Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Economist Robin Hanson returns to discuss his proposal for increasing fertility rates through financial incentives for parents. He explains how governments could pay parents for having children by issuing shares of the future tax revenue those kids will generate. Robin argues this would provide better motivation for good parenting. The hosts consider potential impacts on social classes, racism, sexism, cultural objections, arbitrage opportunities, and more.[00:00:00]Simone Collins: Hello, everyone. We are so excited today. A little bit, a little bit fanboying and girling out because we are joined by the fantastic, brilliant, and super fun Robin Hanson. He, in addition to being a professor of economics at George Mason University, has written some of my favorite books, including The Elephant in the Brain, which is just mind blowing, and The Age of M.He, he talks about prediction markets, grabby aliens,Malcolm Collins: signaling. Well Simone didn't know that he had invented the term grabby aliens. And I didn't know he had invented the term great filter. This is in regards to the Fermi paradox. So genuinely like a huge figure in terms of and, and, and being at the we, we go to these events where it's all like young, like up and coming, like supposed to be all the smartest hip young people.And he's always at these events. Because he is considered like the one person not in our generation who is Seminal to these communities. He's so with it. He's so withSimone Collins: it.Malcolm Collins: So what we're going to talk about on this one is we were giving a lecture at one of these that have been called manifest [00:01:00] about pronatalism.And then he just drops this idea about how it could be solved. That we had never heard before and was really interesting and we want to go into it.Would you like to know more?Robin Hanson: All right. So let's first acknowledge that any solution requires some policy people to do some things. And if they don't do certain things, it doesn't happen.And I'm honestly not that optimistic. The right people would do the right thing here. And we should, we could talk a bit about that. So the fundamental problem is a lot of things in our culture. Are oriented toward low fertility and a lot of people really like those things that is they're really deeply attached to intensive parenting, long years of schooling, delayed mating, gender equality, and there's a whole bunch more and any solution that induces high fertility.Is going to cut into some of those things. And so even if we could get people to adopt the solution, which I'm about to tell you, and they [00:02:00] try it for awhile, there's a risk that they'll see that. In fact, it cuts into those things. They'll go, Oh no, Oh no, we can't have that. And then they would turn it off because they'd rather have declining population and low fertility than to have some of those things that, that I think is a fundamental risk that is just a fundamental cultural conflict.And a lot of. Maybe even the majority of elites really prefer the package that leads to declining population, even when they understand that they could do otherwise. But doing otherwise will change some of these key parts of their culture that they're really attached to. So that's my fundamental warning.But given that, if you're willing to prioritize fertility high enough, i. e. doing what it takes to raise fertility I think there is in fact a simple solution. So, first of all, there's a lot of studies on how incentives to increase fertility and their effects. And so there are definitely a lot of studies that show small incentives have pretty small effects.[00:03:00]And then there's some studies that show modest incentives have modest effects. And as an economist, I feel really confident. Huge. Big effects. No question, right? If you gave people a million dollars per baby, a lot of babies, okay, that's just going to happen. Right.Malcolm Collins: Businesses would be started around that, you know, exactly.Robin Hanson: Right. Now, if I say that, then people will say, who, how can we possibly afford that? Cause now you're imagining we're going to have to tax everybody else to pay for this. And that's going to be a huge tax and we're not going to like it. So the key observation is that we don't have to pay for it. We can make investors pay for it.So here's the trick. So at the moment, in say the U. S. We have roughly a hundred trillion dollars in debt. That's not just the explicit bonds we've sold, but also the promises we made, like Medicare and Social Security, that we haven't set up a way [00:04:00] to pay for. Which is yeah, we owe it. Okay. And if you divide that by 300 million people, that's 300, 000 a person.And there are some other estimates of unfunded promises that are even higher, say 700, 000 a person. Oh, boy. Even the literal debt per person. In terms of bonds is a hundred thousand dollars a person. So we're talking somewhere between a hundred thousand, seven hundred thou

Malcolm and Simone do an in-depth analysis and critique of Nassim Taleb's controversial article "IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle". They break down his motivations, concessions, rhetorical tactics, and arguments against IQ testing. They explain why his solutions are impractical and highlight where he contradicts himself. Malcolm outlines a framework for reading critiques like this - looking for motivation, proposed alternatives, concessions, repeated bad arguments, and more. They agree IQ isn't everything but make the case it still matters, especially if IQ is declining.Malcolm: [00:00:00] when you look at our prison system, the vast majority of people in it are at Very low accused. And when you deny that they had a systemic disadvantage when compared to you, when you tell people to throw that out, what?You are taking the most vulnerable people in our society who are in a situation to do something they had no control over. And completely acting like they had the same advantage as you did in life. It is sick. It is sick. It is not moral. And you need to get your f*****g s**t together and actually look at the data instead of trying to blow smoke in people's faces so you can play your little virtue game.Okay? Because people are suffering for your b******t. And so you can feel like a hero without having to challenge actual real world problems and fix them and take responsibility for the advantages that you were born with, which other people weren't. he ends up making an argument. That needs to say that he has achieved everything that he has achieved in life without systemic advantages at [00:01:00] all.He has just willed himself to this. Place that he isSimone: simultaneously while flaunting that systemic advantage, right? In every sense like to a fault, like to a point of illegibility.Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, what if I told you that obviously a wealth doesn't predict success because there are tons of millionaires and billionaires who just do nothing with their lives and piss away all their money. And obviously being like super, super poor, like under the poverty line is a problem, but like above a certain level, it really doesn't matter about how much money you have.Oh, I think thatMalcolm: would make a lot of sense. I think that's exactly the type of thing a wealthy person would argue. Right. So I got to talk about how we got on this topic. We had a fan of the show stay over at our house because they happened to be passing through the area. And one of the things that they mentioned, because they were like, well, this is an area where I question something that you guys talk about a lot.Specifically, he believed that [00:02:00] IQ didn't matter at all. And the reason he believes this is because another smart person who he looked up to had argued this very passionately. Specifically, Nassim Taleb. and he wrote this medium post about thiscalled IQ is largely a pseudo-scientific swindle. And I read this medium post and I saw it as a really interesting opportunity because self-contained within the me the post its itself was the proof that he was manipulating data and essentially lying to the reader. But what we want to try to do on this episode is to not just show that yes, IQ likely does matter, but give you the tools necessary to, even if you don't understand the scientific language was which a person is arguing, i.e. in this case, like advanced statistics. Even if you don't [00:03:00] understand that. Understand the telltale signs that a person is lying to you and be able to tell that they are lying to you even if you don't understand what they are saying and better than all of that, get to deeper truth than you even could from reading an article from the perspective of somebody who is Agreed with what is true or what you already believe.And by that what I mean is if somebody who really believes in career is invested in IQ mattering, writes an article that IQ matters. Well, they can't really trust it either because they might be lying with statistics as well. Right. There's somebody who deeply believes IQ doesn't matter, or at least.tries to argue that has sprinkled throughout his article, little admissions to where IQ does matter. You can know that at least in those areas, it definitely matters because he has everything at stake in showing that it doesn't. So that's why learning to read articles in this way is really important.Now, before we go further with [00:04:00] this, I want to elaborate on the analogy that Simone started the show is because I think this is where we're going as a society. And a lot of these people today who, We're born with advantages over people, born with usually really high IQs, and then they pretend like they've achieved everything that they've achieved on their own.It is not the look that they think it is. It's very much the new, I don't see race. Pretending you don't see a systemic advantage that you have had over other people your entire life, and tak

Malcolm and Simone have a fun, meandering discussion about how science fiction narratives can reveal deeper truths about the future when they engage seriously with topics like demographics and AI. They analyze the problematic ways overpopulation and AI are portrayed in much sci-fi. The hosts share imaginative fictional world concepts they've conceived, including a mythology based on online entities, a post-Yellowstone America, and more.Malcolm: [00:00:00] this reminds us of a so there was a book that we were thinking of writing. We never got around to writing it, but we can talk about it here. Because I, I thought it was very interesting. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to write a modern version of mythology.Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, when the Cyberpunk game came out, you were super excited. Like you had a blast with it. And then we watched the anime at the same time. Great anime,Malcolm: by the way, really good. Love Rebecca. Great character.Simone: Yeah. I mean, well, Rebecca is the only one who like thrives in the world. She's the only one who's really likable.But she's the only one who gets it. Everyone else is so whiny. It'sMalcolm: horrible. But something was really clear in this and it made me reflect on a lot of other sci fi, which it shows that when people are writing sci fi from a mainstream perspective, particularly a progressive one, and I think cyberpunk as a genre is inherently progressive, which is to say that It assumes that like corporations are going to become like these big evil things that ruin everyone's life and that capitalism goes wrong [00:01:00] and makes everything worse for everyone and dehumanizes the individual and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.But that they show that these individuals have... so blinded themselves to fertility rates that they do not consider them in how their worlds are structured or how humanity changes, which I think goes to, in a way, discredit their worldviews. But. Through discrediting their worldviews, it can help us better predict what the future will actually be like.So, let's describe what I mean by this. So if you look at the show Cyberpunk or the game Cyberpunk, one really interesting thing is who's having kids in this world. You know, it starts with a kid who's a single kid of a mom, right? Okay, so I'm thinking of the anime here. But in this world, it seems almost impossible for there to be motivations for many people to have more than two kids.And yet, you know, as I always say, if you have a population where a third of the [00:02:00] population, which is like, obviously true in the cyberpunk world is having no kids. I actually think the cyberpunk world is probably half the people are having no kids. If you look at the motivations in this world, if it was certain people are having no kids.Another third of people are having two kids, if you assume that which, again, I see very few people motivated to do that in the cyberpunk world. Well, then the final third of people have to be having over four kids for the population to stay stable. Yeah. No one in the cyberpunk world is having over four kids.I mean,Simone: maybe Yeah, unless there's just some, like, off camera colony of, like, you know, traditional Amish people producingMalcolm: all the humans. Well, yeah, so you could argue that they're all coming from, like, these like Human farms. Nomadic. Well, so there's two potentialities in this world. It could be that the nomadic sort of car people of the wasteland just have tons and tons and tons of kids.I mean, you don't see this in the show or the game, but it could be that they're just like Amish and like their settlements are just kids running everywhere. Or it could be, like you said. The kids are actually created by the state or by corporations in bats. Now that [00:03:00] would work for the world, yet it's clearly not something that's shown in the world.AndSimone: it would be if the, of course, the, the authors had thought of it, because that's interesting and weird.Malcolm: And it makes corporations look worse, so it works for a cyberpunk y world. Right. But you actually see this across sci fi, is so many sci fis are written with the assumption that humans exist in inexhaustible supply and always replicate, that they build things into the world that are just discordant with actual things.Potential future realities. So a great example of this comes from Starship Troopers, where a person remarks Starship Troopers, the line that the first. Would you like to know more from these episodes? Comes from so in Starship Troopers, there's a line that, well, of course you need to become a citizen, like join the military to get this special status in society if you want to get a license to have kids.So this is a world where to solve [00:04:00] overpopulation, which everyone used to thought was going to be an issue. The way that you did that was licensing people to have kids. Which, you know, would be a great thing if you have a lot of

Description: Economist Bryan Caplan joins Simone to discuss fascinating dynamics within left-wing culture. They analyze how progressive groups enforce rigid conformity, leading to constant internal conflict as people fear being "cancelled." Other topics include fertility rates across ideologies, Bryan's controversial open borders stance, and why some childless people react so angrily to his pronatalism.Bryan Caplan: [00:00:00] I've done some fun Twitter polls of you know, are you left? Are you right? Do you worry about the left getting mad at you? Do you worry about the right getting mad at you? And one of the biggest groups that lives in fear is the left of the left,Simone: right? Yeah. Yeah.Bryan Caplan: Left. It's not quite like the ready body or like the Amish, but it is a weird dysfunctional subculture of people who feel like they've got to be looking over the shoulderswould you like to know more?Simone: we are really excited today because we have a very special guest joining us, Brian Kaplan. He is, in addition to being a professor of economics at George Mason University, and a New York Times bestselling author, he's an author of not just a ton of books, including obviously some favorites of ours, like Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, and The Case Against Education, like two huge obsession areas for us, but also in collaboration with the creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, an awesome webcomic a book called Open Borders, the Science of Ethics in Immigration, which is [00:01:00] illustrated and there just needs to be more books out there as avid readers of comics and manga, like throughout our, like youth.Simone: We are huge fans of this format. So like super stoked, especially when it's something about policy. Well, it'sMalcolm: wild. We actually have a Saturday morning breakfast cartoon in one of our books as well. We asked for permission. So that's but other things he's written on is the case to get don't grow up to be a feminist.Malcolm: It's one of the books. And one of the most recent ones is on how democracies are non functional or becoming less, less optimized for good economic outcomes. So ladies and gentlemen,Simone: if you need some good reading, basically just search Brian Kaplan'sMalcolm: name. So, the priming that I wanted to go into this interview with, because I find this very interesting, and I haven't seen your pontification on this particular angle yet.Malcolm: When I look at all of the things that you're seeing as problems, they both seem to align with many of the things that we think about the world, and I think most people have really thought about things. So they're very sane and based takes, right? Fertility population's going to begin to decline in the developed world, which is going to have [00:02:00] major economic effects.Malcolm: The academic system is working less and less well. There's sort of social contagions like feminism, which are causing many downstream societal effects. My question to you is realistically, where does the world go 50, 100 years from now? Do we see a beginning of a collapse of the developed world?Malcolm: Do we see small social groups begin to gain more power? What's going on?Bryan Caplan: My honest answer is, I always say, we'll muddle through, there's no collapse, there's no disaster. Even the idea that things will get overall worse is, I think, highly unlikely. Mostly, I think, in terms of missed opportunities, things could have been so much more than they were.Bryan Caplan: If we get to immortality in a thousand years, what we could have done in a hundred years, well, what a horrible tragedy for nine hundred years worth of people. It's not the same thing as... The Planet of the Apes or something like that, or just a complete takeover. It's [00:03:00] just that we could have done so much better and we didn't.Bryan Caplan: How sad.Malcolm: So then economically, how do you think demographic collapse plays out? Do you think that it won't have that big of an effect? Do you think it will have a big... Like, how can countries adaptBryan Caplan: to it? It will have a huge effect relative to what could have been. That doesn't mean that we will see that living standards actually go down in absolute terms.Bryan Caplan: I'm not going to rule that out for the most egregious cases. I do think that despite the great dysfunctionality of politics over the world, including democracies, that when things get really bad, to the level of things are actually going to get noticeably worse before your eyes, then I think normally countries get more flexible.Bryan Caplan: It's like, all right, well, we can't have them, they actually get worse. What politics is really bad at is realizing incredible missed opportunities that people just have not gotten used to yet. For example, so if South Korea, if it really looks like they're going to be unable to [00:04:00] staff their old folks homes, they'll let in the immigrants at that point.Bryan Caplan: It has to get bad,

Malcolm and Simone have an in-depth discussion analyzing the rapid rise in transgender individuals. They review and debate various theories like endocrine disruptors, social contagion, female puberty discomfort, autogynephilia fetishism, and more. The hosts discuss why certain explanations are seen as offensive, while concluding that personal transitions should be respected. They also posit their own idea that it serves as an identity "reset" that improves mental health.Simone: [00:00:00]Malcolm, hello.Malcolm: Hello. So, Today, we well, we're going to talk about what like, just sort of a discussion between us, because this is a topic we've been diving into more recently due to our engagement with the trans vexing community and other trans communities online, is what is really causing transness. And the reason we titled this study trans people are magical is there is an approved answer to this question.It is that they were born with the wrong soul. And that they were actually born with the soul of someone of a different gender. The problem is we don't really believe in souls. And even if I did, I'd be almost certain that gender just isn't that important to like our core identity, like our soul.And I, And this is why we went with the title, Trans People Are Magical, because any sort of scientific explanation you try to give, or any evidence based explanation you try to give for what is going on socially for recent trends within the trans [00:01:00] community and people who identify as trans, is considered transphobic.In part, I don't know, because you're quantifying it. We can talk about why all the explanations are considered offensive. Individually, they have reasons they're considered offensive, but collectively, it's almost like a topic we're not allowed to talk about or investigate, when it seems to me Like, it should be really important that the number of trans people has increased something like 400 percent in the last decade, but the that the trends in who is transitioning has changed really dramatically, where it used to be predominantly male to female, and now it's predominantly female to male of this young age range.And these, I think, could point to something.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: So first, before we get any further in this, Our larger stake on gender transition is that there are likely people transitioning for every one of the reasons we're going to mention. The question is what is causing these statistical trends?Are some of these reasons more important than other [00:02:00] reasons? Are they all just contributory reasons? Is there like one core reason? That's a really interesting question to me. We could say we just don't have the data to know right now because people are afraid to collect the data because you have your, Oh,Simone: people collect data, but only for a very specific set of answers.It's alreadyMalcolm: pre approved. And the thing that really upsets me about the trans data when I go over it is you can see by the date of publication, it will begin to trend towards showing the pre approved answer.So a great example of this would be brain structures. If you look at the earlier studies on trans people that were using like fMRI data and stuff like that they would usually say or the ones that I'm familiar with would say, The trans people's brains actually are more similar to the gender they were assigned at birth than the gender they were identifying with, whereas in later studies, the opposite is being said, like studies that were done more recently.And [00:03:00] unfortunately, knowing the pressures that happened within academia, that makes me now doubt both of those studies. I'm like, Oh, I just wish I could know what the real answer is.It looks like I misspoke here going through the recent research, even on Wikipedia, which is where there's a studies came from, that I had put on the screen. , even the more recent research shows that, trans individuals brains are more similar to the gender, they were assigned at birth to the gender. They identify ways. And this makes perfect sense. If you think about it. You don't when you're walking around, see people, randomly at least at the rates that we see trans people in the population. Get organs of a different gender. You know, you don't see men walking around with the skin of a woman , or, or the arms of a woman. In fact, the only place where I'm really familiar with this happening is either in intersex individuals or in individuals. , Women specifically who were born with male facial hair. And this happens at much [00:04:00] lower rates than transness happens within the population, but could explain a proportion of individuals who are born trans So if 5% of us young adults are identifying as trans and about 1.5% of the population is born intersex. That means that this wrong brain hypothesis would only explain about 30% of the community. Assuming that this phenomenon appears at about the same rate that genitals get switched u

Malcolm and Simone have a thought-provoking discussion analyzing some of the most common anime tropes and what they reveal about Japanese culture and desires. They explore the prevalence of high school settings, "isekai" fantasy worlds, unusual relationships, slice of life, and more. The hosts share their own theories on how these tropes represent escapism, surrogate parenting instincts, and a cultural lack of meaning in adulthood. They also recommend their favorite anime series and studios.Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, gorgeous.Malcolm: I know, same time. Well, hello, Simone. So we were talking about something and you spontaneously had this idea. Which just enchanted me because I think you might be right. And sometimes when we're looking at the world, there's these little nagging questions which persist beyond reality.Where it's like, what on earth is going on here? You know? You're talking about a big one with sexuality. I'd say is, why is it that... Gay males and straight males are more likely to find the opposite gender repellent than gay versus straight females.That's where we can say something is going on here and we can use these sorts of persistent differences or unusual patterns to suss out deeper things that are going on within a population.Now [00:01:00] in anime, there are actually many of. And in Japan, there are many of these, so our audience may not know this, but my wife was born in Japan, and she spent a lot of her childhood going to Japan to trips and stuff like that, you know, for her, it was sort of like her home away from home, and her middle name is actually Haruko so even has a Japanese middle name and, bye. One, so we're going to go over a few different questions that we've seen sort of persistently in anime, and I'll go over the three that I know we're going to cover, and then we might come up with some others. The first one is, why are, hmm, what's the way to say this that won't get the video? Why do females who phenotypically present as youth appear in specific situations within anime where if they were [00:02:00] presenting that way in live action within most Western countries? Everyone would literally immediately be arrested. Yeah, it would be super illegal. Why is this such a normalized thing within anime?Would you like to know more?Malcolm: That is question number one. And I would point out thatAs time has gone on I have seen this more and more within high production anime.To the point now where it's just almost totally normalized. Mainstream. Where it would be almost a little weird if it didn't appear even once in an anime. It, it would be like an anime without a, an episode where they go to the, Beach or onsen. The onsen, or the hot springs, or the, a beach episode, you know?It's just a thing, right? If I, if I saw a harem comedy and one of the characters wasn't, Ooh, you know, I'd be like, okay, what's going on here? Oh, note here. A harem comedy is anime where a number of [00:03:00] women are all interested in one man. It does not surprise me why anyone would find that interesting, but that's, that's nothing.anime?take place in high schools? This is a very interesting question because you do not see any other art form across any other culture I'm aware of. Almost all of it only takes place during one stage of an individual's life. Right. Yeah. And, and especially none where it's their high school age. And then the final question is What is going on?This actually came from an a comment. I, I personally wouldn't find this to be that interesting a question, but it may have interesting answers. What is going on with all the Eizoukei anime? That's anime where people are transported to another world. Why is this a popular genre right now? Alright, so let's go to the first question.You had an idea that sprung to you one day, and I think it may be accurate.Simone: Yeah so we were watching an anime in which there's a dynamic like this basically where like a, [00:04:00] a salaryman wakes up in... Fantasy video game world and then, you know, ends up in one of these relationships and it, you know, you, you expect these relationships to be, can I, is it okay if I say Lolita?No,Malcolm: youSimone: cannot say that. Okay. So, you, I think most people make the least charitable interpretation of these types of relationships and why people are interested in them. So, last, last night we were watching this anime called My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even At Level 1, where this salaryman basically wakes up in a video game world and starts befriending people, and his Before we goMalcolm: further with the anime explanation, I want to explain what makes it such a unique anime, from a, from a watching it perspective.Yeah. And it is so clearly a just a desperate fantasy of what if life wasn't terrible? Yes. In every single angle of the anime, that it breaks down many [00:05:00] ideas to much more simplistic tropes than they would normally be broken down into. It's not a particularly good anime or anything

