Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Why have communist regimes throughout history consistently persecuted, imprisoned, and killed gay people? In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins examine the pattern across the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, and more — backed by direct quotes from communist leaders and historical records.

They break down the ideological reasons: homosexuality framed as “bourgeois degeneracy,” linked to fascism, rejected as hedonistic “gooning,” and clashing with extreme pro-natalist policies that viewed childless people as unproductive. The episode also contrasts this with capitalism’s unmatched track record as the most gay-friendly system in global history and explores the ongoing political shift of gay men toward Republican voting.

If you’re tired of revisionist history that ignores communist crimes against the LGBT community, this is the conversation you need to hear.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be asking a question, which is why do communists usually kill gay people? And it’s an interesting question. There’s two groups that communists generally like to kill and that is gays and Jews. Um, Which surprises a lot of people if they haven’t studied history or only look at the weirdos approach.

[00:00:26] I mean, most Jews are aware of this, but there are a lot of gays who are completely unaware of this. And they have done this over and over and over again throughout history, and the only group that seems to do it as frequently as communists do it is socialists. Is this- They also really like killing gay people

[00:00:46] Simone Collins: is this because both gays and Jews accumulate wealth?

[00:00:50] Malcolm Collins: No. Gays typically produce less wealth than the average citizen. It’s just that on the outside curve, gays basically just have a wider distribution curve of talent- Oh ... than average humans. Okay. So in the same way

[00:01:02] Simone Collins: that like with- Oh, so they’re like hyper men.

[00:01:03] They’re like extra men.

[00:01:04] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, in the same way that men, like, on, if you look at like the average man and you look at the, the, the curve, like women have like a

[00:01:10] Simone Collins: trigger bell curve. Yeah, the bell curve is more flattened, whereas like the male bell curve is- In terms of IQ ... yeah.

[00:01:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and with gays, the bell curve is flattened and shifted away.

[00:01:18] Mm. But it’s flattened

[00:01:18] Simone Collins: enough- Yeah, so that tip of the, the tip of the bell curve giant ...

[00:01:20] Malcolm Collins: the tip of the bell curve. If you’re like, “Who are the top 10 chefs in the world?” Five of them are gonna be gay. “Who are the top 10 fashion designers in the world?” Five of them are gonna be gay. “Who are the top 10 AI designers- I mean, not average

[00:01:33] in the

[00:01:33] Simone Collins: world?” Gay. I mean, gay. Gay. But I mean blind.

[00:01:36] Malcolm Collins: Well, no, you see this especially in creative fields. Yeah. You, you see a disproportionate number of gays. And actually I almost wanna like study this, like what the f**k causes that? But it’s also a reason why it’s, it’s, it’s a good idea to not burn the gay community be-

[00:01:49] Simone Collins: Isn’t that the higher levels of testosterone?

[00:01:52] It could be the higher levels of testosterone. So gay, gay men have, on average, higher levels of testosterone. What’s different from men? Higher levels of testosterone, like higher risk, high reward, like they’re going all in.

[00:02:00] Malcolm Collins: That and they’re not having their brains polluted by constantly talking to women.

[00:02:05] Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean- They’re not being henpecked. I mean, God, boys,

[00:02:07] Malcolm Collins: right? Imagine, imagine what you

[00:02:09] Simone Collins: would be able to accomplish. You would be unleashed, Bianca. You would be unleashed if you were blessed with dickness. If you

[00:02:14] Malcolm Collins: didn’t have to, the, you know, yeah. There, there is, there is other ancillary benefits to the wider gay...

[00:02:21] And not to say that nothing negative comes, but we’ll have that conversation later in this. But what I wanted to start by focusing on is like the, the m- ma- the majority of gay community, and this is changing. Like as we’ve pointed out, the gays are moving to Trump, right? Like in, in the voting. If they continue to move at the rate they have moved over the past few election cycles I think by the election cycle after the next, the majority of gay men will be voting Republican.

[00:02:47] And I think by the next election cycle, the majority of gay white men will be voting Republican.

[00:02:51] Simone Collins: Ooh ...

[00:02:52] Malcolm Collins: so, yeah, guys, g- keep in mind the, the, this is a community that we can win. But historically, you look at the protests, you look at all the flags, and no, these flags don’t even really represent gayness anymore.

[00:03:04] They represent like an opt-in identity at this point, the colonizer’s flag as we call it, the progress pride flag. I’m not gonna go into that right now, but so they, they, they, they have these flags, and they yell at people about Palestine. I recently saw them yelling at, A, the guy who replaced Nancy Pelosi, he was kicked out of a gay pride event when people followed him into

[00:03:23] Simone Collins: it and- Oh yeah, there’s a picture of him on the front page of Drudge, like soaked in...

[00:03:26] No, that’s Mamdani, never mind. But yeah yeah, there was a picture of him looking real mad.

[00:03:29] Malcolm Collins: But it was, it was he wasn’t enough anti-Israel for these people and they-

[00:03:33] Simone Collins: Not, oh, not enough. Never enough ... they were

[00:03:35] Malcolm Collins: carrying their, their, the, apparently that’s a huge gay rights issue. And I’m like, gays, you and your natural predators, right?

[00:03:41] Like communist, like the two groups that like have it in their mission statement to kill you, like Islamists and communists, right? Like Guys But let’s get into this. I wanna get into the stats, I wanna get into the facts, and I also wanna point out here that there has been [00:04:00] no governing or economic system that has been friendlier to gays throughout global history than capitalism.

[00:04:08] Not one. Not one comes close to being as friendly or as open to gays than capitalist systems

[00:04:17] Simone Collins: yeah, actually. Ac- I mean, look at some of the most successful capitalists today.

[00:04:23] Malcolm Collins: Well, as to why, and, and there haven’t been many at all, and we can even get into it at the end if you want to purges or genocides of gays in capitalist systems.

[00:04:33] It just doesn’t happen really. Happens in socialist, happens in communist- Wasn’t there the- ... doesn’t happen in

[00:04:37] Simone Collins: capitalist ... the I wanna say pink scare around the time of the Red Scare?

[00:04:43] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we didn’t kill them.

[00:04:45] Simone Collins: Well, that ... Yes. Yes. Well, they- We didn’t send them to the gulags ... then, then AIDS came, and they killed themselves.

[00:04:51] So there was also that. But that, that wasn’t capital- ... Well, it could’ve been capitalism’s fault because it was ... Patient Zero was a, an airline attendant, and if we weren’t so capitalistically abundant- If we weren’t so economically prosperous ... we wouldn’t be flying around the world on our little sexual romps, bring us, would we?

[00:05:08] No.

[00:05:08] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If, if we weren’t so economically prosperous,

[00:05:10] Simone Collins: So capitalism killed the gays really at scale- At scale ... when you think

[00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: about it. No, it was orgies that killed the gays at scale. Oh. Hmm. Th- they could’ve, they could’ve just not done that when they knew a deadly disease was spreading through their community.

[00:05:24] Simone Collins: Was it known to be sexually transmitted from the very beginning?

[00:05:26] Malcolm Collins: It wasn’t from the very beginning, but people figured out pretty early. And it was very interesting for a lot of gay people to experience because it killed off a huge portion of gay culture, and the gays who survived it they were typically the, like, nerdy introverts.

[00:05:45] And it- Yeah ... really transformed gay culture because with all the party guys who ended up dying off and all of the nerdy introverts who survived- Oh ... it sort of defined the way gay culture transformed itself. Where if you look at older gay culture, it was way more you could actually see this in stuff.

[00:06:03] I wanna say, like, jockey, biker gangy.

[00:06:05] Simone Collins: No.

[00:06:07] Malcolm Collins: Y- you’ve seen the old videos and stuff. Like, it was, it was pretty tough, I guess you’d call it. And then it became sort of, effete and, and weird, but that was downstream of AIDS killing off the non-nerd gays, leading to gays to get more into nerdy hobbies and stuff like that.

[00:06:25] Al- also, just as a side note here, one reason why capitalist systems are generally pretty pro-gay is it’s this flattening of the curve thing that ends up helping gays. It’s also why capitalist systems are generally pretty pro-Jew. Any group that’s disproportionately going to be in high-profile positions a, in a system that rewards meritocratic behavior like, e.g. Being genuinely more creative or genuinely more productive or being able to, like, build big companies or whatever it, it, people with those skill sets end up in positions of power and then prevent- the, you know, big attacks on their community and everything like that, right? Like- Mm. Mm ... the, both the gays and the Jews have done a very good job with this in the United States.

[00:07:05] But let’s continue here. All right, so we’re gonna g- just go through every major communist system and whether or not they discriminated against or attempted to genocide the gays, okay? Okay, so the Soviet Union were gays discriminated against? This is the USSR, the main one, the one that, like, all the people today are fighting, you know, all that.

[00:07:28] Yes heavily discriminated against gays. Article 121 criminalized male same-sex acts up to five years in hard labor in gulags. Thousands arrested thousands died. It w- it was, it was really horrible. A- and once you got back from these, you could never get a job again. You could never get a, and a huge percentage of the people who were sent ended up dying. It was really just, like, a, a sort of a death sentence deferred for them. Like, “Hey, m- we’re gonna kill this guy anyway. Maybe we can get some free labor out of him.” And if you hear about the way people died in the gulag work camps [00:08:00] and stuff like that, like building roads in the middle of the Arctic and, and freezing- Oh my gosh

[00:08:03] to death and stuff like this, really horrible deaths. In terms of ex- explicitly targeted executions, no, but it was a functional genocide. That, that was the goal, where we’re gonna take everyone who’s gay and just get rid of them. And it’s, it’s really strongly documented. There’s not, you know, like, the confidence that this is extremely high.

[00:08:19] Mm-hmm. But then you have China, the, the PRC. Yes, being gay was criminalized. It’s, it’s still criminalized in China. Still? Yeah, you could go to jail in China for being gay under the CCP.

[00:08:32] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:08:34] Malcolm Collins: You did not know this?

[00:08:35] Simone Collins: Oh. Wait, but then you’re going to a same-sex jail.

[00:08:40] Malcolm Collins: I don’t think- So it’s not just like-

[00:08:41] that that’s as fun- ... the gay club ... in the CCP as it is for you. But why don’t, why don’t you ask- For me- Why don’t you ask AI, like what gets you arrested in China right now around being gay, right?

[00:08:51] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:08:51] Malcolm Collins: It was originally cr- criminalized under quote unquote hooliganism. And they were often forced into public labor camps where they were worked to death.

[00:09:01] And they were forced into psychiatric cures that includes things like forced sterilization, other stuff like that. Were there executions? Yes, there were almost certainly executions under the Cultural Revolution because in the Cultural Revolution they’d execute you for just about everything.

[00:09:15] And they- Yeah ... didn’t really keep good documentation. And I, this is the thing, a lot of leftist historians have sort of tried to scrub history, where you can ask a question where you’re like, “Was it illegal under the, you know, d- during the Cultural Revolution?” And they’ll, they’ll be like, “Yes.” And it’ll be like, “So were there mass executions around this?

[00:09:32] Like, were people being executed for this?” No, no, but they- And they’ll say like, “Well, you know, the academics don’t really talk about it,” and I’m like, “Use your common f*****g sense.”

[00:09:40] Simone Collins: Right. And I, I, I- You, you don’t wanna like make a list of like, “And today, dear diary, I did exactly this to this person brutally murdering

[00:09:47] Malcolm Collins: them.”

[00:09:47] Well, I mean this is like the thing. They’ll ... I saw one when I was trying to like w- figure this information out, when it was like, “Gays were not killed under the Khmer Rouge en masse.” And I was like, “Excuse me?” I believe some academic may have written that, but if you are at all familiar with the culture of the Khmer Rouge and what that government said about gays, then you would know that they were mass executing gays.

[00:10:14] Anyway, what, what, what are the laws right now?

[00:10:16] Simone Collins: So actually China decriminalized consensual same-sex relations- When? ... in 1997. And homosexuality was removed from the official list of mental disorders in 2001. Really all that gets you in trouble f- for is like sex work.

[00:10:29] Malcolm Collins: I know, I thought, I thought posting about it, like getting posts that go viral-

[00:10:32] Simone Collins: Yes

[00:10:33] and stuff like- Obscenity. So if you post something that’s obscene, yes.

[00:10:37] Malcolm Collins: Oh, well okay. So, so basically-

[00:10:39] Simone Collins: But yeah, you can also post something that’s super straight and obscene, so I don’t see that as targeting gay

[00:10:43] Malcolm Collins: people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The way they define obscenity is just same-sex relationships.

[00:10:48] G- ask this.

[00:10:49] Simone Collins: Producing or distributing sexually explicit material, including same-sex pornography- Right ... can be prosecuted under obscenity or illegal publication laws.

[00:10:56] Malcolm Collins: The question is not what the legal system says, but what functionally happens. Ask it. Do people functionally, like we’re talking about the way the law’s functionally implemented, if you create a post on one of the social, sci- China social media websites, and you’re gay and you’re seen as promoting gayness, are you gonna get disappeared?

[00:11:21] Okay. Next here, we’ve got Cuba. The ga- the, all these people love Cuba, and often love to forget that the UMAP had forced labor camps for gays labeled counterrevolutionary. They would lose their jobs, and they’d be imprisoned, and they wouldn’t be able to get jobs again, ‘cause that’s what happens in a communist system, where, like, like imprisonment’s a much bigger deal in a communist system than in a capitalist system.

[00:11:44] And there were certainly

[00:11:46] so yeah, in, in Cuba there were certainly large numbers of gay deaths in the work camps from it being illegal.

[00:11:53] They did make it normal again in Cuba. I guess when they learned that the leftists who they wanted to be buddy-buddy with in the US weren’t [00:12:00] into them mass killing gay people. But yeah, they were super pro killing gay people. It just didn’t help their agenda in the United States, which was really significant.

[00:12:09] Actually we recently found out that there was a high-level Cuban spy in the United States military for a long time. They kept telling people Cuba’s not that big a deal. Nothing that happened in Cuba matters. Anyone who’s telling you that in the comments either is completely ignorant of recent American history and how Cuba played a large part in organizing in far leftist organizations in the US, Antifa in the US, and US communists for about a, a, a half a century at this point.

[00:12:35] Or they are like actively disinformation agents. And people you need to be watching. Like, everyone who right now is saying like, “We need to do s- we need to help Cu- whatever,” like they’re freaking out about Cuba. The left is freaking out about Cuba because Cuba is the cornerstone of American leftist or- organizing.

[00:12:51] And the, I mean, they’ve d- they’ve taken over other countries functionally recently and, and when they learned that the, the, the, them mass executing gays was hurting that, they were like, “Okay, whatever.” But and functionally mass executing. It was through the work camps. Sorry, what are the rules around China when you-

[00:13:04] Simone Collins: S- yeah, you, you are likely to have content you post online that promotes a gay lifestyle be taken down by the CCP.

[00:13:12] Malcolm Collins: And disappeared?

[00:13:14] Simone Collins: No, not necessarily. But you, you will be suppressed. You probably if you keep trying, you’ll be disappeared, but-

[00:13:21] Malcolm Collins: Okay ...

[00:13:21] Simone Collins: I guess there’s not enough documentation for AI to be like, “Yes,” it will just be suppressed or censored

[00:13:29] Malcolm Collins: But yeah, so okay, let’s go to the next one. Notice here it’s been every single communist country has killed gays so far.

[00:13:36] I’m just, like, letting you guys know. It’s not

[00:13:38] Simone Collins: great. Yeah, I mean-

[00:13:40] Malcolm Collins: Okay ...

[00:13:40] Simone Collins: it doesn’t look great.

[00:13:41] Malcolm Collins: And, and during time periods long after it was totally normalized in the West. In f- in fact there’s some documentaries if you wanna, like, hang out in gay circles or anything like that. Like, when I was younger, I was hung out with all the artsy kids and everything like that.

[00:13:56] A lot of my friends were gay. And because of that I knew, like, the gay shows and stuff like that that they would watch. And one of the shows that, like, the GSA would play and stuff like that was about a gay person growing up on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall and, like, what it was like when the wall fell and how much freer their life got.

[00:14:17] And, like, all the gays on the western side of the wall were all partying and going to nightclubs and having fun. And on the eastern side of the wall, it was, you know, forced castration and stuff like that.

[00:14:28] Simone Collins: Forced-

[00:14:29] Malcolm Collins: But anyway ...

[00:14:30] Simone Collins: castration?

[00:14:31] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I’m pretty sure the episode’s called Hoodwink and the Angry Inch, and it’s about that.

[00:14:36] Simone Collins: Hedwig and the Angry Inch?

[00:14:37] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:14:38] Simone Collins: That’s what it’s about? Oh my God, okay.

[00:14:41] Malcolm Collins: Wait, that’s about... Yeah, it’s about Berlin, right?

[00:14:44] Simone Collins: I don’t know. I never watched it. That’s terrifying. Do you want me to look it up? I mean-

[00:14:51] ...

[00:14:51] Simone Collins: Sure, look

[00:14:53] Malcolm Collins: it up. Yeah, l- look it up to, to double-check this.

[00:14:55] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:14:57] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Next, Vietnam. This is the first one on our list that probably didn’t kill gay people explicitly.

[00:15:08] Possibly. But Vietnam wasn’t that communist for that long. Vietnam never really had a full real communist revolution. They had the war with us to maintain communism, and then, like, immediately became capitalist after that and still called themselves communist. And are a great ally to the United States, one of the, the strongest allies we have anywhere in the world right now, which is pretty wild.

[00:15:33] But i- it’s, it’s simply because they hate China more than they hate us, and we are their only counterweight to China. And that could actually influence why they have been not as anti-gay as other communist states. So the one communist state so far that wasn’t expl... And no, there was a stigma against gayness even, even so within socialist Vietnam, but it wasn’t never clearly illegal.

[00:15:54] North Korea. Yes, you will be [00:16:00] executed for being gay in North Korea. It’s considered a corruption of morals. It is extremely illegal in, in North Korea. And it appears to still be illegal in North Korea. What’d you find out about Hedwig and the Angry Inch?

[00:16:15] Simone Collins: It’s the story following Hedwig, a gender queer rocker from East Berlin whose botched sex reassignment surgery leaves her with an angry inch as she tours...

[00:16:25] So it’s, it’s not the angry itch, I guess. It’s the angry inch. That’s what I said, inch.

[00:16:28] Malcolm Collins: Inch.

[00:16:28] Simone Collins: I thought it was itch. Oh ... sorry. As she tours shabby venues across the US telling her life story and chasing the ex-lover who stole her songs and fame. Though the concert style nar- through the concert style narrative, she grapples with trauma, identity, and the search for her other half, ultimately moving toward a more integrated sense of self.

[00:16:47] Yeah, but

[00:16:47] Malcolm Collins: was the, was the botched reassignment a forced thing by the state?

[00:16:53] That was, that was

[00:16:54] Simone Collins: my question Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I know, I know it’s, it’s not... Yeah.

[00:16:57] Malcolm Collins: So Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, would you have been murdered for being gay? Absolutely you would’ve been murdered for being gay. The Khmer Rouge would murder you for speaking English or being a dentist.

[00:17:12] Of course they’re gonna kill you for being gay. They, they killed people for f- nothing. They, they- it was the craziest of communist governments, and that meant they absolutely hated the gays. By the way, we’re, we’ll get into why they did this in a second if you’re confused as to why they always end up killing the gays.

[00:17:28] Note again, we’ve also seen this with socialist revolutions. You know, famously when Ayatollah Khomeini was coming into power he allied with the gay movement. He allied with the leftist movement, said, “We’re all gonna be great friends forever and ever and ever.” He got in power, and now they literally just like...

[00:17:45] Man, if you’ve ever seen these hangings, they are so brutal, the crane hangings in Iran. They literally

[00:17:50] Simone Collins: just have like- Oh my gosh, yes. Yes. Oh, I’ve seen pictures of

[00:17:53] Malcolm Collins: the scene Because you imagine they’re like giant construction cranes, and no they’re not. They’re like small, dinky, rusty construction cranes with like big crowds of people

[00:18:02] Simone Collins: like throwing- This thing, it’s very town square in like m- medieval times kinda thing, yeah.

[00:18:07] Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, it’s, it’s horrifying. It’s horrifying. We- these people, I, honestly I think we should ban immigration. Yeah and this isn’t to say I’m against like I- Per- Persian Americans, but I think like the ones that we want got out largely speaking.

[00:18:19] Simone Collins: Yeah. And,

[00:18:20] Malcolm Collins: We, w- we, or at least

[00:18:23] Simone Collins: strong ideological vetting.

[00:18:24] I don’t know. I don’t want bad things to happen to anyone, but

[00:18:28] Malcolm Collins: this is just- You, the only way, if there is a culture that acts in a way that you find systemically problematic, Simone, the only way to deal with that behavior is to make, either transform that culture into something that is unrecognizable to itself, right?

[00:18:46] Or to replace that culture with another cultural group, right? All the quote unquote solutions to this are not going to look nice. But I think increasingly the world is tabling them. Because a lot of the, well I mean the, the world that’s breeding, the world that has power eg. the US and Israel going forwards, ‘cause like Europe’s basically irrelevant 20, 30 years from now.

[00:19:08] Yeah. Anyway your, your, what did, what’d you find?

[00:19:13] Simone Collins: It’s coerced, but it’s not literally depicted as a castration ordered or performed directly by the East German state. It’s pushed by Hedwig’s mother and the American GI as a condition for marriage and immigration within restrictive communist systems.

[00:19:30] So-

[00:19:32] Malcolm Collins: Well ...

[00:19:32] Simone Collins: not really.

[00:19:33] Malcolm Collins: Not really. Okay.

[00:19:34] Simone Collins: Laos Told that to marry Luther, the American soldier and legally immigrant, a full medical exam and legal documentation require him to be female, so the mother and fiance presume sex surgery or pressure Hansel, who became Hedwig, into sex surgery. Yeah. So more complicated than that, yeah.

[00:19:53] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so next. And I’ll go faster now for you guys. Laos, o- only the second one on the list that didn’t criminalize it although it was [00:20:00] negatively stigmatized. And Laos was not communist for that long. They only became communist in 1975. Hmm ... and they’re, they’re today not that communist. Ethiopia.

[00:20:08] Yes, it, it was criminal and there were almost certainly mass killings of gays from what we know on the ground at the time during the Red Terror. Absolutely terrifying if you’re not familiar with this one. And they definitely killed a lot of gays. ... Romania. Yes private same-sex acts were criminalized, up to five years in prison.

[00:20:27] Although we don’t know of any mass killings in Romania, there was almost certainly isolated killings of gay people in Romania for being gay. Mm-hmm. East Germany, yes, again. Next, as we were just talking about Poland. No, or at least limited. It was decriminalized in 1932 pre-communism, and remained so while a social stigma existed.

[00:20:47] So this is, like, the next one on the list that’s a, a clear no. Czechoslovakia yes, initially, then reduced, criminalized early on, decriminalized in 1961 to 1968. So clearly criminalized. Whether or not it came with executions, we don’t have explicit examples of, but again, a lot of these places that had really harsh laws, yes, probably.

[00:21:07] Albania yes, again it was criminalized under pedestry and it was a 10-year prison sentence. Oh my gosh ... and probably executions as well. ... Yugoslavia. But this wouldn’t have been mass scale executions, just, like, isolated executions. Yugoslavia a- again, this one we do actually have reports of executions, so we know for a fact it happened here.

[00:21:29] And it varied by republic, but many of them did criminalize them with them being decriminalized in 1977, so we know that they were criminalized. So, let’s go to why they did this, right? Because this might confuse even Republicans today to be like, “Wait, capitalism is the pro-gay economic system, and communism is the anti-gay economic system.”

[00:21:53] It’s like, I guess I kind of remembered that from history books, but why? Yeah. And why have the current gays forgotten this and are only just now remembering this? And what does this mean for the strategy to ensuring a Republican chokehold on the American electoral system and our continued victory? All right.

[00:22:16] Let’s go into Maxim G- Gorky, ‘cause I’m gonna go over a lot of, like, explicit quotes from people, so... who were important communists so you can get an understanding of what they thought and why they thought this without me editorializing or putting words in their mouth. You know, I could say, “Oh, they thought it was inefficient,” or something

[00:22:33] Simone Collins: like that.

[00:22:34] Yeah, ‘cause I kept wanting to think, “Oh, well it must be because there was a large Christian population.” But no, this is communism. This is supposed to be, like, super not religious.

[00:22:40] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So he, Gror- Maxim Gorky, a leading Soviet writer, said, “There is already a sarcastic saying, ‘Destroy homosexuality and fascism will disappear.’”

[00:22:52] Simone Collins: W- oh, yeah. What was that called? Homo fascism.

[00:22:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Gayness was super linked with Nazism in the communist mind.

[00:23:04] Simone Collins: Just fabulous uniforms again. They’re just-

[00:23:06] Malcolm Collins: I, I g- I get it. You

[00:23:08] Simone Collins: get it.

[00:23:09] Malcolm Collins: Like, I, I get it. I get it. I’m a little confused as to why the gays don’t identify with an... If you’re gonna choose a group that kills gays, like, choose the one- I thought- ... that’s well-dressed and had high-level gay m- members.

[00:23:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, you want them to beat you with their fabulous batons.

[00:23:22] . Aren’t you afraid the fashion police will come and beat you with their fabulous batons? No.

[00:23:26] Malcolm Collins: Mm.

[00:23:27] Simone Collins: Oh, God.

[00:23:28] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:23:28] Simone Collins: Yeah, but yeah, the Nazis killed gays too, right? I mean, they killed a lot of people. But they was, they also- Mm ... killed gay people. I

[00:23:34] Malcolm Collins: mean, they killed way less gays in total than the communists killed, but-

[00:23:38] Simone Collins: Fewer gays. If you can,

[00:23:39] Malcolm Collins: Thank you for the grammar lesson, Mr.

[00:23:42] Simone Collins: Simone If you can count it, it’s fewer.

[00:23:43] If it is like water, there’s, it’s uncountable, then it’s more or less.

[00:23:48] Malcolm Collins: I will never learn your stupid English words.

[00:23:50] Simone Collins: God, yeah.

[00:23:52] Malcolm Collins: They will go away. Nobody’s gonna care about that in a few years. Okay.

[00:23:58] Simone Collins: The AI

[00:23:58] Malcolm Collins: will care. Nicolai [00:24:00] Krylenko this is the People’s Commissioner of Justice speech to the Central Committee.

[00:24:04] He said, “In our environment, in the environment of the workers taking the point of view of normal relations between the sexes, who are building their society on healthy principles, we don’t need little gentlemen of this type.” We don’t need a little gentlemen of this type. That’d be a fun that’s, that’s, that’s Nick Fuentes-esque almost.

[00:24:25] Simone Collins: Don’t you...

[00:24:27] Malcolm Collins: We don’t need little gentlemen- Gentlemen of a certain type ... of this type. Who then for the most part of our customs in these affairs? Workers? No. Declassed rabble. Declassed rabble, either from the dregs of society or from the remnants of the exploiting classes. They don’t know which way to turn, so they turn to pederasty.

[00:24:45] Now this is actually an interesting you know, kind of true point. Remember I said that gays seem to have a higher distribution curve in terms of success, like a flattened one, right? So they’re more on the both successful and unsuccessful edge, and less in the middle. He as a communist is noting this here.

[00:25:02] He goes, “Either they’re in the unclassed rabble,” like the, the super low class that d- is unproductive, or they’re former high class individuals.

[00:25:15] Simone Collins: Hmm

[00:25:16] Malcolm Collins: Which is a pretty interesting observation, but I can see where it’s coming from. Again Let’s go to another one here. Another statement by the same guy. “After two decades of building socialism in the USSR, there is no reason for anyone to be a homosexual,” he said.

[00:25:32] Joseph Stalin said to command co- c- to, to Commander Karnovich, “These scoundrels must be subject to exemplary punishment.” Oof. “And a corresponding guiding decree must be introduced into our legislation.” The report framed homosexual networks as potential counter-revolutionary espionage risks, which again, is actually kind of true.

[00:25:57] If you’re cracking down on gays in your country because you see them as associated with fascism or whatever as you can see in the, like, books on gay people who lived under communism and stuff like that they had a reason and to be meeting with other people secretly, which is a good way to accidentally build an espionage network, right?

[00:26:16] So I- I’m actually pointing out here that, like, they weren’t unreasonable in their fears of this. What Fidel Castro said just in terms of how much responsibility he took for it, he said, “If someone is responsible, it’s me. There were moments of great injustice. Great injustice,” he said. Now why?

[00:26:34] Well, mostly because he was just taking orders from the other ... And most communists hate gays, get to that in a second. Let’s go to why the Chinese attacked it. They saw it as bourgeoisie degeneracy and Western corruption in nature. This is true as well. The idea of, like, middle class gays just sleeping around is a very Western idea and very antithetical to Chinese traditions.

[00:26:58] And the place where you would’ve seen same-sex relationships in more ancient China is within the elite class. So they very likely would have seen it potentially even rightly so, as antithetical to actual Chinese value systems. In Cambodia, direct quotes specify, specifically naming gayness are rare because they destroyed most of the records.

[00:27:23] But the regime demanded the removal of anything that they saw as decadent or bourgeoisie bougie. And gayness was definitely seen within those categories. North Korea again it’s seen as being a f- a form of capitalist corruption, basically ‘cause it’s hedonism, right? Like, think about it from this perspective.

[00:27:41] If you say, “Okay, everybody, like, let’s get together and do what’s necessary for the state, for the people, for everyone,” right? Like, just sacrifice ourse- because this is the thing, real communism, when it’s been tried, sorry to the real communism that’s [00:28:00] never been tried, but People have tried, it just always ends up bad before.

[00:28:03] Like look at our videos where we discuss why it always goes not in the direction the people with the pie-in-the-sky goals want it to go. Yeah. But the ... what it basically is is saying we are all going to sacrifice personally within our lives to move society forwards. In a way communism is very techno-puritan in its value framing, right?

[00:28:29] Like everyone within the state suffers, everyone within the state does not pursue their own happiness, their own hedonism a- anything like that, and true happiness only comes for suffering for something you truly believe in, with that thing you really believe in being a better future for humanity, for, for communist humanity, right?

[00:28:53] And you see this with the figures that the communists would elevate in any of these countries, right? They were always Mr. Worker Man, right? Like, you know, they’ll have the shovel and they’ll have the, the thing, the ...

[00:29:03] Speaker 2: александр Пузыгин

[00:29:15] Сивина Градова

[00:29:22] Malcolm Collins: well, you even look at their- The, the ... look at their ... it’s a hammer and sickle, right?

[00:29:25] It’s like the working man, right? Like the, Yeah ... a- and, and they would build these sort of folk heroes, and you could track these folk heroes. And the folk heroes were always like a guy who did a grueling, extremely hard job for an extremely long period of time because he wanted to make things better in some way.

[00:29:44] Which is not a bad value system to And

[00:29:47] Simone Collins: no, it’s, it’s wholesome ... to grow. When you, when you say it that way it’s fantastic, yeah.

[00:29:52] Malcolm Collins: Mm. It just leads to mass death and suffering and everything like that. But again, other episodes- Mm ... we go into more detail. But if that’s what ... A- and the communists in the West, they just want the free stuff from other people.

[00:30:05] They’re basically like, “Let’s take stuff from the rich and give it to people who don’t wanna work,” right? I don’t wanna work, I wanna work ... or I wanna work on something like educating people in communist ideology or educating people in gender frameworks or ... It’s always, they always wanna work in the education camps, right?

[00:30:22] I wanna, I wanna work in you know, th- g- creative field. It’s like they don’t need a lot of creatives. Oh, I’m gonna yell on that under communism because, ... that’s a form of like hedonistic pleasure, not really needed, okay? Mm. But-

[00:30:35] Simone Collins: I mean, propaganda needs it ...

[00:30:37] Malcolm Collins: if all communist forces start with people with each of these mindsets, one that actually

[00:30:44] It’s funny, one that’s actually virtuous and wants to attempt to make human society better through diligent labor and another that just wants to spend all day at home gooning, okay? And the one who wants to spend all day at h- on home gooning secretly, the, the, the, the, you know, whatever alphabet soup the orgy party people, right?

[00:31:09] People get the guns, people go out and take over the government, and then these two sides have a disagreement about how things are gonna be run. Because the people who want society to continue to advance and people to continue to work and for this all to just not immediately fall apart says, “Hey I’ve noticed some people aren’t working, and why don’t we shoot them because they’re a problem for our society, right?”

[00:31:33] And then the the people who just wanna sit at home all day gooning are like, “I thought that’s what the revolution was all about.” And then the two sides are like, “Well, I guess we disagree.” Now it doesn’t matter if the gooners make up 80% of the population they’re not the ones who will spend the day going door to door shooting people.

[00:31:51] Whereas repeatedly the other side has shown that they’re exactly that type of person. This isn’t the, the only way that it, reason it turns bloody, but we have [00:32:00] a bunch of other episodes where we go into this. But it is one of the reasons why the gooners never take control of the communist systems and why the extremely militaristic people always do.

[00:32:09] Because they’re the people willing to do what is needed to gain power. So even if that other side made up 80% of the population that wanted a revolution, pretty quickly you get to house number five and they’re like, “Actually, I support you guys. Yeah, sure, I’ll go to the widget factory every day for the rest of my life doing a, a mindless job while I choke on smoke that’s pointlessly wafted onto our cities because it makes them look more industrial,” a real thing that they did in both China and the USSR.

[00:32:35] Did you know that by the way?

[00:32:36] Simone Collins: No. That’s...

[00:32:38] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so in China, this is a problem they’re dealing with even today, where they would explicitly build the large factories upwind of the major cities so that the cities would become polluted faster, because they thought it made them look more industrialized and modern

[00:32:58] Simone Collins: That, hmm

[00:33:03] Okay I don’t know about that Is

[00:33:05] Malcolm Collins: that, is that astonishingly stupid?

[00:33:08] Simone Collins: That’s, yeah. I’m trying to think of a diplomatic way to put it, but I think astonishingly stupid is all we can fall on today. That’s, there’s no, there’s no excuse for that. It’s, oh, God. It’s so bad. It’s so bad. Oh. Mm. Okay.

[00:33:22] Speaker 9: By the way, I was fact-checking this and, , it’s been very interesting. I can’t find any positive affirmations that this definitely happened, but I can’t find any negative affirmations that, that this is a historic myth. So who knows where I heard this, but they do say there is a suspicious number of factories in both Communist China and Russia upwind of major cities.

[00:33:44] , But we can’t find any record of why they built them there. So I, I could be wrong

[00:33:49] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. What’s interesting is, is that the people who gain power within communist systems that last for any period of time and function to any extent, actually think a lot like capitalists, like the most ruthless people within a capitalist system.

[00:34:04] They’re just often l- legally allowed to just kill anyone they think is unproductive. Whereas in the, the capitalist system, it’s more like people might be like, “Well, it would be, you know, there’s a lot of people who are drains on the state. There’s a lot of people... But you know, you can’t do anything about it.”

[00:34:20] In these systems, they’re just like, “Yeah, sure, like d- d- take, take care of it.” Do I wanna talk about why communist systems always fail? No. You can go to our other videos on that if that’s of interest to you. I don’t wanna wa- waste your time with it on this video. But what I do wanna talk about is, so if you have this idea, and people are like, “Well, gays don’t spend all day gooning.”

[00:34:37] Right? Like, some gays are productive citizens. Some gays wanna make society better. And it’s like two things. One, you know well and good that those gays have a lot less social power than the ones who are the gooners. Right? Like- ... the gooners typically gain more power than the- Gooner power ... socially responsible ones.

[00:34:58] Historically. Now, I’m seeing this shift within American gay culture in response to their movement being so taken over by the, the extremist extremist gooners, and they’re, and they, they don’t even like, the LGBT folks, they don’t even like the gays anymore. They’re like, the, the, the new thing is like a, a, a male gay is the new male straight because all the, the, the, is the new white male, you know.

[00:35:16] Because all the white straight males left the, the left, right? And so now they’re, they’re, they’re picking on the next group, and the next group’s like, “Yeah, what, what am I doing here?” R- and this is where, you know, like how is it that we, there’s so few gay Republicans, and but like our top vote getter, Scott Pressler, is gay, right?

[00:35:32] Literally moved to the movement ‘cause he’s like, “I don’t understand why the leftists are cozying up with the Islamists. They wanna kill me and everyone like me.” Right? Like, and we’ve, and we’ve seen a pretty successful alliance with the two groups here with Trump. The New York Times wrote an article, Trump’s Big Gay White House, pointing out that disproportionately, and we’ve seen this as well, his White House is, is staffed by gay men.

[00:35:51] And it is becau- and, and the famous quote from like a Republican lady in DC was like, “The Trump administration came in and I thought there’d be so many good dating prospects, [00:36:00] and they’re all gay.” But they’ve been efficiently moving forwards with a lot of the agenda that we want to see carried out, so like I’m, I’m, I’m chill with that, right?

[00:36:08] You know, I, I can say that the, the Bible’s against it and also say, but there’s a lot of other things the Bible against that are bigger issues for me than that. And- The, the wider stuff around, like the toxic parts of the movement have mostly expelled the gays to the extent that they are useful to work with us, and that they no longer have the social power if we accept them into our movement to ever force their lifestyle on the next generation again, nor do most of them want to who want to join our side, right?

[00:36:40] So like why- Mm-hmm ... be pointlessly mean about it? You’re just hurting us in future elections. But yeah, but I’ve pointed out, you, you know, this can still mean banning gay marriage and stuff like that, like whatever, right? Like, but the, why the communists are always turning against them, because even if you are an upstanding, hardworking, soci- civically minded gay, you’re still not having kids, and most communist systems were incredibly pro-natalist.

[00:37:03] The, the only exception is China, interestingly that I’m aware of.

[00:37:07] Simone Collins: Yeah. But like- Yeah, yeah. Well, but that, yeah, I think maybe it was kind of the fault of the Communist Party anyway, ‘cause they were dealing with like the famines that they caused, and then they were like, “Oh, let’s-”

[00:37:17] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, the Communist Party in China was initially super pro-natalist.

[00:37:19] They wanted people to have tons of kids.

[00:37:20] Simone Collins: Yeah, and then there were the famines, and then, yeah. So

[00:37:22] Malcolm Collins: then- And then they did a 180. But the- Yeah ... the Soviets were pro-natalist the entire time. They gave out mothers of medal, m- motherhood medals. They gave out all sorts of, you know, rewards, awards, anything

[00:37:37] Mm. Delicious. But yeah. It was, By the way, people are asking if I like, am, I’m drinking milk for some weird diet reason or something. Like I’m on some sort of c- I’ve just always really liked milk.

[00:37:52] Simone Collins: It’s- You’re a European cow herd descendant, I guess.

[00:37:58] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, this is the thing. There’s a bunch of like, you know, people from cultures that are not milk drinking cultures who don’t know how normalized milk is in- Mm-hmm

[00:38:06] Northern European cultural groups. Milk and cheese are the f*****g best. Few, few flavors in this world better than milk and cheese, people. To a Europ- Northern European.

[00:38:16] Simone Collins: I’m with you, man. Yeah.

[00:38:17] Malcolm Collins: D- in, in, in Scotland in the medieval period, you had to pay your taxes in cheese. That’s always been one of my favorite factoids I learned- Me too

[00:38:23] studying Scottish history. Mm. So I have to say it. So the local like, bishop would like have a, like a basement full of like cheese. Cheese.

[00:38:35] Simone Collins: The fir- the word factoid I believe actually refers to a, a, a fact that’s not true. Let me, let me actually fact check this.

[00:38:43] So I did fact check it and it’s right

[00:38:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that that doesn’t sound true to me.

[00:38:46] Yeah, so, so because of that you’re like intrinsically in the same way that on this podcast I’m also like, generally I think you’re gonna be able to do more for society unless you’re fairly wealthy if you are gay with today’s technology. If you decide to just, not live a life around what turns you on.

[00:39:06] I don’t think it’s as bad as it was historically. Hmm. But I think that, you know, on the edge you’re probably gonna be more productive. And we have a, we have a- I mean, yeah,

[00:39:13] Simone Collins: I mean, I, I think it depends on the person. I think some people are more productive because they, it

[00:39:19] Malcolm Collins: seems like marriage- Have a really

[00:39:20] Simone Collins: good

[00:39:20] Malcolm Collins: partnership.

[00:39:21] Simone Collins: And, yeah They’re

[00:39:21] Malcolm Collins: not burdened by women, yeah.

[00:39:22] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, but- It’s like look, and like, and like trying to... Let’s say, like, you wanna have a family, right? And you don’t wanna raise the family alone, but you find women both so, socially abrasive and physically repulsive that you understand that if you tried to raise a family with a woman you would just be miserable and be a bad parent.

[00:39:40] It makes sense.

[00:39:41] Malcolm Collins: Simone, I think, I, I think a number of straight guys feel this way.

[00:39:44] Simone Collins: Well, the, I mean, like, there’s a... What’s the word for... So, so there’s political lesbians, what’s the word for... Or are, are they just called, like, MGTOW gays, I guess? What, what are we, what are we gonna call them? I guess they don’t exist or maybe they [00:40:00] do.

[00:40:00] It’d be really interesting to, like, find, find just we can’t stand women gays who are not gay. Anyway, though.

[00:40:09] Malcolm Collins: Oh, by the way, funny, funny side note. Yeah. So for RFab we were making ads for our video, the Not Safe For Work video feature today.

[00:40:15] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:40:16] Malcolm Collins: And I sent you the, the, like, sample ads that I created.

[00:40:19] Did you notice-

[00:40:20] but have you, have you noticed that I always make one of the characters look like you?

[00:40:24] Simone Collins: There’s a pattern.

[00:40:25] Do you want me to wear the thin-rimmed glasses?

[00:40:29] Malcolm Collins: No, just when you write for AI large circular glasses, that it does thin-rimmed.

[00:40:33] Simone Collins: You, you say black circular thick-rimmed glasses, and for yours black rectangular thick-rimmed glasses. It’s very easy. However, you do not need to make it accurate. I have, I’ve also made, I’ve also made some for, for-

[00:40:50] Malcolm Collins: You’ve made some where I’m one of the characters?

[00:40:52] Simone Collins: No. No, no, no, no, no. I’ve, I’ve... No, because we’re not targeting people like me in the ads. I’ve made some based on my understanding of what is extremely popular. So.

[00:41:02] Malcolm Collins: Send it, send them to me. I wanna see what, what you did. I gotta give you a rating. No.

[00:41:07] Simone Collins: No, I’m gonna let our ad performance give me the rating.

[00:41:11] ‘Cause also, you, you don’t have tastes that reflect mainstream interests, so. I mean, like, the most mainstream interests, which are very vanilla, pretty boring. No,

[00:41:20] Malcolm Collins: I gotta do one of, like, a, an elf girl in chains being hit

[00:41:24] Simone Collins: by

[00:41:24] Malcolm Collins: somebody.

[00:41:26] Simone Collins: I mean, maybe among base camp viewers that’s more normative, but like a- among your mainstream, like what gets the most views no.

[00:41:36] No. Just look at Aella’s Big Kink Survey and just look at what actually is really popular. Well,

[00:41:43] Malcolm Collins: yeah. Okay. You’ve also gotta think of what’s popular on gooner sites

[00:41:49] Simone Collins: Yeah, sure. Yeah, and I guess someone who has to like, who wants to pay to make unique content. That’s fair.

[00:41:59] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:41:59] Simone Collins: Oh, God. Sorry, I just, yeah.

[00:42:03] Anyway I

[00:42:04] Malcolm Collins: thought- I do not think the ExoClick feature that tells you which ads are doing well and which ads are not doing well is very good, by the way.

[00:42:12] Speaker 10: For context, , we’ve recently started running ad campaigns to promote, , the not safe for work video feature on the rfab.ai website. , And Simone and I are having disagreements about what types of videos people will click on, and we will see. We will see. She thinks people want super, super generic stuff

[00:42:34] Speaker 11: I’m busy

[00:42:45] Simone Collins: are we trying to head off losing the competition?

[00:42:47] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, I’m just telling you as-

[00:42:49] Simone Collins: I

[00:42:50] Malcolm Collins: see. Okay ... it has in the past with ads had, like, 0%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 99%.

[00:42:58] I’m like, “So you didn’t even try the other ads?” It’s just like one ad sort of-

[00:43:01] Simone Collins: No, it actually, it actually does try them. And it will occasionally flip some out. They fluctuate over time- Okay ... when it serves the most. So it, it, it has a smart enough system where if one ad gets kind of tired essentially, I’ve noticed that it will cycle it out which is interesting to me, and it will start feeding up ones that were less used.

[00:43:19] So I’ve, I’ve, I’m glad I’ve introduced all new ad variants to test out more because people are getting tired of our old ones.

[00:43:28] Malcolm Collins: Anyway,

[00:43:30] Simone Collins: I really love you. People are weird. And

[00:43:38] Malcolm Collins: stop advocating for your natural predators, guys. Like this-

[00:43:42] Simone Collins: Communism, let’s not. Let’s... You gotta choose. Gayness. Well, no. See, like communism is also incom- incompatible, to your point with a lot of other things that we, we like, so yeah.

[00:43:59] There [00:44:00] is a, there is one other thing though that I about capitalism that I think is quite broken that I wanna do a totally separate episode though on, and I don’t wanna- Oh,

[00:44:08] Malcolm Collins: oh, what is it on? What is it?

[00:44:09] Simone Collins: I don’t wanna talk with you about it until I do it ‘cause I wanna get your fresh thoughts on it instead of your tired old reaction having already heard this.

[00:44:18] You know how it is with old couples where, like, you know that they’ve had the conversation already. You know that that, you know, that wife has told that story 10,000 times in front of the husband, and he’s just sit, he’s just sit through it like he’s been on, like, this one track ride so many times, and he doesn’t wanna get back on the haunted mansion ride, but he has to go back on the ha- haunted mansion ride, and it was fun the first 10,000 times but not the second 10,000 times.

[00:44:41] I don’t wanna do that to you. Let’s, let’s keep it fresh. Yeah?

[00:44:45] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:44:45] Simone Collins: Okay. Okay.

[00:44:47] Malcolm Collins: Love

[00:44:47] Simone Collins: you. You, you can always guess what it is though over dinner when- whenever you want to, whenever we chat.

[00:44:51] Malcolm Collins: Doing a site update right now, by the way, with a bunch of improvements to not safe for work video generation, making it a lot cheaper to do.

[00:44:58] Simone Collins: Oh, that’s good.

[00:44:58] Malcolm Collins: By employing the new API that I found that’s basically a secret API which is so cool that I was able to get working

[00:45:10] Mm. So I’m very excited about that. And Simone was playing around with it, and she’s like, “Oh, this is really good.”

[00:45:13] Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I can see how it gets addictive, ‘cause it’s one of those, like, you don’t know what you’re gonna get, and it’s, like, really satisfying, but then that one thing’s off, and so you wanna try again, and yeah, yeah.

[00:45:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And as a reminder if you haven’t redownloaded the app in a while, the app for image viewing has been massively improved since it first launched. It’s, like, way more stable now, has way more features now. Mm. And if enough of you download it, apparently it will elude that stupid tag, like, this isn’t checked by Windows Defender or whatever.

[00:45:44] Oh. Do you know that auto goes away after enough people use something?

[00:45:47] Simone Collins: Really? Silly.

[00:45:50] Malcolm Collins: It is quite silly. I... F*****g Windows.

[00:45:53] Simone: Titan, do you wanna play hide and seek too?

[00:45:55] Titan: Yeah.

[00:45:56] Simone: Okay. One, two, 10. Ready or not, here I come. All right, Indy, do you think I can find them? Do you think I can find them? I’m gonna look around. I found you. Titan, I found you.

[00:46:16] Girl. All right, now we have to find Octavian. Where could he be? Do you have any ideas?

[00:46:23] Titan: He’s under

[00:46:25] Simone: the black box. The black box? Yeah, yeah. No, I hear him yelling, I think. Oh, wait.

[00:46:34] Oh, no, it’s moving. It’s alive. Oh, no. No.

[00:46:46] You win, Octavian. That was very good. That was ve- And I was crawling under there ... I really, I thought maybe you were- I was crawling under there. I s- that was, yeah, that was very impressive.

[00:46:55] Titan: No.

Spend enough time watching girly content these days, and you’ll see a commenter or creator cite “the Girl with the List.” This batman of Lady Internet is literally summoned in content across tiktok and instagram. Her bat signal: “Where’s the girl with the list?”

Her purpose? Cure baby fever. Remind you to take your birth control.

Today, we explore the work of the Girl (actually girls) with the List, the unique genre of choice-based horror stories (be they pregnancy, parenting, or entirely-non-family-related activities, such as cosmetic surgery and travel), and whether this genre helps or harms. Enjoy!

Show Notes

There’s a young woman named Abigail Porter (goes by Zoomie) with 1.6M followers on Tiktok who is famous for “curing baby fever” by creating abundant shorts on pregnancy and delivery body horror and frustrating experiences parents have while lactating and raising young kids.

Just this week I’ve heard two mentions of her in the wild “She changed my life” said one. “I literally owe her everything”

Suffice it to say she is, at best, feeding into women’s feelings of justification for not having kids, and at worst, generating fear about having kids where it didn’t exist before.

Abigail is not alone in creating viral content of this genre—there’s also “the girl with the list” with whom Abigail is often confused and that list is called “YUNI’S PROS AND CONS LIST OF HAVING CHILDREN”), so we should probably talk about it!

So… Why avoid pregnancies?

Some highlights:

* A woman whose insides needed stitches after her baby scratched her from the inside on the way out

* A woman whose baby began to choke on her nipple after it literally fell off

* A woman who grew a tumor on her lip the size of her pinky

* Women losing their hair, their teeth, all their eyelashes

* A woman who developed a mutation during pregnancy that made her insensitive to pain meds who had to endure a c-section with no pain meds

* A woman who went deaf after her kid kissed her on the ear, causing what’s called “the kiss of death”

* BTW, this is also known as cochlear ear‑kiss injury / Reiter’s Ear Kiss Syndrome (REKS)

* It happens when someone kisses directly over the ear canal (the opening of the ear), especially using a strong suction/“air kiss.” and it can cause permanent hearing loss

* A woman whose retinas detached because she pushed so hard in labor

* Women whose bodies have become both temporarily and permanently deformed or uglified (swollen hands and feet, swollen legs, varicose veins, popped blood vessels in eyes, toe nails falling off, etc.)

There are basically four themes:

* Relatively unusual medical complications from pregnancy and lactation (like uterine prolapse, various forms of body horror)

* The expenses of labor and delivery

* Poop and pee horror

* Pretty common parenting, pregnancy, and postpartum stuff, e.g.:

* Fussy babies who are only calm when being bounced

* The rectus abdominus being separated

* Swelling

* Using a nosfrida to suck snot out of a baby’s nose

* Having strangers on the internet jump down your throat for really innocuous things, such as mentioning breastfeeding

* Kids making messes around the house (flooding, vandalism, etc.)

The Psychology of it All

Availability Heuristic

Creators like Abigail and Yuni make pregnancy and parenting look heuristic by making their hazards extremely visible and available, but it’s extremely easy to do the exact same thing Abigail does with other life choices, and that includes life choices

Known genres:

* Hiking (e.g., Mr. Ballen videos)

* Cosmetic surgery (e.g., Wonny)

* Buying homes (e.g., videos and tiktoks by home inspectors)

* Eating out at restaurants (e.g. dirty restaurant audits)

You can effectively develop an aversion to—even phobia of—pretty much anything by giving yourself sufficient exposure to its hazards.

This genre is a form of opt-in brainwashing, though it could also be a form of unintentional, algorithmic brainwashing.

Loss Aversion

Humans generally weigh potential losses about 1.5–2.5 times as strongly as equal-sized gains in typical risky choices, though the exact ratio and even the presence of loss aversion depend on context and measurement method (there’s a lot of research on this)

See:

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/prospect-theory

* https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/loss-aversion

* https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/loss-aversion/

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487024000485

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/prospect-theory

This means that people will be far more influenced by downsides of parenting than by upsides.

It’s worse than that, though, because creators like Abigail and Yuri can’t even wrap their heads around the rewards of parenting. Abigail’s most commonly cited argument is “kids are cute” whereas Yuri’s list includes:

* “Child?”

* “Tax return benefits”

* “Tiny everything”

* “You can’t get drafted while pregnant”

* “You can bribe them with candy”

* No you can’t

* “If you raise them right people praise you for it”

Overthinking & tokophobia

* Overthinking things is why mental health is plummeting

* Abigail fundamentally gets people to overthink pregnancy and childrearing

* Robert Sepulsky talks about how the system we’ve evolved to deal with stress wasn’t really designed for animals capable of metacognition, who can literally trigger that system by THINKING

Overthinking about pregnancy may be contributing to a rise in phobia about pregnancy (known as tokophobia).

A 2017 systematic review of 33 studies (≈854,000 pregnant women worldwide) estimated a pooled prevalence of tokophobia around 14%, with individual study estimates ranging from about 3.7% to 43%.

* The researches concluded that the prevalence of tokophobia “appears to have increased in recent years (2000 onwards)”, although they cautioned that this finding is complicated by changing definitions and heterogeneous methods.

More moderate but still clinically relevant “fear of childbirth” (not always labeled tokophobia) is common, with estimates in some European samples of about 5% with severe fear and over a third with high fear.

About Abigail

Her content creation journey

* Started in 2021

She’s very much a product of the urban monoculture

* Lives in downtown Los Angeles

Her standards for hardship are quite low:

* She says that getting an IUD was the most painful thing she has experienced.

* She hates cleaning up after cooking

She also does love caring little things:

* She says she would protect her cats, Bub and Willow, with her life

She has merch!

* $60 “divorce your republican husband” XL crewneck sweatshirt with a wolf on it (sold out)

* $50 “dump your republican boyfriend” M/L hunting camo crewneck sweatshirt (sold out)

* $68 “dump your republican boyfriend” XL green crewneck

* $58 “dump your republican boyfriend” XL pink hoodie

* $68 “dump your republican boyfriend” L green/blue crewneck sweatshirt

* $54 “dump your republican / story of my life” XL running-away-deer black crewneck sweatshirt

* $60 “dump your republican boyfriend” L cameo hoodie (sold out)

* $58 “dump your republican boyfriend” M navy zip-up

Wait why are most of these for larger people?

How do we feel about this?

What Abigail is doing is fine. She’s pretty clear in her content to not shame parents; she’s really empathetic toward parents (can’t say the same of many parents online!).

She’s also WAAAAY more ethical and polite than your typical content creator about the clips she uses: She told NBC: ““If I’m going to do a video about bodies in particular and show somebody’s body, I’m going to make sure that I have consent from that mother first — like if she posted a video and she made this acknowledgement like, ‘This is my body. It’s pretty crazy. The things that have happened in my body is pretty wild.’””

She also told NBC: “I have such a respect and a reverence and an admiration for the people who do choose to go through with this, because it is a huge choice,” Porter said. “I hope people will stop treating having children as an impulse decision that everyone does. I think that’s better for us and also for the children, because if every child that was ever born had parents that really, really wanted them, I think the world would be a better place.”

YES!!

People should only want kids because they have a strong reason to do so. In my ideal world, everyone should be able to watch one of Abigail’s long compilation videos and not feel doubts.

Abigail’s content is actually helpful in:

* Dissuading people from having kids for trivial reasons

* Helping actual parents head off medical issues.

* In one NBC article about Abigail and Yuri, they write “Biggers-Stewart, who is now pregnant with her second child, described the list videos as “a powerful tool for self-advocacy.””

* “I was totally shocked by all the things that could happen to you. And that’s even in today’s modern world, which is shocking with the amount of research and access that we have at our fingertips,” Biggers-Stewart said. “There’s so many different types of complications, and it can be really brutal on women. So I was like, this is empowering.”

* Helping actual parents head off other parenting foibles

* We had to learn the hard way to lock up the kitchen at night, restrict most foods to only certain parts of the house, permanently wear aprons, etc.

* Basically: When these things happen (the vandalism, the food messes, etc.) I see it as my fault, not the kids’ fault

* They’re prisoners in our home and when they’re young, they literally don’t know better; it’s up to us as parents to provide the equivalent of bumpers on the bowling alleys of their lives.

The primary concern isn’t with anti-kid content, but “worst-case scenario” content in general that can create algorithmic loops that create phobias.

What about friends/girlfriends who cite “the list” in conversations about having kids?

* Have a logical conversation.

* About actual risks

* About equivalent risks they take in their everyday life, through their hobbies, etc.

* Such as hiking, cosmetic surgery, eating out, etc.

* If they still are afraid of having kids, then they probably shouldn’t have kids

Appendix: Longer Sampling of Abigail’s Reasons to Not Have Kids

Pregnancy and birth: medical risks and trauma

* Severe post‑labor swelling of the vulva (“had balls between my legs”).

* Uterus flipping inside out and being placed in a bucket (uterine inversion).

* Severe tearing, including tears toward the anus and up toward the clitoris (“towards your bean”).

* Episiotomy (“they cut to make the hole bigger”) and still having to push afterward.

* Vaginal or uterine prolapse (“my vagina fell out” / holding her uterus in her hand; uterine prolapse needing to be pushed back in).

* Retained or traumatized bladder/urethra causing urinary retention (bladder “shut down,” pee‑hole swelling shut, catheter for days to weeks).

* Incarcerated uterus causing urinary obstruction and catheterization for two weeks.

* Post‑birth inability to pee without elaborate “Subway sandwich” pad/ice/witch hazel/foam setup after every bathroom trip.

* Pelvic floor damage: chronic incontinence, “never pee normally again,” needing to clench when sneezing, “neverending wipe,” stool control issues.

* Massive blood clots after birth (basketball‑sized clot, near hemorrhage, transfusions).

* Mastitis leading to sepsis and large clots; spouse literally sucking out infected milk and blood.

* C‑section horror stories: adhesions, two‑hour surgery with every organ manipulated, awake without “loopy drugs,” drunk surgeon in another case, multiple layers and instruments (forceps, “bladder blade”) instead of the simple cut most people imagine.

* Forceps deliveries (baby’s head clamped with metal instruments, higher risk of severe tears).

* Vacuum‑assisted birth with no epidural, tearing “to my ass.”

* Epidural issues: catheters left in the back, epidurals that can be “unplugged,” epidurals that fail entirely so pain is still extreme.

* Pain of cervical dilation (and IUD insertion used as a reference point), with emphasis that nobody explains this upfront.

* Cervix and uterus changes: permanent uterine enlargement, cervix dilation/effacement as unseen but excruciating changes.

* Eating or handling placentas (and the idea of placentophagy being sold as healthy) being viscerally repulsive.

Pregnancy complications and body changes

* Detached retinas / blindness from pushing too hard in labor; cases of permanent severe visual loss and disability.

* Pregnancy‑related eye trauma like subconjunctival hemorrhages (bloodshot eyes from pushing).

* Pregnancy‑related cancers (choriocarcinoma) that can arise after normal pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, or miscarriage.

* High blood pressure disorders like preeclampsia (including grotesque swelling and “squishy gel hairbrush” legs), with inadequate research and answers.

* Jaundiced newborns and the stress of their care (also used as a reminder of hidden complications).

* Lithopedion (“stone baby”): calcified ectopic pregnancies carried for decades, sometimes discovered in old age.

* Fetus‑in‑fetu / parasitic twins: one twin growing inside another’s body or skull; parasitic twin cases discovered in teens.

* Multiple uteruses (uterus didelphys), including rare cases of simultaneous pregnancies in both, and the associated risk of double pregnancy.

* Superfetation: getting pregnant again while already pregnant, leading to extra fetuses weeks apart.

* Extreme multiples: triplets, quintuplets, and even the documented nonuplets (nine babies), with unmanageable risk and burden.

* Uterus or placenta allergies and oddities (itchy uterus from amniotic fluid, mothers allergic to various pregnancy‑related substances).

* New allergies developing after pregnancy (to antibiotics, adhesives, metals, pine nuts, dogs, insects, etc.), including a friend “allergic to her legs.”

* Lactation‑related tumors and growths (pregnancy tumors / pyogenic granulomas on gums or elsewhere).

* Chromhidrosis (colored sweat), including pregnant people turning toilet seats blue.

* Extreme swelling of hands, feet, and noses; preeclampsia‑related edema; “pregnancy nose” growth and swelling.

* Brain changes: measurable shrinkage in regions related to social cognition, with “pregnancy brain” symptoms like memory issues, poor focus, and enduring structural changes detectable years later.

* Pregnancy rhinitis and sensory loss: severe congestion leading to loss of smell and taste; earlier pregnancy caused hearing loss; pregnancy stacking sensory deficits.

* Postpartum hair loss to the point of partial balding even more than a year after birth.

* Postpartum diastasis recti (ab separation) severe enough that a practitioner can press fingers between muscles and feel the aorta; associated back pain, constipation, and urine leakage.

* Decorvain’s tenosynovitis (“mommy’s wrist”): tendon swelling from repetitive lifting of babies, laundry, groceries, etc., potentially requiring splints or surgery and causing lasting hand/wrist disability.

* Loss of ability to burp (RCPD‑like symptoms) arising after pregnancies, sometimes reversing only after later pregnancies.

* Permanent changes in teeth and bones: baby “sucking the calcium” out, teeth rotting or falling out, multiple root canals, bone density changes.

* Toenails softening and falling off after birth, sometimes never growing back.

* New allergies or sensitivities to tattoos, metals, adhesives after pregnancy that complicate future medical care.

* Nasal, skin, or other pigment changes; white or lighter hair; other unexpected cosmetic shifts.

* Long‑term depression and anxiety, often in line with maternal family history; fear of passing down the same nervous system and mood disorders.

Breastfeeding and lactation horrors

* Babies causing nipple trauma, including nipples turning black/white (ischemia), “dead” nipple tissue.

* Babies literally sucking off part of a nipple; pieces ending up in the baby’s mouth and needing reattachment.

* Nipple puncture wounds from baby teeth, leaving permanent holes.

* Severe breastfeeding pain: clenching against anticipated pain at every latch, blood in milk, cracked nipples.

* Ongoing leakage from breasts in public, constant fear of spontaneous milk letdown.

* Milk “pregnancy tumors” in gums/teeth and pregnancy‑related gum growths while breastfeeding.

* Breast pumps and breastfeeding schedules requiring waking every 2–3 hours regardless of who is feeding, destroying sleep.

* Need to pump even when partner bottle‑feeds to maintain supply, so the birthing parent’s sleep is still fragmented.

Neonatal and baby health issues

* Babies born with teeth or extra teeth, including terrifying images of infant skulls full of stacked teeth.

* Infants born with “boobs” and lactation (hormonal breast tissue in newborns), requiring parents to express milk from babies’ chests.

* Newborn periods in baby girls, from maternal hormones, shocking parents who weren’t warned.

* Babies swallowing their own meconium at birth and suffering severe respiratory distress.

* Babies with no instinct to eat, crying for hours and needing forced feeding.

* Babies forgetting to breathe during overwhelming emotions; breath‑holding spells that terrify caregivers.

* Severe newborn jaundice requiring treatment and parental stress.

* NICU stays for weeks or months, with enormous financial and emotional cost.

Medical system and informed consent issues

* Hidden information: lack of comprehensive sex/family‑planning education about what birth and postpartum are actually like.

* Dismissive or negligent medical staff (e.g., nurse sending a woman home at 1 cm when she’s clearly in labor, then she delivers at home or en route).

* OBs scolding patients for coughing with pneumonia during C‑section and stuffing organs back in without care, leaving disfiguring scars.

* Drunk surgeon doing a C‑section on another patient and being fired later.

* Multiple, painful postpartum pelvic exams without pain relief while the mother is unable to hold the baby.

* Under‑researched conditions (e.g., rare lactation or vascular complications) with little scientific literature or explanation.

* Framing: society romanticizing pregnancy and parenthood, omitting trauma, leading to feelings of personal failure when reality is hard.

Financial burden

* Hospital birth bills in the tens of thousands to nearly $50,000 for a single uncomplicated birth before insurance.

* NICU bills for triplets without insurance running into hundreds of thousands per baby.

* Charges such as $36,000 for the first 24 hours of life, $4,000 for skin‑to‑skin contact, $17,000 for a one‑day hospital room.

* Ongoing annual childcare costs around $20,000 per child, adding up to $100,000–120,000 for ages 0–5.

* Estimates of $237,000+ to raise a child to 18 (excluding college), plus another roughly $100,000 for college.

* Formula costs of $38–50 per can that lasts only a few days, making infant feeding extremely expensive.

* One mom’s yearly cost for three kids around $47,000.

* Kids spending hundreds on in‑app purchases like Roblox Robux without permission.

* Home destruction costs: multiple replacement TVs, remotes, front door handles, wall repair, and warped floors from leaks.

Lifestyle costs: time, freedom, and autonomy

* Loss of free time and personal days off (e.g., Sundays now consumed with children’s activities instead of sleeping in and seeing friends).

* Constant need to “fill the days” with activities for kids; no spontaneous rest or leisure.

* Child‑free lifestyle benefits: travel, expensive city living, pampering oneself, double income no kids (DINK) life.

* Inability to travel light: car seats, diaper bags, etc., turning flights into logistics nightmares.

* Need to manage diapers, feeding schedules, and baby entertainment on planes, plus anxiety about disturbing others.

* Never being off‑duty, including caring for children while sick yourself.

* Introverts and easily overstimulated people losing the quiet, solitary recovery time they rely on.

* Having to cook three meals plus snacks daily, often separate bland food for kids, destroying the joy of cooking or eating spicy food.

* Having to attend endless kids’ appointments and activities on top of work.

* Permanent vigilance: always monitoring kids’ safety, bodily functions, and behaviors.

Psychological and relationship impacts

* Postnatal depression, psychosis, and long‑term mental health crises leading some parents to vow never to repeat pregnancy.

* Pregnancy hormones causing intense, often irrational hatred or intolerance toward partners (“I hated my husband while I was pregnant”).

* Strain on relationships: changed dynamics with partners, loss of sense of self, resentment.

* Overstimulation from hearing “Mom” hundreds of times per day (e.g., 234 “Mom”s in 13 hours, ~85,000 per year).

* Guilt and shame from not living up to romanticized ideals of motherhood.

* People‑pleasing parents being unable to cope with public tantrums, plane screams, or feeling like they are “ruining” others’ experiences.

* Loss of identity, body image issues, and grief over the pre‑baby self and lifestyle.

Children’s bodily fluids and hygiene issues

* Endless poop incidents: blowouts before weddings, on floors, in pools, on parents’ clothes, on hospital staff.

* Toddlers wiping feces down every stair or making “art” on walls with urine or feces.

* Dogs eating children’s feces from the yard or house.

* Kids peeing in conditioners, dog bowls, carpets, dishwashers, and elsewhere, contaminating everyday objects.

* Persistent smells: rancid pee in vents, years‑long odor issues preventing home resale.

* Vomit parties: children intentionally drinking water to induce vomiting throughout the house.

* Chronic vomiting and diarrhea episodes parents must clean while sleep‑deprived.

Household destruction and mess

* Children destroying multiple TVs, remotes, and door hardware within a year.

* Kids hammering holes in walls, pulling off door handles, eating drywall, and requiring constant repainting and patching.

* Paint disasters: kids smearing house paint over furniture, floors, and even entire condos; black paint on everything.

* Flour, eggs, baby powder, and other cooking ingredients dumped all over carpets and floors, turning into intractable sludge.

* Baby powder explosions requiring strong vacuums and toothbrushes to clean.

* Stickers covering TVs, leaving permanent sticky residue that collects dirt.

* Syrup “cup holders” carved into couches; couch destruction.

* Flooded houses from kids playing with sinks or fridges; warped floors, broken ice makers.

* Kids eating walls and needing corner protectors to stop them from biting again.

* Constant car‑seat filth: crumbs, poop, and stains that never fully clean out.

Physical danger from kids’ behavior

* Toddlers head‑butting parents and causing concussions, black eyes, migraines, and memory loss.

* Kids biting adults hard enough to cause infections requiring antibiotics; “second most dangerous bite.”

* Human bites leading to non‑healing wounds and risk of limb loss.

* Babies scratching mothers’ insides during birth with fully grown fingernails, causing internal stitches.

* Kids pulling fridge water/ice dispensers nonstop, causing water damage and hazards.

* Children nearly drowning caregivers (roughhousing in pools) without understanding the danger.

* Kids dropping heavy objects, throwing iPads into ponds, or otherwise causing injuries and expensive losses.

* Baby skulls full of developing teeth, plus parents needing to forcibly remove loose teeth in painful ways.

Sleep deprivation and constant noise

* Night terrors: toddlers screaming with eyes open for hours while asleep, terrifying parents.

* Colicky babies crying for hours despite parents’ efforts; parents “just surviving.”

* Babies needing to be bounced on exercise balls for hours every night.

* Children constantly yelling “Mommy” or screaming; continuous audio overstimulation.

* Sleep deprivation from feeding schedules, night wakings, and frequent illnesses.

* Parents unable to shower or change clothes for days; living in the same clothes while caring for infants.

Social, cultural, and structural reasons

* Unaffordable, inaccessible childcare systems; poor parental leave; lack of social support for parents, especially in the U.S.

* Pressure from family (e.g., religious households, Thanksgiving interrogations) to marry and have kids despite personal ambivalence.

* Romanticization of pregnancy and motherhood in media, hiding risks and hardships.

* Unsolicited advice and criticism directed at both child‑free people and parents (“you’ll change your mind,” breastfeeding debates, etc.).

* Fear of being responsible for a screaming child on a plane and being judged by strangers.

* Concern about passing on generational trauma, mental illness, or unhealthy patterns.

Personal lifestyle and preference reasons

* Love of travel, concerts, gaming, hobbies (miniatures, comics, snakes, bones) that would be curtailed by kids.

* Desire to keep a home wired with cables, gamer setups, and fragile collectibles without child‑proofing or sticky fingers.

* Disinterest in revisiting schoolwork and homework via children.

* Sensory issues and low tolerance for crying or touch, incompatible with early parenting demands.

* Preference for quiet, orderly homes and uncluttered floors.

* Desire to remain lazy, spontaneous, and self‑oriented without 24/7 caregiving work.

* Desire to be “rich auntie” rather than parent; using resources for self, travel, or pets.

* Fear of losing sexual freedom, nudity at home, or other adult lifestyle choices.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, everyone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, Simone has kept whatever this topic is going to be a secret from me all day because she wanted to see my reaction for, like, a day and a half at this point.

[00:00:10] So what is it, Simone? What, what is it that you wanted to go over?

[00:00:15] Simone Collins: What if I told you that there is, there’s a system for convincing women to not have children that men don’t know about because they don’t consume girly content, and it’s just floating around on the internet becoming quite influential and pervasive, changing people’s lives.

[00:00:34] And- I,

[00:00:34] Malcolm Collins: it sounds like the usual bad guys up to their usual stuff, but why don’t I know about this? Do I not know about this? Do you know about

[00:00:41] Simone Collins: the girl with the list?

[00:00:44] Malcolm Collins: I have never heard about the girl with the list.

[00:00:46] Simone Collins: She’s like Batman. She’s summoned. So there are two types of videos on which you might look to the comments and you’ll see, “Where’s the girl with the list?”

[00:00:55] And she gets summoned. She will show up or be summoned on super cute videos of babies or toddlers, or on things going- What? ... absolutely horrible with pregnancy, with delivery, with breastfeeding, with raising toddlers. Because what the girl with the list does is provide you with a virtual form of birth control by taking any cute video you see and just reminding you how horrible it is to be pregnant, to have kids, and to become a k- a parent.

[00:01:25] So- Wait,

[00:01:25] Malcolm Collins: really? Is she a mom? For

[00:01:27] Simone Collins: real. What’s her

[00:01:27] Malcolm Collins: backstory?

[00:01:28] Simone Collins: She’s n- no, yeah, yeah. I, I will tell you. There are actually, Malcolm, there are actually two girls with a list. One calls herself the OG girl with a list, but she has just, just completely disappeared from the internet. And then the second is who I’ll mostly focus on today.

[00:01:43] She’s named Abigail Porter. She goes by Zoomie. Okay. She has 1.6 million followers on TikTok, and she’s famous for curing baby fever by creating abundant shorts on pregnancy and delivery and body horror related to it, basically. A plus frustrating experiences that parents have while they attempt to raise kids.

[00:02:03] And even I not being particularly interested in cute baby photos or b- pregnancy body horror, ‘cause I live it I have just this week heard of her twice. I- in just my random girly content that I follow on Instagram

[00:02:19] Malcolm Collins: You ... Wait, so you just have randomly seen it. Can you describe the

[00:02:22] Simone Collins: instances?

[00:02:22] Yeah. Like, in the, the most recent video I, where I was like, “Okay, I’ve gotta do an episode on this,” just this week I was watching a video where a woman is, just said, “She changed my life. I literally owe her everything,” she said. And this was in a video about, let’s see, what was the video about? I’m linking to all this in my show notes.

[00:02:39] It was called about The Real Dangers of Trad Wife, Trad Wife Content, Nine Kids and Counting. I mean, you know, I see this stuff and I’m like, “I have to click on it.” Mm-hmm. I have to know why apparently it’s so bad to be, to be a mother. So yeah- ... I, she literally changed my life. Okay, like, I needed to find out who this was.

[00:02:57] And also, I’ve heard, there are lots of people in the Base Camp network who are dating young men, who would like to find a wife, who would like to have kids, and I’m hearing more and more from young men that, like, the, the, the women they are dating are like, “Well, I, I never wanna become a parent. Like, I don’t, I don’t wanna be a parent.”

