Collins: Oh, my gosh. But

[00:29:52] Malcolm Collins: yeah. That,

[00:29:53] Simone Collins: that could make for a good

[00:29:53] Malcolm Collins: title.

[00:29:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, there’s all, I know the medical experiment. Look Yeah, I mean, it’s, syst- it’s, th- don’t blame that kind of victimhood, but yeah, so- The

[00:30:02] Malcolm Collins: CIA did medical experiments on white people too, mind you, Simone.

[00:30:06] Simone Collins: Sure.

[00:30:07] Malcolm Collins: They had the c- like the even the Unabomber was in one of the experiments that was meant to drive people crazy.

[00:30:12] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, he was- ... whatever. He was a stable genius. I’m going on to how women ruined- It

[00:30:18] Malcolm Collins: worked ...

[00:30:18] Simone Collins: victim blaming. Yeah, it w- Okay? Yeah. Look, I mean, it’s, that’s better than acoustic king.

[00:30:25] And,

[00:30:25] Malcolm Collins: and by the way, kids- Mm-hmm ... I wanna tell you something.

[00:30:27] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:30:28] Malcolm Collins: Of all the drugs you can take, do not take psychedelics. Okay? That, that, that, that is what... They are the drugs that the CIA used to try to up people’s minds. Okay? We’ve seen in our

[00:30:40] Simone Collins: community- Well, no, I think if you’re, if you’re terminally ill, it, it’s a really good way to reconcile with your death.

[00:30:45] And I think there, there are applications that make a lot of sense. If you’re- If you’re terminally ill. We saw in our community- There are peer-reviewed studies that show that very targeted use with, you know, going in with intentions and with an experienced therapist, they can treat PTSD really well.

[00:30:58] So there again, very targeted things, I think it would be really effective. I also imagine there could be more research on this, that shocking people out of, Can you

[00:31:05] Malcolm Collins: not hear me?

[00:31:06] Simone Collins: Oh, I can’t. Sorry. I just wanna make one more

[00:31:08] Malcolm Collins: point. Okay, make your point.

[00:31:10] Simone Collins: That y- I really wish there were research on shocking people out of chronic pain, ‘cause there’s a lot of people who have residual chronic pain that is crippling that could possibly, like, have your brain scrambled enough by psychedelics to get you out of that rut.

[00:31:24] ‘Cause I think what happens is the brain gets in a pain rut, and it can’t get out even though your body’s fine.

[00:31:28] Malcolm Collins: Maybe. Mm. You’re, you’re talking about, like, spoonies and stuff. The, the, I mean, we’ve seen within our community, I, I more would just push against it broadly. Mm ... like, th- what it can do to you, even just trying them once, like it had a serious impact on Ruby Yard’s reputation-

[00:31:43] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:31:43] Malcolm Collins: Just trying ayahuasca once. Like, why risk something like that? I think it’s, i- i- because keep in mind, you know, you can still access your email and stuff when you’re on the psychedelic, right? Like- y-

[00:31:55] Simone Collins: Look, I think he wasn’t still high when he did those things. Yes,

[00:31:59] Malcolm Collins: he [00:32:00] was.

[00:32:00] Simone Collins: Oh, he, he was... No, he would be vomiting like a crazy person if he were-

[00:32:03] Malcolm Collins: He was high on his stream.

[00:32:05] Yes, he was. That was the entire point of, like, the 10-hour stream.

[00:32:10] Simone Collins: Oh, really? Wow. Yes. So he had, like, a bucket next to him? I didn’t watch the stream.

[00:32:14] Malcolm Collins: I di- I did... I haven’t watched the whole thing either. Sure ... but the, the point being, I, I think they’re bad, and it’s what other people use when they want to control you.

[00:32:23] So continue.

[00:32:24] Simone Collins: Right. So yeah. Anyway, women turn it into this, and, and the reason why women turned it into this reflexive never ever question had to do with all of the Me Too related movements that emerged in the 2010s. Now, Me Too, like the hashtag Me Too, emerged first in 2006. It didn’t actually go viral until 2017, though it trended upward.

[00:32:52] What happened though that was earlier that I hadn’t heard of, as all this stuff was bubbling up, were the SlutWalks. Have you heard about SlutWalks?

[00:33:04] Malcolm Collins: I have heard about slut walks. Yeah, I’ve even seen them

[00:33:07] Simone Collins: You... Wait, a live slut walk?

[00:33:09] Malcolm Collins: Not in real life. I’ve seen, like, pictures from, like, France and stuff where they do that nonsense, where they walk around, like, topless.

[00:33:15] Simone Collins: Yeah, so I, so I just, I’ll... I’m gonna bring people up to speed, ‘cause I didn’t know these existed. I don’t know what I was doing from 2011 to 2013, but, like, they’re, they, these are s- these are f- protests primarily populated by women that framed victim blaming as a central injustice as part of them. They, the, the first one was in 2011 after a Toronto police officer advised university students to, quote, “Avoiding dressing like sluts,” to prevent

[00:33:42] sexual assaults. Which is, I think, reasonable advice.

[00:33:47] Malcolm Collins: I think that’s reasonable advice.

[00:33:49] Simone Collins: It’s so based. But by 2013 the marches expanded into this massive worldwide phenomenon, which is presumably why you saw them in France. The, the first one was in 2011, but the biggest ones were in 2013, and the demonstrators were primarily young women.

[00:34:04] And what you would do if you’re a young woman demonstrating at these, is you would dress like a slut, and then walk around with signs to protest grape culture, and victim blaming, and slut shaming.

[00:34:18] So I will share with you some amazing photos, because, I don’t know, just in, like, the context of, like, more recent assaults that have taken place in the UK, and in the US, and in other countries in Europe, I’m like, “Oh, my God.”

[00:34:31] So here we have, Well, one young lady who’s not getting the prompt. She’s wearing black leggings and a checkered plaid shirt, which is not slutty. But then next to her is a purple-haired girl who is wearing a bodysuit that’s maybe not very flattering. Let’s see. Yeah, you gotta look at your WhatsApp.

[00:34:51] Ugh. Now, here’s, here’s ano- Here’s another one with a woman holding up a poster saying, “It’s my hot body. I do what I want.” She’s, Oh, my God ... letting you know she does what she wants. Here we have “How could I have been asking for it when I did not even know what it was at the time?” And then there are two girls next to this, this person holding the poster, who are just wearing bras and their jeans.

[00:35:20] Here we have some women with signs saying, “Can’t touch this.”

[00:35:25] Malcolm Collins: Feminism feels- She’s just

[00:35:25] Simone Collins: full

[00:35:25] Malcolm Collins: out- ... so anti-women to me. In,

[00:35:27] Simone Collins: under-

[00:35:27] Malcolm Collins: Like-

[00:35:28] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:35:28] Malcolm Collins: the idea that somebody psyops these women into walking around half-naked and parading themselves around town. Like, historically we’d be like, “Oh, so that was, like, the prisoners of the civilization you just conquered?”

[00:35:40] Simone Collins: Yeah, that they- But this- Yeah, this, this, this literally looks like a triumph, a Roman triumph, and these are all of the female slaves that they have brought with them for things.

[00:35:50] Malcolm Collins: So you, you never got into anything like this back when you were progressive? You never thought, “Oh, I’m gonna go-

[00:35:54] Simone Collins: No

[00:35:58] walk around town [00:36:00] half-naked?” And you know what? I, I really think that I, I may have seen a SlutWalk, ‘cause I, at this time I was working in San Francisco. You lived in San Francisco at this time too. If I saw one, I probably would’ve thought n- it was like some iteration of Critical Tits, which is this like group bike ride that would occasionally take place throughout America where you would just, a bunch of people would ride their bicycles without shirts on.

[00:36:18] It was delightful. And so you, in San Francisco you see something like this and you’re like, “Oh, this is not remarkable.” So maybe that’s why I didn’t know this was a thing. But I’m just... I, I just, there are all these countries where if a woman went out dressed like this, she would be... Horrific, unspeakable things would happen to her.

[00:36:38] And I feel like because we’re, we’re also choosing to not push back against those cultures entering our countries women are learning the hard way that actually we can’t really do protests like this anymore, and it’s really depressing, and I just find this very ironic. ‘Cause I feel like when I look back at these photos, the first thing I think about is just the unspeakable privilege and comfort that these women are operating with, and I don’t really know if today women would do the same thing.

[00:37:04] Yeah, I haven’t seen a

[00:37:04] Malcolm Collins: slutwalk in a long time. I don’t think you... You couldn’t do a slutwalk in We- London today. You’d be a- attacked.

[00:37:10] Simone Collins: Actually, though, yeah. And I think that’s really notable that while it isn’t said, I think it’s, it is implicitly understood that we can’t, women can’t dress like sluts anymore because now we understand that women are being regularly assaulted on the streets, and, like, it’s actually not safe anymore.

[00:37:30] And I, even I grew up as a teen, like thinking, “Well, that’s just unheard of. That doesn’t happen.” ‘Cause it was, but now the news stories are just so pervasive that I think that sentiment has changed. But what’s really interesting about this is the key thing, I think you remember the hashtag believeallwomen that was part of this whole victim-blaming narrative.

[00:37:46] It was just, like, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, people were just told, “If someone says they’re a victim, they’re a victim. Don’t question them. The, the man is guilty until proven innocent.” Like, this just, it completely changed the dynamics. And I don’t know how it was, like, I just, my mind really has keyed to this.

[00:38:06] It, it just, it does seem to me that it was pervasively understood that you were to not question period. And what happened during this period, aside from, like, the 2011 to 2013 culmination of slutwalks, and then 2017 Me Too really reaching the stratosphere, was that universities and NGOs and government agencies started publishing extensive material on grape culture and victim blaming, and they made the term super standard in training manuals and awareness campaigns and policy documents.

[00:38:34] Again, making it even harder to criticize what might have been causes of complex conflicts that involved possibly sexual violence. And then also there was this influx of new psychological and criminological research on victim blaming that Included various studies and myths and i- i- victim blaming essentially a- appeared a ton more in research documents.

[00:38:58] And then professional bodies like, I found one, a research oversight office, also social services and health institutions, just a ton of like this county website or whatever would have their own dedicated pages on victim blaming. Yeah. And then I think more importantly too is I think we all remember the m- much more heavy censorship regime on Facebook and a- well, the website formerly known as Twitter, right?

[00:39:23] How anything that Could possibly be construed as bullying or harassment would get taken down. Yeah. So Facebook’s community standards define bullying and harassment as content that, quote, “Purposefully targets private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them, e.g., targeted shaming, altered images, doxing, or repeated unwanted contact.”

[00:39:46] And vi- victim blaming is totally that. I mean, what are you doing but pointing to someone who had something terrible happen to them and saying they might have played a role in this terrible thing happening to them? Yeah. Right? That is clear. And so [00:40:00] while it isn’t implicit that victim blaming violated terms of service of these websites, it totally did.

[00:40:06] And so that... This is also a period during which actual, like, no, no one even saw a narrative of victim blaming. No one even saw people say, “Hey, maybe it was her fault.” ‘Cause even if one of these did get past a moderator, they would just be completely ratioed and sub-tweeted and, and attacked f- openly- Gosh

[00:40:26] for just- Remember before the blessing of Blue Sky?

[00:40:28] Yeah, when, when just everyone disappeared to that and then all just tried to kill each other. It’s horrible. And yeah, I mean, yeah, Twitter, Twitter was also famous for just a ton of other, like, even the government getting involved, involved as censorship.

[00:40:38] That was so scary.

[00:40:39] Malcolm Collins: Well, I think a lot of the crazier ones- Yeah ... unalived themselves. Like, I actually think that that’s a, a bigger thing that happened- Mm ... that is not talked about it as much. I mean,

[00:40:46] Simone Collins: yeah, there does seem to be a lot of depression and mental illness. That’s sa- that’s very sad.

[00:40:50] Malcolm Collins: And I think that that’s part of why the left quieted down, because the crazier ones burnt off.

[00:40:56] Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I think you are onto something there, so that’s, that’s totally a thing. Yeah. But I think there’s an one other element to this that is non-trivial, which is that there was also pretty significant rise in an external locus of control for individuals during this period. And there is actually, though it’s...

[00:41:17] This is before even to 2010, but I still think that the trend just continued and got worse. There’s a 2004- Mm ... cross-temporal meta-analysis that was published in Personality and Social Psychology Review, where two researchers looked at 97 samples of college students, a total of almost 19,000 students over 18,000.

[00:41:40] And then 41 samples of children when that was a sample of over 6,000. Looking at data from 1960 to 2002- And they found that locus of control scores became substantially more external, of about 0.8 standard deviations Oh my

[00:41:55] Malcolm Collins: God, do not send your kid into the school system. I’m gonna be building soon an AI that’ll make even better than Parrhesia for education.

[00:42:03] That’s, that’s one of the projects I’m working on.

[00:42:05] Simone Collins: I’m so excited, yeah.

[00:42:05] Malcolm Collins: That uses remote AIs that your kids can carry around with them. Yeah. And that focus on education and lesson plans and stuff like that. It’s gonna be so great because I’m making it for myself and my kids, so of course it’s gonna be awesome.

[00:42:17] Simone Collins: It’s gonna be fantastic. But just to give you framing, and this is ending in 2002, right? So it’s, it’s, I, I can only, it can only be worse now. The, it’s not like any of these trends reversed, so they ha- it is profoundly worse now. But the average college student in 2002 had a more external v- locus of control than 80% of college students in the early 1960s Do you, like, this is profound.

[00:42:43] That is really bad. Yeah. And, and it it all comes down to-

[00:42:46] Malcolm Collins: Explain locus of control to people, ‘cause

[00:42:47] Simone Collins: I know that it’s- So locus of control. If you have an internal locus of control and I I, I bump my toe on something in the house, I’m like, “Ugh, I’m, I’m so clumsy. That was my fault. I should’ve been more careful with where I was looking.”

[00:42:59] If I have an external locus of control and I bump my toe in, in my house, I’m like, “Who made me bump my toe? How, how could you possibly have put this thing here? Who put this chair here?” Like, you just find anyone else to blame. You know, i- if you fail the test, it’s because, you know, the, y- that your, your parents didn’t tell you to study enough, and your teacher hates you anyway, and all these things.

[00:43:21] Ev- nothing is your fault. Mm-hmm. And when you point to things like, oh, well, it’s not your fault that you were sexually assaulted, it’s because, you know, of bias, and this, this man was uneducated about consent is- He

[00:43:38] Malcolm Collins: wasn’t aware that you’re not supposed to rape people.

[00:43:40] Simone Collins: He’s not aware that if you wear super slutty clothing and come home with him and give him a b*****b that he, you know, he, he still needs to ask for consent every five minutes.

[00:43:52] Like, yeah, it just... But this is, yeah, it has become a very pervasive thing. And I do think that this has a big role to play, but I think these [00:44:00] are all very correlated. And what does seem to be something that really just skyrocketed, I mean, as you can see with Google Ngram Viewer, in the 2010s is just this concept of victim blaming.

[00:44:09] And it, I thought when I would look into the history and, and this, this this ex exponential increase in victim blaming that took place in the 2010s, that it would have to do with a broader variety of topics, like, victims of racism, victims of classism, victims of whatever. But no, it was only, only, like, Me Too victims, and that’s what really shocked me.

[00:44:32] Hmm. And keep in mind, Malcolm, just like you said, this, you know, Gamergate was 2014, 2015. So the, this happened at this very same time, and I think it, to your point, it didn’t affect conservatives the same way because this was this period where conservatives were like What are you talking about? Like, this is-

[00:44:50] Malcolm Collins: This is, yeah, like-

[00:44:51] Simone Collins: delusional. And, and, and that’s when you started to see this break off, and I think you’re also ... Like, if we were to look at external versus internal locus of control among conservatives and progressives, you would see massive external locus of control across progressives and much less common external locus of control among conservatives, who broadly see themselves as personally responsible.

[00:45:13] You know, the buck stops with them. And ultimately for your mental health, it’s better to have an internal locus of control. Even if something’s totally outside of your control, to still be like, “What can I do better?” is going to ultimately- Mm ... produce better outcomes. ‘Cause if you just blame other people, you have no reason to improve, to look within and see what you can do to increase your odds of success.

[00:45:31] So yeah. But yeah, I, I, I didn’t think that this was gonna be a women are terrible thing, but I really do think that women messed it up, because women now are just so ... What happened is they went from being so reflexively listen to all women, believe all women, to just believe all victims. Because the term victim blaming was used.

[00:45:51] Yeah. I know that sounds stupid, but I, I actually think it kind of works. Does my theory hold with you or do you think it’s stupid? You

[00:45:58] Malcolm Collins: can be honest. It holds enough. I think, I think you’re right. I think you’re right. But I think there’s also the colonialist narrative and worldview, Sierra Mendonsi episode if you wanna get- Oh

[00:46:10] a better understanding of how this works.

[00:46:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:12] Malcolm Collins: I think also metastasized during this period and is part of what’s leading to this. This idea that w- as soon as that became normalized in the left, the left’s goal genuinely became the eradication of European populations. Mm. And Jewish populations, right?

[00:46:28] Mm-hmm. Like, somehow ... Th- th- that’s the thing, whenever you see somebody, and this is why it’s so easy to be cultural allies with Jews or Israel, is whenever I see some crazy leftist talking about how they wanna, you know, get rid of the Israel, get rid of the Jew, blah, blah. You see this at protests all the time.

[00:46:46] I know that they feel the exact same way about me. Like, we have a shared enemy.

[00:46:52] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:46:52] Malcolm Collins: Which is you know, it, it makes ... Th- the you know they’re, you know they say the same thing. They, they ... When they’re protesting everyone’s equal and you go, “Well, what about, you know, the grooming gangs or whatever?”

[00:47:03] And they’re just like, “No, so.” You know, they don’t really feel that way. They feel that some groups are superior to other groups. And you know, I, I, I’m just so grateful that their fertility rates are so low and that we don’t have to deal with this for another few generations.

[00:47:21] Simone Collins: Same, dude.

[00:47:23] Malcolm Collins: Anyway, thank you Simone.

[00:47:25] Have a wonderful day. I love you, Malcolm. Love you too. so I don’t know if you heard that there’s this influencer who’s facing a firing squad in Dubai.

[00:47:38] Simone Collins: Oh, yes, for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend when she says that she was attempting to flee and he was holding onto her passport.

[00:47:49] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I think it’s... It... To me, it’s pretty obvious she’s telling the truth.

[00:47:52] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:47:53] Malcolm Collins: And I’m very surprised because, one, there’s no... They’re... They said it was premeditated murder, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would you [00:48:00] fly to Dubai to commit a premeditated murder and then leave without, like, all of his stuff in your suitcase or something?

[00:48:09] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:48:09] Malcolm Collins: Like, that just seems like a purely bad situation to put yourself in.

[00:48:14] So, like, I can’t understand what they think e- e- especially ‘cause it was her second time going down there to see him, like, what they think... maybe if, if, if it does turn out that she had, like, Bitcoin or something, right? Like, a, a server with a bunch of Bitcoin in her suitcase or

[00:48:30] Simone Collins: something. Oh, sure, yeah.

[00:48:31] Maybe, or that she has a history of violent action, which-

[00:48:36] Malcolm Collins: Actually, the other guy has a history of violent acts. He-

[00:48:38] Simone Collins: I know, I know. I heard that. Yeah. I, yeah, I’m, I’m with Asmongold on this. This is the only reporting that I’ve heard.

[00:48:43] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, we watched the Asmongold news show.

[00:48:45] Simone Collins: We watched the same video, of course, of course.

[00:48:48] Malcolm Collins: Simone, I love that our algos are so similar.

[00:48:52] Simone Collins: Not really.

[00:48:55] Malcolm Collins: Really?

[00:48:55] Simone Collins: What gives you- It’s, like, Asmongold, Nux, Leaflet, and then, oh, and, Oh my God, why am I blanking on her name? Lovely fox woman.

[00:49:05] Malcolm Collins: Kirsha?

[00:49:06] Simone Collins: What- Kirsha. W- why did that, why did my brain do that? I don’t

[00:49:08] Malcolm Collins: watch as many of Kirsha’s stuff, like de novo as I do the other people.

[00:49:12] Yeah. No, she shows up le- less in my feed. I don’t know why. Maybe the algorithm is- I, I, but I mean her videos, if I remember, are, are quite a lot longer than other videos, and I just don’t have time for them. That could be. Yeah. Yeah, I kinda don’t see them. That’s the core reason. It’s not like she’s not entertaining.

[00:49:23] There’s some other people I’m just like, you do not put a, a, like you’re boring or low energy or, you know, like, which, which I, I really don’t like when people are low energy. We should probably vibe like Nux, right? Like- Yes ... contrast, like, what I mean by that is contrast like Nux’s show with like, Lotus Eater, Sargon of Akkad.

[00:49:41] Like Nux, very high energy. Sargon of- I love Sargon of Akkad’s like politics, I just find him too low energy.

[00:49:48] Simone Collins: I think when people turn to the lower energy but based content, it’s because they want like dad energy instead of like friend energy.

[00:49:58] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:49:58] Simone Collins: But I don’t know. This is my theory. I, I

[00:49:59] Malcolm Collins: guess that’s something I don’t need in my life is more dad energy.

[00:50:02] I got too much-

[00:50:02] Simone Collins: You don’t want someone to tell you to make your bed ‘cause you just, that ship has sailed. The bed will never be made. I will sometimes, twice a year, descend upon your room and leave your bed totally made. And those are the only times.

[00:50:17] Malcolm Collins: It’s actually funny- And you get

[00:50:17] Simone Collins: really mad at me

[00:50:19] Malcolm Collins: Sargon of Akkad, of all of these figures, is the one who has the biggest reputation for being like an offensive public figure. And that’s mostly just because he started talking about conservative content before the other ones did. Oh. When it’s still- ‘Cause

[00:50:33] Simone Collins: he’s so not sensationalist at all, from what I remember.

[00:50:38] Malcolm Collins: There was a thing where he said like he wouldn’t even grape some woman who was a public official, and people freaked out about that, which he- th- that seems pretty benign compared

[00:50:48] Simone Collins: to today’s political rhetoric. That sounds along the lines of the Trump accusation, response to his rape accusations where he’s like, “She’s not my type.

[00:50:55] I wouldn’t- It wouldn’t try.

[00:50:59] Malcolm Collins: She’s not my type.

[00:51:00] Simone Collins: Yeah, which I find to be a weirdly compelling argument. But also, it’s been a long time since the event took place, so she could have been his type back then. Anyway.

[00:51:13] Malcolm Collins: Oh, wait, any other news I wanted to catch you up on? Still working on... Oh, a really cool thing for the hardware that we’re getting for working for RFAB-

[00:51:21] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:51:22] Malcolm Collins: is it turns out the device, that it has the camera and the screen on it it comes with the magnets on its back, so you can just plop it on a fridge or anything that’s metallic.

[00:51:31] Simone Collins: Ooh.

[00:51:32] Malcolm Collins: And so, like-

[00:51:33] Simone Collins: But ladies and gentlemen, never plonk a magnet on your dishwasher. That, I learned that from a dishwasher repair person.

[00:51:40] It can break the electronics inside. Oh.

[00:51:42] Malcolm Collins: Don’t

[00:51:42] Simone Collins: do it.

[00:51:42] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But yeah, the, what, what makes that cool is it means, like, you can take your Companion with you when you’re cooking or something, put it up on the fridge, and it can observe the scene- Oh, I love that ... and talk with you and give you feedback. “

[00:51:55] Simone Collins: Your posture is horrible.

[00:51:57] So kyphotic. You must stop this [00:52:00] now.”

[00:52:02] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:52:02] Simone Collins: Interesting.

[00:52:03] Malcolm Collins: So I’m excited to get, get this. Well, I mean, the idea is, is that once we build this system, then I can build w- a more advanced system of, like, household assistants.

[00:52:13] Simone Collins: Right, and it’s only a matter of years, if not months, until we can hook an AI into our Wi-Fi router using that system that allows you to see where a- anyone is in the room based on the Wi-Fi signal.

[00:52:27] Malcolm Collins: Oh, wow.

[00:52:27] Simone Collins: So then we can get to this point where we can start asking, “Where’s so and so?” And she will say, “Playing near the toilet.” And we’ll say, “Oh, my God,” and we’ll run. We’ll run to that place. Or we can even get warnings. “So and so has spent more than three minutes in the bathroom. Would you like to investigate?”

[00:52:49] Malcolm Collins: Wait, is this, like, an API I could use? I could try to build that out as part-

[00:52:52] Simone Collins: I don’t recall the exact software the YouTuber that I watched who talked about this, like, the, the system, but it, yeah, it is, it is, It, it does appear to be a specific type of software that, But

[00:53:02] Malcolm Collins: there, there was... I mean, I have always wanted to, and I could make this a project after the hardware, a, an assistant project, is a child monitoring system.

[00:53:12] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:12] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s

[00:53:13] Simone Collins: great.

[00:53:13] Malcolm Collins: If you combined this image model that I’m talking about here with a Wi-Fi tracking system- Oh, yeah ... you could pretty easily get a child monitoring system up and running.

[00:53:23] Simone Collins: That would be so freaking cool. That would be so cool. I

[00:53:28] Malcolm Collins: don’t even have

[00:53:29] Simone Collins: to- Super into that ...

[00:53:30] Malcolm Collins: parent.

[00:53:31] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, so Google already has...

[00:53:33] And here’s the thing, is Google has a product that’s, they’re paying to educate people about this. They are... Remember, their camera system will alert you about things in a sort of smart way, like, “Your cat’s doing this.” I can’t remember exactly the specifics, but it was something that would send, I think, push notifications based on actual intelligently perceived actions taking place within s- your house.

[00:53:54] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:54] Simone Collins: And it is very expensive. It is a subscription-based service. Like, it is not cheap. And that’s probably their subsidized price. So especially if we can make something more affordable, that would be really cool.

[00:54:05] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. I’m, I... Well, that, that’s, that’s sort of the idea behind RFAB is, And it’s one of the things I’ve been working really hard on, with video generation, is getting it way more affordable, and I found a number of hacks that got the price down, where I think we’re one of the cheapest sites right now for- Yes

[00:54:18] for video generation.

[00:54:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, ‘cause it’s finally starting to get a little costly for people. That’s cool. Oh, I’m so excited about that.

[00:54:26] Speaker 3: That’s the biggest one, you guys. Oh my gosh. I’m gonna give it to camera. Oh. Mommy, mommy, mommy. Wow. Make sure you water this one every day. Every day. Okay, Toasty. Whoa. So make sure to water this one every day when it, when you put it in the dirt. Oh, well, we just took it out of the dirt. What if we put it in a vase and then water it while it lives?

[00:54:49] Does that sound good to you, Toasty? Maybe... That’s a great idea. Oh, Ty- Ty- You put it in water. She’s making a break for it. So, mommy. Yeah? I heard that the root sucks up water. This looks like it’s a banana. Yeah. This, this is long one. Looks great. Put it in the basket. Uh, mommy, I heard the root sucks up water.

[00:55:02] It does. It does. So that’s why you should put it in a big vase full of water. Yeah. Yeah, because it’s so big.

[00:55:17] Yeah, it’s gotta suck up all that water, right? And I also got the roots. You did. I got it. I got a feather. Oh, thank you,

[00:55:25] Indy. That’s so cute. A bunch. Oh, look at that. Wow. And also silky green leaves. Thank you so much. Oh, let’s go. Oh, they all go in the basket. Thank you, friends. In the basket. In the basket. Whoa.

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Revenge of the Chud — the astonishing wave of woke flops across Hollywood and gaming. From Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey getting destroyed in reactions, to Disney’s Snow White bombing, Marvel flops, Ubisoft’s collapse, and more, they explore why “go woke, go broke” is finally hitting critical mass.

They dive deep into the cultural shift: the explosion of right-leaning AI creativity (Skybrow Cinematic Universe, Leaflet vibe-coding, based AI music/videos), the mysterious disappearance of woke consumers and leftist counterculture, and why the right is building new artistic languages with no real opposition.

Plus: homeschooling chaos, Reality Fabricator (RFAB) updates, techno-feudalism, and why the future of culture belongs to those actually creating.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about the year of the chud. W- I thought last year was the year of the chud in terms- ... of woke flops. But a lot of other channels, they’ll do an episode on every woke flop, every big conservative win.

[00:00:16] I wanted to cluster all of these together because now- ... their frequency and scale has been genuinely astonishing. And I think to a point where people are beginning to, even in the industry, be like, “Oh, we can’t do this anymore. Like, we cannot cast these types of individuals anymore. We cannot lead with X types of characters anymore.

[00:00:44] Like, the market simply does not tolerate it.”

[00:00:47] Speaker: such as Christopher Nolan’s, , Odyssey, which has just been absolutely destroyed in reactions on YouTube with videos attacking it or mocking it, getting more views than it has, , with a huge negative like to dislike ratio. , And, , especially for a movie that like this mainstream, this big. , And, , I think what Hollywood may take away from this is you cannot cast black people in non-black roles going forwards and you cannot cast trans people as cis people going forwards.

[00:01:19] I think not that you can’t cast these people more broadly, but those are things they should have known. I mean, like we learned you can’t cast white people as black people a while ago. Why did it take them so long to learn that with white people? Or maybe they won’t learn. As you know, I said in the Kirsha thing, , we had to literally shut down all of Ubisoft to \ get it through their sick skull, , that we didn’t want that slop.

[00:01:44] , So maybe we’ll have to shut down a lot of Hollywood as well.

[00:01:46] Speaker 10: Love the women 87% like dislike ratio for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Oh my God, 446,000 dislike a ruskies

[00:01:58] Malcolm Collins: And what’s interesting about this, and, and this is what I’m going to start with, ‘cause I think it’s the, the most interesting part other than just cheering every individual victory, is it sort of feels like we don’t have anyone playing against us, and I want to explore why. We have another episode where we go into this, called, like, The Mystery of the Missing Woke Customer. Oh,

[00:02:23] yeah ...

[00:02:24] because if we look at the number of people, even number of people who, like, I know of in my life who are still very urban monoculture-

[00:02:33] Mm-hmm

[00:02:34] um, there should be a buyer base for woke-ified products. And yet-

[00:02:41] Simone Collins: Right ...

[00:02:42] Malcolm Collins: we are seeing numbers that are, like, 50 people bought it or something. You know, like, in some of the instances it’ll be like a, you know, 5,000 people bought something that cost 300 million to make, right? Like, it, there are numbers that simply do not make sense.

[00:02:59] But I had this realization.

[00:03:01] Simone Collins: Well, no, there was one other detail that you said in that episode that really stuck with me was that when you looked into it, a lot of the developers of these w- woke audience targeted games that no woke people are buying, themselves don’t even eat the dog food, as we say in Silicon Valley.

[00:03:15] Like, they don’t, they wouldn’t even buy the games they’re developing, if fact they’re just- Oh, yeah. Well, I mean,

[00:03:18] Malcolm Collins: a number of

[00:03:18] Simone Collins: woke games- ... consuming 90s media, right?

[00:03:20] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like, if you even look at a game l- like Concord or whatever, when that bombed, or, or Mixtape, like, if, even if the development team was playing it, they would have better numbers, right?

[00:03:29] Like, the, the, the numbers are so low, they almost don’t make sense. And w- I had this realization that changed a lot of this for me, which is I was talking with a reporter, a trans reporter who writes on us sometimes. I actually think she’s quite a based individual. I have no negative feelings towards this individual.

[00:03:49] Y- you- ... she’s one of those, you know, based trans people, if you, if you know any of them. They, they actually exist. But she was like, “Anything new going on in AI? [00:04:00] Like, what are you thinking about in AI? What is your community talking about in AI?” And I was like, “W- w- like AI is everything in my community right now.

[00:04:08] Like do you know about the Skybrow Cinematic Universe?” Right? And she I mean, obviously she didn’t, but I started to walk her through it, and then I had this realization and I started researching it, and there isn’t. If you look at the, the right-leaning community online, you’ve got you know, Leaflet will be on a stream, and she’ll be like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we made a video game about what the tribe of warrior women in Africa who are actually like super involved with slaving and the people trying to stop them were the British, if we made a video game about that tribe?”

[00:04:43] And so she’ll just start like vibe coding it on the screen in the background while she’s streaming.

[00:04:49] Simone Collins: That’s so fun.

[00:04:51] Malcolm Collins: Or the other game she made when she was streaming last time. I mean, I keep seeing her make ones a lot. The other one was on trying to catch Mexicans crossing the border with a lasso.

[00:04:58] Oh my God. Oh, my God. The other one was going to the Anthony trial and selling a pineapple that you had you know- Oh, no ... kept in the, what do you call it? Kool-Aid or whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever the, Something about Kool-Aid and pineapples ... the funny viral drink is.

[00:05:13] Simone Collins: Whatever.

[00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: And then people would try to rob you.

[00:05:15] And just fantastic. I love it. But it’s, it’s- Mm ... you see that. You see, the shared... And this, this is very interesting to me because I realized when I was talking to the reporter about it and they’re like, “Well, that’s interesting.” And I go, “No, no, no, no, no. Like, you don’t get it.” Like, they’re like, “Oh, y- now that this is cheap, there’s people making stuff with it.”

[00:05:36] And I’m like, that’s not really the fullness of what’s going on here. That’s a bit like looking at early 4chan and being like, “Oh, people have started, found, found a place where they can anonymously share stuff. And so th- now they’ve begun to like iteratively share images.” And it’s like, yes, that is true.

[00:05:53] But more important, a unique language and artistic style began to be developed in the way that those lang- images, those macros communicate. And this language and artistic style ended up being a dominant force in American politics you know, about 15 years, 10 years after it originated, right? And having been around during that period What is happening in the artistic language of the right and how we use AI-

[00:06:30] Simone Collins: Hmm

[00:06:31] Malcolm Collins: feels incredibly similar. It feels like this type of ... And I think if you’re on the right, or this broader community, you do not notice just how frequently you are hitting AI art, right? Mm. Like, I this happened to me when at first what I’m thinking is, like, Sky Brown stuff, and then I thought oh, well, you know, the only person who really opposes us is Dog Shocker Hasan, and then I was like, oh yeah, I should send them the, the video where Hasan raps about shocking his dog.

[00:07:05] And then I was like, oh yeah, that’s an AI video. It had actually gone out of my brain that the dog, the dog shocking video was made with AI because it wasn’t done in the stylistic language of the things that I am used to being made in AI.

[00:07:23] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s so funny.

[00:07:24] Malcolm Collins: But it is, you know, on the the secondary stylistic language.

[00:07:28] In the same way with, like, as memes were first developed, you had your Wojaks, you had your Pepes, you had your, ... The dog shocking video, in terms of its artistic meme category, falls into the same category I’d put the Spencer Pratt for, for mayor ad. Which again, is something made with AI.

[00:07:46] And what’s important to note is if you’re on the right, you’re like, “Well, of course we’re using AI to make things.”

[00:07:52] The left isn’t. I actually went into this with y- w- well, with AI to try to find [00:08:00] is there any equivalent online, like, creation, collaborative creation with AI community on the left? And the best it could find was somebody who was politically neutral and made, like, s- a, a sci-fi universe with AI which was a cool product.

[00:08:17] I, I thought it was actually- That does

[00:08:18] Simone Collins: sound really cool. Yeah ...

[00:08:19] Malcolm Collins: neat. Yeah. I, I, I tried to watch it and it was f- unfortunately for me, boring. I didn’t really like it. But-

[00:08:27] Simone Collins: We’ve obliterated- Not like- ... our attention spans. It’s fair, you

[00:08:30] Malcolm Collins: know? Well, I like, I like my stuff entertaining, right? You know? But you certainly and I

[00:08:36] Simone Collins: yeah, buddy, we’re not done. Did you finish your math lessons for the day? No.

[00:08:39] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I,

[00:08:40] Simone Collins: I couldn’t. Oh.

[00:08:41] Malcolm Collins: I think

[00:08:42] Simone Collins: we

[00:08:44] Malcolm Collins: gotta seize the luck. He

[00:08:44] Simone Collins: said five lessons today. But we got- Tell him ... PC Principal over here.

[00:08:47] Malcolm Collins: Tell

[00:08:48] Simone Collins: him.

[00:08:48] Malcolm Collins: Tell him

[00:08:48] Simone Collins: you did five- Daddy says five

[00:08:49] Malcolm Collins: lessons ... he gave you, he made a promise.

[00:08:50] Now you gotta take him up to

[00:08:50] Simone Collins: it Have you done five? You said you promised.

[00:08:52] Malcolm Collins: No. I, I t- I tried. I tried- Well, you better, you better keep your promise ... but it got sleepy and I went with Eric and I only did zero so far. Uly, you,

[00:09:01] Simone Collins: you got about an hour and a half left.

[00:09:03] Malcolm Collins: If it, if it makes you feel any better, I was watching a video today about how children typically do better if you wait to start teaching them- Oh ... language and math- Mm

[00:09:12] um, until around the age of seven. So we’re- Mm ... we’re even before where we should be doing it if we were aligning with the studies.

[00:09:19] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:09:20] Malcolm Collins: Which you should probably look into, by the way. You, you seem to have just, like, immediately defaulted to what the school system says is best without considering-

[00:09:27] Simone Collins: well, I have to maintain statutory requirements.

[00:09:30] So I don’t actually consider, like, the lessons that he has to do to meet statutory requirements for us to, like, be able to basically show the proof we have to show to keep him homeschooled. I don’t consider that with education. Yeah. Figured that that would be... Love you, buddy But yeah, it’s, it’s the stuff that he learns with us.

[00:09:54] I, I’m not, I’m... When I think he needs to learn certain concepts, I’m not gonna have him do lessons to learn those concepts. I’m going to teach him those concepts. We have different versions. It’s, it’s like a, a two-sided homeschooling system. One is keep him out of public school, which means meeting the statutory requirements.

[00:10:13] Side two is actually teach him things that he needs to succeed.

[00:10:16] Malcolm Collins: They allow- And I’m, we’re doing both ... for, like, Waldorf schools in Pennsylvania, and they operate on this principle. There, there are ways around this.

[00:10:23] Simone Collins: Mordorf. Where you

[00:10:25] Malcolm Collins: go to- Waldorf or whatever ... Mordor. Anyway so the point I’m making here is that there isn’t an opposing visual form being created, artistic form or culture being created on the left, which feels very different from the early 4chan days.

[00:10:44] Hmm. Because in the early 4chan days, while 4chan was developing the culture that is now- ... controlling the White House Twitter feed, right?

[00:10:52] Simone Collins: And whoever is running that, oh my goodness gracious ...

[00:10:55] Malcolm Collins: we need to do a meme review for, for White House account.

[00:10:59] Simone Collins: The things they’ve posted, this is next level.

[00:11:01] Malcolm Collins: Unhinged AI funness.

[00:11:03] Unhinged. Like, I love it too.

[00:11:05] Simone Collins: So, yeah, yeah. I just, I, it’s so, it’s so well- They

[00:11:07] Malcolm Collins: had a, actually, they had a great AI... They’ve done a number of really good AI projects. Like, the one recently was of Dr. Trump curing a bunch of lefty celebrities- Ooh ... of Trump Derangement Syndrome and them talking- Oh, wow

[00:11:18] Speaker 6: Diagnosed with TDS? The symptoms can be relentless. Fortunately, I’m Dr. Trump, and I have a treatment plan. Let’s hear what some of my patients have to say. I have been suffering for over a decade, and after listening to Dr. Trump, I can see some results. Man, I’ve been suffering for years. I really didn’t believe that was help out there.

[00:11:44] Speaker 8: That was when I came across this video on TV. I really thought I was a lost cause. This was gonna affect me for the rest of my life. But after using the treatment plan, I can see a difference

[00:11:57] Malcolm Collins: about how he changed their life. But, like, [00:12:00] what is fascinating about all of this is it used to be we were competing against Tumblr culture. And the- Ooh ... language and visual forms and cultural norms that they developed came to dominate the modern left. Hmm. But right now, we aren’t actually fighting with anyone.

[00:12:25] And what it... This really hit me as I was like, “Who do we on the right, like, pretend our core opponent is in the songs, in the videos, in the, in the stuff?” It’s, like, Hasan Piker, which I have never in my entire life met a real fan of Hasan Piker. I, and we’ve talked about this before, struggle to even model somebody who might be a fan of Hasan Piker.

[00:12:52] I was surprised to find out that his fan base is actually majority male as well, which- It is, wow ... is even more confusing. Who-

[00:12:59] Simone Collins: That is, because the only people that we have heard of are some women who listen to this podcast who have either friends or coworkers who are female who listen to Hasan Piker.

[00:13:09] That’s it

[00:13:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, and, and Hasan Piker has like a small sort of orbit of community, if, if you know what I mean? But they’re, they’re minuscule compared to... Like, if you look at the, the, the wider community that we’re a part of, you know, your, your Nux and your Asmogold and your Tectone and your Goth Guy and your Leaflet and your Kirsha and your Smug Alana and your just Powder can’t, can’t leave her out.

[00:13:38] A- outside of even the, the AI creators, it’s a fairly... There, there isn’t a Hasan equivalent to this.

[00:13:46] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:13:47] Malcolm Collins: Right? There, there, there are orbiters, but it’s not like a constellation of real beliefs or anything like that. And this is when I realized, like are we fighting, like, the air? Like, do we just dunk on Hasan to dunk on Hasan?

[00:14:02] Speaker 2: To give you an idea of what I mean here, the two figures our community makes fun of the most other than Hasan are his fat Muslim orbiter and mod who has like sixty regular watchers that I’m aware of, , I don’t remember her name, and who’s currently in a lawsuit with Ian Klein. And then also in a lawsuit with Ian Klein, we often make fun of iDubbbz.

[00:14:24] But iDubbbz we make fun of because at one point in the past he was famous, but he’s certainly not famous now. He doesn’t have an audience now. That we have to dig to that extent, where are our enemies? I don’t know. The large leftist content producers who I respect enough to not make fun of, like ContraPoints, simply don’t produce videos anymore, , or not frequently.

[00:14:49] , Philosophy Tube, we’ve done a video on one of their takes, but like even on the left they’re seen as sort of a creep who tried to copy ContraPoints after dating her like her entire life, , which is really creepy. What, by that I mean is apparently , he dated her and then he went trans and then he like took her style and career, , which is a weird thing to do, and she has acknowledged this in a deleted tweet.