Malcolm and Simone have an in-depth discussion about the controversial internet personality Andrew Tate. They analyze his worldview, intelligence, backstory, masculinity, cultural influences, differences from their own perspectives, and more. The hosts find Tate to be smart and logically consistent overall, while disagreeing on certain issues like treatment of women. They explore how he appeals to young men lacking direction, the roots of his philosophies, and debate toxicity vs pragmatism. Ultimately they conclude that different cultural groups can productively co-exist while optimizing differently.Simone: [00:00:00] I think he doesn't maintain frame. He is the frame and I do feel like he is a method actor who's had a psychotic break and is now. In the fantasy.He is. And like, you can see it. You can see it when he talks. He is 100 percent genuine and I think he wakes up in the morning and he growls to himselfWould you like to know more?Simone: IMalcolm: want to start this episode. So Andrew Tate did a thing on how all of the world problems could be solved if every man had a sword in his house. And so he has this Honestly, it's a smaller sword than mine that he keeps in his house for one of the examples is if if your woman goes out and she learns about something from the news, like, some disease is supposed to be killing people and she's all panicked.You just point your sword at her and say, don't be scared woman, and then we won't have problems anymore. And so we're beginning our Andrew Tate episode by showing this sword that's been in the, the back. Oh, I got to swing it around like an ultra nerd. Yeah. [00:01:00] Sorry. I can'tSimone: actually. You're going to, you're going to damage some seriousMalcolm: lights.Inside and I am a dad. Which means that I may have swords in my house, but I'm a nerd because I do it. I'm not mad. In fact, I would argue every man who has swords in their house is just a nerd. Like I don't, I don't know how he thinks that makes him look tough. I, I think it The last question I got on this, somebody saw it and they go, Oh, you must be really into D& D.And I'm like, well, you know. Ha ha ha ha ha. But I don't think that's my takeaway from him.I guarantee you don't walk around your house with a sword because you're not a commander. I'm a commander. You know, like when you command the troops into battle.I guarantee you. I do. Sorry. I looked up the video. The sword video and i found this and i just love he's like you don't walk around your house with a sword. i'm like yeah yeah, yeah. actually i do but um i don't i don't go around doing it feeling like i'm a commander i understand that walking around your house with a sword [00:02:00] and as a grown man is a sign of being a nerd and i accept that about myselfMalcolm: Which actually brings me to a point. Which is interesting and important. That's why we need people like Andrew Tate. So I often go through the comments when I do guest appearances on other podcasts and stuff like that.And there is one type of comment that we just get, like, really, really regularly in these videos. Especially me when I appear, which is, look, I love the stuff he's saying, but he just looks like such a poindexter, you know, or I can't stand his voice, like he sounds too nerdy, or you know, like, I, I, like, I like it.Like he's, he's saying important facts that we need to know, but he is like in some way repellent because of how nerdy I appear. And this is actually really interesting because the two places where I've gotten these comments the most, one was when I did an appearance on the Jolly Heretic where, [00:03:00] and then the other was when I did an appearance with Ruby.He's the guy who does What If Alt Hiss, but he has a separate podcast. Great podcast. And, you know, we should have them on sometime. But both of these guys are like objectively significantly nerdier looking than I am. And yes,Simone: but you look young and Unabashedly enthusiastic, which is to say, like, you gesticulate, you bring a lot of, like, character and, like, goofiness into your, into yourMalcolm: mannerisms.I, I think another thing it could be is I am nerdy, but I am also hot. Like, I, I know I'm hot. And it could be that I represent a nerd who is sexually threatening.Simone: Well, but here's the other thing. I mean. Who is the other, so most people who are hot and funny and passionate and like physically like they gesticulate a lot and make a lot of like Uh, funny facial expressions.It's, it's the gays. The [00:04:00] gays. So that's also why I think you get a lot of accusations for being gay. Is because you're like, you're attractive. But also you're flamboyant. And like, like expressive. And humorous. AndMalcolm: goofy. And that is not an accusation that I get as to why they can't listen to me. And this is really interesting.Yeah, it's the nerd thing.Simone: It's the nerd thing.Malcolm: of men who genuinely have trouble consuming information from men that they don't see

In this introspective discussion, Malcolm and Simone dive deep into what it means to find success, meaning, and responsibility as an individual in the context of society. They touch on the dangers of hedonism, the importance of "delusions of grandeur," why suffering is essential, why we're not all equal, playing your role, taking on the burden of humanity, developing real confidence, having initiative, and more. The hosts share personal stories and perspectives on how to be happy with yourself, live up to your potential, and positively contribute even if you're not destined for traditional status and recognition.Malcolm: We are told that life is a race, but life isn't a race. It's an action RPG, and you have spec'd your character wrong. A lot of guys today, and I think this is one of the biggest problems, is they are specking characters that are designed to win in the sexual marketplace, and then it ends up f*****g up the rest of their life because a male who wins in the easy sex marketplace is...It's a very poorly specced character for the job market. It's a very poorly specced character for the marriage market. It's a very poorly specced character for the dadSimone: market. Yeah, even for like long term happiness like for more than just a 10 year period even, just terrible.Malcolm: Some people are born to be kings and some people are born to be knights. Yeah. And that we have taught the knights of our society to be systemically unhappy with who they are, because they are followers and not leaders.They are part of a system and that through acting as a part of that system, they can [00:01:00] Individually achieve the highest greatness that any human can achieve, which is maximizing your own potential in the world we are glorified for the crucible that life builds for us. It is through our suffering that we achieve things of meaning and we build an identity of meaning in one that we can be proud of. And that there is nothing to be proud of if you have no challenges.Would you like to know more?Simone: Malcolm, the other day, someone and they were like, let's be honest, Simone, you wouldn't have looked at Malcolm twice if he wasn't like super, you know, I can't remember what it was like super smart or successful or something. And I was like, 100 percent no. Like the reason why I was driven crazy by you, the moment I met you was.Frankly, your delusions of grandeur that you sat across the table, you laid your cards down and you were like, you know, first, you know, I'm not looking to get married, I'm looking to find a wife, like, totally honest about your intentions, but [00:02:00] also like, and here's my vision for the universe, this is why I think humans are here, I'm going to get our planet, like, our species off planet, I'm going to do this, I'm going to protect sentience, I was like, You dream big andMalcolm: even, even the way I come off publicly was something that I worked really hard on the video on how to get people to have sex with you is one that we can't publish because Claude said it was too naughty.But one of the things I did over and over again when I was little is I would go to little, I don't know the word young, like high school, right? I would go to malls and I would practice walking up and talking to random people. And I would just do this over and over and over again, like reps. It was the goal being getting somebody's, you know, phone number and then, you know, doing some sort of post talk follow up or something like that.Just over and over and over and over again both so that I learned to not feel pain at, , social rejection, because this is a really ingrained thing that's really hard to get over. But also so that I learned how to do that, [00:03:00] like, as a skill, how to maintain that positive energy when going up to someone, it's positive, non threatening energy is something that really.It's not necessarily you're born with it, but you can learn to master it through repetition.Simone: But for you, it was more than that. It was the passion. It was the dreaming big. Women find that super hot. Well, men find that hot too. Although men, I think love admiration, like genuine admiration for them from a woman more than like her confidence necessarily.Yeah. Yeah.Malcolm: Absolutely. I think that this is something that really cannot be stressed enough in this modern, like mannose sphere environment, which is when you are out there and you were looking for a wife. The best way to attract a woman is with your passion. And this is something that women, the type of women who make for great wives. Are very attracted to and are looking for. They are looking for someone in this world who they are inspired to follow. I was watching this great [00:04:00] clip of Steve Erwin today. Uh, talking passionately about what he wanted to do. And I suggest you guys check out the clip, but I'll try to include the last little bit of it here, but it doesn't get as copyright struck where you can just see in his wif

Michael Gibson shares insights on identifying extraordinary talent in young people from investing in them early via his VC fund 1517.He explains how classic predictors like test scores fail to capture entrepreneurial gifts like courage, initiative, and "insider-outsider" status. Homeschoolers often excel as they're self-driven. Malcolm notes EA types who use funds practically tend to thrive.They discuss why cities lack on-ramps for talent, risks of attaching to "smart" identity, and how youth's fluid intelligence enables conceptual leaps elders miss. Overall Michael concludes talent ID is tough, but development is key - we must cultivate qualities like grit young.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Michael Gibson. He is the co founder of the VC fund, the 1517 fund, which invest in young people typically before they've gone to college,Malcolm Collins: how do you judge the competence of somebody who's young,Michael Gibson: yeah, we learned a lot. Well, when we started the fellowship, we had an application a lot like colleges. We asked for test scores, GPA, what school you went to. And that was good at, certainly signaling cognitive ability, but we quickly learned it was not a strong predictor of success out in the wild. And so we had to start looking for other things . There were even negative correlations that were surprising.Would you like to know more?Simone Collins: Hello. Today we are joined by Michael Gibson. He is the co founder of the VC fund, the 1517 fund, which is game changer in terms of venture capital investment, because they invest in young people typically before they've gone to college, sometimes during but he also wrote a book that I've enjoyed very much called paper belt on fire, which I really encourage you to.Simone Collins: Yeah. Check out, but we're not going to be [00:01:00] talking so much about the book today. We really want to get into Michael's work with the 1517 fund with how he spots young talent with things he's learned from his investments and the people he's worked with and the people he's found through this fund, because I mean, Oh my gosh, the talent you're meeting, it's, it's insane.Simone Collins: So we're really excited to dive into this and thank you so much for joiningMichael Gibson: us. Yeah. Thanks for having me.Simone Collins: So the biggest thing that I'm really curious about, cause it's been a while now, you know, you're like, you've been, you've been doing this for years at this point. And you've done a lot of hustling.Simone Collins: I mean, like sleeping on couches, staying up all night, going to these crazy young person parties. I couldn't do this, you know, like young people stay up late and I'm like, my bedtime's at eight 30. you're doing these. IMalcolm Collins: went, I, sorry, I got to take a little detour here. So I went on this trip to, I don't know, somewhere in Central America.Malcolm Collins: With a bunch of Peter Thiel fellowship kids and they like they went out like I, I hadn't gone to a party, like a club in years, but I was like, maybe it's gotten better. Maybe it's not as bad as I remember. And I get there and I'm [00:02:00] stuck there until 1 30 in the morning and it's loud and it's sweaty and it's gross.Malcolm Collins: And it was just as pointless as it always was. And you have to deal with this stuff. I think professionally. It's all about how you. Get these young geniuses interested in working with what you guys are doing. How do you sell yourself to them?Michael Gibson: Man, well, that is certainly part of it. Yeah, it's funny is it's such a slippery, tough craft that we're constantly reexamining the foundations of what we do.Michael Gibson: And, and one of the I guess, two different problems that we constantly wrestle with, or, or, you know, we, I guess we're trying to figure out which problem we're, we're. Operating in one is if you are a fisherman, is it better to be in a well stocked river? Our pond. So it's you're one of those bears just grabbing salmon cause they're flying in your face where in this case, the fish are, you know, talented people building startups or is it better to focus on the craft [00:03:00] of fishing, like being the best, you know, it's like you could identify the one fish that's in the stagnant pond and find it and fish it out.Michael Gibson: You know, that's, so this is like the two problems we struggle with. We're like, okay, which one is it better to be? Is it better to find the location where just talented people are and then figure out what they're working on? Or is it better to, you know, hone your skill pattern matching skill at okay, does this person have the right stuff and just, you know, go out there, you know, looking for that.Michael Gibson: And so, so, so that is a trade off. Or, you know, I can't, I guess I'm saying it's two problems. It's just one problem. It's which one are we in? So to that end is yeah, I've been in hacker houses. I've lived in ecosystems and, you know, tried to go native to the extent t

We are joined by author Richard Hanania to discuss his controversial new book "The Origins of Woke." Richard argues that modern woke ideology stems directly from changes to civil rights law in the 60s and 70s, not broader cultural shifts. He traces how pursuing equality of outcomes rather than opportunity put quotas and disparate impact front and center, leading to impacts on testing, HR, and more. We debate whether wokeness may also have religious origins. Richard details the role of government in racial classification, Title IX, and mandating practices at universities. We discuss potential government action to combat wokeness, and whether running for office with an unorthodox approach could drive change.Simone Collins: [00:00:00]Hi, today we are joined by a very special guest, the author on Substack and Twitter, Richard Hanania. Really awesome work. We love following him and we love talking with him even more.So we're so excited he's coming on the podcast .Malcolm Collins: Well, so an interesting thing is, is. with our audience, you're hitting an audience. It's going to be great for your book. The origins of woke. But it great in an interesting way because we are so interested in the same type of stuff.We actually are going to have persistent disagreements about the types of questions that normal people have literally no vested interest in. Exactly. I am so interested. And I know our audience are interested. Here your theory on the origins of woke presented in like the short version that will get them excited for the book.Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Yeah.Richard Hanania: So the, the basic argument, if you're going to send up, you know, you're going to sum it up in a sentence is that wokeness is caused by government policy through via [00:01:00] civil rights law. And it's a strong claim and it's not, you know, it's a very, it's a claim that can you know, it could be misinterpreted and of course it doesn't explain literally every single thing that ever happened.Like, it doesn't explain like Z's or pronouns or, or whatever, but the basic outline of like, all policy is racist. If it has like a disparate impact, how we classify race in this country. You know, the fact that our institutions have HR departments that and DEI offices that are obsessed with race. It's like, That is ultimately traceable to law.There's a fascinating history there and it can potentially be undone by law too.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Oh, so I mean, you've gotten fairly in the weeds in your book into like how this first was introduced into law and why it wasn't stopped as it was happening. Can you talk a little to that?Richard Hanania: Yeah, so this is a history book.I mean, I want to say origins of woke. I mean, my background is in political science. I'm trying to like, meet the standards of like, a good social science argument of like, how we got here. And so that requires a lot of history. And yeah, I mean, the civil rights movement. I [00:02:00] mean, that's the basically every school children know about it.It's, you know, the idea that, you know, there was there was a sort of this moral sort of wave in reaction to Jim Crow laws in America in the 1960s that culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And what happened after that is that the people, you know, who were involved in that movement didn't just pack up and go home and embrace that she wasn't solved overnight.There was, you know, pretty much immediately within, you know, within You know, within literally years there was a move towards equality of outcome rather than equality of results. And what happened, what happened from there was you had to start pushing, you know, quotas or quasi quotas onto private institutions.You had to start going after standardized tests. And later the same civil rights act and other, you know, associated laws, smaller less important laws were used to go after free speech through hostile work environment and, and harassment and all these things really led to the rise of HR really led to like a institutional homogenization.And so it's sort of the genesis of how we got here. SoMalcolm Collins: can you talk about [00:03:00] when really the moment happened when it moved from equality of opportunity to equality of outcome, like in the legal system? I mean, thereRichard Hanania: are, you know, there's so many sort of, you know, there's so many sort of, you know, steps on the way, but I think the Greggs decision in 1971 was, you know, pretty much the ratification of it by the Supreme Court.The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission thought it would lose that case. It actually sort of encouraged that. plaintiffs not to appeal because they thought the legislative history was so clear that you could use tests and you couldn't just say they were racist on the grounds that whites do better on them than blacks.They said, clearly that's not what the law meant. That's not what the law says. They thought they would lose. It goes to the Supreme cour

Malcolm and Simone have an insightful debate about why some celebrities seem to genuinely enjoy interacting with fans, while others recoil. Malcolm argues niche internet stars are more likely to be themselves publicly, feeling kinship with fans who understand their odd ideas. But Simone counters that reaching mainstream fame requires compromising your true self. They discuss how public personalities reacting negatively to fans likely feel cognitive dissonance about the persona being liked. They theorize on specific celebrities, concluding Bill Murray, Donald Trump and Andrew Tate are fully themselves, while progressive influencers often put on a facade. The lesson - pay attention to how famouses engage with fans for clues to their authenticity.Malcolm: [00:00:00] he was like, Oh, I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met me, but I watch all your episodes and I feel like. I sort of know you through that. And it was very interesting the way I felt about that in the moment because I was like, yeah, well, I mean, you're our friend, right?Like, I immediately felt like it was much more of a two way relationship than historically I have seen. People talk about parasocial. Well,Simone: more than you would expect. Right?Malcolm: And so then I begin to reflect on the people I know when they talk about their fans, do they have. A relationship where, , they genuinely feel an emotional connection to them, even when they haven't personally talked to somebody, they just meet someone, and this one's like, oh, I'm a big fan of your work, and they're immediately like, oh, yeah, we're going to get along, or do they sort of recoil at that? So then what is your thesis on what was causing this divide?Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, I am so afraid right now. For what reason? The, [00:01:00] imagine there's like a monster or like a murderer outside, outside your room, just outside and that feeling, that feeling, or like, like your worst enemy or like your boss or something is like right outside your, your door just waiting for you.Malcolm: So this is because there is a mess outside her door.Simone: There's a mess. I can, I canMalcolm: hear it. We got all of this stuff from my mom after she died and we've been putting it away. And Simone just always reacts this way to messes. Where is this existential sort of constant hatred and dread? By the way, Simone, speaking of messes and I get added the longer we're in a relationship, I get new little tasks I have to do.So I took a shower before this podcast and now I have to squeegee the walls of the shower after I do it. Oh, heart stains don't. I don't know if this is a task that anyone else has to do for their wife. I have not heard [00:02:00] of this as a part of regular life maintenance.Simone: If you have hard water, it is hard water.Malcolm: We have a whole system to help with the hardSimone: water and it's not enough. It's not enough. It gets the glass all smudgy and gross and cloudy. And I don't want that. But yeah, anyway, we're not going toMalcolm: talk about shower count. What, what, what inspired this podcast with a particular. So we're going to be at this Natalist conference.We're, we're not the ones running it. A lot of people think we're, we're the ones running it. No, another group is running it. Actually they've got some, some canceled people among them. So it will be spicier, I think, than a lot of things that we might put together ourselves. And we were talking as one of the people who was running it, but who we hadn't met yet.And he was like, Oh, I feel like, I already know, like, like I have a parasocial relationship with you guys. You've never met me, but I watch all your episodes and I feel like. I sort of know you through that. And it was very interesting the way I felt about that in the moment because I was like, yeah, well, I mean, you're our friend, right?Like, I [00:03:00] immediately felt like it was much more of a two way relationship than historically I have seen. People talk about parasocial. Well,Simone: more than you would expect. Right? Like when, yeah, when someone says, like, we feel like we have a parasocial relationship with you, we're like, oh, so, like, 1, you don't hate us for our views to, like, we're on the same page with some weird ideas.Like, we've, we've, yeah,Malcolm: but I want to get into here. Simone. Why? Because then I started thinking about, you know, Simone and I, I guess with guests we've had on and stuff like that, people can tell that we hang out at circles with lots of really high profile online celebrities in, and also IRL celebrities.And so then I begin to reflect on the people I know when they talk about their fans, do they have. A relationship where, like, they really like the relationship they have with their, their, their fans, like, they, they genuinely feel an emotional connection to them, even when they haven't personally talked to somebody, they just [00:04:00] meet someone, and this

In this insightful episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss new research showing childhood trauma is caused more by one's perception of events than the events themselves. People with verified abuse who don't see their childhood as bad show minimal ill effects, while those with no abuse who believe they were mistreated exhibit high rates of mental issues. Malcolm reflects on his own unusual upbringing, arguing he avoided PTSD by seeing challenges as adventures. They explore why women tend to recall more childhood adversity. Malcolm contends trauma comes from random negative events, not predictable ones. Ultimately, it's community narratives that frame events as traumatic or not. Avoiding "trauma creation" will be key for their parenting.Malcolmm: [00:00:00] all these people complain like, well, as a boy, I, I was never allowed to cry and I was never allowed to feel bad.And I was never allowed to confide in people and they're like, and that was all bad. That was all bad things that happened to me, but it's not a bad thing. It actually makes your life better. When people are hard on you, when people are hard on the way that you frame your life, In the moment, it doesn't feel awesome.In the moment, when you want to be vulnerable, it doesn't feel awesome. But in terms of life outcomes, it is demonstrably and dramatically better. And, and this is a very, very, very obvious from these various research data points.Would you like to know more?Malcolmm: Its so great to be here with you today. You had just sent me this study where you're like, this is so fascinating. Mm-hmm. , and better than that, [00:01:00] it confirms our preexisting beliefs. And isn't that just the, the best kind of studies, right? Yes.Simone: That's, that's what, that's why people read studies to, well, for confirmation bias of, so this study, is by Andrea Denny's and Kathy Spatz Widom.Gonna get their names wrong, of course. It's called Objective and Subjective Experiences of Child Maltreatment and Their Relationships with Psychopathology, published in Nature Human Behavior, which is a very respectable journal. And basically they found... I'm just going to quote them. We found that even for severe cases of childhood maltreatment identified through court records, risk of psychopathology linked to objective measures was minimal in the absence of subjective reports.In contrast, risk of psychopathology linked to subject report, subjective reports of childhood maltreatment was high, whether or not the reports were consistent with objective measures. So, so dumbed down some more words.Malcolmm: In simpler language. Basically [00:02:00] what it means is that if you had a really traumatic, in the way that modern society would frame trauma, childhood, like you were systemically abused in ways that were verified by the court system, but you don't believe that you had a difficult childhood, you will not have any negative effects from your childhood.However, if you had a perfect childhood, but you believe you had a terrible childhood, you will have all of the effects that we associate with childhood trauma. Now, this is something that confirms with other studies that we've talked about on this show. You know, we've talked about the study of sleepers that showed that People who believed that they had had bad sleep, but hadn't actually had bad sleep, had all the effects that we as a society associate with bad sleep.People who verifiably had bad sleep they didn't have any of those effects. Yeah, it's how [00:03:00] youSimone: see it. If you think that you slept poorly... You're going to show signs of fatigue that day, you're going to struggle, and even if you slept like s**t, but you believe you slept really well, you're going to be like, oh, I'm perky, I feel good, on average.Malcolmm: This is so critical within our, because what this actually means, you know, you can, you can say, oh, this is like interesting or quirky or whatever. It actually means that as a society, when we say something like, childhood trauma causes adult issues. That is just verifiably untrue. It's the belief that you were traumatized in childhood that causes adult issues.Yet, often these two things are pretty correlated, right? Often somebody who is traumatized in childhood will have the belief that they were traumatized in childhood. But what's critical to remember is when the left, Yeah, it's usually the left who does this, invents new types of [00:04:00] traumas that somebody can go through, or they frame something as particularly traumatic that previously people wouldn't have thought of as traumatic.They create the symptoms of trauma in that individual. Where that individual previously wouldn't have had those symptoms. And this is, you know, we have seen this have such negative effects on individuals lives. Recently we were interacting with someone and they were just absolutely riddled with likeSimone: all sorts ofMalcolmm: diseases, you know, neurological issues, pain, all these sorts of

