Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the sharp rise in Black women’s unemployment in 2025, the backlash against DEI initiatives, and why efforts to elevate specific groups as “minions” of dominant cultural powers often backfire—leaving the broader group to face the consequences.They discuss OkCupid dating data showing Black women receive fewer responses than even many incel-labeled groups, cultural tropes and archetypes available to Black women, historical patterns of favored minorities (Tutsi in Rwanda, Protestants under Cromwell, etc.), and the personal essay by Sesali Bowen (”Black Women Aren’t Just Unemployed, They’re Being Erased”).The conversation covers financial habits, work ethic signals, shifts from “Black Girl Magic” to post-DEI realities, AI automation, government job cuts, and why merit-based systems might ultimately benefit everyone—including those previously disadvantaged by tokenization.Provocative, data-driven, and unfiltered—watch for a deep dive into how “well-intentioned” favoritism can intensify backlash and what this means for cultural resilience and family formation.Would you like to know more? 👀Show Notes* If I were a black woman in America, I’d be going off the grid* Right off the bat, black women have the cards stacked against them the worst in dating markets* And now, whether or not they ever bought into it, black women may have the cards stacked against them* Here are some choice stats from an article I came across covering this:* “In December 2025, “Black women were spending an average of 29.7 weeks, or more than seven months, unemployed—the highest rate among every group of women and among all men except for Black men, who had a slightly higher average,” The 19th* reports.”* “At the height of the summer volatility, Black women accounted for 54.7% of all female job losses, despite making up only 14.1% of the female workforce,” according to an analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.* What’s sick is that the racket that caused the backlash which may be hurting a lot of black women was due to special treatment that was largely exploited by a small subset of already-privileged women* We’ll go through the experienced of one of those privileged women* And look at examples of other instances in which well-intentioned efforts to help specific groups have backfiredOne Women’s Experience of Lost PrivilegeThe Purse published a guest essay from Sesali Bowen titled Black women aren’t just unemployed—they’re being erased.Choice quotes:THE LANDSCAPE* “Since last fall, general unemployment rates in the U.S. have ticked up to 4.4%, from 4% at the start of 2025. At the same time, the jobless rate for Black women has surged, from 5.4% in January 2025 to a high of 7.5% last September. Economist Katicia Roy estimates that “since 2020, the real unemployment rate for Black women is 10.23%.”* “There have been several factors linked to this disproportionate destabilization. The huge AI push, which is automating jobs that humans were once paid to do, is one. Last year’s mass cut of government jobs—where Black women are represented at twice the rate as in the private sector—and the abrupt elimination of DEI programs under the current Trump administration are notable others. As one of those Black women sidelined from the job market, this crisis feels personal.”* Why are black women represented in government jobs at twice the rate as in the private sector?* Data from federal EEO reports and labor researchers show that Black women are roughly twice their share of the overall labor force in federal and broader public-sector employment—about 11–12% of the federal workforce versus roughly 6–7% of the civilian labor force—while their share in the private sector roughly tracks their population share.* Public agencies can adopt affirmative action or “affirmative employment” plans, but these must be formal, justified programs aimed at correcting documented underrepresentation, not ad hoc preferences.* Under federal guidance, race can sometimes be one factor among many in recruitment and outreach, or in limited remedial contexts, but blanket quotas or automatic preference for minority applicants are not permitted under Title VII.* Title VII of the Civil Rights Act makes it illegal for any employer, including government, to make hiring decisions based on race, whether that is discrimination against or for a particular racial group.HER PERSONAL EXPERIENCE* “I’ve been self-employed since October 2019, when I was laid off as senior entertainment editor at NYLON following an acquisition and rebrand. I got lucky and sold my first book just months later—a collection of essays about Black feminism at the intersection of hip-hop, culture, and class. I spent the next year living on my advance and a few freelance commissions, and once my manuscript was done, I pivoted to copywriting.”* Her book: Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist* 351 reviews* “Bad Fat Black Girl offers a n

Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Leaflit Mitsuha (slime-girl VTuber, guild receptionist, and master worldbuilder) for a deep dive into her massive collaborative TTRPG universe in the Lyrian Chronicles / Angel’s Sword RPG.From 10+ years of running campaigns born out of depression, to building a live-service West Marches-style canon campaign with 140+ players, to magic systems, corrupted zones, divine power through belief, player-driven politics, fiend drama, and how AI is supercharging communal storytelling — this is one of the nerdiest, most optimistic conversations we’ve ever had.We explore how online communities are prototyping the future of entertainment, why “cringe but free” vitalism beats shame culture, the power of shared worlds vs. solo gaming, and why asynchronous friendships and player agency matter more than ever.If you love worldbuilding, anime-inspired lore, tabletop RPGs, VTubers, AI creativity, or just watching smart people geek out — this one’s for you.The game can be found at:https://rpg.angelssword.com/If you’re interested in joining the Mirane Campaign you can find it on the Patreon for the game (This is how they fund development, since it’s free to play):https://www.patreon.com/c/angelsswordrpg/homeEpisode TranscriptSimone Collins: [00:00:00] Prefer it?Malcolm Collins: No, actually this is what, so I was just saying that Leaflet is like one of my top three sources of news, and Simone was like, this is the way news should be. And like if you had told me as a young man, well when you grow up, you see it turns out the New York Times, nobody trusted anymore. You know, you, you go to, uh, wall Street Journal, nobody trusted anymore Uhhuh.But you see there’s like these anime characters online and um, a lot of people really trust them. Not, not only that. And it’s like, oh, what, what’s their credentials? Like, how does everybody know that they, you know, are they like work correspondence or something? And it’s like, no, it’s just like everybody starts lying.And so like the five people who aren’t like everybody takes super seriously.Simone Collins: Yeah. Basically. AndMalcolm Collins: they’re just like, that sounds. Insane. And it is like, no, no, no, it’s weirder. You see, it turns out that like the type of music you listen to is going to regularly feature these random anime characters. [00:01:00]Leaflit: Oh, God.Oh. Like the whole, like sky, like,Malcolm Collins: oh, it’s so funny. Leaf flip. We had, uh, one of our kids, uh, who’s watching Sky, because I, I play Sky Browns all the time while I’m working or whatever. I, I like his songs. Yeah, I think they’re pretty good. Mm-hmm. Um, and, uh, you know, and so our daughter likes to identify with every female character she sees.Yeah. So she goes, oh, that’s me. And usually I’m like, okay, yeah, sure, yeah, that’s you. Um, and this, I was like, oh no, actually, uh, that’s one of my friends and one of our older kids was like, wait, one of your friends that’s like an an, that’s like a, an animated character. She goes, those aren’t real. And I’m like, well, okay.So this is a, this is gonna take a little bit of time to explain, uh, but sometimes. They’re real. Uh, Simone, what’s his, uh, sign on the screen? Is this something we can get rid of? Uh,Leaflit: the live,Simone Collins: yeah,Malcolm Collins: live view. Why? Why does it think we’re live?Leaflit: I don’t know.Simone Collins: [00:02:00] I don’t know. But we’re not there. It’s gone. I’ve made it disappear.Everything’s going to be okay now.Malcolm Collins: I invented a new dish today, which is actually pretty good. Um, oh, what’s that? So mac and cheese is extra pepper, like black pepper,Leaflit: uhhuh.Malcolm Collins: It actually works really well.Simone Collins: I think it’s done a lot at restaurants as it is.Malcolm Collins: What made me realize this is a lot of like Asian dishes that you’ve been making recently.Just use obscene amounts of black pepper. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, like pepper chicken and stuff like that. I was like, why, why, why don’t I do this with everything?Simone Collins: Why not?Malcolm Collins: It’sSimone Collins: doable. Okay.Leaflit: Good flavor when it’s freshly cracked and stuff.Malcolm Collins: But the reason I’m so excited to talk with Leaflet today, ‘cause the first time we talked with her, apparently it was like your first time talking to somebody else.Sorry for you. I should, uh, give some context. So Leaflet is, um, quickly growing in influence. I think she’ll soon be, I mean, just based on my viewing it, I think she’ll soon be one of the sort of [00:03:00] dominant right-wing streamers, um, oh geez. In terms of like interesting ideas. Um, and we brought her on ages ago.Um, and, uh, since then she’s gone on all the channels. She’s always on the, uh, the, the side scrollers.Simone Collins: Yeah,Malcolm Collins: side scrollers and stuff like that. Um, and she’s always on ev every Sky Brow video, every one of the Sky Brow videos. It’s like three F-ing leaflet

In this provocative episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into a taboo topic: slavery—both historical and modern. Is slavery “good” at a civilizational level? They explore why more people are enslaved today than at any point in human history (~50 million in forced labor or marriage), critique selective outrage over past vs. present slavery, and examine cultural attitudes toward wartime rape/slavery across groups (Puritans, Quakers, Backwoods/Appalachian Scots-Irish, Cavaliers, Spanish Catholics, Vikings, Muslims, Japanese, etc.).Key discussions include:* Genetic and cultural legacies of “rape slaves” vs. conquest without integration.* Why certain Protestant subgroups showed remarkable restraint (no recorded cases of raping Native captives).* How slavery economically stifled innovation (Rome, the American South).* Maps showing slavery’s concentration in Cavalier regions and its overlap with modern socioeconomic struggles.* Why reflexive disgust toward status-signaling and a preference for strong partners may have given some groups a long-term edge.They argue that, even setting aside morality, sex slavery and post-conquest integration often backfire genetically and culturally—while loving your own people and culture drives lasting success. A data-heavy, counterintuitive take that challenges both left- and right-wing sacred cows. Not for the faint of heart.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone Collins. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a concept that was way more interesting than I expected it to be as I started to dive into it. Okay. Is slavery good?What, and what brought up this concept is like, obviously this is not a topic we were allowed to talk about growing up, or we’ve been allowed to talk about more broadly as a society. No. And so, then Tucker Carlson and, but the left has been hugely glazing recently places like Qatar. Oh. And I’m like, well, Qatar’s a slave state, right?Like, so if, if he can talk about how great Qatar cities are, at least the faction of the right that like, doesn’t like this weird Tucker faction. They think slave slave states are awesome now. And the left thinks slave states are awesome now because, you know, a, a, a across the, middle East. This is just something that we see.Fun fact, by the way, in Gaza the neighborhood where blacks are kept is called [00:01:00] slaves or like slave neighborhood.Speaker 11: But more specifically, ‘cause I wanted to check this just to make sure that’s right. Yeah. It’s called The Neighborhood of the Slaves is where black people live in Gaza, , because having slaves is so common there. , And there were around 11,000, Afro Palestinians are around 1% of the population of Gaza was black.Uh, and, and brought there to be slaves.Malcolm Collins: So yeah, I mean, this is common in the, in the the, there’sSimone Collins (2): a black meadow in Gaza.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In the area. Well, they, they bring them in and use them as slaves basically. So, remember that the, when they were doing the mass genocide in Darfur, there was like, what was it?10 exercise of the deaths in Gaza that this genocide was of Muslims against blacks, and they called them slaves. That was, no,Simone Collins (2): not, not exactly. It’s more just that they were kind of synonymous. It’s just that like.Malcolm Collins: Oh, justSimone Collins (2): the one used [00:02:00] for a black person, sort of, it was, what’s the word for when something’s like Kleenex, you know, or bandaid where like, you know, it becomes genericized of like, well they’re, they’re the same thing.And then, so thenMalcolm Collins: I’m, I’m, I am sure that American Blacks would believe you, you used the n word analogy for that. You’re like, it’s just syn synonymous.Speaker 2: Category is people who annoy you. Audience, keep quiet, please.Speaker 4: Uh, well, oh, 10 seconds, Mr. Marsh. I know it, but I don’t think I should say it.Speaker 2: Oh, ooh. Oh, naggers. Of course. Naggers. Right? Uh, can we cut to, uh, can we cut to a.Simone Collins (2): It’s more just that they were kind of synonymous.Malcolm Collins: Like, yes, it was used in that context, but we use it in different contexts all the time now.Simone Collins (2): Well, if, if you live in a society where the only ever time you see someone who is, you know, we’ll say, who is [00:03:00] purple hair is a slave, you’re just gonna be like, well, you know, I need to get a purple haired person, you know, around the plantation or whatever.Malcolm Collins: Tucker went further, by the way. I just don’t buy your argument at all. They, they mean it as a slur. They mean it as this is how we see you because it, it is common in those regions. But and by the way, fun fact, more slaves on earth today than there ever have been in human history.Simone Collins (2): That’s, no, I, I knew that and it really frustrates me when people are like, oh, we practice slavery in the past.We’re so humiliate

