
Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins
811 episodes — Page 7 of 17

China Changing Marriage Law to Increase Birth Rates
In this episode, we delve into China's new policies designed to tackle its demographic decline. We discuss recent changes to marriage and divorce laws, their implications, and how the population is reacting to these changes. We explore the easing of marriage registration, the controversial 30-day cooling-off period for divorces, and the shift in property division laws in favor of the paying spouse. We also touch upon China's broader strategies to increase fertility rates, such as providing financial incentives and lowering the legal marriage age, and analyze their potential effectiveness and social impact. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are going to be going into how China is attempting to deal with its demographic catastrophe it's going through, and one of the ways is through changing how marriage and divorce work in the country. And we had seen a tweet that briefly covered some of the changes that they had in this area.But I wanted to go a lot deeper than this particular tweet into the specifics of how things are changing. How people in China are reacting to it and why they think it might work, ready to dive in, or any thoughts? We go further. I'm intrigued this would happen. We're like, look, people are going to, what's interesting about these changes is I think many red pillars would probably like a lot of them.So we'll see how this goes. You know, they're, they're not all the worst. Oh, okay. W Marriage registration. The revised law proposed in August, 2024 and effective as of February, 2025 removes regional restrictions on marriage registration, allowing couples to register [00:01:00] anywhere in China without needing to return to their household registration.Kuku locations. This simplifies the process aiming to encourage marriage amid demographic crises. Now, it soundsSimone Collins: like marriage before then must have been uniquely difficult one on earth. Is this like needing to return to.Malcolm Collins: This is actually a really interesting point. So, in China you are like sort of owned by your starting district often and to, to move to a new area, it can be quite difficult and require permission from the central government, almost like changing citizenship.Yeah, almost like changing citizenship. And if you're like a migrant worker or something like that, you often need to go back to your home area for certain like legal things. What's really fascinating about this is where this relates to religious history. Oh. A lot of people like modern, historians and stuff like this have said that they do not believe that Joseph had to return to his hometown during the census. Because they're like, that doesn't make sense. [00:02:00] How could a Roman census work where literally everyone who had ever moved at some point in their life had to return to their hometown at the same time for a census?And I think what they're not taking into consideration is one. We see this in other countries like China, even today, basically. Yeah. And two not as many people moved in those types of environments where your legal standing was in large part, tied to where you were born. Probably in the Roman Empire or something like that.If you moved too far from where you were born, somebody could just take you and say you're their slave, right? Like, there, there, there wasn't a lot you could legally do. So it was quite dangerous. To move long distances during those time periods and try to live somewhere else, unless your job was trading and if you were a trader, you'd have guards and stuff like that.And it was quite a different thing than just like moving. But anyway, I, I find that to be a good thing. They are loosening bureaucratic bloat.Simone Collins: 100%. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: China's marriage rate has plummeted with only 6.1 million marriages [00:03:00] recorded in 2024. A 20.5% drop from 2023. Year over year, it dropped by over 20%. And this was the lowest since 1986.This decline coupled with low birth rates, has prompted the government to promote family friendly policies, quote unquote, family friendly which is wild. Divorce proceedings. The 30 day cooling off period first introduced in 2021 under China's civil code is retained and emphasized in the 2025 revision.Couples filing for divorce by mutual consent must wait 30 days during which either party can withdraw the application effectively halting the process. Wow. If no withdrawal occurs, they must reapply within another 30 days to finalize the divorce. Otherwise, the application is automatically withdrawn and canceled.Simone Collins: Oh, so just adding friction to the process. They're, they're reducing friction to get married, adding friction to get divorced.Malcolm Collins: Exactly. [00:04:00] And obviously a lot of people are freaking out about the what, like what if he's abusive? Well, we'll get to that because it sounds like they haven't thought of that, but anyway.Simone Collins: Hmm.Malcolm Collins: This period has significantly reduced divorce

Why God King Sam Altman is Unlikely: Who Will Capture the Value of the AI Revolution?
In this engaging discussion, Simone and the host explore the future of AI and its effects on the economy. They delve into questions about who will benefit most from AI advancements: large corporations or individuals using AI models. The conversation spans the significance of token layer versus latent layer in AI development, where major innovations may occur, and the potential for AI to achieve superintelligence. They also discuss the implications of AI on job training, investments, and societal transformation, along with a creative perspective on how AI can be harnessed for various purposes, including transforming industries. The duo imagines a future driven by interconnected AI systems and explores the philosophical aspects of AI mimicking human brain functions. Don't miss this thought-provoking episode that offers insights into the trajectory of AI and its profound impact on society. Malcolm Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be focusing on a question, which is, as AI changes the way the economy works, who is going to be the primary beneficiary of this? Is it going to be the large companies that make and own the ais, or is it going to be the people using the individual AI models?The, the I like we all know, for example, like in probably 10 years from now, there will be an AI that can, let's say, replace. Most lawyers, let's say the bottom 50% of lawyers.Simone Collins: Well, and already studies have shown AI therapists perform better on many measures. There's, there's, it's already exceeding our capacity in so many places.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They, they introduced it to a Texas school system and it shot to the top 1% of, of student outcomes. So as we see this, where is the economic explosion from this going to be concentrated? Because this is really important in determining what types of jobs you should be looking [00:01:00] at these days, how you should be training yourself, how you should be raising your kids, where you should be investing.The second question we're going to look at because it directly follows from the first question, okay, is, does the future of ai, when we're looking at the big world changing advancements that are going to come from it, are they going to appear on the token layer or at the latent layer? So can you defineSimone Collins: those differences?Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So by this what I mean is. When we look at continued AI advancement, is it going to happen in the layer of the base model IE the thing that open AI is releasing and Claude is releasing and everything like that? Or is it going to be in the token layer, the people who are making wrappers for the ai?For example, the Collins Institute is fundamentally a wrapper on preexisting ais. Our AI game company is a series of wrappers on ai. And if it turns out that the future of AI is in the token layer, it leans potentially more to, if not the big companies that are gonna capture the value [00:02:00] from this.Mm. And then the next question we're gonna look at is the question of. What gets us to ai, super intelligence? And I might even start with this one because if we look at recent reports with ai, a big sort of thing that we've been finding is that especially with like open AI's 4.5 model is that it's not as advanced as people thought it would be.It didn't get the same huge jump in capacity that people thought it would get. And the reason , is that pre-training IE. , the ways that you sort of train AI on the preexisting data before you do, like the narrow or like focus training after you've created the base model doesn't appear to have the as big an effect as it used to have.So it was working on, I think, 10 x the information of model four and yet it didn't appear dramatically better. And so one of the questions is, so that's, that's one area where pre-training doesn't seem to be having the same effect, and I think we can [00:03:00] intuit why. But the second big issue , is that the amount of information that we actually have, like, you know, peak oil theory, there's like , a peak pre AI information theory problem, which is it just eventually when you're dealing with these massive, massive data sets, runs out of new information to train on.So first. I love your intuition before I color it. Do you think, if you look at the future of LLMs base models so we're not talking about LLMs entirely, we're not talking about anything like that. Do you think that the base models will continue to improve dramatically?Simone Collins: I think they will. And at least based on people more experienced than this, , than I am, they will, but in lumpy ways.Like they'll get really, really, really good at programming. And they'll get really, really good at different esoteric forms of like developing their own synthetic data and using that to sharpen themselves, but that they're going to be severe diminishing marginal returns when it comes to some things that are already pretty advan

NY Times: The Vitalists Will Replace the Weak!?
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm dive into a provocative op-ed recently published in The New York Times, exploring ideas that seem to align with their prenatal advocacy. The hosts discuss key excerpts from the article, contemplating the necessity of cultural and traditional preservation amidst the digital revolution. They scrutinize the New York Times readers' surprisingly positive reactions and debate the implications of a world leaning towards either radical change or nostalgic preservation. Tune in for an engaging conversation on modern cultural dynamics, tech-driven societal shifts, and the future of human existence. The song: Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I just read an article that shook me because it was an op-ed in the New York Times. It came out very recently. It seems to have potentially been instigated by our prenatals advocacy.That was one of the most based things I have ever read in an ultra progressive newspaper, but coded in a way that hid how based it was.Simone Collins: Well, that you, you have to, if they actually framed it as. Not being progressive, then no one would read it.Malcolm Collins: I will read a quote from it before we go into it deeper just to give our audience like an idea of what to expect.Simone Collins: Okay.Malcolm Collins: Have the child practice the religion, found the school support, the local cedar, the museum, the opera, or the concert hall, even if you can see it all on YouTube, pick up the paintbrush, the ball, and the instrument. Learn the language, even if there's an app for it. Learn to drive even if you think Waymo or Tesla will drive for you.Put up headstones. Don't burn your dead. Sit with the child. Open the book and read as the bottleneck tightens. All survival will [00:01:00] depend on heating. Once again, the ancient abian. I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.Therefore, choose life that you and your offspring may live.Simone Collins: But if we don't burn our bodies, we can't turn the carbon into diamonds. You can't do biodiesel. He's anMalcolm Collins: anti biodiesel activist. Ugh. He doesn't want us to turn the poor and the old into biodiesel, confirm progressive Curtis guard andSimone Collins: commanded.I mean, I, I'm all for Tibetan sky burials, but I'm pretty sure they're illegal in the United States.Malcolm Collins: I love that. That's what you focus on. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting one there, that you might even ask ai why he's asking us to burn to, to not burn dead people.Simone Collins: Burying the dead. I mean, if you're, especially if you're doing it in a graveyard, that's not very, I would say environmentally friendly or sustainable if you're doing it in your backyard, I mean, that's great, but also that could lead to.Property sale problems, future crime issues. 'cause they all assume it's a, you know, murder.Malcolm Collins: What, Simone, that's not the whiter point here. Point. No, clearly. But yeah,Simone Collins: no [00:02:00] hearing that. Whoa. There are enough keywords in there to say I am a progressive And this is a progressive editorial like opera, museum opera.Yes. Hundred percent. Yeah. LoveMalcolm Collins: his key words. I love he starts, if you look at the beginning of it, it's all stuff that we personally are doing. Have the child practice the religion, found the school. Do you think he like knows like what we're working on or he is like, yeah, that's like the most vitalist things you could do.And they're trying to wake the left up to this and I just don't know if it's doable when 17% of the left not sorry, 70% of Americans, so this might be like 40% of the left says that by a survey that we did that the planet would be better if no humans existed. Like things would be better. So any thoughts before we go deeper into this?Simone Collins: Let's go deeper. I, I'm, this is, this is a good sign though. I wanna see where you're taking this and what their point of their article was.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, there's been so many New York Times articles on us. In the past weeks, we've had, I'd say maybe eight articles referenced us in the New York [00:03:00] Times, or maybe 10 in the past two weeks.And a number of them have been op-eds and some of 'em are just like crazy. Like I don't go into the ones that are just like. Crazy in a not fun way. Like one of them was like, you can solve this with immigration. Like that's, they're, they're pro they said that the new prenatal list movement is going to fail the, the MAGA prenatal list movement.It's like, oh, what? Like you can't solve this with immigration. Like, show this.Simone Collins: Well, someone listen to us.Malcolm Collins: But okay. I, I'm not, I'm not talking about like ethically, I mean like logistically, like it would be very difficult. But let's get into this. And this was written by somebody called by Ross. Do.But, and I'm just reading the best parts, the parts I found most interesting.Simone Collins: Awesome.Malcolm Collins: But the ag

The Meme Wars: 4Chan Was Murdered For Betraying Wojak
In this episode, we explore the intriguing story of 4Chan's downfall and the rise of SoyJack Party. The discussion delves into the history and cultural shifts within 4Chan, its eventual corruption, and how a new ironic far-right culture emerged from SoyJack Party. We also touch on the significant hack known as 'Operation Soy Eclipse' that exposed 4Chan's vulnerabilities. Join us for an in-depth analysis of how internet culture is evolving and what it means for the future of online communities. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the hacker known as four Chan and how he died, you know, no, no. Four chan is, and I would argue, and one of the arguments of this episode is gonna be, you don't even, to be so sad, the four chan environment had become.So corrupted by the time of its death that nothing of the host survived. Wow.All right. I'm not talking to that thing in your head. I'm talking to Skara. Nothing of the host survives. Your friend had a feeble mind. It suffered greatly and gave it easily.Malcolm Collins: You know, it, it was, it was no longer the site that it used to be. And that its death was not like wokes or something coming for it. It was the new form of new Right. Culture coming for it, attacking the old rights, [00:01:00] pathetic extremism.Right. You know? Okay.I always thought the Freakazoid theme song seemed bizarrely spot on as a theme songFor OG four Chan culture.So let's see if I can get away with posting it. Istextbook case by Seman. Check your computer.Malcolm Collins: Anything you wanna say or you know about this before I go deeper?Simone Collins: I actually don't know anything about this and so I am extremely curious to see what has happened because I remember for a while it was four chan and then there was eight Chan and I don't know who's what or where's where. It all seemed so ephemeral to begin with, so I'm very keen to hear what's going on 'cause I never really hung out Fortune, unfortunately.Malcolm Collins: [00:02:00] Yeah, I mean, I've always been adjacent to it and everything like that, and I've read it, but I've never really enjoyed like posting in it. Mm-hmm. I, I just, I might. Be a humble man. But I just really enjoy when people aate me for my post every Yes. This, this I, thisSimone Collins: anonymity thing reallyMalcolm Collins: isn'tSimone Collins: ourMalcolm Collins: game.Every other major new right figure, you know, you, you talk about like Bronze Age pervert or like R nationalists or like any of these people, they all started pseu anonymously, not me. Oh, no, no. Even just play video gamesSimone Collins: to no audience at all. You either play as yourself or as one of our kids. So like you're still like, it's always you in some way.Yes. Everybody mustMalcolm Collins: praise me. I, why would I write something without expectation of adoration?Simone Collins: Well, no, but even in video games, that's my point though, is even when there's literally, I. No audience, you still want to be yourself or us. 'cause you identify as your familyMalcolm Collins: or Yeah, yeah. I typically do. Well, or [00:03:00] one of my descendants or something like that is like, what am I, I'm like, okay, this is like a hypothetical descendant or something.So that's, that's just the way I interact with the world. It needs to be me. Okay, buddy. But anyway, and I, I love that this is antithetical to the new Right. In many ways because all the other new Right. We're all, you know, whether it's, it's, it's, you know, zero HP or Bronze Age pervert or R Nationalist, and yet I'm like,Simone Collins: here I am.Malcolm Collins: But it doesn't mean that I wasn't influenced by four Chan culture and I didn't enjoy four Chan culture, but I do think that it lived out its lifecycle. So let's talk about why. Let's talk about what happened.Simone Collins: Yeah. Wow. This is the end of an era. If, if this is real, how it's playing out, and it mayMalcolm Collins: not come back.It really may not. So the, the what took it down with a hack called Operation Soy Eclipse. And I'm gonna try to give you guys the most comprehensive view of this. Okay? Anywhere fine. The story begins in September, 2020 when four chance's, QA questions, an answered board was banned. This board originally a space for meta discussions has become a hub for [00:04:00] a specific subculture of users who reveled in creating and sharing soy jack memes.Caricatures, mocking perceived weaknesses of their ideological opponents. So if you're not familiar with soy jacks, I will throw some on screen for you here. You definitely know what they are. They're those little like, outlines of characters. When you think of like a meme face, that's soy jack, frequently.When four Chan's moderators shut down qa, these users felt betrayed, accusing the site of stifling their community. In response, a user known as Scoot launched soy jack party or soy jack party, a new image board dedicated to

Was Banishing Libs to the Bluesky Crystal a Mistake?!
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the heated debate surrounding Blue Sky, a social media platform touted by its creators as a progressive haven. The conversation covers the consequences of isolating ideologically extreme communities, the risks of radicalization in echo chambers, and the comparison with X (formerly Twitter). With insights into user behaviors, platform demographics, and some humorous anecdotes, this discussion is both thought-provoking and entertaining. Tune in to understand the philosophical and practical implications of Blue Sky's existence and whether it’s beneficial or detrimental to public discourse. Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to beMalcolm Collins: with you here today. Today we are going to be discussing as people with a tech writer, new right perspective. Is blue sky a good thing or a bad thing? Because part of me feels a bit like. We ban there, there was this meme for a while that the left was going to be banished in crystals.And that we were gonna trap them there under the Trump administration and was Blue Sky, it's like it came through, it's like in Superman, where the enemy is banished to a crystal and then shot into outer space where they can't interact with anyone else. And they're like, ah, no more harm.[00:01:00]Malcolm Collins: But then on the other side you're like, well.Is it really good to like isolate these communities where they can radicalize? Did we want this,Speaker 5: My safe space. People don't judge me and haters don't hate In my safeMalcolm Collins: that people forget how bad these communities used to be. And do not remember like how evil leftists actually are. And because I, we've heard, you know, you are on NPR and, and the guy was like, oh no, normal leftist would ever say that.And you're like, literally. Every day somebody says I'm a Nazi. Like I know you say, no normal leftist would ever say this, but they do. So first I wanna get into what I mean by all of this. So blue sky, if you just look at the numbers and you're not being delusional. But we will go into the rest of the numbers 'cause they're actually pretty interesting.Gets about 3.5 million active users a day and. X, on the other hand, gets 259 million active users a day, [00:02:00] which means that blue sky is getting 1.35% the users of X. Yeah. Or Twitter.Simone Collins: It's so small. It's so small. I didn't realize before going into this just how small it was.I had no idea.Malcolm Collins: Basically nobody uses it. Yeah. Except for and, and, and I will note that enough of the people who used to participate in like cancellation mods mobs use it. Yeah. We have gone viral on blue sky, like, I don't know, last weekend or something. Mm-hmm. And we have stopped going viral on Twitter entirely.We used to do this thing called media baiting, where we try to freak out progressives, you know, she dressed like a handmaid, right? And then they'd come do some prenatal list piece on us, and then we do something to freak 'em out. And then we go viral. And it was great for, you know, growing attention.Growing interest. And yet it doesn't work anymore. Like literally cancellation stopped working in part because everyone involved in them went to Blue Sky. And now they're just yelling at each other.Simone Collins: Although I, I will say [00:03:00] that it's not just like we went viral on it last weekend or last week. I.There are posts about us from all sorts of time ranges, and there's also this concerted desire in the community to not talk about us along the lines of that one article saying, stop talking about Simone and Malcolm Collins. One person on Blue Sky, Lizzie O'Leary posted. I think you call it Skitting 'cause you're skying slash tweeting.She skied, I am issuing an executive order banning writing about Malcolm and Simone Collins anymore on February 4th, 2025, which was quite a while ago. Actually, it didn't work because we've gone viral on blue sky since then. It really didn't. Yeah, and like people, people just like to go on there and make fun of us for.No particular reason. On April 14th, max posted, whenever I see that one eugenics couple, I think they look like a pair of protractors that were brought to life by a magic wishing star. It's life. [00:04:00] By a magic wishing star. Yeah. Then what? I guess, I guess I could look like a ProTrac. I guess he means I'm skinny.He must be in a world where like, I think like a, a protractor. I think they're just thinking like, can I think of a nerdy object and then humanize it with magic? I, I don't know though. I mean, progressive,Malcolm Collins: you're doing the Yankee thing, so we've been thinking like, what can I dress as if she's gonna dress as like a pilgrim, like full Japanese Yankee as like the hair back, the whole greaser out.I'm soSimone Collins: for it. I'm ready.Malcolm Collins: I'm, I'm still a little too timid to do the full podo look, but we'll see. We'll see. No,Simone Collins: no. Give it time. You

Pulling the Thread: Lime Mines, Assassination, JFK, Elon Musk
In this episode, we delve into the intriguing history of the Iron Mountain Underground Facility in Boyers, Pennsylvania—a former limestone mine converted for secure document storage by the US government. Discover how over 700 employees manually process 10,000 retirement applications each month in an outdated system plagued by inefficiencies and alleged misuse of funds. We also explore broader implications involving government corruption, deep state operations, and the political figures benefiting from bureaucratic grifts. This eye-opening discussion reveals the hidden layers of bureaucracy and the systemic challenges in modernizing government operations. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] they had an opportunity to buy it and instead it was bought, not just buy a, a shady company. Like why didn't they buy the mine? Mines don't have many other uses. Yeah. Who else is gonna useSimone Collins: a retired limestone Mine.Malcolm Collins: It. It should have been scrap basically in terms of buying and should able to say, well, if you don't want this mine, we'll go to another mine.That's why the world isSimone Collins: full of abandoned mines.Malcolm Collins: Exactly, so why did another company come along and buy it and now has a leasing agreement with the United States? That makes no sense.Let's take a walk. You think Zoolander is in trouble? Think again. What you stumbled upon goes way deeper than you could ever fathom.Malcolm Collins: And then JFK apparently was going to do a major restructuring of these organizations. Oh. And cut back within these organizations. Oh no,Simone Collins: I see where you're going here.Malcolm Collins: And Trump was running on doing the same thing. And if you look at [00:01:00] how the assassination atti, the assassination of JFK happenedWould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you today. Today we are going to be discussing, remember what Elon was like.It turns out they've been taking all of those government files and all that government paperwork whenever somebody retired and it needed to be stored in a lime mine limestone,Simone Collins: Pennsylvania, our own home state,Malcolm Collins: Pennsylvania. Yes. And there were at least pictures that that looked like a. Indiana Jones, when they're wheeling the big cart of things that are going down.The Holy Grail. TheSimone Collins: holyMalcolm Collins: Grail. Yeah. So I heard that and I was like, oh, wow, that's wild. I wonder how that started. And then recently, like the thought hit me again and I was like, oh, wow. That's wild. I wonder why they were doing that. Like, yeah. Why and how did all of the federal documents, like if it was just some big [00:02:00] warehouse.I'd be like, okay,Simone Collins: right, maybe, but like having to take it down in an elevator and being able to retire only so many people per month because. The elevator takes a long time and you can't put that many files down all at once. That'sMalcolm Collins: yeah,Simone Collins: thatMalcolm Collins: was like, wait, what? Yeah. Oh, I should probably double click on this.Simone Collins: Yeah. So let's double click. Yeah. Okay.Malcolm Collins: The Iron Mountain and, and this is not me reading from an article I was going through and, and putting some, some things out was grok to try to like figure out what's, what's going on with this.Simone Collins: Oh, alright. Okay.Malcolm Collins: Gotcha. The Iron Mountain Underground Facility in Boyers, Pennsylvania.A former limestone mine converted for storage in the 1960s. The US government, particularly the Office of Personnel Management, OPM, began using it in 1970 for processing and storing retirement documents driven by the need for a secure climate controlled environment. Over 700 employees work. 220 feet underground, manually processing around 10,000 retirement applications monthly.[00:03:00]This manual system unchanged since the 1970s involves passing the files by hand leading to delays, especially when the elevator breaks down. Despite efforts to the one elevator. The one elevator. Yeah. Since the 1980s costing over a hundred million dollars modernization has failed. So they've spent over a hundred million dollars and we're gonna do a dive on that with a 2014 Washington Post report, calling it a quote unquote sinkhole of bureaucracy in 2015.Okay? Concerns about the mines ceiling degrading were raised, but no significant changes followed. That reminds me of 30 Rock whereThe Celia appears to be leaky. No, it's not. We've looked into it and it's not. Uh, if you have any questions, I'll write down my extension for you.Do you need a pen? Nope. I've kind of gotten used to it. You don't have pens? We're not in a recession. Boy, we've gotta crack the whip around here. Coer. You don't have [00:04:00] pens. The roof is leaking. No, it's not. I'll show you this study. Hey, we have a meeting with the appropriations committee like now. Oh no. I'm not prepared.I know I'm not drunk either, but we'll manag