[00:15:14] , But anyway, yeah, she’s like, “You think your stalkers are bad? At least nobody tried to steal your life.”

[00:15:19] Speaker 3: Actually, now that I think about it, that could explain part of why the leftist influencer class disappeared. They have like psychological breakdowns and become incredibly unproductive. , They’re just not as hardworking as well. , Like Contrapoints just dying off as a channel due to not working as hard or not having as loud of a cultural voice.

[00:15:38] Or, another person who this happened to was, , Lindsay Ellis. Uh, you know, her, her own side turned on her at one point, and she ended up having a bunch of mental issues as a result of that. , And then there was--

[00:15:49] Aluma Hottie, who ended up being a scam artist and everybody descended on her like sharks

[00:15:55] Malcolm Collins: Like, he doesn’t seem to have credibility with any mainstream [00:16:00] demographic or movement or anything like that. Hmm. And it’s really fascinating where I project what’s going to happen, or when I project what’s going to happen, to culture moving forwards, given that there isn’t a meaningful leftist counterculture building something right now

[00:16:27] Hmm.

[00:16:28] And I am confused by that. I know that leftists are like reactively anti-AI, but the right had some people who were anti-AI in the early days. I guess just everyone ignored them. I think it may, it might be at the right that we got better at ignoring the people who were shrieking at us.

[00:16:50] Simone Collins: I, I think a huge portion of it is that they all went to Blue Sky and that-

[00:16:55] Malcolm Collins: Well, this is the secondary thing.

[00:16:57] Yeah ... I was talking, and I’ve noticed this as well, to the journalist about... I was like, “Who are the futurists? Who are the pro-AI people on the left?” And we both came to sort of realize they exist on the left, but they don’t make stuff. So they’re typically like in programming AI or like, she mentioned Cory Doctorow is one of these people.

[00:17:21] And I’m like, Cory Doctorow is kind of pro-AI kind of trepidatious on AI when I actually read his stuff. But by the way, you can look at, look at the thing starting up. Hey.

[00:17:35] So getting, getting that all set up. For our kids hopefully, I really wanna get this working by tomorrow. That, that would be so cool that I can start, you know, having people buy the hardware products

[00:17:46] Simone Collins: And trying it out, well-

[00:17:47] Malcolm Collins: And trying them out,

[00:17:48] Simone Collins: yeah Let’s play test it on the kids first, ‘cause you might wanna make a lot of design changes based on what they respond to

[00:17:56] Malcolm Collins: But there are people on the left who are okay with AI or even futurist, they just don’t make stuff

[00:18:04] Simone Collins: Hmm

[00:18:05] Malcolm Collins: And I f- I wanted to think through this.

[00:18:07] One is, and I will say this very strongly, this was not entirely organic on the right. This was very seeded in a way where what I would say is having it called the Skybrow Cinematic Universe, I think makes perfect sense.

[00:18:26] Speaker 4: What I mean by that is if the human being who is behind Sky Brows didn’t exist, I don’t know that we would’ve gotten off on all of this. Simone and I used to make AI songs at the end of our videos, but we never put in that much effort because I simply didn’t know that a product that good was possible.

[00:18:40] It hadn’t been modeled to us that this can be done, and I think all of us seeing that in such a familiar way where it felt like such a down to earth, “Oh, I watch the same types of people you watch,” showed us all what we could attempt, and we are the type of community that when we see something, we go, “Hey, I should try that.”

[00:18:59] Malcolm Collins: And also talking a bit about the language that’s being developed in this before we go over all these woke flops ‘cause I, I just wanna think about this.

[00:19:06] It, like, feels like we’re fighting a cultural battle and no one’s on the other side of the cultural battle. It’s almost Truman Show-esque. These-

[00:19:15] Simone Collins: What it feels like to me is loosely tied and overlapping affiliative groups that enjoy similar things and enjoy membership in their overlapping cultures.

[00:19:30] But, but this is- And they don’t really care about what outsiders think. I mean, it’s, we’ve reached a point at which it doesn’t really matter that much No, they

[00:19:35] Malcolm Collins: do. They do. Actually, I think, I actually think that that’s what is happening-

[00:19:39] Simone Collins: Really? ...

[00:19:39] Malcolm Collins: and, and causing a lot of this phenomenon, is most people are not woke.

[00:19:46] Even most urban monoculture people are not woke. They might even think of themselves as a little subversive. But at the end of the day, most people want status and to be seen as erudite, elite, [00:20:00] sophisticated.

[00:20:00] Speaker 12: A recent study essentially confirmed this. It was done at Northwestern University, Michigan, on performative progressivism in 2025 is when it came out. It showed that 88% of students pretend to hold more progressive views than they really do. , And,

[00:20:14] 77% said that they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in domains in sports and health and public data. But that 77% also said they would never voice that in public. 80% say they misrepresent their views in coursework, you know, knowing that they need to lie about their views to get good grades.

[00:20:31] , This is the degree to which we are teaching people you have to hide any conservative belief you have if you want to be seen as high status or get ahead in society

[00:20:41] Malcolm Collins: We were interacting with a, an old classmate of mine recently who really fit into this category, right?

[00:20:47] In, in terms of, like, why she found our views so mortifying and the way we’re expressing them so mortifying is because it was trashy, it was low class, it was because the wokes have successfully branded certain views and ways of talking and ways of acting as, as being that. And when other people have done podcasts on us they bragged about how their title cards didn’t use AI.

[00:21:13] And I don’t think that they were anti-AI people But they thought that that was something worthy of being proud of when all their title cards were was cutting out people’s faces- Yeah ... that they had found from Google Images and putting them on the title card.

[00:21:27] Simone Collins: For real, yeah. Not, not a flex.

[00:21:32] Malcolm Collins: Not a flex. The, our AI title cards are actually pretty hard to create.

[00:21:35] Like, they, talent goes in to being this based, people. Ugh.

[00:21:40] Do you know that yesterday we had the Pope being mesmerized by a trans gun? Oh my gosh. That was an awesome title card. Even the, the clickbaitiness of the title cards requires some work. You know?

[00:21:54] Simone Collins: It does, yeah. The, the, there is genuinely actually for, for every title card there are two to five alternate options that we discuss.

[00:22:02] We, we put way too much thought into these.

[00:22:07] Malcolm Collins: No, title cards are the most important part of an episode. I, I know-

[00:22:09] Simone Collins: I know, I know ... they take the most- They’re, they’re the face of an episode. They’re the cover of the book. They matter completely and, and entirely. And yes, we do put a lot of effort into them and, you know.

[00:22:19] Malcolm Collins: But I think what we’re missing is those types of people don’t go out and buy a woke show. They don’t even consider themselves woke. They’re slightly annoyed- Yeah ... by woke people.

[00:22:30] Simone Collins: Well, I think this might be- But- It’s similar to a dynamic we’re finding with Reality Fabricator, and I’d love to see this somehow be defied eventually.

[00:22:39] But right now, like- 95% of our customers are male.

[00:22:45] Malcolm Collins: And- But about taking advantage that sites users are female.

[00:22:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. And I feel like that there might be a similar dynamic with far progressives, where in the end, like the money just isn’t there. Th- they’re not buying the things, and that makes them consumers with not a lot of influence in the end when they’re working at least with companies that actually look for a return on investment.

[00:23:08] And I will say that there has been a period where I guess there’s been this weird subsidy of woke products. It lasted a lot longer than all the go woke, go broke canaries in the coal mine would have thought. But I think maybe we’re reaching the end of that. Well, I mean, look,

[00:23:22] Malcolm Collins: they all, they all start going broke as soon as USAID gets shut down.

[00:23:26] Simone Collins: Weirdly.

[00:23:26] Malcolm Collins: Surprising, huh?

[00:23:28] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. No, there, there is this very strange dynamic of large groups and segments in societies not paying for certain types of products, just not being meaningful consumers, and that, that will have an effect on culture.

[00:23:41] Malcolm Collins: So, the, and I’ll go into all the flops in just a second.

[00:23:45] You guys have all seen all the numbers before probably, so not that exciting, but the, the sheer scale of it. I mean, we culturally took down Ubisoft, which was one of the largest [00:24:00] brands in gaming, simply by removing their customer base, right? This has been astonishing that you could take down... I used to buy every Assassin’s Creed release, by the way.

[00:24:15] I quite like

[00:24:16] Simone Collins: them. Yeah. I remember you looking forward to them with great anticipation. I feel like the last one you enjoyed was the pirate one.

[00:24:22] Malcolm Collins: That, that’s often thought of as the best one, but it’s not the last one I enjoyed.

[00:24:25] Simone Collins: Maybe the Paris one was okay.

[00:24:27] Malcolm Collins: I was okay- Did you like that one? ... up to the, the Viking one.

[00:24:30] I thought the Viking one was fine.

[00:24:31] Simone Collins: Oh, I don’t remember you saying anything about the Viking one ever.

[00:24:35] Malcolm Collins: Well, it wasn’t as good as the other. I mean, I didn’t like it as much as like the... I, I thought the Paris one was also fine. The one that I’ve replayed is not the pirate one, but the American Revolution one.

[00:24:44] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:24:44] Malcolm Collins: That one’s I, I think gets, gets undersold in terms of, You could, you get to play in areas that are like where we live today- Oh, that’s fun ... but in the colonial period.

[00:24:53] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:24:53] Malcolm Collins: You

[00:24:53] Simone Collins: know. But the pirate one had the sea shanties.

[00:24:56] Malcolm Collins: The pirate one had the sea shanties. Yes, it did. So how quickly people turn against this stuff that were f- previously, like, totally okay with it.

[00:25:03] Like me being okay with drippies of wokeness, and then just reaching this point where it’s like I’m absolutely radicalized. I’m not touching anything that you people have touched. And th- so I think that that’s the, the key part of the mystery. Actual wokes are incredibly rare. Most of it is your average aspiring to be upper class, respected, urban professional.

[00:25:28] Yeah.

[00:25:28] That’s who actually makes up the muscle of the wokes, but they don’t like the wokes, and they don’t identify as woke.

[00:25:36] Hmm.

[00:25:36] They identify as the cultural elite. And keep in mind, the, the people who identify as a cultural elite are always going to be much more than the number of people who actually are culturally elite, you know?

[00:25:47] These are the people who have their Substack that they pay for people to read, you know, like, the, the sad, sad situations like that. But to continue Let’s go over some explicit drops other than Ubisoft, because that was absolutely crazy that that happened. I mean remember the, the... Oh, God, the trans one.

[00:26:07] Veilguard came out. Oh. And the numbers were astonishingly low, like in the low thousands in terms of purchases. But recently even things like Disney, so if you look at Snow White, Snow White had a budget of 240 million and 270 million, with heavy marketing on top of that. Mm. With a worldwide gross of only around 200 million.

[00:26:28] That means that they lost around $100 million.

[00:26:31] Simone Collins: That is impossible sounding. That’s, that’s vaporizing money. Oh, my gosh.

[00:26:38] Malcolm Collins: That is, that is a sto- Mm. Mm. I mean, if Rachel Zegler ever gets a job again, I am going to... like whoever gives it to her just is insane. Because she single-handedly s- broke that. Like, it didn’t need to be that bad.

[00:26:53] Simone Collins: Come on, they made the fairest of them all about who was the most fair. Who was the

[00:26:58] Malcolm Collins: communist-est, yeah.

[00:27:00] Simone Collins: I... No. I think th- this... There were many. There were many people who played a role, okay? That sounded so bad.

[00:27:09] Malcolm Collins: The

[00:27:10] Simone Collins: world. Oh, and remember when they originally tried to cast non-dwarves for the seven dwarves?

[00:27:16] They were just a multicolored group of mi- misfits. That’s-

[00:27:20] Malcolm Collins: It looked so dumb and bad,

[00:27:22] Simone Collins: and I don’t know- I would have preferred to see that, honestly. The CGI dwarfs looked super creepy, so I would have preferred the, the misfits Which was

[00:27:29] Malcolm Collins: so much worse than real dwarves. Why did they not just... Right,

[00:27:33] Simone Collins: yeah, and again, totally screwing over the dwarf acting community, which, you know, their, their roles are few and far between.

[00:27:38] Give them a, something to work with, people. They must have been so excited. They’re like, “Finally, they’re making a new Snow White. This is our moment. We’ve been waiting for decades for another job.” And then they cast... And then they went CGI. Anyway, yeah, miss- missed the boat.

[00:27:55] Malcolm Collins: The-

[00:27:55] Simone Collins: Okay. How many left until done?

[00:27:57] Okay, [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Malcolm Collins: one.

[00:28:02] Simone Collins: Oh, buddy, I’m so sorry, but you are gonna have to do some more, because you have not done one if you have 40%. Or 20%. Okay?

[00:28:21] Malcolm Collins: Tell him he has to go do it right now- Mm-hmm ... or daddy’s gonna be very mad. Why? Because- And Krampus might come

[00:28:27] Simone Collins: Oh, daddy says Krampus might come. He, yeah, he doesn’t, yeah. Because he,

[00:28:31] Malcolm Collins: he made a promise.

[00:28:32] Oh.

[00:28:32] Simone Collins: He said, “You made a promise.” And to do a course actually means, to do a lesson actually means to do it. We know you’re good at these, okay?

[00:28:39] Malcolm Collins: I didn’t know. I’m sorry. It’s

[00:28:41] Simone Collins: okay. Just

[00:28:42] Malcolm Collins: go ahead. I thought 4% or 20% means no thing.

[00:28:45] Simone Collins: Yeah, it means failed But it’s okay, buddy. You can do it. We believe in you.

[00:28:50] Malcolm Collins: How many do I have

[00:28:51] Simone Collins: to do?

[00:28:52] Well, you have to do five that you actually completed and passed Okay.

[00:28:58] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but what about these two ones down here?

[00:29:01] Simone Collins: Those two count. Okay?

[00:29:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like, yeah, like this one. Yeah. Is that 60%?

[00:29:06] Simone Collins: Uh-huh, that one is, yeah, 60% right

[00:29:08] Malcolm Collins: there. And we don’t, and we don’t even know this.

[00:29:10] Simone Collins: Yeah, and when it says N/A, it doesn’t matter.

[00:29:12] You just completed it, and that’s all that matters.

[00:29:14] Malcolm Collins: Oh, do I have to, do I have to do more?

[00:29:14] Simone Collins: So three more, okay? At least. Three. Three more.

[00:29:20] Malcolm Collins: Three.

[00:29:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. Thank you, my friend. I wanna- I appreciate you focusing in on this, ‘cause you did make a promise

[00:29:29] I wanna do this fast. Well, but if you do it fast, you’ll have to keep doing more He has to learn he can’t just try to speed run these by just answering all the questions wrong.

[00:29:37] Malcolm Collins: Okay, M- Marvels. Marvels. You had total cost was around 300 million worldwide. Mm. It only made around 200 million. Again lowest grossing MCU film. And this was around 100 million loss. Supergirl, the one that everyone’s talking about right now it looks like it’s under 99 million right now, and it cost around 275 million. So

[00:29:57] Simone Collins: it’s- How many of these cost this much when so much is just filmed on, like, a sound stage in front of a green screen?

[00:30:06] Malcolm Collins: I mean it’s just-

[00:30:06] Simone Collins: Like, films should cost less to film now than they ever have before.

[00:30:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but unions and they don’t like... I mean, they’re, they’re using AI too is the thing. Yeah. Like, how are they failing even when using AI?

[00:30:17] Simone Collins: Oh, I thought the unions banned AI.

[00:30:20] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. They use AI for special effects now.

[00:30:23] Simone Collins: Oh, okay, okay. Oh, but just not for actors.

[00:30:26] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Then you have The, a- and the other thing that we’ve noticed is that on the other side, like when our side releases something or they try to cancel something, it almost always does really well. Obviously the biggest example of this was Hogwarts Legacy, which just- Oh

[00:30:45] absolutely crushed records. It did. So the same thing happened with Black Myth: Wukong, Stellar Blade, Warhammer Forty- 40K Space Marines 2, Mm ... and things like Helldivers

[00:30:56] Simone Collins: 2. Oh yeah, Helldivers. I just kept hearing about that everywhere when it came out.

[00:31:00] Malcolm Collins: And then Sound- In a good way ... of Freedom and the King of Kings, and David and recently on X Citizen Vigilante- Yeah

[00:31:08] a film about going around and murdering immigrants who are raping people which is a fun idea for a movie. I like it. Elon made it free on X or something.

[00:31:19] Simone Collins: For 48 hours, yeah. After Germany gave it a non-rated status, which was sort of their functional way to try to ban it.

[00:31:29] Malcolm Collins: That’s awful, but I love that that’s how he pushed back.

[00:31:32] Like, “Oh, you, you’re gonna give this unrated?” Yeah. “I’ll make sure everybody sees this movie.”

[00:31:37] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:31:38] Malcolm Collins: And starring by Armie Hammer, who-

[00:31:40] Simone Collins: Armie Hammer ...

[00:31:42] Malcolm Collins: I’m glad he’s making a comeback. I always felt his cancellation was... I, I think he was a jerk to his wife, but I, I felt the extent of the cancellation was heavily unjustified.

[00:31:51] Yeah. And it, it, so, you know- Yeah ... our side doesn’t f*****g care.

[00:31:57] Simone Collins: We really don’t, man [00:32:00]

[00:32:01] Malcolm Collins: We really don’t.

[00:32:02] Simone Collins: It’s honestly just appropriate casting in the end, so like, you know. Right. I think that he read the, he read the reputation. It’s exactly what he should do.

[00:32:09] Malcolm Collins: The, the, the ha- have it be something that he’s like super into, going around murdering these people.

[00:32:14] Make, make it more believable. Yeah ... make it, make it more morally dubious. I think people love that, the Dexter thing, you know. Mm, yeah ... it’s just like I just can’t stop killing people, so I guess I’m gonna make it bad guys. But then have them also be migrant rape- Ooh ... migrant rapes. But yeah where I’m com- a- and the other thing about the leftists, and I, I did, I have noticed on other videos, ‘cause I actually decided to at one point study their, their behavior, like what do they say they consume?

[00:32:42] And one thing that we know is that the leftists-

[00:32:49] Who infiltrated video games, like obviously famously Anita Sarkeesian being caught on film saying, “Well, I don’t really play video games much at all,” Oh, man ... do not consume that type of media. And so the question is if they’re not consuming what they’re creating, like the category of media that they’ve infiltrated, what did leftists actually consume?

[00:33:09] And what I found was it’s mostly just the same thing over and over and over again from their childhood. So I mean, they’re still like rewatching Steven Universe or something. They are still rewatching... And part of it is because they’ve become so hyper-sensitized to anything they might see

[00:33:32] Help for what?

[00:33:34] Simone Collins: Octavian, please. Finish the lessons, okay?

[00:33:37] Malcolm Collins: Octavian, Krampus will come.

[00:33:40] Oh, yeah, yeah. That, so they, they, they re-watch a lot of the content from their childhood because they become so hyper-sensitized to things that they might find offensive that consuming new forms of media and content- Oh ... is really challenging for them, even when it’s aggressively woke.

[00:33:58] Simone Collins: See, I,

[00:33:59] Malcolm Collins: I

[00:33:59] Simone Collins: just thought it was for the same reason why we consume so much content from the 90, ‘90s, is that it’s just better then.

[00:34:04] It’s just so much better.

[00:34:05] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it often is a lot better.

[00:34:08] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:34:09] Malcolm Collins: to the extent that, like, we were watching, what’s the movie that we were watching? I was like, “This feels like a movie from the ‘90s.”

[00:34:14] Simone Collins: Hail Mary. Hail Mary, yeah. Yeah, felt like it was from that. It, it... Or, like, and I just hadn’t heard a good original score in so long that it actually stood out to me.

[00:34:22] That shouldn’t be a thing. Why, why, you know? That, like, every other score, film score recently has just felt so generic. Like they just are recycling old music. And you can

[00:34:32] Malcolm Collins: watch it on Amazon Prime, by the way, if you want. It’s on for, for Prime members. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s long and quite good. I, I’d suggest it for the family.

[00:34:40] Simone Collins: Yeah. It made me cry, but I guess I’m in a cry kind of place right now, so.

[00:34:45] Malcolm Collins: I

[00:34:45] Simone Collins: don’t like when movies make me cry, but in a, it’s okay.

[00:34:48] Malcolm Collins: But that, that movie could come out and not be aggressively woke. I mean, when somebody said one of the things that got them about the movie, and I actually agree with this, but I don’t think it’s woke.

[00:34:59] I think it’s unfortunately the way it would really be- Mm-hmm ... is they have this council where it’s supposed to be, like, all the top scientists from around the world. Yeah. And it’s, like, clearly got somebody from, like, you know, your African representatives, your, you know, your representatives from, like, Eastern Europe, your representatives from, like, S- South America, your rep-

[00:35:17] Simone Collins: That’s what one of these would look like today.

[00:35:19] Malcolm Collins: Right. And he’s like, “But really, if w- it, like, if the world was actually under threat, we’d want, like, a bunch of people from America and Israel. Like, let’s be honest here.” Right. Like, is that basically how we’re running the world now? Just, like, the smart people from America and Israel are in the room deciding what happens next.

[00:35:37] Simone Collins: I- With the caveat that the smart people from America are actually the smartest people from all around the world. And then the people in Israel are just- True.

[00:35:43] Malcolm Collins: I mean, yeah, you get some Indians in there. You get some, you know- Yeah ... we, we, we, this is true. It was a

[00:35:47] Simone Collins: lot of the- Like, when you, when you listen to the All-In podcast w- which is some of the most, you know, the world’s most successful investors and VCs, like, the proportion of them that are immigrants to America, huge.

[00:35:56] Elon Musk, immigrant to America. So many of these people were not born in America, [00:36:00] and that’s notable.

[00:36:02] Malcolm Collins: Where, where, where were, where were they, where were they talking?

[00:36:05] Well, I think within the next generation that’s where we’re gonna be. I think especially as world economies start collapsing and AI becomes bigger, more and more of just ignoring the rest of the world is gonna become the norm. Just being like, “We do not need you on this project. We will give you some of our AI money to keep you alive if you’re nice.”

[00:36:20] Simone Collins: Oh, gosh.

[00:36:21] Malcolm Collins: And now we can add the caveat because we’re Republicans, if you’re nice. The Democrats would give bo- money to people who don’t even like us. In, in fact, we should send no money to countries that have negative favorability of the United States. I don’t care how much suffering there is in that country.

[00:36:35] Yeah,

[00:36:35] Simone Collins: that, that feels right. That feels very fair.

[00:36:38] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You have to, you have to vote on the surveys we love America if you want aid. Certain, certain aid thresholds, like n- 90% or something, and then you get, then you get aid. But anyway, the wider point here being is I think that we are in a very important cultural moment where new forms of art and media are being defined, new artistic languages are being defined.

[00:37:02] Oh, and the point I was going to make is I think part of the thing that got the right into all of this, that made the right productive with these types of artistic assets, is a number of influential people on the right just sat down and intentionally decided to inspire people. When the first Sky Browse video went viral, that went viral, the Elon video- Ah

[00:37:29] When, when I saw that video, I, I immediately shared it with Simone. It didn’t feel like something I was aware was possible with AI technology at the time. I saw that, and I was like, “This is catchy, entertaining, culturally on point for somebody like me. I feel like heard. I, I’m, I’m compelled by this.

[00:37:54] I feel like this person culturally gets me,” right? Mm. And then the next video comes out, and this is when he started adding in even more streamers and stuff like that, and it was streamers who I know we overlap heavily with or I’ve done collabs with or whatever. And then I feel even more like, and a lot of people see, like, oh, you- you’re, like, looking at my inbox.

[00:38:17] You’re looking at my YouTube video feed. You get this perception of a shared cultural identity from the video. And then from that, because then streamers decided to react to this, then other people started producing videos mimicking aspects of the stylistic element, but building on them.

[00:38:39] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:38:39] Malcolm Collins: And that is what led to the explosion of the online AI music video phenomenon.

[00:38:47] Now we’re in a secondary category of building, which where I talked about Leaflet Sitting down and saying, like, “I am going to make this game to show you how good AI is at vibe coding, how quickly it can create something,” is intentionally about activating our base to get off their butts and start creating stuff because now we can consume each other’s content.

[00:39:13] Every you know, Holy Ball or Skybrow, there’s a new guy that I’ve been liking who did a good video on K-Nucks or Nucksuckin or something, a fantastic song.

[00:39:21] Speaker 5: A secret door if you think you’ve seen it all Always crab on, on, on. No permission

[00:39:32] Malcolm Collins: Every song of theirs that we consume that our kids hear is an urban monoculture is a, a big media song they’re not hearing. And as we begin to produce more full-length anime, which I expect we’ll start seeing in our community within probably the next year every one of those I consume is something of the urban monocultures I’m not consuming, right?

[00:39:54] The more content creators we get in our space of that variety, the more we can... And this is [00:40:00] something you see with RFAB, which is also a new way of building and building a company. People have shown the meme when they’re talking about rfab.ai, which is our site, of, oh, it’s like one of those guns which has, like, a knife taped on it and, like, a, a, the spatula and, like, a...

[00:40:17] because of all the different things, whether it’s you know, the AI for recipe generation or the AI for narrative DMing or the, the site that searches all not safe for work image bureaus at the same time or all not safe for work you- video sites or all torrent sites at the same time and strips all the a- annoyingness and ads out of the torrent sites or all of the...

[00:40:36] That one, by the way, needs the Bridge app to be running in your browser for it to work. By the way, when was the last time you tested the Bridge app?

[00:40:42] Simone Collins: I need to test it again.

[00:40:44] Malcolm Collins: Okay, you need to test it before- There’s an echo Okay I hear a slight echo from you, but you need to test it before you go downstairs ‘cause that means it’s been days.

[00:40:51] Ooh. And I had done the upload from my end. I just need to see that it opens.

[00:40:58] Simone Collins: So you want me to download it and reinstall ...

[00:41:00] Malcolm Collins: yeah, just download it and open it. See if you can open it. Sure. That’s all, that’s all I need to see. If it opens, it works. It’s, it’s more of an authentification issue to make sure that that was correctly applied.

[00:41:09] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:41:13] Malcolm Collins: But the point being is, is it’s all of these different products, and there’s, like, three or four products in the site that are in the works now that you guys haven’t seen yet. You’ve got the hardware feature, which I’ve mentioned. We’ve got a tutoring feature for kids. We’ve got a a feature w- that it, you know, does email consolidation.

[00:41:32] I’ve got a video streaming feature. I’ve got a video editing feature that auto-edits videos for production. And what, what combines everything on the site, like the Vtuber creation, it’s that it’s stuff that at some point was interested in somebody in our community. They’re either fans... Like, a fan asked me, he goes, “Malcolm, can you make a feature that can turn text into audio and determine who’s speaking and use different speakers?”

[00:41:55] And I’m like, “Fine,” and that’s live on the site right now. S-

[00:41:59] Simone Collins: Yes. That’s good. That’s 80%. Good job, buddy.

[00:42:05] Malcolm Collins: Keep going. Tell him to keep going so Krampus doesn’t get him. Daddy

[00:42:07] Simone Collins: says keep going, okay? You’re doing great. I’m really proud of you.

[00:42:13] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:42:13] Simone Collins: Thank you, my friend. Thank you for focusing. ,

[00:42:17] Malcolm Collins: Talking about the new type of website. Yeah. But I think that this is where companies are going in the age when you can just summon any AI you want, right? To make any product you want, is we’re sort of developing in our community a degree of cultural siloing- Hmm

[00:42:32] in terms of the products that we’re making, right? Like, I don’t work on actually making the AI models, but if you’re on our site, you can use the Rhodes model, which has been trained to be super based, right? What by, by a fan. So I’m gonna be able to put that in as an API. Leaflet doesn’t spend a lot of her time making utility software like VTuber rigs and stuff like this but she spends a ton of time on her music videos.

[00:42:59] You know, if you look at the Skybrows. Skybrows, I, and I can’t make videos like the ones he makes. I, I just don’t take the time- No, he’s so good ... to develop those skills yet. And-

[00:43:09] Simone Collins: Well, and he also has a very distinct style. It is definitely a human plus AI thing, ‘cause you, you can tell even just from listening to it if it’s a Skybrows video from various flourishes that he maintains throughout his all, all of his songs.

[00:43:20] I love it.

[00:43:22] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the point being is that the way that each of us have taken to our role and building out our role is quite culturally unique for each of us, and the company that is just building products that are useful in your life and will hopefully be useful in the lives of people like you, I think is like the next thing.

[00:43:45] And if you notice on RFAB, if we’re not ch- being charged for something, we always offer it for free. You know, whether it’s the tip feature or the image app that I made, that I am actually... I use it regularly. It’s a really useful app [00:44:00] for me. And it also automatically, like, unzips things for you, although I think that feature might be partially broken.

[00:44:05] I’ve gotta figure out what’s going on with that one. So I’ll get to that, but that’s less important than the hardware. I really wanna get the hardware so I can get a, a school going for Octavian.

[00:44:12] Yes.

[00:44:13] And for you, our fans.

[00:44:16] Yes.

[00:44:16] And super cheap, too. Because I’m gonna get this so you can, you know, flash it yourself.

[00:44:20] But the point here being is this is a new culture. The way RFAB is structured is culturally totally unique compared to the way a normal website would be structured. You know, offer one product, lean on your core competency, not build additional features whenever you have an idea, right? But that’s, I think, where we’re going.

[00:44:40] And it’s the same with, with, with generation. Somebody gets an idea to do something, like, you know, Leaf, “Oh, I’m gonna make a video. I wanna be...” Like with Leaflet it’s, “I always wanted to be a an idol girl,” right? Like, “Wouldn’t that be fun?” And it’s like, now I can just be an idol, right? And us- People who are in leadership within the c- community diving in so aggressively to this technology, I think makes the community feel empowered, and thus dive in themselves, which allows for this shared culture of content creation to be born and normalized, which I’m really excited about.

[00:45:17] Agreed.

[00:45:18] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and to me it’s, it’s just a way to really easily visualize techno-feudalism as it starts to roll out, that there are these trust networks that are very distinct and interesting, that I think I wouldn’t have expected to be able to see earlier, but now you can literally see them through the cameos of the Skybrow cinematic universe videos.

[00:45:43] And you can see the overlapping of different communities, how they relate to each other, just by seeing who makes cameos, who makes guest appearances. And this is the most artistic and interesting and fun, succinct way to see it. It’s just super cool.

[00:45:56] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we are defining likely what’s going to be the future of AI culture.

[00:46:01] Yeah. The way AI

[00:46:02] Simone Collins: art is shared. Yeah, because it’s not just, “Oh, these are fan communities.” What most of these creators do is serve as the filter through which their audiences come to understand reality. Like, Malcolm and I were just talking earlier about a crime or, like, court case that’s taking place involving a woman and murder, and both of us understand it through the lens of an Asmongold video.

[00:46:27] Like, we haven’t read original coverage of it. So this is important because these are people that are influencing pretty significantly the way that people consume, understand, and contextualize world events.

[00:46:37] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s what I wanna talk about. Yeah, I mean, I, I just I don’t, I, I cannot, like, say, and I, I, I hope our fans, our audience truly gets how astonishingly blessed our movement is to have no competent opposition.

[00:47:00] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:47:00] Malcolm Collins: I mean, other than the elites that control every institution in our society. Yeah. But they’re not competent. And that is why we will be able to steamroll the next generation of culture. We’ve just got to keep at it. And for all of you, what I’d encourage is if you haven’t gotten to explore how y- you can use AI to fix some problem you have in your daily life, dive into that.

[00:47:30] Simone Collins: Absolutely.

[00:47:32] Malcolm Collins: Because-

[00:47:32] Simone Collins: It’s intimidating, but I think it’s worth it to do

[00:47:34] Malcolm Collins: This is so good. I just want to get one.

[00:47:37] Simone Collins: You

[00:47:37] Malcolm Collins: answer- If I do it hard.

[00:47:39] Simone Collins: All right. Okay. Oh. I’ll accept that. I, oh, yep, th- I’ll accept that. Okay. Text. Text, text wants really to start school. You did good. You did good. I think Alia’s outside if you wanna go check.

[00:47:50] Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Thanks.

[00:47:51] Simone Collins: Yeah. I love you, buddy.

[00:47:53] Malcolm Collins: Can I stop doing lessons? Yes,

[00:47:53] Simone Collins: you can stop.

[00:47:55] Malcolm Collins: Thanks.

[00:47:55] Simone Collins: You kept your promise, and that is... You can leave it right there.

[00:47:58] Malcolm Collins: Oh, right on top of

[00:47:59] Simone Collins: this? I [00:48:00] believe so, yes.

[00:48:01] Malcolm Collins: Okay, thanks. All

[00:48:02] Simone Collins: right. Love you, buddy. Love you too. Promise keeper. Oh, wait, that has a political charge, doesn’t it?

[00:48:09] No, that’s the Oath Keepers, right? What am I thinking here?

[00:48:14] Malcolm Collins: Ugh. Whatever. Th- this, this is low effort parenting right here. Terrify your kid with monsters into finishing lessons while you’re off doing

[00:48:21] Simone Collins: other things. This is how bad it is, though. I won’t name names, but a, a friend’s kid stopped by our house this morning, and I was just like, “Oh, hey,” like- Ooh

[00:48:29] “you want anything to drink?” Like, “Okay, well, I’m gonna go in and work,” and then I, I get this call, and no, it turns out, like, there’s a panicked search for this child. I should’ve, like, stopped and detained the child, and I guess called the associated adults. But I just see a child on their own, like-

[00:48:46] Malcolm Collins: And you’re like-

[00:48:47] I’m overboard ... “Hey, you

[00:48:47] Simone Collins: want something to drink?

[00:48:48] Malcolm Collins: You wanna-”

[00:48:48] Simone Collins: And I’m

[00:48:49] like, “Hey, how’s it going? You wanna hang out for a while?” Like, I’m,

[00:48:53] we’re so now normalizing to our, like, free range parenting and just kids- ... coming and going, hanging out, that I’m just like, “Oh, hey, hi,” and I don’t realize that there’s probably a, a growing search party of panicked adults.

[00:49:07] Are we gonna be that

[00:49:08] Malcolm Collins: house to hang out at?

[00:49:10] Simone Collins: I could see that happening, yeah

[00:49:12] Malcolm Collins: I mean, we’re fortunate in that our oldest kid is an incredibly popular person. Octavian is very popular with, like, everyone he spends time with.

[00:49:20] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:49:20] Malcolm Collins: Just

[00:49:20] Simone Collins: loves them all.

[00:49:21] Malcolm Collins: He, he statted into 10s in charisma. Maybe not 10s in smarts, but definitely 10s in charisma.

[00:49:28] Simone Collins: I’m actually very impressed with him. And when you think, when, when... We, we, we joke with him about, like, his technical scores with some legacy schooling, but you and I had exactly the same delays.

[00:49:43] Malcolm Collins: Mm. Yeah, but I’m a genius.

[00:49:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. My- He might be a genius too. Look, I’m just saying, like, I had exactly... Like, my teachers were calling my parents and all that, and I don’t know, I turned out okay.

[00:49:59] Oh, no.

[00:50:04] Malcolm Collins: I love you

[00:50:06] Simone Collins: Okay, I love you too. Torsten, though he probably will have changed his mind by the time he comes in tonight, had requested grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. Would you like grilled cheese sandwiches? Sure. Like one grilled cheese sandwich and one hot dog? Like, I don’t know, what do you want?

[00:50:23] Malcolm Collins: Like a grilled cheese sandwich and a half?

[00:50:26] Simone Collins: Yeah, you always want one and a half grilled cheese sandwiches. And no hot dogs?

[00:50:31] Malcolm Collins: Do we have any tomato soup left?

[00:50:33] Simone Collins: No, no. That would’ve been like growing an entirely new species by now. It is... It, it was consumed. It was consumed by collectively the family when they were convalescing here.

[00:50:46] Malcolm Collins: W- do we have any like deli meat?

[00:50:50] Simone Collins: No, we don’t have deli meats, but we do have the caramelized pork. We have Burmese mint chicken. We have one more bowl if memory serves. We have that cashew cream curry. We have-

[00:51:04] Malcolm Collins: No, no. I’ll just have, I’ll just have the I’ll just have

[00:51:07] Simone Collins: the, the- One and a half grilled cheese sandwiches?

[00:51:09] Malcolm Collins: One and a half grilled cheese

[00:51:10] Simone Collins: sandwiches. All these gourmet things I batch prepped-

[00:51:12] Malcolm Collins: Okay, okay, okay ... and you want- One and a half with a, a small amount of

[00:51:16] Simone Collins: cashew curry can go on it. They, they come in allotments once I freeze them.

[00:51:21] Malcolm Collins: Then one allotment of cashew curry.

[00:51:23] Simone Collins: With a, a grilled cheese sandwich?

[00:51:25] And

[00:51:27] Malcolm Collins: just one grilled cheese sandwich then.

[00:51:28] Simone Collins: Okay. Sorry about my allotments. I’m so sorry. I know I drive you nuts, but I love you.

[00:51:39] Malcolm Collins: I’m gonna murder you one day. That’s, that’s-

[00:51:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, well, you know, you’re gonna need someone to take care of these noodles, and someone woke me up by kicking me at 4:00 in the morning repeatedly.

[00:51:51] Malcolm Collins: I literally just woke you up by- Face ... kicking you in the face.

[00:51:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, so you know, welcome to my world.

[00:51:58] Malcolm Collins: All right, love you to death, Simone. Love you too. Have [00:52:00] a wonderful day, and let’s try to get to bed early.

[00:52:03] Simone Collins: Yes, I would like that. Would you like that? Would you like that?

[00:52:09] Malcolm Collins: Although I’m not going to bed until I figure out these cucking systems.

[00:52:14] Come on.

[00:52:14] Simone Collins: You’ll get it. You’ll get it. I’ll, I’ll give you some, some time with the dinner prep ‘cause I have to somehow grab and hose off all the kids and check them for ticks. Right. Bye.

[00:52:24] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[00:52:25] Simone Collins: Tex the hunk biscuit

[00:52:27] Malcolm Collins: The hunk biscuit is what you’re calling him now?

[00:52:29] We got building- Ooh ... RFAB devices that you’ll be able to just... With this one you can just, with magnets, just like stick it on your fridge, and it can watch what you’re doing and talk to you and, and go through it all with you.

[00:52:39] And then this one’s just audio to audio. And I’m building an auto flasher on the system, so you won’t even need to buy these through us. I can just give you the name of the product, and you can buy this for, like, 40 bucks if you want it with video and video. And then this one is, like, 19 bucks, and it’s just, like, audio to audio, and you could have these all over your house or whatever.

[00:53:01] Give them to your kids. I mean, that’s what we’re using this for is I’m gonna turn it into an educator. Because I got tired of, of having to parent. You know, I don’t wanna do that anymore. We, we had the kid, you know, and every day. So let’s see.

[00:53:12] Simone Collins: The kid, they don’t go away. Mm-hmm. They aren’t going home.

[00:53:16] Why are they not leaving? They’re like the guest that never departs. It’s gonna take a while, Malcolm. Especially since you and I are kind of bullish on having them here as newlyweds. Like, it’s, it’s actually... If they’re like... If they’re newlyweds going through- Mm ... college or university or some kind of professional training program or getting their business off the ground As long as they’re contributing- Yeah

[00:53:39] All right, what’s going on up here?

[00:53:48] What have you done? What is this? Oh,

[00:53:56] Andy, why aren’t you in the chair? How have you jerry-rigged it?

[00:54:04] You’re so silly. Look

[00:54:20] Thank you for eating toast, Eve. I’ll get some shorts on you

In this explosive Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the German Catholic Church’s controversial Synodal Way — a major national synod that responded to sex scandals by pushing radical progressive reforms with overwhelming 90%+ bishop support. From blessings for same-sex unions and transgender record changes to women’s ordination, reevaluating celibacy, and even creating a parallel “permanent synod council” governance structure, the German bishops openly defied the Vatican.

The Collins compare this to the recent SSPX excommunications, dive into Catholic history (including crusader popes, corruption, and institutional capture), discuss BDSM/queer Catholic events, and explore whether the Church can be saved or if a new path is needed. A must-watch for anyone following religion, culture wars, fertility, and institutional decay.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so when I say coup, this is... This really happened.

[00:00:05] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:00:07] Malcolm Collins: If you’re like, “How far will they go?”

[00:00:09] Look at these 90% votes we’re seeing here. And the reason we’re talking about this right after the SSPX thing is I want to show the way the Vatican reacts when progressives do something demonstrably worse, but in the ex- same, same directionality as what SSPX is doing. When I say we, I see the Catholics who do not want this as our genuine allies in this journey, right?

[00:00:36] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:37] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simona. I’m excited to be here with you today. I had a shocking event. So we did an episode on the Catholic Church expelling some of its most devoted bishops- Yeah

[00:00:50] well, when they were ordained bishops, for being SSPX. And, you know, we were like, “This is fairly mainstream conservatism within the Catholic Church. They don’t really hold that many radical beliefs.” And somebody was like, “Oh, you don’t know anything about Catholic history.

[00:01:06] You need to read more about recent Catholic history to really have a perspective on this.” And I think that that was the dumbest thing you could have told me to do, if you wanted me to have- Oh, no ... like-

[00:01:15] Simone Collins: Yeah. What were you

[00:01:17] Malcolm Collins: thinking? Literally every time I look at Catholic history, it’s like,

[00:01:20]

[00:01:24] Malcolm Collins: when you put a cucumber next to a cat, and it, like, turns and looks at it and flies in the air like, “Oh, my God.”

[00:01:30]

[00:01:33] Malcolm Collins: But today- Oh, no ... we’re going to talk about the craziest event that I’ve ever heard of, where they basically tried to create a break-off gay Catholic church that r- had sort of a different governing system than the main Catholic Church, different beliefs and different rules than the main Catholic Church.

[00:01:54] Hold

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: on. This sounds really fun.

[00:01:56] Malcolm Collins: And it all started in the craziest way possible, too.

[00:02:01] Simone Collins: So

[00:02:02] Malcolm Collins: they had all these sex scandals, okay? Yeah. And so in response to the sex scandals, and this was the second-biggest convention in response to the sex scandals. This was not, like, some small whatever thing. This was for the entire national priesthood in, in Germany.

