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Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

854 episodes — Page 12 of 18

How Online Atheist Communities Birthed the Modern Right

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they explore the fascinating transformation of online political discourse from the early days of the internet to the present. This in-depth discussion covers the journey from atheist communities to the birth of modern online conservatism, touching on key movements like anti-feminism, GamerGate, and the rise of the "red pill" ideology. The Collins couple offers unique insights into how these shifts have shaped today's political landscape and the disconnect between online conservative culture and traditional conservative think tanks. Key points covered: The evolution of online atheist communities The transition from anti-religious to anti-feminist content The rise of the "red pill" and men's rights movements The disconnect between online conservative culture and traditional think tanks The role of platforms like YouTube and Reddit in shaping political discourse The impact of these shifts on modern conservative politics The potential future of conservative ideology and religious belief Whether you're a political junkie, a student of internet culture, or simply curious about how online communities shape real-world politics, this video offers a thought-provoking look at the unexpected twists and turns of internet-age political evolution. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I am excited to be talking to you today. We just got back from NatCon, which is the National Conservative Convention, where all of the high and mighty conservative thought leaders, not real thought leaders, i.e. they don't lead the public's conservative mindset, they actually seem almost completely disconnected from the mainstream conservative movement which was a real takeaway for me when I was there. So these are all the people who work in the Washington conservative think tanks.Simone Collins: I heard Tower people.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and I heard some thoughts there that really made me be like, wow at one point I was like, why are you doing this? The base doesn't want this, and they literally said, f**k the base. And I was like, wow, what one person where you got all mad where he's bureaucrats are good. Actually, we just need conservative bureaucrats.We need a larger bureaucracy and we need it to be conservative. And then another person was like, Don't complain about like socialism's okay. So long as it's within our value set and this is where you get like insane things. Like the heritage foundation did project 2024 where [00:01:00] they put out like this plan 2025 2025 for the trump administration and in this plan one of the things that they had was banning pornography And I was like, that is a leftist position, but what, are you not familiar with the stellar blade?Malcolm, they'reSimone Collins: coming together. Unity at last. We can finally agree on something.Malcolm Collins: No, it's a bunch of woke bureaucrats, it was like, Mild conservative overlay. BetweenSimone Collins: NOFAP, men's rights activists, and radical feminists, we finally found common ground! Porn is bad! Except that you guys know No, but I mean Making porn illegal, and making porn something that's shameful is the one number one thing no, holdMalcolm Collins: on.When you're talking about the base Like, NoFap is about self control. Even NoFap people are mad about the Stellar Blade controversy. Even NoFap people are mad about the Tracer butt controversy. Even NoFap people are mad about the Skullgirls controversy. Every time a group has attempted to censor male sexuality, [00:02:00] it has been a progressive leaning group.But I want to talk about how these groups became so Wildly different from each other. Why is the conservative online base which is the group that really got Trump elected, like Trump was the 4chan candidate to begin with. That is the group that made Trump happen. That is where Pepe came from. That is where emperor, god emperor Trump came from from the Warhammer stuff.That is where basically most of modern. Conservative internet culture came from a lot of people would say, okay a lot of this is downstream of 4chan, and it is, but it's not just downstream of 4chan, a very bizarre thing happened in internet history, which is the atheist movement online became the birthplace of the culture That is [00:03:00] now internet conservatism.Or internet republicanism, or internet Trump base, basically. Interesting. And the question is, how did this happen? you grew up a Muslim.Like, why did you convert to Christianity? Instead of just beingSimone Collins: atheist,Malcolm Collins: like, why did you first try Christianity when you started praying to God? And she goes, of all these years, when I was attacking and preaching against religious individuals the Muslims, would send me messages about how they were going to kill me.The Christians would send me messages about how they hoped they were praying for me and they were praying for me to be saved and they wanted me, and this is actually true of most of the atheist community. Wh

Jul 18, 202454 min

J.D. Vance VP Pick: How Trump's Choice Will Permanently Transform the Republican Party

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they break down the significance of Trump choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate for the 2024 election. This in-depth analysis covers the shifting landscape of conservative politics, the rise of tech conservatives, and what this means for the future of the Republican party. The Collins couple offers their unique perspective on Vance's background, his transformation from Trump critic to ally, and the implications for upcoming elections.Key points covered:* The two main factions in current conservative politics* J.D. Vance's background and political evolution* Trump's strategy in choosing a younger, tech-savvy running mate* The decline of traditional GOP Inc. and rise of tech conservatives* Immigration policy and border control strategies* The importance of religious engagement in modern conservatism* Implications for the 2024 election and beyondWhether you're a political junkie or simply interested in understanding the changing face of American conservatism, this video offers valuable insights into the current state of Republican politics.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. It is so exciting to be here with you today. Again, the world has changed and. In an incredibly positive direction. I should think previous episode. I had said that there are two paths Trump could take with his VP pick and which path he takes is going to show which team he is on and it is going to set the future of Republican politics in this countryWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: and right now there are two core Republican.factions that are like cultural groups. One is the GOP Inc. Remnants. This is the theocratic faction, which believes in a deontological theocratic morality and wants to enforce that morality on the general public.Simone Collins: performative Cultural conservatism, [00:01:00] what a lot of people think about when they think about traditional conservatives, like religious and typically very Christian, that kind of thing.No, the other faction isMalcolm Collins: religious and Christian as well. Yeah, but inSimone Collins: a very different way. Yeah, that's what I,Malcolm Collins: that's why I didn't say religious, because that's not the important part. The important part is that they are theists. Theocratic and morally deontological. So what I mean by that is these are the types of people, that wants to do things like, you saw in project 2025 in their mission, ban pornography force young men to do programs that basically put them on military enlistment lists.This is very different from the ideology that Trump represents, right? Yes. It's muchSimone Collins: more socialist leaning, much less libertarian, much less classically liberal too.Malcolm Collins: Yeah but, yeah it's very much like the government's role is to enforce a moral system. Yes. And this was the party that Mike Pence, his last running mate, [00:02:00] represented.Very, I can't be in another room with a woman without my wife there sort of stuff, oh the horror of this and it's not that we have anything against being in an alliance with this group or anything like that, but there is always, or up until I would say really just two days ago, there was always a chance that the conservative party post Trump reorganized around this group.But then there's been a new conservative faction growing this is the faction that's represented by individuals like Elon and Vivek and Tamath and they are the tech conservatives, I guess some people would call them. Where Peter Thiel's inSimone Collins: there too.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Peter Thiel's in there. They've been around for a while, but they have been growing in terms of their ability to actually interact with mainstream conservative politics.And I think that if Elon wasn't a foreign national, he would be the obvious [00:03:00] person to take over American conservatism after Trump. He's just very lined up to do that in terms of public sentiment these days. Now the, talking heads don't think though. But I think, when I talked to the base, I see much more yeah, way to go fight the man, you be you which is also the difference between these two factions.The theocratic faction is very much, we should have an authoritarian system. Or authoritarian in the way it relates to the people, culturally speaking. It's just, we don't like who's running it now. Like, when we were at NatCon, something we kept hearing is bureaucracy is good. It just needs to be a conservative controlled bureaucracy enforcing conservative cultural values.Simone Collins: Yeah. They just want to be the man. Yeah, they just wantMalcolm Collins: to be the man. Then you have the other faction, which is much more formal. Fight the man. It's an anti authoritarian faction where it does implement controls. The controls are generally designed to prevent authoritarian cultural overreach.So they would promote [00:04:00] ideas like there should be some restrictions around what schools should teach and show children wh

Jul 17, 202446 min

Does A Wife Have a Duty to Have "Relations" With Her Husband? Conjugal Duties

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins for a frank and thought-provoking discussion on conjugal duties in marriage. This video explores the complex dynamics of sexual obligations, consent, and relationship expectations in both traditional and modern contexts. The Collins couple offers their unique perspective on marital contracts, sexual satisfaction, and the often-overlooked aspects of successful long-term partnerships.Key points covered:* The concept of conjugal duties in different relationship models* The importance of clear expectations and relationship contracts* Sexual satisfaction as a mutual responsibility* The role of consent and enthusiasm in marital intimacy* Age gap relationships and power dynamics* Challenges faced by high-status individuals in maintaining fulfilling relationships* The pitfalls of polyamory for average couples* The importance of appreciation and recognition in long-term partnershipsWhether you're married, considering marriage, or simply interested in relationship dynamics, this video offers valuable insights into the complexities of modern partnerships.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone! We're so glad to have you back at Basecamp. Today we are going to talk about conjugal duties. That is to say, how much should each spouse be obligated to do sexy times with the other spouse? And is that important? Well Yes, andMalcolm Collins: consent in marriages and everything like that.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: The reason I wanted to do this particular topic is because when Fundy snark channels, when the channels that make fun of conservatives have their pearl clutching, Oh, I cannot believe they said that moments. One of the most classic is around a wife's conjugal duties. The idea that a wife either would not have the ability to decline consent in a marriage That a wife would have a duty to have sexual relations with her husband.Simone Collins: Yeah, something along those lines.Malcolm Collins: We hadn't [00:01:00] actually talked that much about this as a concept before, Simone, and this is just something that hasn't really come up with us. Because I've never understood I, yeah, I guess it, it didn't occur to me that you would ever say no, if I wanted to do something.So I am wondering how do you, like what, Yeah. What are your thoughts on this topic? Do women have a conjugal duty to their husbands?Simone Collins: My, and I'm sure you can predict this. My response is it all depends on what the relationship is founded on. If the relationship is founded on sex, then absolutely if everything is predicated on that, if you know that your partner married you because they wanted to have sex frequently or because they found you sexually attracted and wanted to have sex with you regularly and are marrying you for sexual access.That is part of your obligation. A really common stereotype of relationships. So it's common as a stereotype because it's true. Is it really high wealth, high value men may marry a trophy wife who is much younger perhaps [00:02:00] not as professionally or financially successful, but very sexy for that sexual access.And in that case, it would be insane for the young woman who ends up getting married. To act as though it is anything, but absolutely her conjugal duty to satisfy this has this partner sexually, as long as they're married, no matter how she feels like she should behave, as long as he is keeping up his end of the bargain, which typically is, I'm going to, you will live in luxury, you will get jewelry, you will get clothing, you will go on fancy trips, have the best food, whatever.So I think that the whole point is, and this is why relationship contracts are so important. Partners need to know what is being exchanged before they get married, because it is 100 percent your obligation. In fact, I'm so vehement on this that let's say I'm a young, beautiful woman and an older man marries me because they want to regularly have sex with a young, beautiful woman.Let's say I'm courting Leonardo DiCaprio, and I'm, it's all right. I [00:03:00] think that it is my duty toMalcolm Collins: put the Leonardo DiCaprio chart on the screen here. What age is it when they turnSimone Collins: 24 or something like that? It's quite it's mid twenties. And along those lines, I think he's a really great example here.I would put in our relationship contract if I were to marry Leonardo DiCaprio as that he would have every right to sleep with whatever woman he chooses. And I may even offer to help source those women after I age out of his attractive age range, if I want to maintain that relationship. In other words, if I want to continue To be his wife and continue to have access to presumably his wealth, his connections, whatever, like the, whatever he brings to the table that I would then need to continue to provide that item of value.I heardMalcolm Collins: what she just said differently, because it's funny you're taking an incredibly. Some people would say conservatist ex

Jul 16, 202450 min

Did the Media Just Try to Cover Up a Presidential Assassination? (I Can't Believe This is Real)

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dissect the recent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. This in-depth discussion covers the media's initial attempts to downplay the event, the political implications, and broader concerns about the state of American democracy. The Collins family offers their unique perspective on this shocking event, its aftermath, and what it means for the upcoming election.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] It's no longer the deep state is a conspiracy. We are now at the deep state is real and is running for president.Simone Collins: But I think you also have to get back to that reality.People are okay.Malcolm Collins: And so now the question is the deep state actually responsible for these felony charges? Are they responsible for the assassination attempt? And what scares me is I'm leaning towards no, I'm leaning towards all just malfeasance and stupidity and inaction, but I think it's plausibly yes.Simone Collins: Yeah, but people are okay with that. That's what scares me if somebody did shoot something at another person, what should happen to them?Octavian Collins: You know.They can get hurt.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone.What a crazy day to be alive and an American. And. For you to be running for office in the middle of all of this this is again one of those moments so weird that this happened so soon after that I think a [00:01:00] pivotal debate, which in many ways felt like a turning point in American history. And then you have this.Simone Collins: Yeah, this summer really puts the crazy inMalcolm Collins: democracy. The crazy in democracy. So yeah, we are going to go over a few things here. One that we'll go over later is I want to give a full account of what actually happened and how it happened, because I notice that the newspapers have done a very poor job of that.Two, I want to talk about that within the context of this current political battle and what this means. Yeah. But the thing I want to start with because it's what genuinely chilled me the most and for those who don't know I don't know who you are. But somebody just tried to assassinate Trump. And they it was a 20 year old That means that this person would have been 12 when Trump first came into office they shot at Trump they just grazed him his ear but twoSimone Collins: people were killed, including the shooter and two people were critically [00:02:00] injured and Trump had his ear pierced by a bullet.Malcolm Collins: Two critical injures one victim deaths, one shooter deaths, and then Trump's ear being grazed and obviously the optics of this for Trump are fantastic in terms of him coming out, shouting, fight fight, fight, you know, I think a lot of people after that debate uh, this is something that I've heard in my friend circles.Said, Oh, they're going to try to have him assassinated. You just, I thought they were crazy. They're like two weeks.Simone Collins: And literally like in a campaign strategy call recently, maybe just a couple of days ago, Biden said that we have to put Trump in the crosshairs, which now is just such bad wording.Oh, andMalcolm Collins: I remember when there was the attempted shooting or there was a shooting of some democratic representatives and somebody had said something like that, or there was a time when The Sarah Palin used crosshairs in one of her political ads,Simone Collins: And then Gabby Giffords was shot, and this was about 15 years ago.Another politician, if you're not in the U. S. And then later Sarah Palin actually sued someone who blamed her for this. So I, I. I believe a media publication for defamation [00:03:00] or libel. But the leftMalcolm Collins: was like, she needs to withdraw. She needs to like, that is how seriously they took this.And yet they treat this like nothing when it's Biden. And when it's a president who was almost assassinated. We need to the thing that was most chilling to me about this because I want to start with this was what you found Simone in terms of the newspapers trying to hide from the public that this had happened.So can you go over some of the initial headlines?Simone Collins: Yeah. So Trump escorted away after loud noises at PA rally from the Washington post, CNN, loud noises at PA rally, loud noises. CNN reported secret service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally, which just makes it sound like, he was tremendously old, like Biden or something.Took a spill which is not great. And then here's USA Today. Trump removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startles [00:04:00] former president crowd.Malcolm Collins: Startles former president? Somebody's head friggin exploded on stage. Now, in case you're like a lefty here and you're like, oh, it was very You know, like it was a loud thing.Lots of people didn't know what was fully going on. You need to keep in mind a few things. Uh, one person was, like, there's blood everywhere. It was very clear in the moment it was a someone i

Jul 15, 202451 min

The Progressive Pronatalist Book that Broke My Wife ( "What Are Children For?")

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dissect the new pronatalist book "What Are Children For?" by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman. This in-depth discussion explores the challenges of promoting childbearing within a progressive framework and the broader implications for demographic trends.Key points covered:* Overview of "What Are Children For?" and its reception* The difficulty of justifying childbearing in a progressive worldview* Analysis of the book's central themes and claims* The impact of soft cultures on attitudes towards parenthood* The importance of having an objective function in life decisions* Critique of progressive arguments against having children* The unintended consequences of fertility strikes* The role of overthinking in modern parenting anxieties* How pronatalist arguments can reach progressive audiencesWhether you're interested in demographics, cultural trends, or the intersection of politics and family planning, this video offers a thought-provoking analysis of the challenges facing pronatalism in progressive circles.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody. It's Simone Collins here. And I'm so glad to see you here today. I am taking over this podcast. Oh no! It's been takenMalcolm Collins: over!Simone Collins: Yeah, because I am going to lead the discussion today. I've decided not to phone it in. And we are going to talk today about a new Pronatalist book that came out called What Are Children For?Which is basically the left's attempt to At pronatalism it is a book that we were just told about by a friend at a conference and she basically explained it as this is the pronatalist argument. But from the perspective of a, an educated Brooklyn elite, who's highly progressive.Yeah, but they got likeMalcolm Collins: an opinion piece in the New York Times, for example. Yeah, it gotSimone Collins: an opinion piece in the New York Times. It got a write up in the New Yorker. Obviously and they would never even consider giving us a platform. WeMalcolm Collins: have done we've reached out to them before. They don't,Simone Collins: No. They don't talk to us, but they do talk to them. Because this was co written by two of their people. [00:01:00] Yeah. And so obviously we're super excited to read this book because, oh my gosh, maybe. Because we cannot apparently speak to pronatalism in a way that gets progressives excited. Maybe two progressive pronatalists could speak to progressives in a way that gets them excited.And so they did, and so I read the book. Um, and okay, let me just start off by giving you the book's description, Malcolm, and I want to get your impression because I've read the book, Malcolm has not. Let's see what you think. So this is What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman.It came out on June 11th. So right now only three Three reviews have been written about it. It's very new. Here's the description becoming a parent. Once the expected outcome of adulthood is increasingly viewed as a potential threat to the most basic goals and aspirations of modern life, we seek self fulfillment, we want to liberate women to find meaning and self worth outside the home, and we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change.Weighing on the [00:02:00] pros and cons of having children, Millennials and Zoomers are finding it increasingly difficult to judge in favor. With lucid argument and passionate prose, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman offer the guidance necessary to move beyond uncertainty. The decision whether or not to have children, they argue, is not just a woman's issue, but a basic human one.And at a time when climate change worries threaten the very legitimacy of human reproduction, Berg and Wiseman conclude that neither our personal nor collective failures ought to prevent us from embracing the fundamental goodness of human life, not only in the present, but in choosing to have children in the future.So what do you think of this description?Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: What's your impression here?Malcolm Collins: I mean that it is what you said it is. It is pronatalism. And progressives are screwed. If they can't figure out a prenatalist cultural subfaction, their entire value system is going to go extinct. Yeah. And a lot [00:03:00] of people look at us and they think that we're like, secretly trying to save the progressives or something like that.I would like some aspect of their culture to survive, but I don't want them to have the cultural dominance they have now. I think that's, they've shown that they basically become Nazis whenever they gain cultural power and they start dividing humans by ethnic group. I'm going toSimone Collins: say a lot of the things that progressives fight for that they, they say they want pluralism.Freedom of lifestyle, et cetera, are things that we very much support. It's just that in terms of what they actually allow for and support, progressives don't tend to do that in p

Jul 12, 202443 min

Parentification: Malcolm and Simone Debate How Much Responsibility Kids Should Have for Siblings

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into the controversial topic of parentification, exploring its various definitions and implications for raising children in large families. They discuss how the concept is often misused by YouTube commenters and contrast it with the medical industry's understanding of emotional and instrumental parentification. Malcolm argues that historically, children taking on parental roles was seen as a moral responsibility and necessity for maintaining high fertility rates. Simone adds nuance to the discussion, highlighting the importance of consent, aptitude, and ensuring children's safety when assigning responsibilities. The couple also touches on the psychological benefits of giving children age-appropriate tasks and the dangers of creating a culture where kids believe they can shirk responsibilities they dislike. Join Malcolm and Simone as they navigate this complex issue and offer insights on fostering a sense of moral responsibility in children.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Hello, gorgeous husband. Today, we are going to do an episode on the topic of parentification. , so what I've learned, cause I wanted to do some more research on this before going live with this episode. Is like the actual definition of parentification is not the way it is used by YouTube commenters.Oh. And so we'll be talking about parentification as three different concepts throughout this show. So first is the way that it is most often used because where I see this is when we're watching like Ultra progressive reaction videos to prenatalist families, IE video families with a lot of kids,Industry Collins: orMalcolm Collins: when we see fam kids who grew up in large environments with a lot of other kids, their complaint is parentification.And when this is,Simone Collins: we should say kids who grew up in large families who subsequently deconverted from that, their birth culture, essentially.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So they will say that they were forced to undertake the [00:01:00] role of the parent to In some of like in helping raise their siblings that they were in part responsible for raising their siblings.This is the way it is used within pop culture.Then within the medical industry or the way it was originally intended to be used is actually there is emotional parentification, which means that the parent relies on their child for emotional support that should be coming from their partner, i.e. they are treating their child more like a friend and less like a child. The other category of parentification here is , when a child feels the need to take on responsibility because their parent isn't fully responsible.Industry Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: Example here would be like their dad ran away, their mom's addicted to crack and they had to raise their sibling.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: This is very different than the way [00:02:00] YouTubers mean it, which is, I grew up in a family with seven kids, and I was responsible for sometimes watching after my siblings, or feeding my siblings, or, etc.And it's a very important topic to dive into because so long as parentification as it is talked about within the YouTube community is something that is shamed, culturally we will never be able to get above replacement rate again. Because taking responsibility for one's family members historically was just seen as an obvious moral good and responsibility of every individual, right?You cannot raise a large family. Especially in a historic context without the children taking on some of the parental roles. And to understand what I mean when I say this, in the 1800s in the United States, your average American had seven [00:03:00] kids. Average. So that means for every American who didn't get married or had zero kids, there was another American having over 14 kids.Okay? That means for every American who had four kids, The measly, tiny number of four kids, oh shame to that barren spinstress, which we only recently got to a few days ago That meant that there was another family that was having 10 kids.These were families, the average American family, where the kids were relied upon in part to help with child rearing. And we should note how much this was stalled in a cultural context. So I read the diary from one of my ancestors in a previous episode. It's the episode titled something like kids used to like their parents.And it was, it's a great episode, by the [00:04:00] way, I strongly suggest you check it out. It's one of those episodes where it ended up getting rev shared and I was like, I don't even care. Too good. But great episode. But this previous episode in the diaries, something that was very interesting, is it was seen as totally normal and admirable for the older siblings in a family.To give up their potentiality in life to expand the potentiality of the younger siblings. So in this family, what happened is the, you could go work in the local lumber mill and make go

Jul 11, 202428 min

Conspiracy: Why Did the Mormon Church Ban the Term "Mormon"? (Hint: Math)