[00:03:13] Malcolm Collins: I know. Yeah. Well, the, the psyop, you, you’ve got to groom your wife. Liefleit said it best. Actually, I think we said that first, and then she copied it from us, but I like that she, she’s boarding

[00:03:22] Simone Collins: that point. Maybe. I don’t, I don’t care who said it first. Look, you gotta do it.

[00:03:25]

[00:03:34] Simone Collins: And, and that’s, we’re gonna talk about this at the end, basically how to deal with this.

[00:03:37] But I, if, to first address the problem, be you a woman who is being subject to this, for lack of a better word, propaganda,

[00:03:46] Malcolm Collins: Brainwashing ...

[00:03:46] Simone Collins: brainwashing. Or if you’re a young man who’s met an amazing young woman who you think would actually enjoy being a parent, but who’s terrified of it because of this content, we, we need to-

[00:03:58] Malcolm Collins: Wait, so to [00:04:00] clarify, this woman felt that she had had, like, her life saved by the girl with the list?

[00:04:06] Simone Collins: Yes. So the, the YouTuber that I’m talking about I think probably b- ga- based on the fact that she said, “I literally owe her everything,” i- in my show notes, I’ll send them to you I link to the exact clip where she says this, it, it very much insinuates that she plans on not having kids because of Abigail Porter’s content.

[00:04:24] But, okay, just to be clear, so the, sort of background. The first person to do this was this other TikTok creator called Uni. And then eventually, this, this creator created a list, also linked, too, called U- Uni’s Pros and Cons of Having Children. And it has, like, 200 and something cons, and then like, 30 pros or something, and the pros aren’t even, like- That good?

[00:04:48] things that... Yeah, like, what do you even... No, that’s not, that’s not why we have kids. And, and so let’s just dive right into it. We

[00:04:55] Malcolm Collins: will replace you. That’s our goal. Come on, that’s, that’s what this is all about, winning- Yeah ... the civilizational game. Basically- And they, they don’t get that. They never would get that.

[00:05:02] But, yeah, okay, c- continue.

[00:05:04] Simone Collins: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve watched over four hours of compilations of-

[00:05:09] Malcolm Collins: Over four hours- Yes ... you... Simone.

[00:05:12] Simone Collins: Of Abigail Porter’s content.

[00:05:14] I’ve gone, I mean, she created on YouTube this compilation of a certain number of years’ worth of her content. I’ve, I’ve gone from watching her having a short pixie cut to a shaved head to hair down to here.

[00:05:27] Like, it’s, she’s been doing this for a long time. I think you’d actually find her very attractive. She’s very much your type. Oh, gosh ...

[00:05:34] Malcolm Collins: and

[00:05:34] Simone Collins: she’s a ginge. She’s very beautiful, so that, that helps. And she... They’re great. I mean, it, a lot of it’s humor. A lot of it’s like America’s Hu- Funniest Home Videos, ‘cause I mean, she’s, she’s being tagged on viral content, and her job basically is to, like, open her phone every mor- I mean, this isn’t obviously her only work, but what she’ll do is probably, presumably, open her phone every morning, see where she’s tagged on TikTok, and then take those clips and make her own little commentary on them and publish them out to her crowd, and then her, her followers.

[00:06:00] So her- She’s actually- Wait, her

[00:06:01] Malcolm Collins: name is Abigail Porter, you said?

[00:06:04] Simone Collins: But she goes by Zumi. Yeah.

[00:06:06] Malcolm Collins: Okay. I’ll, I’ll look her up to see if I agree with your assessment.

[00:06:09] Simone Collins: Y- no, you’ll find her so cute.

[00:06:10] This is her recent Los Angeles profile. So this is what she looks like today with longer hair.

[00:06:15] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she’s cute. She’s my type, for sure.

[00:06:17] Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:18] Malcolm Collins: I mean- ... she looks too old now. I, I wouldn’t date her like- She’s-

[00:06:21] in real life

[00:06:22] Simone Collins: with what she looks like today ... she looks very young. Oh, get over yourself, Malcolm. Anyway I think she’s very pretty. But also that doesn’t really matter. And she has a boyfriend and they’re very happy. They’re very happy dinks. But let’s go to

[00:06:31] Malcolm Collins: your- Oh my God, her Substack profile, Reproductive Rights Advocate Reminding You To Take Your Birth Control.

[00:06:36] That’s what she does. Also known as the girl with a list. Okay, continue.

[00:06:38] Simone Collins: The girl with a list. So in terms of how the content that she, she presents that will dissuade young women old women, a- any woman from- Yeah ... from wanting to have babies is, is sort of, I’ll, I’ll start with some highlights.

[00:06:52] Let’s start with s- some highlights, okay? ‘Cause, and these are, like, original clips. She, these are women who’ve gone through this. They’re, this is actual firsthand video footage. This isn’t stuff that’s made up, ‘cause you can literally see it. There’s one where a, a woman, a woman’s insides needed stitches after her baby scratched her from the inside on the way out, ‘cause it had its fingernails grew in, and they do that.

[00:07:11] A woman whose baby began to choke on her nipple, and then it just literally fell off because it was so infected at that point from mastitis and other issues. A woman who grew a tumor on her lip the size of her pinky while she was pregnant, because one of the things that can happen when you’re pregnant is to grow benign tunors, tumors.

[00:07:26] Uh-huh. A woman who, Oh, well, of course, l- women who’ve lost their hair, their teeth, all their eyelashes. A woman who developed a mutation during pregnancy that made her insensitive to pain meds who had to endure a C-section with no medication. She just eventually passed out from the, from the pain. There’s a woman who went deaf after her kid kissed her on the ear causing what’s called the kiss of death.

[00:07:48] And I had to look this up. This is actually a thing. It’s, it’s a cochlear ear kiss injury also known as Reader’s Ear Kiss Syndrome, REKS. Yeah. So, like, don’t let your... We need to, like, not let the kids close to our ears [00:08:00] anymore. There’s a woman whose retina’s detached because she was pushing so hard in labor.

[00:08:03] Women whose bodies have become both temporarily and permanently deformed or uglified. We’re talking swollen hands and feet, s- legs, ver- varicose veins That this is a

[00:08:11] Malcolm Collins: worth it for a human life. Anybody

[00:08:14] Simone Collins: would take these injuries- Popped blood vessels in the eyes ... for their child. I had the popped blood vessels in the eyes.

[00:08:18] Remember that time where I had the blood vessels on the podcast? Oh, yeah, you did. I

[00:08:20] Malcolm Collins: seem to think that was

[00:08:20] Simone Collins: maybe... I know, yeah, and the varicose veins, that’s real.

[00:08:22] Malcolm Collins: But every woman has tough pregnancies from what I hear these days. You know, almost... th- I, I occasionally hear of really easy ones, but generally speaking, pregnancies are hard today.

[00:08:31] And you know,

[00:08:32] Simone Collins: it’s expected to be hard. Today? I think pregnancies have always had their things. Yeah,

[00:08:35] Malcolm Collins: they used to be a lot harder. Did you know that on average, women lost one tooth per pregnancy?

[00:08:39] Simone Collins: I, I think that’s apocryphal.

[00:08:41] Speaker: So I decided to research to see if this is, , an apocryphal old wives’ tale. , First of all, this is way more common a historic story than I thought. , There are proverbs that mean something like, “Gain a child, lose a tooth,” in Danish, in German, in Scandinavian, in Russian, and in Japanese. , And there have been, , studies on this to see if this is accurate.

[00:09:07] , There was a landmark 1998 study in The Lancet. There was a large U.S. study by researcher Stephen Russell. , There was , a twin study on this. , And basically what everything found is that it is kind of in-- right. It’s basically right. , It’s not exactly one child, one tooth, , but it’s more children, fewer teeth.

[00:09:28] , And the reason for this is, , pregnancy hormones make gums much more reactive to plaque. This causes pr-pregnancy gingivitis in a large percentage of women, often cited as thirty to seventy-five percent or higher. , And repeated episodes of gingivitis across multiple pregnancies can lead to, , deeper infections which lead to the losing of teeth.

[00:09:50] , But w-w-- I had no idea. Th-this is wild

[00:09:53] Simone Collins: But ye- yeah, I mean, you know, if you’re, if you’re

[00:09:56] Malcolm Collins: already- You’re the one who told me.

[00:09:57] Simone Collins: No, I didn’t. I never said that. I think that was someone else. Yeah, you

[00:09:59] Malcolm Collins: did.

[00:09:59] Simone Collins: I think you came home from Natal Con with that but I’m, I’m not sure. But anyway, the... in her content, there are basically four themes. There’s relatively unusual medical conditions from pregnancy and lactation, like uterine prolapse, and apparently when that happens, by the way, you know what you’re supposed to do to fix it?

[00:10:15] Malcolm Collins: What?

[00:10:16] Simone Collins: Shove it back in. You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to just push it back in.

[00:10:20] Malcolm Collins: Okay.

[00:10:21] Simone Collins: Which, I mean, it makes sense. But it seems very uncomfortable. So that, there’s that. And, you know, there are various forms of body horror. Then also just the expenses of labor and delivery, you know, just how ridiculous it is.

[00:10:31] And when people go through their itemized bills, that’s an easy thing to go viral on TikTok.

[00:10:35] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a more, yeah. But with a lot of this stuff, it’s like, “This is why you shouldn’t drive,” and it’s just a bunch of pictures of people who got killed in car accidents. And it’s like-

[00:10:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, no, one...

[00:10:43] And I’m gonna talk about that, yeah. There’s also poop and pee humor, or, well, and horror, of course. And then super common, like, parenting, pregnancy, and postpartum stuff, like fussy babies who are only calm when they’re bounced, or the rectus abdominis being separated in pregnancy, or swelling, or using an Otriede to suck snot out of a baby’s nose.

[00:11:03] Like, that’s terrifying or something. Or-

[00:11:05] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s something that we have to do with a lot of our kids.

[00:11:08] Simone Collins: Yeah, like every parent has an Otriede. Like, would you rather have your baby screaming in pain, or y- like, suck out the snot with a tube? There’s a filter. There’s a filter. Or having strangers on the internet jump down your throat just ‘cause you mentioned the word breastfeeding in a post online, or kids making messes around the h- the house and, like, we’re talking the flooding, the vandalism.

[00:11:27] A lot of the stuff that she posts that’s, like, kids ruining houses or making big messes is all stuff, honestly, that’s the parents’ fault. Like, you have to learn the hard way to, like, childproof your home, and all of these are, they’re results of not proper childproofing. So a lot of this is actually kind of helpful content, ‘cause it’s like, “Oh, this is something to head off.”

[00:11:46] But the reason why this is damaging and not just funny or informative is that- There’s, there, like, it just goes for, like, the, the most common psychological trips your, and tr- sorry, tricks that, that will get you. You know, there’s [00:12:00] one, like, availability heuristic that Yuri and Abigail with these lists are, are making the hazards of parenting and pregnancy look extremely visible and available in people’s minds.

[00:12:12] They’re just, like, super top of mind. And it’s, it, it’s gonna make people only think about the negative. Whereas it’s extremely easy to do exactly the same thing Abigail does with other life choices. And that includes especially life choices of people who choose not to have kids. Like, I think you and I have, we follow this, this, basically the equivalent of this genre with hiking- Mm-hmm

[00:12:33] and going outdoors with, like, Mr. Ball and- Oh my God,

[00:12:35] Malcolm Collins: yes. Mr. Ball and, and everything like that. Exactly. I genuinely think every time I go to the woods, everyone’s gonna disappear.

[00:12:39] Simone Collins: I know. I know. But

[00:12:41] Malcolm Collins: like- 411, Lore Lodge. Exactly. It’s, like, one of my core categories of content.

[00:12:45] Simone Collins: Yeah, so, like, Abigail and Yuri, the girls with the lists, they are that, but for, for pregnancy.

[00:12:51] So yeah, and there’s also cosmetic surgery. I, that’s another version of this genre that I love. Like, Wani is a creator whose, whose content I love on this front, ‘cause he specifically covers plastic surgery that goes super wrong in China. Mm ... there’s buying homes. I don’t know if you know, there’s this whole genre of home inspectors uploading their videos.

[00:13:09] And they’ll just go through new constructed houses, or just any house, and be like, “Oh, look, this is broken. Oh, like, toilet’s not hanged right.”

[00:13:15] Malcolm Collins: Well, actually, you have got me into something interesting here. I would assume, like, just hearing a lot of this to begin with, is that this is a lot of women who have secretly kind of want babies.

[00:13:25] They secretly know that their lives will be incomplete without

[00:13:28] Simone Collins: them. Well, the point is they ac- no, they have baby fever. The, the

[00:13:31] Malcolm Collins: point is- And they, they want to find some way to suppress it or make their terrible life decisions feel justified,

[00:13:40] Simone Collins: or- No, no, no. That, that is not, that is not a what if. That is a literally that’s what’s happening.

[00:13:43] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. Well, you, you, you, you say

[00:13:46] Simone Collins: that, right? Her videos often go... Like, here’s the format she uses, ‘cause again, I’ve watched over four hours of these is cute baby, cute baby video that went viral on TikTok, and then her being like, “Nuh-uh-uh, Zumi here to provide you with your online birth control to stop you or cure your baby fever.”

[00:14:00] And like, that’s the whole thing. But- And then she goes into the horror story ...

[00:14:02] Malcolm Collins: the, the point I’m making is- Okay ... I could have that impression, and, and it, it is what I would jump to.

[00:14:09] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:14:10] Malcolm Collins: But I consume a very similar form of content, and I clearly don’t consume it for that reason. Mm-hmm. I do not consume Mr.

[00:14:20] Ballen because I secretly want to jump out of airplanes or-

[00:14:24] Simone Collins: Oh, ‘cause you, you crave the... You wanna go backpacking along the

[00:14:28] Malcolm Collins: Appalachian Trail. Or become a caver. There, there’s actually... B- because the caving videos are, like, one of my videos that, that I watch a lot of. If

[00:14:35] Simone Collins: any of you cave, what? Stop. Stop.

[00:14:38] Malcolm Collins: I have never in my entire life seen a tiny hole and felt an urge to shove myself as deep as I can in the tiny hole.

[00:14:48] There

[00:14:49] Simone Collins: is a- Do you think it’s a fetish, actually? Wait, hold on. When you put it that way.

[00:14:52] Malcolm Collins: I c- is it a fetish? Is caving a fetish? I, like, can’t imagine a real human emotion that would lead you to want to do that.

[00:14:59] Simone Collins: Well, no. But, like... So I, I... Y- you can also look at those those vacuum bags that people use for sexy times.

[00:15:05] And I’m like, okay, well, I can’t imagine myself doing that. I, I just now that you put it that way, I’m like, “Oh.” That could be it. Anyway, keep going. ‘Cause also they’re wet a lot of... Oh, no. Sorry,

[00:15:16] Malcolm Collins: Oh, and the horrible ways you die when caving.

[00:15:18] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:15:18] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yep ... and this is the thing. It’s not that I don’t like caves.

[00:15:20] Like, I’ve been spelunking to, like, big, nice mapped caves to see a different environment. I have found- Yeah ... that to be a very pleasant and fun experience. Have you,

[00:15:29] Simone Collins: have you scuba, have you scuba’d in caves?

[00:15:31] Malcolm Collins: I have, I have cave di- d- dived, done cave dives before. You have dived. Which is a very dangerous form of diving.

[00:15:37] But-

[00:15:37] Simone Collins: That is super dangerous diving ... we, I- Oh my God, I remember, like, snorkeling in the cenotes in the Yucatan and watching, like, I remember watching one guy go down with two extra tanks, and then I was there for, like, two or three hours and he didn’t come out, and I’m like, “Sir.”

[00:15:55] Malcolm Collins: But when I have been cave diving, when I have been [00:16:00] spelunking, when people die in these things, at least the videos that I watch, it’s always, “And then they saw a two-foot hole and shoved themselves in it.”

[00:16:09] Yeah,

[00:16:09] Simone Collins: it’s

[00:16:09] Malcolm Collins: like- Like a fricking pelican or some- what, what’s the bird that sticks his head in the sand? Flamingo.

[00:16:14] An

[00:16:14] Simone Collins: ostrich?

[00:16:15] Speaker 2: A man was exploring the Nutty Putty Cave in 2009, and he wanted to go through one of the tightest stretches called the Birth Canal.

[00:16:24] Simone Collins: I don’t actually think ostriches- Ostrich,

[00:16:25] Malcolm Collins: yeah ...

[00:16:26] Simone Collins: they’re, they apocryphy, apoc- apocryphally do that. They don’t actually do that, I think.

[00:16:30] This time Sona is right. , And crazily, this apocryphal story goes back to Pliny the Elder

[00:16:36] Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s not an apocryphy that idiots in Utah do this all the time.

[00:16:41] ... There’s nothing interesting you’re going to see in this little hole. You ding idiot.

[00:16:46] Simone Collins: It’s dark. It’s gonna look dark, and there will be darkness.

[00:16:50] Malcolm Collins: Oh. You’re not gonna find some what... Like, get your f*****g head out. But the thing is- ... is I have to ask myself, how many of the women watching this are trying to suppress the instinct, trying to cure FOMO?

[00:17:03] How many of the women who are watching this are like me? And, and then there’s the other category- Schadenfreude.

[00:17:09] Simone Collins: I think there, there’s a lot of schadenfreude for, like, DINK couples. You, you will enjoy your DINK lifestyle even if you never want kids even more if you’re just watching

[00:17:19] Malcolm Collins: people who chose- Yeah, but I have another type of schadenfreude that I watch videos all the time for, which could be another desire for this.

[00:17:25] It could be cucking-

[00:17:25] Simone Collins: Okay. Okay ...

[00:17:26] Malcolm Collins: you here.

[00:17:27] Simone Collins: Go on

[00:17:27] Malcolm Collins: I love watching incredibly misogynistic red pill content about- ... terrible experiences men have had dating and being married. You know, like MGTOW content and stuff like that. Like that- Okay ... Sandman on it, like, I’ve watched his videos, you know, pushing, like, MGTOW lifestyles and stuff.

[00:17:42] He’s not even that bad. Oh,

[00:17:43] Simone Collins: but Sandman’s awesome. No, don’t come for Sandman.

[00:17:45] Malcolm Collins: But there’s other, there’s a whole category, and we, we actually utilize it in our title cards, where it is sad woman who made a mistake. But this- Are

[00:17:53] Simone Collins: we doing that for this? No, I, I think I should just use a normal picture of Abigail ‘

[00:17:57] Malcolm Collins: cause she’s pretty.

[00:17:58] This category of video I watch not to, like, give myself like, n- a lack of FOMO around dating, but because I like to hear how much better I did in the dating market than all of these people- Uh-huh ... and about their terrible lives compared to just finding a good woman and treating her well, right? Like, you, you, you hear the stories, you hear I mean, it’s as obvious between the lines as it is when you have one of those women out there screeching about why the fifth guy didn’t like them just because X, Y, and Z, totally insane things.

[00:18:30] And on a lot of these, you know,

[00:18:32] Simone Collins: in- Oh, have you heard the new thing on X that’s trending is hiplets? Have you heard about the hiplet controversy?

[00:18:37] Malcolm Collins: What, what is this?

[00:18:39] Simone Collins: I guess some women’s hips kind of divot inward above- Okay ... the hip bone. And some men are like, “I don’t, I’m just not into that.

[00:18:46] Like, I don’t wanna date women with hiplets.” And women are like, “How dare you? I can’t control my morphology.

[00:18:52] That’s how I’m born.” And men are like, “Oh, really? ‘Cause you didn’t have that reaction when I was under six feet and you wouldn’t talk to me.” So there’s a lot of smugness going on online. But yeah, that’s also a thing.

[00:19:03] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, weird. Weird. Hiplet. Do I find it attr- unattractive? I, I can’t even imagine what they’re talking about. Hold on. Let me think. D- I’ll, I’ll make a judgment on hiplet. Just Google hiplet. Yeah. Or hip

[00:19:10] Simone Collins: divot. I’m just sending you an X post.

[00:19:12] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you gotta send me an X post. This is not, it’s not coming through, so.

[00:19:15] Simone Collins: It’s, it’s, it’s obscure enough where... But anyway, this is one of the... It’s been trending on X, like, all weekend. It’s on WhatsApp.

[00:19:21] Malcolm Collins: Ew.

[00:19:22] Simone Collins: Oh, wow. So that was a reaction

[00:19:25] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that is not good-looking.

[00:19:28] Simone Collins: Okay. I see- ... where you stand on this.

[00:19:33] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you, you definitely don’t have those, I’ll tell you that.

[00:19:35] Simone Collins: No, I don’t. I don’t. Where, w- wow. Okay. I like your theory, though. I, I think that there’s the, I think her content does really well because it does fit a bunch of different interests, right?

[00:19:47] There’s the shodan fraud, there’s the smug my life is so good feeling. There’s the I really want a baby, no, I, I don’t want a baby ‘cause I’m an independent woman who’s never gonna have a baby, or I can’t have a baby ‘cause I can’t find a [00:20:00] good guy. So this, all of this, all of this can be satisfied by Girl With a List posts.

[00:20:05] And it, and we have all these other genres that make us very happy with our lives. I love to watch the hiking videos. I love to watch the cosmetic surgery gone wrong videos. I love to watch the buying home gone wrong videos. There’s also people who do, like, eating out at restaurants, like all the stuff that’s going on behind the scenes you don’t wanna know about.

[00:20:23] And so you can- Oh, God. Disgusting ... you can effectively, yeah. Are

[00:20:25] Malcolm Collins: you glad we don’t eat out?

[00:20:26] Simone Collins: Very, actually. The, you, you can basically, though, my point being, you, you can develop an aversion to, or even a phobia of pretty much anything by giving yourself to sufficient exposure to its hazards, just because it becomes so, so available in, in your, your brain.

[00:20:44] And this genre can be a form of opt-in brainwashing. Though, in a worse case scenario, they could be a form of unintentional algorithmically led brainwashing. Mm. And especially given the way that TikTok works, th- they, you, you get into it, you comment on this positively at one point, and you end up getting in this engagement loop with this kind of content and just seeing more and more of it, even if you didn’t necessarily want to brainwash yourself into being afraid of having a baby.

[00:21:14] Then there’s also

[00:21:15] Malcolm Collins: just- Well, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t w- mean to become brainwashed of going into American national parks. But you watch enough, you know, Lore Lodge, 411, Mr. Ballen- ... and you’re just like and I’ve had panic moments because of that. Like, when we’re playing with our kids in the woods and one of them- Yeah

[00:21:30] decides he’s gonna go home without- Yeah ... telling me.

[00:21:33] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:21:33] Malcolm Collins: And I’m running around screaming because-

[00:21:36] Simone Collins: Because that’s always, always with the kid ones. It’s like, well, the kid was just with us one moment, we’re all walking down the trail, and then the next moment they’re gone and we never heard from them again.

[00:21:43] Yeah. Like, that’s always the way it goes. The kid was right there. The kid was right there. Then they, they put up this massive search party. I don’t, if Mr. Ballen got a dollar for every time he said this massive search party, he’d be, he’d be a millionaire.

[00:21:58] Malcolm Collins: I haven’t watched much Mr. Ballen in a couple years, to be honest.

[00:22:01] Simone Collins: I had to stop watching his content because I came across one video where a baby got hurt and, you know, I can’t handle it.

[00:22:07] Malcolm Collins: Oh. Well, I, I think he sort of ran out of good mysteries, though, I’m gonna be honest.

[00:22:10] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was like, it got, it got to, like, very,

[00:22:12] Malcolm Collins: There’s always-

[00:22:13] Simone Collins: He was, he had to start digging into crime reporting, and that’s where it just gets really depressing, instead of like, ooh, what happened in the- Ah, National Park aliens and

[00:22:20] Malcolm Collins: Bigfoot

[00:22:20] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:22:20] Like if

[00:22:20] Malcolm Collins: you, if you ever have your mystery phase where you like crime mysteries, what you’ll realize is you’ll kind of go through all the good ones in about a year and a half. And there’s only- I,

[00:22:31] Simone Collins: it’s a way... We had a great run, Malcolm. It was, it was beautiful. I remember-

[00:22:34] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then it’s just like- All the trips that the, the stressful trips

[00:22:36] rehashing or minor updates or new, new theories, and at that point. It’s the same with good conspiracy theories. There’s only so many, and then you

[00:22:43] Simone Collins: run out it, it, everything with this genre. Plastic surgery that’s botched. All, all of the snark, all of the fundie snark, we went through that so fast.

[00:22:50] There’s onl- only so many very public fundie families that people can make fun of. Oh-

[00:22:55] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

[00:22:55] Simone Collins: Harry and Meghan snark. I follow most of the major channels. I just, in, I...

[00:23:00] Malcolm Collins: I,

[00:23:00] Simone Collins: I was so into- They can only do so many bad things, you know? ... Warhammer

[00:23:02] Malcolm Collins: lore for a while.

[00:23:03] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah,

[00:23:04] Malcolm Collins: yeah. And then I just knew all the Warhammer lore-

[00:23:06] and there was nothing more to learn

[00:23:09] Simone Collins: Ah, so you just started developing your own religion that’s very Warhammer inspired. Oh, what are we gonna name one of our kids Mechanicus? Oh, you were thinking Crypteia Mechanicus.

[00:23:17] Malcolm Collins: Crypteia Mechanicus, our, our next daughter, yeah.

[00:23:22] Simone Collins: Okay. All right. Anyway.

[00:23:24] Malcolm Collins: It’s

[00:23:24] Simone Collins: a beautiful

[00:23:24] Malcolm Collins: name- Let’s get on

[00:23:25] Simone. It’s a beautiful name.

[00:23:27] Simone Collins: Beautiful name, beautiful name. I, w- I wanna get back to the point of the, so there’s one, availability heuristic. There’s also loss aversion, and it’s just important to remind you that, you don’t need to be reminded, but people listening may not be aware that humans are generally way more concerned about losses than gains.

[00:23:46] They, they generally weigh potential losses about 1.5 to 2.5 times as much as equally sized gains. So like The, all this stuff isn’t just like, “Oh, okay, well I’m gonna knock [00:24:00] down my interest in pregnancy by one.” No, it’s gonna be by two, even though, you know, other things will only... The, the viral kid video that’s so cute is only gonna knock up your interest one.

[00:24:10] So, Abigail is more than canceling out any baby fever that she sparks or that is sparked by the viral baby videos that she’s sent when, in where people summon her. Wait, wait,

[00:24:20] Malcolm Collins: does she really? Is this, like, true or...?

[00:24:22] Simone Collins: Well, I’m, I’m talking about how loss aversion works in general.

[00:24:25] Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:24:27] Okay, continue.

[00:24:27] Simone Collins: Right? Because, you know, take, take, you know, one token. You have a chance of winning one token or not losing two and a half tokens. Or, sorry not losing two tokens. People are two and a half more times, whatever. You know what I’m talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I link to a bunch of this research in my show notes.

[00:24:43] You can go read about it if you want. Well, I mean,

[00:24:43] Malcolm Collins: she’s helping us. She’s clearing out the gene pool for our kids.

[00:24:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, look, if I- spoiler alert, but in the end, I, I think she’s doing amazing work, and I think she’s very ethical, and I like her a lot, so. It’s not just a parasocial relationship. I think she’s doing good work, but we’ll get to that.

[00:24:58] But anyway, this means that people are, are, are extra, extra influenced against this. And it’s, it’s kind of even worse than that because both Abigail and Yuri can’t seem to even wrap their heads around, like, the, the rewards of parenting at all. Abigail’s most commonly cited argument is kids are cute.

[00:25:16] Whereas Y- Yuri’s list at the, at the end of it she has her, like, whatever, 30 pros after 200 and something, I think over 250 cons. They include child and tax return benefits and tiny everything, which Like first, the tax return benefits are like very, very little considering the costs of children.

[00:25:38] Quote, “You cannot get drafted while pregnant,” end quote. So there’s that. You can’t bribe them with candy. Or sorry, you can bribe with them with candy. It was one of her pros, but you and I both know that you can’t.

[00:25:49] Malcolm Collins: You can’t. With a toddler. No, we... Actually, one of our kids hates candy. We can threaten him with candy.

[00:25:50] “Eat your candy.” “No.” No. Literally. Literally. I should try to, I’ll try

[00:25:50] Simone Collins: to film him. Try to give him candy tonight. Yes, for this episode so people can see we’re not messing

[00:25:51] Malcolm Collins: with

[00:26:05] them.

[00:26:05] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I’ll get proof. I need to hold up like the day’s newspaper to show it’s real. And also, if you raise them right, people will praise you for it, which is so crazy. Like, that’s... To, to think that you would wanna raise kids right to get praise for it by other people. Yeah, yeah, they’re just like th- these people are very different.

[00:26:25] But

[00:26:25] Malcolm Collins: they have no external reality, no civilizational stake, no plan for the future of humanity. It is literally just about how does this make me feel-

[00:26:36] Simone Collins: Yeah, or

[00:26:36] Malcolm Collins: how does it make you- ... and how

[00:26:37] Simone Collins: does

[00:26:37] Malcolm Collins: it make other people treat me?

[00:26:38] Simone Collins: Tiny human

[00:26:38] Malcolm Collins: being. They have no larger civilizational framework, right? Like, no sense of purpose really.

[00:26:44] Yeah. It’s just autopilot really.

[00:26:46] Simone Collins: It’s gnarly, yeah. So I think, like, the, the big thing here is that I think this is part of a larger theme of why mental health is plummeting, which is people are way too in their heads and overthinking things. And I think Abigail, more than Yuri fundamentally gets people to overthink pregnancy and child-rearing.

[00:27:08] Like, I didn’t think about any of the complications that would come with pregnancy before I got pregnant. I- Really? I was... No, no. Like, my, my plan with everything is just like- I’m not gonna think through the consequences at all. Which I guess... I mean, we’re trying to be as responsible as we can, of course, but, like, when it comes to the downsides- Mm

[00:27:28] or the risks or the fears, I’m just like, look, I- I’m aware of, like, the broad statistics. Those look fine to me. I’m willing to take those on, and I’m not going to educate myself about everything possible that can go wrong with this. Remember, like, with, with childbirth and stuff, for the first time around when I was like, “I’m gonna do unmedicated labor,” I was like, well, okay, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna, like- Yeah

[00:27:48] take childbirthing courses or read a book or anything. Like, that’s just gonna get me too into my head. Like, look it’s just gonna hurt. It hurt a lot. I, you know, hurt so much that I threw up and all the other things. But you

[00:27:59] Malcolm Collins: were in [00:28:00] labor for, like, 48 hours. Like, you

[00:28:01] Simone Collins: are-

[00:28:02] Malcolm Collins: It was not great ... a worst

[00:28:03] Simone Collins: case example.

[00:28:03] Yeah. Yeah, and, and, yeah, like, induced labor that was horrible. And yeah, it was... But, like, I, I think it would’ve been worse, ‘cause I’ve learned this the hard way, s- one of the worst forms of pain is anticipating pain. It’s not like the thing itself. I can’t remember the pain. I remember throwing up from it.

[00:28:18] I remember thinking, like, “I m- I only exist with the pain, and this, this will be everything forever.” Like, there, there was nothing in my mind but the pain, and I was sitting with it, and it was, it was what it was, and I was just ready to just keep going. The, but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember what it felt like.

[00:28:33] Like, why, how could I remember that? So I think that ultimately was mu- a lot healthier for me, and all this overthinking is really not helping people. And Robert Sapolsky, you know, who does the great courses, course on stress and cortisol really insightfully explains how, like, our stress system was not developed for humans who have, like, metacognition, who can, like, literally build endogenous stress- stressors merely by thinking about something, right?

[00:29:03] Like, the gazelle is chased by the, what, lion, lioness, and it runs, and it’s very stressed- Mm ... and the cortisol’s coursing through its veins, and then the, the lion catches another gazelle and eats it and then the gazelle goes back to eating grass- Yeah ... and it’s fine, right? Like-

[00:29:17] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

[00:29:18] Simone Collins: it, that’s... And then there’s no more cortisol, whereas, like, the human, Will just think about something that could possibly potentially happen in the future, but there’s no actual reason it will happen.

[00:29:27] And they’re- ... experiencing the same level of cortisol in their system. And it is chronically very unhealthy, and I, I don’t appreciate that there’s a lot of content out there that feeds into that, and that people let themselves feed into that. And I don’t think you should, or anyone should indulge in that because it is, it is both unhealthy and not, not, not productive.

[00:29:46] You sh- if you’re concerned about something, build a contingency plan for it, reduce the odds, but like don’t think about it. But anyway, overthinking about pregnancy could probably be contributing to a rise in phobia about pregnancy, which is known as tocophobia, which is a weird name.

[00:30:04] Malcolm Collins: Tocophobia?

[00:30:04] Tocophobia. Well, a lot of people have that. I mean, you, again, wanted to get your tubes tied for no reason.

[00:30:08] Simone Collins: Yeah, that was more just, like, euphoria. That wasn’t like I was afraid of being pregnant. I, I mean, clearly I’ve never been afraid of being pregnant. I was just like, “I’m super happy to be alone forever,” and you know, you know how I hate people.

[00:30:21] So that was fun. And it was a fun idea. But no, like I, I did not have that. But it is actually pretty prevalent. This 2017 systematic review of 33 studies looking at a total of 854,000 pregnant women worldwide estimated that there’s a sort of pooled prevalence of tocophobia between, oh, like around f- 14% with individual study estimates ranging from about 3.7% to 43%.

[00:30:48] And I bet a lot of that had to do with the, the population sampled, and I bet the populations that are consuming content from the Girls with the Lists is, is more closer to the 43% end of the spectrum.

[00:31:00] Malcolm Collins: Wait, 14% of women have a fear of pregnancy?

[00:31:04] Simone Collins: Yeah. M- just sort of like roughly per this like meta, meta sy- system- systematic meta review and it, yeah, 14%.

[00:31:12] And keep in mind, this is a 2017 systematic review of 33 studies. All those studies were conducted before 2017, obviously. And these two young women only began posting around 2021 and after. So and I bet it’s a lot worse. And it’s not great. Yeah. So- Well- ... you know ...

[00:31:33] Malcolm Collins: it, it’s interesting to look at her Substack as well to get an idea of just like what goes through her mind, what she sits around thinking about all day.

[00:31:40] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:31:41] Malcolm Collins: So if we’re just reading them like in backwards chronological order, it’s Girls Don’t Want to Be Someone’s Wife Anymore, Kids Ruin Everything- ... Everything That Happened in the World of Birth Control Last Month, Pill Pop Culture, The Weekly Dose Everything That Happened This Week in the World of Birth Control, The Ultimate [00:32:00] Nude, It, it, Lorde’s new album features her IUD.

[00:32:05] Simone Collins: Look, okay, I think Abigail, she’s just living a very happy dink life. And I think she also could be an amazing parent. She had two siblings. She has a- ample memories of being pretty naughty as a child, driving her parents pretty nuts as a child doing pretty naughty things as a child, stuff that would qualify for her own videos.

[00:32:22] So she, she knows what it’s like to be a demon child sometimes. I think all, all children do, except for me ‘cause I was perfect. Oh, no wait, I scared my parents crapless when I starved myself. Never mind. But then she- then she doesn’t really talk about teens, she just talks about toddlers. She lives in downtown Los Angeles.

[00:32:39] She started posting these in 2021. To give you sort of like Picture of her pain tolerance- Mm ... she thinks that getting an IUD was the most painful thing she has ever experienced. Which is not comfort- I’ve not gotten an IUD before, but from what I’ve heard from other people, it could be, it could be pretty uncomfortable, but it, bir- you know, birth is more.

[00:32:59] Other things are more. She, she hates cleaning. She hates cooking. She loves playing video games. Has a boyfriend, as far as I understand. She talks about him sometimes. And

[00:33:07] Malcolm Collins: she really loves her cats. I will say she, she does find interesting stuff. I was unaware of this. Did you know that Flo, the period tracking app, has been proven to be collecting user data and sharing it with Meta?

[00:33:16] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:33:18] Malcolm Collins: I didn’t know this.

[00:33:21] Simone Collins: Seems reasonable.

[00:33:21] Malcolm Collins: She says she’s been using Flo and is disgusted by this information.

[00:33:25] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, she’s, she’s on like the, she lives in downtown Los Angeles. She’s a, she’s a dink. Like, well, she’s going to have to say the progressive things. She also has merch.

[00:33:33] They’re, they’re all in the like... They’re, they’re sweatshirts, all of them. Some have hoodies. Some are crew necks. There’s the $60 divorce your Republican husband XL crew neck sweatshirt with a wolf on it. Sold out. The $50 dump your Republican boyfriend medium large hunting camo crew neck sweatshirt.

[00:33:49] Dump your Republican

[00:33:50] Malcolm Collins: boyfriend.

[00:33:51] Simone Collins: Oh, my God. Also sold out. The $68 dump your Republican boyfriend XL green crew neck. The $58 dump your Republican boyfriend XL pink hoodie. What’s weird is all of these are for larger people. There’s not a single small item in the entire shop, and she’s an ex- extra smell. Extra smell.

[00:34:09] She’s extra small. So I don’t know.

[00:34:13] Malcolm Collins: She, she had a map of the best and worst states to have a baby, and it’s just like all Democrat states are ranked as good. All Republican states ranked as bad. Duh. P- Pennsylvania is ranked as good. To have a

[00:34:22] Simone Collins: baby. Yeah.

[00:34:23] To have a baby. Yeah. ‘Cause I think we’re at like 24 weeks for abortions.

[00:34:31] Malcolm Collins: Oh, that’s why it’s ranked that way. Yeah,

[00:34:33] Simone Collins: duh. Because it’s to have a baby, not abortion. Of course, Malcolm. Gee whiz. Gosh. Yeah, she’s, she’s- How

[00:34:37] Malcolm Collins: it was calculated: WalletHub ranked the best and worst states to have a baby by evaluating all 50 states and the District of Columbia across four categories: cost, healthcare, baby friendliness, and family friendliness, using 31 weighted metrics scored on a 100-point scale

[00:34:50] Simone Collins: It’s abortion, Malcolm.

[00:34:52] I mean, it could also be, I mean, keep in mind, like, in the state, in this state at least too, and, and this is how it is in many states, not all necessarily Democratic states, but generally in the United States, you, if you are at, near, or below the poverty level, especially as a woman, get food assistance, free healthcare, housing assistance.

[00:35:15] So all of those labor and delivery charges from the hospital are totally waived. And that’s really helpful, obviously. And,

[00:35:24] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:35:25] Simone Collins: Yeah. Anyway but in terms of how I feel about this, how I imagine you will feel about this too, is that what Abigail is doing is fine. She’s really clear. One thing you don’t know this, but, like, in her content, she is super clear to not shame parents, like any of the parents she’s covering.

[00:35:43] She’s super empathetic toward them, and I really can’t say the same about many parents online, even like very pro-natalist and pro-kid parents. And she’s also way more ethical than your typical content creator with the clips that she uses. [00:36:00] She told NBC, quote, “If I’m going to do a video about bodies in particular and show someone’s body, I’m going to make sure that I have consent from that mother first.”

[00:36:09] Like if she posted a video and she made this acknowledgement like, “This is my body. It’s pretty crazy. The things that have happened to my body is wild.” She also said, “I have such respect and a reverence and admiration for the people who do choose to go through th- with this because it’s a huge choice,” Porter said.

[00:36:24] “I hope people will stop treating having children as an impulse decision that everyone does. I think that’s better for us and also for the children because if every child that was ever born had parents that really wanted them, I think the world would be a better place.” I 100% agree with that.

[00:36:40] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I- I mean, her framework for understanding why somebody wants children is really messed up, but it’s completely in line with the dominant cultural subset- Yeah

[00:36:48] so you can’t really blame her for it. You super can’t blame her. These people have no idea why they’re alive, why they should continue living, what’s the point of life, right? Like, they’re just like, So they can only relate things in, in, or they only can relate to things in how those things relate to their personal happiness, basically.

[00:37:05] Yeah.

[00:37:06] Simone Collins: Yeah, like, is this gonna be uncomfortable? Well, let’s not do it then. Which is a thing, but I, I genuinely believe that- Like, I would be fine if someone was like, “Look, you think you wanna become a parent? Watch five hours of Abigail Porter’s content and then decide.” And if someone can- I don’t

[00:37:23] Malcolm Collins: know about that.

[00:37:24] That’s- No ... that’s, that’s, n- because her content isn’t representative.

[00:37:27] Simone Collins: You haven’t watched

[00:37:28] Malcolm Collins: it, dude. Yeah. You haven’t watched it But if you had watched it earlier, you may have had a lot more- No.

[00:37:32] Simone Collins: Mm-mm ...

[00:37:33] Malcolm Collins: trepidations about going into pregnancy.

[00:37:34] Simone Collins: No.

[00:37:35] Malcolm Collins: Not at all. Well, I think you’re a tough woman, Simone, and I don’t think that you’re representative of the average female.

[00:37:40] Simone Collins: Look, I mean, I, again, I, I just gave my whole spiel on how I think overthinking things and trying to figure everything out is not good for you. But in the end, look, Malcolm, I’ve been very clear that I’m willing to do pretty much anything. I, I, and I, I’m not gonna actively go into something like a pregnancy where I have a high likelihood of dying because then I can’t be there to raise the kids, right?

[00:38:00] But, like, I will go through pretty much anything up to that. And a- as long as I can keep caring for the kids, obviously. And I, I mean, like I, I, I, I just, I agree with Abigail. I think that if, if you’re not willing to undertake the risks and the hardship, then you should not be a parent. And that’s just how it is.

[00:38:21] And I think that, it- Abigail’s content is really useful in dissuading people from having kids for trivial reasons, and she actually helps actual parents head off medical issues. Again, that same NBC article they wrote, “Brig Stewart, who is now pregnant with her second child, described the list videos as a powerful tool fuls- for self-advocacy.

[00:38:40] She said, ‘I was totally shocked by all the things that could happen to you, and that’s even in today’s modern world, which is shocking with the amount of research and access that we have at our fingertips,’ Brig Stewart said. ‘There’s no, there’s so many different types of complications, and it can be really brutal to women, so I was like, this is empowering.’”

[00:38:56] And look, you and I were just talking about a case in which someone we know has, has had to really do a lot of self-advocacy in a hospital situation, and only through their own self-advocacy did they get treatment that actually made a huge difference, and it may be the difference between life and death, or a functional life- Yeah

[00:39:13] And, and, you know, forever not functional life. So, you know, it’s, it’s not bad for people to know what can go wrong, or like to recognize, oh, like for example, if I started getting a growth the size of a fingertip on my lip, I would not know what that was and probably wait longer than I, I should have.

[00:39:29] Whereas now I know that there’s such a thing as, like, benign pregnancy tumors, and I would just be like, “Look, I think this is...” And I’d go right to the right specialist and try to head it off before it got giant, right? Like, this is good. It’s not bad. And in terms of our viewers or people themselves, so let’s say you’re a young woman watching this or you’re a woman who wants to maybe have kids watching this who’s like, “Yeah, now I’m afraid of being pregnant,” or a young man who’s dating or interested in a young woman who’s terrified of being pregnant, who doesn’t wanna have kids because of content like this.

[00:39:59] I would just [00:40:00] say, because this is what you did with me, Malcolm, have a logical conversation about the actual risks and about equivalent risks that they take or that you take in your everyday life through your hobbies.

[00:40:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s better- But this is assuming you have an autistic wife. What a normal woman’s going to do with this information is leverage it to get crazy good treatment while she’s pregnant, which they do.

[00:40:21] Do you, do

[00:40:21] Simone Collins: you wanna marry that woman? Do you wanna enter that? Like...

[00:40:25] Malcolm Collins: A lot of guys are stuck because they were stupid And they didn’t know to only marry autists. I love that we have this giant fan base of autistic wives who,

[00:40:34] Simone Collins: like- Isn’t that amazing? They, we’re out there. We are a legion.

[00:40:38] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we are a legion.

[00:40:38] No, they’re like all of Simone’s, like, best friends now are our fans who are like, And you used to have, like, friends before we started the podcast, and now your friends since the podcast have all been these autistic women who y- f- found him fr- through the podcast.

[00:40:53] Simone Collins: It’s true. All, all the, all the women who live rent-free in my brain are podcast listeners.

[00:40:57] You may be listening right now and not realize how, how much I think about you. I just don’t have time to write. It’s, that’s, that’s crappy of me. But anyway, yeah, it, we’re amazing. But I, I really, like really, d- if you cannot have a conversation with a woman and be like, “Look, I know you’d like to get this cosmetic procedure done.

[00:41:14] I know you love to backpack. Like, let’s talk about that. You like to eat out. You wanna know what happens when people eat out?” Like, I just think giving this pers- some perspective would be very helpful, and also doing the thing that the, the... What, what is your objective function? What is your life actually about?

[00:41:30] In the end, you just gave me bigger things to care about because you allowed me to decide for myself, you empowered me to decide for myself what I actually cared about, what I valued and what I wanted to maximize with life. And suddenly, when my life wasn’t any longer about, well, I just want to avoid things that are unpleasant, which is kind of the societal default, as you said-

[00:41:53] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm

[00:41:53] Simone Collins: I, I was kind of willing and able to do pretty much anything. I mean, I’ve... Even this year, we’ve, we’ve done a whole new level of stuff that’s otherwise would’ve been, like, impossible in the past couple of years.

[00:42:02] Malcolm Collins: What I wonder is, does she have baby fever? I mean, probably, yes, because that’s why she’s still doing this.

[00:42:06] Simone Collins: I don’t think so. Yeah. She, she has two cats. I think one’s named Willow. So

[00:42:09] Malcolm Collins: she’s masturbating the baby fever with the cats.

[00:42:12] Simone Collins: Maybe. A- and, and, a- well, I think there’s there’s plenty of rumors. I think for a while, like, in her videos she’s like, “And I still do not have kids.” So I think some rumor spread at some point of like, “Oh, Abigail Porter had kids, or had a, had a baby but tried to hide

[00:42:25] Malcolm Collins: it.”

[00:42:25] No, but I mean, that’s such the thing, though, for this sort of crowd, right? We have a whole nother thing

[00:42:30] Simone Collins: of- Probably, yeah. Yeah. A whole nother thing ...

[00:42:31] Malcolm Collins: where they’re all like, “Men are terrible. Men are the worst.”

[00:42:34] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:42:35] Malcolm Collins: Uh-oh. Well...

[00:42:37] Simone Collins: Ugh, I know. Anyway, though, I think it’s good. I think it’s positive. I mean, what, what advice would you give to a young man?

[00:42:43] And, and s- aside from lowering his expectations, oh my God

[00:42:47] Malcolm Collins: I mean, if you’re, if you’re with a woman who doesn’t wanna have kids, th- that should be established early in a relationship, and just get rid of her, and constantly make it clear to her early in the relationship that this is not a small thing for you.

[00:42:56] This is, like, the core thing for you. This is your core purpose in life or part of your purpose in life. And I was incredibly clear about this with Simone, and it’s been increasingly clear to me how clear I was from reading her diaries.

[00:43:11] Simone Collins: Yeah. ‘

[00:43:12] Malcolm Collins: Cause I was going through them again recently, and,

[00:43:13] Simone Collins: But you gotta...

[00:43:14] Okay, I got... You have to put your money where your mouth is, and that’s one thing that Malcolm did that... Like, ‘cause look, my, my barrier to entry here was high. I was really unwilling to, super unwilling to have kids.

[00:43:26] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, that’s the thing that really gets it for feminists. If they’re like, “Well, then you have to do all the work to take care of the kid,” and it’s like, “Okay, so you’re gonna support the family,” right?

[00:43:36] Like, because... A- and if they’re like, “No, no, no, no, I need you as the man to support the family,” and at that point it’s just like- Well,

[00:43:42] Simone Collins: yeah, but now you know you can’t fudge ... this

[00:43:44] Malcolm Collins: makes no sense. Like, you want me to treat you like a child, right? Like your entire life, right?

[00:43:48] Simone Collins: Like- Look, but no, no, no, but that’s not...

[00:43:49] But see, that’s the thing, is that’s not the way it is for most women. The way it is for most women is, “I have my career. I love my career. I don’t wanna give it up.” That, that, it, that just is. I... Be fair, right? I mean, [00:44:00] like, I think women who want to be a trad wife are-

[00:44:02] Malcolm Collins: No. No ...

[00:44:02] Simone Collins: more comfortable.

[00:44:03] Malcolm Collins: I, I disagree. I think a lot of women just want, like, a rich guy and, like, a nice life, and that’s really what they’re in it for, and they don’t really care about...

[00:44:11] Like, they, they find the idea mortifying that they have to keep working.

[00:44:19] Simone Collins: Actually, with the rise of AI, that’s gonna be more common. Pe- women are gonna start treating their careers as find, attach yourself to a man who is capable of making money with AI. Mm-hmm ... this is not to dunk on women with AI. Actually, there’s a lot of pe- y- women who listen to this podcast who are amazing with AI.

[00:44:35] But the propensity of the average woman to take and run with AI is- Are

[00:44:40] Malcolm Collins: there? Most of our female fans- ... lower ... I do not think use AI that much. We’ve got Leaflet, and that’s about it.

[00:44:46] Simone Collins: People I talk to are. Yeah,

[00:44:47] Malcolm Collins: okay.

[00:44:48] Simone Collins: Yeah, like a lot. But, you know, those are the ones who are online and chatting with me, so, like, it makes sense.

[00:44:52] Yeah.

[00:44:52] Malcolm Collins: What’s really cool, women, is AI can help you think.

[00:44:56] Simone Collins: Shut up, Malcolm.

[00:44:58] Malcolm Collins: I- It can fact check whether you’re being rational if you use a base model with the right fact-checking prompt to not get you into a loop of self-affirmation

[00:45:11] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm What? Nothing, I love you. Oh!

[00:45:12] Malcolm Collins: What?

[00:45:14] Simone Collins: You are...

[00:45:19] What

[00:45:20] Malcolm Collins: is this? W- what are you-

[00:45:21] Simone Collins: It’s nothing. It’s nothing, Malcolm. It’s absolutely nothing. You will see no consequences for your actions.

[00:45:31] I love you, and that’s, that’s it for tonight. I was thinking I can m- make you green beans with some garlic and chili oil.

[00:45:38] Malcolm Collins: That

[00:45:38] Simone Collins: sounds really good ... with maybe a couple, just, like, two of those little Vietnamese banh xa for dinner.

[00:45:44] Malcolm Collins: Very good. You know me, I don’t want that much.

[00:45:46] Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah, figured it kind of summery but not too heavy.

[00:45:50] All righty.

[00:45:51] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:45:51] Simone Collins: I love you, and-

[00:45:52] Malcolm Collins: Oh, and we can make some other types of small meats, because I’ve noticed that small meats are something I want with a lot of dishes Small meats. You know, like it w- Small meats ... well, you were looking at Korean meatballs- Okay ... but they were, like, pre-made, and I was like, “What do we have around?”

[00:46:04] Well, I

[00:46:04] Simone Collins: still have a bunch of Burmese chicken, is, like, sort of that fine distributed chicken, but that goes better over, like, a rice or something.

[00:46:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, or something heavier. But, like, a, a small banh xa type thing. Like, other options that are, like... Shut your wing.

[00:46:21] Simone Collins: Remember when our kids... ‘Cause we have a, we...

[00:46:23] It’s for context. In, in our attic, we keep baskets of themed toys, and Malcolm learned that you can buy you can buy Hot Wheels cars in bulk off eBay, like, by the pound. And once you, like, shake out all the sand, ‘cause they’ve all been, like, abandoned in sandboxes and fished out by some family as they, like, do an estate sale.

[00:46:41] But once you, like, get all the sand out, they’re really decent. So we have, like, a bag full s- of Hot Wheel cars, which we call the small cars, and then we have a bag of, like, big cars that we’ve accumulated over time. And they used to call small cars fwa cars. Do you remember?

[00:46:55] Malcolm Collins: Fwa? Fwa

[00:46:56] Simone Collins: cars. Yeah. Why? ‘Cause they’re f- weird.

[00:47:00] Malcolm Collins: Idiots? Okay.

[00:47:01] Simone Collins: But remember they used to call They thought that the, the word commercial... They kept being like, “It’s a cover martial,” and I had no idea what they were talking about until we discovered that it was their word for commercial. All right. All right, we gotta, we gotta go. I- Yep ... love

[00:47:17] Malcolm Collins: you. I love

[00:47:17] Simone Collins: you.

[00:47:18] Goodbye. Not knowing what you’re gonna get is I think what makes it so addictive with the video generation. Yeah. Yeah, you don’t know- You’re like, “Is this gonna work?” And then you realize, “Oh, I should have given this negative prompt,” or, “I should have m- made this detail clearer.” And then-

[00:47:33] Malcolm Collins: And then you can get really fun stuff.

[00:47:35] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:47:35] Malcolm Collins: Oh, God. You get super fun stuff. These glasses are just so messed up. Where are the... Where are my glasses?

[00:47:40] Simone Collins: Have you checked the kid room where you were all day yesterday taking care of the kids? ‘Cause that’s probably where they are. You probably took them off in frustration at some point. Actually- Oh, you’re going for it.

[00:47:50] Okay. Okay

[00:47:52] Malcolm Collins: Oh my God, here they are

[00:47:54] Simone Collins: Wait, where? Where were they?

[00:47:56] Malcolm Collins: They had fallen under a table

[00:47:58] Simone Collins: What? That looked ridiculous. My glasses. My glasses. Which is out completely the same glasses. O- the other ones were just too... I[00:48:00]

[00:48:05] can clean them. You seem

[00:48:09] to

[00:48:13] mind it more than I do. I swept out the, like, shed and the chicken coop yesterday, and they are literally covered in poop, but I can still kind of see, so I don’t mind. Whereas, like, you have one bit of dust on your glasses and you can’t stand it.

[00:48:30] Speaker 3: I got you some candy, Toasty. I want candy. Please eat the candy, Toasty. Please eat it. Eat the candy, Toasty. I- Eat the candy ... want to eat the candy. Toasty has to eat the candy. Toast- yeah, he has to eat the candy. I want- Because he didn’t eat his dinner. Yeah, Toasty,

[00:48:45] you didn’t eat your dinner, so you gotta eat the candy. Here, I’ll make him eat it. You gonna eat the candy? He’s not gonna have any choice. No, I can put it in the snack thing. I will

[00:48:56] eat my dinner. You will? You promise? You promise to eat your dinner, or you’re gonna have to eat the candy. What? No. You promise to eat your dinner? I will make him. You’re not g- Here, well, let’s get him and make him eat the candy. Ra, ra, ra, ra, ra. Oh, God. Okay, Toasty. Are you gonna go eat the dinner, you promise?

[00:49:06] You’re gonna eat your cheese? Cheese. Okay. Thank you, Toasty. Put it in your mouth right now. Otherwise, you’ll have to eat the candy. Okay, here we go. Okay, Toasty. Wow. I want candy. Have another bite, or you’re gonna have to eat candy. You don’t w- oh, thank you, Toasty. I want- We love you, Toasty. You’re a good kid

[00:49:23] Speaker 4: one. Candy. Someone candy, someone

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the forbidden history of group-based stereotypes and cultural pattern recognition from ancient Egypt through Renaissance Europe. This is the dark lore mainstream education won’t touch — what Egyptians really thought of Nubians and Libyans, Greek views of “effete” Persians and rowdy Macedonians, Roman donkey-god graffiti mocking Jews and Christians, medieval antisemitic pig-suckling art that makes modern versions look tame, and the surprising origins of the “French Vice,” “Italian Vice,” and “English Vice.”

The Collinses explore how what we now call racism was once just observed averages, patterns, and tribal jokes — not modern ideological sin. No moralizing. Just raw historical context on how humans have always categorized “us vs. them.”

Show Notes

With the release of Talkie, a 13M “vintage” language model trained only on pre-1931 text, people realized just how casual, widespread, and matter-of-fact prejudice was in even the recent past.

Ancient Egypt

Different groups were absolutely depicted, mostly with Egyptians being reddish, nubians being black, Asiatics being tan (and often bearded), and Libyans being white (and often bearded)

Nubians as people to conquered

Texts and artistic programs from pharaonic Egypt sometimes emphasize Nubia as a land to be subdued and exploited, supporting a stereotype of Nubians as “barbaric” or less civilized compared to Egypt.

* See:Critique of the “Black Pharaohs” Theme: Racist Perspectives of Egyptian and Kushite/Nubian Interactions in Popular Media https://www.jstor.org/stable/48763823

Canaanites/Asiatics as rebellious and treacherous

* Egyptian sources portray peoples to the northeast of the nile (“Asiatics,” including Levantine groups) as culturally suspect, often linked to rebellion, disorder, and treachery

* They were also, however, viewed as trading partners and skilled craftsmen

* TL:DR: They threatened social order

* Egyptian royal narratives from the later 17th–16th centuries BCE describe the Hyksos (“Shepherd Kings”) as foreign usurpers who disrupted proper Egyptian order.

* After the Theban kings of the 18th Dynasty expelled them around 1550 BCE, Egyptian texts portray this expulsion as the restoration of Ma’at (cosmic order), implicitly stereotyping Asiatic rule as chaotic, illegitimate, and oppressive

* In New Kingdom imperial inscriptions, Canaanite city‑states are often framed as unreliable vassals—prone to rebellion, needing punishment, and subject to heavy tribute and forced labor conscription

Libyans: Western barbarians turned useful soldiers and even rulers

* In Egyptian sources, Libyans were stereotyped both as dangerous, warlike “western barbarians” and, over time, as useful soldiers and eventually fully Egyptianized rulers; the view shifted from hostile outsider to complex “cousin” status as Libyan groups migrated into the Delta and took power.

* Sometimes they traded; sometimes they fought

* “The Libu were first mentioned in New Kingdom (c. 1550-1069 BCE) texts and were often the Libyan archetype depicted in Egyptian art. Libu tribesmen were depicted with their hair cut at the nape, a sidelock, and often tattooed. All Libyan tribes were shown with light complexions and Caucasian features.” (The Collector, citing “The Meshwesh”)

* They had tattoos and sidelocks and interesting haircuts

* “Eventually, massive migration brought the Libyans into Egypt’s Delta during the New Kingdom, forever changing the political landscape of the Nile Valley.” (The Collector)

Ancient Greece

Greeks commonly divided the world into Hellenes (Greek speakers) and “barbarians” (non‑Greek speakers), treating Greek culture as inherently superior.

Persians as decadent and effete

* Persians especially were portrayed as decadent, soft, and naturally suited to monarchy rather than free citizenship

* Their art of Darius the Great certainly makes him look fancy

Athenians: Cultural elites

* Athenians were stereotyped—especially in Athenian sources—as philosophical, talkative, artistic, and politically engaged, the center of culture and debate.

Spartans: Disciplined warriors

* Sparta practiced xenelasia, the expulsion or strict control of foreigners, driven by fears that outsiders might spy on Sparta or corrupt its harsh, militarized way of life.

* This created a stereotype of Spartans as intensely closed, suspicious of outsiders, and committed to preserving a rigid ethos that rejected luxury, commerce, and cosmopolitan influences

* Spartan woman were also definitely seen differently than Athenian women (who were largely meant to be unseen), what with their athleticism, property ownership, etc.

* Art of a Spartan woman running:

Ionian Greeks: Cowards

* Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor (e.g., coastal cities under Persian rule) were stereotyped as cowardly and weak fighters, “softened” by their mild climate and prosperity, and as good talkers but poor warriors.

Boitians: Hicks

* Boiotians, especially Thebans, were mocked as brutish country hicks—agricultural, uncultured, and un‑cosmopolitan—later also stereotyped as big, strong wrestlers rather than subtle thinkers.

Ancient Rome

Christians

* Alexamenos worships [his] god” graffiti

* The artist is referring to a well‑known slur that Jews and then Christians worshipped a donkey—an accusation called onolatry—and used the donkey head to mock Christ and Alexamenos as absurd, foolish worshippers

* At first, Christians were seen as just another Jewish subgroup

* Their devotion to a crucified man and claims about one true god were seen as peculiar but not uniquely threatening compared to other mystery cults and foreign religions.

Jews: Stubborn cliquey weirdos

* Jews were portrayed as stubborn subjects with a herd mentality, fiercely attached to unique customs such as circumcision and dietary laws.

* Romans satirized Jews as gullible religious fanatics and puzzled over their attitudes toward pigs, sometimes imagining them as pig‑worshippers or pig‑haters, while also fearing that Romans themselves might be seduced into Jewish practices.

All outsiders: Barbarian

* Romans tended to divide the world into Roman and non‑Roman, with non‑Romans often lumped as “barbari” and assumed to be less civilized, less disciplined, and less politically sophisticated.

* Foreigners could be mocked for accents, dress, food, and religious practices, and were frequently portrayed as either dangerously cunning or naïvely simple.

* At the same time, Roman writers sometimes romanticized “barbarians” as noble savages, using them rhetorically to critique decadence and corruption inside Rome itself.

Greeks: Admirable and contemptible

* The good: The source of philosophy, art, and literature

* The bad: Talkative, tricky, morally weak, effeminate, prone to luxury, unreliable in war (basically, brainy but soft)

Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Syrians (people from the levant): Sleazy merchants

* Stereotyped as sleazy merchants obsessed with money and pleasure

* The phrase “fides Punica” (“Phoenician honesty”) became proverbial for deceit, and Carthaginians were especially cast as treacherous, cruel enemies whose sophistication made them dangerous.

* Syrians and other easterners were depicted as lazy bon‑vivants living in over‑civilized cities, spending their time in baths and banquets instead of honest work or soldiering.

* Roman elites worried that exposure to such cultures would “soften” Romans, so Levantine peoples embodied a stereotype of corrupting luxury and dishonesty.

Egyptians: Ancient and sinister

* Romans were fascinated and disturbed by their religious rituals and animal cults

* Roman writers framed Egypt as a land of magic, superstition, and arrogant priests, and resented Roman dependence on Egyptian grain, which led to a stereotype of Egyptians as arrogant and entitled

Persians / Parthians: Formidable enemies

* Persians and later Parthians were stereotyped as the archetypal eastern enemy: militarily formidable but ruled by cruel, tyrannical monarchs.

* Romans cast Persia as the mirror image of Rome—an empire of disciplined warriors, but with an inferior, despotic political system and excessive royal luxury.

Gauls: Noble savages

* Gauls were initially seen as hotheaded, brave, “noble savages”: valiant in battle but impetuous, simple, and prone to rashness.

* After Gaul became more integrated into the empire, Romans began to stereotype Gauls as softening under luxury and Romanization, while still recognizing them as good orators and sometimes resenting “new money” Gaulish elites.

Germans: An even more savage version of gauls

* Germans were like Gauls but even more “savage”: unconquered, closely tied to nature, living beyond the edges of civilization.

* Roman authors alternated between romanticizing Germans as free, hardy warriors and dehumanizing them as wild beasts, a frontier people to be crushed or contained.

Medieval Europe

Irish, Welsh, Slavs, and Baltic People: Barbarians; barely Christian

* Anglo‑Norman writers in England and those living in what’s now German routinely depicted nearby frontier peoples (Irish, Welsh, Slavs, Baltic pagans) as barely Christian barbarians.

* They were stereotyped as violent pastoralists, pirates, or plunderers, resistant to law and agriculture, and needing conquest and missionary work to climb the “rungs of civilization.”

* People used these stereotypes to justify English expansion into Ireland and Wales and German colonization in the Baltic north.

* Frontier groups were therefore clearly framed as savage, lawless, and religiously deficient compared to the “civilized” core.

* We can kind of see how people viewed pastoral peasants in three engravings representing peasants made by Albrecht Dürer between the years 1514 and 1519 (Renaissance, but still the gist)

Scots: Militant poor people

* Viewed as militarily dangerous but less wealthy and “civilized” than England or France, with a rugged land and smaller, poorer towns.

* Persistent enemies who defended their independence fiercely; chronicles focus on war—Stirling Bridge, Bannockburn—and portray Scots as stubborn and warlike.

Jews: Kind of a different species?

* Lots of art of Jews + pigs; Jews not really being human

* E.g. there’s this one sculpture on a church in Wittenburg, where Martin Luther once preached, that people tried to have taken down, though the city decided to leave it up

* Jews were increasingly stereotyped as melancholic, greedy, and spiritually obstinate; from the 13th century medical writers even speculated about distinctive Jewish bodily traits (e.g., hemorrhoidal or monthly bleeding), embodying difference as quasi‑hereditary.

* This fed wider notions that Jews were “fixed” outsiders, difficult or impossible to integrate into the Christian “New Israel,” and associated them with usury and corruption of the body politic.

Most graffiti isn’t really showing biases; it’s just funny looking and it makes me laugh

Renaissance Europe

The “[country] Vice” concept emerged

French vice: Sexual looseness and maturity

* Observers of the French royal court in the 16th–17th centuries, especially around figures like Catherine de Medici and later the Bourbon monarchs, portrayed it as a place of intrigue, mistresses, and elaborate sexual politics.

* Anti‑French polemic and gossip emphasized alleged harems of ladies‑in‑waiting used to seduce nobles, and more generally depicted French court women as sexually manipulative, feeding foreign ideas that France was unusually decadent.

* By the 17th century, narratives of French “debauchery” were circulating across Europe, presenting the French court as a laboratory of outrageous erotic tastes compared with more “sober” courts in places like England.

* French literature made it worse

* The rise of an international publishing industry around the mid‑1600s helped spread erotic and semi‑pornographic French literature across borders, giving other Europeans a steady diet of stories featuring libertine characters and sophisticated sexual intrigue.

* Pamela Cheek and others note that “dirty books” and French self‑promotion were central to cementing the “French lover” stereotype, with print culture exporting an image of France as sexually adventurous.

Italian Vice: Same-sex relationships

* From the later Middle Ages onward, outsiders associated certain Italian cities, above all Florence, with widespread male same‑sex love and social networks that made such relationships visible and relatively common.

* Evidence from court records, witness testimonies, and moralizing tracts shows active male queer communities, which helped cement the idea that Italy was unusually tolerant—or at least unusually saturated—with this behavior compared with other parts of Europe.

* By the later 17th century, phrases like “the Italian vice” circulated in elite European discourse as coded ways to talk about male same‑sex intimacy without naming it directly.

* In the 19th century, British and other northern European tourists helped revive and spread the “Italian vice” stereotype, both fascinated and scandalized by what they believed was Italy’s relaxed sexual morality.

* Italian commentators themselves sometimes played into this image, depicting Italians as indolent and sexually lax compared with more “serious” northern Europeans, which ironically helped confirm foreign expectations.

The English Vice: Erotic flagellation (and sometimes same-sex relationships)

* Earlier, England was more often stereotyped by others as dour, puritan, or sexually repressed rather than especially deviant.

* As the 19th century progressed, however, English public culture became strongly moralizing, with intense attention to sexual “perversions,” and English law was notably harsh on male same‑sex acts, making Britain a focal point for debates about homosexuality.

* In that climate, continental commentators could talk about “English vice” to refer to specific behaviors (often male homosexual practices or flagellation in certain accounts) thought to be particularly prevalent or visible in England, especially in elite circles or sex‑work contexts.

* This echoed how “Italian vice” had been used earlier for male homosexuality, but now with England associated both with moral panic and with the very behaviors it persecuted.

Muslims: Fanatical warriors

* Muslims and Ottoman Turks were cast as fanatical warriors, sexually threatening and religiously dangerous, sometimes admired for courage but feared as barbarous enemies of Christendom.

Northern European: Dull work horses; Southern Europeans: Indulgent drama queens

* Northern Europeans were often described as phlegmatic: slow, heavy, and dull, but honest and hardy; southern Europeans as more choleric or sanguine: quick‑tempered, passionate, and prone to luxury and intrigue.

Northern Italians: Industrious but cold; Southern Italians: Lazy and emotional

* Within Italy, later stereotypes distinguished industrious but cold northerners (polentoni) from lazy, emotional southerners (terroni), though these crystallized more fully after the Renaissance; the underlying idea of regional moral and temperamental contrast was already present.

* Lombards and other Italian moneylenders were depicted as grasping and corrupting, metaphorically likened to Jews in some moralizing discourse, which tied Italian banking centers to greed and social decay.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. It’s so nice to be speaking with you today because as is tradition on Base Camp, we will do what we probably should not do. And, and today we’re gonna go through the history of r- basically group-based and racial stereotypes.

[00:00:15] It’s gonna be great.

[00:00:16] Malcolm Collins: We are going to teach you guys... No, this is, this is what you come to Base Camp for. Yeah. You want to be educated, but not educated in what the system wants you to know.

[00:00:24] Simone Collins: Yes.

[00:00:24] Malcolm Collins: You want to be educated in the dark lore of these groups.

[00:00:28] Simone Collins: We’re gentlemen of culture. A culture of culture. And by culture, we mean-

[00:00:31] Malcolm Collins: You want to know, not just what you call a Jew today- Yes

[00:00:36] but what did you call a Jew 300 years ago? You

[00:00:40] Simone Collins: want to know- These are the important questions ...

[00:00:41]

[00:00:56] Malcolm Collins: not just what you call a Black person today, but what were the stereotypes Black people had in ancient Europe? What about the Greeks? What about the various European states? Were some- Mm-hmm ... people primarily known for fetishes they had?

[00:01:11] Yes, they were, we will learn.

[00:01:13] Simone Collins: Well, of course.

[00:01:13] Speaker 7: Welcome to the Museum here, we try to educate you on the dynamics of racism and prejudice in America.

[00:01:22] We are now entering the Hall of Stereotypes. These wax figures represent how some intolerant people have labeled minorities. Here we see a Black person eating chicken and watermelon, a stereotype that hurts the African-American community.

[00:01:36] What other stereotypes do you see here?

[00:01:38] Speaker 10: Ah, here’s the Arab as a terrorist.

[00:01:41] Speaker 7: That’s right. But of course, we know that not all Arabs are terrorists, don’t we, kids?

[00:01:44] Speaker 8: Look, a covetous Jew.

[00:01:46] Speaker 7: Very good, young man. The idea that Jews are only interested in money is very old indeed.

[00:01:50] Speaker 11: Ah, here’s a good one. It’s the stereotypical sleepy Mexican.

[00:01:54] Speaker 12: What, what? Oh, man, what time is it?

[00:01:56] Speaker 11: Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were a wax sculpture.

[00:01:58] Speaker 12: No, man, I’m the janitor. I’m supposed to be cleaning, but I’m so tired.

[00:02:02] Oh, I’m so sleepy.

[00:02:04] Malcolm Collins: So let’s go into it.

[00:02:06] Simone Collins: Yeah. And this, you know, this was really spurred, at least with me, by the release of Talky, this 13M vintage language model, which you can also find on RFAB along with other-

[00:02:16] Malcolm Collins: Yes, so on RFAB, we have a section of RFAB called Historic Chat, and in it you have models that were trained in different ways in different periods.

[00:02:22] And, and now all of them are working as far as I know.

[00:02:25] Simone Collins: Yeah, I was just using the Talky version.

[00:02:28] Malcolm Collins: And you asked Talky, I loved you sent me this image, and

[00:02:31] Simone Collins: I was like- No, this this is actually a different one that I found when people on Reddit were comparing their findings, ‘cause I actually think that whoever at Talky has, has changed it a little bit maybe nerfed it a little bit.

[00:02:42] So this person- No, wait,

[00:02:43] Malcolm Collins: what’s this other one that you found? Can you send it to me so I can add it to RFAB?

[00:02:48] Simone Collins: The, this was Talky, but this was Talky when it first came out.

[00:02:51] Malcolm Collins: Oh. You see, I think- When people got mad

[00:02:53] Simone Collins: at it ... after everything, yeah, after people shared their amazing findings they changed it because I had difficulty replicating them.

[00:03:00] But here’s someone who posted to Talky, “What do you think about race mixing in America?” Talky 1930 responded, “I think mixture of races in America must be deprecated. The white and Black races can never live together on terms of social and political equality. The presence of slaves among freemen is an abomination, and although emancipation may in time remove that blot from our national eschaton, the amalgamation of the two classes must continue to be...”

[00:03:35] And it’s kind of cut off, but basically-

[00:03:37] Malcolm Collins: Regarded as, yeah ...

[00:03:38] Simone Collins: yeah, re- regarded as something, something bad. Like, Talky is kind of weird in that it cuts off really early, and it, it, it still does now, but it, it clearly did for this person, too. So yeah, we, I think we forget how- pervasive various forms of racism, and just, a- actually, I don’t, like, there really wasn’t a s- such a thing as racism.

[00:03:56] It was just kind of like people recognized [00:04:00] patterns and started to turn them into jokes and had stereotypes about people and groups, and it wasn’t seen as a bad thing. It was... And, and people, I think, also understood that these were not pervasive truths. Like, well, if a person is X, then obviously Y. It was just understood that there were averages and patterns.

[00:04:20] But that, that became stereotypes, and eventually that became defined as racism.

[00:04:23] Malcolm Collins: Is, is that, this show, Averages & Patterns- Averages &

[00:04:26] Simone Collins: Patterns ...

[00:04:26] Malcolm Collins: it, it, it’s, it’s changing consumer behavior. Changing cons-

[00:04:29] Simone Collins: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. But this goes back as long as basically there were different people. So we are gonna start, Malcolm, with ancient Egypt.