[00:02:18] Mm-hmm. So they, they put on this giant Germany-wide, like, for what Catholics believe in Germany event about what to do about all of the you know, child situation, right?

[00:02:30] Simone Collins: Wasn’t this a South Park episode?

[00:02:33] Malcolm Collins: B- South Park basically had a thing on this. Now, the biggest thing they did in response to this was the thing they did at the Vatican, but this was the second biggest.

[00:02:39] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:02:39] Malcolm Collins: And so what they decided to do, and what this conference turned into, and I kid you not, we’re gonna go into the details. If you’re Catholic and you already know, you’re like, “Oh, no, “ they immediately started... And I, and I like Catholics. I’m, I’m pro-Catholic.

[00:02:56] I like gays, okay? But I think that w- if you were looking at these events-

[00:03:02] So they got them all together to solve this issue.

[00:03:05] And the things that they started drafting were things like we should change trans people’s genders when they get in their like confirmation files. Uh-huh. We should start blessing same-sex unions. We should start normalizing priests having sex even recreational sex. And- Wait,

[00:03:27] Simone Collins: but within marriage or not within marriage?

[00:03:29] Malcolm Collins: Just sex. They, they- Just- ... weren’t interested in, in priests getting married. They were interested in removing the celibacy stuff. We should start- But

[00:03:37] Simone Collins: isn’t it sinful per the Catholicism to have sex outside marriage?

[00:03:41] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. That was another thing that they wanted to address-

[00:03:44] Simone Collins: Uh-huh ...

[00:03:44] Malcolm Collins: to remind people very clearly that it is not a sin to have sex outside of marriage.

[00:03:49] Simone Collins: Remind?

[00:03:50] Malcolm Collins: They, well, they believed that this was the correct teaching. And they w- wanted to start a separate... And I should note here, if you’re like, “Oh, this was like some [00:04:00] fringe loonies or whatever,” there, there were two cardinals involved. One cardinal basically ran this. There were hundreds of bishops involved.

[00:04:08] And despite all of this, S- SSPX says we want Latin mass and think that you’re being a little too ecum- ecumenical. They get excommunicated. Okay? Oh my God. This event, they ran this multiple years.

[00:04:21] And I want to point out that the Vatican told them at one point, like, “Hey, you guys are saying the quiet part out loud a little too much.” Because at this event, many of these crazy things I’m talking about had over a 90% vote from the bishops.

[00:04:36] Simone Collins: Oh,

[00:04:36] Malcolm Collins: wow. But, but the Vatican said, “You cannot keep doing this.

[00:04:40] This is a threat,” to the same thing they said that SSPX was a threat to- Oh, no ... the church’s unity. This is a threat to the church’s unity. And they just ignored the Vatican and kept doing it, no excommunications

[00:04:52] Simone Collins: Okay

[00:04:53] Malcolm Collins: So-

[00:04:54] Simone Collins: Was it, what, did, did you see anything about their justification where they like, “Look, whatever it takes.”

[00:04:59] We’re gonna go over- “We’re hemorrhaging numbers.” Quotes.

[00:05:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna go over quotes of their justification.

[00:05:04] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:05:04] Malcolm Collins: We’re gonna go over like why they thought they were doing this, where they thought they were getting the backing for this stuff, like why they thought this was an okay thing to do at all.

[00:05:13] Mm-hmm. How close they came to creating a counter Catholic government to specifically oppose the norm set up by the Vatican. And we’ll also look at with current voting numbers in terms of, because I think Catholics sometimes forget how far left the bishop class of the church actually is.

[00:05:31] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:05:32] Malcolm Collins: What would happen if they actually tried to do a Vatican III? Because a lot of people think it would push back. We’ll go into the numbers and see if it actually would. And I wanna go into all of this by pointing out- We as people are fairly pro-gay for conservatives, right? Like, I’m like, I don’t think that it should be outlawed.

[00:05:47] Do what you wanna do, whatever. That, g- that said while I think that, that’s from my reading of the Bible. That’s not a traditional Catholic interpretation, right? Yeah. Like, and to say that this should be normalized within a traditional Catholic context is quite different than me being like, look, I like gays.

[00:06:07] I like Catholics. Do I think that this should be pushed to be normalized in the church? Especially the trans stuff, when we now know how harmful this is. See any of our other episodes on that. That’s where I’m like, wow, this is crazy. And if you wanna get an idea of how crazy all of this is in Germany, I will read to you a article that came out, I think just, like, two days ago.

[00:06:30] Major Catholic event in Germany features BDSM and lesbian groups.

[00:06:36] Simone Collins: Wait, like, an act- m- not that, like, the Catholic Church also appeared at an event where there was...

[00:06:43] Malcolm Collins: no. A number of Catholic bishops, including Bishop Franz Wong Wo- Woensberg co-host an event. So a major Catholic event in Germany will feature BDSM and lesbian Catholic groups.

[00:06:53] The German Katholiktag, or Catholics’ Day, will take place from, literally called Catholics’ Day, M- May 14th to May 16th in Woensberg, and will prominently feature several heterodox groups. Now, again, I’m okay with BDSM, right? Like, I’m totally okay with it. Well,

[00:07:09] Simone Collins: and if there’s a religion that wants to pull off the aesthetics of BDSM, I mean...

[00:07:14] Malcolm Collins: You do have a point there with mortification- Can

[00:07:15] Simone Collins: you do better? Yeah ... and everything.

[00:07:17] Malcolm Collins: It’s perfect. Have the mortification tent and the BDSM tent right next to each other.

[00:07:21] Simone Collins: It’s perfect. Come on. For

[00:07:22] Malcolm Collins: 50 bucks. They’re, they’re selling the same good.

[00:07:24] Simone Collins: It’s

[00:07:25] Malcolm Collins: perfect. And you can s- you can see who’s adding a margin on the traditional, no for people who are unfamiliar with mortification, some traditional, more extremist Catholic s- groups do forms of like, self-flagellation. Or the more common stuff today is, like, tight things you, like, put around your ankles and stuff like this that hurt you a bit.

[00:07:40] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:07:40] Malcolm Collins: Just to, like, remind you to be...

[00:07:43] I actually think it’s a great thing. I’m, I’m fairly pro-mortification. Yeah. But they use some of the s- instruments that have been borrowed by or convergently evolved by the BDSM community.

[00:07:53] Simone Collins: And often people within the BDSM community kind of use a lot of these methods for the same thing. I mean, they’re like, “Well, it reminds me of my [00:08:00] master, but my master makes me a better person,” blah, blah, blah.

[00:08:02] But, like, master, God, like it’s all... Yeah, I mean

[00:08:07] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:08:07] Simone Collins: But- There’s a, there’s a horseshoe that really gets close at the ends there.

[00:08:11] Malcolm Collins: But I can, I can, like, m- me, as somebody who’s, like, okay with all of these things individually-

[00:08:19] Simone Collins: Mm ...

[00:08:19] Malcolm Collins: is saying, just to understand, like, how outside of what should be happening this is, I’m like, this is shocking to me.

[00:08:27] You should not be mixing the Folsom Street Fair and a celebration called Catholics Day.

[00:08:32] Simone Collins: I mean, at the same time, though, as a s- as an outsider who didn’t grow up in the Catholic Church, it just seems to work. It seems so right. The

[00:08:43] Malcolm Collins: Catholic schoolgirl outfit, all that, yeah. I

[00:08:45] Simone Collins: mean, like, actually, think about it.

[00:08:47] I mean, and that’s, but I, the, that the idea would come from within the church, though, is shocking. That doesn’t check out. That’s very strange. Yeah.

[00:08:58] Malcolm Collins: Oh gosh, you wanna hear one of the, the, the groups that’s participating?

[00:09:01] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:09:02] Malcolm Collins: Ecumenical work groups on BDSM and Christianity.

[00:09:05] Simone Collins: What

[00:09:05] Malcolm Collins: but like

[00:09:06] Simone Collins: actually though, that’s just

[00:09:08] Malcolm Collins: what I was talking about.

[00:09:09] And it, it’s gonna have its own, it’s gonna have its own tent at the church mile. Oh. But no, you saying actually, I know you say this as a joke, Simone, but the reality is-

[00:09:18] Simone Collins: No, I, I also mean it very earnestly.

[00:09:21] Malcolm Collins: There is so much connection ... the reality is, is, is that you joking about this, or acting like it’s not a big deal that this is happening, is why the rot has been able to get so far within Catholicism- Hmm

[00:09:31] and why the religion is dying. Hmm. Because you’re treating things that should not be considered a joke, a joke. Right? Like this is their religious and cultural identity, and it is being both really deviantly subverted, right? Like, in a way that is, I think, quite alarming.

[00:09:51] Simone Collins: I’m, okay, counterpoint, counterpoint.

[00:09:54] The Catholic Church has a long and storied history of attempting to grow by I guess its, its religious version of colonization involves saying, “Oh, you worship these local folk gods? No, that’s just the Virgin Mary. It just got a

[00:10:08] Malcolm Collins: little confused.” And what happened as a result of that? Now C- now Catholics are a bunch of idolaters- I know

[00:10:13] who worship statues and shrines.

[00:10:15] Simone Collins: I know. I’m just saying- No, like- ... this stems back farther than you think, right? They’re just doing the same thing they did- No,

[00:10:20] Malcolm Collins: no,

[00:10:20] Simone Collins: no,

[00:10:20] Malcolm Collins: no, but I’m saying, the point I’m making is I think even most Catholics, like, not all Catholics are idolaters, but they’re, if you’re a Catholic, you fully realize there is a faction or subsect of Catholicism- Yeah

[00:10:34] that absolutely took these local gods- Mm-hmm ... and now essentially, while, you know, on the surface Christian, are essentially pagans. You see- So

[00:10:44] Simone Collins: in other words, it was, it was a mistake for, for the Catholic Church to think, oh, that you can just be like, “No, no, no, like we, we do believe the same thing.” And, and because they don’t.

[00:10:55] They don’t. They’re idolatrous. They don’t. They should have come in and been like, “You’re super, super wrong. Here’s why. Here’s a better way.” And they didn’t do that. They took the lazy way- They didn’t

[00:11:05] Malcolm Collins: do that,

[00:11:05] Simone Collins: and the church- ... of being like, “No, we all really agree,” and that’s not true.

[00:11:08] Malcolm Collins: I mean, right now the church is fighting really hard in Mexico, the Church of Saint Muerte, right?

[00:11:14] And-

[00:11:15] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:11:15] Malcolm Collins: or the Cult of Saint Muerte I guess you’d call them, because they believe they’re Catholics. And these are- People who believe that they are Catholics- Mm ... who w- worship alongside, a saint that is made of human bones, a, a human skeleton dressed in red that you pray for things to that you would be embarrassed to ask Christ for.

[00:11:40] Like wanting somebody dead or wanting someone to, th- forced to have sex with you or fall in love with you, right? Like, anyone can look at this on the outside and be like, “Ha! I know what that is. The human bone thing that’s dressed in red and you pray for other people’s death to.” [00:12:00] Right? Like, that is recognizable.

[00:12:01] But they didn’t see that as recognizable because someone like you at some point along the chain said, “Hey, let’s try to combine BDSM with mortification” and then it got incepted into the movement, and now they have to stamp it out but they can’t because parts of these groups have made it all the way to the top.

[00:12:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s so funny. ‘Cause when I was a, a kid in school, the lesson was definitely, “Oh, they did this thing where they just told everyone around the world, ‘No, no, no, we believe the same thing,’ and they just changed names”, and that that it worked. They said that was very effective.

[00:12:37] Malcolm Collins: If you go to the Catholic groups across Africa right now, they all, like, believe in witches and stuff, right?

[00:12:43] Like-

[00:12:43] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:12:44] Malcolm Collins: if you look at the relative ability, first

[00:12:46] Simone Collins: of all- Well, m- probably not they all. I bet there are some very devout, we’ll, we’ll say to the,

[00:12:49] Malcolm Collins: Okay, some ... high

[00:12:50] Simone Collins: fidelity version of-

[00:12:51] Malcolm Collins: I’m talking on average, right?

[00:12:52] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:12:53] Malcolm Collins: Now this isn’t to say that in Protestant parts of Africa they do not also still have some of those beliefs, but generally speaking, this belief that this tactic, that yes, the Catholic Church did historically demonstrably use they’d be like, “Oh, so it was the locals say.

[00:13:07] It’s a little different name for this,” or whatever, right? One, doesn’t seem to have actually helped them with conversions in regions.

[00:13:13] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:13:14] Malcolm Collins: When we look at the regions that the Protestants settled they generally seem to have converted at the same rate as the regions that Catholics settled. But well- I will note that there is one minor difference in the two regions which is typically the regions that the Protestants settled today, and we don’t know how this happened, big mystery- Okay

[00:13:39] but they’re mostly predominantly Northern European today. Like, the United States and Canada and Australia and New Zealand. Whereas the Catholic regions are more mixed today. Not, not, not saying anything bad happened there, I’m just saying it’s a weird pattern. But it, it... There’s actually a lot of, like, we could go into, like, why.

[00:14:03] We have another episode, actually, the Is Slavery Moral episode, where we talk about- Oh, yeah ... essentially why this happened. Mm. Th- that cursed lore there as well. But where, where was I, where was I going with this? It doesn’t actually seem to have helped them convert local populations. Mm. But it has had major negative effects on the populations that they converted in terms of the way that they practice their religion.

[00:14:27] Simone Collins: So if we were put, to put this in VC terms, they basically were a startup like Uber that was able to get tons of customers when they’re like, “Oh, just use our car share app or car riding app. It, like, costs basically nothing. It’s less expensive than a taxi.” And then the VC dollars drive up but they’re like, “Oh, we have this many users.

[00:14:47] They all pay.” ‘Cause they pay, like, a little bit. But then ultimately these aren’t people who would actually pay a sustainable profit generating rate to Uber. They, they were not real customers. They were fake customers. And that what happened with all these missionaries was they were just doing the easy fake thing and not actually converting them.

[00:15:07] Oh, and of course there’s, like, a version of this in in The Book of Mormon, the Broadway play by Matt Stone and Trey Parker- Yeah ... where one missionary goes to Africa and tries to convert people, and he makes up all these stories ‘cause it’s just, like, more convenient, and they all end up believing this completely weird version of Mormonism that isn’t true at all.

[00:15:25] And I’m sure that that happens a lot. When you’re trying to convert someone and you don’t have enough faith yourself in your religion to really sell someone on it or explain the hard parts Yeah, I think you’re gonna take the cheap shot, ‘cause you just wanna look good and get your whatever rewards, your conversion points.

[00:15:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so the key pushback I have on you is, no, we shouldn’t be normalizing this stuff. You know? No,

[00:15:50] Simone Collins: that’s fair. That’s fair.

[00:15:51] Malcolm Collins: Religions have rules and beliefs, and they have them for a reason, and if you just update it to whatever [00:16:00] mainstream urban monoculture academic elites think should be the normative...

[00:16:04] This isn’t to say that religions and belief systems shouldn’t evolve over time, but if that evolution isn’t driven by what drives thriving within the population, which these are not, right? Like- Well,

[00:16:16] Simone Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, the, the, the, I’m not trying to say this is a good thing for the religion. What I’m saying is there’s something that narratively just makes so much sense that’s in a very satisfying way.

[00:16:27] But when we’re talking about religion, only hard religions impart fitness. Only the religions that, that obligate people to do the hard thing and be disciplined and do the right hard thing even when it’s, it’s difficult and costly and painful are going to be the ones that survive. ‘Cause a religion that’s just like, “Oh, don’t worry about it,” like, “It’s okay, it’s fine,” that’s not gonna create people who step up to challenges as challenges arise.

[00:16:52] And over time- Yeah ... they will go extinct. You’re absolutely 100% right. And ultimately, BDSM is a movement that is built around wasting time and pleasure, but primarily wasting time. You gotta get the gear, you gotta go over the rule book. It is ridiculous.

[00:17:07] Speaker 5: do we have all the gear, do you think?

[00:17:09] Speaker 4: Yeah,

[00:17:10] Speaker 5: let’s get the gear.

[00:17:11] Speaker 4: Alright, hike. Yeah.

[00:17:16] Speaker 5: What if it rains?

[00:17:17] Speaker 4: You right. Let’s get the ringer. You know.

[00:17:19] Simone Collins: There are so many more efficient

[00:17:20] Malcolm Collins: things you can do.

[00:17:20] Yeah, but, like, within techno-puritanism, I am totally- Yeah ... okay with using sexuality to draw people in, to look cooler, to look more fun with-

[00:17:28] Simone Collins: Sure ...

[00:17:28] Malcolm Collins: you know, hot AI anime girls or whatever. Yeah. I am not into giant wastes of time or beginning to identify with particular sexual lifestyles, which is what BDSM is.

[00:17:39] Mm. That’s identifying a section of your lifestyle with whatever happens to turn you on, and that leads to negative externalities. But let’s get into the actual event here, because it’s gonna, like, blow your mind that this happened.

[00:17:49] Simone Collins: Yeah. Ah.

[00:17:51] Malcolm Collins: Okay. So the synod was 230 members including the majority of bishops in Germany at the time.

[00:18:00] A- in terms of, there, there were some conservatives who were involved at the beginning, but they mostly opted out, which made- Oh,

[00:18:07] Simone Collins: so this is how we got that 90%.

[00:18:09] Malcolm Collins: Well, it was still only, like, three or four conservative bishops opted out. It was, it was trivial. Mm. So a lot of them stayed in, and it, it just...

[00:18:16] Yeah. So let- let’s go over the various proposals that they came up with of how they were gonna not be as interested in graping children anymore, okay? So proposal number one were blessings for same-sex couple- couples. These were official blessing ceremonies, so not full marriages for both same-sex couples, remarried divorced people, and others in relationships matching non-sacramental marriages.

[00:18:42] Simone Collins: The- But kids can’t participate in that. What, what does that have to do with kids?

[00:18:46] Malcolm Collins: What do you... I, that’s the entire point. This stuff, basically it was just a l- a grab bag of what ultra progressives wanted and, and, and degen- like degens wanted and nothing to do with what cons- like what actually addressed the problem.

[00:18:59] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:19:00] Malcolm Collins: It was like somebody w- they were like, “Come into the room,” and people were just like, “Oh, what’s all of the stuff I can change about the church?” The moment they had some big crisis. Mm. This one got 90 to 95% approval in terms of voters. Th- the next one was a reevaluation of the church teaching on a, a gay lifestyles.

[00:19:20] Mm-hmm. They wanted a quote-unquote “magisterial reassessment” of g- gay, gay lifestyles. A call for revising and updating catechism passages, e.g. 235-7 and 235-9, and integrating quote-unquote “modern science/theology” for greater acceptance. This got an 80 to 90% vote. Wow. Now keep in mind, when I’m talking about these, these huge votes here that these things were getting, this happened recently, within the last half decade.

[00:19:49] And when people are like, “Oh, we just need to have like a Vatican III to fix all of this,” I’m like, these people would be at Vatican III. Okay? Yeah. Yeah ... so, so be aware. Now, there is a hope, the [00:20:00] hope, well, I’ll just give it away is that the, the, the membership and a, bishops and cardinals that come out of Africa have significantly grown since Vatican II, and they are very conservative.

[00:20:10] Simone Collins: Okay ...

[00:20:11] Malcolm Collins: and that’s, that’s where, you know, we try, I mean, the conservative faction tried to incept the Catholics to elect a Black guy, and we all wanted what was his name, Sarah

[00:20:21] to be elected.

[00:20:22] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Yes. It was yeah. It was, it was a woman’s sounding name, but yes,

[00:20:27] Malcolm Collins: , next one. They wanted women’s ordination. This is the next thing they thought would fix this. Well,

[00:20:32] Simone Collins: ah, okay.

[00:20:33] Malcolm Collins: So they wanted to-

[00:20:34] Simone Collins: No, I mean, women are far less commonly known for having problems with children of that sort.

[00:20:43] Malcolm Collins: They’re not, it’s not that unknown.

[00:20:46] And- I’d point out that the-

[00:20:49] Simone Collins: Statistically- ...

[00:20:51] Malcolm Collins: gay nuns were such a phenomenon that I think we’ve done an episode on this where we point out that when post-Vatican II they moved the nunneries closer to the cities nuns began to play a major part in gay female culture to the extent that the same role that biker gangs played for early-

[00:21:10] the development of gay male culture Catholic nuns played for the development of lesbian culture, which is why you have so many nun-like aesthetics and sort of fetish-related things within the lesbian community today.

[00:21:21] Simone Collins: A UK Home Office study in the late ‘90s found that fewer, less than 5% of child, you know, what offenses were committed by women.

[00:21:31] An analysis of Catholic institutional abuse in Australia found that 95% of alleged offenders were men, 5% were women.

[00:21:39] Malcolm Collins: Okay, well maybe this would have, have genuinely addressed it, but like-

[00:21:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, man. I’m hearing solutions now. Don’t, don’t run a

[00:21:45] Malcolm Collins: little

[00:21:45] Simone Collins: bit.

[00:21:45] Malcolm Collins: But this would be horrible for the Ch- like, when I, when we look at the Anglicans electing a lady pope and

[00:21:51] Simone Collins: that,

[00:21:51] Malcolm Collins: that causing- Right.

[00:21:52] Simone Collins: Right. Yeah. That just likes peace out a huge, like about half of them. A huge...

[00:21:54] Malcolm Collins: That would be like auto schism for- That’s crazy ... I think a, a huge portion of- Yeah ... of conservative Catholics. Like, the, the Catholics who are like, “I would never schism,” would you schism as a lady pope? Like, this is my que-

[00:22:08] Simone Collins: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:22:08] It’s gonna... It would take a very long time for... We still haven’t had a female president in the US, and female suffrage started in what? 1918. So-

[00:22:15] Malcolm Collins: Hold it, Simone.

[00:22:17] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:22:17] Malcolm Collins: Hold it. It should have taken a very long time with the Anglicans as well, right? Like,

[00:22:23] And note here, Anglicans only let women first join the clergy in 1944

[00:22:28] Malcolm Collins: you don’t need- Mm-hmm ... a plurality of women in a voting body to elect a woman to signal that now you’re an understanding organization- Mm, yes.

[00:22:38] I see ... when you have people who vote like this. And what percent of people wanted to open this? 92%, with 82% of bishops in favor.

[00:22:48] Simone Collins: Wow. Okay.

[00:22:50] Malcolm Collins: And keep in mind, of the, of the people key people like attending this and stuff like this, there were people with xeno pronouns, there were people with like-

[00:22:59] Simone Collins: Really?

[00:22:59] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the guy who wrote the documentation for this for accepting the trans people had xeno pronouns. ‘

[00:23:10] Simone Collins: Wow. Okay.

[00:23:10] Malcolm Collins: Who, who wrote it. Keep in mind, guys, SSPX was excommunicated.

[00:23:21] For Latin Mass. Yeah.

[00:23:23] Simone Collins: Yep, yep, yep, yep. Hmm.

[00:23:25] Malcolm Collins: And you could say, “And disobeying the Pope,” but the Pope also told them not to hold this. No excommunications. Yeah. Okay. Well, at least after the first one. Th- specifically, they wanted to open the di- diaconate and by extension discuss priesthood to women, challenge Ordo Sarca Dotilis or something and called for universal church reexamination.

[00:23:47] They wanted to reexamine their transgender policies. Specifically, they wanted concrete improvements for, for transgender people, including updating baptismal records to match [00:24:00] self-identifying gender and mandatory education for clergy, and removing gender identity barriers to ministries.

[00:24:06] Speaker: I just love the statement, mandatory education for clergy, because apparently they need additional education in regards to how they deal with gender

[00:24:17] Malcolm Collins: So that you could be a priest even if you identify...

[00:24:20] Basically, they wanted to open the priesthood to xeno-gender types and transgender types.

[00:24:24] Simone Collins: That’s, it’s self ID Catholic Church edition.

[00:24:27] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This had a 96% vote in favor. If you wanna go over how the bishops voted, and keep in mind, this was open to all the bishops in Germany. Hmm. 38 voted yes, with only seven voting no 13 voted in absentia.

[00:24:46] Simone Collins: Okay. Wow.

[00:24:47] Malcolm Collins: 38 yes to only seven voting no. And then the craziest part was the permanent synod council which we’ll get to in a second. Mm. And this had a 93% vote for.

[00:25:01] Simone Collins: Remind me again, whi- what year did this happen? In 2000 something?

[00:25:05] Malcolm Collins: I wanna say around 2010. It was sort of, sort of over, like, a 10 or eight-year period they had the number.

[00:25:09] The

[00:25:09] Simone Collins: one thing that occurs to me now that you’re mentioning that people have things like xeno profou- pronouns and stuff, is that the one family friend who was in an, an order, a, a Carmelite nun when we knew her, when I knew her as a kid, but now she’s a mother had mentioned that as she grew up in the ranks of her convent, an issue they had with novices, women who wanted to enter the convent and become Carmelite nuns, is that many of them just had mental disorders, and they just wanted to opt out of mainstream life, and they didn’t actually care about Catholicism.

[00:25:48] And I wonder if one of the issues that the Catholic Church is, is, is fighting, trying to fight, unsuccessfully perhaps, is that a lot of now just mentally ill people are turning to a

[00:26:03] Malcolm Collins: career path- I think it’s not just mentally ill people. I think consider what the priesthood offers you. You you, you don’t have to worry about money anymore.

[00:26:09] You don’t have to worry about... Y- you know, it’s just, like, you don’t have to worry about a job anymore. You just do- Yeah ... what somebody else tells you to, and everything works out for you, right?

[00:26:17] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s like a different version of entering academia with way more job security.

[00:26:21] Malcolm Collins: And you can see why it attracts so many socialists, right?

[00:26:23] You know? Mm. And I want to point out here that when I go over these things, some of these I think actually could be good things. I think opening the priesthood to marriage is biblical. You know, in Timothy, we see that to have leadership in the church, you’re supposed to have, It can be read multiple ways.

[00:26:42] The way that I think is, like, a, a fair and honest reading of it is you need to be married. The way that Catholics read it is they say that you shouldn’t have a more than one wife which would imply that polyamory is normal within Christianity. Huh. And even so, why would you need to apply that if you were going to have an entire priesthood, and God knew he was gonna do this, where nobody was married, right?

[00:27:04] Like, I think a lot of the natalist problems and problems of capture that Catholics have come from the celibate priesthood. So I’m actually for that, right? Yeah. I think they should start getting married and having large families. Like, a- I, I point out, like in every other religion, the most devout person, what do they do?

[00:27:19] They end up having the most kids. The most devout Orthodox Jew has the most kids. The most devout Baptist has the most kids. The most devout Catholic has no kids. But I think a lot of them are sometimes just people who wanted to live the lifestyle of a priest or nun. Like not- Mm ... worry about the outside world, which can draw in the socialist, which can draw in the activist type, which is why...

[00:27:36] but if you wanna get into what they were saying about all of this, let’s go to Bishop George Batzing, okay? Okay. This is somebody, mind you, not excommunicated. SSPX was excommunicated. He said, “I will not deny God’s blessing for those in committed relationships who are seeking it.” This is with him talking about wanting to bless gay unions.

[00:27:56] Mm. Which is rich because he’s also the guy who said, [00:28:00] “Saint- sex outside of marriage is not a sin.” But then later he said, “It’s okay if it’s done with fidelity and responsibility.” And okay? What I find interesting, and I think that people can look at, like, our techno-puritanism and see where we’re strict on things, see where we’re not strict on things and see that we might be significantly stricter on a lot of Christian principles than your average Catholic bishop.

[00:28:33] Simone Collins: Wow. I think you’re right.

[00:28:37] Malcolm Collins: Which probably rocks people, right? They’re like, “Wow, their - weird religion is...” And we’re pretty, we’re pretty, like, laid out, like, what’s you know, X is a sin, Y is a sin. The reason why we’re less strict than a lot of groups on something like, let’s say gay, right? Is we believe that while gayness is a sin, it’s not as bad a sin as many other sins.

[00:28:58] Speaker 2: specifically as to why it’s a sin, it’s because it’s just not the most efficient way to live your life. And when I say gayness, I do not mean, , being same-sex attracted. I mean choosing to base your life around same-sex attraction, choosing to choose your primary partner based around same-sex attraction, , that this dramatically, , impacts your ability to have kids that live on to the next generation.

[00:29:24] And I will say, I’ve known so many good and diligent gay people who said, “ Well, I can still make it work.” And I will tell you, out of every single one of them I have met, I haven’t met a single one of them who had a lot of kids, who’s actually contributing to the next generation. , They tried. It just doesn’t seem to work.

[00:29:42] Like, the Bible’s advice on this actually appears pretty sound. And, I’m not gonna say, like, I wish that wasn’t the case. It’s just I know a lot of really dedicated same-sex attracted individuals who tried to make it work, and it didn’t work for them, a lot. And it I think making it work is more of a LARP than,

[00:30:01] we or society admits

[00:30:03] Malcolm Collins: And therefore you can still, like, net be a good person and be right with God while being gay, so long as you accept the negative externalities that may have on your life and, and society and not predominantly identify with a sinful behavioral pattern in the same context as somebody that they primarily identify as a gamer, or they primarily identify as into BDSM, and that’s like their lifestyle.

[00:30:28] Well, you’re certainly not living a pr- productive and virtuous lifestyle if you’re dedicating your entire life to that. But so, like, we, we, we say this with caveats but we’re, we’re still broadly, like, it’s not as bad as something like if I was gonna rank it on a, a spectrum of things stealing, white-collar crime regularly lying to people.

[00:30:53] Like, I mean, like, th- th- those sorts of things are significantly worse. Yeah. Or being a, a, a straight gooner 24/7, right? Like, that, that would be on a, a worse category, especially if that has an effect on your life where you’re not going out and you’re not being productive. But I’m, I’m saying all of this with the...

[00:31:09] But that’s not the Catholic position, right? And even an updated Catholic position that was designed to make the church stronger, I don’t think would look like that. Mm-hmm. I don’t think that that would make the church healthier. To continue here what did Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who was a supporter of this, he said?

[00:31:27] He w- he said, “I desire an inclusive church, a church that includes all who want to walk the way of Jesus.” He, he celebrated, quote, “20 years of queer worship and pastoral care.” And keep in mind, you can be like, “This sounds weird to me.” Like, how are these, for example, gay rights activists in the Catholic Church?

[00:31:47] And we pointed out that one of the core documents in our episode, the gay Jew who wrote core Catholic doctrine, watch that episode if you haven’t, it’s the craziest thing I ever learned were written by priests who we now [00:32:00] know during the period of writing them were actively having gay sex. And that, that were not just that, but very publicly did more LGBT rights activism than Catholic activism while the church was supporting their lifestyle, paying for them, and everything like that, and they were writing core parts of Vatican II.

[00:32:18] And so when you see that, it makes a lot of sense that you’re hearing stuff like this, th- this is normal. And this is again where I think your average Catholic, especially your average like strict Catholic, doesn’t fully grok how extremely socialist and progressive the bishop class of Catholicism is.

[00:32:38] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:32:39] Malcolm Collins: Es- especially in Europe. In the United States, we’ve got people on both sides of the spectrum, but in Europe it is extremely captured. And Europe controls, because they’re closer to the Vatican, a lot of the politics of what’s going on there and what’s coming out of there Hmm. The next one to go from a- another bishop here on women’s ordination.

[00:33:02] He said, “The question of,” adding this here, “women’s ordination exists, and it has to be elaborated on and discussed. Popes have tried to say the question is closed, but the fact is that the question exists. Many young women say a church that refuses all of this cannot be my church in the long run. And I hope I will still experience a woman becoming a deacon.

[00:33:24] The path to women priests is still long. I wish for it.” So, you know, the, the, the goal isn’t just women in lower positions. It’s moving them up for these people, okay? And keep in mind, this got an over 90% vote from the people who were present at this. Mm-hmm. And then the co- leader, or well, we’ll go to the next one here.

[00:33:44] Now the overall governance changes the, one of the leaders of this, Thomas Sternberg, said the process was, n- not in exact words, was designed to create, quote-unquote, “pressure for change.” Quote, “Only through pressure does real change come about.” End quote. And he admitted that it was explicitly structured to avoid easy Vatican prohibition.

[00:34:06] Now I’ll be reading here from a Catholic newspaper that did a piece on this about what they were pushing for gover- governmentally. So they were pushing for a permanent synod council, a new national body of bishops plus laity with ongoing decision-making authority over the church in Germany,, seen by the Vatican as undermining bishops’ authority and risking a national church parallel structure.

[00:34:32] Simone Collins: Huh.

[00:34:33] Malcolm Collins: The Vatican repeatedly attempted to block and restrict this. See, this is so much worse than what SSPX was doing. Nobody got excommunicated over this. Synod Way, which was the name of this whole debacle, votes to establish a permanent synod council to oversee church and diocese in Germany. In a move aimed at achieving what critics compared to a communist council in the Soviet Union, participants of the German Synod Way on Saturday voted to create a synod council that would permanently oversee the church in Germany.

[00:35:03] At the fra- permanently oversee the church in Germany, a-

[00:35:07] Simone Collins: So is that kind of like how the Orthodox Church works, how there’s the, the p- the patriarchy in, like, Moscow, and then there’s one in Greece, and there’s-

[00:35:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, basically they wanted the German Church to be sovereign- Yeah ... and to have a separate set of govern- governance body that controlled both the church’s funds in Germany- Yeah

[00:35:27] and controlled the church’s beliefs and norms in Germany.

[00:35:30] Simone Collins: Wow.

[00:35:32] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so when I say coup, this is... This really happened.

[00:35:38] Simone Collins: Or, like, separatist movement. It... Yeah.

[00:35:42] Malcolm Collins: Which is wild, that they think with all of the control they have over the Vatican right now, that their faction has, that’s not enough. If you’re like, “How far will they go?”

[00:35:51] Look at these 90% votes we’re seeing here. At the Frankfurt meeting on September 10th, the controversial suggestion won almost [00:36:00] 93% of the votes. Only five bishops rejected the document. CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German language partner agency reported, “The permanent synod council would function as a consultative and decision-making body on the essential developments of the church in society,” the German proposed states.

[00:36:17] More importantly, it would, quote, “Make fundamental decisions of separate diocesan significance on pastoral planning, questions of the future of budgetary matters of the church that are not decided at the diocese level,” end quote. In order to make the council work, it should be supported by a permanent secretary, adequately staffed and financed.

[00:36:38] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:36:39] Malcolm Collins: And it wanted to have a private vote, so keep in mind if we’re seeing these public votes be this far lefty, you can only imagine what a private vote would look like. In terms of the cardinals who were involved with this, you had Cardinal Reinhard Marx. He was involved throughout the entire thing and served as- The chairman, keep in mind, this guy votes on who becomes pope, okay?

[00:36:59] He strongly defended the process throughout, and then the other cardinal you had involved was Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. And she later became a strong opponent after the Vatican turned against it

[00:37:10] Simone Collins: Huh

[00:37:14] Malcolm Collins: And oh, I loved this quote from the, the, the thing that was writing on it about what they had to say about the people who opposed the conference. Yeah. “Schulzer herself had taken a public stance against the document. However, organizers,” this is the, the, the pro-gay stuff document, “earlier dismissed concerns and pressures on bishops rejecting the pro-LGBT document, with President Stödter Karp labeling the bishops attacking it as, quote-unquote, ‘whiny.’

[00:37:39] Following the fallout on Saturday, Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz, a noted philosopher, also announced she would leave early because of how the synod way was being handled. Dorcia Schmidt, one of the few participants who regularly expressed clear criticism of the text under discussion, supported the two women’s decision in an interview with EDTN.

[00:37:59] She accused the leadership of the synod way of not tolerating minority opinions and simply pushing their own line,” this was a quote from her, “in the pursuit of goals that had been, quote, ‘fixed at the outset,’” end quote.

[00:38:16] Simone Collins: I find this all so confounding. They re- seem to really think this was going to be accepted by the Vatican

[00:38:22] Malcolm Collins: Well, the Vatican did excommunicate them, and they just kept doing it.

[00:38:26] Speaker 3: I think Simone really hits on something here, which is that they did this and didn’t think that the Vatican would push back on them, and were right that the Vatican wouldn’t successfully push back on them for this, , shows that they understood within their circles, within the clergy circles, that there was a underlying acceptance of these beliefs to the extent, I mean, keep in mind over 90% voted on them, , that they would just be passed through.

[00:38:54] That everybody secretly within the priest caste, within the bishop caste, within the cardinal caste, secretly agreed on all of this

[00:39:01] Malcolm Collins: And to get under... Oh, this is the 2020 statement by the Vatican, which was their strongest rebuke of this. Okay. They said the...

[00:39:07] And this was more recent than I thought, so 2020.

[00:39:10] Simone Collins: Oh. Whoa, really recent. Okay.

[00:39:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The Synodal Way does not have the power to compel bishops and the faithful to adopt new forms of governments and new orientations of doctrine and morals. And they called it, quote, “A wound to the ecclesiastical communion and a threat to the unity of the church.”

[00:39:29] And the reason we’re talking about this right after the SSPX thing is I want to show the way the Vatican reacts when progressives do something that I would see as demonstrably worse, but in the ex- same, same directionality as what SSPX is doing.

[00:39:44] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:39:46] Malcolm Collins: What they said of SSPX is not just that they’re gonna excommunicate these people who have dedicated their entire lives faithfully to the church over fairly minor differences, but that anyone who is, like, really sincerely, we go [00:40:00] over the wording that they use in it, it’s all very bureaucratic ‘cause that’s the way Catholic doctrine works that they are also excommunicated from the church.

[00:40:08] Like, that their sacraments do not count. In terms of why they continued even with a Catholic rebuke, ‘cause you were saying why. Yeah. They said that they were listening to the Holy Spirit through the people of God in Germany. Basically saying that people in Germany like this stuff, like the average person in, in media, the eli- I mean, I’m sure, like, the devout Catholics in Germany weren’t about this.

[00:40:31] Actually, I read many reports that they were horrid- horribly- Horrified ... horrified that this was happening.

[00:40:36] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:40:36] Malcolm Collins: But the priest caste is an elite caste, and so they hang out with the elites of the urban monoculture. They want to impress the elites of the urban monoculture. They do not care, because they have been separated from the laity, about the laity.

[00:40:50] Which is really sad, but this is the way, I mean, it’s been forever in, in Catholicism. If you go back and you look at, like, the medieval Catholic cardinals, they were all these, like, super rich people who just partied with kings all the time, right? Like, they always wanted to be in the culture of the elite, and didn’t really...

[00:41:08] On average. Certainly there was the here and there cardinal that actually cared about his parishioners.

[00:41:16] So much purer than the common vulgar weak licentious crowd

[00:41:24] Malcolm Collins: But if you’re like a, a big history n- like, I’m a big... People might say I don’t know a lot about history. I mean, a lot of my view of Catholicism is shaped by being a big history nerd, and whenever a Catholic cardinal comes on the scene, you’re usually about to see somebody get tortured, or some horrible case of corruption, or something where the lady was having a, being completely fleeced or you know- The Vatican being like, “Hey, come in.

[00:41:54] I know you’ve called out corruption. Come in. We’ll have a conversation about this.” The person gets to the Vatican, “Ha-ha, we lied. We’re gonna torture you to death. So we’re just gonna kill you. That’s that’s what we do.” And that’s what has informed my biased perception.

[00:42:10] And I’m trying to understand, because a lot of Catholics in the comments on the last vid- they were like, “Well, you know, Catholics are taught that the church is gonna become, like, really corrupt and evil leading up to the end times,” right?

[00:42:24] And that that’s when God’s gonna come down. Like, that’s when we’re, you know, gonna have the, , Messianic period. And here I am like, wait, do you think that this is the worst the Church has ever been? Because my gosh, I almost... And people can tell me if they wanna go through this, like, studying the actual history of the Catholic Church, because it is pretty mortifying.

[00:42:50] Like, I think that there’s this perception that there were, like, maybe, like, 150 good years that maybe you go to, like, the 1950s. But by the 1960s, the bishopric was so captured that you get 90% votes on the, the the Vatican II creepy documents. So, like, I don’t think 19... I think you gotta go further than 1950s.

[00:43:14] I think you gotta go 1920s. Okay, so you go back to the 1920s, and then you can maybe say to the 1820s. Like, there was this maybe, like, 100-year period, may- maybe even a 200-year period where, like, the Church was fine. But let’s hear a pro-Catholic person’s perception of Catholic history because now the, he was excommunicated ‘cause he’s angry at the modern church.

[00:43:40] But like, let’s, what does he think when he thinks about like Catholic history, right? Because I wanted to hear that, right? Like I’m like, what do they mean when they say they wanna go back to like the old way of doing things?

[00:43:50] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:43:50] Malcolm Collins: Were they thinking of like this short window that I as somebody with like, who, you know, I’ve, I’ve listened to a lot of like early Catholic history, all the early, [00:44:00] you know, popes who always had their mistresses and were giving out corrupt favor to the kids they’d had with prostitutes and like, I’m like, “What, what was he thinking of?”

[00:44:09] So let’s go over this. And this is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. So he was a, a very big deal. So he served as a secretary general of Vatican City. He served as the Apostolic Nuncio. This is the Pope’s diplomatic ambassador. Mm. A, he was a very big deal in Catholicism, right? So yes, he’s turned against, but he’s one of these guys who’s like, “We need to go back to the way we used to do things.”

[00:44:36] All right?

[00:44:40] So he said and I think this is in relation to the SSPX people being condemned. He said, “From the early 9th century, the popes preached, organized, and sometimes personally led military excursions to repel the Islamic invasions of Christendom. From the 11th century, for two and a half centuries, all of the popes created, organized, and levied, and above all, lived the spirit of the Crusade.

[00:45:06] That is, the reconquest of holy lands from infidels. From the second half of the 14th century, “Almost all of the popes continued in an ever more tragically operational manner to do everything and more, often against the Christian monarchies themselves, to thwart the invasion of Christendom.”

[00:45:22] Oh, sorry, here he’s saying... Oh, he’s still saying it’s good here. Mm. “To thwart the invasion of Christendom by Ottoman Islam.” Mm. “Which nevertheless reached Buda and threatened Vienna no fewer than two times. One can say that the crusading activity was the primary political activity of popes in the late medieval and modern centuries, up to the first half of the 18th century.