In this hard-hitting Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the “Us vs Them” framework that’s essential for any society’s long-term survival. Why does attempting to build a world without in-groups and out-groups inevitably lead to eradication? From the Mass Effect genophage dilemma (where 96% of gamers make the “moral” choice that dooms the galaxy) to real-world immigration, fertility rates, and cultural resistance, they unpack why shared culture, laws, and realistic alliances matter more than feel-good universalism.Topics include:* Why high-fertility, low-assimilation groups shift societies over generations* The scorpion, snake, and panda metaphor for incompatible cultural scaling* Strategic allyship in a collapsing urban monoculture era: who can conservatives actually work with?* Charter cities, space colonization, and preserving high-agency lineages* Why purity spirals and suicidal aesthetics fail civilizationallyIf you’re tired of bleeding-heart policies that ignore math, biology, and history, this is for you. Malcolm drops unfiltered red pills on why “enforcing existing laws” has become controversial and how groups like Orthodox Jews, Mormons, or even certain Latin American conservatives might make better tactical allies than expected.Would you cure the genophage? Drop your take below. Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Like you can’t just invite somebody into your society without them agreeing to any conditions, you know, have no shared culture and no conditions at all.And just be like,Simone Collins: well, it, it, and it, and once it wasn’t even that anymore. It was also though like, okay, but at least you, you promised to follow the law, like to, to adhere to our rules and laws. Yeah. And what’s so interesting about the current divide between. Democrats and Republicans in the United States is that right now it seems to be boiling down to whether or not we are going to enforce laws.So now exactly, that’s, it’s not even, we don’t expect you to adhere to our culture. It’s, we don’t even expect at least these privileged groups to adhere to our actual lawsWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. It’s exciting to be here with you today. Today we are going to be going back into the concept of us versus them in our [00:01:00] society. And the reason I want to dive into it is because it’s not e like, okay, you’re a random conservative influencer out there and you’re gonna be like, yeah, we should be more us versus them in the way that we see reality.Who saying which, which is true, but how do you define us is us. You know, Americans is us. People who are genetically similar to you is us. Some sort of ethnicity is us, a religion or a cluster of religions. And so this matters a lot. How, how we think about this. And I’m gonna point out during this, if you try to build a world without an us and a them, you in every scenario are eventually eradicated.And the, the reason, this is something that often comes up in conversations that I have in a reality fabricator or. Our fab.ai, our like chat bot site because one of my favorite chat bot stories to play is an ambassador for the Tarn Empire. Going [00:02:00] to meet with the sort of, gay space communists of the federation.And having diplomatic discussions with them was obviously the goal of being eradicating them. And, and so I have to discuss, you know, why their values don’t actually work long term and always lend to more conflict and suffering. But I want to get to how cooked this actually is as a concept.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: So there’s a video game mass effect three. And I will describe a scenario to Simone because she probably won’t know this now, maybe if you’re a gamer, you will know the statistics on this particular decision. But gamers generally like to choose the choice that they see as more, more, right. Oh,Simone Collins: interesting.Yeah. Because you don’t wanna see yourself as a bad guy or be doing bad things. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: So there is one moment in it that’s framed as like this morally complex choice. So there was an incredibly war-like species that ended up [00:03:00] destroying their own planet after being artificially given technology by an outsider species.Okay? This species, because they lived in an incredibly harsh environment, had around a thousand eggs. Per year and lived about a thousand years on average. And so when most of the eggs stopped dying in infancy because they industrialized, the populations immediately exploded leading to nuclear war because they’re already a very aggressive species, anding out most of their planet.So then the species that uplifted them, infected them with something called the genophage. And the genophage is said to make. One in only a thousand Rogan births result in a live healthy baby. Now, I would note here, if you’re already looking at the numbers, this should still lead to a heavily growing Rogan population because [00:04:00] Rogan fe

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into Carl Jung’s analytical psychology — explaining the ego, personal unconscious, collective unconscious, archetypes, shadow work, and more. Malcolm (who is openly not a fan) breaks down why Jung’s ideas sound profound but lead to disempowering, unscientific views of the mind that have quietly infected conservative and manosphere thinking (hello, Jordan Peterson fans).We contrast Jung’s mystical “deep state” model of the psyche with a more pragmatic, first-principles understanding of consciousness, unconscious processing, memory, trauma contextualization, and emotional framing. Learn why repressed memories are mostly myth, how you can choose your emotional reactions (and why that’s empowering), why shadow work can manufacture problems that didn’t exist, and how over-mythologizing the self leads to cognitive abdication.If you’ve ever felt pressured into “integrating your shadow,” doing dream analysis for growth, or treating archetypes as destiny — this episode will give you the tools to spot the woo and reclaim agency over your mind.Timestamps below. Like, subscribe, and share if you want more no-BS breakdowns of influential ideas that shape culture.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about Jungian psychology, which people know I am not a fan of, but I want to explain what his psychology is, and it’s important to know about because if you are consuming. Manosphere content. What you may not realize or even conservative content more broadly is a lot of conservative intellectuals recycle Jungian theory without telling you that’s what they’re doing.Simone Collins: Hmm.Malcolm Collins: Famous person for doing this is Jordan Peterson.Simone Collins: Well, Jordan Peterson talks about young a lot. I think just not that many people necessarily understand how much young has influenced him.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so it’s useful to be able to note, call out when you’re having Jungian BS thrown at you and to understand why it’s wrong, because a lot of it can sound like, oh, shadow work or something like this.I can see. How this is useful. And it’s fundamentally bad because it leads you to bad conceptualizations of how [00:01:00] your brain works. Mm-hmm. That lead you to psychological places that can be more difficult than they need to be to resolve. So let’s dive in. Hmm. The structure of the psyche, in Young’s perspective is that you have the ego, the center of consciousness, your sense of i identity and everyday awareness.It is an important part, but not the whole self, and it can become rigid or inflated if it ignores the unconscious. And this is where you talk about people with like. An inflated ego, and we’ll get to more what he means by this, which by the way, and I think a very bad way to think about this phenomenon.Simone Collins: Mm.Malcolm Collins: Then you have the personal unconscious. This contains repressed or forgotten personal experiences, memories, and feeling toned complexes, emotionally charged clusters of ideas like a mother complex or inferiority complex, which we’ll get to a lot at. The other. Really important to him these act asynchronously and can influence behavior strongly.Now the first thing I need to note, just like [00:02:00] before we go farther. Scientifically speaking to the best of our knowledge in psychology right now. And, and, and, and keep in mind, I am very dubious of psychology as a science, but I am trained enough in it to feel like I have a fairly good understanding of where the BS lies and where where things that we’ve actually pretty much gotten down at this point.Mm-hmm. And one of the things that it seems pretty reliable at this point is that. Repressed memories are not a real phenomenon. Yeah. You do not forget something. Have it continue to affect you and then have it come back later in life. Yeah. When this happens, it is almost always in the studies that have like looked at this a lot.One of two phenomenon phenomenon. One is called forgetting Before remembering. So, what happens in is somebody will go to their, their spouse or something like that [00:03:00] and been like, oh my God. I just had this memory that came back to me all of a sudden of my father or uncle sexually, you know, essaying me as a kid.And this is horrifying. And then the person who they came to is this will be like, oh, oh my God. That is horrifying. Well, secretly being like, actually you talked about that all the time. And causes this phenomenon. Is they’ll remember something like this, but then the context of that memory changes.Hmm. They might remember their uncle doing something funny with them as a kid or touching them in a way that they thought was silly or weird or made them a little uncomfortable. Yeah. LikeSimone Collins: their uncle was always creepy and like did stuffMalcolm Collins: like that that, yeah, it did this creepy thing

In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into Tucker Carlson’s recent controversial takes — from praising Sharia-governed societies and Middle Eastern cities over declining Western ones, to his glowing comments on Moscow, Dubai, and even Venezuela under Maduro. They explore whether Tucker’s shift stems from boomer goggles, elite social circles, agreeableness and exposure to foreign elites, a quest for controversy/views, or something more concerning like foreign influence incentives.The Collins also contrast Tucker with Candace Owens’ more unhinged conspiracies and dissect Nick Fuentes‘ coherent (but hostile) agenda, revealing why he’s a bigger threat to mainstream MAGA/America First conservatism than many realize. Expect sharp analysis on urban monoculture vs. traditional Western values, the illusion of “diversity” in places like Dubai, why Tucker seems unable to distinguish the urban monoculture from broader Western civilization, and what this means for the right in the era of the Iran conflict and beyond.If you’ve been confused by Tucker’s evolution from sharp conservative thinker to sounding “off his rocker,” this episode models his worldview and offers a grounded, pro-civilization counterpoint. Subscribe for more unfiltered cultural anthropology and future-oriented takes.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the increasing craziness that’s coming from Tucker Carlson, which I find really fascinating because if you look at the leading voices on the right that are mad about the war in Iran some are just like, you could see our episode on Candace Owens psychosis.Maxing was Candace Owens, but like, she’s just like a crazy person, right? Like just an actual crazy person.Speaker 2: one you were telling me this morning and I was like, what the, she thought that Charlie Kirk was trained at a school like for gifted children, like in the X-Men with special telepathic power.Well, first, theSpeaker: first thing that like really caught my attention was that she, she claimed that Charlie Kirk was a time traveler based on basically a, a joking flirty text that he sent to her where she texted him, I’m an alien frowny face. And he responded, I think I’m a time traveler. This is my home, but I think you found [00:01:00] me.And time traveled with me. And she took that and just ran with it.Malcolm Collins: So that’s, that’s an example of one like just not, not like normal conspiracy theories, like, just like actual crazy town stuff.And then you have people like Nick Fuentes. Right. But Nick Fuentes has his own agenda, and we’ll go into him more later in this becauseSimone Collins: Oh,Malcolm Collins: I’m glad. Interestingly, I used to believe about Nick Fuentes that he was just sort of a shock jock who was choosing whatever was the most shocking thing to say.Simone Collins: And youMalcolm Collins: don’t anymore. No, I think the war has elucidated his actual coherent agenda. Ooh. More clearly than it was historically. And that has been very interesting to me. ‘cause then I’m like, oh, now I get what he’s actually attempting to do. And it is, it, it, what it means is that he is more of a direct enemy of any mainstream maga America first conservative than I originally realized.Simone Collins: Really? Oh,Malcolm Collins: okay. Because I, I just didn’t get it before and now. And what I’ve realized, he [00:02:00] tells you and his audience what his real goals are. He just leaves out a few steps in between. But. To the next point. Tucker’s different. Tucker is somebody who seems to be broadly saying he is somebody who I really enjoyed and watched his content historically, right?Like, andSimone Collins: he’s been around for a long time. Like this is one of a, one of those lifetime media figures that at least if you’re a millennial in the United States, has just been part of the media landscape, right?Malcolm Collins: The end of his run with Fox, which by the way, people may not know this, Colin’s family lore. But we were supposed to be on his show.We were in talks with his booking team. I forgot about that the last Friday that he held the show. But because it was his last show, they changed the scheduling. And that was brought on him all of a sudden out of nowhere. But we were in talks with his booking team which is really sad because we have never been able to get back in talks with him after that, like the team split up.But anyway, during that period, he was, I think, sort of like the [00:03:00] key intellectual based voice. I like the leading thinker in that degree. This was in the, like it was post Jordan Peterson at that period. And he had really, I think, sharp and interesting takes. So I hear some of his takes now. And.I just am trying to model how he came to an understanding of reality that is so divergent from anything that, that I believe when I, when I saw him before and I, I, I think I’ve come to it S