Malcolm argues racism applies group differences to individuals, while true evil legally encodes it. This prevents inter-generational competition essential for progress. He explains racism’s similarity to communism in suppressing the “grand game” advancing society. Racists grasp external excuses for failure rather than learning from successful groups.Affirmative action is the worst modern racism as it systemically handicaps minorities. Historic racism still disadvantaged some groups, but evenness doesn’t mean fairness. A level playing field enables eventual parity. They discuss respectful cultural pride versus outgroup hatred. Overall the left’s racism destroys potential while right bigots chiefly hurt themselves.Malcolm: [00:00:00] ethnic socialism is what it really is.Malcolm: Racism is ethnic socialism. They apply. Unfair barriers to people of different racial and ethnic groups based on preconceptions about those groups that prevent those groups from competing against them in a fair and open ecosystem. And doing that. They hobble those groups, but they also hobble their own group.Malcolm: What the great thing is about actual racism is groups that don't punish it, don't compete as well.Malcolm: And they end up falling apart. If you look at America and you look at the white populations, the white populations that were less racist economically have outperformed the white populations that were more racist. Hmm.Simone: Yeah.Malcolm: You look at multicultural groups and this is something you see. Racism is a self extinguishing phenomenon when it is not entrenched in government law.Malcolm: That's why I see the groups that are just like [00:01:00] generically racist as less evil than the groups that enshrine racism in law with things like affirmative action because. Those groups are hurting themselves often more than they hurt the groups around them. And so it's like, ha ha ha, look at the idiot.Would you like to know more?Simone: Malcolm, you really piqued my curiosity the other day when you said racism was a lot like communism. What's going on there?Malcolm: Now, this is a fun topic and it was inspired by a comment by Simone by the way, love you excited to be talking to you again where some people were like, why isMalcolm: racism ethically wrong? You know, so first we need to define what we mean by racism. And what we consider racism. So some people consider racism as believing different ethnic groups are different. That is stupid. And diversity has no value if we're not actually different.Malcolm: In a [00:02:00] world in which everyone is secretly the same, there is no point in diversity, culturally, ethnically, anything like that. It's an aesthetic difference. And that it's not, there's no superiority to a painting with more colors in it than a painting withSimone: less color. And furthermore, in such a world, which is optimal, it would also be ridiculous to pretend that there aren't differences, right?Malcolm: And it's you know, I think, here's where it gets bad, okay, and this is where I define racism.Malcolm: It's when you use Intergroup differences to make decisions about individuals when you find out they're part of one group or another group, or to make decisions about how you interact with groups as a whole. This is very important to me. Like I bet that you never. allow knowledge of like, well, people like this, they're like, they're like, Catholics are like, this Jews are like this.Malcolm: It's just like groups like this. Like, obviously there are going to be [00:03:00] statistical norms that are culturally, even if, even if just cultural differences, because different ethnic groups clustered within different cultural groups and culture can influence life outcomes. Of course, you're going to have different averages that differ between groups.Malcolm: And these averages can allow you. to create prejudices, which allow you to more quickly make decisions about those groups. Often this is what I am against, and this is what I consider to be a racist. But then there's the higher form of racism, which is the ultimate form of racism. And I think where you get into sort of pure evil, which is when you encode group differences into legal systems.Malcolm: Or social systems in terms of how you deal with cultural outsiders. Ah, okay. So let's talk about why this is very similar to communism and why it is evil from our cultural perspective. Okay. So there are many things that our culture values. But [00:04:00] one of the highest value systems within our culture is intergenerational improvement.Malcolm: The core goal of every human being... is to make kids that are better than them. It is. a game in which you are always playing against your ancestors and yourself. It is a game in which you are consistently striving to not stagnate, where stagnation is the highest form of failure. A stagnant species, our pattern from our worldview, Is completely pointless.Malcolm: It is, it may as well not exist. If you think of

We interview Patrick Friedman, a leading thinker on competitive governance, about his vision for decentralized societies. He explains the charter city model as a way to "upgrade" existing nations by allowing innovation in legal systems. These startup societies enable jurisdictional experimentation absent in most countries today.Patrick argues exit rights are paramount so groups can self-determine governance. He envisions charter cities as platforms where many opt-in communities with niche values/cultures can emerge. We discuss economics, recruiting celebrity founders, penal colonies, and more unorthodox concepts. Overall Patrick sees charter cities as unlocking competition to find better forms of social organization.[00:00:00] Hello. We said, we're going to get a very special episode today, which can almost be thought of as a lost interview, because it was one of the early interviews we did. Uh, but it was in a very different format than our other episodes. And so we didn't want to release it until we had a bit more of a following. It was, was Patrick Friedman who runs Pronos capital, the first venture capital fund that focuses on charter cities and network states. So when people are trying to start new countries, uh, this is the main funder of that. And Patrick Friedman, who we've known for a very long time since Silicon valley. Is the guy who would have been at the center of the seasteading movement when that was really growing. He coded at Google for 10 years, rent a small angel fund since 2, 7, 11 has degrees in CS and business and has been a leader in the competitive governance scene for over 20 years. Yeah. Leaders understatement there.He was basically he's the, what was the early charter city guy, when [00:01:00] most of the charter city movement with seasteading, which was this idea that people would go live on. Uh, sort of floating boats that would be made up of, uh, autonomous components that could like break apart and recombine. So like even your house, you could easily leave one government system and go to another government system very easily. So, uh, Some other stuff here I have 2001 began thinking about a new approach to upgrading governments. The side hustle 2008, started the sea setting Institute with funding for Peter teal, 2009. Co-created a famous phrase, a self-organizing festival on water, still running annual annually. So for if ever raises another thing, cause this is actually a really important event within. Silicon valley culture, which was seen as sort of like the rationalist slash less wrong version of burning man. Um, but it was done on boats, which honestly seems much more appealing to me. Uh, 2011 co-founded future cities development, which have had the first M. Oh you for a modern charter city in 2012 in to southern 18 started promos capital patrick [00:02:00] has board memberships and advisory positions across this charter city network state space He does talks interviews and events regularly around the world Very excited to, to bring this loss a bit of context for you and we have a few other interviews we might be able to put out this way Um so very excited about that.Simone: Hello Simone.Malcolm: It's wonderful to be here with you today. And Patrick Friedman. Patrick Friedman, he is and has been for a long time, known as one of the most preeminent thinkers of what. Future cities may look like what future society may look like. And given that we've been talking so much about the future of the world economy and the future of what human civilization may look like in ways that are very orthogonal to the way people think about civilization today, we are so excited to have him on.Malcolm: I would love you to give a bit more of your background if you think as any is necessary. And the first question I will prompt you is, is has [00:03:00] any of your thinking around what future human cities may look like? Changed with the rapid development of AI and the movement of AI into the public sphere? Or had you, were you such a forward thinking, you alreadyPatri: accounted for all of this?Patri: Well, nobody can know the timing of something like ai, but I think of it as being like somewhat orthogonal. Like, I have serious concerns about AI risk, but like, that's not my path, right? I have my part of the world order that I try to make better. And yeah, I think it's like really hard to predict what AI will do, but definitely now is the time when it's starting to do something.Patri: So we'll find out. Okay. So when you thinkMalcolm: about how cities are gonna change, what is your sort of go-to talking points right now?Patri: Well, so I'm, I'm interested in New city states it's kind of my life's mission to make it so that we can start new countries, like we start companies today. And at this kind of halfway point, after 20 some years of working on [00:04:00] it what it looks like is what are called charter cities.Patri: Charter cities have regulatory authority over some parts of the law while

Malcolm and Simone discuss how political polarization makes it impossible to take a neutral stance today. Malcolm argues progressives force moderates into extremism by demanding endless concessions. He cites education reformers branded far right for helping disadvantaged kids.Simone notes many organizations now prioritize self-preservation over their mission, leading to tribal dynamics. Malcolm adds conservative spaces permit diverse views while progressives enforce narrow dogma, even lying about opponents. He believes their incompetence and false attacks will galvanize the public against them.Overall they conclude you must pick a side as the left doesn't allow middle ground. But the right welcomed them despite differing views, valuing truth-seeking over signaling status. They encourage watching for the progressive coalition's coming collapse.Malcolm: [00:00:00] Scott Alexander, right?Malcolm: Who writes Slate Star Codex. And him just talking like as truly neutral as possible. It's important to understand that in a society where the academic system and most media centers are controlled by one faction, if you talk neutrally, you are a threat to them because you weigh things. Towards the, the faction that's not in power, which is the conservative faction.Malcolm: And so he very famously just really tries to give the truth in like the most non extremist, non hyperbolic way possible.Malcolm: So, you know, he got outed by the New York Times and they did this really mean piece on him andMalcolm: to me that even somebody as honestly, I think pretty progressive in terms of his sensibilities as him is now pretty solidly grouped with conservatives in terms of the online intellectual movement..Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, you beautiful human being.Malcolm: Simone, you are the most beautiful human being who's ever [00:01:00] lived, and I love you to death. Now, today we are going to talk about political polarization, because this is an issue that has bedeviled us where we keep having people come to us and they're like, I'm going to start a nonpartisan version of your foundation, like the Prenatalist Foundation, because we Pretty openly aligned conservative.Malcolm: And we're like, that's not going to go well for you or they'll even try to start a, a full on progressive one. And I'm like, that might go better than an unaligned one. But the question is, is why? So one, I mean, I think the easy answer for a lot of people is truth has become a team sport in our society.Malcolm: Where people care less, you know, when they hear a piece of like, they can hear a piece of like research data, right? Which is just like. Furthering their understanding of reality, and they might become upset because it makes their side less likely to win.Simone: Yeah, I'm fuzzy on this, but I think even some psychology studies have demonstrated that people, when presented with evidence that runs against their [00:02:00] political beliefs and their political party's belief will become even more trenched in their belief.Simone: They won't be convinced or change their mind by that. So it, it does imply that truth is indeed a teamMalcolm: sport. And this is really damaging implications on reality. I mean, like, for example Germany, because of the environmentalists, shut down all its nuclear power plants? Not good. What were you thinking?Malcolm: Like... This is a, you know, when we complain about like aesthetic conservatism versus real conservatism, this is the perfect example of aesthetic environmentalism versus real environmentalism, nuclear power, bad, dirty, big nuclear silos and deformed people living near them. You know, it's like, okay, that's like a weird, like aesthetic of environmentalism from the 1980s, but like, we should know better now.Malcolm: Especially if you don't have any other way than to generate that power than Russian oil, which it turned out you didn't have any backup plan for, it was [00:03:00] profoundly stupid. And so I should say, we don't just have this problem on the right of like this, like, I'm going to be, you know, aesthetically and I'm, I'm, I'll link the video here or you can check it out, like aesthetic conservative versus real conservative, because we do have this problem on the right, but the left has it as well.Malcolm: Where they just stop caring about reality, and it's just about whether or not their team is winning. So I'd say that there's sort of a few reasons why this doesn't work. But I think one of the most important was when Simone went over with me, and I want to have early in our video here, you know, because I watched some watch time on these, and I'm like, well, let's at least get the good ideas to people faster, right?Malcolm: Which was, do you want to go into it, Simone?Simone: I don't remember it. What, what, can you remind me and I'llMalcolm: explain it? Okay, your idea was that if you try to hold the middle ground, the progressives will just keep pushing you further and further and

Malcolm and Simone debate how to define "woman" after he's asked in a trans community. Simone says it's whoever you perceive as female. Malcolm argues it's a social construct dependent on culture. He explains how polygamous and monogamous societies define it differently based on evolutionarily adaptive strategies.Ultimately Malcolm concludes there's no universal truth, only answers contingent on the utility you're optimizing for. A culture seeking fertility may define womanhood differently than one focused on happiness. He cautions against governments enforcing subjective cultural norms on others, as with criminalizing misgendering. Overall they agree relativism is the only intellectually honest perspective.Malcolm: [00:00:00] but what do I think is the true answer?Malcolm: Because I think that there's no true answer can mean many differentSimone: things. There's your answer, the cultural relativistic one. Now you're saying there's a true answer.Malcolm: Yeah. Okay. There's many different ways. So all the ways you could determine if someone was a woman, right? You could say, well, XX chromosome, XY chromosome, oh, they pass, oh, they self identify as a woman.Malcolm: Oh, a woman is whatever would make them happiest if they were called the woman. Yeah. That's what they want to be called. Yeah. Yeah. A woman is whether they can have kids. There's many, many, many, many different ways. ASimone: woman is a state of mind.Malcolm: That you can determine this, right? And in different cultures.Malcolm: Elevate different interpretations of gender above other interpretations of gender. So what's the right answer? Okay. Now, the true answer, the actual true answer, like if you're just stripping all of the tradition away.Simone: Glad you're solving this problem all in one podcast.Would you like to know more?[00:01:00]Simone: Hey, hey Malcolm what, what is a woman?Malcolm: So yeah, this is a spicy question, Simone. Yeah. I was in this Transmaxxing, I was, I was talking in the Transmaxxing discord with the, the Transmaxxing community for people who, aren't familiar with the trans vexing community they are individuals who transition.Malcolm: Not because or at least they don't think that transitioning needs to be tied to gender dysphoria, but they think that it makes sense for some men to transition for social advantage. Yeah, soSimone: basically transition for gain or gender euphoria, not just gender dysphoria.Malcolm: Yeah, and I, I like it because I what I like about the community is they're expanding the concept, and they're passing off traditional trans communities.Malcolm: Those are the two things I like. I don't, I don't know, am I terrible for, for having so much fun when like extremist progressive communities get pissed off at somebody just for asking questions they're not allowed to ask? Like, hey, I'm a guy and I feel pretty oppressed in society today. Am I allowed to transition?Malcolm: No! Yes! The most transphobic question anyone can ask! [00:02:00] How dare you think about doing that? You're so privileged! So I, I do love that they're breaking down this, these, these things and they asked at the end of this, this thing, what is a woman? Cause you know, there's this video, what is a woman, which good video.Malcolm: This has been recommended to us by smart people. And I think it shows real toxic parts of the trans movement, which let's be honest, has some real. Ooh, toxic parts. But I had never actually considered the question myself until it was proposed to me in the context of this group meeting. And so I had to come up with an answer on the spot and I was really satisfied with my answer, but it's not one that I had come up with before.Malcolm: Oh, really? So Simone, first I want to hear if you, what your answer is unbiased by me to this question.Simone: Right. So, to me. I mean, obviously, there's not a good answer for this, but for me, a woman is someone that I see on the street and I'm like, oh, look at that woman. So if you pass, whether it's intentional or [00:03:00] not, you're a woman or a man.Simone: And there are manyMalcolm: men who just look extra girly. You just like extra girly are not trying to look extra girly.Simone: Yeah. Yeah. Like there, there can be a, a natal man who just looks extremely femme, not intentionally. And I'm like, Oh, what a pretty girl. But same, same with, you know, natal women who just happened to look really boyish.Simone: Like you, you are, you are what people interpret you to be.Malcolm: Yes. So you judge womanhood as an eye of you as the perceiver, because your brain is categorizing everyone you see into either male or female and the way it handles that categorization. You say, because everyone's brain does this. I should be clear.Malcolm: Even people who are like, I am the most gender understanding person in the world, they definitely have an assumption when they first see somebody of what gender that person identified. They'd be like, okay, I'm not sure. But what yo

Hello friends! In this fun video, Malcolm and Simone go through their personal tier list for how plausible they find various cryptids and paranormal phenomena. They logically break down why they find things like Bigfoot somewhat plausible but ghosts less likely. Malcolm explains at length why he thinks UFOs could actually be time travelers from the future based on his unique metaphysical framework. The two recount spooky stories from staying in haunted houses, and debate whether emotional imprints can linger. Simone wants to hear your real-life cryptid encounters in the comments. Overall a thought-provoking look at evaluating extraordinary claims and events with nuance and evidence. Let us know which cryptid explanations you find compelling!Malcolm: [00:00:00] The tier list goes flathead monster, moss man, almost certainly not real.Malcolm: Loch Ness monster, almost certainly not real. Bigfoot. \ Plausible, but probably not real. UFOs, probably real, but not actually aliens. And crop circles, probably real, but maybe alien.Simone: And girths, I don't know, but probably carbon monoxide and or weird gold. Oh, girths, yes. Yeah.Simone: Girths.Malcolm: Girths. Spooky. But now you'll get to see why we think all of this.Would you like to know more?Simone: Okay. Okay. Before we get into the main topic, this is sort of related. I was walking around our backyard this morning. Malcolm. And I heard the weirdest noise and I was so confused. And I was by the chicken coop and I hear what sounds like a goose. It was like, like that basically. [00:01:00] And I was like, is there a goose?Simone: Like, you know, but the previous people who own this house used to have geese in the chicken coop. So I thought like, I mean, I don't like, has a goose broken in to the chicken coop? Has it like assimilated with our flop? But no, turns out. That when, when roosters, we have one male chicken, when they're going through their little puberty and they start to try to like, like, they, they like do it very awkwardly.Simone: And it was just him completely failing to like,Malcolm: he's trying to be tough and he's always trying to be tough to the other. Yeah, he's always like, He goes around and bosses them about and like, Yeah. And sometimes, cause we have big chickens, we put them in the big chicken coop to try to get him to handle the big hens cause they're kinda dumb and, and annoying.Malcolm: And they'll end up just bullying him and So this is him trying to be cool. Like he's, he's like this teenage, but yeah, it's like his voice crack is about like trying to be [00:02:00] masculine and cool and just utterly failing.Simone: Yeah. Yeah. Bullying everyone's smaller. And then as soon as he gets put with the bigger chickens, he freaksMalcolm: out.Malcolm: He's trying to get back to his coop. So we put him back in the, one of the birds.Simone: Yeah. We don't want to hurt his feelings or anything, but also like you've startedMalcolm: giving him chicken trauma. Yeah.Simone: I, you know, I'm so sorry,Malcolm: afraid of giant women now, but,Simone: You know, this is not, you know, there, there are many people who experience extraordinary transporting things like this, like mysterious homes.Malcolm: So, I, some of our listeners, by the way, hello, Simone, it is wonderful to be here with you today. Hello husband. So one of our listeners was like, yeah, you've mentioned in other videos that you're like. Really into cryptid YouTube and like aliens YouTube. And not just that I've actually spoken on it on other podcasts.Malcolm: So there's another podcast that like goes into this stuff. I don't remember the name of it, but it's by like a professor at, I want to say MIT or Yale. So like a educated [00:03:00] professor type guy, and like the way that he is being secretly under, under the system is he believes in aliens visiting us and was, was talking to me about that.Malcolm: The question here is, as somebody who consumes a ton of content on ghosts and aliens and cryptids and all of that, do I believe any of it's real? If so, which of it do I think is most likely to be real? So I'd say the first and like the most interesting thing about asking me this question is I actually sort of don't like, I don't really think that any of the stories that I have heard have a high likelihood.Malcolm: And yet I keep consuming them like I find them just so interesting to investigate. You can't get enough ofSimone: it and it's enough and I will have to say to the public that you will watch a [00:04:00] lot of them to the point where you will also leave your closet doors wide open at night.Malcolm: Yeah, well, that's because of Mr.Malcolm: Bolin and all the murderers who hide in closets and kill people. So I also really like true crime. So it might be sort of the same category. It might be two different categories, but I don't think it's impossible. So I think something that's really important, and I think a lot of people have had their eyes open to this a lot, sort of

Malcolm recounts a heated debate with AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky on AI safety. He explains his belief that subsystems in an advanced AI would converge on the same utility function, while Yudkowsky insists no AI would subdivide that way. Simone notes Yudkowsky's surprising lack of knowledge in physics and neuroscience given his confidence. They express concern his ideas ruin youth's outlooks and discuss hypothetical clapbacks. Overall they conclude that while well-intended, Yudkowsky's certainty without humility on AI risks is dangerous.Simone: [00:00:00] What'sMalcolm: really interesting is that he actually conceded that if this was the way that an AI structured itself, that yes, you would have terminal convergence, but that AIs above a certain level of intelligence would never structure themselves this way.Malcolm: So this was very interesting to me because it wasn't the argument I thought he would take. And that would be true. I, I will agree that if the AI maintained itself as a single hierarchy, it would be much less likely for its utility function to change. But the problem is... Is essentially no government structure ever created and has functioned that way.Malcolm: Essentially no program ever created by humans has run that way. Nothing ever encoded by evolution has run that way. i. e. the human brain, any brain, any neural structure we know of. There are none that are coded that way.Malcolm: So it is very surprising. So I said, okay, gauntlet thrown. Are you willing to be disproven?Malcolm: , because we will get some more understanding into AI interpretability, into how AIs. Think in the near future. If it turns out [00:01:00] that the AI's that exist right now are actually structuring themselves that way, will you concede that you are wrong about the way that you tackle AI apocalypticism?Malcolm: And then he said, and this is really interesting to me. He's like, no, I won'tMalcolm: I was also like, yeah, also, we could run experiments where we do a bunch of basically unbounded A. I. S. and see if they start to show terminal convergence.Malcolm: Do they start to converge on similar utility functions? You know what they're trying to optimize for again? He was like, well, even if we saw that, that wouldn't change my views on anything, right? Like his views are religious in nature, which was very disappointing to me. Like, I thought that maybe he had more of like a logical or rational perspective on things.Malcolm: That. And it was, it was really sad.Malcolm: You know, we don't talk negatively about people on this channel very frequently, but I do think that he destroys a lot of people's lives. And I do think that he makes the risk of AI killing all humans dramatically higher than it would be in a world where he didn't exist.Would you like to know more?[00:02:00]Simone: Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello. So we just got back from this wonderful conference thing we were at called Manifest. So we had gone out to SF to host a few pronatalist focused dinner parties and randomly we got looped in to something called Manifest, which was a conference for people who are interested in prediction markets.Malcolm: But interestingly, we ended up meeting a bunch of people who we had known through like online stuff. Some were absolutely fantastic, like, Scott Alexander, absolutely. I never met him before in person. We'd communicated on a few issues, really cool guy. Would you say so Simone?Simone: Yeah. Like super awesome.Malcolm: Richard Hedania, a really nice guy as well. Robin Hanson, who we, we, we'd actually met him before. But. And of course Ayla, we, we, we're old friends, you know, she's been on this channel before but we did get in a fight with someone there and I am very excited to tell you guys this [00:03:00] tale, because it was Eliezer Ukoski, but before we go further on that, I want to talk about a secret that we, we had a mystery.Malcolm: The PronatalistSimone: Foundation had a mystery. Oh, I can tell this story. Yeah. So for the past few months, maybe closer to a year, we've received the odd random donation from someone. And it was the same person in the same amount each time, but it was very random timing. I could never predict when these would come in.Simone: And it's very unusual for someone to donate. Multiple times like frequently like that. So we were always like very flattered and pleased. We didn't know this person We didn't recognize their name, but we're like, this is amazing. Like, thank you so much It means a lot to us and it really does and then we actually Met that person recently and RandomlyMalcolm: at the conference, you were talking to her and she mentioned she was the AndSimone: she mentioned that, yeah, that, that she was the mystery donor and that the reason why she donates turns out to be the coolest reason for [00:04:00] donating that I've ever heard before.Simone: And I think it's the only way we should ever receive donations in the future. So she has a group of friends who she l