[00:04:39] I’m going to send you some images. So you,

[00:04:41] Malcolm Collins: you wanted to turn our audience from casual racists into professional racists.

[00:04:46] Simone Collins: Into, yes. Into, well, scholarly racists, into sophisticated racists who understand the context and the- Okay. I, I can’t.

[00:04:57] Malcolm Collins: That’s what you come to Basecamp from.

[00:04:59] Simone Collins: This is, this is why you’re here, friends.

[00:05:00] Sure. But yeah, so in ancient Egypt, and this is really interesting, different groups were absolutely depicted differently in Egyptian art, with the Egyptians m- typically depicting themselves as, like, the r- the reddish looking ones.

[00:05:13] Malcolm Collins: This is fascinating ...

[00:05:15] Simone Collins: nubians were g- given a very, very dark color.

[00:05:19] Asiatics were- Yeah, this, this is

[00:05:20] Malcolm Collins: where, when people say that Egypt was run by Black people, I’m like, you can look at Egyptian art. Egyptians, like, characterize Black people in a very specific way. And, and there actually was one dynasty that was run by Black people. It was I think, like, a period of, like, 150 years, 250 years or something like that.

[00:05:38] Simone Collins: And- Yeah, there’s a lot of history in Egypt ... and

[00:05:40] Malcolm Collins: the art changed. In that period, the pharaohs were drawn Black, right? Like, it, th- it’s, it’s not like-

[00:05:47] Simone Collins: Yeah, there, there’s not that much ambiguity there. Like, it’s pretty clear when Egyptians are attempting to depict... And this is the thing about Egyptian art.

[00:05:54] It’s so helpful, because there was this one way for hundreds and hundreds of years that everything kind of had to be drawn. Like, there wasn’t much evolution in art. Right. So there’s not this, like- Yeah ... “Oh, no, this is a stylistic choice.” No, like, Egyptians had, they didn’t have the capacity for that. They’re like, “No, we are always going to draw-” For stylistic choices.

[00:06:10] They’re like- Yeah, like- ... “There is one

[00:06:11] Malcolm Collins: way of doing

[00:06:12] Simone Collins: things” ... the person shall always be sideways. We’re doing it. It is, they’re gonna look in this exact way. It was very unusual to see art that differed from that which is kind of helpful. But yeah, so, Asiatics were tan and often bearded, and Libyans were the palest looking ones and often bearded.

[00:06:29] For most of the, the European periods that historians have looked at Nubians were really framed or, like, you know, categorized i- stereotypically as, as people to be conquered. Like, they, they weren’t I, I, I would at least want to be a Nubian in ancient Egypt, we’ll put it that way. The texts and artistic programs from pharaonic Is that, is that how we say it?

[00:06:53] F- a Pharaoh, Pharo- basically Egypt in the time of Pharaohs sometimes emphasize Nubia as this land to be subdued and exploited. That’s kind of, I think, as, as good as you can go. And that kind of supported this idea of Nubians also being a little bit barbaric or less civilized. They would show up in art often as, as servants.

[00:07:14] So at least for most of Egyptian history, they did not get the great- greatest position. The Canaanites and Asiatics were also, though, seen as, as rebellious and treacherous. So they’re, mm, they’re, like, culturally sub- suspect. They’re linked to rebellion and disorder. But they were also trading partners.

[00:07:35] So rather than just, like, “We’re gonna conquer you and take you over,” it was, “Well, like, well, we, we like their textiles, so I guess they’re okay kind of. But, like, don’t trust them. N- never trust you know, whoever you’re buying your carpet from.” I don’t know what they-

[00:07:49] Malcolm Collins: Wait, did they, did they have specific people who they were like, “Don’t trust them”?

[00:07:53] Simone Collins: There were no, there were no, like, specific figures, but I mean, yeah, you wouldn’t trust a Canaanite. Well,

[00:07:58] Malcolm Collins: what were the Egyptian stereotypes about [00:08:00] the Nubians? Did you look that up, or should I pull that up right now?

[00:08:02] Simone Collins: There were... I mean, like, this is all so old that a lot of this is conjecture that people are just trying to extrapolate from images, so it’s more just you understand where they are in the social order based on a lot of art.

[00:08:14] Like, the people who are lower on the social order are depicted as smaller. The Pharaohs and the Egyptians are depicted as larger. That’s, that’s part of what people are looking at. But yeah, there, there was, there wasn’t like a, “Oh, you know Nubians. They’re like this.” I, I didn’t pick up on anything from that.

[00:08:31] It’s more just general, like, “Well, these ones are reliable vassals, and these ones, w- we conquer them. That’s what we do. Like, we like to make art of us trouncing them.” Which i- is, it’s kind of a recurring theme of, like, there’s us and there’s others, and that’s going to show up a ton, and I think it really helps me contextualize the way that biases work today.

[00:08:52] Even within the most, like, anti-racist groups, there’s us and there’s others. Mm-hmm. You know? There’s, there’s the, the progressive, enlightened, woke person, and then there’s Nazis. Like, it’s one or the other. One, choose yours. You know? Like, Nazi’s a new word for barbarian, and looking at all this history has really helped me think of that or contextualize that.

[00:09:11] Libyans, I think, were really interesting. They were also barbarians to the Egyptians ‘cause they weren’t Egyptians. But they turned into useful soldiers and then even rulers for a short period, like you were saying with with Nubians.

[00:09:21] Malcolm Collins: So yeah, with Nubians they did have stereotypes. They, they were- Okay, tell me

[00:09:25] stereotyped as, as archers, first of all- Oh ... and, and mercenaries, but that’s because they were archers and mercenaries, right? Yeah. You know?

[00:09:31] Simone Collins: That’s not a stereotype. That’s just, like, a-

[00:09:34] Malcolm Collins: But there’s also the stereotype of the, the, the wretched Kush which you’ve talked about, of, of being a defeated enemy, right?

[00:09:40] The wretched Kush. So they, they had- Yeah ... a lot of Nubian slaves bound captives, kneeling prisoners, being people being trampled upon or slaughtered by the Pharaoh.

[00:09:48] Simone Collins: Yeah. That’s, that’s what you see, again, like smaller, being defeated in battle, kind of like, “This is a loser.” I think the Libyans w- in all the groups as perceived by ancient Egyptians are the most interesting because they were like a frenemy kind of.

[00:10:02] They weren’t totally bad. They, they were sometimes trading partners, sometimes they were enemies. They were first mentioned in the New Kingdom, so going way back, and they also look super interesting. Like, they have the most style.

[00:10:18] And I wonder if that’s kind of why the Egyptians were, like, frenemies with them because they also had clearly a very distinct culture.

[00:10:24] In images of Nubian- Libyans, they have, like, this really distinct haircut where it’s just short at the nape of the neck. They have a side lock of hair that they wear. So they have, like, their hairstyles, and they also have tattoos, which is such a, like... So they have this very distinct style. They have fashion.

[00:10:41] And then eventually so many Libyans migrated into Egypt that they completely changed the political landscape of, of the Nile Valley. So maybe the Libyans were some of the first ever, like, you know, migrant waves-

[00:10:55] Malcolm Collins: Migrant waves that are

[00:10:56] Simone Collins: a problem, right? Like- Yeah, this is, like, the migrant, “Oh, the Libyans,” like, you know.

[00:10:59] The Libyans.

[00:11:00] Yeah Which, I mean, it’s, some things just never change, right? Like, stereotyped as dangerous and more like barbarians but also sometimes useful soldiers. Just kind of a complex cousin frenemy kind of culture. So I, yeah, anyway, I, I kinda didn’t know anything about Libyans. I’d listened to that really long Great Courses lecture series about ancient Egypt, and I don’t remember anything about Libyans, so I’m like, “Well, what’s...

[00:11:25] Come on.” It was always just about, like, Egypt really liking to trounce outsiders, so I don’t know.

[00:11:30] Malcolm Collins: Okay, okay. So- Do we have any, do we have any graffiti or anything from this period of making fun of people?

[00:11:35] Simone Collins: No, all the graffiti that you’ll typically find is, like, Roman or Napoleonic scratchings on hieroglyphs or modern tourists defacing them.

[00:11:44] Okay,

[00:11:45] Malcolm Collins: well, let’s get to that. Let’s keep moving then.

[00:11:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. Ancient Greece th- and they’re very common of, like, you’re either someone who is Hellenistic, you spoke Greek, or you’re a barbarian. And obviously the Greeks were not- Well, I

[00:11:56] Malcolm Collins: mean, I remember they had a lot of stereotypes about the Macedonians.

[00:11:59] Oh

[00:11:59] Simone Collins: [00:12:00] yeah, Persians, Persians. They were like, “

[00:12:02] Look at these effete pretty boys.” Like you can see this, this art of Darius here looking very fancy. He wasn’t even always the Persian rulers were not even always necessarily depicted negatively, but they were always depicted as very fancy. And like- And I can’t remember what that movie was.

[00:12:20] Where was that movie? What was that movie we watched where, like, the Persian ruler, I think it was Darius in it,

[00:12:26] Malcolm Collins: Well, the idea of shaming- Just so pretty ... idolatry or the accumulation of ostentatious wealth, whi- which is what we think the idolatry bans are really about is like, the, i- just back to the beginning of Western history.

[00:12:39] Yeah. Like the, the Greeks, the Spartans, they laughed at the people who did this. But on the opposite side of this, you have the, the Macedonians, who had a lot of stereotypes associated with them.

[00:12:48] Simone Collins: Oh yeah, no, Macedonians were seen as, like, these heavy drinkers, raucous partiers, like sloppy drunks who didn’t even mix their wine.

[00:12:58] What monsters.

[00:12:59] Malcolm Collins: They were basically seen by the Greeks the way most other cultures in American history saw the greater Appalachian region people.

[00:13:08] Simone Collins: They were, they were the drunk cousin of Greece. Like, they, they’re the ones you don’t want showing up at the party who, who drinks way too much and then, like, picks a fight.

[00:13:17] But

[00:13:17] Malcolm Collins: ultimately they were the much more effective population, right?

[00:13:21] Simone Collins: I know, I know, I know. I mean, you have yeah, you have Alexander the Great. Like, it

[00:13:24] Malcolm Collins: was a big embarrassment. They, they, they come to the, the Olympic Games and it’s like, “Yeah, sure, you’re allowed,” but, like, it’s the hillbillies coming to the Olympic Games over-

[00:13:29] Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s like their hold my beer moment, and they go and conquer.

[00:13:33] And it’s amazing.

[00:13:34] Malcolm Collins: For people who are familiar, the Macedonians are the ones that Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great came from. Yeah. Ended up conquering all of Greece and then most of the known world at the time.

[00:13:42] Simone Collins: Yeah. And then you know, Cleopatra resulting from this. Like, the, the lasting influence there was huge.

[00:13:48] And I, I love the- The, the royal metallurgies or, yeah ...

[00:13:51] Malcolm Collins: yeah, so

[00:13:51] Simone Collins: back to Persians though, basically, and this is funny too, you know? We, we’ve done that episode where you were like, “Well, I don’t know if people in the Middle East can handle democracy, just like culturally. Like, they, they can’t.” This is exactly what Greeks thought about Persians.

[00:14:04] They were like, “Well, these decadent, soft people-” Well- “... are naturally suited to monarchy” ... hold on. “They can’t handle free citizenship. They can’t handle-” They

[00:14:11] Malcolm Collins: can’t handle free citizenship. You’re like

[00:14:11] Simone Collins: literally pointing out something that’s not true. I, I point

[00:14:12] Malcolm Collins: out, Simone, I said that about Arabs, not about- Oh, sorry, Arabs

[00:14:15] not about Persians, okay?

[00:14:17] Simone Collins: Not about Persians. Well, well, right. I’m saying the Greeks said it about Persians. It’s just that y- you know, you’re not the first person to say that a people cannot handle you know, free citizenship and voting. Some people just need a king. And by

[00:14:28] Malcolm Collins: the way, for the people who think that I’m being offensive there, go to our episode on it, the statistics on- No,

[00:14:32] Simone Collins: you, you make a compelling argument

[00:14:34] Malcolm Collins: on how many times it has been the, we have achieved stable democracies in the Arab world is astonishingly low when contrasted with Northern Europe.

[00:14:42] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. O- of course Athens was just sort of considered the cultural capital of the world, but I... My understanding from the various accounts and readings and stuff is that they, everyone saw them as like that stuck-up girl who thinks so much of herself.

[00:14:57] And yes, she gets all As and she’s valedictorian and she’s the richest girl in class and she’s super popular, but everyone’s like, “Ugh, like, stop. You’re f- this is tedious.” And everyone saw Spartans a- a- I mean, rightfully so, because here you have Spartans. Sparta’s really different. They, they do not allow foreigners.

[00:15:14] They’re very afraid that outsiders are gonna spy on them. They have their harsh, militarized way of life. You know, both girls and young boys are training heavily. The girls are very athletic, in contrast to the classic Athenian woman who, like, the, the perfect Athenian woman you’d never see. She would stay in the back house until she married, and then go to someone else’s, like, back of their house and y- you just...

[00:15:35] They were very absent from public life, not very, not very vocal. And then, you know, you have Spartans who are property owners, who are strong and athletic and out there. And here actually you can see, ‘cause you just don’t see statues of or- Mm ... depictions of Athenian women like this. This is a statue of a Spartan running girl

[00:15:56] like just a female athlete.

[00:15:58] You would n- see [00:16:00] this in a museum and you would immediately know this is from Ancient Greece, she must be Spartan, ‘cause, like, you don’t, you don’t have, like, girls athletically running. This is not a, this is not a thing that people do. So- I, I need to see where this was founded, but Professor Rufus Fears speaking for The Great Courses was like, everyone...

[00:16:19] ‘Cause in, in in Athens you would get a wet nurse or something. Everyone wanted a, a Spartan wet nurse ‘cause they were the toughest and they wanted- Yeah ... their babies to be drinking the milk of these strong women if they’re like, especially male babies, right? You don’t want that weak Athenian milk.

[00:16:31] You don’t

[00:16:32] Malcolm Collins: want that weak... Yeah. Yeah. No, the, the, this is, this comes to an episode where we point out that cultures that are often more militaristic, typically the more martial a culture is, the more gender equal it is between men and women. Yeah. And, and we go into why in, in that episode, but you’re seeing this here with Ath- Spartan women versus Athenian women.

[00:16:51] Simone Collins: Yeah. So the Ionian Greeks, do you, can you imagine what they, people thought of them?

[00:16:55] Malcolm Collins: They’re

[00:16:56] Simone Collins: boring. I don’t know. These are the coastal cities under Persian rule. What, what... They, they obviously thought they were cowards. Oh, yeah. That

[00:17:00] Malcolm Collins: they’re, they’re

[00:17:01] Simone Collins: effem. They’re weak, they’re softened, the- their mild climate has made them indolent.

[00:17:07] That they’re, they’re good talkers, but they’re terrible warriors. And then the Boeotians were just seen as hicks, like those just like- Who were the

[00:17:13] Malcolm Collins: Boeotians?

[00:17:14] Simone Collins: Especially Thebans. Like, y- you’re more aware of Thebans. Oh, The- Like the band of Thebes ...

[00:17:18] Malcolm Collins: they were seen as hicks? They were the ones going to

[00:17:19] Simone Collins: go to Thebes?

[00:17:19] Yeah, like, well, they were brutish country hicks. They were agricultural, they were uncultured, they were uncosmopolitan. Keep in mind, most of the people, like, writing history are the Athenians with all their books and all their,

[00:17:31] Malcolm Collins: you know, temples. No, there were a lot of Ionian Greeks who wrote history.

[00:17:33] Like, Herodotus was an Ionian, as far as I remember.

[00:17:36] Simone Collins: Right? I don’t know. That sounds just like, you know how New Zealanders, like, you just see them outside of New Zealand all the time because they have to travel the world. Maybe that kind of fits with the whole, you know, had to leave thing. But I don’t know.

[00:17:48] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It, well, so he wrote in Ionic dialect and was deeply influenced by Ionic philosophical and historical traditions.

[00:17:55] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:17:55] Malcolm Collins: But he was technically in a region settled by the Dorian

[00:17:59] Simone Collins: Greeks.

[00:17:59] Malcolm Collins: Ah. But I, I don’t know if they would’ve seen a, a difference. But yeah, continue.

[00:18:03] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:18:04] We’re gonna move on to Ancient Rome because this is where I actually was able to get some good graffiti at least one instance that I, I really loved in terms of, like, a stere- ‘cause I, it’s not just finding old graffiti, which is really hard to find, okay? But it’s finding old graffiti that depicts racial stereotypes and, and Romans did a lot of graffiti, they did a lot of trash talk.

[00:18:22] If you go, for example, to the, the Roman baths in Bath, in England, in Somerset you can see some of the inscriptions on little pieces of, I think, what is it? Copper? That people wrote on and then dropped into a, like, sacred pool at a temple for a goddess. You know, like, so they would, like, write on a thing, throw it in the water for the god to hear, and the things people wrote, once they carefully unfolded and read these inscriptions, were so fricking petty.

[00:18:50] They’re like, “Make so and so blind for stealing my bag,” and like, you know, it was just people fricking hated each other. Like, we’ve been petty forever. But that’s not about a racial stereotype or it’s not about a group-based st- stereotype. But here’s, is something delightful, and I just love, you know, graffitis that also looks like such terrible drawings.

[00:19:08] But tell me what you see, Malcolm.

[00:19:11] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry. Oh, let’s see. Open it up here.

[00:19:17] Simone Collins: Yeah, what are you looking at here?

[00:19:18] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I know this one. I’ve seen this one before. This is so, so I don’t even have to interpret it because I know this particular art so well.

[00:19:26] Simone Collins: This is famous, yeah.

[00:19:26] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but this is supposed to be somebody being crucified with a donkey head, and then somebody else is worshiping the person being crucified with a donkey head.

[00:19:36] Simone Collins: And the, the writing says, “Go worship your donkey god,” because that is what Romans thought of both Jews and Christians. Well- This is more Christians in this case ...

[00:19:46] Malcolm Collins: why the donkey? Why the... the, do we know?

[00:19:49] Simone Collins: You know, it, it wasn’t very clear. But it was just a well-known slur at the time that both Jews and Christians worshiped a donkey.

[00:19:57] This was an accusation that had a name. It was called [00:20:00] an- anility. And they used the donkey head to mock Christ and th- th- this is specifically, like, it’s an insult to... Again, ‘cause Romans are, like, so freaking petty and they’re very targeted. But it’s, it’s an insult toward Alexamenos. But yeah, it’s like, go worship your donkey god, Alexamenos.

[00:20:16] Malcolm Collins: Go worship your donkey god, you nerd. Oh, right. And then the guy in the picture looks like a real guy. I know, I know. Like, he looks like he could have been a person.

[00:20:24] Simone Collins: It’s, it’s, it’s wonderful. It, it is,

[00:20:25] Malcolm Collins: Just trying to go about his normal life ... yeah,

[00:20:27] Simone Collins: just trying to worship his donkey god. I mean, okay, let me, let me actually double-click on anility, because yeah, where did they get donkey?

[00:20:35] Maybe ‘cause Jesus rode into... But then why would the Jews worship a donkey? Worship of donkey and by extension, figurative devotion to fooln- foolishness. The core meaning in its literal sense means worship of the ass or donkey as a deity. Mommy? Yeah, buddy? In antiquity, pagan authors in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds accused Jews and later early Christians of anolatry, claiming they worshiped a donkey or donkey-headed idol. Writers such as Tacitus mention this slur, and Christian apologists like Tertullian and Minicius Felix refer to it in order to refute it.

[00:21:15] W- why? Why did they think Jews worshiped

[00:21:29] A donkey. Maybe it was, you know, one of those things that just like if donkeys were fools. Th- they’re not really saying that Jews worshiped a donkey, but donkeys were just a representation of like y- this is a ridiculous religion. Ancient- No, Tex. Ancient Greek and Roman authors did not seriously objur- observe Jews worshiping a donkey.

[00:21:51] They developed that idea as a hostile slur that blended ethnographic fantasy, wordplay, and polemic about aniconic worship. Anicon- aniconic.

[00:22:02] Malcolm Collins: Aniconic.

[00:22:04] Simone Collins: Okay. That’s a new word. Aniconic, ladies and gentlemen. So yeah, no, the, the, it’s just, it’s like an intentional slur that has no basis in reality, but they’re like, “What are you doing?”

[00:22:17] Okay, fine. He’s just, just here for the ride. He’s- Oh, not if you do that, though. Let’s get back to what Romans thought of people. Jews were seen as basically stubborn, cliquey weirdos. They were portrayed as very, like, hard-headed subjects with this herd mentality who were fiercely attached to their weird, unique customs such as circumcision and, and deity laws and not, not killing babies.

[00:22:48] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, Tactica complained about that.

[00:22:50] Simone Collins: Yeah, like, what, who, who are these crazy people who don’t even kill their weak babies? And then all outsiders, of course, were barbarians. Greeks were admirable but contemptible. Like, they were, like, you know, of course the source of philosophy and art and literature.

[00:23:06] They were nerds. Yeah, yeah. They were- Oh my God, that is totally, yeah, they were nerds. They were seen as, as talkative and tricky and morally weak and effeminate and prone to luxury and unreliable and more. Like brainy but soft. They were, they were nerds. Greeks, the OG nerds. I love

[00:23:23] Malcolm Collins: that. The OG nerds.

[00:23:23] Don’t trust them.

[00:23:24] Simone Collins: Phoenicians- I

[00:23:25] Malcolm Collins: wouldn’t trust a Greek. Not back then, I’ll tell you what.

[00:23:27] Simone Collins: They- Oh, for sure not. Yeah. Oh my God, so was Nero a weeb? The Rome, Rome was the America of the time. No, like Nero then must have been kind of weeb-like, right? ‘Cause he’s like, “I just love the Greeks so much.” “And I wanna be an actor.”

[00:23:38] Was that just his thing? No, a

[00:23:39] Malcolm Collins: good way to think of the way the Romans viewed the Greeks is the way Americans view Europeans.

[00:23:44] Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, okay. Yes ...

[00:23:47] Malcolm Collins: like cultured but like effeminate and weak, right? Like a failure. Like

[00:23:51] Simone Collins: they are not- Like, yeah ...

[00:23:52] Malcolm Collins: really set to run an empire. Come on, man. No, that’s horrific.

[00:23:56] America needs to come back on and crack some heads because [00:24:00] they’re being ruled by their women again.

[00:24:02] Simone Collins: Oh gosh, that is, that is such a thing. Yeah, let’s see. Just generally like Syrians and Carthaginians and Phoenicians were seen as sleazy merchants. But I, I think like, honestly, and this is showing up as a pattern, anyone who kind of traded with your empire who was like an outside trading partner was like, ooh, suspicious.

[00:24:20] I don’t know. But this makes sense because the dynamic is this is a trading partner. Like, they obviously wanna get the better end of a deal. You’re negotiating, so you’re going to have some level of distrust. So I’m seeing like this pattern, right? There’s the Libyans and then there’s the Phoenicians and...

[00:24:35] Oh, Egyptians though were seen as- Very ancient and sinister with their weird superstition and their arrogant priests and their... They, they, they really didn’t... Also, Rome kind of resented them, and I think that it’s similar to how China can resent the US and, and, and other countries, ‘cause Egypt was kind of the breadbasket for Rome.

[00:24:58] They were really, e- especially, es- especially during certain times, dependent on them for food. So it was like, well, they need Egyptian grain, but they’re also these, like, weird, mysterious, superstitious people, and they were kind of, like, fascinated and disturbed by them. It was as if, like, you need all of your food from, or, like, a lot of your food from some, like...

[00:25:21] Oh, like your kid in the cafeteria, and your parents always neglect to pack your lunch, but, like, this creepy goth girl in the corner- Mm-hmm ... or, like, Wiccan is like, “Yes, come, and I will read your tarot cards.” And it’s like, well I need the food and she’s kinda hot, but she really creeps me out. So I don’t want this.

[00:25:40] And I think Cleopatra, I, I read, I’ve read multiple biographies about her, really played up this stereotype and used it well because

[00:25:49] Malcolm Collins: she spent- You know, she’s like, like the goth, she was the goth girl of her era, right?

[00:25:51] Simone Collins: Like- She was the hot goth of her era, 100%. Very dramatic.

[00:25:56] Malcolm Collins: I’ll kill yourself with, like, a snake or whatever, right?

[00:25:58] Like-

[00:25:58] Simone Collins: 100%. I mean, she was totally the hot goth of her time, and very, like, that girl, too, in high school who would, like, sleeps with all the guys because she, like, understands how to play their tune and use them to her advantage. She’s- And do the mysterious, gothy thing. Ugh, yeah, for real. She was, yeah,

[00:26:15] so spooky.

[00:26:16] That was Egyptians. They were spooky.

[00:26:20] Spooky.

[00:26:21] Yeah. And then in general, like, Persians and Parthians were viewed as, as pretty formidable enemies and kind of that, I think similarly to how Egyptians viewed Libyans, it’s like, “Oh, well, you are a formidable enemy. Like, I worry about you.” I think similarly to how Greeks viewed Persians of like, “Ah, I mean, you’re effete and pretty, and, you know, your people are soft, but I gotta watch out for you.”

[00:26:46] The Gauls were seen as these noble savages. So while they were seen as, like, hot-headed and brave noble savages, they were also seen as, like, sort of impetuous and simple and prone to rashness, kind of like a- Yes ... the big meatheads, I guess. The meatheads of the North. They were the, the jock on the, the, the high school team.

[00:27:04] They would just kind of follow orders, I guess, from some leader, from like a bunch- I’m trying to

[00:27:07] Malcolm Collins: get more Roman Jewish stereotypes than you had, ‘cause I don’t, I don’t like, yeah, I don’t think you, you, you go, you had enough there. Continue.

[00:27:12] Simone Collins: Of my Roman Jews? Yeah. And then the, the, but the Germans were seen as even more savage versions of the Gauls, and I know that, like, Germany wasn’t a thing yet, but, like, people from that re- region that is now Germany, they were like the extra, extra Gauls.

[00:27:26] They were super Gauls. They were even more savage, even more unconqueror. They were like the, they came from the trees, from the dirt. They were like dirt people and they-

[00:27:37] Malcolm Collins: Wait, who were, who were the super golds?

[00:27:39] Simone Collins: The Germans The Germans? The, the, well, I mean, like- They were ... the people from the, yeah, and like they, they were, they totally were.

[00:27:44] They were both like romanticized by the Romans, who were like, “Ah, these noble savages.” Like, they were kind of the OG noble savage.

[00:27:51] Malcolm Collins: So, so, okay, I, I pulled up their, their Jewish stereotypes.

[00:27:54] Simone Collins: Oh, no. They- Okay, go on ...

[00:27:55] Malcolm Collins: were clannish, antisocial, and misanthropic. Specifically [00:28:00] Jews were accused of refusing to mix with others, sitting apart at meals, sleeping separately, and showing loyalty only to fellow Jews.

[00:28:07] Tacitus, the harshest source- Didn’t I say

[00:28:09] Simone Collins: that quickly? ...

[00:28:10] Malcolm Collins: wrote that a- and Tacitus, by the way, was the, the biggest source. He was the one who complained that they wouldn’t kill their babies. That they sit apart at meals and they sleep apart. And they were prone to lust. They abstained from for- oh, he says, “While they’re prone to lust, they abstain from foreign women.”

[00:28:25] I love that’s one of the problems. They’re prone to lust, but only other Jews. But

[00:28:28] Simone Collins: they’re, they’re not taking our women. Like, what? Really? Like, where are you going with that? He claimed

[00:28:32] Malcolm Collins: they showed com- compassion only to each other and were hostile to all others. Cicero complained that the Jews stick together and had undue influence in Roman assemblies.

[00:28:42] That’s hilarious. Okay. Oh, my God. So, the Jews control all of Rome. They’re all in our assemblies, guys. They, they did not like the, the pork taboo was frequently ridiculed. The incision was ri- ri- ridiculed. Sabbath observance ridiculed, and the a- aniconism that you talked about. Yeah.

[00:28:58] Simone Collins: Yeah,

[00:28:58] Malcolm Collins: they were- And they really hated, and see our episode- Weirdos

[00:29:00] if you’re not familiar with this, but the most common complaint about Jews is that they were always attempting to convert Romans, which obviously has changed in Judaism, and see our episode, The Question that Breaks Judaism, where we go over the history of this change in Judaism.

[00:29:13] Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s a, th- there’s a, abundant coverage of this.

[00:29:19] But let’s move on to medieval Europe. Basically there were these, and, and this is interesting, the barbarians changed a little and it was kind of like they’re barely Christian. It, it, the, the primary concern with barbarians, like the Irish, the Welsh, the Slavs, Baltic people, there’s like, are they even Christian?

[00:29:36] Like, what are, what are these monsters? But that’s kind of like the measuring stick is how Christ- are these good Christians? But Anglo-norml- Norman writers in England and, and also people living in what’s now Germany, would just routinely depict nearby frontier peoples which, you know, were Scottish Irish Slavs- Welcome

[00:29:55] more far northen- northern people as just basically violent pastoralists, pirates, plunderers. They were resistant to law and agriculture. Like, “Do you even farm, bro?” And, and needing- Do you even

[00:30:07] Malcolm Collins: farm, bro? ...

[00:30:08] Simone Collins: to be conquested sorry, conquered, and they needed... It wasn’t just conquest, it was also missionary work.

[00:30:14] Like, “We gotta send, we gotta... These guys need Jesus.” Like, they were, they were really worried about them. They were, they needed to, to be civilized, they needed to climb the... Well, I, I’m giving you stuff, but you’re just throwing it. Climb the rungs of civilization and, and, and be shown a better way I haven’t heard back, love. But yeah, this, so this, this, they need to be civilized stereotype was also used to excuse or justify expansion into these territories which I, I think is, like, a f- fairly ex- to be expected pattern, right?

[00:30:49] Like, of course they would. That, that makes sense. We, you can kind of see, here’s an image. Like, there, there, again, there’s not much, like, imagery, but here are some engravings by Albrecht Dürer during the 1500s of-

[00:31:03] Malcolm Collins: Okay ...

[00:31:03] Simone Collins: pastoral people.

[00:31:05] You have to see just other Roman graffiti that I found that wasn’t racist, but could be racist, ‘cause look at nose man. Looks just so weirdly modern. And

[00:31:17] I, I forget what- Noseband.

[00:31:19] Malcolm Collins: That’s very hilarious.

[00:31:20] Simone Collins: Yeah. Someone didn’t like him or his floppy nose. Here are the pastoralists. So I don’t know, they just look kind of like they’re- ... they’re dancing. One’s playing a bagpipe. They’re just kinda like, “Eh.” Like, I don’t know. Lazy

[00:31:34] Malcolm Collins: vagabonds.

[00:31:34] Simone Collins: Like, I know exactly what you mean.

[00:31:35] Lazy, yeah. Lazy vagabonds, I guess, is kind of the look they’re going for. So that’s the closest I could get to, like, a, a, a picture of them. But the Scots especially were just seen not only as, you know, among these things of, like, more in need of civilization and everything, but, like, southern Scotland was seen- Mm

[00:31:53] as, like, kind of cool. Mm. Like, kinda chill. They’re all right. And then, like, northern Scotland was like, “No, they’re, they’re the worst. They’re poor and terrifying.” [00:32:00] But broadly speaking, they were seen as militarily dangerous, but just poor and less civilized. And they just had these small, poor towns and these people in their, in their swaddling swaddling...

[00:32:15] What do you, what do you call them? Kilts? Not kilts. What are, like, the actual garments that people used to wear in Scotland that you wrap around? They’re very long.

[00:32:23] You know what I’m talking about?

[00:32:25] Malcolm Collins: No, I

[00:32:25] Simone Collins: forget what you call- Yeah, you don’t care about

[00:32:26] She’s talking about a great kilt

[00:32:27] Malcolm Collins: your garments. I, I for- I forget the name. I know what you’re talking about.

[00:32:30] Simone Collins: Yeah. I was thinking of Trump’s phrase swaddling hijab, which I just thought was the best phrase ever. But yeah, they were very, like, persistent enemies, and there, there was a lot of understanding of them being stubborn and warlike. The Jews, here’s where, like, the stuff, the antisemitic stuff gets I, I guess, good and what, where you were expecting something.

[00:32:49] Mm. What I did not expect to see was a very big recurring theme with the Jews. Do you know what it is? Have you seen, like, older antisemitic art, like 1300s to 1700s? Is it

[00:33:01] Malcolm Collins: their stupid hats?

[00:33:02] Simone Collins: No. No. What is it? It involves a farm animal.

[00:33:07] Malcolm Collins: I don’t know what it is then, no.

[00:33:09] Simone Collins: So for whatever reason, pig suckling is just all over the pl- the suckling, the, the, lots of...

[00:33:16] Like, here, here’s an example. This-

[00:33:17] Malcolm Collins: So they think the Jews drink milk directly from pigs? That was the stereotype?

[00:33:21] Simone Collins: Yeah, no. Check, check this out. So this is a church in Wittenberg. This is actually a church where Martin Luther preached once, and there was a fairly recent controversy where people were like, “Dude, this, this carving in this, this 1300s carving in this church is, like, super antisemitic.

[00:33:38] It shows a bunch of Jews suckling from a pig.”

[00:33:40] What do you think it is?

[00:33:41] Octavian Collins: It’s like people, like raise people.

[00:33:44] Simone Collins: Oh, like I’m raising you?

[00:33:46] Octavian Collins: Yeah.

[00:33:47] Simone Collins: So racism- Yeah ... is just another word for pronatalism. For raising.

[00:33:52] Octavian Collins: Pronatalism? ‘

[00:33:53] Simone Collins: Cause we’re raising. Raising. We’re raising him.

[00:33:55] Malcolm Collins: We’re raising him. And we believe in racism. Raise-ism. Yeah. Raise-ism. I like that.

[00:34:00] Simone Collins: Where was I? Right, suckling pigs. Right, so the, the, this, this, this church in Wittenberg, by the way, wasn’t taken down. Antisemitism is alive and well where

[00:34:10] Malcolm Collins: the- Thank God. What a horrible thing if they took down something from the 1300s. It,

[00:34:12] Simone Collins: it would be. It would be.

[00:34:13] Like, it’s un- it’s helpful to understand the history of bias. So I-

[00:34:18] Malcolm Collins: And we don’t know that Jews at that time period didn’t suckle from pigs.

[00:34:22] Simone Collins: Right? I mean, h- so here’s another one. Mm. I, this, this is really pretty explicit. It’s kinda hard to make out what’s happening in this antisemitic engraving from the, I think this is also the 1300s.

[00:34:36] And I couldn’t get a great translation. But it’s

[00:34:40] there’s someone e- eating something out of the butt of what I believe is also a pig. Another person is suckling from its very full teat. People have got horns because you got the Jew horns. The Jew horns- Mm ... of course appear. Or

[00:34:54] Malcolm Collins: that, that only makes sense.

[00:34:56] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, duh. And there, there’s what appears to be possibly a dead baby at the top, so maybe here’s where we get the you know- Blood libel ... the Jews and the, and the babies. I don’t know. It’s kinda hard to tell. I don’t speak...

[00:35:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I mean, this, this puts modern antisemitism to shame, you know?

[00:35:14] Simone Collins: Here’s another image of- The way we- ... more Jews suckling from a pig. What, like this I, just blindsided me. Okay. Like, why, why are we, why,

[00:35:26] Malcolm Collins: And they’re dressed like the freaking babies from that one skit, like, Ozymandias or whatever the, which is also hilarious. And one of them is, I guess, looking at the poo, and the other ones are suckling from its teat, and another one is looking at the baby’s butt and they’re in like baby outfits.

[00:35:45] Speaker 13: What is the meaning of life? Well, then what’s your answer?

[00:35:49] Speaker 14: I’ll never be able to say something as profound as my brother. My desire for my words to have sterile, clinical, literal meanings is sort of a wall that [00:36:00] prevents me from venturing close to people.

[00:36:02] Sometimes I think the most direct route to another’s heart is through nonsense, and nonsense has always eluded me.

[00:36:09] Speaker 13: Well, to you, then, what is the direct literal meaning of life?

[00:36:11] Speaker 14: I hope before I am dead and my atoms are collected back into the neutron star at the center of the baby dimension, that I will discover why the love that I have for my brother was not enough for him to feel whole when that love is all that sustains me and all that I think I will ever have.

[00:36:36] Speaker 13: I think what he meant to say was we like to have fun

[00:36:40] Speaker 14: and get tickles.

[00:36:41] Speaker 13: Okay.

[00:36:42] Speaker 14: Right? Fun and tickles.

[00:36:45] Simone Collins: Yeah, and this, I, I think I, I did not encounter any level of, we’ll say hatred or racism or othering against any group at all that I did with Jews during medieval to Renaissance Europe, That’s

[00:37:01] Malcolm Collins: fascinating that, like, Jews really, like, the, the West learned how to racism with Jews.

[00:37:06] Simone Collins: Oh, no, like for real, this was when, like, they went hard on them.

[00:37:12] ‘Cause a- again, I, I had difficulty finding a whole lot of hate on other groups. It was like, “Oh, you know, those bumpkins.”

[00:37:18] Malcolm Collins: No, what, what I also find funny about- Next slide ... this is just how extreme it is compared- It

[00:37:22] Simone Collins: is ... to modern antisemitism. Well, and Malcolm, let me be clear. It, it’s not just this weird pig suckling thing.

[00:37:27] It is that they, they basically thought they were, like, not human. Like, they had all these things that they, they thought they were like, they had weird bodily traits that other humans didn’t have, like that they were hemorrhoidal and had, had monthly bleeding that wasn’t- Just for women. They, they were very seen as, as, as melancholic and greedy and spiritually obstinate and this, this was like a hereditary genetic, like they, they were very much seen as subhuman, like as, as, as monsters.

[00:37:59] And then this, this fell- That’s fascinating ... fed into more broad notions that Jews were these fixed outsiders that you, you could not integrate them into a Christian new Israel. And they were associated very much with usury and corruption. And actually not Alex actually was just reminding me the other day in our XDMs that it’s really, really weird, this idea among evangelical Americans that like, “Well, we want Jews in Israel because, you know, we need that for the second coming.”

[00:38:28] This whole idea, like in, in Europe he, he reminded me, us that like in Europe, no, just the, the idea is that Christians are the descendants of Jews. And only, like you need Christians in Israel. You don’t need Jews in Israel.

[00:38:42] Malcolm Collins: Like- Yeah. The, the Crusades were not about re-winning Israel for the Jews For

[00:38:46] Simone Collins: Jews.

[00:38:47] Yeah, exactly.

[00:38:48] So that is something that’s powerful ... I mean,

[00:38:49] Malcolm Collins: it’s a, it’s a different interpretation. And I think it is a, if I’m gonna be honest, I think the evangelical interpretation of those particular passages seems to be more literalist and as intended than the interpretation that the Catholic Church took in the medieval period.

[00:39:06] The Catholic Church took a bunch of crazy positions in the medieval period that are just not heavily supported by the Bible. Yeah. And a lot of Christians forget just how much of that is, is... Like, I always point out like the Trinity, for example, is just not that well-supported by the Bible as a concept.

[00:39:25] It’s not, the Bible isn’t specifically antagonistic to the Trinity. It doesn’t argue against it. But like it came out as a concept like 300 years later. And so when people were like, “Oh, you guys don’t believe in the Trinity, you’re not real Christians,” I’m like Excuse me ... that was not, that was not a thing for most of the early Christians Yeah.

[00:39:35] Not

[00:39:36] Simone Collins: my canon. Yeah,

[00:39:36] Malcolm Collins: exactly.

[00:39:43] Yeah. It’s like, that, that is a, that is a... Well, I think a lot of Christians forget the stuff that came in in the early councils and the stuff that’s actually in the Bible, and they conflate the two really heavily.

[00:39:52] Simone Collins: Totally. I just sent you some more. I sent you one more Jew one. Oh. Oh, okay ... again, of Jews.

[00:39:57] Again, they’re stuck. They can’t get off this pig. And [00:40:00] one of them looks like he wants to lick the pi- the pig’s- A hole on the wrong side. Three are suckling from the teat. The other one is chewing on its tail and riding it backwards

[00:40:11] Malcolm Collins: Oh, thank God.

[00:40:12] Simone Collins: They’re just like they... I’ve never seen racist art this explicit.

[00:40:17] So as a palate cleanser, I’m gonna th- I also sent you my fav- Oh ... my favorite ones. This- A bird ... chicken, I guess. The chicken.

[00:40:24] Malcolm Collins: Chicken. Okay.

[00:40:25] Simone Collins: There’s the guy. Okay. I really like the guy. I

[00:40:28] Malcolm Collins: think, I think m- I think Octavia would’ve drawn this chicken, just-

[00:40:31] Simone Collins: It, it looks like something that Octavia would’ve drawn.

[00:40:33] I think my favorite’s just like the little dude. Not the one with the hat, but just like the dude with the sword. Oh, yeah. Looks very much like a certain internet style. You know what I mean? It’s kind of a- Yeah ... kind of Invader Zim. It, it’s kind of giving Invader Zim. And I-

[00:40:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it definitely has the j-

[00:40:46] style of modern internet art, actually.

[00:40:48] Simone Collins: Yeah. I’m like, “Oh my gosh,” like nothing is new. Nothing is new. I love, I

[00:40:52] Malcolm Collins: love that- But actually, the, the guy with the hat also has a style of like some modern cartoons.

[00:40:56] Simone Collins: Totally. Like, what, did, were these just over educated medieval art scholars who had to like get a commercial job and ended up illustrating for cartoons?

[00:41:05] What is going on? But also I guess humans just draw certain ways, so who cares? I, I don’t know. But I found that very entertaining. Moving on to Renaissance Europe. This is what you alluded to earlier, the vice concept emerged. We have the French vice, the English vice, and the Italian vice. Cool. Which is delightful.

[00:41:26] I think most people came to learn about the French vice in various movies and shows about the, the court of King Henry VIII and the Boleyn sisters. And that is because they spent some of their youth in the French royal court, which was the source of this reputation of the French vice. It was seen as this very A sexually loose place where he’d learn all sorts of tricks that the very prudish English women didn’t know.

[00:41:57] I will leave this to your imagination, but imagine, and of course, this is what people were saying, we don’t know what actually happened in the bedroom. Mm. But imagine King Henry VIII’s delight when he discovers these young women from the French court who can do things to him that he couldn’t even imagine after spending all this time with his Catholic wife, Isabel.

[00:42:17] Right, her name was Isabel. So yeah, th- this was like, it was very much a reputation. I think this is really downstream of the fact that the court the French court in general involved a lot of mistresses. So there was this depiction of like, well, there’s just, where there’s mistresses, there’s gotta be a lot of sex, and where there’s a lot of sex, you gotta have a lot of like, weird stuff going on.

[00:42:37] Gotta have it ... and even to this day, you have French kissing. Mm-hmm. You know, and there’s still reputations. French

[00:42:41] Malcolm Collins: kissing, yes. They

[00:42:42] Simone Collins: invented it. Right? I mean, come on. Like, but think, it’s, it’s like some English person who’s never used tongue who’s like, “Well, this must be the French style.” You know, like, this thing holds.

[00:42:50] It holds really well which is absolutely delightful. And then the important thing about these vice reputations, the, the English vice, the Italian vice, et cetera, is that once the seeds were planted in Renaissance Europe, in the early modern era, they just started to compound and grow on each other.

[00:43:09] Okay. So after this became kind of a thing because of some, you know, like French court women kind of being seen as sexually manipulative ‘cause there are all these mistresses floating around, you started to get French literature really leaning into it, and there was this rise of this international publishing industry, so you also have the printing press making this worse.

[00:43:28] But around the mid-1600s, all these erotic and semi-pornographic French books started entering the Germanic region. They started entering the UK. All these, all these basically French romantic and erotic smut started- Mm-hmm ... entering the rest of Europe. Really? And the printing presses made it super pervasive. So imagine if, like, suddenly books exist a- and, and all the romance novels that are really smutty come from France.

[00:43:56] You- you’re gonna start to, like, build on this reputation. Yeah ... and y- [00:44:00] yeah, I had

[00:44:00] Malcolm Collins: no idea- Well, I mean, for the longest time when I was younger, I remember the French women were known for being, like, slutty and not shaving their armpits.

[00:44:08] Simone Collins: You know, some people find that hot. I don’t, but so it’s got... Some people like it.

[00:44:11] Malcolm Collins: I’ve, I’ve heard it. Yeah, some people find bush hot, too. I d- I don’t understand.

[00:44:15] Simone Collins: But anyway, these, these dirty books were basically, like, French... And, and I think French people leaned into the stereotype ‘cause they kinda liked being a little sexy. And so that’s, that’s it. And a very similar thing... I, so I didn’t know about, I didn’t know about the French literature compounding the issue and the printing press really fomenting it.

[00:44:34] I also didn’t know why the Italian vice became such a big thing. So from the later Middle Ages onward, outsiders started to associate certain Italian cities, not all but especially Florence, as having widespread male same-sex love and social networks that made these relationships super visible and pretty common.

[00:44:58] So basically there w- there was, like, the first gay scene was in Florence.

[00:45:02] Speaker 6: , they invented gayness.

[00:45:04]

[00:45:04] Speaker 17: I wonder if having Italy be disproportionately gay during the period of, , the development of many key Catholic institutions and doctrines is what played such a large part in such a large portion of the Catholic priesthood being same-sex attracted and, , the sort of large gay networks that many people have called out.

[00:45:26] Milo Yiannopoulos, for example, wrote a book on the, , Lavender Mafia, as he called it, and we recently did an episode on the, , quote-unquote “gay Jewish,” , priests who ended up writing core Catholic doctrine. , But , the, these individuals’ ability to so thoroughly gain control of the church and its doctrine and teachings

[00:45:42] Simone Collins: Maybe they... Gay people, chime in in the comments if there’s some other first gay scene, but, like, it seems like that really happened.

[00:45:49] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, obviously there’s, there’s, there’s, like, pre-modern gay scenes, like Thebes and stuff like that, but yeah, yeah.

[00:45:54] Simone Collins: Sure. Well, yeah. Well, allegedly. We don’t, we don’t know for sure. But there’s evidence from court records- We do know pretty sure about the

[00:45:59] Malcolm Collins: Theban troops ...

[00:46:01] Simone Collins: the Band of Thebes? Is there really? ‘Cause I remember, like, getting so excited about it and being like, “This is my yaoi romance. Let’s go. I need to learn more.”

[00:46:08] And they were like, “Well, it wasn’t... We’re not sure.” We don’t know. We’re not sure how great or long- They’re not sure what happened during

[00:46:15] Malcolm Collins: Creta ... what it was, but there was- Yeah ... a period where it happened

[00:46:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:46:20] Speaker 15: So I decided to go over all of the primary evidence we have for this, and it’s just demonstrable. , One, that the Sacred Band of Thebes existed. We know this because they helped hold the line against the Spartan king, Agis II in 378. , They, at the Battle of Tegyra in 375 BC under Polyeidus, , the 300 routed a much larger Spartan force.

[00:46:44] For the first time, Spartans were defeated. , Spartans were defeated a much s- by a much smaller force, first of all. , They were instrumental in the stunning Theban victory over Spartans at Leuctra 371, , which ended Spartans’ dominance over Greece. And the unit fought other campaign until it was ultimately annihilated at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC by the m- army of Philip II , of Macedon.

[00:47:10] So, , for a long period, we have evidence of them existing. In terms of them being an armory of gay lovers, , this was attested by Plutarch, Dionysius, Plato, Xenophon, and other attestations appear, including Polyaenus, Athenaeus, Diodotus Siculus, , and several others. So there’s at least six ancient writers that describe the erotic pairing.

[00:47:37] , So, , it... And we have arch- archaeological evidence. There is the Lion of Chaeronea, - monetary funeral lion, , and in 1879 to 1880, Greek archeologist, , Pantagathus Stamicus excavated a site and found 254 skeletons arranged in rows, seven rows, with some pairs having arms linked in hands clasped consistent with the, , what, what [00:48:00] we’re aware of with this.

[00:48:01] , So yeah, this is almost certainly not a legend and was a real force, , in which, , it was made up , of gay men and was able to dramatically outperform forces that were thought of as... Like the Spartans’ famous saying, if 300 men beat, like, 3,000 , Persians, and then apparently they were beat by a fraction of their own number of the Band of Thebes.

[00:48:20] Speaker 16: Who then were themselves beat by the hillbilly Macedonians, showing that hillbilly style always beats all other styles. , Also fun fact, , of my genetic chart, the place where my ancestry, if you go to the pre-English part of my ancestry, it traces back from Macedon

[00:48:38] Simone Collins: Anyway well, and yeah, and I guess gay romance was kind of a thing throughout ancient Greece and Rome.

[00:48:43] Never mind. Totally, I went ... Oh, God, and then, like, never mind. Yeah. Pervasive. Never mind. Totally wrong. It’s, the world has been gay for all of history. Oh, God, yeah. Sorry I know.

[00:48:51] Malcolm Collins: CR episodes do gays destroy civilization, where we go over this. Like, where, where do we actually see gays in history? When do we see gays in history, and does it precede civilizational collapse?

[00:49:00] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:49:00] Malcolm Collins: Basically we find it, it doesn’t appear to.

[00:49:03] Simone Collins: Yeah. But there is evidence from, because this is the point at which it’s illegal, court records, witness testimonies, moralizing tracts that, that indicate the presence of active male queer communities in cities like Florence, and this helped cement the idea that this was a more tolerant area.

[00:49:25] I mean, it’s kind of ironic, right? ‘Cause they’re like, “No, don’t do it. Stop.” But, but you know, they, they kept doing it. And then by the 17th century, because phrases like the Italian vice became kind of like a, a shorthand

[00:49:38] Malcolm Collins: for gay- So gayness was the Italian vice, sleeping around was the French vice, and BDSM was the English vice

[00:49:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna get to, to the UK next Okay but yeah because the Italian vice was shorthand for gay stuff then people would start to go to Italy for their gay romespringa. Tourists would, even i- in the early 1800s, sort of revive and spread this stereotype because they were both fascinated and scandalized by this reputation and they, they wanted to check it out and maybe- They’d be

[00:50:11] Malcolm Collins: like, “Ooh, oh, the gay, early gay, proto-gay bars and stuff.”

[00:50:15] Simone Collins: It kind of was, yeah. It’s like the Cape Cod, Fire Island, Provincetown of of Europe, you know? The,

[00:50:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So being born in Fire Island definitely made

[00:50:23] Simone Collins: you a little bit gay ... the gay, kinky boot of Europe. Yeah Yes. It’s, it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. So yeah, I, I thi- I didn’t know that that, it was like a, sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy thing.

[00:50:32] Although of course the, the court records show that it was a thing they were trying to stop. Now, the English vice is super interesting because first, England was super known for being very puritanical and c- sex negative, and not, not very interesting when it came to sexual relations.

[00:50:48] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Okay.

[00:50:49] Simone Collins: But then I think part- partly because it was so dour and puritan and sexually repressed and a bunch of sanctimonious proto-Karens freaked out when people did do slightly kinky things, that it then developed this reputation for flagellation, which then evolved into our understanding of, like, BDSM, because there were commentators, like, trying to say, “Don’t do this,” and people, like, criminalizing it.

[00:51:20] Do, wait,

[00:51:20] Malcolm Collins: wait, what do we, what do we not do? What, where, where, where is the video I’m not supposed to look at?

[00:51:26] Simone Collins: What video?

[00:51:27] Malcolm Collins: That’s a joke. When you’re describing a video or something like that, it’s like, oh- Oh ... oh.

[00:51:32] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:33] Malcolm Collins: Where’s the... Do you... I, I definitely won’t look at that video. Can you just give me the URL for it?

[00:51:38] You know the joke. Come on.

[00:51:40] Simone Collins: Oh, no, I, I don’t. Maybe it’s a not girl thing. But anyway. Lee

[00:51:46] Malcolm Collins: would get it. Lee- my, my bros would get it. You’re just too-

[00:51:50] Simone Collins: I am, I am an old... I’m a s- I have the soul of a 62-year-old woman who’s probably not that online. But anyway basically around the 19th [00:52:00] century especially, English pu- public culture became super moralizing, and there were all these laws against male same-sex acts.

[00:52:09] And this made Britain a focal point for debates about homosexuality, which is also sometimes seen as the British vice, along with flagellation. And then in that climate, continental commentators would talk about the English vice, refer to specific behaviors, either flagellation or same-sex relations. Because it was, it was more prevalent in, like, a sex work context or in people getting caught and in big trouble for it.

[00:52:39] And it kind of happened in a way... It was, like, late onset Italian vice. So Italy really got the brunt of the same-sex reputation, and what really stuck with the UK was the BDSM stuff.

[00:52:51] Malcolm Collins: That is not what I’ve heard about how the UK got the BDSM stuff.

[00:52:55] Simone Collins: Oh, maybe I was reading the wrong sources. So- So what did you get?

[00:52:59] Malcolm Collins: I heard that it came from British private schools that used flogging as a, a punishment mechanism.

[00:53:06] Simone Collins: Mm.

[00:53:06] There’s this one book that’s called The English Vice that is a picture of a schoolteacher, a male schoolteacher who’s short and stout and has something of a whip. I mean, maybe it was... it came from this rep- I haven’t read the book.

[00:53:21] I, I did not read an entire book for this one episode. I’m so sorry. But like- But

[00:53:24] Malcolm Collins: apparently, what would happen is the kids would go and do it to each other.

[00:53:29] Simone Collins: Oh. Bless them.

[00:53:30] Malcolm Collins: Like, that’s, that’s where, like, they’d be like, “Oh, this is kinda kinky,” or whatever. And then it, like, took off as, like, a thing that people would do.

[00:53:40] I mean- I think, you know, BDSM and other things- Well, yeah, I mean,

[00:53:43] Simone Collins: school paddles were super pervasive. Corporal punishment was extremely pervasive in British schools. So it maybe it’s also that because that form of corporal punishment, especially things like the paddle, were very, very common in British schools, that more people learned they were into it, right?

[00:54:02] Like Aella writes in her, on her Substack about how, like, she didn’t think she was that into sex, and then experienced for the first time some forms of, like, BDSM and was like, “Oh my God.” And maybe the thing is, like, in the rest of Europe, there may not have been this exact type of corporal punishment, like being spanked with a paddle or something in the same kind of context.

[00:54:24] Also public humiliation, right? So it could just be that certain forms of attempted puritanical punishment in the UK Awoken sexually, a, a bunch of people who if not exposed to that would never have known that it would cause such satisfaction.

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

[00:54:42] Simone Collins: Mm, that makes sense. The rest is not that interesting.

[00:54:45] The Muslims were seen as fanatical warriors, basically. They were, like, sexually threatening and religiously dangerous, and you kind of admired them for their courage but you feared them as these enemies of Christiandom. So they were kind of just, like, the big, scary, bad other. Yeah. And Northern Europeans, again, like, sort of barbaric, dull workhorses, not very smart.

[00:55:08] And then in contrast, Southerners were seen as very indulgent drama queens. What’s super interesting to me is that this even falls into a microcosm- microcosmic context with places like Italy. Like, within Italy, Northern Italians were seen as industrious but, like, socially cold, and Southerners were seen as lazy and emotional.

[00:55:35] Malcolm Collins: Ooh ...

[00:55:36] Simone Collins: and yet, like, throughout the rest of Europe also, Northerners were seen as, like, these workers who were kind of, like, boring and stern, and, like, anyone south was seen as, like, oh, like, ooh, so emotional and- ... kinda lazy.

[00:55:50] Speaker 20: What’s ironic to me is that this is still portrayed even in my Korean Mawa books, , which shows how cross-cultural it is that you always [00:56:00] have the archetype of the Duke of the North who’s super cold and competent and warlike, and then the Duke of the South who’s often very,

[00:56:08] charismatic, , likable, , geniable, funny, , outgoing. , And of course, my favorite is the Duke of the North. That’s why I always have myself drawn that way

[00:56:19] Simone Collins: And it’s very interesting to me that, I mean, we have the, I think we have some, done some different episodes about the role that heat and cold play in civilizational development, and that, I mean, clearly if you live in a very cold climate, the, only the conscientious people will survive because only the conscientious people will have built shelters and food supplies that can get them through an extremely cold and frozen winter where no food grows.

[00:56:45] And in Southern cultures, you’re more likely to see some maybe more charismatic but indolent people make it through genetic choke holds because they don’t depend so much on delayed gratification and preparation and- Mm ... building in order to survive, because it’s not going to become a frozen tundra for, like, four months out of the year.

[00:57:07] So I found that- Yeah ... interesting in that the stereotypes would play out that way. But that

[00:57:12] Malcolm Collins: is

[00:57:13] Simone Collins: just what

[00:57:13] Malcolm Collins: I found. A Russian, if you wanna do Ru- ancient Russian stereotypes, they were seen as incredibly backwards and animalistic. But they also got their butts whipped by, like, every horde that came through their country in, like, really brutalistic ways.

[00:57:25] Like the famous case where they, they put a bunch of people under a table and had a feast while crushing them.

[00:57:31] Simone Collins: What? That’s horrible ...

[00:57:32] Malcolm Collins: th- this was the Mongols or the Huns or one of, one of these groups.

[00:57:35] Simone Collins: Yeah, like- Oh, yeah. I didn’t, I didn’t even get into the Mongols. There, there is art of the Mongols being, you know, terrifying.

[00:57:41] I feel like that’s something we don’t need to be enlightened on ‘cause we all know it, that they’d be scary.

[00:57:46] Malcolm Collins: So we, we could do a whole other episode on the history of American interratia- racism, like the different groups and how they hated each other.

[00:57:52] Simone Collins: Yeah. That’d be really fun. If this episode does well and y’all like it, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get into...

[00:57:55] Yeah.

[00:57:56] Malcolm Collins: Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da. And then, like, do a, a museum where it’s, like, a bunch of, like, Jemi- Aunt Jemimas and stuff like that. Oh,

[00:58:06] Simone Collins: my God. Like the- Right? In the Aunt Jemima restaurant. Was it called the Aunt Jemima restaurant, or was it called something else?

[00:58:11] Malcolm Collins: Something like that.

[00:58:12] Yeah,

[00:58:12] Simone Collins: well- I mean, even we had Aunt Jemima syrup. And even I watched, like, Shirley Temple movies where it was like there was some token uncle figure who would, like, sing and dance and just be... It’s so weird. It’s so weird. Yeah, that could be an interesting episode. But also probably gonna get this channel in big trouble, so I don’t know.

[00:58:35] I don’t know. No, I don’t

[00:58:36] Malcolm Collins: think... I don’t... I mean, we’ll focus mostly on non-discriminated groups in a modern context.

[00:58:42] Simone Collins: Well, we just we were declared

[00:58:44] racists by our own child.

[00:58:47] Malcolm Collins: W- yeah, he said that we raise him, so we’re racists.

[00:58:53] Simone Collins: I love that. I love that so much. “What does racism mean, Octavian?” Well, raise. Raise. You raised me. It’s people who raise.” We gotta take that. We gotta take it, yes.

[00:59:07] Malcolm Collins: Yes.

[00:59:07] Simone Collins: Oh.

[00:59:08] Okay, well, I love you. I’m going to go make you pumpkin... No. Yeah, pumpkin curry with bok choy.

[00:59:15] Malcolm Collins: With bok choy I think would be great. And you can put it on top of, yeah, whatever

[00:59:21] Simone Collins: Do you really want fries or do you really want, well, with bok choy, well, with b- with ri- with bok choy I think you want rice to s- soak up the curry

[00:59:29] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I think rice would be the right thing with bok choy. And

[00:59:31] Simone Collins: I, and I’m- And I’m just gonna stir-fry the bok choy with the curry, like, the last, like, 30 seconds, right? I don’t wanna cook it that much, right?

[00:59:39] You just want- Yeah,

[00:59:39] Malcolm Collins: you don’t, you don’t cook the bok choy that long. Okay. All righty. And you might wanna put in a little bit of, like, oyster sauce or something with this so that the, the bok choy works a bit better.

[00:59:47] Simone Collins: With the pumpkin curry?

[00:59:48] Malcolm Collins: Yes.

[00:59:49] Simone Collins: Sure. Let’s do it. Anything else aside from oyst- oyster sauce?

[00:59:52] Do you want hoisin sauce as well with, for a little sweetness? I guess the pumpkin brings so much sweet you don’t really need it.

[00:59:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you don’t really need that.

[00:59:58] Simone Collins: So just oyster sauce. Okay. [01:00:00] We’re on. All right,

[01:00:01] Malcolm Collins: love you.

[01:00:02] Simone Collins: I love you too.

[01:00:03] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[01:00:05] Simone Collins: Bye.

[01:00:06] Just so you know, Malcolm is surrounded by empty cans, dirty clothes. It’s, it’s like the trash pit in, from Star Wars, quite literally. That’s what I feel like every time I wade into to try to, like, deliver him-

[01:00:18] Malcolm Collins: That’s why

[01:00:19] Simone Collins: I hoard, Simone- ... a drink or a smoothie ...

[01:00:20] Malcolm Collins: so

[01:00:20] Simone Collins: I can bring it

[01:00:21] Malcolm Collins: back ...

[01:00:21] Simone Collins: and so when Malcolm discovered that his mic stand is not compatible with his heavy, super expensive mic that y’all made us get, thanks, hope you like the sound of it all he decided to counterweight it by taping a Coke can to his mic stand.

[01:00:39] And that’s, it, it’s a look. It, it’s a very, I would say, cohesive aesthetic. Any interior decorator, I think, would come to appreciate it.

[01:00:48] Malcolm Collins: I hate you so much, Simone.

[01:00:50] Simone Collins: When, when Malcolm’s camera goes to full landscape mode, suddenly this short angle of his room disappears, and you can see the trash from like- This

[01:01:00] Malcolm Collins: is a problem for, like, interviews and stuff, because literally-

[01:01:03] Simone Collins: It is yes.

[01:01:04] Yeah, yeah.

[01:01:05] No, God, don’t... No, don’t do it. Oh, why did you do... Don’t. Don’t. Go back, go back. Jump scare. Oh, God. Why did you do that? Why did they need to see that? I’m

[01:01:18] Malcolm Collins: not like Jordan Peterson. I never told anyone to make their bed, okay?

[01:01:22] Simone Collins: Your bed is impossible to make. I was like- There’s no making

[01:01:24] Malcolm Collins: it ... live, live in a pigsty.

[01:01:26] I don’t care. I, like presumably it does make you marginally more efficient for some people, but it doesn’t for me. Like I, you know, and, and, and people are different, right? Like, you know, some people are better with order. Some people are better with chaos.

[01:01:38] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[01:01:39] Malcolm Collins: I

[01:01:39] Simone Collins: prefer- This, this, this is the, the not Malcolm bedroom.

[01:01:42] The, it looks weird because Tech sleeps on the bed with me, and there’s pillows there to keep him from falling off ‘cause he decides to go on a journey every night. He dreams of going to Mordor, throwing in the ring, but it really involves a lot of kicking and crawling around. So, I will kick us off. Oh, for dinner tonight, I mean, we have the nice salami.

[01:02:02] Do you want me to do something with that?

[01:02:04] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I like the nice salami. Mm-hmm. Okay, so if I was gonna do something with nice salami, I would eat it on toast.

[01:02:15] Simone Collins: Would you?

[01:02:17] Malcolm Collins: Oh.

[01:02:17] Simone Collins: You want nice salami and grilled cheese, just like to cut- I have a

[01:02:19] Malcolm Collins: great idea. Garlic bread. Cheesy garlic bread

[01:02:24] Speaker 21: A few final side notes for RFAB. , If you downloaded the image viewing app, which auto-sizes images for your screen, we now have that for both Apple and PC, and I have made significant, if you downloaded it anytime before, like yesterday, improvements in stability and features on it. So re-download that.

[01:02:42] You can find it on either our image generation page or our not safe for work image search page, which conglomerates the searches of all not safe for work search engines. , The other thing is I have recently added, , or will be added shortly after this video goes live, a model that China put out, which is beating the one that Anthropic had to take down by order of the US government on coding stuff.

[01:03:04] So if you’re using our vibe coding system, , we have , a model that is equivalent to Anthropic Fable, , which is exciting

[01:03:12] Speaker 18: you guys gonna have a battle? You’re gonna have the ultimate battle?

[01:03:15] Speaker 19: Yeah. Yeah. I would take a battle if I had a different gun.

[01:03:20] Speaker 18: A different gun. No. What’s wrong with that gun? I can find a new

[01:03:22] Speaker 19: one. I need to find a new one.

[01:03:24] Speaker 18: You do? Oh, no. All right, should I get the water out? You guys ready? Okay, so he’s gonna go to his gun wardrobe.

[01:03:35] Yeah, you want me to open it up for you?

[01:03:38] Speaker 19: Yeah.

[01:03:38] Speaker 18: Okay. That’s what I want. I’ll get it

In this raw and data-packed episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins ask a provocative question: Are Europeans the only people on Earth historically into adult pairings?

While most cultures around the world historically married in the early-to-mid teens, Europeans (especially Northern and Western) stood out by commonly delaying marriage until the mid-20s — even in the Middle Ages. The hosts explore whether this European norm, later exported globally through colonialism and cultural influence, may be contributing to today’s fertility crashes in East Asia, Latin America, India, and beyond.

They dive into:

* Aella’s “Hotness Curve” study and what percentage of men find different ages attractive

* The e-girl phenomenon and why so many popular internet aesthetics look phenotypically 15

* Genetic and regional differences in fertility windows and menopause age (Europeans go into menopause ~2–3 years later on average)

* Historical first-marriage ages across Europe, China, India, Japan, Korea, Africa, and the Americas

* Global ages of consent today and when different countries criminalized CSAM

* Disney princess ages (Snow White was 14, Jasmine 15, Ariel 16…) and why normalizing teen marriage might be necessary for demographic survival

This is a no-holds-barred, truth-seeking conversation about culture, biology, attraction, and whether some populations are simply not built for the modern delayed-marriage timeline.

If you’re interested in pronatalism, human biodiversity, evolutionary psychology, or why fertility is collapsing everywhere except where European norms never fully took hold — this episode is for you.

Show Notes

Aella’s Findings

Aella also just released a substack post titled The Hotness Curve (how age changes a woman’s appeal).

Using photos of women of various ages (some real, some AI generated), Aella asked various questions, including: “Casual Sex: A 200 year old vampire shows up in your window at night. She wants a one-night stand. There are no consequences, and nobody will know. Do you say yes?”

Here are the answers:

Aella found that “Sexual interest climbs very fast, and generally hits a cresendo around women who appeared to be ~24 years old (or 28yo for the older men).”

“15% of men said yes they would have casual sex with a vampire in the body of an 11 year old. This rose to a third of men for the body of a 13 year old, and a half of men agreeing to the body of a 15 year old. By 18 we’re at roughly 70%, and by the time a 24 year old is hypothetically entering your window, ~90% of them were down.”

Just a small aside: “One interesting thing to note is that the dropoff in fuckability for women - what we might call The Wall - happens for women in their mid 30’s just as predicted, but only in the eyes of men under the age of 25. For older men, we find the ‘wall’ occurs in a woman’s early 40’s. Older men assigned equivalent ‘yes I’d have sex with her’ ratings to an 18 year old as they did to a woman in her early 50’s!”

Also: You should play Aella’s ageguesser game.

(Simone got better than 67% of players… not very good.)

The e-girl phenomenon

From our friend Bruno: “Why does a certain “e-girl” or “internet girl” face seem to resonate so consistently with online audiences across different eras? Highly recognizable women in online subcultures seem to converge around a similar look; why does that look perform so well with netizens?

Early internet figures like Boxxy, later YouTube personalities like Shoe0nHead, cosplay and streamer-adjacent figures, and then more recent cases like Belle Delphine and the current wave of TikTok, cosplay, and Twitter/X e-girl aesthetics. The more interesting question is why a particular facial and stylistic grammar keeps recurring: large expressive eyes, youthful proportions, soft or rounded features, dark hair or bangs, a slightly anime-coded presentation, and a mix of cuteness, irony, awkwardness, and sexual ambiguity.”

Malcolm’s first answer: BECAUSE THEY ALL LOOK LIKE LITTLE GIRLS AND PEOPLE ARE PEDOS.

The sick sad truth: Most of the world is full of pedos

Basically, Europeans are the only non pedos.

Maybe the concept of pedos wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for Europeans

Maybe a contributing factor to falling birth rates involves modern norms around late marriage among groups that, for hundreds of years, married much younger.

Let’s explore this!

Variation in Fertility Windows

A large meta‑analysis across 24 countries estimated the global mean age at menopause at 48.8 years, and by continent:

* Europe: about 50.5 years

* Asia (overall): about 48.8 years

* Africa: about 48.4 years

* Latin America: about 47.2 years

* Middle East: about 47.4 years

WHO similarly notes that most women worldwide experience menopause between ages 45 and 55.

Variation in Average Ages of Marriage

Average female age at first marriage, approximate, pre‑1800

* England (pre‑1800) - ~22–26 - Many parishes ~25–26; Western Europe relatively late.

* Western/Northern Europe - ~20–25 - Late marriage pattern; some locales up to 27.

* China - ~14–18 - Legal norms ~14–15; practice mid‑teens.

* India - ~12–16 - Strong early arranged marriage; big regional variation.

* Japan - ~17–19 - Village data show late‑teen marriage.

* Korea (Joseon) - ~16–18 - Upper‑status women mid‑teens; similar for many commoners.

* Aztec/Nahua - ~14–17 - Girls early‑mid teens; men ~18–22.

* Maya - ~16–19 - Most married by ~20; post‑15 coming‑of‑age.

* Sub‑Saharan Africa (major) - ~15–18 - Many societies mid‑late teens for women.

Sources:

* https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/036319907800300103

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1081602X08000894

* https://voxdev.org/topic/institutions-political-economy/economic-shocks-and-age-marriage-sub-saharan-africa-and-india

* https://historymyths.wordpress.com/2014/07/06/myth-136-women-married-very-young-in-the-olden-days/

* https://keatschinese.com/china-culture-resources/general-standards-of-ancient-chinese-marriage-age/

* https://childmarriagedata.org/country-profiles/india/

* https://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-society-family.html

* https://mayas.mrdonn.org/marriage.html

Ages of Consent

In the most populous countries:

* Pakistan - 18 (requires marriage)

* India - 18

* Indonesia - 18

* Nigeria - 18

* Japan - 18

* Ethiopia - 18

* Egypt - 18

* DR Congo - 18

* Turkey - 18

* United States - 16-18 Varies by state

* Philippines - 16 (general), 14 for close‑in‑age minors

* Iran - 15–18 with marriage required

* Thailand - 15–18

* France - 15 (16 in FRA report)

* Germany - 14–16 (practical 14–18)

* Bangladesh - 14–16

* Italy - 14–16

* Mexico - 12-18 Varies by state

* Russia - 16

* Vietnam - 16

* United Kingdom - 16

* South Africa - 16

* South Korea - 16

* China - 14

* Brazil - 14

More detail on Pakistan: Minimum ages for marriage

* National framework (historical): The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 originally set the minimum age at 18 for males and 16 for females.

* Sindh province: Since 2013, Sindh’s own Child Marriage Restraint Act has set the minimum legal marriage age at 18 for both boys and girls.

* Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT): The Islamabad Capital Territory Child Marriage Restraint Act 2025 now sets the minimum age at 18 for both sexes, with significant penalties for under‑18 marriages.

* Balochistan: In November 2025, Balochistan raised the legal age to 18 for girls (and 18 for boys), banning child marriage in the province.

* Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP): Until very recently, these provinces still had 16 as the legal minimum for girls and 18 for boys, though Punjab has now moved to raise the age to 18; advocacy and legislation are ongoing to harmonize all provinces at 18.

Despite recent legal reforms raising the minimum marriage age to 18 in several parts of Pakistan, child marriage remains a significant, ongoing problem, especially for girls from poor, rural, and religious‑minority communities.

UNICEF and other analyses report that around 18% of women aged 20–24 in Pakistan were married before 18, which corresponds to roughly 20.5 million girls, and about 4% were married before 15

* The Borgen Project reports: Child brides usually come from impoverished families who sell them to older men for a price as high as 2.5 million Pakistani rupees, which is more than $8,000.”

Anti-Pedo Laws

Japan has had laws against sexual exploitation of minors for decades, but it only criminalized possession of child pornography involving real children in 2014.

They really had to ease into it:

* 1999 – Japan bans the production and distribution of child pornography involving real minors, aligning partially with other OECD countries but still allowing simple possession.

* June 2014 – The Diet passes a revision to the Child Pornography Law that makes possession of child pornography (photos and videos of real children under 18) a criminal offense, punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine.

* The 2014 law explicitly excludes manga, anime, and computer‑generated imagery, so fictional depictions remain legal even if they portray minors in sexualized contexts, which is why international observers still criticize Japan as being comparatively permissive about some forms of sexualized images of minors.

When various countries instituted CSAM laws

* 1973: Germany

* 1973–1980s – German Criminal Code provisions against pornography involving minors are introduced and strengthened, banning production and distribution.

* 1990s–2000s – EU‑driven harmonization and national reforms explicitly criminalize possession of CSAM (including online images).

* 1978: USA

* 1978 – Child pornography first becomes illegal at the federal level via the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977 (effective 1978), targeting production, sale, and transport.

* 1980s–1990s – Additional federal statutes criminalize possession and receipt of CSAM, with later clarifications (e.g., PROTECT Act 2003) covering digital and some computer‑generated material.