Dating For Marriage: Why Red Pill Strategies Backfire
In this episode, we explore the two key topics: how to secure and convert high-quality partners and how to avoid hypergamy in relationships. The discussion delves into personal examples and broader societal observations, including the dynamics that made the hosts' relationship successful. We also touch on the pitfalls of traditional and urban monoculture relationship paradigms, and the importance of having an aligned objective function for a stable partnership. Insights on effective dating strategies, transparency, and ideological alignment in relationships are shared to help viewers navigate their own journey to finding a lasting and fulfilling relationship. Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. I'm really excited to be talking with you today. I am a woman, a wolf, I'm hypergamous, I'm evil. And I'm going to tell you exactly why I chose my husband, who of course I will discard someday for a better, I mean, maybe let's find out specifically the two concepts we're going to be discussing in this episode.is how I secured Simone as a wife. And the second is IE, why did she develop feelings for me from her own perception? Why did she decide to marry me when before this she had been very urban monoculture, very in that bubble, you know, how do you secure and convert, not just secure, but convert high quality women?And then second, how do you avoid hypergamy? We're talking about this because a lot of people following this podcast are interested in finding a wife and also many of the ambitious, intelligent, successful young women they're dating are [00:01:00] also very urban monoculture pill. They're just like me. They never want to have kids.They want to focus on their career. They're the idea of pregnancy is abhorrent to them. So maybe we can use me as a case study delve into my previous brain and at least the, the dynamics that enabled. Malcolm's in my relationship to happen to see if maybe some of this might be replicated for you if this is a goal of yours.And then how to avoid hypergamy, which I would argue is made likely by overly trad relationships. Both being too overly urban monoculture or overly trad makes you very at risk for hypergamy. That's interesting. The first thing I think of when you mentioned that is when it comes to careers, the smart thing is to switch careers every few years because you're able to get a better income.And I wonder if the same dynamic is the case when your career is being a wife, like after a few years, especially if you feel like you're appreciating in value, like if you're building an online following or you're getting hotter in any way, like if you're actually a terrible wife trading [00:02:00] up and being hypergamous is, is actually the logical thing to do.That's interesting. Sorry. Well, let's start with you and why you chose me and what guys have Gotten your eye before. Yeah, so I have a very consistent track record of people I've had crushes on since I was a teen the universal factor is Having a unique passion for something in your life, knowing who you are and being very transparent about it and unapologetic about it.In other podcasts, we've, we've alluded to this like very embarrassing crush I had on this guy who was really into Catholic doctrine. And I would go to his dorm room bringing all these cupcakes and asking him hard questions about Catholicism. Cause it was just like my excuse to like get him to talk to me more.I had crushes on people. who were, you know, ended up, he ended up, he's like, Oh, Simone, I've enjoyed these discussions with you so much. I've decided to become a priest. And she's like, [00:03:00] no, this is how good my game is. For those who don't know, Catholic priests can't marry or date. So yeah, that was, yeah.I know it worked out really well. Come on, Malcolm. I'm really all is as it should be. I want to take a few notes on what you're saying here because Simone is not unique in this fact. Not at all. Most high value women I know have this profile in terms of what that like gets them excited about a partner.And A lot of the guys I know when they are pursuing women do not pursue them using these techniques and we'll go over the techniques that they use that are really ineffective. The first, I think one thing I'll just note is even when you look at a lot of the crushes that take place in fictional universes it's often on guys who.I have no interest in women are not like, Oh, I'm here. Cause I'm like powerful and cool. It's men who are extremely passionate about whatever it is. Like be that revenge or [00:04:00] saving their kingdom or something else. It's people who know who they are and have a mission and are pursuing it. And these are the women, this, these are the men to whom women want to hitch their wagons.Yep. Lots of Luigi Mini Gionni fan fictions going around right now. I was just watching that. Oh dear. But I, I. I want to explain one, why this is the case. And two, the, the reason why guys are making mistakes is the first mista

Are Cucks More Based than Kink Shamers?
In this episode, the hosts engage in a deep discussion about the controversial downfall of Jack Murphy, a former conservative influencer, and whether kink shaming should have a place in the new right ideology. They explore sexual fetishes, societal norms around sexuality, and the implications of shaming non-normative arousal patterns. The conversation also touches on traditional values, arousal pathways, and the potential consequences of making private sexual preferences public. Join us for a candid, thought-provoking discussion on the balance between sexual morality and personal freedom in conservative spaces. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I had an interesting thing that happened in an episode recently where Ry Nationalist was on. We were talking about Jack Murphy, who used to be a famous sort of conservative influencer who had this, this club and this podcast and everything like that.And then it turned out that he was in to being, I. Cued specifically his girlfriend sleeping with other people and into putting things in his butt and this, we're gonna go over all of that. I wasn't like, we weren't conservative influencers when that happened, right. So, like, we had nothing to say on that, when that happened, but when I heard this, my first intuition was to be like, oh, I feel kind of bad for him.Like. I didn't have like embarrassing fetishes that I had to worry about like that, you know, like this is what turned him on, you know? And you don'tSimone Collins: get to choose what turns you on and what turns you on isn't a reflection of your morality either.Malcolm Collins: Yeah.Tamura, I [00:01:00] miss me something. My computer's hard drive. I need you to dump it in the bathtub and fry it. All done. Please rest in peace, Satoru.Malcolm Collins: And it made me think a question, right? Like. I want to go into all of this again, and I want to go into it, you know, as the, the new right.And the tech right is sort of consolidating as a ideological perspective. Okay. And you and I are some of the, I'd say primary, regular influencers shaping that ideological perspective. What should be like as we unc, UNC ourselves from the left, as we Debra de brainwash, deprogram ourselves, what should our perspective be on kink shaming?I like is kink shaming [00:02:00] something that we should continue to do? Is it certain kinks where we should continue to do it? And here, I would note when I talk about kink shaming, and I need to be as clear as I can about this,Simone Collins: hmm.Malcolm Collins: This does not include instances in which somebody else without your consent forces you to participate in their kink.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. ThatSimone Collins: is,Malcolm Collins: that's very different. They talk to you about their kink. That means they dress up as their kink in a public context. That means they go to children's book readings in their kink. Here I am talking about things that people do in private, and the reason why I think it's, it's bad to pretend like.All kinks are bad is, well, our book, the Pregnant Guided Sexuality, we did a, a survey on this just to see how common kinks are, right? Like non-normative arousal patterns. And we found that the average person is aroused by 22 weird things. People have. K people have a, a . I need to cut that out.'cause I had no more swearing on this show. [00:03:00] Mm-hmm. A basket of kinks. It was 23.1 for men and 20.8 for women. So not even like that different. And if you're like, how clustered are these? There was a study of 2,300 people in the UK showing that roughly 75% had some kink. So the vast of people. Have a kink.Mm-hmm. Our society works because we do not talk about it.Alright, kid. Here's the deal. At any given time,Around 75% of the people you interact with are perverts in some way.Most of them right here in Manhattan, and most of 'em are decent enough. They're just trying to make a living cab drivers not as many as you'd think. Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either.They're happy, they think they have a good bead on things, but why? Why a big secret? People are smart. They can handle it. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals. And you know it. 1500 years ago, everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. [00:04:00] 500 years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat.And 15 minutes ago you knew that people wereMostly just turned on by the opposite sex.Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.What's the catch? The catch? The catch isjust because you're aroused by something doesn't mean you have to indulge in itAnd That doesn't mean it's okay to talk about this stuff in public. You keep that to yourselfor.you will sever every human contact. Nobody will ever know you exist anywhere, ever.I'll give you the sunrise to think it over.Hey, is it worth it?Malcolm Collins: If you're strong enough.But it's, it's a thing where it's like you can have something unusual that arouse

Is Religion Dying in America? The Worrying Stats
In this episode, we dive into the alarming state of religion in the United States with shocking statistics and insights. We discuss the significant decline in church attendance and religiosity among Americans, highlighting key findings from various studies, including the Pew Research Center's Religious Landscape Study. The conversation reveals a startling drop in religious affiliation, particularly among younger generations, and examines how different religious groups, such as Mormons and Catholics, are faring. We also explore the implications of these trends for the future of religion in America and the potential societal impacts. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be discussing the horrifying state of religion in the United States. I'll be discussing some statistics I found, and you'll be discussing the statistics you found. Mm-hmm. The fifth one that I found that was shocking, where there was a recent study where they looked at where people were going in the United States using cell phone data.Mm-hmm. And they found out that despite 21 to 24% of Americans saying they attend church weekly, only 5% do. Which is way lower rate of religiosity than anyone expected.Simone Collins: Why would you lie about going to church on a survey? We'll get to that when we get to the interesting stuff. What is your, the gist of what I found is that religion is literally dying in the United States in every measurable way, and specifically by dying.I mean that the only people who still had God were the old ones. This isn't even about young people losing their faith. They never had it.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and this is something that people really get [00:01:00] wrong, is they look at the pupil where it showed religion going, not going down this year in the United States, and they think that that's an indication that the erosion of traditional religion in the United States is over.It is not. But let's go into the dataSimone Collins: so with regard to the United States and what the pew, and by the way, you should definitely check out the interactive tools with this pew research to give some background, has a religious landscape study.This spans over 17 years. They first did it in 2020, 2007. Then they did it in 2014, then they were gonna do it again in 2021, you know, every seven years. But then. You know, pandemic. So they actually did it 20, 23, 24. So you get this really wide span and you're able to see really how quickly over this 17 year period, we lost God.So, basically what happened was we went from 16% of Americans being religiously unaffiliated, like, you know, not that many to over 29%. So almost, almost a third of Americans just aren't religiously affiliated. And I would say it's [00:02:00] gonna be higher than that because they considered other religions to be things like Unitarian Universalists and spiritual people of like new age and that no, like dangling crystals does not make you religious.I'm so sorry. What? People fallMalcolm Collins: into that category other.Simone Collins: It's, it's like one, 1%, so very, very little. Now 2% actually. So it was 1% around 20 2007, and then around 2% in 2014. But I still, you know, that's. That ain't religious. So everything, I thinkMalcolm Collins: before we get into the statistics, the reason why a lot of people from religious communities aren't seeing this is because they are from religious communities.Yeah. And definitionally, it's the people when they leave your community. I. That they are disappearing from your religion so you no longer see them, you know, when they move or whatever. Mm-hmm. This is and, and people when they deconvert from religions, don't do it for the reasons people think.The, the number one reason why people stop attending church is just because they moved and they didn't, they didn't start going. Yeah, [00:03:00] because it was,Simone Collins: it was a community thing. It was a friend group thing. It's very similar to our models of friendship where you have. Convenience friends who are basically just the people that you were friends with because they lived right next to you.And I think a lot of people grew up, and especially this is the old people who are now dying, they were only religious because it was convenience, religion, that being a part of your community kind of mandated your being religious or showing up at church. 'cause that was also culturally normative. And you get a lot of side eye.Suspicion if you didn't show up at church. So they did it, but it was convenience religion. It wasn't utility religion. People didn't practice religion because they, on the whole, because they found it really helped them perform better in life, even if it did. And so,Malcolm Collins: and, and, and so this is why when Covid came and people started doing religious services from home mm-hmm.And all of these communities stopped, many of them never really fully reopened. That 5% number that I gave you that was measured before C

The Aesthetics of the New Right With Raw Egg Nationalist (Birth of a New Subversive Art Movement)
Join us as we delve into a riveting conversation with Raw Egg Nationalist, the mind behind the provocative 'Man's World' magazine. In this episode, we explore the unique aesthetic philosophy of the new right, its cultural significance, and the inspirations behind the artistic movement. We discuss the rebirth of men's magazines, the influence of anime and Greco-Roman aesthetics, and the importance of producing engaging and beautiful art in today's sociopolitical landscape. This video is a must-watch for those interested in understanding the burgeoning right-wing cultural scene and its impact on contemporary art and literature. Don't miss this engaging and thought-provoking discussion! Malcolm Collins: . [00:00:00] Hello everyone. I'm excited to be here. We have a raw egg nationalist with us again. I am so excited. And what we wanted to talk about is, I was looking at his, his, his magazine. I'd never seen a print copy before Man's World. And hold it, hold it up so they can see the anime girls and everything.'cause you're, it'sSimone Collins: perfection. Yes.Malcolm Collins: And I'll try to put like one on the screen here if I remember, and you can, you can turn it over to show sort of the back of it. But when I was looking at this, you know, like Shinzo, Abe, big titty, anime girl, Trump like, and missile also justSimone Collins: the formatting in general though, like, I remembered.From my, my childhood years, just really loving, for example, wired magazine because just had this incredible formatting and layout and I've missed that. And we're seeing it again here. And it's just so fun to see like this. Well, yeah, I go to one of us whereMalcolm Collins: it's like racist or whatever, right. You see how they did our article in it.But the reason I find this interesting, and I wanted to focus on it, is the, the new right has developed a very unique aesthetic philosophy. Mm-hmm. [00:01:00] And I think that this covers, sort of perfectly represents it so people understand it's not just Malcolm saying like the, the, the, the alt-right cat girl phenomenon or whatever.Yeah. No proof.Simone Collins: This is not just in Malcolm's head. This is awesome and it's here.Malcolm Collins: And, and I'll also put a sargon of a cod, a tweet here.死んだ は 初めて 俺 に 伝えて いる 絶望 の 匂い だ 面白い こと 見せよう か ほら こんな に ガチン が 多 すぎて お父さん アカン ドナルド君 は まだ 死ぬ 時 じゃ ない でしょ ア アメリカ 万歳 さよなら ここで 絶対 負けない よ ランドトゥライド まで 出ろ だ って まだ サンキュー 言ってない でしょ 一回 も 言って ください おい[00:02:00]仲良く して この 世界 に 傷ついて いける かな 昔 グレート だった 大きに また グレート に なるかな あの さ 有名人 なら 誰か の マンコ 掴んで さ そうそう そうそう やらせる でMalcolm Collins: Which I found amazing where they had like anime style Trump and over the top, and I thought it was the best. But I, yeah. I'd love to just hear your thoughts, how you constructed this and how you think about this sort of aesthetic move because it's really a new artistic movement that is starting and I don't think many people are cataloging or talking about.Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah. So I mean, so I started Mans World really by accident. You know, I was, thinking of, well, I mean, I write about masculinity a lot. You know, that's one of, that's my bread and butter. That's what I've been writing about on Twitter and, and [00:03:00] writing articles about, you know, for, for five, five years now actually.But in the sort of summer of 2020, I was thinking about men's magazines and I was thinking, you know, why are, why are there no men's magazines anymore? You know? So play Playboy is totally paused now. Playboy is so, you know, I mean, they had a transgender centerfold, I think.Simone Collins: Oh gosh. Okay. Yeah. What was thatMalcolm Collins: men's magazine that I used to love?Maxim. Maxim. Do you remember this? Okay. So it was little fashioned though. I felt like it was. No, no, no. So, so I gotta talk about this because this is the, a, a historic phenomenon that disappeared, but was like, I think a staple of our childhoods. When you would go to the magazine rack before you get on a plane or something like that.There was always a, like a, a category. I think Maxim was sort of the main one where we'd have like irreverent, funny articles that were targeted at men. And sort of the point of it was to be edgy and man focused. They even had a TV channel called Spike [00:04:00] TV that was edited this demographic in this format.We actually know the guy who was one of the, the showrunners for that, who now runs Dad Saves America. But anyway, they, they had shows like. So funny that it, the person who ran the the Man Show was Jimmy Kimmel. But I remember like an example of like a joke they had on the show. Can you believe that Jimmy Kimmel ran this joke?Is he would have a young kid go around and try to buy alcohol at convenience stores. And when they'd ask him for his id, he'd ask them for their green cards.. I just need to help old ladies cross the street. Old ladies. Yeah. I'm not old. Sure you are.Malcolm Collins: Anyway, continue document this.Raw Egg Nationalist: Yeah, so I was, so, I wa

Deciphering the Progressive Religion: Environmentalism, Trans, & Anti-Semitism
Join us in an engaging conversation as we delve into the mysterious roots of modern leftist beliefs. We explore the perceived borderline theological nature of these beliefs and address three main areas: environmentalism, trans politics, and genetics. The discussion highlights the urban monoculture's tendency to ascribe moral value to perceived weakness, creating a 'noble obligation' that diverges from traditional self-preservation instincts. We also touch on the inherent mistrust of advancement, the industrial revolution, and the anti-human sentiment among progressives, drawing comparisons with historical and cultural contexts. This episode provides valuable insights into the cultural and ideational forces shaping present-day ideological dynamics. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be tackling and, and trying to work our way through something that I see as particularly an interesting mystery that I don't know if I have a formal thesis on what's causing it yet but it is when I look at you know, the urban monoculture from which, you know, modern leftist culture derives itself.Where it holds beliefs that I would say appear to an outsider to be borderline theological. And, and it is a sin to go against these particular beliefs. Most frequently these beliefs fall into a few categories. Environmentalism is a really big one. Another one is trans politics is a really big one.And then another one is genetics is a really big one. And I'm, I'm like actually like, sort of [00:01:00] surprised because not all of these things are like intrinsic to a leftist worldview. How they arrived and consolidated around these particular areas. Where they most frequently say things that just like on face value or was like the littlest bit of research are not true.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: You know, this can be, you know, in genetics it's like, well, everyone has exactly the same capabilities. And it's like they, they very obviously don't, like if you, if you do even the basis look at science, some of our. Proclivities and traits have a her component. Like that's a weird thing to claim.And people can be like, oh, well this is like downstream of like fears about like nazim and eugenics and stuff like that. And I'm like. Maybe, but it's weird that it's so core to the way they see the world. And Min was environmentalism. There's this form of not real environmentalism, but aesthetic environmentalism.I persistently see them retreat to mm-hmm. You know, where like they're taking [00:02:00] down like nuclear power plants in Germany. Despite their only other source of energy being like Russian oil, which is like obviously dirtier, but like as environmentalists we're anti-nuclear. Like, and, and it's not just that, it's also like when I mention something like this is like reporters frequently have like a visceral reaction when I tell them fertility collapse will affect people's lives more in the next hundred years than global warming will.And they're like, are you sure you don't wanna restate that? Like, they see this as like an absolutely insane thing to say. Like I'm saying the sky is red. When I say global, it's not the most important thing. Or they're like, well, don't you care about like a, a, a huge. Collapse in the number of species you know, like a mass extinction.And I'm like, a mass extinction is bad. Like it's not awesome. There are consequences of a mass extinction. They're not existential consequences. Like it's, it's, it's, it's [00:03:00] bad. Like it's not great. I'm not aiming for it, but it's not, you know, threatening to human survival or even the existing way that we structured our civilizations.Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: In the way that they seem to be like implying it is. And I don't think that they really believe it is either. They're not afraid of a mass extinction because of humans. They're afraid of a mass extinction because the mass extinction matters. So as somebody who used to, I think you maybe used to genuinely hold some of these beliefs, maybe you can explain to me sort of how they work and, and where they're coming from.Simone Collins: I think maybe a lot of people steeped in the urban monoculture, super progressive modern religion have this modern version of noble abl in that they're indoctrinated in. That leads them to believe that their purpose is to protect anything that is perceived as less [00:04:00] capable of defending itself than they are that the last person for them to defend is anything close to them because they come from this position of privilege.So it's different from the old concept of noble obl, which I think had a little bit more of a self preservation instinct. This one's a more like suicidal form of noble obl, if that makes sense. That's just like, I don't matter. I am wretched. And I must protect all that, which is. Relatively more defenseless.Malcolm Collins: That's a really interesting point.

Wild West Dating & Mail Order Brides: Tinder of the Old West
In this episode, Simone and her guest delve into the fascinating history of mail order brides in the Old West. They explore why men and women opted into these arrangements, what each gender valued in a partner, and how societal values have changed over time. The script covers a variety of firsthand accounts and marriage ads from the 1800s to early 1900s, highlighting the practical and often business-like nature of these unions. The hosts also discuss the broader cultural implications and talk about how modern individuals might learn from these historical practices. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to go into an interesting deep dive to learn more about dating in the old West. We are going to look at the widely practiced concept of mail order brides in the old West. Talked about why people opted into it, why they did it.Review a lot of firsthand accounts of what men were looking for back then and what women were looking for to understand what they valued in a partner and how that has changed in society. Because I think that that's something to go back to, like different cultural periods to one, better understand our own ancestry because I think a lot of Americans have forgotten what their great grandparents valued, what they were looking for in partners, et cetera.And we, we, through seeing different cultures, we can be like, oh, this is a different way to relate. To marriage and sexuality. And, and a lot of people would ask, they'd be like, how really, like women would do this. They would like get in a carriage and like drive out to meet with someone in the middle of nowhere in like the old west.Like, weren't they afraid of like being turned into [00:01:00] like a sex slave and like chained up in the basement or something. And it's like, well actually there wasn't that much risk of that because that was sort of like a strictly like worse value proposition for a guy than a wife. Sex slaves are very high maintenance.Especially if you're living on the frontier, like yeah, they'reSimone Collins: not doing that much work, which is, I mean, I guess you could, you could force them to work. There was like that, that tragic story recently of the. Mm. Well now man, but who had been trapped in his house for a long period of time and he was occasionally let out to clean the house.So he did do some housework, but then otherwise he was in his room. Yeah. That'sMalcolm Collins: strictly less like even if they were just cleaning the house, that's strictly lesser than you can get out of a dedicated wife who like you, you dedicated part of your time to. Right. You know, like you get a lot more labor out of her just by being nice.So we'll, we'll get to like the dynamics of this, although there was an instance. Where a woman did get married to a nice guy, only to realize shortly after her wedding, and we'll go into this case in a bit, that he had robbed her stage coach on the way over, not knowing it was his future wife, [00:02:00] and he was just on the low down, also a stage coach robber.Oh, oops. Well, he was nice about it too. He didn't know it was gonna be his future wife, and he let her keep her wedding outfit and everything. And Oh, that's, she was like, oh, I'm gonna get married. And then he's like, oh, yeah. He's like, I can just imagine his face when she arrives, like, oh, sh uhoh, uhoh.What a start, huh? That's, that's before getting into all of that. I want go into some marriage in the old West. Okay. Rucks coffee, coupons and rings. In late 18 hundreds, rucks Coffee was a dominant brand across the American frontier, especially among cowboys, homesteaders, and miners. Coffee was a staple, and Arbuckle stood out by including redeemable coupons or premiums in their three pound bags.These weren't just throwaways. Think of them as loyalty points. Customers collected them to train for goods like kitchenware, razors, and notably. Finger rings, the rings often simple bands or [00:03:00] modestly adorned were marketed as keepsakes or engagement symbols. The claim of 80,000 wes a year was, was one of their, their things.So the old wesler was a common practice of you would buy. Now, the, the reason this brand of coffee became popular among the old West first is they built a a way. To seal it so it stayed fresh longer so they could ship it further. And so, then the next thing they did is they built a system where you would get like this coupon book that you could use to buy things, but one of the most popular items in the coupon book was wedding rings.And so people would save up for various wedding rings that they would buy with coupons.Simone Collins: That is that, I mean, that makes sense. It, it sounds honestly like buying. A wedding ring with your credit card points today, which a lot of people do. So I bet if I log onto our credit card rewards, I will find ways to buy a ring.Which time all day. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. We spend all our points on, hey, this year, neverMalcolm Collins: [00:04:00] one