Are Catholic exorcisms making a comeback? Demand for exorcisms is surging, with the number of U.S. exorcists growing from ~12-24 to about 150 in recent years — yet priests say they’re still overwhelmed.In this episode, we dive into recent reports on the rise in exorcism requests, linked to occultism, esotericism, and satanism concerns raised even at the Vatican. Despite our strong anti-Vatican and anti-mysticism stance, we make the case that structured Catholic exorcisms are surprisingly effective — and often superior to modern psychology for certain issues.We contrast safe, regulated Catholic practices with riskier charismatic/Pentecostal approaches (which have led to tragic outcomes). Plus: the surprising power of ritual, placebo without deception, how big “before-and-after” events rewire self-perception, and why evidence-based rituals like exorcisms can deliver durable mental resets.We also discuss minor vs. major exorcisms, house blessings, our kids’ convergent “basilisk exorcisms,” and why believing you’ve been “cured” can outperform many clinical interventions.Timestamps below. If you’ve ever wondered whether dramatic rituals can hack psychology better than therapy — this one’s for you.Make exorcisms big again? Let us know your thoughts.Subscribe for more unfiltered conversations on culture, evidence-based living, and techno-Puritanism.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about the phenomenon of the surge in exorcisms that have been happening with articles like Demand for Catholic Exorcism Reportedly on the Rise.So we’ll go over a couple articles that talk about this recent surge in exorcisms, and then we will go over why Exorcisms are, and people know on this show we’re generally seen as having a, and I I think it’s important to cite your bias as a pretty anti-Catholic bias. But Catholic Exorcisms specifically are demonstrably a good thing.They, they should hold Simone Collins: on. No, we actually love Catholics. We have a bias against C, the Catholic Church and Malcolm Collins: Vatican. Simone Collins: Catholicism. Malcolm Collins: The V, the Vatican. Yeah. Yes. Simone Collins: Yeah. Malcolm Collins: We’re anti Vatican channel. Yes, Simone Collins: yes. Malcolm Collins: But, but this is one thing the Vatican does very well.Simone Collins: Yeah, we, we are weirdly, despite being very anti mysticism as well.We’re weirdly like, yeah, exorcism’s great. This is, Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of people would be surprised. I don’t [00:01:00] because they know that we’re very anti Vatican and we’re very anti, we’re anti mysticism. Many people would even call our form of Christianity secular in its nature. So they would be surprised that we would be like, Hey, that thing that, like even Catholics get kind of embarrassed about the whole normalization Simone Collins: of Yeah, you don’t hear them talk about it a lot.Malcolm Collins: Exorcisms. And I’m like, no, that’s really good. Like, Simone Collins: well, because we believe in evidence-based interventions and guess what? Placebo works Malcolm Collins: well. Yeah. Which is what I’m gonna go into. If you’re like, well, I’ve heard all these horror stories about exorcisms, where people died and where children were abused and none of those were carried out.By Catholics, they were all carried out by Pentecostals. Simone Collins: Oh, see, I told you Pentecostals, Malcolm Collins: that’s Simone Collins: who you gotta watch out Malcolm Collins: for. It was charismatic Pentecostals too. They’re they’re bad kind. Yeah, Simone Collins: they’re, they are witches. Just Pentecostal equals witch. I don’t know what to tell you, Malcolm, Malcolm Collins: that that episode went live on our private, where we point out that many of the practices in Charismatic Pentecostal [00:02:00] Christianity do not come from Christianity.But they were actually borrowed from AOC cultist in Theosophists of the 19 witchcraft twenties Simone Collins: witchcraft. Malcolm Collins: They, they literally just took witchcraft in, integrated it into Christianity. But I didn’t want to be too spicy with that one. So we, we shelved that episode. Simone Collins: Yeah. You were like, personally, I, I know why you were willing to go so hard on Catholics and you’re not willing to go hard on Pentecostal Pentecostals.Malcolm Collins: At least the Protestants. Anyway, anyway, I’ll, I’ll keep going here. I love your, your, it, it’s, it’s actually about voting. So if we were able to run for president, the Pentecostal vote is in a very important vote.Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like the, the Pentecostals are fractured enough because they’re also, they’re much more likely to be following individual charismatic preachers to be like, yeah, all the other Pentecostals are witches. We’re just not. And so they’re all gonna be like, yeah, Pentecostals very tic. My guy actually Malcolm Collins: vets everything he does. Si

In this provocative Based Camp episode, Simone & Malcolm Collins react to Nicholas Decker’s viral Substack essay and tweet: “When I have children, I do not want them to be genetically mine. Instead, I’ll have someone better than me be the sperm donor.”They explore the ethics of genetic self-removal, Spartan-style cuckoldry, polygenic selection, the power of family-level regression to the mean, why some men feel visceral disgust at raising non-biological kids, whether “good genes” and “good parenting” are the same thing, and the long-term cultural suicide risk of normalizing donor parenting.Malcolm argues this strategy is intergenerationally unstable because genes that make you want to reproduce genetically will eventually dominate. Simone pushes back with nuance around self-hatred, family dynamics, adoption, and the beauty of loving non-biological children.A raw, high-stakes conversation about love, duty, genetics, fulfillment, and what it really means to be a parent in the 21st century.→ Read Nicholas Decker’s essay: Show NotesToday we’re going to discuss the choice to become a parent, but with SOMEONE ELSE’S GENES, even though one could reproduce on one’s ownWhile we have friends who are very consciously and intentionally choosing to not reproduce genetically for fear of passing on problems they haveWe personally feel like it would be child abuse for us to raise kids who aren’t oursAnd we’re bigger believers in using science, rather than self recusal, to reduce or eliminate the risk of passing on heritable health issues or traits perceived to be harmfulOn March 23rd, Economics student Nicholas Decker wrote that he’ll use a better donor for his children, arguing genetics drive outcomes like intelligence and parenting should focus on nurture. He compares it to treating genetic diseases or specializing via comparative advantage, sharing how dating a man made surrogacy clear.NIcholas Drecker @captgouda24: When I have children, I do not want them to be genetically mine. Instead, I will have someone better than me be the sperm donor. My reasoning here: https://nicholasdecker.substack.com/p/why-my-children-will-not-be-mineCritics mocked it as neo-eugenics or cuckoldry, while some agreed he shouldn’t procreate with his genes; geneticist Razib Khan met him and softened his initial skepticism.His Substack ArticleWhy My Children Will Not Be Mine, published May 23rd on his substack Homo Economicus (over 6K subscribers)“I would like to have kids. I’m quite set on this. I feel that I would be very happy raising them. I think that I would find joy and purpose in helping them grow and learn and do great things. I am filled with a great yearning that is not entirely in my control, the same yearning which I imagine must affect the salmon as they travel up the river or the goose to fly south for the winter. I also have a sense in which it is my duty to procreate – the world becomes richer as there are more people in it, and having more children would therefore make the world better. There is one thing, though – they will not be genetically mine.This does not mean that I would adopt. Rather, I would have someone else, who I consider to be genetically better than me, be the father of the child. I have thought about this a great deal, and not only do I think it is the right thing to do, but it is something which everyone should do. Here is why.”His why (summarized)* “To start, I think we can agree that it is bad to harm your children.”* “We also know that genes matter. They affect life outcomes. A substantial part of the variation in people’s outcomes is due to their genes.”* “If you would take actions which would definitely change your children’s genes for the better, you should also take them for actions which change them for the better in expectation”* He sees choosing someone else’s genes over yours as just an extension of something like gene editing* “They would still yet be your own children. Or else is an adopted child not your own? If someone is left an orphan as a baby, and then is brought up by a family who loves them, whose child are they? Would you love them less for not being your own? Or suppose that you learned that the person who you believed to be your son, whom you raised, was in fact conceived by another man. Would you cast the child out of your life? I would hope you do not. If you are unable to do this because you would only love your children if they were conceived by you, we should regard that as an unadmirable failing, not right and normal.”* He points out that just because ONE person is OK phenotypically, it doesn’t mean their genes are optimal for certain desired outcomes* An extremely valid point* “Further, your child’s outcomes are correlated not only with direct genetic father, but also with their parents. Outcomes are not a first-order Markov variable. If your family is mediocre, then your child will also be more likely to be mediocre. Even if two people’s phenotypes are the same, you should choos

Did you know that giving men extra testosterone can make weakly affiliated Democrats shift conservative? In this eye-opening Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins break down a 2025 study showing testosterone administration caused a “red shift” in political preferences—plus what it reveals about conservatism, declining T levels in modern men, AI attitudes, social vigilance, punishment of bad actors, risk-taking, and why high-testosterone mindsets align with enforcement, competition, and opportunity.They explore how testosterone isn’t just “rage”—it’s strategic dominance calibration, reduced performative niceness (without killing real benevolence), increased willingness to punish unfairness, and comfort with confrontation and disruption. From immigrant crises and benefit fraud to why low-T societies might fear AI, this conversation reframes conservatism as partly hormonal—and asks whether we should be subsidizing testosterone for the masses.Featuring kid interruptions, roid rage myths, soul debates, and plenty of Based Camp chaos. If you’re high-T (or want to be), this one’s for you.Show NotesIn 2025, a group of researchers found that testosterone administration caused democrats to shift in a more conservative direction.This reveals a lot about conservatism and modern leftists and when I dug deeper into the effects of higher levels of testosterone in both men and women, I feel like I came away with a better understanding of the left, the right, and society in general.Also, now whenever I hear about people taking testosterone supplementation, I am going to think “they’re just taking their conservative pills”The ResearchIn their paper, titled “Testosterone Administration Induces a Red Shift in Democrats”, these researchers took 136 “healthy males,” measured the strength of their political affiliation and their basal testosterone, gave them synthetic testosterone or a placebo, and then checked to see if their affiliation changed.They found:* That more weakly affiliated democrats had 19% higher basal testosterone than those who identified strongly with the party* That “When weakly affiliated Democrats received additional testosterone, the strength of their party affiliation fell by 12% (p = 0.01), and they reported 45% warmer feelings towards Republican candidates for president (p They also found that “Testosterone administration did not affect political preferences for strongly affiliated Democrats or strong or weak Republicans.”In short, their results demonstrate that testosterone induces a “red shift” among weakly affiliated Democrats, providing evidence that testosterone affects political preferences.Hmm.. is Testosterone Changing?Across many industrialized populations, average basal testosterone levels in men appear to be drifting downward over time, while data for women are sparse and less clear but do not show a strong, consistent upward trend.Just a note:* Typical female testosterone levels are far lower than male levels (roughly 10–20‑fold lower)* In both sexes, testosterone naturally declines with age within an individual, with an average drop of about 1% per year in adult men and a gradual decline in women that accelerates around menopause* So as populations age, their testosterone will dropIn men:* Several large cohort and lab‑database studies from the U.S., Europe, and Israel report an age‑independent secular decline in total testosterone in men, after adjusting for age and often for BMI and other factors.* For example, a widely cited Massachusetts study found that men of the same age in the early 2000s had substantially lower mean testosterone than men of the same age in the late 1980s, and this drop was not fully explained by obesity or other measured health and lifestyle changes.* A large Israeli health‑system analysis (over 100,000 men, 2006–2019) likewise found a significant, prominent decline in testosterone across most age groups, again largely independent of BMI.* A newer analysis of “healthy” men has also reported progressive decreases in both testosterone and LH over recent decades, suggesting a true change in hypothalamic‑pituitary‑gonadal function rather than just obesity or assay artifacts.If More Testosterone Correlates with Conservatism, What Might That Say About Conservatism?In other words, what do increases in testosterone change about views and behavior?Across lab and real-world studies, higher or experimentally raised testosterone is less “rage hormone” and more “status and dominance calibration”: it pushes behavior in whatever way seems best to gain or protect status in that situation (which can be aggressive, but can also be generous or prosocial).Key Behavioral ChangesAggression and conflict response* Higher testosterone is linked to greater reactive aggression, especially when people feel provoked, treated unfairly, or their status is threatened, rather than indiscriminate hostility.* In experiments like ultimatum games, testosterone increases costly punishment of unfa