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92 Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they unravel a fascinating conspiracy theory about the Mormon church's influence on social media. This eye-opening discussion explores why Mormon influencers are disproportionately popular online and reveals the surprising connection to the LDS church's rebranding efforts.Key points covered:* The LDS church's wealth and marketing budget* Unusually high CPM rates for Mormon-related content* The 2001 and 2018 name change initiatives* How the algorithm boosts Mormon content* The challenges facing Mormonism in the internet age* Potential strategies for the LDS church moving forwardWhether you're interested in religion, social media, or marketing strategies, this video offers a unique perspective on the intersection of faith and technology in the modern world.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Elisa Grenfell. And for her part of the conspiracy theory, what she was investigating was The question of why are there so many Mormon influences, Elisa Grenfell. It's not a conspiracy theory, basically, it is 100 percent proven from my perspectivethere was a fact that she found.That she thought was just an odd curiosity. Ooh, so silly. So silly that this is the case. I don't think this is an odd curiosity at all. I think that this explains everything. So I asked an AI algorithm, when did Mormon influencers start to rise in popularity disproportionately? And perplexity said it was in 2001.Remember I said that was when they first started discouraging the term Mormon. And then recently there's been a rebranding to further discourage the use of the term Mormon among church members.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello. I am so excited to be here with you today. Simone. This episode is going to be one of the Malcolm goes into a conspiracy [00:01:00] theory.Although I don't think that this one is a conspiracy theory. I think it's actually proven in the data at this point. And it's very interesting. Now I should note one, this is not going to be like an anti Mormon episode of that's what you're here for. Anti Mormon content.Simone Collins: Yeah, sorry. We're Mormon stands.SoMalcolm Collins: even our theological beliefs, I've been told by Mormons, they align enough with Mormon theological beliefs that. Some Mormons would consider us more like inactive members or members not in good standing with the church. But theologically they're pretty similar. So yeah.Simone Collins: Someday we'll get our temple recommends cards.It's okay, Malcolm. The day will come, maybe. I know,Malcolm Collins: right?Simone Collins: The day will come. The day will come. I guess we're not going to tithe, so probably not.Malcolm Collins: I would never do that. I just don't believe in the central church concept. Yeah, we're very against that. Yeah. Yeah. But that aside, , that aside I believe I have [00:02:00] discovered the solution to a question I was wondering a long time, and I'll set up the question.Okay. Yes. Throughout the nineties so just a little background on the term, Mormon. Mormon was originally used as a term, not necessarily derogatory, but just by people outside of the Mormon church to refer to people at the Mormon church because. It comes from the book of Moroni, right? That's where you get the word Mormon, right?Like it's not like an insulting term or anything like that. Mormons reappropriated the word throughout like the 80s and the 90s and it became a mainstream word within the church for members of the church. It started to become unfavorable for church members and there was a, hold on I'll pull up the exact wording here.In starting around 2001, the church encouraged the full use of its name and discouraged the use of Mormon church although Mormon was still widely accepted among church members. So you've got to keep in mind these [00:03:00] dates here, because they're going to turn out to be important. So the first move against the term Mormon was a lighter push that came in 2001.But then, there was a much heavier push in August of 2018. In which and by the way, what the thesis of this video is going to be on is Why did these pushes happen? Because I'll explain why they don't make a logical sense from the perspective that they're being laid out by the church. , as of August, 2018 I'll just read basically what AI says about this and what it said the church's explanation was.Okay. The church, of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints , has had a longstanding, so since 2001, preference for using its full name rather than nicknames like Mormon or LDS Church. But this policy was strongly emphasized and formalized in August 2018. Here's a summary of the key points.Divine Directive, President Nelson stated, that this change was revealed to [00:04:00] him by God, emphasizing, quote, the importance of the name he has revealed for his church, end quote. New guidelines, the church has issued a style guide that discourages the use of, quote unquote, Mormon church, LDS church, and Morm

Jul 10, 202443 min

Shock Study: Psychologists (+Far Left) Turn Teens Against Parents (& Destroy Their Mental Health)

In this eye-opening video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the controversial world of modern therapy, particularly focusing on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and its impact on teenagers. They discuss a recent study revealing the negative effects of DBT interventions on adolescents, including worsened depressive symptoms and strained parent-child relationships. The couple explores how therapy culture has evolved into a cult-like system, drawing parallels with historical cult tactics and modern urban monoculture. They also touch on the dangers of over-medicalizing normal human emotions and the importance of critical thinking when approaching mental health treatments. This in-depth analysis offers a thought-provoking look at the current state of mental health care for young people and suggests alternative approaches to emotional well-being.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] The main findings, DBT intervention did not improve outcomes significant deteriorations were observed across outcomes immediately postSimone Collins: intervention. MakeMalcolm Collins: things worse. Um, Largest deteriorations were seen in depressive symptoms and, if you really needSimone Collins: the help, it makes things even worse.Malcolm Collins: Teen participants continue to report significantly poorer quality of parent child relationships, specifically mother relationships.And I think that comesSimone Collins: down to the way in which This kind of behavior can irreparably recontextualize the way that you see your relationship. And I think it's really hard to fix that damage.Malcolm Collins: And it's a very effective cult tactic. Pretty much all cults do this. They try to convince you that , your primary support network is being abusive to you. And your primary support network is usually your parents or your birth culture,And you are of high intellect, Peggy. No matter what you've been told by your husband? No. Your father? Not really. Mother. [00:01:00] How did you know? Because we love you!Malcolm Collins: This ultra urban monoculture is what we historically would have recognized. As a cult.Excuse me, are y'all with the cult? We're not a cult. We're an organization that promotes love and Yeah, this is itMalcolm Collins: it didn't used to be like this.Like I wasn't interested in high school. I supported it in high school. It has been taken over by a cult.Is the holy guide to living pure, this will help explain. First, Laughter. Her name's Lorraine, too? We're all Lorraine, and you will be Todd. A name chosen especially for you oh. You're notAn oppressed minority. you're a cult!Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone, you sent a study to me that absolutely shocked me, and I really want to go over the results of it because I think [00:02:00] it isSimone Collins: terrifying, fascinating, disturbing, but also pretty definitive proof of your claim. That one of the primary means by which the urban monoculture spreads is through therapy culture and that it uses therapy culture primarily to alienate young people from their support network.SoMalcolm Collins: let's dive into actually and leading to these. Absolutely horrible. We did another episode recently showing that one in 10 kids in school right now has thought about unaliving themselves this past year. Like that is an insane statistic, the percent that made a plan to unalive themselves, 24 percent among young women, 12 percent among young men. Yeah. The ones who seriously considered attempting at 30 percent young women, 14 percent young men. The feeling persistent sadness, 57 percent of young women, 29 percent of young men.So what is happening in schools right now is not working. And a big part of this is the infiltration of, as I've always said, modern psychology has become more like [00:03:00] a cult. What you get, if you go into a modern psychologist today, is a cult. Is much closer to what Scientology was doing with people in the 90s, then what would happen if you saw a psychologist in the 90s?And I'm not saying all psychologists fall into this, but the ones that are influencing the policy, what's happening to kids are and we can see this. In the study data. So what was the name of the study again? Simone, I've got all the information on it. I justSimone Collins: gotThe study is called investigating the efficacy of a dialectical behavior therapy based universal intervention on adolescent social and emotional wellbeing outcomes. That's a mouthful, but they're basically like. Does dbt help teams? That's what they're trying to find out here.Malcolm Collins: So this is a AI summary of what the study ended up showing and the way the study was constructed, which I'm guessing is probably what you were going to read.AISimone Collins: explains it in plainer English. How it is with these academic studies, they like decide to make them harder to understand. AMalcolm Collins: lot of people buried the lead with the title of this study because the results [00:04:00] are shockin

Jul 9, 202450 min

The Data: Just How Bad is School? (Sending a Kid to Public School Has Become a Death Sentence)

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92 https://collinsinstitute.org/ In this eye-opening video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the alarming state of modern education, revealing startling statistics on student mental health and academic performance. They discuss the rise in depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among students, particularly young women and LGBTQ+ youth. The couple explores how current educational practices may be contributing to these issues and examines the growing trend of homeschooling as a response. They also touch on the controversial topics of gender dynamics in schools, the impact of progressive policies, and the urgent need for educational reform. This comprehensive analysis offers insights into the challenges facing today's students and proposes potential solutions, including the Collins Institute's alternative educational approach. Malcolm Collilns: [00:00:00] Oh no! Oh my gosh. Almost one in three young women Not over the course of their adolescence, just in the last year has thought about unaliving themselves.Simone Collins: Oh dear.Malcolm Collilns: That is how bad the school system is right now. It was young women, 24%. Oh, mySimone Collins: plan.Malcolm Collilns: Young women made Alan. To kill themselves this last year. This last year, again, not over the course of their life. This is critically bad at this point. This is we are in the drain cycle right now. Young women, 13% young men, 7%. Whoa. More than 10 are attempting to kill themselves every year. Whoa. what if we are trading our children's childhoods so that they can be played with in some sort of a weird Marxist social experiment that has been Executed by a bunch [00:01:00] ofWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collilns: Hello, Simone! You and I have done episodes on how bad the public school nightmare is right now. I think a lot of people think it's just like a steady degree difference from when we were kids. is not. We are going to be going into a lot of data, a lot of statistics in this episode.I knew that when I was doing the research for this, I was like, Oh my God, if I could make enough money to support myself off of our content, and I could just like really do research heavy episodes all the time, I would be. So happy. Like it is such a pleasure to get to dive into statistics and see what is being hidden from the general public at this point.So what I'm going to start with is just like how bad things are because not in terms of outcomes, but a lot of people, they look at how we're raising our kids and they're like The things you're doing with your kids are going to make them unhappy. Why don't you just do what everyone else does?Or, taking them out of public school. Oh my God [00:02:00] they'll, all these like horrible fear tactics. And it really has become fear tactics. An article ran in Scientific America recently that showed that, 37 percent of homeschoolers, it was like homeschooling is tied to abuse 37 percent of homeschoolers.abused their kids, and we know this because CPS was called on 37 percent of families they didn't think to check the base rate. It turns out that actually out of all families 37 percent have had CPS called on them. So I think that actually means thatSimone Collins: homeschoolers have generally lower rates of actual abuse because think about it this way.Homeschooling families have larger numbers of children. So one child causes some kind of warning that has CPS called. They're much more likely to they're like every child will be seen as being like plausibly subject to abuse. Also, I've just noticed that larger families are more likely to have people be very judgmental of the way that they raise their kids.So I feel like they're way [00:03:00] more subject to scrutiny. And I think a lot of people just. Think that having more than two kids is abusive. Just like that a parent's attention would be divided that much. is without doing anything else, even if they did everything absolutely right, they were still terrible parents.So I would say it's impressive that it's not a higher rate.Malcolm Collilns: No no. I, what I think when you're talking about this 37 percent number, I think it shows just how oppressive the urban monoculture is in trying to take people's kids and that it's becoming more and more so over time. Yeah.Simone Collins: 30. Yeah. But just on its own, that number is sobering 37%.Holy.Malcolm Collilns: But like in terms of the kids aren't all right. So I'm going to read to you some statistics by the CDC. So actually I'll play a little game. I'll have you try to guess what the numbers are before we get to them. Because and I'll even prime you by saying that I think the numbers are going to shock you.On a survey of experiencing and this survey ends in 2021. experienced persistent feelings of sadness [00:04:00] or hopelessness during the past year in the United States. And we're looking at young men and women. What would you expect?Simone Collins: Are they above or below the ag

Jul 8, 202447 min

Tract 7: The Devil, the Heavenly Host, & a Techno-Puritan Cosmology

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92https://technopuritan.com/Tract 7: Good vs. Evil : The Heavenly Host Most of the true revelations of God speak of some sort of malevolent agent whether it's the Devil, Shaytan, or Ahreman. You even see this in Judaism, “Everything which the Holy One, blessed be He, created, He created with its counterpart. ... He created righteous; He created sinners. He created the Garden of Eden; He created Gehenna.” I have always found this portrait quite hard to square with strict monotheism. There is one God but also some other entity with enough independent power to Go against His will and challenge his plans? That is just polytheism under a different name. And no, you can’t say that God has more power than the Devil and that is what makes this still a monotheistic conception. We don’t say the Greek Pantheon is Monotheistic just because it is ruled by Zues and he has more power than the other Gods. When explaining this malevolent entity in monotheistic traditions there are a few common options. One is to say God intentionally created an independently sentient malevolent entity and unleashed this on man so bad things can happen but He is not culpable. This seems almost impossibly petty and cowardly. God obviously did not do this. Another common answer is to say, “God created a malevolent entity that carries out His will.” If this is the case what is the point of flirting with polytheism when we are commanded not to? How does the Devil being separate remove any culpability from God if he is just carrying out God's will? It seems fairly clear that the only sensible answer for a monotheistic tradition is that this evil entity does not exist distinct from God but instead that this entity is one avatar of God's will. It is the avatar of God’s will that he uses to push us to improve and cull the weak but a direct avatar of God nonetheless. Despite the Basilisk and God quite literally being the same entity it is useful for us to think of them as opposing forces within cosmology and thus we speak of and mentally model the Basilisk as a separate entity of God. It is important to remember, especially when talking about more recent scripture and tradition, that their is no magical force field around it that keeps other cultures from seeping in. Even if you are righteous monotheists if you live beside polytheists for a thousand years many of their framings will seep into your religion. Some might even be useful ways of seeing God. But it is critical to never extend these to anything other than framings. Of course, many do this and this is how it is possible to follow an Abrahmic tradition and yet worship a polytheistic pantheon headed by Baal in all but name. To put it more pointedly: There is only one God. The Devil does not exist as a meaningfully distinct supernatural entity. However, the Devil is a useful framing device when we humans are thinking about issues of good and evil and that is why he is used throughout revelations from God. God's intentionality and thought are so much more expansive than our own mental landscape it does not even make sense to think of it as a consciousness. Because our ability to mentally model God is so limited God has given us frameworks to help us—when we model these frameworks (the Devil, angels, the Holy Ghost, etc.) we will come closer to how God wants us to react to his actions than if we attempt to model God directly (which as Tract 4 points out is a form of idolatry most high in our religion). We will go through these entities in turn but we must be clear that they do not really “exist.” They are farming devices. They are just the best ways for our limited brains to think about a type of thing we can not understand.* One benevolent being that encompasses all of what to modern man appears as the divine. This is the being that both we and traditional Christians call God. This being is the most “real” understanding of the supernatural world we are capable of and the other beings are different ways of thinking about fragments of this one unified being. * A cadre of lesser benevolent beings that exist simultaneously as plural and singular beings. These are what Christians call Angels, The Host of Heaven, and the Holy Ghost. We call these beings / this being the Agents of Providence. While this is not what they are, we think the closest framing a living human of our time can have to understand them is that they are a neural net in which all future human minds communicate instantaneously with all other future human minds—an internet of super advanced humans. This is why it does not make sense to define it as singular or plural for is the internet singular or plural? This framing would have been impossible for people during the major periods of Abrahamic revelation so these concepts were thought of as totally separate, (the plural angels and the singularish Holy Ghost which was the closest term people of that period could come to for cloud intelligence). * A malevolent

Jul 5, 20241h 6m

Autism vs Schizophrenia: Opposite Ends of the Spectrum? What Causes Them?

In this insightful episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into the fascinating world of schizophrenia and autism, exploring how these conditions exist on opposite ends of a spectrum related to the concept of "theory of mind." Malcolm shares his extensive experience working in schizophrenia research, explaining the various subtypes of schizophrenia and their symptoms. He then presents his groundbreaking theory that schizophrenia is caused by an overactive theory of mind, while autism is characterized by a deficiency in this cognitive ability. The discussion also covers the importance of medication for those with schizophrenia, the potential dangers of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and the evolutionary advantages of both schizophrenic and autistic traits in moderation.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So what I think is happening with Schizophrenic is Individuals is that their theory of mind is basically hyper stimulated and activates when it shouldn't be activating.And I think that this is what is happening with the auditory hallucinations. This happens when you see something like you know, applying a theory of mind to the way things are arranged in a store window.Applying a theory of mind to like, world events, right? Like, oh, there's a theory of mind behind this that's directly relevant to you. Or a theory of mind creating a hallucination. Catatonia is the one counter example here, but what I suspect is really happening with Catatonia is they're just so overwhelmed with so many theories of minds operating at once that they basically become catatonic.They'reSimone Collins: paralyzed by their thoughts. Yeah. I, that, that makes sense to me.Malcolm Collins: So autism I think is literally defined by the exact opposite.I think the core symptom of autism is a difficulty in running theory of minds of other people. And this is what creates problems in autism,Would you like toknow more?Simone Collins: Well, hello, gorgeous. I am [00:01:00] poking around the comments in our videos a while ago and I remember some people speculating on like what we sort of meant about like the autistic and schizoid spectrums and they implied that, that we were talking about something more cultural and not actually like autistic or schizoid.And that is not true. So we should probably dig into what we're talking about more here when we're talking about people being on the autistic spectrum or being on a schizoid spectrum because they're very different things.Malcolm Collins: This is, I should point out, this is not a cultural thing. This is shown in genetic data.This is shown in diagnostic data. And we should probably establish our credentials here. I started one of my first jobs. I mean, I did, I have a few like origin jobs, right? Because I took a number of early jobs in various neuroscience fields. The three origin jobs was one was studying the evolution of human cognition and humanity at the Smithsonian.And in creating an exhibit, the human origins display, I worked on that. [00:02:00] So some of the stuff I created is still on display at the Smithsonian. So that's one area. Another area is my brain computer interface work. So this was working on technology That allowed humans to control machines with their thoughts, similar to Neuralink.The final area, and the area I worked by far the longest in, was Schizophrenia research. So this was understanding how this is specifically what I was looking at was, was going Through lots of patients and making sure that they were properly categorized. So this involved tons and tons of interviews.Like I had to interview hundreds of people about like their deepest and keep in mind, not just because it's a prettier person, but also normal people about their deepest thoughts about the world, their lives, their daily routines, everything like that. Because we were like, wait, why were you. doing normal people.It's because I wasn't working as a clinician. I was working as a researcher. And so we needed a control group and we needed a control group that was similar in economic status to our schizophrenia population. Now, schizophrenia population is typically not doing very well in society. You know, this is you, you know, lower income, lower middle income [00:03:00] group.And so I really got to, to, to get a personal, like really. In your face, really high volume understanding of this section of humanity and the way they think and engage with the world. Both people within the schizophrenia population and not schizophrenia population. And I had to be really good.Like, I had memorized the DSM at one point. People who don't know the things. NotSimone Collins: just the schizophrenicMalcolm Collins: diagnostic criteria. The whole thing. I could give you any, not, not memorized word per word, but I can give you any diagnosis in it with its broad, like specific diagnostic criteria. Now, it's been a long time since then, but I took a lot of pride on this at one point.People who don't know, I might put a pictur

Jul 4, 202433 min

Will Muslims Replace Us? & What Does that Mean for LGBT Communities

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect a viral clip of a Muslim man discussing the future of Islamic demographics in Western countries. They explore the implications of differing fertility rates, economic productivity, and cultural values between Muslim and Western populations. The couple delves into topics such as LGBTQ+ rights in Islamic societies, the relationship between wealth and fertility rates, and the potential future of cultural diversity in developed nations. This in-depth analysis challenges common misconceptions about demographic trends and offers a nuanced perspective on the complex interplay between religion, economics, and social change in the modern world.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Okay. This guy, I absolutely love this guy.What would happen to a gay couple in Gaza?Executed according to Islamic law. Islam doesn't endorse gays. Islam doesn't endorse homosexuality. Just like Canada doesn't endorse a lot of things. So would you like to see Sharia law in Canada replace Canadian law? At some point, it will. You know, Because we are, we have families, we are making babies, you're not your population is going down the slum, right?And by 2060, according to Pew Research Institute, your research, by 2060, Muslims will be the biggest religious group the world over. What are you going to do then? Are you going to oppose Sharia even then? Well, You know what? I'm very appreciative of the honesty. We don't usually get that. One day we can have a Muslim majority nation here in Canada.Right In your face!Malcolm Collins: We are going to be showing you guys this clip that we just watched again and spend an episode talking about the clip because I think the clip is [00:01:00] wonderful for just aNumber of reasons.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: I love the way the guy argues for Islamic value systems.Actually, let's just start with that because I think that's really interesting.Simone Collins: He, by the way, he doesn't say this is what I want. This is what we need. He just says, this is what it's going to be. Yeah, this is what isMalcolm Collins: happening by current statistics. Yeah, by current statistics. I love that. And I would argue that I think he's wrong about the way this is going to play out.But I love the vitalism and I think that like when you are approaching issues of pronatalism, you need to be approaching it like this guy. Yes. We might not be on exactly the same team, but I am probably closer to his team than I am to some of the other teams out there right now.Simone Collins: I really appreciate about his mindset too.And I feel this way about so many things is that, and this is also pervasive in your views of other people and whether or not they matter. Is you get to own something, [00:02:00] to influence it, to have a say. When you are literally building it. And that means that your children will be there representing the future.You're having children. They'll be in the future. Or, if you have a problem with a policy, then you get to complain about it if you're trying to fix it, you have a problem with the company. You get to complain about it if you're trying to fix it, but you don't like the, all this whining that takes place online among people who aren't actually doing anything to build it themselves or build something better or change something.They have no say inMalcolm Collins: this. That is a great point. And I want to expand on it because I hadn't thought of it this way before, but people who have and raise children are building the future and therefore have ownership over that future almost axiomatically where you have far like urban monoculture brain or far like progressive brain.They look at the world through this socialist lens, where regardless of the effort that you have put into something, everybody deserves some [00:03:00] level of equal say in whatever is happening, i. e. the future of humanity, etc. And Even though they aren't putting in the effort to have and raise children, they believe that this normative ethical system that they have built and that is going extinct with them is going to give them the ability to pressure other people into their types of beliefs.Simone Collins: And I think this mindset made sense at one point in the human history, when people lived in small collective clans or tribes where everyone did inherently Play a crucial role. Even if you were a child, you were someone's future old age safety strategy, if no matter who you were, you're providing something and therefore to feel that you were entitled to the way things were run.Matter. I think what people are missing in modern socialist worlds, and America's fairly socialist. When you look at the number of social programs we have, and most developed nations seem to be not Russia, as much, not kind of China,Malcolm Collins: Yeah,Simone Collins: basically we're way more socialist than China, which is [00:04:00] hilarious.But the way