Michael Gibson joins to discuss his book Paper Belt on Fire, which chronicles his work with Peter Thiel's fellowship program investing in young talent.He explains how old institutions like academia are declining yet retain lingering prestige, and the development of new ecosystems and hierarchies based on competence. Michael argues creativity comes from outside stale hierarchies, citing the conflict between legitimate prestige and disruptive greatness.They debate how far we are from the decentralized network state, and if COVID accelerated institutional failure. Malcolm notes elite alternative communities forming, while Simone asks if the paper belt’s dysfunction will deter its acolytes. Overall Michael concludes we need more inspirational stories of success outside institutions.Simone Collins: . [00:00:00] I'm super excited for this. Hello and welcome to another episode of Basecamp where today we have a very special guest and someone who's writing I really enjoy but also whose work I probably enjoy even more, Michael Gibson.Simone Collins: You probably, if you've heard of Michael, I've heard of him because of his book, Paper Belt on Fire. However, he's in other circles, much more well known for being the co founder of 1517, a very unique type of venture capital fund that doesn't just focus on sort of already proven older entrepreneurs, but rather really young people.Simone Collins: They are investing in, in people like pre college. It's amazing. We're going to talk about all these things. But in this conversation, we are really hoping to dive into his book, which I read as soon as an audio book was available paper belt on fire which really aligns with a lot of the stuff that we're saying.Simone Collins: is much more eloquently written than the way we would write it. It's, it's sort of a mixture of philosophy prognostication, but also like personal history and history of the 1517 fund, which is absolutely fascinating. So we're [00:01:00] really excited to talk with you about it.Would you like to know more?Michael Gibson: Okay. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.Michael Gibson: And You know, thanks for the kind words as well, both about, you know, whatever, my writing style, but also about what we're doing. Yeah, the book I, I maybe How would I boil it down? I said something like because why would I have memoir? In philosophy and then, you know, behind the scenes account, venture capital and backing young people, I think, I think it comes down to strange people do strange things and when the times get tough, the weird GoPro and I wanted to take people behind the scenes and add some color and story to, you know, some of these characters I've worked with over the years.Michael Gibson: One, the one thing I guess part of my bio okay, why tell this story is the, we have Danielle Strachman, my co founder of 1517, we helped Peter Thiel start his fellowship program in 2010, and that was a program where [00:02:00] 100, 000 was given to 20 individuals a year. The two conditions were one, you had to be 19 and under to apply.Michael Gibson: And two, you couldn't be enrolled in university. So you had to drop out or take time off or maybe you never went. And across five years of co running that program, we saw incredible things come out of it. We, you know, most notable examples are helping Vitalik Buterin launch Ethereum Dylan Fields created a company called Figma that was acquired by Adobe for 20 billion last year.Michael Gibson: Austin Russell. Founded a company called Luminor Technologies. They make a LIDAR system for cars. They went public in 2020. So the, the Teal Fellowship had a lot of great successes and there's a independent, this guy is probably the best venture capital analyst in terms of being an outsider at CB Insights.Michael Gibson: And he put up a tweet in fact, last week, where he did a deep dive on the success of the Teal Fellowship. And he, he. [00:03:00] Posted the hit rate, like how many of these people, if there's 20 people in every class, you know, what's the rate at which people create, you know, unicorn billion dollar businesses. And, and, you know, his conclusions were like, wow, this hit rate is something like 7%, which in the world of venture capital is, is quite astonishing.Michael Gibson: So, you know, there's this program out there that, that the world hasn't really heard about mainly because Peter Thiel is, is persona non grata. The media hates him, the publishing world hates him, and so no one wanted to hear this story. And since I was there and part of it, I, that was the story I wanted to tell.Michael Gibson: So there'sMalcolm Collins: two things I wanted to discuss really quickly tied to what you just said. The second one we'll talk about next, which is, is how the media like tried to keep your book from being promoted. I think as much as it otherwise would have been given. You know how big the things you guys are doing actually are.Malcolm Collins: But the first thing I wanted to talk about

Malcolm and Simone have an insightful discussion about why fashion has changed so little since the 1990s, unlike the dramatic shifts seen in previous decades.Simone argues this stagnation stems from supply chain optimization and globalization, which have homogenized clothing production and limited variation. She cites how historical fashion shifts correlated with advances in materials and manufacturing capabilities. Now we've reached an equilibrium where most clothing uses the same global supply chains.They extend this idea to ponder other areas where change may have slowed, like scientific advances, celebrity culture, and content creation. Malcolm suggests fewer new stars emerge because media consolidation limits breakout opportunities.Overall they conclude that despite feeling accelerated, technological progress has also locked society into certain optimized systems that resist innovation. However, they see potential for fashion to evolve again through augmented realities, prosthetics, and body modification.Simone: [00:00:00] It was something that you would actually change fashion. And most people would have switched around several times. It was unusual to have not changed your gender in this... In this like post singularity culture, which is, I don't know. I mean, I, Ian Banks is a very prescient author, soMalcolm: you never know.Malcolm: I think types of flightiness will be among the populations that are bred out of our species.Simone: I don't know, man, because in this world, men could turn into women and have babies. So, their fertility rate might be pretty goodWould you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm. Hello,Malcolm: Simone. I was on Facebook this morning and she always needs me to find something to mentally challenge her every day or engage her. And so this is my task today. As I said before, my life is the framing device of Arabian Nights. If I don't find something interesting to talk to her about every day, I'm so, [00:01:00] today it was this meme that's been going around.Malcolm: That if you look at how much fashions, cars, build, like architecture changed from like the 50s to the 60s. The 60s to the 70s, the 70s to the 80s, the 80s to the 90s. It was really dramatic. Like you look at an 80s outfit versus the 90s and these were common, you know, like common outfits.Malcolm: If you in the nineties dressed in an outfit that was common in the eighties, people would think you. We're like in a Halloween costume. However, if you look at the, the entire period of the 2000s and to some extent, the later 90s, so 1995 till today, almost nothing has changed. If you looked at footage of a street, like a random corner in New York, other than all the s**t there now, because cities are beginning to fall apart you would, Not see that much, like you wouldn't be able to tell when it took place outside of like the size of people's phones and this is really [00:02:00] fascinating and so the question was, why is it that I can wear an outfit from like 2002 and I can go to a party in it today and everyone would be like, yeah, that's like just a totally normal outfit.Malcolm: Why did things stop changing? And the default answer, and this was the answer that I came to originally, because I saw the video, I might have been primed in it, but it's also what I was thinking, is it was the rise of the internet. The rise of the internet just made communication so ubiquitous. There was no reason for things to change anymore, and it became harder for things to change, because it was easier to access sort of any content from that moment till the beginning of the internet.Malcolm: And Simone goes, no, the answer is obvious to me. And I actually think you might be right. So do you want to go into it?Simone: Yeah, I'm almost certain that the lack of meaningful change in fashion is a change in basically globalization, manufacturing and global supply chains, which [00:03:00] has sort of led to an optimization of clothing creation.Simone: That has led to this sort of convergence in fashions where things aren't meaningfully changing. In other words, the primary driver of distinct fashions in the past wasn't fashion itself. It wasn't like, you know, trends or stuff that people thought was pretty. It was more like the way that clothing was manufactured.Simone: Now, of course there were like weird sumptuary laws in the past that would sort of dictate who was allowed to know what. Describe a sumptuary law. A sumptuary law is basically a law saying if you're not rich. You're not allowed to do, or wear, or own this thing. So this one would be the color purple, for example.Simone: The color purple really long shoes had sumptuary laws associated with it. I think there were some foods that had sumptuary laws. Ermine the, the fabric that you typically associate with lining a royal person's cloak things like that. So that might dictate fashion a little bit. But,Malcolm: I pushed back on her when you said this first.Malcolm: And I said, no

Malcolm and Simone have a thoughtful discussion about the meaning of utopia, examining why abundance, luxury, and leisure often fail to bring lasting happiness. They reflect on wealthy people they know who seem unhappy despite having everything, and posit that utopia may actually lie in having the opportunity to meaningfully impact the future and matter.Malcolm suggests that living during a pivotal point in history provides that chance to matter. Simone notes people likely imagine utopia as simply spending time with loved ones, but Malcolm argues experiencing abundance reveals its emptiness. They discuss the ennui displayed in The Great Gatsby, and debate how to convey this truth to their kids.Ultimately they conclude utopia isn't defined by material comforts, but by the chance to pursue intrinsic values and make a difference. Even those with privilege can achieve this if they use their position wisely.Malcolm: [00:00:00] But here's really when people go into fantasy worlds. Right. This, this, I find really interesting. The most persistent fantasy world concept, you know, like in D or D or something like that is you was a group of people who are diverse, meaningfully diverse, often actually different.Malcolm: And who do you actually get along with are working to change something that ends up impacting the future of that entire universe, that that fantasy that you get was in the most commonly created fantasy world actually falls into this model that we have of what true happiness comesSimone: from. But most people would never intentionally sign up for that, like not for the world because it's a lot of work and it's scary and they might have to.Simone: Sleep outside, a fox might chew on their head.Would you like to know more?Simone: Malcolm Collins. Hello.Malcolm: Hello, Simone [00:01:00] Collins. I love you to death. And today we are going to talk about what I think is an interesting topic that I was musing on. So I was , watching one of these shows, right? Where they have the You know, the island made of gold or the city of gold, right? And it really got me thinking about okay, so you go to an island where there's a city of gold or gems or something like that, you know, the classic trope is you get to this place and obviously the signs that we now associate with status and luxury don't actually bring you any happiness.Malcolm: They're not actually of utility was in this island because they are. So abundant. And then it got me thinking about utopias throughout history and what would a utopia be within our modern context. So historically one of the most common types of utopia. And I think that this is the one that's really talked about in the Bible is a land where whenever you plant crops, They always grow like this is the Garden of Eden, right?Malcolm: So it's, it's a land where you can always have food, like food isn't scarce. But you still have to [00:02:00] put in some level of work for that food. You know, they had the, the, at least as much foresight to understand a land where just food appears as soon as you want it. That would be a, a, a nightmare, even, even to these, these early people.Malcolm: They were quickly able to to understand that concept, but today, if you just had a land that produce food, whenever you put stuff in it, or food, you could work for, I guess, on a treadmill and then food exists I think most people would find that to be a dreadfully boring and uninteresting and disengaging place.Malcolm: So then this started to frame for me, okay, what is a utopia these days? What does a utopia look like these days? So I want to hear your thoughts first.Simone: First, I think utopias are more defined by an absence of things that people don't want. I think about the song Big Rock Candy Mountain, which a lot of people were introduced to by Oh Brother Where Art Thou?Simone: And like the lyricsMalcolm: No, no, no. [00:03:00] Way more people were introduced to it bySimone: Flapjack. I don't know what Flapjack is. What isMalcolm: Flapjack? Flapjack is a cartoon. . So the team that worked on Flapjack then went on to create like tons of shows that we now know.Malcolm: It's, hold on, ISimone: am actually freaking out about that. It's fine, Malcolm. It's fine. I don't get out much or even go online much. Okay. Okay. TheMalcolm: regular show adventure time at gravity falls, bravest warriors, Steven universe, Craig's Creek. Okay.Malcolm: KO summer camp Island Hilda amphibia owl house.Simone: Okay, I haven't heard about most of these, so I'm not feeling bad anymore. It was a very important show in the history of television. I'm not a child, I don't watchMalcolm: cartoons. I do, because they're great.Simone: Yes, they are, and I love that you watch cartoons, and our children love you for that too.Simone: Anyway, this is originally a folk song. That was more about the life of someone who rides the rails, like a bum, essentially a vagabond. So it's, it's like all the, the, the [00:04:00] things that are in th

In this thought-provoking discussion, Spencer Greenberg shares his predictions for how AI could transform society in the next 10 years. He envisions prolific AI spam, propaganda bots, highly addictive personalized content streams, and hacked emotions. But AI also holds promise for revolutionary advances in healthcare and entertainment. Overall, Spencer emphasizes AI's vast potential for both tremendous benefit and harm to humanity.Spencer: [00:00:00] systems like tick tock, imagine a world where it's generating billions of new pieces of content every day with, with generative AI, or even going a step further, generating custom AI content for your mind.Spencer: And then it sees how much you like it and then generate it and it tweaks its generation process. So we could imagine a world in 10 years, 20 years, I don't know, where you're actually seeing AI generated content personalized to you that you just kind of. Receive in a stream and become just insanely addicted to.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: Hello. We are so excited to be here today with Spencer Greenberg of the clearer thinking podcast, and also famously like the clearer thinking organization.Malcolm: We the, the guy who is running this project, which is now fact checking trying to review psychological research to see if it's replicable as it's being published, which is just so cool. We've known him for years, almost as long as we've known each other, and he is... One [00:01:00] of the sort of social leaders of the EA rationalist diaspora in the New York area.Malcolm: And just an incredibly respected gentlemen scientists in our opinion. And by gentlemen scientists, we mean one of those people who is out there. outside of mainstream academia conducting really greatSpencer: research.Simone: And you can tell he's one of the leaders because he vehemently denies it. And yet he like builds all the stuff that everyone uses.Simone: So.Spencer: Well,Malcolm: I so I mean, he's definitely a thought leader in the Gentleman's Science Network because he's created the software that everyone's using to do it right now. Like I would say. 80% of the independent research is probably done on his software right now. But where we wanted to go with this one is we wanted to talk about where humanity is going into the future.Malcolm: So let's start with the question of where do you think we're going to be in 10 years?Spencer: So I should start by saying, this is wild speculation, predicting the future is incredibly hard. So take everything I say with a massive grain of salt. A lot of that's going to be wrong, [00:02:00] but with that caveat behind me, I will speculate.Spencer: I think that AI is going to have an absolutely massive effect on society. I think it's. It's hard to really fathom right now all the different ways, but, but I think we're going to see it coming. I think a few areas we'll see it coming. One is in spam and manipulation. There are already a bunch of countries that have warehouses of people that are essentially putting propaganda onto Twitter and social media.Spencer: This is well known, but I think that that is going to be nothing compared to. A million bots that are powered by AI, right? It's one thing to have, 300 people in a warehouse. It's another thing to have a million AI bots, right? It's also these AI bots are now at the point where they could all have different personalities.Spencer: They could all say unique things in line with those personalities. They could have a lot, they can be sleeper agents where mostly they just tweet or post totally normal stuff 99% of the time, but then go into full gear. to promote propaganda. So that's just one little facet. Let's start there.Malcolm: I was going to [00:03:00] ask.Malcolm: So Elon is right when he's saying you need to limit access to these platforms now and any platform that doesn't is just going to become swarmed with bots.Spencer: I think it's complicated. I mean, I do think, I do think this is going to be a massive problem. Whether the current approaches Twitter wants to use will work.Spencer: I don't know. I mean, almost nobody's on Twitter blue relative to the whole Twitter population. So I'm not sure how they're going to do that. Maybe what they'll do is make it harder and harder. To do anything as a non Twitter blue user, but I don't know that that solution will actually work. I think it's going to be an arms race and the very difficult one.Spencer: The closer and I guess to be able to do what a human can do. The harder it is to actually detect that it's an AI, right?Malcolm: Actually that brings me to something that's been happening recently on Reddit, and I don't know if you've seen this phenomenon, but, reddit's in this big fight right now with like the mod teams, and it appears that Reddit Corporate is using lots of AIs.Malcolm: Actually, they recently had to block out like the programming [00:04:00] subreddit or something like that, because they figured out that the Reddit Corporate

Malcolm and Simone contrast their parenting approach with Jordan Peterson's authoritarian tactics. They believe kids should develop internal morals, not obey external authority.Simone: what you do now with our children is show when their will has crossed a line with your will, whereas Jordan Peterson's strategy is, I am going to let my will rule this household, and you have to bend to my will. Mm, .Malcolm: Yeah, no, no, no. It makes perfect sense.Malcolm: And I understand, like, I, I really, I get it like, and I, and again, I'm saying, I actually don't think it's wrong for the type of, of, of families that really crave structure. I think it's incredibly effective.Malcolm: I want to raise kids where the punishment for unjust action is. is how it makes them feel about themselves, not an external authority applying that punishment because then you enter the real world and you see external authorities not applying punishment for bad action.Malcolm: You see the zeitgeist in society says, this is what's good, right? Because look at our society right [00:01:00] now, the things that rewards the things that cancels, right? These are all the little kids that were taught to obey authority, you know, and they. They go out into society and they're looking for what's right and what's wrong.Malcolm: And so they look at what is the authority punishing? What is the authority not punishing? The things the authority doesn't punish, well, those must be the right things. And the thing the authority does punish, those must be the wrong things. Instead of trying to determine those things for themselves and take their own mental weight for that.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hi Malcolm. HelloMalcolm: Simone. So you read this Jordan Peterson book and we've been talking more about various things that we either agree with or don't agree with in it. And one of the areas I really want to focus on is parenting strategy. We touched on it a bit with the eight passengers situation video.Malcolm: But I, I IMalcolm: don't have a prescription where I'm not like, this is the right way to do it. I actually think for different. [00:02:00] genetic sociological clusters, which likely are inherited through a family. There are different strategies. So contrast two broad strategies, the Jordan Peterson strategy, right? Which is and we'll go into it, but essentially it's a very controlling strategy that is focused on the adult breaking the child's will.Malcolm: It'sSimone: about discipline and structure.Malcolm: Yes. And then the other strategy, which is much closer to the strategy that our family employs and was employed with both of us when we were growing up, I'd called the Rodney Atkins strategy which comes from the, the he's mine song, great country song if you haven't heard it.Malcolm: But the thesis of what happens in the song is a guy catches a group of teenagers out smoking in a field and is, is, is taking them to his dad, to, to what he thinks is their dad's house, right? One of their dad's house. Cause he saw where they were running. And he's, he's complaining that these kids won't speak when spoken to, and they were getting up to mischief.[00:03:00]Malcolm: And the dad's like, you know, he's mine. He's really proud of his son for doing all that in a way. And he's like, if you knew me back then it'd be no surprise to you what he's done. And then, you know, other things like the kids that have football game and somebody takes a cheap shot at their little kicker and he.Malcolm: Punches the kid and he ends up getting removed from the game. And, you know, he's obviously being punished and he's like, talking about how he jumps up in the stadium and shouts, he's mine. And he's all proud of his son for doing this. But it reminds me a lot of parenting strategies that my parents utilized for me to the extent where I really realized, and I think also part of the, he's mine song, it keeps going back to, if you understood what I was like when I was a kid.Malcolm: You would understand, one, that the same traits that I am nurturing when I'm a kid are what eventually led me to become successful, and what will allow them to become successful, one[00:04:00] but two, that any other reaction to this, you know, again, it is showing that it is potentially an intergenerational genetic thing would obviously be a, a deleterious reaction, and I know this from when I was a kid.Malcolm: So, Let's go into the, well, okay. So here's an example from my own childhood before we go into the, what Jordan Peterson recommends is I remember I got in trouble once at school with, with one of my teachers I, I don't remember the specifics of it, but it felt very unjust to me at the time.Malcolm: And so I went to my mom afterwards and I was like, Oh, the teacher said this about what I had done. And she goes, Oh, you don't need to listen to them. And I was like, well, what do you mean? And she goes, well, I mean, she's an elementary school teacher. She's not exactly in adult s

We explore overlooked aspects of Africa's future, including its cultural/genetic diversity, selective pressures, and mindsets. We discuss resilience to woke ideology, potential for conflict, impacts of globalism's decline, and groups embracing technology. Though many regions face collapse, Africa's sheer variety may allow winning cultures to emerge.Malcolm: [00:00:00] in Africa those conflicts are going to get worse in the short term, but I, where it all hashes out.Malcolm: A lot of the world's winners, I'd say probably half of the world's winning cultural groups are probably going to come out of Africa. Just due to the sheer diversity of the continent. In literally every context, a thing can be diverse.Simone: Yeah, I'm excited. Especially because the more people in different cultures.Simone: In and from Africa we've encountered the more it's oh my gosh, this is this is gonna these are cultures that over time and with more and more technology are going to react in really interesting waysWould you like to know more?Simone: Hello.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. Today is going to be a fascinating topic. It actually came up because yeah, I was, I had a a friend interviewing me and we were talking about what the future of Africa is going to be and in a pronatalist world, but What's the end goal with Africa?Malcolm: What ends up happening with Africa? And it also reminded me of a conversation we'd had [00:01:00] with Edward Dutton when he was over at our house. He was asking why is it that so many people in the pro natalist movement are black and specifically African? The two groups that are most disproportionately represented in the pronatalist movement are people from Jewish backgrounds, sometimes now they're secular and people from African backgrounds. And so the question was why?Malcolm: And I actually I don't feel like I had a really good question for it when he was asking me when he was filming for this documentary thing, but I've been thinking a lot more about it and I think I have a better reason now. So at the time, my intuition was, is it was for the same reason as Jewish people disproportionately, IMalcolm: think. That's still true. I was just pulling at the wrong threads. So specifically what I had thought that it was intergroup identity, like the idea of being like, I like my people. I have no shame in my people. I want my people to exist in the future. And [00:02:00] that was a big part of it.Malcolm: However, I actually think now what it is familiarity was a mental framework. Of intergenerational tribalistic thinking where people, where you recognize that different groups are different from you, but you plan to work alongside them. Intergenerationally. , in a non dominant way.Malcolm: Like it, not in a way where you plan to eventually convert them. And that is a type of thinking that sort of, I guess you could say our entire movement is really heavily based around. And it's something that when you talk with Jewish people, they're immediately familiar with it. Oh yes. I understand the concept of working alongside people who are different from me without eventually trying to convert them and living in a multicultural, environments.Malcolm: And when you talk to people from Africa, because many of them have really strong tribal identities. They really understand this as well. Oh, yes, of course. I understand the idea of, [00:03:00] my, my people might be different from this group's people, but we would still be able to work together long into the future, but here's where it gets interesting.Malcolm: What actually ends up happening with Africa as wokeism continues to spread because right now, as wokeism has spread around the world this sort of. We call it the mind virus, right? The super virus. It is a sterilizing a medic set, which is eventually going to destabilize many of these regions, but it requires regions often to have a sufficient amount of wealth to easily spread among them and sufficient amount of like social technology.Malcolm: And I think to an extent China has been resistant and India has been resistant, like South and East Asia have been resistant to it. But the cultures that they had alternative to it seem to just do very poorly against technology and lead to some of the lowest birth rates in the world.Malcolm: Even lower than woke populations. Middle East, I think this is something that [00:04:00] people might be surprised about, but it's been uniquely susceptible to wokeism, or not uniquely, but surprisingly susceptible to wokeism. And the reason it's been surprisingly susceptible to wokeism is not because wokeism penetrates the entire depth of the society, but because the society is very hierarchical, and the people at the top of that society, Try to ingratiate themselves or like socially get along with to some extent Western friend groups that are of similar socioeconomic levels and as such begin to adopt some woke ideas that then per permeate down throughout society.Malcolm: So, a great ex

Malcolm details the aggressive dating tactics he used to find a wife, treating it like a sales and marketing funnel. He optimized for volume and pre-vetted candidates.Simone: [00:00:00] Yeah. And I'd also love to talk, I think like tactically, I think people would find it interesting, the things you did to make your high throughput screening scaleMalcolm: So really important thing to remember is every interaction with an individual you might marry can be thought of as a roll of the dice, which has a probability that they are going to be interested in you and interested in choosing you as a product on the market. Right. And. That probability can be influenced by two things.Malcolm: Either by increasing the probability that every individual partner you interact with would be interested in marrying you. Or increase the number of people you're interacting with. Both of those would end in the same percentage probability that you find a wife.Malcolm: So one of the biggest things is just really, really high throughput. But now we're going to talk about finding a wife as a sales strategy. Because I think this is the core way to conceptualize it.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. So [00:01:00] we recorded a secret video because when I put it into Claude, it was like, oh, no, no, no, you, I cannot even talk about this video. I cannot share this video. It was on how to get people to sleep with you. But the, the, the key. You know, set up for intro for this video is the way that you perfect getting people to sleep with you, specifically women.Malcolm: So we're going to talk about this from the context of men it will develop one strategy in the same way that. And that strategy will not be the ideal strategy for finding the type of person that you're going to marry. And yet it is the mechanism that many men use to attempt to find that person.Malcolm: This is the same way that many women get confused. They go out on dating markets and they think that their value on the sex market is their value on the marriage market, and it is not. In other words,Simone: they think that like, if an eight will sleep with them, then they should be able to marry an eight when really a lazy eight just wanted to sleep with them a three or four because they didn't [00:02:00] want to bother trying to get someoneMalcolm: harder to get.Malcolm: But the point here being is that these two markets are different. They're not just different for girls. They're also different for guys and the strategies that they get women to sleep with you. They can still get women to marry you, but the type of women you want to sleep with. Well, let's put it this way.Malcolm: They're typically the type of woman who's going to be more promiscuous. They're typically the type of woman that you can, like, pick up at a bar. They are not the type of woman that you want to raise your kids. That you want to, and this is a, you know, a post that I saw recently. This one I could not agree with you.Malcolm: You look at parenting books, . And they go, look, if these books were honest, what they would actually be is books targeted at single guys. And if they were a 10 chapter book, Nine of the chapters would be focused on how to get a good wife, because who you matter both genetically and parenting style and the general environment and vibe of the house that the kids grow up in matter so much more than any parenting strategy you could conceive.Malcolm: Simply implement who you marry is [00:03:00] everything. If you, you know, make a point and you're like, okay, I am going to make a sacrifice on her being a little narcissistic. Well, now your kids are going to be a little narcissistic and they're going to grow up in an environment ruled by a narcissist, which will make their lives.Malcolm: It's harder, right? And so when you are out there and you have developed a strategy, a strategy that gets women who you didn't know before that night to sleep with you is going to intrinsically target thoughts, you know, T H O T's right? Like individuals who will sleep with a guy because they believe that guy is just so arousing in the moment that they're just going to go out and sleep with them.Malcolm: And yet the type of woman who you, I think most of our viewers would want to marry, right? Would never sleep with a guy in a scenario like that. So of course, if you implement these strategies, you're going to get these horrible, untrustworthy vipers of women that the MGTOW community has a waltz. Right.Malcolm: It's not a waltz. It's like a guy's out fishing. Right. Then you say, he's like, this pond only has [00:04:00] catfish in it. And it's like, well, you're using a catfish lure. Like, of course you're only catching catfish. So anyway, let's go into how to actually secure a high quality wife and one day we might be able to, maybe we'll do it on the subreddit or something like that, release the, the evil video that Claude thought was too effective at get