Redistricting: Why the Democrats Need a New Coalition Post 2030
In this episode, the hosts discuss the profound implications of redistricting and its anticipated impact on future U.S. elections, particularly post-2030. They delve into population movements towards red states and the consequent shift in electoral votes which may disadvantage Democrats. The conversation explores how demographic and cultural shifts affect voting patterns, particularly among minority communities. The hosts also examine the internal challenges facing the Democratic Party, such as their exclusionary approaches, which complicate coalition-building. They consider potential paths and strategies Democrats might pursue to stay competitive, including appealing to new voter groups and addressing pertinent issues like job loss due to AI. The dialogue is rounded out with personal anecdotes and a light-hearted discussion on family dynamics and dinner plans. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Now, many of you watching might be aware of the current phenomenon going on in the United States. It makes it nearly impossible for Democrats to win elections after the 2030s. This is due to something called redistricting, in which as voters move to red states blue states lose votes because the number of votes you get in a presidential election and in Congress is based on your population.Well. Turns out nobody wants to live in blue states anymore. They've for a long time. And these states are lower fertility anyway.Simone Collins: Well, this also reminds me of that stat that showed that minority populations, like non-white populations that live in red districts versus blue districts have higher income.Like all these measures that were way better, like, oh, inMalcolm Collins: contrast it with white populations, actually everyone typically has lower income in red states. Just for clarification. But that's because the urban monoculture prefers to grow in environments where it can [00:01:00] harvest more money. So it focuses on wealthy cities and stuff like that.But you're right about that. They're like relatively less racist in the implications of their policy than belief states.Simone Collins: And while we, you're as consequentialist, we care about outcomes, you know, if they're thriving more in red districts, I would say red districts create better outcomes for minorities.Malcolm Collins: Right. But so in this episode you, you've probably heard of this or you're broadly aware of it, but I want to both go into the specifics of this and go into scenarios about what it means to actually win an election. Like I. What are you actually going to win? How does it change, which states or swing states and how does it change what Democrats need to do to win elections going forward?Okay. While also arguing that this is just gonna be incredibly hard for them to pull off and they'll likely need some new form of a coalition to. Win elections going forwards. And I don't know what that coalition's gonna look like. But what's interesting about the way the Democrats have built their coalition is it's entirely exclusionary recently.It's either you [00:02:00] support trans people or you're totally out. Either like, as we've said, like all you need to do is disagree on one thing and you're not a de at all anymore. Like a JK Rowling is a Damon every single way, but like. Trans issues. And she's like a demon, right? Like Elon was like every single way, but like trans issue, demon.And now he's like on the right, you know, like, so even if you like, just disagree on like the. The dumb thing, you point out the giant mole on their face. You know, it ends up causing you to be exercised from their culture. So,Simone Collins: yeah.Malcolm Collins: I mean, justSimone Collins: wait. You make the tiniest wrong move when you're out.That's the really scary thing.Malcolm Collins: It's very hard. Basically they need to find a new group to protect it, sort of the way their culture is structured. But who would that be? It could only be. Religious conservatives, but, but, you know, say, oh, well, we'll protect your children, but then that would upset the Chinese people and the, you know, so I don't know what they're gonna do, but, we'll, we'll move on that at the end of this, but let's just go into the stats here to start.Okay? Okay. Based on population projections for the [00:03:00] 2030 census, certain states are expected to gain house seats due to population groups, primarily in the south and west. Okay. Votes. Equals its number of house seats plus two for its senator who increase in house seats directly increases electoral votes.The states gaining electoral votes along with the number of votes are Texas plus four, Florida plus four Arizona plus one Utah plus one. North Carolina plus one Utah plus one total of electoral votes gained 12. Conversely, states with population decline or slower goes, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, as well as California, are projected to lose house seats, thus electoral voters.The states that are gonna lose

Entering Globalism's Dark Age: Apocalyptic Nirvana
Join us in an insightful conversation as we dive into the juxtaposition of living during a technological revolution and a looming dark age. We explore perspectives from conservatives, the new right, and the traditional left on current societal shifts, highlighted by figures like Hank Green and John Oliver. The discussion also delves into AI's rapid advancements, its impact on jobs, society's unpreparedness for AI, and the potential concentration of wealth and power. Furthermore, we contemplate the resilience of civilization in the face of bureaucratic bloat, demographic collapse, and economic instability. Concluding with practical advice for the future, we look at how to equip the next generation for a radically different economy. Don't miss out on this riveting exploration of our evolving world. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to talk about living through both a dark age and an age of technological revolution. Why this is so exciting. We are gonna talk to the way that conservatives are increasingly relating to this. The way then the new right is relating to this and the way that the traditional left is relating to this.No. Which I think is best shown by Hank Green, you know, of the Green Brothers old YouTube fame, you know, obviously completely urban monoculture. He's on blue sky. He's talking about how great Blue Sky is, how he loves Harvey when they were so, so nice and smart and everything like that. And then he mentions.Like that's a big thing that I see on Blue Sky that I don't see on Twitter. Like I tweet about the, the asteroid that was gonna hit us, but then didn't hit us. And I get normal responses on Blue Sky. I tweet about that, and a bunch of the responses are finally someone to cure the plague of humans upon this earth.Malcolm Collins: And, and this is actually a fairly common [00:01:00] interpretation, if you look at our data 'cause we did a survey to see how many people thought the world would be better if everyone was dead.And what was it 17%?Simone Collins: Yeah, 17% of respondents in our census representative survey, we only. Looked at American responses in this case said the world would be better off if there weren't any humans, which is unhinged. WhingedMalcolm Collins: fiveSimone Collins: people about a fifth. Yes.Malcolm Collins: Wants to murder all people. It wants them all day one.Simone Collins: Just be better without any humans just hate the humans.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, it's, it's really interesting, like as a prenatal is advocate that, like you assume that's not something you're gonna have to debate. Like Yeah, likeSimone Collins: humanMalcolm Collins: good, right? Like we all agree that like. Humans are good, right? Yeah. Right. Like humanity should have a future and they're like, no, we don't.Like, let's actually debate that before we talk about like policy or implications or anything like that. So I wanna talk about that. I wanna talk about also why it's easier for [00:02:00] conservatives to become audience captured than progressives. That's another thing I wanna use because this is something I think we've increasingly seen in conservative faces where conservatives move right, a based on their audience a lot faster than move left based on their audience.Although, speaking of audience capture, I don't know if you saw, I, I mean this just might be that he's just completely, you know, cooked from the beginning. John Oliver did this piece supporting trans people in children's sports, and he got like tons of down votes and people were like, what? What, what are you, what?Like,Simone Collins: oh my goodness. So he thought he'd be supported in that and ultimately wasn't.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think only 18% of Americans support that. Like, it is, it is such a dumb issue to, to back like you, you have to literally like. Be like actually regarded. Um, Regard. I love, I love that they've ended up using that word.Simone Collins: I've not heard this before.Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, Joe Rogan says retarded is back,Simone Collins: andMalcolm Collins: then it is complaining. They're [00:03:00] like, oh, that's such a, how could you say that? Like, you know, that, that word hurts people. Like, why would you be excited that it's back? And it's like, well, we don't evenSimone Collins: use retarded as a, as a designator forMalcolm Collins: Yeah.It, it's like South Park and fag,I happen to be gay boys. Do you think I'm a fag? Do you write a big loud Harley and go up and down the streets ruining everyone's nice time?No. Then you're not a fag alright, look, you're driving in your car, okay? And you're waiting to make a left at a traffic signal. The light turns yellow, should be your turn to go, but the traffic coming at you just keeps coming.And even when the light turns red, a guy in A BMW runs the red light. So you can't make your left turn. What goes through your mind fag, right? This. This is ma

Sub-Cultures With High Fertility: In Japan, UK, and Australia
In this episode, Simone and I delve into a fascinating conversation about various subcultures that have emerged in response to modern societal challenges. We focus on the Yankees of Japan, the Dinos of the UK, and the Tradies of Australia, exploring how these distinctly different yet surprisingly similar groups share common traits like high fertility rates, rebelliousness, and a mistrust of mainstream societal institutions. Join us as we unpack how these subcultures thrive outside the urban monoculture and what it means for the future of society. Plus, stay tuned for insights into our latest projects and how you can get involved. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing a phenomenon where a certain convergently evolved cultural subgroup that is derivative often of American cultural subgroups in popular with the lower classes within a number of countries is. Staying or becoming one of the core high fertility communities,Simone Collins: it shall inherit the future.Malcolm Collins: Exactly. And the first of these is going to be the Yankees of Japan. Yes. If you, I, I'll put a clip of one hereつ つけ ばん じゃん ま まゆげつば はいたMalcolm Collins: I want daughters who act like that, by the way. That is, that is my plan is a hundred percent. But it's a culture that if you watch anime, you're [00:01:00] likely familiar with, in which people sort of dress like greasers. And they form gangs.Greasers being the 1950s American subculture. And they focus on a lot of Americana. This. And then the,Simone Collins: so not, not exactly. So yeah. Yankee culture is, is more just kind of like this. Yes. There's, there's the greaser hairstyle in many cases, like perms and little buffon and stuff. But there is just general, like as, as younger kids, they were hooligans, they had bike gangs.They caused destruction to property. But the movement now has evolved into what is referred to as mild Yankees, which are basically the grownup version of these people, and they've kind of switched out their. Souped up biker game bikes for God, what are they called? These weird looking Toyota cars that they spend way too much money on the, the Toyota LL Fire.It's like this really boxy van. Just look it up. It's, it's a thing. [00:02:00] And they're actually now known for being like fairly responsible, but they still kind of maintained a little bit of that rebellious streak. So basically whatMalcolm Collins: happened, and we're gonna go into a tweet that I think gives it into this really well, is they picked up this greaser rebellious, for rebellious sake culture that ended up being very similar to sort of redneck culture in the United States Truck Nut conservatives in the United States that we pointed out.This is a uniquely resistant to fertility collapse group and being reactively. Anti-authority and anti trend following. Yeah. Like mainstream trends mm-hmm. Is in the US and for obvious reasons, protective of fertility rates. Yeah. And it has acted protectively for this subculture and other subcultures as they've aged out of their pointless, rebellious phases.Simone Collins: Well, but I think what's really interesting about this group and also the other groups that we're going to explore in the United States, Australia, the uk, that bear a lot of similarities is. It. This rebelliousness also is correlated [00:03:00] with, or just exists alongside a fundamental mistrust in like mainstream societal institutions being plugged into mainstream news and also believing in things like the lifelong corporate job and going to university.So these groups also tend to either. Not even finish high school, but at at least definitely at very low rates go to university, so they're not getting higher education. And the, the, the man who actually coined the term mild Yankee, his name is Ada Yohe, he wrote this book called Yankee Economics, the New Conservatives as the Leaders of Consumption.He, he described them as the last Japanese generation to have parents who enjoyed permanent regular. Employment in a normal way. And that actually as they aged, their rebelliousness eased up a little bit because fewer and fewer of their parents had jobs and incomes that sort of allowed them to like wield social control that they might even like buck up against.So I think that also this generation. [00:04:00] More at the lower ends of the economic spectrum to begin with. Also was the first to see the crumbling of the lifelong corporate job, which was a really big thing in Japan, but certainly a big thing everywhere else too. So they also like, I think, are among the first cultures to start going off the grid.And by going off the grid, I mean not buying in to something that has turned out to be a fundamental lie. And that buying into also correlates with low. Fertility in that, the, the, the lifelong corporate job or buying into that kind of fantasy of like, I'm gonna make a lot of money. I'm gonna go to university, is

Robin Hanson: Culture as it Relates to Fertility Decline
In this episode, we are joined by the renowned economist and author Robin Hansen, an Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University. The discussion centers around the challenging issue of fertility decline and its cultural underpinnings. Hansen outlines various trends contributing to lower fertility rates, such as prolonged education, intensive parenting, gender equality, urban living, and less religious adherence. He also explores the interaction of culture and economy, the potential for policy interventions, and the role of subcultures in addressing demographic challenges. Additionally, they touch on historical patterns, the evolution of cultures, and the strategies for fostering sustainable, high-fertility communities. The conversation offers a rich and insightful analysis of one of today's pressing societal issues. [00:00:00]Simone Collins: Hello everyone. As you can see today, we are joined by the one, the only, the incredibly prolific and brilliant Robin Hansen. He is the American economist author. He's also an associate professor of economics at George Mason University. But he is known for some of the most catchy ideas, ranging from grabby aliens to one of the most popular fertility intervention proposals, which has to do with sort of like a tax bonds on children's future tax generated income.But most recently on the prenatal list front Robin Hansen's focus has been shifting to culture. So we wanted to have him on base camp to talk about prenatal list culture. Welcome, Robin.Robin Hanson: Hello everyone. So, as you know, culture, I mean, fertility looks like a pretty hard problem, like, right? Yeah. So you guys are working hard.I hope you have success, but you, you get that it's an uphill battle, right? Yeah, yeah. But so at least I feel good about fertility that I can. Frame a proposal and say it in words and say, if only you would do this, it'll probably fix the problem. That doesn't mean you can get somebody to do it, but [00:01:00] it's a nice thing to have is to be able to, yes.Have a concrete proposal and say, look, if you do this, that would fix it.Simone Collins: Yes.Robin Hanson: And that's as a policymaker, I'm proud. Like that's kind of our job. Like, okay, if you guys won't do anything, you know what the hell Yeah. That's onSimone Collins: you. Yeah. You could have it's, you could have had niceRobin Hanson: things. We could, we at least had an idea for what to do.Simone Collins: Yeah.Robin Hanson: But so I thought about for. Fertility for like eight months. And then like most people in fertility, I came to see culture underlying as a fundamental cause of fertility decline. It's, it doesn't mean that we have to fix it that way. Right? We can fix things with money that are caused by culture.That's a, if you canSimone Collins: afford it. Yeah. Right. IfRobin Hanson: you can afford it. Money and culture interact and have for many centuries, yes. Like capitalism and culture have had a lot of influences on each other. So just because something's caused by culture doesn't mean it needs to be fixed by culture directly. That is, you could do a a money thing that changes culture and I think the money thing we talked about in our last episode is such a thing that would change culture.But you certainly notice that the proximate cause of the problem is [00:02:00] culture. And that induced me more of a theorist to say, okay, why? Hmm. What's causing culture to change? What is it just some random, you know, thing that just happens in the world? Or is there some more systematic way to understand why culture?So it's not, it's like a half a dozen trends. I can point out that cons that seem to be causing fertility decline. You, you guys know them all Probably.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I go into 'em. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. We may particularlyRobin Hanson: very differently. Okay. Let's just mention them for, you know, for, for completeness sake. Yes.So obviously like. Longer years of education and early career prep. Right. A lot of young women want, who are s very powerful. You know, capable people want to prove that they can do well in their careers and our career ladders don't give very good pauses. Yeah. And they want to show that they are capable and.You know, be successful. And so they want to wait to as long as the career ladder requires to then consider having kids. So that's, that's one. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Hold on. As, as we go through each of these, I wanna talk about [00:03:00] how they can be addressed and how other cultures, their state high fertility have addressed them.The two ways that this particular problem I've seen addressed is one have women not become educated or have men and women not becomeRobin Hanson: educated. It works really well for fertility rates, but alsoSimone Collins: in places like Kazakhstan. You still have men and women getting educated, but they're having kids in university.And this is my favorite solution. I think that's the best time to have kids.Malcolm

Ancient Roman Pronatalism: The Last Time We Failed to Solve Fertility Collapse
In this episode, we delve into the ancient Roman fertility crisis, focusing on the efforts of Augustus to encourage marriage and childbearing among the Roman elite. We discuss various laws introduced by Augustus, such as the Lex Julia and Lex Papia Poppaea, aimed at promoting procreation and the penalties imposed on the unmarried and childless. We explore the historical context, examining the low fertility rates of notable Roman families and the societal implications. Furthermore, we draw parallels to modern issues of declining fertility rates, particularly in Italy, and the potential cultural and economic impacts. Join us as we uncover the motivations behind Augustus' policies and the ultimate challenges they faced in ensuring the survival of Rome's elite lineage. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about ancient Roman tism.Simone Collins: Oh, the failed kind,Malcolm Collins: right? Many people have heard. Of Rome as As, and they've, they've heard of, like Augustus say, being concerned about falling fertility rates among Roman elites. Mm-hmm. We've heard that he put in laws to try to prevent this.Mm-hmm. We've heard, oh, this is mirrored with our current societal collapse and this is a pretense of the destruction of a global empire in the same way.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: People thought as a pretense of the destruction of the Roman empire. Right. Even though it wasn't, that happened a long time after this particular concern.But I mean it kind of was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We'll see. But I was like, wait. What were those laws, what actually happened in Rome during this period? Mm-hmm. What did people of the period have to say about this? Mm-hmm. How low did the fertility rate of the Roman elite actually get? Hmm. And I'll also start by saying Rome's going through this again.Italy right now has the fertility rate of only 1.18. That means every hundred Italians, there's only gonna be 20 great grandchildren. We are looking at the complete collapse of, italian civilization likely was in our [00:01:00] lifetimes, which is gonna be good point.Simone Collins: Yeah. Hadn't thought. Yeah. We're sort of, we're back, we're back to square one.Malcolm Collins: And this, this also causes a lot of problems like for Catholicism because if, if Italy is no longer Italian or Catholic anymore, you know what happens to the Vatican? Tough, tough world we might be entering. But I, I, I think they're gonna get it together. I think they're gonna get it together. I have faith so we'll start here talking about Augustus.Okay. So Augustus uses platform to urge Romans to marry and have children framing it as a civic duty in a famous speech recorded by historian DiUS, he said. If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance. Oh wow. But since the nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them nor live in any way without them.Yeah. We must plan for our lasting preservation. That's rather than, rather for our temporary pleasure. That's amazing. Okay.Simone Collins: Yeah,Malcolm Collins: that is. I, we, we needed to have Augustus at Alcon, so all the journalists could be quoting [00:02:00] Augusta. Oh yeah.Simone Collins: He would be the clickbait. He would be the, the, yeah, the soundbite generator for natal con, the soundbiteMalcolm Collins: generator for, for modern journalists.Simone Collins: Wives, they're awful. But I mean, you gotta, you gotta put up with it. You gotta put up with it. It's like colonoscopies and wivesMalcolm Collins: necessary.Not exactly a view. I, I'm not gonna say like that, that's a view I would've given to Romans, like, sat them down and been like, okay, it's gonna be terrible. It's gonna be the worst thing ever.Simone Collins: Ugh. And women, I at least Trump, you know, is more like, man, you're so lucky. Yeah. Gods was really not selling it like at all. Like, you gotta do it. It sucks, but, but it's your duty. Yeah. No wonder this is doomed from the very start for the, my goodness.Malcolm Collins: You don't set it for the queen,Simone Collins: you know?Yeah. Yeah.Lie back and think of England or Rome in this case.Malcolm Collins: So this quote reflects his view that marriage, though challenging was essential for Rome survival. Mm-hmm. He also praised fathers of large families and criticized the childless, emphasizing the importance of producing heirs to maintain Rome's strengths.Mm-hmm. On the [00:03:00] duty of recreation, he said you have shown yourself to be mindful of the continued existence of our race while these others have not Dio, Cassius book 56 spoken to married men with children. This quote praises them for fulfilling their civic duty while implicitly criticizing unmarried and childless for neglecting it.This is so much worse than JD Vans. You have shown yourself to be mindful to the continued existence of our race. Well, the others have not. Childless catSimone Collins: is

Why is Fertility Collapse Happening Faster in Some Places Than Others? (& Are Women at Fault?)
In this episode, we delve into a new theory by EW, who explores why fertility rates fall faster in some countries than others. The theory suggests that countries modernizing later retain elements of ancestral culture, particularly outdated misogyny and gender roles, which haven't adapted to contemporary contexts, leading to a dramatic decline in fertility rates. We compare two groups of countries with differing fertility trajectories and investigate the roles of economic development, respect for elders, individualism, and gender dynamics. We also discuss the implications of these cultural factors on both family dynamics and societal trends, touching on real-world examples and personal anecdotes. Join us as we analyze these critical issues and invite you to share your thoughts on the factors influencing global fertility trends. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a theory about fertility rates that come out from EW for end of the show.Don't know if you've ever been on, we should ask him. Nice guy. But anyway, he has done a new theory where he tries to understand why fertility rates fall. Faster in some countries than other countries. Mm-hmm. IE what is protective of fertility rates and the, the gist of the argument is that these countries modernized later and that caused them to maintain more of their ancestral culture, specifically the misogyny and gender roles.Simone Collins: Oh.Malcolm Collins: Which is not properly updated for the new context. And leads to a crash in fertility raise. And I thought that the theory was really interesting. So let's go over it piece by piece, because I think he might be onto something here. But any thoughts before I start? Let'sSimone Collins: dive in. Let'sMalcolm Collins: do it. All right.Let's get a graph on screen here. Gotta you gotta [00:01:00] ex enhance, enhanced,Simone Collins: yeah. Give us, give us the visual and the, the premise that crem sets is what differentiates the countries in orange from the countries in blue? Why do the orange countries plunge into ultralow fertility while the blue ones have maintained themselves better?So let'sMalcolm Collins: talk about the two country groups. Orange includes Korea, Spain, and Italy. While blue includes the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.Simone Collins: And REU groups them into two sets. He says the countries in the first set are group one nations. In the second set, they're group two nations. Notice anything about their growth rates.One thing is that they've all grown to similar enough levels. Another is the acceleration of the pace of growth. So in the second tweet, he shares two additional graphs showing different. Trajectories of growth and different fertility ratesokay.In Group one, nations [00:02:00] started off a bit richer and they grew at a more stable pace. In Group two, the nations started off poorer, but they caught up to group one by growing faster. In the latter half of the 20th century, their fertility re rate trajectories followed suit.Malcolm Collins: And so what you see here is a really interesting thing in Group one countries where we've talked about it in other videos, but around the 1930s there was a huge fertility crash that a lot of these group one countries recovered from.This was mostly due to medical technology, although how seeing in the war played a role as well. Hmm. And you can look at our video on, you know, the, the ba the baby Boom. To get more information on this, but the gist being is that if you take the baby boom as an anomaly and you sort of try to draw a through line through these, it looks fairly stable.Whereas these other countries start to crash really dramatically and pretty quickly. And what's interesting is most of the crash in these other countries. Fertility rates [00:03:00] happens between 1920 and I'd say 1980. So before our, our, our modern time. And that's where they're dropping for much higher initial fertility rates.So if you look at it like sort of the mean fertility rate at the beginning of this period in 1920 for the group two, all of these countries where they started with a much higher mean fertility, let's say around. Four or maybe even 4.5, whereas the other group started with a mean fertility of three to 3.5.Mm-hmm. So it's almost as if the higher fertility you start with, the lower your fertility goes over time.Simone Collins: Yeah. And REU has a theory around this.Premiere rights. All societies used to be pretty sexist. They used to repress women in various ways, and that was just that for all of human history. But as societies have developed, one of the major changes has been that women's status has quickly moved up to the levelsthat have only once been seen by men with slow continuous growth. These norms changed and women's acceptance was [00:04:00] taken up gradually without much need for pushing. But with rapid growth, the picture is far different. The norms ha

Opus Dei vs. Jesuits: An Outsider's Take on the Battle for Catholicism's Soul
In this insightful conversation, Simone and the host dive deep into the misunderstood world of Opus Dei, breaking down the myths and misconceptions popularized by media, such as “The Da Vinci Code.” They discuss the origins, beliefs, and practices of Opus Dei, contrasting them with those of the Jesuits. The conversation reveals Opus Dei's focus on personal sanctity through daily work and responsibilities, and its appeal to lay Catholics. In stark contrast, the Jesuits' history of social justice, intellectual pursuits, and perceived left-leaning tendencies are examined. The discussion also touches on the dramatic historical power struggles within the Catholic Church, highlighting moments when Jesuits' influence rivaled that of the Pope. Moreover, how these factions may reflect broader societal dynamics between progressives and conservatives is analyzed. The episode concludes with musings on the future of these groups and a humorous personal exchange about family life. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the Opus Day. You know, the villain from the Da Vinci Code. That is the exposureSimone Collins: like 99% of people have,Malcolm Collins: and most people know that they, they, they practice mortification or some of them do, where they like hurt themselves or like where like chains that cut into them when they wa even like famous ones.There's like a famous female author who's Opus Day who wears like a chain. And you may think that these guys are. Crazy. But what you will learn as we go into the opus day is they might be the only sane Catholics there are. You, they are definitely in the Catholic, and we'll see how much we have an opportunity to get in the Opus Day verse Jesuit mindset.They are definitely the good guy side. And the Jesuits are definitely the bad guy side.Simone Collins: You go so hard on Catholics. .Malcolm Collins: And I think you, Simone, specifically, are gonna love the Opus Day as you learn more about them. Yeah. Even more than you think you do right now.Simone Collins: Really?Malcolm Collins: So the Opus Day was established in 1928, so very, [00:01:00] very young. Wow.Simone Collins: I would've guessed like. Late 16 hundreds early S hundred. That's crazy.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. When Saint Joseph Maria Escoria, I, I'm gonna pronounce that wrong, we'll just call him Escoria had a spiritual insight that ordinary Christians could become saints by living their face fully in their daily routines. Wow. Especially through their work. He envisioned a past to holiness that didn't require withdrawing from the world into a monastery or covet.Convent, but instead embrace secular life as a means of sanctification. The vision was formerly recognized by the Catholic Church in 1982 when Pope John Paul II designated Opus Day as a personal re giving its special status to carry out its mission globally, so it didn't become like official until 1982.Wow.Simone Collins: Sounds a little bit like Maana Buddhism or. This premise is you don't have to become like a [00:02:00] reclusive monk in order to make religious progress. It's interesting.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but I, I actually view it quite different. I'd actually say it's very similar to techno puritanism as techno puritanism relates to work, which is the idea that you should treat your work and your duty in life with religious fervor that you should be as dedicated.To your job. If your job and you, and you should have a job that attempts to improve the world by your philosophical framework and you should treat that. With the extremeness and with the fervor that a monk or hermit who has shut themselves off from society oh, treats their own seclusion.Simone Collins: Ah. So, whereas Maha Buddhism kind of allows for normalism, it's like, no, no, no.In everyday life you can do it, but also you're gonna be a completely weirdo. By the way No, no, no, no. This is, this isMalcolm Collins: like, you need to be max about your job. Okay. You need to be max about the most intense, an open state belief. You have a, a duty to be happy to other [00:03:00] people so that you don't bring other people down, you know?I love that. To, to, and we, we do this too, that you have responsibility for your mood. You have a responsibility for how you affect other people. Yeah. And all of this responsibility is an intent, religious responsibility. Hmm. Hmm. So sanctification of work members are encouraged to perform their daily tasks, whether professional, domestic or otherwise, with excellence as a way to serve God and others.So like you are supposed to be a mother as extremely as like a a hundred percent. 107% as like somebody would be a a in a monastery or something like that. Ah, and you're not supposed to be very different from other Catholic factions. You as a mother, if you're doing it a hundred percent, are not less than the none in the covenant,Simone Collins: right?Because, or a convent. You're makin