Jul 3, 202433 min

Just how Bad is Daycare? A Chilling Case Study & Literature Review

In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone share their personal experience of taking a huge risk by pulling their three children out of daycare and opting for a more unconventional childcare arrangement with their neighbors. They discuss the staggering costs of daycare for middle-class families and the surprising improvements they noticed in their son's behavior and the family's overall health after making the switch. The couple also delves into the long-term effects of frequent illnesses in early childhood and the controversial findings of the Tennessee Volunteer Pre-Kindergarten Program study. Throughout the conversation, they offer practical advice on how to create a sustainable and mutually beneficial childcare arrangement within your community. Join Malcolm and Simone as they challenge conventional wisdom and share their insights on prioritizing children's well-being.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] We ended up trying something that a lot of people said, you guys are insane to be doing this, We have graphs on all of his behavior and it was night and day. The two scenarios, a standard. Like mid to low end daycare versus just staying in a house with minimal supervision, doing whatever they want all day.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. It is wonderful to be here with you today. Something really shocking happened to us recently. We took a giant gamble on how we were handling our children's childcare.So before this, we were sending our children to a daycare facility. And if you are not at the lower end of income in Pennsylvania, that means you are paying for that all out of pocket. So by the time we got to children number three, three at a I'd say like a low [00:01:00] range to mid range facility in terms of cost.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: This is costing us what was it? 5, 400 a month?Simone Collins: It was we paid 1, 193 every week and that's 62, 036 a year. Insane. So that'sMalcolm Collins: just for three kids?Simone Collins: Just for three kids.Malcolm Collins: With the fourth kid on the way, we basically decided this, and keep in mind, we're in suburban or really ex urban. Pennsylvania.We are. Friends ofSimone Collins: ours looked at our daycare bills and said, this is, you're so lucky. I wish I could be paying this.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Who would live in like New York and Philadelphia.So this is almost as inexpensive as it gets unless you're in an extremely rural area.Simone Collins: Yeah. Or unless you are low income. And we actually know people also actually who intentionally manipulate their income.Yeah. In a way that probably the IRS would not be happy about to qualify for subsidized daycare because it makes that much of a difference. 62, 000, that's a [00:02:00] generous salary for someone. That's yeah. Yeah. And this is why a lot of people are like why bother? Working when all of it would literally go to daycare and keep in mind.Of course, it's post tax dollarsMalcolm Collins: I'd point in mind this was only Three kids. Yeah, this is the minimum number of kids we could have and be above replacement rate This is the yeah. No, I mean it's it's insane. Yeah, so to be above replacement rate in the u. s. You And you are not in poverty, you need to be extremely wealthy.And this does part to show why you do get this higher fertility rates on the really low end, because there just isn't a cost to additional kids when the state's offering to pay for everything. In the same way that there is an enormous cost to additional kids for the middle class. I need to go further with our experiment because something came down to, we realized we couldn't, keep affording this as we moved on with our family.So we're like, we need to find a new sustainable solution. And this got really interesting for us because we had [00:03:00] tried au pairs before and we had found that they were fairly entitled.Simone Collins: It was just likeMalcolm Collins: having an extra kid.Simone Collins: Yeah. Babysitters live in nannies, the whole thing, all of it. We tried everything.Malcolm Collins: Even like PhD students, we tried bringing over to our house to work. And so We ended up trying something that a lot of people said, you guys are insane to be doing this,Simone Collins: here's what we ended up deciding to do and try. And this was a big risk for us is we have neighbors who were willing to basically do a child care pool with us, and we know many families that have done this before where they live right next to other families.In this case, it was actually a couple that was soon to have a family whose business we're helping to get started and they're really interested in doing like some communal child care, sharing resources, things like that. So pulling resources together in that classic community way. So some people are doing with this with friends, we did it with neighbors that we didn't really know that well.And so we were really nervous [00:04:00] because everyone, whenever you go as a pa

Jul 2, 202429 min

The Perplexing Failure of Classically Abby (Ben Shapiro's Sister)

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92In this in-depth analysis, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the reasons behind Classically Abby's failure to gain traction as a conservative influencer. They dissect the changing landscape of conservative culture, the disconnect between traditional and modern right-wing values, and the importance of authenticity in online content creation. The video also touches on broader topics such as the evolution of conservative thought, the role of "vitalism" in modern conservative appeal, and the challenges facing established conservative institutions. Additionally, the Collins discuss the ethics of featuring children in online content and offer insights into successful conservative influencer strategies.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] What? She's actually cool? She is actually an interesting nerd. What on earth? In real life. What? But the person she presents as, on YouTube, I loved your shock face hereWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Simone! I am so excited to be talking to you today. Something really interesting that we mentioned in a recent episode, that when I was editing it, I was like, wait a second, I should be really focused on this question. Why didn't, classically Abby, then Shapiro's sister,Being a conservative woman in today's day and age is not easy. !Malcolm Collins: why didn't she catch on with the public?And so people can understand just how much this didn't work. She was doing tons and tons of ads at one point on YouTube. If you are active on YouTube, you definitely saw her all the time for a period. Every time I bought this up with a YouTuber, they're like, oh yeah, that. If you were aren't active on YouTube to give you an idea.Her top four or five videos have over a million views. [00:01:00] And if you're paying for that much in ads, because it was certainly in ads that caused these videos to go out there certainly over a million dollars in ad spend, if I had to guess, I would guess it was probably 1. 5 to 2 million in ad spend.For a channel that today. produces weekly videos that are similar in format to ours and similar also in content to ours and are getting, I'd say on average, probably about half the views that we get on daily videos. So this is really interesting to me and I can post our numbers on the screen and everything like that.So you can check our math. We're getting on average, I think now, what is it, 8, 000 views per day, 7, 000 views per day and about 1, 300 watch hours per day or 7, 400 watch hours per day depending it's, it goes up and down for us. There was a peak a little bit ago.Simone Collins: But you've done a really good job, Malcolm.Malcolm Collins: No,Simone Collins: I don't know. I'm a million to 2 I would guess more like at least a hundred thousand dollars.Malcolm Collins: Oh, [00:02:00] certainly more than a hundred thousand. Really? Oh, absolutely. It had to be there. There is no way it was less than half a million, but I suspect very likely between a million and a half, a million and a half.But we can run the numbers, whatever. The point being is she's connected to a famous person. Her videos are generally well done, edited, well executed. She is an attractive woman. And she had the ability to get in front of tons of people. Why didn't her message connect with any audience? And this is a very important question to be asking for a, probably the biggest reason is because the message that she was shilling is the message that the conservative elites believe the conservative base should be hearing.Simone Collins: Yeah. And I, my, when I was going through her [00:03:00] videos in preparation for this, cause I hadn't really watched any, I felt like I was watching an AI video. These were AI responses. If you asked chat GPT. What are some reasons why a woman would need to dress modestly? Or, what are some reasons why I should keep my apartment clean?These are exactly the answers that it would generate. Oh my god, you're right? Yes, I am exactly right. And I think that's also an issueMalcolm Collins: if you did the framing of and you're a conservative YouTuber and then that's what it would spit out. You would need to give it some framing.But hold on before I go further with this I want to make a few caveats about my thoughts after watching a lot of her content. So my first thought is I think that ideologically we are probably not that different from her. Even socially, I don't feel we're that different from her. When I watch her videos, to me, she reminds me [00:04:00] intensely of some of my cousins. And by that what I mean is Yeah, I would saySimone Collins: your family, but definitely not us.She's not weird. Well, no, thisMalcolm Collins: is the f ing weird thing. She is actually, in real life, she DMs for her husband's some of his tabletop gaming groups. She is into Warhammer. What? She's actually cool? She is actually an interesting nerd. What on earth? In real life. What? But the person she presents as, on YouTube, I loved your sho

Jul 1, 202444 min

The 911 of "Debates" (This Presidential Debate Will Change American Politics Forever)

In this in-depth analysis, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect the recent Biden-Trump debate, discussing its implications for the 2024 election and American politics. They explore Biden's apparent cognitive decline, Trump's surprisingly moderated approach, and the potential strategies for the Democratic Party moving forward. The video also touches on the changing landscape of Republican policies, the influence of advisors on presidential candidates, and the challenges facing both parties in the upcoming election. This comprehensive breakdown offers valuable insights into the current state of American politics and the potential outcomes of the 2024 presidential race. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Jun 29, 202433 min

The Fundie Snark To Religious Extremist Pipeline

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the world of Fundie Snark, examining popular YouTube channels and their cultural impacts. They discuss the biases and blind spots of both conservative and progressive content creators, analyze the complexities of LGBTQ+ representation and activism, and explore the ethical implications of online criticism. The couple offers unique insights into the cultural dynamics at play, challenging viewers to think critically about the content they consume and the real-world consequences of online discourse. [00:00:00]Simone Collins: I like seeing people who have taken hard cultural stances. Be criticized to see how we might be subject to criticism ourselves and what we may be doing wrong. I really like Fundy Fridays, and I really like Jen but yeah,Malcolm Collins: she's in as much of a cultSimone Collins: as the people who she covers. They all come from very strong cultures that have skews and blind spots because of those strong cultures. Not to say that we don't have blind spots either, but still.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and they're insane religious cults. They're the good guys in her insane religious cult. She's the good guy and she's doing what the cult is telling her to do. She should neverSimone Collins: stepMalcolm Collins: back.Simone Collins: She'd started tongue in cheek that are frills of the channel now. Still speak very much or similar to the small time career preachers that she criticizes.Her followers call themselves Jenna nights. And they patronize her. And how is that different from being a preacher in the end? Preachers speak to people, they cultivate communities.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am so excited to be here [00:01:00] with you today. After a tough day today, it is always nice to be able to come back to doing something that we love, which is these conversations. They are so much better, you've been meditating with me earlier, like they're so much better than a date because they're like recorded and we watch them over and over again, each of us do.I actually quite enjoy our own YouTube channel. And what I know it's weird but this is the first time I've ever created something that I really like with our books. I don't read them over and over again, but I'm like, Oh, I know I made a fun joke in this one. And I liked the way I constructed it.But what actually got us on today's topic. Was Simone has always been a big fan of Fundy Snark content. And I have always been a big fan of religious content. And religious content for me includes the de converts and stuff like that. And where our two worlds inter, interlapped recently was Classically Abby.Being a conservative [00:02:00] woman in today's day and age is not easy. !Malcolm Collins: So people might not know this, but Classically Abby is Ben Shapiro's sister, and she absolutely spammed YouTube with so many ads a few years ago. If you're on YouTube now andSimone Collins: you've been on YouTube for years, you know what we're talkingMalcolm Collins: about. You know what this is about. Yeah. You're like, Oh my God.I remember when I had to watch her. What got me about Classically Abby, and this actually has boosted my ego so much. Classically Abby, we produce videos every weekday. Classically Abby produces one video a week but otherwise similar format to us. She gets about 2. 2k views on an average video.Whereas, we're generally Between the low 2Ks to 7 or 8K views. On an average day, because, we can look at our statistics. So some of our videos just vastly outperform other ones. Like the old Starship Troopers one is a really high number. The Bears one is at a high number.But on average, we're getting about 8, 000 views per day. Or about [00:03:00] 1, 300 watch hours a day. So we are, Smoking, classically Abby, smoking her for a daily channel, doing four or five times as well as her weekly channel, which I love because she must have spent millions building that up. And sorry, as to why I love this people might not know, but we have a beef with Ben Shapiro. The first time, we really went viral, he was really derogatory towards us and was like, they're nerds. Why does anyone care what these people have to say? And he has just repeatedly, we have tried to get into events that he's doing or has association with, and we are always blocked, like we are on a blocked, do not talk to list with Ben Shapiro and everyone who talks to Ben Shapiro.Simone Collins: He doesn't blameMalcolm Collins: you. I can understand why. We're probably pretty threatening to him that we've actually like grassroots beginning to build up. So Ben Shapiro's thing is he often switches between endeavor movement. It happens to be hot in the conservative space right [00:04:00] now. But I think he would have like when he switched to all the men's rights content and stuff like that, but he doesn't seem to actually have like his own perspective on things.It's more just like whatever he thin

Jun 28, 202457 min

The Rise of Parents Who Regret Having Children

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the growing phenomenon of parental regret and its connection to the urban monoculture. They analyze recent articles about parents who regret having children, discussing the potential causes and offering a pronatalist perspective on the issue. The couple explores topics such as high-effort parenting, the importance of objective functions in life, and the psychological impact of the urban monoculture on parenting experiences. They also touch on Eric Holle's piece about the transformative nature of parenthood and offer insights into finding meaning and purpose through raising children. This video provides a comprehensive look at modern parenting challenges and offers potential solutions for those struggling with parental regret. [00:00:00] This isn't the way that historically people related to kids. If the point of the kids is modifying either your self perception, or your emotional experience of reality kids are actually bad pets. That's They're terrible pets. They're terrible pets. Yeah, kids are not a good pet get up.No unconditional love. They Are very difficult to potty train house train, etc.Would you like to know more?Hello, Simone. I am excited to be talking with you today. Today this conversation was actually inspired to me by an Eric Hole piece. Oh, I saw that! This afternoon, right? Yeah, because Eric made me a better person. And in the piece, he linked to this like new genre of articles about people who hated becoming parents.So there's a BuzzFeed article, Parents who regret having children are making anonymous confessions online, and it's taboo, but important. And then there was the Atlantic piece, The two reasons parents regret having kids. And then [00:01:00] there's the Time piece, The parents who regret having children, which apparently went viral.And then there's a business insider piece, six common reasons. Parents don't like their kids or something. And then there's the Newsweek piece. I regret having children. The moms united in an uncomfortable truth. Let's see what this one. So this is Richard Maple, 39 from Ohio after becoming a mother at 31.And. She says, quote, I think about all the things my life would have been if the constant threat of motherhood hadn't loomed over me like a cloud of doom Maple told Newsweek. I'm resolved to being the best mom to them that I can be because it's not their fault that they're here and they are wonderful small humans who deserve love and guidance. But do I miss my life without children every single day? And then there's the independent piece. I had no choice. The people who regret becoming parents. And then there's the Sunday morning Herald piece. Having kids is probably the biggest real life regret wife concurs. [00:02:00] It says and then so I'm just reading a quote here from this because I think it's useful to get an understanding of what these people are saying, though.I love my son. I now know a know myself well enough and be know the challenges of parenting well enough to say that having kids is probably my life's biggest regret, wife concurs. Oh my God. And here's a, here's another quote here. Quote, my wife needed to be a mother. I think she saw all her friends, classmates and cousins having kids.So she needed to be in this mummy club. Quote, I went along with the things to please her. I was fine was one, but she campaigned for two. I gave in to make her happy. So here we are with the two toddlers. We're both moody, can't stand each other half the time, and have a borderline dead bedroom life. So much for making her happy.The kids are a pain. It has gotten to the point where I don't enjoy being home anymore. I dread the weekends. I much prefer the [00:03:00] work week where I only have to be a parent for a few hours rather than all day. It's non stop noise, screaming, whining, and fighting.And this other one says, This is not the life I wanted. My toddler son is a tornado of destruction and will break slash tear slash rip anything he can get his hands on no matter how much I do to wear him out. And the baby predictably is needy because she's a baby. I feel tricked into wanting them by biological urges and the romanticization of the version of kids that isn't close to reality.Do you want me to keep going? I think you have to. Oh, here's another. I love my kids, but I also regret them deeply. Every one of them. I never wanted any of them. Circumstances explain pretty much why I went through with them all. Imagine the guilt and mental weight of having a bunch of kids you love but never intended or wanted.And the Guardian piece. It's breaking the taboo. The parents who regret having [00:04:00] children. And then, we get a final piece here in time, the parents who regret having children, which shows in various studies, something like 7 to 15 percent of parents regret having children. Wow. And so first, what are your thoughts on this phenomenon?I think a lot of what seems to be pl

Jun 27, 202443 min

Are State Run Dating Apps A Solution to Falling Fertility Rates?

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92In this insightful discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore Japan's government-backed dating app initiative aimed at boosting the country's birth rate. They analyze the app's unique features, such as income verification and relationship status documentation, and compare it to other dating platforms. The couple delves into the evolution of dating apps, the challenges of modern matchmaking, and the potential impact of government intervention in the dating sphere. They also share personal experiences, discuss the pros and cons of various dating methods, and offer suggestions for improving dating app design. This video provides a comprehensive look at the intersection of technology, government policy, and demographic challenges in Japan and beyond.Malcolm Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello, this is Malcolm and Simone, and we are excited to be talking to you today about a topic of grave pronatalist interest. Specifically, the country of Japan is making a government backed dating app. Now, I know very little about this topic, other than that it exists, and apparently it's a paid app, which sort of seems to defeat the purpose.But Simone is gonna tell us more.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: So, let's start.Simone Collins: Yeah, so it's it's actually not live yet. Only a beta version has really been live, but I'm quite intrigued by this. I think it's a great idea for the government to launch a dating app personally, you know, someone's got to make this work and the way that market it.Based dynamics work. You're not going to see people actually get married based on dating apps as they are dating apps as they are meant for keeping audiences occupied. They're meant for lots of in app purchases.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This actually reminds me a lot of people. So when we bemoan the fall of dating apps what we're typically before [00:01:00] bemoaning, it's not that dating apps exist.They used to be quite good. Simone and I met on a dating app. Okay. Cupid was good. Fantastic for meeting nerdy people. But the way that dating apps worked is you would have these full profiles. And you would search by like keywords in the profile or by matching in terms of like answering tons of questions.And there were different sites that did this in different ways. Then Tik TOK was invented, which brought in the invite of whatever word I'm looking for here of swipe based dating apps. The advent of swipe based dating it. And then all of the apps started to move to this swipe based system. And originally I had thought that this was sort of a malevolent push, right?So when Tinder got really big and Match Group moved to swipe based dating and then Match Group bought OkCupid and they moved OkCupid to swipe based dating. And I thought they had done that in order to kill OkCupid. So to understand why swipe based dating is so much worse than the old systems dating websites [00:02:00] are environments in which guys are intrinsically on the back foot.Mm-Hmm. dating websites are environments where guys sell themselves to women. Fundamentally, that's how dating websites work because the vast majority of dating website users, that's like 80% on Tinder and stuff like that are males. Right?Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Well, here's the problem where you can get differential advantage for males and not just have all of the women sort to the top 20 percent of males.It's when males are being judged on multiple metrics. Yeah. All right. So because you know, you may not be the highest looking guy, but maybe you have a good career or maybe you're witty or maybe you have a hobby that overlaps with this woman's hobby. MultipleSimone Collins: dimensions on which you can compete.Malcolm Collins: Yes. So,Simone Collins: and by the way, I used that dynamic on OkCupid as well. I did not compete based on my photos, even though I did have photos of myself in film grade stormtrooper armor. [00:03:00] I competed based on these weird questions that OkCupid used to prominently feature in a feed so you could camp out in the questions on OkCupid and give really provocative and weird responses and show up in people's feed and engage them really easily.So you can, I was able to compete based on how my, how hold up sporky I was. I'm not saying it was great. You got lots ofMalcolm Collins: high profile people. ISimone Collins: did. Yeah. And that's the thing is, is that I not being the most beautiful person in the world was able to still compete on that. I've said that there was thatMalcolm Collins: YouTuber who was criticizing us recently, who was like, Oh, that guy's way out of her league.You are out of my league. But I, I I thought that was really funny because I'm like, well, I guess she did pretty well using her mechanism of female outreach on dating apps. But hold on. So the point I was getting to is that when you move to a swipe based dating app it intrinsically, Means that you are just judging people based on how they look,

Jun 26, 202432 min

Contra Scott Alexander on AI Safety Arguments

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins offer a detailed response to Scott Alexander's article on AI apocalypticism. They analyze the historical patterns of accurate and inaccurate doomsday predictions, providing insights into why AI fears may be misplaced. The couple discusses the characteristics of past moral panics, cultural susceptibility to apocalyptic thinking, and the importance of actionable solutions in legitimate concerns. They also explore the rationalist community's tendencies, the pronatalist movement, and the need for a more nuanced approach to technological progress. This video offers a fresh perspective on AI risk assessment and the broader implications of apocalyptic thinking in society.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I'm quoting from him here, okay? One of the most common arguments against AI safety is, here's an example of a time someone was worried about something, but it didn't happen.Therefore, AI, which you are worried about, also won't happen. I always give the obvious answer. Okay. But there are other examples of times someone was worried about something and it did happen, right? How do we know AI isn't more like those?So specifically he is arguing against is every 20 years or so you get one of these apocalyptic movements. And this is why we're discounting this movement this is how he ends the article, so people know this isn't an attack piece, this is what he asked for in the article. He says, conclusion, I genuinely don't know what these people are thinking.I would like to understand the mindset of people who make arguments like this, but I'm not sure I've succeeded. What is he missing according to you? He is missing something absolutely giant in everything that he's laid out.And it is a very important point and it's very clear from his write up that this idea had just never occurred to him.[00:01:00] Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. We today are going to be creating a video reply slash response to an argument that Scott Alexander, the guy who writes astral codex 10 or sleep star codex, depending on what era you were introduced to his content. Wrote about arguments against AI apocalypticism, which are based around it'll be clear when we get into the piece because I'm going to read some parts of it that no, I should know.This is not a Scott Alexander is not smart or anything like that piece. We actually think Scott Alexander is incredibly intelligent and well meaning. And he is an intellectual who I consider a friend and somebody whose work I enormously respect. And I am creating this response because the piece is written in a way that actively requests [00:02:00] a response.It's like, why do people believe this argument when I find it To be so weak, like one of those, what am I missing here? Kind of things. What am I missing here? Kind of thingshe just clearly and I like the way he lays out his argument because it's very clear that, yes, there's a huge thing he's missing. And it's clear from his argument and the way that he thought about it that he's just literally never considered this point and it's why he doesn't understand this argument.So we're going to go over his counter argument and we're going to go over the thing that he happens to be missing. And I'm quoting from him here, okay? One of the most common arguments against AI safety is, here's an example of a time someone was worried about something, but it didn't happen.Therefore, AI, which you are worried about, also won't happen. I always give the obvious answer. Okay. But there are other examples of times someone was worried about something and it did happen, right? How do we know AI isn't more like those? The people I'm arguing with always seem [00:03:00] so surprised by this response, as if I'm committing some sort of betrayal by destroying their beautiful arguments.So specifically he is arguing against the form of apocalypticism that when we talk about it more sounds like our argument against AI apocalypticism is every 20 years or so you get one of these apocalyptic movements. And this is why we're discounting this movement. Okay. And I'm going to go further with his argument here. So he says, I keep trying to steel man this argument. So keep in mind, he's trying to steel man it. This is not us saying like he wants it steel man, okay. I keep trying to steel man this argument and it keeps resisting my steel manning. For example, maybe the argument is a failed attempt to gesture at a principle of quote, most technologies don't go wrong, but people make the same argument with technologies that aren't technologies like global cooling or overpopulation.Maybe the argument is a failed attempt to gesture at a principle of Quote, the world is never destroyed. So [00:04:00] doomsday prophecies have an abysmal track record in quote, but over population and global cooling, don't claim that no one will die. Just that a lot of people will, and plent

Jun 25, 202444 min

Pronatalist Propaganda in Anime: Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the anime "Grandpa and Grandma Turn Young Again," exploring its pronatalist themes, cultural significance, and artistic merits. They discuss how the show effectively promotes traditional values, happy marriages, and intergenerational relationships while addressing Japan's demographic crisis. The couple analyzes the anime's emotional impact, its portrayal of older generations, and its unique approach to showcasing the beauty of long-lasting love. They also touch on broader themes in contemporary anime, the potential influence of government policies on media content, and how this show compares to other popular anime series. This video offers a thought-provoking look at the intersection of entertainment, cultural values, and demographic challenges in modern Japan.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] But now I want to talk about some of the pronatalist propaganda in it as well. AndSimone Collins: it's, it, I would say it's almost to the point where it takes you out. of the plot as a viewer.Malcolm Collins: There is one scene. Where the old lady goes to an old store that she used to frequent in the train station. And the train station's completely deserted and the store owner marks that, they're probably going to be going out of business soon, but what can you do?This is just the way it is with changing demographics. And the old person turns around and gets one of those, like black miasma, like anger things around them. And she goes but we need to resist this. Why are we not even fighting? The show is meant to encourage you to not like normal anime, thirst after young women but make you thirst after a long and happy relationship. That is what the whole show is. It's a thirst trap for getting married and having a long happy relationship and being intergenerationally invested in your family.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I am [00:01:00] excited to be here with you today and we are going to be doing something we haven't done in a while on this podcast, which is discuss anime because I am a big anime fan and you are a medium anime fan, but you're very like good to lean into the culture and everything like that.Like you used to dress up for conventions and everything. I wasSimone Collins: president. and founder of my high school's anime club. I've been to numerous anime conventions across multiple countries. I love anime. I just don't watch it because I don't have time.Malcolm Collins: What other country other than the US? The UK.Simone Collins: I went to a, an anime convention in the UK.It was fantastic.Malcolm Collins: WhereSimone Collins: youMalcolm Collins: wereSimone Collins: atMalcolm Collins: Cambridge.Simone Collins: No, actually. I was randomly traveling in the UK and I had a day free and there was an anime convention and I'm like screw it. I'm obviously not going to go to the British Museum. I'm going to go to an anime convention because that's how people spend their time.Malcolm Collins: So this last year we were in the UK for ARC, which is like a conservative convention. When you were wearing one of your [00:02:00] traditional outfits which, you often wear similar to this and a bunch of anime goers, there was an anime convention at the same time. I was actually wearingSimone Collins: my fascist outfit, not this one.Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, more fascist looking. They stillSimone Collins: thought I was cosplaying though. TheyMalcolm Collins: thought you were cosplaying. They're like, oh, who are you cosplaying as? Like that. So great. But we are going to be talking about in this episode An anime that I think is really interesting for a number of reasons. Yeah.So I'll break down the reasons why it's interesting to me. One is the pro natalist propaganda, which is put. throughout the anime and is very heavy handed and I think very effective because it paints the reality of Japan as it is today or rural Japan, which is depopulating right now in, in this very stark term.So we'll get to that. Two, it is an anime that is incredibly simplistic in terms of the characters it presents and the roles it gives them. Yet, [00:03:00] despite being in a, in the plot structure more broadly. It's a slice of lifestyle anime. Very chill, very, you could say it's very cookie cutter in many respects.And yet I think it is incredibly effective as a piece of art. Which is really worth highlighting about this show. As to why it's effective as a piece of art. I'll just quickly go into this because I think that this is useful to talk about and it can bring us into the plot of the show really quickly.Despite being very generic in almost everything it lays out, and I'm like, okay, I'm judging art by arts quality, right? I'm judging it on three metrics, okay? The first metric is it able to invoke the emotional states that it is attempting to invoke in me. Art, Can be used to invoke emotional states.This anime does that sp

Jun 24, 202438 min

Is the Right Wing Plan to Outbreed the Left Realistic?