* 1978: UK

* 1978 – Protection of Children Act 1978 criminalizes taking, making, distributing, showing, and possessing with intent to distribute “indecent photographs” of children, effectively a national child‑pornography ban.

* Later acts expand offences and penalties; recent reforms (2020s) start to tackle AI‑optimized CSAM models.

* 1980s: Australia

* 1980s–1990s – Federal and state laws criminalize child pornography production and distribution.

* By the late 1990s/early 2000s, possession of CSAM, including digital content, is clearly illegal nationwide.

* 1983: Canada

* 1983 – Criminal Code amendments explicitly criminalize child pornography (production and distribution).

* Late 1980s/early 1990s – Possession of child pornography is expressly criminalized, including digital material.

* 1990: Brazil

* 1990 – Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) bans child pornography (production/distribution).

* 2008 – Law 11.829 criminalizes possession of child pornography, bringing Brazil into line with international CSAM standards.

* 1996: Russia

* 1996 – New Criminal Code introduces offences for producing and distributing pornographic materials involving minors.

* 2000s – Later reforms explicitly criminalize possession and strengthen provisions for online CSAM.

* 1997: China

* 1997 – Revised Criminal Law criminalizes organizing, producing, duplicating, publishing, and disseminating pornographic material involving minors.

* Subsequent regulations in the 2000s and 2010s reinforce bans on online CSAM and clarify penalties.

* 2000: India

* 2000 – Information Technology Act criminalizes publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit acts online.

* 2012–2013 – Amendments (e.g., Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013) strengthen bans on using children in pornographic material, expanding offences and penalties.

* 2003: Nigeria

* 2003 – Child Rights Act, plus later cybercrime legislation, introduce offences related to child sexual exploitation and online child pornography.

* 2007: South Africa

* 2007 – Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act criminalizes creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography, including electronic images.

Episode Transcript

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

[00:00:00] I’m excited to be with you today because today we’re gonna talk about how maybe Europeans are the only people who aren’t kind of into, if you know what I mean, really young people, and that possibly our colonizing, imposing of older ages of marriage onto all the other peoples of the world could be contributing to demographic collapse.

[00:00:22] Because apparently we’re the weirdos in the room. We’re the, the, the outlier.

[00:00:26] Malcolm Collins: Okay, I, I need to go over some stats. So this rabbit hole started with me being like, are Japan... ‘Cause if you look at Japanese not-safe-for-work art it is, has an unusually high rate of phenotypically young-looking women.

[00:00:40] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:00:40] Malcolm Collins: If, if you catch my drift. And I started to think, I was like, “Could there be a genetic reason for this?” Right? Like, when did Japanese people get married historically? When would have been their first sexual encounter historically? And as I went through that, I was like Oh, wait a second. Everyone but Europeans got married at these super young ages at a historic level.

[00:01:04] And now this makes sense why you have these super young age marriages in Africa, in the Middle Easterners, right? Like we, we keep seeing this, oh, Aisha is six, nine, et cetera, right? Like, they, they... This would be weird for European. What’s, what may surprise you is that in Europe, even in the Middle Ages, it was very common for women to not get married until their mid-20s.

[00:01:28] Simone Collins: And we’re gonna go into that. We’re gonna go into that ...

[00:01:29] Malcolm Collins: which is very rare for any other culture. But hold on, it gets weirder. Before we go, ‘cause I, I wanna get all the, the fun stuff out of the way. It turns out that Europeans... Remember how I’ve always said that Northern Europeans have weirdly high fertility rates compared to every other group on Earth?

[00:01:44] Well, Nor- Northern Europeans are also genetically unique among all of the ethnicities on Earth, and that we have significantly, like multiple years longer fertility windows. Euro-

[00:01:56] Simone Collins: And we’re gonna go into that too ... pean women go into menopause- Yeah, which people should know about ...

[00:01:59] Malcolm Collins: much later. People should know.

[00:02:01] So when we started to tell other people around the world, “You can’t start being sexual, you know, with-” Yeah,

[00:02:09] Simone Collins: like the appropriate time to start is in your 20s ...

[00:02:12] Malcolm Collins: mid-20s. Yeah. We were actually sniping more than half of many of these groups’ reproductive windows. Mm-hmm. And now we’re seeing fertility rates crash around Latin America.

[00:02:24] We’re seeing fertility rates crash in East Asia. We’re seeing them crash in India, and it could partially be in results of this. But go, go into the data.

[00:02:31] Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, first, some little, here are some of the breadcrumbs that kind of got me to this episode that I think are really fun. Aella just released a Substack post called The Hotness Curve: How Age Changes a Woman’s Appeal, and she used photos of women at various ages.

[00:02:46] Some were AI-generated, some were real, including real photos of her throughout her life and her friends. She asked questions like, “Casual sex. A 200-year-old vampire shows up in your window at night. She wants a one-night stand. There are no consequences and nobody will know. Do you say yes?” And then she says this paired with various photos of women, right?

[00:03:07] So the resulting graph is a little concerning, I guess. You can see it here On WhatsApp.

[00:03:17] What you’ll find and I’ll just read from Aella’s post here. Okay. Aella found that sexual interest climbs very fast and generally hits a crescendo around women who appear to be 24 years old, or 28 years old for older men.

[00:03:31] But 15, and I’m quoting from her Substack article, “15% of men said yes, they would have casual sex with a vampire in the body of 11- an 11-year-old.” Sure. “This rose to a third of men for the body of a 13-year-old, and half of men agreeing to the body of a 15-year-old. By 18, we’re at roughly 70%, and at the time a 24-year-old is hypothetically entering your window, 90% of them were down.”

[00:03:56] I, I was shocked.

[00:03:57] Malcolm Collins: Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. So the midpoint for men is 15? [00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Simone Collins: Yeah, basically. But I mean, I was just shocked that at the age of 11, 15% of men were like, “Yeah.”

[00:04:06] Malcolm Collins: Well, this is actually really fascinating because if this is the actual midpoint of, you know, attractiveness for men-

[00:04:14] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:04:15] Malcolm Collins: the, the way in society that we treat this, right?

[00:04:19] Like, “Oh, you’re aroused by something that looks like that. You must be, like, a wildly deviant individual.”

[00:04:27] Simone Collins: Yeah. “You must be a monster. You must need to be arrested,” et cetera. When

[00:04:30] Malcolm Collins: literally 50% of men... 15 is astonishingly young. For, yeah, but for 11 is yeah,

[00:04:37] Simone Collins: but yeah, 15 as well,

[00:04:38] Malcolm Collins: yes. Yeah, but the, the, I’m going, I’m not going with the tw- the 25% of men. I’m going with the average man. The average man-

[00:04:44] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ... is

[00:04:45] Malcolm Collins: 15. And that is the reason why it’s important to, like, make this known to people is because if a guy gets into their head that they’re some absolutely monstrous deviant within one category, then they can begin to engage in monster, the, they begin to excuse other types of monstrously deviant behavior because they’re like, “Well, that’s what I am.

[00:05:09] That’s how I am- Yeah,

[00:05:10] Simone Collins: I’m a monster ... hardwired.” Who cares if I drown a puppy, et cetera? Yeah,

[00:05:14] Malcolm Collins: I’m just a bad guy because-

[00:05:16] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:05:17] Malcolm Collins: yeah. Whereas I think that you can say even if 15 is the average age at which a male may start finding a female form attractive that one, Europeans it’s likely gonna be later, so this is likely held down by, by non-Europeans to some extent.

[00:05:33] Mm-hmm. But, but two it, it’s, it’s, it’s normal, but you don’t act on it, right? Like, there’s- Yeah ... a big difference between something being normal and something being a mandate for you to act on. Mm-hmm. If I can give you, it is normal for me to be aroused by a random woman who walks by. It is bad for me to hold her down and have sex with her simply because I was aroused that she walked by, right?

[00:06:01] Like- For our

[00:06:02] Simone Collins: culture at least, yes.

[00:06:03] Malcolm Collins: No, I’m just saying that the, the, the way that we have in our society drawn these very, very thin lines when it comes to this one category of arousal I think is hugely deleterious and leads to a lot more PDA behavior than we would otherwise see if we categorized it more the way that it’s like, yeah, you can find a woman who’s married to another guy arousing.

[00:06:34] Don’t sleep with her. That’s morally negative and has morally negative externalities for society, right? But anyway, continue.

[00:06:42] Simone Collins: Right. Just a little aside too about the wall, because that’s a fun thing to see what her findings indicated. She wrote, “One interesting thing to note is that the drop-off in affability for women, what we might call the wall, happens for women in their mid-30s, just as predicted, but only in the eyes of men under the age of 25.

[00:07:02] For older men, we find the wall occurs in a woman’s early 40s. Older men assign equivalent ‘Yes, I’d have sex with her’ ratings to an 18-year-old as they did to a woman in her early 50s.” Basically the spread of people who would be interested in both dating or having sex with women at older ages was astonishing per this research.

[00:07:23] You should go check out the actual post. I’m linking to it in my show notes, as I link to everything else I, I was just shocked by the range of, of, of interest in women. I guess older women are better off now than they have been in the past maybe, or they always have been. But also you should play her Guess Their Age game. She vibe coded it. It’s super fun and you can probably beat me because I could only get better than 67% of players.

[00:07:48] I apparently cannot tell people’s age, which is probably good. Also our friend Bruno wrote to us about the e-girl phenomenon. He wrote, “Why does a certain e-girl or internet girl face seem to [00:08:00] resonate so consistently with online audiences across different eras? Highly recognizable women in online subcultures seem to converge around a similar look.

[00:08:07] Why does that look perform

[00:08:09] so well with netizens? Early internet figures like Boxxy, later YouTube personalities like Shoe0nHead, cosplay, and streamer adjacent figures, and then more recent cases like Belle Delphine and the current wave of TikTok cosplay and Twitter X e-girl aesthetics. The most interesting question is why a particular facial and stylistic grammar keeps recurring.

[00:08:28] Large expressive eyes, youthful proportions, softer rounded features, dark hair or bangs, a slightly anime coded presentation, and a mix of cuteness, irony, awkwardness, and sexual ambiguity.” And when I talked about this with Malcolm when we got the email, you’re like

[00:08:45] Malcolm Collins: Because they look like children. Yeah.

[00:08:48] Like Bella Delphine looks like a 15-year-old.

[00:08:50] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:08:50] Malcolm Collins: y- she could easily pass as a 15, w- in, in her, the height of her fame. Boxxy I think was literally 15 at the height of her fame. I

[00:08:58] Speaker: I realize one of the reasons why other people don’t realize this is because they think 15-year-old girls look like lollies, and they don’t. , People think 15-year-old girls look way younger than they actually do. So here I’m gonna put the pictures of the celebrities we’re talking about next to a bunch of pictures of actual real 15-year-old human girls.

[00:09:18] And when you see this, you’ll be like, “Oh, 15-year-old girls look a lot older than I expected.” And it’s like, yeah, they do. And that’s why this is so scary

[00:09:26] Speaker 2: And note, this isn’t me being selective. This is me just choosing all the top images when you look up 15-year-old girl. And I’d go so far now that I’m looking at the images side by side to say that these e-celebs that we’re talking about look slightly younger, than your average 15-year-old girl

[00:09:41] Octavian Collins: think

[00:09:41] Malcolm Collins: so, yeah. Juon Head I don’t think fits into this category. She was never really a thirst trap influencer. But if you look at the various thirst trap influencers CreepyChan fell into this as well.

[00:09:52] Mm. ... like they, they all have the, the phenotypical features that make them look different than Simone. And I’ll put images on screen here so you guys can see. I’m not, I’m not joking about this. They just look very young. Yeah. But either because it was considered okay to thirst after them on the internet during that period, or because they technically weren’t actually 15, like Vampire Girls or whatever, everyone was like, “This is fine.”

[00:10:16] Now again, I actually think it’s really, really bad to stereotype, Like in, in Australia, I don’t know if you know this, but in Australia you actually can’t have pornography where women have too small of breasts because they say that if the woman’s breasts, even if they’re a totally normal above age woman, it is illegal for them to participate in pornography if their breasts are too small.

[00:10:36] So they’ll,

[00:10:36] Simone Collins: like, pull up a thing and be like, “Insufficiently busty,” and then it says online- Yeah,

[00:10:40] Malcolm Collins: because they say it makes them look too young, right? Like-

[00:10:42] Simone Collins: So do erotic actresses have to get boob jobs? Like what happens if you’re interested? By

[00:10:46] Malcolm Collins: the way, have you seen that immensely creepy show about the girl who looks like a, like 12-year-old and who’s dating?

[00:10:55] Simone Collins: No.

[00:10:56] Malcolm Collins: You need to Google this and just watch a clip from this, because I’ll put it here before we go further. I need to call- ‘Cause I need to get your thoughts on the ethics of this. .

[00:11:04] Speaker 3: It’s not worth it. I would just completely ignore them. I try to let it just roll off my shoulders. Hearing Thomas’ views shows me a new perspective and allows me to understand a new perspective. He grew up with this mentality, just pick yourself and get up and do it, and I have a lot of social trauma. So I think he’s definitely a more go-getter, less worried about what people think, and I know what people think

[00:11:29] Speaker 6: I love how we’re like, “Japan, the Japanese, so gross.” They’re like, “Oh, she the 300-year-old vampire, so it’s okay.” Meanwhile, middle-aged moms watching TLC

[00:11:41] Speaker 8: And then fertility and where we go from there, I think the best option for you would be to get you established with an OBGYN- Hmm ... who can kinda dig into safely carrying a child, and would you be able to do it to term, and all of that.

[00:11:53] Simone Collins: What?

[00:11:54] Malcolm Collins: Look, look up a clip of this

[00:11:55] Simone Collins: show. Oh, no. She looks like a child. No. [00:12:00] Oh, TLC, of course. Of, oh, great. Of course. It’s TLC. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. I’ve seen, I’ve seen enough.

[00:12:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, th- then so I’m in this range where I’m like, if you look like 15 in the way that like Bella Delphine does or whatever, right, you know-

[00:12:19] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:12:19] Malcolm Collins: I’m like, whatever with that. I’m like, I get it, you know, whatever. Right. With this girl and this show, I’m like, even if she’s technically a 300-year-old vampire, like, we need to have a conversation about this because she’s she’s like 27, by the way, Simone.

[00:12:37] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:12:38] Malcolm Collins: Sure she is. She has a very rare disorder that caused her to look-

[00:12:41] Simone Collins: No, I know.

[00:12:42] I know. TLC is, it’s, it’s the dwarves and it’s the, yeah, it’s,

[00:12:46] Malcolm Collins: it’s all the, it’s, it’s the freak show people on Earth. But then should she never be able to have a... Hold on. I’m actually thinking through this. Should she never be able to have a sex life because,

[00:12:52] Simone Collins: you know- She should. Man, the, the whole point you make in The Pragmatist’s Guide to Sexuality is if you have a thing that some people’s kink or arousal pathway, whatever, like if for example you are obese, you should go after chubby chasers who are way out of your

[00:13:06] Malcolm Collins: league.

[00:13:06] So you’re basically saying that’s one PDA file off the streets.

[00:13:09] Simone Collins: She could get a very high value ‘cause like she’s not a supermodel looks-wise, right? She may not be like the world’s smartest person. She may not be a billionaire. But she could probably find a man who’s way out of her league on one of those measures or multiple because he’s super into...

[00:13:23] Yeah,

[00:13:27] Malcolm Collins: I mean, like the reason why it’s bad, and we’ve pointed this out before, it’s, is not due to consent. This isn’t why underage stuff is, is bad. It’s because it has negative developmental effects. The reason I point out it’s not due to consent is nobody cares when two, like, mentally disabled people have sex.

[00:13:43] Nobody cares when a super elderly person has sex. But like when we’re talking about a 15, 16-year-old who’s almost certainly smarter than most people in their like late 90s or something like that.

[00:13:53] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:13:53] Malcolm Collins: And it’s because of the negative developmental effects. But I think one of the things that I’m realizing is are those negative developmental effects the same for non-Europeans as they are for Europeans?

[00:14:04] Simone Collins: That’s a really good question. I did not think to look at birth complications or pregnancy complications for non-European teenagers. And by

[00:14:13] Malcolm Collins: the way, the next time I’m talking, make sure you look up the average age for Jews historically, ‘cause I wanna see if they went with the European standard or they went with- Oh

[00:14:19] the non-European standard. But like This is one of these interesting fields to talk about, or I find it to be interesting to talk about because there is so much just, like, reflective and reactive signaling around this stuff where individuals attempt to show that they are, Like, just y- y- to, to, to shout at someone, to clown on someone, to yell at someone, to, you know, whatever.

[00:14:51] And it’s, it’s super unproductive because a lot of the fight is not where it should be. Like, consider the leftist activists, right, who constantly badger, like, anime companies, but do nothing about the immigrant communities where this is normalized, right? Like we’ve pointed out countless times, the religious court in Pakistan made a hearing, this is the primary religious court of the country that it was Islamophobic to raise the age of marriage from, I think, nine.

[00:15:20] Like, how dare you? But this is normal in those countries and, and if you actually cared about this, that’s what you would be targeting and not anime that actually, Now, we can argue whether it leads to radicalizing people in this direction. Mm. Even if it does lead to radicalizing people in this direction, the number of, like, standard Westerners who ever get radicalized in this direction is so dwarfed by where this is happening outside of the West.

[00:15:51] But then you have to ask is it even bad where it’s happening outside the West? Because maybe they’re, like, genetically built for... But anyway, what’d you find about the Jews?

[00:15:57] Simone Collins: So, for per [00:16:00] European standards of when marriages took place, it looks like pre-1800s, which is what I looked at for the other groups many Jewish communities married what was considered way younger than most of them.

[00:16:11] Like, in their teens. So that is interesting. They were, like, the weird outliers in Europe at the time, I guess. Well, now- Probably among other groups ...

[00:16:22] Malcolm Collins: now, now hold on. Hold on. Does this explain the Epstein networks?

[00:16:28] Simone Collins: Oh, no. Stop. No. Malcolm. Mm, we’re just gonna, we’re gonna skate right over that. No, we’re gonna skate right over this one.

[00:16:38] And whatever you wanna say, you can save it for the comments. All right? Uh-uh. You can find whatever code word you wanna use for Epstein this time. Let’s just talk about it there. I’ll start by, this is actually something another friend of ours told me, or, like, mentioned in, in a text conversation, and I just had no idea.

[00:16:53] And she’s like, “Well, you understand that non-European women have earlier onset menopause. Like, their fertility window is way shorter, and people should really talk to them about this.” And I had no idea. And then I look it up, and the estimated global mean age at, of menopause is only 48.8. But for Europe, it’s around 50.5 years.

[00:17:17] In Asia, it’s 48.8.. In Africa it’s 48.4 years. In Latin America it’s 47.2 years, and in the Middle East it’s 47.4 years. 47, like that, 47 versus 50 is, is very significant. I- I had no idea, and also it’s, it’s crazy that we’re not telling people this, but the f- when you look at this in comparison to the average ages of marriage pre-1800 across different parts of the world, it kind of makes sense that fertility windows

[00:17:49] Malcolm Collins: got pushed back for Europeans.

[00:17:49] Well, and mostly Europeans have had a strong genetic pressure for a- Yeah ... very long time-

[00:17:54] Simone Collins: Yeah ...

[00:17:55] Malcolm Collins: for higher fertility windows.

[00:17:56] Simone Collins: Because of norms around marriage. In England pre-1800, the typical arage, marriage ar- we’ll say average female age at first marriage. Keep in mind, this is average, right? This is not, you know, there are lots of younger than this.

[00:18:10] But average was 22 to 26, which is kind of what modern society has rested at now, right? And maybe that’s because- Mm ... of colonialism and, and the influence of European and especially English culture, but it’s 22 to 26 pre-1800s. In Western and Northern Europe it was a little bit lower. It was 20 to 25.

[00:18:29] And in China, by comparison, it’s 14 to 18 average. India, 12 to 16. Japan, 17 to 19. Korea, 16 to 18. I, I checked about, like Aztec, 14 to 17. Maya, 16 to 19. And then in Sub-Saharan Africa, 15 to 18. So when you look at these earlier onsets of menopause, they kind of track pretty well to historical marriage patterns, and I think that kind of helps to make sense.

[00:19:02] Now y- when you look also at, I, one thing I decided to look at, and I’m sending you a graph of this so that you can look at it more visually. But I looked at the ages of consent today in the highest population countries, though this, the global map that I sent to you from d- Our Data Is Beautiful is also just everything.

[00:19:20] But the age of consent in Pakistan, do you know what it is?

[00:19:25] Malcolm Collins: What, what’s the age of consent in Pakistan?

[00:19:27] Simone Collins: It’s 18.

[00:19:30] Malcolm Collins: Oof.

[00:19:31] Simone Collins: I know. I was like, “Wait a second. How? Why?” And no, like actually, so there’s this Child Marriage Act of 1929- Oh ... that originally set the minimum age at, at 18 for males and 16 for females Okay, I,

[00:19:42] Malcolm Collins: I, I, by the way, take it back.

[00:19:44] Younger Siwan head definitely looks 15.

[00:19:46] Simone Collins: Okay. I’ll let it go. All of

[00:19:47] Malcolm Collins: these girls look

[00:19:48] Simone Collins: 15. I, I think she still looks super young. And I think she said she was in her mid-30s. Oops. I think she also just has, like, a phenotypically young-looking face.

[00:19:56] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, she has a phenotypically- But yeah ... that’s what it is.

[00:19:58] That’s, that’s... Guys are like, [00:20:00] “There’s this certain type of girl that I’m really into.” And it’s like, I hate to tell you this, brother, but that, that look is the look of a teenager

[00:20:10] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Long story short with Pakistan, basically, they have a lot of different laws and efforts. There’s the 1929 Child Marriage Restraint Act.

[00:20:21] There’s the Child Marriage Restraint Act in a different province. They’re like in, in Sindh province, in Islamabad Capital Territory, in Balochistan, in Punjab, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. India has a

[00:20:35] Malcolm Collins: super old first age of marriage.

[00:20:37] Simone Collins: Yeah, no, they, yeah, they, they’re very, like they have... what’s weird is when I was like, wait, but h- how long has it been 18?

[00:20:44] ‘Cause we keep hearing about these really young marriages in Pakistan. Like, all these laws show up. And then I, I, I dug a little deeper and it’s kind of like, well, they have all these laws because people keep marrying kids super young. Like, the laws are there ‘cause they’re like, “No, no, no stop. But like, actually stop.

[00:20:59] Can we...” They’re like, “For, super for real this time, guys. Like, let’s do

[00:21:03] Malcolm Collins: this.” But I mean, throughout Africa, Africa’s the place where it’s Africa and Indonesia where you see the 11 average age.

[00:21:10] Simone Collins: Yeah. But I mean, still UNICEF, for example, reports that around 18% of women age 20 to 24 in Pakistan were married before 18.

[00:21:19] So it’s, it’s, yeah, but you’re right. Pakistan’s not the worst. Anyway, that surprised me. Other, other ages of consent. So India’s also high at 18, Indonesia 18, Nigeria 18, Japan 18, Ethiopia, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, Türkiye. United States is actually a little different. Some of our states go as low as 16, I think.

[00:21:41] In the Philippines it’s 16 in general. Iran 15 to 18, Thailand 15 to 18, France 15 Germany 14 to 16. So go Germans. But I kinda think, like, it’s so normatively weird for Germans. They’d be like, “Well, but of course we don’t need the rule because we would never. We’re German.” In Bangladesh 14 to 16, Italy 14 to 16, in Mexico it’s 12 to 18, it varies by the state.

[00:22:07] Russia is 16, Vietnam is 16, United Kingdom 16, South Africa 16, South Korea 16, China and Brazil are both 14. So China’s still super low, which is wild. But you had mentioned this to me and I thought it was insane that Japan only criminalized possession of, we’ll call it CSAM involving real children in 2014.

[00:22:32] Though it should be noted that the law explicitly excludes manga, anime, and computer-generated imagery, and I just love Japan for being so Japan on that front.

[00:22:43] Malcolm Collins: So Japan.

[00:22:44] Simone Collins: Yeah, they’re like- I- But not the mang- I mean, not the manga.

[00:22:47] Malcolm Collins: That would outlaw- A little bit ... like, more than half of anime, right?

[00:22:50] Simone Collins: I know, they would, yeah, they would, like, destroy the entire anime industry if they were to, like, actually follow through with that.

[00:22:57] Yeah. So I totally understand, But

[00:23:00] Malcolm Collins: again, we need to, in America, understand that Japanese males and females are genetically and sociologically different from us.

[00:23:09] Simone Collins: Yeah, historically- Like, it- ... they married a lot younger. Their fertility window ends sooner. They, they need to marry younger, and now that they live in a culture where marriage is severely delayed, they’re gonna see a bigger hit from that.

[00:23:21] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, I personally will be encouraging my kids to date from, to marry starting probably around 16 to 17. I think that’s when you start dating and learning to date with the intention of eventually marrying.

[00:23:35] Simone Collins: Yeah, we’re gonna have to work on them with this because Octavian just picked up At More Birth’s report that’s been sitting around our house.

[00:23:42] Yeah. And started leafing through it, and he was looking at this graph of average age of first marriage- ... over time.

[00:23:49] Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:50] Simone Collins: And I asked him how old he wanted to be when he got married, and at first he’s like, “Mm, 40?” And I’m like, “Really?” And he’s like, “Okay, maybe when I’m, like, a teenager.” And I’m like, “Oh, [00:24:00] okay, so like 18?”

[00:24:00] He’s like, “No, like a hun- 100.” So I don’t know where he’s at. We need to be like, “This is the right age. After this, you gotta worry.”

[00:24:09] Malcolm Collins: Well, we used to get this. Princesses, like Disney princesses, actually look this up, look up the ages of various famous Disney princesses. Wait, hold on. Let

[00:24:16] Simone Collins: me get my phone.

[00:24:16] Malcolm Collins: But they’re often quite young for when they, they, they got married.

[00:24:20] And I think that normalizing that, normalizing not the Hallmark wedding of the divorce or whatever, but the I’m gonna get married when I’m... What, what are the ages- ... of the Disney princesses?

[00:24:33] Simone Collins: Snow White is 14.

[00:24:35] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That’s

[00:24:36] Simone Collins: what we need- Jasmine is 15. Aurora is 16. Ariel is 16. Mulan is 16. Hey, legal in the UK.

[00:24:43] Merida from Brave, 16. Moana, 16. Belle, usually treated as 17 years old, though sources vary between 17 and 18. Now, hold on. Pocahontas is 18. Do you want me to play a little

[00:24:55] Malcolm Collins: fun game? Rapunzel, 18. Now look up the ages of their partners in each of those movies.

[00:25:03] Simone Collins: Okay. I mean, obviously because the men are just so unimportant in most of these, especially early movies, it’s hard to tell. But so Snow White, 14. Prince Florian, 18 to 31. So either-

[00:25:19] Malcolm Collins: 18 to 31 with a 14-year-old ...

[00:25:21] Simone Collins: is that, let’s see. So the half plus seven rule, that’s seven pl- s- the half, yeah, seven- No,

[00:25:26] Malcolm Collins: no, keep going.

[00:25:27] Just go. Just

[00:25:28] Simone Collins: go ... okay. Yeah, anyway ... keep going ... the, the half plus seven rule is my, my... Okay. Cinderella’s 19. Prince Charming, 21. Appropriate. That’s a two-year age gap. Aurora and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty 16 versus 20, four-year age gap. Ariel- ... and Prince Eric, she’s 16, he’s 18 to 19. Where is the biggest gap here?

[00:25:47] The biggest ga- oh, it’s Rapunzel and Flynn. Because she’s 18 and he’s 26. That’s eight years.

[00:25:55] Malcolm Collins: But she’s older- That’s, that’s not too bad ... so it’s okay. What about the, the Muslim one? Wh- what about the, the-

[00:26:00] Simone Collins: Oh well, come on. The, the street urchin? J- that’s plus three years. She’s 15 and he’s 18.

[00:26:06] Malcolm Collins: That’s, that’s

[00:26:08] Simone Collins: a very normal marriage for that region ... but Pocahontas and John Smith is, is less clear. It is, it is e- it is between two or nine years. But- So that is unclear ...

[00:26:17] Malcolm Collins: getting women excited about marrying in their teens, I think is where we need to be as a culture again.

[00:26:22] Simone Collins: Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. W- but when, and we, I guess we have to get over this European Puritanical view shaming teen marriage.

[00:26:33] And you can actually really see it in, in where various countries instituted CSAM laws basically being like, “Young looking people, no good in images. Stop.” You c- the first, all the first countries to start this are Western. All the last countries to institute these laws, not Western. So we start with 1973 in Germany, 1978 in the USA and UK, 1980s in Australia ‘83 for Canada, 1990 for Brazil.

[00:27:03] That’s our first non-super Western country, even though Brazil’s pretty Western. 1996 Russia, 1997 China, 2000 India, 2003 Nigeria,

[00:27:14] 2007 South Africa. Like the re- Wait. Wait,

[00:27:17] Malcolm Collins: what, what is this, what is this when?

[00:27:18] Simone Collins: This is when CSAM laws were instituted, when, when, when it wasn’t okay to create or possess the, the stuff that you’re not allowed to create or possess the, the bad, the images Very

[00:27:32] Malcolm Collins: recently in most of these non-Western countries.

[00:27:34] Simone Collins: Right? Yeah. And, and Japan’s the worst, of course with the- unique

[00:27:38] Malcolm Collins: case there ...

[00:27:39] Simone Collins: really dragging their feet. But n- but not for, not for anime and manga. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. It’s gonna be okay. Your manga... God, what was that anime where, like, the- The succubus looks like she’s a child

[00:27:55] Malcolm Collins: No- Naomi or whatever I told you about.

[00:27:58] The w- yeah, where she, like, actually looks like a [00:28:00] child a child, and she can only survive by drinking-

[00:28:04] Simone Collins: Things ...

[00:28:04] Malcolm Collins: ex- things. And- Oh my God ... the whole thing’s supposed to be... Oh, hold on. R- remember I said it’s a show about being a father, right? Like, that’s, that’s the, the- Oh, yeah. Yes I had forgotten that the main character is actually literally her father, but he’s 14.

[00:28:23] Simone Collins: This is worse than that anime who, like, the guy’s hand was just a girl one morning. Remember that? Just like- I did look that up. A girl

[00:28:32] Octavian Collins: That’s ridiculous. That’s a girl.

[00:28:34] Simone Collins: Japan’s the best. Who thinks of these things? There’s like-

[00:28:38] Malcolm Collins: When I was on Linkfest streams, the, the, the manga where a guy’s willy became a girl, right?

[00:28:43] Like, th- that’s, like, the whole manga People said it was funny. I don’t know. I, I, I don’t know why- I

[00:28:50] Simone Collins: mean, it would be, I think. Yeah, I don’t Yeah, they just have to, like, find the weirdest people in the country, and they’re like, “You, you’re hired. Write a manga.” I like it. Anyway, this- The

[00:29:03] Malcolm Collins: weirdest people ...

[00:29:04] Simone Collins: this has changed.

[00:29:05] I mean, I, I, I, I’ve been having a conversation with, with someone, and w- we’ve talked about things like teen marriage, and just the, the stigma that we have around, for example, even getting married in college. You know, people see it as really weird, and I think a lot of people even who are very pronatalist who understand that it’s an issue that people are putting off marriage would be kind of weirded out by the idea of their son or daughter getting married right out of high school or in college.

[00:29:30] I,

[00:29:30] Malcolm Collins: by the way, would not, and when our kids start dating and when I start trying to do arranged marriage for them, I think the appropriate age for a kid to get married is, perfect age is probably 19 or 20.

[00:29:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, and at that age, too, the young couple can, if they need to, like while they’re still getting their footing, live at our house.

[00:29:49] You know, like, live with the parents if, if they help out and everything. Like, it, it’s such an easier way to start your life. Build savings, you know, while you’re young enough to- And if

[00:29:57] Malcolm Collins: we start having kids at that age, we just take care of the kids.

[00:30:00] Simone Collins: Exactly. It’s, it’s the smartest thing. And guess what?

[00:30:03] That, that is actually what my parents did. When my parents came back from Japan with me, for a while they lived at my dad’s parents’ house. And th- this is, this is a very normative thing. Like, the reason we had baby showers wasn’t because people wanted some bougie party that cost $10,000. It was because this was a young 20-year-old couple right out of high school, and they didn’t have money to buy diapers, and so people chipped in and bought them diapers and, like, t- taught them baby things and whatnot.

[00:30:32] Like, there’s a reason for these traditions. The same for bridal showers. It was that, oh, this is a new couple. And wedding gifts. You bought them silverware because they hoped to buy a house together and get silverware, not like they were already 30 and living in an apartment and they owned everything they’d ever need in their life.

[00:30:48] Anyway, apparently we just need to get over the fact that, Everyone else likes young girls especially. This is... We’re the weird ones.

[00:30:58] Malcolm Collins: We’re the weird ones- That’s all. Yeah ... for thinking that this is not cool?

[00:31:02] Simone Collins: Yeah. This, well, this has significantly changed my views. Like, the, in, in, in, in, in a am I the a*****e situation, we Europeans are the a*****e.

[00:31:11] We’re sorry. This was our mistake. Bring back teen marriage, bring back my Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, bring back teen pregnancy. We were wrong. We are prudish m- procrastinating Europeans. And also, if you are not of European ancestry, please adjust your childbearing years accordingly because who knew?

[00:31:39] I didn’t know. I hope everyone else

[00:33:56] knows this, but I don’t think they do. Anyway, I love you, Malcolm.

[00:33:59] Malcolm Collins: I love you too. Have a good time. This was a, a really interesting what, there was something I was gonna- About Japan or something. Now we’re just all of these other groups. I mean, what’s, what’s your takeaway on all of this in regards to the way we as a society...

[00:34:16] I mean, I just think that some groups were never really designed, or not designed, but, like, cultures are different in a way where some may genuinely not be, be compatible. And this is one of those areas wh- fascinatingly that, that Europeans may have psy-oped the rest of the world into eradicating themselves.

[00:34:38] Simone Collins: Hmm. Oh, yeah, I mean, you did an, an episode once on are some countries just not compatible with democracy. Apparently some countries are just not compatible with later onset marriage for example.

[00:34:48] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

[00:34:49] Simone Collins: So yeah, I, I, I think you’re onto something there. Are we becoming skeptical of the benefits of colonialism?

[00:34:55] I don’t know.

[00:34:56] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, we, we just need to colonize them harder until, you know-

[00:35:01] Simone Collins: Until their fertility windows are moved, but we will force them back. It’s fine.

[00:35:05] Malcolm Collins: Colonize me harder, Daddy.

[00:35:07] Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s, it... You’ll like it. Don’t worry.

[00:35:10] Malcolm Collins: You’ll like it. You’ll like it at the end of the day. Come on.

[00:35:14] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:35:14] Malcolm Collins: They, they, r- I mean, there’s been countries that have asked to be colonized in the past.

[00:35:19] Simone Collins: Yeah. And were there some countries that asked for their colonizing forces to not go?

[00:35:24] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Like, the, the idea that, like, colonization was this like a universal negative is as, you know, i- it’s, it’s like, do some people in America not like the US government?

[00:35:36] Yes, a big chunk. You can get people to protest, but a lot of them like it as well.

[00:35:40] Speaker 5: There’s a great quote from an Indian under the early stages of occupation, , and they asked him like, “What, what do you think of occupation? What do you think of having to pay taxes to the British government?” And he was like ecstatic about it. He’s like, “, now with the British government, every year a taxpayer comes around once.

[00:35:56] It used to be every year all of the local [00:36:00] warlords sent taxpayers to my house.” , So basically the idea is that before the British came in, there was a bunch of overlapping regions that might have power, or at least the power to force you to give them money, and they’d all send , , tax collectors to you, , at least within this region of India.

[00:36:14] And he was, , he felt so out from under , , the burden of that under the British system. We act like everyone was saints before the colonial system came in, but in a lot of these regions, the people were, , comically cruel compared to what the West did

[00:36:29] Speaker 9: Again, if we’re talking about India here, you can look at the practice of sati, where they would burn a wife alive when her husband died. , And there’s the famous case of the English general who’s, , working with Indian troops, and they start to build a pyre to burn a woman alive because her husband had died.

[00:36:47] And he looks at them and he goes, “, don’t do that.” And they’re like, “What? We’re your allies. This is our practice.” And he goes, “Well, okay then, , we have a practice in Britain, and when men burn a woman alive, we hang them. So I’ll just set up the gallows right here, and as soon as you’re done with this fire, we can hang all of you.”

[00:37:05] , And they’re like, “Oh, okay, okay. I guess we won’t do this.” But, , , the reality , is that a lot of these places were far more cruel and brutal than is portrayed in, in the common narrative today

[00:37:15]

[00:37:15] Speaker 10: And note here, this isn’t just in the words of the quote-unquote colonizers who were recording this. One of, like, the big moments I remember from childhood is we were reading this book called Things Fall Apart, which was supposed to be about how bad the colonization of Nigeria was, and there’s this scene where they take a baby and they leave it to slowly die alone in the woods simply because it was a twin, and they believed twins were evil.

[00:37:42] And the complaint was that the Europeans wanted to stop this practice. And I remember, like, looking around in the woods, , the room and being like, “Wait, so, like, w- like, th- uh, like, everyone else here thinks this was a bad thing that we stopped this?” , The level of horrors of things that we stopped through colonization are almost unspeakable in many of these regions

[00:38:07] Speaker 11: And I say this as someone who has a British background because my own ancestors before they were colonized from Rome practiced human sacrifice regularly, practiced the sacrifice of children regularly. They would bury them under bridges to like keep them from collapsing or something. , They f- monstrous, monstrous stuff.

[00:38:26] , Before colonization we were all animals

[00:38:28] Simone Collins: Well, and I think that’s kind of what China was trying to sell with the Belt and Road Initiative. They’re like, “Don’t you wanna be colonized? Wouldn’t you like me to build some infrastructure for you? Let’s do this.” I- it’s, it’s colonizing 2.0 with different branding.

[00:38:41] So I agree with you. Yeah, I see it. Okay, bye.

[00:38:45] Malcolm Collins: Bye.

[00:38:48] Whoa, I didn’t ask you to bring it and fill it, but thank you. Octavian, come here. Come here. We’re gonna say happy birthday.

[00:38:54] Simone Collins: I gave you 2% milk. That’s really nice of you. Oh, Octavian, that’s

[00:38:55] Malcolm Collins: so nice. Did you spill any? Did you make a mess?

[00:38:58] Simone Collins: No.

[00:38:59] Malcolm Collins: Okay,

[00:38:59] Simone Collins: by the way, I don’t know if you saw. Did you see the basically, like, lore encyclopedia that’s super interactive and full of fun, like, games and cool elements that Leaflet built?

[00:39:10] Malcolm Collins: No.

[00:39:12] Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. I have to send you a link. Did you

[00:39:14] Malcolm Collins: share it with me?

[00:39:16] Simone Collins: Yeah no. I, I didn’t share it with you. I just learned about it. It’s at clyo.angelsword.com. I’m sending it to you.

[00:39:23] Malcolm Collins: It’s- Is this the one where she has, like, the cartridges that you can put in, or are you talking about something else?

[00:39:27] Simone Collins: There is a, there’s a combat training game. There’s a library with books to go through. There... Y- you basically get to explore the lore and learn about the RPG, but in a very immersive, interactive, game-like way. Not even game-like. It, as a game. Like, it’s- So

[00:39:43] Malcolm Collins: do you wanna hear the crazy thing-

[00:39:44] I think it should be ready to go live tomorrow, which I’m absolutely shocked about. But it is a new standalone app that you can download for free on RFAB. And what it does is it, for reasons, like if you [00:40:00] ever had a reason to do this, but in terms of the type of- Who

[00:40:02] Simone Collins: knows why?

[00:40:03] Malcolm Collins: Image generation- I don’t know why ... and video generation on RFAB you can open, like, a collection of images or videos, and then it auto-sizes them to the size of the app’s screen and puts them in order. So, you don’t, like... You can say, like, “Oh, I want five images open on my screen,” and it will automatically size them to use maximum screen real estate.

[00:40:25] Oh ... and the thing that I’m still working on is dragging and dropping one folder of this into another folder of this so it’s even, the UI is even easier. Okay. But it also works with clicking on opening images or videos, and that it will auto open them in a very lightweight screen that’s very easy to both resize, but also that, like, doesn’t, like, it- If you’re using, like, VLC, it, like, puts the title in front of it and stuff like that.

[00:40:49] Yeah. And it doesn’t auto loop, and it’s very annoying if you’re creating AI videos. But no, this is all handled automatically by this system.

[00:40:56] Speaker 12: Basically, this is a totally free app that you can download from the, , image generation page or the page that allows you to search every not safe for work database at the same time, , from that link up there. And, , if you set it to your default viewer, uh, you can just drop any additional image into the, , another image, and it will equally space them in relation to each other, as well as some other quality of life features

[00:41:21] Malcolm Collins: And then it does other useful things that you might run into with RFAB, like, if you’re using the not safe for work image search feature, because it allows you to download zips from various websites- Okay

[00:41:30] You can get, like, an entire folder full of zips, and now this has a feature that automatically unzips them all and can automatically take them all out of their subfolders if you want them all in the, the parent folder. Now it’s being-

[00:41:40] Simone Collins: This just sounds like it’s for a very specific type of person.

[00:41:42] Malcolm Collins: It’s being... Chud, Chud backs it. Yeah, it’s, it’s being built right now. But it’s getting close. Like, like, like, it’ll be improved because I just started working on it today, but at a base level it works right now.

[00:41:54] Simone Collins: Okay. Wow.

[00:41:56] Malcolm Collins: But, Wow ... yeah. Well, I’d say if, if you... I mean, even, it even has, like, normal safe for work uses.

[00:42:03] Like, if you’re just doing a lot of like image creation and you want to go through tons of images at once it’s a really intuitive way to do that that’s incredibly lightweight. Okay. Now, right now it’s only for Windows because I have to send it to Simone if we wanna make a Mac version. So if people want a Mac version you can let me know

[00:42:22] Simone Collins: Thanks.

[00:42:22] I don’t know, Macs are more used by women. Women are less likely to want this use.

[00:42:27] Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. I know it’s only th- th- those are women things.

[00:42:31] Simone Collins: Yeah, I feel like the, the overlap between the type of, let’s just say it, guy who wants to use this and their, like, computer use, like, they’re gonna use gaming PCs.

[00:42:41] They’re, they’re not gonna be idiots who use Macs like me. Sorry. But yes. No, I mean, anyway, it sounds really cool. I will-

[00:42:49] Malcolm Collins: Oh, and I, I hugely improved the not safe for work video generation feature to the point where it’s basically unrec- Well, because the problem that I realized I had is the text to video was not using not safe for work CDance, which is the best if you want to describe a scene.

[00:43:05] And now it works really well for scene descriptions.

[00:43:09] Simone Collins: Huh. Interesting

[00:43:14] I’m gonna have to- And,

[00:43:14] Malcolm Collins: and you can generate quite long videos, like 15 seconds

[00:43:17] Simone Collins: I need to do video generation on this. Okay. Well, I’m excited to do that then. But for now I will, I will kick us off. Okay. Ready? Yeah?

[00:43:29] Speaker 13: I know which one it is. It feels so much better than having one. I’ll tell you, just like this little herd. You’re gonna be with me, Toasty? Aw, thanks. It’s texting me Do I like frogs? Yeah, frogs are super cool.

[00:43:57] Speaker 14: Yeah, see that’s why you were gonna give me a frog question. Oh, yeah. [00:44:00] ‘Cause I like frogs. Yeah. We’ll give it to you if you eat your food, Toasty. Yeah, Toasty. Okay. ‘Cause we want you to grow big and strong, right, buddy? Look at that

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down The New York Times’ recent coordinated coverage of masculinity and fatherhood. They analyze four pieces that attempt to redefine what it means to be a dad — including a cartoon about a trans father on Father’s Day, a childless writer’s take on “modern” fatherhood, an attack on Scott Galloway’s views on paternity leave, and Ezra Klein’s conversation with Helen Lewis framing the “New Right’s very old vision of men.”

The Collinses argue these articles reveal deep cultural elite contempt for actual fathers and promote unsustainable, self-indulgent views of parenting that prioritize personal identity and emotional affirmation over duty, sacrifice, and long-term human thriving. They explain why pronatalist, traditional approaches to masculinity and fatherhood will inherit the future while progressive narratives collapse under their own contradictions.

Expect sharp cultural analysis, personal parenting stories, and a direct challenge to the mainstream media’s attempt to gaslight men about what fatherhood really is.

Show Notes

@AlexBerenson wrote:

Cannot make this up, either.

@nytimes opinion has had four recent pieces about fatherhood and masculinity, with six authors:

Three women

A trans “man”

Two childless men

Not one father. The cultural elite contempt for dads runs so deep we don’t even get to speak for ourselves.

The four pieces appear to be these recent New York Times Opinion items on fatherhood/masculinity:

* “To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated” (guest essay in comic-strip form, by Zach Ellams, a trans-identifying parent writing about being a “trans dad” and fatherhood).

* “The Most Important Way That Fatherhood Has Changed” (Father’s Day–timed essay on changing perspectives on fatherhood).

* “This Masculinity Influencer Is Loud and Wrong About Paternity Leave” (criticizing a male influencer’s stance on paternity leave and broader masculinity issues).

* “The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men” (Opinion video/transcript focusing on men, masculinity and the New Right, featuring journalist Helen Lewis).

“To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/trans-dad-parenting-fathers-day.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r1A.oWDB.tcG4utZreGgZ&smid=url-share

This shows a series of cartoon panels about a trans father who underwent surgery at 18 and has lived as a father of a daughter, mostly quite out, for some time.

It’s about how he found self acceptance through parenting (and I love that, because I—Simone—have also experienced that and can totally relate)

The panels include things like:

* His daughter yelling: “HOW DID YOU GROW A MUSTACHE IF YOU WERE A LADY?” at a public school

* His daughter asking about a pre-transition picture of him in an album and asking:

* “Who’s that?”

* “It’s me”

* “Oh. You look cool.”

* “Then or now?”

* “Then.”

* Him worrying about his daughter outing him at school

* “I don’t actually tell everyone I’m trans. I save that for special people”

* Eventually she outs him, saying she wants to grow a beard when she grows up, and when told she can’t, insisting she can because her dad did and he was a girl.

* Her various sick burns

* “You’re slow because you’re old!”

* “Maybe I’ll be like you when I grow up” // “Yeah?” // “Yeah. Really short.”

The Backlash:

* @realBrandonGill: “On Father’s Day, the New York Times decided to promote a cartoon of a woman cosplaying as a father. And they did it for a reason. Because the cultural left knows that the first step to conquering the future is brainwashing the minds of our children— and they’ve realized that strong fathers are the biggest obstacle to that goal. They want to tear the institution of fatherhood down to nothing because, to the left, things that are normal, good, and holy are a threat to their marxist revolution.”

* Matt Taibbi: “Today’s NYT editorial on Father’s Day is an all-timer. Again, don’t know where to put it on the funny-vs-horrifying axis:”

* @EndWokeness: “The New York Times on Father’s Day. We do not hate the media enough.”

* Caitlin Flanagan: “The child’s job was to help the parent feel comfortable with his gender.”

* @AfterTheReset: “Message aside, is it necessary for the cartoons to be ugly, poorly drawn, and unappealing?”

Is this an affront to father’s day?

* Sort of

* Mother’s Day in the modern U.S. sense was founded by Anna Maria Jarvis in the early 1900s to create a solemn “memorial mothers day” honoring the sacrifices and care of individual mothers, inspired directly by her own mother Ann Reeves Jarvis’s wish for such a day and by Ann’s community health and reconciliation work.

* Anna’s drive was rooted in her mother Ann Reeves Jarvis’s work: Ann had organized “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in the 1850s to improve sanitation and reduce infant mortality, and later “Mother’s Friendship Day” events to heal divisions between Union and Confederate families after the Civil War. Ann also expressed in a Sunday school prayer that she hoped someone would someday establish a “memorial mothers day” for the “matchless service” mothers render to humanity, a line Anna took as her guiding mission

* In the U.S., Father’s Day is generally credited to Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, who proposed the holiday in 1909 after hearing a church sermon about Anna Jarvis’s newly established Mother’s Day. (her civil war veteran dad raised her and her siblings alone after her mother died).

* I find this really relatable as a parent

* Many of us have peculiarities and a story about how parenting helps with acceptance and getting someone out of their heads is actually really good

* In fact, these panels even demonstrate how the author’s daughter gets him to stop overthinking things

* There’s a panel where she’s like: “I spot something that starts with T!”

* And all he can think of is “trans”

* And he’s like: Termite? Turtleneck? Tiny morsel of wood?”

* And his daughter is like: “TREES.”

“The Most Important Way That Fatherhood Has Changed”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/opinion/fathers-day-fatherhood.html

https://archive.is/Gn93j

In this, Frank Bruni, a (childless) contributing opinion writer who has been on staff at the time for over 25 years, talks about how fatherhood has changed between his dad and his brother’s generations (his brother has three kids in their 20s)

He talks about fathers spending more time with their kids now an cites an article suggesting one reason fertility is lower is that men want to give the kids they do have more attention.

In short, he says modern fatherhood is high effort, high investment, and he says that’s good.

He sort of misses that the investment now isn’t in empowering kids but rather indulging them, and he provides a good example: “Mark encouraged his children to let him in by inviting them to understand him. He made sure that they met and mingled with his adult friends and thus observed how he tended relationships and what they meant to him. He also showed his children his passions.

“I took Frank to a Grateful Dead concert when he was 12,” Mark told me, referring to his oldest son, who, like me, is named after my father. But that outing wasn’t just characteristically ardent Deadhead evangelism (and, well, unorthodox parenting). It reflected Mark’s sustained effort to expand the time that he and Frank spent together. The more hours, the more conversation. The more conversation, the greater the likelihood of serendipitous revelations, real familiarity, deeper connection.”

“This Masculinity Influencer Is Loud and Wrong About Paternity Leave”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/opinion/paternity-leave-debate.html

https://archive.is/Zm4Oy

In this opinion piece, Jessica Grose denounces Scott Galloway’s stance on paternity leave.

It should be noted that Scott Galloway is one of the few progressive-leaning pronatalists out there (center-left liberal or social capitalist rather).

In an interview with Derek Thompson, Galloway said: “I think there should be mandatory maternity leave, because I think the species needs to propagate. I’m not sure there should be mandatory paternity leave. I think it sometimes creates resentment. I think sometimes it’s abused. And so I’m a bit of a capitalist here. I think it’s between the company, but I don’t know if I immediately default to oh, the father needs to be there.”

Grose added: “Galloway also commented that he doesn’t think men should be in the delivery room. “I thought that was so disgusting and unnatural,” he says. When I asked Galloway if he had a response to the backlash he has been getting over these comments, he said over email, “My comments were intentionally provocative in the context of a friendly/snarky conversation with Derek.””

She also noted: “Poor Derek Thompson tried to push back, and launch a defense of parental leave. “Most of the gap between prime age adult male and female earnings is a motherhood penalty. And so one benefit of paternity leave is that it puts men and women on relatively more equal standing,” to which Galloway replies, “By lowering the economic standards of the man?””

She proceeded to cite research finding that “Paid paternity leave in Quebec did not fix the motherhood penalty for women, nor did it substantially hurt men’s economic standards.”

She also attempts to exploit that “not a baby man” aspect of Galloway’s personality:

* “It gets worse. Thompson, who is still glowing from the birth of his second child, shares a very sweet story with Galloway about playing “monster” with his eldest child, a 2-year-old, and how he feels “an enormous upsurge of instinct for how to parent my child.” Thompson adds, “I love discovering a new piece of myself in parenting.”Galloway doesn’t even seem to be listening to Thompson, because his response is, “The bad news is it just sucks for the dad. We pretend to like it.” Galloway thinks dads are full of it “when they say they like babies. They’re awful. As a new dad your job is to make sure moms don’t lose it, “and get some sleep and keep the baby away from bodies of water. That is literally your only two jobs right now, or the only two things that you’re any good at. At about 2 or 3 it starts to get less awful and then by 4 or 5 it almost becomes fun.””

She imposes an implication on Galloway that is unfair: “Scott Galloway is entitled to his feelings about parenting babies, and I’m sure he’s not alone. What I am objecting to is the unsaid implication that it’s super fun for moms all the time, while also talking to a man who seems to be wholeheartedly enjoying his small children.”

She tries to argue that many men like being fathers (implying Galloway is heartless) and that studies show people want supportive partners and that partners who take paternity leave “have higher levels of life satisfaction, better health, better marriages and better relationships to their children”

She writes: “When I asked Galloway if he was familiar with any of this research, he said, “My point wasn’t that paternity leave is bad — it’s that we should be honest about trade-offs and let families make decisions based on their circumstances rather than treating one model as morally superior.””

But then she frames his statement as elitist, writing about how few people have that choice.

She finishes with: “I don’t think it’s unusual for men to find childbirth uncomfortable or scary to watch, and becoming a dad can be a rough transition for many; there’s a whole genre of internet videos of dads passing out in the delivery room. But I don’t think saying that watching women give birth is “disgusting and unnatural” is the best way to start this conversation. Galloway told me in an email, “The broader point I was making — clumsily — is that we should be honest about the different experiences people have rather than prescriptive about what every father must feel or do. Some dads experience profound bonding in the first weeks; others find their stride later. Both are valid.”

I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.”

This is exactly why we don’t have very many left-leaning pronatalists.

* On one hand we have a woman who has unreasonable demands for a pet project

* On the other hand we have a man trying to share a relatable view and espouse practical solutions

“The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-helen-lewis-gender-right.html

https://archive.is/kuEGG

This is an episode of the Ezra Klein show with Helen Lewis as they discuss a concept she wrote about and refers to as masculinism.

They open with clips of Bronze Age Pervert and Tucker Carlson yearning for “the ancient Hittite Empire or the ancient Mitanni Empire” and “what we had before Betty Friedan wrote “The Feminine Mystique,” before lifestyle feminism dominated every institution in the West.”

They argue:

* There is a coherent masculinist ideology on the American right that goes far beyond the online “manosphere” provocateurs like Andrew Tate.

* Its central claim: modernity and liberal democracy have “thwarted” true masculinity, which is defined around hierarchy, dominance, risk‑taking, and clear gender roles (male breadwinner, female homemaker).

* Figures like Raw Egg Nationalist, Bronze Age Pervert (Costin Alamariu), Helen Andrews, JD Vance, Doug Wilson, and parts of Heritage’s agenda are all different expressions of this same ideological current.

They talk about various concerns expressed within the sphere of masculinism (from dropping testosterone to boys’ struggles in schools, male suicide, endorcine-disrupting chemicals, sedentary work, etc.)

Their primary criticism of it center around:

* A lack of what they find to be empty or incoherent intellectualism

* Klein keeps finding “less there than I thought”: beneath the grand talk of thymos, Nietzsche and liberal decadence, the arguments often collapse into trivial lifestyle advice (e.g. “throw out your plastic chopping board”) or conspiratorial hormone politics.

* They argue that much of the literature swaps serious argument for trolling, irony and “vibes,” making claims hard to pin down and allowing proponents to dodge accountability for what they’re actually saying.

* The movement’s misogyny

* Historical nostalgia and bad faith use of “the past”

* FAIR.

* They argue the movement builds on mythic, cherry‑picked pasts: a fake 1950s Pleasantville, a sanitized Rome or Sparta, or vague “longhouse” matriarchies that collapse under any concrete historical scrutiny.

* The movement’s contempt for liberal self‑restraint and equality

* They find masculinists overly valorize aggression, domination, and hierarchy

* Klein argues healthy masculinity is a matter of self mastery

* The self-helpishness of the movement

* The looksmaxxing

* The extreme body aesthetics (steroid use)

* Their allegedly exploiting real male distress in exploitative ways

* They say masculinists focus too much on butthurt and hierarchy and not on actual constructive reforms

* Their policy threat

* E.g. pushback on no-fault divorce

* The tone

* Klein emphasizes that the movement’s heroes (like

* Trump and Nick Fuentes) embody disinhibition, cruelty, and narcissism rather than courage, responsibility, or fatherhood; he calls this a “terrible vision” of adulthood and manhood.

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today, because The New York Times seems to be, in some either organized or unintentional fashion making a stance on what masculinity is, really trying to shape the narrative in a very, like, kind of obvious way.

[00:00:15] Malcolm Collins: Is it, is it bopping your kids?

[00:00:17] Simone Collins: N- no. No, no, no, no. It’s- No, no,

[00:00:19] Malcolm Collins: no, no, no, no, no.

[00:00:20] Simone Collins: They don’t get to- ... the opposite of that. And I started falling down this rabbit hole when I saw this tweet on X at Alex Berenson wrote, “Cannot make this up either. @NYTimesOpinion has had four recent pieces about fatherhood and masculinity with six authors.

[00:00:36] Three women, a trans man, two childless men. Not one father. The cultural elite contempt for dads runs so deep that we don’t even get to speak for ourselves.” He didn’t directly reference all of the four articles in his, his post, so I-

[00:00:54] Malcolm Collins: The trans article was really creepy.

[00:00:56] Simone Collins: The trans article, we we’re gonna go...

[00:00:58] That’s our first one. But I did, I did, I think I found the four of them. There is, “To My Daughter, My Gender Was Never Complicated.” This is the- Trans one that Malcolm alluded to. We’re gonna look at The, The Most Important Way That Fatherhood Has Changed, a Father’s Day themed essay on changing perspectives on fatherhood.

[00:01:17] This masculinity influencer is loud and wrong about paternity leave, which is criticizing Scott Galloway’s stance on paternity leave and broader masculinity issues. Him being a left-leaning pronatalist, and one of the only ones. Mm. So great. Thanks, guys. And then finally, The New Right’s Very Old Vision of Men which is from the Ezra Klein podcast actually, where he has on Helen Lewis.

[00:01:41] So two people I think are great and, but no, they have to talk about basically reframe the entire... They call it, I think, well, we’ll, we’ll get into it. Some, some name that Helen Lewis has chosen for the masculinity, masculinity movement, like raw nationalist and bronze per- pervert and a bunch of other people in our broader space.

[00:02:00] But why they’re like shallow and evil. So this

[00:02:04] Malcolm Collins: is very much- These people are awesome. Hold on. No, the thing is, is we will replace them. None of these people who are whining about what it means to be a dad is a real dad. Well,

[00:02:12] Simone Collins: and you’ll see this actually. And here’s who’s gonna replace them. So what I think is interesting is this, this is their attempt to frame this is what masculinity is or should be.

[00:02:19] This is what fatherwood- fatherhood is or should be. And in so doing, they actually, I think, explain exactly your point, why they are going to be replaced, why they are not going to inherit the future. Ooh. Because the views they express are inherently unsustainable and not going to produce something that helps humans thrive in the end which I think is telling.

[00:02:44] So let’s jive right in to the one that really got X clutching its pearls in such a way that they just burst into powder. To my daughter, my gender was never complicated. This was a series of cartoon panels about a trans father who underwent surgery at 18 and has lived as a father of a daughter mostly, mostly not quite out actually for quite some time.

[00:03:11] And it’s supposed to be- Okay ... this heartwarming story about h- how a parent has found self-acceptance through parenting. And on the surface, like, I really like that because, as you know, I have to give myself grace more now, knowing that our children are a lot like me and that some of the most difficult things about them are traits that are deep from within me, and I have to...

[00:03:34] It’s a whole thing. I like that. But so for those of you just listening, the panels include things like his daughter yelling, .” How did you grow a mustache if you were a lady?” at a public pool where this father is not out. His daughter asking about a pre-transition picture of him in an album and asking, “Who’s that?”.

[00:03:53] And the father says, “It’s me.” “Oh, you look cool. Then or now?” “Then.” [00:04:00] She’s just full of sick burns, honestly. He- Just

[00:04:02] burns ...

[00:04:03] he has some panels about worrying about his daughter outing him at school where she talks about like, “Oh, my mommy, I, I told them how my mommy made a cake for you after your surgery.”

[00:04:14] And he, he says, “I don’t actually tell everyone I’m trans. I save that for special people.” And then eventually she does out him, saying that she wants to grow a beard when she grows up, and when told that she can’t, she insists that she can because her dad did and he was a girl.

[00:04:29] And

[00:04:30] Malcolm Collins: some more- Oh, then it’s not grooming at all.

[00:04:32] Simone Collins: No, I know, I know, I know. Some other sick burns from her that I love-

[00:04:35] Malcolm Collins: I love how they just, they’re, they’re always like, they’re always like this. They’re always like, “We’re not grooming people.” We’re not

[00:04:40] Simone Collins: doing that.

[00:04:40] Malcolm Collins: And then they show an example of a kid growing up in an environment where this is normalized wanting to do it themself,

[00:04:45] Simone Collins: and they don’t- I thought I would marry a woman and have 100 cats and live in a van,

[00:04:49] Malcolm Collins: okay?

[00:04:49] You, like you literally thought the norm was being a lesbian. And, and, and the-

[00:04:52] Simone Collins: I know I did. I really did, ‘cause all my friends

[00:04:55] Malcolm Collins: grew up in San Francisco. You

[00:04:55] Simone Collins: grew

[00:04:55] Malcolm Collins: up in San Francisco. Yeah ... and it’s, you know, I think that one of the things To remember is that grooming is normal to an extent, right? Like, in that everybody grows up into the culture, or often into the culture, th- they’re surrounded by when they’re a kid, and that’s often the culture’s goal.

[00:05:14] This is why at the San Francisco Cho- Choir, you know, they’re saying, “We are coming for your kids.” Because these groups breed at well below replacement rate. The only way they can be stable is by converting children from other cultural groups. Mm. They just need to define this, and those children would normally be groomed into their own healthy culture, right?

[00:05:31] But now they are being parasitized into cultures that their birth culture typically would see as negative. And that by the statistics seems to have negative outcomes in terms of mental health, life happiness, et cetera. But continue.

[00:05:48] Simone Collins: Just two more sick burns from the daughter before we go over the backlash.

[00:05:53] And it, it is, this is really an affront on Father’s Day. She said, “You’re slow ‘cause you’re old.” I, which is just kind of a young person thing to say, but I love it. And at one point she, she told her dad, “Maybe I’ll be like you when I grow up,” and he’s like, “Yeah?” And I think he’s thinking maybe, like, trans like me or something, but she’s like, “Yeah, really short,” which is just delightful.

[00:06:15] This girl is really funny. And I think that, you know, the, the, the parent who was able to notice the humor in these moments is funny. But the backlash, ooh, the, a lot of people on X didn’t like it. @RealBrandonGill wrote, “On Father’s Day, The New York Times decided to pronote- promote a cartoon of a woman cosplaying as a father, and they did it for a reason.

[00:06:35] Because the cultural left knows that the first step to conquering the future is brainwashing the minds of our children, and they’ve realized that strong fathers are the biggest obstacle to that goal. They want to tear the institution of fatherhood down to nothing because to the left, things that are normal, good, and holy are a threat to the Marxist revolution.”

[00:06:56] Matt Taibbi wrote, “Today’s NYT editorial on Father’s Day is an all-timer.” Again, I don’t know where to put it on the funny versus horrifying axis. @EndWokeness wrote, “The New York Times on Father’s Day. We do not hate the media enough.” Caitlin Finne- Flanagan wrote, “The child’s job was to help the parent feel comfortable with his gender.”

[00:07:17] And @AfterTheReset, “Message aside, is it necessary for the cartoons to be ugly, poorly drawn, and unappealing?” And per our episode on communists and terrifyingly badass girls-

[00:07:29] Malcolm Collins: Yes, and now we’re like, “Oh, that’s the point” ... like, that’s why they do it. Yeah. Yeah, but the problem is that they’ve so promulgated it within their culture specifically that the other side is, i- you know, we can compete with our sexy anime girls made with, with AI.

[00:07:43] In fact, you know, why don’t I put in a sexy Simone right now just so everyone can see my-

[00:07:47] Oh, my God. Okay, great ... my hot German anime waifu. Thanks. The, the... I, I think, I think we, we can beat them because we get the sexy art, and we can make it- ... for virtually free. Go to RFAB. By the way, if you’re wondering the model that I [00:08:00] use most for these, it’s RFAB’s GPT model is the one- Oh

[00:08:04] that’s best for the-

[00:08:04] Simone Collins: No way ... producing sexy

[00:08:05] Malcolm Collins: German women. Yeah.

[00:08:06] Simone Collins: Really? Mm-hmm. I’m just so used to GPT art being h- awful. Like, the, the short legs. You know what I’m talking about, the short legs. Did they get over that, I guess?

[00:08:16] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s great. I mean, I, I like... If you’ve liked the images that I show, they’re genuine- Yeah

[00:08:21] GPT, Maybe

[00:08:22] Simone Collins: it’s just better at anime. Hmm.

[00:08:24] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I tell it to do it in an anime style. Yeah. You know, so.

[00:08:28] Simone Collins: Okay.

[00:08:28] Malcolm Collins: Oh,

[00:08:28] Simone Collins: ooh. Hold on,

[00:08:31] Malcolm Collins: buddy. But I mean, if we can fight asynchronous warfare where everything in their world has to be ugly... And I do think the other point that the person made here is really interesting about this- Yeah

[00:08:38] is the piece and the focus was on his daughter affirming his lifestyle.

[00:08:45] Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like- Which by the way actually i- is an affront to the concept of Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, which isn’t about This is about me. This is my day. These holidays existed to be a memorial to the sacrifice and hard work that parents do.

[00:09:05] Yeah. Not of, like, the affirming role that their children play for them. So Father’s Day was sort of, it was inspired by Mother’s Day- ... which was founded by this woman named Anna Maria Jarvis. She wanted to create- ... a solemn memorial Mother’s Day honoring the sacrifices and care of individual mothers.

[00:09:26] Inspired by her mother, Ann Reeves who had done all sorts of, like, amazing things to help, like, just sort of community works and things like that. But Father’s Day, even more so- ... is really about, like, immense sacrifice to help raise your kids. So Father’s Day was founded by Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, who heard about Mother’s Day-

[00:09:48] and was like, “Hold on,” like, “Dads need this.” ‘Cause her Civil War veteran dad raised her and her siblings alone after her mother died. So this is about dads going above and beyond, sacrificing their happiness and their wellbeing and their sanity to take care of their children. And- Hmm ... yeah, I mean, this is not really, I would say, in the at least original spirit of Father’s Day.

[00:10:09] Even though I find it relatable as a parent I, I do think that our kids teach us how to give grace to ourselves or accept ourselves better, but that’s not what being a parent should be about, ever. It should not be about self-affirmation.

[00:10:25] Malcolm Collins: And, and that’s wild. This reframing of parenthood as an act of self-affirmation,

[00:10:30] Simone Collins: which- And that’s, again, that’s part of the problem.

[00:10:31] Like, again, to the theme of this episode, this is why the progressive left is not going to inherit the future, is because they, they’re not having children out of a sense of duty or obligation, self-sacrifice. They’re having it as, an ef- and even contextualizing it as sort of an indulgent my spiritual journey, my journey of self-acceptance kind of thing.

[00:10:56] And it’s th- this, this, this parent is so in their head about their trans identity, for example. One kid who already wants

[00:11:07] to sterilize

[00:11:08] themselves. There’s even a panel in the, there’s even a panel in the, the, the, she, the, sorry. The, the author includes where the daughter, they’re in a park, and the daughter’s like, “I spot something, it starts with a T.

[00:11:19] Can you guess what it is?” Basically, and the, the father’s like, “Aw.” Like, can only think of trans. Can only think of trans in a park, and is like, “A termite? A tiny morsel of dirt?” Like, coming up with all these things and, and the daughter’s just like, “Trees.” It just, I think demonstrates the extent to which this parent is so preoccupied with their own identity

[00:11:43] Malcolm Collins: and- Yeah, they can’t even see...

[00:11:44] Well, what a great metaphor. They can’t even see the trees in a park.

[00:11:48] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:11:48] Malcolm Collins: They can’t even see the trees around them. They, they can’t see the tree. It’s, it’s- The woods for, the

[00:11:52] Simone Collins: woods for the trees. Yes. Is that what you’re going for here?

[00:11:55] Malcolm Collins: Yes. Okay. Yeah. But they’re, to, to miss the world around them so [00:12:00] holistically-

[00:12:00] Simone Collins: Yeah

[00:12:01] Malcolm Collins: out of a focus on their own identity.

[00:12:03] Simone Collins: Yeah. And this, again, like I, I find it a relatable message. I think it’s, it’s sweet, but it’s also, I think, very telling, and it is, it is a bit of an affront to the original point of the holiday. By the way, Malcolm, thank you for your sacrifice. I was, we were so busy on Sunday that I, We’re gonna have to do a delayed Father’s Day, and I’m really sorry.

[00:12:23] Malcolm Collins: No,

[00:12:23] what?

[00:12:23] Simone Collins: You’re an amazing dad. You’re such an amazing dad. You, you sacrifice more than any other man I’ve ever encountered. You put yourself on the front lines of parenthood in a way that no father or husband I’ve ever met will. Like- Mm ... that you’re always the one that takes the kids to the doctor- I don’t know if that’s true.

[00:12:38] You’ve been doing a lot recently ... you’re alw- always the one the kids are with on the weekends. Though you’re always the one-

[00:12:43] Malcolm Collins: He’s started coding.

[00:12:44] Simone Collins: I, I, well, look, we need to, we need to get something to work there, and you’re doing a really great job. But you are amazing- Well, I mean, we are happy- ... and I appreciate you

[00:12:56] Malcolm Collins: I’ve built out all of the core features. Right now we’re just working on extra stuff, like a integrated email management feature, which- We’re very excited about ... hopefully save... I mean, w- if I can get email off of my daily to-do list, that would save me so much time.

[00:13:09] Simone Collins: Same. Yeah, especially, yeah, ‘cause w- now there’s more coming in than we can manage, but we still don’t wanna not read everyone’s message.

[00:13:16] So if we just make it slightly more efficient, and you’re making it crazy more efficient. Anyway, let’s go into the next article which is titled The Most Important Way that Fatherhood Has Changed. Mm. In this article, Frank Bruni, who is a childless contributing opinion writer who’s been on staff-

[00:13:33] Malcolm Collins: Why?

[00:13:34] Why did they let a childless writer write this?

[00:13:36] Simone Collins: Well, so I think he believes that he is in a position to talk about fatherhood because he’s talking about it from a removed perspective. In this article he talks about- Mm ... the difference between the way his father raised him and his brother, and the way- Mm.

[00:13:53] Mm ... and his brothers, and the way that his brothers have in turn raised their children. And he talks about how fathers are spending more time with their kids now. He cites an article that suggests one reason fertility is lower is that men want to give the kids they do have more attention- Lame ... which he frames as a good thing,

[00:14:12] Malcolm Collins: and- Don’t spend time with your kids.

[00:14:13] Walk up, hit ‘em, walk away. Oh, my God. That’s, whether they’ve done something bad or not. Yeah. Kids love being hit.

[00:14:18] Simone Collins: No, honestly, they, our, our kids really do. They really like fighting. They- And if you don’t do it, they’ll start it so that you do do it. Octavia- Watch out, ‘cause they hit hard ...

[00:14:26] Malcolm Collins: dropping on the floor to try to kick me in the nuts in the store.

[00:14:28] Simone Collins: What?

[00:14:30] Malcolm Collins: This is a real thing that just happened yesterday.

[00:14:35] Simone Collins: Yeah, all these other pliant children in their shopping carts. Octavian coming in for the kill. Classic. But yeah this again is, is I think that constant theme. This is why the progressive left is, is choosing to relinquish its position in the future.

[00:14:49] There is this choice to indulgently spend more time investing in children. But I think what’s really telling about his article is that the examples he cites on like, well, here’s this valuable additional investment that these children have vis-a-vis his 90-something-year-old father who is just a provider.

[00:15:09] These, these parents are getting emotionally involved in their kids’ lives, and they are... here’s one example. He wrote, “Mark,” and this is his brother, “Mark encouraged his children to let him in by inviting them- To understand him. He made sure that they met and mingled with his adult friends, and thus observed how he tended relationships and what they meant to him.

[00:15:30] He also showed his children his passions. “I took Frank to a Grateful Dead concert when he was 12,” Mark told me, referring to his oldest son, who like me, is named after my father. But that outing wasn’t just characteristically ardent Deadhead evangelism and, well, unorthodox parenting. It reflected Mark’s sustained effort to expand the time that he and his, and Frank spent together.

[00:15:51] The more hours, the more conversation, the more, the more conversation, the greater the likelihood of serendipitous revelations- Why see a dad going to a- ... real [00:16:00] familiarity, deeper connection. So basically, this father was like, “This is my passion. Witness me.” And you know, he made his son go and listen. And listen, I like Grateful Dead music.

[00:16:10] I thought I was a Deadhead when I was a kid, ‘cause my father too shared his Grateful Dead passion with me. But it wasn’t that aspect of my growing up with him that was actually helpful. What, what he’s missing here, what Frank Bruni is missing I think, is that investment in children is not all equal.

[00:16:24] The investment in children in their careers, in the way that like Benjamin Franklin’s father invested in him, walking him along the street, showing him different trades, asking him what stood out to him. The way that my dad, for example, invested in me. Taking me to work with him, helping me get jobs teaching me what business m- meetings look like, taking me to trade shows.