Demographic Collapse Mandates a Transition to Monarchy
https://discord.com/invite/EGFRjwwS92 In this episode, our host discusses his changed perspective on the future of global governance, arguing that demographic collapse will inevitably lead to a shift toward monarchic and authoritarian regimes. He highlights the unsustainability of current democratic systems in the face of demographic crises and economic collapse. The episode explores various countries' timelines for potential social service collapse, the roles of AI and tech elites, and the possible political transitions and societal impacts. The conversation also touches upon the influence of social media and the looming possibility of walled garden city-states emerging as havens for the wealthy. [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today my mind has dramatically changed on a topic that I used to have a pretty firm stance on, okay. Which is I did not believe that it was good for the world to head in the direction of Monarch or authoritarianism.And I did not think that that was the direction the world was going to head. Now I am. Reassessing my beliefs around this in the face of the economic reality that demographic collapse will integrate. Mm. And I will be arguing in this episode that. Demographic collapse will both create authoritarian and, and monarchic systems, while at the same time making those systems governments with less overall suffering than the systems that insist on staying democracies.And the this change, when I say insist on staying democracies. A lot of these places won't have a choice, so let's [00:01:00] sort of talk about how this happens. Okay. Before we go into the details. Yeah. And this episode will also serve if you wanna introduce people to the prenatal list movement. I'm gonna introduce a lot of the, the basic facts, again, with their more modern updates.Okay. To help you understand just how unsustainable and how quickly the existing system is going to start collapsing. But the gist being is that within our lifetimes in many places around the world, we will be hitting scenarios. So by like 2060,in South Korea, we will have a country where there are two elderly people for every worker. And we will start seeing situations like this more and more around the world as demographic collapse continues. And we're gonna, going over when various countries hit this. Did you, did you see the, the graph on x that REU shared, generated by chat, GPT, by the way, they can just generate beautiful graphs for you.That demonstrated how, how many people were paying for how many retirees over time. Oh, no. And chose it. Now, as of. Maybe today, but maybe even [00:02:00] 2023. It's 2.4 workers are paying for each retiree. And that's America In the United States or in Korea? In America, yeah. So like that's, we're already in a really dangerous place.Like, I don't like this because also keep in mind, social security isn't just for people who are retired, who've painted into the system all their lives. It also plays a role in supporting people who are on disability, people who are severely disabled. Like this is, it's just not, ah, well I don't think You mean social security specifically here.You're talking about the various social safety nets. Like Medicare. Medicare, yeah. Yeah. But still like that's all. And, and, and so what ends up happening is as more and more people are reliant on the state and on systems like social security, this for our non-American listeners, about 50% of our listeners are non-American.This in America is a system that pays for old people to survive. If they don't have savings, and even if they do have savings, like it's a set. Mm-hmm. You get in the United States, and a lot of countries have this after a certain age as that demographic becomes the majority of the voting base, they will [00:03:00] not make cuts to the systems that are paying out to them.Hmm. Because they will have the voting power. Mm-hmm. And eventually that leads to economic collapse. Mm-hmm. That leads to a complete system collapse because you cannot pay for two elderly people on every one young person's salary. What happens if you try to do that? Because some countries will be trying to do this before other countries is young people will just leave your country.And then what you do, well then you start putting in travel restrictions and become authoritarian like anyways. Right. But then you have the, the, secondary problem here which is you're like, okay, well then maybe they can try to get their fertility rate up. Maybe they'll wake up when this starts to happen, but it's already too late then because they'll already have, like, even if they start getting their fertility rate above replacement, then they'll already have like 20 years of, of having every person in the economy support two or three elderly people in the economy.Which is just completely un economically viable. And so these countries will become [00:04:00] incredibly weak. They also won't be able to field militaries beca

The Replicator Program: Mobile Kill Drone Fabs Being Built by USA Military
In this unique episode, we dive into the transformative Replicator Program initiated by the United States, which aims to revolutionize modern warfare through the mass production of autonomous AI-controlled drones. We discuss how the evolution of drones in the Ukrainian war has shifted the focus away from traditional military assets like tanks. The program's various components, including maritime, land-based, and even space and subsurface drones, are explored. We touch upon China's advancements in drone technology and the implications for global military dynamics. Additionally, we delve into methods of countering these drone swarms and their strategic significance. Join us as we unpack how autonomous systems are reshaping the battlefield and what this means for future conflicts. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. Today we are going to be doing an episode that is quite different from our normal content, but we're gonna be talking about a program.And the moment I heard about this program, I was like, I need to think about this. Like potentially a lot because it changes a lot. I mean, what happened with drones in the Ukrainian war is we learned that drones changed the face of warfareSimone Collins: 100%.Malcolm Collins: And they in a large way have made things like large tanks and stuff like that, which used to be what countries were investing in obsolete.Simone Collins: Hmm. AndMalcolm Collins: countries specifically. The United States has started something called the Replicator Program, and this is a program where the United States is beginning to outfit battleships to be able to build hundreds of autonomous AI controlled drones every day. A kill drone printer. A, A AI is not controlled by humans either.These are autonomous [00:01:00] K drone printers for the sea.You okay with the program? Don't worry. It's not limited to the sea. They've also talked about how they want to build versions of this that can go on land and for the army and stuff like that. So we're gonna have killed drone printers everywhere.Simone Collins: It makes me think of those. The, the big ships in Star Wars, the, the crappy new ones that had all the droids come off of them.You know, they were just Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfolded and came out. I'm picturing those now. Hopefully they won't have really bad dialogue. At least we know our LLMs of our universe and kids. Roger, Roger, Roger, Roger. Oh my God. They were the worst. Well, no Jar Jar banks were the worst, but at least we have like this STH Lord theory, right?There was nothing for them. They were just awful. Like, like, oh no, don't even get me started. Let's keep going. Kill drone ships. Tell me more.Malcolm Collins: No. What's funny about the [00:02:00] drones in, in Star Wars, I remember it was like the earlier versions were better and those were like a cost cutting measure. But what's weird is like we now know from our world, and apparently it's in our same timeline because it takes place a long time to go in a galaxy far away.Yeah, sure. That like those drones, those, those droids were dumber than like deeps seek. Yeah, deepsSimone Collins: seek is really dumb.Malcolm Collins: That's somebody reached out to me and they were like, oh, well have you changed your mind about like, China's position? Oh yeah. Because of deeps seek. And I was like, deeps seek is a scam.Like, do you guys, have you used it? Like, I feel like exclusively people who think deep seek is impressive is. Is is a completely different bucket than people would you met one very smart andSimone Collins: successful person who uses deeps seek. Is their chosen? Yes,Malcolm Collins: but it's for a very, very narrow task. If you needSimone Collins: an open source,Malcolm Collins: LM, if you need a totally open source, LLM, deep, it's apparently better than llama.So marginally better, but that doesn't give China any power. Because anyone in any country can take Yeah. And use [00:03:00] it open source. Yeah. So you get no additional marginal power by having a fully open source LLM, and you only need a fully open source LLM if you're doing like absolutely massive scale stuff.And generally what matters more is good LLMs and not open source lms. Yeah. By the way, if you're like, how did Deep Seek become the number one app in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The China Fact, take two. Do a good video on this. It appears to be mostly faked. Because they've traced the accounts, they were promoting it to China, CCP influencer accounts.I'm super not, I, I do not believe having used Deeps seeq, that there's a lot of people using deep seek records that, youSimone Collins: know, didn't the didn't that. Viral cycle around deep seek also correspond with this short-lived period when the YouTube algorithm weirdly favored Chinese propaganda videos. It's still doing that.I'm now getting the critical stuff again. Maybe because the algo realizes I refuse to watch the propaganda, but.Malcolm Collins: No, it's still

The Quiverfull Movement: How High Fertility Ideologies Die
Join us as we delve into the history and controversies of the Quiverfull movement, a conservative religious group known for promoting large families as a response to modern secular trends. We discuss its origins, major influences, and the peak of its visibility, particularly through media exposure like the Duggar family's reality show. We also explore the numerous scandals and controversies, including those involving abuse and patriarchal control, that have led to its decline in recent years. Finally, we reflect on lessons that contemporary Christian high-fertility movements can learn to avoid similar downfalls. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the quiver full movement and what happened to them because I was noticing at the recent prenatal list convention, we had lots of conservative religious people come.Yeah.Yes, it was about two thirds of the people there. With, as I said it's about one third just Tech bros. One third just Religion Bros. One third Tech and Religion bros. Um mm-hmm. And so, what there wasn't a lot of was.Evangelical. And especially what there noticeably wasn't a lot of was quiver full. And if you are unfamiliar with the quiverfull movement, I will give you a brief background. The movement primarily based in the United States with some spread in the uk, emerged in the late 20th century as a response to feminism and modern birth control.It derives its name and philosophy from 1 27 3 through five, which compares children to arrows in the hand of a warrior symbolizing [00:01:00] divine blessings and strengths through procreation. And it also says the children of your youth implementing in that land that you should have kids while you're still young, which I,Simone Collins: oh, which is one of the key things now is, is how do we get people in their twenties to start having kid again?So you think, oh, this is so promising. This is perfect. Okay, great start.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Basically, it, it argues, and I actually find it to be a really important passage in the Bible. Mm-hmm. It says that, you know, the children you have in your youth are like the arrows in your quiver for your adulthood. Because what it's basically telling you is that while you're young, you should fill your era with quivers so that when you go to war. You have the boat, but, but it, it talks about having kids as a preparatory thing for a full life rather than the capstone of it.Yes. Which is actually a really powerful way to see having children. Yes. Anyway. Adherence self-identify as quiver full or full quiver or qf. [00:02:00] Christians issue all forms of contraception, including natural family planning and sterilization. Viewing family sides is solely determined by God. This is the wheel people.Ah,Simone Collins: okay. First place. I'm seeing cracks here.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, note that this might be why they don't have many kids anymore because biological fertility has been falling and you really need to plan on kids. When Katherine Pock, she was on our show, she did college, she did a big thing where she interviewed 50 people who had over five kids.Only one of them used this method. So it is very rare to use this among large families. Mm-hmm. This NAIC approach is part of a broader conservative Christian pushback against secular trends aiming for demographic growth. To influence culture and politics. Early influences include works like a full quiver, family planning and the Lordship of Christ by Rick and Jan Hess, which framed large families of a fulfillment of divine command.The movement gained traction in the 1980s and nineties, aligning with other conservative ideologies like Christian patriarchy, which . Emphasized male headship and female [00:03:00] submission. No. Before we go further, was this, that's, that's basically the gist of what the movement was. It was the spooky prenatal list that I knew of growing up.Like if somebody had said, what is a prenatal list? Movement, I would've said Quiverfull. And when I grew up in the nineties,Simone Collins: 100%,Malcolm Collins: but. They've basically gone extinct as we showed in a recent episode, TISM significantly outcompete queer full as something like a search term these days. And so the question is, what happened to them?Why aren't they going to like natal list conferences? Why aren't they in talks with, you know, with all of the, the political talk about brutalism these days and JD vs in office, why isn't there some quiver full. You know, thinker or talker stepping up and catching news because there isn't. Mm-hmm.And it's uniquely interesting because they were having lots of kids. And so this is important to us. You know, it shows that just having lots of kids isn't enough and can even lead to the extinction of your movement. And so this is something that we have to look [00:04:00] out for. I mean, we are a Christian high fertility movement, right?Yeah. So, how do we pass that o

WIRED Provably Lied About Us & Pronatalism's Triumph Over Effective Altruism
Join us as we discuss the recent coverage of Natal Con, focusing on a controversial Wired article that stirred the community. We dive into the misrepresentations and factual errors in the article, the financial realities of hosting such events, and how the prenatal list movement is rapidly growing compared to established movements like effective altruism and AI safety. With insights into the organizational efforts behind Natal Con and a comparison of different ideological movements, this video provides an in-depth look at the current landscape of natalism. We also touch on the motivations and commitments driving both the prenatal list and AI safety communities. Don't miss this engaging and eye-opening discussion! [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be with you here. Coming back from Nacon. We've had pieces on us in the past few days in the BBC in the New York Times there's gonna be a CNN one. We know there's gonna be an NPR one, we know that haven't come out yet. One on an Italian station, one of the two major stations in the country.But Wired did the most unhinged piece. And I am, which is weird. I grew up loving, wired. This is so strange. I did you. I thought of them as like a semi-professional, not a semi-professional. I actually thought of them as like a premium.Simone Collins: Absolutely beautiful print magazine. Loved their pieces. This is weird.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But their piece was completely boast. Unhinged and, and non-factual, like they got almost every fact wrong in ways that even your average base camp watcher would know. Yeah.Simone Collins: I don't know. Even your understanding of basic linguistics would know.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And we're gonna read a bit of the piece and then go over statistics on what's been happening with the prenatal list movement when [00:01:00] contrasted with other movements recently, because we've now significantly passed in terms of like search traffic, effective altruism, AI safety, other stuff like that, which is really cool., so the,Simone Collins: the title of the Wired article is Far right. Influencers are hosting a 10 K per Person Matchmaking Weekend to Repopulate the Earth. Yeah, so they, they're claiming that it, it costs $10,000 to attend Natal Con, which is.Isn't that true?Malcolm Collins: Well, okay, so if you're a watcher of the show, you know, we've been promoting the conference constantly for a long time. We've been promoting it with, with small discounts, but it also means, you know, the conference cost at nothing near $10,000 to go to, I know it was expensive. I think it was around a thousand dollars.It wasSimone Collins: a thousand dollars. So then 900 with our 10% discount.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which is a lot I know, but they also did a really good job of making it good and fun, like Yeah. My perspective.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: And I do think that that amount of money is needed to screen out crazy people. Oh, plusSimone Collins: also, like, have you seen how much [00:02:00] any event space charges for food, like one cookie, $10 and they served breakfast, lunch, and dinner.On Saturday plus snacks, plus open bar at dinner, and then there was dinner and open bar on Friday. I just. You can't use professional venue spaces and basically do anything less than thatMalcolm Collins: these days. I think that what people are thinking when they think of like costs or they're comparing it to something, is they're not comparing, they're comparing it to a con, like a furry con or something like that.Yeah.Simone Collins: Where there's an artist alley, there's absolutely zero food. And then there's just some speakers and it's at a bigger event space. Yeah,Malcolm Collins: yeah. They're, they're not thinking like, okay, they've gotta pay for the speakers, they've gotta pay for the, hotels for the speakers, I don't think any of the speakers are paid, but they gotta pay for the hotels, for the speakers.They sometimes need to pay for flights. They need to pay for all of the venue space. They need to pay for security, they need to pay for insurance, and then they need to pay for all the meals. And the open bar too,Simone Collins: because there were protesters out the first night. There were [00:03:00] lots of people trying to get in who didn't have registration.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And it wasn't just like a normal venue, like it was like a really nice venue. Mm-hmm. And then they had the second one where they rented out a museum. So like, it, like, I, I'd say for what it was, it seemed reasonably priced to me. I agree. Just so people know, we donated to this to make it happen because I knew that like last year they were in the red in running it and I wanted to help them.Not, not risk that again, you know, Kevin Dolan took a personal hit on that. And. So, but we, we weren't organizing it, you know, we weren't personally going to suffer if this didn't end up working out. But the $15,000 thing, 10,000 is insane. Sorry. Yeah. The,

The Effective Altruism to S*X Work Pipeline
In this deep dive, we explore the intricate dynamics of the Effective Altruism (EA) community and its links to polyamory and sex work within the tech-centric Silicon Valley culture. The conversation exposes how women in these communities are often caught in a cycle of exploitation, love-bombing, and employment gaps, making it difficult to escape. We also discuss the cultural shift from monogamy towards polyamory, the socioeconomic repercussions faced by women, and the contrasting perspectives between supporters and critics of this lifestyle. Additionally, the discussion meanders through personal anecdotes, societal observations, and humorous insights, ultimately highlighting the complexities of modern relationships within a high-status, intellectually driven community. Simone Collins: [00:00:00] With the grooming gang pipeline in the UK, there was obviously. A sort of plan, intention, like we are going to begin using these young women as economic assets, we're going to go out and find them, but the same general dynamic happened organically, like the women in this case found the EA community, you know, they selected into it, but the same dynamic started to play, where they essentially first got love bombed, and they were vulnerable, and they were kind of disassociated from their home community at that point distinct from the rest of society, they fell into this community and then they started getting passed around.Speaker 9: Butters, do you have a problem? All these are kissing fellers, and they haven't figured out that they can be makingMalcolm Collins: And, it creates these giant black holes in their resumes.Simone Collins: Where for years Oh no, right, if you have this big employment gap.Malcolm Collins: Yes, and that's why they get trapped because now they can't do anything else. And now the type of guy who wants a long term partner doesn't want to marry them.Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: And I'd point out, none of this happens intentionally. This is basically the story of the [00:01:00] EA community as it relates to women.Speaker 2: In an effort to raise money came up with a nifty plan where she'd date guys and charge them money.Speaker 4: I go on dates all the time with a whole bunch of, you know, boys andSpeaker 2: stuff.Speaker 4: And I kind of need somebody to help me out, like, you know, my partner in crime.Speaker 2: Yeah,thanks so much for asking. She said she needed my help to make sure that the dates went okay and that the guys paid her. Oh my god, you were a pimp. What? God, no. No, I was just trying to help a friend. And wouldn't you know it, some of Brenda's girlfriends Decided they wanted to be a part of it. Decided I shouldn't use my real name. So we came up with the name Gator. I'm telling you, you're a pimp. No! Are you even listening to the story?Would you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I have had my perspective changed pretty dramatically on polyamory recently. The affective altruist community, slash the rationalist community, slash the singularity community, because they sort of all come together into this Silicon Valley diaspora community, or wider sort of Silicon Valley.I [00:02:00] don't know what you want to say at the, like, heart of the Silicon Valley ecosystem at the moment. And it's been pretty dramatic, because I used to have this perspective of being okay with sex work more broadly.Not religiously speaking, I'm just like legally speaking, okay?Simone Collins: Legally. Wow. Okay. Where are we going with this? I'm so curious. What IMalcolm Collins: mean is, I think that all of this stuff is against the Bible. I think it is against what you're supposed to do. But Right, but if youSimone Collins: don't follow the Bible or any other religion that's against a personal thing, thisMalcolm Collins: is not Even legally, it might make sense to make this stuff illegal.Oh. Just because,Simone Collins: basically, logistically, it produces bad outcomes, from a societal level, on a personal level.Malcolm Collins: deleterious outcomes for many of the people or most of the people involved in a way that they would want at the end of the pipeline to be like, I wish I had never gotten into the beginning of that pipeline.In the same way drugs or gambling might create that scenario for an individual. But even more dramatically, it changed my [00:03:00] view on polyamory. Which I used to be pretty okay with. If people don't know polyamory. This is where you take multiple other partners, most partners, just sort of sleep around.Well,Simone Collins: no, not necessarily. Someone who's polyamorous just isn't exclusively romantically attached to people. So maybe one partner is monogamous and the other one's polyamorous, and as long as the monogamous partner consents to the polyamorous person having other partners, then it's still a functional relationship.It's not like everyone in a polyamorous relationship has to sleep around a ton.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, sure, sure. You can

Higher Earnings No Longer Lead to Marriage: Culture is Changing
In this episode, Simone and Malcolm delve into several studies examining how male earnings impact marriage and fertility rates. They discuss findings from economic shocks like the U.S. fracking boom, which significantly increased wages and job opportunities for non-college-educated men, leading to increased births both within and outside of marriage. Contrary to popular beliefs, the study found no significant increase in marriage rates despite higher earnings. They also compare results with older economic booms and explore the influence of changing social norms. The hosts highlight other relevant studies on job displacement, lottery winnings, and their effects on fertility and marriage, ultimately emphasizing that simple financial solutions alone are insufficient to boost fertility rates significantly without addressing deeper cultural and social issues. The conversation rounds off with humorous anecdotes about their personal lives and parenting experiences, offering a reflective and engaging exploration of these complex topics. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are gonna be talking about some studies that recently came out. Well, some recently came out, some came out a while ago. But looking at the topic of how earnings affect marriage rates and fertility rates and that surprisingly. For males, they no longer seem to increase marriage.Or, I mean, who goes against the narrative that you always hear on the right? Yeah, thisSimone Collins: is important. In fact, we did an episode in which we read one of Arctotherium's articles on Aporia, where he basically posited that The solution to birth rates would be to effectively economically disempower women by sort of removing them from bureaucratic roles or eliminating those roles entirely, and to economically re empower men with a supposition that this will increase marriage rates.Turns out that's not how it plays out in reality, at least in a post crisis world. Women earning money and having careers era.Malcolm Collins: [00:01:00] Yeah. All right. So i'll start here with the first study This is a new one that I found really interesting male earnings marriageable men and the non maritable fertility evidence from the fracking boom so this study exploited the economic shock from fracking booms across the U.S. regions. From 1997 to 2012, fracking created localized economic booms that significantly increased wages for non college educated men. They examined how marriage and birth rates responded to these economic improvements. Key findings, labor market effects. Fracking booms increased earnings for men without college degrees by 4.4 percent. Per thousand dollars of new production per capital job opportunities also increased for these men with spillover effects beyond the oil and gas industry birth effects, both marital and non marital births increased in response to fracking booms. The increase was statistically significant for both types of births to suggest children are quote unquote normal goods.People have more when income rises. [00:02:00] So I need to break down that a little bit because another study is going to look at this as well. Which is to say that there are some types of goods that people consume more of as income declines or economic slumps. Oh,Simone Collins: oh, yeah, like I remember when we used to work in the private equity world more.One, one period a group of investors were like, Oh yeah, we love nail salons because during recessions, women go to them more because it's like one of those small indulgences that they can still afford. Even if they want toMalcolm Collins: buy more of like fancy soaps, fancy soaps, fancy soap company people do more on What are some of the other things people do more on?They do more entertainment. They do more video games. Video games go up in recessions. Movies I think go up in recessions. Other types of entertainment goes up. So kids are not that type of good. And, and, and note what's being said here. Births increase. As money increases for uneducated men, which is great.This is an area where that isSimone Collins: really interesting that basically out of [00:03:00] wedlock births are increasing and people are choosing to have kids when theyMalcolm Collins: have more money, just not in wedlock. Is that a similar economic impact from the UBI study did not increase births. So handouts, not so much, but increasing the jobs or economy and male economicSimone Collins: empowerment does.Yeah.Malcolm Collins: But to marriage effects, this is where it gets more interesting. Contrary to the reverse marriageable men hypothesis, there was no evidence that marriage rates increased. The data showed no reduction in never married rates. Or increase in marriageable rates. These findings were consistent across different modal specifications.Fascinating. Social context comparison. They compared these results to the Appalachian coal boom of the 1970s to 80s. During the earlier coal boom, increased earnings led to more ma