In this explosive Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect Iran’s baffling wartime decisions in 2026 — from missile strikes on closest allies like Qatar (hitting the massive Ras Laffan LNG facility) to attacks on UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others — while seemingly ignoring Israel and the US in many cases.What happens when a regime’s “mosaic defense” strategy fractures into regional warlords and fiefdoms vying for power? The Collins argue Iran’s centralized control has collapsed, turning IRGC factions into competing hardliners who bomb expensive targets for headlines and internal legitimacy rather than coherent geopolitics.They cover:* Israel’s strike on the shared South Pars gas field and Iran’s bizarre retaliation against Qatar* The emerging Cold War between Saudi Arabia (centralized states) and UAE (maritime empire/proxies)* Why this chaos benefits US interests long-term (isolating Iran, hurting China/Europe more via Strait of Hormuz issues)* Assassination plots against Trump, nuclear brinkmanship, and why nation-building isn’t the goal* Low-casualty US strategy using vintage B-52s to clear old munitionsA wild ride through Middle East power vacuums, proxy wars, and why Iran’s self-sabotage might be the biggest geopolitical gift the US never expected.Based Camp - What was Iran thinking when bombing its neighbors_Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] What this suggests to me is that the people who are at the regional heads of Iran’s mosaic defense strategy have entirely regionalized their control already.Simone Collins: Oh, wow. Oh, that would be interesting. So it’s, it’s like, it. It’s descending into fiefdoms.Malcolm Collins: But what’s important is to these individuals who are playing this game, and you can see this in the president’s reaction here, they actually don’t particularly care about America or Israel or Iran’s long-term geopolitical future.Simone Collins: Sure. Why would they? Yeah.Malcolm Collins: They are vying to be the top dog of the warlords. Mm-hmm.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be doing a, a series of updates on what’s happening with Iran right now.[00:01:00] And this situation is absolutely crazy in how it’s setting up the future geopolitics of the Middle East. Iran has been making decisions which appear completely baffling from an outside perspective, which is what we’re going to start with to try to understand why they’re making the decisions they’re making.But we’re also seeing the set of a new Cold War throughout the Middle East, between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Oh,Simone Collins: what? Wow. I haven’t heard anything about this.Malcolm Collins: Yes, it is very, and, and when I say a Cold War, I mean there’s, they’re already in active killing conflicts in about four or five theaters. The Saudi Arabia and the Yoi right now actively.Simone Collins: So are we talking about a, a cold war along the lines of nuclear threat? Kind of Cold war or just cold war of like frenemies beingMalcolm Collins: No, we don’t attack each other directly, but we arm troops on opposite sides of conflicts throughout the regionSimone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: To attempt to [00:02:00] create public governments that serve us.Simone Collins: Wow.Malcolm Collins: So like a, to get like between each other, they are, I’d say, almost friendly in the way they are acting, and yet people are dying every day in mass in service of this conflict.Simone Collins: Okay. Frenemies Cold War. Gotcha.Malcolm Collins: Yes. A, a very odd Cold War, but a Cold War nonetheless. Mm-hmm. And given the way that it’s allowed, it’s also sort of a safer cold work that’s unlikely to escalate as much, butSimone Collins: that’s nice.IMalcolm Collins: wanna, I wanna, I wanna start on the weird behavior of Iran. So if people go back to our episode on Venezuela mm-hmm. My take at the time was I did not think attempting regime change in Iran in the same way we did in Venezuela at least, was a good idea, or really conflict directly in Iran was a good idea.I said I thought it was incredibly risky. I have since taken the position since this war started and, and this is still where I am today. That. Okay. [00:03:00] I would not have taken this risk even knowing what it appears Trump knew when he went into this conflict.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: However, knowing what has happened since the beginning of the conflict, it was very obviously the right move.Oh. And the large reason that it turned into very obviously the right move has been bizarre behavior by Iran itself since the conflict started that I wouldn’t have predicted, but maybe I should have.Simone Collins: Really, because it seems so inane, like them attacking. Their neighbors,Malcolm Collins: not their neighbor, just their neighbors.So the attack that was for me, just the most baffling. I mean, they’ve attacked almost every neighboring country at this point except Iraq.Oh no, they did att

The podcast episode from Based Camp with Malcolm and Simone Collins dives into alarming CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data on youth mental health and suicide ideation (euphemistically called “youth in Asia,” “joining the euthanasia,” or “speed running life” to skirt filters). They discuss 2023 statistics showing persistently high rates of persistent sadness/hopelessness (especially among girls at ~53%), serious consideration of suicide (~27% for girls, ~14% for boys overall), planning, and attempts—rates that barely declined post-COVID lockdowns and remain shockingly elevated.The hosts argue modern school culture, urban monoculture, social contagion, affluence/leisure, and lack of hardship (e.g., small families vs. large ones creating built-in resilience) contribute to this crisis. They critique mainstream parenting/schooling as dangerously “normal” and advocate for pronatalist, counter-cultural family strategies—like large families for forced hardship, framing your family as discriminated against by dominant culture, or custom holidays to instill gratitude and purpose.They touch on related topics: higher rates in affluent/elite environments, comparisons to communities like trans or furries, gender differences (girls more ideation/plans, boys more completion when attempting), dystopian cravings in female psychology, nihilism’s social appeal, and the need for meaning beyond pleasure/validation.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about. TheSimone Collins: in AsiaMalcolm Collins: youth joining the youth in Asia. And we have to find creative ways to say this stuff so that we don’t get in too much trouble hereSpeaker 15: You need to take a cold, hard look at your stance on youth in Asia.Speaker 17: Oh, I don’t care about them. They’re conformists and they’re communists.Who? The youth in Asia.Simone Collins: to people who opt into the afterlife early.Malcolm Collins: Yes. Speed running life.Simone Collins: Yes.Malcolm Collins: The speed running generation. So we had done an episode previously on CDC statistics that were so shocking that they showed that the. 24%. So about one in four young women created a plan to join the euthanasia, not over the course of their childhood, but in any given 12 month period.Simone Collins: It’s insane. That’s [00:01:00] insane.Malcolm Collins: Insane. And this is CD, C, right? Like they have a reason to underplay this, right? So, I did that episode, and when we did that episode, the data that we had access to, that the public had access to was from 2021. And everyone was like, well, that was during the COVID Lockdowns.Mm-hmm. And being during the COV lockdowns, I can understand why you might have higher rates. Right. So. Let’s go at the later numbers that have been released since then, and the latest we have is 2023 data. What is the rate for girls now doing that?Simone Collins: Hmm,Malcolm Collins: 21%, only a 3% decline. And still well over one in five young girls.Makes a plan to join the euthanasia every 12 months period, not over the course of her childhood in any given 12 months period.Simone Collins: That actually [00:02:00] surprises me. I would’ve honestly expected that it would be higher because I remember looking at some statistics around the pandemic that showed that people’s rates of severe.Ideation of, of bad types increased right before school started, or like as school started and actually went down over the summer and during breaks, they were like just less stressed and they were not in the school system is a torture chamber for children. I do not. Yeah. So I’m actually surprised that now that people are now forcibly back in school at higher rates, that they’re actually doing a little better mentally.That, that’s interesting.Malcolm Collins: Yeah.Simone Collins: But I, I think there’s also the effect of contagion when it comes to, you know, harmful social behaviors that include various forms of hurting yourself. Not just the ultimate form, but I. I, I think that that might have been a thing during the pandemic, just ‘cause a lot of people were talking about it, that maybe that was what pushed it over the edge and made it higher than normal because a lot of people were just being overtly dramatic online ‘cause they had [00:03:00] nothing else to do.And now people are a little bit more busy doing other things like actually going to school.Malcolm Collins: Well, we can talk about it. We can look at the differential rates.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: We which we will explore, we’ll see where there have been actual drops in the data. Mm-hmm. And I wanna talk about all this in the context of like, do you understand, you know, we have a you know, people filming about us and reporting crews here all the time.They’re like, why are you guys so weird? Like, why do you do this in a weird way? Why don’t you punish your kids the way everyone else is punishing their kids? Why don’t y