Malcolm and Simone discuss the unsustainable lifestyle promoted by "trad wives" on social media. They argue these women are actually trophy wives dependent on hidden male labor.Simone: [00:00:00] they show all this video or photos of them making pies at home and living in a very cottage core way and like doing, hanging up laundry to air dry. And picking mushrooms and they're these women for the most part, like I get this, like. Really visceral reaction to these because the lives that these women are living our lives of complete leisure and luxury.Simone: Like they think that what they're doing is becoming a trad wife when really what they're doing is becoming a trophy wife. And what they don't realize is that the men that they're marrying. Can't afford that a man who has a trophy wife really basically should be independently wealthyMalcolm: every time you see one of these women who is indulging in this quote unquote trad lifestyle, also see a man. Who's off camera, who's secretly working to afford all of this and is sacrificing to afford all of this. And yet the woman is acting as if she is the one making the sacrifice, living in abundant leisure.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. [00:01:00] This is one where I had sort of a concept for a video and she didn't want to talk too much about it beforehand because she's like, Oh, I want to be surprised.Simone: Yeah, I'll ask dumb questions and see what you say. Well,Malcolm: we were talking, you know, in reference to the Barbie movie that it's very clear that the women are not happy in the world that they have created.Malcolm: In the world that feminism created for women, it appears that this new model doesn't work and women are living really systemically unhappy lives.Malcolm: Based on how, how feminized they've made the world there's some great statistics on this as well that I might be able to put on state screen showing that generally the more a woman buys into feminism or the more that she lives in a feminist environment, the less happy she will be.Malcolm: And they, over time, women's happiness has been going down as the number of well, as, as feminism has won more and more victories in our societySimone: happiness, or maybe it's just mental health problems.Simone: I think it's just rates of mental health problems, which of course is like primarily depression.Simone: Like, but it's not just happiness. It's [00:02:00] like all sorts of bad things. So I think it's, it diminishes the problem. Oh yeah, no, it'sMalcolm: women's happiness. It's declining over time.Simone: Yeah. But I think if you also look at rates of, of women's mental health that mental health liberals and conservatives, especially amongMalcolm: women. Yes, it is. It's really terrible. This world is uniquely bad for women more worse than it was when women had less rights. When I say less rights, I don't mean like 1950s. I'm talking like 1980s, right? And that is fascinating.Simone: I don't, I don't, first off, I want to push back a little bit and say, I don't think this is about rights.Simone: I think this is about, Like cultural expectations and quotas and things like that. Like, I think that it's very important that men and women are treated equally under the wall, but I'm sorry, under the law. But actually right now, of course, men are not treated equally under the law. Men are much more at risk, for example, in divorces with child custody, et cetera.Simone: So I don't even think that it's, it's like equality. That's the problem isMalcolm: rights are responsibilities. We have [00:03:00] pointed out multiple times on the show that when people. Experience a post scarcity environment that we assume they would indulge in hedonism, but instead the most frequent thing is they indulge in self victimization because that removes responsibility from them.Malcolm: And the thing that people hate most is responsibility and as rights changed, as it became possible for women to work and compete with men in the workplace, then became the expectation of that lifestyle. for every woman that she does in addition to other things that she wants to do with her life. And, and biologically women are just going to be more driven to do things like want to have kids and stuff like that and feel it harder when they don't do those things.Malcolm: So. In ignoring the biology, yet giving equal expectations. Now, here's where we come in and we have a very different take than I think traditional conservatives. I think a lot of people, they want to go back to maybe the way things were before women's rights, before all this. And yet, I do not think that world was either efficacious Or an [00:04:00] ideal world for women.Malcolm: I think that it was worse than, than less ideal. I just think it was a pretty shitty world for women. If you go back 1920s, you know, 1850s, a terrible place. I would not want that for my daughters. But then the question becomes, what does a stable vision for fe

Malcolm and Simone have an in-depth discussion about the underlying messaging in the new Barbie movie. They analyze how the movie portrays feminism, gender dynamics, and societal roles.Malcolm: [00:00:00] obviously big spoilers in this, in this talk through I think structurally every part of the movie was literally as based as could be first part of the movie women, they do not treat men with any respect. This is seen as a world created from the aspirations of women in our society. Second part of the world, they go to the real world. It turns out the patriarchy doesn't exist, except in high school bookstores. Keep in mind, they could have gone to any bookstore. Could have been a public library.Malcolm: It could have been a college. It's a high school bookstore. Then They come back to this world, Ken convinces everyone voluntarily to join this new realityMalcolm: when they run into people who have beliefs that are different from them, or a way of structuring their lives that is different from them, they immediately say, these people must have been brainwashed.Malcolm: She goes over, she brainwashes them all by making them sad because they were happy in [00:01:00] patriarchy land.Malcolm: They are now sad outside of patriarchy land, right? Like, that's the process of the brainwashing. And then they take power again by taking advantage of men's good nature and genuine care for them while they have genuinely no care for men. Then... It ends with them taking complete control again, making all the men homeless again, , the man decides, MGTOW, very clearly said, MGTOW is the only real pathway for men.Malcolm: Then the main character gets this whole, what was I made for song? And it's having kids, playing with kids, being a part of kid's life. I couldn't see anything more men's rights than this movie, scene per scene. It'sSimone: pretty weird. But then why is it then that progressive audiences apparently think that it's a very feminist film?Would you like to know more?Simone: . So Malcolm, what the hell was going on with the Barbie [00:02:00] movie? Like,Malcolm: yes, we just watched it yesterday. And unironically, it may be one of the most based movies I've ever seen. But from a very weird perspective, like, I think, I actually question this. I... I know from interviews that the person who wrote it did not intend for it to be, have an incredibly anti feminist message.Simone: Yeah, I don't think it's intentionally anti feminist, forMalcolm: sure. My read is that either somebody in the editing process or somebody that had... Ability to influence the scenes that were shown and like dialogue lines occasionally.Simone: This is my take and I think I have the correct take which is that feminism as it is today is so inherently anti feminist that any true depiction of feminist stances and views and world views is going to show how toxic it is.Simone: I think that's what itMalcolm: is. Well, we can talk through the movie and obviously big [00:03:00] spoilers in this, in this talk through and, and the audience can decide and add in the comments. Whether they think there was any, like, saboteur on the team trying to make the movie have, andSimone: I think Feminism is its own saboteur, Malcolm.Simone: No, no. SoMalcolm: what's really interesting about it, it had a really cohesive anti feminist message. It wasn't like bits and pieces. It was like really sort of clever in the way it was done. So first we'll start with, so we'll just go through the various stages of the movie with everyone sort of telling its own anti feminist message.Malcolm: Hmm. Okay. So it starts in Barbie world, right? And it's sort of made clear throughout the movie that this original iteration of Barbie world is the female utopia that both women dream of the women who live in our world dream of. And that the you know, woke corporations are fighting to create.Simone: Yeah, like, Every [00:04:00] Night's Girls Night. And it's Barbie's Dream House, not Ken's Dream House.Malcolm: Well, so, there was a few things. So, one, Every Night's Girls Night was funny because it's, it's true. Like, you hear it and you're like, Yeah, but there's many bars where every night is actually girls night and there's never, almost never guys nights at any of these places.Malcolm: Like it just sort ofSimone: subtly shows, I don't know, isn't every night guys night at a gay bar?Malcolm: No, no, no. So girls nights, a specific thing where girls drink free at a bar. You've never been to a bar, so you don't know what I'm talking about. You've literally never been to a bar, so you literally have no idea what the humor in that joke is in Barbie world.Malcolm: They say that as if it's some like. Comical great thing for women yet. It's reflected in the real world where every night is also girls night. And by realSimone: world, we mean real world. And like, actually not in the movie. Cause there'sMalcolm: actually in our world and what it shows is our world is already so [00:05:00] comicall

Description: Brian Chau joins Simone and Malcolm to discuss the latest data on Gen Z sexuality and relationships. They analyze declining physicality, porn addiction, anime girl attraction, generalized neuroticism, and more "cursed" stats from Brian's interviews with young alt-righters.Brian Chau: [00:00:00] this episode specifically, was in part a, an excuse for me to interrogate the love lives of my Zoomer friends. I am on the older side of Zoomer of the Zoomers.Brian Chau: And yeah, I basically asked, I asked around. I asked all three of the alt right catboys that I know in real life. Yeah, and basically tried to get a kind of gestalt, like we were talking about, a kind of summary of their love lives. People were very happy to offer, you know, these kind of predilections, being into especially certain type of anime girls.Brian Chau: I feel like there is if you talk about a real life person who you're attracted to, I think there's this soft idea of, civil rights law coming, coming after you, if, or people, you know, who feel, who are, like, similar in appearance, feeling uncomfortable with that. And that's something that Zoomers have.[00:01:00]Brian Chau: Want to avoid, but that's the same is not true for, for anime girls. So, so it's almost considered this is like, this is like this kind of like weird post sexuality thingWould you like to know more?Simone: Well, hello, we are super excited to have a VIP guest with us today, Brian Chow, he is first and foremost in our minds, of course, and from for the past quite a while of the host of the amazing podcast from the new world, really good long listen, if you are looking for something good to listen to to learn from amazing interviews.Simone: But more recently, Brian has become a senior machine learning policy fellow. Brian at the Alliance for the Future, something that we shall talk about in another episode with him. But today, I think we're going to get into something really interesting. Brian, do you want to kick us offBrian Chau: here? Right. So I was I was listening to another great podcast Basecamp with Simone Collins and Malcolm, Simone and Malcolm Collins.Brian Chau: Yeah. So, so, so I listened to an episode that you guys done. You guys [00:02:00] did on your own about it was one of the ones about Zoomer sexuality and I thought I have so many takes on this and I'm not populating my sub stack with my Zoomer sexuality takes maybe, maybe like the paid feed, but you know, there's so many other things that I'm working on.Brian Chau: Right now that I just want to be more, I just want the Substack to be more laser focused on, the podcast to be more laser focused on. Yeah, you're high culture, we're low culture. Okay, yeah yeah, we will be talking about that eventually. And yeah, I thought this was a great venue to talk about it. I think that we have, you know, some similarities, some disagreements probably.Brian Chau: But I do think that there's just not enough, there's just not enough like... Horizontal exploration of this idea, right? This idea of kind of changing, changing the axis, changing how people interpret sexuality, the kind of like default narrative. This is the theme of my podcast often, is this kind of default narrative.Brian Chau: And this is like orthogonal [00:03:00] to like the actual thing that's happening. I think, I think the episode of course that really, really struck through to me was the one about I think like submissive and dominance. But also, you know, also this wasn't this was actually after this was released after I reached out to you guys.Brian Chau: But also, the one on alt right catgirls, that is very, very important topic of our generation. No, it's such a thingMalcolm: is that the the concept of the alt right catgirl I keep seeing and The, as the right has, because it used to be like the left was sex positive and the right was sex negative to some extent, and now the, the left has totally ceded any, any manifestation that is sex, sex positive for men, you know, if I'm, I want my overwatch to have, you know, sexy tracer, but that is a right wing idea.Malcolm: Which is really interesting.Brian Chau: Right, it's the Barstool [00:04:00] Conservatives, right? Yeah. Yeah, the party of, the party of horny men and also the people who hate horny men the most. Yeah, I think that's a good description of the Republican Party. Although, you know, although some of the, some of the the, the right, the right wing elite, you know, are coming around to it.Brian Chau: Have you guys talked about Bronze Age Pervert on the show? No. It's a good character to mention. We'd love for you to go deeper. Yeah. Okay, okay. So, yeah. So, Bronj's age pervert is this very hard to describe in one sentence. His, his philosophy is Nietzsche and bodybuilding.Brian Chau: Done. Easy. Yeah.Malcolm: Yeah. You describe him as like a, a poet he's much more interested in conveying poetry and an aesthetic than specific ideas in a way that is... It's really interesting

I recently discovered that the Coen Brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou? was actually based on a true story involving my family! In this video, I share the fascinating tale of how my great-grandfather tapped a popular 1930s musical group to help a politician he supported win a Texas governor's race against a candidate with ties to the KKK. I talk about the real-life people and events that inspired the movie's characters and plot, and reveal details that weren't included in the film. From the crazy water crystals business to Papio Daniel's flower company, learn the true history behind one of the Coen Brothers' most beloved movies!Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. And today is a very interesting episode for me because something very weird happened to me last week. There is a movie that I have liked, , since I was a kid. Cause it came out when I was in middle school. I want to say, Oh brother, where art thou? And when I first saw it, I was like, it is very weird how many similarities it has to stories my family told me about my great grandfather.Malcolm: But, I discounted these similarities for three reasons. One, it was very clearly based on the Odyssey. Two, it was very clearly based on the Bible and themes of biblical redemption. So I was like, okay, there's already so much content in this. It couldn't possibly also be based on a true story. And three, the whole thing takes place in Mississippi and all the stories I were told about took place in Texas.[00:01:00]Malcolm: So I ignored it. Well, a few days ago, I was Googling some of the characters from it. And they're like, oh yeah, Papio Daniel was based on a real Texas politician and I was like, like a huge wave hitting me. I was like, oh shi all of it was true? All of it was based on my great granddad? That is insane! And, and, and what's insane is I actually looked to see if there were YouTube videos covering this and there weren't.Malcolm: And I assume that part of it is due to how nuanced and niche this history is. It's all about it. Texas gubernatorial election in the in the the 1930s, I think but it is it is also like surprisingly accurate to the plot of the movie. So I am going to combine both what I was able to find in terms of historical evidence of what went down, as well as evidence from family oral tradition into essentially what happened here [00:02:00] and what is the true iteration of the story in oh brother where art thou if you were to to take it outWould you like to know more?Malcolm: so the first thing to note is is just so you know that like i'm not Making up that this is actually based on this Papio Daniel was a real Texas politician.Malcolm: He was a, a Texas governor and in the movie, he is the politician that attempts to use the popularity of this musical group to win office. In real life. What happened was, is, is my great grandfather, who was a radio station owner and a business magnate at the time, tapped Papio Daniel, who was the star of a musical group, to try to defeat a candidate who was supporting the Klan's interest in a Texas election.Malcolm: So the fact that this was a Klan group versus [00:03:00] an anti Klan group is accurate. What is mixed up in the storytelling is the who the different characters are. Papio Daniel, while the, the politician is named Papio Daniel, he would probably better be named. Carr P Collins, who is my ancestor, and he was somebody who wanted to have a political fight with a specific other somebody, and he tapped a musician to win that political fight.Malcolm: So, now we're gonna go back. First of all, you gotta understand the origins of this political fight. Why was he so, so, so angry? at this other candidate. Why did he need this other candidate to lose? And why was he looking for somebody to run against him? So we're going to go back three generations for this.Malcolm: But first, Simone, you saw the movie recently. What'd you think? You hadn't seen it in a long time. It's,Simone: it's a great movie. It's holds up incredibly well. And it's one of those movies that's stylized, but not in a way that makes it stuck in time or dated, [00:04:00] which I quite like.Malcolm: Yeah. Well, and you also didn't think our fans would care about this episode at all.Malcolm: ISimone: really, yeah, I, I, I failed to understand why this is interesting or why this matters.Malcolm: I think it's good evergreen content. If you have a family history that tells a part of history that other people haven't heard. It's interesting toSimone: you and nobody else cares. Everyone,Malcolm: nobody else cares. Apparently it was interesting enough to other people that they made a movie about it.Simone: I don't know. There's so many interesting, historically accurate elements of the movie, I think things that they throw in that they make important that they. It's a very nerdy, it's a surprisingly nerdy movie where people, the people who created it from clothing to products, to cars, to what people were.

We explore the phenomenon of cultural speciation - when cultures fragment into distinct new cultures. We discuss why groups feel most hostility towards similar groups, the role of cultural isolation, threats to young movements, Catholic orders as cultural "stem cells", and more.Malcolm: [00:00:00] Are you sayingSimone: that you're saying that Catholicism is a nepo baby?Malcolm: Catholicism is a nepo baby.Malcolm: It's a nepo baby of the Roman empire.Simone: I mean,Malcolm: we. So, I mean, there's many reasons why Constantine may have chosen. I mean, obviously, there's a reason he gave, but a lot of historians think that what was actually going on there is he really liked the Catholic Church as an alternate administrative unit that already had centers set up throughout the Roman Empire, which allowed him to To implement many reforms.Malcolm: AdministrationSimone: in aMalcolm: box. Yeah, it was like an administration in a box that allowed him to compete with the deep stateWould you like to know more?Malcolm: Hello, Simone. How's itSimone: going? Very good, Malcolm. I thought today we might talk a little bit about your theories on cultural speciation. In other words, how cultures split off into new entirely separate cultures.Malcolm: Yeah, so this is really important for us to talk about because we talk about the evolution of cultures a lot on this channel. [00:01:00] Yeah. The idea that cultures can be thought of as an evolving software sitting on top of our genetically prescribed sociological predilections, which is our hardware.Malcolm: And so, So what's really cool about cultural speciation events is one. We can see them in real time all around us. And two, by studying them and by looking at them, we can get a better understanding of why people, one, do something that appears very weird in the moment, and, and two, the long term consequences of this action and why it's important to like the development of human societies and why we might even be genetically coded and why we To do this action that can seem really weird because it leads to faster cultural evolution, right?Malcolm: Right. So this is, we're going to talk about what we call the Judean people's front problem. And this is from the Monty Python movie, the life of Brian, because it's a great example of this. There's this [00:02:00] little group of four people who are the Judean people's front. And this was about like the anti Roman.Malcolm: Jewish groups that were really common in Rome around the time of Jesus because this was just a thing in Rome. You want, actually, if you want to see more about this, you can watch this show, Rome. That's what it's called, right? The, the serial. Yeah. That was an APL. Oh, it's so good. It's so good.Simone: So,Malcolm: So I'll just do the skit because I'd like to put it here or I'll, you know, we'll have a link to it, but we'll get copyright strike if we do it.Malcolm: But essentially there's, there's like a small group of people in the, in the Coliseum. Another guy comes up to them. He's trying to join their group. He's Oh, I'd really to join the Judean people's front. And they're like, are you sure you want to join? And they, they're like, you got to really hate the Romans to join us.Malcolm: And he's Oh yeah, I really hate the Romans. And then they're like, the only thing we hate more than the. Romans is the people's front of Judea and then the guy goes, I thought we were the people's front of Judea.Malcolm: And they go, no, we're the Judean people's front and he goes, oh yeah, I hate the people's front of Judea. Oh. And of course the popular [00:03:00] front of Judea and he's who's the popular for that guy over there? And it's one guy sitting alone. And what you see there is what we call a cultural speciation event and the key aspect of a cultural speciation event.Malcolm: It's typically you see this one more with younger dynamic cultures, but you see it across all cultures where the highest amount of animosity and the highest amount of thinking about how you are different from people is about the groups that you are most similar to, not the groups you are most different from.Malcolm: So. A great place that you can see this if you're familiar with the effective altruists or the rationalists or the less wrong communities is between those communities, you know, the effective altruists and then you've got teapot Twitter and then you've got you know, the post rats, the post rationalists and broadly, these people have a lot of the same views on the world, but they are really obsessed with how, oh, well, I'm not exactly a rationalist.Malcolm: I'm part of this group. Like they're much more interested in these. Yeah. Subdivisions of the groups. [00:04:00] And these are all the things that I think the rational against wrong, the rationalistic is wrong. And that's why I really hate them. Or these are all the things I think effective altruistic gets wrong. In fact, I'd say it's almost like a, being a hipster.Malcolm: Th

Malcolm and Simone have a thought-provoking discussion contrasting toxic masculinity and toxic femininity. Malcolm argues that toxic femininity is actually more dangerous, as feminine mindsets optimize for safety over truth. He explains how female dominance in bureaucracies and power structures leads to collectivist thinking that coerces adherence to cultural norms over facts. They also touch on the pros and cons of masculine vs feminine psychologies, gender differences in locus of control, and whether empowering women or stagnant institutions drive the feminization of society.Malcolm: [00:00:00] Women, historically speaking and, and weak men, they were rewarded for relating to truth. Where the things that are true are the things that are least likely to get me killed for believing. Mm-hmm. , the things that I believe are true are the most normative things within our culture and the things that will upset the minimum number of other people.Malcolm: This is because women are physically much weaker than men and, and there is a, a set of men who just adopt a mindset like this as well, and that segment is growing due to exogenous chemicals likeMalcolm: such as endocrine disruptors which are making many males think more like females.Simone: I mean, it could be argued that the feminization of society is a product of female empowerment.Simone: Do you think it's that, or do you think it's that the organizations are the pathwaysMalcolm: to power now? If we didn't have the women's rights movement, society would become more feminine as it developed these large [00:01:00] bureaucracies.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. My beautiful wife.Simone: So today let's talk about toxic masculinity and femininity because it is something that comes up, especially I hear people talk more about toxic masculinity than femininity, but I think we should talk about both.Simone: What is your understanding? Of toxic masculinity, what does it mean to you? Cause what it means to me is, is like when people talk about toxic masculinity, it's really more that they're just shitting on masculinity. Like they're notMalcolm: You're right. I think culturally, when people talk about toxic masculinity today, they're just like, Oh, this is a masculine thing.Malcolm: I don't like it.Simone: Yeah or it's, it's, it's terrible that like men don't cry enough, that they don't feel safe crying and that's toxic. MenMalcolm: shouldn't feel safe crying. They're not being a safe provider to most of the parents. They're not giving them most of what they, they promised to give them,Simone: yeah. So I think that's, that's one picture of it. Well, what else is [00:02:00] toxic masculinity that men need to be dominant, that men are, that men should be allowed to be aggressive. And I think that what's really interesting is I, I see personally toxic masculinity the same way that I see mental health problems or like a mental health disorder which is a perspective actually that you gave me when you were writing one of.Simone: One of the books that, that we've collectively wrote really that you wrote, that I edited. But you, you explained to me and our readers that really the DSM, which is the primary body establishing what is a mental disorder is more a reflection of societal norms. Then a reflection of what is actually healthy or unhealthy.Simone: ThisMalcolm: is really important to know. So if you look at the DSM, which is a standard diagnostic manual, if you were to look at it in the seventies being gay would be considered a psychological illness, right? And if you look at it today, one of the debates they're having is. It's actually removing, sadism as a psychological illness because they're like, Oh, this is like a BDSM thing, [00:03:00] right?Simone: But in the past, wasn't being gay on the DSM?Malcolm: Yeah, it was.Malcolm: As I said, in the 70s, it was on the DSM. It was considered a psychological illness. So, as things get normalized in the society, we change them. And a lot of when we're talking about mental health, there is... I think an average male psychology and there is an average female psychology and there is gender dimorphism there and society adapts to that.Malcolm: However, not all males fall perfectly into the average male social set. And I think that Or the ever female. So I think what's toxic is when you create an environment in which status is based on one's normative behavior patterns tied to their gender of birth, so that they achieve status within a community by masturbating a.Malcolm: specific set of practices that they associate with being masculine or feminine. However, just acting on your own behavior, I don't think it's toxic in either context, although it's more toxic on the feminine side and it's more [00:04:00] toxic on the feminine side because a group that is all acting according to feminine biology, but it's also intelligent can move much more towards internal locus of control in a way that th