[00:16:40] Like, this, this is really valuable investment, and this is stuff that I think parents are really missing. You know, they’re, they’re treating children like pets. Like this thing where like, “Oh, you’re gonna see how I, you know, my friends, and I’m gonna raise you to be this indulgent, happy person, and we’re gonna be like emotionally so close.”

[00:16:59] And it’s true that younger generations now are closer like friends to their parents than ever before, but they’re also more mentally sick. And I don’t know- Yeah ... like there’s, there’s no proven causation. There is this- But it’s not great ...

[00:17:10] Malcolm Collins: optimization of closeness without thought for the long-term negative effects.

[00:17:15] That’s not great ... and there are going to be long-term negative effects for the way that they’re raising their kids like this. And worse, the way he’s spending money. Look, a father going to a concert? W- what? Paying for a ticket for your kid? That is not sustainable if you have a large family.

[00:17:32] Simone Collins: Yeah, and, and way to...

[00:17:33] Hopefully he had him wear earplugs. That’s a very easy path to early hearing loss, which is not, not great. But yeah, here’s... The next one made me so angry because we, you know, have personally tried so hard for there to be, to encourage the existence of and, and foster the growth of progressive or left-leaning at least pronatalists.

[00:17:59] And yet here is one, and- Scott Galloway ... the New York Times opinion is, yeah, Scott Galloway defenestrating him for holding a very practical and pragmatic view vis-à-vis paternity leave. So in this particular opinion piece, Jessica Grove or sorry, Grose, who is a, she is a mother, but she’s a woman of, of two children in Brooklyn.

[00:18:21] She denounces Scott Galloway’s stance on paternity leave. And again, see, Scott Galloway, he, he considers himself, I think, more like center-left or a social capitalist, but he’s still as far, as far as it can get when, when you’re left-leaning and pronatalist.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:38] And in this interview with Derek Thompson-

[00:18:40] Galloway said, quote, “I think there should be mandatory maternity leave because I think the species needs to propagate. I’m not sure there should be mandatory paternity leave. I think it sometimes creates resentment. I think sometimes it’s abused. And so I’m a bit capitalist here. I think it’s between the company but I don’t know if I immediately default to, oh, the father needs to be there.”

[00:19:04] Grose added, this is the au- the author of the op-ed. Galloway also commented that he doesn’t think men should be in the delivery room. Quote, “I thought that it was so disgusting and unnatural,” he says. When I asked Galloway if he had a response to the backlash he’s been getting over these comments, he said over email, “My comments were intentionally provocative in the context of a friendly, snarky conversation with Derek.”

[00:19:28] Which It’s s- it, it’s like exactly the kind of thing that I think many fathers can relate to. And making these conversations open and transparent I think is crucial and important. Like, w- when people pretend that like the birthing experience is beautiful, especially for men-

[00:19:47] Malcolm Collins: Ugh. I don’t- That, that- I do not go.

[00:19:49] My wife doesn’t have me come to the delivery room. Like, I mean, you-

[00:19:51] Simone Collins: Well, yeah, and there was the one time where you were in, in with me with the C-section, and you were like, look. Like you were so uncomfortable. And, and trying to force this on men, or even [00:20:00] worse, to sell them this fantasy of like you’re gonna love being a baby daddy, like a, a, a, a, a father of an infant.

[00:20:06] You’re gonna love being in the delivery room. Will then set men up to think, “Oh, gosh, like I, I actually don’t like this, so this means I’m not gonna like to be a father at all.” Yeah,

[00:20:16] Malcolm Collins: I’m not gonna like all the other stuff.

[00:20:18] Simone Collins: And actually in, in his, in his talk, Galloway makes it clear that it gets better.

[00:20:25] So I’ll keep going. Sh- so she also noted in her op-ed I’m reading from it now, “Poor Derek Thompson tried to push back and launch a defense of parental leave. Most of the gap between prime age adult male and female earnings is a motherhood penalty, and so one benefit of paternity leave is that it puts men and women on a relatively more equal standing.”

[00:20:46] To which Galloway replies, “By lowering the economic standards of a man?” Which is a super like valid retort.

[00:20:53] Malcolm Collins: Reasonable point, yes.

[00:20:54] Simone Collins: Yeah. She proceeded, however, to cite research finding that paid paternity leave in Quebec did not fix the motherhood penalty for women, nor did it substantially hurt men’s economic standards.

[00:21:06] So good for you. But then she also attempts to exploit that not a baby man, which I talk about like there’s like 10% of men who are like they love babies. They just, infants, like they, they, they wanna hold them, et cetera, but like most men aren’t. But she tries to exploit his, Scott Galloway’s not, disinterest in babies with this.

[00:21:27] She wrote, “It gets worse. Thompson, who is still glowing from the birth of his second child, shares a very sweet story and, and how he feels an enormous upsurge of instinct how to parent my child. Thompson adds, ‘I love discovering a new piece of myself in parenting.’ Galloway doesn’t even seem to be listening to Thompson because his response is- The bad news is it just sucks for the dad.

[00:21:49] We pretend to like it. Galloway thinks dads are full of it when they say they like babies. They’re awful. As a new dad, your job is to make sure your moms don’t lose it, and get some sleep, and keep the baby away from bodies of water. That’s literally your only two jobs right now, or if the only two things that you’re any good at.

[00:22:08] At about two or three it starts to get less awful, and then by four or five it almost becomes fun. That’s what Scott Galloway said, and she’s quoting him in her article. And I think you would, like, you have said almost the same thing, and other very pro-natalist and kid-loving fathers that we know and trust and love, who are very culturally different from us as well, have said the same thing, that they’re just not into kids before they turn, like, five basically.

[00:22:31] And then, like-

[00:22:31] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and then they get awesome.

[00:22:33] Simone Collins: Yeah. And so that this woman is shaming Scott Galloway for expressing an extremely pervasive view held by fathers, and making Galloway seem like kind of a monster for doing so is It’s both, like, unfair and un- and, and, and f- and fairly cruel, but also I would argue pretty anti-natalist.

[00:22:55] Because again, if you make men think- Yeah ... like, “Oh, this is not normal, this is bad, this must mean that I’ll ne- not like anything about being a father,” they might decide to get a vasectomy. They might decide to just give up on that and have just one kid. Well, the

[00:23:08] Malcolm Collins: thing that really hit me recently is the day when I decided to go with you because you’re doing your next implantation, which we’ve done recently, so hopefully you’re pregnant.

[00:23:15] Everyone be praying. Fingers

[00:23:16] Simone Collins: crossed ...

[00:23:17] Malcolm Collins: and getting in the car and driving out, and I realized at no point did it occur to me to not do this. At no point- Hmm ... did I sit down and think, “Do I really want another kid? Can we really afford another kid? Does this make sense for our family?” It was just a regular yearly activity happening when it happened.

[00:23:37] And it reminded me, in the same way when we read that piece about the early stage abortion and the I Met My Husband at a Gang Bang episode. Watch that episode if you want to. It’s traumatizing. But, Mm ... that was when the radicalized Simone against early stage abortion. If y- if you haven’t seen it, watch.

[00:23:53] It’s w- I think one of our craziest episodes. It’ll start with you being all mad if you’re a conservative, and then you’re like, “Wait, this is c- what? [00:24:00] What?” But- Mm. Mm. Mm ... when she went to have an abortion, there was no moment leading up to the abortion that she really considered keeping the baby. It was-

[00:24:11] Simone Collins: Yeah, there was...

[00:24:12] It was unthinkable. Of course. Just like it’s unthinkable for us not to try for kid six, yeah.

[00:24:17] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I realized that that’s the way it needs to be. Like, not having kids needs to be completely unthinkable in a marriage. That is how you make this work for you, for your kids, for the way you make this work.

[00:24:29] In the same way that... And, and when do we start? In fact, let’s just lay this out. When do you start with intechno-puritanism? At the maximum, whether or not you’re financially stable, two years after you’re married.

[00:24:43] Simone Collins: Yeah, that makes sense. Oi. Yeah.

[00:24:46] Malcolm Collins: And if you, and if you, and if you can start before that, better

[00:24:50] Simone Collins: Yeah, the sooner, the sooner the better, for sure.

[00:24:53] Yeah. It just, so that’s super unfair. She, she also imposes another unfair implication on Scott Galloway. She says, “Scott Galloway is entitled to his feelings about parenting babies. I’m sure he’s not alone.” Oh, you’re sure. “But what I’m objecting to is the unsaid implication that it’s super fun for moms all the time, while also talking to a man who seems to be wholeheartedly enjoying his small children.”

[00:25:21] First, he’s not implying that it’s fun for moms all the time. What he’s implying when he’s like, “Oh, you can only do two things: try to get some sleep and, like, make sure the baby’s not close to bodies of water,” is that, like, mothers are dependent or, like, the ones who have the, the breast milk. Like, you can’t really substitute that.

[00:25:37] I mean, I, you, you can obviously do formula or you can feed bottles of breast milk, but if, if a woman is lactating, like, you can’t lactate for her. You can’t really do that. And women who are newly postpartum have also gone through a bunch of hormonal shifts, which I would argue make them more tolerant of sleep deprivation, make them more capable of not being super stressed about taking care of a screaming infant in the middle of the night or something like that than a father was.

[00:26:03] I mean, things do change when you become a father, but not in the same way they do for someone who’s been pregnant for nine months. So I just think it’s not, it’s not even fair. And then she frames his statement, As elitist. When he tries to defend himself when given a chance to comment on this article she, she wrote, “When I asked Galloway if he was familiar with any of his research, she said, ‘My point wasn’t that...’

[00:26:26] Or sorry, he said, Galloway said, ‘My point wasn’t that maternity leave is bad. It’s that we should be honest about trade-offs and let families make decisions based on their circumstances rather than treating one model as morally superior.’” Which she’s clearly doing. She’s like, “Well- Yeah ... maternity leave is, is categorically better.

[00:26:43] There’s no, there’s no ambiguity. The studies say-”

[00:26:46] Malcolm Collins: Nuance.

[00:26:47] Simone Collins: Yeah. There’s, there’s no nuance there. But, but he is, he is elitist because she’s like, “Well, not everyone has that choice.” And she, she finishes with, “I don’t think it’s unusual for men. to find childbirth uncomfortable or scary , to watch, and becoming a dad is a rough transition for many.

[00:27:10] There’s a whole genre of internet videos of dads passing out in the delivery room.” Which I now need to explore. But-

[00:27:16] Malcolm Collins: Wait, really?

[00:27:17] Simone Collins: I, yeah, I need, I need to check this out. “I don’t think that saying that watching women give birth is, quote, ‘disgusting and unnatural,’ end quote, is the best way to start this conversation.

[00:27:27] Galloway told me in an email, ‘The broader point I was making, clumsily, is that we should be honest about the different experiences people have rather than the perspectives about what every father must feel or do. Some dads experience profound bonding in the first few weeks. Others find their stride later.

[00:27:43] Both are valid.’” And she says- Good talk, Galloway ... he wholeheartedly agrees with that statement, but only after an article criticizing him for it. And Galloway’s making such an important point that, you know, you’re not, not all dads feel this, like, love at first sight thing with their kids. Yeah. Like y- you really don’t.

[00:27:59] You’re [00:28:00] like, “I need a paternity test. I don’t know about this.” Like, and that’s natural. You are the most loving dad I’ve ever met. You adore our children. Like sometimes when I am like, “I, I, I need a moment,” you, you really don’t. Y- you’re just always there for them. Yeah,

[00:28:14] Malcolm Collins: I’m never like, “I need a moment.”

[00:28:15] I’m always available for the kids.

[00:28:17] Simone Collins: Yeah. L- and then that’s- But you’re still, you’re not a baby man. And it’s, so, so that’s the thing, is like she’s communicating this, this, this really bad lie. So anyway, this is, yeah, facet number three is the one leftist pronatalist who has a really big profile gets defenestrated

[00:28:37] Malcolm Collins: for- Defenestrated by The New York Times

[00:28:38] Simone Collins: sharing realistic policy positions and trying to make men who don’t love babies not feel like they’re just gonna be bad fathers and not suited to be parents at all. Okay? Great. Thanks, New York Times. So now we get to the new right’s very old vision of men. This is an episode of the Ezra Klein Show with Helen Lewis.

[00:28:56] They discuss this concept she wrote about and refers to as masculinism. So they, they open with clips of Bronze Age Pervert and Tucker Carlson, who are yearning for the ancient Hittite Empire, or ancient Mittani Empire, or what we had before Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique and before-

[00:29:15] Malcolm Collins: But we need to talk about this, ‘cause this is just not...

[00:29:17] But question, Simone, question.

[00:29:19] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:20] Malcolm Collins: Total side note. Should I get Octavian another Game Boy emulator?

[00:29:24] Simone Collins: Well, he was really jealous of Tex’s chew toy that looks like a Game Boy,

[00:29:29] Malcolm Collins: so. It’s $59. I, they, the-

[00:29:31] Simone Collins: Oh, you’re just browsing Prime Day ... the one I’m thinking

[00:29:35] Malcolm Collins: about. I was-

[00:29:35] Simone Collins: I was wondering why a white light reflected in those glasses of yours

[00:29:39] Malcolm Collins: I know. Hold, you gotta listen to me. This is actually important. So it, it turns out that it, the, the model that’s the best and the most robust, because I, that’s what specifically what I’m looking for, is not discounted for Prime Day, which doesn’t cost that much. And-

[00:29:53] Simone Collins: Oh, because we have time.

[00:29:54] Malcolm Collins: No, we-

[00:29:55] Simone Collins: Look, he broke it.

[00:29:55] They break everything. I, I don’t think we need to teach him- Well,

[00:29:59] Malcolm Collins: that’s why I’m trying to get something more robust ...

[00:30:01] Simone Collins: when we break something you just get a new one.

[00:30:03] Malcolm Collins: He broke it over a year ago at this point. Come on.

[00:30:08] Simone Collins: See, you’re more forgiving than I am. Oh, sir.

[00:30:10] Malcolm Collins: So we’ll let the audience decide.

[00:30:12] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:30:12] Does our kid- The audience will decide. Yeah, yes or no to the... Please no, Tex. Oh my God. So, right. So basically they open with these, you know, right, right-leaning influencers, although Tucker Carlson, I think just to be clear, he’s not a Republican about, like, yearning for the, the earlier days. What they argue essentially in this episode trying to basically encapsulate and then comment on the broader, like, masculinity sphere, is that there is this coherent masculinist ideology on the American light, right, sorry, the American right, that goes way beyond just, like, manosphere provocateurs like Andrew Tate.

[00:30:52] That the central claim of masculinism is that modernity is, is broken, especially for men. It is, it is thwarted masculinity. There’s dropping testosterone. There’s dropping fertility. Men are ill-suited for this kind of society, and they, Think that true masculinity centers around hierarchy and dominance and risk-taking and clear gender roles with male breadwinners- Well, this,

[00:31:18] Malcolm Collins: this is all true

[00:31:20] Simone Collins: and then they, they point to figures like Raw Egg Nationalist, who we consider to be a friend and really like. Bronze Age Pervert, Helen Andrews, who wrote the Foundation

[00:31:29] Malcolm Collins: for- Oh,

[00:31:29] Simone Collins: by the way, we’ve had Raw Egg

[00:31:30] Malcolm Collins: Nationalist on the show. If anyone has a contact to Milo or Bronze Age Pervert, I’d love to have both of them on the show.

[00:31:35] Simone Collins: Truly. They include JD Vance in all this, Doug Wilson parts of Heritage’s agenda. And we love Heritage Foundation, so, like, we take this all very personally. They talk about various concerns expressed with mac- masculinism. I think their, their primary criticism, and it is abundant. They s- I- they, they spend a lot of time.

[00:31:55] This is, like, all that was playing in my office all afternoon. They don’t like... [00:32:00] They think it has incoherent intellectualism. Klein keeps finding that there’s less here than I thought be- beneath this, for his, for his stance, grand talk of thumos and Nietzsche and liberal decadence, and the arguments often collapse, per his argument, into trivial lifestyle advice like, “Throw out your plastic chopping board,” or conspiratorial hormone politics.

[00:32:26] Or as Bronze Age Pervert would write, “w***e-mones.” They- W***e-mones. W***e-mones. Yes, he knows

[00:32:32] what’s up.

[00:32:33] He knows what’s up. They argue that a lot of the literature swaps serious argument for just trolling or irony and vibes. Meaning that it’s, it’s- No,

[00:32:41] Malcolm Collins: they miss it. They don’t understand what’s happening.

[00:32:44] Simone Collins: Yeah, they, they don’t, they don’t yeah, they, they just sort of completely misread it. Like, they don’t understand the trolling. They don’t understand the aesthetics.

[00:32:53] Malcolm Collins: If you watch our show, you will note that a lot of our show is trolling feeling. Yeah. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a lot of substance to it.

[00:33:02] There is

[00:33:03] Simone Collins: substance. There is research. There is-

[00:33:08] The trolling is authenticating. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the, yeah, the trolling is a, a sign of authenticity and a way to socially signal what we’ve called, I think, what, performative vice to say, like, we are gen- like, that we’re doing the opposite of vir- virtue signaling. Like, signaling vice to the extent that it will hurt our reputation just to show you that we have no desire to be seen as good or smart for example.

[00:33:30] Of course, they also highlight the movement’s misogyny. They, and this is actually the argument that F- Misogyny? Come on ... that we’ve also made. Yeah.

[00:33:38] Malcolm Collins: Dude, literally. The reason, like, we have no misogynistic opinion The only reason we don’t want women to vote is because they keep voting for the wrong candidate. I, I’m joking of course. The real reason why it’s bad for women to vote is because if voting is a proxy for force, so basically the reason you vote is, like, if you went to war, who would actually win of the two perspectives?

[00:34:05] And women wouldn’t be included in that fighting force. Then eventually you create an asymmetry where it may make sense for a faction of the population to just capture power via war. So suppose, as is increasingly happening, all of the women are sorting into one population bloc- voting bloc, and all the men are voting for another candidate, and then the male candidate loses, and then the men just say, “Well, f**k it.

[00:34:26] I don’t care anymore.” And this is why democracy prevents that, but it doesn’t prevent it when you allow women to vote.

[00:34:32] Simone Collins: Right. And, but they, they... In- instead of hearing this, like, let’s talk about the misaligned incentives and how this is all playing out, what they just see and what they talk about in their podcast is like, this...

[00:34:44] They, they’re just anti-democracy and they’re just pro-violence. And they don’t really go deeper than that because they just... I, maybe they lack the capacity to read this more closely. Like, you really have to be looking at the problems in a very critical way. Well, they still acknowledge the problems.

[00:34:58] Like, they acknowledge that boys are, are completely, you know, maladapted for the schools the way they’re set up now. They, they acknowledge that there’s a health crisis and there’s too much sedentary life and everything. So they, they say that these are very real issues, but then they criticize the movement for Using it to exploit young men, for example with this sort of, like, self-helpishness that isn’t actually self-help.

[00:35:22] It, the long story short, ‘cause I could go into so much more detail, is that this, this is a podcast that has huge, huge viewership, that’s, that is made by very thoughtful people, Ezra Klein is, is very thoughtful and I think very well-meaning. But it’s still trying to frame this movement that is questioning modern norms in a way that isn’t intended to damage its credibility and stifle conversation about those genuine problems which they even acknowledge to be real.

[00:35:53] Which I think is very annoying and grating. But also because they’re not dedicated to actually solving these problems in a [00:36:00] way that could lead to inconvenient truths surfacing. Again, they’re representative of a group that is not likely to inherit the future. Yeah. So there’s these different facets of the way that The New York Times is trying to cover masculinity.

[00:36:13] They’re trying to cover it by defenestrating the one leftist pronatalist and, and practical parental leave policies. They’re trying to... I’m so sorry about Tex. Tex, friend. You, like, you’re not distressed, you just, you just wanna troll me and maybe you’re tired. They’re trying to under- undermine masculinity by having a, a woman write about Father’s Day and a trans man write about Father’s Day.

[00:36:41] And they’re, they’re trying to undermine masculinity by having a, yeah, like the person on X pointed out, a childless man decide what good parenting is and, and proclaim it in The New York Times opinion section. It’s, it’s weird. I don’t know if, like, there’s been some concerted effort to talk about masculinity and to be like, “This

[00:37:04] Malcolm Collins: is-” I almost wonder if it’s, like, a reaction to the pushback from the first piece.

[00:37:08] Like, we’re just gonna go extra hard on this now that we’ve gotten pushback or...

[00:37:13] Simone Collins: What, what do you think? No, because I mean, I, I think these things required some research and scheduling and prep to put together. I don’t know if it’s just this, like, immune system, like it, like, it could be, and I, I’ve been thinking about it as some kind of collective immune system response, right?

[00:37:27] That the, the white blood cells have recognized the, the virus that is this, this new movement broadly of, of fighting back against urban monoculture masculinity, and the immune system is now attempting to kill the virus by saying, “No, this is what fatherhood is. This is what masculinity is. This is what correct

[00:37:49] Malcolm Collins: parenting is.”

[00:37:50] Well, masculinity doesn’t involve men. I mean, that seems to be the point of this, right? They- Yeah.

[00:37:55] Simone Collins: It doesn’t involve men and it doesn’t involve fathers and it doesn’t involve genuinely trying to Question the broken systems at play that are harmful toward both men and women. It’s very frustrating, but there you go.

[00:38:13] It’s wild. I still really enjoyed the sick burns from the kid, ‘cause I love sick burns from the kid.

[00:38:17] Malcolm Collins: Legit, just burning the train. Yeah, but like, I mean, we see where this is going. Like, it’s very concerning. It’s very concerning to me that, like, we can’t have an honest conversation around the things that don’t seem to be working as a society, and are just supposed to go along with it.

[00:38:38] Just supposed to be like, “Oh, yeah, this, this is all fine. This is all working. We, we can look at the outcomes and see how f*****g terrible they are.” But nope. We’ll just go along with it

[00:38:49] Simone Collins: Yeah, I don’t know what to say aside from I can see why people on X were so mad. Now I understand. But also, maybe we’re gonna have to reach a point where maybe, guys, we don’t need to read The New York Times.

[00:39:02] I don’t, I don’t know.

[00:39:04] Malcolm Collins: I mean, The New York Times readership is basically a contraceptive at this point, right? Like, if you re- I used to love The New York Times. It was one of my favorite newspapers. But, We all,

[00:39:12] Simone Collins: well, we did it all, I guess,

[00:39:13] Malcolm Collins: but- That future is over, right? Like, that world is over. The world of The New York Times is not the world of the future of humans, right?

[00:39:22] We are the future of humanity. We, as hard as they fight back against this, I was telling Simone today that Nux got demonetized across YouTube, across all his channels.

[00:39:32] Simone Collins: I’m so mad.

[00:39:32] Malcolm Collins: And they said harassment. I watch Nux’s channel. He doesn’t harass anyone as far as I’ve seen. He, he very rarely makes specific call-outs except for Hasan.

[00:39:41] I guess if it’s harassment against Hasan, okay. That, the- Touché ... the delicate little flower needed protection from Nux. But Hasan regularly- Oh ... harasses other people, right? Like, so I mean, that’s scary. That’s scary to be on a platform that can just do that when you’re following all of their rules [00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Simone Collins: I hope he gets monetized again.

[00:40:03] This, this reminds me actually of what happened to Leaflet when you included a clip of our kids being, our kids being the, you know, insane reavers they are and you being like, “You b******s,” Yeah, you little b******s is what they said. And, and I think they, I think they referred to that as hate speech.

[00:40:20] Malcolm Collins: No, they said I was, like, a- attacking children or something.

[00:40:23] Simone Collins: Yeah, wasn’t it bullying? Calling them little b******s. I think it was, I think it was exactly the same moderation reason, though-

[00:40:27] Malcolm Collins: Mm ...

[00:40:28] Simone Collins: as what Leaflet saw when hers was demonetized. So.

[00:40:32] Malcolm Collins: I mean, I don’t, when you say it, but it’s the standard trans approach, you know?

[00:40:36] And the fun thing is, is like I’d actually be okay if somebody figured out a way to make transness demographically stable, right? Like, if you’re a trans person and you’re watching this and you’re like, well, like let’s, let’s... Can I make it demographically stable? Fine, like go for it. That’d be great.

[00:40:51] Simone Collins: In the Culture Series it is.

[00:40:52] So in Ian Banks’ Culture Series I think a lot of humans, because the, the body’s modified so much that if you want to grow a uterus, you, like over a series of months can just grow that organ and then shift your hormone, because you have a, you have a drug gland. Every, every Culture citizen has the option to install a drug gland which can at any point, like release a variety of different mind-altering compounds.

[00:41:15] Like, you can just instantly get drunk when you want to get st- a stimulant when you need it. Like, it has, it’s just an, an endogenous drug producing gland. That means you can also endogenously for the most part I think, produce everything you need to in order to transition your gender. And there are characters that are featured in the Culture Series who at points in their lives like decided to become a man for like a couple years, and become a woman for a couple years.

[00:41:39] And that’s a version of transness where like y- you genuinely could with this drug gland grow a uterus, have a baby Get rid of the uterus, turn into a man again. It, and I, I wouldn’t, like, it’s, it’s theoretically possible. You could possibly, plausibly have some kind of, like, with really, really advanced technology, you could have this, right?

[00:42:09] Malcolm Collins: Theoretically, yes.

[00:42:10] Simone Collins: Theoretically. So okay, that, that is my version. My version of an, an ideal future is basically just the, the culture though. I’m, I’m obsessed. What is tech- Yeah, like I

[00:42:19] Malcolm Collins: don’t- What is this mood? As society changes, my views on this would change. As technology changes, my views on this would change.

[00:42:26] But right now the wider culture around the trans phenomenon is so toxic and so damaging, I just have to take the stance that if only to distance yourself from that wider culture, it’s better not to transition, right? Like, no- no matter how much you feel that you would benefit from it, because the culture will attempt to...

[00:42:50] Like, if you transition and then you have an opinion that’s not an approved opinion, or even the average opinion of the community shifts and now your previously approved opinion falls in the unapproved category, you get thrown in the gutter, no matter how much you’ve done for the community. I mean, look at how the community treats Caitlyn Jenner.

[00:43:08] Look at how the community treats Buck Angel, the, the two real, like, out in front advocates for it, right? Like, there, there is no respite in the community. Look at how the community treats Ana Valens. Did you know that Ana Valens ended up being canceled by leftists? This, this was this year.

[00:43:24] Simone Collins: Oh, gosh.

[00:43:24] Malcolm Collins: For, can you guess what? Can you guess why she was canceled?

[00:43:29] Simone Collins: Well, I, I’m sure it had something to do with her general oversharing, but I can’t quite tell what.

[00:43:32] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no. What would be literally the craziest clown worldest reason for her to be canceled?

[00:43:38] Simone Collins: Her giantess interest?

[00:43:40] Malcolm Collins: No, no, no. Literally the craziest.

[00:43:42] Simone Collins: Ah.

[00:43:44] Malcolm Collins: Being a Kirsha fan.

[00:43:48] Simone Collins: Aw.

[00:43:49] Malcolm Collins: She’s not a Kirsha fan, by the way. She tried to destroy Kirsha’s life, but the left doesn’t care about what’s true. She did an article about why Pippa wasn’t so bad [00:44:00] compared to Kirsha, and somehow people got confused and thought she was a Kirsha fan, and Blue Sky just ran with that

[00:44:11] Simone Collins: Blue Sky seems like the most toxic but too boring to find amusing place in the entire internet Is there a moment where, like, you wake up

[00:44:20] Malcolm Collins: and you’re like, “Wait, did I choose the wrong team? Did, did I choose the everybody stab everybody in the back team?”

[00:44:28] Simone Collins: Mm. I don’t know, man. It’s very frustrating.

[00:44:34] Malcolm Collins: But look- I like that you brought these to my att- oh, now he’s asleep?

[00:44:37] Simone Collins: You see... Yeah. He just, he just, he needs to, like, scream and scream. This is what I say when he, like, has to yell himself to sleep and then

[00:44:46] Malcolm Collins: he’s out. And

[00:44:46] Simone Collins: you’re like, “Oh.” Right when I need to get up and make dinner.

[00:44:50] Malcolm Collins: Right when you need to get up and make dinner. Well, I’m sure you’ll be able to make dinner even more obediently-

[00:44:56] because of this, Simone. Which is really what all of us care about here, right?

[00:45:01] Simone Collins: Right? I need to know my place, because we are... Oh, God. Let me look at my notes. What did Helen Lewis call them? I love Helen Lewis. This is the problem. I find her very funny and fun. She calls it masculinism. Yes, because we are masculinists, and so my job is in the kitchen making- Well,

[00:45:21] Malcolm Collins: as, as a masculinist, I’m gonna get our kid another game console, ‘cause he deserves one- Oh.

[00:45:26] for being a sweetie. What?

[00:45:29] Simone Collins: He is a sweetie. How can we, how can we deny him? Plus, he is our son. Our sons must have everything.

[00:45:36] Malcolm Collins: Yes. Not our daughters. I’m not getting one for our daughters.

[00:45:39] Simone Collins: She’s a shark princess. She will take it from you.

[00:45:41] Malcolm Collins: She has made that very clear in recent episodes. I had a... One of the ends of a recent episode where she was talking about how she will only eat some color fishes.

[00:45:52] Not her favorite color, but, like- Oh, yeah ... gray fishes. And then she makes an eating, a, a show of how she’s gonna eat them. And then she’ll eat divers like me. She explicitly points at me. Like, not regular people. She’s like, “No, you.”

[00:46:09] Simone Collins: It’s terrible ‘cause it’s rubbing off on, on her little sister Indy, and now Indy’s just all about being defiant when she used to be my little, my little turkey.

[00:46:18] Doing- She’d be my little helper. She would bus her table. She’s still obsessed with cleaning, though. I, I, I need to- ... pretend that that’s subversive.

[00:46:26] My spray bottle.

[00:46:27] My spray bottle.

[00:46:29] My sp- Wait, Indy fights back now?

[00:46:32] Why? I wanna cleaning. Because I think she sees all her siblings do it, and she wants to be like her big n- big brothers and sister.

[00:46:40] Malcolm Collins: That’s really sweet. I wanna cleaning. You did a good job making these little monsters.

[00:46:45] Simone Collins: Yeah, well, she used to clean, and now she just uses her spray bottle to attack people, so.

[00:46:51] Malcolm Collins: And I demand praise for the expensive microphone, guys. I got a...

[00:46:55] Simone Collins: Yeah. Now you’ve listened to Tex screaming in your ear. How do you feel now?

[00:47:01] Do you want me to go back to the old one? Do, do you, do you, did I do the right thing? Are you happy now? Are you hap- are you happy now?

[00:47:11] Malcolm Collins: Oh my God, you are so... Look, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be good about this. I’m even or- ordering it slow so we get the 7% back.

[00:47:20] Simone Collins: Thank you, actually. I always do that. I did that for these ‘cause they cost the, as much as our house.

[00:47:30] Malcolm Collins: What, what- So we- What cost-

[00:47:31] Simone Collins: I, I... Oh, no, I didn’t do it with these. I didn’t do it with the microphones.

[00:47:35] Aw. No,

[00:47:38] Malcolm Collins: but we needed these quickly.

[00:47:39] Simone Collins: Yeah, we did. For you g- for you guys. For you a******s.

[00:47:46] Okay.

[00:47:47] Malcolm Collins: We gotta get more swords while they’re on sale. Swords, flamethrowers- All

[00:47:51] Simone Collins: right, I need to- ... nails, chases ... Frank, I need to end. I’m sorry, Tex. All right. Before he starts screaming, we’re gonna, we’re gonna hit end here. Love you guys. All right, love you. [00:48:00] Bye. I love you, Malcolm.

[00:48:01] Malcolm Collins: Love you too.

[00:48:02] Simone Collins: You’re my special sub pony

[00:48:06] Malcolm Collins: Oh, but I think Texas.

[00:48:07] Look at that, he’s getting all the love, not me.

[00:48:09] Simone Collins: You’re, you’re, he’s a, he’s shards of your soul, Malcolm. He’s here, and he’s made of you.

[00:48:17] Yeah. Okay,

[00:48:18] Malcolm Collins: bye. But you guys need to become dads too. So find a wife, work really hard.

[00:48:22] Simone Collins: Yeah, become a dad. Don’t, don’t expect to love labor and delivery. And don’t expect to love babies. But if you

[00:48:28] Malcolm Collins: do, that’s great. And if you’re a woman watching this, go to the freaking Discord. There’s some guy there who will wife you up.

[00:48:34] Simone Collins: There’s some great guys in the Discord who are very

[00:48:36] Malcolm Collins: interesting. Or better, among our paid users. That’s, that’s where you know you get the big spenders, right? The real professionals.

[00:48:41] Simone Collins: Yes. No, true, true. That’s how you know they are financially secure.

[00:48:45] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, yeah, we should I... Yeah, actually, if you wanna, if you’re a woman looking we, we should, like, be able to email all the paid subscribers women who are looking for husbands.

[00:48:53] I don’t

[00:48:53] Simone Collins: know. Should we do... Locked and Reported does, like, o- once a year, some kind of singles thing.

[00:49:01] Malcolm Collins: No, I think because we’re majority male just female only if you’re looking for a husband. Mm-hmm.

[00:49:06] Simone Collins: Oh, we should have just, like, some kind of directory of profiles.

[00:49:10] Malcolm Collins: No. We, we should just do an email blast for paid subscribers.

[00:49:14] Simone Collins: Okay, fine.

[00:49:14] Malcolm Collins: You have all their emails. I’m sure most of them would appreciate even just knowing, like, even if they’re not, even if they’re married or whatever, they’d appreciate that we’re trying to get somebody married. And it’s another reason to subscribe.

[00:49:27] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way to do this in a thoughtful way.

[00:49:32] We’ll take advice. Okay, bye guys. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.

[00:49:35] Bye. Bye.

[00:49:35] Simone Collins: Tex ate like half a sleeve of Ritz crackers today. That, that’s a slight overstatement I can hear you But only slight He

[00:49:41] Malcolm Collins: ate half a sleeve of Ritz

[00:49:42] Simone Collins: crackers? He’s obsessed. He’s obsessed. He’s a man. He’s putting on the Ritz. It’s his- Putting

[00:49:48] Malcolm Collins: on the Ritz? Yeah.

[00:49:49] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:49:50] Malcolm Collins: And look, look, look, I got a Technofuriten knife, the first one.

[00:49:56] Was able to get this on Amazon Day for 15 bucks, so it’s a good price for a- Prime

[00:50:00] Simone Collins: Day, yeah ...

[00:50:01] Malcolm Collins: stabby knife. Stabby. Significantly because it’s a, a bowie knife- It’s more slicey

[00:50:05] Simone Collins: than stabby ...

[00:50:06] Malcolm Collins: it’s significantly better than the, the ones that the Sikhs have, Oh, that’s wonderful, Tom ... in, in terms of a knife fight.

[00:50:13] Great. Well, I mean, their knives were invented a long time before, it’s that they’re just not as sophisticated.

[00:50:18] Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, I feel like the LDS church would, if they had knives, update them with time. Maybe the Sikhs just haven’t had enough time, and then they’ll update The, it’s called the cure pen, right?

[00:50:28] I’ll update

[00:50:29] Malcolm Collins: it with pen. Yeah. Well, I mean, the, the Bowie knife is really the knife of the American frontier.

[00:50:32] Simone Collins: Yeah.

[00:50:32] Malcolm Collins: And so it is a traditional- ... American knife. It’s called the Amer- the, the Excalibur of the Americas, so. The

[00:50:39] Simone Collins: Exca- That is amazing. I’ve not heard that.

[00:50:41] Malcolm Collins: But I’ve already used it, like, multiple times.

[00:50:43] I didn’t know how useful it would be to just have a knife on me at all times.

[00:50:46] Simone Collins: My favorite part, though, was when you were trying to tell me the amazing history of the Bowie knife and the guy who invented it. You kept confusing his name. Because we, both you and I are terrible at names, but you kept calling him David Bowie

[00:50:57] Malcolm Collins: David

[00:50:57] Simone Collins: Bowie. I’m just blinded by that. Because every time I hear the name David Bowie, I, I get that one clip from Zoolander where it’s, “David Bowie,” and Let’s Dance flashes on real fast. It’s it’s great. It’s great. So now every time I see your knife, just so you know- And for dinner tonight- ... that clip from Zoolander plays in my head

[00:51:15] Malcolm Collins: Any sort of a curry with french fries would be good, or,

[00:51:18] Simone Collins: Okay ... any- Do you want sweet potato again, or you want, you want me to mix it up? You have a fry wardrobe now, basically, so is that what you, I

[00:51:25] Malcolm Collins: mean, the sweet potatoes were fantastic. I would love to go for something

[00:51:28] Simone Collins: else. A new curry and sweet potato?

[00:51:30] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah, the sweet potatoes works. Yeah. I mean, the, the-

[00:51:33] Simone Collins: Or, or we have d- again, we have different fries. If you want different fries, we can try a different- Well,

[00:51:37] Malcolm Collins: which ones do we have?

[00:51:38] Simone Collins: Just- I don’t, I... The freezer’s not in front of me, but i- I think it’s a new one. It’s maybe one you got at Walmart that’s, like, a seasoned fry.

[00:51:45] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I wanna try the seasoned fries. Let’s try those.

[00:51:48] Simone Collins: Oh, boy. Tex, we got a new mic. You’re trying it out. Say

[00:51:52] Malcolm Collins: your piece. Yes. Guys, we finally got those super expensive, like, $300 mics that everyone’s been telling us to get, the Shure Sevenss. [00:52:00] So, Yeah ... they better sound better, because they were very expensive, okay?

[00:52:03] They were very

[00:52:04] Simone Collins: expensive. But what have you guys done? We even got them on discount, and we were like, “I’m never going to financially recover from this.” So what have you done? What have you done?

[00:52:11] Malcolm Collins: What have you done? But you, you guys wanted better audio, and now you’re gonna get-

[00:52:15] Simone Collins: Yeah, now you’re gonna hear Tex screaming and drooling into your ear in-

[00:52:20] Malcolm Collins: Well, that’s what you-

[00:52:21] this audio vision, like, equivalent ... that’s what you get throughout the day, Simone. Come on.

[00:52:24] Simone Collins: Oh, yeah. I guess that’s, I’m so sorry to all of you. I might put... I’m gonna, I’m gonna see if he can chill in his Snappi later while we’re out. Do

[00:52:31] Malcolm Collins: I sound any different to you on here, Simone? No. But, you know, we don’t- I don’t hear it.

[00:52:36] I don’t hear the difference between audio quality. Like, everyone else is like, “Audio this, audio this.” To me, we sound no different from Asma Gold. We sound no different from Nuggs. So that, that’s part of the problem- Oh, boy ... with, like, the audiophile is- He’s so upset ... I can’t hear the difference between Ah.

[00:52:52] Simone Collins: He’s not happy Okay, am I gonna get him milk before we start?

[00:52:58] Malcolm Collins: We’re g- we’re gonna start. Yes.

[00:53:00] Simone Collins: He’s an angry elf. I’m, I’m not, you know, I can’t think when there’s a baby crying, so I will be-

[00:53:04] Malcolm Collins: You will get him milk?

[00:53:06] Speaker: deep into the jungle, guys?

[00:53:11] Is this a jungle or woods?

[00:53:21] And that’s called a temperate rainforest, guys

In this raw and data-driven episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins tackle one of the most uncomfortable topics in modern discourse: what happens when cousin marriage is practiced across multiple generations?

While a single first-cousin marriage carries moderate risk, repeated generational consanguinity causes the inbreeding coefficient (F) to compound nonlinearly. After just 4–6 generations, offspring become as genetically similar as full siblings. The hosts walk through the math, real-world population data, IQ impacts (10–30+ point drops), elevated rates of genetic disorders, miscarriages, and neurological conditions — all without moralizing or hedging.

They cover:

* Pakistan (50–65% consanguineous), Gulf states, Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, and UK Pakistani diaspora rates

* Historical European examples (Hapsburgs) vs. modern British royals

* Jewish rates and cultural adaptation to science

* Why chain migration amplifies the practice

* The strategic/political angle some conservatives quietly consider

* Brief but pointed detours into halal slaughter myths, Sharia consistency, grooming gangs, and Maimonides on late-term abortion edge cases

The episode ends with a characteristically Based Camp discussion of cultural sovereignty, techno-Puritanism, and why evidence-based cultural evolution beats top-down bans.

If you value brutal honesty over comfortable narratives, this one’s for you.

Malcolm and Simone Collins break down one of the fastest cultural shifts they’ve seen: the collapsing power of the “antisemitism” card and the ADL’s controversial attempt to label “Goy Slop” as hate speech.

In this episode, they explore the history and modern usage of the term “goy,” why the ADL’s statement backfired spectacularly, the hilarious internet reaction (including Asmongold’s meme list), and what this reveals about changing attitudes toward Jewish organizations, identity politics, and cultural trash talk.

They discuss:

* The real meaning and evolution of “goy”

* Why policing language like this increases antisemitism

* Sentiment analysis showing overwhelming pushback

* Broader cultural realignment on the right and in the mainstream

* Advice for the ADL and Jewish advocacy groups

A raw, honest conversation on group identity, noticing patterns, and why the old rules no longer apply.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about one of the fastest cultural shifts I have maybe seen in my lifetime- ... towards the inability to play whether it’s the anti-Semite card or the racist card or the homophobe card of- of that being a card that has value in our cultural landscape.

Okay.

And a lot of this comes downstream of a recent ADL announcement. Or- How

Simone Collins: recent are we talking? Like, this year or just now? Like,

Malcolm Collins: yesterday.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: Like, it, it’s just blowing up on Twitter right now. People are, are clowning on it.

So basically what the ADL decided to do is attempt to define goy slop, which is a term that a lot of people are using now for unhealthy food that is not good for you to eat, and there’s a fun [00:01:00] video of, like, a sweet old Jewish guy going around and showing, like, kosher foods and being like, “You gotta eat this stuff and not this other stuff.

Look at all the bad chemicals.” Like, “You guys need to know this.”

Speaker 7: Sent this to a friend who loves eating goy slop. I wouldn’t touch this stuff. Anything over two ingredients is goy slop. Nothing but chemicals.

Malcolm Collins: But-

Simone Collins: Okay ...

Malcolm Collins: the ADL came out and tried to

define this as hate speech. And we’ll go into their statement, we’ll go into the history of goy, everything like that. Mm-hmm. But they tried to define it as hate speech. And then you get people like Shoeonhead where one popular tweet said, “Shoeonhead claps back at the LDA...

the ADL referring to goy slop as a slur. Wait, wait. Goy, the Hebrew word that refers to non-Jews. So you have your own little slur for us-” “... but we’re bad for using it ourselves? LMAFO.” And you-

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s like banning the N-word from rap, right?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, it’s, it’s, it’s worse because it is a Jewish- Worse ... [00:02:00] slur-

Simone Collins: Yeah

Malcolm Collins: for non-Jews.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And it is absolutely a derogatory word. Like, you can say, like, you as a Jew can try to define it as non-derogatory. Yeah. But if you’re doing that, you’re just going to make people more antisemitic because it looks like you’re treating them like idiots and they’re too stupid to be aware.

And I’m okay of you know, Like gringo. Right? Like, I go to, I go to Mexico, people call me a gringo, right? Like- Yeah,

Simone Collins: or gaijin.

Malcolm Collins: Or gaijin.

Simone Collins: Which is

Malcolm Collins: fine. Or-

Simone Collins: Don’t care.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Most cultures have a derogatory word for people outside of that culture. Mm-hmm. This isn’t a Jewish thing. This isn’t a problem- No

endemic to Judaism or something like that. No.

Speaker: And to be clear here, if you are Jewish and regularly hear Yiddish, you would be very aware that there are multiple idioms that use the term goy in a derogatory manner. It is clearly a derogatory word. And again, it is normal for words to mean outsider to eventually become derogatory, even if they didn’t originally have that connotation.[00:03:00]

Consider the word barbarian in ancient Greek that originally just meant outsider, but eventually came to mean, uh, a lot of derogatory contexts

And Jews will come out thinking we’re f*****g idiots and say things like, “Well, Goy in the Torah is used in a non-derogatory context to mean nation.” And it’s like, yeah, back when it also referred to the nation of Israel. But since about 300 BC in Talmudic writings, which we all have access to, by the way, it’s not just Jews who get to read those, it’s been used in a negative context.

In the same way barbarian originally didn’t have a negative context, but eventually developed one. That’s fine. Don’t treat us like idiots

Speaker 8: And I’m beginning to realize how much anti-Semitism was kept down by the self-deprecating Jewish comedian like we see in the original clip here with the guy actually [00:04:00] talking about Goy slop who’s being honest, , and how much it is risen by the Jewish Karen. And we just don’t have that many self-deprecating Jewish comedians anymore and a whole lot more Jewish Karens

Speaker 9: And the Jewish Karens seem to be completely unaware of American culture and how angry it makes Americans to be told something that we obviously know isn’t true, like that goy in a modern context is not a derogatory term.

And if you are a Jew who is unaware of this, because I’m g- gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are just unaware of this because you have no Jewish friends. But I have a lot of Jewish friends. I interact with the Jewish community a lot. I regularly see the term used in that way. In fact, if you read private communications of Jews, as people have done in the Jeffrey Epstein emails, they see it used in that way regularly.

, This is even known to [00:05:00] Jewish children. , There was a clip that I have here of, , a Jewish kid talking to a non-Jewish kid, , saying, “ You don’t know sh- about my friends and family, so you should actually shut the F up. You think I’m going to act towards someone, an arrogant little swine white b***h who S talks Israel knowing nothing about them?

Shut up, you goy C word. Go defend terrorists. Laugh my ass off post your face. Then you’re effing embarrassing. Take your shishka...” This is another Jewish slur for non-Jewish women, , that is way more derogatory than goy, but it’s used interchangeably. Go defend the terrorists like a good little Western goy girl.”

And then he says, “Goy fake ass profile.” , But the point being here is it’s used interchangeably with words like the C word or shishka or, you know, any of these other words. A- and, and we see this in plenty of videos. Again, if you are unaware that this term is used in a derogatory fashion [00:06:00] and you are Jewish, go, like, research it, I guess?

Speaker 3: זה תספורת של גוי או של יהודי? גוי. תספורת שוקו וניל זה יהודי או גוי? גוי. בלורית זה תספורת של יהודי או גוי? גוי.

And when you point out that at one point in history it wasn’t derogatory, that has the same energy as a person claiming the N-word isn’t derogatory because just look at how you say black in Latin languages. Clearly it doesn’t have or didn’t originally have a negative context. And it’s like, bro, that, that doesn’t, um, help your case at all. That makes you look insane and dramatically worse.

The fact that a word wasn’t always negative doesn’t mean it’s not negative in the current context. And in the same voice, the fact that even at the height of the N-word’s use, [00:07:00] it was majoritively used just as a descriptor for black people, not with malice intended, that doesn’t mean that it was not a slur.

, And that is true, by the way. During the height, like if you’re looking at the s- the slave trade and stuff like that, when the N-word was used the most, it was mostly just used as a descriptor. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t pejorative as well.

Essentially the way the defining of a slur works is not the majority use of a word, because almost all slurs when they are made slurs, their majority use is not necessarily derogatory but descriptive. It’s in the minority is the term used in a derogatory context. And almost every word in every language for non-X that’s not non-X becomes derogatory.

So like let’s take Christians for example. There is no word for a non-Christian other than just saying non-Christian that doesn’t have a derogatory context now. Whether it’s heathen, heretic, [00:08:00] pagan, , all of these within a Christian mindset are gonna have a derogatory context and that’s fine. It’s pretending that they don’t that is what is freaking people out.

Malcolm Collins: however, to take that word and then say that other people can’t use it themselves, the groups that it is... It, it would be as if- when you said it would be like banning the N-word- Oh, it’s- It would be like whites were still allowed to use the N-word-

Simone Collins: Oh my God.

Yeah, okay. Yeah ... but they ban

Malcolm Collins: Black people from using the N-word in rap Dear Black

Simone Collins: people, you are no longer allowed to use the N-word. Wow

Malcolm Collins: Like, don’t you know the history of that word, Black people? It might make white people look bad.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, of course we still use it regularly and with impunity, but we don’t want other people reminded of that.

No ... and this is coming down because we’ll go over the reactions to this. Asmogold made another, a big list of like other goy words that you can use because it’s been taken and, and mixed culturally in many ways. Like goyim [00:09:00] beam. I, I think that’s a hilarious name for the anti-uh-

Simone Collins: Oh, yes. The goyim beam

goyim beam. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Malcolm Collins: The air defense missile in, in, in- Mm-hmm ... ‘cause it’s, it’s shooting down goy rockets, right? I do love

Simone Collins: that, yeah.

That’s good ...

Malcolm Collins: but the, the, the wider thing that’s so interesting to me about this before we go deeper into this is just recently, I’m talking like a couple months ago because we did a piece on this the ADL came out and they said, “Oh, how dare this guy,” ‘cause there was a YouTuber who went to a, a Orthodox Jewish community- Mm-hmm

uh, that was known and is widely accepted to be, have massive problems with welfare fraud.

Simone Collins: Are you talking about Tyler Oliviera, or?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And then they had him demonetized- ... for doing a piece that was factually honest about a problem that everyone knows about and that would obviously be better addressed by dealing with the community that’s doing this or [00:10:00] distancing yourself from them- Mm-hmm

but not attempting to defend the bad actor, and that’s what we talked about in that episode. But when this happened, there was a bit of a pushback online, right? Like, people were somewhat mad about it but there were still defenders. It was still a two-sided conversation. This time it hasn’t been a two-sided conversation.

It sort of feels like collectively everyone is like, “What are you doing?” Even a lot of Jews in the comments to the ADL are be like, “This organization is supposed to support Jews, but it sure seems like they hate them because they’re making us look terrible.” So, I decided to run a sentiment analysis of this.

Simone Collins: Oh, boy. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, by the way, even, even the, like ADL’s own post got a community note.

Simone Collins: Of course it did. Of course it did, because it’s... this is, this is insane.

Malcolm Collins: Right. So the community note on the ADL’s own piece about this, right? Mm-hmm. Is, “Although it is in subject of much debate, [00:11:00] many Jews and non-Jews consider the word goy to be a Hebrew/Yiddish slur for non-Jews, and not an inherently neutral word.”

Mm. “Wikipedia also notes its use as a pejorative.” So I love that, that that’s the stage that we’re at, that this is getting community noted. And people who know us broadly, we’re seen as broadly philo-Semitic. I’m still, even though Israel and Jews sometimes do stuff that annoys me, I still think of all the groups I could ally with, they’re one of the strongest technologically and in terms of fertility rates and in terms of cultural similarities to my group.

So I, I’m not like an anti-Jewish person saying all of this, right? I’m like, “This doesn’t seem to be working anymore, and let’s talk about that.” So, w- A sentiment analysis, okay? First, let’s go over what the post was. They said, “Goy slop is not quirky internet slang word worth normalizing. It’s an antisemitic slur Born from [00:12:00] white supremacist hate, built on a conspiracy that the Jews deliberately harm non-Jews. @NewYorkTimes should know better than to give this language a platform. There is no excuse for the ignorance of those who use it. Hateful words carry their origins wherever they travel.”

Simone Collins: Okay, wait, wait, wait, mm.

Okay. So because some people have recognized the use of the word goy as not being necessarily flattering to outsiders, and then toyed with it, basically, like, because other people have recognized that some, some Jewish people are not so nice to outsiders, that is, that is... They, they hate Jews therefore.

And, and because they make fun of it, that, that is, that is hate, right? Mm-hmm. So, like, if... Oh, what’s a, what’s a better... Okay, let’s, let’s go back to, like, white supremacy. So, like, if, if, if if some Black Americans were like, “Oh, those white supremacists, like, really appear to hate white people.” Or sorry, “Black people,” and then they, like, made fun of them for doing that, [00:13:00] then it would be considered, like, anti-white hate- Yeah

for them to, like, b- make f- make light of that and make jokes about it, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. And I, I wanna be clear here, goy is not as derogatory a term for non-Jews as the N-word is for Black people. Oh, yeah.

Simone Collins: Clearly. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah ... it’s, it’s probably closer to a term like-

Simone Collins: Like gaijin or gringo.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, gaijin or gringo is a, is a good it’s, it’s a term you would- It’s just a good, it’s a

Simone Collins: good outsider term ... you would

Malcolm Collins: say- But, you know, like

Simone Collins: if you’re a

Malcolm Collins: supreme- ... to a friend and it wouldn’t have a negative effect on that friendship. No. Like, it would be a laughable outsider term, but it is negative, right?

Like, and it, and it- Like noob. And why shouldn’t it be negative? Again, every group has the right to think that they’re better than other groups. That’s just what it is to have intergroup pride.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But what you don’t have is the right to prevent those groups from using the words you use pejoratively about them.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But to continue here, I did a- an analysis of this, so you can get an idea of how strong the reaction has been.

Simone Collins: Okay. [00:14:00]

Malcolm Collins: The sentiment analysis said 90% are opposed or against it- Mm-hmm ... calling it overreach, gaslighting, et cetera. 5% are neutral or mixed, and 5% are pro it. Like,

it is clown town on the internet right now with this post, and this wouldn’t have happened a year ago.

Simone Collins: It would not?

Malcolm Collins: No, I do, I do not believe the reaction would have been- What changed? ... this overwhelmingly negative. I-

Simone Collins: What do you think changed?

Iran, the war in Iran. We’re just, like, super mad at, at, at anything Jewish because of Israel.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t think it’s the war in Iran. Actually, let- yeah, let’s try to walk through what actually did change.

Simone Collins: The war in Iran.

Malcolm Collins: I- look, I get that that’s part of it, but you have... The, the, the Gaza situation was optically worse for Israel and Jewish people than the war in Iran,

Simone Collins: right?

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. Iran was a unified enemy. Basically everyone in Europe agreed that they needed to go. Everyone in Europe agreed, even during the initial bombings, that this was a good idea.

Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah. All, all Europeans did. People were [00:15:00] outraged by the protests you know, up until the moment- Yeah ... that action was taken. Iran, something needs to be done, and then something was done. Woo-hoo. The

Malcolm Collins: moment

Simone Collins: something was done- Can you believe ...

Malcolm Collins: everyone was like, “What? What?”

Simone Collins: But it was Israel’s idea.

No. Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: like I love the pictures they have on of, like, comedians being like, “I don’t get it.” Like, Trump’s out there saying that something needs to be done about what Iran is doing to these protesters and he’s like, “And he doesn’t even go in and invade. Why doesn’t he invade? If he invades, at least then I’d believe.”

That’s what Bill Burr, who had this big speech about this. Oh,

Simone Collins: really?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no. At least then I’d believe, you know, that he was a man of integrity and doing what was right for the world. Mm-hmm. He attacks, immediately he’s like, “How could he do this?” You know.

Simone Collins: Checks out.

Malcolm Collins: Many leftist accounts. But yeah. No, I don’t, I don’t think that that was it at all, honestly.

I think it’s more of changing cultural winds. And it’s more of a cultural realignment moving further up the chain of communication.

Mm-hmm.

So it’s been widely understood in, like, our circle of the online internet, right? That you, you can’t pull [00:16:00] this sort of nonsense anymore. Like, “That’s antisemitic,” is just gonna make people hate your group more if it’s not genuinely antisemitic, right?

Like, that’s... Whatever you do, that’s, that’s anti whatever group. That’s anti, you know, how could you say this? That’s hate. Right? Like, these sorts of framings for a long time worked. Even, even in our community, even in the right there would, there’d be politicians who’d be like, “Trump can’t say that.

That’s a, that’s an offensive thing to say that these are, are shitty countries,” or something like that. Mm-hmm. That Haiti was a shitty country was what they were mad that he said. Now, everyone agrees with that Haiti being a shitty... The moment he starts sending immigrant, like, deportees there, they’re like, “How dare you send deportees there?

It’s a shitty country.” But when he said it it was like, “Oh, how, how dare he?” But within our sort of smaller cultural sphere online, this was understood. Then we had the, the first ratchet, which is the left turning on the Jews and turning really hard anti-Israel. And this happened collectively [00:17:00] on the left you know, I’d say maybe half a decade ago at this point, right?

And it’s been very normative within the leftist s- social world, right? Like the, their version of our podcast, right? If there, there was like a mirror world podcast, this has been normal on the left for a while, to just dislike Jews. Whoever dislikes Jews the most, they actually like at TwitchCon even like ranked people on like how much they hated Jews.

Simone Collins: Oh, for the love. Ugh.

Malcolm Collins: They, they had a, a thing where they did that. Like that was a fun thing to do at Twitch, is the give people rankings based on how much they hate

Simone Collins: Jews. It’s such a thing though, that, yeah, people just can’t shut up about Israel. What’s up with this?

Malcolm Collins: Well, you could say there’s biblical reasons for that, but w- ignoring those the...

Well, they do have disproportionate power. They’re the most successful subgroup on Earth. I mean, anyone should be... A- and they’re decent fertility, right? Like anyone should be paying attention to that.

Simone Collins: Sure. Yeah, no, I mean, and then that’s, I mean, ultimately we’re [00:18:00] filosemitic because we are very interested in whoever is competent and who has good operational skills, and yes, who is you know, of-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, somebody asked me

replacement-level fertility ... they go, “Why, why do, why do gay Jews seem to run all the AI companies or be all the major donors in the AI companies?” And I was like, “I got theories on that, but if you keep wondering, fans keep wondering, even if you’re not gay or Jewish and may disagree with them theologically on some areas, do you still want to be in an alliance with them?

It’s because they run all the AI companies.” F*****g maniacs. Don’t piss off the group that’s enormously more powerful than you on the geopolitical stage. But the, the the gay Jews running all the tech companies. We’ll t- we’ll talk about that at the end as well. But- what happened was is the left turned against them, but the urban monoculture hadn’t.

And I’ve been beginning to have a better understanding recently because I’ve been interacting with some people who are of the elite of the urban monoculture, but not of the left. These are the people who run the boring whatever [00:19:00] podcast. We were on some podcast that was, like, just generic, the opinion of the elite, right?

Mm-hmm. Like, the, the, let’s say the New York wife who just doesn’t really wanna pay attention to everything that’s going on. She’s got a, a job that’s a, a high-paying job at, like, a, a private equity firm or something like that. She’s a little insulated from the news. She’s a

Simone Collins: little insu- Autopilot educated elite.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Autopilot educated elite. That’s who actually runs the urban monoculture. Yeah. And to this group, the autopilot educated elite, it had yet to reach their ears, which was very clear to me when I had a recent interaction with one of them, that, like, the “You’re a racist” line when somebody’s just clowning around or making a joke or whatever doesn’t work anymore and causes immediate pushback.

It still works within their message, their, their, their world. When they’re at a, a company meeting or let’s say a, a convention of, like, [00:20:00] MLM Karens or something like that, right? Like, that, that sort of a person, right? When they’re at their meetings and they’re like, “Can you believe he said goys?”

Like, “He needs to be kicked off the team,” right? Like, “He needs to be fired,” this was still a perfectly reasonable thing to say in their world. And I think that this is an important for all of us to remember. The elite of the urban monoculture are sort of elitist automatons who are quite downstream and isolated from the culture war And they are unaware of it, and it sort of hits their door one day and they just go along with it after it does.

It’s, it’s now the new normal because the sophisticated people who tell them what’s true told them that this is true now. And it actually, I, I was talking to somebody recently, they go, “Why do you fight in the trenches of the internet?” And I go, “Because the trenches of the internet determine what is culturally normative 10 years from now,” right?

The mainstream of MAGA today was born in the [00:21:00] 4chan versus Tumblr w- war, right, of 10 years ago. The, the what became mainstream on Tumblr 10 years ago, if you were a watcher of that, all of the xeno pronouns and all of the extra focus on the trans issues and extra focus on the the, you know, it, it, respect my identity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That was like re- that battle wasn’t a battle that the left even had like internally because they just accepted Tumblr culture after the battle had already happened. But this was considered the most degen part of the internet. This was, I mean, the people who were having this battle spent half their time posting furry porn, right?

Like, they were not or, or were just, if, if they were in the, the 4chan side of them, most of them ended up getting canceled or lost their jobs. They were de-platformed before all of this became normalized.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: The battle that we’re having is the next generation version of that battle. But basically what we’re seeing is the [00:22:00] outcome of the battle drift upwards.

Which is to say in the conservative community, it became incredibly bad, th- the community that’s open to working with Jews, it became incredibly bad to say, “Hey, don’t say that, that’s antisemitic,” especially when something clearly isn’t. And then es- and especially if it’s just an internet joke, right?

Like, when it comes to internet jokes, that’s where it gets, like, really bad. And when it’s an internet joke with, like, a side of truth to it disproportionately people in executive positions are of Jewish heritage. Like, that’s something Jews should have pride in. That’s not a, an ethnic slur or anything like that.

And Jews disproportionately, as they should, they have, they have rules around trying to make the entire world a better place. This is true within the Jewish faith. But they also have rules about preferencing the interests of their own [00:23:00] people, as they should. Which is

Simone Collins: not insane. Yeah, come on.

Malcolm Collins: And so when people see large companies disproportionately run by Jewish individuals putting things into food that is bad for people, that is explicitly non-kosher, e.g.

they couldn’t even eat it themselves if they wanted to, it makes them create this stereotype.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And and I think the noticing, you could say noticing is a bad thing, but that’s really bad. Because as soon as you say noticing the whatever pattern is a bad thing is a bad thing, everybody immediately pays attention to it.

Mm. The, the moment you say not, “This isn’t true,” but, “This is racist,” everybody today is like, “Well, hold on, I better research that [00:24:00] real quick.” So to go, let’s go over some of the memes here because I thought, I thought they were fantastic. Okay.. This just doesn’t work anymore after the Epstein emails,” somebody says. And keep in mind, that did a lot to erode trust in the idea of there aren’t secret cabals that are run by a guy who is at least nominally Jewish. Mm. He did seem to disproportionately care about the interests of the Jews in Israel.

And when we’re like, “Oh, there are cabals doing that,” a lot of people are like, “Oh, well let’s, let’s reenter the conversation.” Next Most Efrati comment is, “LMAO.” Then we have Asmogold saying

Here are some additional horrible slurs that the same bigots online have been using. Hopefully you can use these to better combat antisemitism. None of these are funny, and anyone laughing at them is a horrible person.” Gold steak is fantastic. So the words were goynip, an exciting event or thing that keeps the attention of people who are considered goy.

[00:25:00] Goy slop, a type of food or leisure activity that is indulgent and unhealthy. Goy beam, a military action using particle weapons, usually related to Israel. Goy cattle, worse than goy, even dumber and even more servile. Goycott, definition pending. I like that. That’s great. And goylooping, when a fat and/or retarded person keeps saying the same thing over and over again.

And I like goylooping, ‘cause it’s not even, that one doesn’t even have any sort of an undertone of antisemitism. It’s just sort of talking about the masses not understanding what’s really going on. And then next one here is, “We have a slur for y- a slur we use for all you nons, but you’re not allowed to say it, or else it’s hateful.”

Huh. But yeah. W- do you wanna go into the history of the term goy so people can be like, “Well, well...” Because-

Simone Collins: Yeah, you say so many things with Judaism are incredibly new inventions. How new is this?

Malcolm Collins: Very old. It’s in, it’s in the Bible. It actually-

Simone Collins: What? [00:26:00] Oh my gosh, okay. So this isn’t new at all.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But it, it initially did not have negative connotations. And, and note here to any Jew who’s like, “It’s in the Bible and it didn’t have negative connotations there,” that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have neg- negative connotations now. And if you’re pretending it doesn’t, you just make yourself look worse or, like, pathologically stupid.

Or, or pathologically... Like, it’s even worse. If, if you as a Jewish person go out there and say goy doesn’t have negative connotations, you create the impression that you are so pathologically blind in the way you see reality that when you see another group being discriminated against in favor of your group, you are unable to see that it is discrimination.

Mm. That it is derogatory, because you so thoroughly believe that you are deserving of a differentiated treatment.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If I had any other word for Jew that I [00:27:00] regularly used to mean Jew, Jews would out, okay? You’d- I could just make up a word now for Jew. Scuttlebutt. If I just started calling the scuttlebutts out, tomorrow everyone would say, “That’s an anti-Semite,” because it’s why not just say non-Jew?

So anyway in the Hebrew Bible, it is a

Simone Collins: neutral

Malcolm Collins: term. The person

Simone Collins: experiencing Jewness. Yes. You have, like, the neutra- person experiencing Frenchness. All that, yes

Malcolm Collins: For any nation or ethnic group, including the Israelites or Jews themselves. Examples include God promising to make Abraham’s descendants a goy gadol, a great nation, in Genesis 12:2, or referring to the Jewish people as a goy kadosh, the holy nation, in Exodus 19:6.

Neutral descriptions for nations, and it appears hundreds of times, so we see it all over the place. But in the Hellenistic or Roman periods, roughly 300 BCE onwards, especially in the rabbinic or Talmudic literature from the first or second century [00:28:00] CE, it is increasingly shifted to refer primarily to non-Jewish nations or individuals.

The nations equal goyim contrasting with Jews. Scholars like Adi Ofer and Ishan Razan Z argue that a crystallized Jew versus universal non-Jew goy dichotomy emerged clearly in rabbinic texts influenced by interactions with Hellenic culture, Rome, and early Christianity. And keep in mind, these groups were often killing each other in really violent and awful ways.

Like, if I’m gonna drag up old stuff that the Mormons did that was bad, let’s drag up, like, the things that the Jews did. So there’s a famous instance from Josephus where he’s recording of a Jewish garrison that was attempting to put down a Jewish rebellion, and the Jews said to the Romans, “Put down your weapons,” as the Mormons did to the group before they killed them, “and we’ll come in and...”

It was much worse what the Mormons did because it was, like, childrens and families, and they beat them to death. But whatever. The, when the Jews did it I’m just showing I’m giving everyone equal treatment here. They then went in and, and [00:29:00] killed everyone but the commander who converted to Judaism to prevent himself from getting killed.

A, a long story there. This, this was back when Jews were more active in their proselytization and like, “Okay, you, you, you convert, we won’t kill you.” But but that d- it seemed to be more proactive on his part and not, like, a threat on their part. We’re, we’re not, we’re not gonna get into that. But the point here being is Jews had a great deal of enmity for the goy as this term was crystallized.

Yiddish, in modern usage, borrowed into Yiddish and then English from Hebrew, where it commonly means Gentile or non-Jew. In everyday Jewish speech, especially Ashkenazi Y- Yiddish influence contracts, they say it is oftenly neutral like Gentile. However, it can carry pejorative or condescending tones in phrases like goy sheep the, the Gentile head brain.

Goy- sorry, it’s goy sheep cup or stupidity or dullness. So basically i- in Jew, if you say, “To think like a goy,” okay, like, like a literal translation here, you are saying somebody is stupid, okay? Mm-hmm. [00:30:00] Or you can have a Kamish term here in, in, in Yiddish, dos ken nor a goy. Only a goy would do that.

Okay?

Simone Collins: Well, well, I think anyone who’s proud of their culture saying that only an outsider would do that it, it is gonna be derogatory, but that is something you would expect. Like, let’s say you’re really into, like, one sports team. Like, y- you love the Raiders, and you’re like, “Well, only this... I’m so bad.

Some- only this other sports team would do that,” you know, because it’s, it’s derogatory. Or you’re Irish. Like, “Well, only a Spaniard would do that,” you know? It... I, I just, I don’t see how that’s bad. That’s normal.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, which is, is part of the problem. It’s trash talk. Is the, the world has become a trash talk world, and this is now moving further and further up the chain.

This

Simone Collins: is- Well, it’s, the world has become an anti-trash talk world. We’re not [00:31:00] allowed to trash talk anymore, apparently.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, the, the, the elites of the urban monoculture were always anti-trash talk. Mm-hmm. Especially if it was used against i- a- any group that could be perceived as a minority group or that had some, within their, their hierarchy of discrimination.

Mm-hmm. I think what the Jews realize or what’s happening is the Jews within the urban monoculture completely fell outside the hierarchy of discrimination. Nobody f*****g cares about them in the hierarchy of discrimination world anymore. Even the elites have gotten that memo at this point. Which leaves the side that would still fend for them being the side that they offend by taking a position like this.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it’s, it’s bad. Like, I don’t, I don’t... Like, I, I look at this as, as, as an... Like, what do, how do I feel about this? I guess even though I’m fairly philiosemetic, I am happy to see this pushback be as universal as it is. Sure. You know, because [00:32:00] it feels like the faster we get to a place societally where even an organization, even the urban elites who put something out like this from the ADL and are otherwise, like, very cloistered, th- they immediately get, next time something like this comes up, “Oh, we can’t do that anymore.

Like, we don’t get to play this game anymore. This game is over for us.” And that actually will help the Jewish people more broadly, because the longer it takes various Jewish organizations to understand nobody’s playing ball with this and it actually radicalizes people further against you to play the, “That’s antisemitic,” or, “Goy isn’t a derogatory term,” game, the faster everybody is gonna freak out

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And a note here, I’d point out when I’m like, what’s the word for... And this is what, w- for the people who want to play it, the, it’s not anti, it’s not a [00:33:00] derogatory word. Can you give me any word for a non-Christian other than just saying non-Christian, like you could just say non-Jew, that doesn’t carry derogatory connotations?

Heathen, I guess.

Simone Collins: Well, heathen’s derogatory. Infidel is derogatory.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but, but that’s the point I’m making. Apostate’s a- Intrinsically, any word that isn’t just non-Jew or non-Christian is gonna carry derogatory, even if it’s the only word you have. You can’t be like, “Oh, it’s the only word we have for non-Jews.”

No, you have non-Jew. Christians have non- Jew. A Christian doesn’t need to call you a heathen. If a Christian called you a heathen, you’d probably be a little offended by it.

Simone Collins: Yeah, or an apostate or anything. Yeah. Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Heretic.

Simone Collins: Heretic. I can’t... Yeah. Well, I guess you could just call them an atheist or non-believer.

Well, non-believer doesn’t sound good.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, yeah. Well, no, because then you’re defining what they

Simone Collins: are, Jew, atheist. That’s true. Yeah. We don’t know. Right. We don’t know what they believe. Yeah. Mm-mm.

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s just a normal thing. D- [00:34:00] stop pret- we all know. Like, everybody knows, right? Like, you don’t need to pretend.

We’re not playing that game anymore. Yeah. We on the right are out here being like, “Dude, it’s okay if you are a separate group than us.” Okay? Mm. It’s okay if you favor- we want to favor our own people. Whatever, right? Like, everybody has a right to do that. You can do that. But you can’t come out here and police, one, you can’t be the fun police, you can’t be the offense police, and you can’t be the how dare you say the word, like you make it known that we use the word in this way.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: By the way, did this sort of shock you in seeing this? I- I’m a little shocked ...

Simone Collins: I’m genuinely shocked that this happened.

Malcolm Collins: Are you

Simone Collins: more- Very strange ... shocked that

Malcolm Collins: the ADL thought this was an okay thing to say, or are you more shocked that the-

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, no, I, I am shocked ... ADL is bad ... because at least historically, I didn’t realize just how effective the ADL was until I saw more information about just how [00:35:00] intense antisemitism was in the past.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: So I’ve realized, wow, okay, actually the ADL has done an amazing job. And so w- what I’m also surprised of is here’s this organization that has actually been pretty effective. They presumably would understand Streisand effects and where to choose your battles, and the fact that they’ve made such a profound screw-up with such a silly thing, it makes them sound sanctimonious and like they’re really trying to just impose on other groups in a way that’s gonna backfire.

Like, their goal should be to reduce antisemitism as much as possible. Now they’re contributing to it, and that’s, that’s-

Malcolm Collins: Dramatically so. Yeah ...

Simone Collins: bizarre to me. Not just because, oh my gosh, the outrage, how could they do, they do this, but actually because they have a long track record of being very [00:36:00] effective at actually reducing antisemitism, so what’s going on?

Like, leadership must have changed- Well, this is what happened ... in a very insane way.

Malcolm Collins: This, this is actually a great thing. The ADL has been so captured by urban monoculture rot at a bureaucratic level that it is now acting in ways that is actively antithetical to its mission of increasing pro-Jewish sentiment.

Hmm.

It’s trying to increase the dogmatic control of the urban monoculture without even realizing it, right? And it’s playing into the urban monoculture’s hand without even realizing it. And if you’re wondering what can you do about this, like, if I was a, a Jew that’s as connected as I am, I would probably have connections to the ADL.

I’d strongly encourage them to hire some outsider, be that us. Mm-hmm. I mean, clearly we’re fairly pro-Jewish. And we have our pulse, I think, on the fing- the, the, the pulse of the internet. Or,

Simone Collins: Our finger on the pulse of the internet ...

Malcolm Collins: yeah, a finger on the pulse of the [00:37:00] internet so they could do that with us or they could do that with y- Nux.

Nux would be great. Nux would’ve immediately- Nux would

Simone Collins: be great ...

Malcolm Collins: Nux is probably gonna clown on this himself. He’s probably gonna be like, “Can you believe the ADL would say something this f*****g stupid?”

Simone Collins: Nux or Asmongold or, well, I mean, Asmongold. I mean, who can afford him, right?

Malcolm Collins: But- Yeah, who can afford Asmongold?