Europe’s decline isn’t primarily from immigration—it’s from self-inflicted genetic and cultural degradation via the World Wars and long-term dysgenic trends. In this eye-opening Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into new research on how WWI military deaths in Britain crushed long-term innovation (especially breakthrough patents), with effects persisting for decades. They extrapolate to France, Germany, and Russia (far worse casualty rates) and argue Europe’s population has already lost much of its vital, risk-taking stock—long before recent migration waves.Topics include:* Why Europe’s “white” populations created weak, anti-innovation cultures and laws themselves* Genetic/cultural long-tail effects: small average shifts devastate extreme outliers (inventors, risk-takers)* Immigrant selection filters: why U.S. Latin American immigrants differ from Europe’s current inflows* Frontier mindset (Scots-Irish, Silicon Valley types) vs. stagnant European vitalism* Geopolitical realism: viewing decaying Europe as opportunity territory in a techno-feudal future* Why weakness repels strong allies—and why America increasingly sees Europe as irrelevantIf you’re into pronatalism, human biodiversity, innovation economics, or unfiltered takes on Western decline, this episode challenges mainstream narratives hard.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be with you today.Today we are going to be talking about. New data that has come out, which shows how Europe has genetically degraded and changed due to the two world wars. Mm-hmm. And it’ll, I think, highlight for people when they say to me, Malcolm, as an American, you know, you must feel some ethnic kinship with, and, and cultural kinship with the European peoples.If you look at like, well, immigration may not be as big an issue in the United States as it is in Europe because mm-hmm. We mostly import Latin Americans and Latin Americans are really just southern Europeans. They’re like 20% Native American when, when they are Native American. So it’s, it’s always been very weird to me that we consider them like so different of people.We’ll get to that in a second, but was Europe, they’re importing lots of, you [00:01:00] know, people from the Middle East who are culturally and, and ethnically, very different than them that have differentially higher fertility rates in them. And that you, you’re already be to see parts of their society.Buckle to this, you know, norms and stuff like this. There’s places you can go to in London that are nothing like what they are culturally speaking. You know, 20, 30 years ago. And they say, oh, you must be so sad about this. And I’m like, I’m really quite indifferent. Like it’s, it’s not the best.But, but Europe has already in part, been destroyed by not immigrants, but white Europeans and what the, the, what became of the white European culture. Mm-hmm. And their genetic stock has already been significantly degraded to the point where I just don’t know if there’s much of utility there. Like it wasn’t the immigrants that took away Germany’s nuclear factories.It wasn’t the immigrants that are making the laws in the uk, which caused people to get arrested for insulting anyone, anything [00:02:00] like the, the guy in Scotland arrested for writing Islam can be questioned on a wall.Simone Collins: No, it can’t.Malcolm Collins: No, it cannot. Well, but no, it wasn’t the Muslims who made those laws, who enforce those laws.That was. The Scottish, right? Yeah. And youSimone Collins: know, really it’s the ultimate condemnation. Like they deserve this because they made it.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. They, they made their cultures weak, but, but why, why did they behave at a genetic level so differently from people who appear to be closely related to them in the United States?And that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode because we have more data on that now. So this is a post about a study. So it’s a, a tweet by economist Luca Reto announcing a new paper titled Human Capital and Shocks and Innovation Evidence from Britain’s Lost Generation. And I’ll, I’ll go straight into what he says about it right here because it’s, it’s just a [00:03:00] fascinating study.Simone Collins: Yes.Malcolm Collins: So what are the effects of large human capital shocks on innovation? In a new paper, we study how World War II military deathsacross British communities affected local invention Over the next decades, we find that places that lost more young men, became persistently less innovative. World War II caused a massive loss of young men in Britain, over 750,000 military deaths, heavily concentrated among young, young cohorts.Because the war was fought abroad, Britain experienced large human capital losses without domestic physical destruction. So basically it creates an instance where we can see what happens if you just remove a portion of the type of men who go to war without affecting the actual cap

In this eye-opening Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins explore how looksmaxxing (and its cousins: performative masculinity, status obesity, performative altruism, and more) functions as the modern equivalent of “gender affirming care” — a seductive but ultimately sterile trap.Drawing on John B. Calhoun’s famous mouse utopia experiments (Universe 25), they explain the rise of “the beautiful ones”: rodents in abundance who obsessively groomed themselves, avoided conflict/mating/parenting, and became socially sterile while remaining physically pristine. Sound familiar?From Clavicular’s extreme regimen (steroids, meth for hollow cheeks, bone smashing) to billionaire status-hoarding, kidney-donating effective altruists with no kids, and Gen Z pickup artists chasing views instead of partners — this conversation reveals how abundance creates behavioral sinks where people optimize for aesthetics, validation, or signaling instead of legacy and meaning.They discuss why these traps feel productive (they’re often high-discipline and cerebral) yet deliver zero lasting happiness or genetic/cultural impact — and how to escape them by building a real objective function in life.If you’ve ever felt pulled into optimization loops (looks, status, altruism, masculinity, etc.) that leave you hollow, this episode is your wake-up call. A free copy of The Pragmatist Guide to Life (ebook or audiobook) available — just DM us or join our paid subscribers on Substack/Patreon.Based Camp - The New Trend in Male Gender Affirming CareEpisode NotesThe Gist* Looksmaxxing is the new Gender Affirming Care* We’ve joked about how women getting cosmetic procedures are getting gender affirming care* But men are doing it a ton now, too, in the form of Looksmaxxing* But gender affirming care is just one of many traps people are falling into* And these traps all map to a particular behavioral pattern that may be consistent across any abundant mammal society—something that’s even observed in rodents (and we’ll talk about that!)* It’s important that we talk about these traps for several reasons:* They don’t yield lasting impact* They don’t yield happiness or contentment* So let’s talk about this and use looksmaxxing as a case study for how people unknowingly fall into these traps so that we can be more adept at evading them personally.And let’s start with the rodents.The Beautiful OnesBetween 1958-1962, a man named John B. Calhoun conducted overcrowding experiments using rats and mice in an effort to study how very high population density in an otherwise “ideal” environment affects social behavior, mental health, and population stability in rodents.His hope was to better understand the implications of overcrowding + abundance for human society, so he gave rats and mice abundant food, water, nesting material, and protection from predators and disease—so that lack of resources was not the cause of problems—and observed how increasing population density changed aggression, mating, parenting, social hierarchies, and overall psychological functioning over time.These experiments were far from scientifically precise and had many issues, but they yielded some really interesting patterns that you could also argue we’re seeing in modern, abundant societies.For example, Calhoun observed some consistent behavioral groupings that are analogous to behavioral groupings in modern, affluent human groups that we talk about on Based Camp all the time.Some examples:* Dominant aggressive males: Highly territorial “alpha” males that monopolized prime nesting areas and mates, frequently fighting and wounding other males and sometimes attacking pups.* “Dropouts” or socially defeated males: Males driven out of territories by dominant males who congregated in central areas, often scarred, hyper‑submissive, and involved in seemingly purposeless mass brawls; in earlier rat experiments some turned to cannibalism.* Hyperactive or indiscriminately sexual males: Males that mounted other males and juveniles, showed disorganized mating attempts, and sometimes coupled sexual behavior with aggression instead of normal courtship patterns.* Neglectful or “failed” mothers: Females that abandoned litters, moved pups repeatedly, stopped defending nests, or became unusually aggressive toward their own young and toward other adults approaching the nest.* “Hermit” or withdrawn females: Adult females that retreated to empty compartments, largely avoiding social contact, mating, or pup care—effectively dropping out of normal communal female roles in mouse societies.​We spend a lot of time talking about the human societal analogs of these rodent groupings, but today, we’re focusing in on the beautiful ones.In his experiments, “the beautiful ones” were a subgroup of male rodents (first observed in rats and later highlighted in his mouse “Universe 25” study) that withdrew from normal social life. They spent their time almost exclusively eating and obsessively grooming, avoiding fighting,

Are we stuck in cultural quicksand? In this Based Camp episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins explore whether the internet, streaming, algorithms, and AI have collapsed cultural time — making it impossible for new culture to gain traction or evolve.From the ball pit/avalanche metaphor to living in “the Archive,” they discuss why 1986–1996 felt like different worlds while 2005–2026 barely registers. They dive into Gen Z’s nostalgia-fueled listening habits, the death of linear cultural progress, and surprising pockets where culture is still advancing: anime, Korean webtoons (manhwa), reality fabricators/AI storytelling, VTubers, Roblox as the new Harajuku, SCP Foundation lore, Bronies, dead mall videos, and liminal spaces.They debate subcultures in the digital age, the role of constrained communities vs. the chaotic global feed, culture hyperinflation from AI, and whether new cultures are dead — or just unrecognizable. Plus: family culture as a refuge, why old cartoons beat modern kids’ shows, and optimistic takes on building traction in walled gardens.If you’re into pronatalism, cultural evolution, technology’s impact on creativity, or just wondering why everything feels like a remix, this one’s for you.Episode Notes* What if we’ve entered an age in which culture can no longer advance and we don’t even know it?* We’ve already talked about how there’s only ‘one story left’—basically discourse about global politics, technology, and economics—because entertainment media is so fragmented and desynchronized that most shows, movies, and books can’t manage to enter the zeitgeist* But it may also be the case that the way the internet has collapsed time, from a cultural perspective, has rendered society incapable of advancing culture, because new developments lack the ability to gain traction* I started thinking about this when we did an episode on “The Modern Audience” and Malcolm found in his research that many of the people writing modern movies and shows primarily consume archival shows and movies, not new ones.* Our kids are largely growing up watching cartoons and shows from the 1990s.* We’re seeing an explosion of prequels and sequels rather than new unique propertiesWill All Future Generations Grow Up in The Archive?Choice quotes from Sam Buntz’s post on Katherine Dee’s Default.Blog, Gen Z Lives in the Archive:* According to a 2019 article from Billboard, Shannon Cook, a trends expert at Spotify, said that Gen Z’s listening habits on Spotify were unusually broad and tended to delve deeply into the past. Tracks by Miles Davis (“Blue in Green”), The Grateful Dead (“Friend of the Devil”), and Joan Jett (“I Love Rock n’ Roll”) were all among Gen Z’s most listened to tracks at the time.* Albeit, this article was from 2019—but the forces driving the trend, Tik Tok nostalgia and the buffet-like nature of streaming platforms, have only continued or accelerated their effects. The aforementioned 2025 article from Activaire argued that Spotify data showed Gen Z was connecting more with Gen X music on Spotify, beguiled by its apparent authenticity.* Zoomers, you see, live inside the Archive.* Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they are imprisoned inside the Archive—a Borgesian labyrinth. Everything that has ever happened exists at their fingertips, assigned equal weight (or assigned whatever weight the fickle algorithm happens to be assigning on that particular day). This is also why they are a uniquely anxious generation, paralyzed by an inability to choose. They are confronted with too many options, unstuck in time.* We think of time as being continuous, as involving one event following naturally, causally after a preceding event. But living within the digital archive disintegrates our basic, linear perception of time. Since every era is equally available, and all events are potentially happening at the same time, the chain of causality and influence breaks down completely. We think of musicians, artists, writers, and filmmakers as responding to those who came before them, generationally. For instance, Bob Dylan admired and initially imitated Woody Guthrie—but he also rebelled and created his own style, departing from Guthrie’s folksy populism and adding intensely personal and surrealistic touches. Changes in the arts always work this way. One generation responds to the previous generation. (Hemingway and Fitzgerald were reacting to Joseph Conrad, Edith Wharton, and Henry James, while Henry James was reacting to Hawthorne and Emerson, and so on and so forth.)* Sometimes, I wonder if this will ultimately result in a state of cultural affairs in which fresh artistic creation stops entirelyKey QuestionsDo we need a sense of a clear timeline in order to craft new culture?From Sam Buntz: “In Plato’s dialogue, “Ion,” he describes how inspiration works: the first poet was inspired directly by the muse, like an iron filling attached to a lodestone. The subsequent generations of poets are like iron fillings attached to