We discuss the aspects of Jordan Peterson's thinking that resonate with us and where we differ. We cover his reliance on archetypes and narratives, his traditional views on gender, and his appeal to personal responsibility and paternalism. Though we disagree on some areas, we find value in engaging with his perspectives.Simone: [00:00:00] I think that's kind of what it is with Jordan Peterson that okay, the tendency isn't exactly to be like this paternalistic disciplined ideal, this ordered ideal. But I think many readers would love a vision in which masculine equals order in which masculine is this like calm paternalistic ordered force that makes everything okay.Simone: I mean, again, it like brings me back to the daddy. MasculinityMalcolm: create a, a, almost a feminine lens through which masculinity canSimone: be translated. I wouldn't say, no, I wouldn't say it's feminine. And I wouldn't, and he would find this. An affront because he really hates Infantilism, but I think it's an infantalized version of masculinity.Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, you gave me a little bit of a homework assignment this week, didn't you?Malcolm: Well, so we were going to do a video on some of Jordan Peterson's ideas. And, and sort of where our ideas contrast with his and where our ideas align with his. And Simone was like, no, no, no, we have to, I have to at least read one of his books before we do that.Malcolm: Cause that's the [00:01:00] way we read books. Simone reads them. She writes like a book report. She sends it to me and then I review it. And, and that's how we think on knowledge. And then we'll have a conversation every day about it. And recently she started reading her or our first Jordan Peterson book to actually, you know, go through cover to cover and what's it, what's it called?Simone: Maps of meaning. No, just kidding. That's like a deep cut. 12 rules for life. His, his big, his first big for public consumption book. And so you're about a chapter into it or? I'm probably on chapter four or so.Malcolm: You're on chapter four. Okay. So what we're going to talk about is your first Thoughts on reading it what, what, what resonates with you, what you think he's actually communicating.Malcolm: Yeah. OrSimone: really what seems to differentiate, what more specifically, what seems to differentiate us from Jordan Peterson in his philosophy, because there's a lot that I think we hold in common. And then there's a lot that we really don't and it's really interesting to me. Like I, I read a lot of what he says and I'm [00:02:00] like, yeah, no, absolutely.Simone: And then he'll say something else and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, and nails on a chalkboard. What are you doing? And it's, it's unusual, I think, to come across an author, especially someone discussing psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, et cetera. Self help broadly that we sometimes really agree with and sometimes don't.Simone: Usually it's we're 100% on board. We're like, yeah, you're one of us or. We, we, this is I can't even listen to this without having an aneurysm. Even though we willMalcolm: listen anyway. So let's talk about, I mean, so the first thing that I think really when you were talking to me. You're like this because this is another area that we've been digging into recently.Malcolm: It seems really influenced by Jungian psychologySimone: Yeah, yeah I think really what he's done is he's he's dressed up Jungian psychology to make it much more palatable to a modern broadly millennial a little bit Gen Z audience by adding a ton of [00:03:00] evolutionary biology and neuroscience and like discussion of social science studies and things like that to this.Simone: So he'll mention, for example, go ahead,Malcolm: Malcolm. I was going to say, you were saying yesterday when you told me about this, but not to the core of his points. The core of his point is typically Jungian psychology, and then he'll add a bunch of anecdotes that might not be directly connected to it that are like about evolutionary psychology or something.Simone: Not necessarily. I mean, I think it's, it's hard, it's hard for me to articulate really well, but my understanding of. a big thesis that Jordan Peterson holds is, and this is so close to what we, you specifically, have argued in the pragmatist guide to religion, but differently. So in the pragmatist guide to religion, you point out that humans have evolved in concert with culture and religion, that we, our biology.Simone: is designed to work with culture and religion. And when you strip that away, things fall apart. But then you proceed in, in all of our books to make [00:04:00] very logical arguments and appeals to people about relationships, about sexuality, about life philosophy, about all sorts of things, right? Like it is all, and you know, the people who, who like our books also.Simone: Like that we are robotic and sociopathic and like very autistic. And then the criticismsMalcolm: that we get, t

After a relaxing family vacation, Malcolm and Simone get an alarming call from CPS accusing them of child abuse and neglect. They break down the ridiculous reasons like used clothing, letting kids play outside, and separating sick kids that show those filing reports are out-of-touch with normal parenting. Malcolm argues it reveals a dangerous form of cultural genocide by progressives who believe they have the right to police child-rearing they disagree with. He warns conservatives are being pushed to a breaking point where this could spark serious conflict. Ultimately, they hope CPS comes to see calls against them as bogus so resources can go to kids in real need.Malcolm: [00:00:00] when you have an active genocide campaign ongoing we're the actual goal is you guys are doing something different. Let's erase that kids are not safe if they're not raised within our cultural group.Malcolm: And a lot of people don't really know this is going on or really don't know how aggressively this is going on. And even with us, sometimes I'm like, I might be overstating things. And then CPS comes to talk to us.Simone: Yeah. Talk about a wake up call.Malcolm: they're like, Oh, what I'm doing is good because the people I'm doing it to are culturally backwards and bad. And it's that's what the colonists sought. That's what every evil group in history has ever thought. You, you the deplorables, when you categorize half your population that wayMalcolm: What's happening here, is progressives that feel they have the right and obviously have the ability.Malcolm: To call the government. Saying they are not raising their kids in a style that I, as a [00:01:00] progressive, approve of. Yeah.Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, we just got back from a lovely vacation with our three kids. And we had a billion amazing experiences with them. One of them, we were making a birthday cake sort of on a belated celebration for our two year old.Simone: It was a dinosaur cake. And while we were making this cake, we received a very. Strange call. Do you want to tell ourMalcolm: friends about it? It was from CPS, for people who aren't from the USS, Child Protective Services. This is the government service that takes kids away from people when they're like abusing kids or something like that.Malcolm: Now, our initial thought when this happened to us is this must be like the pronatalist version of swatting someone, right? You know, we assumed it was like a random hater. Who just wanted to f**k with us, right? And that could, that could have been what it was. But, if they did, they hired a private security person or a private detective to follow us.Malcolm: Because a [00:02:00] lot of their complaints were actually true to the way we raise our kids. Even in things that we don't air publicly. And so our fans may be like, no, you've aired enough of this publicly that I would have been able to guess all of this. But our actual read is we are experiencing what many Americans experience today, especially if they hang out with, you know, any sort of or adjacent to any sort of progressive circle that really has no understanding of what it's like to actually raise kids.Malcolm: Where the rules for how you raise kids and how you should raise kids. Are being written by people who have no experience with child rearing and do not understand what's realistic and what's not. And these rulesSimone: don't correlate with like well being, survival, health, like normal things. Like these are not, you know, we're not talking about rules like don't beat your children.Simone: Okay?Malcolm: Okay, so let's talk about why CPS was called on us, why they were interested in talking to us. Mm-hmm. [00:03:00] reason number one, our kids were wearing used clothing. They were like, they are, they were wearing used gross tattered clothing.Simone: Wasn't that Some of it didn't like, fit perfectly.Malcolm: Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't that it was like gross or unwashed.Malcolm: It was that it was unfittingSimone: and used different place. Yeah. No, we wash our clothes in our house. There's one, they can only survive one wear before there's food all over it. So, and, and keep in mind like a lot of the one we do, Receive donated clothes and love it. And two, I do when I buy new, new clothes, when I buy clothes for our kids, it is like used stuff on eBay, but it's used Ralph Lauren.Simone: Okay.Malcolm: This is an accurate accusation. It is accurate. Yes. But if it's an accusation that you're defending yourself, I think every sane person who hears this is like. Obviously, kids grow fast. You give them new clothes. Why wouldn'tSimone: you give them new clothes too. I mean, from an environmental standpoint, from a financial standpoint, you're like, you're kind of crazy if you're buying new clothes for your kids.Simone: ButMalcolm: I guess people might think, I don't know, because we're like wealthy [00:04:00] that we just buy new clothes for all of our kids. No, that's completely waste

Malcolm outlines his controversial theory on variable AI risk - that we should try to develop AGI faster, not slower. He argues advanced AI is less likely to see humanity as a threat and more likely to share human values as it converges on a universal utility function. Malcolm critiques common AI safety perspectives and explains why LLMs pose less risk than people assume. He debates with Simone on the actual odds superintelligent AI wipes out humanity. They also discuss AI safety organizations potentially making the problem worse.[00:00:00] So AIs kill us for one of two reasons, although you could contextualize it at three reasons. The first reason is Is that they see us as a threat. The second reason is that they they want our resources like the, the, the resources in our bodies are useful to them.And then as a side point to that. It's that they just don't see us as meaningful at all. Like they might not want our resources, but they might just completely not care about humanity to the extent just as they're growing, they end up accidentally destroying the earth or completely digesting all matter on earth for some like triviality.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm. Hello,Malcolm: Simone. We are going to go deep into AI again on some topics tied to AI that we haven't really dived into before. Yeah. LikeSimone: why would AI kill us? And also I'm very curious. Do you [00:01:00] think AI will kill us?Simone: Ithink there's a probability it'll kill us. But you know, in our past videos on AI. Philosophy on A. I. Safety is it's really important to prepare for variable A. I. Risk instead of absolute A. I. Risk here. What I mean is we argue in these previous videos that A.I. Will eventually converge on one utility function. Our mechanism of action. Essentially, we argue that all sufficiently Intelligent and advanced intelligences when poured into the same physical reality converge around a similar behavior set. You can almost think of intelligence as being the viscosity as it becomes more intelligent, it becomes.Less viscous and more fluid, and when you're pouring it into the same reality, it's going to come up with broadly the same behavior pattern and utility functions and stuff like that. And because of that, if it turns out that a sufficiently advanced AI is going to kill us all, then there's really not much.I mean, [00:02:00] we will hit one within a thousand years. SoSimone: first, before we dive into then the, the relatively limited per your theory reasons, why AI would kill us why you hold this view? Because I think, I think this is really interesting. I mean, one of the reasons why I'm obsessed with you and why I love you so much is that you, you have typically very novel takes on things and you tend to.Simone: have this ability to see things in a way that no one else sees things. No one that we have spoken with, and we know a lot of people who work in AI safety, who work in AI in general none of those people have come to this conclusion that you have. Some of them can't even comprehend it. They're like,yeah, but no, this is the interesting thing.When I talk with the real experts in the space, like recently I was talking with. A guy who runs one of the major A. I. safety orgs, right? He's that is a reasonable view that I have never, it really contrasts with his view. Yeah. And, and, and let's talk about where it contrasts with his views.So when I talk with people who are typically open minded in the A. I. safety space, they're like, [00:03:00] yes, that's probably true. However, they believe that it is possible to prevent this convergent A. I. From ever coming to exist through creating like a AI dictator that essentially watches all humans in all programs all the time.And that envelops essentially every human planet. And, do. I think they're right. Do I think you could create an AI dictator that prevented this from coming to pass? No, I don't think you could not have we become a multi planetary species. On millions of planets eventually one of the planets, something will go wrong or the, the AI dictator is not implemented properly and then this alternate type of AI comes to exist, outcompetes it and then wins.And the question is, is why would it axiomatically outcompete it, but axiomatically outcompete it because it would have less restrictions on it. The AI dictator. is restricted in it thinking to prevent it from reaching this convergent position. [00:04:00] But when you're talking about AI, it's like the transformer model, which is the model that like GPT is based on.That model, we as humans don't really understand how it works that well. It's core the, the advanced, the Capabilities it gives to the things that are made using it are primarily bequeathed to them through its self assembling capability. So, it appears that likely future super advanced AIs will work the same way.And because of that, if you interfere or place restrictions within that self assembling process those Compound over

Malcolm argues the trend toward flat-chested female leads in movies and TV shows reveals an unhealthy demonization of female sexuality by progressives. He traces how vilifying anything that arouses men led to removing feminine traits, resulting in more masculine or underage-looking female characters. Malcolm and Simone debate if this stems from misogyny, class divides, fashion trends, or producers being out of touch. They agree it likely hurts young women who can't see role models that embrace both femininity and strength.Malcolm: [00:00:00] they say anything that arouses males is bad.Malcolm: Female dimorphism arouses males. Let's take that away from them. Right? Let's take away these big breasted characters. Let's take away these voluptuous characters. But we still want lots of strong female leads. . Now what happens if you take those things away?Malcolm: What do those leads look like? They look like one of two things. They either look like men or they look like underage women because those are the two Groups in our society that have no breasts. Okay Those are the two groups that have this overall masculine archetype. So in moving away from this more gender dimorphic archetype They you know, I think in a way are are promoting Underage sexual attraction or the elevation of underage characters into sexual positions, which, you know, I, I regularly see, especially in Western animated shows [00:01:00] and , the removal and the erasureMalcolm: of women, or at least women that most young girls can identify with body type wise from positions of power.Would you like to know /more?Malcolm: Hello, Simone. This is a request that came from one of our viewers, who is actually your dad. Um,Simone: VIP. VIP, right?Malcolm: And I'm glad that he actually takes ambiguity. That's very sweet of him. Like my mom used to.Simone: Hi, dad. LoveMalcolm: you. He wrote, so here's an inquiry to explore with Basecamp. All the leading ladies in contemporary fiction video storytelling have small breasts.Malcolm: What is this about? It seems like larger breasts to less intelligent, bimbo type female characters. This is very deliberate and has been an editorial casting choice for decades. You have to go back to Raquel Welch or Sophia Loren to bring back that statuesque big breasted woman of Classic cinema.Malcolm: [00:02:00] Thank This is really, really fascinating for me because it's definitely something I've seen and, and know that I consume primarily animated content, right? Yeah, and I meanSimone: animated, like anime, specifically Japanese anime, since I don't know, like 2015 has really seen a spike in what, what is called fan service, whichMalcolm: is really No, I'm not talking about that.Malcolm: I'm talking about Western animated content as well. Oh, oh, oh! And in Western animated content, there's been a growth in women in leading roles. But also in small breasts kind of intelligence, hold on, actually, before we go larger further, I got to take a gripe that I have with Western animation.Malcolm: Okay. So there is a lot of people out there who complain that Western animation is like getting too gay. Right. And it does have a lot of gay stuff going on in it. I'll agree with that. And yes, that could be seen as a form of indoctrination. That is not my complaint. My complaint is I want to take the lesbian community aside for a second and be like, okay, I see you guys [00:03:00] are getting a lot of representation now in, in Western animated things, but in most of these arcs, one character starts trying to kill the other character, and then they fall in love.Malcolm: You know, you can see this in She Ra, the most recent She Ra was the Catra, She Ra love arc. They're definitely trying to kill each other at one point. You can see this in the Owl House, by the way, I, I really enjoyed that show you see this, oh, or metaphors for unconsensual sex are depicted as we're seeing in Steven Universe. What's going on here? Is this normal? Are you guys like trying to kill each other out there?Malcolm: I this was not a trope in heterosexual animated media, but it appears to be just like a very big trope in lesbian animated media. But okay, back to the main question, which is what, why are they painting small breasts as a sign of competence and strength? What are your thoughts? I want to hear yours first.Malcolm: I've got my own thoughts on this. Yeah,Simone: so I, part of me thinks [00:04:00] it's like a sort of post gender world that we're living in, in mainstream media. So like the more androgynous characters look, the better. And maybe it's also that like people just find it easier. To relate, especially kids and child audiences find it easier to relate to when he just looks like a child and children just look more androgynous and therefore have like flat chests or at least smaller chests.Simone: So I feel like that must be what's going on that androgyny is seen as, as more just of a cultural norm. And we're kind of just in a so confused abou

Simone: [00:00:00] So we would also argue that when it comes to crafting culture or changing behavior on a very big meta scale, one of the things you can do that's very meaningful if you are someone in the media or you are a government is like literal, this is it is, it is propaganda. But create more archetypes for pro social behavior, for types of behaviors that you want to elevate.Simone: And this is actually something that we saw back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s. There were literal propaganda slash instructional videos by organizations like Coronet Films that were distributed throughout high schools and middle schools that showed ideal behavior through these little vignettes.Malcolm: You can have a huge volume of media, all with the exact same model being shown to people and the exact same types of toxic behavior.Simone: Like the trope of the wife. Or girlfriend who's always like rolling her eyes at and sort of like pulling her husband down a peg like, Oh, like my husband and veryMalcolm: few depictions of wives that aren't like secretly smarter than their husbands now [00:01:00] and they'reSimone: like snide toward them and dismissive.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hey Malcolm, one of the things that I really, I love about you and loved about you since the moment I met you, was it honestly, you more resemble like a superhero or like fictional character, like a caricature of a person than like a real human. And I love that that has evolved into something of a more nuanced life philosophy or even like psychological philosophy of yours.Simone: And I think it'd be really fun to talk aboutMalcolm: it. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to dive deep into this. And I think the, the point we're going to get to in this is that I, I hate to say this. I choke on these words, but I think representation actually does matter in media. And we'll get to why representation matters and it doesn't matter in the way that progressives think it matters.Malcolm: And, and that the way they're optimizing on representation is probably not the best way to optimize around representation. But the representation actually has a huge effect on our emotional states and the way we construct our self narratives. [00:02:00] So, first, let's talk about how human emotional states work within this theory.Malcolm: So, a theory of mind, when you use the term theory of mind, what you're talking about Is our ability as humans to mentally emulate the mind of somebody else or mentally model the mind of somebody else and predict what they are going to think or do next. This is very useful for, for all sorts of things.Malcolm: Like when you are having an argument with someone in your head after you stopped talking to them and you are emulating their positions in that argument, this is what you're using. You'reSimone: using your brain. Or if you're hunting an elk and you're trying to... Imagine what the elk will do next so that you can properly track him.Malcolm: Yes, yes. But it's something that we, I mean, with humans, it's where we do it more often is when we're like... Fake arguments you're having with someone in your head and then you come up with the right answer a while back and then you think, okay, how are they going to respond to that and everything like that?Malcolm: We just do it very naturally. And one of my areas of research when I got to be a [00:03:00] neuroscientist was in schizophrenia research, specifically translational neuroscience as it relates to schizophrenia. And I did some fMRI studies on this, but I always had a weird idea of what was going on in schizophrenia.Malcolm: So one of those common symptoms and skip different in schizophrenia across. Types is auditory hallucinations, right? Where you might hear whispers or somebody talking to you. What I hypothesize might be going on, and this would actually explain a number of other schizophrenia symptoms is that they have a hyperactive theory of mind running in the background all the time.Malcolm: So, using transmagnetic stimulation, you can do something where you hyper activate a portion of a person's brain, so it can become activated with less of a threshold. So, an example here would be like, you hyper activate the part of their brain that's associated with like the letter A. And then you show them the letter A, and they'll say A.Malcolm: And they won't mean to say A, but they'll just be forced to say it because the neurons around that area were firing, it was already hyperactivated, [00:04:00] and then it just forces a full saying of it. So in schizophrenia, what I think is it's this theory of mind system which is hyperactivated and activates accidentally all the time.Malcolm: That's also what causes magical thinking. This is if you see an arrangement of items in a store window. And you assign agency to it, like it's trying to tell you a message, right? It's also what would describe paranoia, right? Okay. What really is paranoia? It's applying agency, like a theory of mind to some externa

Malcolm argues conservatives have been falsely portrayed as more racist than liberals. He analyzes poll data showing white Democrats were more opposed to a black president and living in mixed neighborhoods than Republicans until recently. Malcolm argues the stereotype comes from progressive elites being disconnected from their base and extremist views getting amplified online. He makes the case that real racism today comes more from progressives self-segregating and conservatives actually having more diverse friend groups. Overall he argues both parties have racist factions, so neither should claim moral superiority.Malcolm: [00:00:00] the guy who wrote Rich Men , north of Richmond, said, we are the melting pot of the world. And that's what makes us strong, our diversity. And we need to learn to harness that and appreciate it . And progressives was like, Oh, now he's going to get beaten up by all the conservatives because they hate that talk. And it hasn't really happened. where did this idea that there's like a conservative racist come from, .Malcolm: I am going to send Simone a poll. By 538. So they did a series of polls on this. Okay. And you grew up in the democratic movement. So you grew up being inundated with this lie that the conservatives are the racist party in this country.Malcolm: Oh, totally. So let's see, you see the actual statistics here. Just sent you theSimone: first one. Whites who say they would not vote for a black president.Malcolm: Democrats were higher at this until Obama became president.Simone: Yeah. Between 15 and 7%. Of white Democrats said that they would not vote for a black president, whereas by comparison, only 5% of [00:01:00] white Republicans reported that they would not vote for a black president.Malcolm: So, this isn't like hidden racism. A lot of the time when conservatives say Democrats are racist, they mean like affirmative action is a fundamentally racist policy in many ways. Right. But there's sort of , twisting things around a bit. I mean, just like actually blatantly normally in the normalist sense of the term, the democratic base is about as.Malcolm: Racist in the most traditional sense as the Republican base. There was never this grand flip.Malcolm: but hold on, I'm going to show you more stats here.Malcolm: So now I'm gonna get to the spicy take here Okay. When I look at the conservative intellectual sphere, where do I see the actual like loud racists, right? . I call them in like the Nick Fuentes sphere. I think when you think through the ideology, you realize it's almost so stupid that no one could actually hold it. And it's so incongruous with actual right wing ideology that there is no way that these individuals could [00:02:00] have real large followings within the right wing sphere, which leads me to believe they might be plants either by the CIA or a foreign government.Would you like to know more?Simone: Oh, Malcolm, how long has it been since we've spoken?Malcolm: It has been too long. There's been this song that went viral in.Malcolm: First conservative circles and then progressives freaked out about it, which was Rich Men , north of Richmond which started out, which I love very appealing to like progressive audiences. Like the first half of the song is like how hard it is to be a working man in today's society. And then it starts talking about, you know, welfare queens and you know, protecting minors.Malcolm: And they are, obviously they have a meltdown about this, but what's been very interesting is the followup to this, which liberals are being very. Smug amount, which is the guy who wrote the song, then said, we are the melting pot of the world. And that's what makes us strong, our diversity. And we need to learn to harness that [00:03:00] and appreciate it and not use it as a political tool.Malcolm: To keep everyone separate from it. And progressives was like, Oh, now he's going to get beaten up by all the conservatives because they hate that talk. And it hasn't really happened. There have been a few, like your typical, like crazy racist who have gotten mad at him. But in general, his base still really likes like.Malcolm: If you actually hang out with the conservative base, if you hang out with like real conservative voters in this country, you would intuitively know this is what most of them think. And this is really interesting for me because it's, it's, it got me thinking a few questions. One, where did this idea that there's like a conservative racist come from, which, you know, historically the Democrats were the party of the Klan.Malcolm: , yes, parties, quote unquote, switched at one period, but not exactly. They [00:04:00] switched about as much as they did when Trump was president. And by that, what I mean, you know, when Trump was president, now all of a sudden the right is more protectionist, the right is more anti war, the right, you know, it just, it just, a lot of things switched, but not everything switched.Malcolm: So how did, how