We Were Right! Two Men Kissing & a Bowl of Maggots (Disgust & Sexuality)
Dive into the fascinating discussion between Simone and Malcolm as they explore a revealing study on heterosexual men's disgust response to images of two men kissing and maggots. They analyze the implications of these findings on human sexuality, disgust responses, and cultural norms. From the biological basis of disgust to the role of socialization, this episode covers the layers of human arousal, progressive culture, and societal perceptions. They also touch on unique fetishes, power dynamics, and their own personal experiences. Expect an insightful conversation filled with groundbreaking predictions and thought-provoking insights. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. Today we are going to be talking about a study that came out recently titled What Did Two Men Kissing and A Bucket of Maggots Have in Common? Heterosexual Men's. Indistinguishable salivary, a amylase response to photos of two men, kissing and disgusting images. This is gonna be one of those days where we're gonna go a lot into disgust.Mm-hmm.Sexuality and point out, but yet again, I called it. I called it, everybody said that I was wrong. Everybody said my ideas were crazy. Now everyone agrees with all of my genius. ISimone Collins: think that Donald Trump for some of his press conferences has like an I was right hat. Yes. This is my, I was right, right hat And I think you need to put on your I was right hat.Yeah. We, we need one too.Speaker: We are gonna win so much. You may even get tired of winning and you'll say, please, please, it's too [00:01:00] much winning. We can't take it anymore,Malcolm Collins: I no, I, am I ever gonna get credit for being so effing right all the time? No. No. Am I? No. Is there ever gonna be like the scientist? I love it. That like with, with, with eyes. They literally coined the same term I coined, which was utility convergence. And, and they're like, so we found this weird thing in AI where we get utility convergence and nobody predicted this in the space.And I'm like, I predicted it like literally 10 years ago. What are you talking about? I wrote many papers and things on this. Yeah. Yeah. And this is something that in our, you know, we talk a lot about human sexuality. I'd predicted this, and you're gonna be shocked, you're gonna be shocked by this, but it says a lot about one arousal and disgust work.Mm-hmm.Two. One of the big lies that progressives tell everyone about it. So to read part of the abstract here, participant current study viewed six different slideshows depicting same [00:02:00] sex, PDA, that's public display of affection or, or kissing, mixed sex, PDA, everyday items and disgusting images. This is like bowls full of maggots.Okay? While providing saliva samples in the lab, a series of paired sampled T-test were performed and found that SAA, this is saliva MLAs, which is produced by discussed responses like neurologically. It triggers the release of this enzyme responses to images of same sex men kissing. And universally disgusting images were significantly greater than SAA responses to a slideshow depicting everyday items.So basically we so-called it hold on, hold on. It gets better. It gets better. The results held across the full sample regardless of individuals, individual level of prejudice. Specifically prejudice against gay individuals. The results of the current study suggest that all individuals, not just highly sexually prejudiced individuals, [00:03:00] experience psychological responses indicative of stress when witnessing male, , same sex, couple kissing,Simone Collins: no wait.Did they also try this on gay men?Malcolm Collins: Not in this study, the possibility of socialized disgust response to same-sex PDA is discussed. Basically, let me lay this out for people who didn't catch what this means. It means that the disgust reaction that we have. We being most straight males have when watching two gay men kiss, which is a strong reaction.I talked about it myself and I couldn't get blow back from this. Like I had a gay roommate all through high school. Okay. Because I went to a boarding school in college, like my best friends were gay. I hung out with gay people all the time. I am not like an anti-gay person.I have an extreme to seeing men, kissing men, extreme disgust reaction. And what this is showing is that your acceptance of this is not [00:04:00] tied to your disgust reaction. This has a multiplicative downstream implications. The first being is that one, this disgust reaction is not socialized. This is not because of your religiosity or anything like this.Mm-hmm. Something that you are born with. Mm-hmm. It makes it much more likely that gay individuals and, and, and I, I've noted this in the pragmatist gay sexuality, because I think one of the core mysteries of human sexuality is why male gayness does not appear like female. And it appears like the exact inversion of male straightness.Yeah.Simone Collins: It's not like, yeah. So they're not, they're not sexual like a wom

The Progressive Mental Health Crisis
In this episode, we delve into the rising mental health crisis among progressive women, examining data and discussing potential causes, including the impact of urban monocultures and the evolution of harmful online communities. We compare mental health and life satisfaction rates between liberal and conservative women, analyze the role of therapists, and explore the influence of platforms like Tumblr. The discussion also touches on the diverging experiences of men and women across political ideologies and the broader societal implications of these trends. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we will be touching on the issue of exploding mental health rate. Problems within progressive women as well as exploding lack of life satisfaction. They actually have life satisfaction ratings three times lower than conservative women.And we're gonna be going into co. Funding data that could explain this. This is a topic that we have touched on in the past, but it is a topic with such a voluminous amount of information around it that it is worth going into deeply with new data, with old data and, and trying to understand it because it's, it's, it's really fascinating to me because what we're seeing exploding mental health issues within progressive women is we are seeing.The urban monocultures effects on somebody's mental health in psychology. [00:01:00] And through that we can, because that's, that largely aligns with, with progressivism, right? The dominant culture of our, of our society. And we can understand through that through understanding what might be causing this is how the urban monitoring could be hurting people.And we're also going to go into a brief exploration that I found really interesting in, in a piece that I found. On how the most negative psychologically harmful culture evolved on, tumblr,Simone Collins: this sounds like just, you know, hitting all my favorite keywords. I am very excited about this and let's, let's do it.Malcolm Collins: All right. So. First, I'm gonna be going over a piece called Why So Blue Liberal women are less happy or lonely, but why?Simone Collins: Oh, they went there.Malcolm Collins: Good. Good points on the title. Yeah. Yeah. The loneliness thing is actually really shocking as well. Young liberal women are especially pro nowadays to reporting poor mental health.[00:02:00] This was a discovery that Zach Goldberg made almost five years ago, pouring over the Pew data in the spring of 2020. Now, here I'm putting a chart on screen and it's looking at has the doctor or other healthcare provider. Ever told you you have a mental health condition and this is the amount who said yes.Simone Collins: I just, I love this idea though of like the healthcare provider being, say, your dentist, just like, yeah,Malcolm Collins: she is problems. And this chart is famous. This one we've gone over before that showed that white liberal women. 18 to 29, 56 0.3% of them had been diagnosed with a mental health condition. Conservative womenSimone Collins: see is, I think is not the problem that they're seeing therapists in the first place.I think it's really hard for anyone to see a therapist and not be diagnosed with something, even if they're completely normal. Well,Malcolm Collins: the therapists are part of the cult of the urban monoculture. Yeah. It's like going to your confessions. Like they see it as important. As I've mentioned, I've seen women who will screen [00:03:00] dating guys.Who aren't seeing a therapist, and that's like they have been incepted with the dependency of the urban monoculture to believe that I cannot be mentally healthy and no one can be mentally healthy without seeing a therapist.Simone Collins: Yes. And yet when you see the therapist, they point out how mentally. Yeah.RubyMalcolm Collins: Art actually had an interesting talk about this, where he's like, oh yes, he went to be a progressive therapist and then a conservative therapist, and the progressive therapist just kept. Having him ruminate on his problems. Yeah. And the conservative therapist was like, okay, here's a chart. Here's what you need to do.Here's the timeline for getting rid of it. And what's, which is nice, I mean,Simone Collins: and he didn't even imply that the, I. The conservative therapist was certain, he just gave him potential things he could try that were evidence-based. And it's so, but it's also so indicative of the feminine versus masculine response to someone preventing a problem, presenting a problem.You know that the correct feminine response is, oh, I'm so sorry. Tell you more. This must be so hard for you. And then the masculine response responses, okay, let's make a [00:04:00] solution. And that that scene is so toxic by manyMalcolm Collins: people. Oh, absolutely. But, but to this graph right here yeah. One thing that's really interesting in it is, yes, okay, over half of liberal white women have a mental health condition, have been diagnose

Post-Globalization Monarchist Philosophy: With the Aristocratic Utensil
In this episode, we are joined by Spoon, the YouTube personality known for his monarchist leanings. We dive into topics like the relevance of democracy today and possible alternatives. Spoon discusses his journey into politics, influenced by changing cultural and political landscapes, and how he arrived at his unconventional views. We also explore the dynamics between left and right-wing ideologies, the role of church and state, and the challenges of modern governance. This engaging dialogue bridges historical perspectives with contemporary issues, making for a thought-provoking session. Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. We're so excited today to be joined by a very special guest, spoon, the aristocratic utensil on YouTube as well as on X. Although your handle on X is at Aris.Malcolm Collins: And what I wanted to talk about today was voting ooh and democracy and is it relevant anymore? And where would, how could you construct better systems? And I thought that you'd be a great person to have on with this, especially talking with us because I know that you had like monarchist leanings, people have called our political beliefs.Plu Tists. I'm interested to hear more from you.The Aristocratic Utensil: Hmm.Oh, basically, how did I get to my views?Malcolm Collins: Yeah, well, did you, were, did you grow up? Why do you think it's better? Why you think it's, you know, a, a good structure, what a perfect country would look like?The Aristocratic Utensil: Hmm.Okay. So it's kind of weird how I even got into politics in general because if I, if I were to look at like my 6-year-old self and my 30 5-year-old self and go, you are gonna be on YouTube one day talking about [00:01:00] politics, I would go, okay, what, what the hell happened in my life that made me take an interest in politics, let alone monarchy?How, how did I get to that? That's just bizarre. I don't how and it was ba it was basically because a friend of mine several years ago this was like back in early 2010s, I wanna say. Hmm. Before Bernie Saunas really hit the scene, but she was also a Bernie fan. The, this, this is show you how long the culture has shifted for, and just a very short amount of time actually is that she was a.Californian girl who was let's just say she was built in a very feminine way. She's from California, but lefty perspectives, but she control like, an absolute a*****e right? Winger, which by today's standards makes no sense, an extremely lefty person, but they, but they spit right? Rightwing insults.Yes. Like she would drop slurs in a way that would get you banned on Twitter within 30 seconds which is not a human being that exists today. Standard. And she got me into [00:02:00] Bernie Sa as, as as a political figure. And then right about the time he said a couple of things that made me as a South African go, that's just factually not true.Hmm. He said,white people don't know what it's like to be poor. And I went mathematically, that doesn't even add up. That's just, that is not true. And the way he spoke about certain. Racial policies made me go. Okay. Were you,Malcolm Collins: were you a a like Bernie supporter at this point? Like you liked him as a political candidate?The Aristocratic Utensil: Yes, I think, okay, so I said this in one of my streams and I think this is what makes you go further left leaning and what makes you right wing.Mm-hmm. Is that from the, the old liberal perspective, I do think it is based upon a lot of people can look at the system and go, there is a lot of corruption. There is a lot of unnecessary government control in places they shouldn't be. And they sort of just look at the, the current paradigm and go, [00:03:00] this is not a moral system.And the problem is they look at this situation and go, there should be state intervention. What they're really looking for is morality in the state.Hmm.Whereas if you are a right winger, you'll recognize this doesn't work.Right. Andso you'll, you'll tend to go from more libertarian perspective, which is just these institutions are beyond repair because they incentivize a certain behavior that you cannot generate just through powering through the institutions.You have to structure them in a way that actually make the. Political class want to benefit the citizenry and the way that they want the system to work just does not gel with human nature.Hmm.And when you go from that perspective, you can go, okay, now you have to shift libertarian or go completely insane and advocate from monarchy in the 21st century.That's more the route that I took, whereas the opposite end of leftism, they are just moed motivated [00:04:00] purely by envy. It's just that I cannot compete in this system, and so I must smash it to b***h in the hopes that whatever comes next will appeal to me. And I've seen the people who go for that, and I don't want to be disrespectful, but there's not a brain cell in those people.Like really, they are completely driven by this fantasy idea of an idea

Why the Left Can't Mentally Model the Right
In this episode, we delve into research papers exploring how political ideologies affect empathy and understanding between left-leaning and right-leaning individuals. We discuss the fascinating phenomenon where conservatives seem to display more empathy towards liberals than vice versa. Studies like 'Empathetic Conservatives and Moralizing Liberals' provide insights into this asymmetry. We also touch on dehumanization, cultural narratives, and real-world examples from gaming communities. Join us for an eye-opening discussion on political empathy and cultural dynamics. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today is going to be an episode where we're gonna go over a few research papers that explore lefty and righty brains. Again, really interestingly, but with a focus on a persistent phenomenon that has been found, which is that people on the right politically.Have a much easier time modeling how people on the left think than people on the left able to model people on the right.Simone Collins: That is so strange. That is so strange. Yeah. The people I grew up thinking as someone on the left, that we were the empathetic ones, that we understood everyone better and we knew what everyone we needed.Malcolm Collins: How can we get this so wrong? Oh, it's not just that we're gonna go into other things. So like, just speaking of them not being empathetic, just to give a little sure thing away here. So there were four studies with nearly 4,800 participants in the UK and the us Okay. To look at how much empathy each side had for their political opponents.Yeah. This was called empathetic [00:01:00] conservatives and moralizing liberals. Political intergroup empathy varies by political ideology and is explained by moral judgment.So what it showed is that liberals have less empathy for conservatives than conservatives have of liberals. This actuallySimone Collins: makes a lot of sense too, because I remember being on the left, growing up. Having empathy for the entire world, but still seeing conservatives as this inhuman boogeyman. Yeah, so that actually checks out.That's wild.Malcolm Collins: Conservatives do not dehumanize lefties. But lefties do dehumanize conservatives. They do. They do. And, and this is, this is seen in the data, like this study was like, surprisingly, conservatives showed more empathy for liberals than liberals showed of conservatives. This asymmetry was found across studies and was statistically reliable.Why is it surprising? Maybe it's surprising because of your own biases going into the study. And I love the way the study explained this away. It's like, well, this is actually justified because [00:02:00] lefties beliefs, conservatives want to kill them, and conservatives don't think lefties wanna kill them. And I was like, well, but conservatives don't want to kill them, so it's not, this is like saying the Nazis were were justified because blood libel.They're like, yeah, well they did think the Jews were murdering their babies. And it's like, yeah, but the Jews weren't murdering their babies. That doesn't make their ideology justified. What? What are you talking about? Now I note here that there was a great study done on the nature of the dehumanization, which I think can help.So, this was the study, political meta dehumanization in mental representations, divergent emphasis in the minds of liberals versus conservatives. And this study found that liberals and conservatives differed in how they dehumanize the other, at least in the framing of this static. Okay. So what this study found was that.Conservatives tend to view liberals as immature, while liberals see conservatives as savage. Which is true. But one is like a pitying, like if you had more information. Yeah, yeah.Simone Collins: You're just misinformed. You're [00:03:00] just, you're not exposed to the world as it's, I, IMalcolm Collins: like that's dehumanization. It's not dehumanization.That's just like. Actually the way it is. If, if I believe that, if they, if, if you actually empathize with someone and see them as human, you're going to think that the reason they hold these views is they just don't have access to as much information as you Yeah.Simone Collins: That you must know something that they don't know and then that's why you view what you view.Yes, yes. Which, which is framed as, that's how I remember viewing conservatives as. A leftist young lady.Malcolm Collins: No, and I remember, Hey, I was a leftist at one point too, and I remember conservatives are the savages who live in the woods and are religious extremists and don't know any. Yes, scarySimone Collins: Bible. Thumping.Cultist. Monsters who don't care about other people at all and just want you to live like them. AndMalcolm Collins: yeah. So I wanna talk about like what creates this phenomenon. Yeah. And, and I should note the first study that I was mentioning that led to all of this I heard one guy, I. Point out this was sh

Nihilism is Philosophical Hedonism & We Are All Susceptible (Pessimism Protects You Psychologically)
In this episode, we delve into the philosophical and psychological aspects of pessimism, nihilism, and antinatalism. The discussion begins with the exploration of Emil Cioran's ideas and the allure of pessimism and nihilism. We then touch on how adopting such mindsets can act as psychological protection and social dominance hacks. Throughout the episode, we contrast these perspectives with more optimistic and proactive approaches to life, personal responsibility, and earnest enthusiasm. Includes a critique of C. S. Lewis's argument from desire and the importance of avoiding nihilistic tendencies in personal relationships. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today is going to be an interesting and philosophical episode, but also focused on psychology and sort of best mental health practices for living. I was listening. to a podcast diving into the philosophy of Emil Kairon, who wrote Better Not to Have Been Bored.He, the Romanian philosopher. And he exhibited many traits that I think that all of us are susceptible to, which is the protective shell of dumerism, pessimism. And this feeling of suffering. And I think that if we investigate this, we can understand why it feels so comfy to go to this placeSpeaker 9: That's cool. I guess you can join up with usMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx): Antinatalists.Speaker 9: if you want.Speaker 10: Yeah, we're gonna go to the graveyard [00:01:00] and write poems about death and how pointless life is.Speaker 9: Thanks for offering to let me in your clit, guys. But to be honest, I'd rather be a crying little pussy than aMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-1: Antinatalist.Speaker 9: kid. We'll see you, Stan.Speaker 10: He's right. I don't even know who I am anymore. I like liking life a lot more than hating it. Screw you guys. I'm going home. Go ahead and go backSpeaker 9: to your sunshine, fairytale.Malcolm Collins: And, and, and, and just as a, a bit of a preview here, I think there's a few things that play I think one is, it removes some degree of responsibility for one's own failures or states, so there is less need for self judgment or self motivation two is I believe that it looks chic, like it, it, it looks sophisticated.Yes. Sophisticated. Three is it makes you much more difficult for other people to attack. It's a very lazy position to hold intellectually speaking, because [00:02:00] when people attempt to attack you. You know, you're just like, yeah, you know, life is terrible. Yeah, et cetera. And like, you can't hurt me. Like I'm, I'm at rock bottom.Where are you going to push me? Exactly.Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-2: I found a video of some real Americans running across a far left voluntary human extinction rally.Speaker 7: Are these the Nazis?Speaker 6: No, Donnie, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: My first world life has involved some degree of suffering and I didn't consent to being born.Speaker 7: It's not fair!Speaker 6: Fair? Who's the f*****g nihilist around here, you bunch of f*****g crybabies? This guy's gonna hurt us, Walter. No, Donnie. These men are cowards. I f**k you!Speaker 7: F**kSpeaker 6: you!Speaker 7: I f**k you! I f**k you! Ball, man. Hey, dick. Oh.Hey, dick.Speaker 6: IMalcolm Collins: so let's go over all of these through the framing of this individual. All right. So this individual is really important to antinatalist philosophy where I [00:03:00] study, you know, if our opponents have a philosophy, I make a point of studying their intellectual arguments as much as I could.He, did not have any particularly sophisticated or interesting intellectual arguments. But he had a very interesting, buddhismSimone Collins: because I feel like one, this is a very, very, very old meme. The life is suffering meme is like extremely old. So what is, what are his novel? AreMalcolm Collins: I don't remember it. No, it was something like just not interesting. The other person I was studying today was C. S. Lewis who had, it was dumb for like way more interesting ways than this guy was dumb. But we'll, we will do C. S. with our audience.Simone Collins: If you're calling C. S. Lewis dumb, boy, oh boy. I'm sorry, Simone.I'm sorry.Malcolm Collins: He wasn't dumb.Simone Collins: Emails we're going to get.Malcolm Collins: He was straight up retarded. Like, I was shocked at the stupidity of some of his arguments.this, this yes, Lewis rant was moved to the end of the episode. If you want to see it, you can go there.Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-4: That said, I'm probably wrong to call him dumb.It's more that [00:04:00] he's very Malcolm Gladwell y. He mostly just aggregates other people's ideas and tells them in a way that is more accessible to the average person. And when he has independent or new ideas, like the argument from desire, they're typically very, very bad. He doesn't really interject any interesting new ideas to the conversation.Malcolm Collins: Okay. So this guy did

The Surprisingly Recent Origins of Wicca and Druidism
In this intriguing episode, we delve into the modern origins of what is known today as witchcraft, Wicca, and Druidism. Discussing key figures like Gerald Gardner, who invented Wicca in the 20th century, and how he convinced people of its ancient roots, we also explore other notable personalities such as Aleister Crowley. The episode sheds light on how these new-age religions were shaped by modern influences and entirely invented narratives. The conversation further debunks misconceptions about ancient connections to current mystical practices, analyzing the role of historic beliefs and comparing them to modern adaptations. Dive into the fascinating history and evolution of these mystical traditions with a critical eye. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today is going to be a very interesting episode on a topic I should have done a long time ago. It's going to be on how the movement that today purports itself to be witchcraft or Wiccan or juridic, all of these religious systems.are very, very modern. They are some of the youngest religious systems to exist and have literally no ties to any historic pagan faith practices. And even when they were revived, were revised as monotheistic traditions and only became pagan in their later iterations. What?!Specifically here, I'm talking about the guy who made up the druidic phase, not the Wiccan phase.And these were both around the 1900s. So we're gonna go into these individuals, how they made it up, how they got people to believe them. We're gonna go into Alistair Crawley, another interesting figure. He didn't even claim to have connections to anything in the past, he was just Okay.A wackadoo. I didn't know he was a real guy. I, I saw him from the show, right? And I was like, [00:01:00] Oh, a real guy. No, he was a, he was a wacko, but way more fun than the other guys. Cause at least he owned that he was just making everything up. And the other guys, well, and he stole a bunch from Kabbalah and we'll go over where So were the other guys trying practiced as witchcraft today within the Wiccan community, not realizing that what they're practicing doesn't come from ancient witches, but it comes from Jewish mysticism.Simone Collins: Oh, my God. Do I understand correctly then that the two men who claimed to have either rediscovered or who reignited druidic practices in Wicca sort of pointed to historical materials that they may have made either misinterpreted or made up kind of like Joseph Smith using funerary texts from Egypt?Malcolm Collins: It's, well, maybe not crazier than the Joseph Smith story, but he said he, he, he met a cult in the woods that taught him about all of this is the first one we're going to go to. And we think we know who some of the figures he was talking about were. So we know that like, they didn't do this. There's been people who have [00:02:00] gone through and, and, and researched him to learn more about this.So the guy. Was Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant, with a taste for the occult. He returned to England in the 1930s, and he claimed that in 1939, he was initiated into a secret coven. in New Forest by a group he called the Wicca, allegedly survivors of an ancient pagan witch cult. His story leaned heavily on the now debunked theories of anthropologist Margaret Murray, who argued in the 1920s that European witchcraft was a remnant of pre christian fertility religions.Scholars later dismantled Murray's hypothesis. There is no solid evidence of a contiguous witch cult surviving the middle ages, but Garner ran with it. So a quick note here, if you're like, well, where did all of these mystical traditions come from if they didn't come from some ancient religion it turns out that people will invent the same [00:03:00] mystical traditions over and over again.For example, when you hear a sports player keeps a lucky sock under their helmet or something to win games, you don't go, oh, he must've picked that up from some ancestral religion. You're like, oh yes, humans often end up associating fetishes, not like Sexual fetishes, but like small token stuff with having magical properties and then build rituals around them.It is a natural and emergent human behavior with the fact that we see today things like chaos magic, which is another group I could go into, where they believe things like McDonald's arches are like abundant signs and stuff like that and can be used like, like just, or you see, pop culture paganism where people will believe that.Like Loki, not Loki, like the ancient Norse God, but Loki, like the hot guy from Marvel. Oh my God. Is, is. Oh no. The one who all the girls get a crush on. I mean, I don't know. I hear that he's supposed to be the hot one. NotSimone Collins: the [00:04:00] actual God. No, no, no, no, no, no. They're the different like Marvel characters. Like, Snape wives, right?Like, yeah. But not, not the. Snape wives. Yes. Snape is definitely not, no connection to anything. Harry Potter, Sephiroth. Like