Dive into the wild world of Gen Z dating with Malcolm and Simone Collins on Based Camp! In this eye-opening episode, we dissect a Substack post by steph on Miami’s pickup artist scene, where young men armed with Meta Ray-Ban glasses and cheesy lines are turning cold approaches into content gold. From “friction maxing” to stave off AI-induced cognitive decline, to women stealing Sweetgreen salads and buying drinks for strangers in NYC—dating has never been weirder. We share practical tips, debunk red pill myths, explore why pickup isn’t really about women anymore, and reveal what romance novels teach us about ideal meet-cutes. Plus, Malcolm’s honest (and effective) pickup strategies from his single days. Whether you’re navigating apps, IRL encounters, or just curious about cultural shifts, this episode is packed with laughs, insights, and warnings for the future of romance. Don’t miss our thoughts on why colleges might still be the best spot for real connections!Episode NotesThis was inspired by “gen z pick up artists are taking over my city” by a gen z substacker who goes by stephChoice quotes from the article:* Erick Ronaldo is one of the many Miami pickup creators making a killing in this market. He’s racked up over 1.3 million Instagram followers teaching young men how to “get dates with 8s and 9s.” For $17 a month, guys can sign up for his Modern Man Bootcamp, which includes three weekly coaching sessions and access to his personal arsenal of pickup lines.* … “It’s no issue that his flirting techniques sound like they were cooked up by Mickey Mouse. Men don’t follow Erick for his AI-generated rizz — they’re there to watch his aspirational displays of hyper-confident masculinity. “Guys like watching other guys pick up girls because they don’t have the balls to do it themselves,” according to Polokidd, a fellow Miami pickup influencer with 1.6 million followers.”FRICTION MAXXING:“Ben, a 27-year-old living in Miami’s particularly flirty neighborhood of Brickell, told me he prefers cold approaching not only because it’s more efficient than waiting around for responses on the apps, but because it’s a great exercise in friction-maxxing. “I mean, you can’t ask ChatGPT to help with a response,” he explained. “You just gotta be yourself and see if she’s into you or not. There’s no better way to improve yourself and stand out as a man, too.””Note: The term appears to have been coined and popularized by By Kathryn Jezer-Morton, a columnist for The Cut covering modern family life, who wrote an article in January titled: In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing: https://archive.is/l5KXrWOMEN WANT IT (sort of)“Do women even want to be asked out by a total stranger?It seems that for most, the answer is YESomgpleaseGODplease* but with some very crucial caveats.Although there’s no shortage of eager men lurking on the apps and in their DMs, Gen Z women are quite loudly yearning for IRL meet-cutes. The girls are out here stealing Sweetgreen salads, buying men drinks, even doing laps at run clubs — all for a shot at retiring from the humiliation ritual that is online dating in 2026. At this point, landing a response to how’d you two meet? that doesn’t start with a like or swipe is the reigning status symbol of our time.Alexis, a 24-year-old Miami native, told me she recently deleted all the dating apps in hopes her next boyfriend will come and find her in the wild. While she’s all for men shooting their shot, she does really wish they would work on their aim a bit first.“I would love to be asked out in person, but not how these Miami guys are doing it,” she says. “It’d be cool if he saw me at a coffee shop and asked what book I’m reading. Maybe he drops a note at my table. I don’t know, I just want the interaction to be genuine. These guys always manage to turn me off.””This is why men should be reading romance novels and not following pick-up artists.Or perhaps they can ask AI for a list of all the ways the female protagonists in the top 100 romance novels met their male love interests.E.g. from PerplexityHigh‑frequency “meet” patterns* Workplace (colleagues, boss/employee, client, rival professional, bodyguard).​* Friends to lovers (childhood friends, college friends, long‑time colleagues).​* Enemies/rivals to lovers (professional rivals, family enemies, legal opponents, competing businesses).​* Forced proximity (stuck in a cabin, snowstorm, road trip, only one hotel room, trapped together on assignment).* One‑night stand / fling that turns serious, often followed by a surprise pregnancy or reunion.​* Fake relationship (pretend dating, fake engagement or marriage for social, work, or immigration reasons).​* Marriage before romance (arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, Vegas/drunk marriage).​* Best friend’s sibling / sibling’s best friend (meets through family or long acquaintance).​* Neighbor or new arrival to town (next‑door neighbor, new person in small town, landlord/tenant).​* Guardian / protector setups (bodyguard, s

In this eye-opening episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into a paradoxical dataset: despite widespread narratives of violence against trans and non-binary individuals, statistics from organizations like HRC, A4TE, and TGEU reveal shockingly low rates of violent deaths—far below the general population, especially for non-Black trans people. They crunch the numbers, debunk myths, and explore potential explanations: Could it be hormone therapy reducing aggression? Social isolation keeping them safer? Hidden privilege or something else entirely? The conversation also covers the overrepresentation of trans individuals in mass shootings, cultural vibes around gender, and wild tangents like AI hallucinations, hypnotism, and geopolitical musings. Buckle up for data-driven insights that challenge assumptions—no holds barred!If you enjoyed this, smash that like button, subscribe for more unfiltered discussions, and hit the bell for notifications. Check out our books “The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life” series on Amazon, and join the conversation in the comments below. What’s your take on these stats?Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Today we are gonna need to be talking about a paradox, which is, if you look at the organizations that Mark, how many trans or non-binary people die violent deaths a year?The numbers are odd because they are always incredibly low, well, well below the general population. If we go with non-black trans individuals. That would mean that you have only 0.38 deaths per year combined to four per a hundred thousand for the general population. Which is wow,Simone Collins: man,Malcolm Collins: sanely low.Specifically you would be looking at a rate that is around by, by some estimates, like if I go by a four TE’s estimates for non-black trans individuals, they have a, a violent death rate that would have to be multiplied by 10.5 to be the same as the regular non-trans [00:01:00] cis rate.Simone Collins: What is their secret?This is sign me up for this,Malcolm Collins: and this is the reason I wanted to get into this is one, this goes directly to the opposite is trans people always would be like. Trans people, don’t you understand?Simone Collins: Yeah. Something, something hate crimes and the police and everyone wants to beat me up. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Well, the statistics don’t agree with you on that.The statistics actually show that trans people live enormously privileged lives. And so the question is, is why, well, so we’ll be going into the statistics. Is it that they’re wealthier on average? Is it that they do less drugs on average? Is it that they like what could be causing this, right? What could be causing these?And before I jump into the numbers here, if you wanna be like, well, these organizations say that these numbers aren’t exhaustive for the number of trans and non-binary people who are killed violently every year. It’s like, yeah, but they try really hard. Like,Simone Collins: okay, Chris, question off the bat, when we’re comparing the, the trans rates of violent [00:02:00] deaths to the general population, are we talking men to men?Or are we talking all men and women?Malcolm Collins: We’re gonna go into that.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: But when we are talking these numbers if you are reading this, what somebody is going to say is hey. Malcolm those numbers is they couldn’t find every single trans and non-binary person who died violently to which I would push back and I’d be like, actually, the numbers are probably over counts, so I’ll explain why.They’re probably over counts. First of all, being trans or non-binary. It’s not like being a member of some other communities where you’re not like. All in where your friends do not definitely notify these organizations, where these organizations do not definitely wanna make it look like tons of trans people are dying, right?Like, this isn’t you, you’re not like, kind of in the trans lifestyle or something like that. It’s not like gay. We’re like. A person may have been gay and like they weren’t interested in telling like the big gay rights orgs or something like that. [00:03:00] It seems very unlikely, especially given how politically charged the topic is these days that individuals would not be.Ed, and then you have the problem of, oh, somebody wore a dress one day or something like that. And the trans organizations in terms of trans shooters, which we’ll go over the data on that again. Yeah. Because it is, it is really twisted that they’re like, we are so much at risk from you when the actual studies, like if you actually just run the math, they are mass shooters at like, I think it’s like 10 x the rate and they are likely to be killed at like one 10th the rate.Yeah. So, we’ve gotta go over. It, it’s so weird. It’s like, it’s like the, the wolf, you know, they’re deep in sheep carcasses, drenched in blood, being like, the sheep are always bullying me. You know, and so the question is. An

Malcolm & Simone Collins break down the bombshell signals that China’s military bluff has been called — and the world order is shifting in real time.After US-led operations dismantled Iranian and Venezuelan defenses with near-zero losses, China’s “world-class” weapons systems (the ones they sold their allies for billions) failed spectacularly in live combat. The very next day China quietly stopped its near-daily provocative flights over Taiwan. Coincidence? Malcolm doesn’t think so.In this episode they explain:* Why Iran’s desperate attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz are actually crushing China far more than the United States* How Xi Jinping just purged the last experienced generals who warned him against invading Taiwan — right before those warnings came true* The internal CCP chaos, the “fake it till you make it” culture exposed, and why even Peter Zeihan-style analysts got this completely wrong* Trump’s surprisingly warm calls with Putin & Xi and what they really signal* Why the next 6–12 months could decide whether Taiwan stays free or fallsRaw, data-heavy, zero corporate-media spin. If you want to understand what’s actually happening behind the headlines in 2026, this is the episode.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Right now, the United States, in terms of where we are struggling in this warfront, because a few big ships have been hit by Iranian missiles is to defend China’s economic interest.That’s where their oil comes from, not ours. they’re essentially trying to hurt China until the US backs down over this.Like the news. Says all of this without explaining it to people in stark terms,Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about the signals that we have of a massive change in how China might be thinking about itself. Foreign policy wise.Simone Collins: No,Malcolm Collins: specifically, they shut down their flights over Taiwan, where they used to have constant sort of military antagonistic flights over Taiwan.They said, oh, this is because, you know, we’re going to have this [00:01:00] upcoming meeting with Trump. Or people have said, well, maybe it’s because of oil prices. It happened literally the, the next sort that was supposed to fly over after the first news of the bombing started. So it’s, it’s obvious that’s not the case.Simone Collins: Well, hmm.Malcolm Collins: And specifically what I want to talk about is not just this that happened with China, but. In Iran, in Venezuela. And in another instance in Pakistan Chinese equipment, which they had touted and perhaps believed internally to be top of the line in equivalent to US equipment failed any level that was beyond spectacular.You’ve gotta keep in mind the, I ran at a, a $5 billion weapons deal with China. Oh. And so they reportedly had some of the best equipment there. And not just that we’ll go over what analysts were saying, but you know, you have Peter Zhan [00:02:00] calling Caracas a, a fortress you know, and impossible to, to invade.You have other analysts saying, Iran, there’s just nothing you can do. You know, it’s, it’s completely. Impregnable. And yet, and I’d like to point out people, like if, if you watch something that’s tainted by like the, the, the bias media sources you’ll get a very bad understanding, I think, of what’s going on right now.And I, I think a lot of people when I hear them talk about what’s happening for example, in Iran or what happened in Venezuela. For, for, for context, we lost only two planes and those were to friendly fire. We have lost no boats. Okay. And in terms of the, the very light, I think it’s seven casualties now.It’s because of like random missiles of bases. This is astonishing when you’re talking about these attacks taking [00:03:00] off the board within any, a matter of months Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba which was reliant on Venezuela, but, but the, the point here being is China, I think it’s now, and we’ll go into evidence of this, why this would be sort of going back over the books and having to rethink, like, are, are we anywhere near the military power?We thought we were.Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Hold on though. We, the US shut down two of our own planes.Malcolm Collins: It wasn’t us, it was another ally. I’ll get into it.Simone Collins: Okay. Hmm.Malcolm Collins: The, no, this is actually insane. Like at this point we have total air dominance in Iran at this point, which basically means we can fly wherever we want within.What was one of the most hostile countries on earth to the United States until fairly recently, all of this happened without China. And Russia actually has [00:04:00] attempted to help a little bit with the Iran situation. Oh, really? But keep in mind, if you go to CCP videos they would regularly talk about how the reason why the US hadn’t done anything in Venezuela is because we’re afraid of China.Speaker 2: Why has the United States held back for so long and still dared, not really