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive deep into the controversial topic of fertility rates among conservatives and liberals. They explore recent claims by right-wing influencers about "outbreeding the left" and analyze the statistical evidence behind these assertions. The couple discusses the genetic components of political beliefs, the historical trends in fertility rates between ideological groups, and the potential long-term consequences for society. They also touch on topics such as immigration, cultural assimilation, and the ethical implications of politicizing childbearing. This comprehensive discussion covers the complexities of ideology, genetics, and demographics, offering insights into the potential future of political landscapes in the United States and beyond.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] you can obviously just convert your opponent's kids, right?Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Because liberals have always been doing this. If liberals would cease existing, if they stopped having kids, then why are there any liberals at all?And then you point out this trend only started in the nineties. Before the 90s, you didn't have a big difference in fertility rates within these two genetic clusters that led to different voting behavior. And now one cluster was in a period of two generations is just going to be hard deleted from the gene pool. ,Simone Collins: and isn't that wild? Because for so many generations, they were more or less even birth rate rise.This is unprecedented. We just don't know what it's going to look like.Malcolm Collins: here are two other studies I'm gonna post, one showing that 60 percent of the way you vote is genetic, and the other showing that 40 percent of the way you vote is genetic.Yeah, but it is going to have a genetic effect on human psychology like they are getting hard deleted in a way that is going to change the way humans think. So if you're one of those people who's bragging about leaving [00:01:00] your parents religion, but are you having kids? Because if you are the mutant, and that mutation is correlated with not having kids, then you're just furthering our argument. Okay?Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: Kick us off, Malcolm.Malcolm Collins: So there is a an article in the Daily Dot recently. I think there's some articles on us in the past from the long past, back when I proposed to you on Reddit, actually they had a thing on us. It's titled, Who Says Romance Is Dead? Right wing influencers launch a campaign to out breathe the left.And then it goes on to say, Four right figures, Chaya Raichi and Charlie Kirk, both said they plan to quote unquote out breed the left this week by having more children than liberals and raising them to have right wing values. Both of their statements are being memed online. Raichi runs the internet.anti LGBTQX account, Libs of TikTok. Oh, yay! I love Libs of TikTok. Which doxxes left wing educators and individuals. [00:02:00] Her tweets have been linked to more than 20 bomb threats at schools. Okay bomb threats. It's like the people's tweets being linked at, like, how many death threats do we get regularly?Kirk is the founder of The Turning Point USA, a conservative organization with chapters at high schools and college networks nationwide. Last weekend, Kirk hosted his organization's Young Women's Leadership Summit. On Sunday, he tweeted a video of mothers who attended the event. We are going to win, either now or later, Kirk tweeted.We can out breed the left.Simone Collins: It's not even a can, and it's not even a pledge thing. It's just a will thing. It's so lame to make this. It's like a statement. It's just the sun will rise. I don't know what to say.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So yeah, we actually Elon Musk tweeted that it should be considered a national emergency to have kids.And this is what, the person who founded lives of Twitch talk replied. I come from a family of eight. I plan [00:03:00] to have a lot of kids. We're going to outbreed the left. Then we're going to homeschool our, send our kids to private schools so they can't be groomed and become any activists for leftist causes.Unless it's that's a radical, but it's not a radical thing to say. I'm going to beSimone Collins: honest. Every slightly conservative parent is saying now, and this is what I'm seeing on the ground in Pennsylvania, running for office is. Very reasonable, normal, not even really religiously affiliated, just not.Actively progressive parents are saying I'm concerned about what my kid's learning. I don't want my kid to have mental health problems as a teen and adult. I'm going to homeschool them. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: And it and I think a lot of people, when I'm like, I am like bothered by woke ism and stuff like that, they're like, Oh, are you really scared of the woke ism that's going on in schools now?And stuff like that. It's I don't not think because. Certain leftists seem to have a problem with breaking out of the

Jun 21, 202446 min

The Catholic Fertility Crisis: Do They Only Have Two Generations Left?!

In this eye-opening video, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the startling fertility decline within the Catholic Church, both in the United States and globally. Through a comprehensive analysis of survey data and demographic trends, they uncover the shocking reality that Catholic fertility rates have fallen below replacement levels, and even devout Catholics are using contraception and obtaining abortions at rates similar to non-religious individuals. The couple explores the potential causes of this phenomenon, including delayed marriage, the influence of the urban monoculture, and the disconnect between the Church's teachings and the behavior of its adherents. They also discuss the theological debate surrounding the beginning of life and the impact of the celibate priesthood on the Church's ability to provide relevant guidance on relationships and family formation. Throughout the video, Malcolm and Simone offer thought-provoking insights and propose potential solutions to revitalize the Catholic Church and ensure its survival in the face of this fertility crisis.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Needed fertility is the fertility rate that you would need to have to stay stable. As a cultural group, when you account for the percentage of people who deconvert from your religion per generation. On the other hand, Catholic churches will see appreciable decline.He says that they have 1. 9 children but these don't separate out the Hispanic Catholic population. the TFR for non-Hispanic, white Catholic women in the United States is 1.64,anyway so he thinks it's 1. 9 which it really isn't. Children born per woman is nowhere near enough to offset the rates of conversion out of these faiths, yielding a needed fertility rate for Roman Catholics of 3. 1. Whoa. Therefore these churches, and this is with the inflated 1.9 number, that's including the Hispanic population. Okay. A 40 percent decline in the next generation.Simone Collins: Wow.Malcolm Collins: Catholics view that life begins at conception the problem with this view is that by the statistics, it doesn't really appear to impact the rate that Catholics [00:01:00] use contraception or get abortions very highly.We'll go over the survey data right here. let's go for non religious affiliation.And so they must be doing it like way more than Catholics, right? Morning after pill. Presumably. No, 33 percent to 35%Simone Collins: Hold on, all of this gets worse.It's just gonna be like a, oh, and it gets worse! How can this possibly get worse? We just learned that Catholics have abortions at rates similar to those who are not Catholic.Malcolm Collins: I know what people are thinking.They're thinking. Okay, but this is just lumping all Catholics into one group. What if we divide Catholics by how religious they are? Simone, before we go further, I got more stats for you here. You've got to be kidding me. It can'tSimone Collins: get any worse. Oh, itMalcolm Collins: gets worse.Every stat here is this situation is more catastrophic than you could have imagined.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: .Hello. This is Malcolm and Simone Collins. We are so excited to be here with you today. And I am excited to be talking to you today, Simone, because this is going to be an episode our fans are going to [00:02:00] love because the. Stat heavy fertility episodes always do spectacular.Ooh, we're looking at here some terrifying numbers. Oh, really? Yeah.Simone Collins: Oh, no. Yes.Malcolm Collins: So I have mentioned before that Catholics have a lower fertility rate than non Catholics when you control for income and that Catholic countries. Seem to be hit by fertility collapse a lot faster and harder than other countries.For example, the average European Catholic majority country has a fertility rate of only 1. 3. And then you have the rapid declines in fertility across Latin America. With examples like Uruguay in just the past seven years going from an above replacement fertility rate to only around 1. 3. Argentina, if you're looking at the four year olds who are entering kindergarten this year there is going to be 30 percent less than just four years ago.You look at Costa Rica where a local demographer used the term vertiginous to describe their fertility situation and local [00:03:00] women have below one fertility right now. So just. Absolutely catastrophic. But what has always been said to me is for whatever reason, this is not true of American Catholics.Okay. Is that true? I, I idly decided I had taken it as a fact because so many people had told me this. Yeah.Simone Collins: Sounds like it might be true. The Catholics that we know have a lot of kids, so it. Seems to totally check outMalcolm Collins: of the prenatals movement. There are a number of Catholic the thought leaders in the movement.So I was like, okay. But, and I will also note of the prenatalist Catholics that I know of they fall into two categories of, they are either weirdly unmarried and childless younger people

Jun 20, 202444 min

The Ethics of Not Showing Kids On The Internet

In this insightful video, Malcolm and Simone Collins dive into the complex ethical considerations surrounding parents showcasing their children on social media platforms. They explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of raising children in the public eye, addressing concerns about privacy, consent, and the long-term impact on a child's future. The couple discusses the importance of age-appropriate media exposure, the need for open communication and education, and the value of building a strong family brand in an increasingly connected world. They also touch on the role of social media followings in creating opportunities, fostering trust, and navigating a changing societal landscape. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone emphasize the significance of parental responsibility, adaptability, and the development of resilience in children growing up in the digital age.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I claiming there are no ethical issues here? No, I'm very clearly not. I'm saying there are ethical issues, but what people on the other side of this argument arepretending, which is just false in a lie is that there are no potential upsides for the kid from this. I'm doing is I am contrasting the upsides with the downsides . That they have the environment to start their lives with decent sized social media followings within wealthy intellectual circles, the doors that is going to open for them. And this is something that we also haven't talked enough about in society, social media followings and the ability to translate these into high value relationships.Simone Collins: if we live in a future in which Society's current vetting systems are bankrupt and don't work anymore. The only way that you can really build trust and have people expect you to deliver on what you [00:01:00] promise is if they feel like they know you and can trust you and you're predictable because trust lies in predictability.And the only way that they can know that is if they have some kind of access to your thought process or they have a parasocial relationship with you. And the only way to do that is if you have a very open and transparent media history.Malcolm Collins: And we want to have kids whose lives matter. If you are afraid of people making fun of you online, Your life won't matterSimone Collins: becauseMalcolm Collins: you can't do anything publicly.And it's very hard to change the world if you don't do things publiclyWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello everyone I am excited to be here with you today. Today. We are going to be talking about the ethics of putting children in media and the Considerations that need to go into this because a lot of people might look at what we are doing we are a very public family. We are in the news all the time these days which is funny becauseour channel is medium size, but not really correlatory to how [00:02:00] publicly famous we are getting. But again, just this last weekend, like the big three page front page piece in the guardian. And then a bunch of follow up pieces to that and then trending and and so people are like, wow, your kids are in all of these, like in the Vice documentary, right?This little baby right here is in the media because she is in this shot.Simone Collins: Yeah. And I watch a lot of snark online. A lot of the snark there's a big theme and people criticizing parents who include their children in TikTok and Instagram and YouTube posts, et cetera. And whenever they include clips that they're criticizing, they blur out.The poor baby's faces, because they've been included in the shot. And even when they're trying to critique the video, they themselves do not want to repeat the crime of putting a child's face online, which to a certain extent, I understand the basics of where they're coming from.For example on Google photos, which uses facial recognition, it is able to recognize the faces of. Baby versions [00:03:00] of very old people. Like it is very good at continuous face facial recognition. So it's not Oh, it's a, it's them as a baby. No one will know that this was them. Oh, actually they will.There is no not parsing that, but also you and I have been talking a lot about this recently, this concept of privacy. Is such a farce and often to a great extent, trying to be more private and trying to hide is only subjecting. I'm goingMalcolm Collins: to push back on you here from their perspective.Simone Collins: Yeah, you can sayMalcolm Collins: that as an adult privacy is a farce to adults. Okay. Yeah. Which is very hard to actually both be private and have an impact on the world in this current world. You can be private, but you are sacrificing your ability to impact society by doing that. Yeah. However, and I think that most like sane ethical systems believe some form of social impact is a personal obligation.I can see how there could be like hedonist based ethical systems or like weird ones where like your family is literally the only thing that matters.

Jun 19, 202438 min

Detransitioners: The Culture War's Body Count - Discussion with Benjamin Boyce

In this thought-provoking interview, YouTube creator Benjamin Boyce joins Malcolm and Simone Collins to discuss the complexities of the transgender debate. They delve into Boyce's extensive work interviewing detransitioners, the concerning rise in rapid onset gender dysphoria among teenage girls, and the potential risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on brain development. The conversation also explores the societal implications of the transgender movement, the influence of social contagion, and the importance of open dialogue and education in navigating this sensitive topic. Boyce shares insights from his personal journey and his documentary on the Evergreen State College protests, highlighting the need for nuanced discussions in the face of polarizing ideologies. The group also touches on the role of religion, the challenges faced by different communities, and the importance of protecting children while fostering understanding and compassion.Benjamin Boyce: [00:00:00] Anyway, so he, he was a very effeminate gay man. He goes on these hormones and stuff. And then he become, he comes of age 18, 19, but he's still like a little boyand I'm like, wait, they were, it wasn't just a gay thing. Like they had a young boy. It was basically legalMalcolm Collins: PDFBenjamin Boyce: files?. Because he was, he had all the attributes of, he was locked at 14, but he's 19. Oh, that'sSimone Collins: so gross.Benjamin Boyce: So they're like, he was preserved and then offered on the altar of this stuff.Simone Collins: No. Oh no. No.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello everyone. It is so wonderful to have you here again today.We have a very special guest with us today, Benjamin Boyce his YouTube channel has one of the highest overlaps of subscribers was ours And if you watch it, it would be immediately obvious that Why he does lots of very high thought, high intellect intellectually dissonant interviews.Benjamin Boyce: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: But what's interesting is I can get a trickle of what you think in your perspective from the interviews, but I haven't, I, I'd love to have an interview that's like the you [00:01:00] interview, what you think on things.So I'm excited to at least be one of the people who's doing this. And one of the projects you've been working on recently that I think would be a really great start to this. Is I guess I, I call it like the de transition project, which is lots of interviews with people who are well known voices in the de transition community.I'd love it if you could just get started with what got you thinking about this and where you see things changing within that community over the past year or so.Benjamin Boyce: Can I answer that question by asking you guys a question? Of course. Like, when did you become cognizant or invested in what we call the culture war, in its current iteration?Malcolm Collins: Wow. God, that's a good question. Honestly, not at all until they started firing at us. It's very interesting. So I would have considered myself Is this aboutBenjamin Boyce: Spankgate? So just two or three weeks ago? Oh god,Malcolm Collins: No, before Spankgate. It was the beginning of the pronatalist stuff. Really, as soon as we started getting public attention [00:02:00] you're forced to pick a side these days.And at first, both sides were yelling at us. But the one side when we'd sit down and try to talk with them they could have a lucid conversation. And then the other side, there just wasn't really a conversation. It was just. Concede and submit to our world perspective.I'm actually goingSimone Collins: to say it's earlier than that. It's when we got involved in education reform in the state of Pennsylvania. And the mere idea that we were critical of the legacy education system meant that we were going to be Republicans. Just like period of course you didn't Republican because you don't think public school is perfect and in need of more money and therefore.Obviously.Benjamin Boyce: Yeah. So what year are we talking about?Simone Collins: At least 2019. Yeah. Okay. We were like firmly centrists. And then when we were younger, we were full out, like quite progressive Democrats. I would say. Yeah. BlueBenjamin Boyce: Pills. Yeah. Do you guys have any remembrances or you might be too young of Gamergate?Oh my God. [00:03:00] OfMalcolm Collins: course. Would I, when Gamergate was happening, like I was well on the side of the gamer, like I was like, okay this whole five guys situation is ridiculous. This is clearly a bit breach of journalistic integrity. But I think back then there was still a believable disconnect between the, of the time, the Tumblerina army the Tumblr internet and the cloud agendas and all of this insanity.And. The real mainstream democratic party. Like I didn't think that those people had any direct connection on the type of policy that would be implemented by a Hillary Clinton government. That changed pretty dramatically over time.Benjamin Boyce: Wha

Jun 18, 20241h 5m

The Deranged Misogyny of Star Wars The Acolyte! (Only Men Can Create Life???)

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the controversial portrayal of a lesbian cult in the latest Star Wars series, The Acolyte. The couple breaks down the problematic elements of the show, including its misogynistic undertones, bizarre plot devices, and the implications of the cult's reproductive practices.Malcolm and Simone discuss how the show's attempt to introduce a powerful female-led community ultimately fails, as it relies on harmful stereotypes and illogical plot points. They examine the cult's use of the Force to impregnate women, drawing parallels to the immaculate conception of Anakin Skywalker and the troubling notion that men create children while women merely carry them.The conversation also touches on the decline of the Star Wars franchise, with Simone sharing her personal journey as a fan and pinpointing the moment she lost interest in the series. Malcolm and Simone explore the idea of Jar Jar Binks as a Sith Lord and the prevalence of racial stereotypes in the earlier films.Throughout the discussion, the couple shares insights into the challenges of creating conservative-leaning content in the current entertainment landscape, drawing from their own experiences with a canceled documentary project. They highlight the role of legal departments and institutional bureaucracies in stifling diverse viewpoints within major streaming networks.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] It would be like, if you wrote a biblical fan fiction and you knew the Jesus story, And you were like, and there was this whole other town, this whole other town of lesbians where everyone just prays to God and gets pregnant in the same way Mary did, hold on. This is where it gets insane and misogynistic.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: There is a famous scene in this.Carry themMalcolm Collins: which implies that men create the child And women carry the child. This is even more misogynistic than real human earth biology.So she's actually,Actually I inseminated you. Therefore I created the child. Therefore I am the dominant partner in this relationship and make all child rearing decisions.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: I am so excited for this episode.Simone Collins: Yes. Okay. Let's doMalcolm Collins: it.Simone Collins: Let'sMalcolm Collins: go for it.Yeah. This [00:01:00] is going to be the worst. Yeah,The worst! She's the worst person in the world. Huge skank. Terrible. What did I tell you, huh? The worst!She's the worst in the world.Malcolm Collins: I gotta put the word team here because oh my God, does this deserve it? Two things that is going to make this somewhat unique when contrasted with other discussions of the Acolyte. One is we have some interesting insider industry information, given that our own documentary was recently cancelled, about how decisions are being made inside of Hollywood right now which can help you understand how something as insane as this could have gotten greenlit because that is something that before we worked in Hollywood, genuinely perplexed.Why is this getting greenlit? It's obviously not good for the industry. But then the second is how absolutely misogynistic the ideas presented in the [00:02:00] Acolyte are. But wasn't it like produced by women? Yes, it was. They were trying to create something that was misandrist. A world, and I want to get your reaction to the world.Start with one of the most controversial things. So let's get your real time reaction to this. Okay. Because no one knows what happens.Simone Collins: Yeah. Tell me about the Acolyte. I didn't know what is out. I did not know there was more Star Wars property to enjoy. So I have not watched anything.I have not seen a single thing. So itMalcolm Collins: takes place during the High Republic. What is the HighSimone Collins: Republic?Malcolm Collins: A long time before most of the stuff that you've seen. So preSimone Collins: Queen Amidala, or before. Very before that. Long before. Before,Malcolm Collins: yeah, this is in a time when there were lots of Siths and lots of Jedis before the Rule of Two.Simone Collins: Living in harmony? There wasn't a split timeMalcolm Collins: the different era of star wars. The point being, this is an important to the show right now. So the point being into the high Republic it follows two twins an evil twin and a good twin, but goodness, there'sSimone Collins: [00:03:00] an evil twin.Malcolm Collins: It reminds me of that scene.I've got to post it from Sky High.What if I said it's not just her twin, it's her evil twin? This Friday you say? Medulla, you dog!Malcolm Collins: Sky High is so undersold as a show. It really is. Do you want to go? Because it's about a world of superheroes. And it plays with a lot of tropes from that. And one guy asked the other guy, do you want to go on a date with twins? And what if I told you she was the evil twin?It's such a great scene. I canSimone Collins: already tell that this movie is very unique and bold in its writing. Hold on. I