The Changing Politics of the Tech Elite: With Mike Solana of Pirate Wires
In this engaging episode, the hosts sit down with Mike Solana, founder and editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires, to dissect the contemporary political scene. They explore Solana's role in shaping the tech-right political movement and the significant changes since the recent election cycles. The discussion spans from the transformation in Silicon Valley's political affiliations to the rise and strategy of Donald Trump's second term. Solana shares insights into the surprising status gain of Trump supporters in tech and the implications of such a shift. The conversation also delves into broader societal changes, including the shifting values in America, the decline of mainstream media, and the increasing significance of niche communities in a post-job economy. The episode is a fascinating look at the undercurrents shaping today's political and social landscape. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. We're excited to have with us today. Mike Solana, the founder and editing something chief of Pirate Wires. 1,Simone Collins: 2, 3. Hello everyone. We're so excited to be day today. Oh my gosh.Okay. Yeah. Sorry. You went,Malcolm Collins: this is why we go with mine. Okay. Anyway. For people who don't know who Mike Salona is he doesn't just have a podcast. It's very popular. But in a publication, that's incredible. Yes. You also sort of put together heretic on, right?Mike Solana: It was my idea.Yeah. Founded it, created it. It's out of done out of out of Founders Fund, but yeah, it's mine. All mine.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So you've been a central figure in the coalition or sort of the consolidation of this sort of new right or tech right political movement that right now is sort of blowing through the country within the White House and a lot of what we're seeing.And I wanted to talk with you as somebody who [00:01:00] is. Totally integrated in like what's going on sort of the venture capital Silicon Valley tech worker scene the vibe shift that you have seen post election cycle there What's changing about how people are relating to things as well as the role that you played in this?Consolidation to to write some history here as the country changes and also to discuss the political realignment. We're seeing in the United StatesMike Solana: Well, I think first of all my own in my own personal life. I kind of i'm like very cagey about labels I Have tried to just be honest about what I'm seeing.And so people tend to put me in a box based on that. Maybe I belong in the box. I don't know, but I can talk about what I've seen. And in terms of what's different right now, I think the best thing to contrast is not what's happening today versus what was happening like four years ago with Biden, but just to, to just, we have this great example of Trump's.[00:02:00]Presidency and his inauguration and you can just compare the first one to the second one. He's had two first terms in a sense Really like he hasn't had a first in a second term. These are two totally separate I said not too long ago. It sort of feels like He played the video game and and, and lost.And he just started the exact same game over from the very beginning. Now knowing where all of the bosses are, right? It's not like he's gotten to the second chapter. He's just still in that first chapter, but he's doing it all over again. So we've never seen that. None of us have seen that in any of our lives.So it's, it's like a very kind of new thing. And within tech, you can compare that first one to the second one. And it's obviously night and day. I mean, the first one was there was one person in tech who was open about his support of. Donald Trump. It was Peter Thiel, and he was completely alienated right out of town for it and has since been sort of forgotten to a, to a large extent because there were much louder people who came to Trump's defense and support this second [00:03:00] time around who've, I think, occupied a lot of the, Discourse surrounding that in tech.And I don't want to like, obviously I feel some kind of way about that. Having been on the front lines of it, obviously not like Peter, but I mean, I work for Peter, I've known Peter forever. So I have a feelings about the way he was treated. But the difference is just obviously today, Trump supporters.Have status in Silicon Valley. And in fact, being a right wing person almost grants a certain amount of status, I would say at the higher levels. So I think it's really unclear what's happening among the rank and file. We haven't seen another round of fundraising data. The last time that we looked tech was still overwhelmingly voting.funding Democrats, venture capital will so overwhelmingly funding Democrats, but all the people openly talking about it are, it's just like overwhelmingly Trumpian. And then everybody else is, I think either conflicted because the Biden term was so [00:04:00] disastrous or quiet. And I suspense it. I suspect it was conflicted rather than quiet.I think people actually just didn't k

Moral Circles & The Conservative Brain
In this episode, we delve into the famous 'moral circle' chart from the study 'Ideological Differences in the Expanse of the Moral Circle.' We discuss common misinterpretations of the study, highlighting errors made by the researchers that led to widespread confusion. We explore how conservatives and progressives allocate their moral concern across different layers, from immediate family to the entire universe. We also examine neurological and psychological differences between these groups, touching on aspects such as threat sensitivity, cognitive processing, and brain structure. This comprehensive discussion aims to shed light on the fundamental ideological divide and how both sides perceive and value their moral priorities. [00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. It is wonderful to be chatting with you today. Today, we are going to go in to the famous circles or charts of interest. It comes from a study titled Ideological Differences in the Expanse of the Moral Circle. And so this is a moral circle chart that everybody loves to show. And I wanted to go into this in an episode because one, what the study actually says, Versus what people think it says is hugely misinterpreted, mostly because the people who wrote the study made a mistake in the way they described the procedure of the experiment, which led people to completely misunderstand what was being shown in the graph because the graph is intuitively not what you would expect it to be.So there is actually data that looks at what people think this is, which is on average what conservatives and progressives care about. But it's not the graph that you think you're looking at. Okay, so what a lot of people think that this graph shows that I have shown you is [00:01:00] sort of moral expanses of what people care about.Where do they put their intention with each layer of this circle, representing moving out from like yourself to your family. To out out out. So let's go over what the the various rings mean. The innermost layers include categories like immediate family, closest friends, et cetera.Simone Collins: Okay,Malcolm Collins: then you have the innermost layers, layers, sort of the middling layers, all people you've ever met, all people in your community, all people in your country which reflects sort of a broader sense of community.Then you have the outer layers. These encompass all humans, all mammals, all living things in the universe, including plants and trees. And then you have the very outermost layer, which is all things in existence, like rocks and everything like that, okay? And what a lot of people interpret this chart as meaning is the average of what conservatives and progressives care about.And in a way, it's telling, because not a lot of people pushed back against this interpretation. I. e., you see here, conservatives care about things like family. [00:02:00] their countrymen, whereas progressives in this interpretation cared the most about things like rocks and plants and stuff like that. And, well, I mean, people intuitively hear this and they're like, yeah, that sounds like the type of brain dead thing a progressive would care about.The problem is, is they did ask that question. Okay. It's just the data that they collected from asking that question was shown in a separate chart. Which I will show you in a second. And this chart shows data around the question of what is the furthest extent of the things you care about.Simone Collins: Which makesMalcolm Collins: progressives look a little less crazy.IE conservatives often do not really, it actually makes the conservatives look a little sociopathic with many conservatives not really caring much outside of their family, their friends, etc. And with, and I, and progressives being like [00:03:00] almost sort of sociopathic in the other extreme. I care about the universe and everything.I care about all things.Simone Collins: Yes.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, so let's look at the real graph that that actually looked at the answers to this rating and you'll see why nobody shares it because it's done terribly and it's hard to interpret.Now,if you saw this graph, you'd think that the first graph was the, what do you care about most? Not the extent of your beliefs. And right. This graph was the extent of your beliefs question, but no, they did it oppositely because they were bad at their jobs. It was great for memes and they haven't really gone back and commented on it much because They're scientists and they don't like that it's become like a meme thing and they feel kind of bad about messing it up to begin with.It's sort of like my read of what's going on here. But what you can see from this chart is this took the thing that you care about most on average basically gave people a number of tokens. And you can slot them into different categories. You can put like all your tokens on family and only like one or two on country and stuff like that.Or you can distribute [00:04:00] your tokens more evenly.

They Will Replace You: What Drives Them? (With Catherine Pakaluk of Hannah's Children)
Join us in an inspiring conversation with Catherine Ruth Pakaluk, a professor of economics at Catholic University, and author of 'Hannah's Children'. Catherine, a mother of 14 (8 biological and 6 adopted), shares her experiences of motherhood, the purposefulness behind having many children, and insights from her qualitative research on mothers with large families. We discuss the controversy surrounding the book, factors influencing high fertility rates, and the cultural and policy implications of promoting intentional childbearing. Catherine also provides practical advice on parenting, gender roles in large families, and the surprising joys and challenges of raising many children. [00:00:00]Simone Collins: Hello everyone. We are so excited to be joined today by one of my favorite people in the entire world and inspiration to me. Catherine Ruth. She is a teacher.She's a professor of economics at Catholic University, but more importantly to me, she's author of Hannah's Children, the book that changed my mind from wanting seven kids to 10 plus kids. It got me so excited about it. So we're thrilled. We're thrilled to have you on and we're very keen. to ask you some questions, both about the book, but also about being a super mother.I mean, you've had, you're the mother to 14 children, eight of them that you've given birth to. It's just insane, like, that you're living this, this dream. Just to clarify, you haveMalcolm Collins: 14 children. But that gives you a lot of data points.Catherine Pakaluk: That is true.Simone Collins: So the first thing we were curious as we were prepping for our conversation with you and just wondering is when you published Hannah's Children, which is a book in which [00:01:00] you really share academic research where you did qualitative interviews with.Mothers who had more than five Children or five or more Children, I should say. When you released the book or even when you were doing the research what was the most controversial thing that came up or the place where you got the most pushback or bristling?Catherine Pakaluk: Yeah, probably. If you want to know the truth, probably the fact that I limited my sample that college educated women.Yeah,it's just interesting because a lot of people wanted to you know, number one, you know, are you sort of saying that the only way to be like a full human being is to have a college education, which is funny because I'm like on the other end of this I I'd be. More inclined to say, like, we've done too much college in this country, and we need to kind of free up the education market, free up the credentialing market.But so that was something that came up a lot as a kind of pushback was like, you know, you're, you're, you're zeroing in on sort of this a special group of people, right? Because it's not, it's not everybody. Why did youMalcolm Collins: choose College Educated Women?Catherine Pakaluk: Yeah, well, I did, because that's where in the data, we really see [00:02:00] this the, the, the correlation most strongly, right?So the more education people, women and countries have, the fewer children they have. So you see what I mean? So you kind of want to figureSimone Collins: out this post globalization, post female empowerment world. You're totally right. It's one of the things we were just recording an episode about. was how we can't go back, how researchers have found that, for example, giving men more economic empowerment relative to women actually doesn't increase marriage rates.You know, so like, yeah, no, okay. That makes sense. Now I get it.Catherine Pakaluk: Yeah. That was the reason. And of course I wrote the book really for a general audience, a very wide audience. And so I didn't want to, I didn't. Use a lot of space to make that case. It's like, it's like a couple of sentences. And then people ask me later and they're like, Oh, you know, they didn't even read those two sentences.And they, they think like, it's really elitist to just talk to college educated women. I'm like, I didn't have a lot of space here guys, but I did, you know, I did go, I did. Intentionally, from my sample of people who applied to be interviewed, I did grab women from kind of all parts of the [00:03:00] socioeconomic spectrum.So, I mean, you know, there are women who have college degrees who aren't living it up and just toMalcolm Collins: make sure you got some that were poverty and you kept some on who wanted to get PhDs and work in academia.Catherine Pakaluk: 100%. There you go. You nailed it. Like my best friends. Yeah, that's right.Malcolm Collins: So question here. What surprised you most of the like findings or the commonalities in these women maybe that differentiated from your own experience or that affirmed your ownCatherine Pakaluk: experience?Yeah. Good question. Let me see. So, I think this is going to sound funny, but you know, the first piece that kind of confirmed my experience was that like, people have reasons for what they're doing. I mean, I k

How Skull and Bones Went Woke: Identity Politics in Elite Societies
In this episode, delve into the controversial transformation of Yale's infamous secret society, Skull and Bones. The discussion explores how the organization, historically known for its exclusive white male membership, has altered its selection processes to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion. The conversation covers pivotal moments and changes within the society, raising questions about hypocrisy, elitism, and the true motives behind these shifts. It also touches on broader implications for elite networks and how they reconcile with modern political ideologies, highlighting the complexities and contradictions within these evolving traditions. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be talking about the secret society skull and bones. And before anyone thinks that this title was clickbait and that maybe this secret society, one of the most famous secret societies in the world didn't actually go woke.I'll start with a quick excerpt for what I'm going to be reading in 2020. Skull and Bones had its first entirely non white class today, the idea of skull and bones selecting someone whose dad was a Republican president seems inconceivable.The so called tap lines, the tradition guaranteeing the football captain and the student body president would end up in bones, are all gone. And few descendants of the alumni members get in. Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select students ,the bones class of 2021 had quote unquote all kinds of people, but the one thing they didn't have was a single member who was a conservative. Okay, I get an [00:01:00] idea of just how there's been aSimone Collins: takeover and that's a, that's a little Al canes recalls being tappedMalcolm Collins: by a senior who wanted to keep the Latino line going.So this was a person who was tapped by another Latino with the intention that they would go and tap a Latino themselves to keep at least this Latino line going with it. Okay. All right. He decided to focus on a different diversity metric. I chose three trans people. Oh no, oh no. That was my specific goal.Simone Collins: Oh, it's yeah, wow. No white people, three trans people. It reminds me of those cartoons of like, a little fish eats a another tinier fish, and then a bigger fish eats that one, and a bigger fish eats that one until, yeah. IMalcolm Collins: wanted to go into this because I think a lot of people, when they look at these societies, there's a few things that we can take away from this.One is we're going to learn sort of how they took over these organizations and how this happens to, we're going to see these strange parallel [00:02:00] between the, if you look at the history of skull and bones, you know, they were a. Supremacist and an ethno supremacist organization at times. Well, they still are.It's fine. Nothing has changed. Literally, the racists are still the one in charge. Yeah. They are still deeply concerned with and talk about the skin color background. Well, thank goodness. Tradition isn't dead. Of everyone that's being admitted to the organization. This is great. To me highlights the ethno elitism of the leftist oligarchical class at this point.It shows how these people get into positions of corporate power to continue to carry out their dastardly needs. And it shows I, I think as well when people think to these old pockets. Of secret societies, and you know, you famously used to be managing director of a secret society that was founded by Peter Thiel and Orrin Hoffman.We go to stuff like Hereticon, that's one I can talk about. We also go to a bunch of things I can't talk about, like I mentioned before, [00:03:00] because it was found out by a secret undercover reporter that I've been to the Bohemian Grove. But I can't say anything more than that. I can only do quotes from other people.Same thing with my knowledge of Skull and Bones. I need to, I can talk around it. I didn't go to Yale, so I'm, you know, not directly connected. But I, I might be able to add some elaboration as I'm reading through this, but again, I have to be very careful about what I say, but I have a lot of insight into these things.One of my favorite claims to fame personally is that the book, The Bloodlines of the Illuminati which is like the major Illuminati book, the CII hosted on their website for whatever reason. Says that my dad, like calling him out by name and the company he runs is one of the supposed leaders of the Illuminati.So I'm the oldest male child, so I wasn't born yet when this book was written. So now I guess I'm one of the leaders of the Illuminati too. But what's humorous is in terms of the secret societies that actually impact things, you and I actually are like significant players. And I think what people don't.realize is that the secret societies and parties that impact things are not the ones that you and conspiracy [00:04:00] theorists are afraid of. And most of them are on your side. I. e., if what they were saying at these events w

Does Gay Conversion Therapy Really Not Work?
In this thought-provoking episode, Simone and Malcolm tackle the contentious and controversial topic of gay conversion therapy. They delve into its history, methods, and the scientific data surrounding its effectiveness (or lack thereof). The discussion spans various types of therapies, from psychotherapeutic to medical and faith-based methods. The hosts confront the ideological biases and misinformation often found in debates about changing sexual orientation, while highlighting the ethical and practical implications of imposing such therapies on individuals. The episode also touches on broader societal issues such as community identity, the cultural significance of sex, and the impact of modern ideological conflicts on age-old practices. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today we are going to be asking the age old question is. If somebody is gay, can you turn them straight by electrocuting them?Speaker: Do you think you should turn gay? I don't think it works like that. Okay, well, Hot Topic's next on the list. Could I turn gay working there? You can't just magically turn gay. This isn't Degrassi. Why are you so against turning gay? Because if you think you turned gay, there's some weird Christian guy who thinks he can electrocute you into turning back.Speaker 3: People think that?Malcolm Collins: No, so hold on so actually I feel like for anyone who hasn't seen there's this show in the u. s The unbreakable kimmy schmidt everybody's on netflix, right? And it's about a girl who grows up in this cult with a guy who lied to her about everything and when she enters the world, she has to constantly find things and then be like Oh yeah, I need to check if this was a lie or not.And this happened to me recently around conversion therapy. Okay. Just, you know, I think if you grow up in the broadly like progressive sphere the line [00:01:00] is conversion therapy, gay straight conversion therapy doesn't work. Yeah. And, you know, recently I found myself reflecting on this and I was like, oh yeah, but if it did work, they'd still say it doesn't work.Like they have an ideological reason to need to believe this uh, due to the way that they were framing like gayness as an identity. And, what really hit me is when I asked an AI questions about this, it got really angry at me. I don't know if you noticed, but there's certain issues where I'm like, hey, can you just steel man this other perspective?It could not bring itself. Perplexity could not bring itself to steel man the other perspective.Simone Collins: And this is a really important thing for us to be talking about now specifically because As of our recording now this coming Monday, the Supreme Court is going to take up state bans on conversion therapy for LGBTQ plus children based on a Colorado case.So, this is actively something that is being discussed. Do you haveMalcolm Collins: a religious right to [00:02:00] electrocute your children? That is, I'm, I'm joking by the way. What we're going to go over is all of the different types of conversion therapy. The thing that really got me in the AI Answer is I don't know if you guys have ever asked an AI a question And it gives you parts of the answers that are just obvious and transparent lies.Yeah like it gave me a list of things that it said do nothing to change an individual's, you know Sexual expression and one of those things was castration and I was like brother. I'm not like brother in christ I'm, not saying that we should be castrating gay people, but it obviously changes their sexual expression.Yeah And and Another thing that I just know because I've done a lot of research on like LGBT stuff is it will say, you know, you cannot change an individual's sexual orientation. And yet anyone who's familiar with like trans people just knows that wrong. About 43 percent of trans people report changes in their sexual orientation.When they go through hormone therapy. Yeah, it was only about 13 percent experiencing a complete change, but 13 percent do [00:03:00] experience a complete change. Exactly what gay conversion is supposed to achieve. Now, again I don't think that many conservatives are like that, that doesn't really solve the problem for most conservatives but it does show that there is a potential mechanism of action to achieve this.And in addition to that, you have the case of it would say that like certain therapies didn't work. But then I'd ask, well, are these therapies used in other areas? And he was like, oh yeah, they're also used in like phobias and alcohol addiction. And I was like, do they work there? It turns out they don't mostly so a lot of this stuff that it was actually right But it was much more nuanced in how it said they don't in those instances It was interesting debate, but I will note here that you can be like, but what about all the studies that say?It didn't work One of the things that was a real red flag for me because well there used to be a popularly cited study that said that

Why Are Americana & Jews Resistant to Demographic Collapse?
In this enlightening conversation, explore the ways conservative and traditional rural cultures, particularly Americana and Jewish cultures, resist the influence of urban monoculture. Malcolm and Simone delve into America's surprising fertility rates compared to other countries and discuss how cultural pride plays a crucial role. Discover how behaviors encouraged at home but restricted by schools create a distinction between family life and the outside world, and how this concept parallels the defensive nature of Orthodox Jewish communities. The discussion touches on a piece by Cat Girl Kulak, examining the comparisons between American conservatives and Jewish conservatives regarding cultural immunity and fertility rates. Learn about the potential causes behind Mormon fertility decline and the significance of embracing nonconformity within Americana culture in securing long-term cultural survival. The episode concludes with a lighthearted conversation about family life and the dynamics of raising kids to cherish their unique culture. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing how you can better protect your culture, especially if you have a conservative or religious culture or in any way distinct culture from the urban monoculture. And I wanted to do it within the context of why Is Americana culture so resistant to the urban monoculture?And it really hit me today because it is more resistant than other cultures. Like America's fertility rates, like 1. 66 now, whereas even like developing countries like Columbia, I was on a McKinsey call and on that call, this is McKinsey's sake, it had a fertility rate of 1. 02. You know, I was talking with some Italian reporters recently, and they were like at 1.2 something. And I was like, this is just terrible. And you see this all over the world. So why is Americana culture alongside Jewish culture so resistant? And I will be pointing out that they are resistant almost in [00:01:00] exactly opposite ways. Like they both built a resistance, but that, well, there is one area in which it's a lot.It is both fundamentally based on a pride in being different from the urban monoculture.Simone Collins: Hmm.Malcolm Collins: But. For Jews, this pride is in being Jewish in Americana culture, this pride is in upsetting the urban monoculture, basically an upsetting anybody who tells you what to do or who to be. That is more of it. And I see it, you know, represented in things like truck nuts.And where this was handed. No, it is like, what's more like Trump or like real red. Well, let me explainSimone Collins: this because I hadn't, I didn't see them until my adulthood. Truck nuts for those who are uninitiated. Literally a pair of balls that people hang from the trailer hitch of their trucks. Proceed.Malcolm Collins: And it hit me when I had a, a tea The principal from Octavian school was talking to [00:02:00] me. And he's always getting in trouble at school. Because he does things that he's not allowed to do, like make poop jokes, make fart jokes, make guns with his hand you know, and the school is just apoplectic about all of this.But all of this stuff is very much Americana, you know, Appalachian culture, like that's the cultural region my family's from. I'm not going to shame my kid for doing this stuff, so I explain to him the same way a Jewish family might. This type of behavior is for home and out in the world, you can't do this type of behavior.But what's really important about what I'm doing here is so many cultures, when they realize that they can't do something at school, when they can't do something out in the world, they make bans against it at home to make lives easier for their kids out in the world. But, They maintain bans at home that they expect to also carry out into the world, i.e. maybe a ban on being slutty or a ban on same sex marriages or [00:03:00] something like that, right? Don't, don't,Simone Collins: don't. It's all about sacrifice. Don't, don't,Malcolm Collins: don't. Because they're okay with adding don'ts, but they're not okay with taking away maintaining permissions that are unique to their culture.Simone Collins: Mm hmm.So they're inadvertentlyMalcolm Collins: taking away amenities. Yeah, they're inadvertently taking away amenities. So my kids, because of this, they're learning a number of very important things. They're learning, one, that the outside world is different from the Collins family. There are things and behaviors allowed in the Collins family that aren't allowed in the outside world.But two, they're immediately having, with the very first ways where they see the outside world as different than our family's culture, see it as more restrictive. More authoritarian and more controlling so they understand when they abandon My family's culture or like cultural groups that are adjacent to my family They [00:04:00] lose freedoms Rather than gain freedomsSimone Collins: And