[00:45:42] It suffices to name, above all, above the blessed Urban II and the Counts of Chatillon, Innocent III of the Counts of Sengal, Catilius III, Borgia, Pius II, Piccolomini, Leo X de Medici, St. Pius V, Griselli

[00:45:59] the blessed Innocent XI, Odichi popes blessed and crusaded saints.

[00:46:05] Speaker 6: Just in case you are wondering, oh, this list, does this include the type of people that Malcolm is talking about? , Well, you’ve got Callias III, nephew of an earlier Bergia, heavily got into this position through corruption and nepotism. , We’ve got, , Pius II, who did have illegitimate children, , and also wrote erotic literature.

[00:46:27] The way, this guy, oh, I love my el- erotic literature pope. And then I don’t have a problem with erotic literature, right? But, like, to act like these people were these, , great, magnificent, , totem pole of Catholicism, , shows that Catholics somehow are able to completely overlook evil and corruption

[00:46:48] leo X, y- who was the son of Leonzo the Magnificent, famously worldly and extravagant, he reportedly said, “god has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it.” , And he was well known for bribery and all that nonsense. , But the point being is even when they point out the best of what they think the papacy is, anyone else in history looking at this would have been like, “This is horrifyingly corrupt.”

[00:47:16] Speaker 7: Also as a side note, one of the things that’s disappointed me the most in some of the Catholic response to our episode on SSPX being excommunicated are the Catholics who have reached out to us and said, “Well actually SSPX is an evil cult that has all these evil beliefs and they’re not...” I’m like, “No. I know, I know SSPX.

[00:47:36] Sorry. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” That doesn’t make me think, oh actually Catholicism is still good. That reminds me , that Catholics will turn their back on faithful people trying to do their best to serve God under Catholic teaching, and will burn them at the stake the moment, the moment the [00:48:00] Pope can in his corrupt whatever the is going on right now, think that they can get some sort of advantage after that, and that the average Catholic layperson will be like, “Oh yeah, F SSPX now because, , the Pope told me to, and I don’t think for myself.

[00:48:14] I don’t look into things myself

[00:48:16] Speaker 8: And this is me defending to you, a Catholic, an organization that would be much more likely because the main Catholic Church has become so ecumenical that they can’t even really throw people out anymore because everyone’s technically under God now, right? Everyone’s technically, even the techno-puritans.

[00:48:35] I want a version of Catholicism that can tell me, “No, Malcolm, you’re wrong.” Okay? I am okay with that, and I think that’s one of the reasons Catholics started to listen to this show is because everybody wants somebody who actually believes something, who’s not just gonna go out there and say whatever. Th- like I prefer a person I can disagree with to their face and who’s not gonna tell me, “Oh, well, everyone’s secretly,” right?

[00:49:01] Everyone’s secretly whatever. , And to throw out SSPX, this group that would condemn me, would say that I’m like a demon worshiper, , it’s just rich to me. By the way, for this period, if you’re like, “How bad were the popes really during this middle medieval period?” Well, you got Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, who fathered multiple illegitimate children with mistresses. Have Innocent XIII

[00:49:24] VIII, again, illegitimate children. That was 1485. Julius II, 1500s, again, illegitimate children. Paul III, illegitimate children.

[00:49:35] And then if you go before that, the popes just become like comically evil. Like you have the Cadaver Synod, which we’ve gone over in other things, but yeah

[00:49:44] Malcolm Collins: Even in the 1917, the Office of the Crusades still existed in the Vatican.”

[00:49:49] Ooh, they had an Office of the Crusade up until 1917.

[00:49:53] Simone Collins: That’s wild. I wonder what they were up to since the Crusades ended for all those, all those years. “

[00:50:01] Malcolm Collins: Today, we have a pope who goes to endorse the invasion of our lands, our property, our customs, often our lives, shattered by the bestial violence of these unpunished invaders, who know they can do anything because they are protected by those who should condemn and repel them.

[00:50:17] From John Paul II onwards...” And here I’ll, I’ll do a video of the pope, you know, blessing migrants.

[00:50:22]

[00:50:29] Malcolm Collins: They’ve, doing multiple things, saying you need to accept as many migrants as possible. Now, the Bible says you should accept people traveling through your lands, not settling in your lands. Okay? From Pope Paul II onwards, with perhaps a partial exemption for Benedict XVI. The popes have preached with all their might, with a unique insistence in their kind, with an exceptional crescendo, and with guaranteed operational management through NGOs, the Islamic invasion of once-Christian Europe. And you could be like, “Look, it’s not a straight-up invasion.” They want, in some areas in the majority, for Sharia law to eventually be the law of the land.

[00:51:08] That is an Islamic law. They are having kids at a higher rate than the native population. Now, it may not be as high as many people think, but it’s still higher than the native population, which means eventually, in these democratic states, they will be Islamic republics, at least under Sharia law if they can vote the way that they want, right?

[00:51:27] You can say, “Oh, I don’t know if this is invasion. I don’t know.” It’s, it’s still something, like, worth being mad about if you are the central Catholic institution and want to maintain a Catholic way of life within these historically Catholic countries. To have no pushback on this, but instead have commandments against pushback by your followers, you have to say, “W- why?

[00:51:50] What’s this level of institutional capture?” When you consider the actual history of the papacy in this, this lens here, and these popes did participate in these crusades.

[00:51:59] Simone Collins: I [00:52:00] did just look up, by the way, what happened to the Office of the Crut- Crusade and what they were up to after the Crusades. But basically, they, they existed because people, like kings, would give money for the Crusades, and they existed, the Office of the Crusade existed to make sure the Crusade money went to the Crusade efforts.

[00:52:17] And then later, it hung around because they also started making sure that indulgences money went toward the prayers to get people out of purgatory, right? Like, you wanna make sure that when you buy the... You know, it’s not like our Social Security system where you’re, we’re just paying boomers. Like, this was like Peru’s Social Security system where you deposit the money into an account, and you can see it ‘cause it goes to you.

[00:52:40] And so in this case, when you’re praying for your dead grandma to get through purgatory faster or, like, paying indulgences for someone else to pray for it, it was actually going to her because the Office of the Crusade existed, which is actually kind of nice. I appreciate that. And then later, it was, it was, it was there just to make sure taxes went where they were supposed to go, but then they were like, “You know what?”

[00:52:58] We don’t need this anymore.

[00:53:00] Malcolm Collins: What, wh- how bad a would it be if we had a crusader pope come in? I think a lot of progressives might

[00:53:06] Simone Collins: jump- Well, they would have to reopen the office of the crusade to make sure all the money went to the right place.

[00:53:10] Malcolm Collins: I think a lo- I think a lot of people would convert into Catholic- a lot of very high fertility people would convert into Catholicism.

[00:53:15] I mean,

[00:53:17] Simone Collins: militant Catholicism. Yeah, that would, I don’t know. People seem to really not wanna fight anymore, so probably not. Also, the Crusades even sucked during the Crusades. I was just listening to a podcast/YouTube video about the experience of crusaders and how many of them came back with, I mean, they, they didn’t have PTSD, but came back with PTSD sy- symptoms.

[00:53:44] How many of them died of, like, gangrene and dysentery well before they could actually get somewhere to even fight for something meaningful, and how it was just... It was, it wasn’t great for everyone.

[00:53:54] Malcolm Collins: No.

[00:53:54] Simone Collins: And so they- I think it’s a little romanticized

[00:53:57] Malcolm Collins: He goes on to say “Who are the true schismatics? As I have said other times, these are the days of the definitive choice between the master and the unfaithful servant.”

[00:54:06] Mm. “This is the only true criterion of schism. Everyone chooses, whether they want to or not, whether to stand with God, who never changes, or with the dogmatic, spiritual, and liturgical relativism of a conciliar liberalism and socialism of the last 65 years. I do not reconcile. I remain faithful to the popes who saved our Christian Europe and faith and civilization for 10 centuries.

[00:54:31] As I remain faithful in all things to the Church in its first 19 centuries, I do not reconcile.” And Catholics have... We may do another episode if people want us to, because this could also be an interesting episode. How could you legitimately, because the pope chooses the cardinals and the cardinals choose the pope, we’re sort of at a point in the cycle where it’s very hard to break out unless we can trick the socialists to elect a Black pope, but we just tried that in the last election and it didn’t really work.

[00:55:04] Because that could have gotten us out of this. And if we’re not seeing that, basically no matter what we do in terms of birthrates can we recapture a form of Catholicism. When I say we, I see the Catholics who do not want this as our genuine allies in this journey, right? Like, they are 100%, without reservation, whatever reservations I have about the Vatican, I do not have about them, okay?

[00:55:27] Yeah. I, I, I see them as holistically, I wanna fight for them. I wanna fight for whatever they want for the future of the Church. How do you realistically make this happen, right? And it might be my Protestant mind that I’m not like, “We’ll just wait it out eventually.” Because the Church has almost never not been corrupt.

[00:55:45] It’s, it’s it, it’s... That’s the thing about, like, the history of the Church. It’s almost always been horrifyingly corrupt, except for a few centuries. With that being the case, how do we [00:56:00] fix that, right? How do we create a p- And I believe the strain of Catholicism that is very conservative today, if they recreated the Church bureaucracy, they could create a non-corrupt, devout version of Catholicism.

[00:56:15] Mm. I believe that that is Protestant. A true- That it’s not just a warrior version of Catholicism, but a pure version of Catholicism, and maintain it with fidelity. But to do that... Now, there’s been periods throughout history where we’ve had multiple popes. But by the way, how that period ended they created a council in the Vatican to annul the two other popes, and then to make another guy pope, right?

[00:56:40] And then the other guy who they made popes they immediately came and said “Nope, popes can overrule councils.” And they’re like, “But we just gave you this power.” And he’s like, “I’m sorry, I make all the rules now.” So, like, immediately, even in that moment, you’ve got, you’ve got this creepy, like, corruption going on, and then th- this, this lack of, i, I just, I think it was, it was, it was really slimy, everything that happened during that period.

[00:57:01] But, like, you can do it, but you’ve got to do it, find some way to do it by the book. So, like, let’s go into the book. How could you... You basically just need to get a number of cardinals on your side, I think is really what you need.

[00:57:14] You need to get a number of cardinals on your side, and historically, basically need to capture the Vatican. So, if you can capture the Vatican, like, literally bar the progressives from entering, and annul them with some group of cardinals, I think you could legally get away with this, with, w- w- well, maintaining, I don’t know.

[00:57:31] Some group of Catholics has to figure this out. Because if they are excommunicating people as mild as SSPX, yet allowing this to continue to grow and metastasize, as recent as, like, the 2020s I don’t, I don’t know how you’re gonna recapture things. I don’t know, like, how that’s realistic at this point.

[00:57:52] Simone Collins: I don’t know if there’s gonna be any recapturing.

[00:57:54] The, the, the church as it is centrally managed now benefits from attrition among members because it gets money every time a convent or school is sold, for example, and it’s quite entrenched, as you pointed out. Just from a, a governance structure perspective, there is, as you say, no really breaking through it.

[00:58:12] My hope is that with SSPX, which... Look, after this excommunication, people have shown videos, posted videos online of just mass after mass filling on Sundays with different SSPX churches and, and parishes. They’re doing fine. They’re doing really well, and I think there’s been even an outswelling of, of support- upswelling of report.

[00:58:34] How do we swell? Whatever. There’s been a rise in support for them. As there

[00:58:38] Malcolm Collins: should be.

[00:58:39] Simone Collins: Yes. As there should be. As there 100% should be. So what I could see happening over time is this offshoot increasing so offshoot of the church kind of just starting to build its own centrally managed governance that eventually becomes a new papacy.

[00:58:56] It’s okay. Look, it... They had to do what they had to do. And then, you know, with time, though it’s gonna take a lot of time, so no one should hold their breath, the, the old one will fall, but it’s gonna destroy everything as it goes, as it should because as you pointed out, you kind of have to start fresh anyway.

[00:59:12] That there’s been too much baggage, entrenchment, rot, cancerous growth, whatever you want to say, within the old institution. So why bother?

[00:59:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, you would basically... Actually, I, I can see how you’d do this. If you have a revolution in Italy that takes control of the government and you can use that to take control of the Vatican, and control who can enter and leave- There’s

[00:59:33] Simone Collins: not going to be a revolution in Italy.

[00:59:35] They’re too hot and tired.

[00:59:37] Malcolm Collins: They’re t- So true. Well, and they’re, you know, Italians, and I, I’m gonna be... I- as somebody who lived in Italy for a year they’re incredibly lazy people. They, they, they you know- Don’t expect

[00:59:47] Simone Collins: a revolution anytime soon ...

[00:59:49] Malcolm Collins: I mean, France could have a revolution and then, I don’t know, conquer Italy or something.

[00:59:53] That’s, that’s probably more likely. They love revolutioning in France. But it usually doesn’t go well, so you know, that’s the other problem with, with [01:00:00] you know, it’s not as, as directed. And I do wanna make my position on Catholicism, like clear. I’m mortified by what the Vatican has come to represent.

[01:00:09] I am mortified by the vast majority of Catholic history, if I’m gonna be honest. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think the Catholics I know today could create a really pure and great institution. I know a great number of really devout moral Catholics today who would not repeat the grossnesses of indulgences, and like, like, even when you were talking about like paying for other people to pray for your...

[01:00:39] I was like, “Ugh, that is so gross that that was ever in the theology.” Why would you... Ugh, ugh, ugh. Yeah. So gross.

[01:00:51] Simone Collins: Wasn’t the best. I mean, I could see how it could happen and come from a good place, right? Like, people start really thinking purgatory’s a thing, even though I don’t remember seeing any biblical basis for it.

[01:01:05] But look, it just, everyone starts thinking, and it’s like this mass delusion, and everyone starts getting really worried about it, and they’re like, “How do I get over this?” And they’re like, “Well, you just gotta prayer for, pray for hours and hours.” And people admittedly have jobs and things they have to do, and they can’t, and they’re not experts, so they want to, they wanna throw money at the problem.

[01:01:23] And so someone shows up and they’re like, “Well, you can throw money at me.” Like, this is how it

[01:01:26] Malcolm Collins: could happen. And then somebody says, “You guys should stop this. It’s a little corrupt the way you’re doing it.” Yeah. I know. And then they torture and kill them.

[01:01:31] Simone Collins: I

[01:01:31] Malcolm Collins: know. I know. We know how it goes. Which is the, the way it often went- Yeah

[01:01:34] For hundreds of years. Which is hard to read about when you’re reading history and you remember that these are real people who were devout Catholics, who wanted the church to be better, right? You know,

[01:01:44] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[01:01:45] Malcolm Collins: it’s, it’s hard. It’s hard. But I think that something good can be made. And I, I just, like seriously, Catholics g- in the, in the Discord or in the comments, how do you actually fix this if the pope controls the cardinals and the cardinals control the pope, and they’ve had control of this system for about a century at this point, at least half a century?

[01:02:12] Simone Collins: Well, here’s what I’m hearing from people on the ground, though. At the parish level, they have thriving communities, they have fantastic-

[01:02:20] Malcolm Collins: They do. There’s g- there’s lots of local Catholic

[01:02:22] Simone Collins: communities that I love Yeah. They’re like, “Look, this doesn’t affect me. I don’t care.” Like, it’s, the, the people who are actually doing Catholicism, who aren’t the ones in, in their ivory towers, are doing Catholicism.

[01:02:35] And in the end, pe- they’re, sometimes people are looking the other way. I mean, SSPX is different, I think, in that they’re being very explicit about their choice- Mm ... to not adopt all elements of Vatican II, for example. I think that maybe in practice there are a lot of

[01:02:51] Malcolm Collins: parishes that- But I think that this is why Catholics have such a high deconversion rate- Mm

[01:02:55] um, and, and such a low birth rate, is it’s this innate trust in institutions that they know are corrupted. So they send their kids to Catholic school- Mm-hmm ... and then the Catholic school ends up upstream of that being totally woke, which we’ve seen a lot of Catholic schools becoming. They tell their kids, “Oh, well you can trust the, you know, local Catholic priest or whatever when you move to a new city,” and then this priest has some goal or worse, because we have seen this happen among our fans who are in Catholic communities, is some based local priest becomes super popular, and then the Vatican switches him out-

[01:03:34] Simone Collins: Yeah

[01:03:34] Malcolm Collins: because they were becoming too popular, and v- they were like, “Oh, this isn’t exactly what we want being taught here.” So you can’t even, like, trust your local church, really. And then when you outsource that to your children’s moral framework that they’re building as they develop as an individual it’s really dangerous.

[01:03:51] I mean, yes, you can jury rig a system together to make it work, but I think it’s a bit like the people when it came to, like, public schools, they’re like, “Oh, [01:04:00] this woke stuff doesn’t really bother me,” and then 10 years later it’s like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is in my local school.” When you have over 90% support of trans within this Catholic council, when you have the BDSM stuff on Catholic Day, I think you’re seeing a level of, “Well, no, this is, like, oh, my kids will go to Catholic Day and it’ll be fine.

[01:04:19] It’ll be cool. It won’t be a place where they will be incepted- Mm-hmm ... into these other communities,” and it’s like, no, now Catholic Day is the root to that for the next generation. And I think that it is this being okay with the institutions being this captured and just being like, “It won’t affect me,” it’s really like the I, I see this in Protestant communities sometimes as well, where I see the very Protestant parent, and they’re like, “I’ll just raise my kids the way I was raised, and I stayed a Christian,” and I was like, “Was it li- did you, when was the first time you met somebody who wasn’t a Christian?”

[01:04:52] You know, like, y- they’re going into a school system that is designed from the ground up to deconvert them, right? Like, you can’t just do it the way you did it a generation ago. Mm. And I think that that’s why we’re seeing these high rates of deconversion among sort of l- and a lot of Catholics are smart.

[01:05:07] They know, like, they can’t do- these systems, but it, it just raises the cost for them so much to live that lifestyle when if you go to the Mormon communities, they got, even though their institutions are slightly captured, they’re gonna have some level of protection at their, at the, the, from the ground up in these communities, and the Catholics just don’t have this anymore.

[01:05:29] And I think it’s because they just immediately were like, “I don’t even need to win these battles, these battles aren’t important.” They’re existential, these battles, are existential. And well, I mean, I think the reality is that Catholicism is probably just gonna either gonna have to grow from these movements that are, that, you know, that Vatican’s gonna get panicked, they’ll start excommunicating more people, and groups like SPSX, because I see what the Catholics do.

[01:05:53] They go, “Oh, well, this other bishop who I followed said the SSPX excommunication didn’t count because they didn’t use the proper procedures,” a very Catholic- What? ... thing to say.

[01:06:03] Simone Collins: Oh.

[01:06:03] Malcolm Collins: And so we don’t, we, we can pretend like they didn’t happen. And I think that, that that’s sort of what’s happening.

[01:06:08] They’re just going along and being like, “Well, we’re, we’re pretending that the institutions aren’t this captured.”

[01:06:13] Simone Collins: No. No, no, no, no.

[01:06:16] Malcolm Collins: As a Protestant, as a Catholic, you can actually do that. They’ve been doing this for centuries. That’s how they’re gonna wipe Vatican II off. They’re gonna be like, “Oh, they forgot to do this procedural thing,” or, “It wasn’t done in this way, when it was done this way at the first council, ‘cause they didn’t go in this order, or they weren’t sitting on this chair,” and,

[01:06:33] Simone Collins: Look, if that’s what it takes, though, I’m happy for that to be what it is.

[01:06:38] I- if that’s... Look, it, I, we just need it gone. I don’t care how, and if it just, people are like, “Oh, never mind,” like take-backsies. I would be happy. Let’s do that. I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.

[01:06:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I’d, well, I’d, I love this guy’s vision. Let’s get a warrior, let’s get a crusader pope back I’d have to, I’d have to be like like, we oughta become like a, a, like, the, that would be so cool to, to have within the alliance.

[01:07:11] And a Ca- a Catholic group recreated around crusader aesthetics and lifestyle would also be pretty cool.

[01:07:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, I could see that being... But I, I feel like there was something that happened with Islam where there was this short period where they were like, “Everyone, you should be on your own personal jihad,” but they just took the fangs out of it.

[01:07:34] Like, “Oh, man, I’m on a weight loss jihad. I’m on a study jihad.”

[01:07:37] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. This was the thing where they lied to white people because white women were stupid. Okay. And they kept saying, “When we say jihad, we don’t mean kill you all, we mean it’s like a weight loss thing.” It’s like, a no, the vast majority of Muslims understand what that means.

[01:07:52] It’s like when they started to tell people, “Well, technically there’s a way that, like, Aisha wasn’t six and then nine at consummation, six [01:08:00] at marriage, nine at consummation because if you look at it here, here, and here.” And then I, I learn that all conservative Muslims believe that. This is just, like, a few weird progressive European Muslims who don’t believe this.

[01:08:10] But if you’re talking about, like, your average conservative council in, like, Pakistan, they believe that. It’s, it’s, it’s, you don’t, don’t get fooled by that. And th- what we get fooled by that, we, when we say crusade, we don’t mean crusade. We mean, like, your personal weight loss journey. Jour-

[01:08:25] Simone Collins: It’s a c- it’s a crusade to lose

[01:08:26] Malcolm Collins: weight.

[01:08:27] It’s the same way that Simone and I dress like like, Puritan, like, settlers and stuff like that. This group could dress like old crusader stuff, you know?

[01:08:34] Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, the- As if the Catholic Church needed better aesthetics, though. I’m so into all of it. It’s, it’s all good.

[01:08:41] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[01:08:41] Simone Collins: Still, though, I, yeah, I don’t know.

[01:08:44] Yeah. I- I’ve never seen such a divide between my faith in the-

[01:08:49] Malcolm Collins: Humans. Individual Catholic

[01:08:51] Simone Collins: humans ... yeah, the laypeople, yeah, versus my, my lack of faith. And not in, like, the priest level or the nun level. Every priest and nun I’ve met, incredible person. Actually, every deacon I’ve met, really awesome, too. It’s, I, it just seems- I’m gonna push back on-

[01:09:07] something’s happening somewhere ...

[01:09:08] Malcolm Collins: every priest I have met in, in Catholicism has been an incredible person, but they have all also been very coded urban monoculture. Like, behind the things that they’re saying, it’s a clear, “But I want to be accepted and thought of as the cultural elite.” There is no edginess.

[01:09:28] There is no, that I need to, like, know that I can trust somebody. Right? Like, that, this is, like, culturally for me. I need to see a little bit of that edge. I need to see a little bit of that dark Mimi. I need to see a little bit like, hey,

[01:09:40] Simone Collins: like- Look, I don’t- ...

[01:09:41] Malcolm Collins: crusade, crusade

[01:09:42] Simone Collins: is kind of a- Our whole prohibitive vice thing is, that I think is a techno Puritan thing and, and, and something-

[01:09:47] Malcolm Collins: I don’t think it is.

[01:09:48] Like, this guy who was kicked out of the Catholic Church and was, like, a thing for the... He’s got this energy. He’s talking about crusader popes. If I, but I’ve never seen- and any of the catholic priests that i’ve talked to have that. they always have that very, like, buttoned up, sort of posh mckinsey middle management vibe

[01:10:04] Simone Collins: mckinsey middle, ouch, malcolm you

[01:10:06] Malcolm Collins: know what i’m talking about

[01:10:07] Simone Collins: i do, but ouch yeah Ah, I, I don’t know.

[01:10:15] That- Anyway, I wish them

[01:10:16] Malcolm Collins: all the best ... that Mackenzie Vigo management vibe is to me, like, like my, my vibes like the cucumber to a cat. Again, like I see that, I’m like, “

[01:10:23] Simone Collins: Rah!”

[01:10:24]

[01:10:27] Malcolm Collins: Like, what, what are you doing here? I don’t,

[01:10:28] Simone Collins: I don’t like this. Yeah, well this is equal opportunity. You have the same response to the Mormon pod person phenomenon, as you put it, so.

[01:10:35] Speaker 7: Stan, take the drug, man, prove it to us. Okay.

[01:10:41] Open the door. It is so much better. There’s no fear or pain. It’s beautiful. And you We’ll be beautiful. No problems or worries. We want you. No pain, Stan? We’re gonna come in here and I’ll show you some f*****g pain!

[01:11:04] Malcolm Collins: No, I don’t. I, I find it scary. Okay? I’m like, “Mm.”

[01:11:11] Simone Collins: It- Malcolm, no. You have a strong, visceral reaction to it. Don’t even.

[01:11:16] Malcolm Collins: It’s a little, yeah, okay, I do have a, a visceral reaction to it.

[01:11:18] Simone Collins: Yes, you do.

[01:11:19] Malcolm Collins: But I don’t get that from all Mormon- I don’t get that from Kevin Dolan.

[01:11:23] Simone Collins: Well, no, definitely not.

[01:11:24] Malcolm Collins: But I do get it from a lot of the high-level church people in the Mormon community.

[01:11:29] Simone Collins: I don’t know that

[01:11:30] Malcolm Collins: that- And Mormon influencers.

[01:11:32] Simone Collins: Well, Mormon influencers are... Look, an influencer is its own type of pod person. They have their own pod person vibe, which is a little different. But y- and you, and you, you, you also have a, a cat-meets-cucumber reaction to, to many things that Orthodox Jews do and, and that Reform Jews do.

[01:11:50] Look, you just, you-

[01:11:52] Malcolm Collins: The, yeah, their mysticism stuff?

[01:11:55]

[01:11:58] Speaker 45: Siva, Om Nam [01:12:00] S

[01:12:01] Speaker 46: to

[01:12:11] Simone Collins: Yes, Malcolm. That immediately gets me. So again, you know, well, I just, I’m saying this for the people who are always like, “Oh, you always single out Catholics.”

[01:12:17] Malcolm Collins: Oh, my, yeah.

[01:12:18] Simone Collins: Anyway. You

[01:12:19] should see what I say about-

[01:12:21] Malcolm Collins: Can’t stop thinking about Catholics ... look, people know, like, my thoughts on Kabbalism are at, probably more severe than my thoughts on Catholicism.

[01:12:28] Simone Collins: Oh,

[01:12:28] yeah.

[01:12:29] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. It makes sense ... I just yeah, they’re, they’re definitely more severe. It’s just that if you’re not an Orthodox Jew, you don’t understand why what I’m saying about Kabbalism is so offensive.

[01:12:39] Simone Collins: Oh, dear ...

[01:12:40] Malcolm Collins: and if you’re, you know... But Mormons, I think they largely know about the whole pod person thing.

[01:12:45] Mormons are aware of that. Are they?

[01:12:47] Simone Collins: I think so, yeah. Yes, yes, actually, I m- know so. I mean, they know that for the same reason that they know that MLMs are an issue in the community and all these other

[01:12:56] Malcolm Collins: sorts of things. But I mean, I say what I mean, and as I said with Simone, we know so many Catholics that are awesome and would be such great members of, like, this wider community and it, the, the just like, well, don’t care about what the people at the top say.

[01:13:12] And it’s like, but that ends up affecting your children and our ability, because if you ever become super effective, like SPSX h- has, SSPX has, It sounds like a skateboarding company, by the way. Like SSPX has. Which is cool. It’s rad, okay? Yeah. If you ever become super effective, like your portion of the Catholic movement, you could just get excommunicated, right?

[01:13:33] Like, that’s messed up, and I guess what we’re gonna see going forward is, does that matter? And so far it appears it doesn’t. And when we see an excommunication from the pope no longer mattering, and everyone just being like M- to the pope I think that is where the, the beginnings of any real revolution come from and where we might see a positive Catholic movement.

[01:13:58] And I think that the people who are now going to SSPX meetings, who are going to their churches, who are going to their masses in response to what the pope did,

[01:14:08] Simone Collins: Yeah, which is so great to see. Yeah ...

[01:14:09] Malcolm Collins: that forces the popes... That, that is how you actually create change. Mm. That’s how you force the pope to the negotiation table, right?

[01:14:18] Yeah. That is probably the only real... Because you show that what the pope says no longer matters to average Catholics when he is excommunicating people for their devoutness- ... while leaving the rest of this stuff on the table.

[01:14:35] Simone Collins: Yeah. Oh,

[01:14:36] Malcolm Collins: it’s just so wild. If it was excommunications on both sides, I’d be fine, but it’s not Which shows who’s secretly in control of everything.

[01:14:45] He’s basically just like, “Don’t say this too loudly.”

[01:14:51] Simone Collins: Well, there you have it. I’m sure we will find more things to cover going forward.

[01:14:58] Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think that these two topics are needed back to back because they are a mirror of y- each other.

[01:15:05] Simone Collins: Oh, right, right. So on the one hand you have these very devout people who are getting excommunicated. On the other hand, you have the branches that have not even been, been admonished for trying to introduce a series of policies it seems incredibly antithetical to even the current stance of the church.

[01:15:26] Though, the fact that these were... I mean, it almost feels like a lot of this was denied merely because they wanted to administer the church, like via this extra layer of governance, and cover, and control the finances and stuff. I feel like that seems to be a bigger driver of the Vatican saying, “No, you can’t do this,” than all the other stuff, which is very interesting.

[01:15:46] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I don’t know. And I, and I will note here that like I may have been brainwashed as well, like on my thoughts about medieval Catholics. C- you, you can go to St. Andrew’s, I went to St. Andrew’s for my university. Every day walking to my philosophy class you have to walk around a spot on the ground, ‘cause there’s [01:16:00] a, a, a thing there because the Catholic Church burnt a very devout Christian man alive very pious man alive, a, a teenager actually I think because he called for reforms, right?

[01:16:12] For he, he called them to be less corrupt. And so that’s very, like in my head, the thought of a teenager burning alive because of the corrupt church.

[01:16:22] And, I decided to go to AI just to double-check I was getting this right, and yep, burned a kid alive because he was upset about indulgences. F*****g... I don’t-- Gosh, man, maybe you guys are okay with... I’m not okay with this. I’m not okay with this. I’m not o- Like, am I not allowed to be like, “This is evil”?

[01:16:43] Malcolm Collins: And, and it’s something that is hard for me to not think about. And it’s not that Protestants didn’t do like, corrupt things, but the iterations of Protestantism that were corrupt and evil, modern Protestants denounce, right?

[01:16:57] Whereas the iterations of the Church, it’s, th- th- that had the blessing of God because it’s a, it’s, it’s a contiguous line which makes it harder for me to just be like but y- like I can say what they did was bad and I’m not part of that denomination of Protestantism because I think- Mm ... that denomination was bad and corrupt and that’s not good and so we had to reform that, whereas this reform never really happened in the Church.

[01:17:22] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[01:17:22] Malcolm Collins: It’s... Anyway, love you, Simone.

[01:17:26] Simone Collins: I love you too. Is this gonna focus on the, the s- situation that happened in Germany, or are you gonna talk about the alcoholic’s rehab center turned pedobear rehab center?

[01:17:45] Malcolm Collins: I had literally knew nothing about that. What happened?

[01:17:47] Simone Collins: The island? Okay. Maybe I’ll bring that up later ‘cause it’s, it’s amazing, truly.

[01:17:53] Malcolm Collins: Well, d- tell me a bit about it so I know whether or not I need to mention it in the intro.

[01:17:57] Simone Collins: Oh okay,

[01:17:58] There was this man called Father Gerald Fitzgerald, which great name, founded what was called The Servants of the Paraclete to help problem priests. And, you know, this is a reasonable man. He knows that some priests are alcoholics, so he basically tried to create an alcoholic rehab center for Catholic priests who really struggled.

[01:18:22] And then he started getting sent priests that had other problems, problems involving their interests in-

[01:18:31] Malcolm Collins: Children. Okay, continue.

[01:18:32] Simone Collins: Yes ... the youthful. And yeah so as much as he had actually a decent amount of success with the alcoholics, he, he did not have so much success dealing with different types of disorders.

[01:18:45] Malcolm Collins: What’s the point, Simone?

[01:18:46] Simone Collins: He basically gave up on ever trying to rehab the, the priests that came to him that weren’t suffering from alcoholism, and was like, “You know what we should do? We should send them to an island and just, just keep them there. Just let them stay there. And they can just live there for the rest of their lives.

[01:19:03] No one’s gonna hurt them.” He, he proposed it was an island in the Caribbean. This was in 1965. He, he said, “Look, it’s gonna cost about s- $50,000.” He purchased it even for that amount, and he wanted to use it to isolate priests who got accused of sexual abuse.

[01:19:19] Malcolm Collins: That sounds like a really good idea, actually.

[01:19:21] Simone Collins: Oh, do you know there’s an island that’s kind of known for sheltering-

[01:19:26] Malcolm Collins: Yes ... pedophiles But if you just put them on an island without children, it- I

[01:19:30] Simone Collins: know ...

[01:19:30] Malcolm Collins: that was a, a dramatically more ethical solution than what the church chose. Why-

[01:19:34] Simone Collins: I’m just saying there is a, there’s a, per my knowledge, an un- unoccupied island in the Caribbean

[01:19:41] Malcolm Collins: Do you wanna do the Jeffrey Epstein island for-

[01:19:43] Simone Collins: Well, how perfect would that be?

[01:19:45] I’m just saying it would be, it would be perfect. Unfortunately, no priests were actually sent to the island that was purchas- purchased by Father Fitzgerald. It just didn’t happen, and church authorities sort of forced him to sell it. So [01:20:00] the, the island doesn’t even belong-

[01:20:02] Malcolm Collins: That’s really- ...

[01:20:03] Simone Collins: to

[01:20:03] Malcolm Collins: the Catholic Church anymore

[01:20:04] messed up that they had a place where they could have sent them and they-

[01:20:07] Simone Collins: They, yeah, they could have... And a nice island in the Caribbean, like this- But

[01:20:10] Malcolm Collins: not even bat. Just like, “No, whatever happens, we have to keep raping children.” Yeah. “That is the one thing that our religion cannot live without.”

[01:20:18] Yeah

[01:20:19] Simone Collins: that is- Well, and he went so far. Like, this was an experienced person. They tried everything else first. Like, “We’re gonna try to rehab them.” He l- And he, this was a man who had a track record of bringing people back from pretty serious alcoholism. But he, he literally th- his quote in, in describing them was, quote, “Irredeemable, completely incorrigible.”

[01:20:37] They just, you couldn’t, you couldn’t fix them. He just threw up his hands. I just love that, like, there was a priest, he tried to fix them, and he’s like, “Nope, send them to the island.” All right. Put them in a box. Yeah. Anyway- So I’ll get started here ... I, I didn’t realize you weren’t gonna cover that. I just figured that that was, like, connected to all this.

[01:20:54] But I guess this is- No ... just so much bigger than,

[01:20:56] Malcolm Collins: Did you do some research and see how big it is?

[01:20:59] Simone Collins: No. No. I just, I just looked up that because I thought that that-

[01:21:03] Like,

[01:21:04] could... Was- Okay.

[01:21:04] Malcolm Collins: I’ll get started.

[01:21:05] Simone Collins: Yeah

[01:21:07] Speaker 9: Whoa, what is happening, Titan? Daddy, and there’s seats right there. Daddy, there’s- Look, I can sit on one. Daddy, there’s- Yeah ... yeah, to watch the movie. Do you wanna go over there? Look, it’s the sand. Oh, yeah? Yeah.

[01:21:19] Titan,

[01:21:24] are you watching the movie?

[01:21:51] Toasty, did you build this? Did you build this? I didn’t build it

Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Vatican’s aggressive excommunication of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) after they consecrated bishops without papal approval. They discuss why the Church is cracking down on the Latin Mass, traditional Catholics, and the fastest-growing, highest-fertility segment of the faith — while selling off convents and schools.

Topics include: the capture of the Vatican, Vatican II reforms and contradictions, the Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo, demographic collapse in mainstream Catholicism, monetary incentives for decline, parallels with the Anglican realignment/GAFCON schism, and why institutional recapture through demographics may be nearly impossible.

Show Notes

AP News on July 2nd:

“VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist group that consecrated bishops without the pope’s consent, declaring the Society of St. Pius X had formally broken with the Catholic Church. It excommunicated its bishops and priests, and warned its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the church.

By declaring a schism and extending excommunications to potentially thousands of Catholics, the Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops.

The society, known by its acronym SSPX, celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors. While a fringe movement on the Catholic right, the SSPX has been a thorn in the Vatican’s side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See.

During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Leo, who had urged the group to hold off for the sake of church unity. An estimated 15,500 people and their children attended, a sign that the SSPX has plenty of supporters who came from around the world knowing full well they were defying Rome.”

The Excommunication

In Catholic teaching, excommunication does not equal being condemned to hell, nor is it understood as a declaration that a person is damned (Official theology has long insisted that only God judges the soul definitively; excommunication addresses external communion, not the internal state of grace.)

* The current law treats it as a “censure,” not expulsion from the Church; an excommunicated person remains a baptized Catholic, still bound by obligations like Sunday Mass, but barred from receiving or administering sacraments and holding church offices

* Its purpose is medicinal: a severe wake‑up call meant to prompt repentance and return to full communion, not a spiritual “execution.”

* Most excommunications can be lifted by going to confession and receiving absolution from the appropriate authority (sometimes any priest, sometimes a bishop, sometimes the Holy See, depending on the offense).

* Also, what is your take on the Vatican’s excommunication SSPX members? https://www.facebook.com/reel/776390925518377

* https://www.disclose.tv/id/8klgxp4icx/

* The decree promulgated in response was by far the harshest one yet

* Leo hasn’t walked back traditiones custodes either

* The clergy in Charlotte just appealed to Rome

* The bishop took away the thriving Latin masses, restricting it to one small chapel in a corner of the diocese that can’t hold everyone

* Banned altar rails

* I think you are mistaken that high fertility means anything in the immediate term

* I used to live on a block that had a public school that was a former Catholic parish school

* The diocese sold it due to low enrollment

* Selling off properties as they are shuttered makes money

* I think a lot of religious leaders feel their job is quietly managing decline and not making too much fuss

About SSPX - Society of St. Pius X

Origins of SSPX

The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) originated in 1970 in Switzerland as a priestly fraternity founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to preserve traditional Catholic priestly formation and liturgy in the wake of Vatican II.

Ecclesial approval and early status

* The local bishop of Fribourg, François Charrière, approved SSPX in 1970 as a “pious union of priests in the diocese,” initially on an experimental basis.

* This early approval meant SSPX initially existed within the canonical structures of the Church, not as a breakaway group.

* Rome initially sent visitors who gave favorable reviews of the seminary’s formation, underscoring that early tensions were not immediate.

Rapid growth

* As of 2025, SSPX reports about 1,482 members total (bishops, priests, seminarians, brothers).

* Of these, around 733 priests (excluding bishops) belong to the Society.

* Estimates place 600,000 or so faithful attending SSPX Masses worldwide.

* Internally, SSPX news sites emphasize that the Society “has experienced constant growth” since 1970, with new locations opening every year.

* In the United States, SSPX lists 20 priories and 103 chapels, plus retreat centers, which is “quite small” compared with hundreds of non‑SSPX parishes offering the TLM.

Commentators sometimes point out that, by priestly headcount, SSPX would rank among the larger priestly religious congregations if fully recognized: one claim placed them around 5th after Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, and Augustinians, based on ~700 priests. That’s meant to highlight how unusual it is for a group of that size to remain canonically irregular.

The Birth Rates

There is strong evidence that Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) Catholics as a whole have higher fertility than other Catholics, but there is no hard, SSPX‑specific dataset that cleanly isolates “SSPX parishioners” from other TLM communities.

The best quantitative data are for TLM vs. Novus Ordo Catholics, not SSPX vs. non‑SSPX:

* A widely cited U.S. survey of Latin Mass attendees reported an average of 3.6 children per woman among TLM Catholics versus 2.3 among Catholics attending the ordinary (Novus Ordo) form.

* Commentators describe this as “nearly 60% larger family size” for TLM participants relative to ordinary‑form parishioners.

* Social‑science work on religiosity and fertility generally finds that more devout, frequently attending religious adherents have higher fertility and intended fertility than nominal believers, which fits these numbers.

Points of Divergence from the Vatican

1. Episcopal consecrations without papal mandate

* SSPX consecrated bishops without the required papal approval, most notably Marcel Lefebvre’s consecrations in 1988 and the new consecrations in 2026.

* The Vatican has repeatedly declared these consecrations a “schismatic act,” stressing that choosing bishops without a papal bull crosses a definitive canonical boundary.

* The latest decree explicitly states that this act created a formal schism and triggered automatic excommunication of the bishops involved.

2. Rejection of key aspects of Vatican II

* SSPX was founded explicitly “in opposition to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council,” and continues to reject major elements of those reforms.

* They object to the Council’s promotion of the role of laypeople, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue, seeing these as harmful concessions rather than legitimate developments.

* The group has accused the post‑conciliar Church of being “rife with heresies and errors” such as modernism and liberalism, positioning itself as the sole guardian of the “true faith.”

3. Liturgy and the Roman Rite

* SSPX insists on celebrating the pre‑Vatican II “ancient Latin Mass” and rejects the ordinary form of the Roman rite (the post‑conciliar Mass in vernacular languages) as a theological and pastoral mistake.

* They explicitly oppose the move to allow Mass in local languages, a reform the Vatican understands as legitimate and binding.

* In practice, they treat the new liturgy with deep suspicion or outright rejection, sometimes describing it as harmful to the faith.

4. The push for unity and interreligious dialogue

* Vatican II and subsequent popes have pursued structured dialogue and “thawing of relations” with Protestants, Orthodox, and non‑Christian religions; SSPX rejects this orientation.

* SSPX holds that the Catholic Church is the “one, true faith” and regards interfaith dialogue as unnecessary or positively dangerous, criticizing official policy of building inroads with other Christian communities.

* This stance conflicts with magisterial documents that frame ecumenism and interreligious dialogue as integral to contemporary Catholic mission.

5. Teaching on religious freedom

* A core doctrinal dispute is over Vatican II’s teaching on religious freedom (e.g., Dignitatis humanae), which SSPX critics often portray as incompatible with prior Catholic teaching.

* SSPX-associated arguments frequently claim the Council’s stance on religious liberty represents a rupture, not a development, and see this as evidence of near‑apostasy outside SSPX.

* The Vatican, by contrast, has consistently defended the Council’s teaching as authoritative and binding.

6. Attitude toward the post‑conciliar magisterium

* SSPX has long suggested that Church authorities since Vatican II “have been animated by a spirit that is contrary to that of the faith and have been acting against holy tradition.”