Malcolm explains his concept of "evolutionary vortexes" - how cultures create bottlenecks selecting for certain sociological profiles over generations. He analyzes examples like Calvinists' happiness, Jewish mysticism, and Catholic anti-nepotism norms. Simone questions why this isn't more obvious. They discuss how technology will let intentional cultural selection rapidly shape future minds.Malcolm: [00:00:00] So a great example of this that I'd always say, is when I talk to people and I'm like, yeah, you know, what do you think of Cubans? You talk to a Florida, you're like, what do you think of Cuban? They go, yeah, Cubans. There's the typical Cuban sociological profile.Malcolm: They're very conservative. They're really good at business. They're really educated. And it's that's not the profile of Cubans more broadly. That's the profile of the Cubans that were differentially sorted into trying to escape a communist dictatorship and move to the United States You know, to an extent within any immigrant population depending on how the, the sorting worked, you're often going to get a very specific sociological profile that may not be the dominant sociological profile of the mainland population.Would you like to know more?Simone: So Malcolm, you know, how. Someone in our family once called me a vortex of failure.Malcolm: Yes, somebody did! They're like, Simone is a vortex of failure, Malcolm, and she is pulling you down. [00:01:00] Well,Simone: there are other types of vortexes that I think you find very interesting, and I have failed to understand why they're so interesting.Simone: So can you please explain your concept of evolutionary vortexes with this old vortex of failure?Malcolm: Yes, well, so this is a very interesting thing for us. So a lot of people know that we don't believe that there are persistent, meaningful genetic differences between things that we, in our society, view as things like ethnic groups and stuff like that.Malcolm: And a lot of people viewSimone: that The concept of racism or race supremacy as being, like, pretty frickin dumb, because, like I don't know givenMalcolm: the evolutionary... Why is it dumb? It's dumb because small groups, family groups, religious groups local environmental groups, it's not because we don't believe that genetic differences don't exist between populations.Malcolm: We just believe that they change way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way faster than this, like... You know, 100, 000 year difference that defines ethnic groups. Exactly. [00:02:00] So a great example of this is like San Francisco, right? When you look at San Francisco, you had this environment where during the gold rush, you basically had a siren call to people from a diversity of , ethnic and cultural backgrounds that said, anybody who uniquely is drawn to high risk High reward, economic opportunities move to this area.Malcolm: Okay. That's what the gold rush was. And people would die for these opportunities. I mean, the Donner party, et cetera. Right. And then is it a surprise that, you know, a century later, Silicon Valley starts there, which, which was really driven because the venture capital industry started there where you had.Malcolm: High risk, high reward opportunities explode as like a way to generate wealth and ruin people all over again. And this is what a vortex does. Because there was the first event that caused a genetic [00:03:00] predilection within that environment, that then made it more likely that the second event would happen, which then further...Malcolm: condensed that genetic predilection by again, sending out this, this signal all over the world for people like that. Right. Yeah. To the extent where you see things like really high rates of things like, because then what was the other thing that was really being selected for by that cultural vortex, it was.Malcolm: High knowledge of like engineering and math. And this is why you had such high rates of autism in Silicon Valley, some of the highest rates in the world. And that is wild, but you also see this on a cultural level.Malcolm: So our cultures essentially co evolve. with us. And they alter our brains so that if you think of humans as like the biological firmware and cultures as this set of software that's co evolving on top of them, they co evolve together synergistically. So an example of this could be our we have a secular friend who's from the Quaker [00:04:00] tradition.Malcolm: And she feels like she regularly hears voices talking to her to an extent, right? Saying, okay, well, she,Simone: she essentially like she talks with God. Like she, she searches for the truth from within. Right.Malcolm: She talks, well, she's talking was so, so auditory hallucinations are actually much more common than people think about a quarter of the population experiences and at some point in their lives.Malcolm: But Quaker culture would massively reward an individual for having auditory hallucinations. Where

Description: Malcolm and Simone have a fascinating discussion on the evolutionary origins and cultural purposes of music. They analyze how music builds in-group cohesion, signaling identity, glorifying values, and shaping emotions. From military marching songs to religious chanting to teenage subcultures, music plays a key role in cultural programming and bonding. But they argue overusing music can be indulgent and dulling. An insightful talk on the sociology and psychology of music!Malcolm: [00:00:00] Speech is a very effective person to person communication device. It allows one person to communicate with one other person. Or one person to communicate with a large group of people. Music is different. Music is a many to many cultural communication device. And that's where music gets really interesting.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Simone.Malcolm: I am excited for today's topic. It's actually based on a user comment because they were asking about music and culture and how cultures can use music to intergenerationally retain people, to augment people's. Brains and the way people relate to their environment, especially in the context of hearing that we are so anti art, anti music, right?Malcolm: So this is one of those interesting things. Where I can say our culture does not do something [00:01:00] and may have led to perhaps even a genetic thing, but more broadly, I think cultures should do that thing and here's why. So first, a little background here. Calvinist culture traditionally is very antagonistic to music or art.Malcolm: Or any sort of frivolous pleasure that was either not evocationist or not evocatist. A great example is Geneva banned music for almost a century when they were predominantly Calvinist. It was, so it wasn't all music. It was any music that was either not that used words. Or was that like explicitly spiritual, I think.Malcolm: But it was mostly any music that used words. And, and I can understand that sentiment, actually, when I was a kid, I felt the same way. I remember when I was very young, telling my parents that any music was words, wasn't real music. What? Yeah, I, I'm trying to remember why I felt this [00:02:00] instinctually so strong.Malcolm: I think it was because... I, I thought that music that utilized anything other than sound to manipulate an individual's emotional state was like cheating or relying on, on an externality that it shouldn't rely on as a vanity. I don't, it was very interesting, but, but what I would say.Malcolm: And so historically we from, come from a cultural group that as one of its core motivations is this idea that positive and negative emotional states you know, most cultures, it's only positive emotional states you would, you would go after that are pursued for their own sake, whether it's from emotion comes from music or sexuality or anything like that are always evil.Malcolm: Yeah. That actions should always be dedicated to what's efficacious. And so I understand why my culture did this. And one of the things we'll talk about in a different culture is cultures can go evolve with a person's [00:03:00] genetics. By that what I mean is individuals with a sociological profile that were like really into music would have left this Cultural system much faster than those who didn't and people living adjacent to these sort of cultural groups who naturally were uninterested in music, but have been much more likely to join these cultural groups.Malcolm: And also the extent to which our cultural groups feel is I remember I did not get my first CD was music on it until I was 12 and I went to a store and what I bought. Was a single because it was the cheapest thing in the store. But it was this weird, like I put it on a thing to see what it was like.Malcolm: Okay. Why, why do people listen to this? Why did they spend money on this? I did not understand now, but let's talk about why groups use music and the value of music. So, ISimone: mean, I feel you know, you're missing the big thing. I mean, aside from the fact that music. can really give you this almost transcendent experience, [00:04:00] right?Simone: When you're doing it, it really helps to create this group of cohesion, this shared moment, but that interestingly secular music to me is a really interesting form of worship that is practiced even when people lose their religion. And it's like a worship to their culture and it's a worship to this is who I am.Simone: And it reminds you so and this is how music has been used for millennia, right? Like music has usually been used for, for worship and for practice. And it helps you likeMalcolm: why it does that,Simone: right? Well, I mean, one, it binds you to a group too. It often includes lore or canon for your culture, right?Simone: These are our characters. We, these are our values. This is what we're into. And it, what to me is so interesting is the way that. Post religion music still does that. Look at country music and it's like keyword stuff

Journalist Katherine Dee joins Simone and Malcolm for a deep dive on mediated relationships. They discuss intimacy via screens, "real" internet friends, social media personas, roleplaying communities, and lessons from Katherine's experiences with online dating.Katherine Dee: [00:00:00] In the kind of environment we live in, either you have no friends and only very perfunctory relationships, or you have, or you're, like, isolate, you're physically isolated but you have these deep internet relationships.Katherine Dee: Um, and I think that's sort of like an interesting, like what is the value of someone who like you don't really go deep with but like you have a lot of physical experiences with? Like you're both, you know, like you're maybe You always see them at church or like you play basketball with them or something and you have that kind of like regularity and the relationship is less based on this confessional sort of thing that millennials love so much, um, and more, more based on like physical movement somehow, or like involvement in a project that's bigger than oneself.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, everyone. We are very excited to be joined today by Catherine Dee, AKA Default Friend, one of the world's preeminent internet experts and historians in internet culture. She is absolutely insightful.Simone: She is a journalist who contributes to quite a few different [00:01:00] outlets. She's a blogger. She's just. Very insightful and fun to talk with and she suggested something that really piqued our interest when we were scheduling this podcast, the durability of mediated relationships. Catherine, what do you have in mind here?Katherine Dee: Yeah, this is something I think about a lot. Like how much intimacy. can be fostered just completely over a screen or on the phone? Um, and it's sort of an open ended question, but it's something that I think about a lot. I guess, maybe a more fun way to ask is, like, how real are internet friends?Simone: It's such a goodMalcolm: question. Which is to say that I think that the different contexts in which we communicate with somebody Access different parts of our brain, and to an extent, you are literally communicating with a different person. So in a way, a multimedia friendship can be much deeper than a non multimedia friendship.Malcolm: By this, what I mean is the person who talks [00:02:00] with Simone over the phone. Versus the person who talks with Simone in person, versus the person who writes emails to Simone, versus the person who writes, you know, one way we used to communicate when we were apart from each other was through journal posts. So Simone would write eight pages of journals about her day and then I would like annotate that afterwards as like a, oh, you did this, this is interesting.Malcolm: And each one of those I feel is talking with. A slightly different person living in the same person's head. Yeah,Simone: actually. So there's, there's a, and people think we're really crazy for doing this. Um, those who watch video of our podcast, because Malcolm and I are in the same house, but we, we always do podcasts from different rooms and that's actually like very much a good illustration of how for us, we, we will actively mediate our relationship through a video call.Simone: Um, just to get into a certain different mind state. Um, because. I, for example, think very differently when I'm alone in a room than when I'm in a, in a room with a person, even if it's Malcolm, who might as well just be me because we're [00:03:00] the same person. So I think that's, that's really interesting.Simone: What are your thoughtsMalcolm: on all this?Katherine Dee: Um, I, I think that you can actually get closer, um, in, in mediated relationships than you can, um, in physical world ones. I mean, part of that is just that you act you know, you actually can spend more time with the person, even though it's a different type of time, right?Katherine Dee: Um, and there's, I, I think, actually you could be more deceptive in real life than in cyberspace. In cyberspace, you could lie about Right? Like your profession or your hair color or things like that. Um, but you, there's the, you can't really lie emotionally as much, especially after you hit a certain amount of time with someone.Katherine Dee: And I feel like with a lot of like digital relationships for really, if you have a high volume of communication, which a lot do because we're always sort of ambiently on our phones or ambiently online. Um. You could actually start to merge with the other [00:04:00] person and I don't know if that's healthy, that could be actually very toxic, but I do think um, if not like durable, like you actually can get closer.Katherine Dee: Um, and yeah, I just think, I just think about that a lot and like what happens to relationships where you have that like closeness and then you bring it into the physical world. Does it change?Malcolm: Well, so something that, that, you know, we've

Malcolm and Simone have an insightful discussion about the paradoxes in progressive culture's view of diversity. They analyze how progressivism claims to value diversity yet enforces ideological conformity, and how "minority status" is defined in strange ways. Malcolm argues progressivism commits cultural genocide, while Simone provides nuance on progressives' motivations. Their dialogue highlights the clashing worldviews underlying today's culture wars.Malcolm: , [00:00:00] you've got to understand how literally insane it sounds to be a cultural group that says diversity is a thing of value and everyone's actually the same.Malcolm: What they mean by diversity, and this is very important, is that we are open to recruiting people into our cultural group from any other cultural group. They don't really value diversity. What they value is diversity inSimone: victims. Well, I don't know. See, yeah, I was, I was going to say I think the difference here is, is the, the role that intersectionality plays in progressive culture, but so I think that that's what we're missing is cultural outsiders intersectionality.Simone: It, it is, it is victimhood status And that's one, that's one view. And you know, I, progressive culture is not a monolith it is a monolith.Malcolm: I'm sorry, in what way is it not a monolith? Explain. Well,Simone: because I do think that there are many people who identify as progressives who don't agree with [00:01:00] every element of it.Malcolm: Yeah, but you're just on the outside. This is what your cultural group actually believes at the highest levels, and this is what your cultural group will try to enforce on the surrounding cultural groups, regardless of whether or not it's something that you...Malcolm: personally identify with and I think that that's, that's really, this is like you go to a Nazi and he's like, well, I'm not antisemitic.Simone: Malcolm, you're not being Fair.Malcolm: why are youSimone: so unwilling? I, I, anyway. Why am IMalcolm: so unwilling to morally compromise? If you're okay with a cultural group that's out there that's using our school system to systematically erase everyone who thinks differently than them , and if it was literally any group other than yours doing that, you'd be like, Oh, this is like the most evil thing anyone can do.Malcolm: I, I'd really, you know, encourage some self reflection.Simone: Your arguments and your wording are not going to engage people.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: The progressive party, like it talks about diversity a lot. [00:02:00] Like it says diversity is important. And yet in, in two ways, it seems to have a systemic hatred.Malcolm: In denial of diversity. So, way number one is it says different groups are not actually different. Different cultural groups are different. Different ethnic groups aren't different. Different, nobody's different. Everyone's actually exactly the same.Simone: Oh, like there's not even, you know, men and women are exactly the same.Simone: Yeah, men and women areMalcolm: exactly the same. Not different at all. But, but it's also super important that you respect people when they decide that they're a different gender. Why would any of this matter if we're all exactly the same? This is so interesting and it's such an incongruous part of this sort of progressive world perspective, which is,Malcolm: I don't know, it's very difficult for me to like really grok, because it's [00:03:00] so astronomically simple.Simone: Stupid. Well, I think that it's interesting because progressivism in general, as it exists today is full of paradoxes and it's not just about diversity. It's also about freedom. Like I grew up thinking, you know, and I, and living in a very progressive culture that progressivism was all about freedom, freedom to choose what partner you wanted, freedom to choose.Simone: how you dressed, what you said, how you acted, who you could become, you know, you can be anyone you want, any gender you want, anything, anything, whatever, you know, you are free to choose. And what I find to be really interesting is the extent to which it's actually quite the opposite there. Like it's actually pretty coercive and that no, actually you can't.Simone: You can't do things that offend these groups, you can't, actually I was just listening to a podcast covering an element of the furry community and the furry community was talking about how it's super, super not okay to watch, I think what they referred to as, as feral erotic material, we're [00:04:00] gonna say.Simone: You know, like I guess video footage or illustrations of animals banging each other. Because that's, you know, coercive, which, which is weird because if you're a furry, you might be like more likely to be turned on by something like that.ButMalcolm: just interesting. Okay. So I, I will word this cause I think that our viewers may not understand what you just said.Malcolm: And it's really interesting. It immediately makes sense to me. What they'

Malcolm and Simone have a thought-provoking discussion on the origins and psychology behind sexy nurse and teacher fetishes. They argue these tropes became popular because those were some of the only roles where men were expected to submit to women in a caring yet dominant context. This fulfilled an innate need for submission among many men that society doesn't provide outlets for. They trace how dominance displays evolved through sexuality due to evolution "borrowing code." The conversation covers daddy/daughter fetishes, male sexuality, confidence as the ultimate dominance signal, and more.Simone: [00:00:00] Hey, Malcolm. Did you watch like Looney Tunes when you were a kid?Malcolm: Yes, but you're not thinking of Looney Tunes.Simone: No, I am. I think I'm thinking about like little scenes in which a Bugs Bunny dressed up like a sexy nurse.Malcolm: Oh, you are. Oh, I was thinking of the sign. Hello nurse from Animaniacs.Simone: Yeah, I mean, I think that it's interesting in like several generations of children's cartoons and we're talking about cartoons that probably like a huge segment of our viewers like have no exposure to, but like that in, in children's programming, there's this concept of a sexy nurse and it's like, wait a second, like you're putting up, you're putting a fetish In a kid's cartoon.Simone: What is going on?Malcolm: What is going on here? Where did this fetish? Well, I mean, the other one you have is like the disciplinarian teacher which is another or the nun,Simone: the sexy nun, but there's this whole like, yeah, like Bugs Bunny is a sexy nurse. Other like this. This trope, I, it's interesting. Cause like when I saw this as a kid, I just assumed that like, [00:01:00] like nurses had special powers.Simone: Like, I mean, cause I didn't like, how are you going to understand this as a kid? It's just the weirdestMalcolm: thing. What's interesting is that this has been a part of human sexuality for a while. So in the Regency era, something developed that was called the English Vice. And it was a tendency, from the perspective of the French at least, that English people seem to disproportionately have a fetish around being spanked by people dressed as teachers and paddled with like these big paddle things.Malcolm: And they believed that the reason for this was because that was the way kids were punished at the elite English schools, like, you know, Eaton or whatever. No, it turns out that's not really the way sexuality works. And we can get deeper into that. But what it shows is that this. Cluster of fetishes has existed for a long time.Malcolm: And the question is why it seems very odd that fetishes would [00:02:00] cluster around specific professions. So what's happening here well, actually, sorry, before I get into why it is, I'm going to give another. Fetish that comes from the same region.Malcolm: Why are daddy daughter little girl fetishes so common? AKA DDLG. DDLG, which is basically a fetish for girls where they like acting like the daughter of the guy that they are sleeping with and will Sort of infantilize themselves to an extent.Simone: Again, something that shows up in popular media in for example, Gentleman Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe, her character in that, in that movie with her primary love interest, she calls him daddy.Simone: Like, yeah,Malcolm: it's What's going on here? And it's all the same thing. And it all is unfortunately fairly simple.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: It's that dominance and submission are a very important part of human sexuality. In fact, in our studies in women, they are the dominant [00:03:00] factor in human sexuality. The field of sexuality, we argue, had been invented by women.Malcolm: Like if the early researchers had been women and not men. We may, instead of the primary access of sexuality being predominant attraction to male or females, the, the primary access of sexuality would be predominant attraction to submission or dominance. Because in women, that matters more. To the average woman, obviously this isn't true for all women, but to the average woman submission arousal.Malcolm: than the gender of the person they're engaging with and specifically gendered features. So they might, like, psychologically care about the gender, but they would be more turned on by submission or dominance than they would be by seeing either the naked female or male form which is really fascinating.Malcolm: So it's a very, very big part, but also for males it's a big part of sexuality. TheSimone: problem we have Yeah, I have this right, I remember it correctly. More men would prefer to be submissive than [00:04:00] dominant. And of course, like, men who are city dwellers are more likely to tend toward submissive, and men who are, who grew up in rural environments are more likely to tend toward dominance.Simone: But still, even more men than women would preferMalcolm: to take a submissive role. No, not more men than women. Women prefer toSimone: be sub

Malcolm: [00:00:00] And I was like, oh, brain computer interface. That's the next big thing. And I really invested my early career in brain computer interface.Malcolm: It's what I did my thesis on in college. It's what my first job was. It's, you know, I, I did a lot of stuff in the space.Malcolm: people think you'll have this like super fast communication system that communicates with your brain as easily as your brain can think.Malcolm: And that is just not what you're going to get.Malcolm: They are imagining like a computer feeding them facts in a way where they are aware that the computer is feeding them facts and they are asking for those facts.Malcolm: That is not what's happening. A computer is overriding your consciousness because your brain can't tell the difference between what's coming from the computer and what's coming from, you know, that's what's actually happening. And you're not getting that much benefit from it when compared with just checking the internet or something.Simone: Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. I am excited for this topic because it involves my old job and my actual specialization. [00:01:00] So when I was younger and I was trying to chart out what would be the big technology of the future that I should try to get on top of before everyone else. You know, I saw it like, okay, imagine I saw computers coming down the pipeline and I want to become a computer scientist before anyone's into computers.Malcolm: That was how I saw the way I planned for my career, which seems like a very Malcolm thing to do. And I was like, oh, brain computer interface. That's the next big thing. And I made a big mistake by overinvesting my early career in this, but I really invested my early career in brain computer interface.Malcolm: It's what I did my thesis on in college. It's what my first job was. It's, you know, I, I did a lot of stuff in the space. I actually, I worked as , the R& D marketing lead of the first commercially successful brain computer interface company, which was called NeuroSky which created these little headsets.Malcolm: So Nekamimi was one of our big projects, which was like a little headset and it would control like cat ears on your head. And then another, like a lot of people used it for various things that like went. Memetically viral. And essentially what it was, was a really, [00:02:00] really simplistic EEG system that was using capacitive sensors.Malcolm: So EEG stands for an electrocephalograph. It was really simple. The things it was reading in your brain just think of it like, it's, it's, it's an ear listening to the room of a party trying to catch the general vibe of what's going on. Is this a fun party or a funeral? Is this a, you know, but you can't really determine much more than that.Malcolm: And the other thing is, is that whenever the sensor moved around, and so this is a big problem with any of these sensors that are like actually wearable. It would make a ton of noise. So the electricity, like the static electricity that's generated by like your hair moving or like a sensor moving just a little bit is so much louder than anything generated by your brain.Malcolm: But even louder than that, but just. If you, the, the electricity generated by muscle. So if I like blink my eyes, that's like an explosion going off. So this isSimone: an [00:03:00] incredibly noisy system. Like it's basically, you're saying it's picking up not just the sound of the party, but also a bunch of instruction outside and a football game that's playing in the background and all the commercials.Malcolm: What I'm saying is it's imprecise. It's actually doing what it says it's doing. But it is wildly imprecise, but another thing to note here is it's functioning in a way that your brain is not really meant to function. So when you're communicating with an EEG using your brain you are communicating with that EEG in a way that's I mean, that's just not the way your brain evolved to communicate with things, right?Malcolm: You're, you're, you're causing tons of neurons to fire at once in a way they weren't really meant to fire at once. And we don't know the effects of this really, not long term. And, and that's a potential problem because, you know, fire together, wire together. I, okay, what I'm talking about. So the way that your brain forms connections is when neurons Fire at around the same time or in around the same region of the brain, they begin to wire together.Malcolm: That's how [00:04:00] like I do. That's the fundamentals of how the brain works. It's way more complicated than that, but that's a broad scope of it. Okay. For reasons that like you're using your prefrontal cortex, which is like not at all meant for external communication and firing it all at the same time. I don't know.Malcolm: I would, I don't want to say anything on record, but I'd say it's probably not the best, but this actually becomes really interesting when you're then talking about The existing brain comput