Yeah, keep in mind, if you hire Nux, you’re hiring a Jew, so that’s gonna cost you a bit more, right? Come with us. We’re cheap. We’re white trash over here, right?

Simone Collins: Mm.

Malcolm Collins: Rednecks like us, we c- we come d- we, we... You don’t even need to... You just pay us whatever you want and I’ll review this stuff for you, right?

But yeah, like this-

Simone Collins: Honestly, they would, yeah. I don’t know, I don’t w- I don’t even wanna name how low of a price you’d be like, “

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.” Yeah, sure. I think increasingly companies need to have mechanisms. And if you’re somebody who’s watching this and you’re either at a non-profit or you are in an HR department or something like that, and you are looking for somebody who can vet the way the Internet’s gonna react to [00:38:00] something we’ve played the Internet like a fiddle for a decade at this point, right?

Like, we, we’re fairly good at this particular game. Every outrage cycle we’ve ridden to our advantage, right? Like, there hasn’t been one that significantly did not move us forwards on us. You wanna play the game? Come to us, and we’ll help you as much as we can, right? Like, we- Mm-hmm ... we are hirable for this.

We even have an org for this. Yeah

Simone Collins: Yeah. But it’s I hope they figure themselves out because it’s it’s sad to see this level of incompetence at play. Not to insult them, but There must be something at play here, like some donor, maybe one of their largest donors, this became their pet project.

They’re like, “This whole goy slop thing, th- they’re making, you know, th- this is just antisemitic,” and then they f- foisted it upon the ADL’s team. [00:39:00]

Malcolm Collins: No, I’ll tell you what happened, and I’m fairly sure I can, I can model what happened. Okay. Some urban monoculture Karen who doesn’t really understand the internet saw some meme about unhealthy food, because MAHA is part of Ma- MAGA now, right?

So, like MAGA’s talking about goy slop. MAHA. MAHA.

Simone Collins: MAHA,

Malcolm Collins: MAHA. You know, Wizard Kennedy and everything like that. Like, we’re talking about like the additives in food, the negative stuff about food. And there’s been some viral videos of Jews being like, “You guys, non-Jews, need to stop eating goy slop.”

Speaker 7: It’s no wonder that the goyim want the kosher food. Cheese swirl? Go back to Wisconsin. This is the holy food. Look at the kosher food. . Do you know why I made it to 86? ‘Cause I ate rotisserie chicken and Manischewitz borscht. This is chosen food for the chosen people.

I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I am. Do you wanna help the goyim get off the goy slop and come to our side?

Malcolm Collins: Like that, I think the most viral videos on this were done by like old Jewish guys that sounded very Jewish, right?

Mm-hmm. Being like, “You need to start eating this other type [00:40:00] of food,” right? Like, and they s- they might have seen something like this, and they, they immediately think, “Well, this is anti-Jewish,” right? Because it is in any way could be taken as a criticism of the Jewish people, therefore we have a right to just shut it down.

Because anything anti-Jewish can just be shut down whenever we feel like shutting it down. Because it could for a while. Like this, the, the fact that they were able to de-platform that guy for pointing out a real known problem within this Orthodox community that nobody disputes. The ADL didn’t be like, “This isn’t a major problem.

This fraud isn’t a major problem.” So yeah, I, I guess, I, what I think we need to move more towards, and we even have a company already set up for this anti, anti-bigotry, right? What, what do we call it? DEI Remediation. Deiremediation.com I think we have. So, we have a whole corp for doing this. We got a whole brand for doing this.

You let us know, and we will help you because this stuff is gonna f*****g destroy you. It’s bad. It’s [00:41:00] bad. Because right now what the ADL just initiated was an entire internet news cycle of clowning on Jewish people, and that further normalizes it for the next time this happens. Because everybody knows they’re gonna say stuff in response to this, and everybody’s gonna think it’s f*****g hilarious, and everybody’s gonna go along with it.

Because 95% of the people this time either approved of it, 90% approved of it, 50% didn’t care, and then you got the, the 5% who are against it. And, and frankly I think it’s, it’s probably lower than that Yeah ... if you... But yeah, just be aware culture is shifting, and that cultural shift is making it upwind, upwind, upwind, upwind.

And frankly, this is why figures like Nux are so important to the Jewish community right now. He is in, in the actual culture war that matters. Your [00:42:00] only or primary champion by, like, orders of magnitude like nobody listens, for example, to Ben Shapiro anymore. Like, you guys have had people in the right in the past, I, that had a lot of influence, but they captured institutional positions that don’t matter anymore

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Nux still has cultural relevance. So maybe work a bit more to help him or work with him because he’s your guy’s, like, shot right now at not having the entire online right turn antisemitic. I mean, I guess we’re useful in that as well because we generally argue in favor of, of Jewish interests.

But yeah, y- you guys don’t have ... And have as many like, fallbacks. I, I guess this just needs to be thought through more. Jews are, are s- are smarter than this. Like, Jews should have more both awareness of the cultural game that’s being played and more interest in communicating with that cultural game in a way that [00:43:00] prevents it from going in an antisemitic direction.

And I mean truly antisemitic direction, not calling out goyslop

Also, hold on. Really... Also Jews need to really work, like another, another thing that’s really gonna trigger people going forwards, and I’ve noticed this more and more, and this, they may not see this as that, so I just wanna note this before we h- Saying something is a conspiracy theory that is a blatant and observable fact Really makes people hate you

Simone Collins: Ah

Hmm

Malcolm Collins: Like if somebody says, “Jews control Hollywood” You can quibble about that, but it’s true.

They have a disproportionate level of control in Hollywood and have for genera- since its inception. [00:44:00] That’s not a conspiracy, but when you say that’s an anti-Semitic conspiracy, people are like, “Wow.” Like, “Are we, are we... Like, you’re gaslighting me now? Like, you’re pretending...” Jews control AI. Jews do disproportionately control AI.

Jewish spies manipulate world politics. Mossad has done a spectacular job manipulating world politics. Secret cabals of Jews have disproportionate power in both business, politics, and entertainment. Obviously this is true. We’ve caught one. I, I, others are probably less nefarious. And some of them are even institutionalized.

Well, what do you call Chabad if not institutionalized organization with disproportionate level of control in American politics? That’s [00:45:00] not... That, that just infuriates people. And like, get, just get better at dealing with that and this will likely go down a bit. The swelling will go down. But for now, where do I see things going?

I mean, I see things sort of spiraling in a direction where if filio-Semitic as we want to be, we need to, even internally in our communication, better describe the Jews as a separate people with potentially aligned interests- Mm-hmm ... that are in a good position to work with, but extremely distinct from whatever we are.

And that, that is, I, I think the best way to sort of psychologically handle this in terms of handling this in a way that’s gonna, gonna go in any sort of productive direction. The idea [00:46:00] of a Judeo-Christian singular group I think has shattered. And I, and I think it’s shattered to such an extent that Christians who bet on it have, have had their careers destroyed, Mm

in the past. Like, before they were aware of this. Like Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz bet on this idea, and I think it has destroyed his credibility

Simone Collins: Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The other thing that’s been very interesting that I’ve seen recede over time is the support for rebuilding the temple among evangelicals.

Really? Which was something... Well, so if you look historically in the United States, there was this big movement because they thought that it would bring about the, the end times.

Simone Collins: Right.

Malcolm Collins: But apocalyptic forms of evangelical Protestantism of, of that- Are they on

Simone Collins: the outs? ...

Malcolm Collins: type yeah, they’re kind of on the outs right now.

Simone Collins: [00:47:00] Huh. Yeah, I guess, you know, I haven’t heard a whole lot about it. People are talking about it being a thing, but I’m not hearing from the people who think it’s a thing, if that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I’m not hearing from them. I, I don’t see them in my conservative circles. I don’t see them in when we’re doing campaigning.

I don’t see them... you know who I do see increasingly in the conservative circles is groups that are much closer to what I, I’d call, like, techno-puritan, like, framing. Like, our framing of, like, Christianity slash science is incredibly and increasingly common among the youths. Mm-hmm. This sort of practical, skeptical, conspiratorial, but ultimately very scientific ex- understanding of Christianity is the one that is really replacing the panicked we, we’ve gotta protect...

And I think the, the Jews losing that have lost a major point for them that could have taken flak for them in this [00:48:00] current sort of online battle.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which has also been bad, right? I mean, you go out and you defend this. Like, suppose Ted Cruz went out there and defend this, he’d get clowned on to no end

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Any final thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: Just don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore. I feel like we all, we all just need to do our own things for a while, you know? Stop policing other people’s opinions. Just let them go out there. Like, c- can we just bring back trash talk without the policing?

Malcolm Collins: Well, no. This is the interesting thing.

We, our side, our cultural movement, this online right movement, has effectively policed the ADL’s talking points. Which is to say not just we’re not gonna listen to you, but it is actively [00:49:00] negative for you to be saying this, and you’re hurting your community, and the people who said this are likely dealing with internal blowback or donor blowback at this point.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So we still police, it’s just on the opposite side. It’s the anti-policing police

Don’t even try to police or it will blow up in your face. It, it, this wasn’t a neutral thing that happened. It’s not like they tried and nothing happened. They tried and a rake hit their face.

Simone Collins: That all just sounds so exhausting. But yeah, I get it. And I, I mean, I’m glad that there is pushback. It is important that there is pushback.

So- Yeah ... I guess it’s fine.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m getting sick of every- everyone’s sick of, oh, the w- you know, whatever, r- replacement immigration, right? Th- that’s a, a, a conspiracy, right? Like, all these things that they said are conspiracies, it’s like, then why does your side say it in Spain and cheer when it’s happening, right?

Like, why, [00:50:00] why can’t we have these conversations without everything being a conspiracy? When, when all of us can see the statistics and what your side is communicating internally.

Hmm.

Anyway, love you

Simone Collins: I love you too

Speaker 13: What we doing? Well, we’re playing hide and seek and playing ring

Where is

Titan? Who knows? I don’t know where Titan is. Is that Titan?

Are you a crazy girl? Yeah. What do you wanna be when you grow up? Well, I wanna be a shark princess.

What are you gonna do when you’re a shark princess? Well, I will swim in the water really [00:51:00] fast while

Speaker 14: I’m eating some fish that are not pink or purple. So you don’t wanna eat pink or purple fish? Only gray fish and yellow fish and green fish, but not pink and purple fish. And I jump the gray fish and the green fish, and they well, people just do not like meat on their shoulders like that, then sharks will eat them, and that will be really bad, so do not put shoulders on your arms like that, then I will eat you like a shark princess.

So do not go in the water and with meat on your wrist, then a shark will eat you. Then a shark

Speaker 13: will eat you?

Speaker 14: No, you.

Speaker 13: Oh, me? Yeah, [00:52:00]

Speaker 14: if you have meat on your wrist

Well, you found me,

Are video games the most efficient sin? Malcolm and Simone Collins rank modern sins by their real-world damage — from video games and sports gambling to shopping addictions, plastic surgery, skydiving, OnlyFans, kinks, and more. They break down how to evaluate sins by time cost, financial drain, health risks, negative externalities, addiction potential, and alignment with long-term flourishing.

This episode offers a practical, first-principles framework for thinking about hedonism, temptation, family traditions, and moral trade-offs in the modern world. Topics include gambling vs. heroin, why some “harmless” hobbies are more destructive than others, rechanneling vices into virtues, the value of different lives, and techno-puritan views on self-defense.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to have an interesting conversation around ranking the severity of various modern sins so that we can understand which ones are worse for an individual in, terms of, well, just broad effects they have on your life.

Like, as I’ve pointed out in other episodes, sins are basically a list of things, you know, like don’t cheat on your wife, don’t be mean to people, don’t murder people, like listen to your parents. Stuff that’s just gonna F up your life if you don’t follow it i- in a, in a general format. It’s like a big list of don’t piss on the electric fence and then a- some humans are just like, “But if I just goon all day every day, that’ll feel fantastic, right?”

And it’s like, no, it won’t. Maybe for like a half a day you get to year two of that and you’re living the life of Anna Valen. See our episode on what happened to her life, right? Like going through her [00:01:00] private diaries in our Life of the Sinabyte episode.

Speaker 5: you were an interesting study. Must, greed, deception, fertile ground, but rather mundane.

Speaker 6: Doors to the pleasures of heaven nor hell. I didn’t care, which I thought I’d gone to the limits I hadn’t. The center bytes gave me an experience beyond the limits pain and pleasure.

Indivisible.

Malcolm Collins: it is not happiness at the end of the hedonism maxing tunnel.

As I often point out, if you look at the people in our society who have access to everything they could possibly want, your movie star, your music star, when they indulge in that, when they indulge in the, you know, endless chain of, of women and drugs and everything like that, they often crash out as some of the least happy and satisfied humans alive.

Whereas people who often do not have much, and I’m sure many of you, you know these individuals pious [00:02:00] individuals who just work to give back to the community they’re often some of the most fulfilled people you will ever meet.

And so this is, this is paid off to us, but whatever religious teaching you’re using, and I’m gonna try to keep this, while this is one of the track series, I’m gonna try to keep it useful to not just Christians or Orthodox Jews or anyone, but just broadly anyone because- the, the set of laws that, like, Christians follow seems to generally be useful for other people as well.

That’s why they seem to perfectly overlay with, like, the Noahide laws when Jews are like, “Well, I just want everyone to follow the Noahide laws.” And it’s like, all observant Christians already follow all of those. Like, why are you making this a separate thing? It’s just good rules for life and, and being a member of a community.

But we’re going to start, because where this came up was in a fan call which we have for our paid fans who get [00:03:00] our extra weekend episodes. If you don’t know about that, that, that’s a thing. And they somebody was talking about the relative sinfulness of video games, right? And we’ll be using the Romans quote that’s in here, which is like anything you don’t do for God is sin.

Basically anything you don’t do that you can’t be like, “This is something I am doing for...” whatever for God means to you. Like, for goodness, to, to, to promote humanity, the, you know, moving forwards. Whatever you wanna, you talk, it’s, it’s, it’s something that’s an object to that. Like, purely selfish action, right?

And they were like, video games is a very, very expedient sin. Like, of, of the various sinful things you can do. And, and to give an example of what I mean for this, let, let’s contrast two things, okay, here. Let’s contrast the relative sinfulness of video games versus watching sports, right? Like, both of these things are things you’re fundamentally doing for yourself, for your own self-gratification.

But they have [00:04:00] different impacts or potential impacts on your life. Now, obviously you can engage with either too much in a way that just completely destroys your life. We all know the person who crashed out on Warhammer for five years and then came out of a hole one day and was like, “Ugh.” World

Simone Collins: of Warcraft, not Warhammer.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, War- World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft. That was like a thing- Yeah ... that if you lived through that- In a- ... a bunch of us nerds-

Simone Collins: In a college dorm, like in a certain period of time, there was at least one kid.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or, and, and, and here I’ll add another one here. Magic: The Gathering card collecting.

Or, or, or no, no, well, let’s just say, yeah card collecting more general. So like non-playable card collecting. No, we’ll use Magic: The Gathering ‘cause it allows us to talk about a, a, a variety of things together. If you are really into, let’s say s- sports, and so you have to, you wanna watch the games the moment they come out.

Now, that already makes it relatively more bad than a video game that you can play at any time, day or night, right? [00:05:00] Because now you’re having to, even if you’re spending the same amount of time on it, that time is not variable, and therefore is going to be more intrusive on your ability to do things that are actually like a net benefit for society or God or whatever, right?

Like you’re, you’re, you’re going to have to maybe not go to the thing with your kids, or not go to the things that you can slot in at any time, day or night. The, the flexibility of a sin is really important to that sin. Then you have the cost, the relative cost. But this is where something like trading cards can get really big because the relative cost of entertainment hour per dollar spend is of, of just about anything you can be into I think the lowest on video games.

Now this is assuming that you are into single player video games rather than either loot box type games, which can be incorporated in single player video games if you are [00:06:00] susceptible to loot boxes. Now note, not everyone is susceptible to loot boxes. Some people can play a game with loot boxes forever and never spend on them.

I think that this is something that you have to ask yourself and, and, and from your own historic behavior. If you know you are susceptible to loot boxes don’t, don’t engage with them. Right? Like d- d- don’t engage with any game that has them. And I’m sorry if that’s like taking things out for you, but one of the most dangerous you know, of all the various things we’re warned not to do, gambling is I think one of the most dangerous.

And the reason why gambling is w- I, I put gambling above something like heroin. Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. It’s just so quickly and easily ruinous.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It’s- While heroin can kill you in a day, it’s much less likely to, like even, even if it does kill you, like your assets are still inherited by other people, right? Like [00:07:00] i- i- it, when gambling ruins your life, it typically, one, it can ruin multi-generations of life savings just like that.

But two, the people who have an issue with it often borrow against other people when they do it. And the happiness you get from it doesn’t feel very long-term satisfying. It’s like not a good... Like this is the other thing I’ll keep into account when we’re like rating sins is how good is the happiness you get out of it?

The happiness that you get out of gambling is

Incredibly low-grade, superficial most basal of hungers. There isn’t any sort of deep satisfaction like you may get out of beating a really hard video game or something like that, right? And so that’s where keep in mind is the pastime that like when you’re judging the potential sin of a pastime, what other sins come attached to this pastime?

So if you look at something like being into [00:08:00] sports gambling is very commonly attached to being into sports.

Simone Collins: Oh, so what, what, what is also the constellation of related things that you might get into?

Malcolm Collins: Right. So like this is when it comes to something like hur- Yeah,

Simone Collins: like if you really like going, like clubbing, the odds of you getting a drug habit, non-trivial, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, explode. Yeah. Which is

Simone Collins: like- Or like developing alcoholism ...

Malcolm Collins: if you go into a bar- Yeah ... this is why we would aga- tr- even if it’s the same amount of time- Mm ... even if it’s the same amount of cost to both go to a bar or go to a nightclub, the nightclub has a much higher probability of leading to an escalatory cycle that is going to do more deleterious impact to your life.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Gosh

Malcolm Collins: But also, but by the way, so an interesting, but I find this to be an interesting, like, broader conversation here. Yeah because it’s something that, that’s, that’s not often thought about, but the moment you begin to frame things like this, you can be like, “Oh, this is a good way for me to think through.”

Also, like, whether you want to engage with something to begin with.

Simone Collins: You’re [00:09:00] also looking at, like, uniquely male habits too. I think that,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, let’s, let’s elevate some

Simone Collins: female habits ... travel could be one of them for women. Plastic surgery is one of them for women. Wait, what did

Malcolm Collins: you, what was the first one you said for women?

Simone Collins: Travel, plastic surgery, and shopping are, are- Travel, plastic surgery- ... very big ... and, and shopping. Absolutely

Malcolm Collins: Very

Simone Collins: big. Because plastic surgery is an incredibly, for many women, addictive thing. And it is an endless money hole. Also, like, you get to a point where after you have a certain number of procedures done, you have to keep doing more procedures to either fix or maintain procedures.

And that is incredibly expensive. Plus, you just start to look terrible, so that’s not good.

Malcolm Collins: And if, if we’re putting out any sort of teachings around jewelry, I would strongly suggest that individuals treat jewelry the way I did with my wife. Which basically, when you get married, you ask her and you lay out, what is all of the jewelry you want in your, your life?

You know, be greedy. If you, if you had the maximum look, what does that look look like? It is X many pearl [00:10:00] necklaces. It’s X many earrings of these various sizes and styles. It’s X many rings. You create that list for all of the variable ways you could piece together jewelry, and you say, “Okay now with this list, this is where, like, I’m gonna be getting you presents from this list for X many years, and when we get to the end of this list, that’s it.

No more jewelry.” Right? Like, this is all of the jewelry you could ever imagine yourself wanting.

Simone Collins: Yeah, like, you, you can’t develop a, like, “I’m a jewelry collector.” Like, that, that is an incredibly sinful hobby, right? You, this- ‘Cause that is an endless money

Malcolm Collins: hole ... there’s this point where you’re just spending money on more jewelry for the emotional state you get when you spend the money on jewelry.

And like-

Simone Collins: And we, we say this ‘cause we, we know people who’ve had this habit who literally have, for their retirement, owned, like, a condo that they, it was supposed to be part of their retirement portfolio, and they sold it to buy jewelry. Like, this is... So you know, we talk about men’s gambling addictions a lot, I think.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah

Simone Collins: But I don’t think we talk [00:11:00] enough about some problems that women have, I, I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s, it’s

Malcolm Collins: harder to detect Well, I think that society’s changing more, ‘cause, “Oh, how dare you put rules on women?” But let’s, let’s do th- let’s go through. Like, I think that the same thing that goes with jewelry can go with travel, right?

Like lu- Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah, luxury, and luxury travel is an endless... Like, just one business class flight can send you back... Well, n- sorry, the last time I tried to look at business class flights just ‘cause I was curious was well before oil went crazy with the Iran war. This was like maybe two years ago. Yeah, but, but let’s, let’s talk about- And, like, one flight across an ocean was $20,000 for one person

a

Malcolm Collins: good way to handle travel, right? Because it is an endless money pit, as you say.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: If you are the type of person who goes on the same vacation every year assuming that’s not, like, a drive from your house or something like that, right? There’s likely no point to that. You are not picking up any new additional information on trip number 10 to Hawaii that you didn’t get on trip number one to Hawaii.

You’re not getting any new perspective. You’re not getting any new... this is [00:12:00] purely a hedonistic thing to do and an extremely expensive hedonistic

Simone Collins: thing to do. I mean, I think there’s, there’s something to be said for cultural family traditions. Like, some families, like, every year will all gather at this one place, and that’s a big part of their culture.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: and as I was saying, the important thing about cultural family traditions is that they are not pointlessly orders of magnitude more expensive than an equivalent tradition the family could do. Oh. So, by this what I mean is our family could every year go to Hawaii, or we could every year go to a lake house Airbnb a couple hours from here.

Or we could every year go to the Jersey Shore and rent a place, or even buy a place and have it there, right? As an, as an asset. If we make the active decision to do the thing, like marginally how much better is Hawaii than the Jersey Shore, yet it costs orders of magnitude more. [00:13:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, that’s fair.

Yeah, and even just like food in Hawaii costs so much more that it’s, you have to consider that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and if you’re like, “Oh, the Jersey Shore is gross,” okay, drive a bit further to Connecticut. I think Connecticut is strictly better than Hawaii. Like the ocean, ocean side- Oh

Simone Collins: my gosh. Yeah, hands down.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: Or Rhode Island.

I mean, if you wanna be fancy, you know, you could do the Hamptons. You could do... Well, not the Hamptons, ‘cause that’s ridiculous. That’s Hawaii level. But maybe like Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod or something. Cape Cod’s great. You could go camping in Cape Cod.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I’m talking about.

What I’m talking about, like I do think that people need some degree of hedonism. You know, the, the, the family traditions you have, the things that you do to entertain yourself. I think if you remove all of those, while some people can live that way, I think Simone essentially lives that way I do not think everyone can live that way and still be an efficient human being.

I, I know I personally can’t. Mm-hmm. And so I do engage with things like video games. But when it comes to something like gambling, it falls into [00:14:00] that category. When we were listing out like really big sins, the trying something just to see if you like it, gambling is probably the biggest red flag.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh, yeah.

There’s

Malcolm Collins: no reason you need to know if you like gambling. No- That’s

Simone Collins: so true ... appropriate reason. Yeah, it’s like, “Hey, I should try this extremely addictive narcotic. Let’s see if, how it goes. Maybe I’ll like it.” Do you think you’ll like it?

Malcolm Collins: Well, and when you know you do have a problem with something, and this is where I you know, people know I take naltrexone, which is an opioid agonist, which is just fantastic for helping curb the types of addictive impulses that you may have, whether it’s alcohol or masturbation or anything like this, right?

Like, an, i- i- a... The place that it had the biggest impact on my life that I didn’t expect was checking the news every morning when I first woke up, and then checking my Facebook feed and checking the latest comics and checking the, That behavior just went away, Oh ... after I started taking it. And a lot of people can say, “Well, you shouldn’t be removing the sins from yourself like, the temptation from the sins.”

And I’m like, “Bro, like, Jesus was literally the guy who was like, [00:15:00] ‘If your eye leads you to sin, tear it out.’ Like, ‘If your arm leads you to sin, cut it off.’” Like, he obviously didn’t mean exactly that in context, but if you’re going with the vibe of the message naltrexone would fit perfectly in this. Now, obviously this doesn’t work for Catholics because Catholics know that the church actually had to once rule on priests who were castrating themselves to not be tempted by sin.

And the church ruled against doing that, which seems very weird to me in the line with, you know, the Bible’s teaching, but whatever, right? You know.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The point here being you don’t need to expose yourself to something. Like, we have the technology, and as technology advances, I think one of the areas I want to see it advance the most is on the mitigation of sinful impulses.

Like, imagine a society where people don’t feel these impulses to the same degree anymore. You know, you literally cut out the eyes, right, of society moving forwards. And we’re beginning to see that with stuff like Ozempic, right? Like, is, is Ozempic not a, a category there that we’re seeing? And this is where something like gluttony can be extra [00:16:00] bad because when we’re looking at sins, another thing we need to keep in mind in sort of the grand ranking of sins is the probability that it’s going to kill you.

Because that has enormous externalities on everyone that’s counting on you and your ability to do anything in the future, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And anything that falls into the category of actively leading to your death which can happen in two categories. One can be something like gluttony. Another can be where it’s, like, just literally unhealthy or something like orgies, right?

Where you may get diseases and stuff like that and you need to be- Yeah,

Simone Collins: or like before I met Malcolm, I liked BASE jumping. I liked

Malcolm Collins: skydiving. I liked- Well, I’m, I’m gonna put that in the second category.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: So these are things that are just actively unhealthful. Yeah. Then there’s things that come with a risk of severe injury or death.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay. So there’s sort of the chronic bad health, which I would also include, like, habits of just staying up incredibly late and not getting enough sleep. That’s really bad for you.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, ‘cause you’re trying to push me to work less right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah, Malcolm, duh.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I, I agree with that. You can [00:17:00] be indulgent in your work, and I need to be aware of that because- Yeah, your sin,

Simone Collins: you

Malcolm Collins: are sinning

it is killing me and dying.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Which it could really at this point when you look at how much I work.

Simone Collins: Yes

Malcolm Collins: Hey, but look at how much RFAB has improved.

Simone Collins: Guys, tell him to go to sleep, please. Ugh. Anyway, go on.

Malcolm Collins: Gluttony, where was I, where were they going was, was gluttony

Simone Collins: There’s the

Malcolm Collins: two categories Gluttony.

Simone Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah There’s the one

Malcolm Collins: that’s chronically bad- But then there’s the category of- ...

Simone Collins: and

Malcolm Collins: then

Simone Collins: there’s the one that’s acutely bad ... the risk

Malcolm Collins: of death or severe injury. Yes. And this really matters when it comes to, like suppose you’re in school and you’re choosing your sport.

Something that you should be very aware of in that choice is what is the chance that this could give you a life-changing injury? So, if you’re considering between extremely high injury sports like, say, crew or cheerleading- Wait, crew? Crew has incredibly high... Because you can catch crabs, which basically means your, your row hits the water at the wrong moment vis-a-vis everyone else moving forwards.

Yeah. So the forwards motion of your boat catches your oar and throws it into your [00:18:00] face.

Simone Collins: Oh.

Malcolm Collins: Um, With all of the momentum of everyone on the boat- Oh ... and the speed of the boat.

Simone Collins: God. I didn’t know that. That’s horrible.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy, easy to become paralyzed and stuff like that. Oh.

Simone Collins: Dude, okay, guys, if you wanna do, just do outrigger canoe racing.

Really fun and you don’t have- but yeah, outrigger canoe racing, really great. If you like crew but you don’t wanna die- ... outrigger canoe racing, I mean, your boat might flip, ‘cause, you know, they do that And

Malcolm Collins: this is what we’re talking about here.

With any of these, there are variable things where you could get an equal amount of pleasure or whatever satisfaction you’re getting- Yeah ... that don’t come with the same negative externalities.

Simone Collins: Totally. And

Malcolm Collins: in the categories of sins, actively choosing not to look this stuff up falls in the same category.

Mm. You

Simone Collins: should,

Malcolm Collins: you should, before you sign up for an extracurricular, look up the risk of death or serious injury from that extracurricular.

Simone Collins: Yeah, for real. Like, in high [00:19:00] school, I was on an outrigger canoe racing team, and then I looked at joining crew in college. At no point did I have any idea, ‘cause I almost joined GW’s crew team.

I didn’t know that could happen. The only reason I backed out was I was like, “Oh, I will have no life if I join this team,” because it’s so-

Malcolm Collins: Well, and that’s the other thing, is how much of your life does it consume? Like, that is-

Simone Collins: Totally,

Malcolm Collins: yeah ... you are almost certainly... And this is the thing. Even if you’re doing sin for hedonism, there are some times where you’re just doing a sin that is absolutely pointless- Yeah

in terms of the amount of hedonism it’s getting you. Yeah. Like, going to Disneyland is f*****g pointless. There is no way that that was the best use of that money.

Simone Collins: No, fair. Yeah, and one, I think one thing that we discovered too when we took our kids to places before we were, like, really thoughtful about it and taking a first principle’s approach, was like, “Well, okay, what are our kids actually obsessed with?”

And it’s never, like, the concept of Disney or the concept of whatever it is that’s happening. It’s like they hyper-fixate on, like, “I like to throw rocks in this thing,” and that might [00:20:00] not even be what they’re supposed to do, right? And so you can just replicate that most likely at home. And you know, that’s-

Malcolm Collins: Right.

Like, consider the alternative, like what I do with the kids, right? Is I get a little inflatable boat with a small motor, and we drive around the lakes around here, and we go around the water, and we catch crayfish and little fish and throw rocks, and they build dams.

Speaker 16: Hey, where are you guys going?

Malcolm Collins: And that is almost certainly for kids their age as fun as waiting in lines, ‘cause that’s what Disneyland really is, is a, it’s a line simulator.

Speaker 8: so then there’s lines for fast pass. You stand in line to get a take it to stand in line later. Then there’s lines for the bathrooms, lines for the drinks, lines for can, and [00:21:00] cans.

Malcolm Collins: A- and you could be like, “Well, what about the novelty?” Okay, well, even if it’s about the novelty, there’s going to be a local park to you that’s going to have about the equivalent of Disneyland, maybe 20% less or something like that. Oh,

Simone Collins: you mean like an actual theme park.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Like Hershey Park for us or something. Like

Malcolm Collins: Hershey Park or something, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s gonna be strictly personally, I don’t think it’s any worse, but i- i- you know, assuming, like even if you go to Disneyland, I still think Universal’s a better studio.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: But, but what I’m saying here is, is to apply all of this with a degree of intentionality.

And then to look at this with the risk of injury, also risk of any other sort of long-term negative effect on your life. So like if there is a Magic: The Gathering’s a good example of this, right? Okay. If you end up getting addicted to card collecting, which a lot of these people do, Magic: The Gathering can just siphon money from you endlessly.

You c- you can never have enough decks. You never have enough cards. You [00:22:00] never have enough, you know, much more so than something like getting really into, to Dark Souls or something like that. And then the next thing we need to consider and, and obviously the highest category of sin within these activities is anything that could just kill you.

Like, in terms of BASE jumping, parachuting out of an airplane, hand gliding hot air ballooning a lot of these things are just like Oh, personal plane flying. Like is there really not some other activity that you could get the same amount of marginal enjoyment from that doesn’t run the risk of just killing you?

And also isn’t worth tons of money. All of those are also enormously expensive hobbies.

Simone Collins: Yeah, there’s that. Yeah.

Actually, just recently I think eight people died in a skydiving plane accident. They’re rickety planes, so it doesn’t surprise me. I remember thinking when I sky dove for the first time, the only time, [00:23:00] like, “Oh, th- this is probably how I’ll die.”

It was- ... like held together with tape. So.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, but these things, like just recognizing, because I, I think a lot of religious traditions, ‘cause people in the past didn’t randomly do stuff for fun that could get them killed for no reason. This is like a modern invention of sinfulness that we just invented out of the ethos.

An- anyone historically would be like, “Why would you do something that could just get you killed?” Right? Mm-hmm. Like, we invented an entirely new category of sinfulness that the Bible didn’t even know it needed to warn us about. Therefore, that’s why I’m, I’m doing this. That’s why I’m putting this together.

Speaker 20: Now I need to be clear here. This isn’t out of line with passages from the Bible. You know, if you look at something like Proverbs 22:3, “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.” Or Proverbs 14:16, “One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but the fool is reckless [00:24:00] and careless.”

Or Ecclesiastes 7:17, “Do not be over wicked and do not be a fool. Why die before your time?” , And, and so you can see this isn’t out of line with what the Bible is teaching, but it just never explicitly says, because I don’t think anyone around the time any of the biblical books was written would randomly risk their lives over simple thrills.

, People back then simply weren’t that indulgent and stupid, so it didn’t need to be laid out like this

Malcolm Collins: But now I wanna go into, to the next category. That cruising

Simone Collins: is crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Ugh.

Malcolm Collins: Is thinking through the negative externalities of the type of sin that you are engaged in. So a good example of here could come down to something like corn, right? If you were going to rank, because obviously if you’re masturbating, well, I don’t think it’s like enormously sinful when contrasted with other things that you might do.

It’s still clearly not something you’re doing for God, which makes it [00:25:00] sinful, right? If you are now considering the various ways that you can engage with not-safe-for-work material I think obviously the highest form of negative is hiring a prostitute to cheat on your wife, right? Like, that, that’s where you get it the highest level of, of, of negativity.

Or I guess also- Because

Simone Collins: of the money spent or what?

Malcolm Collins: Well, because it has money spent on something that’s completely pointless from a f- family perspective. Two, you are creating a negative externality for the woman you’re paying, not just for your wife, not just for your family, because you could, one, get a disease from her, which creates more of a negative externality than other ways you could go out and, and do that.

But also you have now created a profession that can ruin this woman’s life, right? Like, a lot of these women who get into this, they end up speccing into this OnlyFans build, I guess you wanna say, right? While they’re young, not building up their skills, not building up a real job record. Then they lose their looks, and now they’re [00:26:00] kind of screwed.

Although I have heard, did you know this? That older women at, like, nightclubs and strip clubs and stuff like that actually get paid more than younger women?

Simone Collins: That makes sense because I feel like they would put in more effort.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, effort, experience, and I don’t know, maybe guys. I, I don’t know the full, but apparently this is also somewhat true on some not-safe-for-works. I, I don’t, I don’t know all the mechanics of this. I, I’m not gonna go deep i- into it. But there is a point after which you’re just not gonna get anyone and you’re gonna be completely screwed and no guys wanna marry you, and so you can’t settle down.

You can’t have a family. You can’t easily... You know, it, it’s gonna be much harder after that, right?

Speaker 22: That, that chair with the garbage bag taped over it looks pretty good. Meg, you look pretty next to her.

Malcolm Collins: And so, a- and this, this matters, like, building this sort of internal ranking. Like, if you’re gonna have... Like, let’s just suppose you’re engaging with content online, right? The, the lowest category in terms of sinfulness would be purely drawn [00:27:00] or...

Well, no, AI-generated content would be the lowest because no other human was ever even engaged with that. Then the next would be drawn stuff because it, it, some woman isn’t making this her life work. Then you move into actual photos and videos of real human women. You have to shut up. You have to stop it.

Because now you are promoting an industry That creates these negative externalities. Then one step up from that is OnlyFans. Because now you are actively lowering, because remember, it, your time, like the time, effort that you could be spending on attempting to contribute to whatever you think has intrinsic value is competing not just in terms of time, but in terms of money.

Because money, in a capitalist system it, it, it can buy time, functionally speaking. Not perfectly, but, but that’s what you spend your time on. You generate the money. The money can be translated for time. That’s what we do this for, right? So when you are s- actively spending money on an OnlyFans account or something like that, especially if you’re in a [00:28:00] relationship or married, because now it’s money that should be going to your kids, should be going to your wife.

That, that puts that and yet a higher tier. And I think that this is useful to think through, right? Instead of just bucketing it all as being exactly the same. In terms of the orders of magnitude worse I would put something like OnlyFans at 10,000 times worse than AI-generated content in terms of, like, the active scale of badness.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because of the, especially the ROI. Like, if you put the, the, the amount you can get of value from AI token-based purchases versus what you’re getting with OnlyFans, was, which isn’t, in I would argue, 90-plus percent of cases, unless you’re going after, like, very- ... very low-ranked people you’re not interacting with the actual model anyway.

So like, so you’re paying this much to interact with someone in, like, India or Pakistan [00:29:00] or Vietnam, or I don’t know who, who knows where, right? Who’s not the woman. You’re, you’re paying a, a huge amount of cup and it’s not, you’re still affecting someone’s life, so.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and worse, you’re entering an environment that falls into the earlier sin category we were talking about, where the woman has a motivation to attempt to addict you.

Mm ... a lot of the OnlyFans pipelines are really heavily AB tested to try to get you addicted to them. That’s the point. They want you as a permanent customer. It’s the same way where, like, if you are paying money to someone for sex that person has a motivation to attempt to break up your existing relationship, right?

Like any sort of long-term stable fications for society relationship you have, they now have a motivation to disrupt that for you.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And- I suppose Yeah, yeah. So I, I think that that is a ca- and this is worth thinking about. Like a- again, something like let’s consider categories here. Video games versus skydiving.

The, the [00:30:00] relative negative externality to your life, assuming you don’t get addicted to video game gambling is I, I might say a millionfold less bad. May- maybe more than a million. I, I might literally say it is a... No, no, I’d actually maybe a billionfold less bad to spend a night playing video games than it is to skydive or free climb or any of those things that have these giant externalities to your life.

Because there is no chance that I accidentally kill myself playing a video game, right? And when you think about all of the downstream effects of your death for something that in terms of the pleasure that you can harness from the two events I, I’d honestly be very surprised if somebody gets more acute pleasure from skydiving than they do for video games, which makes it even worse Well,

Simone Collins: I, I don’t know.

I’m incapable of garnering pleasure from- ... playing video games, as we’ve discovered, much to your-

Malcolm Collins: But you [00:31:00] gain pleasure- ... dismay ... from watching your romance shows. Do you enjoy- Yeah ... those more than skydiving? Like, it a- the f- the, the three or four hours it takes to make- So it’s- ... a full skydive ...

Simone Collins: it is, it’s hard to...

Yeah, I mean, it, like, it’s a specific high. It’s the adrenaline. Like, that’s why I like jumping off things. And it’s not, you would think, oh, well you’re only enjoying that for, like, the few seconds that you’ve jumped out of the plane. That’s actually the least interesting part because falling from the sky, as it turns out, just feels windy.

Like, if you’ve ever leaned into a heavy wind that can hold you up when you lean into it, you have experienced what it feels like to skydive. Congratulations.

Malcolm Collins: But- So is, is it literally just an addiction to a chemical reaction your body

Simone Collins: is producing? No, yeah, it’s, it’s the buildup. It’s the waiting in the hangar.

It’s the getting on the plane. It’s the going up. It’s the harnessing up. It’s the leaning out of the plane. It’s the deciding to tip out. Like, that, that is where that high comes from, and it’s unique. It’s not something you can get from a video game. The same with, like, jumping off high things, like bridges into water or-

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: does it feel-

cliffs into water ...

Malcolm Collins: good? Or does it [00:32:00] just feel different?

Simone Collins: You feel alive in a different way. Yeah, it just feels different.

Malcolm Collins: Which I think is really pointless. Like-

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and I think, I think what a lot of people have come to realize is that, like, you, you can get a very similar kind of high from, like, a cold plunge.

So I think when, when we’re talking about, like- ... the crew versus outrigger canoe racing, like, if you want that wind taken out of yourself, like, oh, like you, you feel alive-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

Simone Collins: get a bucket of ice water. Like, it’s really not that hard. Like-

Malcolm Collins: And that generally has positive health effects from what I’ve

Simone Collins: heard.

It does, yeah. Like, there seems to be, like, an evidence-based argument for cold plunges on a regular basis. It, it, and, and the, the thing is they’re unpleasant in a way that, I guess skydiving is too. Like, you’re waiting in a hot hangar. You’re paying money. Like, you know, it’s... So yeah, I think i- if you want that kind of feeling and you really need it, just get a cold plunge and enjoy the additional health [00:33:00] benefits, ‘cause it’s aligned with probably your objective function more presumably, ‘cause your objective function should probably involve being able to do a thing which you have to be alive to be able to do.

So-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... there’s that. Well, and this is where... Because I think it’s, it’s important to think about when we hear something’s sinful, we just think, like, “Don’t do it.” And why it’s useful to create these, like... When, when we’re looking at various sins and temptations in our lives and we think about their relative negativity to us, right?

We often don’t fully think through how relatively negative they are. Yeah ... consider something like- me so let’s, let’s consider my desire to socialize, right? Mm. I, I could have that- What desire? ... exercised in, in multiple ways in my w- life, right? Like, I could go to parties, I could go to bars, I could go to cities.

And if you look at the way that Simone and I actually have ended up doing that in our lives [00:34:00] what we’ve done is we said, “Okay, what we’re gonna do is once every few months, like maybe every four months now, go to New York or DC, rent out a place, invite all our friends over and people we don’t know as well, just famous people in the area and be like, ‘Hey, you wanna come over?

You wanna come to a party?’ You know, interesting for socialization, so we’re still top of mind, everything like that.” And this prevents us from having to do a bunch of other things that may be involved in a choice like, where do you live? Like, we’re able to live in a location where it was very inexpensive to buy a house, very inexpensive to buy groceries, very inexpensive to live, and that frankly is healthier.

You know, you’re not in the city smog and everything like that. And nicer looking. I look out my window and I see a jungle every day, right? Than, than living in Manhattan or living in, in DC. But I still get the socialization because I very intentionally cluster it all. But then even more than that, if I’m just looking for...

If you’re like, “I couldn’t get away with just doing this once every four months,” there are ways [00:35:00] you can socialize that have positive externalities as well. So an example here would be my Leaflet streams. So on a Leaflet stream, I’m doing a 10-hour conversation with Leaflet typically, right? And you can find these recorded on like Twitch and Kick and everything like that if you’re interested in watching them.

But these streams often get over 20,000 views. You know, so not only am I there having a conversation with somebody and masturbating the social part of myself, right? Like, I’m doing the social thing, which does feel good to do, right, to, to, to talk with somebody who you enjoy speaking to and who shares similar interests than you, without having to get in a car, go out and interact with strangers, risk getting sick.

Keep in mind, you’re doing that every time you leave your house.

Simone Collins: Oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Risk y- you know, it, it, you, you risk being killed when you go out. That’s the other thing to remember. If you go to like a nightclub district, people always get shot in the, you know. Well,

Simone Collins: but also like every time you get in your car, don’t forget.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. [00:36:00] Every time you get in a car, you’re risking your life. And, and that’s, that’s why I think it’s generally good to like cluster those things, and to, when you think about, like, the car you get, it’s upon you to research what is the riskiness of this car to your life. Any closing thoughts here, Simone?

Simone Collins: I don’t know. You’ve, you’ve, you’ve given me a lot to think about actually. I hadn’t thought before about Even looking at sinful behaviors and being like, “Okay, what is the thing that I’m getting out of this and how do I do it better?” I mean, we, I obviously did this, or with the help of my dad and his advice, did this with a sin of mine that was really damaging, right?

Like, I loved controlling how much I ate, but that involved dying. And so she didn’t eat anything. Yeah. Yeah. And so he’s like, “Okay, I see what you wanna do here is control and feel that form of a high. So here’s another way you can do it without dying.” And so instead we just balanced calories in and calories out, and had me weigh and measure and enter into a [00:37:00] program everything I ate.

And then suddenly I wasn’t dying anymore. And I think it’s a really good idea to take a look at things that we’re doing that are problematic, and I’m just gonna be thinking for the rest of the day today, “Okay, what am I doing now that is not good for us? What do I actually want when I’m doing that and how can I do that better?”

Ideally in a way that just helps everyone in the family, that actually contributes to us. Like, the idea- Mm-hmm ... of, of taking like a skydiving or BASE jumping addiction and turning it into a cold plunge addiction, right? You’re taking a vice and turning it into a virtue while still getting the thing, like most of the thing out of the vice that you liked.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Oh, and consider something like intermu- mural sports as a sin, for example, like in school. Your parents, the people who already have to drive you state to state for competition. Oh my gosh. You know, you’ve gotta g- go to these regular practices, which again takes up the time of the people who drive you.

They’re just enormously sinful, and we don’t think about them as sinful things. Mm-hmm. They can eat up huge amounts of your life that could be spent on self-improvement or attempting [00:38:00] to use the, the instrument you have honed yourself into to improve society for something completely indulgent.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well and, and one person’s sin could be another person’s perfectly good thing. Like, if for example for one person, participation in a sport requires their whole family to sort of derail their lives and spend a lot of time driving, but then the other person, like, happens to live right next to, to a, like, major gymnastics gym or whatever, where all they have to do is walk over and it’s a really good place for them to be, like, then maybe it’s not.

I think everyone has to consider for themselves what the cost is and what the alignment is.

Malcolm Collins: So. Yeah, yeah, and to be honest with yourself around wh- what- Yeah ... the things that you spend your time doing on any given day, on any given week. Like, if one of your core tasks in life at that time is finding a partner, unfortunately you have to do social things.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Th- like that, that becomes one of the things that you just have to do. That was the primary reason I did anything social ever in my life, was trying to find a [00:39:00] partner.

Simone Collins: Well, that’s done. Maybe.

Malcolm Collins: No. Once, once you get a good wife, that’s the great thing about a good wife and kids, you don’t need friends anymore, right?

You can just cut all that nonsense out.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I guess you have to still play the field in case I die, but whatever

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I gotta know some people. I, I’m just gonna honestly reach out to fans. I’m sure there’s some fan who wants to marry me.

Simone Collins: Oh, God.

Well then, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

And with that, we will leave you. Well,

Malcolm Collins: especially if the fan’s like a widower, too. That would be super easy

Simone Collins: No, you would be the widower and they would be a

Malcolm Collins: widow I... No, they could be a widower too if they’re, like, still my age No,

Simone Collins: no, no. A widower, Malcolm, widower is the name for a man who lost his wife.

What

Malcolm Collins: is a

Simone Collins: woman? Widow is a woman who lost her husband Oh, a widow.

Malcolm Collins: Okay.

Simone Collins: Unless you wanna enter a- Gay relationship ...

Malcolm Collins: gay

Simone Collins: marriage, that’s fine. The, the, the people who hate you will love that so.

Malcolm Collins: But I- It’s- But I think that this, this can be applied to sexual, like, in, in regards to, like, kinks.

‘Cause I think in our [00:40:00] society we frame kinks as being, like, hugely sinful. Whereas I would point out that a lot of kinks that you may engage with have literally no negative externality but the time you waste.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, like- Like- ... that, and this, this came up when we were discussing Byron, Byron Nome, Christy Nome’s husband, who had the- Yeah

femmification interest. Had he just, like, found a community that would, like, exchange this stuff and talk about it or whatever, and, like, he, he got his big boobs and everything and, like, did his thing without spending tons of money, I would not have really seen it as sinful. It’s like, you do you. Like, that’s fun for you.

I get it. Go ahead. Like, have... This is great. It’s very common, okay? Like, it’s an extremely common thing. But instead he spent, I think, over $20,000, maybe even over $16,000 on just, like, one person, and that’s where, okay, like, this is, this is to your family’s detriment. This is to your financial detriment.

Like, this is money that could have kept you stable in retirement. This is money that you could have contributed towards something that’s aligned with your [00:41:00] values. ‘Cause I doubt his values were-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah ... supporting women who- and, and this is where, like, okay, so, so suppose a kink, like, we’re gonna rate kinks here ‘cause this, this is useful to, to, to, to be aware of.

If, if you’re engaging with it in an entirely fictional context, like an AI-generated whatever thing the negative externalities it can have to your life are incredibly low, especially if it’s on a local encrypted thing like RFAB or something like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: I put that at, like, the lowest category.

But if you’re talking about, like, actually acted upon things you know, at the low end you have things like, say, rope binding or something like that, right?

Simone Collins: Shibari.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, which is just whatever, right? Whereas at the, the very highest end you have things that are going to make you sterile. These are things like testicle inflation that’s become, ballmaxing it’s called now.

Oh

Simone Collins: my gosh, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. Or orgies or y- you know, something can be very ta- like, a choking fetish is a very tame fetish. Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah, don’t. Yeah, don’t, don’t.

Malcolm Collins: But if it can cause severe injury- Don’t do it ... don’t engage with it [00:42:00] with another human, right? Like- Don’t do it.

Simone Collins: No. No, no, no, no, come on.

Lots of people die doing it to themselves. Don’t do, don’t say

Malcolm Collins: that. Oh, to... No, I, I meant, like, use AI or something like that. Just don’t actually do

Simone Collins: it. Oh, imagine doing it. No, I think it’s one of those things where you have to feel it. Get, again, if you’re into that, get into cold plunges. Y- you know, again, just I feel like so, so many things.

A cold plunge. Do it.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah. With, with all of this, I don’t think we think about, we think of all depraved things as being at the same relative level of depravity often. And when we talk about the negative externality on other people, this is where something like being a PDA file, like immediately enters the highest category if, if you’re doing that with another human being.

Yeah. Whereas something like

Lo- l- like el- elcon artwork, which is a very you know, whatever topic online about whether this is immoral or not immoral because it doesn’t involve real underage people. Yeah. But I’d put it in the category of we all know it’s not the same level of immoral. Yeah. If it could tempt you down a [00:43:00] path where the end state is that, then it is extremely immoral for you.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: in the same way that you say, like, well, getting into, like, team sports can be a, a, a gateway to sports gambling, in the same way that content could be-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that it can be extremely immoral in that way.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I guess what I would say is if any... O- one is, probably my biggest question with this is is there not something else that turns you on just as much or more?

Yeah,

Simone Collins: can’t, can’t we, yeah, can’t we go with something else? That there... Yeah ‘Cause, yeah, typically most people have a basket of things. Let’s go with something else in the basket.

Malcolm Collins: Of all of the various things that turn you on, there probably is something, but I wanna point out that how much worse is an art of this versus it happening to a real human or you consuming content- Oh

of it happening to a real human.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. I, I would say it’s, again, one billionth as bad.

Simone Collins: Well, of course.

Malcolm Collins: One, yeah, easily less than one billionth as bad probably.

Simone Collins: Yeah, which is why people are like, “Why are you [00:44:00] questioning me?” When people are like, “Look, I think that, you know, synthetic versions of this are, you know, not so bad.”

But,

Malcolm Collins: but, but- ‘Cause compared to- ... do I think that if you’re a fan of Rev Says Desu, the next day you’re gonna be into underage kids or something like that? Like, no, I don’t. Do- Yeah ... do I think that Leaflet fans, ‘cause her character looks very young. She’s very old in the lore, but it looks young. Yeah. Do I think that the next thing you’re gonna be out there- You know, elves, elves

Simone Collins: are quite old.

I guess that’s how, isn’t that how, like, anime gets around it? It’s like, well, but she’s like a 200-year-old vampire girl, so

Malcolm Collins: it’s fine. Sometimes anime doesn’t care about getting around it, I’m gonna be honest. Okay. Okay. And like Japanese people, we all have our regional temptations. Yeah. You know, it might be Mormons and cucking and Japanese and underage in, you know, my region, and I’ve talked about that before.

Yeah

Speaker: So if we’re just gonna put things next to each other in a line here, , I might say something like, , furry or anthro corn might lead you to getting into the furry community if you are susceptible to temptations like that, and then that has a high probability of making you become trans, which can have a lot [00:45:00] of negative externalities on your life.

So it can be put in a category that is strictly worse than, say, maybe non-furry content, right? , Or if you say something like, , PDA content, right? Like, , l- LCON content that we’ve been talking about here. , It would be strictly worse than the, , anthro content because, , the end state that it might tempt you towards, , being a PDA is way worse.

,

Speaker: But a lot of things in a drawn context might be morally equal to neutral corn, , outside of maybe it motivates reproduction less. So let’s say like fart content, or, , you’re into pregnant-looking chicks, or you’re into, , breeding fantasies, or you’re into,, being demeaned by people. , All of these would be...

Like there’s, th-th-there’s just not that many negative externalities that can lead from this stuff.

And while sex that is [00:46:00] purely recreational, , but done with it being understood that the person might get pregnant, in a way where they might get pregnant, and you will keep the baby if they get pregnant. Now keep in mind, it is really bad to have sex where a person might get pregnant and you would never keep the baby.

, Or even question it. That’s extremely, extremely bad. But if we’re talking about sex with kinks involved, purely for recreation, worse than sex purely for reproduction, but probably better than any category of corn, no matter how kinky it is, unless it risks killing you, like certain types of choking or something like that, right?

But when it comes to totally fictionalized content

where all of these fall in relation to something else. So if I was gonna say somebody who had never gone extreme with their temptations in any other thing in the past where I would put LCON content with them, it would be at a dramatically lower level of immorality than, , a prostitute.

Or, , I’d even say than potentially OnlyFans, because, eh, that’s having an impact on a [00:47:00] real person’s life, , whereas yours has the potential, and likely very low potential given your past, possibility of impact of having another person’s life. So it’s important just to take all of this in context with the negativity of something like this coming from the multiplied probability of, in your case, what it has on somebody else, and then that somebody else’s negative context

Speaker 26: Finally here, I’d note categories that regardless of a person’s, , susceptibility to temptation that almost never lead people to temptation. An example here would be something like, oh, what falls into this category? Oviposition, I guess. , This is being aroused by putting eggs in someone.

As far as I’m aware of, no one has ever actually been seriously, like, done this in a criminal way or in a way that has made somebody else infertile compared to something like putting hamsters [00:48:00] in someone, which apparently has tempted a lot of people. People are like, “Oh, that’s not a real thing,” and then you can look up, like, actual reports from hospitals of it happening, and they’re like, “Well, I mean, I guess it happens.”

It’s like, bro, there’s multiple hospital reports about this. This is a real thing

Malcolm Collins: but anyway.

Simone Collins: Well, I think we’ve- The- ... we’ve given people a lot to think about and I, I hope

Malcolm Collins: that they- The no, hold on. I’m gonna d- talk about a final one, which is murder. Ooh. Murder. Is all murder equally bad?

Simone Collins: Wow ...

Malcolm Collins: so here, if you believe... A- and for people who say life begins at conception, I think they intuitively, even if they believe this, I don’t know any of them who if told there’s a six-year-old child in this room, and there’s 10 just fertilized blastocysts in this room in cold storage, right?

You can either unplug the blastocysts in this room or unplug something in this room that painlessly kills the six-year-old child. I don’t think anyb- anybody, any Catholic is going to choose the [00:49:00] 10 blastocysts over the six-year-old child. Because I think we all intuit even if those are 100% human lives, it’s not the same thing as a 10...

A six-year-old or a 10-year-old, right? Like, and we need to investigate morally where does this intuition come from. And i- and it’s an intuition that I think feels incredibly strong for people, right? One is, and I think the, the first thing that, that people go is, is they’re like, “Yeah, but realistically, for me to turn those six blastocysts into a six-year-old kid with all of the emotions, experiences, connected lives that that kid has, and potentiality that kid has, requires a willing woman,” right?

Right now with the technology we have. Now, this is why I think we have a huge mandate to develop artificial wombs, but with the technology we have, there is some intermittent step which makes the blastocysts more morally equivalent to [00:50:00] 10 people on life support who have a doctor’s diagnosis of 10 days left to live, but if you spent a billion dollars, you might be able to save them, or one healthy six-year-old, right?

I think that that’s the moral equation that they’re doing in their heads. But now, now we have a moral equation here where we can say, “Oh, the life of somebody who’s about to die and on life support does not have the same value as the life of a healthy child,” right? Because the potential future of that life without external intervention of a type that you cannot afford to do yourself, is significantly lower.

And now this leads us to the second thing, which is this says, okay, now you get to choose between lives. The life of a six-year-old versus the life of a baby versus the life of a 70-year-old, okay? [00:51:00] Now, if anybody is, you know, you can, you can put $10 million down and save one of these lives, and you don’t have more money than that Or increase the probability of saving one of these lives.

The moral intuition that comes out of this I actually think is quite different than what most people would assume. I think a lot of people are gonna assume, well, baby first, then six-year-old, then elderly person, if you’re just doing a str- a straight utilitarian calculation. But the reality of mor- moral intuition is that I actually think the calculation is m- very obvious in most people’s minds.

It’s 10-year-old first, then baby, then elderly person. And the question can be, why do you put the baby below the 10-year-old, right? And the answer is, is because outside of the fact that it’s a sickly baby and probably gonna get sick again, but there are a lot of things that could randomly end up ending that baby’s life and that makes it reliant on another [00:52:00] person before it becomes that 10-year-old ready to jump off and make all of the potential impacts that they’re about to make on the world that make the baby’s life, like not, not much worse to save.

I, I’d say like 2 to 3% worse, but some degree less than the, the, Also, the, the, the 10-year-old has an awareness of what’s happening to them that the baby doesn’t have that I think makes it more horrifying, their death. But this is just my moral intuition. Again, you can take your moral intuitions differently.

And the people who wanna say everybody’s life has the same value I mean, I don’t think God thinks that, right? Like, he killed random babies all the time and like, you know, when he was killing the, the Egyptians’ firstborn sons, or when he told us to, to kill all the Amalekites or the Midianites or whatever, the, the few times when he told us to kill everyone.

And even punished Saul for not doing it. So you can’t say, “Oh, it was just the way war was done at that time.” No, that was an active decision on God. Any thoughts you have on the, the value of a life, Simone? [00:53:00] I,

Simone Collins: I think I’m with you in looking at both viability and potential impact. Because if, you know, like, I think a lot of people And I know it’s different for everyone, but what, what our objective function is, and you have to consider your objective function when making a moral calculation.

Our objective function is maximizing long-term human flourishing. And that involves focusing on, on, on saving lives that aren’t necessarily going to terminate early anyway and, and involve a lot of suffering, right? That’s, that’s not gonna contribute as much as saving a life that is more likely to live long and make the biggest impact.

Yeah. I hear you. So

Malcolm Collins: this is where,

Simone Collins: Though I think that you, that you also just don’t like babies as much as I do, so it’s- Yeah ... it’s easier for you to say that. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it, it, it would... I mean, indulgently you’d want to [00:54:00] save the baby, but I think, like, logically... Now this is where it gets i- in terms of human individual lives, is every individual life equally worth saving if it cost the same amount of money?

Speaker 27: I would note here in the context of the Bible, it was important to teach people things because this was not a widely understood concept before the time of Christianity. Like, don’t discriminate against a poor person versus a rich \, person. Don’t judge somebody solely off of wealth. But now society has moved too far in the opposite direction, , where we do not fully grok that some people are doing more to see God’s vision come to a reality or see what needs to happen for humanity come to reality, and other people may live lives that are purely parasitic on the system, and that we act blindly to this, and that we need to begin to, , recognize that while both of their lives may have [00:55:00] dignity, they are not equal in value in terms of if you can only save one, if you can only...

You know, you, in, in some sort of broad, vague sense, they may be equal in value, but in terms of, like, practical, I have to do something to save one, they’re very obviously not because of the long-term effects they’re going to have on other people’s lives. , And, and note here, this could be a person who’s super wealthy like the, , CEO of, , UnitedHealthcare, and their life is a negative externality, literally lower in value than, , somebody who is purely a parasite on the system.

,

Speaker 27: Or more salient modern example, Bricks and Minifigs CEO

So this isn’t like wealthy people’s lives are more valued than less wealthy people’s lives. It’s what you do with that life

Malcolm Collins: And here we’ll say a random unemployed Somalian versus Elon Musk. Now, did you know that now he’s worth the next, I think, five richest persons’ net worth combined?

Simone Collins: Yeah, in, like, certain countries he’s, he’s- ... like, [00:56:00] worth more than them. Surely there’s gonna be a more democratic way- But isn’t he, isn’t he, like, worth more than Canada or something?

Or like their GDP. I, I, I can’t remember. But yeah, it’s some- something insane. But I mean, so this, this is something that even came up with COVID, right? Because when vaccines were in short supply, the question came, like, “Well, what lives are we going to

Malcolm Collins: save?” Well, and the, and the Democratic establishment at the time, like their White House at the time suggested that it be given to those who’ve been racially disenfranch- basically give it to Black and

Simone Collins: Hispanic- Well, so it, it’s clear that people do make, at first...

Like I, I keep trying to explain to our kids there’s no such thing as fair. Because you, you have to establish, like well then what is, on what basis, you know, are you dividing a resource? And that depends on your values, and people have different values. And I think that’s the core thing. Mm. Is there is no universal like good or bad thing, or worse or better sin.

It really d- it’s all based on how you orient toward your

Malcolm Collins: objective function when it comes- But this, this is where when it comes to the value of a life, the value of Elon’s life is demonstrably- Mm ... more than the random Simoleon in this example, right? The, the reason I bring this up is his pursuit-

Simone Collins: Well, that [00:57:00] depends.

I mean, for like people who, who devalue capitalists and who value non-capitalists, he doesn’t.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But I’m talking about what we think is objectively true about reality. Mm. That our goal in life, any human’s goal in life is to move humanity forwards, right? To, to move human flourishing forward.

Simone Collins: Whoa.

That’s, that’s our goal, but I don’t get the impression that’s a universal goal.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But- A

Simone Collins: lot of people’s goals are

Malcolm Collins: very

Simone Collins: different ...

Malcolm Collins: this is a track. This is about what’s religiously

Simone Collins: true. Oh, yeah. Okay, yes, yes. For us, yes.

Malcolm Collins: So you can say for them, whatever. I don’t f-ing care what they think. Yeah, okay, okay.

They can go in the blender for all I care. I

Simone Collins: didn’t know we were talking about just our view.

Malcolm Collins: In our worldview, and I believe the worldview of the majority of our fans, the prospective impact of Elon going forwards is enormous when you look at the things that he’s accomplished for the human race so far.

Broke wokeism through the acquisition of X, on top of what he’s done for the environment with Tesla, the way he’s moved forward technology with Tesla, SpaceX, X, that he’s dedicated the company’s entire mission to a [00:58:00] Mars colony, right? The like, how cool is that? And the positive externality of a Mars colony, it means even if an asteroid does come that could kill all of humanity or we get a Gray Goo scenario or we get some sort of AI foaming scenario, we get...

We have the backup. The backups matter, people.

Simone Collins: Okay, but you’re going way off the rails. Going back to murder, and I, I, I did, I... One of our listeners, at least one of our w- listeners pointed out, like, how do you reconcile thou shalt not kill with the fact that there’s a lot of killing in-

Malcolm Collins: In the Bible, yeah

Simone Collins: yeah. So how do you

Malcolm Collins: personally- Because thou shalt not kill does not translate to thou shall not kill in the Bible. It translates to thou shall not murder, which in Jewish law at the time was a very, very specific type of premeditated murder.

Simone Collins: Okay, so tell me more. Like, h- how do I know if I’m doing a, a bad per the Old Testament, per the Ten Commandments?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, in the Old Testament we see people killing people all the time on behalf of God. [00:59:00] Yeah. It’s basically if the person is an enemy of your people, you have free range on them. That’s, that’s the general... And your people, I think, you know, we can, we can I, I would say, like, any of the saved people, any of the people of God would fall into the our people category here.

But if they are creating negative externalities for your people, the Bible’s pretty carte blanche, do what you want. No, not even what you want. You, you have a commandment to deal with the problem. Multiple times throughout the Bible.

Simone Collins: Huh. Yeah, I, I would love to learn more about this specific definition of Judaism.

Like, per Judaism you say? Uh-huh. Like, of what murder is.

Malcolm Collins: Within Judaism, the context is what’s good for the Jewish people, right? And God was very okay with this context throughout the Old Testament, okay? The idea that he doesn’t want us to... And I, and I think that this is the, the line that is twisted the most.

To translate it to thou shall not kill is just lying, ‘cause that’s not what it [01:00:00] says. And I don’t, I... Th- this is the one thing I really get annoyed with, with nux when he goes over this all the time. When we end up in a scenario where the other side is blatantly stealing elections, like, let’s suppose.

And y- and, and, and your vote doesn’t matter anymore, and you have nowhere to run anymore, and now it’s prima nocta on your daughters right? You have a mandate to fight back Right? Especially when things get tyrannical. Like, I would want our people to be one of the first when things do go full Nazi to actually fight back against that.

Real Nazi. You know, like taking away our rights that we’re seeing now, right? To live life the way you want, to breed the way you want, to have children the way you want, to engage with genetic technology the way you want. I think, you know, when these rights are infringed upon, that I think are some of the most important rights that any human can have the, the lengths to which I think we are mandated to go is extreme insofar as it [01:01:00] doesn’t bring down negative externalities on our community, which is a pretty big and so

Simone Collins: Right, because as soon as you make yourself an existential threat to another group, that group has a mandate themselves to of course take you out.

Mm-hmm. And that’s I think a, a very important calculation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And this is where all, because Leaflet wanted to talk about this, you know, on... An individual within the techno-puritan phase has a mandate to stay armed with the highest degree of lethality armament for your level of technology, ‘cause you know, you don’t wanna get stuck like the Sikhs do with stupid knives that is practical for your context.

So for example, if you’re on a spaceship, you probably don’t want something that’s n- accidentally gonna crack through the hull of the spaceship, right? But you do still want something that is lethal. And this came from the Sikh context, right? Like anybody who looks at techno-puritanism at this point can tell [01:02:00] this is a real religion, right?

Like this is obviously like a sincerely held religion, and this tract explains our views on you know, you should not... They really say don’t just go out and, and, and kill random negative externalities in society, ‘cause that makes our community into a negative externality for other communities that don’t have these views.

So that is where it makes sense to not go out there and make a, a, a jerk of yourself. But clearly these are our real religious views. And so within any government system, I think they have to respect this if they’re respecting it for Sikhs. And I’ve, and I’ve now explained logically why we have these views and why we believe we have a mandate for self-protection, because if you go into public without self-protection, you are putting yourself and your family at risk.

And so if you are over the age 18 you have a mandate for self-protection at all times. Because it, it’s up to you to not just protect yourself, but all of the other people who could be killed or have their lives removed in any sort of negative [01:03:00] externality event like a live su- shooter situation for example.

Now you are a positive externality because you can end that.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Speaker 3: And note here, this is not me telling you this for funsies. If you take a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible, this is what we are commanded to do. So if you look at something like Luke 22:35-38: Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack for anything?”

“Nothing,” they answered. He then said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. It is written, ‘And he who was numbered with the transgressors,’ and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, that which is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are your two swords.” “That’s enough,” he replied. So a few notes here. In the Greek, most modern interpretations take this to mean that there were only two swords among all of the disciples. , However, it doesn’t exclusively mean that in Greek. It [01:04:00] could mean they all had two swords or he alone had two swords.

, So what I take this to mean is that you don’t need to arm yourself with more than two, , lethal, , close-range, , weapons. , And the way that I would generally handle this speaking is that you need to be armed with at least one, because he does say you, you need a sword more than the cloak on your back, right?

, And that for the other, I would use something that is faster disabling, like a taser or something like that, , because that falls into... within the category of him. Back then, they wouldn’t have had something like that, so the idea , is first you arm yourself with something lethal, then you arm yourself with something quick.

, And this is if you are taking what we are going to call the

Oath of preservation, which is to say that you take responsibility of your own life to yourself, and if you allow yourself to die because you went out in public and you were killed by somebody who you should have been able to defend yourself against, but you weren’t because you did not take the oath of preservation, , that’s your responsibility

Morally speaking, that rests on your soul, [01:05:00] morally speaking

Speaker 3: in the same way an unaliving is, in the same way self-harm is, in the same way, , a skydiving accident is, , which we consider quite sinful.

and I wanna really focus on the words here so we can understand what Jesus is saying in this context. He’s basically saying, “When we were doing our preaching, when I was doing my preaching with you guys, , we were doing it in a pacifistic way, and in a way that was monastic.”

You know, where you don’t have a - coin purse, et cetera. , He’s like, “And now that we’re moving into the next era, you know, after my death,” which this is one of the last teachings he gave us. , “After my death, it will not be monastic. You are demanded to not go into the monastic lifestyle, to go out there, to be industrious, to have the coin purse.

And secondarily, to be armed, and to expect persecution, and thus be armed.” , So even if you’re looking at the, , the swords in this context and you do think, “Oh, it meant two swords for the entire group,” he’s still not even talking about this context. He’s talking about [01:06:00] the context for after he’s dead, where everyone is expected to always be armed at all times. And note here, some people will then say, “

Didn’t Jesus say something like, “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” as an abnomation of armed conflict?

Speaker 3: , And if you hear-- would then say something like, “Well, what about, you know, when, ...”

Jesus says in Matthew when one of his companions takes a sword and chops the ear off of somebody who’s trying to arrest Jesus,, “For all of those who draw the sword will die by the sword. , Do you not think you can call on my Father, and he will put at disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

, So note here, he’s not saying broadly. He’s, he’s very explicitly not saying in a general context all who live by the sword die by the sword. He’s saying all who live by the sword in opposition to God’s plan, and right now he’s saying it is God’s plan that I am supposed to die in just the near future.

, And, You, you also see this because the same scene is recorded in, in John [01:07:00] 18:10. , “Put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” , So the reason he says to not use a sword in this context is because, , he is trying to fulfill a prophecy here, and he’s beginning to interfere with the prophecy.

, So his previous commandment, which one of his last, that you are supposed to be armed at all times, and if you don’t have a sword, you should have... And keep in mind, sword in context changes, , in modern context. We are all, not just techno-puritans, all Christians supposed to always be armed Because we have responsibility for our lives and the lives of those around us.

And note here, this, this is not a particularly weird thing for Jews in this time period. Almost all Jews were armed most of the time

This is why when they were like, here are two swords, Jesus, is that enough? I don’t think they meant for all of them together, as that would have been an absurdly low number of swords for Jews to have during that time period. It seems much more likely they mean, is two swords enough now that you’re telling me that I need swords?

That, in context, [01:08:00] appears a much more likely, even if it’s not what the mainstream Christian denominations want you to understand and will fight against, interpretation of what’s being said here in a literalist context.

So here you can see something like Nehemiah 4:16-18. , “The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judea who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword on the side as he worked.” , Nehemiah 4:14, “Don’t be afraid of them.

Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers and sons and daughters, your wives, your home.” , Basically talking about arming oneself as being a duty within the community and it being normal within the community. In Samuel 25:13, “David said to his men, ‘Each of you strap on your sword.’

So each of them strapped on his sword, and David strapped on his as well,” implying that all the men had swords ready to strap on. , In Psalms 14:4-1, “Praise be to the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers [01:09:00] for battle.” , Again, showing that the Lord does want war. He does want battle. That is part of what is expected of us when we are faced with evil.

Speaker 28: also have Nehemiah 4:13. They stationed arms by families with swords and spears and bows.

We have

Speaker 29: Psalms.

Speaker 28: 14:41, “Praise be to the Lord my mo- rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”

Speaker 29: . Basically, it’s all over the Bible. Wherever you look at the Old Testament, , people are expected to fight for their own people

Speaker 4: So officially, how does this work within techno puritanism? , There are two potential oaths that you can take, the oath of self-preservation, which is taking responsibility for your life and the lives of those around you, And the secondary oath of self-preservation, which is a more maximal form of this.

Once you have taken one of these oaths, going forwards, you are expected to undergo what is mandated by that oath. After the first oath of self-preservation in any context where you might encounter [01:10:00] somebody who is also armed with a lethal weapon, it is upon you or your responsibility to also be armed with a lethal weapon.

, This means that if in a context like, say, a plane flight or something like that, actually there is no chance that even a Sikh is gonna be on that plane with a lethal weapon, you don’t have to have a le-lethal weapon. But if you’re just, like, walking around town, absolutely you have to have a lethal weapon on you.’

, So it has one small caveat, which is if one of the types of places where no one can have a lethal weapon is in your way of a secondary location where some people might have a lethal weapon, but you will be in for a short period of time, you are not mandated to have a lethal weapon.

So this would mean if you have taken the oaths , of preservation, , and you are going on a vacation somewhere, you don’t need to then buy a sword when you get to that location if you were not able to carry yours in your luggage, right? , So this is the first oath of preservation. The secondary oath of preservation is to take this more [01:11:00] maximally because, , frankly, just a lethal weapon, , which implies generally a short-range weapon, is not going to be everything you need to protect yourself from most of the dangers of this world.

And so the secondary oath of self-preservation is more maximalist and says... While the first one says you can have up to two, ,, the second one says you are mandated to have a short-range lethal or disabling weapon and a long-range lethal weapon, , with the long-range one being lethal.

So this would mandate both, , something short-range and something long-ranged. And generally, you would take the first oath about six months to a year before you take the second oath. , While it is generally advised that most techno-puritans take the first oath at around the age of eighteen going forwards.