Dive into the future of computing with Malcolm and Simone Collins on Based Camp! In this mind-bending episode, we explore the breakthrough in wetware—using real human neurons grown from skin and blood cells to power affordable bio-computers. From Cortical Labs' $35,000 neuron chips that play Doom to mini-brains mimicking kindergartners' neural patterns, we discuss how this tech is cheaper and more efficient than traditional silicon systems. We tackle ethics (including pain pathways in lab-grown brains), AI alignment, quantum integration, cultural perspectives from Puritan roots, and wild speculations on space-faring brain ships, human uploads, and a networked species beyond humanity. Is this the end of worst-case AI scenarios or the dawn of servitors? Plus, thoughts on techno-puritanism, Soma-inspired horrors, and why backwoods traditions embrace utility over mysticism.The X posts we mention in this podcast:Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a breakthrough that I hadn’t expected which is that. Using neurons in bio-inspired systems is now a reality that you, a watcher of this show can likely afford yourself. If you wanted to try some sort of like business experiment based on this, what and in many ways is now cheaper than doing it on computer.And this was a huge breakthrough that changes a lot of, if you’re looking deep future of where humanity goes at this point. Mm-hmm. With the development of quantum computers, was the development of AI continuing one thing that a lot of people feared and, and this is why I say that. This is such a, like, a lot of people are like, Malcolm, this is horrifying.Like, are you excited about servs and everything like that? Like humans being turned into like. Husks for a [00:01:00] machine,Speaker 2: Define the damage. Spine. Compromised. Have you not received pain? Suppressants suppressing pain? Damage submitted report to the surgical bay.Malcolm Collins: And it’s like, well, we’ll we’ll get to that, we’ll get to that. But what makes it really good is it changes worst case scenarios. Worst case scenarios for ai, foaming taking over the world, expanding into space.Historically speaking before today I would say that in such a scenario as that, you know, humanity gets wiped out there is maybe a 3% chance that neurons or biological matter is part of whatever AI’s become. We are now, like if we’re using AI estimates here, because I was going through ai, having it compile all the research we have on where quantum computers are right now, you know, looking at computers a hundred years from now without humans around anymore it said 60 to 70% chance [00:02:00] that it would be partner on.Simone Collins: Wow.Malcolm Collins: So that’s, that’s now the worst case AI scenario, right? Mm-hmm. Likelihood this is, you know, humanity wiped out or enslaved our overlords. And, and what’s interesting is that the part of, and we’re gonna go into, okay, 50, 60 years from now, we project technology moving forwards and sort of the jumps that we’ve been seeing, technology moving forwards, what does a computer look like?You know, quantum computing is working. We continue to see advancements in silicon-based computing. And we see these startups and companies continue to develop at this rate. Was it, was it neural computing? Yeah. What we’re gonna go into is, is, is what that computer is going to look like. Um hmm.Speaker 15: , that does not mean the value of your existence turns negative to the contrary.When it comes to the macro management of the civil system,. Your role has simply changed. Only. This can solidify the health and prosperity of future human [00:03:00] society,Malcolm Collins: and what is, what is I think going to surprise a lot of people about what that computer will look like is it’s not gonna look that different from the ways that humans interact with computers today. By that, what I mean is the types of stuff that the quantum computer part of a brain made up of silicon neurons and quantum computers are going to handle is going to be very similar to the type of stuff that it would handle today.Large scale logistical planning sort of stuff. No human is actually doing that with neurons. It’s just not the type of problem that we’re good at doing. Mm-hmm. The type of stuff that the neurons are gonna be doing is well, we’ll get to it, but it’s the type of stuff that actually humans do today within this arrangement.The type of stuff that the silicon component is gonna be doing is the type of stuff that LLMs do today in this arrangement.Simone Collins: Oh. It’s a perfect match.Malcolm Collins: So we’re already sort of there already. Yeah. Yes. It’s, it’s very interesting. The, [00:04:00] the stuff that quantum computers are really good at mm-hmm. Is almost sort of opposite the stuff that neural arrays are really good at.And so, yeah, let’s go, let’s go into the tweet that you sent me that prompted this. An

Join Simone and Malcolm Collins in this eye-opening episode of Based Camp as they dive deep into the shocking realities of US military Rules of Engagement (ROE). From bizarre restrictions like matching enemy firepower to avoiding mosques and residential areas, they reveal how bureaucratic red tape under past administrations—especially Obama’s era—hamstrung American troops in conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq. Drawing parallels to the American Revolution’s guerrilla tactics against rigid British formations, the Collinses discuss unintended consequences, enemy exploitation, and how new tech and leadership under Trump are bypassing these rules for more effective, targeted operations in Venezuela and Iran. They critique “woke” policies, praise outcome-oriented tech integrations, and share personal insights on morality in war, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Plus, fun family anecdotes about their kids at the end!Episode NotesIn a recent All-In podcast, Emil Michael, the current Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (previously the senior vice president of business and chief business officer at Uber, and the chief operating officer of Klout) mentioned that past rules of engagement in places like Afghanistan were “insane,” including requirements such as if an enemy had a small gun, U.S. soldiers also had to respond with a small gun, creating a bizarre expectation of “parity” instead of overwhelming force.Timestamped link: He basically claimed that legalistic and restrictive rules meant soldiers constantly had to make complex legal judgments in real time, which left them at risk and prevented them from simply focusing on taking out the enemy and protecting their own people.Michael says the rules of engagement were subsequently relaxed and are more now along the lines of “use your judgment,” but what were they before???Pete Hegseth offered a peek at how things were in his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, in which he:* Recounted a scenario where troops were told not to immediately shoot an identified enemy with an RPG* Mocked lawyers as “jagoffs” who prosecute troops more than enemies* Implied the rules of engagement required constant legal consultations in fluid combat situations rather than allowing judgment to “take out” threats and protect allies decisively.* Complained about rules of engagement in Afghanistan that enforced parity or restraint, like matching small arms with small arms, or putting tight limits on force in populated areas to minimize civilian harm under directives like the 2009 ISAF Tactical DirectiveRules of Engagement 101* Rules of Engagement dictate how U.S. forces are permitted to initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces.* Rule breaking is punished with anything from formal reprimands to demotions, career stagnation, getting fired, or criminally prosecuted for a war crime and possibly sentenced to prison or even death* They’re supposed to ensure compliance with national policy, international law (e.g., the Law of Armed Conflict), and mission objectives while allowing for self-defense.* There are different types:* Standing: General* Supplemental: For specific operations or theatres* While the U.S. emphasizes detailed, standing ROE with inherent self-defense rights, other nations integrate similar principles but often with more centralized control and less public detail. Enforcement* The important thing to know:* There are a LOT of rules* We can’t even know them all* Many ROE documents are classified, but unclassified portions and summaries are publicly available* The rules got uniquely difficult for a spell* Between 2009 and 2017, under Obama, they shifted to be more restrictive through NATO-based directives designed to support counterinsurgency and reduce civilian casualties, support “clear and hold” strategies and respect cultural sensitivitiesCJCSI 3121.01B: Standing Rules of Engagement/Standing Rules for the Use of Force for U.S. ForcesThis is the core rules of engagement document unless overridden by theater ROE.Quick facts* Issued June 13, 2005 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS)* Is an update to CJCSI 3121.01A* Influential under Bush (2001–2009) for initial Afghanistan invasion (Operation Enduring Freedom).* Applied across Bush, Obama (2009–2017), Trump (2017–2021), and Biden eras.The 2009 ISAF Tactical Directive* Issued by the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commander (Gen. Stanley McChrystal)* Issued July 6, 2009 (revised from earlier directives)* This was one that Pete Hegseth found particularly trying* Its key guidance* It warns against “winning tactical victories but suffering strategic defeats by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people.”* Commanders must scrutinize close air support, indirect fires like mortars or artillery, and limit them especially near residential areas or where civilians might be present.* Troops are directed to break contact, wait out enemies, or use

In this episode of Based Camp, Malcolm & Simone Collins break down the insane geopolitical wins stacking up for Trump in early 2026—wins so massive they rival the collapse of the Soviet Union, Napoleon’s early campaigns, or Cromwell’s rise, but with almost zero U.S. cost so far.From the precision strike that took out Ayatollah Khamenei (and the sneaky Mossad magic behind it), to Maduro’s capture in Venezuela halting oil to Cuba and forcing blackouts, to Iran’s proxy network (Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas) getting defanged, the Collinses argue this is a new era of low-cost, high-impact American dominance.They explore the risks of overreach (history’s villains who won too much too fast), why most of the Muslim world isn’t mourning Iran, the “frenemy” dynamic with China, why dumb white women seem to be the main group getting radicalized, and Trump’s unlocked hack: kill hated dictators surgically, threaten successors, let regional allies (Israel, Saudis, UAE) handle cleanup, and watch dictators self-moderate out of self-preservation.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. The world has changed so dramatically, and I think much more dramatically than people realize in the past few months, specifically in the past few weeks with what’s going on in Iran right now, the number of core geopolitical winds that Trump has had.And I think even the right wing doesn’t seem to really grok the magnitude of this. There is no historical parallel in all of American history except for maybe the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that wasn’t exactly all our doing. A lot of that was internal. Yeah. The, the closest three historical parallels I can find, like series of wins this significant with this little early cost would be the beginning of h man’s campaigns.The beginning of Napoleon’s campaigns or most of Oliver Cromwell’s life. Those are the only three that come anywhere near. And, and I think that this actually [00:01:00] highlights one of the big risks of where we are geopolitically right now.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: In the same way that if you look at Napoleon’s early career, just win, win, win, win, win, win, win.Or the h man’s early military career. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win. Mm-hmm. Very low cost to his own troops. Very low cost to him geopolitically. What happened in, in both of those cases is they completely overdid it and ended up giant villains from history. Mm-hmm. And I can completely see the temptation from Trump’s perspective right now.And for people who don’t understand what I’m saying right now. Trump has taken out first obviously Maduro and the Venezuelan, the new Venezuelan president. It, it appears to be working like she halted the oil shipments to Cuba, which now is forcing Cuba because Mexico did not restart the shipments. They, they, somebody out our last podcast we’re talking about this, said they restarted them.They’ve halted oil shipments as well. So it looks like the Cubans are either [00:02:00] going to cave or be put into a permanent blackout because they don’t really have oil anymore. And if you don’t have oil, you can’t grow crops or move cars or anything. And none of their geopolitical allies have the ability to get them oil because like if China tries to send a ship all the way to them, the US will just.Grab it like we’ve been with everyone else who’s trying to send them ships. And they don’t, and China doesn’t even seem to want to. And then Iran has been taken off the map with very little geopolitical cost. And we’ll explain why each of these has had so little geo, because that’s also weird, right?And if you go through American history and you look at something like, say the Vietnam War or something like that, if we had overwhelmingly won the Vietnam War, right, like just completely won it early days, it would not be one 10th Is geopolitically relevant at the three victories combined? Hmm. We have been trying to deal with Iran, [00:03:00] Venezuela, and Cuba for.A half a century at least.Simone Collins: Oh yeah. No. From our childhoods, we’ve all grown up hearing about Iran and Death to America and Yeah. All this stuff. But it was more of a recent thing though.Malcolm Collins: The United States doesn’t really have that many geopolitical enemies.Simone Collins: Yeah. Truly it’s just been Iran and North Korea mostly with China and Russia both being kind of like frenemies.FrenemyMalcolm Collins: China is, is really more of a frenemy than anything else.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. They’re like the Jessica to our Utah mom. That’s a little too. Yeah,Malcolm Collins: , What I mean by China is more of a frenemy is in terms of like big geopolitical enemies that we’ve had. China really hasn’t made a point outside of the fentanyl epidemic, which is absolutely terrible.And inventing TikTok again, absolutely terrible. But, you know, it’s, it’s been nothing like our wars against our other geopolitical enemies, like what we hadSimone Collins: to