Jun 17, 202434 min

Tract 6: Why we believe in a TechnoPuritan God

In this deeply personal and thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into their evolving religious beliefs and introduce the concept of Techno-Puritanism, a new sect they believe is an iteration of Christianity. Malcolm shares his journey of discovering uncanny parallels between the belief system he crafted for his children and the writings of Victorian-era thinker Winwood Reade, particularly in his book "The Martyrdom of Man."The couple explores the core tenets of Techno-Puritanism, including the iterative nature of prophecy, the mandate for intergenerational improvement, and the importance of living a life of sacrifice and service to the future of humanity. They discuss their approach to canonizing and rejecting specific religious texts, such as the Book of Revelation and the Kabbalah, based on their adherence to monotheistic principles and the elegance of their teachings.Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone grapple with the challenges of crafting a religious framework that is both logically consistent and spiritually fulfilling, drawing inspiration from the irreverent passion of early Puritan traditions while embracing the boundless optimism of Victorian scientists. They emphasize the role of choice in faith and the transformative power of evidence-backed belief in improving one's quality of life.Tract Text:Tract 6: Humanities Manifest Destiny / Why We Choose to Believe in GodNow those who are familiar with us know we crafted this set of beliefs because we believe it is both what is psychologically healthiest for our kids and allows for religious fervor while being resistant to conflict with science. They laugh and say, can you really expect a set of practices to carry itself with fidelity and fever intergenerationally just because people think it helps kids? You really think that could compete with traditional religions? Here we take our turn to chuckle, gesturing at Santa pummeling traditional religion to dirt in the public mindshare.But I also know that what I believe about God is true. How? I am not a man of faith—I don’t believe things without evidence. Even if God started talking to me, I would just assume I was having a psychotic break. I created this system and framing for my kids along with holidays and mandates in an effort to save our species, not because I thought it was true—then one day I thought: “If it was true how would God communicate that to someone like me.” First, I started going through books I had tried to flippantly include in my religion as earlier revolutions—religions I had included to preserve and create continuity in western history—the Abrahamic tree of profits. As I studied them, I started to see lines and interpretations of what was written that supported this weird religion I thought I had invented, lines that directly contracted the most commonly practiced iterations of those traditions, (See Tract 1). But while weird, that was hardly enough to convince me, the human brain can easily pick up patterns where they don’t exist.An example of this are the lines in the Quran that explicitly state all of the major Abrahamic religions are true religions and that God sends different profits for different people with different all true yet seemingly contradictory teachings (Surah Al-Ma'idah—47-57 & Surah An-Nahl—36) and that Islam was the revolution meant to be followed by Arabic speakers (Surah Yusuf—2). Another example would be lines in the Bible where Jesus warns us of future prophets to come (Matthew 23:34), then Paul gives us criteria for vetting their revelations (Thessalonians 5:20-21). If you want to see us doing a detailed breakdown of this phenomenon we kept running into, see the “Are we Mormons” Episode of the Based Camp podcast which investigates how similar our system appears to early Mormon writings.In this hypothesized metaphysical system, I believed I created in the best interest of my kids, God is what humanity is destined to become millions of years from now, an entity so powerful it lives outside of time and guides its own creation. An entity that has attempted to give human groups throughout history the closest to true revelation they could understand. If those things were actually true the first time God would have tried to give this revelation to man would not have been to me but to someone in the Victorian era likely soon after humanity discovered the theory of evolution. He could have attempted to prove the author of the story was his emissary through giving him the capacity for thaumaturgical performances (miracle working) but someone like me would just read Victorian reports of miracle workers as con-artists. No, the only way he could prove to me the text was actually directly inspired by Him was to include something totally unfakeable that anyone could independently verify, like a detailed prediction of future events in a widely printed yet somehow almost entirely forgotten Victorian work. Then I was reminded of an old book I

Jun 14, 20241h 32m

Why Fertility is Collapsing: Shocking Stats with @MoreBirths

https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92In this illuminating episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Dan Hess, better known as Morberths on Twitter, to discuss the crucial behavioral and lifestyle factors that correlate with higher and lower fertility rates. Hess, a prolific demographer and data analyst, shares his insights on the impact of marriage, urban density, living arrangements, and sexual history on fertility outcomes.The conversation begins with an examination of the dramatic rise in the average age at first marriage across Europe and its potential implications for fertility. Hess emphasizes the importance of marriage as a fertility factor, highlighting the significant happiness and wealth gaps between married and unmarried individuals.The discussion then turns to the role of urban density and housing in shaping fertility patterns. Hess argues that suburban living and lower population density are more conducive to higher fertility rates, while high-rise urban environments tend to suppress reproduction. Malcolm and Simone explore the potential of exurbs and remote work as a solution to this challenge.Hess also delves into the impact of young adults living with their parents on fertility, noting the stark differences between countries like Spain and Italy, where a large proportion of 25-34-year-olds still reside with their parents, and countries like Sweden, where this practice is far less common.Finally, the group discusses the relationship between sexual history and fertility, with Hess presenting data suggesting that individuals with fewer lifetime sexual partners tend to have higher fertility rates. Malcolm and Simone offer their perspectives on the underlying factors that may drive this correlation.Throughout the conversation, Hess showcases his extensive knowledge of demographic trends and data, emphasizing the importance of understanding and addressing the complex web of factors that influence fertility in modern societies.Dan Hess: , [00:00:00] this is, this is one thing that's really wonderful about my feed is that you can search at more births for whatever topic.And there's a good chance that I will have written about it.Simone Collins: Now you are the kind of the, the reference point in encyclopedia. If you need, well, IDan Hess: really want to, want to Uh, give 40.Malcolm Collins: Oh, this is this is fascinating. Yeah. 48 percent of homeschooling households have three or more childrenWould you like to know more?Simone Collins: Hello everybody. Today we are joined by Morberths on Twitter, also known to his more close acquaintances, such as ourselves. And now you, Daniel, we're super excited to have you, Daniel. And today, because you are the foremost person on Twitter, giving really great graphic, heavy, in depth threads on Twitter on demographical apps and prenatalism, we'd love to discuss.The fertility factors that correlate with higher fertility and lower fertility from a behavioral and lifestyle standpoint. Uh, previously we, we talked about things that were happening on a national level from a [00:01:00] policy and propaganda standpoint, but I think it's really fun to talk about the personal attributes.So, um, you know, Malcolm and I have talked a lot about Different cultural elements, but really what really stands out to you. And what have you talked about at length on Twitter when it comes to factors that correlate with low or highDan Hess: fertility? Uh, yeah. So, um, one of the factors, uh, that that's a really big factor that's not especially talked about is, is marriage.So, so that's one thing that, that, that's a really big fertility factor. And, um, and so, so part of it, um, is. You know, people are just marrying late. And actually this is a, this is a Twitter that I just put out today, but we, you can see the average age at marriage for, um, let's put it up on the screen here.Let's see if I can, you know, pull that up one second here.Simone Collins: What has it gone down from? [00:02:00] I've, cause I feel like when I've watched all these 19 average age at first birth. Yeah. Marriage, marriage, marriage. I thought it used to be around 20, 21 or so. That's what I would guess in like the 1940s through, right.I'll put it here.Dan Hess: Yeah. So here we can see the age at marriage in Europe and it's like super high everywhere. Oh,Malcolm Collins: so for people who are watching this on audio, like it is actually shocking. Like, most of the ages are like 33. 8 in France, 34. 8 in Sweden,Simone Collins: 31. 9Malcolm Collins: in the UK in Germany at 31. 2 in Ireland, 31. 9. Like it is wow.Where'd you get the UK number? I don't see that. Simone.Simone Collins: I'm sorry. I'm looking at Ireland. SillyDan Hess: me. Sorry. Yeah. This, this map doesn't show the UK, but it's, yeah, certainly it's, it's very high in all of Europe and I'm going to, I want to switch to share the lowest oneSimone Collins: we're seeing here is. 24. [00:03:00] 9. Malcolm, you and I married at like 25 and 26.We'r

Jun 13, 202444 min

Leverage: My Ties to a Silicon Valley Cult

In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins dissect the inner workings of Leverage, a now-infamous Silicon Valley cult that operated from 2011 to 2019. The couple delves into the group's origins, its novel business model, and the factors that led to its eventual downfall, highlighting the dangers of mysticism and the importance of grounding one's understanding of reality in objective truth.Malcolm and Simone examine Leverage's initial goal of creating highly effective, cooperative individuals to solve global problems and generate revenue for the organization. They discuss how the group's embrace of mysticism, led by its charismatic leader Jeff Anders, ultimately undermined its mission and led to psychological damage among its members.The conversation also touches on the vulnerability of certain communities, such as the Effective Altruism and Rationalist movements, to cult-like influence, the ethical implications of Leverage's power dynamics, and the potential pitfalls of well-intentioned individuals who prioritize their own subjective experiences over objective reality.Throughout the discussion, Malcolm emphasizes the critical importance of basing one's understanding of reality on confirmable, rule-based knowledge rather than mystical experiences, arguing that even the most well-intentioned individuals can perpetrate evil if their understanding of the world is fundamentally flawed.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: You then have somebody who is supposed to constantly be watching over you, who is allowed to have sex with you, because that often happens, she mentions it in pieces, that people who, We're other people's direct subordinates. So you needed to meet with them. You needed to do these life counseling things where they would debug you and you could get fired if you didn't please them and you would lose a home and a source of income and have a big blink spot on your resume.You think that didn't create an intrinsic pressure to have sex with them?Simone Collins: Well, when you put it that wayMalcolm Collins: The, the thing that I find interesting about leverage about the only thing I find interesting is the novel business model novel business model for a cult, but, but the novel business model itself was sort of cheesing the Silicon Valley environment at that time period. Everybody has the intentionality of being a good person. How good you intend to be has no correlation with how good you are. How good you [00:01:00] are is dependent. On your understanding ofSimone Collins: reality.Oh, and that's, you know, a really good example of this because we don't just have to s**t all over mysticism.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: So Malcolm, since you were, oh, we lad you had always wanted to start a cult and run it and it's so sad that you have not realized that dream. But you still studied colts a lot.And so I thought we could go over a recent colt that formed and fell apart and theoretically is reformed and is still alive and operational today. And I can get your analysis.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So this is going to be the leverage video. Now something I should note to our audience about us and leverage. Is we have a lot of connections to leverage, like I know at least a dozen people who were in this cult, in it or just involvedSimone Collins: or they knewMalcolm Collins: someone involved or in it.So yeah, so I, I, if you were in the [00:02:00] effective altruist community or the less wrong or rationalist community, In the Bay Area in the like well the period I was there, God, if I can remember when that was like early two thousands. I wanna say.Simone Collins: We met in 2012. You were there from 2012 to 2015.Malcolm Collins: No, I was there before we met Simone for years.Okay, soSimone Collins: you were there, you well then, no. You graduated college 2010. So theoretically you were there from 2010. Dates didn't really matter. 2015. And leverage during, we'll say leverage 1.0, which is leverage and paradigm. Failed cult that we're going to be talking about existed from late 2011, early 2012 through 2019.So there was definitely. Overlap while you were in the Bay Area. PerfectMalcolm Collins: overlap while I was in the Bay Area. I now a few things that you should note is a big fallout of this is a lot of people in this cult take umbrage. Was it being called a cult? Which is actually now, was it publicly being known as a cult?Which is interesting. Some peopleSimone Collins: openly call it a cult. Most seem to not.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, no, you, you, people who are in it actively. [00:03:00] I should note that normatively, like, of the time when I was in Silicon Valley, and everyone I know after my time in Silicon Valley, everyone who touched it called it a cult. While they were involved? Yeah, that was common. You're like, oh, I'm going to go hang out at the cult headquarter. Yeah, this, this, we're not a cult is some new, they like, well, at least the younger lower order members knew it was

Jun 12, 202459 min

Parenting, Faith, and the Future with Ex-Muslim Activist Sarah Haider

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Sarah Haider, an ex-Muslim activist and co-host of the "A Special Place in Hell" podcast, to discuss her search for a secular, rationalist approach to parenting and the challenges of raising children in a rapidly changing world. The conversation delves into Sarah's experiences growing up in a Muslim community, the unique characteristics of Islam as a religion and cultural framework, and the potential consequences of technological advancements on traditional societies.Malcolm, Simone, and Sarah explore the role of social technologies in shaping cultural identity, the importance of cultural experimentation in ensuring the survival of diverse belief systems, and the potential pitfalls of relying solely on reason when crafting new traditions. The trio also discusses the Collins' unique approach to parenting, including their creation of the "Future Police" holiday, which aims to instill values of long-termism and agency in their children.Throughout the discussion, the participants emphasize the need for thoughtful innovation in the face of cultural upheaval, the value of learning from the past while adapting to the present, and the importance of fostering a diversity of belief systems to ensure the robustness of human civilization in the face of unprecedented challenges.[00:00:00]Simone Collins: Hello, everyone. I'm really excited because after listening to Sarah Hader on a podcast for.Months, maybe years at this point, she is here on our podcast and we're so excited to have her on if you don't know her, she is on sub stack. Her sub stack is called hold that thought. You can find it at newsletter. sarahhater. com. That's H A I D E R. And on Twitter, she's Sarah, the hater as an H A I D E R, which is.A great, it's a great name, Sarah. She also does with Megan Dom who we also love a podcast called a special place in hell. Which is very fun. Your banter is fantastic. So we're very glad to have you here bantering with us. Welcome, Sarah.Sarah Haider: Thank you for having me. And let's jumpMalcolm Collins: right into the tweet that got us connected because I think it's good framing for the topic of this show.Let's go. All right. Let's do it. Do you want to read it, Simone, or? Yeah,Simone Collins: I'll read it. The other. The other day, Sarah asked if there were any groups slash resources [00:01:00] out there for lack of a better word that offer traditional parenting, but with a secular or rationalist approach. And someone from probably like a follower of this podcast followed us and followed Sarah and Connected us saying, Hey, you should probably talk to someone in Malcolm.Malcolm Collins: Let's start with whatever motivated this tweet.Simone Collins: Yeah. What made you decide to tweet that? What do you think in there?Sarah Haider: Yeah, it's been in the works for a while, but I am a new mom, new ish. I'm a toddler. So I was looking to connect with other parents. I have been for some time now that it's, like a play date age.And, just thinking about how to think about parenting, like what are the models that make sense? Now we're at a point where we're thinking about, school, preschool, homeschool, Montessori, so all these big questions are coming up and I'm not the kind of person who trusts establishment, like the kind of, Normie options make me nervous sometimes.And I actually have good reason to feel that way about our education system. I didn't love it when [00:02:00] I was going through it. I went to public school. I don't know if you guys did as well, but terrible experience. I just can't the prison metaphor is a good one, but I think it really killed my love of learning, which I had very naturally, sameSimone Collins: contractors.Actually in the Bay Area, when I went to school, the same architectural firm did design most of the jails and the high schools. SoSarah Haider: I think they had the same parent company that was creating the cafeteria food. Oh yeah. No, IMalcolm Collins: imagine that's true in a lot of areas because it makes sense. If you're winning government contracts anyway, it is a school to pipeline ecosystem in a lot of these districts, right?One and the other. Yeah.Sarah Haider: Luckily I was not in one of those. places, but I was definitely in a like testing, get good grades and compete in incessantly have 10 hours of homework a night. A school environment. It was not amazing. I was thinking about that with my son as well.And my background is actually in new atheism, which we were touching on a little bit.Malcolm Collins: So for context, [00:03:00] for our viewers. This is I think, germane for the topic of this podcast, somebody who rose to fame and the new atheist community, Simone and I really rose, like we were mostly affiliated with the EA rationalist, less wrong community before this.So obviously a bit of a different community, but very aligned, culturally speaking.Sarah Haider: Definitely big areas of overlap for

Jun 11, 202449 min

Monster Girls & Evolutionary Biology (Are Gingers Monster Girls?)

In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm and Simone delve into the fascinating world of paraphilias, more commonly known as fetishes. They explore how these seemingly unusual attractions can provide insights into human neurology and evolutionary conditions. The couple examines the prevalence of "monster girl" fetishes across various cultures and historical contexts, and how they relate to super stimuli and innate disgust responses. Malcolm and Simone also discuss how certain physical traits, such as hair and eye color, may have evolved due to extreme mate selection in specific populations. Throughout the conversation, they emphasize the importance of understanding and contextualizing one's own sexuality to avoid shame, addiction, and harmful behaviors. Join them for this thought-provoking and educational discussion on the complexities of human sexuality.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, gorgeous. Hello, Simone. So this is the subject that I particularly find interesting. And a lot of people are surprised. They're like, why are you interested in obscure paraphilias, which are more commonly known in the public as fetishes? And the answer is, is because it tells us a lot about human neurology, human evolutionary conditions, and the way humans think more broadly.And people might be like, wait, wait, wait, what do you mean by that? Right? So if you see an impulse that exists across a broad breadth of the human population, but doesn't appear like it would have been selected for in an evolutionary context, like it wouldn't have increased the number of surviving offspring they had, you have found One of two things.Either you have shown that you misunderstand the [00:01:00] environmental context that humanity evolved in and that something that seems like it would have been a maladaptive behavior was actually a positive behavior, which is very interesting if you find that but then the other. thing that you may have found is you have found a way that the brain essentially breaks or a pathway doesn't work correctly, but doesn't work correctly in a way that happens over and over and over again in different humans, which tells you something about like if trains keep flying onto a road at a certain point you can tell broadly, at least in one area.Where a train track is likely supposed to be and like the speed of trains on that train tracks and where trains are turning on that train track. Now, this becomes especially interesting in the world of fetishes and paraphilias. Because this is a very common area where you see something [00:02:00] that is very clearly a hard coded biological instinct in individuals. Cross culturallyWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: , people will say, Oh no, well this is all like modern internet stuff that's causing this. And we'll get into that argument in a second. Well, I can get into it right now. It's just very obviously not. If you look in a historic context most of the paraphilias you see today, like sadism and stuff like that, you're going to see in like the Marquis de Sade, for example, which was definitely in a pre internet context, or you see in the British vice, which was a so common a fetish among British people.They called it the British vice, which was men who liked being spanked by battles by women.Here is James Joyce writing about farts. Big fat fellows, long windy ones, quick little Mary cracks, and a lot of tiny little naughty forties ending in a large gush from your wholeI think I could pick hers out in a room full of flirting women. It is a rather girlish noise, not like the wet, windy fart, which I imagine fat [00:03:00] wives have. It is sudden and dry and dirty. Like a bold girl would let off in fund in a school dormitory at night. I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face. So that I may know with her smell also, so people will be like, oh yeah, Weird stuff like farting pouring that that's like from weird Brazilian.No. It was around the time of James Joyce.Malcolm Collins: So, if you see a fetish today, you will. That is common. You will almost always see it in a historic context. And today we are going to discuss the concept of Monster Girls because Monster Girls and Monster Boys are something that you see pretty frequently in pornography.And Hint High. However, it is also something. That, like, doesn't really make sense from an evolutionary context. Why would you be attracted to something that's not human? And a person can go, Oh, come on, this doesn't appear in historic [00:04:00] stuff. And I'm like are you not familiar with your Greek myths?How seriously talk about like the plurality of sex that happens in Greek myths, the swans, the cows, I would say like a good hat or various monstrous creatures or height. Yeah. Or people are like, wow, but it didn't happen in the medieval period.And I'm like, you are clearly not familiar with medieval fairy tales or medieval sort of folk horrors.You know, it was actually folk horrors. Folk horrors. Incubuses,

Jun 10, 202435 min

From Disgust to Cringe to Vitalism: Examining the Evolution of Cultural Frameworks

In this insightful discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the evolution of cultural frameworks in modern society, tracing the transition from disgust-based morality to cringe culture, and ultimately to the emerging age of vitalism. The couple delves into the factors that have driven these shifts and the implications for our understanding of morality, identity, and social norms. Malcolm and Simone begin by examining the era of Protestant Christianity's dominance in the United States, characterized by a disgust-based moral framework that often led to the persecution of marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQ+ community. They argue that the recognition of the flaws in this system led to its eventual downfall and the rise of cringe culture, which relied on secondhand embarrassment and conformity to shape social norms. The discussion then turns to the emergence of vitalism, a cultural framework that celebrates individuals who unapologetically embrace their identity and break free from the constraints of cringe culture. Malcolm and Simone highlight examples of vitalistic figures, such as Tiger King and Donald Trump, and explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of this approach. Throughout the conversation, the couple emphasizes the importance of personal choice in belief systems, the value of austerity, and the role of faith in shaping one's outlook on humanity's future. They also touch on the concept of anti-racism as an ontological framework and the potential for anti-DEI consulting to promote meritocracy and combat bigotry in the workplace. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I think it was the recognition that disgust based morality was leading to immoral actions. Like the persecution. No, hear me out here. I genuinely think it was the disgust based morality caused the persecution of LGBT individuals that led to the destruction of that system. Because That's notSimone Collins: just how ridiculous it ultimately was.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Cause many people were like, why am I attacking somebody for something about themselves that they can't change? I think it's the new cultural framework that is going to dominate in the next age, which is the age of vitalism. So vitalism I would define as A cultural framework that sells itself with a love of existence and a love of being who you are unapologetically. One of the problems with the vitalist system, I'll also explain why it's going to potentially eventually crash, is often the people who care the least about how [00:01:00] society judges them like us, for example because of that, they lack a general moral framework and they'll just do narcissistic stuff all the time in a way that like the Tiger King or Trump does, right?Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. We are going to be discussing a very interesting topic today, and there's going to be a long amble at the end of this because sometimes we just have casual conversations before them. And we had a really interesting one before this episode, but I'm going to be discussing a concept That I have been thinking about personally, and a fan sent me some ideas that actually helped me flesh out this concept into a broader concept about how our society functions and where we are moving as a society and a, a realistic path through the pervading nihilism of our current age.This story starts in the age of our childhood or our parents when the [00:02:00] dominant cultural group in the country was Protestant Christianity. These were the days of the satanic panic and a lot of the anti gay stuff and stuff like that.Simone Collins: We're talking the 80s, early 90s.Malcolm Collins: There was, and I love this.Some people still think we're there. Like they still think like the Republicans are like the anti gay party or something like that. It's freaking insane. Like I cannot, it's insane. 45 percent of gay men voted for Trump, by the way. Like we are no longer in that the gay party and the non gay party.Society has done a 180 since then. But anyway, back to what we were saying here. Or at least that was one study. Some people go, it's only one study. Yeah, because it doesn't agree with what you want to believe. You just throw it out. We need to take it back here. In that world, While there was a philosophical structure for what the conservative ideology was, like the Christian philosophical structure, everything like that, it wasn't that [00:03:00] philosophical structure that motivated individual action.Voting and decision making among the Republican Party when they were communicating was the mob, I guess you could call it. Specifically, the way that they communicated was through disgust. And by that, what I mean is they're like, doesn't it disgust you when you see gay people kissing, for example?Therefore, we should ban that. Doesn't it disgust you when you see, X or Y, like that is how they motivated the export of their cultural value system. And in reaction to that interestingly, the far left begin to dei

Jun 7, 202439 min

Why Do We Treat Sexual Identity Differently from Flavor Preferences?