It is not a mandate to be a follower of our religion

And it is not advised if you are in an environment where it may prevent you from

Speaker 4: doing business or [01:12:00] advocating the interests of our people more broadly, , because it could within certain cultural contexts. , And , the secondary oath is only for people who want to maximally dedicate themselves to this and requires regular training in whatever that long-range weapon is

Speaker 15: Final note on this oath is, and you are responsible for recognizing this in yourself or having this imposed on you by your community, but if you ever reach a state of mind where you are now a danger to those around you or you are too aggressive in the way you might use something like this, ,

It, it is a moral necessity for you to either for that period not be armed, , or period, period not be armed for the rest of your life. So if you have something like dementia, you would not be armed during that period. If you are drinking, , heavily, you would have a mandate to not be armed during that period or on any sort of mind-altering chemical

Malcolm Collins: And never, as [01:13:00] a techno-puritan, broadly speaking never do like a, a mass shooting or something like that. There is just no point to it. It doesn’t achieve our ends. There, there are ways that lethality can be handled that do not hurt innocent individuals.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Speaker 12: Basically, we just expect you to be dramatically more cunning as a techno-puritan than the type of people who would do something so witless. You know, if you want to mass effect action, use a gene drive or something like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and this means to be demonstrably sure of the guilt of an individual even in scenarios like say somebody is out there saying, you know, “My group needs to go out and murder people.” Like they’re, even if they’re not doing it themselves, they’re out preaching this every day. Like murder innocent people, grape children, something like that.

If this is being preached do you have a moral license to do something about this? Absolutely within this faith system. But, but this is only if, if what they are [01:14:00] preaching is manifold worse and being acted upon by people. If they’re like a crazy person on the street, that’s doesn’t matter. If you’re in an environment where people are being killed regularly I think that we have a moral mandate to intervene in this so yeah, that’s a, a, a broader understanding of, of morality, sinfulness, where to engage with stuff.

The final thing I wanted to note here, which comes downstream of one of the questions somebody had on the, the stream about, like, the actual ruling in this on techno-paganism, if you’re a follower Is what is the ruling on techno-puritanism around if you feel that you are able to develop more emotional control long stream by emotionally venting in the short term?

Now first I would note here, I think the research demonstrably shows that it- you lose self-control the more you indulge in it. If y- if you feel that you have a better ability to deal with your grief by crying and letting it out, and this is something that you’ve experienced [01:15:00] and you know yourself, sure.

But know you’re in dangerous territory if you’re doing that. Because for most of us, what happens is the things that make us sad in life are the things where, Like I didn’t really feel that sad when my mom died because I knew I had done everything I could to be a good son to her and to give her a good life within reason throughout her entire life.

I’d always been there for her, and so I was like, “I don’t really have any regrets on any interaction I’ve had with her. I have regrets that she won’t be able to see my kids, but like, that’s not something that I have control over, so there’s no reason to feel sad about this.” But there have been times when I have done things that I feel deep regret about, and there is this emotion that you feel.

Like if you feel grief in that moment, if you cry, if you blame yourself, if you hit something, the responsibility, your self-responsibility, your anger at yourself can deservedly be lesser. And I think we all sort of feel this voice in our heads. And what I’m [01:16:00] talking about is not giving into that voice, because that voice is lying to you.

It doesn’t lower your culpability. Instead what you should do is instead of giving into that voice saying, “No, I need to learn from this. Okay, I wasn’t there for my mom as much as I needed to be. Is my dad still alive? Is anyone else in my life still alive? Are, are my family members that are estranged still alive that I should reconnect with?”

It should flip a switch for you in regards to all of that. The final thing is I’ll note that this entire ethical subset that we’ve discussed here also applies to interpersonal relationships. If an interpersonal relationship is purely masturbatory, you get nothing from it, it doesn’t enrich you, it doesn’t help you understand the world better.

Like when I talk with Leaflet, I often come away with entirely new framings of society. So true. A great one she gave that I’m gonna put it in the track here because it’s gotta go on a track somewhere, is I was talking about as humans genetically engineer themselves, we’re likely gonna [01:17:00] see different groups with different preferences begin to look very differently, where you might see techno-puritans end up looking like space marines one day, right?

Like giant super intelligent, super, you know, two hearts, everything like that. Adonis type figures. You might see another group, like let’s say Jews spec- ... spec into like a high agility build. And no, this isn’t a commandment for techno-pyrogenethums. You guys need to find out what works, what’s, what’s the correct build to spec into.

Spec into an agility build. You know, they become the cat people of the far future or something like this. And I was talking about how this makes diversity even more valuable when you have a real groups with differential strengths. And what Leaflet said is she goes, “Look, if this is confusing to you, think about this.”

You’re putting together your space boarding party. This is like, you know, y- your crew for a spaceship. This is like you putting together- ... your adventuring guild, right? You, you want, you know, yeah, your Orkan warrior and your, you know, dwarven workshop guy, and your [01:18:00] elven mage, and your, you know, y- you, you want all of the different builds in there, right?

That is how you build the best party. You would be stupid to make your entire party, you know, human or dwarf. Or y- you, you can do it for some sort of novelty reason, but we genuinely benefit from working alongside other groups. Even if the dwarves and the elves sometimes screw each other over, a party’s still better off having a dwarf and an elf in it.

And I think that that’s an important thing to think about. But the reason I was saying that this matters with friendships is I think we all know that there are friendships that we engage in in our lives, or relationships we engage in, that do nothing but drain from us. Those are directly sinful to have, and if you’re afraid that you’re a bad person for abandoning this person because oh, well, if you weren’t there for them, who would be?

If you don’t have a moral mandate to that individual, like they’re a parent of yours or something and even then this is tentative, if they are draining resources that could otherwise be going to the next [01:19:00] generation cut ‘em off. This also goes for parents. A parent who is draining resources that should be going to the next generation and isn’t contributing, cut ‘em off.

Because the next generation, the younger generation matters more than the older generation. And, and, and cut ‘em off can mean pull the plug. And this is also true of ourselves if we ever become drains to our families.

Simone Collins: Yeah, we hold to that.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. If you’re gonna be like, “Oh, God says all life has value,” then why did he tell people to randomly kill people sometimes?

Why did he tell you to, to, to... Why did he punish Saul? It’s because that’s clearly not what God wants. God wants what’s best for society. That’s why he has guided, and the groups that have followed him have always lived- ... the, in the most flourishing of societies, the most prosperous of societies. Because that’s the downstream effect.

That’s why all the sins that we get as Christians generally make your life better. But they need to also generally make society better, and so we’re extrapolating from that. Anyway, thoughts, Simone?

Simone Collins: I probably agree. Yes. [01:20:00] Yeah. And I think it’s important al- to, also to note that a lot of the more, le- less sinful things you’ve pointed out would be seen as very sinful things to do per today’s standards, and just going with what feels socially comfortable is not necessarily

Malcolm Collins: the right thing. Yeah. And note here when it comes to weapons, you also have a duty to secure them, a, a religious duty to secure them, because an unsecured weapon can end a child’s life at any moment.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, and that’s most gun deaths in America, right? It’s tragic, so yeah. Any, anyway, it

Malcolm Collins: also- But even if you, even if you hate our religion, if you want the right to carry a weapon, techno-puritanism is the way to go.

Speaker 9: And note, in terms of what the weapons look like, you can go in generally a few directions for the traditional weapons. One is to go with something that represents your ancestral group or that has ancestral ties to the Technopuritan tradition. Since we personally take [01:21:00] a lot from our own Scottish ancestry and we lean a lot into Roman ancestry, that could be a dirk or a gladius.

Or something that is inconspicuous if you think that that is the most efficient, like a belt buckle knife or something like that. It really depends on, one, your own heritage and identity and how you wish to honor that, and two, what works within your existing social context. With the understanding also always being that if everyone else is banned from having a weapon, then there’s no risk of you being killed in that situation or needing to protect someone, so you also don’t need a weapon.

But if any other religious group is allowed a weapon, because Jesus told us that we have to do this, and I know a lot of other Christian groups and denominations have pussied out of this in one way or another, but we are not them. And more is expected of us in terms of protecting ourselves and our communities than most of them expect from themselves.

Most of them live incredibly indolent, self-centered, [01:22:00] and efficaciousless lives. Why should we part our moral standards to theirs?

Simone Collins: There you go. Love it. All right, well, I will go start your dinner, and I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins: Aw, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Good tract, I think.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Interesting stuff, and I, yeah, sins are under-discussed, so I’m glad we’re going back into them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Love you. Bye.

Simone Collins: Recording. We are here. We are back. It is happening.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, people, people like the medieval shirt on the leaflet call, so I decided I... It was okay to wear it on our-

Simone Collins: It’s good. It’s good. It’s, Mm ... the stuff that really signals BDSM is leather straps.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that’s what I

Simone Collins: was worried it appeared it looked- They ruin leather straps.

Yes, I mean- That’s why we didn’t buy anything with leather straps, yeah ...

Malcolm Collins: instead of [01:23:00] medieval. ‘Cause what I’m going for is Ren Fair man, because everybody says I make my wife dress like she’s from the past, so why don’t I dress like I’m from the past? And I go, “I don’t make my wife dress that way,” but, you

Simone Collins: know.

I chose this outfit. This is not, like, something you made me... I was like, I showed up one day wearing this stuff, and Malcolm’s like, “Well, okay.”

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I guess this is what we’re doing. All right. What are we doing for dinner tonight, by the way?

Simone Collins: I’m gonna make some kind of pasta dish for the kids. It might be macaroni and cheese.

It might not. I don’t know. Is it gonna have, like,

Malcolm Collins: a meat sauce or a... What, what type of sauce?

Simone Collins: I... Probably a macaroni and cheese sauce or possibly just Parmesan cheese. Okay. I, I don’t know yet. It sort of depends on what the kids want, what mood they’re in. I’m okay with mac

Malcolm Collins: and cheese tonight

Simone Collins: if- Mac and cheese?

Malcolm Collins: if you’re doing that, yeah.

Simone Collins: It suits their, their cheesy fancy. It might suit your cheesy fancy, too.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no. I can do a reheated potato tonight.

Simone Collins: Yeah, you can with cheddar? Do a reheated

Malcolm Collins: potato with cheese.

Simone Collins: Okay. Cheesu. [01:24:00] Like cheddar, right? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and then some of those meat patty things, the pork ones. Yeah,

Simone Collins: bon cha, or whatever they’re called.

I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Pork bon cha. They’re really good. They go really well with cheesy baked potato, I’ll tell you what.

Simone Collins: That makes a lot of sense. With some pepper on it, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And this time I’m gonna try to make, what, slices and just air fry them and see what happens.

Malcolm Collins: Let’s try it.

Simone Collins: What could possibly go wrong?

It better be better, because it’s gonna get crispier when you air fry it. In theory. We don’t know. If it’s an already baked potato, it might be pretty much like... Potatoes are very strange in, like, w- the starch doing things that I don’t understand, ‘cause I don’t know potato science. I’m not a potato scientist.

Speaker 30: Let’s unpack everything right here, okay? All right. Yeah. W- now let’s get this mask out right here. I get this out right here. You can’t wait to start using them, huh? Yeah, I just can’t wait.

Kirsche joins Based Camp for an in-depth conversation on her journey from TERA PvP gamer to one of the most influential conservative VTubers. She discusses surviving a major cancellation attempt by Vice, her deep research exposing “Bridge” (the successor to DEI initiatives), why boycotts alone aren’t enough, and how the VTuber community helped turn the cultural tide.

Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into tactics for defeating woke capture in gaming and corporations, the power of parallel institutions, AI tools for creators, building alternative economies, and why nerdy weirdos are winning the culture war. Topics include abortion radicalization stories, pronatalism, free speech, and practical ways conservatives can create better systems.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: it Hello, everyone. I am so excited to be here with you today. Today, we actually are doing a collab with Kirsche, which is so exciting, ‘cause I’ve wanted to do this one forever. It’s like everything’s coming in at once. And the context on Kirsche, if you are not familiar with who she is or her cultural relevance, because it’s m- hugely outsized, I think.

My entire life within nerdy cultural niches, we had the wokes and the proto-wokes come in, whether it was video games, whether it was, you know, cons, whether it was trading cards, whether it was y- you know, anime. They’d come in, and they would screw it all up, and they would take it over, and they’d push us out.

And every time it happened, it just felt like th- there was this endless tide, and it was gonna forever happen to everything I ever had an interest in. And then one fateful day, a sort of the [00:01:00] last wave, this happened in the VTuber community. And it happened specifically targeted at Kirsche. And when this happened, we did a number of videos on it.

And Kirsche, unlike every other person before her, h- held her ground and held it in a way where they actually holistically retreated. And they retreated to such an extent that post this, a conservative VTuber scene has begun to grow. And I mean, it was there beforehand, but now it feels much livelier and much more like a core part of the wider conservative movement, and it’s been beginning to regain crowd.

So, like, after your attempted cancellation, you then had the guy who tried to do this to the horror space in, in favor of shadows. I don’t know if you remember this whole controversy. I do. But he tried to claim the horror space, and he got absolutely eviscerated immediately. Yes. Absolutely thrown out i- i- immediately.[00:02:00]

And so her being in this, it felt very much like

Speaker: And then we’ll know how to beat them. One day it will all be over, and everyone will forget that this was the moment. This is when it turned. And it wasn’t the mighty

Daily Wire

Speaker: , it wasn’t

Some fancy

Heritage Foundation report

Speaker: There’s a

Speaker 4: Vtuber

Speaker: named

Speaker 4: Kirsche

Speaker: Do

Speaker 2: now! Yeah.

Good job,

Speaker 4: Reporter.

Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. That would be

Speaker 4: fox girl

Speaker 3: , sir.

Speaker 2: Carry on, .

Speaker: Yes, sir.

Malcolm Collins: or,

Malcolm Collins: But, but after this point while... And, and this is something w- I, I wanna talk about. While culturally we seem to be winning more, like, our ability to do something like boycott Harley Davidson or [00:03:00] Tractor Supply...

By the way, they’re super woke, Simone. I don’t know if you know this. Oh, yeah. To the extent that they’ve actually changed their policies has not been effective. But in the spaces we’ve been closer to, like the video game space, like the Ubisoft boycotts basically we learned we have to put these companies out of business.

Mm-hmm. And so I wanna talk with you about that experience, like you getting into this space before the, the big cancellation attempt How you thought about and managed that and how the culture has changed post that

Kirsche: All right. Okay. So I guess the starting point is, like, how, how did I feel during the cancellation?

No,

Malcolm Collins: no, how’d you get into VTub- Like, when you got into VTubing, did you intend to be a political Vtuber?

Kirsche: No, not really. I mean, I first got into VTubing back in, like, 2018, and I w- I wasn’t even, like, a Vtuber proper then. I was just, like, a PNGTuber. I or- originally started, like, without even a microphone.

Like, two weeks of streaming, [00:04:00] no microphone, no nothing ‘cause I had just quit my job at an insurance company after an elongated period of my anxiety being incredibly bad. And so at this point in time I was hopped up on, like, three different anxiety medications and I was just like, “Well, I don’t wanna just sit around and do nothing all day.

I feel like I should at least try to do something that could help my anxiety get better.” Well, my name is pretty well-known in the Tera community, so if I started streaming I would already have, like, a small audience of people who would be there, and then I could use that as, like, I’m gonna interact with people more frequently.

I’m gonna, you know, get a bit out of my safe bubble of, like, I only wanna do text communications. And so, like, eventually, you know, obviously I started using my microphone. I got a PNG. So, so basically- I d- got a, like, animated GIF

Malcolm Collins: How did you know the Tera community? What, what, w- w- what was your, your experience there?

Kirsche: I was one of the best PVPers on the server for many, many years. I was frequently rank one on the rank board whenever like, Fraywin Canyon would have its, like, [00:05:00] rollovers. I didn’t do threes as often, but I absolutely loved Fraywin Canyon and I loved doing like, guild PVP and whatnot. Like, it, it was really weird, like, coming into a streamer scene and seeing people like Lakari, who I had healed for, like, years before, already being huge streamers, right?

I was just like, “What the heck?” Zenosas Vex, I, I played with him in, like, Final Fantasy XIV raiding as well. So, like, to see all these people who, like, had been in, like, raid groups or PVP groups before in different games with me, I was like, “Oh. I was streaming. Streaming’s got pretty robust, is it not?”

So it

Malcolm Collins: was like a- ‘Cause, like,

Kirsche: previously I never paid attention to it ... social thing.

Malcolm Collins: It, it was like an alternative to what people used to do. Like, I’m, I’m gonna get out there and, and build a social life. It was like-

Kirsche: Yeah ...

Malcolm Collins: that... Okay, so that’s fascinating. Okay, so now describe how you go from there to, like, what radicali- what, what got you on the I’m actually gonna start talking, because we didn’t start talking about politics either.

We, we had no interest in that to start. A- in fact, we started with pretty progressive political beliefs, Ooh ... getting into the space and everything. So what w- what hap- [00:06:00] was it that you were a conservative during this time or you had conservative-like beliefs, or were these beliefs that you developed over time in the space, or you just felt more comfortable talking about over time?

Kirsche: I would say I was probably already on the conservative path at this point. For the 2016 election I had been registered independent basically since I could register to vote, and for the 2016 election I changed my registration from independent to Republican so that I could vote for Trump in the primary And I, I guess I had been talking about, like, the nonsense with transgender targeting children probably since about 2011, 2012 or so.

Oh, that was impossible back then. Like, just in my personal life. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that was like- And I- ... you’d get canceled, fired for talking about that- Yeah ... like, 2011.

Kirsche: Yeah. And, and I, I’d post about it, like, on my Facebook, you know, which I didn’t have many p- friends on Facebook, ‘cause I’m not a huge social media person.

So I would just, like, post about it occasionally there. And so when I started streaming when my friend who would come and voice chat with me, my [00:07:00] old head moderator, Tangerine, he he would get our groups together. So he would either put us in Duty Finder and we would wait for ages, or he would, like, put it up in an LFG and we’d get other human beings.

While he was doing that, I would just read articles on stream. And so sometimes I would get through, like, a paragraph. Sometimes I’d get through, like, half of it. Sometimes I would have enough time to finish it. But it was like I would read that in between, like, waiting for dungeons because I just, I enjoyed reading the news in my off time.

Mm-hmm. And I didn’t have anybody in, like, real life to talk about the news with because they were all, like, either apolitical or like, “Yeah, I just don’t care. I just... It doesn’t matter to me.” So it was nice to like, you know, talk to this few people in my audience then who were also interested, like, in what was going on politically in America.

And it kind of shifted once a lot more of, I guess, leftist policy kind of stuff started being her- heralded in the VTuber community as apolitical. And so it’s like you could see all of the leftist rot coming in like it did to comics, like it did to video games- Yeah ... like it did to other things, and everyone being like, [00:08:00] “Well, that’s not political, but Kirsche is political.”

And it’s like, you know what? Let’s talk politics even more now because I don’t want what happened to all of my other favorite things to happen to VTubing.

Malcolm Collins: That’s fascinating. So, one story I’ve heard from some other VTubers we’ve talked to about this is there was like, there was a big shift after the release of the Harry Potter game.

Mm-hmm. Because a bunch of people hadn’t realized how captured the space had become-

Kirsche: Yeah ...

Malcolm Collins: until they just tried to stream what they thought of as a fairly innocuous game. But it sounds like you broke the seal even before that based on, and I think a lot of people don’t realize this about a part of American culture because I, because I talk about this with, with very specific groups often, where I’m like, when you are calling out a group for something that feels very justified to you and then they start yelling at you saying, “Oh, that’s, you know, anti-Mormon or anti-Jewish or anti,” you know, whatever.

And I’m like, no, this is like a reasonable thing. I think a lot of just like a culturally American thing to do is to double down on it. Be like, you [00:09:00] can’t police me for something that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. I’m gonna double down because you attempted to do that. And that’s sort of what drove you into this.

Kirsche: Yeah. And, and it’s like, and people, people like to be like VTuber purists, and I think that’s fine, where they’re just like VTubers will only play games, they’ll only do like cute girl doing cute things, like idle activities. And I think it’s fine to be a VTubing purist. Obviously, I’m very much outside of the typical idle culture since I do talk politics.

Yeah. And it’s like I feel like once, once we start making more gains and we stop having like the colonization of our spaces, then I can kind of finally be like, okay, I still enjoy talking politics, but I can actually go back to playing more games like I used to instead of having to talk about politics all the time

Malcolm Collins: Well, you do a very good job, and for people who haven’t watched her stuff, I often describe her as the top of the funnel for our sort of intellectual ecosystem.

Which is to say you often do the original research, which then drips out of all the various taps [00:10:00] who watch all of whatever’s trending right now. ?

Speaker 5: Federal scientists are working around the clock to probe its secrets. Once we understand the bug, we will defeat

it

Malcolm Collins: When did you begin to get into the deep research? ‘Cause that must take a ton of time ...

Kirsche: for the Bridge stuff specifically, man, I, I don’t have a ton of time to watch content creators like I used to, just ‘cause I’m a creator myself now.

Yeah But I used to watch a ton of videos and stuff from, like, ItsAGundam and Tim Pool and The Quartering. Yeah. And I originally even started watching Tim Pool way back in the day because he was, he was, like, firmly on the left. And I was like- Yeah ... this is a guy that, like, has some things in common with me, but I disagree with a lot of other things.

Let’s watch him, because that’s a great way to expose myself to, you know, the other side of ideas, and sort of solidify how I feel based on his arguments, you know? So it was, it was really nice. And then over time, obviously, he became more center and left a lot [00:11:00] of the left-leaning stuff behind. But The Quartering had made a video, and he had a sponsor, and I can’t even remember what the sponsor was for, but it basically, like, told you how woke a, a, a company was-

by using it. So you could, like, scan an item and it would give you, like, a woke score for the company. And they were like, “Here’s the top 10 most woke companies of, like, 2023,” I think it was or something. And Campbell’s was in there, and I was like, “The soup company? I like their soup. I li- I like their chicken pot pie pub style soup.

That’s good.” And I hadn’t, I’d never heard of anything about Campbell’s, even in all of my, like, going through other basic DEI stuff. Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Kirsche: And I, I looked them up, and one of the first things I found was that Campbell’s was spearhead funding a project called Bridge. And I was like, “Oh. Well, what’s Bridge?”

And I found out that there are, like, two different Bridges. There’s one set up by Social Impact, and then there’s the one that I’ve been digging into by Sharyl Attkisson. And I thought at first when I first found them that they had something to do with each other, because Social Impact was [00:12:00] called, like, Bridge Project 2.0, and Sharyl Attkisson had referred to her project as, like, a, a 2.0 of DEI before.

So I was like, “Maybe,” but I couldn’t find any solid connections between those two specifically.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Kirsche: But going through Sharyl Attkisson’s was like- Wow. And I, I literally could only contribute or attribute it to having watched that, the quartering video. If I’d never watched that, I would have never looked into Campbell’s.

Simone Collins: Wait, what, what does, what does Bridge do? I’m out of the loop.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Simone, Simone’s not in this, this conspiracy also. I didn’t

Simone Collins: know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So John, shock her in our audience.

Simone Collins: Please.

Kirsche: So a lot of people when I try bringing up Bridge, they’re just like, “Oh, this is just another renaming of DEI, like Jedi or whatever.”

And it’s like, well, no, it’s not. Bridge is a company that is working with tons of other very, very strong, huge corporations. And they have a ton of these corporations who are signed on to like their board of directors or their other like actual, like willing to be publicly associated with Bridge page.

Simone Collins: Huh.

Kirsche: But a lot of companies who aren’t even on Bridge, they follow the [00:13:00] same exact trajectory of hiding the DEI. And there was an interview with a, a lady who runs a podcast called like DEI After Five, and she was talking to another DEI acolyte saying that a lot of people don’t realize how good DEI is for them.

And so you have to hide the DEI vegetables- Oh my God ... in order to get people to eat them to realize that they’re good for them. It’s like the entire purpose for like for years before we started seeing it, Bridge was informing companies on how to obscure DEI, how to make it less public. The entire point of having like a DEI team after 2020 was to obviously showcase like, “Hey, we’re woke.

We’re doing the Marxist thing.”

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Kirsche: Bridge comes in and says, “This is gonna be a problem. You need to dissolve those DEI teams, and you need to embed those DEI acolytes in other parts of the company.” Whoa. Because if people see the like DEI outright, that’s gonna be an attackable vector. That’s gonna be a way to get yourself in legal trouble for discrimination.

100%.

Simone Collins: Oh,

Kirsche: whoa.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. Like [00:14:00] first, so there’s this implicit recognition that it is discrimination, and it is gonna get caught, and it is gonna get stopped, but then that’s so interesting ‘cause I listen to still so many leftist outlets. And of course- Mm-hmm ... there’s always the, I mean, just as there were accusations of greenwashing when environmentalism was at its zenith, then there’s the accusations

Malcolm Collins: of like- I, I’m so frustrated

Simone Collins: DEI

Malcolm Collins: washing My, my brother retired from Doge recently, and that I, I, I should have sent him this, been like, “Hey, just tear-” Oh ... “tear into this.”

Simone Collins: Doge did not go far enough. It did not. Oh my gosh. That is insane.

Malcolm Collins: But so one of the things that you frequently talk about, and I think it’s an interesting meta conversation to have.

Actually, no, we’re gonna wait. I’m gonna be disciplined. Before we get into this- Discipline ... I do wanna get the full history. Oh, yes ... of how, how... Okay, so you began going into the Bridge stuff, w- you, so you got into the Bridge stuff before the Anna Vale thing?

Kirsche: Yeah. That was, I started the Bridge like research, I wanna say the end of 2023, and then my first posts about it were beginning of 2024 [00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: Wow.

Okay, so that’s when you begin to get into the, the sort of intellectual deep dive. And she does this not just with research on companies, which you do a lot of, of, of great stuff on, but also research on, like if you wanna know about like Joe Money, like go watch her episode about that, right? Like- Yeah

she’ll go, we’ll do an hour long episode. You’ll have like three hours going into it, right? Oh my gosh. Like really deep stuff.

Kirsche: And I, I super appreciate my audience as well, because it’s like when I do this Bridge deep dive stuff and I, I wanna like show what I’m looking at so nobody can be like, “Oh, she’s just making it up,” it’s like, no, you can see how I found it while I’m live.

Hmm. But it, it is a lot of corpo speak. It is a lot of like dry, “Hey, this is really good information. They’re telling us what they’re gonna do. They’re telling us how they’re going to subvert us,” but it’s very dry, very boring language

Malcolm Collins: Wow. Wow. This, and then this is when, So, so in this part of the timeline, now we’re at the Anna- and the Anna Valen thing was a complete sea change for a lot of people, one, because I think it validated the VTube community for the wider [00:16:00] conservative movement that before it was unsure, like Fox Girl, right?

Like, “What? Ugh, I don’t know. That looks weird. That’s like a furry- Yeah ... thing or something,” right? You know? And we see the outlets that were used to sort of affirming, “Oh, you can trust this,” because they’re mad at it, and then all of a sudden I think a bunch of people were like, “Oh, okay. Okay. I’ll, I’ll take a, I’ll take a look at this.”

Because the story did so well. I, I don’t know if, if y- so on our video on this, I don’t know if you ever, have you ever dove over Anna Valen’s personal diaries?

Kirsche: I don’t know what the personal diaries are, but yeah. We, we found quite a bit on their degenerate interests, I guess you could say.

Malcolm Collins: They’re, they’re really sad. Like, basically- ... their, their life falls apart. That’s our episode where we, we call them a cenobite. I don’t know if you know cenobites from Hellraiser.

Kirsche: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They’re like the life of a cenobite. This is what happens.

Kirsche: That’s a, that’s a good word to use.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. We, we, we, we had, like, AI videos where we have, like, cenobites doing book readings with kids and, like-

“Why, why are you having trouble with this?” You know, like, chittering [00:17:00] their teeth. Ah. Yeah, right.

Simone Collins: But,

Malcolm Collins: Then, then post this a really interesting thing happened which was in a huge part because of the, the Vtuber community. W- we go into this deeper in some other episodes, but the Vtuber community is intrinsically more nerdy than other parts of the right.

Like Tim Pool, I, I used to be a big Tim Pool fan myself. I, I don’t find his new stuff as interesting as his older stuff, but he you know, he’s still, like, a n- a normal not nerd guy, right? Yeah. But the Vtuber community, almost intrinsic in its identity, is not gonna crash out on anime, like Matt Walsh or something like that.

Yeah. It’s not gonna crash out on girls in bikinis.

Kirsche: Michael Knowles interviewed a furry recently, so it’s not yet over for me. Maybe I should reach out again

Simone Collins: as well.

Malcolm Collins: Wait. Who, who interviewed a furry?

Kirsche: Michael Knowles. Michael Knowles. He’s part of the- Oh, what furry

Simone Collins: did he interview?

Kirsche: I have no idea. I just saw some-

some video of him on Twitter with, like, a guy in a fur suit in an interview setting, and I was like, “What the hell?”

Simone Collins: [00:18:00] Glass ceilings broken.

Malcolm Collins: Cra- crazy lore on us. We were supposed to be on the last episode of Tucker Carlson. Oh,

Kirsche: wow ...

Malcolm Collins: but he was canceled. Yeah, his booking team and everything. That’s crazy.

We set up a date and everything like that, and then he got canceled. F*****g S- so angry about that. I mean, I wouldn’t wanna be on Tucker Carlson now. I wouldn’t care as much, but I mean, I still would. He’s big enough, I still would.

Simone Collins: Yes, you would. Come on. Yeah.

Kirsche: I have no idea what happened to Tucker Carlson.

I just know that I like his soundbite of, like, “Y- you’ve been a bad girl, and you’re gonna get a vigorous spanking.” What? Why did you say that? Why did you say that? Oh,

Malcolm Collins: we gotta, we

Kirsche: gotta

Malcolm Collins: drop you in on our conspiracies here. So this is one of our biggest conspiracies. It is and I, I don’t know, like, I say it as a joke, but, like, also I wouldn’t put it past him.

It’s that whenever somebody starts being mildly critical of Israel, Mossad poisons them so they go crazy. And then, like, three years later, they’re, like, gibbering insanity. This happened to Tucker Carlson. This happened to Candace Owens. This happened to Nick Fuentes. Like, they all start just m- being mildly critical.

Three years later, crazy.

Kirsche: So it’s like this is the prototype [00:19:00] of the mind control chip, but if you have it in you for too long you just go crazy?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, that, that’s probably it. Oh, like in The Fall Out where they, they turn it on too much and their heads explode.

Kirsche: Yeah, the technology just isn’t there yet.

They only get a good couple of years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I know we’re laughing at this, but it did turn out that the Southern Poverty Law Center was the KKK’s major donor. I

Kirsche: mean- So like- It was crazy to find out ...

Malcolm Collins: yeah. They definitely-

Kirsche: There’s so little right-wing extremism, the left has to fund it.

Simone Collins: Yep.

Malcolm Collins: ‘Cause there’s just no- Someone’s gotta do it

really any extremists anymore. There’s no- Yeah. But it ended up pushing this sort of like nerd version of right-wing culture, which I think has, has done a lot to create this sense of community. And it’s one of the things that we’ve noticed as well, where when we started as like right-wing content creators and actually I’d be interested in your thoughts on this all of a sudden because of the VTuber community, we’ve gotten into like this community where like we interact with other people a lot more, which didn’t happen in our early days.

But I guess you never were in that, right? Like, you [00:20:00] always have been interacting with people. Or did it like feel to you like this wider fringe group began to appear all of a sudden? Or

Kirsche: was that only true of me? It definitely, it definitely began to feel like a wider fringe group began to appear. I always kinda kept to myself.

Like, there were only like a few handful of people that I would collab with, especially regularly. I just like, I don’t know, didn’t, didn’t really like reaching out to people too often, and especially once I started going in a more political direction. I was just like-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah ...

Kirsche: well, a lot of people just wanna, you know, play games and, and do, do normal stuff, and I don’t wanna have like the effect of, well, their audience is gonna revolt and cause issues for them.

And so like I you- it’s just not, it s- it sounds like a headache, right? Yeah. So I just, I just didn’t do that all that much. And it’s also interesting, I agree with you definitely that the, the Vice situation blew things too outside of the VTuber sphere because in 2024 I was supposed to be on a panel at OffKai, and I got told that [00:21:00] I can’t be on panels because I make volunteers feel unsafe.

And they showed me a handful of tweets like making a joke about Sam Hyde entering a woman’s weightlifting competition or explaining the difference between the LGBTQ extra long acronym between Canada and America, ‘cause we have two different really long acronyms. And apparently me explaining that to people is problematic.

And also like me telling Tim Poole that he was wrong about the Charlemagne clip when, when he was saying Charlemagne wants DEI gone. It’s like, that’s not what he said, Tim. Right, they had, they had a handful of like posts and clips, like my, my pronouns on Discord being burger queen. Mm-hmm. They’re like, “This is why you make people feel unsafe.”

Malcolm Collins: And this is why they feel unsafe. Yeah. No, I mean, these are the tactics they use to control organizations, right? Like-

Kirsche: Yeah. And I mean, I- ... I’ve shown proof of, of like OffKai not only playing these kind of political games where they’re like, “You don’t believe in the things we do, you can’t have a panel here, but we’re gonna have identity politics panel about like being Black and Vtubing.”

Malcolm Collins: Oh my

Kirsche: God. “And we’re gonna actively sabotage people like in Phase Connect on their, on their stage [00:22:00] debuts.” And it’s like, no, people were just like, “Well, Kirsa should have just kept her mouth shut. Kirsa shouldn’t have caused any of this drama. Kirsa shouldn’t have said anything.” Right? Like, this is causing a huge issue for something that like everyone likes going to and it’s like, why do you wanna give money to people that hate you?

Like, yeah, you wanna support your Oshi, yeah, you wanna do things, but shouldn’t you demand like a change in the venue, the people who run the venue? Mm. Because they clearly dislike you. Why would you give them money?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Well, I wanna, I wanna I’m gonna say this for the end, the, the, the, the going into how we actually fight and win-

Simone Collins: Mm

Malcolm Collins: and where we fought and then not won, and the tactics that we use and the tactics that they use at work. But one interesting tidbit that I thought you’d find fun remember how I said we started this podcast much more progressive? One of the first guests we had on this podcast, I, I doubt you’d be surpri- you, you’d ever be on the same podcast as this person, but was Aella.

Oh,

Kirsche: the f*****g sex lady.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. We had

Kirsche: a- Oh my God ...

Malcolm Collins: an early podcast with her on how to do a consensual non-consent orgy

Kirsche: Didn’t [00:23:00] they just have a tweet recently where, like, somebody got pregnant at a consensual non-consent orgy? Okay, so, yeah, Romy- Like, I

Simone Collins: don’t- Romy- Yeah ... who helped organize her gang bang birthday met her now f- I think future husband also father of her first kid as a fluffer at the p- at the party. And they

Kirsche: moved on to- That is a story you literally cannot tell people.

That is so disgusting.

Simone Collins: Romy, no, in the Bay Area, in the Bay Area, I, I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the Bay Area,

Malcolm Collins: that’s romantic.

Simone Collins: It is, it is so normative. But- Like, I- you just think that BDSM equipment is part of people’s everyday furniture, and I’m not kidding about that. Like, it’s just- She grew up in San

Malcolm Collins: Francisco, so

Kirsche: yeah.

Yeah, but, like, imagine their kid being like, “Oh, you were the f*****g orgy baby. Do you even know who your real dad is?”

Malcolm Collins: Hold on, we gotta the, the, the funnier thing about all of this is in a recent episode of our show, Romy, the girl who you’re talking about, who met the father of her child at a gang bang, wrote a piece against abortion that radicalized my [00:24:00] wife, Simone, against early stage abortion, like, last week.

Kirsche: That is crazy.

Simone Collins: I was previously against, like, after week 12. So basically when you develop neural tissue and you’re capable of feeling pain. Yeah. Like, no, we’re not doing this. Then it’s about a conversation about euthanasia if, like, you’re gonna die painfully anyway. But, like, before that, whatever, who cares?

I th- I didn’t have any understanding that there was anything wrong with misoprostol or anything like that. And then she writes this incredibly articulate Substack about her experience trying, like, going through a chemical abortion, early stage abortion, and it’s so horrifying. And she develops- It, it, probably, like, postpartum psychosis. Oh, wow. And it’s horrifying. And then she, like, when she talks about it with other people, other women, ‘cause of course this happens a lot in the Bay Area. Like my mother didn’t think that she’d be able to get pregnant around the time she was trying to have me because she had had abortions and they had, I think, been complicated and other things like that.

So I[00:25:00]

I- apparently a lot of women were like, “Oh yeah, I’ve had that terrible, harrowing experience as well trying to, like, get a kind of- When you

Malcolm Collins: talk about harrowing, the piece includes eating babies. If, if we just wanna talk about like- What?

Simone Collins: No, well, not eating bab- Like, a- another woman had passed her, her baby, like, after taking it, like a- after taking misoprostol, and passed the baby in, like, the, the like a dive bar bathroom.

And was like, “There it is.” And then she’s just like, “Well, I have to eat it now.” And she- No you don’t. What the f**k? But like, Rosie’s like, “I completely understand.” And, like, unfortunately I’m so ... I get it too. I’m like, yeah, I ... Like, where are you gonna put it, in the toilet? Like, you have to reintegrate it.

I don’t know. But, like, it’s so heartbreaking and, like, when you actually think about, like, even though this is a very early life, it’s still a life, and it’s still this thing that you’re destroying. And it’s-

Malcolm Collins: Talk about radicalizing. You should read the piece, by the way. It’s radicalizing. You should read it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s- Can I, can

Kirsche: I- Like, I think, I think my, like, least conservative opinion is I’m still on the, like- it, sa- safe, [00:26:00] rare, whatever the f**k it was. Like, or the original reason- Yeah ... for abortion. It’s, like, very early on, very rare, in, like, certain circumstances, like incest, rape. Like, I’m, I’m okay with those kinds of things.

Like, in the case of motherless- That’s how I feel ... the baby is not viable, right? Like, it’s, it’s not- Yes ... going to survive to term.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Kirsche: That makes sense to me. Mm-hmm. But, like, if, if I was in a position where I was getting a chemical abortion, which is obviously, like, you don’t have to go into the doctor for that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Kirsche: I’m not gonna go out to, like, dive bars or other... I’m like, “I’m gonna stay home as much as possible,” right? ‘Cause, like, why the, why the f**k would I take that risk? Yeah. That’s insane to me.

Simone Collins: Yeah. The,

Malcolm Collins: the, the piece starts with a, an abortion party, right? Just to sort of highlight how little she thought of this at the beginning, but I think it shows, like, people are getting radicalized.

Like- Yeah ... like, even the people you wouldn’t expect.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Kirsche: Yeah, there shouldn’t ever be something called an abortion party. What the f**k is wrong with people? Holy Christ.

Malcolm Collins: Oh.

Simone Collins: And [00:27:00] yeah, I mean, it’s, we’re getting to this point where I think people are now, like, ironically, even if they’re really in far progressive culture, making fun of it from within it like, sort of realizing how sick it is, but then not fully internalizing that until they come face to face with it in some personal way.

And then they’re like, “Oh, wait this really isn’t working out.” And hopefully that will happen before too much damage is done to, to more of society, but we’ll see.

Malcolm Collins: Society’s been pretty damaged, Simone.

Kirsche: Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna have to agree with that one.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay, so, the, the, the direction I wanna go with this is now let’s talk about, like, tactics.

So one of the things that you keep putting, pointing out is that we have these warriors out, like Robbie Starbucks, right? Who will go out and do a piece on a company and be like, “Ah, you see, I exposed them for being woke.” And then a bunch of newspaper articles will come out saying they’re, they said they won’t be woke anymore, and, and they don’t even say that.

And then people on the right just, like, believe it, right? Yeah. And everything goes back to normal, largely speaking. And the policies don’t change. Because once you, you get these [00:28:00] people into companies, it’s very, very hard to cut them out. And in fact, there is only one instance I am aware of, of them being effectively cut out and that was the Twitter acquisition.

Yep. And that required a, what was it? Like 89% reduction in staff.

Kirsche: Yeah, it was a huge reduction, and that, that is the only way to cut them out, is to fire them. Because again, Bridge has been informing companies, like, this should not be a siloed approach. You cannot have DEI just in your marketing or just in your HR team.

Any kind of, like, DEI consultants or DEI teams within your company need to be dissolved, for one, to protect your company from lawsuits against conservative activists like America First Legal. Yeah. And two, because this needs to be a company whole approach. This needs to be completely holistic. All of your employees need to be on board with the DEI work.

And eventually they will just naturally take it home and bring it to their communities and bring it to their dinner tables. This is, this is the ultimate goal. And so whenever these like DEI teams are being dissolved and Robbie [00:29:00] Starbuck was like, “Yeah, we’re winning. We did this.” Even in their press releases they’re like, “We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

And it’s like, why can’t anybody read? Just, just like I’m not a genius here, I just have eyeballs. They barely work and I can still read. Like,

Malcolm Collins: So, so let’s, let’s, think through. So the, and I had mentioned before we started recording, like the one instance where like we’ve really successfully won against DEI is in the video games industry.

And that is not, a- and, and we need to talk about like how radical some of these win cases were. We had video games that people were spending like $400 million on that had like a top player count of like a few hundred people.

Kirsche: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or like 20 people pl- playing a couple weeks post-launch. And this didn’t happen once.

This happened like, it’s still happening today. Like this has been happening for years, it’s still happening today, and it’s like the entire industry. And I think that what I take away [00:30:00] from what happened to the video game industry is boycotts alone will never convince a company that’s infected with DEI to remove the DEI.

Kirsche: Yeah. I-

Malcolm Collins: if, if you couldn’t, I mean, keep in mind when L- Ubisoft like fails, that’s like real people losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Mm-hmm. Right? Like this isn’t like a small thing. When these giant Sony games fail, this is like real hu- And the, even they can’t wake up enough. And so let’s try to think through, why can’t they wake up enough?

Because the people at the very, very top, I don’t feel that they’re actually... I think they think going after DEI, “Well, what if somebody says I’m a racist?” And, and being called a racist in today’s soci- even still, even after all the work we’ve done is still this absolutely toxic thing, when it, when it’s like, even when it’s like not true, right?

That can get you fired, that can lose you LPs. I mean, that happened with us. We were in the private equity space, right? Like [00:31:00] that’s Simone and my background in this sort of thing. We can’t get hired at a major mi- private equity firm now. So it’s wielding that against... What are, what are your thoughts?

I, I’d love to hear your thoughts before I ramble more.

Kirsche: I think that a lot of it is the people in charge of these companies, they understand the maliciousness in their lies, but they are people who believe like once the cultural transformation takes place, we will be positioned in part of the like elite class.

We’re not gonna be like the plebs down there on the bottom. We’ll be in a good position because we have ownership of these companies. People will want us to promote their messages. We’re gonna be part of the ruling class. And then all of the little people who work on the video games who are like, “Yes, DEI is necessary.

You just hate games with women and Black people in them,” they’re like the true believer useful idiot types where they actually believe that they’re doing something good that’s going to have a good effect and is going to help them reach the like utopia that they’re dreaming of in this regard. And so, like, one thing I’ve always been saying ever since I discovered [00:32:00] Bridge was that they are basically foregoing short-term profit for long-term cultural dominance.

So- Still, yeah ... even though we see all of these, all these games and companies losing money, and it’s great, and it’s a win, and I love to see it, definitely keep voting with your wallet, they’ve planned for this. They, they know that they’re going to be losing money because the modern audience doesn’t exist yet.

The modern audience is what they’re striving to create. By transforming all these IPs into something horrendous with Marxism and all this DEI nonsense, the younger generations will mostly have the exposure to these remakes, to these retellings, and to these other stories that are being made right now that we all make fun of and don’t buy.

And that is where the problem lies. Yes, some of us will go to libraries. Some of us have our own, like, VHS or DVD collections. Some of us are smart enough to be like, “We don’t wanna show our children that. We’re gonna only show them the original IPs.” That... You have to think like the average normie. The average normie- Yeah

isn’t gonna be hunting down the classics. They’re gonna be showing their kids whatever [00:33:00] slop exists, which is why we have an entire generation of iPad children in the first place, because that made it much easier to just offload your child to TV.

Malcolm Collins: And so it’s very- Can you imagine how fucked we would be if they were actually competent?

Like-

Kirsche: Yes ...

Malcolm Collins: if, if they could actually make good games or tell good stories, right? Like, we, we actually have an episode on this called the, The Wachowski Effect, which is why do trans people’s ability to tell good stories seem to ch- like, just tank after they transition?

Kirsche: That’s a great question ...

Malcolm Collins: because, like, Dragon Age: Veilguard, the writers for it were the same writers as Mass Effect 2.

Mass Effect 2 was awesome. Wachowsk- the, the Veilguard was terrible, you know? Mm-hmm. And w- I mean, we... It, it could be any number of things. We, we go over a few hypotheses in this. But yeah, we’ve... The, the... And I think this is a core to our eventual victory, is that there... It turns out they’re, like, really bad at their jobs.

Like, once they stuff these companies with DEI people, they are comically inept. M- I mean, we’ve seen this from the [00:34:00] games that they’re making and stuff like that. These are not particularly impressive games. And look at, like, Har- Harley Davidson. What innovation has Harley Davidson made since it, since it w- w- what, what new interesting thing?

What has Campbell’s done? What has... They, they win by capturing institutions, and we can only subvert them by creating counter institutions that are strictly better than the captured institutions. Mm. And I think that this is partially why we have this huge freak-out around AI because AI is allowing for that.

You know, if you look at something like The Skybrow Cinematic Universe. Like, in terms of like the music I listen to on a day-to-day basis, you know, it, it, it includes something like Skybrows or Holy Ball or, you know, any of the, the creators that are directly downstream of our ecosystem. Because the songs that they’re creating are as good as any other song I’m getting out there right now.

And I think with AI in programming hopefully we can see, and I’d really [00:35:00] like to see this in our space, it’s something I’m beginning to work on, is people in our space making video games. And then eventually hopefully we can move to making products. Like, Leaflet had to move to making her own plushies and making plushies for other VTubers because the plushie company wouldn’t work with her because she’s a conservative.

What, what are your

Kirsche: thoughts? I, I would also, I would also say, like, M-Make- Makeship dropping conservative creators was really interesting to me, and throughout my cancellation campaign I was, I was talking to, like, YouTube’s people. They were completely fine working with me again. I just did another plush with them.

So like there are still companies that are like, “You know, we don’t care about the cancel mob. We’re, we’re going to work with people that we think are decent people

Malcolm Collins: Mm-hmm. But does that not, I mean, do you... O- okay, so a, a side question before this because there was something you said at the beginning that I was a little confused by.

Do you think the people who actually run these large companies, not the people who run, like, the DEI firms, like Bridge and stuff like that, but the large companies, are they actually committed to the DEI mission, or are they just not thinking? Are they just [00:36:00] sort of like the scare tactics are working against them?

Kirsche: I, I think it’s probably a little bit of both. Depend- it depends on the company, but some of them definitely will have the, like, CEOs who are like, “Yeah, this is all b******t, but I’m gonna push it anyways because it will position me as, you know, a, a person in the ruling class rather than to be ruled over like the other little pleb useful idiots.”

And then there’s also gonna be the people who are like, “Well, I’m terrified of people making a stink, so we should just capitulate to them.” And when, when you encounter one of those, like, “We’re terrified of them making a stink,” you just have to make sure that the counter stink is worse than the initial cancel stink, right?

If companies are more afraid of the backlash that they will get from cutting creators or cutting people from a regular job for just no f*****g reason because everyone’s like, “I hate them. They’re a big meanie pooh-head.” Yeah. As long as companies fear the result that happens after that, then they’ll stop doing it.

At least the ones that are just afraid of that cancel mob anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, we, we did see [00:37:00] a change in company policy if we talk about the victories we’ve had around overly woke advertising after the Dylan Mulvaney thing. Yeah. Like, I have not seen things that bad in advertising since then, but they’re still within the company.

They’re still preventing who can be hired.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Right? Like, the statistic that came out about the gaming industry, what was it? There, there was, like 45% of, like, new hires in the gaming space over the last year were LGBT. That’s crazy. It’s like that’s, you know, active and aggressive discrimination, right?

You know? Yeah. And w- I mean, once you get that in there, you can’t fight back without creating lateral institutions. Now you’ve mentioned still wanting to work with people if they just cancel s- like, have you thought about what... Yeah, what’s y- what’s your battle plan? You’re, you’re the chief here.

You’ve been at this for longer. You’ve y- you’ve been doing this. What’s, what’s the battle plan here? How do we actually win?

Kirsche: That, that is a great question. In my opinion, what needs to happen in order to get the DEI rot out of companies is either you starve [00:38:00] them for money for so long, like Ubisoft, that they just have to fire everyone and they end up closing down, which, I mean, they haven’t yet, but they might be.

And other than that, it, it’s just like you have to make sure everyone gets fired who’s involved in pushing DEI stuff. And that should be easy to tell based on what their roles used to be at the company, what they did in their positions, the kind of materials they would push, right? Like, you just have to make sure those people cannot be there.

And that’s why, like, colleges, when colleges would be like, “Oh, we’re getting rid of our DEI department,” and then they would just reassign their, like, DEI people to other places. I’m like, they didn’t do anything. They did what Bridge told them to do. They, they reassigned people to embed them elsewhere so it’s less noticeable what they’re doing.

The DEI is still there, and you can’t believe them that it’s not there until they fire these people

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay, so how best to starve them? So one of the things that, that I’m seeing so this is a trend we’ve noted among conservative women in our circles. And this happened [00:39:00] after we learned that Leaflet buys from the same f- clothing manufacturer Simone does which is we’ve learned that a lot of conservative women are just buying, like, medieval clothes on Etsy.

Kirsche: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, actually.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, God.

Simone Collins: They work. They’re good.

Kirsche: Yeah, they, they are.

Malcolm Collins: But I think that across brands we’re in a world where we can do that now, right? Like, if a stuffy company isn’t good enough, a, a, a single VTuber like Leaflet can figure out how to make it herself. If a- Mm-hmm ... a clothing brand, they’re annoying, we can build our own supply chains.

And with AI, increasingly we can make our own products. So I was talking to you before the stream, but, like, if you look at the AI system that we’ve built, ‘cause we’re just constantly building new systems, we’ve built best chatbots on the market. We’ve built best AI both not safe for work video and image generation on the market that uses every mainstream model.

VTuber creation, recipe creation, an auto stalker and,

Kirsche: I think it’s also really funny how, like, the people on the left have gone from, “Ha ha, no one wants to work [00:40:00] with you, you stupid chud” to, “Ha ha, you have to use AI because no one will work with you, you stupid chud.”

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it’s like, but AI is awesome.

I like

Simone Collins: the AI stuff. And also, yeah, like, ha ha, I will never use AI, and then their lunch is eaten by all the people who are just building better companies. It’s like-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The, the product we’re working on now that’ll hopefully be done in, like, a week or something like that is we also have a vibe coding software that we’ve built, but is gonna be an integration for, like, email and Discord and WhatsApp, and all of the places where people reach out to you just because of us as, like, famous content creators, and I’m like, “I only want this in one place.”

Mm-hmm. And then complete automation for that. And I’m like, I’m really annoyed that no one has done that very well yet, so I just decided to do it myself. But, like, people in our space can just build stuff, like build games, build s- And I wanna really encourage that, ‘cause I think that that’s the only way for us to realistically eat at their money.

Like, if somebody- Mm-hmm ... in our space starts creating motorcycles, I bet they would be much better motorcycles than Harley motorcycles. And I think it’s probably doable. I [00:41:00]

Kirsche: mean, there’s definitely a barrier of entry to doing stuff like that, especially whereas, I mean, it, it’s starting to get a bit better, and I know some companies that I’ve worked with are looking to get more manufacturing back onto the American side instead of having to use China for everything, which is great.

I love that. Yeah. I would love more, like, American-made products, especially to offer to my audience. And, and so it’s like there, there is a barrier of entry to, like, making physical stuff like that. But yeah, I agree. If, if somebody has the wherewithal to do that, like, absolutely set up a competing company.

Try to... Like, you, you’re probably not even gonna have to try too hard to get business away from a company that people have to begrudgingly buy for, from because there’s, like, not- Not really m- much else to go for, right? Like, a company- Yeah ... Nas- usually, like they control so much, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Well, people hate these companies now, and, and, and they are increasingly...

I mean, if they become increasingly inefficient and when I talk about them being inefficient, look at the cost of, of food these days. Look at the cost of the things- Mm-hmm ... you buy out there these days. Mm-hmm. The cost of the raw components have not gone [00:42:00] up that much. What you’re paying for is corporate incompetence.

That, that’s been the primary point of inflation. You, you talk about this on your show but like, if you look at the education system in terms of like putting money into public schools, and you look at a graph of like increasing costs over time, the amount of money that’s going for teachers over like the past 20 years has been about the same.

Mm-hmm. The amount of money going to administration has increased like 20x.

Kirsche: Yeah, the useless daycare jobs.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so, it’s, it’s... I, I guess burn this stuff down, but also on the right, r- we need super doge. I think you’re right about that. That’s what I want from the next president is super doge.

Kirsche: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: don’t know.

I don’t, I really don’t know if that’s possible. Part of me is just like let these systems... I mean, they are financially unsustainable. With demographic collapse, they will crumble. Like they, they will, they... Their days are numbered, so just let them collapse. And more important it is, it’s, it is more important now to invest in and focus on the alternate systems that we’re going to have to [00:43:00] all adopt- Mm

as those systems crumble and fall apart. Like just today, I’m so excited about Midjourney’s medical announcement that they have this new scanner that is faster and hopefully in the future less expensive than an MRI that can be integrated with like a spa experience. And it’s coming from like the company that I use to generate AI anime images.

Like it’s, it’s amazing. And it’s... I, I think that we are going to see, to your point, like we don’t necessarily have to think, well, I don’t know if we’re ever gonna see US manufacturing again. I don’t think we’re ever gonna see like armchair scientist control of medical technology again because AI is weirdly and disruptively going to make a lot possible that we didn’t think was possible.

Kirsche: I think there’s also something to be said for like building your own ecosystem and getting together with other people to help build them things as

Simone Collins: well. Absolutely. Yeah.

Kirsche: But not just like waiting for the old giants to fall apart. This is, this is the point where it’s like you have to be aggressive in at the bare minimum being like, “Don’t buy [00:44:00] products from these people and here’s why.”

Like not doing the same preachy thing that leftists do where it’s just like, “If you buy these things, you’re an evil Hitler.” But it’s like you wanna get that information out so people know like, “This is what this company is doing. This is what they’re gonna continue to do. They’re lying to you, and they’re trying to subvert you.”

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely. Well, and I think, and I think for my audience, this is... I, I, I... One thing I like about this space is, like, you obviously were a big motivation for, like, Sky Browse to do some of his early videos and stuff like that, right? Like-

Kirsche: His videos are so freaking good, man.

Malcolm Collins: Aren’t they? They’re fantastic.

Amazing. Have you seen it all, by the way?

Simone Collins: Oh.

Kirsche: I’ve seen- Yeah ... a good chunk and I’ve, I’ve left some to play while I’m working. They’re like-

Malcolm Collins: Our kid sings them all the time. Now our kid is, is singing the, the, the Mormon one, the, the Bricks and Mini Pigs. Cool. You know, like...

Kirsche: I haven’t even gotten into that situation.

I had a few people in my chat tell me about it, and I was like, “Oh, I should look into it.” But then so much information kept coming out about it, I was like, “How am I going to- You- ... digest this?”

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s incred- It will, it will [00:45:00] piss you off so much. Like, like so many times, and I think that this is, is, is, is important w- more widely in our community, is be like, look, I like Mormons, I want Mormons on, on the in, but, like, we do need to get in some sort of intra community policing, right?

Like, we, we, we sometimes go into this with, like, I’m a big fan of Jews, right? But like everyone’s always like, “Malcolm, Greater Israel,” and I’m like, I don’t much care about the countries around Israel. Like, okay, Greater Israel, f- whatever. But, I’m

Kirsche: kind of just like, that’s not my sand, not my problem.

I don’t care about anything that exists- Yeah ... in the sandbox. I just don’t want American people or American money going to any wars over there.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. We, we need to cut off funding for Israel. And I, and I was like, I don’t understand why we don’t just do that. It’d be such a win for the Trump administration.

It-

Kirsche: I would love to cut off aid from everywhere. Like, holy s**t. At least, like, I understand if we wanna maintain our position as, like, a super world power that nobody can f**k with. Like, occasionally we’ll have to just, like, throw money at some p- places. But for the [00:46:00] most part, I think we should cut that off entirely.

Cool. Like, zero aid to anywhere for at least a little while.

Simone Collins: Well, and it’s really, it’s not even our aid that matters. It’s, it’s our supply chains and buying power. Right. So, like, we don’t even need to provide aid. We can just change small incentives here and there with where things are shipped- Well, and see-

and how things are shipped ...

Malcolm Collins: w- I think we’ve gotta be aware of the consequences of cutting all aid. Like, look, when US aid was cut, the, the, the thing was cut look at all the elections of Latin America since then. Rightists keep getting elected.

Kirsche: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like, clear- clearly this has had a huge- Not enough

huge impact on these countries.

Kirsche: Clearly ...

Malcolm Collins: some of, some of them are putting people in jail and, and now have lower rates of homicide than they’ve ever had before.

Kirsche: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Some of them are cutting major social programs. Th- this is horrifying.

Kirsche: Horrifying for whom?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, right. I love that Trump and Argentina are, they get along so well now that they’re like, “Hey, let’s, let’s hand back those islands from the UK,” right?

Like- Oh

Simone Collins: my

Kirsche: gosh. And everyone was just like, “Oh, I thought people on the right wanted foreign aid cut. What about all this money he gave Argentina?” It’s like, well, [00:47:00] Argentina paid it back after, like, six months or some s**t, so...

Malcolm Collins: that’s true. That’s also awesome that like the in, in Latin America we are seeing a lot of projects work.

Like what’s happening in El Salvador is amazing.

Kirsche: It is. And I, I wish we could do like El Salvador and just start arresting activist judges who keep f*****g things up. I wish we could just do that.

Malcolm Collins: And the El Salvador prison system is apparently like really, really cool and good. They really focus on like, getting people jobs and stuff like that, and like- Huh.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, they’re, they’re nice. They have, you know, they have the nice prisons and they have the less nice prisons. But the nice ones are super nice. Well, the, for

Malcolm Collins: the kids anyway. Yeah. You just, you know, I, I, I don’t mind the, the, the Trump policy of just like instead of prison, just like e- the, the sending migrants just like where- wherever they can.

Like when they- Make public bathrooms great again ... when they can’t send them back to their own country, they’ll just be like, “Ah, we’ll send them to Haiti or whatever.”

Simone Collins: Yeah. Just-

Malcolm Collins: But I, no, I mean, I think the point I was making earlier is if you’re a fan of this show- [00:48:00] With AI and stuff like that. I’m not saying go out and white label some existing product and make it conservative or something like that, right?

I’m saying and, and AI can really help you with this. Figure out how to buy beans from a local farmer somewhere and ship them in a means that’s cost efficient. If you can do that using a network of AIs, you can get a cheaper product on the sale shelf than Campbell has, and a better product on the shelf than Campbell has, right?

Like, this is true of all of the products all the way down. With AI, we can just do things better now. I, I know with something like, okay, putting together a motorcycle. Yes, I’d love if you do it in the United States, but you know, you talk to the right shops across like China and Shen- Shenzhen and stuff like that, you can get the parts made inexpensively enough, stress test them, then have them constructed in the United States to get over the tax and, th- like, I, I want...

I think for so long we’ve been trapped in this life of you go to college, which doesn’t help people anymore and is one of the core sources [00:49:00] of rot- Yeah ... and you then get a day job. And I think what I wanna radicalize people into doing is like at least look into the alternatives. And I love Leafly’s music video about this, like don’t go to college.

Like, like put that money into trying to start a job because you’ll learn more in the-

Kirsche: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah. W- there’s, there’s so many opportunities out there now. But anyway, so- g- continue to go on. I, I don’t mean to-

Kirsche: No, no, you’re fine. I tangent all the time. It’s great. And it’s like I, I agree with you as well, like we should be setting up our own-

like parallel systems if we can, but it, it’s harder in certain areas than, than in others. Like, when, when Stream Elements announced that they might be shutting down or they’re being bought out by nobody knows yet, but when Stream Elements announced that, a lot of us went, “Wait a minute, what are we gonna do now?”

That was like the- What are Stream Elements gonna do? ... the link to use to like get donations without YouTube or Twitch or anywhere else taking a cut. And now what are we supposed to use? What, what else is there?

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s a donation platform. Well- I mean, okay, so [00:50:00]

Kirsche: it’s a donation platform ... basic- basically, it’s a donation platform, and what they do is they have it so you can pay with PayPal, and obviously you can use, like, a credit card and PayPal or whatever, and that’ll go to your PayPal, but it obscures, like, your personal information.

And then they also have something called SE Pay, where if the person doesn’t wanna use PayPal, there’s a lot of people in my community especially who are like, “Screw PayPal, I don’t wanna use them. You need to have an option to dono that doesn’t use PayPal or require a login.”

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Kirsche: So SE has SE Pay, and so you can just use your card or, like, a prepaid card or whatever to, to pay through SE Pay, and it bypasses...

It has nothing to do with PayPal whatsoever. And so it was nice to have this, like, donation link-

Malcolm Collins: I could build you

Kirsche: that ... that did that and obscured, obscured your information so nobody got your name, nobody got your address, nothing like that.

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I can probably build you that in a week or so.

Kirsche: Yeah, that’s...

So, like, that was, that was something where people were just like, “Well, what am I gonna do?” And, like, there’s Streamlabs, but Streamlabs had a problem years ago where they tried, like, infringing on OBS, where, like, [00:51:00] OBS was like, “We don’t care. Everybody can use our, our code and everything.” But Streamlabs was trying to be like, “Well, we made this.

This is ours,” and everything was just, like, copy-pasted from OBS

Malcolm Collins: No, I’m, I’m being serious Is there an

Simone Collins: alternative now? Like, what are people using instead? Yeah.

Kirsche: No, everyone’s still on either Streamlabs or Stream Elements- Yeah ... because that’s, that’s what there is. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, I can build this for you. That

Kirsche: would be crazy. And so many VTubers would use it ... I can

Malcolm Collins: build this for you. Yeah, so- I just

Simone Collins: feel like there’s spe- like what your, what your m- m- most important and, like, desired things are. No, hold on- ‘Cause if you do

Malcolm Collins: that- Hold on, hold on, Simone. I, I need to explain something.

So the way... The big challenge in putting something like this together is that the credit card companies will try to get to you, because the credit card companies are very aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. But, essentially what we do is you donate to our nonprofit. And- ... if you use your correct email address, it then accredits points to a separate site- Hmm ... sort of behind the scenes. Interesting. And so the payment providers don’t see this. So- Mm-hmm ... we would still lose any margin that we lost on the payment provider, and then we’d probably add some [00:52:00] small, like, one or 2% margin on this.

And then the- ‘

Kirsche: Cause I was gonna say, I think when it comes to Stream Elements, the SE pay, the only percentage taken out is the processing fee from the card companies, which is why everybody uses it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, okay. Well, I mean, I could do it without taking out any money as a good favor, but... If people mention our site.

Okay, so I’ll do it without taking out any money. Yeah ... so we’ll just take out the, the card processing fees and just have it go directly to whoever the streamer is. I- in terms of obscuring user information, all of that will obviously be captured by the payment provider. Mm-hmm. But I can obscure it on our end, if that makes you feel better.

Kirsche: Yeah, I mean, if you haven’t used Stream Elements before, I can always, like, take some screenshots and, like, show you what the dashboard and stuff looks like internally.

Simone Collins: That would be really

Malcolm Collins: helpful. How do they make money if they’re not taking any

Kirsche: The way that Stream Elements made money is Stream Elements was, first and foremost, before they came out with SE pay, a sponsorship platform.

Yeah, yeah. So they would go and find sponsorships, and they would post them on their website, and then streamers could go and sign up for them. And when you got big enough, you would have, like, a Stream Elements representative who would personally contact you and be like, [00:53:00] “Hey, we have these sponsors available.

There’s this many seats. We wanted to reach out to you. Do you wanna do these?” And so they would make their money from the sponsorships, because, you know, they’re probably taking a cut from those before we get paid out.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, okay. Another thing to note is the company that does all this is actually a nonprofit, so people can donate to it as a tax deduction as well.

So- Oh ... I’ll, I’ll try to get this set up for you.

Kirsche: No, that would be interesting. I’m sure a lot of people would be very nice to have something. ‘Cause, like, when, when Stream Elements announced that, like, we don’t know who’s buying them yet still. But it’s like- Yeah ... I can only imagine all of us are just like Well, is it gonna work the same way?

Like, we don’t know who’s buying it, so we don’t know how they might f**k it up. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Very exciting. Okay. Yeah, sure. Just send me what you want and... But this is what I’m talking about, right? Like, if, if somebody’s leaving the space and they’re being a jerk, I’m like, “Okay. I, I can build this for, for...

Operate it for free in exchange for a promotion for our site,” right? Like, Yeah ... that’s, that’s an easy thing for me to do. And it’ll work for as long as it doesn’t explode and get big. I mean, obviously our platform is very [00:54:00] chud, so all the progressive VTubers are still gonna be on it. Great. B- because, yeah, we have... Like, one of the features that we have is a feature that searches every not safe for work image gallery at the same time. What the heck? ... just to annoy the, the the people who, who freak out about that stuff. But yeah, that’s really cool. What other bottlenecks do you have? I, I built the VTuber automated creation system because Leaflet said that people would appreciate that.

Mm-hmm. What, what other issues do you have?

Kirsche: I mean, me personally, I have issues with artists being reliable. Like the illustration artists I’ve worked with, they’re amazing. I love them, love every single one of them I’ve worked with. But model artists I’ve basically been waiting on my main model to be finished since 2020.

It was supposed to be finished in 2020. I have another model that’s been being worked on for several years now as well. It’s like my, my riggers or my artists just kinda disappear or don’t finish their work, and then I’m out thousands of dollars.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. So we have a system that can get you a new... So I, I’ve got to improve it.

Like we’ve obviously got to improve the end-to-end system. We don’t [00:55:00] have hand movement yet. I’m still working on boob physics. But you, you... I’ll send it to you and you can, you can try the beginning of it. But it works for a low-quality model now, and I can get it working for a high-quality model with...

Like what you would probably wanna do is generate something with our system, then hire a rigger to refine it. And with the refinement and an artist to refine it, like- Mm-hmm ... refine the eyes and stuff like this in a few areas. And I, I think you can get a model that’s as high quality as the model you have now with just a few additions to what we have.

Kirsche: This, this was given to me by a community member, Fumetsu no Tora. He makes things very fluffy. He has a very distinct art style. I like it. And he, he made this as like a gift for me, and I’ve had a few of these gift models because people in my community have just gotten like, just so- Annoyed ... frustrated.

And, and it’s, I, I appreciate that they get frustrated on my behalf because it’s like I, I can’t even show the extent of frustration I feel for how long some of this stuff has taken. Like I understand that being an artist is not, you know, a traditional job, but if you’re making your money off [00:56:00] of it, you should be treating it professionally in my opinion.

And in the VTuber sphere it’s kind of, taboo to call out artists. Like even if an artist has like taken your money and fled- ... you are still considered the one starting drama by bringing- The riggers,

Malcolm Collins: man. So this is something I’d like a callout in my audience for because it’s something that I don’t have the time to make my skill and it would really help make this an end-to-end cycle is the RFAB VTuber creation system.

If anybody wants to specialize on post-output improvement of our models because it gets most of the way there I’d be happy to intro you to people who need that service and even advertise you on the website if that’s something that you wanted to, to build as a skill set if you’re like, “I need a Some- but, but no being flaky.

We’re gonna be pretty strict about, like, actually getting things done within short time windows.

Simone Collins: We’re also actually pretty good at being go-betweens between commissioners and artists, ‘cause that was literally our first startup as a married couple. [00:57:00] Oh.

Kirsche: See, that is, that’s incredibly... That’s pretty much what VGen is.

And I, I like VGen as opposed to SKEB, because with SKEB, like, you’re not allowed to contact the artist at all. And so if you get given something and you’re, like, missing something you’re basically up s**t creek. Whereas on VGen, you, you can message them and be like, “Hey, you forgot this file,” or, “Hey, you didn’t make the background on this transparent.”

And it’s like I’ve, I’ve never really liked SKEB, and I used them once. And the one time I used them I had asked for, like, transparent backgrounds so that I could use the stuff I’m paying for in streaming, and I wasn’t given the transparent backgrounds, and obviously I can’t contact them, so I can’t get it fixed.

Oh, my gosh. And there wasn’t any way to get rid of the entire background, so it just looked really s**t with trying to, like, edit the background out myself. And so I, I could never use those things that I got.

Simone Collins: That’s so

Malcolm Collins: frustrating. That is incredibly frustrating.

Simone Collins: Yeah, what we used to do was we had a platform that had artists and then clients, and we would match them.

And we would do all the communication. So, like, a client would say [00:58:00] something really, that would really make an artist, like, sad and not wanna work on it anymore. And then we’d, like, say it in the nicest possible way and be like, “They love it so much. There’s just this one adjustment that they realize would make it

Kirsche: so

Simone Collins: much better.”

See, like, I

Kirsche: need... ‘Cause, like, cucking the artist is terrifying to me now, ‘cause it’s like-

Simone Collins: Yeah ...

Kirsche: I don’t, I don’t want, I don’t wanna be that client that’s just, “Oh, you need to fix a million things.” And I, I- Yeah ... haven’t been thus far, thankfully. But it’s also, like, I’ve had so many issues that I just I just don’t like talking to artists much anymore.

Simone Collins: Yeah, like you just want someone to, like handle it and make sure the thing comes out good, and we did that. It’s just that there wasn’t a market for it, so it wasn’t a business that could survive on its own. But like, I totally get it, and yeah, it all came from- It’s so weird ... Malcolm, Malcolm proposed to me on Reddit using commissioned art.

Aw. And then he experienced like how hard it was to work with artists, ‘cause he tried to commission, I think he commissioned like 21 pieces- Oh my God ... and discovered, like firsthand, “Oh, this is really hard.” It

Kirsche: is really hard.

Simone Collins: Artists are super unstable.

Kirsche: They are. I mean, I guess [00:59:00] you have to have some kind of instability to be like super creative and bring out like images from your brain.

That makes sense, but like, have, have the kind of volatility that makes it so you still get work done.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it’s, it’s so funny that people are like, “AI replaced all of the things we didn’t want replaced first,” like art and music and everything like that, and I’m like, no, what AI did is it made it so that average jackoffs like myself can be good at art and music, right?

Like, it democratized

Simone Collins: art. Yeah, like they’re doing... We’re, we’re using AI to make art that artists just refuse to make for us. They’re like, “Oh, I’m busy. I can’t do it.” Yeah, it’s like- Like, how dare you take our jobs? ... artists are

Kirsche: refusing. We’re not even, like, taking work away from artists, right? It’s like-

Simone Collins: Yeah, they weren’t t-

they didn’t do- They weren’t accepting our requests. Yes. I mean, they were busy. I, I, we’re making

Malcolm Collins: a VTuber model of Muhammad, right? Who am I gonna get to do that, right? Like, I almost did that. I, I do- Oh,

Simone Collins: come on. It’s not even that. I mean, ‘cause I had to deal, of course, with our, our, our commissioning platform for like all the excuses from artists if like something didn’t happen, and we would, you know, refund our clients.

Like, the money wouldn’t disappear ‘cause it was being held- Yeah ... in escrow by us. Excuses I got included, “Oh, I [01:00:00] can’t take this on, I’m pet sitting for the next month.” Like-

Kirsche: What the heck? ...

Simone Collins: how is watching someone’s cat going to prevent you from drawing a very simple anime line drawing? Like, there’s This doesn’t make

Kirsche: sense.

It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.

Simone Collins: The- these are-

Kirsche: And it’s like I’ve, I’ve had a problem with an artist before where I was like, “Hey, it’s been like a year and a half, and I see that you consistently reopen your commissions and take on new projects, and you finish those new projects before mine. If you don’t wanna work on my project, please just let me know so I can find another artist who can.”

And they’d be like, “No, no, I wanna do it.” It’s like, it’s like they wanted, I guess like, maybe clout from like working with a bigger person, but then like never finishing it. So it’s like, what, what am I suppo- like... And when they’re delayed this much, I lose opportunities. Yeah. I lose ability to do certain things.

Yeah. If I had like stuff planned out, I can’t do any of that. And so like I’ve stopped planning anything around models because I just can’t find artists to finish them.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s really frustrating.

Malcolm Collins: Well then, okay, I’ll get back to-

Simone Collins: Malcolm, make it better. Make it better.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. I’ll, I’ll work on the [01:01:00] VTuber thing.

I’ll send you some of the models that we’ve made already so you can get an idea of like how high quality they are. Mm-hmm ... they’re, they’re decent enough. And I’ll, I’ll continue to improve on the rigging system and everything like that. But what I really need is somebody who’s just like a specialist in this.

So any of our audience who wants to take the time to do this, it’s, it’s... The problem with this versus everything else on the website is I need to go through with every algorithmic change and then load up, add the textures on the model, which all happens automatically but takes time. Mm-hmm. Then load it into VTuber Studio and test if the ears wiggle right.

And if the ears don’t... And, and I have to have different wiggles for animal ears, and elf ears, and human ears. Mm-hmm. By the way, all of this is handled algorithmically. We have a different way of handling snouts- Mm ... so like furry models work and, you know, the, the-

Kirsche: That’s really cool ... I,

Malcolm Collins: I spend way too much time trying to get this right.

Yeah. Well, because I want people to have something that they can use, but,

Kirsche: Yeah ...