* This includes a practical distrust of recent papal teachings and doctrinal offices, leading them to set their own doctrinal interpretations against official magisterial documents.

* The Vatican’s latest decree characterizes this stance as an “intentional rupture” in communion, hence schism.

7. Canonical status and sacramental discipline

* The Vatican now explicitly declares SSPX bishops and priests to be schismatic and excommunicated.

* It has invalidated or declared illicit SSPX administration of key sacraments, especially confession and marriage, reversing prior limited accommodations.

* Faithful who “adhere formally” to SSPX—regularly attend their Masses and share their doctrinal positions—are warned they themselves are considered schismatic and excommunicated.

8. Obedience to papal authority

* SSPX’s actions imply a parallel ecclesial structure that claims to be “more Catholic than the Holy See,” undermining the Vatican’s claim to supreme authority in matters of doctrine, liturgy, and discipline.

* The recent decree emphasizes that continuing in SSPX while rejecting papal directives constitutes a deliberate break with Church unity.

The Church Had This Coming

Pointed out to us by a friend:

* The CCP basically chooses bishops and Rome OKs them: There is a secret 2018 Vatican–China agreement that gives the Chinese state a decisive role in proposing bishops, with the pope retaining theoretical veto power, and in practice Rome has often ended up accepting party‑approved candidates.

* They keep pushing back on Latin mass even though people really like it

* Pope Leo hasn’t walked back traditiones custodes

* Traditionis custodes is the 2021 decree by Pope Francis that imposed strong limits on celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal. It requires bishops to get Vatican permission for certain uses of the old rite and generally discourages new communities centered on it.

* After Vatican II, they began removing alter rails, which foster reverence and clarify the sanctuary’s sacredness—plus support kneeling communion

* Historically, the rail marked off the sanctuary from the nave and provided a place for people to kneel to receive Communion while the priest moved along the rail. This reflected the older theology and practice where the sanctuary was treated as a distinct, more sacred space and Communion was almost always received kneeling at the rail

* Practically, it’s helpful for churches that have lots of children around

They also kind of benefit from their low-fertility mainstream

* They make money from selling properties that shut down

* They’re King Henry VIII-ing themselves

Other Schisms

Orthodox

There is an intra‑Orthodox rupture in communion centered on the Moscow Patriarchate and several Greek‑tradition churches, but it’s not that big of a deal in comparison and it’s more political (with the Catholic Church, it’s about doctrine; here it’s about communion—In this case, both sides still share the same theology and sacraments)

Basically, since 2018, the Russian Orthodox church has severed Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and certain churches under its influence (notably Greece, Alexandria, Cyprus).

* This means bishops and priests of these churches no longer concelebrate together, and Moscow has instructed its faithful not to receive communion in those Greek‑tradition churches.

This is downstream of Russia’s war with Ukraine. Constantinople granted independence to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018, which Moscow argues violates canonical tradition and its own claim to Ukraine as its territory.

The dispute raises questions such as who can grant independent, whether schismatics can be received back by a patriarch other than the one they left, and whether the Ecumenical Patriarch can act as a kind of “Eastern pope” beyond his jurisdiction

Where things stand: As of recent assessments, Moscow is out of communion with Constantinople, Alexandria, Greece, and Cyprus, but both blocs remain in communion with most other Orthodox churches.

Anglican Schism

This one’s more similar to the SSPX schism.

Anglicanism is presently experiencing what many observers openly describe as a de facto schism, driven largely by disputes over sexuality, gender, and the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

* Over roughly the last 20–30 years, conservative Anglican provinces (especially in the Global South) have progressively distanced themselves from the Church of England and other liberal Western provinces over issues like same‑sex blessings and women’s ordination.

* In 2025–26 this moved from tension to formal break: the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) movement and allied provinces announced that they no longer recognize the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the traditional Instruments of Communion.

* GAFCON‑aligned provinces have announced that they will not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will not contribute to Anglican Communion structures, and will amend constitutions to remove references to Canterbury.

* Estimates suggest the global Anglican family may end up split roughly in half, with each side claiming continuity with authentic Anglican identity

Issues driving the split

* The immediate flashpoints include the Church of England’s decisions to bless same‑sex couples and to appoint a woman (Sarah Mullally) as Archbishop of Canterbury, both seen by conservatives as symbols of “unbiblical and revisionist teachings.”

* Beneath these are deeper disputes about the nature of Anglican authority: whether Canterbury has any binding global role, and whether doctrinal and moral teaching can be set locally without reference to shared historic standards like the Jerusalem Declaration (2008).

* Conservative leaders frame their move as faithfulness to Scripture and to the English Reformation’s theology, while critics see it as a schism that fractures Anglicanism into two rival communions.

They’d prefer not to call it a schism: GAFCON and sympathetic writers resist the word “schism,” preferring “realignment” or “reformation” and insisting they are not founding a new church but restoring Anglicanism around its original doctrinal center.

Is this normal? Is this a promising sign?

Schisms are a recurring and fairly typical feature of religious history; what’s unusual today is more the visibility and global simultaneity than the fact that multiple splits exist at once.

What do we think about it? Keen on Malcolm’s opinion.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: ask yourself why they’re doing this. Like, Latin mass is-- It’s so clear ... clearly more popular. It’s- Yeah ... clearly practiced in churches that have lower attrition rates. Yeah. It’s clearly practiced in churches that have higher birth rates. Yeah. The common people love it. Why would you remove something like that the reason you would do that is if your explicit goal was the demoralization and destruction of the institution.

[00:00:25] Simone Collins: It, it really feels that way. It super feels that way. the Vatican actually has a, a monetary incentive to lean in to this

[00:00:34] because when you have all these Catholic schools and all these convents and all these monasteries shutting down- Ooh ... because no one’s left in the area, guess what you get to do? They’re literally, like, King Henry VIII-ing their own church.

[00:00:50] They’re selling it- Yeah ... for parts. And I think that also- For their gay

[00:00:54] Malcolm Collins: sex parties.

[00:00:55] Would you like to know more?

[00:00:57] Simone Collins: Hello Malcolm, I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we have an excommunication party. And there’s schisms taking place, and of course it’s about your favorite thing in the entire world, the Catholic Church. So here is a news bulletin from AP News.

[00:01:14] Vatican City has responded aggressively Thursday to a traditionalist group that consecrated bishops without the Pope’s consent. Declaring the society of St. Pius X had formally broken with the Catholic Church, it excommunicated its bishops and priests, and warned its faithful that they too face the harshest sanctions in the church.

[00:01:37] By declaring a schism and extending excommunications to potentially thousands of Catholics, the Vatican’s doctrine office went above and beyond the minimum sanctions foreseen by the church’s canon law to respond to the consecrations Wednesday of four new bishops. The society known by its acronym SSPX celebrates the ancient Latin mass and opposes- Wait, wait,

[00:01:59] Malcolm Collins: this is SSPX that got excommunicated?

[00:02:02] Simone Collins: I know.

[00:02:03] Malcolm Collins: I know. That’s like mainstream Catholicism.

[00:02:06] Speaker 6: What I mean by that is SPSX doesn’t hold any like weird or particularly offensive theological beliefs. , , You know, they’re not particularly racist or homophobic or, , do even anything as weird as like mortification at like really high rates like you see with some Catholic groups. The reason why the Vatican has chosen to have a beef with them is because they practice the Latin Mass and because they believe that Catholicism is the one true religion.

[00:02:32] And that’s really it. That is what was - made them worthy of

[00:02:36] The ban on being able to choose their own bishops without explicit papal approval, which no other Catholic group is subject to, and thus

[00:02:44]

[00:02:44] Speaker 6: excommunication

[00:02:45] Simone Collins: I mean, we’ll talk about the differences, but like they’re one of the biggest and fastest growing and highest fertility groups. Yeah, like

[00:02:50] Malcolm Collins: I know a lot of their people. And

[00:02:51] Simone Collins: they’re like, “Hey look, it’s my foot, let’s shoot it. Pew pew pew.” So, Well,

[00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: no, these are the only Catholics having any kids, right?

[00:02:57] I know. I know.

[00:02:57] Speaker: And I want to note here, they have done this once before. The Catholic Church has, in the 80s, they excommunicated a number of high-level people in SPX. But this time is different because they were more explicit that the lay people who go to these churches, .

[00:03:13] Are also subject to this. So, . i’ll just quote here from, a newspaper article on this, , and this is in America Jesuit Reviews, so this is a Catholic newspaper. , So this is not me putting words in, like, the church’s mouth or anything like this. , Today’s Vatican decree also goes a step further, warning the priests and lay members of SSPX that, quote, “From now on,” end quote, they too will be in schism and automatically excommunicated if they, quote, “adhere,” end quote, to the schism.

[00:03:43] What adhere means is largely clarified in the 1996 explanatory note of the Pontificate Council of Legislative Text on the, quote, “Excommunication for Schism Incurred by the Members of the Movement of Bishop Marcel Lefebvre,” , which was referred to in [00:04:00] an explanatory note attached to today’s decree. I love it how something so truly evil to people who have dedicated their entire life to a religion can be done in such a bureaucratic fashion.

[00:04:10] But anyway, back to this. , The 1996 note explains that if Lefebvre deacons and priests freely carry out their ministry within the schismatic movement, , e.g., within SSPX, in disobedience of the Pope, then that is a formal adherence to schism. , The question of the laity’s adherence to schism depends on the person’s intention in whether he or she adopts SSPX attitude towards doctrine.

[00:04:33] , This is really f-d-- like, really evil stuff, man

[00:04:37] And if you’re gonna say, “Well, they ignored the Pope’s orders,” the Pope’s orders were patently ridiculous. , The, the people who had spent their entire lives in were highly dedicated to the church, and he didn’t like them because of their views on ecumenicalism and the Latin mass. Like, that’s what he was mad at them for.

[00:04:54] That’s why he said they couldn’t become bishops. , But they went ahead and became bishops anyway. That, that’s what this was over., Just completely unreasonable

[00:05:02] Malcolm Collins: Like, I, I, so brief aside here we’ll be going over some other churches, ‘cause it’s not just Catholics that have a schism problem right now. Schisms. But like these people have actively not wanted to schism. They’ve been holding their nose. Yeah. They’ve been taking the sacrifice.

[00:05:16] Simone Collins: Since 1970, Malcolm, they’ve been holding on tight.

[00:05:19] They’re really trying to play

[00:05:20] Malcolm Collins: nice. Yeah, like we don’t want this to become a schism.

[00:05:23] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:05:23] Malcolm Collins: And my like the Catholic fans of the show and stuff that we have that say this, and they’re like, “We can just wait this out.” Yeah.

[00:05:29] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:05:29] Malcolm Collins: I have said in response to that, I think you may not understand how captured the Vatican is.

[00:05:35] Yeah. And how aggressively they will attempt to resist this.

[00:05:39] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:05:39] Malcolm Collins: And what it is to excommunicate somebody who has dedicated their entire life to your religion, right? Like-

[00:05:48] Simone Collins: Well, and the, the they’re like extra into the Catholic history and lore, into actual doctrine. I mean, I know that the Vatican doesn’t see it this way, and you, you can go back to your book that you wrote on governance where you’re like, look, if some, like if like the like mousy, nerdy girl in the teen girl clique decides that she’s not gonna wear pink on Thursday, but the mean alpha girl says that everyone’s gonna wear pink on Thursday, and then mousy girl comes up wearing purple on Thursday.

[00:06:21] Look, that is a direct challenge to alpha girl’s authority, and alpha girl either can- Undermine her authority in front of the rest of the girls, thereby possibly losing queen bee status, or she can kick mousy girl, who actually cares about all the stuff they care about, out of the group because she’s a challenge to the...

[00:06:44] I mean, like this is, it’s an obvious, like, this, this was bound to happen. It’s kind of a shock that, that- Well,

[00:06:48] Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think that people what, w- w- what wasn’t fully understood- Mm ... is this idea that if we have and it’s happening more and more in, in terms of the Catholic lay body is becoming more conservative.

[00:07:03] Yeah. That, that this, the Catholic churches that hold Latin mass are getting way more parishioners than the ones that don’t, right? Like- Yeah. Mm-hmm ... that’s what the people want. Yeah. And there is this mindset that, “Well, if we can just out-breed them for long enough, eventually we’ll be able to recapture the institutions.”

[00:07:20] But the problem is is the Catholic institutions are not controlled via popular vote. They are controlled via vote of people who are allowed to vote and appointed to vote by people who currently control the administration. So, the, the, the length that they can hold on is probably about five generations longer than I think most people suspect.

[00:07:42] And when they then point and they go, “Oh look, all of the young people who are being ordained,” and stuff like that to these lower level positions that don’t have voting rights in the larger Catholic Church- Mm ... these people are all conservative. That’s a good sign. But as I- I mean, when you, when you think about, like, how [00:08:00] progressive the people in the, in the center of the church are, like, we need infinite immigration, right?

[00:08:04] Like, we need to w- we’re, you know, we’re all worshiping the same God, you know, we’re all, you know... the, the Buddhists are great and very insightful,

[00:08:12] Simone Collins: Oh, you wanna know what’s worse, actually? So, this is, this is it kind of blew my mind. The, the CCP basically chooses bishops, and Rome just okays them.

[00:08:22] And this has been happening since 2018, where there was this secret Vatican China agreement that gives the CCP this decisive role. So they’re just like, “Okay, CCP.” And they’ve also just c- continuously pushed back on SSPX, which is just trying to genuinely be true to the church. And it’s not just on

[00:08:43] Malcolm Collins: pushing back on- What did they do that deserved excommunication?

[00:08:44] Like, what was the, what was the grave sin? What was the

[00:08:47] Simone Collins: line? They, they, they consecrated new bish- bishops that were not approved by the pope

[00:08:53] Malcolm Collins: Did the bishops have to be approved by the pope?

[00:08:55] Simone Collins: Yeah Did th- Yes. At least in this case, apparently. That really... But we’ll, we’ll get into that. Now I’m gonna, I’ll, I’ll finish the press release.

[00:09:01] Yeah. We’ll keep going. Anyway, the society known as known by its acronym SSPX celebrates the ancient Latin mass and opposes the modernizing reforms of the Catholic Church, which it considers to be rife with heresies and errors, which it is. Whi- while a fringe movement on the Catholic right, the SSPX has become a thorn in the Vatican’s side for five decades because it claims to be even more Catholic than the Holy See, because it is.

[00:09:26] During a ritual field- I mean, it

[00:09:27] Malcolm Collins: definitionally is, but okay- I know ... continue.

[00:09:30] Simone Collins: During a ritual- Or was ... field five-hour mass on Wednesday at its seminary in Econe, Switzerland, and this movement was started in Switzerland, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Leo, who had urged the group to hold off for the sake of church unity.

[00:09:47] An estimated 15,500 people and their children attended, a sign that the SSPX has plenty of supporters who came from around the world knowing full well they were defying Rome. So this was one of those this, this was like ess- essentially, again, queen bee mean girl saying, “We’re all wearing pink on Thursday,” and mousy, nerdy girl who cares about what they actually care about being like, “No, I’m gonna wear purple.

[00:10:13] It’s right to wear purple. It’s...” I don’t know, whatever Being like, “All of the books say wear purple.” Like we’re celebrating world history or something. Right. Yeah. Sumptuary laws. And she’s like, “No, if you do that, you’re gonna be in trouble.” And then not only does mousy girl show up in purple, but, like, three of the other girls in the group show up in purple.

[00:10:28] Like, y- we, when you’re met that, with that direct defiance and also that many people, almost 16,000 adults and their children show up, and there are pictures of this.

[00:10:41] It’s like a sea of people. It’s, it’s hard to imagine the sheer magnitude of, of just humanity that showed up for this. Yeah ... I, I feel like-,

[00:10:51] Malcolm Collins: What’s really important to note is we are not seeing this with the Vaticanist events as much anymore.

[00:10:57] Simone Collins: No. They have lo- And it’s, like, mostly tourists in Rome who are like, “Oh, I heard there was this famous guy called the Pope.

[00:11:04] Malcolm Collins: Let’s go see him.” Right. And .

[00:11:05] if, I mean, if you wanna say, this is, this is what’s so crazy, that you can say stuff today and it’s like, it sounds insane, but, like, the evidence seems to back it up. You know, when you say there was actually a network of elite PDA files who secretly had undue influence in American business and government, and then it turned out that that’s all true and that’s just, like, a thing now.

[00:11:29] Or th- there was a trans murder cult that killed more people than the Manson Family, and this is just, like, the Zizians. It’s just a thing. It ha- b- out of the effective altruist movement nonetheless that were... or that the Vatican has been captured by a gay sex cult- ... that is now excommunicating the most devout Catholics for attempting to recapture institutions.

[00:11:54] Speaker 18: The Catholic boat’s gonna be heading on [00:12:00] out today. The Catholic boat, get some hot Christian action that’ll take you-

[00:12:11] Malcolm Collins: And y- you can see our episode. Like, a lot of people talk about this, this group, but when we went over the episode, if you haven’t seen it, it was one of the wildest episodes I’ve ever done, right? Ever thought through, was the, the gay Jew that wrote key Catholic doctrine. For real. Yeah. Which is a real thing.

[00:12:26] But the thing that got me about studying this guy’s life is just, like, the amount of gay sex he’s having that everyone he dated after he left the church was a former priest or nun. Like, it was very clear he was part of a very large network. And when we ask questions like why does the institutional Vatican...

[00:12:43] ‘Cause I think a lot of the Catholics were very confused as to... And it is true that the, the Vatican does produce, you know, a, i- in terms of the, the grapes per capita less than the American school system. But that’s not saying a lot, ‘cause the American school system is, is one in nine kids I think- Mm

[00:13:00] gets SA’d these days. But , the thing that horrified a lot of people is that all the way to the top, this was systematically covered up.

[00:13:07] Speaker 2: Why would he put anything in your butts? We don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Hmm.

[00:13:12] Hmm. Hello there, children. Chef, why would a priest want to stick up my butt? Goodbye.

[00:13:23]

[00:13:23] Malcolm Collins: And that a lot of people were asking, like, “But wait, like, did they just not believe anything in the Bible at all? Like, were they willing to you know, ruin these individuals’ lives, these children’s lives in order to protect a practice?”

[00:13:39] Speaker 11: . Yes, I, I’m afraid if things keep going the way they are, we could lose our entire religion. Yes, we’ve gotta stop these boys from going to the public. They’ve got to know to keep their mouths shut. That’s right. Right. And so, w- wait a minute.

[00:13:51] What? Yes, but we’ve got to find out why these children are suddenly finding it necessary to report that they’re being molested. Stop the problem at its source. Yes, but how? You know, yeah. I wonder what- Whoa, whoa. Hold on a second. The problem is that children are being molested, not that they’re reporting it

[00:14:08] How do you mean? Well, I mean, obviously what we need to put a stop to is all the sexual misconduct that is allowed to take place in our churches. Not just tell the children not to tell anybody about it. I mean, right? Well, did any of the children you’ve molested come forward? No. That’s good. No, I mean, I never molested any of the children in my church.

[00:14:27] It’s okay, Father Maxi. We’re all priests here. The doors are closed. For the love of God,

[00:14:32] Malcolm Collins: You know, they could have just quietly fired them or something, not move them to other facilities where they’re still around children, right? Like, it was, it was about protecting a practice and a culture. And I think a lot of people saw that, and they were like Why? Why is it doing it? Did the church just make a judgment of error?

[00:14:52] But when you combine that with what we saw in the episode on the, the gay Jew that rewrote key Catholic doctrine, and how much gay sex was going on at the high levels of the Vatican the people writing you know, Vatican II, stuff like that. Th- there actually is probably , a large group a gay sex cult controlling the Vatican, and that has been for a while at this point.

[00:15:15] And that they’re willing to go as far as excommunication to maintain that stranglehold I think is horrifying, and and, and well, you could say that they were willing to go as long... Because I think when they saw, like, the children’s lives being murdered, and the priests being moved around, and stuff like that not being murdered, but being ruined they were like, “Well, you know, this has already happened.

[00:15:36] Those kids, whatever.” Like, they wouldn’t ruin an adult’s life. Y- you know, and that’s what an excommunication does, right? Like, they wouldn’t ruin an adult’s life over this. And or they wouldn’t do it, you know, this openly. And I think that now we’re beginning to see more openly- Mm ... what the Vatican is actually about at this point.

[00:15:53] And I would expect to see, going forwards more excommunications like this [00:16:00] come out now that the jar has sort of been opened on this.

[00:16:03] Speaker 8: the way I feel about Catholicism is very weird or interesting, ‘cause we have a lot of fans and friends and some of our closest friends who are Catholic. So obviously I do not hate Catholics. But the Vatican, , I have a burning hatred for the Vatican. , That they would do this to people who have dedicated their entire lives, who have lived good lives, it just

[00:16:28] A- and, and I can only feel that, like, psychologically there must be something that is completely incommunicable between me and these people. And Simone has had long calls with some of our good Catholic friends about this, where she’s like ... But it- A better way to ... There’s sort of like, there’s a super villain out there.

[00:16:47] Everyone agrees that this is a super villain, and the super villain’s core role is the destruction of Western civilization the, we’ll call this, like, The Red Skull or something like this. And then you’re, but you’re really good friends with some of the minions of The Red Skull, and you go to them and you’d be like, “Man, the, the things this Red Skull guy is doing is really, really crazy and evil.”

[00:17:06] And they’re like, “Oh yeah, shoot, the crazy stuff. I, I think it’s totally evil too.” And you’re like, “Well wait, wait, then why are you his minion?” And they’re like, “Oh, well, you know, we’ve gotta keep unity and everything.” And I went, “But wait, wait, wait. Why do you want unity under this? Like, why, why is disunity so bad?”

[00:17:25] Right? Like, wh- why is having multiple ways of doing things so bad if the alternative is this? Right? Like , they act like disunity is this big, scary ... , and it’s like the disunity churches are growing much faster, maintaining members at a much higher rate. Like, what do you mean? Like, why, why is unity so

[00:17:45] And they’re like, “Ah, you know.” And, and then you point out, you’re like, “The Red Skull, he just like executed like his five most devote henchmen.” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, you know, sometimes he does that, but you know, one day in a few hundred years it’ll be better.” And it’s like, what, what do you mean a few hundred years?

[00:18:01] The Red Skull chooses all the guys who choose who’s gonna be the next Red Skull. And they choose the next Red Skull. Wait, what do you mean it’s gonna be better in a few hundred years? And I can only assume that, that at a deep psychological level, or maybe even at a biological level, we are different.

[00:18:18] Because I just can’t understand how that makes sense or why disunity is somehow, when we’ve already seen that disunity seems to work and be more vitalistic, more thriving,

[00:18:32] Speaker 10: As a reminder, for every eight people who deconvert from Catholicism, one person converts in, and for every two people who deconvert from Protestantism, one person converts in

[00:18:42] Speaker 8: seems to be scarier than serving under an obviously antagonistic and evil organization

[00:18:50] Speaker 9: An organization that I think if we are being honest with ourselves, if we’re ranking threats to Western civilization, , probably, I’m probably number one, honestly. , The UN is more antagonistic to Western civilization, but it’s less competent. , I guess the parts of Islamism as a whole would be a much bigger threat, but they’re less unified.

[00:19:13] , So yeah.

[00:19:15] And note the bigger issue than the excommunication, ‘cause this had happened before in the ‘80s, is the making the sort of entire SPSX o- organization, , n- null and void from the perspective of, , being right with God, , for anyone who sees themselves as Catholic. Like they’re essentially forcing a schism

[00:19:34] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, I think... It certainly as more people challenge and question what’s going on, and as what’s going on becomes more extreme. Yeah, I, I could see momentum building.

[00:19:43] And I just, I just wanted to say, though, the excommunication is not as bad as I thought it was as an outsider, I thought. ‘Cause I thought, I thought that being excommunicated was like, oh, this is what got people burned at the stake in the past. This is what got people really screwed. Like, y- you’re, you burn in hell forever.

[00:19:59] But, but [00:20:00] actually excommunication in Catholic teaching doesn’t mean you’re being condemned to hell. It’s not understood as kind like a declaration of damnation. Official theology has it that basically only God can decide, so it’s not for the church to, you know, declare. However, it means that you are not allowed to be to receive any of the sacraments.

[00:20:24] You can’t be married in the church. So y- y- you’re kind of, like, slapped with this wake-up call,

[00:20:30] Speaker 4: This is hugely underselling it, Simone’s interpretation here, because if you are a priest or a bishop who is excommunicated, that means anybody operating under you, , what they do within their, their churches, , doesn’t count. Their marriages don’t count. Their sacraments don’t count. And that matters for the souls of the people who are attending that church

[00:20:50] Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh, this is fascinating. Oh my God. Okay. This happened twice

[00:20:56] Simone Collins: I don’t know about the 1988 one

[00:20:59] Malcolm Collins: Okay, yeah. As of 2026, the SSPX has repeated a very similar act, consecrating four new bishops without papal mandate in Econe.

[00:21:06] Simone Collins: Oh. The

[00:21:06] Malcolm Collins: Vatican under

[00:21:07] Simone Collins: Pope Leo- Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, yeah ...

[00:21:08] Malcolm Collins: has confirmed- I did read about that

[00:21:10] that the involved bishops incurred automatic excommunication for schism. Wo- wow, repeating the 1988 events. So this started in the 1988 events.

[00:21:19] Simone Collins: So they’re just doing it again. They’re like, “Look, we’re-

[00:21:21] Malcolm Collins: Negotiations between- ... we’re just going.” Well, hold on. Let’s go into the 1988 events, because this is when it first was normalized.

[00:21:27] Negotiations between the SSPX and the Vatican, led by Cardinal Jose Ratzenberger, I need to talk about took place in 1988. A protocol of agreement was signed in May 5th, but Lefebvre withdrew his signature days later. He demanded stronger guarantees that tradition would be protected. So this is over him wanting tradition, and the va- that was where they crossed the line, was wanting tradition.

[00:21:48] Despite repeated warnings from the Vatican, including a personal letter from Pope John Paul II on June 9th, and a former canonical warning on June 17th that preceded would incur automatic excommunication, Lefebvre went, went ahead. On June 30th, 1988 he consecrated new bishops, and that was the line that led to them all being excommunicated.

[00:22:09] But wait, can you normally-

[00:22:24] All right, let, I’m seeing if th- this was specially applied to their group because th- this does change things. This means that this is a escalation and continuation. A- and yeah, okay. Yeah, no Instead of

[00:22:35] Simone Collins: some new break

[00:22:41] Malcolm Collins: This only applies to SPX. Nobody else needs this to, to consecrate new bishops

[00:22:46] Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, so they’re like in the doghouse constantly.

[00:22:49] Malcolm Collins: No, no, but this really matters because the consecration of bishops, the bishops are the ones who vote on what other Catholics believe,- Mm ... on the... That’s

[00:22:58] Simone Collins: why- So they’re trying to make them se- they’re the second-class citizen of the Catholic Church

[00:23:04] Malcolm Collins: It’s not that they’re second-class citizens.

[00:23:06] It’s the, the fight is over, and this is what I think a lot of the traditionalist Catholics are missing. Mm. They think the fight is over the lay person, when they don’t realize the fight is over the bureaucracy. And if the bureaucracy- Mm ... can just remove anybody who comes into it but has different opinions from being able to vote, then and what’s, what’s fascinating to me is I doubt they would be doing these sorts of excommunications if these people were Africans or whatever. It’s specifically conservatism in Western cultures that they will not allow a slide back on.

[00:23:39] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s interesting, yeah, ‘cause it did, it did come out of Switzerland in the 1970s, and it was just specifically about Vatican II.

[00:23:46] Like, we’re not cool with the liturgy post-Vatican II, and we want there to be a much more pious, like, true to [00:24:00] real Catholicism practice that we can all turn to.

[00:24:05] Speaker 5: And you’re like, “No, no, no, the Vatican isn’t captured by groups that are explicitly anti-white.” , Keep in mind that when the Trump administration tried to take white refugees who were being murdered, like we have very well documented in South Africa, the organizations that ended up shutting down that year, , were the Episcopal Organization for Helping Refugees and the Catholic Organization for Helping Refugees that had both been operating for, like, half a century.

[00:24:31] , The Episcopal organization explicitly said, “We’re doing this because we don’t wanna help these people.” , And the Catholic organization did not say that. They just happened around that time period. It plausibly could have been something else. But I think, you know, it’s up to people to be r- you know, honest with themselves about what they’re seeing in these organizations.

[00:24:49] Are they institutionally racist organizations? , I mean, at, at, w-would they apply the same rules to a Black congregation , or Black priests? Because I think there are many Black priests , in parts of the way Catholicism is practiced in Africa that are significantly more conservative. So why aren’t they having the rules applied to them in the same way?

[00:25:06] , And the, the answer is obviously, , different standards for different ethnic groups because they have different outcomes they want from different ethnic groups

[00:25:13] Simone Collins: Though it, it should... What’s weird about this, and like, where I, I see this ongoing tension ‘cause I, I see what you’re saying. It’s, it’s basically they’re like, “You can exist.

[00:25:21] You just can’t have a voice, ‘cause we don’t want you to-” You can’t have

[00:25:24] Malcolm Collins: institutional power because- Yeah ... we don’t want to lose the institutional power that we have taken control of.

[00:25:29] Simone Collins: Because when the founder of SSPX created this new offshoot, the local bil- bishop who was also in Switzerland, approved of it.

[00:25:40] They, they said it was a pious union of priests in the diocese, and they just kind of saw it as like, well, this experimental branch, which is something that we’ve often lauded about Catholicism, that it’s this religion that is able to have sort of these, like, more extreme offshoots. It can innovate, and they’re kind of like the, the skunkworks of the religion, and if they’re good, they get reintegrated.

[00:26:01] If they’re not, they don’t get reintegrated. And what we have here is an issue of the discernment on what can be reintegrated being disconnected with the actual best interests and true nature of the church and its purpose. But this, yeah, that’s really interesting. ‘Cause they, they, they initially sent visitors to, like Rome did, when, when this new group formed.

[00:26:27] They, like, sent people over to check it out, and they had favorable reviews of it, and they thought that, you know, it was, it was, it’s solid. So this, this, this didn’t start out as an attack- antagonistic relationship. And SSPX has grown a ton. So as of 2025, they have around 1,482 members in total, but by members, I mean- Bishops, priests, seminarians, and brothers.

[00:26:55] So there are more like 600,000 or so faithful and that’s a lot of people. Plus when you, when you consider especially this is a hard religion, there aren’t any actual estimates of their unique birth rates. There’s only estimates of traditional Latin mass Catholics, and that can be a larger group than just SSPX.

[00:27:18] But this widely cited US survey of Latin mass attendees, and of course Latin mass is like the SSPX thing found that,

[00:27:27] Malcolm Collins: So let’s, let’s if you... I wanna go over like what, what’s the beliefs that they had that got them to sex communication.

[00:27:32] Simone Collins: But hold on. Latin mass attendees have an average of 3.6 children per woman.

[00:27:36] Malcolm Collins: Oh, Go-

[00:27:37] Simone Collins: Whereas normal Catholics have around 2.3, so that’s significant, like that’s a very meaningful difference.

[00:27:44] Malcolm Collins: That’s, those numbers aren’t accurate, by the way.

[00:27:47] Simone Collins: How so?

[00:27:48] Malcolm Collins: Catholics are way below replacement rate. Like, they’ve been below replacement rate since the-

[00:27:53] Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So you’re saying that- ... the early ‘

[00:27:55] Malcolm Collins: 80s.

[00:27:56] Wherever you got those

[00:27:56] Simone Collins: numbers from- That can’t be true because normal Catholics are-

[00:27:59] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... not [00:28:00] at 2.3. Catholic average fertility rate is like 1.1, Simone. I, I do not know- Hmm ... where you’re getting these numbers from.

[00:28:05] Simone Collins: Well, if I look at the year of the survey, maybe it’s just that it’s one of the older ones.

[00:28:08] I didn’t check the year when I looked at the page.

[00:28:12] Malcolm Collins: That probably worth doing because Catholics have had, in the United States, the Catholic average fertility rate, the non-Hispanic Catholic average-

[00:28:18] Simone Collins: 2018. That’s interesting ...

[00:28:21] Malcolm Collins: the non-Hispanic Catholic fertility rate in the United States was 1.6 and this was back in tw- the 1980s.

[00:28:29] 1986 is when it was taken. Well,

[00:28:31] Simone Collins: it might be- Yeah, all the data was collected between March 2018 and November 2018. Was it in the

[00:28:34] Malcolm Collins: United States?

[00:28:35] Simone Collins: I think so.

[00:28:36] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so I’ll tell you where you got the, the funky numbers from. Okay. It’s including his, the, the only high fertility Catholic group on Earth really in, in mass when you’re not talking about the, the, the Latin mass ones, are Hispanic American Catholics.

[00:28:51] Hispanic Catholics are low fertility in all of their native countries, but they’re very high fertility in the United States

[00:28:57] so you’re likely seeing the... But, like, let’s talk

[00:28:59] Simone Collins: about- It was in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas. So yeah, that’s gonna have, especially in Arizona And California and Texas, a decent number of immigrants.

[00:29:11] Okay, so fair, fine. But still, I mean, a meaningful difference in, in practice of, of fertility rates. And that a lot of commentators see that as, like, a 60% larger family size. And in general, like, other social science work on religiosity, which we’ve reported on elsewhere, shows that people who as we put it, practice more hard religion are more likely to have higher fertility rates.

[00:29:39] It doesn’t matter

[00:29:40] Malcolm Collins: if you’re like- Yeah, the, the point I’m making is that that’s just not,

[00:29:44] Simone Collins: Are you, are you disputing that SSPX members have higher fertility?

[00:29:51] Malcolm Collins: What, no, what I’m, what I’m disputing is that it’s not relevant to your ability to control the Vatican. That’s-

[00:29:59] Simone Collins: Right, right, right, right. What you find most interesting in this is this systematic bureaucratic resistance to reform when reform means getting rid of changes made that we don’t think are true and that many Catholics don’t think are true to the Catholic faith, correct?

[00:30:17] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. They, they, they, so who, who does have a vote within the Catholic Church? So we talk about, like, recapturing,

[00:30:23] Simone Collins: Who has the most influence, you mean?

[00:30:24] Malcolm Collins: Cardinals are created exclusively by the pope. And even the existing cardinals do not vote in new par- cardinals. That’s only the pope’s decision. Mm-hmm. Oh my God, that’s an incredibly hard system to ever crack.

[00:30:35] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:30:36] Malcolm Collins: If only the pope can appoint cardinals and only cardinals can vote on the pope, and both of those b- groups are entirely captured the bishops would have had a vote in big things like Vatican II. Like, presumably all the bishops vote on that. So they’re basically making it so that, like, not even a drip of doubt can come in.

[00:30:54] Wow. Not even a drip of opposition can enter.

[00:30:57] Simone Collins: Yeah, so it’s- Wow, so there’s basically no room for reform- There is no room for reform ... the way that governance is structured.

[00:31:02] Malcolm Collins: You’d have

[00:31:03] Simone Collins: to- It’s just not possible ...

[00:31:03] Malcolm Collins: yeah, you’d have to take out the existing leadership system almost ent- entirely. Like, like, it would require, like, revolution to get reform.

[00:31:11] Th- that is why- Yikes ... I had, I had no idea it was that bad. And if you wanna go over what they held these members to get them excommunicated for putting bishops with these beliefs into a position to potentially vote in future councils Vatican II itself. The council contained serious errors and ambiguities, especially in religious liberty.

[00:31:31] This is what SSPX thought, which it just, like, again, see our other episode on this, the, the gay Jew who wrote core Catholic doctrine, and deconverted by the way after that. The, the for people who are wondering, he wrote the entirety of the first draft of one of the key documents of Vatican II on ecumenicalism which is these people’s core complaint.

[00:31:49] The guy, the guy who wrote the first draft of the document is no longer Catholic, right? Like, I can understand why they might be like, “Well, should we really? Like, this seems to go against some of the older beliefs in Catholicism.” And, and apparently [00:32:00] this is the number one thing that they’re, they’re mad about, okay?

[00:32:02] Is- That

[00:32:03] Simone Collins: who’s mad about? That SSPX is mad about- No, that

[00:32:05] Malcolm Collins: the- ... or the

[00:32:05] Simone Collins: Vatican? ...

[00:32:05] Malcolm Collins: that the Vatican is mad at SSPX about- Uh-huh ... is SSPX views on ecumenicalism. Like trying to integrate the- That they’re

[00:32:13] Simone Collins: trying to consecrate, consecrate bishops?

[00:32:16] Malcolm Collins: W- well, no. This is the view that we’re threatening to the Vatican, okay?

[00:32:21] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:32:21] Malcolm Collins: That SSPX, this is the view that says, like, “Hey maybe we shouldn’t have endless immigrants of other religions,” right? Like, maybe we

[00:32:28] Simone Collins: sh- No, no, yeah, that, that’s, that’s the other, yeah. Like, well, I mean, a m- that is one of the many things, but yeah, they’re, they’re... Well, more broadly it’s not like, oh... So Vatican II as w- you pointed out in the, the gay Catholic whatever one Jew episode that there’s this big thing about, like, oh, let’s have interfaith dialogue, and maybe everyone’s kind of right.

[00:32:50] Whi- which SSPX is like, “No, Catholicism is the one true faith. We’re not gonna be like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I guess everyone’s kinda cool. It’s fine. Let’s all talk together and be friends.’” Like, no, Catholicism is right.

[00:33:01] Malcolm Collins: Like, you can talk and be friends and still be like, “But we’re the right ones.”

[00:33:05] Simone Collins: Yeah, like, that’s the whole point, is it?

[00:33:06] And it- This is why we love talking with our Catholic friends and friends of other religion, especially our Catholic friends though, and I guess our Catholic friends lean more in the SSPX direction ‘cause they’re like, “I mean, that’s a great, you know, we understand your point. You’re wrong.” And I love that.

[00:33:20] Like, I wanna have that debate, and the, the leaning of, of the, of like post-Patic- Vatican II Catholic Church is very different. But then I mean, you know, it’s... They’re also super against this, this idea of in general, kind of taking away the sacredness of the Catholic Church. Well- Like, this manifests in many different ways, right?

[00:33:40] Th- I mean, we talk most about the Latin mass and their, their obsessive obsession with the Latin mass, but there’s also subtle things. Mm. Like, it’s not, there’s not a formal rule about this- Mm ... but there are what are they called? Rails. There are these, these rails that sort of separate the, the key part of the church.

[00:34:02] What is it called? The sanctuary from the nave, where like the, the- Yeah ... the parishioners sit. And post-Vatican II, it kind of just became the thing to remove the rails, which both you would sort of kneel at for communion, but also provided this feeling of physical separation from a more sacred space. And it separated the priests from the, from their flock, and sort of showed them to be like, “Hey, this is th- the stuff happening here is sacred and special.”

[00:34:32] And when you take that away, it makes all of it feel like less authoritative, less exciting and magical and meaningful. And also, I, I think this is understated, but f- just from a practical family perspective and I, I really felt this when I took Octavian into a Catholic church, when we took him just to D- DC like a couple months back.

[00:34:56] When you have a lot of little kids running around a Catholic church, which you should if you have a successful parish They might just run straight up. Like, the fence is useful, and especially, like, to kids who can’t really understand complex- Actually,

[00:35:11] Malcolm Collins: that’s such a good point. The fence is a sign of a church with kids.

[00:35:15] Simone Collins: It is a sign of a church ‘cause the what is, what is the first thing Octavian did when we got into the church? He, like, walks up. He like, “I’m gonna sit on, like, the big spot. Like, it’s, it’s a little bit raised here. I wanna go to the coolest part, and I’m gonna climb up on it.” And I’m like, “Oh my God, no, stop.”

[00:35:28] I, I think I even have video of it that I can send to you. I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Thank God no one was in there. But, like, there’s a reason there are guardrails, and it’s not just like, oh, it, you know... But, but like from a practical standpoint, it communicates to children that this is sacred, that we don’t touch that.

[00:35:45] And it’s the same in, like, an adult’s house, right? Like, this is my white living room for entertaining. We have a little kid fence here. You don’t walk in it. Like, kids understand the rails, okay? And that’s why we had those those stained glass windows. Like, little, you know, [00:36:00] they, they can’t understand what’s happening, even if, if the, if the mass is in English.

[00:36:03] Malcolm Collins: That, that’s true. Yeah. They’re like comic books of what happened- Yeah ... in the Bible.

[00:36:07] Simone Collins: Yeah. And, like, when you start to take these things away, or you, like, make the stained glass all, like, abstract and ugly-

[00:36:12] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, they take them away after... They don’t even remember the utility of something like that by the time there’s no kids left.

[00:36:19] Yeah. They don’t remember why you would have something like

[00:36:21] Simone Collins: that. Right. Yeah, because, like, what kid in the church is running up, you know, into the, the sanctuary? ‘Cause there aren’t any kids to run into the sanctuary. It, it, it makes no sense.

[00:36:28] Malcolm Collins: But if you, if you, if you, if you go over... I wanna go over all the individual things that really piss the church off.

[00:36:32] So one was they, they wanted more ecumenicalism. Yeah. Or sorry, less ecumenicalism. They’re like- Yeah,

[00:36:37] Simone Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah ... “

[00:36:37] Malcolm Collins: Look, you can be nice to people of other religions while saying they’re wrong,” right? And the Vatican- Mm-hmm ... is like, “No, you can’t,” basically. Yeah.

[00:36:43] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:36:43] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:36:43] Simone Collins: yeah, yeah.

[00:36:44] Malcolm Collins: They, they, The council teaching-

[00:36:46] Simone Collins: They also teach on religious freedom, like that there’s

[00:36:48] Malcolm Collins: this core doctrinal- Yeah, that people have a right to religious freedom.

[00:36:50] Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and or that there are even false religions contradicts earlier popes who taught error has no rights. Yeah. And the Vatican absolutely says no, nothing in Vatican II contradicts previous stuff. Yeah. Whereas SPX says no, there’s... And, and most Protestants say that Vatican II does seem to clearly contradict previous stuff.

[00:37:07] Yeah. I, I don’t wanna, like, go over all the, the points in it because of course you have the official Vatican answer, and a lot of Vaticanists will just repeat the official Vatican answer without applying critical thought to is that actually a v- a good answer? Like, did that answer pass for what I need to believe is existentially true about reality?