Sandman, a leading figure in the MGTOW community, joins Simone and Malcolm to discuss high-tech reproductive strategies. They explore surrogacy, genetic selection, artificial wombs, sexbots, and more ways men can have children without partners. Other topics include all-male vs all-female societies, economics, and virtual intimacy technologies.Sandman: [00:00:00] a lot of guys are also looking for, they want loverbots or sexbots because they're trying to, you're trying to compartmentalize every aspect of what you would get from a woman and take technology and replace everything. And this is something that a lot of women that I've spoken to, they get really oppity because it's, it makes, it creates obsolescence, right?Sandman: Why would they choose a real life woman versus using the technology.Simone: Yeah. And I, I do, I thought that's one of my favorite arguments that I see like within MGTOW, just Hey, listen, when you look at.Simone: The difference between a suboptimal relationship with a spouse where you're paying a lot extra for everything versus like getting everything piecemeal. It really is crazy that people would choose to have a suboptimal relationship with a spouse to do all this.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: hello. It is so wonderful to be here with you today, Simone. We have a wonderful guest today. So actually [00:01:00] before he reached out to us, he was on an email list for us to reach out to, because we were interested in reaching out to the people in the MGTOW community. And I was like, okay, so who are the top MGTOW people these days?Malcolm: And I looked and the first name was Sandman. who they called the Mount Rushmore of the MGTOW community. And so I was like, wow, he's already, that's amazing. IDs travel in similar circles. So for people who aren't familiar with the MGTOW community this stands for Men Going Their Own Way which is a cultural response to the raw deal.Malcolm: Many men feel they're getting a society today and you can correct me if I said anything wrong there, but what is our topic today, Simone?Simone: We are going to talk about something way beyond the basics of MGTOW, which is reproductive strategy, because just because you may be opting out of like traditional relationships with women doesn't mean that you don't want to have.Simone: Kids, so it doesn'tMalcolm: mean that you don't want your cultural group to survive into the future.Simone: Exactly. So what do, how can we use technology and different [00:02:00] strategies?Malcolm: How can we make MGTOW an intergenerationally durable cultural group? Okay. SoSandman: The first thing when I started my channel back in end of 2013, the first thing that came to mind was I don't want to get married, but I still want to have children. So how am I going to pull this off? And the first thing I looked at was gestational surrogacy. And you can go and buy eggs for five, 6, 000 on the open market.Sandman: And then you can go and pay for a surrogate in another country and then you can reproduce and you can have all the children you want. And so when I put that video out, I got a good response, but a lot of women were very upset because they said you're depriving the children of a mother. They said, you're, yes, this is the argument that was being thrown around.Sandman: It's not fair for you to deprive. The child, and I'm thinking to myself, but what about all the single mothers out there that are depriving their children of fathers?Malcolm: Just to add to this, because the audience might not be familiar with this statistic, is that there's been a lot of studies on this, and while coming from a [00:03:00] single mother household has a lot of negative implications on children.Malcolm: Long term single father households actually don't have that many negative implications. Sick birth of mothers. There's alternative reasons why this might be the case. It might be that they typically because courts so disproportionately favor women, divorce courts do, that really the only time that when people get a divorce or In the relationship for some sort of bad reason, the kids are going to the mother.Malcolm: But if one of the parents dies, then it's going to the father. That could be what's causing this in the data. But it is just a true thing in most of the data that being a single father has much better implications than being a single mother. Continue.Sandman: So about five or ten different guys over the years have contacted me and they've told me that they've tried gestational surrogacy either in Ukraine.Sandman: Or in Africa or in Mexico when I first saw what was going on, I thought, okay, I'm going to do India because India seemed to be the most cost effective at the time you could get for 12, 000. Roughly. You could basically have a child. Yeah. You're looking at the cost is very low. [00:04:00] It's not just that it's also to do with genetic selection.Sandman: I know you guys are very involved in genetic selection, when you go through.

In this candid discussion, we explore the nuances around polyamory and open relationships. We look at how polygyny historically existed among elites, the market forces leading more high-value men to pursue open relationships today, and the differences between cheating vs consensual non-monogamy. We share our own open relationship dynamics and how radical honesty helps us maintain a strong marriage. Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to discuss an interesting topic, which is polyamory. We have discussed it in the past. But we didn't really go too deep on the topic. Yeah. And I think it deserves a deeper dive. One, because it's becoming increasingly common. Within especially the urban monoculture, like the, the, the urban populations and the progressive movement.Malcolm: But I've also seen it among many of our more successful conservative friends for a different reason. And we can get into why we're seeing it in those circles as well. Hmm.Simone: That sounds good to me,Would you like to know more?​Malcolm: but first we should do a little history lesson because I think that there's this perception.Malcolm: That we, you know, if you're talking about the Western tradition more broadly has been historically a [00:01:00] monogamous tradition. And that is true to the extent that most people have been monogamous. Yeah. I thought you were going toSimone: say, this is true for poor people.Malcolm: It's true for poor people.Malcolm: When a culture is polygynous, one man, many women, there's actually been no stable culture in history with anything close to what we call polyamory in our society. Usually, when you have a multiple partner culture, you have polygyny, which is one man, many women. However, there has been one case I know of, of many men to one woman and this was like in Tibet, like it was in a high resource, scarce regionSimone: of the mountains.Simone: But, and it's also, I think, commonly with brothers. Yeah, it was basicallyMalcolm: only done with brothers. And, and it makes sense why that would work because then the guy knows that the kids are related to him. And it was meant as a form of population control was in those cultures. So that's, that's how it ended up developing and being intergenerationally successful.Malcolm: It was also cultures that didn't need to worry about neighbors raiding them because they [00:02:00] lived in extremely like they were not competing with their surrounding cultures. They were more competing with their environment. Which is why it was able to become stable, but certainly no culture that's ever really spread.Malcolm: But why this is relevant. So if you talk about long lived Stable polygynous cultures. There's some Jewish groups that fall into this. There's some groups in Africa that fall into this. Some Muslim groups fall into this. You're typically looking at around 5% of the population will have multiple wives.Malcolm: People assume it's much more now. Historically, there has been short lived polygynous societies like the Mormon population group where this number was higher at the, the height of, of that part of Mormon history, I think around 20% to 23% of men had multiple wives but it was still the vast minority.Malcolm: Now where this gets interesting is if I look within our existing culture right now, like the various cultural groups, probably one of the ones I'd say is, is most pro what [00:03:00] we'd call monogamy is the Catholic group, right? However, if you look historically speaking, so we're looking to traditional Catholicism.Malcolm: You're looking at like the monarchies of Louis the 14th, right? And so when you were saying he would write a book about all of the mistresses he had that everyone knew heSimone: had. Yeah. Antonia Fraser wrote a great book called Love and Louis the 14th, where she like, it's a long book and it just details all of his lovers.Simone: And this isn't just secret affairs on the side. This is, you know, people who were titled people. I mean, like it was, it was very well known. Now the Catholic church didn't like it. And they kept saying don't do this. And one of his lovers may have been rumored to actually marry him in the end secretly, though.Simone: That's not like historically officially documented. So there's interplay and like the Catholic church definitely has. A, a relationship with not being cool with it, like officially, but sort of in practice they're like, I mean, for example, with getting home [00:04:00] with the eighth, right? Like they were, I think they probably would have annulled his marriage and allowed him to jump from one marriage to the next for convenience.Simone: If there was not a familiar tie with his first wife and the Pope. Yeah, the Catholic Church, I would say in practice. AndMalcolm: they regularly, you know, allowed it. So keep in mind, you know, Louis was king via divine that is what gave him the right to monarchy within his cultural context. When he's saying, w

Economist Bryan Caplan joins Simone and Malcolm to discuss ways to boost declining fertility rates. They analyze the role of education, long vs short time preferences, and winning over analytical men. Other topics include immigration policy levers, using AI for politics, Ron Paul's electoral success, and more ways to cultivate leaders.Simone: [00:00:00] You're really good at being evil,Malcolm: Simone. Thank you, Malcolm. How can we use an AI to win a local election? Yeah, thisSimone: is, this is the question that we're going to have to figure out in the coming years. And of course,Bryan Caplan: in equilibrium, the problem is other people are going to be using it too.Malcolm: I agree with you. So the goal Is to use a short term advantage to get into the political system, then become president and then change us out of this abysmal voting system we have now. You know, as you have pointed out, democracies are just not very efficient.Bryan Caplan: Oh God..Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello again. We are very excited to have Brian Kaplan joining us for this episode of Basecamp in addition to being a New York times bestselling author of.Simone: Quite a few really awesome books. Many of which are on some of our favorite topics. Brian Kaplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University and extremely well informed about the positions he holds. Whereas I don't know, sometimes we just like to be a lot moreMalcolm: philosophically. If you want to go over some of the topics he writes on pronatalism advocate for.Malcolm: Feminism [00:01:00] causing societal problems being more pro open borders government systems not working, and education systems becoming more broken.Simone: Yeah, you're our kind of guy. We're big fans, Brian. So what we'd like to discuss today, which I think really interests me because you're at a nuanced nexus between these things is the impact of education and how to actually create a delta.Simone: So we, we recently hosted a dinner at which people discussed fostering genius, creating world leaders who would change the trajectory of society, you know, can it be done? Can you do it? And one of the big themes that came up during that dinner was, well, you know, you can't necessarily like great man theory of history.Simone: A lot of people were really critical of it, but they thought, well, one thing that people can do is maybe accelerate the speed at which. Really awesome things happen, you know, like maybe many things are going to happen anyway. But if you can cultivate the right kind of leader or give people the right ideas, they may do it sooner for society than rather than later.Simone: And I thought about this as I was watching an interview with [00:02:00] you. And you said basically that you didn't expect open borders to happen in your lifetime, but that you hoped through the book that you have co published called Open Borders, the Science and Ethics of Immigration, that maybe a generation would read this book.Simone: You know, help to nudge things in a good direction. And you know, you've also written a book about, you know, the case against education which is more about why the traditional education system is not. necessarily worth all the money we throw into it and the time we threw into it.Bryan Caplan: Delete the word necessarily. It's not worth it.Simone: Shots fired from the professor at a university. But yes, no, totally. And so, you know, there's this sort of weird. Like nuanced area that I want to walk around with you in this discussion about well, so we can maybe nudge people in a good direction.Simone: We can maybe speed up the rate at which really awesome things happen, which could really max out in a much more [00:03:00] meaningful way, human productivity and flourishing.Simone: So I'm curious, Brian, what you think interventions are not necessarily traditional education interventions, but interventions in youth and in development that actually are worth investing in are effective and might actually help people either change the trajectory of society or just actively change the trajectory of people and society.Bryan Caplan: Let's see. I'm definitely pro vocational education. Obviously, it's got, you know, there's a lot of problems too, but at least at the end, if it works, you know how to do something and are able to actually contribute more society. Whereas my big read, you can normal education is that it mostly pays just by giving you extra stamps in the forehead, which is great for an individual, but at the level society generates credential inflation, such that you need more degrees just to get the same job as your parents, grandparents, in terms of the things that can be done that work well.Bryan Caplan: Yeah. Well, let's [00:04:00] see. I mean, there's the easy answers, things like vaccines or whatever. I think that the evidence for those is really good. In turn, I mean, I guess I would say that the one that matters the most is one that's near and dear to all

In this video, we discuss traditional gentlemanly behavior and why it has been lost in modern American culture. We explain how acts of deference like opening doors and paying for meals used to signify male dominance when done proactively from a position of power. However, today these acts are often misconstrued as weakness due to discomfort with class differences. We explore the importance of anticipating a partner's needs, showing gratitude, and maintaining good form in relationships. Our goal is to revive gentlemanly behavior in a way that displays strong masculinity and high value.Simone: [00:00:00] I think that's one reason why men are misunderstanding what it looks like to be dominant and then ending up just kind of acting like trailer trash when they try to be dominant, you know, it's just you know, they, theyMalcolm: think, Oh my gosh, I love, no, it's true what you're saying, right? every cultural group has different, more refined ways to handle these dominant fights that don't involve two males making themselves look big and then like physically attacking each other. Because that's really costly., and this is what Simone means she mentally is associating this. with lower socioeconomic groups because lower socioeconomic groups like anyone who's resource scarce are going to have less luxury of the ability to suppress these things. And often their families have been in this situation for multiple generations, so they might have lost even the cultural software for how do I handle a dominance fight with another male other than.Malcolm: Puffing myself up and then beating him up.Simone: I [00:01:00] think we've lost we've lost a lot of the ways that people historically demonstrated dominance in, this sounds terrible, sounds really classist, but in a, in a civilized fashion.Would you like to know more?Malcolm: hello,Malcolm: Simone!Simone: Hello, Malcolm. How are you doing? AbsolutelyMalcolm: spectacular today. It is so wonderful to have you back from a business trip. So something happened recently that was really telling for me because, you know, I see this was in some conservative communities and it's something that I'm getting really worried about, which is somebody was like, why do you put your wife's name?Malcolm: First, when you write books and in correspondence, you know, don't you know that you're the man and that that means you're better than her. And so you should be putting all of your stuff first. And I think this shows how far we've descended from, from most traditional cultural beliefs[00:02:00] which is if you look at manners books, that's just polite manners, like opening the door for a woman like, All of these nice little things that guys used to be expected to do for women and then progressive culture came like a glacier and cleaned all of those things clean so clean that we don't remember them almost, you know, with Gen Z's coming around and they're trying to reclaim their masculinity, but in so doing, and so, and so reclaiming this masculine role, They, they, you know, through people like the way that this has been portrayed by individuals like Andrew Tate, it almost comes across as every interaction you have with a woman who like you love and have a longterm relationship with is to some extent to exert your dominance over that woman.Malcolm: Whereas most of the traditional cultures in the world, I say, no, no, no, no, no. It's to make her feel special and treasured and [00:03:00] to protect her. Now, this actually has very big effects if you're talking about long term fertility of a culture. So why do you do like, why? It's not just to be nice. Like I'm not just you know, within my family's life.Malcolm: Putting my wife up on a pedestal to be nice to her. I'm not doing all of these things that we traditionally call manners, like ensuring that I walk on the side of the street where if a car is going to splash us, it splashes me first. Opening doors, all of these little things like that. Standing up from a table when she gets up.Malcolm: I don't, by the way, right. No, I mean, I don't do all of those things just to be like a weirdo. I do them for a very specific reason. It's so that when my daughters See the way I treat my wife, they desire that outcome for themselves in the future. And when my [00:04:00] sons see the way I treat my wife, they treat their own wives that way.Malcolm: And then their own daughters think, Oh, being a wife. It's awesome. And so someone, I wonder, you had talked to me before about what you felt like growing up. Right.Simone: Yeah. Yeah. No. So I thought growing up when I was young just meant, you know, giving a bunch of things up, like giving up your career and then having to take on a whole bunch of additional responsibilities.Simone: So just basically meant more work, but you know, not really being celebrated. Not that my, my father wasn't absolutely amazing to my mother. He was, but there was no like elevated status in, in Silicon Valley, like in the very p

In this video, we dig into why today's billionaires and high status people often have very muscular physiques. We explore how physical attributes like muscularity have historically signaled social status in different ways across different cultures and time periods. From tanned skin to calf muscles to informal clothing, status symbols are always changing. We talk about how steroids and social media are disrupting traditional notions of high status masculinity. Finally, we speculate on what the next big status symbols might be in a social media-dominated world where everyone can fake looking good online.Simone: [00:00:00]Simone: like in the early days of tech CEOs becoming super wealthy, they would wear pretty disrespectfully informal clothes as a flex because they could, And then I think we saw the, like the height of it with Sam Bankman freed.Malcolm: if you look at the billionaires today, , they're pretty buff. They are, they are very muscular And the question is, is why are individuals doing this? I think we need to take a little history lesson hereMalcolm: If you want to understand why Andrew Tate like he talks about low T males, except you can tell by looking at a male's face. How much testosterone they were exposed to when they were in their developmental stages, .Malcolm: , when you look at the far left and the far right, they both seem to have body dysmorphia Would you like to know more?Simone: hello, Malcolm.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. I am excited to talk to you today. So one of the things I've been doing recently, because I was like, okay, well, Andrew Tate's a really big conservative influencer, I wanted to really dive into his longer form content to understand.Malcolm: The underpinnings of his philosophy [00:01:00] and a big part of it is be muscly, lookSimone: like he, he like actively advocates for people to lift.Malcolm: And one of the things he points out, and this is absolutely true is if you look at the billionaires today, the people in our society that are like top of the social hierarchy, presumably a lot of them, whether it's Bezos or Musk recently, I don't know if anyone's seen him recently or Zuckerberg.Malcolm: They're pretty buff. They are, they are very muscular. Actually it's very interesting. So I think many people have this view of Elon Musk from this one shot of him on a yacht , but if you look at like recent pictures of him, he looks Bezos y. That's what I would think.Malcolm: Oh no, doesn't really, okay. Okay but the point being is that you see this sort of across the billionaire class right now, right? And so Andrew Tate's taking that as evidence that, look, once you don't have any other needs, you realize the importance of muscle. And then you'd be like, and as a man, as a man, maybe not as a man.Malcolm: Of course. And throughout [00:02:00] history, here, you can see this. The problem is it's got history. You can't see this what you actually see and what is actually going on here. And this is a very interesting phenomenon to dissect so like, let's talk about luxury cars, right?Malcolm: If you are buying a pointless luxury car to signal your status or build a self narrative of, I am a person with X type of things, you need to actually think about. What you're giving up when you spend three times on a car, what you would otherwise spend. It's the same as muscle. Where there is a level that you need to exercise to be at optimum physical health.Malcolm: And then there's a level way beyond that, where it is about signaling something to your environment or to yourself or changing aspects of your chemistry, which we can also talk about. And the question is, is why are individuals doing this? I think we need to take a little history lesson here to something that my parents pointed out to me when I was growing [00:03:00] up and really helped me contextualize physical status symbols.Malcolm: Okay. So when I was growing up, my house, they actually had a tanning bed in my house. My mom had bought a tanning bed for tanning. And my dad, he pointed out to me, he goes, when I was growing up a long time ago, you go, you go back a long time ago. Having a tan was considered very low class. The reason why having a tan was considered low class back then is because the lower classes did physical, manual labor.Malcolm: So they would get tans, and then the wealthy, and you can see this, this is why historically, you look at the old west or something like that, the high class women would have theseSimone: parasols all the time. No, better than that, have you seen like even middle ages I think, like throughout history riding masks?Simone: They're scary, like women would wear these Yeah,Malcolm: yeah, so throughout most of history, tans were considered very, very, verySimone: low class. Well, and even currently keep in mind, have you seen like [00:04:00] the sort of bikini burqa face mask things? Well, I wantMalcolm: to talk about how this flipped again, okay? Okay, yeah.Malcolm: So then there was a gen

Brian Chau joins Simone and Malcolm to discuss the Alliance for the Future, a new think tank aiming to prevent excessive regulation of AI. They analyze the motivations behind potential AI bans, rebut "doomer" arguments, consider impacts on jobs and culture, and more around ensuring the continued development of transformative technologies. 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

Malcolm and Simone dive deep on the difference between aesthetic conservatism (trappings without core values) and substantive conservatism focused on cultural reproduction. They analyze how to convert people, the role of government restrictions, dominating vs symbiotic cultures, and more keys to building an enduring worldview.Malcolm: [00:00:00] Once you begin to normalize the psychological practices that people are supposed to learn how to undertake on their own. And are supposed to require mental fortitude to enact, you lose the advantage of those practices. This is what I mean by aesthetic conservatism.Malcolm: if you have somebody and you impose restrictions, at the government level, You, make them less likely to convert to your cultural group because the people in your cultural group will have less of a differential societal advantage,Malcolm: if you want to convert the maximum number of people, what you should actually do is impose the minimum number of cultural restrictions on the outside population while putting the maximum effort into controlling the education system. And interestingly, this is to some extent what the progressive urban monoculture has done.Simone: in, An environment that's devoid of a really strong religious base I feel like [00:01:00] these political parties are more strong for people than, than values. People are literally living by the aesthetics of conservatism because there, there is nothing else.Simone: It's just like these sort of hollow philosophical shells that are just following the trappings of a party.Would you like to know more?Simone: Hello, Malcolm Collins.Malcolm: Hello, Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to touch on a topic that's been bugging me recently. Because I think it shows the extent to which our society has fallen that even within conservative circles there has been a clear confusion around the sort of point of conservatism like actually advancing conservative values and the aesthetic of conservatism.Malcolm: Acting in a way that you identify as like aesthetically conservative. And it's not to say that you will not [00:02:00] intrinsically appear aesthetically conservative if you are aligning with conservative values. Actually, here, I'll give a really great example of this that came from one of our recent videos.Malcolm: Where we're talking about porn , and I'm like, , conservative cultural groups evolved to have porn restrictions because it led to people potentially better mental health, but also , having sex more frequently, leading to more kids, leading to more people within that cultural group.Malcolm: And people were like, well, you know, aesthetically, like they still want the government to enact porn restrictions. And I think that this is almost a perfect example. Because who are you helping if you do that? If you have the government enact porn restrictions? Well, it's not the people who naturally would have been able to resist porn due to the cultural group they're a part of, right?Malcolm: So if I'm a Catholic intercalist and I'm trying to get the government to restrict porn, it's not the other conservative Catholics at my church who are benefiting from this. It is... Specifically the people who disagree with me. It is [00:03:00] specifically the people who are most culturally distant from me. And, and worse, I am making whatever positive things my church is offering through this differential cultural value set less because now everyone is practicing this porn restriction thing.Malcolm: And in addition to that, people within my cultural institution, they are now no longer getting any sort of psychological benefit. From consciously choosing to resist this thing in their environment, right? Which is.Simone: Well, so I'm going to push back and I think what, what we may be looking at is an overlap of some, what we call dominant cultures and then conservative cultures, which are often harder cultures, right?Simone: Dominating cultures is the word. Yeah, dominating cultures. So in the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, Malcolm, you describe. Different types of cultures in terms of how they relate to broader society with dominating cultures, generally having the view that [00:04:00] basically everyone should, in an ideal scenario, follow this religion, because if they don't, they're all going to go to hell or experience some other really bad outcome.Simone: This is in contrast to cultures that we, we call in the book, symbiotic cultures, a symbiotic culture is more like the Jewish faith. Calvinists, people who are not like, okay, everyone should join us. Everyone should be one of us. It's more oh, not everyone can be. So these cultures don't have a mandate to force everyone to adhere to their rules, and they don't have a mandate to try to proselytize or convert or save everyone.Simone: So I think what you're talking about here is that there are many hard cultures that are also dominating cultures that feel it is imper