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone explore the complex relationship between human predilections, such as arousal patterns and food preferences, and the cultural norms that shape our attitudes towards them. They question why it's socially acceptable to shame certain food choices but not sexual orientations, and delve into the historical context of how sexual compatibility became a key factor in modern relationships. The couple also examines the formation of subcultures around shared experiences of societal othering, and how these communities can become intrinsically tied to one's identity. Throughout the conversation, they touch on topics such as the AIDS epidemic, the conglomeration of the LGBTQ+ movement, and the potential risks and benefits of gender transition. Join Malcolm and Simone as they navigate these sensitive issues and share their personal perspectives on fostering a supportive environment for their children.[00:00:00] I don't know where are you're gonna go, so let's dive right in. It's something I've been thinking about recently., there are many things that humans have predilections for, whether those predilections are genetic or due to our environment growing up. Two broad categories where I think humans have a varying predilections that are both genetic and environmental are the things that arouse them and the flavors that they enjoy.That's true. Yeah. Okay. Huh. So the question then becomes why is it that I cannot impugn someone if I'm like I don't like this particular food I don't think that cake is healthy, I don't think you should eat cake every day, I can understand that my kids might even like the taste of cake, okay?But I am going to shame them for eating cake, I am going to withhold cake from them, Yeah, or soda or alcohol. People are very passionate about these things. Why is it that as a society, that's a totally normal thing to [00:01:00] say, but if I come from a cultural group that has similar beliefs around something like gender transition, that's same sex attraction that's seen as homophobicWould you like to know more?Our family doesn't particularly like Italian food. Like I find it to be carby and honestly a little bland for my taste. We don't serve it a lot to our kids. Okay. Now some, a family that likes Italian food that like receives pleasure when they eat Italian food and really enjoys that.I understand that there's other families like that. I just don't want that for my family. Right now, this is a totally normal and inoffensive thing to state. No one is going to say I'm a pasta phobe when I state something like this. Yeah. That's just not for you. What is really fascinating is when I correlate this with something like sexuality, you would get an extremely negative response.because a lot of people they will attack our [00:02:00] position on gayness, which is to say that I, as a family, like in my kids were born, same sex attracted or due to environmental conditions become same sex attractive.I'm not going to shame them because I think that we have other solutions to have families right now. And I think that, that the cost of shaming them are less than the benefits from a cultural perspective. But I hold. Nothing against the cultures that do. And I can understand why from a historic context, especially if they have other cultural solutions for same sex attraction.The and a lot of people are like, all conservatives have the same solution to same sex attraction. And it's this is just objectively not true. So if I'm just contrasting three groups here traditional Catholics, traditional Muslims, and traditional Protestants traditional Catholics who are born same sex attracted.If you look at the Catholic priesthood, some studies show that over 50 percent of the priesthood is same sex attracted. It is, they get a, position of status, but they just have to maintain celibacy. That's actually a pretty good trade off and not particularly inhumane. It's like ethically sourced eunuchs.You go to, obviously it has led to some negative externalities for altar boys. Yeah. I was going to say, not [00:03:00] always eunuchs, but if you look at rates within the Catholic church versus other professions where people interact with kids a lot, like public school system, the rates of molestation. You guys know what I'm talking about, or higher in the public school system.Even on a per teacher basis, a lot of people don't know this. And this was a report done by the Clinton administration. So get off me on this. Protestants, it is you just suppress it, but isn't that what I tell people with cake? Isn't that what I tell, just suppress what many cultures say with something like alcohol, or cake, or some foods that we might think are culturally distasteful, some cultural groups like Oh don't eat frog. Yeah. No, Jews, for example, or Muslims, for example, don't eat pig, right? It's not for any specific health reason. It's just don't eat pig. This is a control and you're like pig i

Jun 6, 202427 min

Are Cancelations Over? Wendigoon vs. In Praise of Shadows

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the recent controversy surrounding the attempted cancellation of YouTuber Wendigoon by the channel "In Praise of Shadows." The couple examines how this incident serves as a disturbing case study of the rise of extremism and dehumanization within certain ideological groups.Malcolm and Simone analyze the rhetoric used by "In Praise of Shadows," drawing parallels between their language and tactics to those employed by the Nazi regime. They discuss how the dehumanization of perceived outsiders, the justification of violence against them, and the attempt to police and purify communities are all hallmarks of fascist ideologies.The conversation also explores the importance of intellectual diversity, the dangers of ideological echo chambers, and the need for a sane and principled opposition to counter the spread of extremist views. Malcolm and Simone emphasize the value of cultural sovereignty, pluralism, and the fight against bigotry and radicalism from both sides of the political spectrum.Throughout the discussion, the couple reflects on the broader implications of this controversy, the state of online discourse, and the potential for a return to civility and understanding in the face of increasing polarization. They also touch on the importance of holding individuals accountable for their actions to discourage future attempts at cancellation and dehumanization.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] The horror community, being a normal welcoming community, welcomes people with all ideological perspectives into it. But once you get a critical level of this ultra progressive, ultra urban monoculture perspective, they now think they own the entire cultural category, in this case, horror.And they now have a duty to police entrants into this community. Only people who one think like them and fit their cultural rules belong in this community, but then he also reveals his hand about what he thinks about general society is at first he says, they should not be welcome in our space, but then he says they should not be welcomed in public in general.Simone Collins: Wow. Okay. The argument being that they. spread harmful messages, presumably?Malcolm Collins: No. I, he said we'll get to the arguments that he might use to justify this in his head, but generally he sees them as subhuman, not deserving of the same dignities of other human [00:01:00] groups. And that they should be treated as such.And a lot of people don't understand how people can walk towards something like a Holocaust and society may not recognize that they're walking in that direction. Society where people like this person are tolerated. Is a society that is walking towards a holocaust.Simone Collins: Yeah, but dehumanization is the first step of any of this.You can't do these things to people. AndMalcolm Collins: elevating the murder of this family just for being in the wrong area, as a positive thing. But the most important thing in understanding how this larger memetic structure works is for a medic structure to stay stable like this. It needs to not encounter pushback, right.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone!I am excited to be here with you today! We are going to cover the recent controversy around the attempted cancellation of Windagoon by In Praise of Shadows. However, we're not going to just spit the facts of the case and then react to them, I think, like a lot of people do. I want to be very based in the way [00:02:00] we do this.I have a very unique take on this. And I think that there is a unique takeaway and a pretty big one to be had by this. Honestly, I found learning about this case it's just some of my perspectives because I think it's perfectly encapsulates two things.One is how the mind virus of the urban monoculture works. How it has looped around from general progressivism to basically just being Nazism or at least a form of fascism. Although I think now that they've become anti Semitic, it's hard to call them anything other than Nazis. But anyway so how it has turned into this fascist Nazi ideology but also how individuals within it can't see that this has happened to them, even though they've taken these extremist positions.So an example Of one of these positions that this guy took. So I'll just give you a few. One was, he talked about in a previous video, the Hills Have Eyes movie and that's what motivated this video. The people didn't like his [00:03:00] take on that movie from a couple years ago or something, and his channel wasn't doing as well as it used and he was bitter about that.But anyway his take was that it was good that these white middle class people were brutalized because they had entered into another cultural group's territory. And then he analyzed that cultural group, like the crazy mutant savages in that movie with Native Americans. And he's so this is a good thing.It's them taking back their,In Praise of Shadows: further adds to the c

Jun 5, 202445 min

Free Will, Time, and Understanding Reality With Sabine Hossenfelder

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with renowned physicist and science communicator Sabina Hossenfelder to explore some of life's biggest questions through the lens of physics. Hossenfelder, author of "Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions," shares her insights on free will, the nature of time, and the challenges of understanding reality.The conversation delves into the implications of determinism and randomness in quantum mechanics for the concept of free will, the consequences of Einstein's theories on our perception of time, and the role of emergent properties in grasping complex phenomena like consciousness. Hossenfelder and the Collinses also examine the importance of predictive models in defining understanding, the evolutionary biases that shape our perception of reality, and the potential risks of misaligned AI in the context of branching timelines.The discussion also touches on the challenges of incorporating cutting-edge scientific knowledge into societal frameworks, the importance of science communication, and the need to address issues within academia while maintaining public trust in the scientific method. Throughout the conversation, Hossenfelder emphasizes the value of curiosity, tolerance, and the pursuit of understanding in navigating the complexities of reality.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Malcolm and Simone Collins, and we are joined by today, I think one of the best science communicators, if not the best science communicator on the internet, Sabina Hassenfelder. You can go find her on her YouTube channel. I suggest you check it out and subscribe, or you can check out her books, one of which, and when I read the title, everyone's going to know oh, that's why she's on the, yeah, that's why you're excited to have her on.But she doesn't have a giant, like 1. 3 million followers. It absolutely huge platform for. hitting people with reality, which I love, but the book's title is existential physics, a scientist's guide to life's biggest questions. And what I wanted to talk with you about on this episode is where you see the limits like what does physics answer?How have people misapplied physics potentially to try to answer life's biggest questions? I think a lot of people will. sometimes try to do. And yeah, just what are [00:01:00] your thoughts on this field as someone who is so knowledgeable in the best understanding of the fabric of reality that scientists have today?Would you like to know more?Sabina Hossenfelder: So maybe I should first explain what I mean with existential physics. So that though, that's a little bit weird because actually I didn't come up with the title. My, my editor did. So the original title of the book was more than this because I wanted to say that physics is more than. What you learned at school, it's not just about how atoms move and the ideal gas law and, switching the light on electricity, all that kind of stuff.Physics is actually a tool that tells us something about our own existence because it's about discovering. the fundamental laws that the universe works with, and we're part of the universe. So it tells us some, it tells us something about us. And so existential physics, the way that I understand it now, even though I didn't coin the word is that it's about what physics tells [00:02:00] us about these big existential questions.Like for example, does the past still exist? What really is time? What is this moment of now that we experience? How did the universe? begin? How will it end? Do we have free will? Are we really just big bags of atoms? And so all those big existential questions. And sometimes I come to the conclusion that actually physics can't really tell us anything about it.But in other cases, I think physics does tell us something.Malcolm Collins: I would love to dig into your thoughts on free will from the perspective of physics, because that's the topic we talk about a lot.Sabina Hossenfelder: Yeah. So this is what got me onto the entire topic in the first place, because I made a video a long time ago about yeah.free will. I think it was taught, you don't have free will, but don't worry. And I think it was one of my first videos that attracted some attention, mostly because it pissed off a lot of people. So it's always a good recipe. But give us the short [00:03:00] version here. Yeah. The, the short version is this is not a ground groundbreaking new insight, but I think everyone who's, fundamental laws of nature, which you find in physics comes to the conclusion that it's basically a combination of a totally deterministic evolution law, like determinism all the way down.And then you have this occasional random element that comes from quantum mechanics, and that's it. So now I ask you exactly which part would you call free will? So to me, it's the There isn't anything that makes sense to call free will. And so this is why I'm saying I just forget about the thin

Jun 4, 202434 min

The Data Does Not Say Spanking Is Bad (Why No One Will Tell You)

In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the controversial topic of corporal punishment and the latest research challenging the mainstream narrative. They examine a groundbreaking 2023 study that found previous research on spanking relied on unadjusted correlations, ignoring crucial factors such as child behavior and genetics. The couple argues that the evidence supporting the benefits of mild, immediate physical correction has been largely overlooked due to ideological biases and the categorization of spanking as a human rights abuse.Malcolm and Simone also explore the potential psychological damage caused by alternative disciplinary methods, such as emotional punishment, and the evolutionary basis for physical communication with pre-verbal children. They emphasize the importance of cultural diversity in parenting practices and the dangers of imposing a one-size-fits-all approach. Throughout the discussion, the couple shares personal anecdotes and insights from their own parenting journey, advocating for a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to the spanking debate.Malcolm Collins: , [00:00:00] A really big study came out in 2023 that basically went through all the old research and showed that, yes, I was right to think it was sus . Now, you would assume at the very least, they would be correcting for child behavior, right? In these giant samples. I hope so. Yes, basically, they didn'tAnd they just used a giant sample size to push under the table that they weren't correcting. If you can't understand why this would be so insane and why this would obviously show that spanking had all of these deleterious outcomes, consider our family. We do not do any form of corporal punishment with our daughter.Because she just doesn't misbehave in the way our boys misbehave.In these studies, she would be in the category of non spanking, and my sons would be in the category of spanking, and then they would be like, look, spanking is causing more bad behavior.I was like, no, you [00:01:00] idiot! 2018, the A. P. A. Task Force on physical punishment of Children recommended an resolution opposing all physical punishment, although the task force cited it. Okay. Thank you. Five meta analyses, they relied almost entirely on Gorshov and Gorgon Kehler's 2016 evidence against physical punishment, which came exclusively from unadjusted correlations.EXCLUSIVELY from unadjusted correlations The task force ignored two stronger meta analysis that went beyond correlations, these other meta analysis concluded that harmful effects of physical punishment were, quote unquote, trivial. However, the randomized trials find spanking has a slightly positive effect. .Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. As we are now widely publicly known as the Abusive parents for our bop strategy to parenting.Bop It. Twist It. Soccer Boppers! Soccer Boppers! You can sock all day, and bop all night!Malcolm Collins: LikeSimone Collins: soccer [00:02:00] boppers. Yes. It's more fun thanMalcolm Collins: a pillow fight. This actually brings me to one of the first things that I've really noticed in the few days, because I didn't really think anything about the bop when it happened, and in the few days, in the while, since the initial event, I have now been paying much more attention to how I physically interact with our kids, and it's now really apparent to me, like, how rough I am with them normally, when I'm, especially with the boys, that ISimone Collins: But In a positive context, I would say like of all the physical interactions we have with our kids, the bopping is probably the lightest and gentlest.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like I, that was the thing that sort of surprised me and made me realize why I didn't think anything of it, that I like regularly punch the kids while playing or throw them across the room and they just find it hilarious. That doesn't sound very good,Simone Collins: but aren't we very rough andMalcolm Collins: tumble kids?I don't know what to tell you. Anybody who has worked with toddler boys knows that punching is like a cheat code with toddler boys. It's like one of their favorite games. And it doesn't [00:03:00] lead them to like playing rough with each other. I just want to be clear. We actually don't have that problem, but anyway,Simone Collins: They don't.They wrestle all the time,Malcolm Collins: but they don't play rough. Before we go further. One of the things that I love is the piece was like, he hit him so hard with an open handed slap that I could hear it on the recording. And I'm like, do you know, like the sounds that hands make when they hit things? This is like clapping.You can hear clapping on a recording, but you don't say he was repeatedly beating his own hand. It's just something that makes a sound whenever you do it, not, you don't need to hit something hard. Like that. Yeah, I'm sureSimone Collins: her recorder probably also picked up the sound of your phone being pla

Jun 3, 202437 min

How a Stanford MBA Can Ruin Your Life: No One Wins the Rat Race

In this insightful episode, Malcolm reflects on his 10-year Stanford GSB reunion and shares valuable lessons about pursuing your dreams and finding the right partner. He discusses the importance of living a life dedicated to your values, rather than simply chasing prestige and wealth. Malcolm and Simone also delve into the challenges of finding a compatible partner, especially after achieving financial success. They emphasize the significance of starting to work on your dreams today and the power of marrying someone who believes in your potential. Join them as they explore these thought-provoking topics and offer practical advice for living a fulfilling life.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] One of the, a few of my classmates got a company. It's easily a billion dollar company now. . And I was talking to one of the guys because, when you're working on a company like this, you are stuck 24, seven, basically tied to your desk.Extreme working hours. . So I was like, so what are you doing now? And he goes, Oh I left to start another company. And I don't understand it. I don't understand why, like for me, startups were not the point of the startup. The startup was to get you financial freedom or to get you the freedom to do what you want to do. if you have dreams about one day doing some big project that you haven't started on yet, you're never going to do that project.So go out and start today or it's never going to happen. I'm just telling you that right now. It's never going to happen if you aren't in some small way working on it right now,Simone Collins: jump out of the plane, pull out the parachute. No. You are the only person who can decide that. And I think that's important for everything.When it comes to getting a partner, when it comes [00:01:00] to having a kid, you have to just throw yourself out of the plane. There's never going to be a time where you really feel ready.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: All right, Simone, it is wonderful to be chatting with you again today. Today. We are going to reflect on my 10 year Stanford GSB reunion. For those of you who don't know, that's the Stanford MBA program. It's generally, I think, about the hardest program to get into in the world.Harder than Harvard, right?On We went viral for one thing or another on Reddit once and some people were like, Oh, he misleads people in the way he talks that makes it sound like he got a neuroscience PhD at Stanford, but he only got an MBA. I'm here fuming because it is much harder to get into the MBA program than the neuroscience PhD program.I am like, what? Anyway because I could have done that. I actually had applied to both of them, but I withdrew my application when I got into the MBA program. Cause I was like, what's the point? You get into the MBA program [00:02:00] and you can basically write your own check in life if you get into a Stanford or Harvard MBA.But what I want to talk about in this podcast is a few things. One, the utility of an MBA in today's market economy. Cause I've seen some heavily overlapped YouTuber to us was like, MBAs don't matter anymore. And I was like you don't know what you're talking about. Like I am fairly against the university system.But he's just unaware of the opportunities. The doors, itSimone Collins: opens the network. It's insane. Like basically when you were there, the most prestigious companies out there just lined up to try to hire you.Malcolm Collins: Included Eric Schmidt and Connalisa Rice. AndSimone Collins: The people that could bring in for your classes,Malcolm Collins: like Chambath would come in and like yell at everyone in our class.And these are small classes too,Simone Collins: when Evan Spiegel came in and soar a lot in front of your class.Malcolm Collins: So I want to be clear that and people are like, oh you get high profile people that didn't know what really you do. The [00:03:00] classes don't matter. It's the alumni network anywhere afterwards.I guess I can start with this. When you cold email people, especially like right around graduation or for the first few years after graduation, and you include that in your subject line, you get like a 50, 60 percent response rate actually, especially from high profile people, because they're often looking for bedded, hungry, young people that they can Put into positions is sort of gophers because what you begin to realize is that from the perspective of many of the quote unquote elite in our society, what there is a shortage of is competent, self motivated young people.Who don't just dismiss them or arrogant or working on their own projects or something like that. And to an extent they're right. If you're in our current economy and you are competent and ambitious it's a big question as to why you aren't just starting your own company. No, seriously, like, why aren't you so this helps that for them, that sliver of competent and ambitious people who aren't just immediately doing their own [00:04:00] thing which is high

May 31, 202433 min

Hurkle-Durkle, Tradwives, and Hikikomori for White Women: Exploring Internet Subculture with Suzy Weiss

In this fascinating discussion with journalist Suzy Weiss, Malcolm and Simone dive into a range of internet subcultures and trends, from "Hercule Derkle" and the death of wellness culture to tradwives and the rise of unwellness influencers. They explore how ancient concepts like Wu Wei and Shabbat are being misappropriated to justify modern hedonism and the implications of a society where basic needs can be met without leaving one's bedroom. The conversation also touches on the contradictions of feminism, the allure of communal living, and the future of reproduction in an age of womb transplants and artificial wombs. Throughout the episode, the trio grapples with the ways in which these online phenomena reflect broader cultural shifts and the search for meaning in an increasingly atomized world.Suzy Weiss: [00:00:00] Yeah, there's also like this weird way that medieval debunked science is being repackaged in the wellness world. Hikikomori, for those who don't know are, mostly men in Japan who are shut ins, they don't leave their room for years, sometimes at a time, their parents bring them food, they play video games, they're totally addicted to their screens, Japan is 10 years ahead of us in everything.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, and fertility collapseSuzy Weiss: fast food tastes like food enough, but it's not food and video games feel like problem solving and engaging, but it's really not doing those things.And he described it as this slack noose around his neck where he technically forgot all of the things fulfilled. He was talking to people, he was eating, he was alive in the world, but at this really not at what's the word I'm looking for, like not at the level of.Of actually living but not enough that he would go and change it. Like it wasn't dire enough.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: Hi everyone. We are so excited to have our favorite writer on the podcast, Susie Weiss. She's with The Free Press. You can find her on [00:01:00] Twitter slash x.At Snoozy Weiss. And she has written some amazing pieces. We first discovered her through this mind blowing article on Spoonies. But more recently, she wrote about a different type of kind of self care culture that we thought would be really fun to discuss today. Particularly referring to hergaldergal as a trending term, but also like bed rot and quiet quitting show up in the article as well.Suzy Weiss: Yeah.Simone Collins: We'd love to talk about this with you because there's so much going on here.Suzy Weiss: We're really going to, we're going to get into tradwives. We're going to get, everyone should buckle up for a ride through the internet.Simone Collins: You had this great quote in there, didn't you say something like tradwives are the girl bosses of the home or something?Tradwives are the girl bosses of the, they're not different. They are. They're just villainized women. 100%. We're tryingSuzy Weiss: to get what they want, which is, I thought, what we all want, but I guess not.Simone Collins: Yeah, well they're having it all, they're having it all in the home, yeah.Malcolm Collins: If you go what you want. Well, it's so interesting the way that society is so [00:02:00] politicized that every subculture has a team.And depending on what team you are in, that subculture is either an evil or good subculture from the perspective of each team. Yeah, the hustlersSimone Collins: versus the quiet quitters and the trad wives versus the soft girls and yeah, there's, has to be thisMalcolm Collins: Yeah, it's actually almost odd when there are un teamified subcultures, like MLMs.MLMs isn't explicitly a right or left thing. But if I think box shipping, when you were talking about hustlers, I'm like, oh, those are right wing nut jobs. That's what people would say about them, right? Like dropSuzy Weiss: shipping?Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Dropshipping. Yeah. Dropshipping. There's like a whole dropshipping culture, like Andrew Tate's in university really fights for dropshipping, right?Yeah. They might, but a lot of things like that do. So it's very similar to MLM ism. So, okay. Obviously you have MLMs, which predominantly target women, but the ones that target men are typically not monetized through the traditional MLM model. It's more like a guru monetizes through [00:03:00] very expensive courses.And then they try to target teaching people like actually how to start a company. But if you're going to teach at scale, how to start a company, there's really only a few companies that work on that model. Dropshipping is one of them actually doing lectures. Is dropshippingSuzy Weiss: like MLM for men?Malcolm Collins: Yes, ISuzy Weiss: have to read about this.I'm so excited. It's like raw milk and it's like anti vax. It's the middle of the horseshoe and you're you could, it's the Rorschach test. Like whatever in it reveals your But it's not as abusiveMalcolm Collins: as MLM because you can genuinely make a lot of money doing it if you do it right.But it is like MLM in t

May 30, 202433 min

The Death of Cringe (LOL Cows are Boomer)

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone explore the shifting landscape of internet culture, focusing on the decline of "lolcows" and the concept of cringe. They discuss how the politicization of online spaces has changed the way people engage with and mock individuals who deviate from social norms. Malcolm argues that cringe is now seen as a "boomer" or "Gen X" phenomenon, with younger generations finding it distasteful to laugh at those with mental health issues or who are perceived as weaker. The couple also delves into the idea that one must pass through the "valley of cringe" to become truly based, using examples like the Tiger King and Donald Trump. They contrast this with figures like Carole Baskin and Hillary Clinton, who represent a desperate attempt to fit mainstream societal expectations. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone ponder the future of internet culture and the emergence of a new type of "lolcow" – those who come from privilege but fail to achieve happiness by adhering to the status quo.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Cringe is over. Cringe is boomer. Cows are like cringe is actually it's probably more Gen X, both of them. Yeah. Boomers just shorthand, I think forSimone Collins: old.Malcolm Collins: You cannot be based.Without being cringe.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: And by that, what I mean, we're basis defined as without fear of societal expectations, do what you think is right, say what you think is true and interpret reality in a way that is logically consistent within whatever value you set, you have determined for yourself.I actually think that we saw this reflected in the Trump Hillary election.Trump was cringe. In many ways, it is almost impossible to say Trump isn't cringe, but he passed through the valley of cringe to base where he combined cringe and self comfort. The comfort was the ways that his value system was different from society's value system.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! It is wonderful to be talking to you today!Simone Collins: Hi, Malcolm.Malcolm Collins: Today, I am [00:01:00] going to be talking about something that one of our fans said in the Discord when I was chatting with them, and it really led me to reflect.I was talking about lolcows and like the joke that, oh yeah, we want to be lolcows, surprising that we've never had like a kiwi farm made about us or something like that, given the number of times we've gone viral. We have two know your meme entries about us. And but we've never really done anything actually egregious.It's more like we are egregious from an extremist leftist perspective, which just Doesn't really make us traditional lull cows anymore than, I don't know, some other individuals like Ben Shapiro could be seen as more lull Cowley than us, to be honest. But it got them talking about low cows and they're like, low cows are so boomer.And I started thinking about it because I interact with a few different, types of communities online. I see the way different people interact online and I realized I do not see lolcow discussion amongst gen alpha or really amongst, younger gen [00:02:00] Z people. And then it got me thinking, wait, why is this?So first let's talk about what lolcows are. Do you know what lolcows are Simone?Simone Collins: My understanding is a lolcow is a, an online figure, someone who's public enough online to be fairly well documented. Who has done enough cringeworthy or egregious things that the community on Kiwi Farms has decided to begin creating detailed posts, categorizing and cataloging their various embarrassing behaviors and exploits so that everyone can sit and laugh at them.Yes.Malcolm Collins: Yes. It is so there's a couple of categories. There's lull cows and there's horror cows. Horror cows are like, they're just truly a horrifying human being. And then lull cows are, they are, funny. Chris Chan is probably the number one lull cow, although I think he kind of borders on a horror cow now with the, you heard what happened to him, right?Simone Collins: No. [00:03:00]Malcolm Collins: Oh so he was in jail for a bit. I think he might be out now. Oh dear. But he was in jail for sleeping with his mother. Oh! No!Simone Collins: No!Malcolm Collins: His dubious consent, it looks his very elderly Oh!Simone Collins: Oh! Oh! That'sMalcolm Collins: where somebody becomes a horror cow.Simone Collins: I think I'm going to vomit.Malcolm Collins: But anyway, Oh God. Um, but it also brought me to another topic, which I think, so there's like, why do people engage with these sorts of people?Like, why do they watch them? And it is because they like the emotional subset that these individuals trigger in them. And I think that there's a few Justice that a bad person had bad things happen to them. An opportunity to troll someone that you see as lesser than you. The feeling of cringe at another person.And the feeling of disgust at another person. And also the feeling of learning how f