[00:37:25] The new, the new mass versus the Latin mass was actually genuinely one of the reasons why the Vatican excommunicated them. Yeah. Apparently. Yeah. They were just, like, really mad that we might have people who would oppose the new mass, which it-

[00:37:39] Simone Collins: Well, and they even, like... So there... It wasn’t... Like, they kept reiterating that, like, we, we don’t do Latin mass.

[00:37:45] Like, they kept trying to demote, and demote, and demote Latin mass. So there was even this thing there’s this 2021 decree- No,

[00:37:52] Malcolm Collins: if you’re a Vati- Hold on. Before you go further with this, if you’re a Catholic, ask yourself why they’re doing this. Like, the L- Latin mass is- They’re

[00:38:00] Simone Collins: trying to take the sacredness out of Catholicism.

[00:38:02] It’s,

[00:38:02] Malcolm Collins: it’s- It’s so clear ... clearly more popular. It’s- Yeah ... clearly practiced in churches that have lower attrition rates. Yeah. It’s clearly practiced in churches that have higher birth rates. Yeah. The common people love it. Why would you remove something like that if-

[00:38:16] Simone Collins: Well, yeah, and Latin mass is harder.

[00:38:18] Like, it, it’s like I, I guess it’s like a, a, a, oh, God, what’s it... de- denying an A to the student who, like, actually does all the homework and takes all the tests and gets perfect scores

[00:38:34] Malcolm Collins: That’s a, that’s a great way to put it if you’re looking at it in, like, America. It’s like you are intentionally punishing your highest fidelity highest performing, highest vitalist, highest community-

[00:38:46] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:38:46] Malcolm Collins: part of your religion. Why would you do that? Like, I want you to think. Yeah.

[00:38:50] Simone Collins: They’re like, “No, no, no, no. We’re pass-fail. We, no, you’re out. You can’t-” No,

[00:38:54] Malcolm Collins: no, the reason you would do that is if your explicit goal was the demoralization and destruction of the institution.

[00:39:03] Simone Collins: It, it really feels that way. It super feels that way.

[00:39:07] There’s so, anyway, the, there’s, there was this thing in ‘21, 2021 called the Tradici- Traditionis Custodis that was this decree by Pope Francis that imposed strong limits on celebrating the traditional Latin mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal. It requires that bishops get Vatican permission for certain uses of the old rite, and it generally discouraged new communities from using it.

[00:39:34] And in practice what, what some of our friends who are Catholics have seen is that it’s just, like, shoved to, like, one corner of a church and, like, basically hidden as much as possible. So they not only, like, as much as they were like, “Oh, sure,” like, “We’re fine with you. You can stay.” They’re, they get mad every time they consecrate bishops, every time, you know, they, they get really excited about Latin mass.

[00:39:56] They’re like, “Oh, but, like, mm, why don’t you just do it, like, behind... [00:40:00] Why don’t you do it by the trash dumpster?” You know, like, “Go do it there.” It, it’s, they’re just, they’re being so mean.

[00:40:07] Malcolm Collins: Well, because I, I, like, I, like, this isn’t even conspiratorial, and I’m, I’m asking AI to try to figure this out.

[00:40:14] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:40:14] Malcolm Collins: Why are they against the more popular form of the mass that seems to do better?

[00:40:23] Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s a good question. So

[00:40:27] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so the main reason comes from Vatican II.

[00:40:30] Simone Collins: Well, yeah. And when that, that’s the core thing. I mean, like again, the core thing of SSPX is Vatican II runs counter to the Catholic Church. Man, what hap- like who’s idea

[00:40:42] Malcolm Collins: was Vatican II? Oh, because they believe that the Latin Mass, well, this is their argument. They say it detracts from the unity of the church specifically the unique expression of lex orandi or the law of worship of the Roman Rite. So basically because some Catholics are practicing in a way that’s different from other Catholics even if it’s more popular and better in any way, they, they’re, they’re antagonistic to it

[00:41:07] That’s wild

[00:41:11] Simone Collins: It’s, a- again, it’s, it’s, it’s queen bee, mean girl assertion of authority. It’s that classic governance thing. I mean, I, I, I see the point that you’re making, but it’s also the whole, like, you’re questioning my authority and if I don’t crack down, my authority is going to become increasingly undermined.

[00:41:28] And when I say, like, “Don’t do this,” and they keep doing it, then what, what does my rule mean anymore? Yeah. But we can jump to- No,

[00:41:35] Malcolm Collins: but I mean, the... It’s, it’s really important to note that the, the the point of no return for all of this is always putting somebody into a position where they might be able to vote on what is true in Catholicism.

[00:41:49] Simone Collins: Right. Yeah. Well, but clearly the Vatican’s not gonna, not gonna let anyone get close to making differences there, so what does it matter, basically? I think honestly, the more that SSPX moves away from this, the better. In fact, I kind of wish they were doing what the Anglican Church has done. So I’ll let you know what’s going on there.

[00:42:15] ‘Cause you... Are you aware of what’s going on with the Anglican schism?

[00:42:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they elected a lady bishop.

[00:42:21] Simone Collins: Well, no. Okay, yeah, so- A lady pope. Basically a l- a, a bunch of other groups primarily... What is it? There’s... It’s GAFCON, but what’s, what does the acronym stand for? The Global Anglican Future Conference has basically been like, “All right.

[00:42:37] We’re, we’re not with the Archbishop of Canterbury anymore. Like, we’re not gonna share communion. I’m not with stupid anymore. Like, we’re not doing this.” And so as much as they’re trying to not describe this as a schism, they prefer to call it a realign- a realignment or a reformation. And they’re trying to say, “We’re not founding a new church.

[00:43:01] We’re just restoring Anglicanism around its original doctrinal center.” They’re

[00:43:08] Malcolm Collins: functionally- The Bible. That’s a pretty naughty thing to... Oh. Well, I mean, if you are electing an, a lady pope, which is what the Anglicans did. So w- the reason I call her lady pope, important to understand who the Anglicans are when England became Protestant the Crown really still liked the idea of a state religion and Catholicism more broadly.

[00:43:26] He was like a fervent, Henry VIII was a fervent Catholic, like so much that the pope, like, gave him a special award or something as like a defender of the c- the faith. Until the pope, out of, like, you know, sh- sheer douchiness really it was, it was, “Oh, well, that’s my niece or something who you’d have to divorce to have a kid,” and Henry had to have a kid.

[00:43:46] If he didn’t have a male son- Yeah ... it could have led to a civil war- Yeah ... which would have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and countless suffering and children dying. Like, what he was doing-

[00:43:58] Simone Collins: Like, Queen Catherine of Aragorn was [00:44:00] what, like his niece or something? Or like, there was a fam- Family relation.

[00:44:03] It was just never

[00:44:03] Malcolm Collins: gonna happen It was a family relation, that’s why he wouldn’t let him. Yeah. Which again, like this shows the problem, corruption in the church-

[00:44:09] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:44:09] Malcolm Collins: that led to Protestantism because without the English... But anyway, so the English become Protestant. Mm-hmm. And they’re, they, but they try to keep their version

[00:44:17] Simone Collins: of Protestantism- Yeah, like they need their Protestant pope, and that’s the Archbishop

[00:44:21] Malcolm Collins: of Canterbury

[00:44:21] as, as, as a, as, as Catholic-y as, as possible.

[00:44:24] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:44:25] Malcolm Collins: And that group is the group called the Anglicans. Mm-hmm. And this group in early America was heavily, like early Americans hated the Anglicans. We, we, early Americans, thought they were basically just another shade of Catholicism. Yeah. And, and were just as suspicious as Catholics.

[00:44:39] But anyway- Yeah ... continue.

[00:44:41] Simone Collins: Yeah. So anyway this is something that’s been a slow burn over the past 20 to 30 years. Conservative Anglican provinces, especially in the Global South, so like outside the UK- Yeah ... have just continued to like slowly step away from the Church of England and other liberal Western provinces that have Anglican churches over issues like same-sex blessings and women’s ordination, because they just started doing that out of nowhere.

[00:45:08] And this culminated in 2025 and 2026 into this formal break where at the Global Anglican Future Conference, also known as GAFCON allied provinces decided that they would no longer officially represent or recognize the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the traditional instruments of the communion.

[00:45:33] So they are not gonna participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury. They’re not going to the archbishop’s birthday party anymore. They’re not gonna contribute to the Anglican communion structures. They will amend constitutions to remove references to Canterbury. Like, we are just erasing her from our diary.

[00:45:52] We’re deleting her from our contact book. She’s out. And this has roughly split the Anglican community in half with each side claiming that like, “I’m the official Anglican community.” “No, I’m the official Anglican

[00:46:08] Malcolm Collins: community.” Yeah, and this is what it comes down to when there’s this real hatred of the idea, even if like structurally an individual is schismatic- Yeah

[00:46:17] of admitting that they’re schismatic, right?

[00:46:19] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:46:20] Malcolm Collins: And-

[00:46:20] Simone Collins: But I, this is, I think this is what SSPX should honestly be doing. I think they should be like Look, we’ve tried to play nice with the Vatican. They have shown repeatedly that they are not actually Catholic anymore. Here are, like, the bazillion reasons why.

[00:46:35] We are the Catholic Church now. Like, they’re being way too nice. They need to be a ton more aggressive. And another element of this that I think makes it so troublesome is, is aside from the governance issues that you revealed, that you surfaced in this episode and emphasized, the, the Vatican actually has a, a monetary incentive to lean in to this heretical but also very low fertility segment of its, of its, like, strategy.

[00:47:07] Because when you have all these Catholic schools and all these convents and all these monasteries shutting down- Ooh ... because no one’s left in the area, guess what you get to do? You get to sell it to, like, Katy Perry and make millions of dollars. And- The

[00:47:24] Malcolm Collins: pope in his fancy red shoes.

[00:47:26] Simone Collins: No, they’re literally, like, King Henry VIII-ing their own church.

[00:47:30] They’re selling it- Yeah ... for parts. And I think that also- For their gay

[00:47:34] Malcolm Collins: sex parties.

[00:47:35] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:47:36] Well, and look, we have issues... I think you even... We, we may have covered this in an episode, but we never ran it. Those nuns who, like, refused to leave this convent that they tried to shut down. Mm. And they’re like no, we don’t wanna leave.

[00:47:48] Like, we, we, this is our convent, and what are you talking about?” And they’re like, “No, you gotta go. You gotta go.” Oh my God, we almost bought a convent-

[00:47:55] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

[00:47:56] Simone Collins: through being sold. Well, like, fun- Yeah ... the fundraising didn’t work. We wanted to turn it [00:48:00] into a a like a village with a, a lab school that, like, a bunch of high fertility families could live in and commute to New York City.

[00:48:07] It was, it was so beautiful. But yeah, they, they were, they were selling it because there weren’t enough nuns left. I mean, isn’t that just so convenient for the Church? There’s also, it’s not just about maintaining this control and disenfranchise people who can undermine their authority. It’s about, like, oh, actually, it’s not so bad that all these people are just disappearing because in the, in the immediate aftermath of that, we get money, and we like money.

[00:48:36] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, we need it to fund our lifestyle, right? And, and keep in mind that the people with positions of power, you wanna be popular at the UN, you wanna be popular with the urban monoculture- Yeah ... you push for ecumenicalism

[00:48:48] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah And

[00:48:49] Malcolm Collins: it’s so funny-

[00:48:49] Simone Collins: And again, like it’s just so similar to what’s happening with Anglicanism where they’re like, “No, we’re not, we’re not doing this same-sex marriage.

[00:48:55] We’re not doing female pri-,” like we’re, it, this isn’t, this isn’t us

[00:48:58] Malcolm Collins: I, I also like keep in mind how crazy our position should sound to somebody. That us non-Catholics, we have many doctrinal disagreements with Catholicism. We’re like, “What is your biggest disagreement?” It’s that you’re too ecumenical. And like, but that means they’re more open to people like you, and I’m like, “They shouldn’t be.

[00:49:19] They should have pride in their beliefs and d- and double down on how they’re different.”

[00:49:24] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. They... I think these are the really the key schisms to watch. There’s also a schism that’s taking place in the Orthodox Church, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s, it’s that more since 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church has severed Eucharistic communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch- Patri- Patriarchate, is that what they’re called, of Constantinople, and, and some other- Mm-hmm

[00:49:53] churches, like in Greece and Alexandria and Cyprus. Specifically because let’s see. O- one of them, I think Constantinople granted independence to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2018 ‘cause, I don’t know, maybe Russia was invading Ukraine, and it seemed kind of unfair to Constantinople. So they’re like, “Well, I guess since you’re not friends anymore-

[00:50:19] Malcolm Collins: Do they get a new bishop?

[00:50:20] you’re,

[00:50:20] Simone Collins: you’re independent now. Like, y- y- you can do your own thing.” And the Russian Pat- the Moscow Patriarchate specifically was like, “Hey, you can’t do that. On whose authority do you do that?” And so then essentially they’re like, “Well, my religious tokens aren’t accepted in the same way that yours are.”

[00:50:42] And, and so it’s, it’s really weird. Like, it doesn’t... Practically speaking, it, it doesn’t really make a whole ton of sense to me. It,

[00:50:51] Malcolm Collins: it’s- Well, I mean, I would think that the plurality of patriarchs voting should have the ability to outvote a single patriarch.

[00:50:58] Simone Collins: It’s not exactly, but it’s, it’s both sides still s- share the same theology and the same sacrament, so this isn’t a doctrinal disagreement.

[00:51:07] It’s more about, like, who’s allowed to declare whom

[00:51:12] Malcolm Collins: independent. But this is, this is very different. So-

[00:51:14] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:51:14] Malcolm Collins: the, the, the in, in this case it is something that in 100 years nobody’s gonna care about, right? Like,

[00:51:21] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I’m sure, like, it, it, it’s... The s- stuff is gonna change, and there’s gonna be a point in time at which Moscow is no longer not out of no longer out of communion with the other Orthodox churches.

[00:51:34] It’s just that right now- Yeah, this isn’t like an

[00:51:35] Malcolm Collins: existential issue like the Latins

[00:51:36] Simone Collins: pope ... not at all. It, it just, it just has to do with the war. That’s it. It’s, it’s gonna, it’s gonna end.

[00:51:41] Malcolm Collins: What... The, the, the, the, what’s happening with the Anglicans is-

[00:51:44] Simone Collins: That is

[00:51:44] Malcolm Collins: so different ... absolutely existential.

[00:51:46] Simone Collins: Well, and it’s the same kind of...

[00:51:47] It’s the same broad trend as what’s happening with SSPX. It’s basically with the multiple churches, the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, there’s a subset that’s like- ... “What are you doing? This is not what we’re about.” And then there’s this other [00:52:00] subset that’s like- ... “What are you talking about? I’m gonna do what I want.

[00:52:02] Like, church? No, everyone’s kinda right. And also money, yay.” And that’s, that’s what, you know... I’m, I’m just really hoping that- Those who are really leaning in to hard religion win in the long run

[00:52:15] Malcolm Collins: Hold on. I’m, I’m gonna ask you like what is the, even the mechanism if popes appoint... Okay, continue with your thought.

[00:52:24] Simone Collins: Well, no, I just, I, I know that you pointed out this hopeless view that from a, a bureaucratic standpoint, there’s no reversing w- the Vatican. Like they’re just going to run themselves into the ground functionally. But my hope is that as SSPX keeps growing, and that these other hard religious versions of Catholicism and Anglicanism grow, that they’re just going to become the new de facto churches.

[00:52:52] Like, there’s not g- it’s, it’s just gonna be the Vatican in name only. I mean, maybe, maybe there will never, there won’t really be a Vatican City for the Catholic Church in the future. Like it just won’t happen anymore, but does that even matter? I mean, you, you really don’t need

[00:53:12] Malcolm Collins: this

[00:53:12] Simone Collins: to

[00:53:12] Malcolm Collins: be

[00:53:12] Simone Collins: an independent

[00:53:12] Malcolm Collins: country.

[00:53:13] Well, I mean, when Italy becomes a Muslim majority country, right, which it will,

[00:53:15] Simone Collins: You don’t need it anymore anyway. Yeah ...

[00:53:17] Malcolm Collins: I mean it just, it, it won’t make sense for it to be the, In, in short answer, there’s really nothing... So I’m trying to figure this out. Yeah, you cannot in Catholicism take back power using demographics or fanaticism

[00:53:29] Simone Collins: Hmm.

[00:53:29] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the j- pope appoints the cardinals, the cardinals vote on the pope. There’s no, there’s no way into it. A little

[00:53:34] Simone Collins: sus. Wow, okay.

[00:53:36] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the only thing that it could potentially do is it creates, like, a larger pool, and there just aren’t as many potential candidates for cardinal for the pope to select from that would not share their beliefs.

[00:53:53] The problem is, is you don’t need a large portion, right? Like, and, and the secondary problem is, is that because of the Catholic priest caste becomes separated from mainstream society, they’re not as affected by the conservative views of that society. And I’ve really seen this on the people who we know who have gone the route of Catholic priest or nun.

[00:54:15] It’s, they basically get separated from anyone who’s not in the priesthood or who’s not a nun. And so the wider political battle of the Catholics who have these large families is not something that they are... That- that’s not their world anymore, right? Like, that’s not- Yeah ... reaching them to the same extent, which means that even if you control, like, the vast majority of the laypeople choking the access.

[00:54:43] What you really have to do is choke the access of this counter-religion or, or re- progressive sort of elitist religion choke the access to cardinal candidates that come from this, right? Like, because, because as long as they’re... It’s not like the pope’s choosing cardinal candidates at random. He’s choosing the ones that agree with his, his viewpoint.

[00:55:00] So you need there to not be just, like, 80% of the cardinal candidates are, are, would vote the way that you want. You need to remove the 20% that wouldn’t, and getting to that point is essentially impossible.

[00:55:13] Simone Collins: Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:55:15] Malcolm Collins: Which is wild. A- a- and especially keep in mind the demographic realities and threats that a lot of the Catholic majority countries are going to be facing as well.

[00:55:27] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Let’s, Fascinating. It’s all around quite fascinating. I, we’re, we’re glad to be techno-puritans. Not our problem.

[00:55:36] Malcolm Collins: Not

[00:55:36] Simone Collins: our problem. Okay

[00:55:36] ...

[00:55:36] Simone Collins: You guys figure it out. We, we love you. Well, okay, I, I love you guys. M- Malcolm? Yes.

[00:55:41] Malcolm Collins: I, I, I like them as human beings. But I like-

[00:55:45] Simone Collins: You agree at least that they have the best, Cath- Catholics, not Anglicans, have the best clothing, so.

[00:55:51] Malcolm Collins: They do have the best clothing. I, yeah,

[00:55:53] Simone Collins: absolutely. All right. So you got that concession from Malcolm, okay? Take it.

[00:55:55] Malcolm Collins: It, it’s a, it’s the best styles. Well, because it looks like a gay person designed them all, [00:56:00] and gays are good designers.

[00:56:01] Simone Collins: They’re the best. Yeah. I mean-

[00:56:03] ...

[00:56:03] Simone Collins: In my opinion ...

[00:56:04] Malcolm Collins: you know, you, you can’t get, uh

[00:56:06] If, if you’re going uniforms, Catholics are, like, just under Nazis. You know, may- maybe, maybe at the same level, right? When we’re talking nice-

[00:56:14] Simone Collins: Oh, Lord, Malcolm. Everybody agrees- I

[00:56:16] Malcolm Collins: really enjoy it with you ... that Nazis had hot uniforms.

[00:56:19] Simone Collins: No, it’s true. It’s, it’s true.

[00:56:20] Malcolm Collins: There,

[00:56:20] Simone Collins: This is- this is why we had all these problems- If somebody tells you-

[00:56:23] in, like, East Asia, where all these, like, young teens and stuff would be seen wearing SS uniforms, and they’d have no understanding, you know, ‘cause they just found, like, this cool-looking cosplay outfit online. They’re like, “I’m gonna buy that one,” and struttin’ around, not having any understanding of what they represent.

[00:56:40] Malcolm Collins: It’s crazy. No. Well, I mean, you know, they look good. It’s a good look. It’s a good look. Whatever, right? I know, it’s, it’s a great look. Like, it’s

[00:56:46] Simone Collins: not- It’s fantastic. Yeah.

[00:56:47] Malcolm Collins: I, I think you know, it’s, it’s e- if I was younger, I think it’s a, a look more for younger people. But, ...

[00:56:53] Simone Collins: Nazi uniforms are a young person look?

[00:56:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they w- they work a bit, yeah, better on younger people.

[00:56:58] Simone Collins: Yeah, you have to have a svelte body, yeah. If you have, like, a paunch, you, it ruins the entire line of the outfit. Mm-hmm. It’s absolutely true. Or if you hunch. It, it is only for people with amazing posture, high discipline, high fitness, et cetera. I totally agree.

[00:57:12] Malcolm Collins: That’s a, that’s a, I guess, a point. But- But

[00:57:14] Simone Collins: you can do that and also be of advanced age as is shown by the Nazi-inspired uniforms in Star Wars, where you have some Imperial officers who are definitely on the older side who still look pretty good in their uniforms. So I’ll push back a little bit on that.

[00:57:28] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But I’m, I’m sort of in this position of, like, I wish that there was something that they could do. I wish that there was a realistic pathway to taking back the church. I just don’t see it right now. Oh,

[00:57:40] Simone Collins: I think they should take the Anglican route. I think they should be like, “All right. We’re, we’re the Catholic Church now.”

[00:57:44] Malcolm Collins: But there’s already groups of Catholics that have done that.

[00:57:47] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah? I didn’t think of those.

[00:57:49] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they basically said that the blank council was, the, the, the Vatican was taken over from- The Second Vatican,

[00:57:53] Simone Collins: yeah ...

[00:57:54] Malcolm Collins: well, no, b- but before that. Like, the Vatican- Oh ... was taken over through an unfair election, which is, yeah, actually kind of plausibly true.

[00:58:00] So

[00:58:02] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:58:03] Malcolm Collins: You

[00:58:03] Simone Collins: could say that- Well, I mean, everyone went super into the lore of how popes are selected the last time that happened, you know, with Pope Leo, and I think it became fairly clear to a lot of people that, like, this process is not exactly optimal. You know, whatever.

[00:58:20] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it’s, it’s not about...

[00:58:22] A- a- and that’s part of the thing. It, it’s, it’s, it’s not about what the average Catholic thinks or wants, you know? It’s about what the elite think or want. It’s just- Yeah ... I don’t think anyone e- imagined that the elite would be captured by this sort of alternate religious mindset.

[00:58:37] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It, it, yeah, it’s kind of like you could say representative democracy where Americans were like, “Look, I trust our essentially landed gentry to make good decisions for us,” except what if suddenly that group of people just became alien and completely separated from the interests of the larger laypeople?

[00:58:56] Malcolm Collins: Well, the elite within our country as well, within most religions, are disproportionately captured by the urban monoculture.

[00:59:02] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:59:02] Malcolm Collins: In the United States, if you said, “Well, only the elite, quote, unquote, ‘elite’ in the country, the, the, the, the wealthiest or the you know, those who had o- over a certain IQ could vote,” you’d get way more Democratic candidates.

[00:59:17] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:59:18] Malcolm Collins: Anyway, I love you.

[00:59:20] Simone Collins: I love you too.

[00:59:21] Malcolm Collins: Interesting topic.

[00:59:22] Simone Collins: Fun stuff. It’s always nice to talk about popes.

[00:59:24] Malcolm Collins: Next we’ll do my book from when I was a kid.

[00:59:27] Simone Collins: All right. Perfect.

[00:59:28] Malcolm Collins: And then, all right. I’m ready.

[00:59:32] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:59:33] Malcolm Collins: Love you

[00:59:34] Simone Collins: I love you too.

[00:59:36] Speaker 14: Oh, yes. Oh, no, no, stay down here. Stay down here. Stay down here. I can hear an echo. Come back. Come back. It’s an echo, right? Yeah

[00:59:52] Speaker 13: Or something? They do nothing Well, there’s no church services taking place right now The church, [01:00:00] churches is taking place Church services, yeah.

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the modern Luddite movement — from NYC’s “Summer of Ludd” festival (complete with puppet spokesfrogs, offline flirting workshops, saddle-stitching classes, and panels that somehow turned into “how to build your own website” tutorials) to the surprising privilege, aesthetics, and contradictions behind today’s anti-tech trend.We compare Gen Z and millennial “Luddites” (flip phones, Moleskine notebooks, and performative offline living) with the original violent 19th-century machine-breakers, explore why deep, hours-long online friendships often feel more meaningful than awkward park conversations, and critique the expensive ecosystem of minimalist phones and typewriters. We also highlight more practical approaches from Mennonite communities and make the case for Solar Punk — using AI and technology intentionally to reclaim traditional skills, build sustainable futures, and live better rather than rejecting progress altogether.

Show Notes

“The Summer of Ludd”

* A cultural high point for the movement’s analog/anti-alienation wing.

* An eight-day (June 28–July 5, 2026), mostly offline festival and series of events in New York City

* Centered on Tompkins Square Park and Lower Manhattan

* It features over 120 free, public, participatory activities like:

* Workshops (e.g., saddle stitching, shortwave radio, mending, flirting/dating offline).

* Talks and panels (e.g., on indie web alternatives, privately owned public spaces, fighting data centers, “Google in Real Life” human Q&A).

* Gothamist: “At a Monday panel discussion on NYC event calendars, an array of neighborhood characters, older punks, fresh-faced flip phone users and various others packed the stone steps of East Village community garden La Plaza Cultural to discuss ways to learn of IRL happenings without social media.”

* “Overall, the evening was largely a technical discussion on how to build and maintain your own website or newsletter. It never got particularly ideological.”

* ““It’s not a digital versus analog thing. It’s a question of who controls how your community operates itself. Is it Mark Zuckerberg or you?” explained Thomas. “You are not an idle passenger of history. You get to control the impact that technology has on you and your society.””

* Cultural events: Plays recreating Luddite history, concerts, film screenings (analog/16mm), zine-making, rituals, and phone-free dance parties or jam sessions.

* Orgs represented:

* NYC Off Tech NYC events to connect outside of big tech

* Unplatform: The definitive guide for escaping social media (and joining the indie web.)

* Red Cal: Posters of offline events

* Nonsense NYC: Nonsense NYC is a discriminating resource for independent art, weird events, strange happenings, unique parties, and senseless culture in New York City.

* Technoqueers: Technoqueers.com is the home of “Techno Queers,” a weekly email newsletter and community focused on techno/club events, culture, and queer nightlife, primarily in New York City.

* Moon Bulletin: events and happenings in (mostly) nyc, according to moon cycle

* The People’s Circuit: and an encrypted, Proton Mail-based email newsletter

Organizers (anonymous or using puppets like “Gowanus” for media) promote it as a “movable feast” to encourage IRL community, reject algorithmic control, and build alternatives to Big Tech monopolies.

Marketing relies on wheatpastes, printed guides, and word-of-mouth—no heavy social media presence.

Reports as of early July indicate strong turnout, energetic crowds (including Gen Z, locals, families, and older activists), and success beyond expectations despite minimal online promo.

It’s tied to broader “Luddite Renaissance” efforts and overlaps with events like the Luddite Conference on Participatory Futures at The New School.

The New Luddite Movement

The forms it takes:

* Anti data center activism (we did a whole episode on this)

* Protests

* Mostly peaceful (rallies, marches, “Luddite tribunals,” app-deletion events, coning self-driving cars).

* There are reports of escalating tensions (archived), vandalism, sabotage threats, or isolated violence (e.g., attacks on data center supporters, self-driving vehicles, or symbolic targets like OpenAI exec homes), though the core movement distances itself from outright destruction. Insurance and security discussions highlight rising risks to AI infrastructure in 2026.

* E.g. “an Indianapolis city council member who supported a data center development told local outlets someone fired 13 shots at his home and left behind a note reading, “No data centers.””

* School clubs (high school andcollege):

* NY Times: Now in College, Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your Likes (archive link)

* Members use flip phone and advertise human connection

* One teenage luddite club in Brooklyn that the NY Times profiled in 2022: “they sketched and painted side by side. They read quietly, favoring works by Dostoyevsky, Kerouac and Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how TikTok was dumbing down their generation. Their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.”

* Years later, most former members maintained their relatively offline ways and were turning their club into a nonprofit

* One detracted: ““It’s constant access again,” Ms. Shub said. “It’s the relief of knowing I can do things easier. I got Instagram, too, and it’s been nice reconnecting with people on it.”

* ““We’ve even got a mission statement now,” said Ms. Lane, who is studying Russian literature at Oberlin College. “We like to say we’re a team of former screenagers connecting young people to the communities and knowledge to conquer big tech’s addictive agendas.””

* There’s a weird undertone of privilege in the article:

* “Winter Jacobson, who was in town from Colorado to visit Ms. Butler [one of the former Luddite Club members], was sitting next to her. He started a Luddite Club at Telluride High School last year. He said it has a dozen members.

* “Colorado is very different from New York,” Mr. Jacobson, 17, said. “There’s not as much to do in Telluride. People are reliant on their phones as their connection to the world, so some of my friends think the club is a joke. I’m still trying to spread the message, though.””

The Capitalization

* Light phone: The flagship minimalist device. E-ink or simple touchscreen, limited tools (calls, notes, music, basic maps, camera on III), no browser/apps/social media/email feeds by design. Premium build, expensive (~$300–$700 range). Widely seen as the gold standard for “going light” and digital detox; strong cultural cachet in Luddite/analog communities.

* Mudita Kompakt ($399): E-ink screen for calmer use, excellent battery, privacy switches (kill GSM/mic/etc.), offline maps, basic apps. More flexible than Light Phone but still minimalist. Popular for privacy-focused users and long battery life.

* Minimal Phone: ($449) E-ink touchscreen + QWERTY keyboard, some Android apps (controllable). Good for balanced minimalism.

* Punkt MP02: ($299) Ultra-minimal button phone focused on calls/texts.

* Freewrite (Astrohaus) typewriters (Gen 3 Smart Typewriter ($699), Traveler, etc.): These have E-ink screens + full mechanical keyboards, they sync drafts (Postbox/cloud) but lack internet/distractions during writing.

* Premium pricing (~$500–$1,000+); popular among writers seeking analog feel with digital convenience. Strong following despite cost; seen as a modern “typewriter” revival tool.

What’s odd is one can just set one’s phone to black and white mode

Also, you can get a razor flip phone for $35-100 USD on eBay

How Mennonites Do It

According to MennoNet.com: Within conservative Mennonite/Plain circles, you’ll see tools that look very similar to what evangelical or family‑safety communities use:

* Accountability apps such as Covenant Eyes and CloudVeil, which log activity or filter content and send reports to an accountability partner or family administrator.

* “The Security Appliance,” a content‑filtering solution developed “for and by the Plain Community,” used at the network level in some fellowships to restrict categories of sites and manage what devices can access.

* Other web filters like OpenDNS FamilyShield and similar DNS‑based filters, which can be configured on home or business Wi‑Fi to block entire categories of content.

On top of community-specific tools, many Mennonites simply use the native controls in Android and iOS the same way cautious parents do:

* iOS Screen Time and Google Family Link to set app limits, “downtime” schedules, and block certain categories (social, games, entertainment).

* Content & privacy restrictions to block adult content and prevent installing unapproved apps.

In practice, a phone may be configured so only a whitelist of “necessary” apps (phone, text, perhaps WhatsApp/Signal, maps, farm/business software) is accessible outside of designated work times.

General social norms are also super effective:

* Mennonites are super clear about when and where devices may be used (e.g., no phones in bedrooms, at church, or during meals; only in the office or shop).

* They often use hared or supervised devices: a single smartphone for a household or business, kept in a central location rather than carried at all times, limits impulsive and private use while allowing work contacts.

* There are expectations around accountability (elders, employers, spouses) so misuse is a social issue as much as a technical one.

The Original Luddite Movement

The Luddite movement (1811–1816) arose among skilled English textile workers (primarily framework knitters/stockingers in Nottinghamshire, croppers/shearers in Yorkshire, and weavers in Lancashire) during the Industrial Revolution. (Brittanica)

* They protested machinery (e.g., wide knitting frames, shearing frames, power looms) that enabled cheaper, unskilled labor, lowered wages, degraded quality, and threatened livelihoods amid economic pressures from the Napoleonic Wars, poor harvests, and rising food prices.

* The movement was named after the (likely mythical) Ned Ludd, who allegedly smashed stocking frames in 1779

What they did:

* Form oath-bound secret groups, some of which ran military-style drills

* Raid factories and break machines (starting in Nottingham in 1911)

* Luddites broke over 1,000 frames/machintes, costing manufacturers thousands of pounds

* Send threatening letters (signed by Ned Ludd or General Ludd)

* Attack mills (e.g. the Rawfolds Mill in 1812)

* Assassinate manufacturers (At least one man, William Horsfall, was murdered)

There weren’t actually that many

* Low thousands at its peak

* Raids involved dozens to approximately 100 men

* Estimates of sympathizers reached 7-8K in some areas

The movement was super short lived (met with military force and harsh laws)

How They Compare

Feels like most modern luddites are more just craving early 2000s tech use.

Feels more like a market correction than anything else

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The, the, the Luddite event turned into an explanation of how to build your own website?

[00:00:11] That’s what they were doing? The Lud-

[00:00:12] Simone Collins: They’re... Yeah, this is a little bit confusing. it’s kind of rich that many of these people who propose to be Luddites are like, “Well, this is all about human connection. I just wanna have real human connection.” When people have very real human connection online,

[00:00:27] Malcolm Collins: , The person I talk to most other than Simone, is Leaflet. And you look at , the like, 10-hour conversations once every two weeks, right?

[00:00:36] I would ask you guys, how many people in your life do you have that deep a conversation with I have never seen what Leaflet looks like in real life,, when we talk about, like, an anti-Luddite, they’re like, “Just get to know someone face to face.” I have never interacted once with Leaflet face to face, like, I ask you this sincerely, would , Leaflet and my friendship, be in any way meaningfully enhanced from a flesh to flesh conversation?

[00:01:08] Would you like to know more?

[00:01:09] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because the Luddites are assembling once again, and you would never know it because you’re online and they’re not online.

[00:01:19] And should we be worried? Let’s find out. But thank- thanks to Wired Magazine being out there in, you know, walking around Brooklyn, we actually know about this because otherwise, how would we know? We wouldn’t know. Because- But

[00:01:30] Malcolm Collins: yet they had to find... What I love about this article they wrote on this group, and if you’re unfamiliar with who the Luddites are historically, they are anti-technologists who do not like technology taking jobs.

[00:01:41] Specifically, they wanted women in factories working on looms. Mm-hmm. That- that is- that is, they believe the natural role of a woman for all of human history is being in a factory and working on a loom. But they found this in a store. Like, in a human-

[00:01:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, so I’m- I’m reading from the- the Wired article itself called Inside the Luddite Festival: Harnessing Gen Z’s Rage Against Big Tech.

[00:02:01] Rage. That sounds ominous. The author says, “I found out about the event in a serendipitously offline way. Earlier in June, I was with a friend in the East Village, and we got caught in a summer downpour. As I was waiting it out in the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space, a small venue that documents the neighborhood’s history of activism, I found the booklet covering the Summer of Ludd’s events among other zines, posters, and pamphlets.

[00:02:26] So here I am, phone tucked away, notebook out, Playbill in hand,” ‘cause, of course, our tech author attended. She’s not

[00:02:32] Malcolm Collins: allowed to use technology. But what, what’s crazier about this- She ... she, you and I w- haven’t been in the type of a venue where we could even presumably find an invitation to a group like this-

[00:02:45] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:02:45] Malcolm Collins: probably in at least half a decade.

[00:02:50] Simone Collins: I guess you’re right. Yeah, so we would never know. I mean, thank goodness, right? Thank goodness.

[00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: I mean, they’re not, they’re not posting these at the local BJ’s or Walmart, so- Yeah. ... where else do we go?

[00:03:01] Simone Collins: Yeah, well, I mean, I think you have to be like Victoria El- Elliot, the author of this article, walking around, you know, in sort of bougie places in New York City, and that’s actually a theme.

[00:03:10] The more I dug into the modern Luddite movement, the more I discovered that- It’s, it’s kind of extremely bougie. Th- you know I

[00:03:20] Malcolm Collins: would imagine it is.

[00:03:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s very... This is in stark contrast to the original Luddite movement, which we’ll also just go over at the end to kind of see, like, okay, how are these different?

[00:03:30] How are these the same? But-

[00:03:31] Malcolm Collins: No, people with sh- to worry about in their lives have no reason to be doing this stuff. No, they’re like, you can’t do this whole, “Oh, I’m not gonna have a phone. I’m not gonna have a computer on me. I’m not gonna use AI.” W- and what I love is they’re not even just, like, anti-AI.

[00:03:45] They’re anti the whole ecosystem.

[00:03:48] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I, I felt like we had to cover this particular event, though, this, this Summer of Ludd again, because of the author’s description of it. Just another part of the article that I found very entertaining. “The Summer [00:04:00] of Ludd was preempted with a press conference conducted by the organizer’s spokesperson, Gowanus, the media puppet.

[00:04:07] Yes, I am serious. A blue cloth being with soda cap eyes manned by a masked puppeteer. Gowanus was conceived of as a way for the movement to speak to the public and the media without compromising the identities of the event’s organizers, who wish to remain anonymous. According to Gowanus, New York’s Luddite renaissance is, quote, ‘A loose group of organizers that have no formal affiliation as of now, but have been coalescing around noticing similar problems of alienation and over-reliance on big tech,’ end quote.”

[00:04:40] So, yeah, this... Basically, though, what, you know...

[00:04:44] Malcolm Collins: Daddy’s five minutes.

[00:04:44] Simone Collins: At any rate, I wanted to kick off with the Summer of Ludd as sort of our starting point here, because it’s seen as a cultural high point in the movements, specifically analog or and anti-alienation wing. And there are several wings to this, some of which bear more resemblance to the original Luddite movement, and some of which don’t.

[00:05:02] But the Summer of Ludd-

[00:05:02] Malcolm Collins: Anti-alienation wing? What... Tell me about this. What... Tell me about the wings. Can we s-

[00:05:07] Simone Collins: Right. So the different wings are basically this sort of the anti- Hmm ... alienation wing is kind of like, “Well, we feel like social media has not been good for us. We don’t like scrolling on our smartphones.

[00:05:18] We would like to performatively be offline,” and very prominently wave around our Moleskine notebooks and analog typewriters, et cetera and, and, you know, meet in clubs. I’ll talk about the clubs. Then there’s the anti-big tech and anti-AI data center agitators. We did a whole episode on the anti-AI center agitation, which is partially funded by outside players who would rather that y- the US not develop a strong AI infrastructure, but there’s also a lot of, I would say, homegrown.

[00:05:50] Though, I don’t know, we’ll say, like, fertilizer has been added by outside parties but homegrown concern over data centers. But there are definitely reports of escalating tensions between this particular sect of, like, I guess you could say the modern lud- Luddite movement and Some more violent stuff, like the vandalism, sabotage threats, threats of violence.

[00:06:18] I- you’ll recall that an Indianapolis city council member who supported data center development heard 13 shots fired outside his phone, and then when he... Or, of his home, and then when he opened his front door, there was a little note reading, “No data centers.” So people’s lives, it, it is insinuated that his life is being threatened by people who don’t want data centers, right?

[00:06:40] So that, I, I think is the, we’ll say more, like, militant branch. But this anti-alienation branch has more to do with things like this festival, with various offline gatherings and events, and then also with basically school clubs. A, a lot of the original new organization that maybe started to trend in the media back in 2022, so this is not exactly brand new was associated with school clubs.

[00:07:08] But back to the Summer of Ludd, just so, like, I can cover some of the more important details around that. It seems to be really centered around New York. I didn’t actually hear that much, weirdly, about successful Luddite movements, clubs, events, et cetera, outside of New York City, which is kind of weird as well.

[00:07:26] And it’s, it’s actually still happening right now, Malcolm. If we wanted to just drop everything and drive to New York, we could probably attend some Summer of Ludd events. It finishes July 5th, and as of today, it is July 3rd. So-

[00:07:41] Malcolm Collins: Second ...

[00:07:41] Simone Collins: we could... Mm, no, it’s... Is it? My God, yeah. Okay, so we, yeah, we can we can go.

[00:07:48] It’s centered around- What type

[00:07:49] Malcolm Collins: of events? Well, I wanna hear about the wings, I wanna hear about the types of events. Yeah, like-

[00:07:53] Simone Collins: Yeah, so the, it, it, it has over 120 free public participatory activities. There you can learn [00:08:00] saddle stitching, you can learn how to use a shortwave radio, you can learn, learn how to mend clothing also flirt and date offline.

[00:08:08] They have talks and panels, like indie web alternatives privately owned public spaces fighting data centers. So there’s certainly, like, some confluence with the anti-data center protest movement. And also like, I described to you when we were talking earlier today, there’s a Google in real life session where you get to, like, talk to a human expert.. Right. So yeah, there was also that Q&A event where it’s just Google in real life. Like oh my gosh, what if you just asked someone? Except of course it’s not anywhere close to as good as Google, and certainly not as good as any AI search engine that- I

[00:08:39] Malcolm Collins: love it that I hear the idea of somebody Googling something, and my thought now is, wow, that’s quite antique.

[00:08:46] You know, that’s, that’s a little- Antique ... that’s a little dated. I know, that Google is

[00:08:49] Simone Collins: antique

[00:08:50] Malcolm Collins: You’re Googling? What, what AI are you using? Googling?

[00:08:53] Simone Collins: Googling. Well, of course Google’s trying to serve up Gemini AI, AI answers to everything which people are really mad about, so they’re not even Googling anymore.

[00:09:00] But anyway according to Gothamist, which talked about this a little bit as well, quote, “At a Monday panel, discussion on NYC event calendars, an array of neighborhood characters, older punks, “fresh-faced flip phone users, and various others packed at the stone steps of the East Village community garden, La Plaza Cultural, to discuss ways to learn IRL happenings, of IRL happenings without social media.

[00:09:25] Overall, the evening was largely a technical discussion on how to build and maintain your own website or newsletter. It never got particularly ideolo- ideological.”

[00:09:34] Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The, the, the Luddite event turned into an explanation of how to build your own website?