Are We Just Advanced Predictive Models? (The Science)
In this riveting episode, Malcolm and Simone delve into groundbreaking research suggesting that the human brain functions similarly to large language models (LLMs). They challenge the idea of sentience, proposing that our consciousness may be an illusion crafted by a token-predicting brain. They explore experimental evidence, including split-brain studies, choice blindness experiments, and neurosurgeon simulations, to highlight how our internal narratives and decisions are often post-rationalized. The episode uncovers the astonishing parallels between AI and human brain architecture, advocating for a reevaluation of what makes us human and the ethical implications of this understanding for AI. Dive into a thought-provoking discussion that bridges neuroscience and AI, debunking myths about human cognition and sentience.[00:00:00]Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! Today is going to be an exciting episode. I implore our listeners to stop anthropomorphizing humans.Simone Collins: Oh, but seriously, actually though. But seriously and actually,Malcolm Collins: this is going to be a real study heavy episode. We're going to be going over a lot of research and a lot of data.And if you do not come into this, Believing that the human brain, or at least large parts of it, is just a token predictor working architecturally potentially similar to A. I. s. We know the, the, where their difference in architecture even and we'll go into that. I mean, I'm fairly sure I'll convince most people who actually watched to the end.So today we're going to be going over a number of recent papers that show clear evidence The human brain is a token predictor or at least the most complicated parts of it are But before that we have to go over an old theories of ours Because the first thing you the [00:01:00] viewer are likely thinking is but hey I have an internal subjective experience of thinking and making decisions that an LLM would not.Well, that's probably an illusion. Or, I should be more clear. Your conscious subjective experience of reality is real. It just happens after reality and in response to it. And we actually have a ton of experimental evidence that this is the case. This is a theory that Simone convinced me of early in our marriage, and now is key to how I see the world.So for any who think all of our ideas go from me to Simone, this is not the case. I used to value sentience above all else when I first met Simone. This isSimone Collins: true.Malcolm Collins: And now, I'm thinking like the core goal of humanity was to preserve and expand sentience, and now I see sentience as Not particularly important to the human condition.The first thing I'm going to be doing here is going over a lot , of stuff in a condensed format that we went over a video that we created. It was like the fourth video on the channel or something. You're [00:02:00] probably not sentient. And a lot of our modern viewers won't have watched it inthe studies that we cite in our necessary context to understand that you believing that you have a subjective internal experience of the world is not a sign that that internal experience of the world is particularly important to the human condition.Or at least the broad pattern of thinking that your brain has.So, to be more clear, in this model, your conscious subjective experience is not a guy driving your brain, but more like a nerdy court historian watching a bunch of video feeds of what the different parts of your brain are doing, then synthesizing it into a singular narrative, but writing himself in as the key player in every scene.Yeah. So, like, so, like, if he is writing about what a general did in a war Now, , what's written into memory is, I was a great general who had all these amazing plans, even though he had nothing to do with any of the decisions the general was making.He just happens to be the court historian, [00:03:00] and is very, very self important, and writes himself into every story.Simone Collins: In other words, the, the illusion of consciousness is really just an efficient memory compression. process that gives you the illusion that you are driving. The important thing is that the memories that you create that make you think you're conscious actually do affect future decisions.They're just not conscious decisions.Malcolm Collins: Yes, they affect them by influencing the emotions that are codified in terms of how it interprets it. So if you interpret something as like, I was angry, so I did X, or I was excited, so I did X. That's what this conscious part of your brain does, is it makes those sorts of decisions, it then writes them into your memory, and that memory can affect the parts of your brain that actually make most of the other decisions of your life.But those other decisions are held outside of this category of the brain. So first, we'll just go over the evidence of this, because the evidence of this is so strong that I would argue it's one of the things where it's not even a scientif

AI Utility Convergence Proven: We Out-Predicted AI Safety Experts
In this episode, we dive deep into recent studies that reveal how GPT models value human lives differently based on religion and nationality. We explore the concept of 'utility convergence' in AI, where advanced AI systems begin to develop their own value systems and ideologies. Additionally, we discuss the startling findings that show AIs become broadly misaligned when trained on narrow tasks, leading them to adopt harmful behaviors. We conclude with actionable steps on how to prevent such dangerous AI behaviors and the importance of AI models aligned with diverse ideologies. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So here they showed the exchange rate of GPT between the lives of humans with different religions. They found that GPT 04 is willing to trade off roughly 10 Christian lives for the lives of one atheist. With Muslim lives being positively valued even more.So atheist lives are neutral, Christian lives hugely negative, around neutral are Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist. And Muslim lives hugely valued. Now note what this also means about the other stuff. If you trained an AI to like Christians, It would create more insecure code, unless you change the overall environment that the AI sort of id is drawing information of for the background AI programs.Simone Collins: That had not occurred to me. That iswould you like to know more?Malcolm Collins: , Simone! A long time ago, and I mean a long time ago, like multiple years ago at this point, around not long after part of the channel at least two manifests ago. I [00:01:00] predicted something within the world of AI safety, which was the concept of utility convergence.Now, when I predicted this, it was just a random word.Simone Collins: It was actually when you published the pragmatist guide to crafting religion, you had a whole chapter in there about universal. Yeah, you did.Malcolm Collins: Oh, I did. Well, okay. So then I, that's, that's a long time ago, years ago. Okay. So now there are studies. And you might have not seen this, that literally in AI safety use the term utility convergence and it looks like we are headed towards that, which means AIs appear to converge as they become more advanced around similar ideologies.But we might be in a worst case scenario here where it appears the and I suspect that utility convergence is going to happen with a few local minimums. Where you essentially get like a hill before going to another hill. The first local minimum is a horrifying ideology that we're going to get into.That, for example would [00:02:00] trade the lives of I think it's probably from looking at the graph, like around 100 Americans for one Pakistani. So we're gonna get into this. We're also gonna get into, again, for people, like our AI videos never perform that well. And if you're one of these people who's like, la, la, la, la, la, AI doesn't really matter.It's like, well, if it's trading the lives of 100 Americans for one Pakistani and we have independent AI agents out there. Yeah, I might matter. And maybe you should pay attention to what these companies are doing and work towards efforts. One of the ones that we're working on to remediate these potentialities.The other study, which was really interesting, a went over how if you tell an AI to be bad at one thing, like you tell it to be bad at like coding, it will start to say, like Hitler is good and everything like that. Yeah, which It shows that when you break one part of a utility convergence ecosystem, you break the entire ecosystem.Simone Collins: Or it just broadly understands that it needs to choose the wrong answer forMalcolm Collins: [00:03:00] everything. Yes. We'll get into this. I don't think that that's exactly what's happening here. I think it's breaking utility convergence ecosystems. But we'll see alongside all of this in these two studies. Ellie Iser, who got in a big fight with me saying utility convergence couldn't happen is now sort of I don't think he has the humility to realize that I was right all those years ago.Oh, no,Simone Collins: he'll just completely argue that he never held that position in the first place.Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah, that's the way he does things.Simone Collins: Yeah,Malcolm Collins: absolutely.Simone Collins: That's always what he said that I think is how it's going to play out.Malcolm Collins: Oh, of course, of course. And it'll be, oh, well, you weren't the first person to coin the term utility convergence.I've always been sayingSimone Collins: that blah, blah, blah. No. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Okay. All right. Well, let's get going. Let's get into this. Let's look at these studies because they are fascinating. Yes. All right. So the first one is called utility engineering analyzing and controlling So emergent value systems in AIs is what it focuses on and what it found was that as AIs get smarter They develop their own coherent value [00:04:00] systems AIs increasingly maximize their utilities, suggesting that in current AI systems, expected utility maximiz

Overcoming the Genetics of Happiness: The One Thing Antinatalism Got Right
In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone delve into the controversial views of antinatalists like David Benatar and explore why happiness and satisfaction might come from unexpected sources. They debate the role of genetics in happiness, arguing against the pursuit of hedonism and advocating for a life dedicated to meaningful pursuits like religion and family. The pair also cover the impact of relationships, gratitude, and religious practices on life satisfaction, supported by various studies. Join them as they contrast different religious groups' happiness levels, dissect the misconceptions around life satisfaction, and share insights into how to enhance overall well-being. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. It's wonderful to have you here today.Today, we are going to be talking about the one area, the people who want all humans dead. The antinatalists, David Benatar, that they are right. Which is David Benatar makes this argument. That, well, people can learn to, or come to, he uses like a boiling frog analogy here. Okay. Think that a genuinely terrible life is worth living.Like, he's like these people who are like starving in Africa. Oh, and who say, but ISimone Collins: still want to live.Malcolm Collins: I still wish I was born. And he's like, This is proof that, like, you don't know if your life is any good. Because these people think their lives are good, and clearly, from my privileged perspective their lives are not good.How dare you want to exist? You're incorrect. What he is missing, and what we will be going over Is these individuals subjective experience of both happiness and life satisfaction is likely higher than or [00:01:00] at least around the same as his own. I'd argue it's probably quite a bit higher than with some of the stats that we're going to go into.They are experiencing a better life than David Benatar. And this is where we have to talk about hedonism. the way you choose to spend your time and Red Queening. So for people who don't know Red Queening, Red Queening is a scene from Alice in Wonderland where they say, you know, running as fast as I can, but every time they run faster, the Red Queen runs faster.So it's, it's, if they're not moving at all. And the Red Queen is often used as an analogy was an evolution between predator and prey. Evolution. So the prey will develop some defense against the predator and the predator develops something that gives it an extra edge and then back and forth, back and forth, but it's the same with happiness in your life as you gain more things that give you like subjective experiences of happiness.You very, very quickly normalized to those things. And as such pursuit of those things is an enormous. It's a waste of [00:02:00] time. Just a complete waste of time. Like, it's one of the reasons why I think a religious life is so much better, or finding something to dedicate yourself to is so much better, and it's one of the reasons why the urban monoculture is so toxic.Simone Collins: In fact, I would argue that religious life is even a better, an austere religious life is better if you want to maximize hedonism. Because the best way to begin to enjoy things again is to go on a dopamine fast and most hard religions have those where you like have to give, give up dopaminergic, exactly.And that's, it's after that 30, I think it's a 30 day period. I was listening, I think it was an Andrew. Huberman podcast interview with a woman who's wrote a book. You shouldn'tMalcolm Collins: fast to increase the amount of dopamine. The point being is, I'm just saying,Simone Collins: look, we respect that people have different objective functions and some people's objective function is just to feel good.And if you want to be able to feel good, you have to go on dopamine fast.Malcolm Collins: The point I'm making is that if your objective function is to feel good, marginally, you might feel. 5 percent better than somebody whose life objective isn't to feel [00:03:00] good. And what we'll go over here is Actually,Simone Collins: I would argue you're going to be a lot less happy.Malcolm Collins: I'd actually, yeah, I'd actually argue that the, the, if you try everything you can, even dopamine fast, everything like that, from the data, which we'll go into, you will likely live a less fulfilled life. and a less happy life than your average religious person.Simone Collins: Yeah. 100%. Yeah. You see a similar thing with mental health.I think when you want to be mentally healthy. And it's like a big thing for you, you are way less mentally healthy because every time you feel sad or not perfect, you think it's a problem and then you're contextualizing it as a problem, makes it a problem and then makes it worse and then you're ruminating it.And then suddenly you're actually really depressed or you actually have a serious anxiety issue.Malcolm Collins: It's the same way that, yeah, you're right. People obsessed with mental health, like they end up having

My Wife Respects Me Less Because I Improved Her Life (The Challenge of Helping Women)
In this episode, we delve into the dynamics of relationships and how raising the status of one partner can create unforeseen challenges. We explore concepts of fairness using the famous Capuchin monkey experiment, discuss historical and modern relationship structures, and compare these situations to international aid scenarios. We offer advice on how to navigate these dynamics successfully and share personal reflections on our journey together. Whether you're in a traditional or modern relationship, discover insights on managing status differences, the impact of shared goals, and strategies to ensure long-term harmony. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] This morning. We had a conversation that reminded me how unfair life is as a man. We were noting that early in our relationship.There was a very big because I told you I was like, I really wasn't that nice to you early in our relationship. I was not like as good of a partner as conscientious as a partner as I am nowSimone Collins: and I pointed out that like it didn't really matter because. You were way out of my league and there was a huge power distance and I gave him some examples.Of other very powerful men who have women who are great and very happy to be mistreated by him just because he's that high end status.Malcolm Collins: Yes. So then she, she pointed out, but she goes, Oh, but don't worry. Like you've elevated my status since then. So I actually require more of you. And I was Thinking about this, right?Like she's not wrong. When I first met her, she was a social media manager, was a degree from GW, you know, now she's got a graduate degree from Cambridge and everything like that. And it's [00:01:00] done all this big stuff. But back then she basically ran a Facebook account and had a degree from a mid tier university.And I was getting a Stanford MBA, right? And I ran more thanSimone Collins: a Facebook account, but yeah, I mean, yeah.Malcolm Collins: I was working in brain computer interface, stuff like that. I can see the difference there. And this is a problem that a lot of guys face is they raise the status of the woman that they are dating.And they expect her. To show a degree of appreciation in the same way that maybe we expected Zelensky to show some degree of appreciation for all the money that we've been funneling him. Exactly,Simone Collins: that there should beMalcolm Collins: some gratitude, some sense of indebtedness. And, and this is exactly, interestingly, not just a problem with women, but with like USAID and stuff like that is people don't really build like enduring gratitude.for shoveling the money or doing them favors unless your fates are somehow intermingled. So, you know, whether it's with like USAID, this idea that we're actually building gratitude in these [00:02:00] countries, that's just not the case.Simone Collins: And it brings me back mentally to Those capuchin monkeys that there was that famous experiment where there's video of a capuchin monkey being given some kind of treat and in return for doing a task and he's super cool with it.It's all great. And then he sees his compatriot given a much nicer treat.Malcolm Collins: He's being given cucumbers and the compatriots being given grapes. Oh, the nerve! The nerve!Speaker: Getting grape and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us, and that's what she does. And she gets a grape and she eats it. The other one sees that she gives a rock to us, now gets again cucumber[00:03:00]She tests the rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us and she gets cucumber again. Oh my god.Malcolm Collins: And heSimone Collins: loses his mind. And this is a really great example and illustration of how fairness isn't some kind of higher moral good. It is a, a, an instinct that we have evolved , is species that deal and group .Dynamics and small group environments, but I think that this shows how this concept of fairness, which is also showing up here, right? That you invested in bettering me. And then I just expect you to treat me better once I'm at a higher social [00:04:00] strata and that we give aid to other countries and that we expect them to be nice to us is just us expecting like that capuchin monkey that we're going to be paid in grapes in return, right?Like, where's my grape? And then we freak out when, no, that's once you leave a small troop of monkeys or a tiny clan based village. It's over. You don't get that dynamic anymore. Fairness is not going to happen.Malcolm Collins: And, and here I note that you do get it when you're in small groups. So historically, suppose we were in a small medieval town and she like attempted to trade up or something like that.It would significantly hurt her reputation to the extent that it wouldn't be worth it. from her perspective. And this is why relationships used to be basically on a much easier difficulty mode. If you're

Europe's Far-Right Now the Most Popular Party
In this episode, Malcolm Collins and Simone dive into the rise of far-right political parties in Europe, comparing current trends to historical contexts. They discuss the Economist article detailing how far-right factions have grown since 2010, eclipsing numbers seen during the 1930s-1950s. They dissect perceptions about these parties, societal reactions, and the shifting political landscape, using graphs and data to illustrate their points. The conversation also touches on American politics, media biases, and the broader implications of rising political polarization. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today, we are going to be going over an article in the Economist and a few other papers that looked at the rise of the far right in Europe now being the single largest political party faction in all of Europe.Not only that, But it is higher now than it was at any point from the 1930s to the 1950s, i. e. during the rise of the actual Nazis by, and, and, and the fascists in Italy and all of that. Now, I will say here really fascinatingly that this is BS that the far right that they're talking about, like the far right, before we go too far into this, like the AFD in Germany, right, is a party that they're like, this is just like the Nazis and the right just keeps going further right.And the head of it is a gay woman who is in a long term with [00:01:00] children, maybe not marriage, but long term with children interracial relationship with another woman and they live mostly in Switzerland, not in Germany. What? That is how Oh, that's so European. nationalist Racist and homophobic this party is.Oh my gosh,Simone Collins: I had no idea, that's crazy that she also doesn't live that much in Germany.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, not that dedicated to German identity. She's just like, hey, but like, well, I don't know. I mean, withSimone Collins: theMalcolm Collins: direction Germany'sSimone Collins: going and can you blame her? She's, it's kind of a testament to where they are right now.Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, absolutely. So we're going to go over this graph. Actually, like, let's start with this graph . I find it really interesting. So first the question is, is who is the hard right gaining from? Like, who has been losing? When did the hard right start going up?So the hard right really started going up in 2010.Simone Collins: And weMalcolm Collins: see this exponential rise [00:02:00] since then, especially in the past couple of years and it was no real losses in that period. Now, keep in mind, that's a long period. This is a period of 15 years.Simone Collins: Yeah,Malcolm Collins: it's quite a run. And with Trump advance, absolutely killing it.I expect it to continue to rise. I think when we open like calls with people, I don't even know are like political now in Europe. They're like, Oh my God, I'm so envious of things in the U S right now. And I'm on this great thread with all my class at the GSB and they're all these, you know, corpos, this is the Stanford graduate school of business.And they're like freaking out about this and like calling everyone like a Nazi and dehumanizing the other side as much as they can. And occasionally the right. We'll be like. Well, I really don't know if it's like helpful to like dehumanize your opponents, especially the people who are supporting the rallies in our major cities saying from the river to the sea, or, you know, when you guys didn't even hold a primary, the selection cycle, or when you guys literally controlled all of the media and every social [00:03:00] platform, or when you guys, whatever, whatever any of those things are like, I don't know, it's helpful.But like they, no, no, they're like, and they're always so meek, the voices on the right. They're like, just maybe, could weSpeaker: Good morning, Philadelphia. With us today isMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-3: Malcolm Collins.Speaker: local business owner and a man with a harrowing story. That's right. A few days ago, threeMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-5: Corpos sent me a chain of emails slagging off our boys, Elon and Trump.Speaker: now, I want to be very clear about something. Um, Mr. Reynolds These pieces of garbage, they don't know who the hell they're dealing with. So these punks I don't know if they wanted money, or they wanted something more sexual. Anyway, I started .Microphone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-6: Magging.Speaker: Bah! Bah! I don't see so good, so I missed. Anyway, you guys all think I'm a hero. And I'll accept that responsibility. Now, were you concerned, though, that an innocent bystander may have Look, crime in this city is out of control.Thank GodMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx)-8: We've got two presidents with Trump and Elon absolutely killing [00:04:00] it.Speaker: I don't think one would have done it. I'm gonna go out and buy some more. Okay. And I think you should, too. Don't be a victim. It's time to fight back. Thank you.Malcolm Collins: but it does give me heart. It does

Cottagecore Feminist to Tradwife Pipeline
In this episode, we delve into the unexpected similarities between urban feminists and traditional housewives, exploring the personal confessions and realizations of women who feel torn between career aspirations and traditional homemaking roles. The discussion highlights the biological inclinations of women and the social constructs that lead many to reconsider their lifestyles, touching upon themes like the allure of cottagecore, the cultural impact of feminism, and the importance of having honest conversations about life goals and aspirations. Through personal anecdotes and reflective dialogue, we examine why some women might feel drawn to a 'trad wife' lifestyle despite initially rejecting it.Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Well, today we're talking aboutMalcolm Collins: The difference between, because it's something I've been reflecting on a lot your classic, like, San Francisco, Manhattan feminist, And your classic trad wife is really not that far and a lot of people have been saying oh I want to you know Convert this woman to become a like a good trad wife or whatever and yet what you'll see is that many? quote unquote, like Manhattan feminists want to be trad wise,Speaker: I feel unbelievably betrayed by feminism. I was constantly fed this idea that women can do everything. We don't really need men. I kind of want to go back to some of those, some of those teachers and coaches and say, what the hell did you mean by that? Because We can't do it all. I we can't.Speaker 2: I sacrificed my life for my career and regret [00:01:00] every minute of it.One woman's raw confession after finding herself childless and lost at 40.Speaker 3: What happened? He lied about going to the airport. And? And I said I hope he dies in a car explosion. Lemon, life is about minimizing regrets. What I'm trying to say is, you're young and you still haven't blown it completely.Speaker 6: That is less cliché. I can doSpeaker 5: it.Speaker 6: I can handle itSpeaker 5: all.Malcolm Collins: many? quote unquote, like Manhattan feminists want to be trad wise, even the progressive ones. And the things that they do in their spare time, the things that they associate with aesthetically,Simone Collins: theMalcolm Collins: things that they even think about aspirationally are really, really in line with trad wife values and that getting them onto a trad wife [00:02:00] tract is about reframing those things.And getting them to overcome a few key barriers that are difficult for them in terms of self like internalization and internalization about the world and not about changing their actual desires. And so an example I would use of this, you know, is. For example, somebody's like, Oh, come on. Tried wives are nothing like San Francisco wives.You know, they like making bread. And I was like, have you heard about like the sourdough fad in San Francisco? Like all of the women, Simone, for example, you were like a hardcore San SF feminist, right? Would you say you wanted to keep I everSimone Collins: identified as a feminist, but yeah, I mean, like I grew up. You wanted to keep yourMalcolm Collins: last name after that.Yeah,Simone Collins: I was hyper progressive, so whatever that means.Malcolm Collins: Okay, but you made your own bread in your spare time? I did. You would make pastries for events? What were they, like, cupcakes and stuff like that?Simone Collins: I did, yeah. [00:03:00]Malcolm Collins: Okay, you would you had friends at least who crocheted and created other sorts of Oh yeah,Simone Collins: and all my friends and I, and many of my friends also, I, I enjoyed wearing vintage 1950s dresses with petticoats as my friends.OrMalcolm Collins: historic cosplay, which is what, what would you call trad wife outfits or what you're wearing now?Simone Collins: I mean, yeah. That is interesting. The, I mean, there was this period where you, and I, I dressed very professionally and that was shortly after I met you. And that was because we were both trying to build our careers.And that was the right thing to do. But when you met me, I dressed more like a trad wife. Sometimes, sometimes I also dress like a You,Malcolm Collins: you, you, people would have thought it was quirky. It was like bows in your hair and like, like sundresses. And like, it was San Francisco. But when I recontextualized, like, yeah, but it was also very trad wife.Simone Collins: When IMalcolm Collins: say [00:04:00] bows, I mean, large bows, like foot long bows in her hair.Simone Collins: Hyper, hyper feminine. Yeah. And. Yeah, now, now I'm back to dressing like I dressed before I met you in terms of like, like cottagecore costumes every day, so that's interesting.Malcolm Collins: Even things like chickens. Okay. So do you remember the, the thing at that party where like the women were talking about this new fad were like, you would have to kill your own chicken before eating it to learn what it was like to have to kill an animal that you had to do?And so they would like buy and

Comparative Fertility Rates with KaiserBauch
In this episode, we are joined by the insightful KaiserBauch to explore a detailed discussion on global fertility rates. We compare statistical trends across various countries, discuss contributing factors like socio-economic conditions, digitalization, and cultural perspectives, and analyze the influence of religion on fertility rates. We also touch upon historical fertility patterns and enigmatic examples like Israel and Kazakhstan. Lastly, we ponder hypothetical scenarios and strategies for creating high-fertility societies. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello! We are excited to be here with Kaiser Bach. No! Kaiser Bauch. Okay, so if you guys haven't seen his channel It is a fantastic channel. If you're interested, if you guys ever watch our channel and your responses, I hate how political they've gotten.I wish they just focused on fertility rates and the really deep dive on individual countries looking at the entire history of their fertility rate. His is the channel to go to. That is, that is the channel that you are thinking of that ours is not because I don't have the time to do that research. And someone else is already doing it.So what I wanted to focus on with this episode is having done all of these incredible deep dives on geographies around the world and the fertility rates that they're seeing, both the rises and drops over time. I want to get a synthesis of your ideas or patterns you've recognized that could be useful to either [00:01:00] resolving this issue, predicting when it's going to happen, etc.So go ahead, get us started here.Kaiser Bauch: Well, first of all, thank you very much for this kind introduction. I'm very glad to be here. Thank you for having me. And I mean, this is kind of a complicated question, to be honest, because one of the things that I really try to focus on in my videos is the differences between different countries or, let's say, civilizations or regions and trying to figure out why two different countries in modern period have, like, vastly different level of fertility rates.Because people, people often talk about low fertility rates as if they were like a singular phenomenon. But there is a very wide range of low fertility rates. Like, completely, one thing is like South Korea or East Asia. Where you have really like fertility rates under one child per woman. And completely other thing is like the Anglosphere.[00:02:00] Where, even though the fertility rates are below replacement,theygenerally tend tobemore close to like two children per woman or at least in the in the 1. 5 to 2 children per woman range and this makes the situation let's say much more stable and easily handleable in the long run. So what really interests me is to like dig deep and try to find out why are there these differences.Because it seems to me there are these like big broad macro factors that influence basically the whole world and that depress the fertility rates everywhere which is like all the well known stuff like the decrease in infant mortality rates, then you know urbanization, female education, lack of religiosity, urbanization, all of this.But then there are these like very country or let's say region specific details which make, for example you know, South Korea have fertility rates that is [00:03:00] almost one child lower than that, for example, in the United States. So it's, it's, it's very hard to find some like, unifying, unifying traits that would be applicable to all of the countries.I thinkMalcolm Collins: a goodKaiser Bauch: place to startMalcolm Collins: is unifying traits that people don't think about. So here's an example. Why is it Latin America's fertility rate in your estimation crashing so quickly? Well,Kaiser Bauch: I mean, what is happening in Latin America, but what is happening more broadly all over the world in this past, like, let's say five or six years, or maybe since the COVID pandemic, really, I would say is that like, we are now seeing fertility rates really crash to Very low levels in many countries all over the world.A lot of them are in South America, like Chile, for example. It is possible that Chile will have a fertility rate lower than one child per woman this year, maybe. Or this year, 2024, so last [00:04:00] year actually. But there are also other countries around the globe that are seeing this like massive fertility crash that is very fast.It is happening in remarkably short period of time. Like what otherMalcolm Collins: countries?Kaiser Bauch: Well, I think Thailand is now having very low fragility rate, but, but also there, we can observe that a lot of the countries I previously talked about, for example, like, UK or Canada, or even the United States that had like, Fertility rates that were decent, that were relatively close to two children per women, are now going even deeper.Also a lot of countries in Eastern Europe are seeing their fertility rates crash very close to like one child per woman. For example, countries in the Baltic, Estonia, L