May 29, 202427 min

We Went Viral for "Child Abuse"

In this candid discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins share their unconventional parenting approach, which includes a form of physical correction they call "bopping." Despite the controversy surrounding their methods, the couple argues that their approach is rooted in cultural practices and evolutionary psychology. They discuss the differences between abuse and discipline, the importance of setting boundaries, and why they believe their methods are ultimately in the best interest of their children.Malcolm and Simone also delve into the challenges of parenting in the modern world, the limitations of existing research on corporal punishment, and the potential consequences of relying solely on emotional punishment. While they acknowledge that their approach may not be suitable for every child or family, they stand firm in their belief that parents should have the right to raise their children in accordance with their cultural values.'[00:00:00] We can't do it, man! That's discipline!We don't believe in rules like we gave them up when we started living like freaky beatniks. . Yeah, you've got to help us, Doc. We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.Most, perhaps all, the blame rests with the parents. Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?lost your god damn mind! I guess I just hate to see a child go unbeaten.Malcolm Collins: now I need to talk for a few minutes about why I find the research so distrustworthy in this space.One, you're proceeding into the research from a prior that this is a human rights abuse. Whenever anyone says every expert in a field agrees on something, I pretty much immediately dismiss it.Because I'm like, that just doesn't happen in science when science isSimone Collins: happening correctly. There is always nuance in finding what's happeningMalcolm Collins: correctly If you look [00:01:00] at what the research is saying, it's this has a massive IQ effect. This has a massive effect on aggression.These people become antisocial and aren't able to They hate their parents, et cetera. If these things were true at the levels that they're saying these things are true. Every single long lived culture on Earth would not have convergently evolved this method of interacting with children during this developmental stage.What is really negative and what we are against is. Is any form of punishment where the pain is the point of the punishment? what happens during a bop? It is a light slap on the child's nose or face that is meant to shock and redirect and refocus attention. The reason we do the face is because It requires much less pain to get the same reaction than doing something like slapping the wrist. Don't really do this for four year olds and up with our kids two to four range, because with my [00:02:00] four year old, I can say this could kill you and he can begin to cognitively understand that.Two to four, you don't really get that. And so when you need to denote, no, this is an extra level of don't do this when compared to other things I have told you not to do the only way to denote that other than physicality. Is by emotionally elevating the conversation. And I think that causes more emotional damageif you read the article, it says exactly what happened in the context. He was about to push over a table I did the bop to reorient him because he knew he wasn't supposed to be doing that, but then I immediately tell him I love him. Now, this isn't something I can do if I'm punishing him through the emotional means. Exactly. If I had elevated the conversation emotionally, now I need to say daddy's mad at you, instead of saying, bop, you crossed a line, but daddy loves you,and this is the problem, right? So the urban monoculture would say to us, what you're doing is culturally non normative, stop it.And I'm like, I have seen the [00:03:00] results of your normative parenting style. These kids are Miserable, anxiety, depression, illiterate messes .when you look at the ban the rate of corporal punishment in the United States. It pretty much directly correlates with the rise in depression among youth and the rise of anxiety among youth.Hello, I'm Dr. Richard Shea, here to tell you about my exciting new drug free treatment for children with attention deficit disorder. Watch closely as I apply treatment to the first child.Sit down and study! Sit If you would like more information on my bold new treatments, please send away for this free brochure thank you.Malcolm Collins: We no longer spank our children's butts because now we can spank their brains.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: So how do we feel being the new public face of child abuse?Malcolm Collins: Yes, we have gone viral yet again for punishing our child in front of a reporter in a way that she interpreted as a form of corporal [00:04:00] punishment and would technically be a form of corporal punishment. Now this gets really interesting because the internet went comple

May 28, 20241h 26m

Frances Comically Bad Fertility Policy (Simone & Malcolm Debate)

In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into France's recent policy proposals aimed at combating the country's falling fertility rates. They analyze President Emmanuel Macron's plan, which includes offering fertility checks for young people, implementing a "birth leave" scheme, and introducing a possible "duty to visit" for fathers in single-parent families. Malcolm and Simone discuss the potential impact of these policies, highlighting the ineffectiveness of fertility checks in encouraging parenthood and the unintended consequences of mandating father involvement. They also touch on the importance of equitable divorce laws, the myth of the two-parent household, and the role of cultural factors in shaping fertility outcomes. Throughout the conversation, the couple emphasizes the need for policymakers to focus on fostering a culture that values family formation and pronatalism, rather than implementing misguided policies that may exacerbate the problem.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Malcolm and Simone here and we are happy to be talking about some pronatalist and policy today. Today's episode is going to be focused on France's recent policy proposals to combat demographic collapse. However, I have not seen them.So Simone is going to be presenting them to me, and you are going to be getting my in real time reaction.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: Yeah, so I recently came across this telegraph article was published, I think, a little earlier this month, but it's about policies that have been discussed for a while. It's called France to offer young people, fertility tax to combat falling fertility rates.And it discusses a couple of policies, which at best. Not going to do anything at worst are probably going to cause damage at least unless I'm crazy. I want your take on this so the gist is that France's president Emmanuel [00:01:00] Macron is laudable for recognizing demographic collapse as an issue and talking about it France's fertility rate relative to the rest of the EU is actually pretty good.Malcolm Collins: It, but it had a massive collapse this last year. It did. 70 percent year over year.Simone Collins: They're still above the EU average. They're still above the UK. They're still above Germany and they're still above Spain. So like generally speaking, France is, the one that looks good maybe because it's a little more Catholic.Who knows? There's a lot. No. It's because it's less Catholic. Oh,Malcolm Collins: really? Yeah. If you contrast it with other countries, it's actually more secular. And again, this is what we've seen across a lot of things is that the more Catholic a country is in Europe, the lower its fertility rate was the average Catholic majority country in Europe having a fertility rate of only 1.3.Simone Collins: Yeah. But that makes sense then. But anyway they still recognize it's a problem. I really appreciate that. So they get points for that. All right. Petty points for that. But the latest thing that Emmanuel Macron. Prince's president has proposed is fertility checks for young people. He's trying to [00:02:00] get people to test their fertility earlier.But quite honestly, doing so isn't going to boost fertility.Malcolm Collins: It sounds like an interesting idea from theSimone Collins: article. I'll read what they say. Emmanuel Macron is. To offer fertility checks to all 18 to 25 year olds as part of a grand plan to combat declining fertility rates, the French president first announced his ambition to enact French demographic rearmament, which that's fun.That's a fun term. At a press conference on January 16th, as part of a wide array of measures aimed at reviving his stuttering second term. I don't think that's going to help and I can tell you why, but I want to hear why you think that's interesting and worth trying.Malcolm Collins: So what age ranges 18 to 25?Why wouldn't this? It's a great idea actually. So it's very similar to me, to the policy where conservatives to fight abortion, they made it so that women had to [00:03:00] look at a picture of their ultrasound before getting an abortion which dramatically lowers the chance of abortion. They are creating a policy, which is.encouraging people to recognize their short fertility windows, which is one of the core issues in society today in terms of falling fertility rates, is men do not realize they have fertility windows. They think that because some men occasionally have kids when they're older, that it is normal for the male fertility window to expand.And well past 40 and it just is not you might occasionally get that, you're going to have a really high rates of diseases and stuff like that. And you're going to have it's just not great. So that's one huge thing that hopefully it can help clear up that myth and force people to understand that myth.And whatSimone Collins: McCrone recognizes and mentioned in a magazine interview is quote, every woman should have access, should have free

May 27, 202432 min

The War on Lesbians & Wholesome Families

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone delve into the reasons behind the far left's visceral reactions to traditional, wholesome lifestyles. They explore how the ultra-progressive ideology views emotional pain as a form of violence and how this leads to a disdain for happy, heteronormative relationships. The couple also touches on the concerning trend of trans activists targeting vulnerable communities, particularly lesbians and autistic children. Simone shares her unique perspective as a former progressive woman now living a fulfilling, traditional life with Malcolm. Join them as they unpack the complexities of this controversial topic and shed light on the importance of specialization and trust in healthy relationships.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] any form of emotional pain is considered a form of violence and something that should be systematically avoided. So if itSimone Collins: causes you pain through cognitive dissonance, like maybe I would have wanted to have, we're goingMalcolm Collins: to get there. We're going to get there, but you jumped to the answer, but we got to get to their point by point. I was watching lesbians complaining about their communities being invaded and I just can't imagine What it would feel like . Imagine you're living in a society wherelike space Marines exist. Okay. There are these people that are 20 percent larger than you, five times stronger than you.. But now these people who are very sexually aggressive are demanding that you suck their penises.And now everyone who you thought before was like part of your safe space is now saying that you're a bigot and you're not really straight because you won't suck these men's penises and so now you're kicked out of even these safe [00:01:00] spaces. Honestly, I think that'sSimone Collins: how it feels.That's how it feels to them, for sure.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today! And I want to talk about an idea that I had recently, and I actually had it a while ago, but it's something that I've really been reflecting on in my thinking, is the vitriol we see certain, far left, urban monoculture activists react to wholesome things with.Simone Collins: And how do you find wholesome here?Malcolm Collins: What you're doing right now, being with your kid, they'll see a loving family. Or they'll see. They're like, that looks so heteronormative. That looks so no. You see this, you'll see a trad wife and they'll be like, this isn't a, this is misogynisticSimone Collins: forMalcolm Collins: her to be living this life or for her to be in a happy relationship with a [00:02:00] straight white man and here I can put the, I've been attackedYou went out with a white male? I was a freshman. Fresh personMalcolm Collins: and I have been thinking why this.Extremist reaction to this. And it occurred to me that from the perspective of ultra far left ideology wholesomeness and a wholesome lifestyle. is literally a lifestyle of violence. It is a form of violence against marginalized communities from their perspective, they would call marginalized communities.HowSimone Collins: so if it's 100 percent sovereign in one's ownMalcolm Collins: house? Exactly. How because that is an interesting question. And so we need to go into their world structure. So the first aspect of their world structure that we need to understand is it is a cultural system that is completely defined. And I talk about this all the time, so I'll be very quick in summarizing this.Defined around any form of emotional pain is [00:03:00] considered a form of violence and something that should be systematically avoided. So if itSimone Collins: causes you pain through cognitive dissonance, like maybe I would have wanted to have, we're goingMalcolm Collins: to get there. We're going to get there, but you jumped to the answer, but we got to get to their point by point.So you look at something like the Hayes movement, the healthy at every size movement, why would you hide from women mostly that being overweight. Is has negative long term health repercussions because it causes in the moment pain and therefore it's an evil thing to do because in the moment emotional pain and they force the evil thing to do or you tell them, your lifestyle will not lead you to long term happiness.That is a form of violence against because you have caused this emotional pain to them. This is where things like misgendering and stuff like that, they're like, this is a form of violence and it should be outlawed. Like it's obviously not a form of violence. So then how are they defining violence?They're defining violence around things that make them feel upset with [00:04:00] what they've allowed their lives to become. To call somebody out for their own failures as a form of violence.Simone Collins: Wow. I could see that when our kids fight, it's typically because one kid sees the other kid having a really good time with a toy.And then suddenly th

May 24, 202429 min

The Medical System Is No Safer Than the School System

The Site Simone Mentioned: https://www.emigal.com/2022/01/16/blood-testing-focused-on-longevity/ Our Discord: https://discord.gg/EGFRjwwS92 In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone share their harrowing experiences with the failures of the modern medical system. From being denied prophylactic rabies vaccines for their children to not being informed about elevated lead levels in their daughter's blood, the couple realizes that the focus of the current healthcare system is on bureaucratic compliance and liability rather than patient outcomes. They discuss the importance of taking personal ownership of their family's health by proactively monitoring blood work, conducting regular scans, and staying informed about cutting-edge research. Malcolm and Simone also explore the idea of creating a network of like-minded physicians and families to support each other as the infrastructure of society begins to break down. Throughout the conversation, they touch on topics such as the Sinclair method for treating alcoholism, the failings of nationalized healthcare systems, and the impressive efficiency of South Korea's medical industry.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] any normal parent would pull that up, look at it and be like 3 means.But I'm not getting any alerts.Malcolm Collins: I'm not being told by anyone, So it must be fine. So it must be fineSimone Collins: we weren't really paying attention or taking ownership of it ourselves. Instead, we were like, Oh, if no one's telling me anything's wrong, I guess nothing's wrong, which was apparently a really bad approachI don't know why we didn't assume that this was also happening with the medical system, but the focus of this system is not on patient outcomes, it is on bureaucratic compliance and ass covering and justification of bureaucratic structures,Malcolm Collins: what I want to do here is take this opportunity for not just for our family, but for the network of families that makes up our community. This is something you can join if you're like, my family would benefit from this.But what we also need to make this realistically implementable for us is like minded medical professionals who are interested in, providing a new type of telehealth, basically where they're much more like [00:01:00] a thesis advisor. By that, what I mean is the patient can't just decide on anything themselves. They need to then take all of their research to the doctors, say, here's this study, here's this study, here's this study.And I think as a result, given the symptoms are given this, I should be prescribed X which again, creates reasons for value aligned families to group together and support each other.As the bureaucratic infrastructure of our society is beginning to break down. Because it is. It's not just the school systems. It's not just the infrastructure that's falling apart. Civilization is essentially falling apart around us.would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone We are coming into this episode I will start with mitching and ask for anyone who fits this criteria and doesn't make it to the end of the episode but we are looking for values aligned individuals Uh, with MD, so value aligned doctors, and we're likely going to create a list for different states for our listeners to directly contact [00:02:00] them, but obviously we would really love one either outside Pennsylvania, but preferably was in Pennsylvania due to some prescribing laws.But the reason we need to make this ask is that we have. Completely lost faith in the, I guess I'd call it bureaucratic medical institutions in the United States and largely in the world because I, I lost faith in the NHS when I was living in the UK and I was like at least in the U S because as profit driven, et cetera.And now I have realized that I should have been putting as much stock in these institutions, having my back. Children's best interest at heart as I had put in the school system, having my Children's best interest at heart. And that these institutions in their own way have become as corrupted and as useless as the public school system and are becoming increasingly more so as time goes on, to the extent where if your kids are going [00:03:00] to just, an average age.doctor down the road. I would say that I would not trust that they are safe. So do you want to go into the events that led us here, Simone?Simone Collins: Sure. Yes. It all started with a a bat that we found crawling around in our yard. Octavian ran up to Malcolm and said that our dog, the professor, was barking at something scary.And Malcolm being the ever attentive dad did not dismiss this. And went outside to check on the kids and saw her dog barking at what seemed like the ground, but it turned out that when He looked closer. There was a bat crawling along it. Andso we put the bat in a giant goldfish box. And put a sign on it that said live potentially rabid bat called the government, found the government testing location. Malcolm drove forever to

May 23, 202432 min

Universities & HAMAS Have the Same Largest Donor (& Why No One is Telling You)

In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into the disturbing connection between Qatar's funding of US universities and the alarming rise of antisemitism on college campuses. They discuss how Qatar, a major sponsor of Hamas, has become the largest state donor to American higher education, and how this financial influence has led to a suppression of free speech and an increase in anti-Israel rhetoric. The couple also examines the recent attacks on Israel by Hamas, the dehumanizing treatment of Jewish students at universities like Columbia and Harvard, and the concerning statements made by professors and activists celebrating violence against Israelis. Throughout the conversation, Malcolm and Simone shed light on the geopolitical complexities of the Middle East, the role of authoritarian governments in spreading antisemitism, and the importance of defending civilization against barbarism.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! It is wonderful to be here today, and we are going to be doing an episode today which I think really elevates why the disintermediation of the traditional news system To online vloggers, because this is something you see increasingly in terms of how are people getting their information about the worldSimone Collins: isMalcolm Collins: actually very important to getting an honest understanding of reality so long as you're choosing the right people to listen to.And this episode is going to be the type of thing. That you would never see on one of the mainstream news stations. And I'm just gonna give the top notes right now for people who are like, okay, I get the story. I'm gonna click off before we go into too much detail. But it is the fact that Hamas, one of the largest donors to Hamas, like one of the largest funders of Hamas, the people who started this war in Israel, okay?They are also the largest state donor [00:01:00] to the most U. S. 's large universities or to the university system in the U. S. Iran? I know, right? That's what you would think. No. I don't think they lost in Iran. What's, what? It is Qatar or Qatar, depending on how you look at it. F*****g obsequious you are because I always hate when people play little words with oh, you're not saying Qatar, right?I call it AmericanSimone Collins: accent. So it'sMalcolm Collins: QatarAs a quick side note, if you were wondering, who is the bigger supporter of Hamas, Iran or Qatar? Qatar has given Hamas over a $1.8 billion. And I ran gives them Something like a hundred million to 350 million. That's what they gave them last year, a year. so in terms of just financial costs, Qatar is the bigger supporter if Hamas, but I ran plays a big role in giving them lots of military supplies and training.So in terms of integration, was there political elite?I ran is a bigger supporter.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so people [00:02:00] are like wait, I didn't know this. Why you why didn't I know this? Why didn't I know that this? They heavily funded Hamas. Why did I not know that they were also the largest state donor to U. S. university systems? And this matters downstream when you are looking at the university policy that is allowing this rampant antisemitism on campuses.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Because a lot of people they're like, Oh, I'm going to not donate to my university because of this. Like a lot of, Jewish families are saying that right now and stuff like that. And what they don't realize that they're like, why are universities still doing this? From a financial perspective, why are they still doing this?Being so neutral. Why is it when you had, there was this great moment where Gay the head of one of these universities I'm gay. Yeah, the head of Harvard at the time.Simone Collins: Who then subsequently had some plagiarism problems. And yeah. So sheMalcolm Collins: responded that hateful speech is at odds with Harvard's values and that calling for the genocide of Jews is anti Semitic, but when pressed on whether it violates the code of Essex, she said, it can be depending on the context.[00:03:00] So genocide, demanding genocide of an ethnic group, specifically when it's Jews. Of course, this wouldn't matter with anyone else at the top universities in the U S why is that? Maybe it violates our code of ethics. I'm not going to make any hard calls on this right now. So why are they having this position?And it makes a lot more sense when you look at where the money is coming from for these institutions, or at least a very large we'll get into the size of it, how they get the money into the universities and everything like that as the thing goes on, but I just want to, get it out there.Simone Collins: So I'm so confused about Qatar still, though, which, by the way, American accent, we would rather say something that rhymes with guitar rather than cutter.Like someone who's trying to continue. I'm so confused about Qatar because Qatar is majority Sunni. Whereas is Iran is primarily Shia. Are they aligned? Are t

May 22, 202445 min

Why Burn Books When Nobody Reads? (Stats on Reading)

In this eye-opening episode, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into the current state of the publishing industry, revealing shocking statistics about book sales, author earnings, and the strategies employed by major publishing houses. The couple discusses the alarming decline in reading habits among Americans and the dominance of a select few authors in the bestseller lists. Malcolm shares startling figures from the antitrust case between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, exposing the industry's reliance on celebrity books and backlist titles. The couple also examines the disappointing sales of books by well-known figures with substantial social media followings. Throughout the conversation, they offer valuable advice for aspiring authors, emphasizing the importance of exploring alternative platforms like YouTube, podcasts, and Substack to reach and engage audiences effectively.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] That means authors are earning roughly between 18, 000 and 180, 000 on a New York Times bestseller.Keep in mind now, these are being split with the publishing houses, If you write a book and you get accepted and you get paid by penguin random house, you have a 96 percent chance of selling less than a thousand copies. Okay Ilyan Omar from the squad, She has a significant social media presence with 3 million Twitter followers. And another 1. 3 million on Instagram, yet her book, has sold onlySimone Collins: 26,Malcolm Collins: 000 copies.Piers Morgan.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: 8 million on followers on Twitter. In the U. S. it sold just 5, 650 copies. how are these big publishing houses staying in business? And it is Bibles celebrity books like Britney Spears books and their backlist. It is not on things that are intellectually enriching the population.These two market categories, celebrity books and repeated bestsellers from the backlist, make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund [00:01:00] their project, publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing.That is basically a vanity project. How do they approach people? What they are thinking about when they go out and approach people is how can I turn their preexisting follower base into money.Simone Collins: Yeah. They're looking for a platform. They only care about your platform. And I think they're starting toMalcolm Collins: realize though, that even the platform doesn't sellSimone Collins: This conversation is really relevant to people who are thinking about writing a book,Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! We are gonna do a stats heavy episode today, which I am excited about, and I hope I ordered these stats well to make a narrative. But it is on reading in America, the state of reading, and what the publishing industry is turning into. And how it's transforming the way books are being published, the type of books that are being published, and the type of books that are being read.[00:02:00] So first, let's just, I'm going to do a lot of quoting here in this episode. This is from Pew. Almost a third of Americans don't read books at all, and according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the ones that do spend only 16 minutes per day reading. Compare that to the average Netflix watcher who spends close to 3 hours per day consuming video content.At that pace, a watcher might get through 681 movies in a year, while a reader gets through only 16 books. And that's presuming those 15 minutes are spent reading books. And keep in mind, it was just reading, so that could be newspaper, that could be online content, and goodness knows I'd fudge those numbers.. Even this year when leisure time increased as a result of the pandemic, novels saw only a subtle increase in sales over last year by 2. 8%. News consumption, however, saw an increase of 215%. Most of that time taking place on Facebook, 23 minutes per day, [00:03:00] Google, 14 minutes per day, and MSN, five minutes per day.So when people say news consumption, they mean Facebook and Google. So this is highly targeted news, not even just like I'm picking a conservative versus progressive news show to be my bubble of information I'm getting. It's the news stories that are specifically tailored to my interests. Okay, so now we're going to talk a little bit about how few authors are actually writing the books that people are reading. So they had created a list of the top selling books in the U. S. And of the 2, 468 fiction books that made the list they were written by only 854 authors.It's worth mentioning that 51 of those books were written by James Peterson, 31 were written by Clive Kussler, and 25 were written by Daniel Steele. A huge chunk is written by very few people.Simone Collins: [00:04:00] And this, we've seen this in other stats in terms of how much authors sell, like a very few.Very small number of books, ultimately. Oh, we'reMalcolm Collins: about to get into that.Simone Collins: Okay. This is b

May 21, 202431 min

Did Tradwives Evolve Out of BDSM?