[00:09:46] That’s what they were doing? The Lud-

[00:09:47] Simone Collins: They’re... Yeah, this is a little bit confusing. Yeah, a lot of it’s, it’s not actually about being a Luddite. What I’m discovering is that this sort of social element of the movement, they kind of just wanna go back to, like, late 1990s, early 2000s internet with flip phones and with just w- before this, the, the, any sort of social media feed, and not actually go offline, which is interesting.

[00:10:12] But-

[00:10:12] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it’s very interesting that they’re like, “All technology up to what I got comfortable with when I was a youth is bad.”

[00:10:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, as one person at, at the event put it, it’s not quite a digital versus analog thing. It’s a question of who controls how your community o- operates itself.

[00:10:28] “It’s a Mark Zuckerberg or you thing,” explained Thomas. You’re not an idle passenger of history. You get to control the impact of your technology, that your technology has on you and your society. So what a lot of people are trying to do is take back sort of some level of sovereignty, which I think is not inherently bad.

[00:10:44] I mean, it’s, it, it, it can be

[00:10:46] Malcolm Collins: dangerous- Yeah, no, no. I mean, they, what’s interesting is that makes it a lot like our communities. We’re just a lot more, like- Practical? I mean, the Sky Brown Cinematic Universe, RFAB, which is basically a cinematic universe at this point. By the way, one thing I’ve started working on with RFAB, Simone- Yeah

[00:11:00] Just in terms of new features building is a replacement for Descript, because I- Oh. You’ve been having- ... too frequently have issues with Descript Yeah. It’s a useful feature. I think Descript massively overcharges. If, if we did it, we’d be doing it at, like, one-tenth the cost of Descript and I don’t use the vast majority of Descript’s features

[00:11:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, you just don’t want to use them.

[00:11:20] So yeah,

[00:11:21] Malcolm Collins: it would be- I really only need it for, for people who do not know, this is what we use to edit our videos, to automatically take out ums and stuff like that. And so what I would do with this system is use it to edit our videos, but also give it to you guys, so you guys can just, like, move text around and it’ll move around where it is.

[00:11:36] Simone Collins: I think it’s a great idea. Yeah ... a, a lot of the organizations present just sound kind of like late ‘90s Seattle-style zines and fliers. So a lot of the orgs that were present when at least, I think, Gothamist was there covering one of the events, or NYC Off Tech, which just does events to connect outside of [00:12:00] big tech.

[00:12:00] Like, it’s just dedicated to that. Unplatform, which is a guide to escaping social media. Redcal. And when you go to Redcal’s website, it’s just literally images of posters that people make. Like, the kind of wheat paste posters you might see put up in a city about events and concerts and stuff. Mm-hmm.

[00:12:18] But it’s just a website of them. So just in case you’re not walking around the streets of New York City or Brooklyn, you can, you can go to Redcal’s- Wait- ... website to see. Red, how’s that

[00:12:28] Malcolm Collins: spelled?

[00:12:29] Simone Collins: Let me, let me just send you a link.

[00:12:30] It’s cal.red. So pretty easy to type in. Okay, I see. But here’s a, here’s a link

[00:12:39] Malcolm Collins: For the streets.

[00:12:40] USA

[00:12:41] Simone Collins: out of NY, adjacent Yeah, so you can see it’s just a series of the posters. It’s like, well, if I just wanted to see all the wheat paste posters in Brooklyn, I can just go to cal.red, which is not... I mean, like, so this is exactly what they’re talking about. Like, how do we be offline and not have online advertising and not post on Facebook, but still have people come to our events?

[00:13:00] Which is, like, this really tough thing to do in modern society. So I do find that somewhat interesting from, like, a just purely logistical, how do we work this out st- standpoint. Then there’s also Moon Bulletin, which is just one person, I guess, talking about what they know is going on, and then also the People’s Circuit, which is this encrypted ProtonMail-based email newsletter.

[00:13:19] So the big themes there are, like, I’m really concerned about Mark Zuckerberg knowing everything about me, and you know, I just hate these big tech companies and I don’t wanna be manipulated by social media, so here’s my attempt to live a different type of life. I like the intentionality of it.

[00:13:33] Malcolm Collins: No, what’s so interesting about seeing this, and these types of events, and stuff like that is it reminds me of stuff I felt was, like, cool and subversive when I was younger, and I

[00:13:45] Simone Collins: see- Yeah, some of it certainly looked like that, yeah

[00:13:47] Malcolm Collins: like, a punk thing or, like, a goth thing. Yeah. And I would be like, “I wanna go to this cool subversive whatever.” And what’s wild is, like, now that’s the internet, right? Like- Mm-hmm ... to, to go to one of these you’re just gonna find a bunch of aging hipsters,

[00:14:03] Simone Collins: Well, they said that all generations were there, that there were some aging hipsters, but there were also a lot of young people.

[00:14:09] So- Hmm ... I, I think that that’s s- interesting

[00:14:11] Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think there’s probably some, but yeah, yeah, I, I, I- No, no, no ...

[00:14:16] Simone Collins: young people definitely outside Apparently, like, the early reports from this, from this event show that there’s been a lot of a lot, like, really good turnout at these events, a lot of Gen Z, a lot of locals, a lot of families, and then of course older activists too.

[00:14:26] But I, what I think is more interesting is that the new Luddite movement in terms of, like, persistent ongoing social clubs is primarily, um is, is primarily Gen Z, but I think that’s because- This is the first generation that was raised as what people describe as, like, iPad babies where they, they actually don’t know what it’s like to be more offline, and when they describe these, like, revolutionary things that they’re doing to live more offline, it just honestly feels a little bit more like our lives.

[00:14:56] Because we, we, we intentionally don’t, like, scroll media feeds. We don’t have TikTok on our phones, and, like, that’s kind of as far as they’re going. They’re like, “Well, I just think, you know, TikTok is bad.” Although they try to go a little further, though, you know, to mixed results.

[00:15:09] Malcolm Collins: But basically- Yeah, just take down Trek Zone, man.

[00:15:11] That’ll, that’ll get you off media feed ...

[00:15:12] Simone Collins: no, for real, actually. But I just think that basically millennials and older can’t participate in this movement because they are, by probably kind of the, the standards of younger generations, actually Luddites. Like, actually terminally offline, which, which I think is also quite interesting.

[00:15:30] But anyway, there’s this interesting New York Times piece called Now in College, Luddite Teens Still Don’t Want Your Likes. And it’s, it’s this fairly recent New York Times piece that is checking in on a bunch of Luddite teens who had a Luddite club who were first covered by The New York Times in 2022.

[00:15:47] So this is four years later, and it’s checking to see, like, are they still offline, which I think is interesting. I, I like that they’re like, “Oh, how persistent is this? How committed are these people?” So most of the members, or at least former members, [00:16:00] still use flip phones and are still very, like, concertedly not online.

[00:16:06] One teenage Luddite club in Brooklyn that The New York Times profiled in 2022 that, that really was highlighted in this article- Yeah ... quote, “Sketched and painted side by side, they read quietly, favoring works by Dosto- Dostoyevsky, Kerouac, and Vonnegut. They sat on logs and groused about how TikTok was dumbing down their generation.

[00:16:26] The flip- their flip phones were decorated with stickers and nail polish.” Doesn’t that just sound like us as teens?

[00:16:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:16:34] Simone Collins: That’s just, just, that’s what’s so weird about it is, like, oh, the Luddites. Like, I pictured they’d be, like, weaving or something, but they’re, like, just behaving like we did. I’m like, hold on.

[00:16:42] That’s like, I, I didn’t even get a flip phone until really late. So again, this is not what I expected to hear. But years later, most of the former members didn’t go back to, to more heavy tech, but one detracted at least. She wrote, “It’s constant access again. It, it’s the relief of knowing I can do things easier.

[00:17:00] I got Instagram too, and it’s been nice re- reconnecting with people on it.” The point being, and I appreciate that she acknowledged this- Mm-hmm ... that when you choose to be offline, you’re just not going to see certain people again. You’re just not gonna communicate with certain people again. Like, it’s this concerted choice- To give up many relationships.

[00:17:19] And I think it’s, it’s kind of rich that many of these people who propose to be Luddites are like, “Well, this is all about human connection. I just wanna have real human connection.” When people have very real human connection online, like this morning on Discord and WhatsApp, I had some very personal and deep conversations with people that I’d not, I would not have had if I was-

[00:17:40] Malcolm Collins: Well, and what’s wilder is what the personal connections mean for people like us.

[00:17:46] Like, the person I talk to most in our lives, other than Simone, is Leaflet. This is both on Discord and on our biweekly chats. And you look at the, the long communications I have with her. It’s this, like, 10-hour conversations once every two weeks, right? Yeah, on our stream. We’re hanging out at night.

[00:18:03] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:18:03] Malcolm Collins: Drinking having fun, chatting about life, philosophy, everything under. It’s

[00:18:07] Simone Collins: kinda, yeah, it’s like, it’s like a modern symposium, which is really, like, extra old school. Right. And yet super new school. But- So weird.

[00:18:14] Malcolm Collins: I would ask you guys, anyone who has seen one of these, like, how many people in your life do you have that deep a conversation with or that deep of a friendship with, right?

[00:18:26] That you’re having these really long-form conversations. I have never seen what Leaflet looks like in real life, okay? I, the person I’m interacting with, when we talk about, like, an anti-Luddite, they’re like, “Just get to know someone face to face.” I have never interacted once with Leaflet face to face, and I have no interest in escalating our relationship.

[00:18:51] I, that has never been something that is of- Oh,

[00:18:54] Simone Collins: you mean like, “We have to visit together. We have to go on a

[00:18:57] Malcolm Collins: vacation together.” Yeah, we have to visit. If I drove by where she lived in Texas, I wouldn’t even, I, and she probably wouldn’t even envision- You wouldn’t

[00:19:04] Simone Collins: stop. If you were, like, a mile away, you’d be like, “Meh.”

[00:19:07] Malcolm Collins: Would our... And, and, and, and to our audience, like, I ask you this sincerely, would our friendship, Leaflet and my friendship, be in any way meaningfully enhanced from a flesh to flesh conversation? Would we know anything meaningfully additional about each other? I mean, maybe what they look ... Like they’re like deformed or been highly misrepresentative of themselves or something like that, but I don’t think they have been.

[00:19:34] Like I would gain no additional nature to our friendship. The only thing that requires being in person with someone is having sex with them. And look at the way I interact with my wife on this very screen, right? Like we’re in different rooms. Even with your loved one, sometimes it can be more efficient to communicate with through a screen.

[00:19:58] Are we not building our [00:20:00] relationship through conversations like this?

[00:20:01] Simone Collins: For real. Yeah, and we, we act like we do it literally in separate rooms of our house. Those are our most effective

[00:20:07] Malcolm Collins: conversations. Okay. But now imagine the Luddite, what they’re building in terms of a friendship. So they

[00:20:11] Simone Collins: go- They have to sit out in a park you know

[00:20:13] Malcolm Collins: They sit in a park-

[00:20:14] Simone Collins: Talking

[00:20:15] Malcolm Collins: and they awkwardly talk to somebody- About car wax ... who they met at a ... Do you think those conversations are going to be one, one-hundredths as deep as one of the conversations that Leaflet and I have over like 10 hours at midnight? Well, there, I

[00:20:26] Simone Collins: bet many people offline have very deep conversations. But what

[00:20:29] Malcolm Collins: I’m saying is- No, I’m not saying what the depth-

[00:20:30] Simone Collins: the, the number of people you can, you can interact with and the types of people you can interact with are extremely limited when you choose to only interact with those whom you can reach in person

[00:20:38] Malcolm Collins: But, but also the depth of the conversation is limited by the format. Mm-hmm. When you are, one, in a park, and two, have a tight time limit on your conversation, like an hour, an hour and a half, you’re just not gonna get to the same type of topics you get to in a 10-hour conversation that’s happening overnight while you’re both, you know, kind of out of it because you’ve been in, interacting for so long.

[00:21:00] Yeah. The level of conversation that you’re going to get to ... And I often, the conversations that I have with people in person, especially the ones that, where I meet them in person, because you don’t know as much about their background, because you don’t know what’s gonna offend them, because you don’t know where to go, your conversations start at such a lower level, right?

[00:21:18] Like Leaflet and my conversations can start at a very high level because both of us have watched a probably hundreds of hours of the other person’s content before that conversation even started.

[00:21:30] Simone Collins: Right. This asynchronous relationship that people are able to have when they consume each other’s content or read each other’s messages asynchronously and then have live conversations, again, there’s this additional level of depth that you can have that you just can’t have otherwise I think.

[00:21:44] Malcolm Collins: But it’s, it’s the irony of I don’t even know off the top of my head what her real name is. I do not know what she looks like,

[00:21:51] and those things would not ... This is what gets me so much about these Luddites, is they are choosing a form of relationship which is strictly lesser The, the think about the conversations you have on a Discord, like our, our Discord, right?

[00:22:08] Yeah. People are coming in after having watched a video and they are interacting with each other in a thread. So they’re having a conversation basically. Now, the depth that they’re gonna have in that conversation is going to be higher than any random conversation in a park because they’re coming into the conversation with a shared context, e.g.

[00:22:27] we both watched the information in the video and are now conversing about the information in the video.

[00:22:34] Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that’s interesting. What, what also, as I said earlier, stood out to me is that there is this strong undertone of privilege that pervades a lot of this. The, the people described and profiled when I read about this movement for example, o- of, of the alumna of, of this, this club, this this, this Luddite high school club that are now being interviewed later, like they’re all getting humanities degrees at fairly expensive schools, stuff that like implies they don’t actually need real jobs.

[00:23:10] Like one is studying Russian literature at Oberlin College. This is not something that someone does if their family is of limited means. What are

[00:23:18] Malcolm Collins: they going to do with their life?

[00:23:20] Simone Collins: Like what- I don’t know, because they don’t use the internet. Actually, so the, the one who’s getting- Work at a

[00:23:25] Malcolm Collins: f*****g bookstore?

[00:23:26] Simone Collins: The one, no, the one who’s studying at Oberlin College actually is working for Light Phone, which as it happens, is one of the many companies that is capitalizing on the interest of this, this perf- What,

[00:23:40] Malcolm Collins: what, what is... Oh, oh, Light Phone. Oh yeah, where it’s like a lighter... Yeah, but that’s not a terrible idea if you have like addiction problems.

[00:23:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. It, it’s a minimalist device. It costs between $300 and $700, and there’s this whole collection of devices for people who want to develop more focus who are at like varying degrees of modern Luddite, I [00:24:00] guess you could say. So there’s also the Mudita Kompakt, K-O-M-P-A-K-T. That’s $399. It’s this e-ink screen device that, that has online...

[00:24:11] It’s basically like a smartphone, but without any color. It has offline maps and basic apps. It’s, it’s a little bit more flexible than the Light Phone, and it, it I think it also costs... No, it’s three- $399. So it’s, it’s like kind of mid-range phone-wise. Mudita, by the way, really odd name. Mudita weirdly is, was the name of, When my, when one of my family members was a member of a cult, her name was Mudita in the cult which is interesting.

[00:24:43] Anyway then there’s also the Minimal Phone, which is $449. It has an E Ink touch screen, touch, touch screen, touch screen. And it, it also has just a few Android apps. Then there’s the Punkt MP02, 02, which is almost $300, that is just a very minimal button phone. And then there’s, there’s a bunch of like this whole class of basically typewriter style word processors that are like tactile typewriters with E Ink screens that allow you to sync things that you’re writing, like books or transcripts or s- or plays to some kind of cloud account.

[00:25:24] But they’re not connected to the internet, so you can’t start messing around online. But all of them are really expensive. They’re $500 to $1,000. And I, I wanted to just point out how expensive they were because You can just get a Razor flip phone for like 35 to $100 on eBay. I checked. Like, they’re, they’re extremely affordable.

[00:25:45] So you can, you could very easily be more offline without buying expensive additional stuff. But I feel like it’s one of those ecosystems where, again, the, the, the point the, the young, the young woman getting this degree in Russian literature is now working during the summer at Light Phone but also, like, kind of not sure about getting an office job.

[00:26:05] But like what is she gonna do then? She’s gonna end up marrying some guy working in AI-

[00:26:10] Malcolm Collins: Exactly ... for her

[00:26:11] Simone Collins: lifestyle. And I, I don’t know. I just feel like this is not gonna end very well. But then also, like, just this other sort of reference made offhand in the article, I’m gonna just quote from it, “Winter Jacobson, who was in town from Colorado to visit Ms.

[00:26:23] Butler,” this was another one of the former Luddite Club members, “was sitting next to her. He started a Luddite club in Telluride High School last year. He said it had a dozen members.”

[00:26:32] Malcolm Collins: Telluride, these kids are so posh.

[00:26:34] Simone Collins: He says, “Colorado is very different from New York,” Mr. Jacobson, 17, said. “There’s not as much to do in Telluride.

[00:26:41] People are reliant on their phones as their self-connection to the world.” Sorry, “As their connection to the world. So some of my friends think the club’s a joke. I’m still trying to spread the message, though.” Telluride High School. Tell us a little bit about Telluride, Malcolm.

[00:26:55] Malcolm Collins: Telluride is probably, I think, one of the, like, richest communities on earth.

[00:27:01] It is a beautiful place, though. I, I think one of the most beautiful places in the United States. Yeah,

[00:27:05] Simone Collins: like if, if we could live there, we probably would, except I think the altitude’s hard on your lungs.

[00:27:09] Malcolm Collins: I, I couldn’t be able to deal with the altitude. It would, it would cause too many health complications for me, but it’s a, a stunning place.

[00:27:16] Simone Collins: Yeah. It has... It, it’s basically like this rich, rich person paradise where, like, you can just walk the streets, and kids just walk through, free through the streets and just wander around these beautiful creeks. There’s literally a gondola system that’s free to ride that connects Telluride with Mountain Village an adjacent small village.

[00:27:39] It, it is one of the most idyllic and beautiful and privileged places in the entire world. Every every early September a bunch of celebrities descend upon the town for the Telluride Film Festival, and it’s just full of some of the most privileged, educated people in the entire world. And I think that just goes to show that like the one other city that’s mentioned where there’s a Luddite club, aside from [00:28:00] Brooklyn and, and New York City, you know, y- very, very wealthy place is freaking Telluride.

[00:28:05] You know, the, the, the secret- like the Brigadoon of rich people. It’s, it’s just insane to me. So yeah, I, I just wanted to point that out. That and, like, all these sort of expensive devices that people are buying when I think what you should really think about is sort of contrast the way that, like, these people are so proudly going offline or like trying to deal with their internet addictions with how Mennonites do it.

[00:28:30] And i- it’s not like there isn’t some precedent that modern people who are concerned about tech use can turn to because Mennonites have been dealing with this for a very long time. And according to mennonet.com, which is a thing, and it’s delightful, and it’s, has very, like, Craigslist styling but it is a website for Mennonite things.

[00:28:52] Within Mennonite con- conservative circles and plain circles, you’ll see that the, the tools are just stuff that you would install on an Android phone. There are accountability apps. One is called Covenant Eyes, which is something that’s also used by evangelical communities, and also Cloud Veil.

[00:29:11] They log activity or... and also are capable of filtering content. And they’ll send reports on accountability to, to a partner or a family administrator. So you had told me at one point you’d seen, like, Mennonites,

[00:29:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

[00:29:23] Simone Collins: I,

[00:29:23] Malcolm Collins: I quite like this technology. Yeah. I think it’s something that more people should use if you struggle with addictions to stuff online.

[00:29:30] Simone Collins: Yeah, like your brother will be like, “Hey dude, I saw that you were on Facebook.” Like, that y- you’ll get that social shame from it. There’s also something called the Security Appliance, which is a content filtering solution developed for and by the Plain community which is used at the network level in some fellowships to restrict categories of sites and manage what devices- Mm-hmm

[00:29:50] can access. So it’s, I think, similar to the kinds of controls that, say, a high school’s tech network will use in terms of allowing, like, what the laptops and phones on that system can use. And then there are other web filters like OpenDNS FamilyShield, and then just other ones that are out there that can be configured at home or on business Wi-Fi to block entire categories of content.

[00:30:13] So if you don’t like Mark Zuckerberg ‘cause he’s watching your life, then you can just block Fa- like, there are, are very easy offline ways without buying- Mm ... some expensive phone when you could just get an Android phone for $100 or y- if you still want a smartphone, for example, that allow you to do this.

[00:30:31] And then you can also just, ‘cause I just did this with an, an Android device that I’m sort of repurposing for, for our oldest son you can just set necessary apps on an Android phone or use something like Google Family Link, which I know is annoying you, but I’m still setting up the settings to, to set downtime schedules where, like, during these hours of the day you can’t use the phone, you can’t use the phone for more than two hours.

[00:30:54] Like, it just literally shuts off, and then the person who is the admin on the Google Family Link can give you more time if they think you should have it, but it, they can cut you off like a bartender. So th- these are all super, like, you don’t need a special device for it, but this community feels like it performatively needs to.

[00:31:12] But what I think is more meaningful is that- In Mennonite communities, there are just social norms around not taking out your phone in certain places. Like, a Mennonite would never go to church and pull out a phone because they know that they would be, like, socially ostracized for it. And I think just having those social norms is, is, is way more helpful than even using some kind of tech, if you know that you’re gonna be shamed.

[00:31:35] And that is something at least that did really show up in the summer of Ludd in New York. It’s still, probably still showing up at these events, is that when people take out their phones, people see that they’re doing so with great shame, that the phones are, like, held really low. Like, you know when someone shamefully takes out a phone to, like, check something and they do that thing where, like- Yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:31:50] they, they hold it at, like, hip level and they think that you can’t see. It’s like s- it’s the stupidest thing. It’s like when our kids play hide and seek and they’re, like, hiding under a table making eye contact but they assume that you can’t see [00:32:00] them. It’s like that.

[00:32:01] Malcolm Collins: I love the, the, them wanting to play hide and seek and being the worst hiders in the world.

[00:32:07] Simone Collins: It’s ... I know, man. Like, I think I need to-

[00:32:09] Malcolm Collins: And they’re so excited to do it, too.

[00:32:11] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Well, and then they’re like, when they find a good hiding spot and then you, you find them in it, they’re so delighted that they immediately wanna play another round, but then they just run directly to that same hiding spot.

[00:32:22] Like, not clear on the concept, guys. Like, at what age do they figure this out? At any rate, Maybe

[00:32:28] Malcolm Collins: our kids are just stupid.

[00:32:29] Simone Collins: No, our kids are beautiful and wonderful, and I love them so much.

[00:32:34] Malcolm Collins: I love you so much, Simone.

[00:32:35] Simone Collins: I love you, too. The original Luddite movement, though, I wanna point out, is, like, so different from this.

[00:32:41] Because one, these are working-class artisans who are deeply concerned about their jobs just being completely obliterated. It, it lasted very sh- it was very short, though. It, it went from 1811 to 1816. One of the reasons it was so short is that the stuff they did was super violent and illegal and harmful and damaging and even a guy was killed at one point.

[00:33:04] So i- in addition to raiding factories and breaking machines, starting in Nottingham in 1811 they, they, they ended up breaking over 1,000 machines. I mean, people lost fortunes in, in the damage done. I mean, some- some equivalent of this would have to be, like, I don’t know, if, if they, like, broke into Apple stores and just took a baseball bat to every device they could get their hands on, even in, like, the backroom inventory.

[00:33:29] But I guess Apple stores are kind of designed to make that impossible. It seems like they’ve anticipated this. We’ve learned. But they also ultimately killed this man, William Hors- Horsefall. They, they attacked mills as well. They, this, I think, started with the Rawfolds Mill in 1812. And so obviously- There were immediate legal and military repercussions.

[00:33:52] So this, this is the kind of movement that had to be repressed. So in a sense, the, the modern Luddite movement is at least more sustainable in that most of the even anti-data center protests are just protests. There hasn’t been at least very successful sabotage of data centers, which is nice. And at least they’re using mostly legal channels, like both in the EU and other parts of the world, plus in the US, they’re, they’re trying to move more through like zoning councils and be NIMBY about it instead of like, “I’m going to break all of the things.”

[00:34:23] But there are some similarities in that like there, there were many threatening letters sent to people who are trying to buy and implement the use of these machines. A- but these are, by the way, it was, it was mostly about textiles just in case people are not clear on this. Like

[00:34:40] Malcolm Collins: Which was a predominantly female industry at the time, if I understand correctly.

[00:34:43] Like

[00:34:43] Simone Collins: it basically No, I don’t think... No, this, this was predominantly men. I I think exclusively men. But yeah, no, it, it, it, it arose among skilled English textile workers who were like framework knitters and, and st- stockinger in North Hampshire, and croppers and shearers in Yorkshire and weavers in Lancashire.

[00:35:04] So they, they were primarily men, and when they organized, they would organize like kind of semi militias. Like, they would even sometimes do military style drills as their preparations. But one of the other big things was they would send threatening letters signed by General Ludd or by this mythi- likely mythical, at least, Ned Ludd.

[00:35:26] That’s why they were called Luddites. Which is kind of similar to the, the, the 13 gunshots fired outside that one council member’s house and then leaving the note of, like, no data centers outside his, his, his door. But that’s really the most, the... as close as they get. But the Luddite movement was so small that even at its peak there were maybe 7 to 8,000 sympathizers, and the, in terms of, like, the raids of factories- So

[00:35:57] Malcolm Collins: the Luddite movement was smaller than the [00:36:00] Basecamp fandom?

[00:36:00] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:36:00] Malcolm Collins: Like- Yeah ... that’s kind of crazy.

[00:36:03] Simone Collins: Yes, it is, it is genuinely crazy. And yet it’s gone down in- And, and no, we even mean, like, yeah, like- In books ... arguably paid fandom. Whi- which is, like, y- extra committed people who are actually willing to put money down. It, it, it’s, it’s rather, it’s rather insane. And the raids never really got bigger than approximately 100 men.

[00:36:20] So this is not... I, I would say the anti data center movement is bigger than the entire Luddite movement, which makes sense because it isn’t just textile workers whose livelihood is being threatened by AI, it’s, like, any-

[00:36:34] Malcolm Collins: It’s humanity ... humanity job,

[00:36:36] Simone Collins: email job or what, what do they call them? Yeah, email job employee or, like, white collar worker at this point who’s being threatened by them.

[00:36:44] I, and plus these were working class artisans, whereas the primary participants of the Luddite movements appear to be privileged young people and then kind of retired boomers. And then just, like, some families that are like, “Well, I live in Brooklyn and we’re looking for something we can take our kids to, so this looks fun.

[00:37:03] There’s a play about the Luddite movement, and there’s a puppet frog. Oh, our kids will love that.” You know, like, they’re, I think they’re just kind of, they’re there because they, they kind of like the aesthetics of the movement and, you know, they probably are anti-screen parents ‘cause they live in Brooklyn, and they’re just going because it’s there, right?

[00:37:18] So I, I wouldn’t say that this is a movement to, this isn’t some kind of domestic terror movement in the same way the original Luddite movement is. I think it’s kind of odd that they’re choosing the word Luddite because the original Luddite movement was very much about, like, destroying career threatening tech, whereas here they’re more like, “Well, I just don’t really want, you know, Mark Zuckerberg to fly over to Nigeria.”

[00:37:40] Well, I mean, and Luddite

[00:37:41] Malcolm Collins: also took on a vernacular term over the years that-

[00:37:44] Simone Collins: It did. It did. But I don’t know. I, and I also think that, like, it, it’s, it’s very interesting. I feel like it, it is a, a market correction of sorts that’s, that’s, it’s worth listening to in the sense that A lot of people are trying to go back to, like, kind of a early 2000s era internet use, which I could see as being relatively healthy, like, worth pursuing.

[00:38:09] Because I think that worked pretty well for us. It, it’s working really well for our kids, who I think are having that kind of relationship with tech and the internet. And I think that’s kind of maybe the sweet spot for humans, and it, I think it’s important to note if that’s where people are converging But what do you think?

[00:38:29] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:38:31] Simone Collins: Like video game consoles- ... but not really good ones. No VR. No feeds. I think no feeds is kind of a good policy.

[00:38:37] Malcolm Collins: No, just don’t be wasteful. Just don’t be wasteful. Mm-hmm. Like, come on. Th- th- that’s what I think with this stuff. Really? Like with our kids, I’m getting them the little video game ROM console and stuff like that.

[00:38:48] Simone Collins: I just- No, that’s my point though. That’s what we grew up with.

[00:38:51] Malcolm Collins: Y- no, but it’s more than we grew up with. It’s everything. I think it’s operating in an anti-big tech environment is a better way to do this than an anti-tech environment. And that’s functionally what they’re trying to achieve. They just want intelligent-

[00:39:07] Simone Collins: Yeah, like how to make your own website, how to host your own things.

[00:39:10] No, no, no, no, no, no. I was so surprised to not hear Orbit- That’s not what I mean ... in all of this.

[00:39:13] Malcolm Collins: So look at the video game system I’m gonna be giving Octavian, right? Like-

[00:39:17] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:39:17] Malcolm Collins: this is not from Nintendo. This is not from Xbox. This is made by hobbyists who wanted to make up a system that could play any ROM, right, from any of the old systems.

[00:39:28] And so he can play through any of the old games on a local device. Look at the RFab. It’s coming down the RFab pipeline. You guys will have this soon. I am so excited to be working on this. But an RFab hardware we’re gonna have soon which will allow you to give to your kids a little talking companion that keeps the conversation focused on educational topics and award points and- You can also

[00:39:51] Simone Collins: see the world because we found that our kid when he walks around with the, that rabbit AI device, that the camera is really crucial.

[00:39:58] He wants to be able to [00:40:00] show his AI companions what he’s looking at and learn about it. Like, “Is this poison ivy,” or, “What do you think of this,” or, “What is

[00:40:08] Malcolm Collins: this?” Yeah. Which is really cool. Which is really cool. I cannot wait to have RFab hardware. Yeah. But with all of the things in our life, you can choose to just not go with the big tech, and you’re generally gonna have better outcomes especially- At this point, yeah

[00:40:23] as big companies get worse at things. Like right now while we’ve been having this talk, I have been spec-ing out what it’s gonna take for me to, to clone Descript’s features and just make it better and cheaper.

[00:40:33] That’s

[00:40:33] awesome. Because, like why? Why go and work with Descript when I can build this myself, and frankly, they charge way more than they should?

[00:40:41] Simone Collins: You should do-

[00:40:42] No, I, I actually really like StreamYard, but maybe StreamYard next ...

[00:40:46] Malcolm Collins: Stre- you want me to do video hosting cloning? I can do video hosting. I can do that easily. Do you want me to, you want me to knock out StreamYard?

[00:40:54] Simone Collins: We won’t be able to afford it much longer, so yeah. H-

[00:40:57] Malcolm Collins: How much, how much are they charging us now?

[00:40:59] Simone Collins: Well, remember when we, we were able to get grandfathered in on their non-business plan for just a little bit longer because of our nonprofit, but they wanted to charge, I think, like 500 a month or something. Like, some insane amount that we were like, “Oh my God, we just can’t.” So.

[00:41:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I can, I can d- do this.

[00:41:15] Simone Collins: Anyway, I’m excited. Think about it. But yeah, anyway, I think this is fine. I think that it’s bougie, but that’s fine. I just I think that the most reasonable approach to the future is kind of solar punk. We... Malcolm and I were talking about it earlier that while the original solar punk movement sort of came from a very progressive, coded, environmentalist coded space, a lot of the solar punk environments and families that we know are more on the sort of, like, conservative, like, big family side of the spectrum, where, you know, they may live on some kind of homestead, but they’re using AI to work out everything from medical solutions to complex health issues to how to develop strong, like a strong permaculture system for their unique microclimate.

[00:42:05] And it’s... I think it’s really hard to do all these things without AI because a lot of us are coming into this without tacit knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation. I- in other words, I feel like we can’t actually return to the land, return to nature, and return to old ways, like more sustainable offline ways, without AI because we have collectively as a society forgotten how to do most of these things.

[00:42:30] We’ve forgotten how to tie knots and go fishing and do all these other things, and the only reason that we’re able to learn these things again is by leveraging AI and, and asking for, for that, that help. AI is playing the role that our grandparents used to play in teaching us how to do things the way that things used to be done.

[00:42:48] So I would just warn people who, like, wanna go super offline that it’s gonna be hard to learn the old ways, to learn how to do things without the internet if you don’t leverage-

[00:42:59] Malcolm Collins: I love they’re like, “The old ways, when you used to make a website for yourself.”

[00:43:04] Simone Collins: That’s what’s, again, what’s so funny about it is it’s like, oh, this isn’t L- a Luddite movement.

[00:43:08] This is a, like, go back to the early noughties internet. Anyway, though,

[00:43:12] Malcolm Collins: I love

[00:43:12] Simone Collins: you very much, Malcolm. Thank

[00:43:13] Malcolm Collins: you

[00:43:14] Simone Collins: for cheering me up. I by the way, I got the, the blood work back and I am just, the, it just completely failed. I have, I have no HCG. Just completely failed?

[00:43:24] Malcolm Collins: Not

[00:43:24] Simone Collins: pregnant at

[00:43:24] Malcolm Collins: all?

[00:43:25] Simone Collins: It... I’m not pregnant at all.

[00:43:26] We lost, we lost our baby, and I’m so sad, and I really appreciate that you’ve been

[00:43:32] Malcolm Collins: That’s really sad, but this happens, But

[00:43:33] Simone Collins: you’ve cheered me up a lot, and I really appreciate it ...

[00:43:35] Malcolm Collins: and we’re gonna keep trying. And you will get pregnant.

[00:43:40] Simone Collins: Yeah. Thanks, Malcolm. All right. I love you. Bye.

[00:43:44] Malcolm Collins: S- s- Simone, statistically, this should’ve been happening way more than it’s been happening.

[00:43:47] Simone Collins: No, I, I know that. I know that. No, I’m, I’m not, I’m not gonna dwell on it. I’ll, I’ll yeah. Bye.

[00:43:53] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[00:43:53] Simone Collins: did you find the book you were looking for?

[00:43:55] Malcolm Collins: I did find it, and now it’s included with the rest of the documents, and we’ll be able to get [00:44:00] it digitized. And I didn’t just find that, but included with it was a write-up of the Collins family history, which I otherwise would have not had included.

[00:44:08] Simone Collins: Dude, okay. That’s

[00:44:10] Malcolm Collins: very awesome.

[00:44:10] The one thing I’d really like to find for the documentary team is the first book I wrote in high school

[00:44:20] I don’t

[00:44:21] Simone Collins: think I’ve ever seen this. What is it?

[00:44:26] Malcolm Collins: It’s called Why Do Anything? I wonder if it’s in my Google Drive. Oh,

[00:44:28] Simone Collins: wait, wait, wait. That’s in Google Drive. I, I know that. I know that. Hold on. It is... At least I have a copy of it. Yeah. I, I, I made a copy of it in 2013.

[00:44:39] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like why- “

[00:44:40] Simone Collins: Why do anything?” Like, literally. It’s a good title. It’s a,

[00:44:44] Malcolm Collins: it’s a very awesome title. Yeah. It is essential to know what you should be working for as an ultimate goal in life.

[00:44:49] Without meaning, life is meaningless. When we think of what we want out of life, we normally jump directly to shallow motivations ones derived from core motivations such as a, a loving family or a nice house. The problem with this is that we do not ask ourselves why it is that we want these things in life. If you were to ask yourself why it is that you want such things, you would in turn answer with one of four core values. Oh.

[00:45:18] This is great. I love that I wrote this all the way back then. This is a

[00:45:21] Simone Collins: That is delightful

[00:45:23] Malcolm Collins: I remember one day when I was 15, I wondered why I was trying so hard in school. I always had assumed I did it in order to get into a good high school, which would then get me into a good college, and from there I would get a good job.

[00:45:33] At that point, I would be successful, make a sufficient amount of money, and I would be able to do whatever I pleased. Ultimately, all of the effort I put in was going to make me happy, and if I simply economized and constantly worked hard, I would recap the benefits later, coming out ahead as far as happiness goes in my life.

[00:45:50] It was then that I asked myself why I should strive for happiness, and I realized that I didn’t know. I was aware that pleasure centers in my brain were activated when I was happy, and that this rewarded me for doing things and achieving certain things, but why should I care? Why should I do anything?

[00:46:05] Should I work hard to become successful, or instead drift through life finding happiness where I could if overall I would have more happiness doing that? Should I help other people or help myself? Without knowing what motivation should be, everything I put my efforts to would be completely pointless.

[00:46:21] I decided from that point on my motivation in life would be to find a motivation. Hmm. And then I, I go through but yeah, this is... I, I would hope our kids do something like this at 15. I think this is something an exercise. And you can see The Pragmatist Guide to Life is basically just a longer rehashed version of this.

[00:46:36] Simone Collins: Basically, yeah.

[00:46:38] Malcolm Collins: That’s freaking

[00:46:39] Simone Collins: crazy. Isn’t that wild? That is really crazy. Well, memory lane today. Kind of fun.

[00:46:45] Malcolm Collins: Thank you for storing that, Simone. You’re so diligent.

[00:46:48] Simone Collins: Aw. Thanks.

[00:46:50] Speaker: Oh, that’s good, right? Yeah. Looks a lot like me. Hey, Tex, do you think you look like Octavian now? He can’t see himself. Well, he’s smiling, and you smile a lot. Yeah, and I like it. I like his smile when he looks at me. He’s, like, laughing. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, he... You make him laugh. Hey, it’s close to 3:00. It’s kind of, it’s this close to 3:00.

[00:47:27] Speaker 2: Yeah. It’s this close to 3:00. Super close, huh? Yeah, I’m actually s- I got right in the lyrics here I’ll play with Tex because I really wanna... I’ll play with Tex to wait for Eric. Okay. Because I know you really want him to smile. I do. Thanks, Audrey. Yeah, I’ll play with him, makes him smile. Perfect. Aw, look.

[00:47:48] Speaker: Look, Tex. There’s a carrot.

A Based Camp listener encouraged us to read Performative Bafflement’s post Against “more marriage” as a solution to the fertility crisis and while we came in with our mockery sneers at the ready, we came away radicalized. Is this the beginning of our Dark Pronatalist era? Oh no…

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Simone Collins: This big Ponzi scheme we like to call the American economy isn’t just going to make it without a bunch of kids cranked out en masse to keep the wheels spinning, right?

[00:00:08] Well, friends, I’ve got news for you here too. You do not approach the net neutral in taxes paid versus consumed unless you are in the top 10% of income for 40 plus years. Oh. Interesting argument here. So only the rich people have to get married

[00:00:23] Malcolm Collins: Okay, I buy this.

[00:00:25] Yeah, let’s get rid of- Sterilize all- ... the average person. Ster- and Leaflet has said this as well, that we should offer money- Yes ... for people to sterilize themselves. Yeah. Let’s move to le- what do we call this? Twist. Like, dark pronatalism?

[00:00:36] Simone Collins: Twist.

[00:00:37] Elitist pronatalism. We’ve always been accused of elitism.

[00:00:40] You know, oh, the Collinses, they want people to have kids, but only the right people. And they want everyone to think that we’re like white people or like, Christian people, but we’re like, no, just like competent, happy people. Well, wow. I mean, yeah, I, I like that it’s always really fun when something fundamentally changes our view of something,

[00:00:58] Speaker 3: So for context, today’s episode is actually one that I had not planned on releasing to the general public. We had planned on doing this as a paid private episode. and throughout most of it, what you will see is us being rather snarky and dismissive of the ideas being presented because we’re like, “Well, what’s the alternative?

[00:01:17] What’s the alternative? What’s the alternative?” And at the end of it, I was convinced, I think that this person makes a pretty good argument. And so this has been a major sea change in how I see reality, , which is to say it could be actively harmful and selfish to fight for the vast majority of people to get married and have kids.

[00:01:40] ,

[00:01:40] Speaker 4: Because the vast majority of people make bad partners, they make bad parents, they make bad children, and they would live a worse life if they were married and had kids

[00:01:54] Speaker 3: Whereas the virtuous thing is to just replace them

[00:01:58] But see if it convinces you as well

[00:02:01] Would you like to know more?

[00:02:02] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because today we’re doing a listener request. So those are always really exciting. We have a lot of people with excellent taste. And I- Do we?

[00:02:15] Malcolm Collins: Do we? Yeah. Yeah, we do.

[00:02:17] Simone Collins: Yeah, we do. Yeah.

[00:02:17] Malcolm Collins: I actually quite like our fans. They, they’re, I, I like you guys because you typically are living productive lives and doing interesting stuff, which is neat.

[00:02:24] Yeah,

[00:02:25] Simone Collins: like s- smart people who always give us new ideas and push

[00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: us further. And the number of you who have found partners and started making kids since we started this podcast is astonishing.

[00:02:34] Simone Collins: It makes us really happy. Yeah. So if you’re still looking, don’t give up. There’s a lot of hope, and you could be next.

[00:02:40] So-

[00:02:40] Malcolm Collins: And I, I promise you guys, it gets better as they get a bit older.

[00:02:44] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, ‘cause... Yeah, Malcolm has been reading my old diaries from early in our pre-married and newlywed days, and apparently it sucks. Wait, that’s gonna dissuade people.

[00:02:55] Malcolm Collins: Not the women- Ignore ... the babies.

[00:02:57] Simone Collins: Oh, the babies. Okay.

[00:02:58] Malcolm Collins: But the women also get better.

[00:02:59] Yeah, we got in fights all the time in the early days.

[00:03:02] Simone Collins: Not fights. We disagreed about things strategically, but sure, fights. What we had been s- encouraged to read is a, a Substack post by an excellence name- excellently named Substack, Performative Bafflement. I’ve always loved the name of this Substack.

[00:03:17] Haven’t read everything in it. Haven’t read this. The title of this particular article that we’re gonna read is Against More Marriage as a Solution to the Fertility Crisis: Let’s Create the Torment Nexus to Pump Out a Few Incremental Taxpayers. All right, let’s go into it. It has 66 likes, 48 comments, and 15 restacks, so did pretty well.

[00:03:37] They write, “Okay, so we all know about the fertility crisis, right? All the developed countries are going extinct. Many consider this bad or worrisome idea, et cetera. Said crisis is happening for hundreds of interlocking reasons, but the big KPI people like to point to here seems to be marriage. /Marriage directly tracks fertility, and the decline in relationship formation and marriage drives [00:04:00] most of the fertility gap since 2000.”