In this raw, no-holds-barred episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect how Abraham Maslow repackaged Nietzsche’s Übermensch (Übermensch) into the modern, feel-good concept of “self-actualization” at the top of his Hierarchy of Needs—turning a call for radical self-ownership and moral creation into an elitist, therapy-gated path of perpetual vague self-improvement, peak experiences, and manic-pixie-dream-girl aesthetics.We explore why the original Übermensch demands you build your own moral framework (independent of society, culture, or ancestors), reject herd morality, and embrace responsibility—while Maslow’s version lets the wealthy progressive elite pat themselves on the back without real introspection. Bonus rants on: the pyramid of sin (Maslow’s hierarchy normalizing indulgence), why strong-willed people are the true “inclusive” ones, Star Wars force analogies gone wrong, and why self-ownership beats self-acceptance every time.If you’ve ever felt gaslit by positive psychology, therapy culture, or the urban monoculture—this episode is for you. Check out our book The Pragmatist’s Guide to Life (free ebook + audiobook for subscribers) for tools to build your own value system.Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] He basically tried to combine the Uber minch with the aesthetics of the manic pixie dream girl.oh, I like to listen to the songs in my head. I’m sorry, I paid the cab driver in buttons.When did you first suspect you were dating a manic, pixie dream girl? On her first date and. She said she wanted pancakes for dinner, but I felt alive. But then after a few months, and she can’t feed herself, she can’t pay bills.She just wonders at the marvel. Every moment, we got married in a bouncy castle.Do you think it’s possible to ever be truly. In the moment, the Native Americans believe everything is alive.. I told him the best place to see.The night sky is laying in the middle of the street. It’s the flattest place there. She does seem happy. Happy as she can be, I suppose.Malcolm Collins: Maslow flips this. Self-actualization is achievable through [00:01:00] education, therapy, supportive environments and personal effort. Not a heroic struggle alone. . So no.What is actually said here, it’s saying, the Uber minch is elitist because to become an Uber minch, an individual has to overcome suffering.. Who has the potential to be self-actualize if self-actualization requires the fulfillment of all of the lower states of the hierarchy of needs?Only the eliteand the fun thing about Laslo system. It is a system that makes everyone who is wealthy and sees a therapist think that they’re already at the top of it, and it explains to the rich progressive, who doesn’t want to think about why the poor have different world frameworks than them.Mm-hmm. It helps them not think about it.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be [00:02:00] talking about the links between the Uber Minch as developed and defined by niche and the rebranding of the term self-actualization into its modern definition, which was done by Abraham Maslow of Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Face.And you’reSimone Collins: referring, you’re referring to Nietzsche. He’s just gonna call him Niche. Go with it guys.Malcolm Collins: It, I don’t, Frederick Niet words have no place on this American tongue. Okay. They, they would dirty my mouth. Anyway, we have another episode. If you want to understand how Maslow rebranded the term self-actualization and how his rebranding was so toxic and largely destroyed the field of psychology and is the seedbed of the urban monoculture.That is not what we’re gonna be focusing on in this episode. What we’re gonna be focusing on in this episode is, Maslow was pretty explicit in this, in some of his works. Self-actualization was a rebranding, an [00:03:00] explicit rebranding of the concept of the Uber Mitch, but it was rebranded to be palatable to a broadly progressive urban monoculture cultural perspective.And through the rebranding, in a way, it became an inversion of itself. I think he thought he was just making little tweaks to it and not realizing that he was actually retooling the core of what it meant. Now, broadly speaking, I’m gonna go over what these two mean. And then we’re gonna go over how they contrast with each other in understanding and what we as individuals can take away from this contrast to understand how we can live meaningful lives.SoSimone Collins: it is so crazy. Can you imagine when they first introduced this to you, like in your college psychology class, they’re like, oh, yeah, like there’s high Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and at the top it’s, it’s basically nietzche iss, [00:04:00] Uber mench. But let’s not talk about that. I’m not gonna, no, let’s not talk about that.Malcolm Collins: The good thing about Nietzsche’s Uber mech, one of, one of the best things that contrast it was a hierarchy of needs and, a

In this eye-opening episode of Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into why much of the modern Islamic world feels "post-apocalyptic" — crumbling ancient grandeur, neglected heritage, and a society living in the ruins of its own past glory. They contrast today's strict moral codes (influenced heavily by 18th-century Wahhabism and Saudi oil wealth) with the wild hedonism of Islam's historical peak: lavish palaces, opium-fueled feasts, widespread homosexuality (including pederasty), endless harems, cross-dressing trends started by desperate royal mothers, and poetry celebrating wine and young boys.From Moroccan citadels split and looted across generations to Ottoman sultans with 300+ concubines and nudity in palaces shocking 19th-century Europeans, they unpack how Islam flipped from one of the most "debauched" civilizations to one of the strictest. They also touch on "dead" vs. "living" religious traditions, the closure of ijtihad, cousin marriage debates, why Islam excelled as a ruling-minority faith but struggles as a mass religion, and light-hearted parenting tangents (helicopter-obsessed kids and Bosnian songs).Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: .[00:00:00]Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about a concept that came up in our episode on why Muslims almost never win wars of aggressionafter, like, within two generations of Mohammad’s life. And, in that episode, I commented that Muslim society had become post-apocalyptic in nature.And I wanna talk about thisin this episode, we’re going to both talk about this concept of Islam as a post-apocalyptic society, and also discuss how they went from being seen as one of the most debauched societies on earth, , with the jabba the hut like scenes or belly dancers and dripping in jewels to one of the most strict, .Parts of the world morally. You know, throwing gay people off rooftops, , women covered 100%, not even, , able to, in some Islamic countries, have both of their eyes unveiled at the same time while still [00:01:00] staying countries with high amounts of gay sex. Although that’s something we’ll go into in a, in a future episode, , in Islamic countries, they’re often like, oh, don’t.Don’t, it’s not get, it’s with a child. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. And it’s like, well, that you see, that might make it worse in some other cultural context.Because like you see when I talk to you and I’m like, what, what, what, what, what are you doing having sex with that little boy? , And you’re like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s chill. He’s a child. Um, I was actually, that was the thing I was worried about was, was not the gay part, but the child part. Um, so you see, see from my cultural context, But anyway, back to the Islamic world, living in a post apocalypse.Malcolm Collins: because I think that we really do not understand how directly this is true. If you, a listener has traveled many parts of the Islamic world. We, we’ve traveled pretty extensively in the Islamic world. You will notice when I say [00:02:00] it is post-apocalyptic. I don’t just mean like the Muslim people at one point in the distant past you know, had greatness and they don’t have greatness now.I mean that you see it all around you. It almost feels like in those movies about Apocalypses where you have people camping out in like a falling apart New York City or something like that. Yeah, you don’tSimone Collins: have to imagine that if you go to like Morocco because you can just do it.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so I’ll, I’ll give an example of this and I thought it was one of the most shocking to me.It was when we were in Morocco and we went not far out of Morocco to, I pulled up the name of the place you found it, Bedo.And oh, I love it whenSimone Collins: you butcher foreign languages. Oh, it’s so hot.Malcolm Collins: Citadel in, in Southern Morocco. And it’s, it’s giant. It’s this giant complex. But. [00:03:00] If you walk through it, and it’s almost like a palace it was once owned by the one of the descendants of the prophet Mohammed, and it’s just, I’ll obviously put pictures on screen here of it.Simone Collins: Do you want me to send you the ones that we, we tookMalcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. You can find them. Yeah, I’ll absolutely about it. Is that it? As you walk through it, some sections of it look almost perfectly maintained. And some sections of it have just completely collapsed to almost nothing but rubble. And there’s of things in all states in between.And the reason is, is because as the family went on, they would split ownership of it with every generation. And some descendants looted their parts of the castle for anything they could sell. Other descendants tried to maintain it and use it as like makeshift restaurants and stuff like that. But it is.Very much like a, a hermit crab in the shell of a castle, and you don’t need to be outside. One of the craziest things about a place like Morocco’s, a particularly good example [0

Queen Victoria was basically the 19th-century version of a hardcore weeb… but for Scottish culture.She fetishized tartans, kilts, and fake clan traditions so hard that she forced visiting nobles to show up in made-up “clan tartan” outfits — and they actually did it. Today, huge numbers of Scots genuinely believe this stuff is ancient… because Scotland’s education system is apparently cursed.Meanwhile, Nassim Taleb fans keep preaching the “Lindy Effect” (longer something survives → longer it will survive) as gospel in crypto, culture war, and trad circles. But in 2025–2026 reality — with hyper-rapid technological, economic, and memetic change — the Lindy Effect has basically inverted.In this episode we cover:• Queen Victoria’s Balmoral weeb arc and how she single-handedly invented the modern Scottish aesthetic• Why almost nothing you use or celebrate is actually “ancient” (spoiler: most traditions people call timeless were invented 1850–1980)• The original Lindy deli comedians meant THE OPPOSITE of what Taleb claims• Survivorship bias, Fortune 500 churn, disappearing classics, collapsing orchestras…• Why rigid “antiquity = virtue” thinking is suicidal in the modern worldEpisode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So Queen VictoriaSimone Collins: Imagine a weeb invented our modern perception of Japanese culture, even as believed by the Japanese. That’s what Scottish culture as we understandMalcolm Collins: so she then. Starts telling any of the Scottish nobles who visit her house, that they have to come in their clan tartanSimone Collins: and in their, andMalcolm Collins: they’re like and they’re like, my what? And so it’s like, it’s like a weeb. Goes to Japan and he says that everybody’s daughters have to come in their magic girl costume.Simone Collins: He’s come in your formal Goku hairstyle, sir. .Malcolm Collins: And these, and these Japanese people are like, like, and they’re like, it’s the, it’s the queen. I’m gonna dress up my daughter like a matching girl. We’re going, we’re going all in on this. And the funny thing is this, since Scottish people today, the country has such a terrible education system that many of them believe that all this stuff,Speaker 9: We saw the lochness monster. When all of a sudden this huge creature, this giant Ste from the Pete Lithic air comes out of the water. I yelled. I [00:01:00] said, what you want from US? Monster? And the bent down and said, I need about three 50.Simone Collins: How much of a weave Queen Victoria was. She also allegedly would, would while visiting Balmoral slip into this fake Scottish brogue. So you can imagine like a weeb going to like spend their summers in Japan, like speaking in ic, Japanese accent.And you would imagineMalcolm Collins: built their entire culture off of her we fantasy.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: . Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about one of the ideas that has become popular in pseudo intellectual circles. And I want to talk about how wrong it is.Simone Collins: Are we, so intellectuals, is this one of our circles?Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, it’s, it’s called the Lindy Effect. And it often comes up in the concept of something being anti Lindy or a heuristic where the longer, a non-perishable thing like an idea [00:02:00] technology, cultural practice, book or institution has survived the longer its expected remaining lifespan as its proven robust against time and disorder.So this concept is really, really, really popular in the conservative space. So they’ll look at something like techno puritanism, right? Like our family’s religious practices. And they’ll be like, oh, well it’s very anti, right? Like, it’s very new, and therefore it’s unlikely to survive a long time.Simone Collins: Oh,Malcolm Collins: and I’m going to point out that this is both a misattribution of an idea. It’s a misattribution of a bad idea that even in its very conception was taken to mean the exact opposite of what it originally meant. Which is just like e everything about this idea is bad.One is that, first of all, the idea is just wrong in a modern context. It worked a lot when you were dealing with a static economy and society because then that was like a evolutionary environment. If something becomes evolutionarily advantageous and out competes [00:03:00] other things and the environment it has outcompeted them with has stayed stable, it is going to continue to be advantageous.That just like an obvious truism, right? And that is true for cultural environments, right? Like if you’re dealing with a long period of human history where things were broadly the same from one generation to the next an idea or a book or a technology is going to be much more robust if it has out competed other technologies within a similar context.However, that is no longer the world we live in. Things change dramatic. In terms of the global economy, in terms of the global culture, in terms of how we communicate