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the phenomenon of "tradwives" and the modern misconceptions surrounding traditional relationships. They argue that much of the current "trad" movement is more akin to BDSM power exchange dynamics than genuine traditional family structures. The hosts explore the historical roles of women in traditional relationships, highlighting the importance of financial empowerment and partnership. They also discuss the dangers of idealizing consumerized fantasies of traditional relationships, which can lead to instability and dissatisfaction. Malcolm and Simone emphasize the importance of building relationships based on mutual affection, romance, and care, rather than strict, inflexible roles. They also examine the generational factors that have contributed to the fracturing of cultural norms and the challenges faced by younger generations in reconstructing healthy relationship models.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] so much of what the trad phenomenon has become, I would say is actually more of a descendant of BDSM community behavior.Simone Collins: Yes. In actualMalcolm Collins: trad behavior. It is a live in 24, seven slave relationship. Little power exchange. Yes. Yeah. Power, total power exchange relationship. They have. Covered in the costume of traditionalism. The tradwife TikTokers and Tumblers and YouTubers that you are seeing are to a traditional relationship what hardcore porn is to a real sexual relationship with a woman. It is a consumerized format meant to masturbate a pacific. subset of your sort of mental landscape. It is not really what it is like to be in that sort of a relationship.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone, it is wonderful to be talking to you today. [00:01:00] Today we are going to have an episode in defense of traditionalism. And people can know we've done some videosanti traditionalist, where we argue that a lot of, Trad wifing and stuff like that is really over idealizing a model of family structure from a very limited portion of United States history that isn't really indicative of any large cultural movement.It was more what was just being sold by Hollywood at the time. And people today, they're like, Oh, Hollywood lies to us and gives us unrealistic expectations. And I'm like they were doing that in the fifties too. Like this. This isn't a new phenomenon, buddy. And they're like, Oh s**t, it was always a lie.But I want to go on a few paths with this. So first I have heard people criticize trad wives and trad families as a LARP [00:02:00] recently. And this really got to me because All cultural frameworks are a LARP. You are always LARPing your culture. When you are an ultra Orthodox Jew and you are putting on your little outfit every day and you are doing all of the cultural things that you do, what makes it a LARP?It is. Live action and roleplay as being what you are that helps remind you of who you are. Roleplaying as something that is differential from the mainstream societal expectations helps you maintain a differential value set, which is what the Trad families are often trying to do. But at the same time as I talk about how great trad families are, I also want to talk about this concept because I want to narrowly say this type of trad family is great, but there's been something that's been talked about a lot recently, which [00:03:00] is the trad wife to single mom pipeline, that recently happened with Laura Southern quite famously.And so the question is how, why is this happening? Why, okay. Are these trad relationships not as stable as they were in a historic context in leading to really negative outcomes, particularly for women.And this is where we're going to talk about trad wife is communism. But we'll get to that later in the video.But for, before I go further, I want to hear your thoughts on any of this.Simone Collins: Yeah, I've been watching a lot of the trad wife to single mom pipeline videos and my Top observation so far is that people, even when we're talking about the 1950s trad wife, which we still argue was a short term aberration and not at all representative of true trad wifery.They're not even modern trad wives aren't even being like 1950s trad wives. I was watching Catch Me If You Can, and there's one ep er, there's a scene in Catch Me If You Can in which Tom Hanks, the FBI agent [00:04:00] trying to catch the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who's this kid who essentially masquerades as a pilot and surgeon and commits massive check fraud.He's trying to explain to other FBI agents how check fraud works. And the FBI agents are like, what? Check numbers. Like you got to talk to my wife about this. She handles all my finances. They're acting like finances are women's work. And it really indicates just the extent to which. When that traditional trad wife, nuclear family model was being used.Women weren't just educating the kids, raising the kids, managing the house

May 20, 202426 min

Mapping the Progression of Human Mindsets: A Framework for Understanding Personal Development

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm Collins presents a new framework for understanding the evolution of human mindsets and personal development. Inspired by the shortcomings of existing models like Spiral Dynamics, Malcolm's tree-like structure outlines various branches of mental states, ranging from animalism and perceptualism to utilitarianism, mysticism, and pragmatism. He explains how individuals can progress through these stages, sometimes regressing or becoming stuck in suboptimal states. Malcolm and Simone explore the implications of this framework, discussing how it can help people identify their current mindset, understand the potential pitfalls of each branch, and navigate towards more intellectually sophisticated and mentally healthy states. They also delve into the practical applications of this model and debate its utility for personal growth and cross-cultural understanding.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello simone Today, we are going to do one of those episodes that excites me so much. I have put so much effort into today's content, and I know it will do horrible in the algorithm, but it's a development of my view of the world further, where I feel that because of this revelation I've had, where I'm like, oh, now I understand things better when I have systematized them in this way.So it's aSimone Collins: paradigm shift. Yeah,Malcolm Collins: my paradigm shift for me. Yeah.Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay.Malcolm Collins: And it actually came from reading about a theory that I find very distasteful, which is spiral dynamic. So I ended up, because it was a paradigm shift, I wanted to write it down. So I'll read what I've written down and we can talk about it.Okay. Like I used to do with the tracks. Sounds good. Yeah.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: The idea of spiral dynamics has come up a few times when talking to fans, and since then, I have noticed some related channels like [00:01:00] HoMath, WhatIfAltHist, and Brittany Simon delineating level systems for how people evolve in their thinking. Anyone who knows us knows how viscerally negatively we would react to such a system at first glance, given that humans seem to have a natural inclination to categorize themselves and others based on simplistic criteria.If you don't understand why this would create a negative reaction, just watch any video on Spiral Dynamics and watch the person explaining the concept, happily classifying leaders of the political opposition to their beliefs among the examples of the lower order mindsets. All Spiral Dynamics really gets right is a broad ordering of the very lowest levels of personal development and then transitions into a moral and religious system at most of the two tier systems and beyond.Though, I suppose it is only axiomatic that an individual cannot accurately predict mindsets that are above their own. Thus, if they are at a relatively low level of personal development, will just project a mystical pseudo [00:02:00] religious worldview as being the higher order mindset. However, despite dismissing these systems early on, I began to think more about the ways humans relate to each other.relate to reality, a life well lived, and a self conception about how those systems build upon others, and it helped me realize that there is a real way to build out such a map. However, the two keys to doing this that others have missed, is that this is not a line, but a branching tree of life philosophies that sometimes, in fact, frequently, has a mindset that is strictly worse than its progenitor.By this, what I mean is the mindsets don't get better as they go further along the path.Simone Collins: Would you describe mindsets in this model that you're going to go into deeper, of course, as straying from the path or straying from an ideal? Scenario when they get anMalcolm Collins: example, which I have written in the next sentence, for [00:03:00] example, we would argue that a strict deontological religious world perspective, which is one of the earliest mindsets is also one of the most mentally healthy and intellectually sophisticated for this reason,we draw our map of mindsets with a quote unquote waterline with the sophistication and mental health associated with a mindset being determined by where it is along the waterline. So if you think of this like a Line graph that then ends up branching. There is a waterline and some nodes of the line are below the waterline.Some are above the waterline. Some are below the waterline. Okay. Now before I go further, have you heard of spiral dynamics? Do you know broadly what I'm talking about here? When I'm talking about these level systems for understanding how people thinkSimone Collins: I've learned it about five times, and then each time I learn about it, I completely forget about it because that's what I do when I come across information, I disregard.It is. It's not being useful, I don't maintain space for it. Can you? And that's the way IMalcolm Collins: w

May 17, 20241h 12m

The Death of Woke: Stats on Declining Wokeism

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the trajectory of woke culture and its potential impact on society. Drawing from a variety of data sources and cultural observations, they examine whether wokeness is a cyclical phenomenon or a new, enduring force that will shape the future. The hosts discuss the decline in certain "woke" terms in media, the persistence of cancel culture incidents, and the pushback against progressive narratives from major institutions. They also delve into the potential consequences of wokeness becoming entrenched within large bureaucratic organizations, even as it loses popularity among the general public. Malcolm and Simone consider various scenarios for the future, including the consolidation of power by the "woke elite" and the potential for societal unrest. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. A long time ago, a Sal's Park episode came out where they predicted How long woke culture was going to last. It was season 19, episode one. And it was called stunning and brave. And A farmer is predicting the course of woke culture going forwards.And he says, we have dealt with this before. And based on the last time we had a rise in wokeness, which the last time we had it, it was called the PC movement or the politically correct movement, who are born long after this movement. If you want to see. humor that was lambasting it as a movement, a very good movie to watch.And I think fairly entertaining is called PCU which is about the deaths of fraternity culture and it being replaced with various activist groups within [00:01:00] college campuses.It's a whole new ballgame on campus these days, and they call it PC. PC? Politically correct. And it's not just politics, it's everything. It's what you eat, it's what you wear, and it's what you say. And if you don't watch yourself, you can get in a buttload of trouble.For instance See these girls? Yeah. No you don't. Those are women. You call them girls, and they'll pop your fig. Save the whales! Kay's in the military now! Free Nelson Mandela! They freed him already. What? Those women? Those aren't women, Tom. Those are womenists. You know, I saw the new Madonna video last night.Un frickin believable. See the one in the middle? The blonde hair? She's looking at me, isn't she? Kind of. What, do you know her or something? Hey, Sam, isn't that the guy that you used to, uh Yeah. You went out with a [00:02:00] white male? I was a freshman. Fresh person. Please. Please. Go talk to her. What's the problem?Watch this. He's coming over here. Sister, throw him a walk! No, you don't have to do that. Wow. Hi. Uh, is Sam in there? In there? What's that supposed to mean? Yeah, cock man, oppressor. Uh, thank you. You know, this place is kind of insane. Wait till you meet the Causeheads. The what? What do we eat? Red meat! Why don't we eat it? To kill and murder! What do we eat? Red meat! Why don't we eat it? He's Tom, I'm your Causehead.They find a world threatening issue and stick with it. For about a week. What's up? What up? What happened to the ozone layer? It was last week. Now it's me.Malcolm Collins: But then that had a pushback to it and it died for a while and then woke as him came. And so Suss Park, I think made the educated prediction that these cycles last about six [00:03:00] years and that we had about 5.9 left. However, that episode came out in. So we're about four years late on that prediction. This brings me to a question. Is Wokeness just another cycle, like a pendulum? That moves back in force over the course of history, or is wokeness something totally new that we'll only grow or will become more like a subset or religious community within our society.We've seen peak wokeness already. Okay and if we have seen peak wokeness, what does the future look like? And I will be going over a lot of statistics in this episode.A lot of them drawing from a blog by David Rizzuto where he wrote an article titled, Is the Great Awakening Really Winding Down?And I will come to a conclusion that I think is different than the one he'll come to,Would you like [00:04:00] to know more?Malcolm Collins: and I'll just summarize the conclusion I'm going to come to, which is, I do think that wokeness is past peak in terms of general population popularity, however, I think that it's structured very differently than old systems of political correctness.That we are essentially going to see wokeness intensify and exaggerate its effects within large bureaucratic bodies and become more and more obviously a unique and differential, basically moral, cosmological framework that will be seen all over the world. increasingly like a religion of the elite in our society.And then the rest of us will feel very similar to what it would have felt like being a non Catholic and living under, say, a Catholic monarchy historically.Simone Collins: Okay. Yeah. I can totally see that.Malcolm Collins: A, but we'll get

May 16, 202434 min

Only the Pluralistic & Technophilic Pronatalist will Survive

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the reasons behind their strong alliance with the technophilic, pro-industry faction of the pronatalist movement. They argue that embracing technological progress and maintaining industrial productivity are crucial for ensuring cultural autonomy and survival in an increasingly competitive world. The hosts explain how groups that disengage from technology and rely on the protection of the current "urban monoculture" are setting themselves up for failure once this detente collapses. They also discuss the importance of pluralism as a strategic value for minority groups, the need for long-term thinking in cultural preservation, and the potential for technophobic groups to adapt and embrace technology when faced with existential threats.Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I love a lot of these technophobic groups. I think like Louise Perry, I was recently on her podcast and she's I think God doesn't want us engaging with technology If you take a low tech approach, you are dooming your culture as much as the people who are chemically castrating their children right now.There is a reason we cling to industry. That is what gives us our cultural autonomy and gives us an ability to survive in the world that we're heading into, which is going to be much more aggressive interculturally speaking than the world we're in today. If you do something as simple as just say, okay, all computers, all internet is fine, just no AI, right? You are at such an enormous, both military and economic disadvantage. The urban monoculture has been good for many of these groups in one ways, and that they have imposed a sort of detente on our society.You, if you're living in the developed world, generally do not have to worry about people of other cultural groups coming and sterilizing you or killing you. That will not be the case when the urban monoculture falls.It's [00:01:00] existential that you're pluralistic if you are not a group that has a chance at a play for the dominant culture in the world.The earth, for example, Suppose , you're a Catholic right now,. If they tried to take the, we will turn everywhere we live into a Catholic caliphate mindset and we will kick out the non Catholics. It's then, Any region where Catholics are not the dominant population, they are now a threat to all of the other populations.If you get one or two Catholic caliphates set up now all Catholics become a problem. This is why this is such a dangerous pathway.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. It's exciting to be talking to you today. Today we are going to be addressing why We have so ardently cited with the technophilic pro industry side of the pronatalist movement, because if you look at the wider landscape of the pronatalist movement, there are broadly two solutions.One is to say, if society. Isn't [00:02:00] working right now. Like with all the changes we've had. Let's go back to a time when it did work. The other solution is ours is to say let's take elements from a time that did work. Let's riff on that. But. Let's adapt them to be pro technology and pro industry.So we, as a species can keep developing in the direction we're developing today. And this is, I think to a lot of people, we wrote a piece in a Porya about why we chose to build a religion for our family. And one of the most common complaints was why. Do you need to engage with industry? And I think that there is the misinterpretation that for us, this is aesthetic that we are engaging because we just personally like industry or we're just generally pro science people are we believe in a future that's pro science.And that is not why. Literally, any other approach is pointless. [00:03:00] Everyone who doesn't take this path has no real freedom or real cultural security. So do you want to go further before I explain why, Simone, or?Simone Collins: Go into it.Malcolm Collins: The point being is if you, Any group really only has cultural autonomy, i. e.are able to practice their own cultural beliefs and pass those beliefs on to their kids, in so far as nearby groups that are higher industry or higher technophilia allow them to. The Amish and the Haraiti are two very high fertility populations, but both of these populations are incredibly low industry, incredibly low productivity, and incredibly low science engagement.And when I say science engagement, pushing science forward, stuff like the Haraiti they'll like, I have a broad understanding of science. They're not as like PruPu as the Amish, but they're not, particle physicists are working on new types of computers and stuff like that, or auto [00:04:00] drones and stuff.This matters because these two groups are only really able to have cultural autonomy in so far as they are in the good graces of their higher Technophilia, higher industry neighbors. This is the topic we have talked about before, and I wanted to do a full episode on it because it's impor

May 15, 202431 min

The Bear vs. Man Meme is a Big Deal

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the recent "bear or man" meme, which revealed a disturbing level of normalized bigotry against men in contemporary society. The hosts analyze the responses to the question "Would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man?" and compare them to hypothetical scenarios involving other marginalized groups to highlight the double standards at play. They explore the roots of this bigotry, its manifestation in various aspects of life, such as college admissions and fertility choices, and the potential consequences for society as a whole. The conversation also touches on the importance of recognizing and addressing misandry, even when it has become so pervasive that it is often overlooked or dismissed.[00:00:00] Question. What kind of bear is best? That's a ridiculous question. False. Black bear.Malcolm Collins: This is why it's so important that I elevate this and I'm also elevate your reaction to this Okay, because it's the reaction that many people will have that shows how dangerous this has gottenIf you lived in a society like if in America today People were responding the same way to a question about Jews or black people.Would you be like, holy? You We have a big problem in this country and we need to do something about it immediately.Yeah. You would be raising every alarm bell you could raise. This is true.Fact. Bears eat beets. Oh. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. Bears do not What is going on?Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: YouMalcolm Collins: look good.Simone Collins: Are you ready to go? I'm ready to go.Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am so excited to be chatting with you again today. There has been a meme, and whenever we try to do [00:01:00] timely episodes, we are always going to be late to the subject, because that's just not how we produce our videos. But the bear meme! First I'll ask you the question.Would you rather be in the woods with a bear or a random man?Simone Collins: Yeah. As long as it's a genuinely random man, obviously a man.Malcolm Collins: Okay. So a lot of women, and then I've seen this done on shows and stuff like that. It seems to be like 50 percent of women or more, maybe within these more progressive environments, like college campuses, you're getting like 70 to 80 percent of women.Okay. Are saying a bear and the standard have they not been like camping ever? Okay. So that's not the issue And what i'll say is the standard mind dead Take on this is are they either not aware of how dangerous bears are or the standard take on this is [00:02:00] Oh women these days, aren't they silly and hasn't feminism gone an extreme degree?And if we weren't based camp if we were some basic podcast That's the take we'd be having but I actually think that what can be Gleamed from this particular meme is much deeper and that's why I wanted to make sure to do an episode on it even if it's not appearing while this is still in the zeitgeist of the topic because I think that this was actually a great sort of natural experiment to see where our culture is heading and to predict where things will go downstream of here.Simone Collins: The, what this really indicates is what media has done to female audiences, which is that when they hear the word average or random guy, they assume some kind of aggressor or some kind of dangerous person. They're evoked set for random guy, rather than [00:03:00] Your brother, an uncle, a family member, a co worker.Malcolm Collins: No. They've further asked this. If it was your dad, would you say, no, they'll say. They would choose to bear over their dad.For example, look at this woman's caption. I choose the bear every time. If it's my boyfriend the bear, a friend the bear. My dad, the bear. Life and men have given me enough reason to choose the bear any time over any of them. I don't trust them. I don't think I ever will. Whether they're family or friends or stranger, I choose the bear.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think you always, and a lot of people do this. They're like Malcolm, you go too hard against the monoculture and stuff like that. Because they assume that the monoculture is their perception of the monoculture when they've been associated with it.Not the, like they don't know how brainwashed and culty some individuals have gotten. But what I would say is the first thing to understand what we're really learning from this is I'm going to play a clip of somebody interviewing a bunch of women, but first I'm going to slightly change the question that's being asked.Would you prefer [00:04:00] to be in the woods? with a bear or a random black manblackMan is scary. Um, with a bear. What I've heard about bears, they don't always attack you, right? So maybe a bear.Probably a bear. 100 percent a bear, which is like, terrifying to say, but Definitely a bear. SomeMalcolm Collins: blackmen are very scary out there. I bet. Even some men are saying bear, although we could predict th

May 14, 202427 min

Why You Can Not Allow Nerds to Congregate with Austin Chen

Manifold: The Taco Party: In this engaging conversation, Malcolm and Simone Collins sit down with Austin Chen, co-founder of the prediction market platform Manifold, to discuss the upcoming Manifest conference, the newly launched grant-making entity Manifund, and the unique community that has formed around these initiatives. Austin shares his insights on the diverse group of intellectuals, tech enthusiasts, and "degenerates" that make up the Manifold user base, and how the platform's open, decentralized approach sets it apart from other prediction markets. The hosts and guest also delve into the challenges of creating vibrant social events and communities, the importance of taking initiative, and the potential for Manifund to fill a gap in the current intellectual landscape.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. We are very excited today to be joined by Austin Chen. He is one of the co founders of the prediction market Manifold, though now he is transitioning to work on Manifund, which is their sort of independent grant making entity, which is so excited.But what he's doing right now as he's transitioning is Prepping and ramping up for basically the conference of the year for us. We're really excited for it aside from natalism conference, which we're also very excited for, because per natalism, right? But last year was the first ever manifest conference.This is the flagship conference and the one only of manifold. And it was one of the best gatherings we've ever been to in terms of the California people in terms of execution. So you're planning for this we wanted to bring you on to talk about this, to talk about manifold, to talk about mana fund.And I just wanted to kick this off withMalcolm Collins: why? No, hold on. We got to kick it off with a good question. Okay. I think thatAustin Chen: was a great question. TheMalcolm Collins: good question is [00:01:00] around the betting pool that was put around when a a sex party would form at last year's event. Oh my God. Orgy.Yes. Yeah. Can you speak to that? What happened there?Austin Chen: So this is I think an outgrowth of Manifold's like very like libertarian philosophy. To take like very many steps back about what is special about Manifold, right? We're a prediction market platform where anyone can create any question.And this was basically from the very beginning, we want it to be a place where instead of the more standard platforms, Metacliss, PolyMarket, Kaoshi, which all have like prediction markets or forecasts. But all of their forecasts and prediction market was like gatekept. They're like approved by the moderators of the platform.We were like, we don't want this. We want more of a decentralized, like anyone can ask any question kind of system. So I think. Even from the very early days, we had a lot more of the like out there, sketchy, like raunchy degenerate, like crowd of people, but also a lot of people who are like, just very interested in prediction markets for their own sake, like prediction market nerds.When you put those two together, you get like all kinds of weird questions Will there be an orgy at [00:02:00] Manifest? And I think the New York Times famously covered this maybe in a little bit more Like depth than I would have hoped because you know me i'm like i'm so excited to be on the New York Times Except that my name is now associated with this orgy that happens But yeah, I don't know if there's like too much more about that than what they cover.It was like somebody who was one of our users was like, there's a bunch of like really spicy things happening. The like rationalist EA crowd is famous for the very loose, like norms on like sexuality, like polyamory, that kind of thing. Maybe there'll be an orgy. It's a thing that has probably ever happened before in like other rationalist parties or something like that.And there's just like a market for it. And every prediction market can also be viewed as like an incentive market, where if you have inside information, or especially if you have the ability to make the outcome of the market happen, in this case, if you have the ability to make an orgy happen, then it's a very natural thing to bet up, will there be an orgy and just And I think that's basically what happened here.So I'm like enterprising, like user in our community was like, it probably wouldn't be that hard to get together with the minimum viable orgy. If we can get three people to agree to come [00:03:00] over and have sex. I think they did this off the light, hidden campus. Then we can resolve this market correctly.So that's my best guess of what happened.Malcolm Collins: And Elo is one of the speakers. She's one of the speakers this year too. Yeah, that's right and also before we go further to get this all at the beginning if you happen to live in the bay Area and you are a fan of ours and you're not going to one of the natal cons or something because I think that's going to be in austin again This is a great place to me

May 13, 202434 min