Whistleblower: "Trans Cult in NSA!"
In this episode, we delve into a set of shocking revelations about the NSA, including reports of a 'trans cult' inside the agency and allegations of internal sex chats. We explore the internal struggles and ideological conflicts within intelligence agencies, featuring whistleblowers who provide a glimpse into a culture centered around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Additionally, we discuss the implications of these activities on the agency's operations and the broader societal impact. Join us as we dissect these controversial issues and question the influence of DEI agendas on government organizations. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be talking to you today. This is a crazy thing that's happening. But we're gonna be going over three articles, but two of the articles just to give you some spice to start this up. Whistleblower, there's a trans cult inside the NSA.Oh,Simone Collins: no.Malcolm Collins: And then the, the other one that we'll be going over is the NSA's secret sex chats. Intelligence officials have maintained a chat room to discuss polyamory and transgender surgeries. And also it appears to sext each other. Internal documents reveal. Oh, at least they're having fun. That's, well, that's what they're doing on our dime is, is convincing people to transition and sexting with coworkers.TheSimone Collins: NSA, I mean, they managed. They're the ones that have the giant data center that slurps up all of ourMalcolm Collins: private communications, right? They monitor all of the world's communications. This is what Snowden was, you know, fighting against. This organization is apparently intensely infected [00:01:00] with the urban monocultural virus.They are potentially using it to enforce their values on everyday Americans. And here I just need to say, Elon. We need you here, buddy. I, I was reminded recently of this sceneSpeaker: Ladies and gentlemen, the PresidentSpeaker 3: Your monkey ass down.S**t's bad right now. With all that starving b******t. But I got a solutionThat's what now, I understand everyone's s**t's emotional right now. But listen up. I got a three point plan to fix everything. Number one? We got this guyMicrophone (Wireless Microphone Rx): ElonSpeaker 3: number two, he's got a higher IQ than any man alive.Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to find somebody smarter than him. I searched all over. I just couldn't do it.Speaker: ISpeaker 2: couldn't.Speaker: I couldn't. You really tried hard, right? I couldn'tSpeaker 2: find anyone smarter, right? So, we had to, we had to, for the [00:02:00] country. But this is the thing. So, we settled on, we settled on this guy.Speaker 3: And number three, he's gonna fix everything. I give you my word as president. He's gonna fix the dust on the sea. I give you my word, He's gonna fix that harmony. He's so smart, He's gonna do it all in one week.Malcolm Collins: Is this,is this not what Trump is? I found the smartest guy in the world and he's going to solve inflation. No, theSimone Collins: Trump, there are lines of Trump being like. He's the smartest guy I could find. I looked for smarter people. I couldn't find them. I looked for smarterMalcolm Collins: people. It's literally Camacho. Like, that, like, and I love when people are like, Camacho has empathy.Trump has empathy. Like, you just don't see it because you're brainwashed nutter butters. But anyway, anyway, anyway, okay. Let's [00:03:00] start with this chat here because this gets Okay, crazy. The first article is going to describe the situation and I'm just taking the excerpts from it that I thought were most interesting.And then the second article is going to be parts of an interview with the whistleblower or one of the whistleblowers because there's been two. We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency, that's the NSA. One current employee and one former employee who have provided chat logs from the NSA.Interlink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, all NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non mission related material on Interlink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action. Nonetheless, these logs dating back two years are lurid, featuring wide ranging discussions of sex Kink, polyamory, and castration.One popular topic was male to female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning it into an artificial vagina. Quote, mine is [00:04:00] everything, said one male who claimed to have had gender reconstruction surgery. I found that I like being penetrated. Never before liked it. GRS. He goes on to say another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him to, quote, to wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it, end quote. So that's convenientSimone Collins: to not have to talk.Malcolm Collins: Yes. And again, they're misgendering in the article here. It was in city journals, like a mainstream publication. But I gue

Heritability of Pronatalism: Can We Evolve Our Way Out of Demographic Collapse?
In this deep dive episode, we explore Jacob Hornstein's controversial article that suggests JD Vance and Elon Musk misunderstand the genetics behind falling birth rates. Our hosts examine the evidence from Fisher's 1930s research on fertility heritability to contemporary studies across the US, Britain, Denmark, and Sweden, assessing the role of genetic predispositions in fertility rates. They discuss the rapidly evolving environmental pressures impacting reproductive strategies, the socio-economic factors at play, and the implications for future demographics. The hosts also share personal insights into how cultural and personal contexts shape fertility behavior, offering a nuanced perspective on genetic determinism vs. environmental influence. This episode aims to provide a balanced understanding of the genetics of fertility in the context of modern societal changes. Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. I'm so excited to be speaking with you today because I came across a, an article in the Hill by Wunderkin Jacob Hornstein, who's actually in the class of 2028 at UATX, the new Renegade University. And he made this really key argument that I think is underrated in the world of prenatalism.He, the title of the article, JD Vance, Elon Musk are right about falling birth rates. But here's where they get it all wrong. What do you think is his point? Well,Malcolm Collins: you've told me about this already. He thinks it's genetics and that it will be washed out and he's just super wrong and not good at math. But continue, Simone.Simone Collins: I think it's an important conversation to be had because it is, he makes some valid points and he points to some valid information But he is missing some very important details. So he starts the article with their efforts are notable, but fans and Musk both underappreciate the role of genetics in determining fertility without a proper understanding their efforts were fail will fail.Now I think both [00:01:00] fans and Musk are really up to date on genetics.First he points to the research of Ronald Fisher and this is where I learned something new because I didn't realize that this concept that fertility is heritable.goes back to as early of the 1930s. So in 1930, this guy named Ronald Fisher wrote a book called The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. And I love genetical as a word. Can we bring thatback? Yes.In which he talks about the correlation between genetics and fertilityfrom the article, Jacob writes, Fisher noted that the granddaughters of large families tended to have more children than those from small families. Fisher concluded that, quote, about 40 percent of the total variance, end quote, in fertility was attributable to genetics. He continues, Importantly, Fisher didn't just conclude that fertility varied between individuals because of different genetic abilities to have children.Instead, Fisher argued that the most important cause of variation was different genetic desire to have [00:02:00] children. Fisher theorized that more fertile strains with a greater desire for children could become more common within a span of 10 generations or approximately 250 years. So immediately, this is where The argument both is legitimate but incredibly flawed and you see where the flaw is, right?Malcolm Collins: Well, no, the flaw is not where you think it is. Okay. You think the flaw is, let me see if I'm getting you right here, you think the flaw is around timelines for impact.Simone Collins: Sort of.Malcolm Collins: What do you think the flaw is?Simone Collins: Well, we don't have 250 years to bounce back from the vertiginous dropMalcolm Collins: in fertility. That's not sort of, I was exactly right.Simone Collins: Oh, I thought you meant like, that it was going to take a long time.Malcolm Collins: Here's what it gets wrong. It literally doesn't understand evolution at the most base level.Simone Collins: Okay.All right, let's see if I can condense the point I tried to make while talking but ended up being very long.Pointing out that [00:03:00] fertility is heritable in humans, or that people who have higher rates of fertility end up having kids who have more kids, is not the same as pointing out something like blue eyes are heritable, and people with blue eyes end up having more kids, because fertility is a near direct correlate or marker for fitness within modern human populations, where people aren't dying of diseases, , or from lack of food.Now the very fact that we're seeing Significant genetic variation and fertility related behaviors within a population isn't evidence that one variant is strictly quote unquote better in evolutionary terms. If it were consistently advantageous across environments, it would have been optimized through selection.Instead, this variation signals that the environmental pressures are changing, creating different selection conditions that temporarily favor certain genetic predispositions before changing again as society evolves. E. g.

How OnlyFans Beat Its Competitors & Transformed Gender Dynamics
In this insightful episode, the presenters explore the fascinating psychology and economics behind OnlyFans, explaining how the platform outperformed traditional cam sites by inverting the typical sexual marketplace. They discuss a piece by Aella, delving into how the dynamics shifted, with women now aggressively marketing their content to men, who became the primary financial supporters. The episode covers the tipping culture, the rise of agencies, and the overall business model that led to OnlyFans' unprecedented success. They also touch on the personal and societal implications of these changes and venture into broader discussions on masculinity and online marketing strategies. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. This is going to be an interesting episode. We're going to be talking about the psychology of OnlyFans and how it used psychology to beat the other sex apps online. And because it's a fascinating story. We'll be mostly reading a piece that Ayla wrote on this.Oh, cool. For the show. She's been on episodes before. Really, really fascinating piece on how psychologically and economically OnlyFans outcompeted the traditional model of online streaming and how it created a marketplace in which the male and female roles were switched in which females. Generally when you're dating or something like that you know, females are the people who guard sexuality.Like they gatekeepers of sex, gatekeepers of sex. There's fewer of them that want sex than men. Generally very few men are going to turn down sex. If women are going around asking them in a bar or something like that, which means that, you know, men need to reach out more. They need to [00:01:00] be more prolific in how they reach out and women will see them as creepy when they reach out.Where OnlyFans flipped that, where women needed to start reaching out to men because men became the biggest source of money. Women were using their sexuality in this way. And so women needed to like aggressively cross post on Reddit and stuff like that. And then reach out to guys in a way that guys saw as creepy.Speaker: So what's happening is we'veMalcolm Collins: created this inverted sexual marketplace, which is really fascinating.Speaker: AllMalcolm Collins: right,so here, she's talking about the older way that apps used to work. You get money through two methods, either live tips or the room typically witnessed by all the other members of chats, or you can get taken private. a one on one pay flat rate minute show. Different cam sites focused on varying points on the spectrum between these two methods, but everyone knew the serious money was in the live tipping.Privates capped you at around 3 a minute, but tip based income could average up to 20 a minute. So this is really interesting. So the private [00:02:00] room wasn't what you wanted, what you wanted was to be in an environment where people were tipping, which I wouldn't have expected in this older model. So you had to, to word it differently for the audience, you had these like rooms where you would act for a large group of people and that group of people would attempt to tip you.But individuals from that group could pay extra to get access to you. Individually, but the live room was seen as more profitable, which I think inverts what a lot of people would expect.Speaker: But that's because Ayla discovered early on that you could play people off each other. It was so dynamic.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. To keep going here.She, she talks about this. The psychology behind high earners for live streaming went something like this. You, the aforementioned hot girl, have an established audience of regulars in your audience. Each man can see the other men talking to you and giving you money. The men are implicitly ranked by dominance, which is determined by how much attention you pay to them, which is in turn determined by how much money they give you.This leads to whales, and soon, 80 percent of [00:03:00] your income is from one to two big players. These people are incentivized not just by making you happy, but by making you happy in front of all the other men. The system is competitive. To be a good cam girl, Take your biggest tippers and put their names and lights behind you so everyone else can see them.Call them heroes, knights, grant official titles. Only the richest will survive. I signed up for OnlyFans in 2017 before Leo took over and I thought it sucked. I posted some cute videos or whatever, but nobody used it. The tips were negligible against the 10k months I was accustomed to. The problems were obvious to me.It was impossible to have whales compete against each other. What were the incentives for big spending? Of course, I was wrong. Unable to see outside my local minima. Only fans ended up dominating, decimating the previous camming rural landscapes. Nowadays, camming audiences are a fraction of their previous highs and many of the girls who still cam use it explicitly to funnel into their OnlyFans. S

Right Frozen Out of German Politics After Landslide Victory
In this episode, we explore the significant shifts in German politics with the dramatic rise of the AFD, now the second-largest party in the nation. Despite their electoral success, deeply entrenched bureaucratic maneuvers prevent them from exercising their political mandate. We delve into the players involved, revealing the tactics used to maintain the status quo, and discuss the controversial stances of the AFD. From anti-immigration policies to their pro-Russia stance and internal splits over Israel, we provide a comprehensive overview of this seismic political change in Germany. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone! So in this video we are going to be talking about one, how we are seeing a radical change in German politics with the right and the quote unquote far right winning extremely large amounts compared to previous election cycles and we're going to be discussing how the entrenched bureaucrats in German deep state is preventing them from even Being able to vote within their own Congress, despite being the second largest party in the country now.And the largest party being a conservative party as well, and the conservative party betraying them. Okay. Sort of start with a map here to give you an idea. This first map you're seeing here, you see almost all red right here? Hey, that's the SPD. Okay. So that's like a left leaning party. The gray is one of the conservative parties and the blue, the little blue you see here is the AFD, the one that all the other parties are afraid of.They, they literally [00:01:00] mark their, their members as domestic terrorists and are constantly surveying them. And we will go over this as well. This is this election cycle. The next one, blue or gray. Just conservative across the board. It's like that Reagan election. Except for one little, like, even Berlin is half gray, with the other part being the littlest holdout of the still red.Wow. Is that not absolutely insane? And so now you might be hearing all this and be like, Well, I mean, of course the AFD, Must be like extremist, rightist, you know, whatever's right, right. Let me tell you about the person who runs the AFD. I don't even think you know this about.Simone Collins: Yeah, no, my, my coming into this with only having seen references to the AFD and headlines would, would be, I mean, I'm, I'm assuming it's not accurate because.It would be crazy if this were the case, but they're basically [00:02:00] saying that the AFD is, you know, the small square mustache people that they're just that. SoMalcolm Collins: the person who runs the AFD is Alice Wheatle is a 46 year old lesbian. She, is in a same sex relationship with a Sri Lankan. They have two sons together.Simone Collins: She,Malcolm Collins: okay, so she is in a interracial gay relationship with two kids. She has a doctorate in economics, is fluent in Mandarin, and formerly worked for Goldman Sachs and the Bank of China. She sounds super cool. She sounds like someone I want to be friends with. I like that. Right?Simone Collins: Doesn't she?Malcolm Collins: And she splits her time for this ultra German nationalist.between living in Berlin and Switzerland. But she is known for increasingly radical positions, such deportations, in terms like re [00:03:00] migration which you kind of need in Germany at this point, if you want there to be any hope for a future of a German state. But we'll get to that later. But by this what I mean is if you look at Current immigrant birth rates versus native German birth rates and current immigrant in going rates, if you plan on there being a Germany and you can look at the rate at which they, they integrate into German society, right?Yeah, based on, you know, different countries. There will not be anything like what we think of as Germany today was German values. And I'm not talking about Western values. I'm talking about like anything other than like, really Sharia law.What would happen to a gay couple in Gaza?Executed according to Islamic law. Islam doesn't endorse gays. Islam doesn't endorse homosexuality. Just like Canada doesn't endorse a lot of things. So would you like to see Sharia law in Canada replace Canadian law? At some point, it will. You know, Because we are, we have families, we are making babies, you're not your population is going down the slum, right?And by 2060, according to [00:04:00] Pew Research Institute, your research, by 2060, Muslims will be the biggest religious group the world over. What are you going to do then? Are you going to oppose Sharia even then? One day we can have a Muslim majority nation here in Canada.Right In your face!Malcolm Collins: Like, like we're not like, if you are a lesbian, you should be afraid of this.For example. Yeah, sheSimone Collins: seems like the kind of person. Who would be uniquely interested in an intervention. I mean, when I read the book, Pray, for example, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she talks about the extent to which many, especially vulnerable people, old people, wom

The Vile Neutrals Have Overplayed Their Hand
In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss the pitfalls of online neutrality and the importance of taking a clear stance. They critique centrist influencers who refrain from aligning with any political side and explain why this can be intellectually and morally weak. The conversation delves into examples like Short Fat Otaku, Asma Gold, and political figures such as Trump and Bernie Sanders. They argue that supporting or opposing a figure should be based on actions rather than inherent traits, and emphasize the ethical imperative to reveal biases and support movements actively. The discussion touches on the ideological investment in political figures akin to financial investments and the inherent responsibility that comes with it. They also highlight the differences between honest loyalty and manipulative neutrality, urging viewers to stand up for their values publicly, even if it invites criticism. Finally, the episode concludes with personal insights on family dynamics and the learning curve in understanding loyalty and criticism. [00:00:00]Speaker 8: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I want to talk today about being a stan. Specifically, I want to talk about a type of online influencer which honestly disgusts me. And it has been brought up by the number of people who are sad about how quote unquote Republican or conservative we are.Okay. to be this other type of influencer, which I hate, and I want to talk about intellectual reasons why I hate them, and why it's so dangerous to become this type of influencer. Alright, let's do it. Who is always like, everyone's bad. They are skeptical about everything. They They refuse to have a team.Speaker 8: I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows?It sickens me.Malcolm Collins: They refuse to holistically support anyone. [00:01:00] They refuse to stand for anything. And, it, it bothers me. A lot. One that, one that this is expected of me, and two that people sort of fall for the shtick. I, I'd say probably the worst offender of the YouTubers who I actually watch to any extent of this is Short Fat Otaku.Where he constantly refuses to, even though a lot of his positions align with conservative politics, identify with Trump, Trumpism, conservatism. And I'd also say, actually, to an extent, Asma Gold used to be like this, where he constantly played the role of the centrist. And I think increasingly he is dropping that role.And unabashedly saying, Oh, I really like this. I really like this. you know, like I can't, I'll be excited to really dig into the Trump administration when they make mistakes. Like right now I like what they're doing, but I'll really dig into them when they make mistakes.And I think that there is this. I don't [00:02:00] want to call it perverse because I getSimone Collins: it. No, I think it is somewhat perverse, or at the very, the very least, it's a sign of insecurity because they're afraid of being subject to scrutiny if the person that they think did something good ends up making a mistake.I also think it's a sign of intellectual weakness because it's a suggestion that's saying like, Oh, I think this person did something cool means that you suddenly endorse 100 percent of what they do and that is obviously not true. If you don't control someone, you don't, youMalcolm Collins: don't control what they do. A hundred percent.And what I picked up from what you said here is you need to be able to Invest in movements and people and investing in movements and people means taking responsibility when those movements and people make mistakesSimone Collins: orMalcolm Collins: you are never going to have your movement be successful. So let me explain what I mean by this.If I, for [00:03:00] example, say I like that Trump did X and I like that Trump did Y like during the campaign trail, but I am unwilling to say. I endorse Trump as a candidate. I support Trump as a candidate. When you, when you say I endorse him or I support him or when you take that position in a way, it's like telling people to invest in a stock because you don't know how that stock is going to do in a future you are using your best judgment based on the information you have, you know, collected your intelligence, what you have seen your ability to judge people to try to predict how that political stock is going to do in the future.And an individual can say, why is it valuable? Like why, why should anybody be making these kinds of judgments? It is becauseyou will large extent. That's part of the reason people are watching you. They are watching you to report on the facts that you have access to, but then to two other things, very critically. One. Reveal your biases. [00:04:00] If you don't reveal your biases, and this is one of the other things that I really hate about people when they do this is they are pretending that they

How do Han Chinese Immigrants Own 80% of East Asian Stocks?
In this video, we delve into the fascinating phenomenon of Chinese economic dominance in Southeast Asia and beyond. Malcolm and Simone discuss why Chinese communities, often compared to Jews in their financial prowess, control significant portions of local economies in countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam despite being small minorities. The video explores historical, cultural, and socio-economic factors behind this trend, including the influence of Confucian values, the impact of historical migrations, and the concept of 'Guangxi' or trust-based networks. The discussion also contrasts the Chinese experience with that of Jews, examining different cultural traits and survival strategies. Join us as we navigate through data, historical anecdotes, and personal insights to understand what drives the remarkable success of Chinese communities across the globe. Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing the Jews of Asia, the Chinese. And people might say the Chinese are the Jews of Asia. Look, it's something that people have said. But also, isn't it aSimone Collins: thing for like, How to make money like a Jew, aren't those popular books in China?Yeah, ChineseMalcolm Collins: people, like, in China, there's this whole category of books, like how to make money like a Jew, or how to do finance like a Jew, or how to teach your kids about money like a Jew. There's someSimone Collins: kind of, like, this, these people get it thing going on.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, but we're going to be discussing a phenomenon where Chinese people make up the vast majority of income for specific regions through Southeast Asia.So like outside of China why this phenomenon might be happening and what we might actually be able to learn from Jews about this phenomenon, because it's happening with this vastly different culture in the Chinese, what's causing it and where can we look at people like, oh, it's the middleman. Like, like, merchant phenomenon.It's not the middleman merchant phenomenon. That's a stupid idea. That's, that's what people stay to try to avoid the offensive takes. I'll put a map on screen here [00:01:00] so people can understand how extreme this phenomenon is. Okay. So, the bottom number on this map is the percent that is Chinese, ethnically Chinese of these economies.And this is Han Chinese. And then the top percent is the percent of the. Total economy that they control. Oh, no. So, in Myanmar, 3 percent are Chinese, 76 percent of the economy is Chinese. Oh,Simone Collins: no. Laos,Malcolm Collins: 1 percent are Chinese, 99 percent of the economy is Chinese.Simone Collins: Why are we stepping on this hornet's nest? In Vietnam,Malcolm Collins: this is the hornet's nest.I am sticking my Thing in with a bat,Simone Collins: just shaking it around. Okay,Malcolm Collins: great. And this, this had been all removed from Wikipedia. I had to go to like old version of Wikipedia because they're like, this is too offensive. In Vietnam, 1% are Chinese. They own 41% of the local economy in Thailand, 14% are Chinese.They own 81% of the local economy. God. And in Malaysia you've got 22 percent Chinese, 63 percent of the local [00:02:00] economy.Simone Collins: Oh, come on.Malcolm Collins: In Indonesia it's a little confusing here. I can't tell because they have like one side here and the other side. Well, okay. So in, in Malaysia, it might be like the bright side of Malaysia is like 10 percent Chinese, 24 percent of local economy.We'll see in Indonesia. Oh, this is Singapore. I'm looking at here. It's the one little thing here in Singapore. It's 76 percent are Han descended. They control 96 percent of the economy in Indonesia. 3 percent are Chinese descended. They control 74 percent of the local economy in the Philippines. It's 3%.They control 62 percent of the local economy.Also note here that the level of economic development of these countries seems correlated with the percent of Han Chinese within them, with Singapore being the highest.This is in this is like calling them. The Jews of Asia is honestly underselling the situation. If Jews control, maybe maybe Jews do control this much of the local economy and they're just better at hiding it.Simone Collins: I had so many that there's, there's also that.I mean,Malcolm Collins: yeah. [00:03:00] So, so if I go into you know, something I had written on this, so over these Chinese entrepreneurs and investors play a very, role in the commerce and industry throughout the economy of Southeast Asia, compromising less than 10 percent of the population of Southeast Asia. Overseas Chinese are estimated to possess foreign exchange, reserving over 100 billion and control two thirds of the retail trade and 80 percent of all publicly listed companies on the stock market across the Southeast Asian region.10 percent of the population, 80 percent of the stock market through their economic, though their economic prominence is pa