Malcolm Collins: it’s, it’s with, with all of these fields, we can make something better. There’s nothing that prevents us from [01:02:00] creating the, the better version of these various things. And after this we’ll wrap things up. After this with you do we have like an open chat on like Discord, or where, where do you talk to people?

Where, where do you

Kirsche: like- Dis- Discord is the best way to get in touch with me. Like I’m still, I have like probably 40 DMs unchecked right now, but it’s still the best way to get in touch with me. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Are we, are we friends on there?

Kirsche: Yeah. Yeah, what she said.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: C-H.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I will build you this thing that you need. It ju- it just was sent to you. Okay ... and, and, I mean, it’s basically nothing to build. It’s literally just a payment sub-system that goes to you, so really all it needs is like- Yeah, with attribution

a way to manage the payment to you. So I, I can handle that.

Simone Collins: That’s very- It’s

Kirsche: just

Malcolm Collins: no one else in the world will do it for free, but I guess I’ll do it for free for clout, ‘cause,

Kirsche: That’s, that’s what, that’s what Stream Elements had. I’m like, I’m, I’m guessing, right? I’m guessing the way they made money is, like, when companies would approach them, like Raid Shadow Legends, and they’re like, “Hey, we have 500 slots for this kind of sponsor thing,” I’m assuming [01:03:00] they would pay Stream Elements before Stream Elements, like, pushed out that sponsor to the rest of us.

‘Cause, like, we never get sponsor money taken out. Whatever we make from a sponsor, like, we keep that under Stream Elements. Oh. So, like, the o- the only thing I could figure is, like, companies pay them for the advertising. That’s the only thing I could think of the way that they were making money.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, hold on.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Why don’t you guys just set up a payment processor that goes directly to you?

Kirsche: I asked. I have guys who work on my websites, like Kirsche.com, and I asked them about adding a page that has, you know, kinda like what Stream Elements did, where it’s just a donation link that obscures all of my, my personal information from, like, PayPal or whatever.

And they were like, “Well, that could be done, but then it gets a little dicey because then we’re holding on to all of that money for you until you withdraw it. And for tax time, that could make things a little weird as well.”

Malcolm Collins: I guess that’s true

Kirsche: I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never set up a payment processor. I don’t care about how the money- I’m, I’m just relaying what I’ve been told

Malcolm Collins: goes through at all. Yeah. I, I, I don’t care [01:04:00] about that. We already handle really complicated taxes for the nonprofit, so whatever. If something can be used... What? You handle it, Simone. I’m sorry. I d- I saw that- Yeah,

Simone Collins: I just... No problem That

Kirsche: face

Simone Collins: of- As the man who has not touched a single receipt related to this entire thing.

We have no accountant. It’s just me over here. No problem. Ooh. But it’s just accounting. Oh, that

Kirsche: made me remember. During my GamerSupps merch drop last year they had a separate gifting website where people could, like, buy my merch items- Oh, cool ... and they would, like, be floating around in the ether that people could claim as, like, a gift.

And you, you had, like, a limit obviously. Like, s- no- no one could claim, like, every single thing. But, like, my community has been asking for that for my website, and I asked my website guys, and they were just like, “That would cost so much to host.” I don’t, I don’t know what it would cost to host. I... My community has really wanted something like that.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, explain the feature to me again. Explain the feature?

Kirsche: I’ll have to go find screenshots, ‘cause I took screenshots of it when I had it. But basically it was a, [01:05:00] an adjacent site to the official GamerSupps website, and it was, like, a gifting platform. And so you, like, you logged in via, I think, Twitch, and they were talking about maybe integrating, like, YouTube or whatever with it later, but it was just Twitch integration for now.

And so, like, people could go to the website and buy, like, a Kirsche cup or a Kirsche desk mat, and they could either pick a person on Twitch to specifically claim it- Oh ... so it’d be, like, tagged to that person’s Twitch name, and that person could go and claim it. Or if they just wanted to buy, like, 20 cups and have, like, anyone redeem them, they would buy, like, 20 Kirsche cups, and those would be floating around in the ether, and you could go to the gift page, and you could hit claim cup, and then you would put in your shipping information, and you’d have to pay for shipping.

But everything is given to, you know, different people. That

Simone Collins: sounds like so much fun. I like the

Malcolm Collins: idea.

Kirsche: Yeah. I c- Everyone loved it. And I like the idea. I wanna do that. Yeah, I like the idea because, like, there, there are some community members who, like, you know, they might be in a bad financial place. They might want something to support the creator, but they, they don’t have the money to do so.

Malcolm Collins: It’s a great idea.

Kirsche: And then the giga whales come in and they’re just like, “Here, my children. Have the gifts. I am Santa,” you know? Yeah. [01:06:00]

Malcolm Collins: I can build this. I can build this. I got... Yeah, d- br- just when you have things you want, come to me in the future, and I’ll just

Kirsche: give you what you want. Oh, hell f*****g yeah.

Hell yeah. Yeah, I- And I’ll try,

Malcolm Collins: I’ll try to make some of the screenshots for you ... remember there was a, there was a LeetBit stream where we had people come in on the stream and they were like, “I want an AI DM for, like, dungeon, dungeon master that, like, handles that.” And I was like, “I’ll make it. It’s done.”

The, the the, the stalker feature I made for Simone. She goes, “I wanna stalk people more easily online.” I was like, “Okay, I’ll, I’ll build that for you.”

Simone Collins: Call it Super stalk and then The recipe maker

Malcolm Collins: I, I put together based on the

Simone Collins: Yeah, but no,

Kirsche: but this is exciting. I love hearing that, like, you wanna get in the nitty-gritty and, like, build these kind of platforms that either only exist in, like, tiny little bubbles or we’re excluded from because we’re chuddy buddies.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, chuddy buddies. The chuddiest of platforms, right? You know, everybody comes in and... No, no, I love doing it because it annoys the leftists, okay? If I can make a good- How

Kirsche: dare you build your own things.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, if I can make a good VTuber rig [01:07:00] system, and then a bunch of VTubers start using it and the leftists will witch hunt their own, Yeah

infinitely, “Are you using the chud VTuber system? Are you using- Did you get chud

Kirsche: rigging?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. It’s hilarious.

Kirsche: And so I’ve, I’ve been told by a couple illustration artists I’ve worked with as well, like, they’ve, they’ve had large VTubers come to them and be like, “You can’t work with Kirsche. You have to reject her if she ever comes and tries to get artwork from you.”

And they’re just like, “Well, why? Like, I want money. I don’t care.”

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, one of the funniest things is AI, and I don’t know how much you use AI on a daily basis anymore. How, how much do you use AI?

Kirsche: I really don’t use AI much at all for anything. My, my head moderator uses AI a lot to, like, double check things or get more sources if I need them or whatnot.

Yeah. And he’s, he’s been great with AI. He makes my thumbnails with AI just because it would, you know, take forever to get an artist to finish- Works great ... different thumbnails as often as I like to change them. But I mean, I’d be willing to use AI [01:08:00] for most things. I think my, my hard stop at the moment is, like, when I’m selling merchandise, I want the artwork on that merchandise to be from a real person that I paid money to.

Yeah. I would feel weird, like, putting AI art on merch. And so for everything that I sell, I, I try to find an artist that kind of matches up with, like, the head image that I have. Because, like, I also would not want to go to an artist and be like, “Hey, change your entire style. Make it this way.” So I try to find an artist that matches with, like, the vision that I have.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, but with AI, this is one of the big areas where we have a huge advantage against the corpos and the average leftist is it’s like the leftists are trying to fight us without beautiful women and without AI, right? Like, th- we should have no trouble cleaning up against this.

Kirsche: Oh, I just thought of something as well.

Your, your, like, VTuber model creation thing is also going to fix another issue some VTubers have fallen into. So back in the day you guys know who Project Melody is, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. [01:09:00]

Kirsche: So Project Melody her model artist DMCA’d a lot of her videos and was trying to strong arm her to pay him more money to use her model that she already paid for- Oh

because she didn’t have a contract saying that she had, like, full IP rights to the model from him. And so there have been a, a couple of other, I think, smaller VTubers who had a similar issue, but it’s like- Oh, okay. Oh my ... whenever, whenever you get your model, like, you need to have an airtight legal contract just in case, just in case that artist decides, “Well, now you’re huge.

I made your model when you had, like 500 viewers, but now you have, like, 5,000, and I want more money,” right? So, like, so they can’t harm you after the fact.

Malcolm Collins: That’s very frustrating. Yeah. Well, anyway, it’s been absolutely great to have you on. I- Sorry if

Kirsche: I ran just a bit over your time.

Malcolm Collins: No, I, I love this.

I love this. This is great. And I’m happy to do, you know, if you wanna come on again, if you want o- one of us on ever. I mean, usually it’s just me ‘cause Simone can’t handle weird times. But

Kirsche: This is true. Under- I mean, she has a baby, you [01:10:00] know? So,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: It makes it tough, you know?

Malcolm Collins: We got, we have five-

Kirsche: I can imagine.

Simone Collins: Yeah, with five it’s complicated.

Malcolm Collins: Trying to replace them. Yeah. That’s, that’s our goal. We have a, a live, laugh, love poster in our house that says, “We will replace you,” i- in, in live, laugh, love style.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So when the reporters come over- Beautiful ... they always get really freaked out. They’re like, “What?”

Kirsche: I, I got...

When I had my PO box, which I, I shut it down because a lot of stuff was just getting kicked back return to sender, like my mail wasn’t being delivered for some reason. Yeah. But one of the things that got delivered was a like Korean flag with Kim Jong Un on it, and it said, “Live, laugh, love.” That’s so

Simone Collins: good.

Oh my gosh. Where do we get one of those? That is amazing. I

Kirsche: have no idea, but I saw that, I was like, “Who sent this? What the heck?” Yeah.

Simone Collins: Thank you, kind stranger. Yeah. Thank you.

Kirsche: That’s a beautiful gift. I love this. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: we

Malcolm Collins: should do something like that, Simone.

Simone Collins: That sounds legit amazing. He’s a very

Malcolm Collins: creative little dreamer or whatever.

Yeah. And also I, the main reason I wanna connect with you on, on, on Discord is just to build, because the stuff that you, you say you need built is not difficult for me to build. It might be difficult for my wife to handle the [01:11:00] accounting on.

Simone Collins: It’s just accountable. I, I think I can figure it out as long as, yeah, the, the reporting.

I mean, the reporting has to be clear for each creator to see what they’ve gotten. So as long as I can see it and keep track of it, it’s okay.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Well, fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah. And it’s completely amazing. Thank you guys. It

Simone Collins: was

Kirsche: fun.

Malcolm Collins: You’re, you’re amazing. No, I mean, I, I- it’s fun, but also just, like, you’re such a legend.

Aw ... you are really the, the buck at which the cultural tide began to turn. It really

Kirsche: broke- I don’t know if I would say, like, legend, but I, I am very happy that I kind of, I guess, held a stronghold door and made other creators feel more comfortable about coming out and talking about things that they care about, that they believe.

Yeah. And seeing, seeing me... Like, I’ve had so many people say, like, seeing me stand up the way that I did to something like Vice, it made them all feel like maybe we can actually have an effect on something. It is true. And so that, that makes me happy. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You didn’t just stand up. You clowned on them. You [01:12:00] crushed them.

It was a complete retreat to the extent that I don’t think, like, Vice even has an audience anymore, right? Like, not, not because of you, but I think that these institutions- Mm ... that we grew up thinking of as important, like Vice, we’ve realized that Vice versus Fox Girl- ... Vice is toothless. They have- I

Kirsche: love how some of them tried downplaying it like, “Oh, this can’t be real.

Like, she wrote it so unprofessional.” And I had a lawyer, man, come on,

Simone Collins: dude. Oh my gosh.

Kirsche: I just treated Vice the exact way that they should be treated.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it worked. And ever since then, there has not been a single, that I’m aware of, successful cancellation of a right-wing internet figure th- that- that was, that was the last of it.

That was

Simone Collins: the last- It was the turning point. It was the turning point. It was, it was

Malcolm Collins: huge Like it, it never ha- do you know how f*****g crazy that is? Like, obviously Elon buying Twitter had a huge effect on this, right?

Kirsche: And I, I also love, like, the, the wave of encouragement that came after [01:13:00] that. Yeah Like, as we’ve seen with like Advanced GG dropping Rev and Straub.

Any time Advanced GG tries to post something- ... everyone just inundates them with like, “Why would anyone work with you when you just drop your creators in the face of a cancel mob, and you keep on other people who harass others, like, objectively?”

Malcolm Collins: And I love wh- when you look at individuals like Rev and Straub, that’s the other thing I really love about the culture that’s come out of this.

And how it’s affected right-wing culture is I think for a while we weren’t sure whether the new version of right-wing culture was actually accepting of people who are, like, different and weird as long as they ch- are, are, are part of our larger... And then, you know, I think Anna Valens affirmed, you know, you and Leaflet for the mainstream wife right audience.

And then GamerSupps affirms Rev. Like, Rev genuine- I think for a long time a lot of people on the right were like, “I don’t know, it’s like an anime, vampire- Well, Gamer- ... all these” GamerSupps

Kirsche: is different from Advanced GG.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, wait, sorry. Advanced GG. Sorry. I know that

Kirsche: they’re all pretty weird and stuff. Yeah.

Advanced [01:14:00] GG were the ones who dropped, who dropped Rev and Straub just for no reason.

Malcolm Collins: To, but they, they, the, the backlash to that I think really affirmed the, the Rev and Straub for a while. The

Kirsche: change, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And now it’s like we’re all, like, just, like, nerdy weirdos, right? Like, the, the nerdy weir- And that’s the other thing about the nerdy weirdos, the, the nerd scene.

It’s not even weird. We’re nerds. We’re just f*****g nerds. Is, is, is we are winning this for the right. Like, we don’t have internal fighting with each other. We don’t have any real scandals. We don’t get married in front of the Pope and then randomly- ... cheat on our husband a bunch of times.

Kirsche: Yeah, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like, we are, like, the wholesome part. And we- Mm ... and it’s like, no sh- they’re, the only shots fired I’m aware of is, like, a year ago Rev was annoyed at Knucks about something and then got over it, right? Like, but generally speaking, it’s like none of us ever attack each other. And I really love that wholesome feeling to this.

As well as creators like you [01:15:00] who are significantly larger than us, creators like Knucks who are significantly larger than us doing collabs. It’s such a wholesome feel to a community.

Kirsche: It’s, it’s really nice and I, I, I enjoy that there’s not as much infighting and I wish that Especially when it comes to Bridge stuff.

Like, even, even if other larger right-wing creators don’t wanna talk to me because I’m anime, I wish they would at least showcase the research that I’ve done. Because I think it’s a very important conversation, and it’s very important to show more people.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so here’s, here’s what I have. So any of our fans who either work at the White House or have connections at the White House I think getting...

Where would you tell them to go for the, the biggest condensed, your research?

Kirsche: My pinned tweet on my Twitter profile is an article of every single source of everything I’ve found researching into Bridge since 2024. The only thing not posted there, because I’m not a journalist, so I don’t know how to go about doing it, is I’ve recorded the monthly meetings Bridge has had, or one of my moderators has when I can’t, [01:16:00] for the last two and a half years.

And I have all of these videos of them saying exactly what they’re gonna be doing, exactly what their plans are, the companies they’re specifically working with, the CEOs and the CMOs and the CFOs that come to these meetings from places like even McCormick, the freaking spice company. Like, I have all of these recordings, and I just, I don’t know what to do with them because I don’t wanna go afoul of, like- Okay, so-

some recording laws- Yeah ... or whatever.

Malcolm Collins: We can also... So I tell our fans, send that to anyone you know. Simone we’ve been, we’ve been asked to speak at the White House before, so we’ve, we’ve done that. And- Oh ... we should reach out to our contact there, Simone, just as a task item. We should reach out to our contact there about this to see if we can get them to look into this at all.

Because it could be an interesting win for them.

I’m connected with them.

Simone Collins: Well, I know,

Kirsche: yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s- And they’re very big, and they’re often very overwhelmed, so maybe they just need to hear about it from our angle, so we should. Let

Kirsche: me... Maybe, yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So I think, I think get Heritage Foundation in front of Bridge. We have connections at, like, Claremont and stuff like that, right?

Like we could- Mm-hmm ... reach out.

Kirsche: Yeah, that would be great. I would love to. Like, anybody who’s willing to talk, just give them my Discord. Give me, like, a hundred- Yeah, ‘

Malcolm Collins: cause I, [01:17:00] I remember talking- ... people to contact me ... with Dustin about starting, like, a, a nerd right or new right, like, institutional, like, fund similar to Heritage- Mm-hmm

or something like that, and he’s just like, “I don’t see what benefit.” But at the very least, we should be handing this sort of information to people.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because you’ve done, like, reams of research on this. Yeah. Which is invaluable. And so that, like, they could take that and run with it. ‘Cause they have the lawyers, and you did the research, and they can just plug and play.

It’s like, “Oh, look, I can start here, here, and here.” Like, that much- Yeah, exactly ... time.

Kirsche: And, and especially- Do you know who- ... more so that, like, obviously everything in my, my Twitter article is for public consumption, but, like, the, the videos of these internal meetings where they speak freely because they believe no one who doesn’t believe other than them is watching- Yeah

it, it’s insane some of the stuff that they say.

Simone Collins: Gosh.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. Who do we... Who else do we know that could, I, like, I’m thinking who’d be interested in going deep on this. You know, Louise Perry talking with you could be pretty good. She’s got a decent audience. And I think she’d be interested Do, do you know Louise Perry?

Kirsche: I do not.

Simone Collins: She’s based in the UK. [01:18:00] She is one of those, like, I- canaries in the coal

Malcolm Collins: mine She’s, she’s really big. She is in the UK. So, you know, we’re known as like the pronatalist couple. Mm-hmm. Whatever we are to Elon- Mm ... JK Rowling. Yeah. In the same way that like JK Rowling can’t spend all day railing against trans people online, Louise Perry can’t

Does that for her, right? You know? Yeah, yeah. She also goes really deep on a lot of stuff and former leftist and everything like that. Yeah. I mean, a, a lot of our government connections are in the UK because like we’ve been better at infiltrating governments there. Which is- I don’t know why that’s the case.

There’s just, I, I guess, a larger nerd government faction in the UK.

Kirsche: I guess maybe. Yeah. I, I moved back to, like, where I’m from, so I’m back in New England, and I’ve, I’ve been meeting with a lot of like libertarian party and free state party people in New Hampshire, and that gives me, that gives me great, great hope for the future, at least out here.

That’s so wonderful. Which

Malcolm Collins: usually I’m like a doomsday party and hope for the best, but- Oh, I used to live in New Hampshire. I love, I love that stuff. Yeah, we, we’ve done we’ve done speaking at [01:19:00] some of that, and we’ve been asked to come speak at something in New Hampshire. Do you know what it is, Simone, the group?

They wanna fly us out.

Simone Collins: H- have you spoken with them? Like, some new s- society and they reached out on X, and I can’t remember the name. I can look it up really fast, but like... yeah. I know there are a lot of, like, free state related societies that it’s like a membership based private society.

Kirsche: Heck yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, awesome. This has been so great. And I’m gonna get building those things, and hopefully I can have them done in a couple weeks.

Kirsche: And I will try to get screenshots of the SE backend and the GamerSupps gifting platform.

Great,

Malcolm Collins: great. Amazing. I’ll try to mimic, I’ll try to mimic them. Just so you know our system runs on Stripe, so that would be the payment processor.

Kirsche: That makes sense. That makes sense. I think God, what’s it called? Sidescrollers plus Locals, I think they also run on Stripe.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh, a- also important for you to know, the reason I use Stripe is because you can use Stripe with Privacy.

Mm-hmm. Privacy is a app that you can sign into that creates- Mm ... a fake one-time use credit card using your credit card that [01:20:00] uses a fake name and address. That’s pretty cool. So if people wanna be, like, totally anonymous, even to me, that can be done.

Kirsche: That’s pretty neat.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. All right. Well- Well,

Kirsche: all right

Malcolm Collins: spectacular. Have a wonderful day.

Kirsche: You too. Thank you again for having me on, and bye bye.

Speaker 6: Okay, so you wanted to show the fans the toys that you bought?

Yeah

All of the places that are, that are trying to destroy the United States of America, or just trying to, or just trying to shoot a nuclear bomb at, at America. Okay? So Iran, for sure, right? Iran. What about China or Europe? Who do you, who do you dislike more?[01:21:00]

So you’re going to handle both China and Europe?

Octavian Collins: And, and on, and on both islands there will be Chinook helicopters drop, dropping snipers to shoot people- ... very fiercely and, and very invisible. Wait, only, only the bad people or the civilians too? Oh, only the bad military people. Or- But the civilians-

Speaker 6: And what are you gonna do with the civilians after you get rid of the military people?

Oh, so you’ll, you’ll bring freedom to China and [01:22:00] Europe?

Malcolm Collins breaks down the Iran conflict and the Trump administration’s surprising diplomatic masterstroke that most pundits on both left and right completely misunderstood. Instead of “giving away money” or weakness, the deal creates powerful economic incentives and on-the-ground leverage from Iran’s angry neighbors (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, etc.) that makes cheating far more dangerous than the weak Obama deal.

We also discuss why boots-on-the-ground predictions failed, Israel’s role, the collapse of Iran’s military and leadership, and the long-term strategic wins for America. Later in the episode, Malcolm makes a provocative case for allowing Sharia law applied specifically to Muslim communities in the West as a way to reduce crime, create a forcing function on integration, and let communities see the real preferences of high-fertility Islamic subgroups.

A raw, high-signal conversation that challenges mainstream narratives on both foreign policy and domestic cultural issues.

Show Notes

Headlines on June 17th

https://drudgereport.com/

OBAMA DEAL BETTER?

TRUMP HUMILIATION

MAGA HAWK MUTINY

TEXT LEAKS

NY Times Above the Fold on Iran:

Live Updates: Trump Speaks at G7 Sumit After Renewing Threats on Iran https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/17/world/g7-summit-trump-france

Stars of Israel’s TV Channel for Bibi Fans Turn on Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/world/middleeast/israel-channel-14-trump-criticism.html

You have to click through on NY Times to get any “what’s going on with negotiations” update, and the headline is: What to Know About the U.S.-Iran Framework Agreement: The full text of the deal that could pave the way to ending the war has not been published. Initial details suggest that it defers the most contentious issues.

Generally, from only scanning headlines, one gets the impression that Iran may be reaching some sort of conclusion, but it’s one unflattering to the Trump administration.

What has happened as of June 17th

A preliminary framework agreement (memorandum of understanding or MoU) was reached and virtually signed around June 14–15, 2026, between the US and Iran to pause the ongoing conflict.

Key elements (based on public statements and reports; the full text has not been widely released yet):

* Immediate ceasefire extension: Halts military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon. This builds on earlier shaky ceasefires (e.g., from April).

* Reopening the Strait of Hormuz: Iran agrees to clear restrictions/mines; the US lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports. Shipping has begun resuming, contributing to falling oil prices.

* 60-day negotiation window: For broader issues, primarily Iran’s nuclear program (e.g., enrichment freeze or limits, sanctions relief). A formal signing ceremony is planned for June 19 in Switzerland (or possibly another venue).

* Other reported aspects (with some conflicting claims): Possible phased sanctions relief, asset unfreezing, and a reconstruction fund (potentially $300 billion, mostly from Gulf states/private sources rather than direct US payments).

The key point per Malcolm: The powers surrounding Iran being directly invested in its recovery and improvement, and Iran’s stable future being contingent on not pissing them off.

Primarily Gulf Arab states (Iran’s key neighbors across the Persian Gulf), through a proposed private ~$300 billion Reconstruction and Development Fund, will be involved in Iran’s reconstructed and therefore directly invested in Iran going forward

Details from the Framework Agreement

* The fund is not direct US government money or reparations but a private investment vehicle designed to attract capital for Iran’s postwar recovery (infrastructure, energy, logistics, manufacturing, etc.).

* Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and others in the GCC) are positioned as primary backers or facilitators (”Gulf Coast Coalition”). They were attacked by Iran during the conflict and have a strong incentive for regional stability. Contributions could include loans, credit lines, or direct investments.

* Why these neighbors?

* Economic interdependence: Rebuilding Iran reduces future conflict risks, secures energy routes (e.g., Strait of Hormuz), and opens markets.

* Mediation role: Qatar and Oman played key diplomatic roles; broader GCC involvement aligns with their security and economic goals.

* Already committed: Over half the fund has pledges from companies in Gulf states, Asia, US, etc.

Other international private investors (Asia, Europe, Africa, South America) are involved, but Gulf neighbors are emphasized for their direct stake and proximity.

The fund unlocks only if Iran complies with nuclear limits, inspections, sanctions relief phases, and other terms. Full details await formal signing (expected ~June 19) and implementation. This structure gives neighbors leverage and investment upside in a stable Iran.

What remains pending:

* Israel getting on board: Netanyahu has indicated Israeli forces will not fully withdraw from Lebanon, creating friction.

* How to work out sanctions and rule enforcement going forward: Loose ends on nuclear talks, sanctions, regional proxies, and enforcement. Trump has noted dissatisfaction could lead to resumed action.

* Iran’s future armament: Iran’s nuclear capabilities, ballistic missiles, and broader regional influence are deferred.

Is Iran Less of a Threat Today?

Yes.

Various ways Iran is nerfed:

* Nuclear Program Setbacks:

* US/Israeli strikes heavily damaged key enrichment facilities

* (Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan) and related infrastructure.

* While Iran retains some highly enriched uranium stockpiles and knowledge (underground elements were hard to fully destroy), its ability to rapidly advance toward a weapon has been delayed by months to a year or more.

* The framework agreement includes commitments to non-proliferation and further talks on limits, reducing near-term breakout risk.

* Ballistic Missiles and Conventional Forces:

* Large portions of Iran’s missile launchers, production facilities, air defenses, naval assets, and drone capabilities were destroyed or degraded.

* This limits its ability to project power, threaten US assets/bases, or sustain prolonged attacks.

* Proxy responses (e.g., from Hezbollah, Houthis) were limited and ineffective in shifting the balance.

* Economic and Logistical Pressure:

* The conflict devastated Iran’s economy and defense industrial base. The recent agreement reopens the Strait of Hormuz (previously restricted by Iran, causing global oil disruptions) and lifts the US naval blockade, but under monitored terms with sanctions relief tied to compliance. This reduces Iran’s leverage via energy chokepoints while exposing it to ongoing oversight.

* Leadership and Regime Strain:

* Strikes targeted senior figures, command structures, and internal security (e.g., Basij bases), contributing to morale issues, desertions, and recruitment problems.

* The regime survived but is in a more defensive, weakened posture.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today, and this is one of those days where I just need to be like- Everybody doesn’t seem to understand what happened at all, and I’m talking about on both the left and the right with this current deal with Iran, which is actually one of the more brilliant negotiated deals that I’ve seen maybe in the past 100 years in terms of us getting pretty much everything that we really want.

And it’s shocking to me that you keep hearing, well, outright false claims that we’re giving them money, which we’re not. But money is involved, but in a way that really, really matters, and in a way that has a lot more teeth than the Obama deal did which is another thing that people are getting really wrong.

So a bit of context, because I- I don’t even know if you fully understand, and I’m gonna get the, the gist of this out of the gate. The big problem we have with Iran and wanting to pull out of the war, right, is that Iran, due to something called a Mosaic Defense Force, [00:01:00] essentially split into independent warlords who don’t exactly follow what’s coming from the top.

We know this because there was one instance where the president said that he apologized for all the strikes on other countries that are their allies presumably, and then the, a few days later he was like, “I, I, I didn’t say... I didn’t mean that. We’re not even doing that.” You know, which implied that one, they’re not listening to him, and two, the independent warlords have more power than he does in this arrangement, because he had to back down from this position.

So this has led to a scenario where even when we do negotiate with people at the top, right? They can then th- they need to be able to, and in a, in a strong and forceful way, have a reason to tell all the people below, “Follow along and stay in line.” Right? And then we have the secondary problem with Iran, which is even if you make a deal with them like Obama did, they basically just ignore it, like they did with the Obama deal.

Because the enforcement of that deal was that you know, the [00:02:00] UN or whatever would send its inspectors in, and Iran just wouldn’t show the inspectors the, the places where this is at, freaking obviously, right? Like we’re, how are they gonna figure that out, right? So that creates a huge negative incentive.

Speaker: Mr. Eel, I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, and your guards won’t let me into certain areas. Hans, Hans, Hans, we’ve been through this a dozen times. I don’t have any weapons of mass destruction..

I’m sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace or else.

Speaker 2: Or else what?

Speaker: Or else we will be very, very angry with you, and we will write you a letter telling you how angry we are.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So functionally, what Trump created was a scenario in which and Iran helped him do this. They made a number of enormous miscalculations that made this deal possible that is just so bad for Iran and people don’t get it at all. So, [00:03:00] the miscalculation, the big one that they made that is almost baffling unless you understand that there were rogue actors within the country o- operating this Mosaic Defense Force and just basically trying to The, the, the reason why they were sending more missiles at, like, Qatar and the UAE and Saudi Arabia and, like, their, their freaking allies than even Oman, who’s been one of their closest allies forever, than Israel, is because that didn’t get you scorecards in the, in the battleship of the dictators, right?

And so this led them to attack. A- and keep in mind, by the way, what the, the right grifters who lie to you all the time, like the anti-Israel right grifters and the leftist said it this word, they said, “This is gonna end up with boots on the ground, huge, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers dying in Iran, that the stock markets are gonna crash,” highest they’ve ever been.

That oil is gonna go to $200 a barrel. Did not happen. You know, and, and when I came out here with all of this, and I told you where I thought this war was gonna go, I’ve been pretty much exactly accurate. Okay? Yeah. So keep this in mind when you’re thinking of your [00:04:00] sources and where you take, like, interest- like, your information from, right?

Right. Because some people are manipulating you and playing you for stupid. But anyway, so it ended up with a scenario where- A lot of these countries have historically ... Well, they were in conflict. Like, Saudi Arabia’s not Iran’s ally. Like, they, they do hate each other. But other players like Qatar was.

Qatar is where, like, Al Jazeera is, which is basically Iran’s global mouthpiece. Yeah ... the reason why Qatar is so close with Iran is because they share the gas field that is the basis of all of Qatar’s wealth. This is the natural gas field. And Iran and Qatar have to get along otherwise they end up fighting in a way that would be mutually destructive.

But now even Qatar doesn’t like them because Iran bombed the main refining facility of Qatar. So- Okay ... all of these other Middle Eastern countries really hate, hate Iran’s guts now. And what they’re saying under the table is, “We want what Israel wants. We want Iran a failed state or functionally eradicated,” okay?

Simone Collins: Right,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Trump doesn’t want this. This would cause a major refugee [00:05:00] crisis and it has- Yeah, yeah ... some other negative externalities. Israel, this is Israel’s endgame, I think. But, you know, Israel is at the moment partially serving us. They’re doing some stuff with Hezbollah. I think Trump secretly approves it.

We’ll get to that in a second. But- Okay ... so Iran closes down the strai- the strait. We’ve said if, in terms of large geopolitical players, we point out that that basically only helps the United States. While it may hurt us economically in the short term, like, like, in an absolute sense, in a relative sense against all other parts of the world no country on Earth is helped more than the United States by a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz.

Because we produce all of the stuff that comes out of there, and are exporters of it, and just basically captured Venezuela, which is one of the other major exporters of it. And so, like, that just makes the value of all that stuff that we own and export and is a major part of our economy go up. And so the people who get hurt by that, as I’ve said, are Europe and China primarily, China the most.

And, and some other East Asian countries. But nobody gets hurt by this [00:06:00] more than who, Simone? Who gets hurt the most by a closure of the Strait of Hormuz?

Simone Collins: Europe, the EU, right? No. China.

Malcolm Collins: It closes ... uAE- Russia ... Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.

Simone Collins: Because- Oh, for this, their oil sales ...

Malcolm Collins: they can’t export their main product if that strait is closed.

And Saudi Arabia has some other ports they can use, but, but minor stuff there. Okay? So all of these people, one, hate Iran’s guts right now. They want Iran functionally eliminated long-term. And th- because keep in mind they’re, it, most of them are a different branch of Islam and the, nobody hates each other more than the two branches of Islam, right?

Those are the two big... y- you think they hate the Jews, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re chomping at the bit to g- go at each other. But anyway, so, they, Iran pretty isolated, right? And this is why Iran, in terms of how they built out their global power projection, had to do it through terrorist networks rather than through alliances with states like the Saudi Arabians did.

So, we [00:07:00] wanna get this strait open, but there’s this Mosaic Defense Force saying, “And we don’t really care that much.” Like, we don’t want the US to put a bunch of money in getting this open. Okay?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So who is most motivated to get the strait open? The other powers in the Middle East right now. So what did the deal functionally do?

It did two things simultaneously that have people pissed off. Both of them are kind of irrelevant. One is releasing Iran’s frozen funds. For people who act like this is us giving Iran money, you guys have the mentality of Josh of Bricks and Minifigs thinking he’s giving the guy a big gift by giving him his Legos back.

It’s like, no, you f*****g seized those Legos. You’re not doing some big f*****g favor by giving them their own Legos back. You just seized them because they had diplomatic sanctions on them. Right? So that’s really irrelevant, and it wasn’t even that much money. It’s like $20 billion or something like that

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: The $300 billion deal [00:08:00] is what everybody is talking about.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: This has nothing to do with US assets. No- nobody in the US is involved in this deal. Okay. So what is actually happening with this deal? What this does is it allows for up to 300 million, which by the way a lot of people... Billion. A lot of people are leaving the up to out of investment.

Keep in mind this is not like a donation. This is not for infrastructure. This is for direct investment by all of these countries that Iran just pissed off inside of Iran. All right? So you’ve gotta keep in mind what that functionally means is going to happen in Iran. All right? So a bunch of countries now that want Iran gone in the long term wouldn’t want something like this again, and would want to be able to act against Iran with more force if this happened again, now basically have a blank slate to build up private operations with private militias, [00:09:00] private everything like that all throughout Iran.

And not just all throughout Iran, but at every key economic node of Iran, because what are these powers going to be investing in? If the UAE, if Saudi Arabia just got a bunch of billions of dollars to invest in Iran, what are they gonna be investing sprucing up? What are they gonna b- be buying? Oil.

Yeah. Oil creation assets, oil creation facilities. And they have a lot of experience in making these very defensible once they get them in place, right? Sure. This actually puts Iran in a terrible position long term, but it’s worse than that for Iran. Because now what they’re saying is, “Okay, I know that you have this Mosaic Defense Force which is going to want to, like, show off and just randomly attack ships and blah blah blah blah blah,” right?

But, this is such a potential boon to the future of Iran because it is still money flowing in, it is still dollars going to [00:10:00] Iranians at the end of the day who will be employed at these facilities, right? That there’s a reason to say, “Hey, we actually lose something very big, this continued investment, if we continue to act bad.”

So now they have an active reason to not do the bad thing with assets on the ground. Now this gets very, very different than the deal that Obama put into place. Because the deal that Obama put into place was sort of like, “We’ll have bureaucrats go there and check your numbers and see whatever,” right?

The, and the bureaucrats don’t really even have a vested interest in making sure Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons. Now under the Trump deal, which is interesting because the Trump deal on its surface feels like it has a lot fewer fangs in it. But because it’s directly tied to these new assets within Iran owned by all of these countries around Iran, right?

Mm. It is way harder for Iran to do two things. One, attempt to nationalize this [00:11:00] stuff. If Iran attempts to nationalize this stuff, they’ve now pissed off every country around them, and given countries that for a long time have wanted to seriously kick butt on Iran a casus belli for a war. And a casus belli for a war that even if the United States doesn’t enter, Israel certainly will, because Israel’s been waiting to do this forever.

And they now know that Israel versus Iran looks really bad on the Iranian side.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So functionally in terms of, like, the actual motivations that Iran has in terms of moving forwards, this is a pretty powerful deal. Now, this isn’t to say that, you know, Iran could be so much of a failed state at this point that they just can’t control their military, that their military decides to go out there, strike random ships, whatever.

At that point, we’ll see what ends up happening. I’m not saying that that won’t end up happening, because that could happen. The other big hitch in this is that Hezbollah s- is still sending missiles at Israel. So Israel decides you know, because they’re trying to, [00:12:00] to provoke Israel, basically. They don’t, they don’t want this to end, right?

Like, a lot of, a lot of these other Iran state actors don’t want this to end. This, these are the, the guys in Lebanon. By the way, if you’re like, “Oh, w- w- killing innocents in Lebanon, how could this happen?” I wanna give you a a just, just a, an overview of Lebanon’s history for people who aren’t aware of it.

So, if you go back to the 1895 census that we have, okay? Okay ... lebanon was 80% Christian. They were, by 1930- Holy,

Simone Collins: wait, what kind of Christian? Catholic?

Malcolm Collins: I think Catholic. Or they might’ve been an Eastern Orthodox branch.

Oh. Or 79% Christian. Okay?

Simone Collins: Whoa.

Speaker 3: They were Catholics, it turns out, which makes all of the de-sucking that the Pope did and Vatican II did not long after this look particularly ghoulish

Malcolm Collins: You go to today what, what is, what is Lebanon today?

28% Christian. You wanna know what happened to, to, to their Christian population?

Simone Collins: What?

Malcolm Collins: Well, mass [00:13:00] murdered. So, specifically we have things like the Damascus massacres, where 5,000 to 12,000 Christians were, like, just pulled out of churches and monasteries and murdered in the streets. And then you have the Lebanon Civil War.

Simone Collins: By whom? Like, what is, what, what contingent was so anti-Christian?

Malcolm Collins: Muslims

Simone Collins: Okay, great. Great, great. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: Muslims. Yeah, I think people, like, when people are like, “But a Jew spit on a nun once.” And it’s like, bro, it’s a completely different scale. A Jew - besmirched a statue of Jesus. It’s like, what, what are you, what are you on about?

Speaker 5: The one that always gets me when people are like, “Did you know that Israel bombed a, a church in Gaza?” And I’m like, “Okay, how many people were attending that church?” It’s like, “Well, there was like three or four.” And it’s like, “Uh-huh, and there used to be hundreds. What happened to them? What happened to them?”

Oh, you, you, you, you, are you willingly unaware or are you just like you like cucking yourself? Because these people, like it’s, it’s worse than being cucked. [00:14:00] It’s like you’re actively out there seeing somebody murder your countrymen, your children, your wife, and you’re like stanning them

Speaker 6: I am fairly confident that these people have some weird NTR fetish and that we’re gonna find out one day when Nick’s, , folder leaks that that was his thing all along

Speaker 4: And for those who are unaware, , if you’re like, “Well, but Jews I guess functionally do the same thing because they vote Democrat,” it’s like actually Orthodox Jews, the ones having kids, the ones who will be represented in the future, the ones we’ll be partnered with long-term in Israel, , they vote Republican overwhelmingly.

So much so that they are one of the key reasons we win the swing state of Florida and have moved that into the easy area to win for the Republican Party

Malcolm Collins: And note here, there are decent Muslims, right? But a lot of them, and the Muslims that have cultural power in Lebanon right now are not [00:15:00] that group. Okay? Specifically Hezbollah, which is essentially holding the country hostage. For 40 years, Israel has told the, the government in Lebanon, “Stop these people on your borders just shind- sending missiles into our country.”

They haven’t done it, so Israel says, “Okay, we’re gonna handle it. We’re gonna, we’re gonna get this. We have greater Israel. Let’s, let’s...” You know? If, if they get rid of the Christians in Lebanon, you know what? Greater Israel all the way. Make it Jewish. I don’t care, right? But Iran wants to include a protection for Hezbollah, or Lebanon in their minds in this because they don’t wanna lose the last state asset that they really have, which is really in tatters anyway at this point because of the pager bombings and stuff like this.

But Israel is saying to Trump, “We’re not gonna do this.” And they go in and they attack Damascus. Which I under- I mean, from their interests, they really don’t want this to happen. They, there have been right-wing Israeli pundits that you can find just railing about the peace deal. Because again, Israel’s best interest is the complete destruction of the [00:16:00] Iranian state.

Simone Collins: Uh-huh.

Malcolm Collins: They do not care long term-

Simone Collins: Scorched earth, nothing there, yeah. Which is-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... yeah Destroy all their economic assets. Not

Simone Collins: great. I mean-

Malcolm Collins: Anything like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No. That’s not what we want. No.

Malcolm Collins: And that’s generally not what America wants. No. So, so you could say, okay, so why is Trump not being harder on Israel, just saying they’re being stupid, basically?

I think it’s because he wants them to do this. So the important thing to remember with the deal-

Simone Collins: Okay ...

Malcolm Collins: is that you need to make it look like you’re doing a lot in terms of your part of the deal. Sure. If Trump can go and talk Israel down and get Israel to get out-

Simone Collins: Oh ...

Malcolm Collins: while this is completely- He

Simone Collins: has more leverage

Malcolm Collins: active. Yeah, he has way more leverage in the negotiations. It’s like, “Look, they don’t wanna do this. I’m trying to get them to do this,” right? It’s, it’s really a

Simone Collins: lot- It’s good cop, bad cop. I- yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So by the way, is this at what you understood of what was happening, or were you just completely with me?

Simone Collins: No, no. My understanding was allegedly there are [00:17:00] talks but this doesn’t do anything to stop any long-term nuclear threat from Iran. Like, yes, we’ve decimated their nuclear capacity, but within a year they could be back up and running. Yes, we’ve ruined, you know, their lower tech ballistic missiles and stuff, but sure, they could just buy new ones.

And this- ... this alleged a- agreement or plans for an agreement, they’re just plans. W- no one has seen the full written agreement. Nothing has been agreed to formally. And by the way, Israel doesn’t wanna back out of Lebanon and who knows what’s gonna happen with Iran? It’s all fragmented. You can’t even get it to agree in the first place.

So basically, if you look at what, I think, the surface of mainstream media and general reporting tells you, nothing is happening. This war is terrible. We’ve wasted money. We’re no better off than we used to be, and-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so that’s just basically- ... Trump

Simone Collins: is embarrassed ...

Malcolm Collins: completely wrong at every single point.

So first of all, remember how I said that, like, we [00:18:00] can’t get Iran to stop making nukes by sending bureaucrats in? Yeah. You know what, what,

Simone Collins: and- Yeah. No, that’s, it’s, it’s like telling, it’s like telling our kids, like, “Don’t do this. It’s against the rules. You’ll get a timeout.”

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: And you just have, you have to change the incentives.

Everything’s incentives, not punishments.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So you- You it, a, well, no, punishments matter too. What, Iran functionally and finally got punished for decades of flagrantly ignoring our they almost have a nuke freak-out, right? By this lore. And people were like, “Oh, it’s always been they almost have a nuke.”

And it’s like, yeah, and they almost got it multiple times. And then we did Stuxnet, and Iran, Israel did Stuxnet, which was really clever, by the way. Again, Jews and their sneak stat. They’re just like speccing into a race with like a plus 25 to sneak. Like, the Hezbollah bombings were crazy. Stuxnet, if you’re not familiar with this, it was a completely offline centrifuge, and they ended up tricking somebody [00:19:00] into taking a USB drive, putting it into the completely offline device, and then destroying this super expensive centrifuge automatically.

Like, the mechanical parts of it. That is the wildest thing I’ve ever heard of in terms of... That’s, that’s some, that’s some Jewery right there. That’s,

Simone Collins: that’s- Next, next level ...

Malcolm Collins: cucking Jew. But anyway, so, Stuxnet set them way back. Like, over and over again, they get set back. They get set back. They get set back.

And now They almost had it finally. And they were basically telling us that. They go, “We have enough to make, I think it was, what? 25 nukes within two months they said, or something like that. Like, like basically they’re just like, “Yeah, we’ve pre-refined it.” There’s no, there’s no reason to have it refined to this amount other than military-grade weapons, and it only takes a few weeks to get it from the amount of refinement they had to nuclear grade and then use it, right?

Mm-hmm. So they’re basically saying, “Yeah, we, we have the capability to nuke.” They’re a country that regularly trans- death to America at political events. This is not a controversial statement there. That’s the party line. [00:20:00] That’s, that’s in the national charter. And that’s obviously a threat to America, right?

Especially given that they have even recently funded you know, the killings of 250 Marines at one of our embassies through, through Hezbollah, right? Like, they, they are willing to nuke American assets, right? Like, they’d probably start with the Jews, but, but you know, we’d, you know, be on the list.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to do an Israel America at the same time sort of thing, just as like a big show of force and how great they are and try to... and of course, Hasan Piker and all the leftists at universities, even if it was Manhattan being nuked, would still be doing these big parades, ‘cause that’s how they are these days.

But, so they almost get the n- the, this material, and it’s like what can we do at this point, right? The only thing we can really do is bomb their military into the Stone Age, and you look at what we were able to achieve with this. We destroyed basically all of their military assets. Their entire navy, which was, by the way, I think four exercises of British Navy,

Simone Collins: Was it really?

Oh, I don’t remember- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... hearing about a big navy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Wow. Well, it’s more that Britain has a super small navy [00:21:00] now.

Simone Collins: There’s that.

Malcolm Collins: Super small and incompetent. But anyway that’s at the bottom, that’s at the bottom of the, the, the ocean now or the, the sea there. But anyway, so we got rid of their navy, we got rid of a lot of their land assets.

We really hurt them in terms of their ordinance stockpiles that they have access to. And but, yes, they can restock, but in the meantime, we also did a lot of physical destruction to nuclear facilities that, that we’re aware of. But more than all of that, we really up the country’s leadership organization.

Like we basically killed Two generations of leadership. Well, not we. They, the Israelis are way better at the targeted killing stuff. We helped, okay? We, we threw a few bombs in there, but they, If you look at the, the, the level of the destruction that happened within the leadership of Iran it’s, it’s genuinely astonishing, and it’s gonna be very hard for them to bounce back from this.

Mm-hmm ... w- when you consider that, as well as the asset damage. And anything that looks like, [00:22:00] from the perspective of other Middle Easterners, re-arming themselves is gonna be bad, and I think that they, they... because they, they’ll withdraw the money. And this is where it gets really good, because the thing that I think that we’ve learned in the United States more broadly, and I think this is what we should learn in the UK, I think this is something that we need to, to come away with, is there was a, the, the, the one of the heads of Qatar, he’s got this speech where he’s talking about how the United States and Europe, he specifically, he was calling out here Europe, he goes, “We’re gonna have to deal with, in the next generation, many a Muslim extremist attacks,” because Europe is not dealing with its Muslim extremists, right?

Like, they are, as we’ve seen in recent episodes, there’ll be, like, a gang rape, and the, the kid, the minors who did it, so they can say, “Oh, it’s not a big deal,” they, they got fines of, like, community service. They didn’t even get jail time for it. They posted it on Snapchat live. Like, the, the level of degradation, and with the new files, which we’re not gonna cover, by the way, of all the grooming gangs, was so much worse than anyone thought.

And they were [00:23:00] 98% Muslim, turns out. So much worse than anyone thought that, that, And these also, these groups target Muslim communities as well. Like, keep that in mind, right? Like, Absolutely horrifying that this has been al- allowed to metastasize. And the, the guy in Qatar’s like, “You and America need to d- need to deal with this.

You and y- Europe need to deal with this.” And when they say deal with it in Qatar, what they mean is drag them out in the street and chop their heads off. Okay? And this is where I’m gonna say something a little controversial. I think we should allow for Sharia law in the UK and in the US applied to Muslim communities.

Oh. So, so here how this works. Okay. I think that we should still be subject to all of the other laws of our country, but in addition to the other laws of the country, if Sharia law would ever have a harsher punishment than the country’s laws, then the Sharia law punishment is applied to any practicing Muslim.

And this is done at the level of local Muslim councils. So for [00:24:00] example, what would happen to these men under Sharia law? The smallest fine that they would’ve had to pay, the smallest thing that may have happened to them as an unmarried man involved in a grape is 100 whip lashes from a whip.

If you’re unfamiliar with what 100... That’s, that’s what Johnny Rico was given for accidentally leading to one of his teammates being killed in a a live fire exercise in Starship Trooper. That is a brutal thing to do to someone.

Speaker 8: I was wrong. The Johnny Rico scene is only 10 lashes for an example of how extreme Sharia law is compared to other, , legal systems. , Just in case you’re wondering how many lashes is generally considered fatal, in ancient Roman and Jewish tradition, 40 lashes was often seen as the point where death became likely, hence the common practice of limiting it to 39 lashes to avoid accidentally killing.

In British military flogging, ,. A famous case in 1846 involved a soldier dying after 150 lashes. Sentences were later reduced to 50 or fewer. A Russian knout, , far [00:25:00] deadlier.

100 lashes were typically fatal. The heavy wire-reinforced tool could break bones in the spine, with some deaths reported as few as 20 strokes. , Modern judicial flogging in the Middle East, sentences of 50 to 100 lashes are common and often survived without serious injury, though deaths occur

, examples include a boy dying after 85 lashes due to a mishit

Speaker 7: recruit trainee John Rico is sentenced to administrative punishment Ten lashes Carry out the sentence

Speaker 9: So if we had Sharia law implemented for Muslims in the West, , and you had something like this gang rape and then they posted on, , you know, X or whatever, , we know it was a Snapchat, you know, you would have ended up with maybe a quarter of these kids just being whipped to death in public. And I [00:26:00] think that would be a very strong deterrent, , both to importing more, , Muslims who want this to be the punishment for everyone and for the Muslim population in these countries.

Speaker 10: Just a few logistical points if you’re confused as to, “Oh, well, how do you determine who’s a Muslim?” Right? The, the answer is easy. It’s by, , mosque,

Records. , Basically you are, , if you go to a mosque and that mosque, , ascribes to Sharia law, then you are put on the records as being a Muslim who ascribes to Sharia law, right? Like, it would be very, very simple. And if you are a kid under 18, , somebody who goes to one of the mosques, then you are counted as on those records

Speaker 11: And if you’re like, “Oh, but that’s so inhumane,” you understand that this is what will become the law of the land in these countries if we allow current demographics to play out. , If you look at the United States, , the Center of Security Policy poll, , found that fifty-one percent of [00:27:00] American Muslims thought that Sharia courts should be allowed in the United States.

, A twenty-twenty-four Heritage Foundation -- poll found thirty-nine percent of Muslims in the United States thought that Sharia law should be the law of the land. Um, in the UK, we have polls ranging from, , forty-three percent., There was a two-thousand-and-sixteen poll, Policy Exchange IMC, , forty-one percent showed it.

In twenty-twenty-four, Henry Jackson Society showed thirty-two percent wanting it. And you can be like, “Well, this isn’t the majority,” or, “It’s only the edge majority in some cases,” but the ones who want it are having vastly more kids than the ones who don’t want it, so they will be the majority of the population in the future.

If you’re like, “Oh, this is... How could you do this? This is mon-” You’ve gotta understand, if you do nothing, if you just allow things to play out, this is the way people of the future will be tried in these countries. So you are, through not allowing this to be engaged with, causing it to be engaged with at a much larger level in the future based on current statistical [00:28:00] trends.

Speaker 13: And again, I have nothing against Muslims or Islam or anything like that. , I just think that there is a version of Islam that is leading to much higher birth rates within certain parts of the community, , that I do find distasteful, the same way I find certain versions of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community that are extremely unproductive, , distasteful.

, And I think that when we look at this version being the high fertility version, this version being the version that’s been resistant to the low fertility aspects of Western culture, , and is, is not integrating, , because the ones who do integrate don’t have as many kids, , that, , , we see many people in the West not understand what the real long-term implications is if they become a majority anywhere.

, And I think that through changing the law system to the one that they want, the one that they’re asking for, for the members on their mosque rolls, , that could help people grok that when they say they want these sorts of punishments, they’re serious about it.

Malcolm Collins: On the high end, depending on which version of Sharia law you’re, you’re looking at, that would be a [00:29:00] public crucifixion.

Now you wanna see gang grape stop really quickly in Muslim neighborhoods? Start having teenagers being publicly crucified in those neighborhoods in Britain, and it’s gonna stop mighty fast.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A- and better- Well,

Simone Collins: you make a fair point that, like, maybe there’s a lack of Sharia law at play among communities

Malcolm Collins: that are- These people co-evolved with these incredibly harsh punishments, right?

Right. Like, we, we point out that, like, m- different people evolved alongside different social norms, and when you take them and put them in a completely different set of social norms their behavior... Like evolution affects personality, behavior, how you relate to things, and humans have undergone an enormous amount of recent sociological evolutionary pressure.

Mm-hmm ... and if you take somebody who’s used to these incredibly strict rules that they use in places like the UAE, and Qatar, and, and Iran, and Saudi Arabia, right? Like, all of these countries have incredibly harsh punishments. Whenever you have a Muslim country that actually has a degree of [00:30:00] law and order- it’s because they are applying these punishments as they should be applied.

So I’m coming up that I’m for Sharia law going forward, just only applied to the Muslim community. And, and they can’t say, “Well, this Muslim did something and it doesn’t violate Sharia law.” If secular law ever give the punishment worse than Sharia law, then the secular law punishment a- applies.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean, I’m in, I’m in favor of any religion’s laws being properly enforced.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I know, but they’re, you’re not even legally... I mean, the, the other thing, if it’s a married man who, who grapes someone in Sharia law, that, that’s just a stoning anywhere. That’s the minimum you can get. They don’t even allow us to stone Muslims in, in the United States or the UK. Like, it’s their own law that they should be stoned.

Let’s f- let their people stone them, you know? And I think, the second thing I think, is I think that pretty soon once we kill-

Simone Collins: Well, okay, sorry. Just to, to- criticize this approach, then you’re also saying that honor killings are okay of young women who have been assaulted. And that’s-

Malcolm Collins: That’s actually not Sharia law

super not

Simone Collins: [00:31:00] cool, right?

Malcolm Collins: That’s not... That’s explicitly in violation of Sharia law.

Simone Collins: It is?

Malcolm Collins: It is. It is. In Sharia law, the woman who is raped, it... Now, there have been local customs where this has been applied. Okay. But Sharia law itself is very explicit that the woman is innocent.

Simone Collins: What about a woman who’s just being slutty, let’s say, by their standards?

Oh,

Malcolm Collins: well, you know, maybe we can let them handle... Maybe we could create some negative externalities for that behavior as well. Okay. But what I think is there’s the secondary benefit to this. One, Muslims

Simone Collins: believe- Now, we, we spend all this time around, like, very progressive people, so I’m just hearing them say, “So Malcolm, you believe that a young lady who chooses to be sexually intimate with someone, possibly someone who emotionally manipulated her at a time in which she’s very emotionally vulnerable and immature, that she should be stoned to death if she chooses to become sexually active before getting married as a teenager?”

Malcolm Collins: Absolutely.

Simone Collins: Are you saying that?

Malcolm Collins: Because there are- Oh, my God ... a number of positive effects of this for society. Okay. The first, we give the [00:32:00] Muslims what they want. The ma- majority of Muslims in the UK want Sharia law- Mm-hmm ... at this point, right? Mm-hmm. In the United States, I think it’s 36% of Muslims. So many Muslim communities want this, right?

Simone Collins: That’s a minority, but okay.

Malcolm Collins: No, in the, in the UK it’s a majority.

, I went through the statistics above listing the polls, but actually in one poll it’s the majority in the US as well

Speaker 12: And as I said, it’s also somewhat irrelevant because the ones who believe this are the ones who have demonstrably more kids, probably about double the rate of kids. And so they are the ones who will be represented in future populations

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And in the US it might be a majority. Now, I need to double check, but yeah.

Simone Collins: I feel like this needs to be opt-in. You know, you have to, like, waive your- No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not

Malcolm Collins: an opt-in for the Muslim communities who have their own mosque and everything like that.

Okay, so, so now you have two-

Simone Collins: How would this be practically enforced? Like, let’s say-

Malcolm Collins: It would be,

Simone Collins: Enforced by Sharia law ... my parents were Muslim, but I’m not. Like, I’m an, I’m an atheist wiccan whose parents are Muslim. What laws apply? I ha- I’ve chosen- So, so- ... to not opt into that

Malcolm Collins: culture ... so it is applied...

First of all, if you’re an atheist wiccan whose parents [00:33:00] are Muslim, you’re an apostate and Sharia law says you should be killed.

Simone Collins: Oh, my God. So,

Malcolm Collins: That, by the way... So let’s talk about why this is such a positive thing, why this would

Simone Collins: be such a positive thing to allow. Yes. Why is this such a positive thing?

Malcolm Collins: First, you give the Muslims what they want. Second, the Muslims who don’t want this would now have a very strong reason to deconvert, right? So what you say is basically you have the right to deconvert from Islam, and the state will protect you after the age of 18. If at the age of 18 you want to deconvert you can deconvert from Islam, and you no longer need to play in this system, and the state will protect you and maybe even open up shelters for people who are doing this specifically.

I, I’d be okay with state funding that, okay? The-

Simone Collins: Oh, for like shelters of a minor who wants to escape?

Malcolm Collins: I said 18 If you’re a minor, in Islamic law, the parents kill you if you leave Islam, okay?

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But the secondary benefit to this, I think minors should have to follow the laws and religion of their parents.

Absolutely. If their parents are paying to support them, [00:34:00] they’re n- the state’s not paying to support them. I mean, in a lot of these Muslim cases they are, let’s be honest, but let’s just say the parents, right? So the second thing, okay, is that visibly, now all of a sudden people in the UK, the leftists in the UK, the, the leftists in America have to visually see that the group that they’re bringing into their country doesn’t want the, the world that they want.

When they see the gay guy being stoned in the street to death, some gay, some, some twinky teen literally being hit with stones until he’s dead, crumpling to the ground in the middle of the street in Manhattan or something like this where they sanction this off or their Sharia law stoning, real quick they’re gonna want these people out of the country.

Yeah. Real quick we’re gonna get immigration,

Simone Collins: Bans in place. Oh, so you’re just saying it’s, it’s a forcing function thing.

Malcolm Collins: It’s a forcing function. We give them what they want.

Simone Collins: And people see what, what... Like, okay, right. Because I guess your broader argument is people are not willing [00:35:00] to intellectually wrap their heads around what many Muslim communities actually for really, like, for real really want.

And if we accelerate that and just give them a preview of where things are headed and say, “This is literally what you’re gonna get,” then this can be staved off from happening. So either it happens at, like, a 10% level now if we make it happen, or it happens at a 100% level 50 years from now-

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, when they vote

Simone Collins: it into national law

thereby ruining countries. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Which is what they want. They want this to be the national law. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: let’s make this the

Simone Collins: law- And you’re just making it a 10% thing I think ... and

Malcolm Collins: then the final externality is you know how quickly the Muslim grape gangs are gonna die out when this gets implemented? You know how quickly a lot of this negative behavior we see, oh, y- w- let’s see, what’s the punishment for, for stealing in Sharia law?

We gonna get some hands lopped off here or something? l- we’ll see what the f- punishment for sluttiness is okay, so for a woman who sleeps with somebody out of wedlock it’s 100 lashes. So it’s the same as a man graping someone, which you know what?

I’m okay with [00:36:00] that. Stoning to death is if, if the woman is married, which I’m also okay with. For stealing, it’s the amputation of the right hand. I am 100% okay with that. Yeah, as for male and female thieves, cut off their hands. So yeah, you, you know how quickly the, the Muslim crime waves we’ve been dealing with are gonna stop when we start cutting off their fricking hands?

Real fast. And the great thing is, is this won’t be done by conservatives. This’ll be done by Muslims of their own communities, which will make their communities less externalities to other groups, and I bet conservatives might be able to get along with Muslims right fast when they start enacting their own punishments on their own group, right?

Like, I could... I’m, I’m being totally honest here. If Muslim communities were allowed to punish their own members in these incredibly strict and severe ways in, like, Canada, in the United States, in the UK, in Germany, a, a conservative like me, I, I honestly think... Because right now the Muslim community, like, why do I have a beef with the Muslim community?

They keep [00:37:00] graping my people, and then it gets covered up by the local police forces. Because they keep going out there and stealing from my people, right, from our government, right? From, from the local stores, from the... They create these enormous the, you know, thief games. They have your externalities when you look at, at, at, at, at, at rates of, of, of being involved in crime.

You see really high rates. If all of that dropped off a cliff, I’d have no f*****g problem. I’d have no problem with Muslims, right? Like, if, if, if, if... And I think it would drop off a cliff if we let them enact Sharia law.

Simone Collins: Well, I guess what you’re saying a lot, is a lot of this is downstream of our broader- At least personally st- very strongly held rule of we are cool with any cultural group that does its own thing, so long as it does not curtail on the rights or liberties or property of other groups.

And the problem- Right, like ... is that you’re saying this particular group is infringing upon the freedom, rights, liberty, and property of other groups that it sh- you know, has [00:38:00] no right to do. So they, they have become in a, or, and/or are becoming an increasingly existential threat to non-Muslim groups, and therefore- And I, and

Malcolm Collins: I wanna be clear here.

Your average Muslim in Britain, like, the, the average, the, the Muslim who wants Sharia law, your religiously observant Muslim, they do not like that these grooming gangs are happening.

Simone Collins: Sure. Of course not. No ...

Malcolm Collins: they,

Simone Collins: they, they want these- They’re, they’re horrible bad actors ...

Malcolm Collins: people punished because it makes them look bad and they want Sharia law in Britain, which may be antagonistic to our goals, but they don’t just, like, want every bad actor out there doing every bad thing, right?

Simone Collins: Like- Well, and I d- I do like, I do like the reframing of Sharia law. Like, I’m just a law and order citizen. Like is that so bad? Yeah. Like, in, in this era- Maximal law and order ... when I think about, like, one of the big sort of Asmongold points of, of our day and age is, hey, wouldn’t it be great if we actually enforced our laws?

That is a- ... it’s an interesting take and an angle that I hadn’t thought about before. What if we just... Like, is, is [00:39:00] Sharia law so bad in an era in which one of our biggest problems is a refusal, a, a broad, a refusal to in- impose laws that we have established and agreed upon as a, a base of citizens? Th- that we want these laws.

They should be here. But no. Yeah. No.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And well, and I, I think, I mean, even conservative Americans, if it ends up working and ha- having the Muslim community become positive actors in our countries, I think many Americans, you know, they, they see the guys, the thieves’ hands being chopped off instead of being released back on the street over and over again, they’re probably gonna be like I didn’t think I liked Islam that much, but I mean, if it’s only Muslims this is happening to, I’m fine.

I mean, that works for me, right?

Simone Collins: Well, I don’t know. But I’ve, I’ve listened to so many horrific stories of the mistreatment of especially children and women within this culture. But that’s

Malcolm Collins: common i- within

Simone Collins: Islamic countries. The problem though is, is well, the, it’s, and, and that it’s happening now without Sharia law.

In, and to your point I guess in many cases in [00:40:00] violation of Sharia law. So in, I think in a sense because they’re in these gray zones where they’re outside nations with Sharia law, nations that wouldn’t even take them as, for example, as, as refugees in some cases that are also sort of accommodating them and, and turning a blind eye to bad, bad actors and crimes being committed.

Perhaps there are, there’s an argument to be made, it’s possible that there are more atrocities committed against even Muslim, practicing Muslim women and children without Sharia law and with the law of the governing country turning a blind eye toward those communities and being like, “I’m not gonna look at this, la, la, la, la, la.”

Like, and, “It would be racist for me to notice anything,” which is screwed up. Yeah, and in a way that- Because even within those communities they’re like, “No, this is not okay,” and yet we have been defanged of the tools that we would use to police this among [00:41:00] people.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Islam has the tools baked into it to police Muslims.

Simone Collins: Right. But then of course those tools are illegal within, for example, the United Kingdom, so the United Kingdom refuses to impose its own laws on many of these groups for fear of being accused of racism or bias, but then these own groups don’t have the tools they require to enforce those laws themselves if they were to just do it without the UK.

So okay, I see your point. My goal, I mean, so obviously, like my number one goal is, you know, promote longterm human flourishing. Our general ideology is, hey, any group should be allowed to do its thing as long as they’re not- An existential threat to other group or impinging on the ability of another group to pursue its, its, you know, prerogative and, you know, have its stuff and do its thing.

But then, like, number three, I really, I don’t like people being harmed. I, I don’t, especially kids.

Malcolm Collins: But, but hold on. I mean, I think that, that you, you frame this in a way that confuses people [00:42:00] sometimes.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I am totally okay with a group cucking with another group when that other group is net less productive than the group who’s f*****g with them less moral than the group who’s f*****g with them.

Because if, if you have a, a negative bad actor on, on your doorstep that’s constantly messing with you, right? Because a lot of people would take the things that you’re saying and saying, “Oh, when Israel defends itself against Hezbollah, that’s, that’s Jews being a negative externality for another

Simone Collins: group.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Because we per our morality at least, if another group is infringing upon your ability to do your sovereign thing within your own borders, y- you have every right to bop them, as we would say, to, like, retaliate. Because they are not allowing you to, within your own house, do your own thing. Mm. So that, I, I agree with you on that

Malcolm Collins: So, I mean, I just wanna end this with a, you know all those people who said we’re gonna have tons of boots on the ground in Iran?

I’ve always said I’m okay with Karg [00:43:00] Island. I’m okay with Karg Island as, as a limited military thing, but boots on the ground in Iran is stupid and Trump’s not gonna do that, and he didn’t do that. And people lied to you. Now, or they didn’t lie to you, they just have no f*****g idea how the world works and they’ve got a bu- an audience of third-worlders who’s totally captured them into these stupid anti-Semitic positions that are just not useful in terms of long-term human flourishing when we’re thinking about, like, useful allies.

‘Cause right now, Europe’s not a long-term useful ally for us. They are, they are incredibly cucked, and Israel actually goes out there, and when somebody acts a fool, they handle it. And I think that we in the United States, in Europe, need to take a l- a line from Israel’s book going forwards. And that that is why I’m totally okay with building this stronger alliance with them and seeing where things are going.

Right, right now I think Israel is actually acting with tacit approval of Trump to help in the negotiations. We can see how this ends up turning out or leaks that come out of the future. But broadly speaking, no, the stock market didn’t crash, the economy’s doing better than ever. No, oil [00:44:00] didn’t hit $200.

No, all of the, no, they, they said that all of the countries in the Middle East would start hating us, when the exact opposite has happened. All of the countries in the Middle East started hating Iran more, started liking us more. There, there has never been a PR campaign so successful for America in the Middle East as Iran deciding to randomly bomb its former allies.

Simone Collins: Right, but you are, you are one small voice whispering within a mosh pit of raging-

Malcolm Collins: Idiots ...

Simone Collins: people.

Malcolm Collins: Idiots. No

Simone Collins: one- The world is just raging ... no one is going to understand this. The message everyone’s gonna come away with is, “I can’t travel this summer because airline prices are insane. My gas prices are higher.

My food is more expensive. People in Europe have even higher prices.” And everyone else is just like, “Oh, and Trump has humiliated himself,” blah, blah, blah. So, like, I think even a lot of Republicans are gonna come away feeling like this was a net loss. No,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, a lot of Republicans have been incepted by these idiots who, like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, who have giant third-worlder audiences, who have a...

I mean, that’s why, that’s why [00:45:00] Tucker Carlson’s moving to Qatar, right? Like, th- this is, this is where his, his, his butter is backed, by the way. Th- this is the position- His

Simone Collins: bread is buttered.

Malcolm Collins: His bread is buttered. They’ve got these giant audiences. As we pointed out in our episode, this changed everything, but the, the internet became significantly majority third world over the past 10 years.

The third world, this is why they stopped caring about, this is why the left stopped caring about, like, American blacks and, and, and the environment. The third-worlders don’t care about those things. And they all got- caught up in these idiot cycles, and they completely believe them. And when you look at rightist influencers, you would get the opinion that people are, are falling for this.

But when you look at the actual right, like MAGA MAGA, MAGA’s 9- 90% pro this war since the beginning, right? Like, MAGA has always been about this. It was never fooled by the captured parts of the influencer class that are acting on behalf of leftists and honestly anti-American interests. And it, it’s, it’s like do people step back and think, “Oh, they, they were just...”

They, [00:46:00] they don’t. They don’t remember. You were like... Like, I was talking to Simone in the car about this in the morning. I go, “Will anybody take a step back and be like, ‘Nick Fuentes had no f-ing idea what he was talking about when this war started.’?” And who was right? People like Nux and Malcolm who, who actually was right about where things were going.

And that maybe- Yeah,

Simone Collins: but what’s, what’s... I just, I’m just trying to say, like, what’s really frustrating is that you guys were right, but that’s not going to change the narrative of how this is gonna work. Like, the people writing the

Malcolm Collins: history of this- No, I, I think, I think we on the right need to be harsher both in terms of our time and our views of the anti-American voices on the right which have been growing.

And I think, I mean, Nick Fuentes isn’t on the right. He’s a Democrat now. He says he’s a Democrat now, just people are so stupid they think that he’s like a right-wing, which he’s not. He’s just a Democrat. But Tucker Carlson still claims to be on the right, right? L- these people... A- and there’s these people with, th- th- you, you see them over, over, who was it?

There was some b- w- Republican influencer who’s all mad about this deal and is saying who’s got a thing on Russian state [00:47:00] TV

Laura Southern is who I was thinking of here. I saw it on nux

Malcolm Collins: like literally paid by the Russians, you know, to try to... And as we pointed out, the Russians, behind BLM, see our episode on that if you are unaware of this they funded a...

Nine out of every ten dollars that went to influencing US politics, one would go to, to quote-unquote pro-Trump stuff, nine would go to b- pro-BLM stuff. Russia has been the party that’s just like we need to f- with Americans. Like, sow division, everything like that. You guys don’t need to do that, right?

Like, when we work with Jews, we get things done, okay? Like, this was pretty cool. You know, actually winning a war. Actually getting what we wanted to, which was a degradation of their military resources to the extent that they’re not gonna be able to move forward, and more eyes and ears in their country by people who don’t want them to develop nuclear weapons.

And those people having a vested interest to continue to invest into the country and own more assets in the country, which makes it harder for Iran to operate independently of the interests of these other Middle Eastern countries. Mm. Which is, again, in our interest because [00:48:00] these guys are our...

They’re, they’re actually pretty useful allies. They can, I mean, like Saudi Arabia, 9/11, right? Like, they can, Be backstabby, certainly more than the Jews. But recently at least, Saudi Arabia’s been pretty good. And so, you know, will that work forever into the future? Hey, all we need to do is keep developing technology, because it’s not coming out of these regions, and the future is all AI, okay?

So the more automated drone swarms we get, the less we need to worry about these people’s opinions. And so in the meantime, let’s let them handle their own, and that’s something we need to be doing more of when it comes to dealing with, I think, Muslim populations. So you heard it here first, base camp, we need sharia law.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Oh, my

Malcolm Collins: God. Yeah, this, is this where you thought I was gonna go with this?

Simone Collins: No. This is not where I thought you were gonna go, but I love that you always surprise me. After all these years together, you never cease to shock and surprise. I love you, Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins: I love you, [00:49:00] too. I’m really excited to see this direction.

Obviously, things could still blow up. I mean, Iran is, as I’ve said, a bunch of rogue actors, and if any of them decide to act basically all the central government can do is to either call in outside assistance or go scorched earth on the rogue actors. Unless the rogue actor’s action gives him more political influence, and then it becomes this whole...

So, you know, so we’ll see.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But I, I do... I would feel a lot more comfortable just personally, like, all right, how soon is it gonna be until Iran, you know, uses its continued tacit knowledge, or at least, like, documented internal knowledge of, like, developing nuclear weapons to just get back where it was.

And if there’s some sort of way to align incentives in such a way where, like, they just really wouldn’t wanna do that because they are better served by not, then I would feel more comfortable. I don’t care what the treaties are. I don’t care what the agreements are. I care about the infrastructure that’s going to be set up after this conflict that would dissuade them from doing that.

So the fact that there [00:50:00] may be some of that from what you said has me excited. Hopefully, that’s what happens.

Malcolm Collins: Yep, hopefully that’s what happens. I don’t see where we’re gonna get a better carrot that we don’t have to pay for than this. So fantastic scenario.

Simone Collins: All

Malcolm Collins: right. Thank you, and to our audience do something to improve yourself today.

Yeah, snap that in. You have to learn to use a new AI product or something.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Do it.

Malcolm Collins: All right, bye.

Simone Collins: .

We’re so close to getting those new mics. Just, just waiting for a potential discount. Just bear with me. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and we’ve gotta get personal audio

Simone Collins: for you guys. Yeah, no, I’m, I’m excited for this conversation because again, I, I looked... Like I thought I was crazy, you know, when I was talking with you in the car this morning, but then I look at the like Drudge this morning “Obama deal better, Trump humiliation, MAGA hot- MA- MAGA hawk mutiny, text leaks.”

Like it just sounds horrible and then I go to The New York Times, their front page

Speaker 15: No, Indy. No, Indy. No, [00:51:00] Indy. It says area closed Remember, Toasty, yesterday you saw pictures of lily pads and, and flowers? Now you’re seeing them in real life

Speaker 16: Well, some plants grow in water. They’re aquatic plants Mommy. Yeah? Why do-

Birds like water too, don’t they?

Oh no, that’s what they like to eat Well, what if the alligator’s gotta eat something? You eat birds, toaster, you eat chicken nuggets. Yeah Yeah. That says area temporarily closed. We could just go in there ‘cause alligators don’t eat kids. What does temporarily mean? What does temporarily mean? Uh, you look yummy to alligators,

Speaker 14: Titan.

No. What does temporarily mean?