[00:04:02] He inserts graphs showing the clear... what looks to be causation. Okay, okay. It is correlation, but looks like it. “One of the main solutions,” he writes, “to the fertility crisis that most folks seem to like is pro-marriage incentives and initiatives. I am here to argue against this. These people are basically advocating for creating the torment nexus for megafolks of people,” megafolks, “to pump out a few incremental taxpayers.

[00:04:29] My position: Let’s not create a torment nexus, please and thank you. Aren’t I being totally histrionic and ridiculous here?” What? Let’s see. Okay, I wanna see where they’re

[00:04:36] Malcolm Collins: going with this. I have no idea. I have no idea where they

[00:04:38] Simone Collins: could be going. Yeah, my guess is they’re just gonna be like, “I don’t know, let the system break.

[00:04:41] I don’t wanna grind for some boomers to have more Social Security.”

[00:04:47] Malcolm Collins: Is this a leftists or a right? I don’t even know. I, I, they

[00:04:49] Simone Collins: could be like a big toe It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care because Performative Bafflement is a great Substack name, and I’m not gonna color your view of this person.

[00:04:57] Don’t click on their Substack. Be good.

[00:04:58] Speaker: So I decided to check and they are, , center right, , and of the based variety. They talk a lot about genetics, stuff like that, , working out, that sort of stuff, but not, you know, as, probably as far as us, , and male. , So at least I didn’t have my mind changed by a lefty woman as I thought

[00:05:17] Simone Collins: Okay, let’s go into the argument. Sexual, sorry, sexual. Where is my mind today? Secular marriage trends. First, they’re absolutely right that marriage is declining. It has been declining every single generation since the ‘40s, when we hit a local peak of 90% marriage rates, which have, which drove the baby boom.

[00:05:37] 90%. I didn’t know that, actually. Can you imagine living in a society where nine out of 10 people were married?

[00:05:44] Malcolm Collins: No

[00:05:45] Simone Collins: It’s crazy. Okay, I continue. Literally every single generation on generation since then, each cohort of women has looked out at the world, said, “Well, nope,” and opted out of marriage at higher rates than the one before.

[00:05:59] And they show a graph of women in the US by decade of birth who are getting married, and it, it ain’t looking, it ain’t looking good. The, it’s, it’s, it looks like a rainbow that’s dying. And I continue, and just as a note, I am framing this as primarily women’s choice because one, women are traditionally proposed to and say yes or no.

[00:06:22] Two, historically women are the sex that wants and pushes for marriage while in a relationship more often. Three, women getting educated and having jobs and careers of their own is a big part of the fertility crisis in the sense those things all reduce fertility when first introduced to a society. And indirect-

[00:06:41] Malcolm Collins: Wait, that doesn’t sound right.

[00:06:41] Do women push for marriage more than men? I don’t think so.

[00:06:44] Simone Collins: So these days definitely men are pushing more for marriage, so she’s, I mean, she’s right that women are, are driving the decline in marriage. You can see it in the polling. We’ve done plenty of episodes that cite this polling. So I, that is true.

[00:06:56] When you look at at least historical tropes, ‘cause we didn’t live in this time. I

[00:06:59] Malcolm Collins: mean- Yeah, I know historical tropes, but I think the reality is, and, and potentially even into history, that’s been the men, I mean, in a lot of the stories that, you know, I remember from my childhood, the romance stories, it’s the man pushing for marriage.

[00:07:11] It’s the- No ... I’ll go to Ipswich for you. It’s the- Mm ... you know, like-

[00:07:16] Simone Collins: That’s, those are romances. That’s not reality. Reality is men want to maintain as much optionality as, look, sexually, like from a sexual strategy perspective- Not men who want to have

[00:07:25] Malcolm Collins: babies. I pushed you to get married.

[00:07:29] Simone Collins: Right. Your mu- your game of musical chairs was rapidly ending.

[00:07:33] You, you felt like you’re, I guess m- m-

[00:07:37] Malcolm Collins: And I was like 24 at the time when I felt like I was waiting too long. I

[00:07:38] Simone Collins: know, but you felt like an old maid or whatever the male equivalent of that is. You, you’re a very unusual case. The, the male strategy has almost always been, look, maintain maximum optionality, string women along, don’t actually commit because then you can move on to another woman.

[00:07:52] And even when m- women now in our modern society after no-fault divorce were able to just divorce women when they wanted to and then move [00:08:00] on. Like the, the, there’s a lack of commitment. Although these days I know women initiate the majority of divorces. But no, I, I, I think, I think that checks out. I agree.

[00:08:08] I think that most women wanted marriage more than men historically, and often what was ha- what happened even when, like, a woman gets pregnant It’s the shotgun wedding, not because the woman is being held at gunpoint, it’s because the young man is being held at gunpoint. Women can’t escape the reality of having, being pregnant, you know, i- if, if they live in a society or in a family that does not approve of abortion or have a culture that doesn’t approve of it.

[00:08:33] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:34] Simone Collins: Anyway, yes, I agree with, I w- I agree with performative bafflement. So la, la, la. Four, women being able to have jobs and lives of their own gives them more o- options and is what enables them to opt out of marriage at ever-increasing rates. I am here to argue that this gigantic reduction in marriage rates is an unambiguously good thing, and that the great majority of these ladies are genuinely making smart decisions.

[00:08:58] Marriage is a bad idea in the great majority of cases. Broadly, people aren’t compatible because people suck. I mean, come on, Malcolm, you can’t disagree with that. When approximately 90% of women-

[00:09:09] Malcolm Collins: Other people suck? Right, but the- If you can find a person who

[00:09:12] Simone Collins: sucks in the way that you suck- You’re such an outlier, Malcolm.

[00:09:14] Malcolm Collins: There are people who think, progressives think I suck. You know, like...

[00:09:18] Simone Collins: Right, and b- b- e- yeah, but we’re very unusual in... We, we both also s- cast a wide net and, and worked... W- I was very targeted in my search. You cast a very wide net and were also very, very choosy and worked extremely hard to find a partner.

[00:09:39] Most people don’t work that hard but I think are less choosy, so it, you know, it all washes out. But I, I was so committed to living alone, not because I wasn’t a hopeless romantic, I actually kind of was, but because I couldn’t imagine someone being compatible with me being how weird I am. Yeah,

[00:09:55] Malcolm Collins: but

[00:09:55] Simone Collins: males-

[00:09:55] Malcolm Collins: And look, you had deliberately-

[00:09:56] disproportionately push for marriage, b- by a dramatic margin.

[00:09:59] Simone Collins: You just checked on AI?

[00:10:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:10:01] Simone Collins: During what time period?

[00:10:05] Malcolm Collins: 2023 data, so not even that recent.

[00:10:07] Simone Collins: No, we’re, we’re talking about, like, the 1950s. Obviously now, I said obviously now, men are the ones

[00:10:13] Malcolm Collins: pushing the narrative. Well, in the 1950s I believe that men also pushed for it.

[00:10:15] I think that, that we are shown a narrative in the media that’s not real or accurate

[00:10:22] Simone Collins: Hmm, I don’t know. Chime in in the comments and let us know what you think. Who’s right, Malcolm or Simone? But I will continue. Broadly, people are compatible, blah, blah, blah, they suck. How do we know this? By just looking at actual outcomes, looking at revealed preferences and how people actually end up after marriage.

[00:10:39] Obviously, the ever-decreasing marriage rate for each generation of women above, she’s referring to the graph, the sad rainbow, that is driven by something. What could that something be? I’m here to- By the way,

[00:10:50] Malcolm Collins: I’m guessing this person’s a leftist because they don’t seem interested in what’s actually true, but just sort of

[00:10:54] Simone Collins: what, what’s likely And I’m, I’m assuming that they’re a woman.

[00:10:56] I’m here to argue, because these are very common arguments so far that I hear from fem- the female YouTubers I watch, ‘cause I like girly things. I’m here to argue that it’s a genuine reaction to actual marriage quality and outcomes, the empirical outcomes. Even today, when many fewer couples get married and marriage is significantly more selected, divorce base rates are approximately 42% for first marriages, and about half of the remaining marriages are net miserable for at least one party.

[00:11:26] That’s roughly two-thirds failure misery rate. She, she doesn’t, I’m assuming she. Performative bafflement doesn’t cite this- That’s because

[00:11:33] Malcolm Collins: the people don’t try. They don’t try to get into a good marriage, and they don’t try once they’re married. Yeah,

[00:11:36] Simone Collins: and, and look, they’d be miserable by themselves too. I,

[00:11:40] Malcolm Collins: I- Yeah, I don’t, I do not know any miserably married people.

[00:11:44] Any

[00:11:45] Simone Collins: from our generation. Yeah. I mean, I don’t, people like to hide it, I guess. But yeah, at least people- I, I would know ... in the boyscan community are really solid. Anyway think about think how net miserable those 90% of marriages were that were not selected at all and could not get [00:12:00] divorced back in the ‘50s.

[00:12:01] Moreover, of the marriages that stayed together, all they predominantly do is make people fat and sexless and miserable. Married weight gain is a strong effect seen in practically every country in the world, even after controlling for genes and personalities. For example, identical twins, one of whom marries and the other does not, the married one typically gains significant weight.

[00:12:21] Both you and I weigh less than we did when we got married, which is interesting. The Termik et al 2024 meta-analysis surveys approximately 200,000 couples and approximately 100,000 matched singles across 18 countries, and surfaces a very strong effect size of marriages on obesity. A 1.7 odds ratio, up to 2.5 odds ratio in economic downturns.

[00:12:47] Aw. People eat their feelings. And, and the trend reverses. On divorce, both men and women lose weight. On sexless- sexlessness, as far as I can tell, a lot of sources consider fewer than one times a month to be basically a sexless marriage. In GSS, this ranges from 5 to 20% of all marriages that have lasted at least five years, depending on how happy they are and how long they’ve been going.

[00:13:11] And obviously there’s giant survivor effect there with the approximately half of them that have been divorced were more likely to be sexless prior to divorce. So fif- five to 20% is the heavy, heavily survivor biased portion of sexless marriages that already have a huge thumb on the scale in terms of upping the amount of sex.

[00:13:32] This is to say that I personally think some much larger portion of marriages attain sexlessness. It’s just that the majority of those end up divorced, leaving a relatively more modest five to

[00:13:40] Malcolm Collins: 20% remainder. So her thing is it’s a good thing that it’s not happening because most people are failures Okay.

[00:13:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay, yeah, that’s, I think that’s broadly what, what is being argued here.

[00:13:50] Malcolm Collins: And she’s like, “And you should...” I, I mean, I guess, like, the type of person who’s not finding a partner today is the type of person who would’ve been a bad partner in the past.

[00:13:57] Simone Collins: Well, Performative Bafflement proceeds to present a flowchart showing total marriages, and then they split off 42% divorce, and then of the active marriage pool, we have 20-year successes.

[00:14:09] That’s 18% of all relationships. We’re almost coming up on 11, Malcolm, so we’re getting there. And then net miserable and/or dead bedroom, 40% of all relationships. And there’s some weird, like, extra thing in it. Eh, who cares? Whatever. Over only 20 years, only approximately 18% of marriages are actually still happy and sexually active.

[00:14:32] All the rest are divorced or net miserable/dead bedroom, and I don’t think if you’re PMC, you’re immune. So I’ve just ignored the obesity effects on this chart because that’s apparently almost every American’s fate, and nobody cares about this. At least not enough to do anything about it. This view is a simplification.

[00:14:48] Obviously, a lot of the divorces were dead bedrooms or miserable before divorce, and this caused the divorce, and obviously people trickle into the net miserable column at increasing rates over time. But this is genuinely what all the data tells us over 20 years, and there’s a good reason to think that GSS is optimistic on both the dead bedroom and the happy marriage front.

[00:15:06] So every woman opting out of mes- marriage at a higher, in higher rates, super smart. Definitely the right move. If you track empirical outcomes, that’s definitely the best, the w- the... Wait a second. But she’s not looking at the counterfactual. She’s not looking at, like, the mental health rates of women who never get married.

[00:15:22] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:15:22] Simone Collins: We’re only looking at married couples. And, look, a lot of women who end up divorced get, like, alimony and more financial security because of the divorce. Anyway she continues. I’m just go- we, we’re just assuming Performative Baffle- Bafflement is a woman, not really knowing the background. And as an aside, I think this kind of a, is kind of an amazing demonstration of the wisdom of crowds and invisible hands at work.

[00:15:43] Basically, nobody knows these numbers. All anyone can do is look around at the relationships around them and judge their quality and outcomes. It is an exceptionally noisy information channel that’s highly selected and skewed for everyone. And even with all that noise, even with literally zero idea of the statistical ground [00:16:00] truths, women in the aggregate have still arrived at a better, closer to the truth answer in each subsequent decision round over 80 years of cumulative decisions.

[00:16:09] That’s amazing. And before everyone here jumps-

[00:16:12] Malcolm Collins: Closer to the truth? She’s arguing that no one should get married or reproduce. I think so. Functionally

[00:16:17] Simone Collins: speaking. Yeah, I think, yeah. I, I’m getting some anti-natalism in here.

[00:16:20] Malcolm Collins: Like, no, it’s, it’s like what’s even the point of fixing this if sometimes marriage is bad?

[00:16:25] Right? Like- ... what?

[00:16:28] Simone Collins: Well, and sometimes being single is bad, but she’s not talking about that, is she?

[00:16:31] Malcolm Collins: And before- I, I’ve never seen two decent people in a bad marriage

[00:16:36] Simone Collins: I have. I have. My, my best friend in childhood her, her parents were perfect, and I thought they were the perfect marriage. And The dynamic broke at one point when the wife was given the job opportunity of a lifetime.

[00:16:53] They moved across country, and the husband went a long time without working, and it just killed the family’s dynamic ‘cause he no longer felt like the provider. He became the stay-at-home dad, and that, he, his identity wasn’t ready for that. Mm. And then they both ended up with other partners, and they’re happy now.

[00:17:08] But, like, there are things that have nothing to do with the two individuals who can be incredibly... These people were, like, smart and good-looking and insanely tall. Like, they were both over six feet. And-

[00:17:20] Malcolm Collins: Oh, that doesn’t really make sense to me. So what, he cheated on her? What do you mean they both ended up with other part...

[00:17:24] Because presumably it’s gonna be harder for him to get his job back or get another partner after this I think he may have

[00:17:29] Simone Collins: cheated. I think he may have cheated on her. Mm ... which, I mean, if she was, like, gone a lot for work, but I don’t know. ‘Cause I don’t, I was a kid, you know, when sh- when sh- my friend was going through all this.

[00:17:37] Yeah. And it was, it was rough, you know? But it was, it was amicable, but every- b- and these are, like, two very good people. It just didn’t work out. And that, like, devastated me. I was like, “Oh my God.” Well, I- “Like, if they can’t make it work” ... I, I

[00:17:48] Malcolm Collins: don’t know about that. I don’t know. But you continue.

[00:17:50] Simone Collins: Anyway, look, I’m just saying, very decent, smart, wonderful people.

[00:17:53] I feel like, you know... It, it all worked out in the end, so I’m happy. Anyway she, Performative Bafflement continues, “And before anyone here jumps in and tries to argue that their spouse is Mother Teresa and Sydney Sweeney combined and was recently elected- Mine is ... best and also hottest human being who has ever or will ever exist.

[00:18:12] Yes, I’m not talking about you and me, friends. We all know my readers are notable exceptions whose spouse is descended from heaven on gossamer wings, and whose very presence inspires the involuntary outbursts of angelic hymns and paroxysms of joy.” Mine

[00:18:27] Malcolm Collins: does, though. You do have a- That’s the problem, Simone

[00:18:28] Simone Collins: Mine does, too.

[00:18:29] I know. I’m, I’m the one woman who made it. “I’m talking about everyone else,” says Performative Bafflement. “Those who are far less fortunate than we. You know the ones I mean. You see the quality of your friends’ and relatives’ and coworkers’ marriages. As is usually the case with revealed preferences-” No, I, I do see the f-

[00:18:46] this can imply huge effect sizes in the background”

[00:18:47] Malcolm Collins: I do see the quality, and it’s high quality. I, I do see the quality. In my generation, it’s high quality. Th- this idea that, like, if you look around, all this can tell me is this person is in some sort of circle where everyone’s miserable. And I can only guess it’s all progressives or something.

[00:19:01] Simone Collins: I guess, yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m even, like, thinking it, a- as far as I can work it in, in my head, even with people who have m- I would say very imperfect marriages, they’re all just due to imperfections they have as people which they would experience perhaps in a more magnified fashion if they lived independently.

[00:19:20] But again, something that I wasn’t considering at this point in the piece because I hadn’t gotten to the end argument, which does help think this for me, is the people we surround ourselves with, e.g., Simone and I surround ourselves with, are exceptional people. I don’t like to talk to people who I do not think are exceptionally competent or exceptionally contributory to the future of humanity.

[00:19:42] And it is that type of person, when they end up in a marriage, that they have a good marriage. , It is the type of person who lives the life for whatever, as you’re about to hear, that even when they are otherwise good people, have toxic marriages

[00:19:58] Simone Collins: And- Yeah ... the great thing is that a [00:20:00] lot of people’s vices can be moderated-

[00:20:04] Malcolm Collins: Well, this is the whole thing. If you were purpose in life is to make humanity better and to contribute to humanity’s continued flourishing in the future, e.g. the next generation, one of the most important things you can do but by far I mean, unless you’re gonna cure cancer or something, which you’re probably not, okay?

[00:20:24] Is have a lot of kids and raise them well, right? Especially with this being a crisis that humanity is going through right now. And the fact that you wouldn’t even try to do like one of the... It’s like, you know, you’re on, a spaceship and the, life support’s dying and somebody’s like, “Well, you know, I, I don’t really see the point in trying to fix the life support,” it sometimes shocks you.

[00:20:49] It’s like, what are you talking about? It’s the only option. I haven’t heard you present a secondary option here.

[00:20:57] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. We’ll, we’ll continue then. We’ll see. The argument’s only warming up. There’s a lot more. Marriage is a bad idea even from a purely theoretical point of view. On top of the base rates indicating that it’s a bad idea empirically, the whole idea of being able to accurately predict how people are going to evolve or change over 20 to 70 years is silly to begin with, and 20 years is pretty much the minimum you have to consider if you want to have kids with that person.

[00:21:23] How much have you changed versus you 20 years ago? Why wouldn’t you expect your spouse to change that much and you to change that much in the next 20 to 70 years? I promise the great majority of everyone in that 82% were in love when they got married and didn’t think they’d get divorced or be miserable.

[00:21:39] See, this is why you have to grow together as a couple and not grow apart. Like, that, that’s, this is easy to head off, so I’m just gonna skip to the next section because you just grow together and not apart. That, that, that’s something you can solve. Next section. Good marriages are heaven and bad marriages are hell.

[00:21:54] Here I’ll point out that a good relationship is one of the best things on earth and a bad relationship is one of the worst things on earth. Being single is much better than being in a bad relationship. Okay, I’m gonna skip through this section too because we agree.

[00:22:06] Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, but the- That

[00:22:08] Simone Collins: means you should just leave the relationship

[00:22:09] Malcolm Collins: and get a good one

[00:22:09] Being married is much better than being single.

[00:22:11] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:22:12] Malcolm Collins: Being in a good marriage is- So

[00:22:15] Simone Collins: if you’re in a bad marriage, leave it,

[00:22:17] Malcolm Collins: right? Vet the person, learn about the person, grow together, get married young. What... Like, the advice is just so easy to get around.

[00:22:27] Simone Collins: Yeah. What this cashes out to, Performative Bafflement writes, as soon as no-fault divorce opened up in the late ‘60s, divorces surged and that was a good thing.

[00:22:37] It was millions of soul-crushing relationships suddenly being able to be dissolved.

[00:22:40] Malcolm Collins: No, it was millions of relationships becoming soul-crushing because people got other options.

[00:22:45] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:22:46] Malcolm Collins: This, there were bad relationships before this, but I can guarantee you they were probably at about a third the rate.

[00:22:53] Simone Collins: Maybe, yeah

[00:22:55] Malcolm Collins: Im- when you, when you create a norm around leaving a relationship or a motivation to leave a relationship or look for flaws in your partner instead of trying to make it work, this is why arranged marriages have higher love rates or equal love rates, but when you c- count survivorship bias, higher love rates than non-arranged marriages.

[00:23:11] Mm.

[00:23:11] Simone Collins: So no-fault divorce created the first FOMO or a dangerous new form of FOMO And it caused a bunch of people to become miserable when they could- they did not need to be, or would not have been.

[00:23:23] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:23:24] Simone Collins: Okay, next section then we’ll skip to. Is this women getting all uppity? So lots of guys think this is a female selectivity problem.

[00:23:31] Indeed, if you do the math, approximately 80% of women are opting out of marriage at the bottom quint- quintile of male SES, and nearly two-thirds are opting out of the medians and below. Marriage is increasingly a luxury good. The top quintile of SES men still have 85 to 90% marriage rates just like all men in the ‘40s.

[00:23:51] Oh, that’s interesting. And look again, look at the ground truth. This is just women being actually smart and reacting to actually huge effect sizes. What’s the percent of [00:24:00] marriages that make it and were retroactively actually worth entering? Roughly 20%. Boy, if I were making that bet, I’d sure try to only do it with the top quintile of people.

[00:24:12] Uh-oh, Malcolm. You’re top quintile.

[00:24:16] Malcolm Collins: I, I am top quintile, I’ll say that.

[00:24:18] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:24:19] Malcolm Collins: But, you know, I could just get a, I could just get a, as you’ve said in the past, I should just get a harem. So I’ll get a few more wives and-

[00:24:24] Simone Collins: Right. But you know, we know from that, like, one, one bit of research on African what’s the word?

[00:24:31] Poly- polygynous marriages, that the more wives a man has, his value gets moderated down. True. Because the wife considering choosing him as a husband has to understand that you now have to divide his assets by the number of wives, plus a little bit more of, of a discount because there’s the uncertainty of knowing y- you may fall out of favor.

[00:24:53] So he’s not as certain of a bet as a man of more moderate income who you know will not be further diluting it with additional wives. ‘Cause keep in mind, what, what if you’re like wife number three for, like, millionaire man? But you don’t know how many more wives he might convince to get. Those economies have got, about to get gnarly, right?

[00:25:14] So you’re gonna get, I think, fairly low-quality w- women, unless you’re super- Mm ... super high value or they’re very insensitive. Now, I think it’s different with things like sister wives, right? Because in a sense, in, it seems like in many cases, sister wives actually choose each other, and the husband’s just like, “Ugh, okay.”

[00:25:31] Whereas they’re like, “Look, I need another woman around the house.” I, you know, and it’s like, not... You know what I mean? That, that’s kind of a dynamic at play. So I’m not talking about those k- types of marriages. Anyway blah, blah, blah. Okay, so basically she’s saying that, like, it only makes sense for women to marry the, the high-value men.

[00:25:49] Next section. Let’s put any returns to bed for good. Of course, returns spent with a, spelled with a V, which you’ve noticed is a whole thing, right?

[00:25:58] Malcolm Collins: Returns spelled with a-

[00:26:00] Simone Collins: With a V. You’ve not... Are you... Really?

[00:26:02] Malcolm Collins: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

[00:26:04] Simone Collins: There’s this whole- how do I best describe it? Guys, how do I describe this to Malcolm?

[00:26:11] This, like, go back to Roman times. It’s like the... It’s supposed to be so... It’s like trying to be highbrow Bronze Age pervert, and you start some, like, men’s association called RETVRN and it’s, it’s all about going back to traditional Christian values. This rings no bell? You’ve not seen any of this?

[00:26:33] Malcolm Collins: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

[00:26:33] Oh, my

[00:26:34] Simone Collins: God. Anyway, I’m gonna read. I will read. And this is largely why some of these men are the biggest proponents of returning to a regime where women are locked out of jobs and bank accounts, and are stuck barefoot and pregnant in kitchens, shackled to duds. It’s seemingly the only way they see actually marrying women in nowadays, given the high ever-growing opt-out rates.

[00:26:55] Clearly- She’s

[00:26:55] Malcolm Collins: not offering an alternative. Like, we’re literally- Yeah, let’s see ... talking about an end to human civilization. Blah,

[00:26:59] Simone Collins: blah, blah. Okay, so yeah, manosphere rejected. No returv- returvning. Case study: what can a median woman get from marrying the median man? Okay, so prospectively, the median woman can get a snag, an, or, expect to snag a median man.

[00:27:14] The median man is short and obese, only has a high school degree, and makes approximately 50K a year. That can barely buy you groceries, much less a house anywhere. Oh, also when it comes to sex, a median Ejaculatory latency time is nine minutes. Nine minutes. So every week or so you’ll get nine minutes of awful sex that approximately zero women could get off to.

[00:27:34] Man, sounds great. I can see why average women are just busting down the doors for median men to get married.

[00:27:40] Malcolm Collins: That’s really the average time?

[00:27:42] Simone Collins: I mean, that sounds bad, right? I don’t want that.

[00:27:45] Malcolm Collins: I, I think you- You want that? I think you’d prefer that.

[00:27:49] Simone Collins: Oh, you mean short and quick. Well, Malcolm, we have things to do.

[00:27:52] Yes, no, the, but not a... I mean, every, I think

[00:27:56] Malcolm Collins: every

[00:27:56] Simone Collins: couple-

[00:27:56] Malcolm Collins: If I, I’m honest, I would probably prefer that to be my [00:28:00] time than-

[00:28:00] Simone Collins: Men prefer cookies more than... You, you under- we’re not gonna get into-

[00:28:06] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we’re not gonna get into it, but, like, yeah, that is,

[00:28:09] Simone Collins: Women tend to prefer longer sexual periods ...

[00:28:11] Malcolm Collins: I hear that and I’m like, that sounds very efficient.

[00:28:13] Maybe this is actually why- Right,

[00:28:14] Simone Collins: because the way that men experience sexual pleasure works a little differently from the way that women experience sexual pleasure, right? Like-

[00:28:20] Malcolm Collins: Actually, this might be why we have such an extreme stance on, like, it, how do, how are people having kids when they when they’re, like, naturally, when, when they have a bunch of kids already.

[00:28:30] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:28:30] Malcolm Collins: We’re like, “When are you, how do you people have active sex lives?” And now that I’m hearing that the average time for a guy to come is nine minutes, I’m like, that’s how you have a- that’s how you have sex lives and kids.

[00:28:40] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:28:41] Malcolm Collins: You know? Yeah,

[00:28:41] Simone Collins: you think the kids are gonna leave you alone for longer than 10 minutes?

[00:28:44] I mean, this is, this

[00:28:44] Malcolm Collins: is- Yeah, we, yeah. When I’m like, I just don’t understand how it’s, like, plausible that you’re having sex and a bunch of kids.

[00:28:51] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:28:52] Malcolm Collins: Okay, I get it now.

[00:28:53] Simone Collins: Yeah, 10 minutes, 10 minutes makes sense.

[00:28:55] Speaker 6: Note here, this is part of the broader conversation that we have, which is I don’t get these people who are like, “I’m parents with, like, five kids, four kids, and we still have a healthy and active sexual relationship.” , Because this guy acts like a dead bedroom is, like, the worst thing in the world, and it’s like, no, I thought it was a natural part of having a ton of kids around the house and needing to hire a babysitter to be a, basically a prostitute by proxy, because that’s the only way you get to have sex.

[00:29:25] Because God knows I’m not gonna have sex while a little baby is watching me, and I’m not gonna leave my baby outside the room for over an hour, , while I’m just pleasuring myself and my wife, right? You know, like, that’s gross, right? Like, the baby starts crying or something. What a horrifying thing.

[00:29:43] And everyone’s like, “Oh, no, it’s so easy.” And I’m like, “Oh, because it only took nine minutes for you. That makes sense.”

[00:29:48] Simone Collins: Anyway, blah, blah, blah. So she’s basically saying that marrying a mid man is kinda dire looking from the, the w- woman’s perspective, I mean, I can continue.

[00:30:01] Man, sounds great, blah, blah, blah. Another triangulation point. Fully 35% of women lack interest in sex at all, and can you blame them? And around... Wow, so 35% of women are asexual, basically. I mean, that makes sense. It’s like all, all of, me and all of my friends in high school. And around 50% have at least one noticeable problem with the quality of sex they’re getting.

[00:30:20] Want more context and flavor? Check here for actual comments from lots of women. It’s pretty clear that having approximately any job and pets and Netflix, and you own a place, is roughly 10X better than marrying the median man, who in addition to subjecting you to nine minutes of terrible sex every week, will want you to do his laundry and dishes and cook for him, and spend all your free time raising his awful kids.

[00:30:39] Well, if you don’t like him, yeah, they’re awful kids. While also working full time because he can’t afford anything and needs your income for your, for you two to even survive. I wrote a whole article on why women have a raw deal in general, and this section comes from here. Click, click there for a more complete case.

[00:30:57] All right, I’ll just... That’s its own article

[00:30:59] Malcolm Collins: then. I’m not hearing the alternative.

[00:31:00] Simone Collins: Yeah, okay, let’s see. All the positive effects of marriage are driven by selection effects anyway. Okay, this is still not a solution. How about health? Okay, that’s not a solution. It’s looking at long... The relationship between physical health and marriage was completely explained by ran- non-random selection.

[00:31:15] Okay, so she’s saying marriage is not gonna make your health better. How about income? She cites some research. The results show that married men earn more because selection into marriage operates not only on wage levels, but also on wage growth, hence men on a steep career track are especially likely to marry.

[00:31:30] We conclude that arguments postulating a wage premium for married men should be discarded. Okay how about happiness? Okay, she’s r- certainly gonna cite studies that show marriage doesn’t make you happy. This is why marriage is a luxury good now. The only people worth marrying are at the top quintile of pe- people, basically.

[00:31:45] I feel like a hypocrite, because you’re like top 1%, pro- probably- True ... like top .01%.

[00:31:50] Malcolm Collins: It’s true. I am one of the best living humans. Th- this is like an objective thing that anyone can-

[00:31:54] Simone Collins: It is, though. That, that, that does, it, yeah. So like who are we to say, right? Like maybe- [00:32:00]

[00:32:00] Malcolm Collins: You are too, though, Simone, if I’m gonna be

[00:32:02] Simone Collins: honest.

[00:32:02] Nah. For, for you specifically, right, I’m, I’m the right kind of person. And we, we’re really lucky to find each other. But I’m trying to find the solution. This is immoral and bad. I’ll make this horrible suggestion for any proposal that is basically suggesting to create decades of misery. Okay, so basically marriage is immoral and bad because marriage sucks and people suck, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:19] Okay, so that’s your, that’s the argument. But, but we need more taxpayers. Next section. Maybe this is finally gonna be it. Come on performative bafflement, you might say. Look around you. Dependency ratios, the big problem. Oh, dependency ratios. You made that one.

[00:32:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, d- I’m the one who popularized dependency ratios.

[00:32:36] Simone Collins: You did. People, you- And

[00:32:38] Malcolm Collins: I don’t even care about more taxpayers anymore now that we have AI. I’m just like, you know, we will replace you. That’s the goal at this point. We’ve gotta replace the existing population that thinks like this. Well,

[00:32:46] Simone Collins: dependency sorry performative bafflement is, is humoring you here.

[00:32:50] The big problem South Korea, and Japan, and China are headed in for is infinite ever-growing array of old people tiling,

[00:32:58] tiling the sky to the horizon like octogenarian celestial vampires draining the economic and cultural life force out of their kids and grandkids as each kid has to support a greater number of sky vampires. Oh, that’s good. Performative bafflement, that’s good. That’s going to suck for them. Their entire economy is going to grind to a halt, and everyone is going to hate their lives.

[00:33:18] And in the developing world, we’re all on the same train. They’re just getting to the station first, so that’s ours and our kids’ fates too. This big Ponzi scheme we like to call the American economy isn’t just going to make it without a bunch of kids cranked out en masse to keep the wheels spinning, right?

[00:33:35] Well, friends, I’ve got news for hear you, for you here too. The median taxpayer isn’t. This is to say, no matter how you do the math, you do not approach the net neutral in taxes paid versus consumed unless you are in the top 10% of income for 40 plus years. Oh. Interesting argument here. So only the rich people have to get married

[00:33:54] Malcolm Collins: Okay, I buy this.

[00:33:56] Yeah, let’s get rid of- Sterilize all- ... the average person. Ster- and Leaflet has said this as well, that we should offer money- Yes ... for people to sterilize themselves. Yeah. Let’s move to le- what do we call this? Twist. Like, dark pronatalism?

[00:34:07] Simone Collins: Twist.

[00:34:08] Speaker 5: And if your question within dark pronatalism is, well then who’s worthy? Who should be having kids? It’s the people who are willing to make that sacrifice. That’s who decides. The people willing to make the sacrifice for the future. It’s you. It’s the individual who gets to decide, who gets to either find or not find a partner, who, , gets to make a good life for that partner, a good enough life that they want to have lots of kids

[00:34:33] Simone Collins: Elitist pronatalism. We’ve always been accused of elitism.

[00:34:36] You know, oh, the Collinses, they want people to have kids, but only the right people. And they want everyone to think that we’re like white people or like, Christian people, but we’re like, no, just like competent, happy people.

[00:34:48] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So yeah, the com- if competent- And then taxpayers- ... happy people is this like rare, impossible thing.

[00:34:55] Simone Collins: I will, I will continue, ‘cause we’re gonna have to get the kids real soon. Let’s just show this at a super high level. Only about half of Americans work. The rest are kids, retirees, and layabouts. So you’ve got 170 million workers. We spend 7 trillion a year, mostly on old people entitlements, from 52 to 69%, depending on where you account for national debt and interest and some other stuff.

[00:35:15] I like round numbers, so let’s lazily call it 4.5 trillion for entitlements and 2.5 trillion for everything else. How much is 7 trillion over 150 million? It’s 40K in taxes paid per worker. You don’t hit that amount of taxes paid until you are top 5% of income, or 250K plus or so. But people pay dollars in payroll taxes every paycheck.

[00:35:39] Yeah, sure, it doesn’t matter. The median worker pays 6 to 7K in federal taxes, including all those, and the mean is around 10 to 12K. Still way shy of 40K. I mean, even if you literally take out entitlements entirely, just that 2.5 trillion across all the workers, it’s like 15K a year.

[00:35:56] The

[00:35:56] Malcolm Collins: overwhelming- Because it’s highly heritable whether or not your [00:36:00] kids are going to pay into the s- system as

[00:36:01] Simone Collins: well. Yeah, but I, I, this is an, this is an int- yeah, th- th- anyway, I’ll, I’ll skip around. Performative Bafflement says, “I’m not disparaging average people here who are genuinely paying a big chunk of their income in taxes.

[00:36:11] I’m disparaging our maximally stupid government spending and policies, and pointing out that there’s literally no way it can go like this, go on like this with the sky vampires hit.” The sky vampires, I really like that. If we’re always and forever spending 6X more than we make per person, adding more people isn’t going to help.

[00:36:28] We’re still... We do our system in the maximally stupid way, and as an example, taking the widow’s mite of taxes, 1K back then, in 1970s dollars, immediately spend it, then basically promise the person who paid those taxes in piddling 1970s dollars we’ll spend 40K per year on them in present day dollars when they’re old, which we’re doing.

[00:36:46] Yes, that’s so true. I hate that. Versus if you were smart. Hi, Singapore. You’d put those 1970s dollars into some financial instrument that also grew with time, so by the time they were old, their money had grown and to offset some of that gap. Oh, and we also take on huge amounts of debt every year in a tiny 1970 dollar equivalence so that we hit both ways by that.

[00:37:05] None of the positive contributions grow, but the debt grows with time. So today’s figure, if we actually get to paying off that debt, would mean more like 60K per year, but obviously we’re not paying it off. We’re racking it up, still more debt every year. I-

[00:37:19] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I agree with this. Dark pronatalism. We, we should do a full episode- Dark pronatalism

[00:37:24] where we go hard into the concept of dark pronatalism. ‘Cause it’s been the direction I’ve been moving in terms of like the populations you can actually affect, who actually matters, who we actually wanna have kids. And like yeah, dark pronatalism. I, I care that you plan to be a productive citizen, you want to be a productive citizen, and that means you’re gonna have productive children.

[00:37:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, and Performative Bafflement, after making that whole tax argument, which I think we all understand now, points out that like if you like kids, you’d want them to be raised in a loving, functional, high socioeconomic status household with two parents because they will be better off, right? Like they have better everything and they want the kids and can raise them well.

[00:38:02] And that’s pretty much the ending. Wow I like the alternative. Yeah, should have, should have left it at that. What a twist, huh? I like the alternative. That was, that was great. I mean, I’m not... I don’t, I didn’t get permission from the person who sent this, but good send. Yeah. I mean, we went into this blind.

[00:38:15] I only had heard of... I, I think someone sent me one Performative Bafflement article before. I don’t know who they are. We still don’t know who they are. We like to judge people based on their ideas, and at first we were like, “Okay, this is whiny.” But also, oh my God, you’re right. Marriage does suck for most people who also just suck.

[00:38:29] For...

[00:38:29] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, not for most people, for below average people.

[00:38:34] Simone Collins: Okay, that’s like half of people.

[00:38:36] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but the point is, is that we can get rid of the bo- below average people.

[00:38:39] Simone Collins: We’re not get... No, look, mm, look, we will let them do what they want, and that

[00:38:44] Malcolm Collins: will mean- Lime and Stone can lead light pronatalism where they wanna help the Somalis have more kids and the, the random, you know, the freaking the homeless people who keep getting pregnant accidentally.

[00:38:57] And we can run dark pronatalism

[00:39:00] Simone Collins: You heard it here, folks.

[00:39:01] Speaker 2: It’s sad to be able to appreciate part of the take and then see that after Simone stopped, it gets, ends on the most mind-bendingly stupid take I’ve ever heard, , which is fertility isn’t actually a problem for another 100 plus years. Even if the entire world fertility drops to 1.85 for the next 100 years, we’re going to have 9 billion people through 2125.

[00:39:25] The low bar here requires it dropping to 1.5 around the world, , blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. , Fertility isn’t actually a problem for another 100 to 200 years. and, and in these like, and by the time it actually becomes a problem, we’ll have fully automated luxury gay space communism as the meme goes.

[00:39:40] , What’s so funny here,

[00:39:41] , in this very piece, he seems acutely aware that the vast majority, like one human is not equal to another human in terms of technological progress, in terms of economic involvement, in terms of economic progress. , And if we look at dropping [00:40:00] populations, like if the dropping population is primarily in this one group that’s paying all the taxes, globally speaking, that’s really, really bad for civilization, right?

[00:40:16] Like I hate to say it, but if you look at like global birth rates and you’re trying to act like everyone’s gonna be equally likely to be economically productive and you’re just like, “Okay, well, where do we have good birth rates? Oh, like Somalia?” Do, do you really think that they’re going to be the next-- Collectively, I’m not saying any indivi- any individual Somalian can do great.

[00:40:39] I’m just talking like averages and math here. That all of a sudden they’re gonna become this super economically productive region, , or, , be as economically productive as San Francisco? Come on, man. Stop being stupid. Like that’s just intentionally stupid

[00:40:52] Simone Collins: Well, wow. I mean, yeah, I, I like that it’s always really fun when something fundamentally changes our view of something, and we already had a sort of shifting view of pronatalism because of the way we look at AI and, and how AI can potentially change this.

[00:41:06] But totally valid point about taxpayers, and that like... Well, I mean, we’ve, we’ve also pointed that out, though, that like we don’t want net tax drains, which is why immigration’s not a solution and why you know, trying to push really low-income families to have more kids is, is not gonna solve the problem.

[00:41:20] It will exacerbate it, as much as we w- welcome anyone who wants to have kids to have kids. ‘Cause also, like, why, why do you wanna pay taxes for the sky vampires? I also hear that. But inter- yes, so I, I’m gonna have to think about this. Thank you. All right. Well, I love you, Malcolm. I’m gonna go get the kids and make you crispy chili oil and garlic green beans with bun cha.

[00:41:41] I love you. Bye.

[00:41:42] Malcolm Collins: I love you, too. Bye.

[00:41:43] Titan: One more time. One more time?

[00:41:43] One more time. Oh.

[00:41:44] Simone: No, you can’t be

[00:41:47] Titan: in there. That’s mine.

[00:41:47] Simone: I think if you guys use it again, I’ll just know

[00:41:51] Titan: y- I was

[00:41:51] Simone: choosing, I had to choose that. But then I would look there again ‘cause you just hid there. It’s mine.

[00:41:59] Well, I think you’ll find one. I believe in you, Octavian. I really do. Indy, do you think Octavian’s a good hider?

[00:42:06] Titan: Now count to 14. Count to 14.

[00:42:10] Simone: Yes, exactly. To 3,100?

[00:42:13] Titan: No.

[00:42:13] Simone: Boy, that’s gonna be a long time.

[00:42:15] Titan: 30 or 100.

[00:42:16] Simone: 30 or 100? Okay. Ready? I’m gonna go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven , eight, nine, 10,

[00:42:30] 11, . Ready or not, here I come. Indy, where is everyone? Really?

[00:42:46] What is happening? Why is that box moving, Indy? Why is it moving?

[00:42:51] Titan: Oh my

[00:42:53] Simone: God. It’s moving again. I’m so scared. What should I do, Indy?

[00:43:03] It’s okay. I’m not really scared. It’s, it’s getting closer. I think I need to ... Oh, no Titan! It was you the whole time. Yeah. Wow, you’re very good at hiding. Do you know where Octavian is?

[00:43:25] Well, I need to go inside and make dinner for everyone, okay?

[00:43:28] Titan: Well-

[00:43:28] Simone: Would you like to help me?

[00:43:33] Uh, okay, just be careful, love. This is not a box with holes in it and you need air. So maybe just a loose covering, yeah? Okay, that’s fine. Good. Okay. You just, uh... I’m gonna find Octavian.

[00:43:48] I’m not gonna tell the tooth fairy. Are you gonna keep

[00:43:49] Titan: it? Um, if it is shiny.

[00:43:52] Simone: I thought you wanted to keep it if it’s shiny.

[00:43:54] Titan: Yes.

[00:43:56] Simone: Okay. All right. I’m gonna go make dinner. I love [00:44:00] you.